EVE Multiboxers

[Souca]

Speaking of grinding I had my two hulk miners out earlier this week and noticed that the yield in practical terms for tech II modulated strip miners with crustals (crustals? interesting typo!) compared to tech I strip miners is almost double! So for all those training miners make sure you get mining V and the various <asteroid> processing skills to III so you can use the modulated strip miners.

Yea, it's pretty much a requirement that you train up refining and refining efficiency on your miners. The Veldspar crystal only requires Veldspar Processing 3 and it's prereq Refining 4, but the higher level ore processing start to require refining efficiency. Mercoxit require Refining eff 5. It's unfortunate since it's a lot of training for base skills you don't need in a multibox setup where you might only have one character with high level refining.

One thing to notice when looking at the modulated strip miners is that they have to yeild numbers. one is the general yeild and the other is the part specific to the crystal. If you look just at the general part they seem majorly inferior to the normal strip miners, but even with tech 1 crystals they really outperform. The jump from tech 1 to tech 2 crystals isn't that huge, 1.675 multiplier to 1.75. Granted that excludes the bonus you get from the skill training you'd need to use tech 2 crystals. Right now I get about 964m3 per strip miner on Veldspar with a tech 1 crystal and no mining upgrades fitted. I think I hit 1010m3 with one MU fitted.

I'm still very interested in joint mining ops at weekends/evenings becasue those should be busy enough to be good fun. Solo mining with three accounts still leaves me twiddling my thumbs half the time. Have to add a hauler and see how I do.

I should have a huge chunk of time on Sat and Sunday. Friday night depends on how dead work leaves me. I plan on bringing 3 retrievers, an Iteron 4 (one week and 850mil ISK till freighter), and up to two ravens for rats and can flippers (and 4 mining lasers each).

Depending on what the belts look like, we may need to go to a different system or just plan on mining ice. I heard something about Ice going away in empire space. The story was that Ice in empire would no longer regen on downtime, so once it's gone it's only in 0.0. anyone know anything about this? If this is the case, mining ice and sitting on the output could be profitable long term as the ice starts disapearing prices should go up in empire space.

p.s. I thought I might try my hand at some cheap tech I piracy on one of the other accounts - does anyone have rifter BPO/BPCs so I can build my own disposable ships?

I have BPOs for Rifter, Incursus and Catalyst. I'm still working on how to copy and research them since I've yet to find a single copy slot open in three different regions. Currently I'm just planning on grinding up standing and putting up a POS and paying the hourly charter fees. It gets me a bunch of lab slots I can use plus there is a system with no stations I might drop it in to have a dump point for mining there. Any idea on how long it takes to get standing up to 7.5 ish? How many social skills would you train before you started this crazy plan?

As for cheap, the ships aren't really the problem. An Incursus will run you 200k, but for decent firepower you're looking at 400k 1.2mil per blaster. Add in a Webifier, Warp Scrambler and afterburner. Low slots get armor and guass balancer. Here is the cookie cutter for Rifter piracy:

From http://eve-stuff.co.uk/resources.php?a=piracy

Highs: 3x 150mm autocannons, Small Nosferatu
Mids: 1mn Afterburner, Warp Scrambler, Stasis Webifier
Lows: 1x 200mm reinforced rolled tungsten plate, 1x Small Armor Repairer, 1x Damage Control Unit

All said, it's not too expensive, just not as cheap as you'd think. My suggestion is to figure out the fitting you want, buy enough to fit 10 ships or so, get the ships and the fittings to the system you plan to work out of and then start your career. Yuo'll blow up, so best to have replacements handy so you don't have to spend 3 hours picking up all the stuff you need to refit, especially once your status goes red and the fleets begin shooting at you. The guide I linked above has a bunch of fundimental info.

- Souca -