Wednesday 4 September 2013

Pirate Detection Arrays - our new hobby

It's a great shame that most players who live in nullsec are insulated from the mechanics of the terrain improvements that the sov system allows.

We in SEDNA have been working on upgrading our Pirate Detection Arrays this week.

WOOT! 58% Cmon Level 4!


We rented a system that held a TCU owned by our alliance. We then installed an ihub, an infrastructure hub, which is a base into which you insert modules that improve the system. I picked up some of the first ones: Pirate Detection arrays 1 and 2 and Entrapment arrays 1 and 2, all of which was small enough to fit into my Deep Space Transport (30k m3).

I then very carefully moved it to a suitable nearby low sec system from where we rorqual jumped them to our home.

We had to kill some rats to raise the military index to level 1 and then we put in the first pirate detection array. This gives the system 4 anomalies continually of a quality based on the system truesec. Our system is a rather crappy -0.2 so we got 2 Drone Surveillance and 2 Drone Menagerie. These are level 5 and level 6 anoms respectively - not very lucrative, I was running them at approx 3m per tick or about 9m per hour. They contain mostly frigates and cruisers, occasionally small defensive towers.

We very quickly killed enough rats for military index 2 and installed the Pirate Detection Array level 2. We waited till downtime then got another 2 Drone Surveillance and 2 Drone Menagerie, still a bit disappointing, we're assured we will get some good quality sites as we upgrade higher.

It was still pretty fast to grind enough rats to get military index 3 and that let us install the Pirate Detection Array level 3 and also unlocked the ability to place Entrapment Arrays.

This is where you see the percentages and your upgrades.


Entrapment Arrays give a slightly higher chance that when a combat DED site spawns in the region it will spawn here. Now that's particularly interesting for renters as we compete against each other with these upgrades, having them means we magnetically pull sites away from our neighbours into our corner of space allowing us to own them and run them. We put in two levels of those.

We had a more complex logistical problem of getting the Pirate Detection Array 3. It just fits in a Rorqual and one of our neighbours was selling one for 100m over the high sec price a couple of rorqual jumps away. So we bought that one.

Pirate Detection array 4 needs a jump freighter to move it. We've bought this and moved it to our nearest Empire station from where it will be jump freightered in.

We have ground the military index up to 60%. However after downtime we're hoping our third wave of anoms will see us gain access to more exciting sites which will make grinding much more enjoyable and lucrative.

For the final Pirate Detection Array upgrade we'll need to move it in by Freighter. Our best hope is that a wormhole spawns near our space that has an entrance big enough for a freighter and isn't too dangerous to bring a freighter through. We would then jump the freighter in through the wormhole from high sec. My neutral freighter pilot alt has been volunteered for this exciting mission.

8 comments:

  1. Could be worth considering PushX or BlackFrog for the final PDA? I'm sure with the right level of incentive it would be viable for them and stop the risk for you guys!

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    1. I can't imagine even Black Frog would move it. Remember it needs to come by freighter, not jump freighter. For me I can move it using a wormhole and set my character blue to the locals after I jump in. BF would have to go 25 jumps through hostile null in a freighter.

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  2. Build it in a station nearby.... use the JF to import the parts then you just need a BPC and a local freighter.

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    1. It's seeded on the market in high sec, not makeable by players.

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  3. So I found out how the larger entities do this... wait for it....

    They Titan bridge the Freighter (which is doable). You juts need a nice Titan chain.

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    1. All our titans are busy washing their hair whenever I phone up to arrange a date.

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  4. We did the same thing when we were upgrading. For the final module we had to organize a huge corporate fleet op. Luckily through the means of a jump bridge we only had 4 systems to traverse but we had scouts in every system along the way and we had heavy escort of combat fighters as well. Webbers to help the freighter warp faster, and some ECM ships to protect the freighter if it did get targeted.

    You won't get really good sites until you have the level 5 upgrade in and you are able to maintain the military index of 5. Once it drops back down to 4 the benefits of the upgrade go away until you raise it again.

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    1. Ha ha yup we might end up doing this. Hopefully a handy wh will pop.

      Should be ok keeping the military index up once we get level 5 in place, we have a lot of iskies we're wanting to make by shooting rats.

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