spider tanking key to wormhole success?

So after some positive experiences with spider tanking helping us breeze through a few lvl 5 missions, and thinking about the new smart AI of the Sleepers I started thinking how we want to fit our exploration ships - and giving cap/armor/shields seems to be a good way for us to adapt to their adapting!

I know it's easier for a drone-damage-only guy like me to happily give away high slots.

We also need scanners (mid slots?) and salvagers I suppose so high slots will be in great demand. Maybe an arrangement like giving 1 of the 3 (cap/shields/armor) per ship and then utility guys like us Domi drone pilots can do all 3?

Input appreciated. I'm sitting here downloading the 2.1gb (mac) expansion which I can't play until tomorrow morning so still thinking about Eve

downloading ag 64KB so....yeah

hmm behaps golems/marauders they only have a few offensive hardpoints available anyway, and can take a beating, expensive ship thou and high skill req.

But in the worm holes there are several sites in the holes. ladar, gravimetric, radar and unknown( know as core sites e.g. "core stronghold" ). So we need something from all the sites in order to manufacture T3 stuff, and since the wormholes are unstable and will collapse in time, we need as few jumps through as possible. So we need to know what our mission is, and fit fleet for the mission. One thing is a must, a covops ship with probes for locating sites and re-establish a new wormhole incase of collapse

ok speaking from experience as Xavier Saskuatch is actually trapped in a wormhole with a covert ops ship + probes.

Couple of things.
- There are both quite a number encounter sites and exploration sites inside the worm hole system. which is great.
- Not only is spider tanking a must, (they switch targets etc.) 5 crusiers 1 volleyed my arbitrator, (3 active hardners) into dust, the same 5 could melt an armour repping BC very quickly. but decents resists and hit point buffers.
- The asteroid belts, (found 2) are no different from the 0.5 system belts in caldari empire which is a little dis-appointing. However I found 2 gas sites that have something.

I think we have to think about the worm hole space in a different way. My thinking at the moment is that you have to colonise this area of space working from 2-3x Orca's with all the supplies, (control towers, ore refining, replacement parts) for extend operations.

Mack

i have no idea if its possible to anchor pos in those systems

zaruaz wrote:i have no idea if its possible to anchor pos in those systems

Nope, CCP said they have no intention of allowing SOV of these systems and want them to be free flowing back and forth through the wormholes. Allowing POS's would completely change this dynamic + they've already said the wormholes will be random, so you might not even have a way to ever get back to the POS once set.

thou several ppl have writen on eve forum about this issue, and many have indeed anchored pos in the WH space, but with variouse problems, e.g. shield missing on tower and so on.

Abit about the stuff needed and T3 prod.

From eve-online.com

how do i build a strategic cruiser?
reported by CCP Chronotis | 2009.02.15 16:10:30 | Comments

By now you should know that Strategic Cruisers are the new group of modular ships we are adding in Apocrypha and that these ships are assembled from five subsystems which fit into the ship hull/chassis. You should also know that most of the raw materials will be sourced from wormhole space. Here I will outline the production chain for these ships which should be familiar mechanics to many of you who have dabbled in Tech II production and shed light on the new mechanic of reverse engineering.

The Short and Sweet Summary

Subsystems and hulls are manufactured from components; components are manufactured from a mix of Sleeper NPC salvage and Polymers. Polymers come from a reaction of minerals and fullerenes. Fullerenes are a new type of harvestable gas. The blueprints or reactions needed to facilitate these are also found within wormhole space. The skills and structures required will be seeded on the market and appropriate assembly lines added to existing outposts.

A Longer Explanation

The emphasis with Tech III production is on resource gathering and needing constant expeditions to wormhole space to retrieve the raw materials and return them to the market or process and manufacture within your own corp. As such the resource needs are evenly split between harvesting resources (minerals and fullerenes) versus ratting and salvaging Sleeper NPC wrecks. In most cases, these resources will be available alongside each other since the Sleepers are known to guard their precious fullerenes viciously.

Almost all of the resources needed have to be acquired from wormhole space; the exception to the rule is the starbase structures and skills alongside the use of ore minerals in polymer reactions. Once you have gathered the resources, there is one reaction step and two manufacturing steps to manufacturing the subsystems. It is important to note, that Tech III production is in no way related to Cosmos or Tech II production in material needs and is considered a new branch of tech (which I know might get confusing as we have called it Tech III so far! :s)

Below, I will go into specific details on the Tech III production steps. If you have tried your hand at Tech II production then all the mechanics and processes below will be very familiar to you.

Polymers

Polymers are made via reactions in a new reactor array which will be seeded on the NPC market. The reactions themselves have to be found in wormhole space at profession sites. They require ore minerals and fullerenes (types of gas) as inputs and output some quantity of polymers. You will need an ordinary silo and a biochemical silo as input silos and a polymer silo as output along with a polymer reactor to facilitate the reactions.

Components

Components are manufactured in existing component assembly lines. You will need to get your hands on component blueprint copies from profession sites. Components require at this time four types polymer and three types of sleeper salvage to manufacture them.

Subsystems and Hulls

Tech III subsystems and hulls are manufactured from components. Subsystems and hulls can only be manufactured in new assembly arrays or as new assembly lines within outposts.

The blueprints for these are made via reverse engineering of ancient relics. Reverse engineering has been designed to be fairly similar to invention (even the materials have similar names such as datacores and data interfaces) so if you have carried out invention job then reverse engineering will be familiar to you. Ancient relics are found in wormhole space. You need to reverse engineer them in a research job at an experimental laboratory starbase structure or the Caldari research outpost.

The key difference from invention besides it requiring ancient relics rather than blueprints is that there are multiple types of rewards possible from a subsystem BPC to datacores for example. So you get degrees of success rather than the Boolean success and failure invention has. In addition, the decryptor component for reverse engineering works differently to invention decryptors. With reverse engineering, you require a decryptor (there will be one for each race) which will define the type of output blueprint you are aiming for. So if you want a Caldari Propulsion Subsystem blueprint, then you would need a Caldari decryptor. The skills required will be a mix of new and existing science skills. These alongside the new starbase structure will be available on the market.

Summary

There will undoubtedly be many questions for specifics of the production steps. The only thing I can say for certain is that specifics such as quantities will change during feedback, and there will be further testing as we get a better picture of how much effort each ship takes to assemble so that we may try to achieve a reasonable balance there. I very much look forward to your comments and feedback as usual.

And a pic
TechIIIprod

zaruaz wrote:thou several ppl have writen on eve forum about this issue, and many have indeed anchored pos in the WH space, but with variouse problems, e.g. shield missing on tower and so on.

Wow, that is directly opposite of what they originally said..

Behaps it's a bug, since its possible.. I just think wormholes are abit too common atm.. they seem to popup everywhere

1) Anchoring a POS doesn't automatically mean you claim soverienty in 0.0 space. In wormhole space you can't of course claim soverienty but putting up a POS is possible.

Going back to my original post I think the intention is for people to populate the space, (there are asteroids, complexes etc.) but however be completely cutoff from the rest of eve for resupply. As a game area this could be great for the roaming corps living in the shadows of empires, (the orca must a be a Gem for this.)

2) I think they spawn rate of wormholes is intentially high so that everyone gets the experience. It would be a pity to generate all that work but have it restricted to a small number of players. That said I am sure as the areas become more popular they'll scale back the activity.

Mack

but when u look at the normal exploration sites, ladar, grav, radar and mag, then they are not so frequently as the WH's, if WH's become too common, t3 items will have almost as less isk value as t2 and common to se flying around.

Thou i can say that exhumers can't survive on its own in WH grav sites, rats abit to strong, almost popped my buzzard
i wouldn't have minded ccp to come up with some new roids for t3 prod, finding veldspar in a wormholes is abit dissapointing

another thing, i've already begone skill training in the art of t3 prod/reverse engineering, if we ever need it.

Reverse Eng lvl 1 trained

As for spider tanking Dominixes... I read on the EVE forums that this approach has a problem... The new Sleeper AI frequently targets and attacks drones, and when they do, they are able to dispatch them with astonishing speed. It is supposedly made that way specifically for the purpose of preventing spider tanking Domis from being the safe&sure method of farming T3 materials.

Just thinking of how spider tanking Domis can still be good: Sentries. Won't help you with anything small and/or closer than 10k (I can hit BS until about 6km) but you can pull 'em back to safety fast, they live a LOT longer than most drones and do awesome DPS when the range is good.

Just a thought, not that I've ever been able to find a wormhole!