Missions & Complexes

So...there is a set of magnetometric complexes, named Ruins. Every pirate faction has one, with different name prefix. This plex is kind of semi-static: it appears strictly in 8 hours after completing prevous one and only in one single constellation of one single region. For sansha it was Ancient Ruins, and they appeared in constellation aroung GE-8JV in catch.

This complex is widely know for it astonishing difficulty: several first pockets remind of combat complexes and the last one will surprise you with like 40 drone battleships AT ONCE. And reward is what? Mere overseer box and mindlink for all that trouble

Little who knew that this complex is actually soloable and blitzable with single cloaky tengu.

One of those was the man, who in catch was known as Lane Abrams. Well it wasn't his main character...basically this guy owned a ton of characters in several regions and held some kind of monopoly on all these Ruins. I have traced him by his forum posts here, when he was buying plexes and new characters, and apparently it is some former Reunion corporation member, but nobody really remembers him.

When we lived in catch it became like a little race for me and some of mine corpmates: this guy did those plexes by alarm clock and then logged off. Basically we knew when the ruins will spawn next time. The question was - who will be first :D
One time we caught his viator alt, when he tried to haul goods out of 0.0: link

With current prices on mindlinks one can only imagine how much profit this man had with these fairly safe (if you know what to do) complexes. If you consider maximum drop - mining mindlink, which is around 1 bil, you can make up to 3 bil a day from 1 region and up to 15 bil A DAY if you hold a monopoly, like this guy did. God only knew where did guy spent all these money.

Now the blitz.

Thing is: you dont have to kill all npc, every one acceleration gate can be activated without clearing pockets up until the last one, where overseer structure resides. This one despite being big and mighty structure actually had around 1-2k of hp, and died from 1-2 volleys. Then said 40 battleships spawn. You bookmark loot container and leave the system so complex despawns, then just warp on your bookmark and loot stuff.

Why am i telling you all this? Well it was CCPed in Retribution patch.

They have fixed it: you can no longer kill the structure in single ship, it tanks like a base in 8/10. Also they have increased the number of NPC spawns, so it is even harder to tank now.

Guess what? Not a single word in patch notes

I don't remember what guys from CCP said about the boss structure in 5/10 ARLD (and yes, i'm not really sure they did) but after one of patches this structure got a large boost of shield hps amount and "penetration" barrier was boosted too, so killing that structure takes some time now :)
Who cares? 5/10 ARLD still soloable even in a non-perfected Cynabal. Tried it the day before yesterday, got a [irony] beautiful box [/irony] :)

What, exactly?

Tanking the plex in a cynabal.

Passive T2 shield tank + Gistum C-type AB.
1 x t2 invul, large extenders, 3 x CDFP II, 1 SPR.

425mm acs + fusion (you might use rf version) + barrage.

First 2 pockets are easy if you're careful and you don't have to rewarp (always kill cruisers/BCs as fast as possible). Last one is much harder, i run it with some rewarps. First, shoot down all 3 stasis towers (barrage is recommended). Rewarp. Fly carefully, stay aligned and hit medium targets first from 25-35 km. Sentries next. Don't bother of BSes, they wont hit you at your speed.

My shield/gunnery/ship/navigation skills arent perfect (4/5 mostly).

Hope it will help you.
Cheers.

p.s. Did 2 more ARLDs yesterday. It takes about 1 hour/complex and in the second one i met a nasty pack of BSes in the last pocket: 2 cherubs, 2 nephs and saints. i don't like EM missiles but everything was fine :)

On a related note, is it just me who thinks that having static or "semistatic" complexes is cancer?

Agreed. I thought all this stuff was moved to exploration???

Any information on where the Guristas one is likely to be found?