Public Fleet Communities: Bombers Bar

One of the most casual PVP activities in EVE is probably joining a public fleet for an afternoon to earn some nice killmails. There are a couple of communities for this in the game, with – as far as I know – the oldest being Bombers Bar. As the name suggests, Bombers Bar is specialized on everything related to cloaky ships: hot dropping, cloaky gate camps and whaling fleets. They organize their operations by an in-game chat channel also called Bomber Bar, which contains the upcoming fleet schedule, resources for suggested fittings, a link to the Bombers Bar Discord channel and a selection of killmails from past fleets.

Bombers bar operates under a NPSI ( not purple shoot it) mode, which means they don’t have any allies or standings to other entities. If you are in a fleet, everybody apart from your fleet members are fair game to shoot if the FC calls for it. By this, you basically have the biggest potential target pool you can have in the game. However, you are not expected to shoot members of your own corp or alliance or any other party that has blue standing to you. In these cases, you simply don’t shoot the target.

How to join a fleet

Joining a fleet is very simple. Just check the fleet schedule in the Bombers Bar channel and wait until the time has come. The FC will then ping the fleet on the Bombers Bar Discord channel and link a formup channel in the main Bombers Bar chat. Simply join the formup channel and you will get a fleet invite for the fleet. On many fleets, you can even join when the fleet already started a while ago. Just type an X in the formup channel and you will sooner or later get an invite to the fleet.

Once you joined a fleet, the fleet MOTD will contain a password to one of the Bombers Bar Teamspeak channels. Bombers Bar operates their own Teamspeak server under voice.bombersbar.org, which everybody can join. To join one of the sub-channels that are used for fleets, you will need the password that you can find in the fleet MOTD.

The fleet MOTD will also contain instructions where the fleet will form or how to catch up if the fleet already left. Some fleets take place from a wormhole location and you will need to travel to a system where you can enter the wormhole. In that case just ask in fleet for somebody to pick you up and show you the way to the fleet location. Otherwise just travel to the system and follow the instructions the FC will give on Teamspeak for the formup.

Cloaky Ships

There are five different classes of cloaky ships that are used for fleet PVP and additionally some support ships that fulfill special roles in fleet. Just to get an idea what kind of the ships you could bring to a Bombers Bar fleet, I will give a quick overview of the different classes. If you want a deeper inside for fitting options, just check the BB-Fittings in-game channel, which lists a huge number of fittings for the different ship classes.

One common characteristic of all these ships is the ability to fit a covert-ops cloaking device, which allows you to warp cloaked.

Stealth Bombers: These are the main line ships for any Bombers Bar fleet. Bombers are so called glass cannons, which means they deal great amount of damage but have generally very little tank. Each race has its own version, which slightly differs in slot layout and each get a damage bonus for a different torpedo type. The main weapon system are torpedo launchers, which get a fitting bonus and bigger range by the bomber’s hull bonuses. Torpedos work best on big targets, so Bombers apply damage very poorly to smaller ships. To fly bombers, you will need the racial frigate skill and Electronic Upgrades to level 5 to unlock the Covert-Ops skill.

Force Recons: Recons are the cloaky T2 version of the electronic warfare cruisers. Each race has a specific force recon ship with range bonuses to the racial ewar system. These are the Falcon for ECM modules, the Rapier for stasis webifiers, the Pilgrim for energy neutralizers and the Arazu for warp scramblers and disruptors. Force recons need quite some skills to level 5 to unlock and are a long train. Additionally, the Recon skill gives this ship class great bonuses per level, so you should also train the Recon skill to level 5 which is another long train. Force recons are a great addition to any cloaky fleet, since they can fulfill roles that are very badly done by bombers, e.g. pointing a target far off or slowing it down to allow bombers to apply better damage. Especially Falcons can increase the survival rate of a bomber fleet a lot by jamming the targets to protect the weakly tanked bombers.

Tech 3 Cruisers: Each racial T3 cruiser (short T3C) can fit a subsystem called Covert Reconfiguration, which allows it to fit a covert ops cloak. The fitting options of T3Cs are too big to cover them in this post, but you can fit them as e-war support, damage dealers, probers and even logistic ships. However, they need an even longer training than recons and come with a big price tag. That’s why they are not used as common as bombers and recons. Losing a few T3Cs can be as costly as losing an entire fleet of bombers.

Black Ops Battleships: Black Ops Battleships ( short: BLOPS) are a racial specific T2 battleship that can create jump bridge to an active Cynosural Field Generator. Every ships with that can fit a covert ops cloak can use this jump cortal to jump within 5km of the ship that activated the cyno module. By this you can jump an entire fleet of bombers and recons on an enemy target. This is also one of the main tactics to engage for a bomber fleet. BLOPSes can be fitted as damage dealing ships but are quite pricey as well and usually not worth the risk to loose them in combat. To jump a ship through its jump portal, a BLOPS needs fuel located in a fuel bay of the ship. BLOPSes are the only ship of this list that cannot use a covert ops cloaking device.

Blockade Runners: Blockade runners are a T2 transport ships that can fit a covert ops cloaking device. These are usually used in fleet to carry the extra fuel for a BLOPS and to store the loot dropped by the unlucky targets of a BLOPS bridge.

On the Hunt with Bombers Bar

I decided to join a couple of bombers bar fleets that took place in prime EU time zone of about 17:00 EVE, which is a quite convenient time for me. The fleet type that was scheduled was “Armada” and I had no clue what that might be. So I joined the formup channel and soon got an invite to fleet after the formup started. I joined bombers bar mumble with the password from the MOTD and got instructions to travel to a high sec system where the FC was going to pick up the fleet. So I fitted a bomber as suggested in the bombers bar fittings and made my way to the formup location. The FC waited on a wormhole in that system and I learned that we needed to go through a couple of wormholes to reach our target wormhole system. So I followed the FCs instructions and bookmarked the wormholes we passed through until we finally reached our destination wormhole. This wormhole had a so called static null sec exit, which means that there is always a wormhole active in system that leads into null security space.

The fleet now gathered around this wormhole and some fleet members in tackle ships jumped through and checked the surrounding systems for targets to cyno bridge on. Apparently everybody is ratting in carriers and super carriers these days in null sec, which are the targets we were looking for.

If the tackle guys couldn’t find any targets the wormhole was “rolled”, which means you jump a couple of battleships through and back until the hole reaches critical mass and collapses. Soon after a new null sec wormhole will pop up somewhere in system. The FC scans down the new hole, the fleet positions on it and the hunters jump through again. This is kind of the rhythm of the fleet. Actually it can take a couple of these cycles to find a proper target, since the null sec system the static hole leads to is random. It might be a very quiet region that is not worth hunting or there might just be no targets. But sooner or later we always found somebody.

On my first fleet, we found a ratting Test Thannatos in Esotria and the fleet was told to jump through the hole and approach our fleet’st BLOPs on the other side. The BLOPs soon bridged us on top of the Thanny and we started to apply damage. We had over 100 bombers and a dozen of recons in fleet and the Thannatos was quickly killed.

On my second night of hunting we discovered a ratting Nyx and things got very busy quickly. We jumped the hole, approached our BLOPS and bridged on top of the Nyx. The Nyx almost immediately bridged a FAX in for help and the fleet started to apply damage to the Minokawa, which quickly died. While working on the FAX, a Phoenix jumped in too, which became the next victim.

After these two kills we started working on the Nyx again. However, killing the two caps took a couple of minutes, which was enough for our enemies to organize a defence fleet and finally about 20 caps and a few supers bridged in to save the Nyx. This was way too much to handle for our 50 man bomber fleet and we started to loose some bombers quickly. So the FC called to disengage and everybody to cloak up. Still, this was a very cool fight and shows how big the battles with bombers bar quickly can become. Here is the final battlereport.

On my third and final night, we managed to bridge on a Goonswarm Rorqual in Delve. However, I quickly learned that Goons are very good in protecting their Rorquals, because almost as soon as we landed they bridged an Erebus and a Nyx into system, which started to kill bombers. The Rorqual went into PANIC mode, which makes it invulnerable for a couple of minutes and we could only disengage again and made our way back into the wormhole.Lesson learned: Goons have quite some supers and titans on standy to kick ass.

Later on that night, we at least caught another ratting Test Thannatos in Esoteria, so the fleet was still a success.

To bring this post to an end I must say that I really enjoyed my bombers bar fleets a lot. The bombers bar FCs and members are very friendly and explain everything you need to know if you are new to covert ops fleets. The battles can be quite big in scale and very exciting , with lots of capital ships involved. I can just highly recommend to join a fleet if you have the chance, to get a couple of nice cap kills on you killboard and learn the art of covert warfare.

Regional Trading in High-Sec

In this last post of my regional trading series, I want to give you some practical insights into my personal regional trading operation which I am running for quite some time now. This operation requires a lot of ISK and some relatively well trained trade characters to set up. However, timewise it needs very little effort to keep things rolling and still generates a nice amount of profit every month.

The Character Setup

As mentioned in the previous post, it is highly recommended to use at least two separate accounts for your trading business. By this, you can compare prices between regions in two separate Eve client windows, which makes life so much easier. I use three characters on two accounts to cover the five major high-sec trade hubs in New Eden.

The Buyer: My first character is permanently docked in Jita IV – Moon 4 -Caldari Navy Assembly Plant to check prices and to buy new stock for the regions I trade in. This character really only needs the Contracting skill trained to create public courier contracts.

The first Trader: The first trade character uses two jump clones to cover the trade hubs in Amarr and Rens. This character needs some training to set up shop in these two hubs. I recommend to have at least 150 available trade orders to cover both hubs, which requires the Wholesale skill to level 5. Furthermore you need the Accounting and Broker Relations skill trained as high as possible to reduce taxes and fees for selling items. The other trade related skills are not required, since you will just put up sell orders in the current station and won’t create or modify any orders remotely.

The second Trader: Trader number two uses two jump clones to cover the remaining major hubs in Hek and Dodixie. Skillwise, this character needs the same skills as the trader number one.

The Items

The list of items I trade in only consists of high value faction items and implants. These items can further be divided into two separate groups: PVE and PVP mods. Both groups have a good demand in high-sec because of different reasons.

PVE modules: High-sec PVE is mainly done by mission runners, who prefer to use faction launchers and Ballistic Control Systems of all types. Faction launchers only need T1 ammunition and can be used to inflict any type of damage, which is perfect to keep the ammunition costs low, while inflicting the maximum damage to the mission specific NPCs. Another popular weapon system for PVE are drones, which need all types of faction Drone Damage Amplifiers to increase damage. Furthermore, Target Painters and Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers are a popular way to further increase damage application of launchers or drones.

PVP modules: The elite PVP players of New Eden love to use faction electronic warfare modules like Stasis Webifiers, Warp Scramblers, Warp Disruptors and Energy Neutralizers. For low sec PVP, pirate implant sets like Snake, Slave, Crystal and Asklepian sets are a quite popular choice, but are also sometimes used by PVE players to increase their tank.

This is a screenshot of the items in my market quickbar for my Jita buyer:

This list of items could be further increased by a selection of deadspace items, propulsion modules, skill hardwiring implants, training implants or skill books but my current list generates enough income that I don’t see any reason to further increase it. I also trade the same items in all four regions I trade in. This could also be optimised by different lists for every region that covers the items that sell better or worse, but I am just to lazy for that.

The Process

As mentioned before, I try to spend as little time as possible to manage my trading operation.

Normally, I restock my items for 2-3 times a month for each region. For this, I go through all my items in the market quickbar and compare the local price on one of the trade character against the Jita sell price. If the profit is greater than 20%, I update the order to be the cheapest seller. If not I just lower the price by a million or two and wait for the price to go up again.

If I don’t have an active sell order for an item and the profit is greater than 20%, I buy new stock in Jita. I try to spend at least 200 million ISK on each item that needs to be restocked. Once I went through the entire list, I create a public courier contract to ship my newly purchased goods to the respective trade hub. For the reward I usually put half a million ISK per jump and billion of collateral on the contract. If the collateral would be more than two billion ISK, I divide the items into smaller stacks and ship them in separate contracts with less than two billion ISK collateral. The collateral should always be 10-20% greater than the Jita sell value of the goods in case the guy who is going to ship the items gets ganked or simply fails the contract. On the next day, the contracts are usually delivered and I post new sell order at the trade hub.

When I update sell orders or post new orders, I never keep track of my original purchase price. Since the market for faction items and implants is not too big, prices normally change quite slowly and I rarely ever make a loss on an item although I only check the current Jita price. After trading with the same items for a while, you also simply memorize the Jita price range an items usually sells for.

Finally, I never keep the profit I make from trading in the wallets of my trade characters. Eve’s market interface can cost you a fortune, if you do a typo when posting orders. One wrong sell price with a couple of extra digits, can cost you billions in taxes and fees. So it is a good idea to send all profits to a “banking character”, who never buys or sells on the market. By this, the sellers don’t have enough cash in their wallets to make a big costly mistake. If you need the ISK, just send the proper amount from the banker to your buyer or other characters when they run low on funds. I usually keep a maximum of two billion ISK on each character.

The Profit

Now to the interesting part: the profit. Since I am a lazy guy, I use Eve Mogul to automatically calculate my profit. Eve Mogul uses a FIFO algorithm (first-in-first-out) to calculate the profit of each of your transactions by the difference of your sell and buy price for an item. You only need to provide the ESI authorization for all your characters that are involved in your trading operation and you will in return get a nice summary of the profit you made.

According to Eve Mogul, I made around 90 billion ISK in profit during the last 12 month almost evenly distributed on all four hubs .

The green bars are the profit. 20G line indicates 20 billion ISK.

To update orders and restock a single regional hub, I usually need about 30 minutes, which comes to 2 hours to update all four hubs. If I do this three times a month for a period of 12 month, it results in 72 hours in total per year for running the trade hubs. This comes to 1,25 billion ISK / hour. However, this payout comes only with great investment. To fully stock the four regional hubs with the items from my list takes around 50-60 billion ISK in active sell orders. So it is more a matter of getting enough cash to invest in the market than the actual time running your business.

The following screenshot taken from Eve Mogul shows the most profitable items out of my list for the last year over all hubs:

Profit for the last 12 month for the best items

The profit per month also changes a lot with the season. During winter, fall or after a major release login numbers are high and I can easily make 10+ billion ISK in profit per month, while during spring and summer the profit decreases, because people don’t play Eve so much, since they have better things to do than internet spaceship piloting.

The revenue of my trading business is around 20-40 billions ISK per month,which is almost perfectly distributed over the four hubs. This is a screenshot of the transactions from my Hek / Dodixie trader for 6-ish days:

I hope this insights into my regional trading operation will inspire you to start your own trading business (or simply take over my markets 🙂 ). In my opinion trading is the easiest form of income in Eve and also almost risk free. Instead of shooting NPCs in your VNI for hours, better start a new carrier as a trader. In the beginning it can be hard to get things going and make enough investment capital to get thing seriously started, but once you know the drill and have some experience with the markets the ISK will start rolling into your pocket.

As always, if you have any suggestions for this guide or different opinions about the topic, leave a comment or send me an in-game mail.