suitcase

Suitcase Challenge: Ship Fit (Tengu)

stargrace June 10, 2024 No Comments

One of the ships I took with me on my suitcase challenge is my tengu. I’m using it as an ‘all the things’ sort of ship, in the cargo hold I have a MTU, mobile depot, relic / data analyzer, and a target painter II that I swap out depending on what I’m doing. I also have ammo, which I have to replenish frequently at a market hub because tengu eat missiles like they’re candy. I also have a helios (I’ll post the fit for this another day) when I’m doing pure exploration and don’t want to deal with combat. Sometimes I like clearing the C1-C3 signature sites though, just for a change of pace.

I’ve been able to fly a tengu for a very long time now, but I’ve never really focused on maxing out my skills for it. It’s an expensive ship, and I’ve lost a few of them over the years, too. There was no way I should have been flying one when I didn’t understand the very basics, but I feel like I have a good grasp on things now, and I’m pretty confident in my ability to stay alive through most things. Of course it also helps that I have more than enough to replace the ship if I did ever lose it, a few times, at that.

Anyway, now, I love this ship. It just took me a while to realize how best to use it. It’s the only T3C I’ve got the skills to fly, and I know it took a heavy nerf a few years back, but it still does exactly what I want/need it to do in my situation, which is a bunch of random things while I’m living in a WH. I swap out the 1 mid slot for relic/data/painter depending on what site I’m on, and I also have a defensive fit if I really need to beef things up – since I’m just hanging out in C1-C3 I haven’t had a need for that fit. I’m also cap stable, which is a big deal to me. It’s not the most agile ship I fly, but it’s one of the most used. If you’re curious about what other ships I’m flying while I live out of a wormhole, you can find my write ups here:

• Helios
• Orca

I’ll post about my prospect next, although that fit is pretty basic and there’s not much to it. Since I’m no longer doing PI out of my suitcase WH and have instead moved to a Wormlife Freeport with 2 alts, I don’t have the Epithal, but I might just talk about the basic fit anyway.

As always – fly your way! o7

Suitcase Challenge: Day 25 – Locked out of the Hole

stargrace May 30, 2024 No Comments

Today marks 25 days living in a wormhole (an Orca as my home base). So far I haven’t come up against too many terrifying situations, but there have been a few close calls. These close calls change day to day, sometimes my connections are to empty lands and I never even see anyone, sometimes they lead to nullsec, lowsec, or near Jita – those days are busy. I’m extra observant and vigilant on those days.

Today I took a bunch of items to high sec to leave for my marketing character to deal with. This character just stays in an NPC corps station bound 90% of the time. She’s trained up a bunch of marketing skills, and she’s also trained in some hauling skills, nothing fancy (for now). When I went back to the WH to jump back in – it had closed behind me while I was doing my thing. Now, this isn’t really a big deal because I always have 2 other characters still in the WH who can probe the new HS entrance, but there’s also a chance that it’s really far away from where I got locked out from, and that was the case today. Since I’m so used to scanning down everything I don’t even bother caring too much if a hole is EOL (end of life).

47 jumps later, I was back safely in the wormhole, surrounded by the comforting black darkness of an empty local channel.

There was a C5 connection that lead to mine, so I decided to check it out. Unfortunately it was a chain that had been picked clean, probably a WH corporation lives up there some where. I followed it for a while, C5 which lead to C5 which lead to C5 which lead to (you guessed it) another C5. When I turned around to head back home, the exit was gone. No big deal, I scanned down a LS exit instead, jumped into that and got lucky, no one was around. Two more jumps lead me back to HS, and 14 jumps lead me back to my WH. It was a lot of traveling and very little profit, but that’s OK. Not all days have to be all about the ISK. Speaking of, I’m doing very well on that front, too. I’ll post more details about that in the future.

What exactly am I doing in this WH? Well, so far I’ve been doing gas huffing, combat sites, mining, data & relic sites, and just general exploration. Each day everything is new, so if there’s people around I tend to either leave up the chain to find some place quiet, or I wait it out. I’m trying very hard not to draw attention to the fact that I’m living in the wormhole, which is why I’m not putting up a POS, and living out of the Orca. The POCO I’m using has low taxes, and PI has been treating me very nicely. So far, this experiment has been lovely! YMMV though, I know from experience it’s difficult to give up the inferred “safety” of high sec.

Fly your way! o7