Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Sadly, this does not count. Because it was on SISI, the testing server.

I logged into SISI today for the first time in well over a year, to help test the new faction warfare content. There’s no immediate way to sign up for a militia when you’re the CEO of a corp, so I put in my militia application and decided to go looking around in my Hawk.

On the Konola stargate in Isaziwa, I find a Phoenix wreck. What’s a Phoenix? I had to look it up. But the wreck was a big one.

Dreadnaught, it turns out.

Turn on the salvager!

I was surprised to find that my one salvager had a success on the second cycle. I got: 211 conductive polymers, 97 Malfunctioning Shield Emitters, and 238 Ward Consoles. Plus, there were Arbalest torp launchers in the wreck.

None of the stuff matters, because this is on SISI. But I’ve never gotten to salvage a dread “for real”, so this was still fun.

The twenty four hours after war retraction passed without further hostilities, and fighting is now officially over. So, what’s the final body count, and what has Ironfleet learned?

First, the tonnage destroyed.

Chebri’s War: No ship losses on either side (unless you count Chebri’s Ibis that TorpedoTed salvaged.) Chebri had one Blackbird get damaged into structure, so perhaps a small repair bill there.

Effectively a no-tonnage tie.

AC-ME / INDY War:

Ironfleet lost:

1 Kestrel frigate (details)
1 Vexor cruiser (details)

AC-ME lost:

1 Procurer mining barge (details)
1 Iteron Mark V hauler carrying a lot of loot (details, AC-ME Acting CEO Cordus’s loss estimate)
1 Sigil hauler mining/carrying ore (details)
1 Capsule with pilot (Vryder04, amount of metal in head unknown, see above for details)
1 Giant Secure Container (AC-ME 4 in Isaz belts)
many jetcans containing ore

INDY (non AC-ME) lost:

2 Retriever mining barges (details, details)
1 Vexor cruiser (details)
1 Capsule with pilot (accidental podding, implants reimbursed after end of war)

On tonnage, the wars were a clear victory for Ironfleet.

May I pause for a moment to note how astonishing that is? Ironfleet had a total of three pilots in space during this war, and I think the three of us were all in the same system only once during the entire war. AC-ME routinely had five or six combat pilots in space, once they stopped mining and focused on trying to catch us and kill us, and that’s not counting the handful of experienced combat veteran volunteers from the Alliance that they often had flying with them.

I take that as proof that guerrilla warfare can work in EVE, if you can fly cloaked and have enough patience. Hit ’em where they ain’t, as the saying goes. But of course, it only works against an enemy who has soft targets in space.

Which leads to the money part of the war, and then to the politics. Because, tonnage victory or no, Ironfleet wasn’t fighting this war for the purpose of blowing shit up.

Economic Wins And Losses:

In raw ISK, it looks like a slight win for Ironfleet, thanks again to TorpedoTed’s catching the Iteron.

Ironfleet’s war bill was $100 million isk, versus an estimated few million for Chebri’s. We also paid for a set of +3 implants for Aktala after the war, to avoid bad blood with someone who was never our enemy but for a quirk of game mechanics. Miss Iron’s cruiser turned out to be free — she replaced it cheap in Isaz and then had the purchase price cheerfully refunded by the seller. We also picked up valuable mods from the wrecks of a couple of different mining barges, plus everything we were able to grab from the Iteron wreckage.

There’s also the unknown factor: how much metal was in Vryder04’s head? We’ll never know.

Disruption of Ironfleet’s normal salvage operations cannot be ignored — we did some salvaging during the war, but I was more interested in finding targets. AC-ME’s operations, however, were heavily disrupted. Before the war they had unescorted barges mining in the belts all the time. During the war, those same characters were often found in combat ships, and it was common for me to see all the known AC-ME members who were online in combat ships. They did get some mining done, but only in heavily-guarded operations with more combat pilots than miners. (Of course they got more done at times when Ironfleet was not online — disruption had to be far from absolute.)

It’s also hard to know what was rumor, what was counter-intelligence work, what was psy-ops, and what was maskirovka, but it’s also pretty clear that AC-ME either attempted to move during the war, or put a lot of effort (and an Iteron V full of stuff) into a pretty convincing feint.

So, there’s room for dispute, but I’m calling this as an economic win for Ironfleet, despite the expense of paying war fees against an Alliance.

What about political factors?

First of all, Ironfleet’s war plan just worked. It was audacious and frightening to war dec an entire alliance, but there was a reason for doing it, and we got what we wanted.

The logic of the thing started and ended with my perception that there was a strong and organic link between Chebri and AC-ME. I’ve detailed the reasons I thought so, and had people argue and dispute each individual reason, sometimes with merit and sometimes not. It may be that parts of the connection were weaker than I at first imagined. But in the heart of the business, I was not wrong. I perceived AC-ME as a responsible party in the hostilities, and I still perceive them that way, and nobody much disputes that they were at least an intended beneficiary and enthusiastic cheering squad for Chebri’s war.

Chebri’s war was a problem for Ironfleet, because you can’t hurt a combat pilot even if you can kill them repeatedly, which it seemed unlikely that I could given my available military resources. They live for the fight and they don’t mind losses very much. Unless Ironfleet wanted a state of perpetual war, I had to find leverage. I had to find something I could hurt, something that somebody with influence over Chebri would care about. AC-ME was the only thing I could see that might fill the bill. I wasn’t sure it would, but I thought it was worth a try.

The unknown for me was INDY. A lot of corps, most of which sounded at least somewhat industrial, and AC-ME was a new member. How strongly would INDY respond? How supportive of AC-ME would they be, versus annoyed that their new member came in with stupid and avoidable diplomatic baggage? There was no good way a noob to EVE politics could predict that one.

So, of course Chebri denies any and all influence by anyone. No man is an island, but Chebri is, if you listen to her.

But, let’s review the tape:

Chebri’s war dec was received on 12/25 at 03:57. War went active on 12/26 at 03:57. She must have paid her war bill before 1/2 at 03:57. And again, before 1/9 at 03:57.

Ironfleet’s first AC-ME kill was on 1/04. Our next (the big one) was on 1/7. Our first INDY kill was on 1/8. Our next (AC-ME) was on 1/9 after Chebri paid her war bill. Then on 1/10 toward the end of the day, we made two more INDY kills.

Chebri’s war retraction came in the early hours of 1/11. Coincidence? Possible. But I doubt it. I believe she was persuaded to let her war drop. Why else would she withdraw a war dec with five days paid on it?

So, the war worked. What were the other political gains and losses?

Chebri’s still an enemy, possibly a more implacable one than when the war began. Wars harden hearts, and enemies in EVE always have costs. I doubt we’ve seen the last of her, and I’m sure she’ll never pass up the chance to do us an injury, if she ever sees one.

I think there are a few others in AC-ME who have greater enmity against Ironfleet than they did when the war began. Another political loss.

On the gain side, Ironfleet has several new friends in the vicinity of Isaziwa. Miss Iron in particular (being a nicer person and a better diplomat than me) made some friendly contacts there. But I met some new friends too. AC-ME already had enemies, and some of them like Ironfleet better for the war.

Also on the gain side, some of the AC-ME folks that I knew a bit and liked, I now like better; and some I did not know, I know better and like. There was some nice professional flying and good courtesy during this war, and it was appreciated.

The same goes double for INDY. Independent Faction is a good outfit with some friendly people and some excellent pilots. Ironfleet by its nature is not an alliance-joining sort of corporation, but if we were, I hope we could find one as decent as INDY.

What did I learn?

First, warfare can be fun. I still don’t consider myself a combat pilot — the usual rock/scissors/paper of EVE combat leaves me cold. It’s an adrenaline rush, but I hate those — and the randomness and number of factors outside my control make it uninteresting to me. The only kind of combat I like is the kind where I’ve got the scissors and they’ve got the paper. If I don’t have a pretty good idea that’s what’s happening when I go in, I don’t go in.

But flying the stealth bomber in target-rich space was an absolute blast. I don’t know why these ships are so despised. You get to pick your targets and pick your battles, and if you’re very very careful and very very patient, nobody can touch you. It’s a slow and patient sort of warfare that works much better when you have corpmates in local to find your targets, but it works solo, even against overwhelming odds, if you’re patient enough.

Second, during this war I got a ton of practical experience flying my Manticores, completely overhauled my standard fittings, and gained an enormous amount of confidence in my ability to engage and disengage at will. I also learned a lot about which sort of combat vessels can be killed, which sort can be forced to leave, and which sort just tank the damage and laugh while calling in interceptors.

Third, I think I want one of those Cerberuses. Missile spamming from extreme range? That’s me. I have a new goal, and it’s not that far out of reach.

I’m still a terrible noob at matters martial, but less of one than I was. All in all, the war was a good experience for me and (I think) the rest of Ironfleet.

An anonymous commenter suggested (albeit with a question mark and a smile) that for me, EVE is about “screwing with the community.” To be honest, I find that a bizarre proposition.

I don’t see what I do as screwing with anybody. Do we talk about pirates (who are a much rougher bunch doing a lot more damage than I ever have, while laughing at the misery they strew down their own wakes) as screwing with communities? Not really, they’re just considered a force of nature to be dealt with. People don’t like them, but their play choices are recognized as legitimate.

I know EVE’s not really a role-playing game, but people adopt minor roleplaying elements to enhance their enjoyment. And that’s the story of Ironfleet in a nutshell. When we started this game, folks were doing missions at the stargates and leaving vast “canstellations” of uncollected loot. Scooping that stuff up (often under the guns of the battleships that were still finishing the mission) was the funnest thing we found to do as complete noobs flying cheap frigates. Most of us have gone on to more normal professions, but I’m the die-hard hard core. I still enjoy prospecting for loose stuff, and then securing it and removing it. Flying exotically-fitted cargo ships, finding stuff that’s not nailed down, scooping stuff up (and dealing with all the fallout and consequences and diplomatic excitement that results) is still the most fun I’ve found in this game. There’s nothing in this game that compares, for me, with the satisfaction of finding a ton of unanchored Giant Secure Cans in a belt, coming out in my fully rigged and expanded Bustard, and scooping them ten at a time, peaceful as you please. If there’s a mining operation going on around me and a bunch of screaming people discovering for the first time that you have to anchor your giant secure cans to make them “secure”, that’s a bonus. But it’s not necessary to my fun, and it’s not why I do it. I do it because I want the cans, and whatever is in them. Taking them back to my hangar is how I, personally, feel I’m “winning at EVE”.

So, that’s what Ironfleet does. We’re not in it to mess with people, it’s just that sometimes people feel messed with because what we do is relatively rare and (at least the way we do it) unexpected.

The current war, like our previous ones, is just part of the process. We see the war fee against INDY as an investment in our future. People have to understand that they can’t get away with carrying on industrial operations normally, mining dumb fat and happy in unescorted mining barges, while spinning off a few combat pilots to “punish” Ironfleet while exposing no juicy assets to conflict.

On average I was pulling one shipload of ore out of an AC-ME mining operation every other day or so. It would have been much cheaper for them to have accepted the status quo, rather than sending Chebri after me. This war is intended to help them understand that, and it should accomplish that goal even if I don’t have a single combat success.

Last night after posting about the new war I logged in and undocked. I’ll tell you now what I said in local then:

“The sky! It’s full of stars!”

The INDY folk had assembled a substantial fleet and was camped outside my station. Somewhere between six or ten pilots, plus many drones, gave me an overview that was full of angry red stars.

Needless to say, I redocked.

The banter in local was pleasant and friendly, except for one AC-ME representative who tried to tell me that the previous night’s mining operations had not been disrupted by the war.

I asked politely: “Does AC-ME always escort each Retriever mining barge with a battle cruiser and an interceptor?”

That line of bluster was not heard further.

Needless to say, I was camped in pretty solid. Jim Bridger, however, got undocked and led several of the combat pilots on a merry chase out of the system. I’m told Chebri also had an encounter with one of Ironfleet’s younger members, and chased him into Jita where he lost her amidst the general chaos. Later, he encountered two members of INDY who chased him fruitlessly through several systems.

Today, when I logged in, there was only one hostile (in a battleship!) camped outside my station. So I got out and am now flying free in Isaziwa, looking for trouble to cause. Only one hostile in system just now (a different one), and he looks to be docked.

Nice blog post over at The Art Of The Gank about Ironfleet’s salvage adventures, even if they are a little shaky on the distinction between salvage and theft:

I hesitate to call this a proper “gank” as it’s really ore can thievery that tumbled into a weird sort of gank thanks to the not-so-brilliant reactions of the miners involved. But it’s still a good read, and a great lesson – for you miners out there – on aggression flagging, timers, and generally what not to do when an ore thief shows up.

Meet Ironfleet Towing & Salvage, an EVE player corp that has taken to blogging about their particular playstyle and experiences. It’s well worth a read and a subscription (and hat tip to them on WordPress theme choice – I liked it so much I decided to play with it here!). Their playstyle seems largely limited to ore can thieving in Empire space, something I generally abhor, but hey, it takes all kinds to keep EVE an interesting place to play. And they write a good blog with a touch of humor, so they can’t be ALL bad.

Anyway, the gank in question – Cruise Missiles Incoming! Again! Enjoy!

Thanks Art, I appreciate the kind words about the theme.

Uh, oh, look what a vanity Google search turned up. This is from the Tweak’n’Co forums (closed, but visible in Google snippet and Google cache). I remember the quoted Braedin character having a big and smacky mouth in local, though I don’t recall the actual incident that turned him away from the mining life:

I’d like to get myself a Rokh.

…

im having trouble decided wether or not i should mine most of the minerals and then refine all but the good loot i get from lvl 4s and buy a one run bpc and manufacture it myself, but after my incident in the belt with the theif marlenus.
ill probably do level4s with you guys to get 200mil

Let me scan the killmails…

Aha! My memory is refreshed. This is the guy who came after my blockade runner in a mining cruiser fitted with a single HAM launcher. Turned out he didn’t have the speed to control range against me, so I kept him warp scrambled but outside the range of his hams while I chewed him up with the missile launcher that fits in the Crane’s one high slot. It was actually one of the funniest combats of my Eve career.

2007.03.18 18:03

Victim: Braedin
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Tweek ‘n’ Co
Destroyed: Osprey
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.1
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Havoc Heavy Missile

Destroyed items:

Miner I
Miner I
Expanded Cargohold I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Inhibitor I
‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I
XT-2800 Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I
Hellfire Assault Missile, Qty: 329 (Cargo)

Well, it’s war again. In theory, at least.

I suppose, before getting into details, it’s time to lay out the Ironfleet war philosophy. Y’see, we’re not combat pilots. Sure, we keep a heavy rocket wrench behind the pilot seat for when things get out of hand, but we’re not out there every day drooling for the big kaboomski.

War is expensive. War is (mildly) stressful. War is bad for business. War is (as compared to scooping up goodies) unprofitable.

It follows from this that the best way to win a war is to be boring and wait for it to go away. Park the most expensive ships, jump into the cheap-implants clone, pull out the disposable salvage frigates, move around a lot (we do this anyway), and above all, don’t provide any sport or excitement for the folks who declared war. This is a game, and it takes two to tango. Unless they have an astoundingly deep grudge or are astonishingly well paid, they’ll eventually stop paying a war bill that’s neither hurting us nor giving them any fun.

The surest way to keep a war going is to give the enemy serious combat. Either he wins, and is encouraged to continue; or he loses, and develops a grudge. There is room for harassing raids — just enough missiles from extreme range to keep him on his toes, that sort of thing — but giving serious fight tends to extend the war unless you’ve got the resources to achieve consistent crushing victories.

My EVE experience has so far been very consistent. Every now and then somebody will take offense at our salvage behavior. Sometimes, even often, they will threaten war. Most of these threats are hollow. A few are real, but there’s no way to tell which is which. So, as a matter of corporate policy, we ignore war threats and send polite refusals to “Pay us $XXX or we’ll declare war.” If Ironfleet had a battleship and a pilot for every empty war threat we’ve gotten, we could take out the entire BOB alliance in a single zergling rush.

Real war declarations tend to be unannounced. And usually come from a corporation only loosely associated, if at all, with the industrial corporation (fat with miners and haulers and mission runners) who were aggrieved by the Ironfleet Way.

Which brings us to the current war declaration:

2007.04.08 20:35
I.T.G. has declared war on Ironfleet Towing And Salvage.
After 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

No preliminary bluster, this might be serious.

And who the heck is I.T.G.? Time for an intelligence push.

Cryptic corp name, ticker is [MK1]. Nope, don’t remember blowing up any retrievers lately flying that ticker. Corp description? Hmm, possibly ominous:

Family business. Small contracts undertaken.

Mercenaries, perhaps; it even seems likely. Email inquiring about war aims is not answered; that’s not surprising, but sometimes you get lucky.

Let’s see, five members in the corporation, so it’s “A Boy And His Alts” in all likelihood, possibly with a spouse or a child thrown in (“family business”) or a real life friend or two. CEO and Founder is one Eidelon, what’s his history?

Uh, oh, this could get ugly. June 21st, 2003? Two thousand and three? How many skill points can you get in four years? He’ll have expensive ships and the skills to fit them for devastating effect, and he’s not going to fall for any of the usual sucker traps. Plus, he can be expected to have a wealth of alts, contacts, friends, bookmarks, safe spots, and exotic personal weapons stowed in uniquely intimate places.

Eidelon, Eidelon, why does that name ring a bell? Names have power, when you know a man’s self-chosen name you know who he thinks he is. Google, oh my fair Google, do your stuff!

Eidelon, Eidelon, ah, here it is:

Eidelons are a fictional humanoid species from the Farscape universe.

The Eidelons were a pacifist race who inhabited the planet Arnessk 12,000 cycles before the Farscape storyline takes place. They possess a unique ability tied to their physiology. They have a very special gland that vibrates to create an energy field that “has a calming effect on individuals, allowing them to see reason”. Using this empathic ability, the ancient Eidelons could convince a foe to follow a peaceful path to their objectives.

Pacifist? That doesn’t sound too frightening. And there are hints of carebearism to be found, too, if you look. The bio says only “Too much charisma…”, a problem I have myself and one which makes training ship skills a bit of an ordeal. But four years is time enough, regardless. Some of the employment history hints at an industrial and trade past, too: Corporate names like “Blueprint Haus”, “Carbide Industries”, and “Commodity Analytics, Ltd.”

But the the thing to remember about carebears (which, by the dominant Eve view, I am one of) is that they are still bears. And bears have teeth.

What else can we find out? Not so many forum posts has this Eidelon, but they are personally somewhat revealing. He has, like many of us, sometimes been frustrated by the game’s technical issues and the way they are handled by CCP. He has ranted insultingly, he has tried the old “let’s put pressure on these people by emailing their bosses” routine, which is a pretty serious asshole maneuver as you’ll know if anybody’s ever done it to you in your office; but he has also posted reasonably respectful (and not IMO entirely unmerited) criticism of CCP’s technical processes, while (now we are getting somewhere!) identifying himself as “In RL [Real Life], an I.T. Manager.”

OK, so he’s employed, a manager, a tech guy, a relatively mature fellow. Excellent, if there’s smacktalk it will be at least be the coldly civil variety, with multiple clauses and commas and everything, more “A cheerful and chaotic approach to configuration management may make for a relaxed working environment in Iceland, but when it results in the regular re-publishing of old bugs, then it is time to get a grip” than “U Lamerz cant writ codez you stoopid nubbz.” I can live with that.

But those are all ancient posts, what’s going on with Eidelon lately? Finally, a nugget of information from the recruitment channel, about a year ago. The bear’s teeth were starting to itch:

Tired of being good. Would be interested in a merc outfit with older players operating mostly in Empire. 30m sp and some PvP experience and happy to learn more. Huge RL commitments, so preferably a UK-based corp that’s geared for middle-aged on/off players like me!

Hmm, tends to confirm my mercenary suspicion. 30 million skill points, a year ago? I’ve accumulated half that total, in about exactly a year, but he started out with too much charisma in an era of lesser implants and fewer learning skills. By now, he’s presumably got more of both than I do, so we should expect at least 45 million skill points currently. Thrice mine, a nice round number, and a man I don’t want to dogfight with unless the tonnage is heavily stacked in my favor.

OK, he’s in the UK with “Huge RL commitments”, so I can’t expect him to be on a great deal, and (if he’s still employed as an I.T. manager on a normal day shift) his hours will be somewhat predictable, and not likely to coincide with at least my evening playtime.

Well, now we know a lot more than we knew before, don’t we kiddies? I do so love the internet.

Brass tacks time. Enough talk and research, what’s happened so far?

Before the war ever started, Eidelon prepositioned himself in a system I frequent. When the war went live yesterday, he logged in for awhile, and was visible in local. However, I never saw him near my undisclosed location, and he had nothing to say in local. All in all, it was the most peaceful “first day of war” I’ve ever enjoyed.

Today, the routine repeated itself. He logged in quietly and left me undisturbed, to carry on my Ironfleet business in my undisclosed location. But, after some while, I decided to see if he was a literary man. Do British people, I wondered, read American poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

Whether they do or not, every American schoolboy must, at least to the extent of Paul Revere’s Ride. Which seemed oddly appropriate to me, being oh-so-gently dogged by a Redcoat and all, so I misquoted into local a poor-remembered attempt at a quote:

Marlenus > “One if by land, and two if by sea. And I, on the opposite shore, will see, and send the word, to spread the alarm…”

Imagine my gratification to hear in return:

Eidelon > “A cry of defiance and not of fear…” :-)

Proving not only that Brits do study their Longfellow, but study it better than I do, because I had to Google the poem to confirm that well-chosen reply is, as I thought I remembered, from the last verse of the poem.

(Oh, aye, perhaps he Googled it as well, but if he did in the time he had, he grasped it quickly and thoroughly, understood why I chose it, read it through to the end, and chose an apt verse to quote back at me. That’s literary reparte in the 21st Century, folks, and it’s every bit as much fun as the steam-era version that relied solely on human memory and wit.)

I confess, somewhat against my better judgment, to being impressed.

And so the battle is begun, with an exchange of apt quotation demonstrating that we know who we are and what we are doing. I must say, this has been as auspicious a beginning of a war as Ironfleet has seen. Where will it end? Original sonnets at knifefight ranges? Who can say?

Shortly thereafter, Eidelon left the system and logged off. I sent him an Evemail, an entire verse:

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

May it be prophetic.

As I’ve posted in various places, Ironfleet is and will always be a small corporation. I formed it to give a leg up to a real life friend of mine, his son, and a crew of his son’s friends, who got enticed (by me) into EVE after we’d all been gaming together for years. Most of these folks have gone on to bigger and better things in Eve, finding the salvage life to be variously, too exciting (not enough mission running you see) or not exciting enough (not enough PvP). But they’ve all stayed loyal, which is handy when we get one of our rare war declarations because they can come back and help spread the lesson that Marlenus in his “helpless badger” is not the only corporate military asset.

(Ok, truth in advertising requires me to admit that “help spread the lesson” sometimes translates to “provide more targets for our enemies to camp in station while we all play Battlefield II on the dedicated in-house twitch-gaming network.” Ironfleet is not a combat corporation and we have a rigid policy against making wardecs against us profitable or fun. It’s very handy to have young members with PvP enthusiasm, but we are careful to avoid ever giving good sport. The best way to “win” a war when you’re in the salvage business is for your enemy to grow bored and go away.)

I am uninterested in expanding Ironfleet, because Ironfleet is all about accumulating stuff, and the game frankly sucks at providing convenient tools for managing corporate security. Too much hassle, I’m not interested. So, as I’ve posted before, nobody gets into Ironfleet unless I know them in real life and can “get my fingers around their neck” if they screw me.

That’s at once deadly serious (because I’m not kidding about the inflexibility of the policy) and hilariously funny. The funny part comes in because of who I am, who my friends are, and the complete and utter implausibility that there’d ever be violence between us because of a computer game.

This moment of reflection was prompted by a forum post that reminded me that other folks really are a bit more direct in their interpersonal relationships. This is sad and funny at the same time. Zwerg from October Snow writes:

uhm, i accidently smartbombed my uncle’s pod in 0.0, high-grade crystals….

well he beaten me up in rl for this

OMGzors!!! They made a whole movie about Ironfleet!

This entry is for the interest and convenience of the Ironfleet friends and allies who participated in last week’s mining operations. (You know who you are.)

Recap: Marlenus found a medium Spudomain / Crokite / Ochre belt in .4 space. During the two days it took us to mine out the belt, at least one other mining barge was observed in the belt.

Total Ores Recovered:

Spudomain (various flavors): 4003 units (64,048 cubic meters)
Crokite (various flavors): 3340 units (53,440 cubic meters)
Ochre (various flavors): 16777 units (134,216 cubic meters)

Total volume of ore recovered: 257,704 cubic meters (approximately 6.5 loads for the Tritanium Deliverer)

In the best available local refinery, I was able to achieve a 96.2% recovery rate, and paid 2.354% tax to the Caldari Navy. In addition, 1870 units of ore were left after the refine due to minimum volume requirements across nine ore types. We received:

Ore / Units / Market Value (est.) / Estimated Mineral Price

Zydrine / 16,607 / 35,289,875 ISK / 2,125
Nocxium / 22,881 / 8,511,732 ISK /372
Megacyte / 1,874 / 6,933,800 ISK / 3,700
Tritanium / 22,531 / 56,553 ISK / 2.51
Pyerite / 1,874 / 16,491 ISK /8.80

Total ISK value of recovered minerals: 50.8 million

Thanks to all who came! Your shares will be delivered forthwith.