Mobile structures
Mobile Structures (first introduced in the Rubicon expansion) are deployable structures which act as a kind of "Personal POS" and allow for greater flexibility for players in space. These structures come in a variety of roles, affecting survivability, utility, espionage, bounties and defence. Compared to POSs, they are much cheaper, and can be easily deployed (and, in some cases, retrieved) from a single ship. The following kinds of mobile structures are currently in the game:
- Mobile Depot
- Mobile Tractor Unit
- Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor and
- Mobile Syphon Unit
- Mobile Scan Inhibitor
- Mobile Micro Jump Unit
- Encounter Surveillance System
Mobile Depots
Mobile Depots act as an in-space fitting service and storage facility. Once deployed, you can refit your ship at the depot (change modules, move drones to drone bay, etc), as well as move items between your ship's cargohold and the depot. They take up only 50 m3 of space (so will easily fit even in a frigate), but can hold 3000-4000 m3 of items once deployed. Deploying them takes 60 seconds, and once in space they will last for 30 days (after which they vanish - keep an eye on them!), although they can be scooped back to your ship's cargohold at any point.
Other players can scan down your Mobile Depot with combat probes, and then attack it (receiving only a suspect flag - CONCORD will not intervene) if they wish. The Depot is not particularly tough (17,500 HP), but if it's damaged to 25% of its shield hitpoints (HP), it will go into a "reinforced mode" for two days (during which time it cannot be damaged further), giving you enough time to either defend the depot or scoop it to your cargohold and escape. If, after the two-day reinforcement timer is up, the Depot has not been repaired, it can be destroyed and its contents looted.
Mobile Depots are often deployed at safe spots (don't forget to bookmark their location!), allowing you to swap fittings and store any excess items. This can be useful while ratting (as you can store excess loot in the Depot, and swap fittings depending on which NPCs you are fighting), or when travelling through Lowsec/Nullsec/Wormholes (you fly through the dangerous areas in a travel fit, and then refit your ship for combat at the Mobile Depot when you arrive at your destination). Another useful trick when flying in dangerous areas of space is to keep a Mobile Depot and some warp core stabilizers in your cargohold. If you're attacked and don't think you can win the fight, deploy the mobile depot (keep in mind that it takes 60 seconds to activate), refit your ship with warp core stabilizers, and make your escape.
Variations
There are three variants of the Mobile Depot: the standard Mobile Depot (built by players using NPC-sold BPOs), and two "improved" variants (the BPCs for which are found in Ghost Sites), the 'Yurt' Mobile Depot and the 'Wetu' Mobile depot. The 'Wetu' Mobile Depot takes up a bit more space in your ship's cargohold (100 m3 vs 50 m3), but has more cargo capacity (4000 m3 vs 3000 m3), and has a higher sensor strength, making it more difficult for other players to scan down the location of your Depot. The 'Yurt' takes this last attribute to its extreme, with a very high sensor strength making is very difficult for all but the most skilled players to scan down.
The basic Mobile Depot is reasonably cheap (around 1 million ISK), but the more advanced versions are one or two orders of magnitude more expensive.
| Name | Volume (m3) | Capacity (m3) | Sensor strength (points) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile Depot | 50 | 3000 | 50 |
| 'Wetu' Mobile Depot | 100 | 4000 | 250 |
| 'Yurt' Mobile Depot | 50 | 4000 | 400 |
Mobile Tractor Unit
These do exactly what they say, put it down and it will start to tractor in any tractorable items within a 125km radius at 1000 m/sec into its massive 27,000 m³ hold but can only target things one at a time. These units only take 10 seconds to deploy and will last 2 days. These units are more specialized and rare due to the increased cost and skills required but are still a worthwhile investment if you don't have access to a Noctis.
For some applications, if used right an MTU can be a godsend for time saving. Put one (maybe 2 or 3) down at the start of combat and keep the wrecks within 125km and you wont need to worry about slowboating towards each individual wreck as they will likely all be now clustered around the unit, just park up and let your salvager get to work. Other possible applications are within mining gangs who don't have access to say an Orca, put these down and jettison the ore for it to pick up and come back in a transport ship later on to pick up the goods.
These have seen some heavy use in missions, for those that had not historically spent much time looting and salvaging they provide an easy way to get most of the loot out of a mission with little to no effort. Coupling a MTU with one or two salvage drones can pick a mission clean roughly as fast as some missions are run. While the MTU doesn't do salvaging itself, by pulling the wrecks into a central location it can effectively improve the time efficiency of salvager drones by reducing their travel time. Further, if your fit and mission do not require kiting or maneuverability at all, you can orbit the MTU and use a salvager in a utility slot to work through your wrecks as you run the mission.
Some systems have seen an increase in organized griefing centered on MTUs. Similar to Ninja_Salvaging_and_Stealing a group will take up residence in a high activity missioning area and scan down the MTUs. They will then aggress the MTU attempting to bait the missioner into engaging them. As with Ninja Looters your options are limited. Engaging the griefer will set your engagement timer and their friends can warp in an finish you off. Not engaging the griefer will cost you not just your loot but the roughly 10M that the MTU cost. Orbiting the MTU at close range mitigates this heavily. As soon as you see them warp into your pocket you can empty the contents of the MTU into your hold and scoop the unit. They will be left with a mission pocket that you have already looted and are likely to move on.
It should be noted, MTUs do not loot wrecks that are not yours. There are some griefers that prey on this misunderstanding. After having landed in your mission pocket they may drop an MTU of their own hoping you will engage it, presumably because you think that it will collect your loot for them. It is best to ignore these rogue MTUs as they won't affect you and even if the griefer warps out leaving it behind they can monitor you in local to see if you've become a criminal and then warp right back in with friends.
Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor
The Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor is almost invaluable within 0.0, creating easy to set up inhibitors that can severely limit the enemy's ability to hot-drop on top of your units or gates. It prevents all normal cyno fields (but not covert cynos) from activating within 100km of the inhibitor. It takes two minutes to set up, has a 300 m³ volume and will stay in space for 1 hour. However unlike the other mobile structures this one cannot be reclaimed and will stay in space for that one hour or until someone blasts it apart. It is inherently designed for small or medium gangs as it cannot stay active for long under heavy fire due to a lack of HP that comes from the structure itself. One other limitation is it cannot be deployed in any location that would cause 2 fields to overlap as well as being expensive to produce (150m for the BPO alone).
Even with all those limitations it will still become a common sight in 0.0 due to the massive benefits that come from being able to control owned space and combat zones so effectively.
Mobile Siphon Unit
These units represent a new option to those with more clandestine missions as they will syphon off a portion of the moon minerals or reaction results that go towards the stations silos. Designed to be secretly deployed near to a POS and will not alert the owner to the theft of materials nor will the stations guns automatically shoot at it, meaning that people who own POS's need to keep a watchful eye out for any of these things floating around. Like the Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor this is a one use item but with an added twist, any pilot may access the hold so even the thieves wont be immune to theft. It only weighs 35 m³, takes 5 seconds to deploy and will last 30 days with a cargo hold of 900 m³ but needs to be within 30km of the target, so CovOps ships can truly take advantage of these automated thieves.
Other points to note:
- No criminal or suspect flags will be placed upon attacking the syphon.
- Will prioritise raw materiel over refined (cannot take alchemy output).
- Can only steal from one silo at a time and only the one at the end of a chain.
- Will take 60 raw or 30 processed at a time.
- Players cannot put items into it.
- Multiple syphon units can be placed around the POS and will steal in order deployed.
- Have a waste factor of 10%
- Will only steal during a production cycle (once per hour)
- Max range of 50km
- Can be manually targeted by station guns
Mobile Scan Inhibitor
This structure provides a way to hide ships in a 30 km radius from probe and directional scanning. Ships within this radius will also find their own instruments rendered inoperable. Mobile scan inhibitor itself is not invisible, but highly visible to combat probes and directional scans. Therefore usage of this structure does not completely hide somebody's presence. It will be very visible to others that somebody is hiding something - it is only unknown what is hidden. Even more importantly: while the ship is hiding inside the structure's radius its sensor systems are inoperable. Therefore its use is far more convenient for fleets operations than for lone travelers. Activation time is 1 minute and it cannot be retrieved - it is only a one-time use disposable structure. The structure self destructs after one hour of operation.
Mobile Micro Jump Unit
This structure launches a ship 100km in its current direction, similar to the Large Micro Jump Drive module. It has no cooldown between uses or limit to how many ships can use it at once, but it does have a warm up time of 12 seconds before initiating the jump. It can be used by any ship smaller than a carrier and can be used both by friendlies and enemies. It has a 1 minute activation time, a life time of 2 days and cannot be retrieved - it is only a one-time use disposable structure.
Encounter Surveillance System
This structure affects NPC bounty payouts in system it is deployed in. It cannot be built but only purchased at the empire navy stations (there are four variations, one for race). It can only be deployed in null sec and has a limitation of one structure per system. This systems pays out 80 % of the bounties directly while 20 % are stored in a system-wide pool. In addition, for every 1000 bounty ISK, 0,15 LP of the appropriate faction are awarded. The payout rises over time (the chance is based on activity) and can be encreased 5 times by 1% for ISK payouts and by 0,01 LP/1000 ISK for loyalty points. This gives a maximum of 105 % on bounties and 0,2 LP/1000 ISK. Destroying, scooping or accessing the structure resets the payout value. This structure therefore opens many possibilities for PvE bounty hunting as well as for PvP engagements since bounties can be stolen and payout bonuses can be reset. To make things even more interesting, the range to interact with the structure is 2500 m and the structure also has a 15 km radius warp bubble. If a player interacts with the structure he can make one of two choices: Share or Take all. Each choice causes a notification to be sent out informing all that contributed to the pool on who accessed the structure and what option was chosen. Share has a timer of 30 seconds and leads to the ISK in the pool being shared amongst those that contributed to the pool, each player receiving ISK equal to what he added to the pool. Take all leads to tags dropping in a can and has a 210 second timer. If the player stealing from the can is destroyed some of these tags can be retrieved and turned in at navy stations of the same race for ISK.
General limitations
All Mobile Structures have a minimum distance they have to be away from certain structures in order to be deployed (see below) and all of them are capable of being destroyed by anyone and the attacker will only get a suspect flag for it so a watchful eye needs to be on your goods as often as you can. Some of them can be relatively easy to scan down due to low sensor strength which makes them rather vulnerable, however the named versions of the Mobile Depot are very resilient to probing, the Yurt in particular boasting a hefty 400 sensor strength against all sensors which makes it very hard to pin down for all but the highest skilled probers
Skills, stats and materials required
Mobile Depot
Skills:
BPO Skills: Industry LvL 1
General Skills: None required
Stats:
Volume: 50 m³
Mass: 10,000.00 kg
Deployment:
Distance from deploying ship: 250m
Min distance from other Mobile Depot: 6,000m
Min distance from Stargate or Station: 50km
Min Distance from Control Tower: 40km
Activation delay: 1 minute
Maximum Lifetime: 30 days
Structure Retrieval: 2,500m
Capacity: 3,000 m³ (Wetu/Yurt: 4,000 3)
Access range: 2,500m
Allows direct placement of cargo: Yes
Cargo accessible by all: No
Max fitting range: 3,000m
Reinforcement period: 2 Days
Tech Level: Level 1
Meta Level: Level 1
Shield Capacity: 5,000 HP
Recharge Time: 2100.00s
Armor HP: 5,000 HP
Structure HP: 7,500 HP
Sig Radius: 500m
Sensor Strength:
RADAR: 50 (Wetu: 250. Yurt: 400)
LADAR: 50 (Wetu: 250. Yurt: 400)
Magnetometric: 50 (Wetu: 250. Yurt: 400)
Gravimetric: 50 (Wetu: 250. Yurt: 400)
Materials Required
Pyerite: 270
Tritanium: 6750
Zydrine: 270
Guidance Systems: 3
High-Tech Transmitters: 1
Nuclear Reactors: 1
Smartfab Units: 3
Mobile Tractor Unit
Skills:
BPO Skills:
Industry: LvL 1
Science: LvL 5
Laser Physics: LvL 1
High Energy Physics: LvL 1
Power Grid Management: LvL 5
General Skills: None Required
Stats:
Volume: 100 m³
Mass: 10,000.00 kg
Deployment:
Distance from deploying ship: 250m
Min distance from other Mobile Depot: 6,000m
Min distance from Stargate or Station: 50km
Min Distance from Control Tower: 40km
Activation delay: 10 seconds
Maximum Lifetime: 2 days
Structure Retrieval: 2,500m
Max collection range: 2,500m
Cycle time: 5 seconds
Max tractor range: 125km
Cycle time: 5 seconds
Max Tractor velocity: 1000 m/sec
Capacity: 27,000 m³
Access range: 2,500m
Allows direct placement of cargo: No
Cargo accessible by all: No
Max locked targets: 1
Tech Level: Level 1
Meta Level: Level 1
Shield Capacity: 10,000 HP
Recharge Time: 3200.00s
Armor HP: 10,000 HP
Structure HP: 30,000 HP
Sig Radius: 500m
Max targeting range: 125.00km
Optimal Range: 125.00km
Sensor Strength:
RADAR: 50
LADAR: 50
Magnetometric: 50
Gravimetric: 50
Materials Required
Zydrine: 575
Organic Mortar Applicators: 2
Small Tractor Beam I: 1
Ukomi Superconductors: 2
Wetware Mainframe: 1
Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor
Skills:
BPO Skills:
Industry: LvL 1
Science: LvL 5
Electromagnetic Physics: LvL 4
Graviton Physics: LvL 4
Power Grid Management: LvL 5
General Skills: Anchoring LvL 3
Stats:
Volume: 300 m³
Mass: 10,000.00 kg
Deployment:
Distance from deploying ship: 250m
Min distance from other Mobile Cyno Inhibitor: 200km
Min distance from Stargate or Station: 75km
Min Distance from Control Tower: 40km
Activation delay: 2 Minutes
Maximum Lifetime: 1 Hour
Disruption Range: 100km
Tech Level: Level 1
Meta Level: Level 1
Shield Capacity: 10,000 HP
Recharge Time: 2400.00s
Armor HP: 10,000 HP
Structure HP: 150,000 HP
Sig Radius: 400m
Sensor Strength:
RADAR: 20
LADAR: 20
Magnetometric: 20
Gravimetric: 20
Materials Required
Isogen: 6750
Megacyte: 675
Pyerite: 13500
Tritanium: 337500
Zydrine: 6750
Broadcast Node: 4
Guidance Systems: 20
Organic Mortar Applicators: 8
Self-Harmonizing Power Core: 2
Sterile Conduits: 4
Wetware Mainframe: 2
Mobile Syphon Unit
Skills:
BPO Skills:
Industry: LvL 1
Science: LvL 5
Electronic Engineering: LvL 4
Graviton Physics: LvL 4
Power Grid Management: LvL 5
General Skills:
Anchoring: LvL 2
Stats:
Volume: 35 m³
Mass: 10,000.00 kg
Deployment:
Distance from deploying ship: 250m
Min distance from other Mobile Syphon Unit: 10km
Min distance from Stargate or Station: 10km
Min Distance from Control Tower: 30km
Max Distance from Control Tower: 50km
Activation delay: 5 seconds
Maximum Lifetime: 30 days
Capacity: 900 m³
Access range: 2,500m
Allows direct placement of cargo: No
Cargo accessible by all: Yes
Max locked targets: 1
Tech Level: Level 1
Meta Level: Level 1
Shield Capacity: 10,000 HP
Recharge Time: 2400.00s
Armor HP: 10,000 HP
Structure HP: 60,000 HP
Signature Radius: 600m
Restricted To Secrity Level Less Than: 0.4
Processed Material Syphon Amount: 30
Raw Material Syphon Amount: 60
Sensor Strength:
RADAR: 75
LADAR: 75
Magnetometric: 75
Gravimetric: 75
Materials Required
Isogen: 8033
Megacyte: 232
Mexallon: 25462
Nocxium: 2331
Pyerite: 41950
Tritanium: 290158
Zydrine: 765
Data Chips: 12
Guidance Systems: 100
Miniature Electronics: 100
External links
- Better living through mobile structures, an Eve Dev Blog introducing the first set of mobile structures
