[QrazyKermi]

1) Does re-equipping from one type of ship to another still cost a small fortune? For instance, if someone is in a decked out tow and wants to switch to a fighter for a short time, then back to the tow, is he going to lose a bundle of money to taxes? (Assume he can't just tuck the equipment away in storage).

2) Is mining and the occasional Golden Mission of Opportunity still the only ways to make real money (more than 1 million an hour)?

3) Is there a need to have 10's of millions of credits, or are monetary losses limited to being bountied or a phenomenally bad businessman?

4) RATHA

5) Are FlashFires readily available? From faction stations or POS's?

6) Are Injustices available, and how do they compare these days to Thorns?

7) Are duelists available, and from where?

8) RATHA Jr.

[Ambrosius]

Originally Posted by QrazyKermi

1) Does re-equipping from one type of ship to another still cost a small fortune? For instance, if someone is in a decked out tow and wants to switch to a fighter for a short time, then back to the tow, is he going to lose a bundle of money to taxes? (Assume he can't just tuck the equipment away in storage).

Well you will still lose money if you do a lot of switching and you do not base out of Depot or a POS. But most squads have decent POS networks with hangars available.

2) Is mining and the occasional Golden Mission of Opportunity still the only ways to make real money (more than 1 million an hour)?

These are both good ways to make cash, but I would say you can probably find BPC hauling opportunities where you can make 3-4 million in a round trip. The fact is, however, that the mining work is generally much more of a contribution to the economy. BPC hauls are not always helpful.

Similarly, if you have very good PR, you can also make some cash hauling equipment. Sometimes it's profitable taking it where it is needed -- other times you can make a bundle hauling it off to someplace absurd.

3) Is there a need to have 10's of millions of credits, or are monetary losses limited to being bountied or a phenomenally bad businessman?

Tens of million -- probably yes. Hundreds of millions -- no. We also have military missions on the horizon (see Darkspace Dispatch), which will allow PvPers to be more self-supporting. Payouts on these are unknown.

4) RATHA

Of course.

5) Are FlashFires readily available? From faction stations or POS's?

At the moment, yes. But up until recently there were times when they were hard to come by unless you were in a well-organized squad. Stripping of FFs and Duelists has been a continual problem.

6) Are Injustices available, and how do they compare these days to Thorns?

They are currently unavailable.

7) Are duelists available, and from where?

They are currently available (hey -- can't you just check out the Tool Shed yourself? Jump has all kind of listers and searchers!)

[QrazyKermi]

Originally Posted by Ambrosius

hey -- can't you just check out the Tool Shed yourself? Jump has all kind of listers and searchers!)

Yes I could, but I'm more interested in the general availability, not whether they are available at this moment. I was trying to find out if they're constantly stripped, or only available via CP's now... that sort of thing.

All of this was meant to inform me whether it's possible to get by solo, or whether squad resources are still needed for the adventerous, multi-talented, highly cultured pilot.

PS: You didn't answer my part about Injustices vs Thorns. Not that it matters, I guess.... So are Thorns the laser of choice these days?

[SingleShot]

IJs are still better than Thorns, but not by quite as much as they used to be.


You'd probably want a POS to stash gear at because there still is not a large amount of it floating around.

[spork]

Equipment taxes were lowered from 10% - PR and beacs to about 3% - PR and beacs for non-produced gear. Lowered to about 1% -PR and beacs for native gear (same tax as commods). So it is no longer a small fortune to change ships, other than the actual loadouts (i.e. it takes a small fortune to properly equip a tug or a phoon when compared to a LF/MF).

Someone has been flooding the FF market. Kudos to them. Most of the recent 6 months, they have been quite hit and miss from a public station perspective. About the same for duelists, but no one has been flooding the market with them as much.

The IJ factory was blown up a long while back (go flux!) then blown up again just as it was going back online (go Quants!). Not sure where I read it or who I was talking to, but I think they'll be back soonish. They've been gone a long time, so they're due.

For a fully powered ship, IJs are still better but no longer stupidly uber.

Team fluxing is a decent way to make money. BPCs are unreliable. Scouting missions level 3 pay ~350k, and can often work out to be right on your way. I think the FMs are paying decently.

All in all, you are still much better off with the resources of a squad than solo. In todays gank or be ganked environment, you'll either die a lot or be board alot if you don't join someone's fleet. And I use the term "fleet" loosely, we don't see 20 ship fleets much, if ever. Every once in a while the combined anti-Quant fleet can get into the mid-high teens.

[Elmdor]

If you have good aim, you can make about 4-5 mil an hour fluxing in C-1095 with aclaim and hg.. it isnt that difficult to make money. And those "Golden Missions of Oppurtunity" pop up very frequently in Command Hives. If you destroy one you get 25 mil credits. Ive popped about 4 myself, with very little effort.

[QrazyKermi]

Why does fluxing HG make it more lucrative?

[spork]

To encourage HG I guess. Been that way for a long time now.

Beacons also payout tiny credits and also pay more for HG (I think) and for in flight (I know).

[Wild_Bill]

Little frog, with a decent amount of credits (100mc or more) and a POS it is quite possible for a solo pilot to do .. okay. Active squad will always be the best way to go. Dig up one of your old accounts with some cash in it, preferably Solrain since they are hurting the most and get active. You can always ally with certain squads for help and privledges if can't or won't join another squad.

Jumpgate is still a fun place and shows potential to be even better in the near future. So jump in, the water's fine!

[Corn]

Flying solo is definetly possible in the current enviroment of jumpgate. PvPing solo is not really an option anymore, unless your looking to be a pirate/griefer flying later US times when there is less EU PvPers. Fluxing is still the king of leveling, and like elmdor said, with the proper aim you can make nice chunk of cash killing prawns (HF/phoons and nixes can kill prawns in 1 pass and payout is 100k with hg/claim). Equiping your ship after deaths may become a problem with the lack of equipment floating around, but its not impossible. Thiers still lots of public POSes offering duelist ffs etc. But the days of homing out of wake/op/qc are long gone.
Mining is also quite profitable if you can stand it, mining speeds have been greatly boosted, and for the most part unreg space outside of connex/dr/stith/lx/far point is normally a pretty safe area with lots of roids worth mining.
Right now there is a civ war between the lamers(aka quants) and the soltavians(balrog/bonnie and clyde/nightmare/KO/OV/OA). Staying out of the civ war is not a difficult task. Although from my current understanding the soltavians want thier to be no equip on qc and stocking quant space with equipment may be dangerous.
At the moment thier seems to be a solrain revival starting. A group of holy pilots (the apostles) have come to clense TRI of the octs, unfortunately the soltavians were having trouble bringing the pressure to the quants with thier octavian friends being chased by tensy across space, so as of now they seem to have banned together against the new solrain factionalist. I think sol factionalist is what the server is in the greatest need at the moment. Also we need a few PvPers that are not quants that want to have some fun past 7pm est. As of now thier is not many oppurtunities after 7 on weekdays to get kills, unless you get the rare encounter with spacious.

[spork]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it, but pure roids no longer heat up and slow down. So it takes no time at all to pop them which dramatically increases their credits per hour.

[Ambrosius]

. . . and that is the FIRST AND LAST mining tip you will ever get from Spork!