spacevanlife

[spacevanlife]

Four years later ...

Well. After a fatal incident with the cloning facilities, the Omega status was cancelled and a rather long break in the project occurred. Four years later much had changed and the filaments for the new region Pochven turns out to be perfect for this project. We have hauled back out first scoop of loot, done some adjustments to fittings and are now heading back to null space! Let's hope we find a quiet poorly guarded backwater system to park our space van.

Project Status Report:

Income: 1 billion ISK

Total investment: 7 billion ISK

Whereabouts: Somewhere in nullsec

[spacevanlife]

Ready for adventure!

All tests have been done. Mechanics are trained. Filters for quick inventory management in space has been made. It is time to jump into nullsec and find a place to hide. I have decided on using needlejack filaments and I am bringing plenty of them to be able to jump around until I find a suitable place to hide.

Project Status Report:

Income: 0,015 billion ISK

Total investment: 6,5 billion ISK

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec

[spacevanlife]

Testflight nearing completion

So, training on ship switching and other routines in space is nearing it's completion: Fittings are being fine tuned. Extra equipment lists are being evaluated. And the final fleet composition are soon to be made.

I am getting ready for my first expedition into nullsec space. How will I travel there?

I wonder if I should buy a whole lot of needlejack filaments and try my luck, but I have never used one before, so I guess I will have to do some research on that. Then there is the wormhole option. I am tempted to travel conventionally to the place I want to go and then spend some time there trying to find the perfect wormhole connection to bring the Orca out. But I am not sure. I kind of like the random aspect of the filaments, but also the very planned approach of wormhole scouting.

I will have to decide soon, as I am getting close to ready for the adventure!

Project Status Report:

Income: 0,015 billion ISK

Total investments: 6,5 billion ISK*

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec

[spacevanlife]

Switching ships and managing inventory

There are a number of mechanical challenges to figure out when you are planning to live out of an Orca as your mobile station. One of them is that ships stored in the Ship Maintenance Bay can only have charges stored in their cargo hold. So, that Mobile Depot and extra modules you might carry around, needs to be stored in the Fleet Hangar before you can switch ships in the Ship Maintenance Bay.  

Now, it would be great if you could put additional cargo hold content for specific ships into dedicated containers named the same as that ship for example, but containers in the Orca can’t be handled by others than the Orca-pilot, so that doesn’t work the way I hoped. Instead I will have to keep the Fleet Hangar as clean and tidy as possible at all times, so that inventory filters can do the job of singling out those extra things you want in a specific ship’s cargo hold. It does take quite some time to figure out and to test properly.

But I was so happy, and surprised, to see that you can board a ship from the Ship Maintenance Bay and that this action automatically stores the ship you came in! And it does it with sound and lights as well! (See picture above) That makes it fairly easy to switch ships compared to what I thought you had to do: Eject and scoop. This means the procedure for switching ships at the Orca is as follows:

Client 1 / Client 2

Orca-pilot uncloaks

Uncloak ship and access Fleet Hangar

Offload all non-charges into the Fleet Hanger (using inventory filter to keep all charges in the ship)

Access Ship Maintenance Bay and board new ship

Load extra modules and depot from Fleet Hangar (using inventory filter to single out the specific mods for that ship)

Speed away and cloak

Cloak Orca 

Project Status Report:

Income: 0

Expenses: 4,2 billion ISK*

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec

* Expenses will include approximated values of all assets used in this project, regardless of it being bought now or prior to the project. It is basically the total amount of ISK I am putting at risk.

[spacevanlife]

The giant can that could

While trying to figure out how to set up the logistics (I will try to make as few jumps as possible with my space van, that’s for sure!) I came to think about containers, and more specifically Giant Secure Containers. I haven’t been using these in ages. Turns out that they have 500.000 hitpoints and can be anchored for 30 days! And they hold 3.900 ㎡. 

And then I came to remember that Mobile Depots also have a cargo capacity of 3000 ㎡. So, there are several options for how to drop off cargo for a third pilot to come and pick it up, and I am definitely packing my Orca with a lot of containers in order to expand my cargo capacity. But, I think I will try to secure assets acquired as soon as possible, into hisec, if my dedicated scout ship can handle the size.

Project Status Report:

Income: 0

Expenses: 4,2 billion ISK*

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec

* Expenses will include approximated values of all assets used in this project, regardless of it being bought now or prior to the project. It is basically the total amount of ISK I am putting at risk.

[spacevanlife]

Composing the ship maintenance bay

So, while I am test flying my Orca, I have started sketching the fleet of ships that will fill the 400.000 m2 bay. So far it looks something like this:

A cloaky combat ship for ratting and combat sites. I am quite sure this will be one strategic cruiser with multiple fitting options.

An excellent probing ship for fast probing for useful wormhole connections and exploration sites.

One or two hacking ships for data and relic sites. It needs decent defence capabilities against hunters.

An exhumer for mining solo. Or shout it be a cloaky mining frigate? Not sure yet. (No, I will not be fleet-mining with the Orca in hostile environments).

A cloaky gas mining ship for wormhole day tripping. Maybe two.

A capsuleer-combat fit stealth bomber for opportunities that are too good to let go. Maybe two. Recent news of re-balancing will put the fitting of these on hold for now, but there is time enough before we set out to make new fittings ready for the expedition.

A fast aligning, dual-prop, cloaky frigate for scouting and bookmarking. I am going to need a lot of bookmarks in every system I park my van.

Should I bring a dedicated ship for hauling, or should I keep one in Jita and only go back and pick it up for hauling when needed? Or should a third capsuleer do the hauling? Or will the Orca be enough storage for the whole expedition? I haven’t really decided on this yet, however, transport ships take up too much space to be considered in the bay, so it would have to be a hauling-fitted cloaky frigate, I think, and that’s not much hauling space, really. Well, thinking out loud here, as you can see.

Project Status Report:

Income: 0

Expenses: 3,8 billion ISK*

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec

* Expenses will include approximated values of all assets used in this project, regardless of it being bought now or prior to the project. It is basically the total amount of ISK I am putting at risk.

[spacevanlife]

So it begins

I have a plan. I have a van. Or an Orca, as we call it in New Eden. Will I be able to live in 0.0 space out of an Orca and make back all the investments needed for such a trip? How long will I last before someone finds me and kills me? Will the Orca make it back with a profit?

I have two accounts, two characters, one will fly the Orca, the other will pilot the several ships in it’s maintenance bay.

First task ahead: Make a very nimble and agile Orca that can microwarpdrive-cloak-insta-warp, handle a tackling frigate or two -- and work as my home station with repair facilities and storage. I suspect I will have to make a few different fittings for travelling and base.

I have bought an Orca already and started testing my initial fitting. It is showing real potential and with some more implants I think I will have it nimble enough.

Project Status Report:

Income: 0

Expenses: 1,4 billion ISK

Whereabouts: Somewhere in hisec