Sunday, April 24, 2016

Reaching 80 Billion in Loot from Offline Starbases (but nearing the end of the project?)

Way back in the summer of 2014, I stumbled across an offline POS in high security space and wanted to see what would happen if I tried to blow it up. What started as a test of science became a regular part of my routine of casual EVE time, along side doing occasional exploration in high security space and working toward my goal of visiting every system in game. My skills for scanning POSes have improved to the point where I can scan a region in a short afternoon.

Granted, I didn't find any tech 2 BPOs, such as this player did. With one offline POS that player likely made over 150b isk, but this is potentially a drop so rare that it will never occur again. (I mean, who would store tech 2 BPOs in a POS?)

Though I haven't quite gotten so lucky, I have reached around 80b in loot dropped--in assorted BPCs and BPOs, ships, materials, and ore. It has been a fun--and profitable--weekend activity over the past 1-2 years. I used most of the funds from this activity to donate to the last Plex for Good campaign, and the rest I've simply re-invested back into market trading or bought ships to explode in solo PVP.

Here's some screenshots of the various loot piƱatas. Part of the fun is in seeing what drops:









But in two days a massive change hits EVE, Citadels. Citadels do not replace dedicated manufacturing and research POSes, so it is likely we will see M&E POSes remain at least until the the next expansion (or so far as Fanfest suggests, fall and winter of 2016) when more new structures are released to cover such roles. Medium Citadels are also a few hundred million isk more expensive than a small staging POS that might be used in C1-C3 wormholes or for storage in systems without station, meaning we will likely see small and medium POSes still used as convenient staging platforms.

Based on the records I've kept, I estimate there are around 1.5k-2k active POSes in high security space currently. Around 500-1000 of them do not have any research or assembly arrays, I estimate (but only reprocessing arrays and maybe a single hangar). Finding an inactive POS in HS with labs or assembly arrays is roughly 1/40 systems per week, or one per HS region per week. When Citadels are released, some of these POSes will be removed in favor of the more convinent or at least newer option.

Well what about Citadels in HS? How vulnerable will they be? We already know how vulnerable Citadels in LS and NS will be: in LS, you will likely attract the attention of groups like Shadow Cartel etc., who will form overwhelming numbers of dreads to kill your Citadel. In null, the same thing, but different groups. Can a solo or small gang Citadel survive in LS or NS? I don't think so (but I'm happy to be proven wrong). So that leaves HS and wormholes.

How can the solo player use--or destroy--Citadels? Is there any possible way? That's what I am going to be testing in the upcoming months. And maybe my POS destruction side-project will transition into a new and much more interesting project involving Citadels.

4 comments:

  1. but no loot pinata in k-space citadels...

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    Replies
    1. none indeed...but expensive modules I guess?

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    2. Technically no loot drops, but IIRC minerals, etc from the Citadel itself drop.

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  2. Though I haven't quite gotten so lucky, I have reached around 80b in loot dropped--in assorted BPCs and BPOs, ships, materials, and ore. It has been a fun--and profitable--weekend activity over the past 1-2 years. I used most of the funds from this activity to donate to the last Plex for Good campaign, and the rest I've simply re-invested back into market trading or bought ships to explode in solo PVP. wedding bands germany , wedding bands usa

    ReplyDelete