Tech Cartels and Navy Ships

Escalation is upon us and the market is in uproar, the removal of drone alloys and meta 0 drops from rats are pushing prices up across the board.  Pick a random ship or some mineral and check the price development since december/january and you'll see what I mean.  This is probably just the beginning tough, as Goonswarm has more or less decided to corner the economy on as much as they can, the Tech Cartel (OTEC) is gonna run T2 prices through the roof.  The burning of Jita, Hulkageddon and the alleged promise to gank industrialists all over the universe, fear alone will push the market right into Goon hands.  You can say what you will about The Mittani, but the man knows what he's doing and deserves his due of credit for the way he pulls strings and affects the entirety of New Eden.
If all of the above mentioned events goes according to Goon plans, we're going to have some expensive months ahead of us, or good profits depending on what/if you invested in certain things when rumors of this whole thing started circulating.  One things for sure though, stay out of Jita on the 28th and throughout that weekend.

I've spent some of my own hard earned ISK on a new toy, Evv has bought himself a Navy Scorpion.  I wanted a shield/missile Battleship after flying only armor gunboats since the start now.  Yes, I know that the CNR is the shizz and all that, but it's also ugly as all hell, where as the Navy Scorp is one sexy beast.  Great tank, but I'll admit it's a little on the weak side on the damage, probably why everyone prefers to suffer the awful sight of the CNR.

There's even a spinny thing on the top.

Had a few more fights in RvB, nothing spectacular, lost a few Rifters and scored some more kills.  I also took out a Thrasher to a fight and while it does impressive damage it also seems to be auto primary.  I'm trying to keep this as "cheap" or cost effective as possible, get some good fights and good fun for a minimum of ISK, I'll probably start taking more Thrashers out.  They tank less, and gets primaried a lot faster then a Rifter, but they're also good fun and they rain death on anything around them.  The whole Destroyer thing is pretty much like flying a huge bullseye made of wet paper tissue towards a fight, but then again, that has it's own charm.  The thing I need to get a little better at is anticipating the fight and trying to get out before it's to late.  I usually get stuck in there and by the time the warning bells and klaxons and big red "BUG OUT" letters go off in my head, I'm scrammed down by way to many frigs.  The worst part is, every time it happens, I can identify the exact time that I SHOULD have gotten out, but I always stick around for that extra kill.  This is fine as long as I'm throwing away Rifters, but if I plan on upshipping, and I'll have to do that eventually, it's gonna get expensive fast.

Anyways, 'til next time, Fly safe.

Hulkageddon starts and the ISK 3.0.

And so the Hulkageddon is upon us yet again.  It's been some time now since I've actually worried about the Hulkageddon, I don't mine that much anymore, it mostly comes through the market for me these days.  I do try to avoid flying freighters/Orcas or other "easy to hit" industrial during this time though, rather opting for my blockade runner to move stuff if need be.  Hulkageddon is really not that much of a problem if you take some precautions and use your head, should you get your Hulk/other highly expensive industrial ship ganked during this time, it's pretty much your own fault.  Saying that, I'll probably loose something shiny myself this time around, should that happen I swear not to whine about it.

I know several "carebears" and industrialists whinge and complain about Hulkageddon and I don't really understand this, as I stated above, staying safe isn't really all to hard if you stay smart.  I understand that you have to switch the "autopilot" mentality off, but in my opinion we're playing a multi player game, Playing being the operative word here.  If your need to play AFK is that high and you find yourself auto piloting a wreck when you return to the keyboard, tough.

Hulkageddon also presents a great way of making lots of money.  There are several new market opportunities during Hulkageddon, and they're also rather obvious if you know where to look.

In other news, EON has released the new ISK 3.0 guide, it's a 80 mb PDF download and it's worth every bit.  It's also FREE and although aimed at the newer player everyone can probably learn something from it, it nothing else it's a great little reference manual.  According to several other blogs around, it's the manual that CCP should have written to accompany EVE and I can agree with that.

http://www.isktheguide.com/

Fly safe.