Logistics in Amarr
9th June 2012 – 3.27 pmI'm back, what's changed? Nothing in the home system. I know, I've scanned. Our neighbouring class 3 w-space system has the single Sleeper wreck decayed to the void, now leaving nothing of interest to be seen. At least the dying wormhole I resolved earlier is also gone, giving me a new static exit to high-sec empire space to find, and hopefully some opportunity to go with it. I launch probes and scan, sadly seeing no additional signatures new to the system that could take me to active w-space systems, and resolving the stable connection to high-sec. Exiting w-space puts me in Rand in the Tash-Murkon region, which is pretty convenient. I think I'll buy a skill book, and maybe a ship.
I make the short trip to an academy system to buy the skill book I need to rig my new ship, and then decide not to get the ship after all. Not yet, anyway. I am struggling to work out how to fit a Loki strategic cruiser for covert scanning and ambushing, not really understanding technology beyond anything Caldari, nor guns in general. I have tinkered with some ideas and have a fit worked out, but I can't say if its defences are adequate or damage reasonable, and it's a lot of iskies to spend to find out the hard way by losing it. I could compare and contrast the figures to my Tengu, the current strategic cruiser I pilot when scanning, but that brings up the other question of why I need a ship to directly replace one that already does what I want.
Maybe I just want the sense of progress that comes from buying and flying a new hull, but I'm finding it difficult to convince myself right now. That's a shame, as it means the past couple of months of training, in the Loki subsystems and projectile weapons, as well as general gunnery skills, is still not going to be put to use. But I don't think it's worth buying a five hundred million ISK ship just because I trained for it either. Okay, so no Loki for me today, but I must be able to make good use of this connection to high-sec, through an unoccupied and otherwise unconnected w-space system. I'll be getting more fuel pellets for the tower.
Before I do that I scan the high-sec system, in case there are some soft targets that could take a bit of poking, but there are no signatures to find. So I take myself home, board an Orca industrial command ship, and, after my last trip to high-sec, remember that as well as bring goods in I can take loot out. And we have a lot of loot. Certainly a large volume of loot, which is mostly in the ore I recovered from some null-sec hauler rats. Luckily, the Orca is equipped to carry plenty, although it's still a tight fit. The tritanium alone fills the corporate hangars to the brim, and I have to stuff the harvested gas and mined arkonor in the specialist bay.
The Sleeper loot, ratting loot, and piratical gains all get squeezed in to the basic cargo hold. Pretty much every item that we have no direct use for gets thrown in to the Orca to be sold. And, just because this Orca isn't expensive enough already, I shove a Crane transport in to the ship hangar, in case I need to zip around high-sec whilst I'm out there. At least, that was the plan, but by the time I've boarded the Crane and removed the spare modules from the cargo hold, so that it can be stowed in the Orca, I've forgotten my intent and manage to leave the Crane in the tower's hangar. This is why I write myself notes.
I warp to our static wormhole and pulse the reheat as I jump to C3a. If all stays quiet I may as well prepare myself now for collapsing the wormhole, as long as I keep track of what I'm doing. The class 3 system remains quiet, and I get to high-sec and make the few hops to Amarr without trouble, and the 130 AU warp across Marthia gives me time to get a drink. Docked in Amarr, I start selling our loot, thankfully finding buyers of Sleeper technology in the station and so not feeling the embarrassing absence of the Crane. I'm happy to see that the 21st Overseer's personal effects get sold for almost eighty million ISK, which is a decent result from clearing the penal colony. The rest of the loot sells as expected, fluffing up the corporate wallet by over a billion ISK.
Buying fuel to completely fill the Orca spends less than a third of the ISK I just converted, giving us a pretty good positive gain for the past month or so. Getting back home is straightforward and quiet, even remembering to pulse the reheat to stress the wormhole on my return, and I dump the pellets in our hangar. The tower is already full, with some overflow in storage, and we now have over two months' worth of fuel to keep us going. Thanks to a couple of convenient connections to high-sec I would say we're good for fuel for the time being. And the corporate wallet is looking healthier than it has for quite a while. Hmm, that's rather foreboding.
I'm ready for an early night. Not much has happened today, but running logistics feels surprisingly rewarding. I won't do it too often, though, as I don't want to ruin this feeling. But I remember we talked about getting a new hangar for the tower, just to keep our ships tidier, and with a healthy connection and being close to a market hub it's probably a good time to get one. It's not worth taking the sluggish Orca just for this, so I board my more agile Crane and head back to Amarr, after checking to make sure the hangar will fit in the limited space of the transport.
Well, this is embarrassing. The hangar doesn't fit after all. I got confused and tied myself in knots. I always associate putting ships in hangars, but they actually go in ship maintenance arrays, or SMAs, and the corporate hangar array, or CHA, is used for general storage of modules, ore, loot, etc. I initially looked at the information for the CHA, because of the hangar association, and saw that one would fit in a Crane quite easily. I managed to realise my mistake and correct my assumption before leaving w-space, but forgot to check the assumption that a CHA and SMA take up the same volume. And they don't. The SMA is twice as big as a CHA, and it most definitely won't fit in my Crane, not even with cargo hold expanders. Damn.
I was happy to make one last nippy trip to Amarr to get a hangar—ship maintenance array, whatever—and the Crane made that easy. But having to make the trip back empty-handed and then do it again in a slower ship, when I was getting ready to go off-line, is defeating my spirit. I don't want my mistake to cost us iskies, though, and there's no knowing when next we'll get an exit close to Amarr. Thankfully, my glorious leader comes to my rescue. She comes on-line just as I am talking myself in to making another trip. I give her a sitrep and she says that she's happy to go and collect it herself, as she could use a skill book or two and will head out to high-sec anyway. Phew, thanks Fin! I can rest comfortably now.
2 Responses to “Logistics in Amarr”
You were exit cruising in my neighbourhood as you cruised by back and forth to the rabbit hole and you didn't even wave… :( Hey we sell CHA and SMA in Tash-Murkon region too, better quality than those sold over in Amarr, we gladly take bloodstained wormhole dollars too lol!
Local with more than one person in it confuses and disorientates me, so I try not to pay it too much attention. Sorry, AD.