Why?

Y114.11.30

Seen lots of rage recently on the EVE-O forums about hi vs low vs null, buff vs nerf vs leave it. This has caused me to think about just what I want from the game I play, as sometimes I need reminding that it is just that – a game. A bloody good one which I probably play and think about far too much, but a game nonetheless.

Forget what I have done in the past, most of it is somewhere in this blog anyway. So what am I doing now [in order of time spent playing]?

Nullsec PVP
Love it, currently my raison d'être in EVE. Fleeting up with 20-30 like minded individuals under a bonkers Dutch FC, roaming round with a purpose / with no purpose, shooting shit, getting shot, running away, clicking on those links in fleet you know are going to hurt your eyes and sensibilities, reposting them the next day – all great fun. The start-up costs were high, the logistics can be a pain, it can be pricey losing too much stuff too regularly and my wallet has never been the same, but fuck it – it’s all good.

The biggest problem is squeezing it into RL and getting RL squared away for a couple of hours by fleet form-up o’clock. All other problems are insignificant compared to this one.

Hisec missioning
Great for zoning out with less risk / paranoia, making a bit of ISK, hanging with me corpies, buffing the corp wallet on Man-Love Sunday and you get to fly something nice. Also good for squeezing in to those times I either miss fleet departure or can’t devote a couple of hours to TS comms and ignore RL chatter. Can also reduce training times as I can fly a clone with learning implants.

Dull as dishwater solo though and salvaging / looting the missions while not in itself time consuming, leads to monthly trips to the trade hub to unload and flog it all and return trips to update market orders. This last point could be ameliorated by contracting it all to a trade alt and parking them in hub. This is what I will do, as I have no way of affording the Orca he’s nearly finished training :P EDIT – done.

Nullsec ratting / anomalies
Much better ISK generation than hisec, but the risk of / from ‘undesirables’ in system makes watching Local a must, increasing the paranoia factor and making it not so compatible with the RL factors keeping me out of null PVP in the first place. Other detractors include the risk of ship loss, meaning you won’t be using your shiny boat as it becomes an ISK piñata for those aforementioned undesirables. This makes room clearance times longer and of course, anoms are somewhat harder than hi sec missions. A good opportunity for chatting with corpies though.

PI
Is ok in hisec and I didn’t really see any massive benefit in lowsec, but once you have sampled the PI profits of null, you will never go back. Doesn’t take long, moving product can be a pain due to undesirables, but what I could do is put another blockade runner in my PI system to make things easier. Doesn’t take long to do if the way is clear, but I probably wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.

Ah…
You will notice that I have left out most of the EVE ‘professions’ – mining, manufacturing, hauling, piracy [boo hiss], hisec complexes, faction warfare, lowsec, et al, simply because I know absolutely nothing about them beyond making rigs from salvage and ammo from minerals for my own use. For a more comprehensive list, look here.

Anyway
So, back to the original point of hi vs low vs null, buff vs nerf vs leave it. It’s all about risk vs reward. I like nullsec PVP [high risk, no ISK reward], but without a decent income from high sec missions [low risk, fair ISK reward], I would be unable to enjoy it as frequently. Yes, I should maximise my PI skills to get more PI income [low risk, fair ISK reward], but I have other, more fun skills to train. Yes, I should do more null anomalies [fair risk, high reward] and be less risk averse about ISK generation. I should probably start hauling on my alt, manufacturing, trading and put up a POS too, but while I have limits to time spent playing, I just want to play.

Tl;dr
I like to blow shit up which involves getting blown up and replacing my losses. I want and need low[er] risk ISK generation abilities otherwise both my ability to play and the enjoyment of the time I do play, will slowly disappear. Yes, higher risk needs higher reward, but should lower risk income be nerfed? Not from my point of view.

Training
Large projectiles > large AC spec [and now trade skills on the alt[ar boy]].

Fly safe,

o7

All roads lead to ausfahrt

Y114.26.11

So low
Been hit by blog ennui recently, sorry. It’s over now.

Mr In-between
In between hi & null at the moment, hisec for grinding and hauling to the trade hubs to shift the loot and slowly build that PVP wallet up again. Also fitted a new null ratter BS and a cheap whore salvage boat and got them into null to start er, null ratting, something I have never experienced before. Also managed to move some JC’s into systems that I may actually use them. Still got one in the back of beyond in slave space for the anoms I have never bothered with, but I’ll leave him there. Again, the sheer logistics [and blind luck] involved in moving shit in null never ceases to amaze me.

I am obviously shiteing it about null ratting – blah blah hard spawns, blah blah reds in system, but just popping the weenies off the gates while roaming gives enough financial benefit to make it worthwhile. Probably.

The future is a past
I spoke about some offline corpies coming back online recently and another one has come out of the woodwork and already started to set up the corp indy arm again, which is great news – we lose shit – he builds shit – we buy said shit off him – we go on corp mining ops to give him shit to build shit with – business stays in corp – lovely. And more importantly, we have another great guy online and [at least] one more oldie on the way.

Faith
Intel – use it. If it is more than 1 minute old, it is worthless. [Protip, kids - enable timestamp on chat windows]. Was flying logi the other night on the other side of the universe and faced with 40-odd jumps home – I know what you’re thinking and no, I didn’t AFK autopilot. Kept with the [loose] fleet but detoured via the trade hub to update some sell orders and by the time I got to one jump from home, most others were docked up and AFK.

For some reason my voice comms rendered me inaudible to those still on TS, intel had reported some earlier reds had been cleared out and the last time stamped report, some 3 minutes ago reported inbound gate clear. I needed a bio and bed, so I cheerfully jumped in to find a bunch of reds on gate scramming something else. Shite. Spam warp to station and hope. I sure needed a bio after that.

Fortunately I had jumped in mostly aligned so got to warp and safe real quick, then a convo opens up from alliance mate who had jumped through successfully a minute before telling me the gate was red. He also told me that one red was in a Sabre and thank god they didn’t bubble. Word.

I’m dreaming and I can’t wake up
Back to PVP and a couple of great roams [including the one above I was returning from] through largely empty null at the other end of the universe and both ending up traversing low sec – DPS one night, then logi the next gave me some fun times, a couple of juicy KM’s and a cerebral workout. The first roam nearly ended in disaster [though it was paid for by then ;P] when the locals hot dropped us low sec, but just a fraction too late to catch us. Still, mad props to them for being prepared to take 30-odd sec status hits to have a go. The second ended up with us using someone else’s bubbles to camp their own hisec exit gate and kill them. Quite bizarre, really.

‘Til I die
Still not had the ‘Ceptor out in anger, but 9.5km/s overheated is not to be sniffed at. And sniff that lovely burning smell is all you do, as 2 or 3 cycles of overheat toasts everything in a frigate hull. Moar nanite paste pleez.

Logi Is the new DPS. On my 15” non-wide laptop, it is all windows and no space view, but hey, it is rather intense and makes me feel that the 2 months spent training Logi and its bitches was worth it. Gives you a real feel for who is doing what on the battlefield, too. Looking forward to the rebalances on Dec 4th and really looking forward to all the patches to fix the broken stuff CCP ‘haven’t touched’ on Dec 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. Note to Santa – new i7 17” widescreen laptop please.

Training
Large projectiles V for all the PVE I’m doing lately, 5 days.

Fly safe

o7

To absent friends

Y114.11.11

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walked'st on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe'er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Fly safe, wherever you may be.

o7

Wheels of steel

Y114.11.07

Freeway mad
In opposition to a previous post about never grinding missions again, I have been grinding missions again, hence the lack of rubbish to write. Some fun times though – corp have restarted ’Man-love Sundays’ at a 100% tax rate to fleet up, mission and buff the corp wallet to pay for all the shite we lose as wannabe 133t PVPers. Made a nice contribution then a couple of us lost shinys to Worlds Collide – scram > web > full room aggro > pop > target CEO > repeat. Real men cover their own losses.

Suzie hold on
Really nice to see a corpie back who has been AWOL for far too long. Not only is it great to have her back, but she is a real life girl. Way. She is also a mission whore who can buff the wallet while we empty it :P With any luck she will drag another ex CEO and their mate back in and we’ll be laughing all the way to the Crystal Boulevard of Caille.

Stand up and be counted
Well, I did last night and after a mad hi sec rush to get to the WH which turned out to be a mahousive trap [I never got there], we reshipped to Bombers, I got no kills and even better than that, got smartied [along with everyone else] by the resident alliance [and ex-corp] tranny. Hoho – more shopping to do in between grinding. Pod saved again though o/ Proper glad I buffed those trade skills for selling mission loot and I also need to cash in some more LP for faction crystals and flog them, though I’ll never get that Navy Apoc at this rate – see kids, PVP just takes over. Didn't I have some PI somewhere?

Training
Just unlocked Interceptors, so I shall be losing some small shite over the next few weeks when normal PVP service is resumed. I’ll buff ‘Ceptors & Small Rail Spec to IV, then it’s T2 large AC’s to get some me time in the queue.

Fly safe.

o7

Dead men tell no tales

Y114.11.06

All the aces
I foolishly offered to undertake some shite jobs that other corpies are too clever to accept. Following the success of Operation Sort the Corp BM’s [no bad feedback as yet - give it time], Operation Sort the Main Hangar is next and requires a couple of evenings in hi sec doing nothing but. Operation Collect the Sov Fees now has its own carefully crafted spreadsheet that both works and doesn’t give ######## anymore as the columns are wide enough for the figures. Only took an hour to work it out.

Talking head
Corp has been having another recruitment drive and we have a couple more new folk on board which is always good. Chatted to a recruit from the last batch and he’s getting on fine – just needs dragging kicking and screaming into PVP, as did I. Fuck it, it’s only toy money / real money / pixels / time / arguments with the missus / numbers on a screen – DO IT, son. Ooh, listen to me the PVP pro. Joke, kids – I am not in anyway pro at anything.

Lawman
For some reason known only to themselves, the main corp director & the CEO have promoted me to a director role in the corp, presumably due to all the perceived work I am putting in. I reckon it was just to pacify me after training exclusively for bloody Logistics for 2 months, but hey. Bloody hell, what a lot of buttons that opens up in the Corporation tab. Best not click any of them then and no more quickly doing anything in that window while doing anything else.

Sweet revenge
And on the subject of Logi, here is an interesting post from ol’ Jester regarding Logi V. Least it’s in the can now and can’t wait for decent T1 logi to lose.

Bomber
Went out in my first bomber fleet last night – wow, what a rush. Frig V, Covops I, Meta torp launchers and T1 bomb launcher – train it now. Don’t embarrass yourself beforehand by asking the wrong alliance FC for a fit for his fleet though. Still, he kindly gave me one [o/]. I failed my trial bombing run on the actual FC, but at least I had remembered to offline the launcher so I don’t owe him a ship. Off we went with plan in hand - skulking, sneaking, cloaking, warping @ 30 to set up for runs. I managed one successful run [out of 2] but I was little late launching so only got a pod – still one bomb one kill works for me. Fired the torps in anger for the first time and whored final blow too. Good result from the evening as the only other time I have taken the bomber out was to sit cloaked off a gate and watch the ATX final. Still, I had more luck than my corp compadre who passed his trial run but who’s bomb was involved in a blue on blue [or is that purple on purple?] with the FC’s pod :P And I’m still not sure what the plan was. Want more of it though.

Training
Er, dunno. Life is meaningless without Logistics to train. Little T2’s for some small shit probably.

Fly safe.

o7