Sustainable Solo Piracy

Prompted by some recent posts by fellow bloggers and also by a couple of conversations I've had with other players in game on the question of whether solo piracy can be self sustaining I figures I'd talk about it a little.

I've always held aspirations for Kirith to be self sustaining, well that overstates it actually. It would be better to say that when I started out with Kirith I wanted him to be self sufficient. For the first eight months he actually was. Somewhat coincidentally this change in sustainability occurred around the time I joined The Tuskers!

As I've said before, out of EVE I'm an accountant which tends to result in me wanting to create a spreadsheet for pretty anything EVE related. Therefore it probably wouldn't surprise you that I maintain a log on a spreadsheet of every ship I've flown which links directly to the kills it caused and the isk efficiency of every ship. Sad, yes. True, also yes.

Overall Kirith's efficiency when we look at the cost of losses versus the income generated from module drops from those I've destroyed it appears that my piracy career has cost me around of 800 million isk, this while my actual lifetime efficiency is incredibly high at around 95%.

So what useful conclusions can be drawn from all this information which I have at my disposal?

Statistics by hull type:
Assault Frigate: 92% efficiency, Isk loss of 382 million
Battlecruiser: 98% efficiency, Isk loss of 133 million
Battleship: 0% efficiency, Isk loss of 156 million
Cruiser: 0% efficiency, Isk loss of 167 million
Destroyer: 95% efficiency, Isk Profit of 35 million
Faction Frigate: 95% efficiency, Isk loss of 136 million
Frigate: 95% efficiency, Isk Profit of 155 million

Kirith doesn't really fly ships with added bling, so very few faction or deadspace modules have formed part of this isk sink. I consider that I fit ships fairly frugally albeit not as much as I once did, but still I mostly fit a meta scram over T2 on the basis of cost vs benefit.

Kiriths drop into negative efficiency occurred when I started flying T2 frigates, by the third Jaguar loss all my months profitable flying had been undone. Granted, I state a cost to me of 800 million isk which is not the truest reflection as it ignores the ransoms of over 600m which I've received over my career.

There are other pursuits which a soloist can do while actively hunting. A couple of examples being ratting and anomalies, the rewards while certainly not high are reasonable and are an excellent way of getting people to fight you.

When I first set out as a pirate I needed all the isk I could get, I meta 2 fit my Rifter and they cost me less than a million isk each. I also ratted despite originally not actually being able to destroy a Battleship rat in my low skilled Rifter. In addition I looted everything, including making return trips if necessary. None of these secondary income streams are reflected above.

Now that I have other income sources I'm far less concerned with sustainability almost to the point where I don't think about it at all. If I wanted to be more sustainable and efficient I would stick with fleets and gang work. This strays from my heart which is more of a soloist and as I like to fly with some degree of reckless abandon it would change the way I play the game significantly.

Can piracy be self sustainable? Simply put, yes it can but with some considerations:

• Fly T1 hulls, preferably small ones.
• Carefully fit your ships and don't spend where you don't need to.
• Balance the risks when considering your targets.
• Some ratting doesn't hurt, when you find yourself with a Battleship rat pop it for an easy 500k isk.

Factoids

• Most profitable ship: S&M Freak, an armour tanked Thrasher bringing home a profit of 61 million isk.
• Biggest loss: Duellist, an active tanked Tempest I took out to spring a trap which got swiftly overwhelmed losing me 156 million isk.
• Most efficient ship: A cheap meta fit cookie cutter Rifter which took down 257 million isk total in five  ships back in 2010, achieved efficiency of 96.3% as it only cost me 955k isk in hull plus fittings!

Any stat's you'd like to know, shout out

June 2012 Character Review

It feels like its been a quite month on the Internet spaceships piracy front this month.

Lets get to business with the statistics:

20 Ship Kills (18 solo)

6 Pod Kills (all solo)

2,004,769,562 isk cost to victims (497,630,539 isk received in loot drops)

1 Ship Lost

156,281,608 Isk cost in value of ship destroyed.

341,348,931 Isk profit for the month.

As can been seen I've not been particularly active in the month and although I turned a profit, were it not for the great event by Drackarn and the Drake kill which I got I would have made a loss again in the month. I have continued to fly when I can pretty recklessly, so I'm pleased about that. The big isk loss was a Tempest I undocked to a trap which I wanted to spring in Hevrice as I didn't know what my enemy would bring out of their wormhole.

Here's what Kirith's skill split looks like at the end of this month.

Kirith has finished training these skills in the month:

Minmatar Battleship V
Remote Armour Repair Systems I
Remote Armour Repair Systems II
Remote Armour Repair Systems III
Heavy Drone Operation I
Heavy Drone Operation II
Heavy Drone Operation III
Heavy Drone Operation IV

Heavy Drone Operation V was training at the end of the month and completed a few days ago giving me access to Tech 2 Heavy Drones. With Minmatar Battleship V completing I did take out that roam I mentioned and managed to safely get my Tempest Fleet Issue home safely. I'll write a post about that in the future.

This month probably won't see any notable skills trained as I get some shorter ones done. I have noticed that I'm missing an important skill for active shield tanking so I'll get that to V. I have a few plans in EVEmon and haven't decided which to do next, I guess it'll probably be my Drone maximisation plan but interspersed with some other skills.

I did a bit more station Trading in the month than in the previous one, but still low activity netting a little over 200m isk in profit. I'm finding that I don't need the isk drastically and that I don't have much time so why bother? My PI character has also scaled back the PI but done what she does do more profitably using buy & sell orders in Jita. Her Thanatos training continues apace and in about three weeks she can sit in the Thanatos that awaits her.

Total Ransoms Received: 610,360,662.30 Isk received in ransoms (55m Isk received in the month)
Battleclinic Rank: 436 (+11)

Post Rifter Plan

As followers of my blog will be aware I’ve been working on the Rifter Plan for practically my entire EVE career with the objective of flying a max skilled Rifter of my preferred loadout. My preferred Rifter loadout is what I have affectionately named Grumblecub and looks like this:

H: 200mm Autocannon II, RF Phased Plasma S
H: 200mm Autocannon II, RF Phased Plasma S
H: 200mm Autocannon II, RF Phased Plasma S
H: Rocket Launcher II, Foxfire Rage Rocket

M: 1MN Afterburner II
M: Warp Scrambler II
M: X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

L: 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates
L: Small Armor Repairer II
L: Gyrostabiliser II

R: Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
R: Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
R: Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

She belts out 162 (187) dps and goes 1097 (1424) m/s. In short she’s a monster and I love flying her.

Once I complete this goal in about one month time I will be at a point which I haven’t been in EVE before, ever! That point is wondering what to train next. I have a number of skill plans input into EVEMon and I’d be grateful for any constructive feedback or suggestions which I haven’t considered from my readers.

The main thing to bear in mind is that I usually fly solo, rarely being available for most organised fleets.

Here are the options:

• Max out the skills for all the ships I can currently fly. I do have the willpower to do this :P

• Autocannon/Artillery Tempest. Feels like more of an option that I would use in fleets but maybe could attempt solo in an AC Tempest.

• Torpedo & Neut Typhoon. I have heard that people solo in these, but aren’t torps supposed to be dreadful?

• T2 Large Projectiles to fly the Tornado & later BS’s. Certainly going to be flavour of the month.

• Stiletto, I really should have learned to fly Interceptors by now shouldn’t I? But again, it seems more of a gang oriented ship and whilst the Claw is a combat Inty it’s allegedly terribad.

• Max out sub-cap Drone skills (excluding Sentries). Other than being tedious I don’t see a negative aspect here.

• Tengu. Expensive but I imagine they’re very versatile. Also, are they that much better than a Drake?

• Blackbird/Falcon. Again, gang work screams out loud here, how about a solo cloaky Falcon though…..?

• T2 Heavy Assault Missiles. Application for the HAM Drake and maybe on the Cyclone too for up close brawling.

• Vengeance. My maxed missile skills would love this ship, but lots of folk are flying them.

• Stealth Bomber. Black Ops gang based, flimsy as hell. Definitely a nice to have but would I use it often?

So what do you think? Please let me know your opinions.