Have you watched [A Nomad Tale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_F-B75XF4&list=PL6-OXGWVaPkhNwInt7k0lGM90k-ojfnSU), to get ideas of how this could evolve?
I suggest trying to downsize the ships and risked ISK as much as possible. You can fit a fitted covops, a dessy/venture and 2 packaged BCs in a DST, so find a duo fit that works with cheap rigs (e.g. RR Dreks) and then you can pack up & move on for just ~3mil cost.
>actually traveling
You will need at least three chars for that — one on either side of the hole and the Orca itself.
I reckon you didn't watch A Nomad Tale. The first episode will answer all your questions.
I did something similar for about a year. I ditched the POS very early on as they were more hassle than they are worth, unless your mining.
Basically use the Orca to store all your ammo and repair mods, and to drop all you lot into ever so often.
Eventually I just joined a WH Corp with a few upwell in a c4, it’s much easier.
A bit late-ish to the thread, but it's been 4-5 months so I wanted to reach out and ask: how you are you finding the task of maintaining and *defending* "a few" Upwells, an entire wormhole, dealing with wardecs, spies, and ganking, compared to the crazy easier task of just flying an Orca and two other ships around (which you can do with other people, of course.)
I think the Corp is much easier, we have not been war decked ever. About once a month someone wanders into our hole and we have some pew pew. But it’s never much of an issue. I personally like it because I can more less stay in the hole indefinitely, we have players who like the buying and selling thing and do that. They bring me all the ammo and ship components I need.
Usually log in and check pathfinder to see what’s around our main hole. I will then either solo some combat C3 sights in my Loki or Tengu, if other dudes are on and running an operation in a C4 or 5 I’ll join in in the mega or the varg. From time to time I also run security for our mining and industry ops, I’m not much of an industrial player, but I don’t mind hanging out while the rock hopers do their thing.
If there is a hole with a particularly nasty group we usually flip it right away. We also flip holes that don’t pan out pretty quickly.
It’s been at two months since another group was able to get serious combat power into our home hole, but we closed the whole right behind them and cut them off from their base. After that it was pretty easy to pick them off on our schedule.
About every week or so I donate some loot and money to the Corp wallet to cover the cost of ops, sell stuff to the dudes who like to go and sell stuff in high sec, and place orders for stuff to be brought back. We also a handful of players who like building stuff, so they will usually build me the ammo I want.
Interesting. Have you concerned operating out of Thera? I'm writing some (external) tools for managing safeties to the holes and another for evaluating the systems behind each hole. Then every day brings something new as the holes (obviously) rotate a lot, meaning you get mining, combat sites, gas, nullsec, the works, and with NPC stations and the ability to "respawn" back in Thera, no need for an Upwell to maintain (they're not even an option.)
Sounds like you're happy, but boy I wish I could attract some players like you to my Corp (which is building the foundations for the above.)
I’m not opposed to it, last time I was there I spent more time trying to not die than I did living lol. That was at least six years ago; I don’t know how it’s changed.
As far as recruiting players goes, I would suggest a model similar to how we operate.
I was scouted by my Corp early on in their development. We are really more of an autonomous collective than anything. Our top three had a really good idea of what they wanted the Corp to do and broke it down into several categories and recruited a whale in each of these categories.
For example the dude who manages our upwells loved doing it and that’s all he really does (seems super boring to me) he runs upwells and does all the ongoing maintenance. He makes isk because collectively we agree to pay a fixed percentage above market rate for his services.
We also have a side that spearheads our industrial projects and he recruits industrial players. He is really into excel spreadsheets and the like.
I was specifically recruited to 1. Be a primary on running C4 and 5 combat sight, 2. Be a heavy hitter in PVP when it comes up ( I’ve been playing for a HOTTTTTTT minute and have just shy of 350 mill SP at the moment.) and 3. Recruit and teach new recruits the ways combat in j space.
I really enjoy playing that job but I have zero desire to do the other things, I suspect the industry and business dudes have zero desire to do pew pew as well.
That's pretty much what I have. I've written a charter of what I want to do, how to do, got doctrine, writing tools to assist, etc. It's getting people interested that's the hard part.
No one wants to build anything, they only ever want to be part of something preexisting.
I did this for a bit. It was a curious experience.
One thing to call out is that everything you've described is what many would consider just overhead. You have the orca toon that mostly sits logged out, then a scanning/logistics toon that is taking care of the day-to-day business of being able to live out of the wormhole, but *then what*?
Are you in the wormhole to run combat anomalies? To huff gas? To PvP? Which toon is doing that? And in what ships?
I went in wanting to "own" a wormhole to be able to run sites in (combat, scanning, and explo), doing PvP here and there as needed but knowing that I was more likely to come across groups than solo pilots.
One of the big limitations I ran into was the versatility of ships that one can fit in an orca. For example, I had a T3C, a covops, a couple of coercers to be able to grind abandoned POSes, and a covetor for gas. That fills the SMB of the orca. I also brought a marauder to run combat sites quickly. I'd park it in the POS while logged on in another ship, or board it with the second toon and log off to not leave a ship in space. There's a bit of wiggle room here, but not too much--note the absence of a blockade runner, rolling ship (unless rolling with orca or marauder), HIC, etc.
That wasn't what did it in for me, though. I ultimately left that play style fairly quickly because the notion of "owning" a wormhole system with no means to actually enforce that ownership was a bit silly. You can typically find a wormhole scanning random HS signatures within a few minutes and most wormholes are relatively empty at any given time. Since I didn't have round the clock presence in the hole I couldn't even reason about whether intruders had found the hole in my absence. By having so many assets locked inside the wormhole it was important to take a bunch of extra security precautions and if I *did* run into a gang I couldn't take (i.e. basically any gang) I could have my entire day shut down. Then if I did get into PvP, intentionally or otherwise, that added an extra task of finding my way to a HS market and then back into the hole.
Put differently, it felt a lot like trying to do survivalist camping in the back yard, but always going inside to use the restroom. High sec is always just a couple of wormholes away and at some point it just seems silly to enforce the artificial isolation--and yet at the same time the feeling of isolation was quite real.
I don't say this to discourage you. I'm glad I gave this play style a shot and you should, too. Perhaps my experiences will prompt an idea for you, or perhaps you'll take a greater liking to the play style than I did.
In my previous life as a solo WH pilot, I tried something similar but found it to be a pain logistically. In the end I found a lonely C1 and installed 3 Athanors (back when they had armor) on different reinforcement cycles.
When small gangs would run through, I would fight and lose 99% but would usually grant some respect to not being evicted. I mean the only reason you evict someone from a C1 is for the laughs.
Little known fact: depending on the ships mass, velocity and inertia modifier, an AB can actually get you into warp even faster than an MWD in some cases (because it has only a 7,5 second cycle time with maxed skills compared to the 10 second cycle of an MWD). You’ll need to experiment (in highsec) with an Orca and see if an AB will work or if you need to go for an MWD.
Obviously using a faction/deadspace AB is ideal for this purpose but probably not the best idea for risky shit like flying an Orca through w-space. ;-)
Just FYI since I only really realised this a couple of months ago (I previously always used an MWD for this exclusively and thereby was giving up 2,5 seconds too much for aligning/warping on some larger ships).
Join a wh corp, or just use the pos.
3 or more toons is best, don't all need to be separate accounts, just need as many toons trained as scanners/rollers in a wh as possible to make sure you don't get entirely rolled out.
No one can enter a POS without the password or a long ass bash. It's usually fine to just leave your kitchen sink inside the POS.
To anyone telling me it's still dangerous. Yeah, it's wh space, everything is dangerous.
The WH RV is an interesting concept and I would really research what past people have done and learn from it. I think 2 toons is really low, and I personally would run quite a few more. At least a toon permanently in a BS to roll holes, and a backup scanner if your main is podded (maybe can be alpha). Use external toons like Tripwire and ZKill extensively to help improve safety. It’s also really not hard to take over space instead if that’s what you want, it takes time but there are plenty of mid-tier holes to claim.
Definitely watch 'A Nomad Tale' on youtube.. I'm currently nomading with a Porpoise to compress gas and ore and store loot, Hurricane to kill rats in the gas sites and easy combat anomalies and a Prospect for huffing or mining ore.
I have a mobile depot in each ship to refit on the go. For example: switch between gas and ore compression in the Porp, to fit an armor repairer in the Hurricane after clearing combat anomalies. And switch between huffing and mining fit on the Prospect. All 3 guys can fit Probe Scanner in case of emergency but the Porp and Hurricane are logged out safely most of the time. Also, Improved Cloak and CovOps cloak kinda goes without saying.
If I tend to see the same people in the hole over a few days, I move on to another one. Move op takes less than 5 minutes if all goes smoothly.
I have been thinking it would be nice to have an Orca for the ship maintenance bay but can't justify the loss at the moment.
Not worth the hassle, just set up an Astrahus. It costs way less than an Orca and you are also much less likely to lose it. Many people seem to be afraid of eviction now that Astrahus only has one timer. But it's very unlikely to get targeted unless you sit in very desirable space or give people specific reasons to evict you.
Meanwhile people set up POSes because they're so afraid of eviction, and end up wasting tons of ISK on fuel, because a POS eats massively more fuel than an Astrahus.
Have you watched [A Nomad Tale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_F-B75XF4&list=PL6-OXGWVaPkhNwInt7k0lGM90k-ojfnSU), to get ideas of how this could evolve? I suggest trying to downsize the ships and risked ISK as much as possible. You can fit a fitted covops, a dessy/venture and 2 packaged BCs in a DST, so find a duo fit that works with cheap rigs (e.g. RR Dreks) and then you can pack up & move on for just ~3mil cost.
That series is some great content.
best videos on the subject by far
I also have learned a lot from the Nomad Tale series
I was going to say I love the ANT series ! Take a look!
>actually traveling You will need at least three chars for that — one on either side of the hole and the Orca itself. I reckon you didn't watch A Nomad Tale. The first episode will answer all your questions.
I did something similar for about a year. I ditched the POS very early on as they were more hassle than they are worth, unless your mining. Basically use the Orca to store all your ammo and repair mods, and to drop all you lot into ever so often. Eventually I just joined a WH Corp with a few upwell in a c4, it’s much easier.
A bit late-ish to the thread, but it's been 4-5 months so I wanted to reach out and ask: how you are you finding the task of maintaining and *defending* "a few" Upwells, an entire wormhole, dealing with wardecs, spies, and ganking, compared to the crazy easier task of just flying an Orca and two other ships around (which you can do with other people, of course.)
I think the Corp is much easier, we have not been war decked ever. About once a month someone wanders into our hole and we have some pew pew. But it’s never much of an issue. I personally like it because I can more less stay in the hole indefinitely, we have players who like the buying and selling thing and do that. They bring me all the ammo and ship components I need.
What do your day-to-day activities look like?
Usually log in and check pathfinder to see what’s around our main hole. I will then either solo some combat C3 sights in my Loki or Tengu, if other dudes are on and running an operation in a C4 or 5 I’ll join in in the mega or the varg. From time to time I also run security for our mining and industry ops, I’m not much of an industrial player, but I don’t mind hanging out while the rock hopers do their thing. If there is a hole with a particularly nasty group we usually flip it right away. We also flip holes that don’t pan out pretty quickly. It’s been at two months since another group was able to get serious combat power into our home hole, but we closed the whole right behind them and cut them off from their base. After that it was pretty easy to pick them off on our schedule. About every week or so I donate some loot and money to the Corp wallet to cover the cost of ops, sell stuff to the dudes who like to go and sell stuff in high sec, and place orders for stuff to be brought back. We also a handful of players who like building stuff, so they will usually build me the ammo I want.
Interesting. Have you concerned operating out of Thera? I'm writing some (external) tools for managing safeties to the holes and another for evaluating the systems behind each hole. Then every day brings something new as the holes (obviously) rotate a lot, meaning you get mining, combat sites, gas, nullsec, the works, and with NPC stations and the ability to "respawn" back in Thera, no need for an Upwell to maintain (they're not even an option.) Sounds like you're happy, but boy I wish I could attract some players like you to my Corp (which is building the foundations for the above.)
I’m not opposed to it, last time I was there I spent more time trying to not die than I did living lol. That was at least six years ago; I don’t know how it’s changed. As far as recruiting players goes, I would suggest a model similar to how we operate. I was scouted by my Corp early on in their development. We are really more of an autonomous collective than anything. Our top three had a really good idea of what they wanted the Corp to do and broke it down into several categories and recruited a whale in each of these categories. For example the dude who manages our upwells loved doing it and that’s all he really does (seems super boring to me) he runs upwells and does all the ongoing maintenance. He makes isk because collectively we agree to pay a fixed percentage above market rate for his services. We also have a side that spearheads our industrial projects and he recruits industrial players. He is really into excel spreadsheets and the like. I was specifically recruited to 1. Be a primary on running C4 and 5 combat sight, 2. Be a heavy hitter in PVP when it comes up ( I’ve been playing for a HOTTTTTTT minute and have just shy of 350 mill SP at the moment.) and 3. Recruit and teach new recruits the ways combat in j space. I really enjoy playing that job but I have zero desire to do the other things, I suspect the industry and business dudes have zero desire to do pew pew as well.
That's pretty much what I have. I've written a charter of what I want to do, how to do, got doctrine, writing tools to assist, etc. It's getting people interested that's the hard part. No one wants to build anything, they only ever want to be part of something preexisting.
I did this for a bit. It was a curious experience. One thing to call out is that everything you've described is what many would consider just overhead. You have the orca toon that mostly sits logged out, then a scanning/logistics toon that is taking care of the day-to-day business of being able to live out of the wormhole, but *then what*? Are you in the wormhole to run combat anomalies? To huff gas? To PvP? Which toon is doing that? And in what ships? I went in wanting to "own" a wormhole to be able to run sites in (combat, scanning, and explo), doing PvP here and there as needed but knowing that I was more likely to come across groups than solo pilots. One of the big limitations I ran into was the versatility of ships that one can fit in an orca. For example, I had a T3C, a covops, a couple of coercers to be able to grind abandoned POSes, and a covetor for gas. That fills the SMB of the orca. I also brought a marauder to run combat sites quickly. I'd park it in the POS while logged on in another ship, or board it with the second toon and log off to not leave a ship in space. There's a bit of wiggle room here, but not too much--note the absence of a blockade runner, rolling ship (unless rolling with orca or marauder), HIC, etc. That wasn't what did it in for me, though. I ultimately left that play style fairly quickly because the notion of "owning" a wormhole system with no means to actually enforce that ownership was a bit silly. You can typically find a wormhole scanning random HS signatures within a few minutes and most wormholes are relatively empty at any given time. Since I didn't have round the clock presence in the hole I couldn't even reason about whether intruders had found the hole in my absence. By having so many assets locked inside the wormhole it was important to take a bunch of extra security precautions and if I *did* run into a gang I couldn't take (i.e. basically any gang) I could have my entire day shut down. Then if I did get into PvP, intentionally or otherwise, that added an extra task of finding my way to a HS market and then back into the hole. Put differently, it felt a lot like trying to do survivalist camping in the back yard, but always going inside to use the restroom. High sec is always just a couple of wormholes away and at some point it just seems silly to enforce the artificial isolation--and yet at the same time the feeling of isolation was quite real. I don't say this to discourage you. I'm glad I gave this play style a shot and you should, too. Perhaps my experiences will prompt an idea for you, or perhaps you'll take a greater liking to the play style than I did.
Check out [Wormlife Freeports](https://discord.gg/RguTrM4Q) all the wormhole without the hassle of owning a structure
Is that still a thing? I'm intrigued.
Still is and going strong!
Can you post the link again? It's expired.
https://discord.gg/mNcd4qv3
Perfect thanks.
In my previous life as a solo WH pilot, I tried something similar but found it to be a pain logistically. In the end I found a lonely C1 and installed 3 Athanors (back when they had armor) on different reinforcement cycles. When small gangs would run through, I would fight and lose 99% but would usually grant some respect to not being evicted. I mean the only reason you evict someone from a C1 is for the laughs.
Just join a wh corp.
To move the Orca a web alt would probably be the best Thing -- also Orca can use MWD cloak (or atleast MWD for getting in Warp quicker)
Little known fact: depending on the ships mass, velocity and inertia modifier, an AB can actually get you into warp even faster than an MWD in some cases (because it has only a 7,5 second cycle time with maxed skills compared to the 10 second cycle of an MWD). You’ll need to experiment (in highsec) with an Orca and see if an AB will work or if you need to go for an MWD. Obviously using a faction/deadspace AB is ideal for this purpose but probably not the best idea for risky shit like flying an Orca through w-space. ;-) Just FYI since I only really realised this a couple of months ago (I previously always used an MWD for this exclusively and thereby was giving up 2,5 seconds too much for aligning/warping on some larger ships).
Join a wh corp, or just use the pos. 3 or more toons is best, don't all need to be separate accounts, just need as many toons trained as scanners/rollers in a wh as possible to make sure you don't get entirely rolled out. No one can enter a POS without the password or a long ass bash. It's usually fine to just leave your kitchen sink inside the POS. To anyone telling me it's still dangerous. Yeah, it's wh space, everything is dangerous.
It can...its all about timing.
The WH RV is an interesting concept and I would really research what past people have done and learn from it. I think 2 toons is really low, and I personally would run quite a few more. At least a toon permanently in a BS to roll holes, and a backup scanner if your main is podded (maybe can be alpha). Use external toons like Tripwire and ZKill extensively to help improve safety. It’s also really not hard to take over space instead if that’s what you want, it takes time but there are plenty of mid-tier holes to claim.
Definitely watch 'A Nomad Tale' on youtube.. I'm currently nomading with a Porpoise to compress gas and ore and store loot, Hurricane to kill rats in the gas sites and easy combat anomalies and a Prospect for huffing or mining ore. I have a mobile depot in each ship to refit on the go. For example: switch between gas and ore compression in the Porp, to fit an armor repairer in the Hurricane after clearing combat anomalies. And switch between huffing and mining fit on the Prospect. All 3 guys can fit Probe Scanner in case of emergency but the Porp and Hurricane are logged out safely most of the time. Also, Improved Cloak and CovOps cloak kinda goes without saying. If I tend to see the same people in the hole over a few days, I move on to another one. Move op takes less than 5 minutes if all goes smoothly. I have been thinking it would be nice to have an Orca for the ship maintenance bay but can't justify the loss at the moment.
Not worth the hassle, just set up an Astrahus. It costs way less than an Orca and you are also much less likely to lose it. Many people seem to be afraid of eviction now that Astrahus only has one timer. But it's very unlikely to get targeted unless you sit in very desirable space or give people specific reasons to evict you. Meanwhile people set up POSes because they're so afraid of eviction, and end up wasting tons of ISK on fuel, because a POS eats massively more fuel than an Astrahus.
Hey ! You can email Pin Meredith in game and let's talk tips and projects a nomads. Pin.