1)Become a respectable FC and leader in my new alliance
2)Create a profitable trading/hauling business in order to supply the alliance
Knowledge is power, I feel. Understanding a bit about everything should contribute to my ultimate objective. FC work, fleet fights, leadership, trading, all of these are skills that in one way or another can contribute to that ultimate objective. I’m just not pursuing it as directly as I had been, but I’m coming to realise that the direct route may be the fastest but not the best…
This month has been littered with quite a few blog posts, and past progress reports kind of covered content that overlapped with the month’s posts. Can’t get rid of it entirely but these reports shouldn’t be a summary of my posts, and I’ll be endeavouring to make that so.
Recently started frequenting EVE’s subreddit, and today I stumbled upon a post on trust. As soon as I saw that fabled ‘T’ word, I knew exactly what the post would be about and I was not disappointed. Someone and his experiences with New Eden with a friend being marred by deceit, and feeling like they were alone and had nothing to reach out to in the void.
A mining operation held by my old corporation. Click to enlarge.
I will not deny that I was extremely lucky in that I had a community I already knew would accept me the moment I finished character creation. I did, and it made life a thousand times easier for me than it would have been otherwise. But the flaw in asking for trust is that the people who you’re trying to get to usually never see it, or else they see it too late, after you’ve been played with and manipulated until you’ve lost your own soul and have degraded into a monster yourself.
First point of business: My first ever post on this WP blog linked back to a GuildLaunch user blog, where I started off my first few posts and decided I liked it enough to get access to a much more well-presented and professional blogging site. This does mean that I’ve forgotten what exactly I’ve written in those first posts and I have no clue what I’ve lost there, which is a huge disappointment.
Server down, looks like the old forums were taken down.
Interestingly enough though, a current event took place today that has made me remember one of the earliest things I ever did in EVE beyond what a typical newbie does: join a chat channel totally unassociated with anything they’re currently doing in EVE. I’ve been in the public channel Spoonful of Sugar for a while now, and they are a source of fun conversations with Sugar Kyle, current CPM member and low-sec representative, and the unique assortment of people her channel, like any other, brings to my doorstep.
I don’t think I’ve actually gone into the full story of how exactly I found myself in her channel before, though. I could’ve sworn I’ve recounted it previously in this very blog, but all my searches have been fruitless, so I am guessing it was back on that GL blog.
Anyway, it all started when I joined my the TSOLE DUST514/EVE corporation in Molden Heath. I fancied myself well-versed in the art of the meta-game, you see, in my first months, due to reading lots of fictional detective stories and of course, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So when I learnt about Calamitous-Intent living in the area, and the caution with which my corporation treated them, naturally as a newbie instead of deciding to also keep my distance curiosity made me poke further.
I thought I deserved a Master Spy title or something of the like when I penetrated into the inner workings of their corporation description and joined their public channel. Surely, I thought, surely this is where all the dirty secrets would spill that could allow me to compromise their corporation. A week passed by, nada. I had to dig deeper.
Imogen is almost a week into training and she’s already a far better trader than Rev. These remote buy/sell/modify skills – Procurement, Marketing and Daytrading respectively, are going to be so useful in cutting down time spent creating and modifying orders. Rather than having to head to hubs, simply entering the relevant regions with these skills at level 3 should be sufficient for me to access the stations I need to have access to.
One of the coolest things I can do with my trader that really frustrated me with Rev, though, is put up lots of orders. Here’s a snapshot of my orders right now.
My first EVE ‘birthday’ is fast approaching, and once again I am worrying about how accurately I’ve depicted my journey through the rockiest and hardest part of EVE. I mean, some time next year, the learning cliff is going to plateau out for me, and all that will remain for the rest of the game is understanding null-sec politics, and learning another area from the foundation that has been established by my initial PvP focus. Which really makes me wonder whether bittervet syndrome occurs because of this flattening of the learning cliff. After the challenge of understanding everything there is about EVE, a challenge that can span a few years, what is really left to do?
So I mention a post about unpredictability, and the fickle Gods of New Eden answer with IceIce Baby Toralen‘s generosity. She gave out something like 50 Gnosi (plural of Gnosis?) hulls, one of the most versatile hulls in New Eden. today to us show listeners and/or participants.
Thank you Ms. Toralen and all you do for the EVE Down Under show! To you readers in the United States, check out some of the recent recorded podcasts. Some days it can be worth you guys going nocturnal for!
One of the reasons PvP in EVE is so satisfying is that the preparation is so complex and finding a good fight can be so tedious that when it does occur, it is just that much more awesome.
Preparation is something I’ve been considering a lot lately, even though I haven’t been putting it into action. Our fleets have very minimal requirements to partake in, something we believe is necessary for now to encourage maximum participation. This leads to possible holes or weaknesses in our compositions that could lead to failcascades should we come across the wrong fleet at the wrong time.
I commute to university most days, and most of that transition time is spent pondering doctrines for my fleet. I’ve gotten pretty good at it, and I have a fairly extensive personal EFT in my head if I concentrate hard enough. Pondering for the days when we have access to resources to field fleets that are more than a ‘glorified kitchen sink’.
My pondering, though, does get sidetracked a little, but that’s when it gets really good.
Alright! My new trading toon that will bring me untold riches has had multiple character training activated, and is now working her way towards Cybernetics IV. I’ve modified the training plan slightly to acquire some Navigation and Engineering skills, as well as deciding to go for Amarr Industrial as opposed to Caldari for the sheer volume a Bestower can haul.
Initially, I wanted to simply maximise the amount of market orders I could have, and work across a few hubs, doing mostly station trading, doing minimal hauling.
However, I’ve changed my plans slightly. I have mentioned previously that I wanted to start up a hub somewhere in Derelik low-sec to supply my alliance more effectively. This requires large amounts of goods moving from point A to point B, and even though I thought about getting my alliance to do some hauling for me, I think I will reserve their efforts for phase 2.
In fact, the region was a bit more bountiful than my initial expectations. A roam set up by our new alliance, inviting numerous other low-sec PvP corporations in the area, ran successfully on the 18th October, EVE time. 1.5bill ISK worth of damage inflicted upon various parties that we stumbled upon (including a hauler that happened to be lugging a whopping 735m ISK worth of goodies), and no losses.
You could say it was an operation success, and we were certainly satisfied, and to be honest I could not have hoped for a better first roam. What I expected was not that much activity or success. In the long term I knew there would be roams where we searched for hours fruitlessly, and I thought that this first roam would be one of them. Apparently not, which is a relief. We needed that push, I think, to show everyone that we could actually achieve something.
Taking wing - An EVE Online Blog, with other things sprinkled on top. 