I think I saw someone doing this? Curious what everyone else thinks, because I haven’t seen anyone talking about it even if there are some people doing it.
I think the idea is to use a MWD fit Vexor Navy Issue with drone range set to 100km+ to scare the hauler off, scan it down, then kill it from 100km oribt ( moving faster than the npc tackles).
Anyone heard of this odd drone kite method? It was a surprise when I saw a VNI acting in, what I think, was this way. Sounds like a pretty safe/fast way to do it. Slower than the “drive by” t3 D method, but faster than the burn/warp/bookmark method I think.
This sounds like a waste of time and effort waiting for your drones to fly 100km.
On top of that, unless you’re able to kill the Hauler in time, it’ll just warp out since you don’t have tackle on it. This means you’ll have to scan down the hauler (and whatever defensive fleet is there), warp to them, launch drones and wait for them to slowly travel 100km again, and kill the Hauler. Finally, you’ll have to wait to pull the defensive fleet away from the wreck so that you can loot it safely.
Unless you have a video that explains exactly how it’s done, I think it’s a waste of time.
In the book-mark/warp/burn method, you warp in, target the hauler, take a few shots at it, then warp to a bookmark 150-200km away and burn away form the field. Response fleet should warp in, hauler should warp out. If you’re using a ship that can pull 1550 m/s + and is cap stable, repsonse fleet never catches you, and you use the time to scan down the hauler. After you find the hauler, you warp to it 100km away, then pop a u-turn and burn away from it. Response fleet should warp to the hauler (not to you) and start to chase you. After you’ve drawn the response fleet a few 100km away, you warp back to the hauler, kill it, loot it, and leave. This is the safest/slowest way I know to solo an NPC mining fleet.
Other way is the “drive-by” method where you pop the hauler in the ore field (in a roughly 15-20 second window) and then warp out before the response fleet can respond. It’s better because it’s really fast, but the problem with this method is that it doesn’t work on all haulers and it’s a little more dangerous. It also requires a t3 D, while the other method can be done with basically any ship that go faster than 1550 m/s cap stable.
In the VNI method, you would warp in, take a few shots at the hauler with a token gun (75m railgun or soemthing), warp out, scan it down, then orbit from 100km away. VNI can be fit to go about 1750-2,000m/s cap stable and have the 100km target/drone control range. If it works, it should work on any hauler? So it’s more versatile than the “drive-by” method, but since you don’t need to burn out then warp back to the hauler it should be faster than the other method too.
VNI fit I’ve theory crafted this around has ogres going about 2km/s and doing almost 400 dps with my skills. So, sounds doable? Just curious if anyone has experience doing anything similar.
So… I haven’t gotten wrong. This sounds like a complete waste of time waiting for your drones to travel 100km. I mean, you’re free to do what you want however in/effectively you want. So, go for it, I guess?
I’m confused by what you mean with “waste of time”. Do you know a faster way to solo an NPC Impel that I’m not aware of?
Cause there is, to my knowledge, no faster way to kill t2 npc mining haulers. I think in this method you can actually kill the whole fleet, which is arguably worth the time since they can drop faction mining gear, t2 salvage, and a couple mil worth of ore. It sounds like the fastest way to do it, but maybe you know a quicker one?
This is the fit. It gives me a Targeting range of 100km, Drone-control range of 105km, and Warden II range of 75km optimal plus 42km fall-off. I did all my level-3 missions with it, and a few level-4’s too. I should mention that most of my drone and targetting skills are at V.
[Vexor Navy Issue, *Simulated Vexor Navy Issue Fitting]
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System II
Inertial Stabilizers I
Type-D Restrained Overdrive Injector
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Sensor Booster II
Large Shield Extender II
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Drone Link Augmentor II
Drone Link Augmentor II
220mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I
220mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Hornet II x2
Vespa II x1
Hammerhead II x2
Warden II x5
Salvage Drone I x4
Hobgoblin II x3
Phased Plasma M x312
EMP M x628
Targeting Range Script x2
Scan Resolution Script x1
Nanite Repair Paste x51
Titanium Sabot M x640
Fusion M x640
Expanded Cargohold II x1
I just noticed I missed a trick with the above fit. If I replaced one of the rigs with a “Medium Drone Scope Chip II” it would increase the Optimal range of the Warden II’s to 90km, while still retaining a further 42km of fall–off. Skilling-up to “Advanced Drone Avionics V” would take it to 93km, but I think that’s the maximum possible for this hull.
So, I’ve put this in to practice over the last few days. It works.
A couple drone links and sensor boosters and you can get 100km+ while still having 300-500 dps and ~1800m/s cap stable. You can actually go even further then that if you needed to, but I’ve found that you really don’t need to.
Interestingly you can usually solo the entire fleet (including the response fleet) this way, I’ve done it several times now. It’s not really worth it, but I’ve gotten into the habit of killing the tackles before I even scan the miners back down. After the tackles are dead, you can orbit the fleet from 40-70km to make it a bit faster and easier. It’s still nice to have the range in case the NPC’s use sensor dampeners or the response fleet has cruisers (looking at you Gallente) but you can dodge the fleet at the closer range so long as they aren’t using battleships. In that case, it’s pretty hard since some of them are fit to hit you from 100km.
Killing off skiff fleets this way is, while slow, pretty profitable in salvage alone since they’re all t2 salvage. Don’t know what the isk/hour is (it’s extremely luck based, intact armor plates are worth 6,500,000 isk each while micro circuits are only worth about 5,000 isk) but some of the faction drops are worth 60-400 million isk so if you get even one of those per hour it’s worth the time. I think the drop chance is pretty low though, only gotten like 5 so far, and I think that I’ve been pretty lucky.
I tried this one time on a pirate fleet with interesting results too… Their response fleet was all t1 frigates with 150,000-250,000 isk bounties and their miners had decent bounties too. You should know that, if you kill the response fleet, the miners warp off if you decide to try that out.
Also worth noting, while the faction NPC’s ignored my drones, the pirates did target them.
How do you manage to stop the haulers and miners from warping off? Last time I did these they warped from safe spot to safe spot whenever you landed on grid. I had to have cloaky eyes to get me a warp into land on top of one so that I could get a point on it.
I’ve killed the hauler and miners in 0.1 and would say that it’s worth it…maybe it takes about 45 minutes total from the initial blap to collecting the drops (ore, strongbox, salvage) but you can make 50-500 in that time solo with a Praxis(for DPS), Probe(to scan and draw away) and a hauler with about 20K space…very low skill and low ISK needed.
It’s pretty good ISK IMO…plus if you are in LS, hunt for Clones for another easy 30M.
You’ve got this down to a pretty good money making scheme in the quitest little part of low sec you can possibly find don’t you? Cause I’d try to go so far out into low sec that I’d never see any other players if I was gonna do it that way. Pretty good idea though.
Consider swapping the hauler for a porp, can salvage and carry the ore better with a pretty good warp speed.
LS has a ton of wealth. If you can find a nice and quiet area, you can make a lot of ISK (relative to HS) with very little risk. Using a Praxis is also a great option as you can get great DPS (with drones for added safety) and is low SP friendly.
Good tip on the Porp but a hauler with salvagers is way cheaper…but to each his own…
Yeah, porp works fine for me in high sec, don’t know how comfortable I’d be using it in low. Fast align time, more hold space, twice the high slots, lot more room for drones. It’s a lot more expensive but it’s a pretty big upgrade too. Probably wouldn’t try it without some thought.
IMO for the time saved, it’s not worth it…unless you are also fleet mining or something down there and you are using it for other things too. If solo, a hauler with salvagers works great.
Played around with the idea of speed tanking a VNI (like they do in null to kill Havens) I think it might be doable? The response fleets are designed to mimic PvP, so they don’t act like normal rats and their ships use actual fits with less stable numbers. After losing a couple VNI’s trying to pin down pirate hualers, I’m not ready to waste any more isk on experiments right now, but you might be able to fit a 100m Afterburner and speed tank to be able to take on battleships and what not.
