Sunday, February 24, 2013

Ratting on gates

Is a very bad idea when you're in null-sec.

I logged in to EVE on a Wednesday to find that my corp was becoming a member of a null-sec renting alliance. By Friday, the first cynos were being lit, and our band of newly-minted null-bears was straggling out to null, member by member. Some people slipped through without seeing another ship, while I managed to lose those 3 Atrons trying to get in.

As the people who live in null-sec can tell you, NPC ships spawn all over the damn place. You've got your sites/anomalies/complexes/belts/etc. where you can shoot NPCs 23/7. The one place you don't want to shoot NPCs in on the stargates.

Guess who tried their hand at ratting on a null-sec gate?

In the hustle and bustle of setting up our new null-sec home, no one had bothered to get the channel address for our new overlord's intel channel. If you were paying attention to local, and not ratting on the gate, this wouldn't be a problem. Any time you see a neutral spike in local, you warp to a POS and wait it out. It's not complicated.

At least, it shouldn't be. If you're in the bright idea business like I am, you noticed a two frigate/two battleship NPC spawn on the gate you just jumped your Badger through. Being completely unaware of the dangers involved in ratting on a gate, you figured you might as well come back in an artillery Hurricane and pop some rats for easy ISK.

That's when a roaming gang of neutrals jump into the system, drop three interceptors on your battlecruiser, and make a mess of your ship.

I got my pod out, so I didn't compound my loss by losing my implants. It was only when I was safely docked up that I realized I had never set my medical clone to the null-sec station we were living in. If I'd been podded, I'd have needed to fly all the way back down from the high-sec system we used to base out of. I'm lucky I hadn't needed to repackage my Hurricane to get it moved to null, or else I would probably have forgotten to insure it as well.

I've since recovered somewhat from my loss. My killboard efficiency is back over 50%, thanks to an alliance roam where I had the bright idea to KM whore on a 200 million ISK ship with my light drones. My kill to loss ratio is still a shameful 1:5, but at least I'm not losing ships I can't afford to replace.

Maybe I should start flying Tech 2 ships, losing a few of those should tank my stats again.

- Sam.

Friday, February 22, 2013

The best time to start blogging

http://nosygamer.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-silly-season-best-time-to-start.html

The time to start blogging is now, apparently. I'll admit I got a chuckle out of the post, even if I personally didn't start blogging because of the CSM elections. I had the bright idea to start blogging because I finally had something worth blogging about. I'm sure no one really wanted to read about someone sitting in an asteroid belt hitting F1 and F2 every three minutes. As a counter-point to my AFK mining, it's much more interesting to read about the exploits of the New Order at www.minerbumping.com as they try to save High-Security space.

I can't really argue against the points made. This is the first CSM election I've been around for, and there's an obvious increase in community activity for the campaign. I've managed to keep up to date on what's being written, but I'm still way behind on my podcast listening. I'd like to blame it on all the fleets I've been in, but it's more the fact that I'm simply overwhelmed by the volume that's being produced.

Do I have an opinion on who I would like to see on the CSM? Of course. I might publish it at some later date, but politics is not why I started blogging, and won't be my primary focus. I'm not terribly mad at anyone in particular despite my misfortunes, and I've no interest in any negative publicity while I'm just getting my blog off of the ground. Shoving my under-informed nose into the political arena would likely lead to calamity.

The only thing I would add to NosyGamer's post is that I don't really see there being a bad time to get involved in the community. If you've got something you think is worth sharing, do so. The worst thing that's going to happen is you'll get called names on the internet. Heck, I'm not even the newest member of the blog scene, that honour goes to Da Dom at http://mysticmonologue.blogspot.com.au/ so far as I've seen. I had the bright idea to start reading his blog on my second screen while keeping half an eye on the fleet I was in.

Whoops.

At least I was only two jumps behind the fleet by the time I caught on.

- Sam.

Propaganda? What propaganda?

http://freebooted.blogspot.ca/2013/02/blog-banter-45-propaganda.html

"In a socially-driven game environment such as EVE Online's, everyone has an agenda. CCP promotes its products and has an army of volunteers to do the same; corporations and alliances deliver entertaining recruitment drives, CSM election candidates solicit for voter favour, bloggers and podcasters opine to their audiences.

In this intricate web of communication, influence and control, what part does propaganda play in your game?"


-----

We don't need no stinkin' propaganda.

Let me clarify.

We don't need no stinkin' obvious propaganda.

Hands up, everyone who watched television today. Did you see a commercial for something? A car, a soft drink, a kid's toy? Congratulations, you're one of the billions of people who were exposed to propaganda today.

Propganda is about manipulating emotions. I'll carry on using television commercials as an example since it's a well-known medium. All the cheerful, smiling people in that Coca-Cola commercial? They're selling you on the idea that drinking Coke will make you happy. New car being sold? Grins all around. Has anyone ever seen diaper commercial with a grumpy baby?

How about the ADT Home Security commercial with the scared mother and child hiding in a bedroom? There's a lightning storm outside! There's a gloved hand breaking through the glass in their door! The advertisement trys to bring out feelings of fear, trys to scare people into buying a home security system. The friendly ADT man shows up to install a security system, and now the sun is shining, and everyone is smiling. Gloved hand breaks a pane of glass, and is met by a shrieking alarm. The home security system has saved the day. Everyone is happy and safe, and the implication is that you can feel the same with a ADT security system of your own.

Let's not even get into the axiom that "sex sells."

Propaganda in advertising has become so pervasive that we've become inured to its manipulations. It takes a truly stunning effort in this day and age to create a deliberate piece of propaganda that stands out. That's why I don't believe that direct propaganda works as a method from self-promotion or demonizing the "enemy." It's simply less effective than it ever has been before.

So where does that leave propaganda in EVE?

There's plenty of propaganda around EVE. We don't appear to have any shortage of talented people from the works I've come across. We have writers, musicians, and artists in abundance. I have to admit, I can't listen to "Let it Be" without singing Suas' "Little Bees" instead. I read EN24 and TheMittani for my EVE news and I get opinion pieces in the process. The problem with those sources of propaganda is that it's expected and commonplace. Wherever you get your news, you know that there's going to be a bias in how it's reported, intentionally or not.

What well-known group in EVE doesn't have pro- or anti- propaganda attached to it? I'm of the opinion that it would be stranger to see an alliance without some form of propaganda department. Whether it's an official part of the chain of command, or two guys with Photoshop, there's always somebody making pro-alliance works. There's plenty of people who are happy to make and spread propaganda to put your alliance down. I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only person to have heard that "GOONS are evil," or "IRC are awful," or even "SOLAR's so weak that they needed FAzor to come save them."

When BB45 asked "what part does propaganda play in your game?" my immediate response fell somewhere between "What part of my game isn't propaganda?" and "Does anyone care about propaganda anymore?" There is nothing in my EVE Online that hasn't been touched by propaganda at some point. I'm a member of a sov-holding null-sec alliance. It's omnipresent, but more isn't always better.

I've gotten used to it. I know, logically, that the "enemy" can't be as bad as my alliance mates claim, or we wouldn't even have to fight them in the first place. They would have long since crumbled under their own incompetence. We can't be the all-powerful, all-knowing alliance that the propaganda claims we are, or else we'd never be attacked. Since propaganda has become so common, the creators have resorted to quantity over quality. That doesn't mean the propaganda is bad, per se. It just means that it's everywhere, and the former standards that seperated well-made from poorly-made have blurred under the deluge.

I get my propaganda on Teamspeak, I get it in fleet chat. I get it when I listen to EVE music, I get it when I read blogs or the news. I get it when my corp-mates make fun of some corp that docked up for a week when we war-decced them. I have no doubt that my propensity for exploding has become propaganda fodder in some other corp or alliance.

I have to wonder, then, if propaganda plays that much of a role in my game. I'm constantly subjected to it, but am I really affected by it? Does hearing so much of it make it more effective? Does beating your head against a brick wall make you smarter? Unlikely, but I've gotten a few bright ideas out of doing just that.

To sum up my roundabout and rambling thoughts, I'd have to say that propaganda just is. It's become so common that we propagandize unconsciously. It's also gotten to the point where many people have learned to filter it out as a matter of habit. I hear it, but I don't listen. I see it, but I don't read it. Propagandize as you will, just don't expect it to do much for me.

- Sam.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Curbing aggressive tendencies

Gate-camps are a special kind of hell for me.

There's nothing quite like the sight of a Sabre and some Tornados waiting for you to de-cloak. You stop thinking about saving your ship, and starting thinking about how to save your pod. My survival rate against camps with a Sabre was, until yesterday, a flat zero. I must be learning, as I'm now 1 for whatever (probably ~7) when stuck in a 'dictor bubble.

I've learned the hard way that aggressing on the camper(s) won't much help unless A) You're obviously able to kill them or B) You brought enough gum ECM for everyone. I can manage neither. Having forsaken many other skills for the ability to fly logistics ships, I've got neither firepower nor ECM to rely on.

The very first gate-camp I ever ran into was a pair who managed to do surprisingly little DPS. My reaction was probably that of many other new players. It started with "FIRE ALL ZE GUNS" and ended with "What do you mean I can't jump through the gate?" I still had 20 seconds left on my aggression timer when I finally went pop.

Since then, I've never aggressed on a camp. I know I don't have any chance of killing them before they get me, so I point my ship at the gate and spam Jump. A PVE-fit Scimitar did what none of my other ships have done: Got back to the gate and got away safely.

Scimis are tough ships to begin with, T2 resists and 5 mid slots give you the option to set up some fierce shields. Minimum resist in the 80s and a small sig radius means it takes a lot less than full damage, and you can skip adding large amounts of buffer. Being PVE fit meant an afterburner instead of a micro warp drive, so there was no ballooning sig radius, and the warp scrambler on me didn't prevent me from getting up to my top speed.

I couldn't warp away of course, not with the Sabre pilot trying to stick his ship in the exact same piece of space as mine, but I got moving toward to the gate before the other Sabre pilot could try to bump me away. From there, it was just a bit of button mashing, and I was safely back on the other side of the gate.

It certainly wasn't pilot skill that saved my ship, but a combination of factors that worked out just right. I had an afterburner, they had warp scramblers. I was near top speed before the second Sabre woke up and tried to bump me away. I was fit with a high-resist omni tank, they had seconds to try and break it.

Still, that's 130 million that's not making my killboard look even worse. This whole 'not aggressing' thing seems to be one of my first bright ideas to actually pay off. Time for a new one don't you think? I've got decent drone skills... Maybe an armor tanked Vexor with point/web/web? I'd like to try that against a Sabre some time. Given how often I see them, I'll be able to test it sooner or later.

- Sam.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

When renters attack!

http://jestertrek.blogspot.ca/2013/02/rent-to-own.html

I wrote this reply a few days ago, but decided to sit on it for a while to make sure I wasn't having a knee-jerk reaction. I wasn't. Here's the post in the original form with no edits.

-----

Let me start by saying that I like Jester's Trek. I've been reading it for longer than I've been playing EVE, and I've never had any major problems with what has been written in the past.

That changed today, when I read "Rent to own," Ripard Teg's opinion piece on null-sec renters. I strongly disagreed with most of the points made, and as my corp was until very recently part of a renter alliance, I thought myself qualified to offer an opinion on the subject.


I'm not going to bloat this post with the original points that Mr. Teg made, but you can find them at the link at the top of the post.

1. We were never required to join any fleets of the alliance we were renting from. If we wanted to join a defense fleet or a roam, it was possible, but never mandatory, and somewhat difficult to do. Our alliance of 160 might have contributed a couple members once a week. Not really much of an increase to fleet size.

2. See 1. Small, small numbers of renters show up.

3. See 1. Renters never show up in large enough numbers to change the course of a fight or 'impact morale' by dying in droves.

4. See 1. Small numbers, etc. The only increase in grinding I can honestly say my alliance could have caused was the POSes we added to our rental system when we moved in.

5. If my corp wasn't part of a renting alliance, we'd either be in high-sec or folded into a big sov-holding alliance. Either way, we're either not shooting anything, or we're flying in blobs.

6. Hogwash, sir. We relished a chance to fight small gangs, because it allowed us to do PVP without having to go through the hassle of getting onto someone else's comms, getting to their staging system, etc. 10 neuts show up in our system, and we're all docking up our mining/ratting ships to refit for combat.

7. What null-sec organization doesn't turtle up when faced with an un-winnable fight? I'd argue that not wasting time and ISK fighting a group of people who outnumber you 5 to 1 and have cap support on the batphone is just common sense.

8. Fair enough. This is why we're renters after all, and not independent sov-holders. We're not LEET PVP by any means. Most of us are in null to do industry related things, fighting is just a fun side-line to spice up our time.

9. Care-bears.... in nullsec. Null-bears? While I agree that renters will leave their systems if they're faced with an un-winnable war, the protection of those systems is what they're paying for. Loyalty has nothing to do with it. You don't earn loyalty by making people pay you for the priviledge of living in your space. I don't feel loyalty to the person who owns my apartment because I give him hundreds of dollars a month to live in his building.

10. Is literally a repeat of half of 9.

11. People who want to FC big fleets aren't in renter alliances. We don't have big fleets. We can't raise the numbers. Full of null-bears, remember? Also, people from renter alliances aren't generally invited to FC their overlord's fleets, so no big fights for renter FCs.

12. I'll refer back to point 5 for this. Our leaders aren't going to gain experience in holding sov, no matter how you try to look at it. We can rent and not learn about holding sov, go back to high-sec and not learn about holding sov, or fold into a bigger alliance and be nobodies who never learn about holding sov. By the metric presented here, the only people 'qualified' to be sov-holding alliance leaders are people who have +2000 buddies backing them up.


For someone who espouses the small-gang null-sec lifestyle, I'd have thought Ripard would be more forgiving (accepting? understanding?) of the people who try to make it in null any way they can. Elitism is the word that comes to mind when trying to decribe the overall tone of the post, and it doesn't sit well with me.

Ripard is no fan of the blob, and I can understand that. I'm no fan of the blob either. That's why I'm in a corp that likes small-gang PVP and industry. The problem is that his post feels like an attack on small-gang nullsec PVP, something Mr. Teg is supposedly a fan of.

I'm certain a CSM candidate doesn't mean to alienate a portion of the people who might support his campaign, but this post felt like a direct condemnation of the playstyle I've been part of for the last few months. Ripard's alliance hates sov. By their own admission, they have no interest in contesting for sov, and the distaste for structure grinding Mr. Teg expressed during Rote's campaign against neighbouring null-bears leads me to the conclusion he's got no interest the mechanics of sov-holding himself.

There's lots of pseudo-intellectual advice I could offer, but I'll stick to something simple:

- CSM candidates who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

-----

In the 9 months I've been reading Jester's Trek, "Rent to own" is the by far the most inaccurate post* I've seen. I'll even stretch and call it the worst piece of writing I've seen from Ripard Teg. It certainly convinced me that Mr. Teg might not be a good advocate for small alliances in player-sov null-sec. I don't presume to understand the motivations behind writing what he did it, but whatever they were, he must have had one heck of a bright idea.

- Sam.


* Not including the "No, I will not run for CSM8 no matter how much you beg me" posts. Ripard Teg for CSM8? Maybe.

Christmas Shopping

I realize that we're well into February by now, but I'm working through a back-log of my bright ideas. Without further ado....

Christmas: A season of eggnog, visiting relatives, and CCP gifts. In my case, paying ridiculously inflated prices for the special edition items and ships.

Hoping to score the gift items on the market for low prices as un-suspecting newbies dumped them off for a quick buck, I pounced on whatever was offered on the market for seemingly reasonable prices. Here's a sample of the items I over-paid for, and what they're worth just over a month later:

A Handful of Tiny Stars: 22 million / 4.3 million
Donut Holder: 1.7 million / 140 thousand
Postcard from Poitot: 5.8 million / 750 thousand
Replica Gallente Cruiser: 2.8 million / 280 thousand
Scotty the Docking Manager's Clone: 4.6 million / 500 thousand
The Mini Monolith: 21 million / 1.5 million
Unit of Lag: 6.7 million / 1.3 million

Amazingly, I'm set to turn a profit on my 'Little Helper, Male' stockpile. That is, if anyone was actually buying the darn things. The '*Sneaks in a classic*' is being used in a margin trading scam in Jita as I write this, so the price is astronomically high, and I don't think it'd be accurate or honest to claim I predicted it.

For the ships, I spent around 21 or 22 million per Christmas frigate. The new prices?

Inner Zone Shipping Imicus: 5.5 mil
Sarum Magnate: 6.5 mil
Sukuuvestaa Heron: 8.5 mil
Vherokior Probe: 9 mil

As far as the NEO cards go, well, the price of each one is essentially half of what it was when they were released. The only one worth more than it was around Christmas is the 'Tengu Terror' card, which seems to have increased by maybe a million. Of course, that minor victory is completely wiped out by the debacle that was 'The HUNS.' Yeah, I spent 67 million on one of them. Today, you can get one for 300 thousand. Somebody made a bundle by running up the price and then bailing.

This is what happens when I have 700 million ISK and a bright idea.

- Sam.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Fly cheap, explode often.

There's something to be said for sheer determination, or at least I hope there is.

One of my favourite fleet roles to fill is initial tackle, a job that nets me a lot of deaths. That said, I'd die less if I was able to follow instructions properly. Once I jump out of the last high-sec gate, I get a little point-happy. I've put more Condors and Atrons into an early grave by doing that than any other ship. That's the beauty of those things: lots of flying (and dying) for very little ISK.

As everyone knows, initial tackle is not the place to be if you want to get kills. I've been on plenty of kill-mails, but I always seem to end up as a capsule, with my weapon of choice being my point. It got to the point where I got asked why I bothered to bring a ship if my capsule's going to be doing all of the fighting. I got tired of the jokes after a few fleets, and I had myself a bright idea: I was going to fly a scram and web fit Rifter and tackle in that. I fit my beautiful new babies with love and care, then joined up with the next corp fleet all excited to finally get a kill.

Once again, I had a little trouble following orders on what to tackle. The Fleet Stabber I found was a web/autocannon combo that murdered my precious brand-new Rifter. He also murdered the five other tacklers that followed me out. I reshipped and caught back up to my buddies, only to find that we were sitting around looking for something easier to fight. Well, I managed to find us a Hurricane that warped to a safe 150km from the gate we were holding on. I tackled the heck out of that Hurricane, until the Warrior IIs he had put out wrecked my day.

Determined to finally get some kills, I tried some solo roaming with my remaining Rifters. By now, I'm sure you have an idea of how that turned out. For some reason, I insisted on charging at things that would have no trouble killing me. Say, a Thrasher. Or another Fleet Stabber. I even displayed my brilliance by attempting to solo a Sleipneir. Yeah, I'm just that confident in my own abilities.

After my last Rifter died to a gate-camp during my corp's weekly meander through the low-sec systems around our home base, I went back to flying cheap full time. I somehow managed to get my first and only kill in one of them. For some reason, a Retribution pilot decided he'd risk his Assault Frigate on a low-sec gate by taking a pot-shot at me. Having died tackling for my fleet earlier, I was heading back out to the fight in another Condor that might have cost a million at the most.

Why he used an AF to shoot a cheap tackler on a gate was confusing enough, but the fact that he was stationary when he started shooting confused me even more. Must have been one heck of a bright idea. Needless to say, gate guns aren't known for missing stationary targets all that often. According to the kill-mail, I managed to do about 5% of total damage, but since it was just myself and the gate guns shooting, I managed to land the final blow. Thanks to this kind soul, my ISK killed to ISK lost ratio was positive for quite some time, right up to when I lost myself a battlecruiser. That story deserves a blog post of its own, though.

Oh, almost forgot to mention my favorite part. My victorious Condor caught back up to my fleet just in time for the FC to whelp all of our frigate/destroyers instead of flying the 23 jumps home. I guess our corporation killboard didn't already have enough of my ships on it. Talk about a bright idea.

- Sam.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

How I lose a ship in a few easy steps.

Step 2: Undock.

That's the most complicated step. The rest of it is pretty simple. I started off my journey as a capsuleer by dying in a career agent mission. This is what happens when you alt-tab out of EVE to do other stuff, then never alt-tab back in. The enemies in rookie missions might be easy, but they'll still kill you if you give them long enough. Apparently I need to train my RL Multitasking skill.

Step 3: Alt-tab out of EVE.

Warping into a mission then alt-tabbing out to do something else has cost me three frigates, one destroyer, two battlecruisers, and one Noctis. I'm fairly certain I've barely broken even on mission running, and if it wasn't for some more experienced buddies dragging me through level 4 security missions with them, I'm not sure I'd have ever gotten the standings for a jump clone.

Step 3, option A: Turn on auto-pilot, then alt-tab out of EVE.

I've since learned to stop alt-tabbing out during important things. That doesn't mean I've given it up, no, I still do it way too much. The convenience offered by the combination of alt-tab and autopilot is dangerous. Surprisingly, I've yet to lose a ship to it. I've since had a couple bright ideas that minimize the risk of my alt-tab habit: I fly cheap ships, and I never carrying more than 20 million worth of cargo.

That doesn't mean people don't still take potshots at me. I recently left a nano-fit Stabber to make a run of about 25 high-sec jumps. Coming back to find your ship with 40% armor left is a bit of a surprise, I must say. Apparently I'd survived a gank attempt by some genius who figured he'd have time to pop a thin-skinned cruiser before it could auto-pilot the 15km to the stargate. Since I was completely ignoring my PC at the time, I have no idea how he didn't manage to kill my untanked cruiser. Do people really run valuable stuff in auto-piloting Stabbers, or did that genius just think I was an easy kill?

Step 3, option B: Turn on auto-pilot, ignore the fact that your chosen route takes you three jumps into low-sec, then alt-tab out.

I actually managed to avoid doing this personally, but I had a former corp-mate pull it off. No, honest, I'm not quite that dense. Having just been loaned 20 mil to buy a mining barge, this fellow managed to discover a wonderful deal on a Retriever, 3 mil under the market price. To make things even better, there was a skill book for it at the same station, again under market price. Boy, was he all excited to tell us about it. To be fair, we never thought to ask him where the barge was, so off he went to grab it so he could join us in melting rocks for the corp's shipbuilders. He somehow got to the station alive, but then he turned around to come back in the exact same manner.

You've probably guessed where this is going, so I'll spare you the long story. There was Drama (note the capital D), an angry petition, face-palming, and one less corp member before the day was over. His little trip certainly seemed like a bright idea at the time, but he forgot about the first step to losing a ship.

That's right, the most dangerous step is.....

Step 1: Have a bright idea.

- Sam.

A Brand New Me, And Other Bright Ideas.

In the beginning, etc.

I ended up playing EVE for the first time the way I imagine many others did. A friend of mine talked me into trying this awesome new game he'd discovered. It had "spaceships and lasers and warp speed and alliances and space stations and explosions and lots of cool stuff to do and...," at which point he had to stop to take a breath, and I managed to get a word in edgewise. Simply for the sake of making him stop talking about it every time we saw each other, I agreed to give it a try.

I created a character with a singularly awful name, and we did everything that good little EVE neophytes do: missioning, mining, wandering into low-sec and dying instantly, and getting CONCORDed when we decided to shoot someone for the heck of it. The game was fun for a week or so, but we simply never had the time to make it a long-term stay. He went back to being a 'leet' WoW player, and I went back to a brain-crushing Real Life schedule.

EVE wasn't something I'd considered trying again until I found my login info from my original character about 10 months ago. Yes, the character's name was awful. He's since been biomassed, so we'll never speak of it again. I had just gotten bored with my most recent gaming addiction, so I figured I'd give EVE another try. 

As you can see, I'm still here... and I'm enjoying it more than ever. I may have lost 50-odd ships while only managing one kill, but EVE is digital crack. The sheer depth of the player-driven politics, the freedom to do anything the mechanics allow, and sheer number of people on one server is something truly unique, and I can't get enough.

A big part of my decision to stick with EVE was the strength of the out-of-game community. Tons of player maintained info, blogs and podcasts in such numbers that I can't keep up with them all, live streaming of gameplay by knowledgable players, active news sites, an online radio station, and so much more.

Given some recent events that have drastically changed my EVE play style, I wanted to take some time and make my own contribution to EVE's community. I'm already unable to keep up with all the EVE blogging, so I certainly don't expect much of a following, unless EVE is in desperate need of a blog written by someone who is blatantly awful at PvP. If anything, I'm bound to be an object lesson in how NOT to fly your ships. I sometimes wonder if I enjoy the explosions a little too much, especially when it's my ship going boom.

Since my only real specialty in EVE is blowing up, you can expect me to write about things like the events that led to me buying, fitting, and losing three cloaky Atrons in the space of a couple hours, and other bright ideas (hence the name) of that sort. Here's a suggestion: If there were 7 bubbles anchored on a null-sec gate 15 minutes ago, they're probably still there. The cans anchored in the bubble you landed in the first time will probably still be there too. That game mechanic where you decloak upon getting within 2000 metres of another object will still be in effect. See? Now that's some excellent advice right there. You can have that helpful bit of wisdom for free. As for the cost to me, well, at least Atrons are cheap, right?

- Sam.