Ecliptic Rift

Not only did I lose a salvaging ship earlier (“heh, look, the MR’s wreck… silly NPCs targeting me… um, hello pod”), I also managed to lose my other alt’s ratting AF. On undock, I saw a pirate faction cruiser and a carrier. No worries, I thought, I should have no trouble out of this one. Oops, I’m scrambled. Oops, I’m not in dock range… and for the first time in a very long time, I managed to lose my pod. Pretty sure it was lag, since I was spamming warp and all the normal stuff.

Win some, lose some. Nothing I couldn’t afford to lose, of course.

I haven’t posted a lot lately, for reasons unrelated to recent EVE drama (about which I do not intend to say more, because I’ve grown tired of the back and forth). Between illness in the family—nothing serious—and some business travel, I haven’t even played as much as I’d like. That probably reflects a healthier approach, to tell the truth, since my play sessions seem to have both shortened and grown less frequent. And when I have played, I’ve started to move away from my traditional science / industry / trading activity. I still do some of that, of course, but just as a sideline.

First, I purchased a character as a “fixer upper,” with the idea of correcting some flaws in its training and reselling. Evidently the previous owner hadn’t always taken care to update the medical clone after losing a pod, so the character has some holes in it. That should come to fruition in the 4th quarter this year. In the meantime, the character has started to repair its security status through some nullsec ratting and such.

My focus, however, has come to rest on my high sec pirate: salvaging and scavenging (looting) with an eye to eventually shooting down mission runners and miners. Other, more evil plans have started to take shape as well, but no action on them yet. I’ll have more to say about that once I get a better idea of what I actually intend to do about them…

I’ve just gotten tired of EVE feeling like a job: “I need to log in and check my orders and restart my extractors and haul to market and decide what to produce next and…” Flying around deadspace in a Vigil to find the most valuable pickings, while dodging lasers and blasters? Much more fun. And then trying to do so in a way that keeps me from losing my ship to vengeful mission runners? Way more interesting than throwing up my hands in frustration at traders who destroy everybody’s margins.

So I will keep drifting to the darker side of EVE. After all, it should feel like a game, not practice for RL, right?

Myarr!

I will admit that the idea of highsec piracy occasionally appeals to me. Hitting miners and traders to see what they’ve got? Salvaging and looting in deadspace? Shooting down overly confident agency contractors? Delicious. Sure, you have to go out and rebuild your trust with CONCORD by shooting down some NPC pirates, too, but that pays decently well on its own.

One of my associates tried it in the past, but then she disappeared for a bit on some classified assignment for the militia. I may need to find another associate to sponsor for spreading mayhem in the right places. Don’t tell the Coalition.

After weeks of discussions (sorry Milo!), I’ve joined Anshar Incorporated. Casiella will move to the background for now, focusing on planetary management and trading, etc., plus providing fodder for fiction. In her stead, I intend to focus more on combat via another character I’ve brought back, Joron Darkdust. I played a version of this character in Star Wars Galaxies for years (to the extent that friends of mine still call me “Joron”), and I really liked him for roleplay and such. I may start an alternate blog just for journaling his adventures, but I’d rather not host yet another WP blog. Either I’ll use WP 3.0′s multisite features or I’ll find another free blog host, not necessarily using WordPress since I won’t need all the stuff to support my general blogging. (Suggestions welcome!)

So now I’ve moved out to the ass-end of Amarr space and I’ve started building up the wallet. I don’t want to twink too much, so I prefer him to earn his own ISK via the usual methods in lowsec (ratting, anomalies, etc.) and perhaps a bit of salvaging in mission hubs.

I look forward to seeing the other side of things: combat and actual criminal activity of various sorts (not necessarily pure piracy). We’ve got some excellent campaign plans and I really like where we’ve started to head with the corp. I’ll talk more about those things after Milo announces them and when appropriate, rather than upstage my CEO or compromise operational security…

When I play RPGs, I always struggle with choice. So many options from which we can choose. Think about the career options in EVE, for example. You have pirates, nullsec warriors, explorers, miners, traders, researchers, builders, mission runners, militia, smugglers, diplomats, salvagers, haulers, and more. Each of those has specialties as well: fleet commanders, scouts, capital ship pilots, inventors, high-sec research starbase operators, station traders, and so forth.

In EVE, of course, those choices generally don’t mutually exclude each other. You don’t get locked into a “class” from which you’d have to respecialize and lose all your prior abilities A pilot who starts out mining can decide to start training combat skills, go pirate, and end up as the CEO of a nullsec corp that specializes in small-squadron warfare, and he could still go mine if (for some odd reason) he decided to do so. Some choices might not work simultaneously, of course, but over the course of your career trajectory, you can do anything.

I find myself at a crossroads right now. Primarily, of course, I am an EVE blogger — a freelance writer who just blathers on and on, writing about whatever strikes my fancy. But I also do a good bit of trading / exploration / hauling, sometimes with some research and manufacturing or even mission running in the mix. In the past, I have engaged in factional warfare, scouting and tackling for an anti-pirate alliance, a wee bit of piracy, salvaging, W-space living, running roleplay corporations, fiction writing, EVElopedia editing, and mining.

Lately, though, I’ve started to think I want to grow in another direction. I feel like I might have something to contribute towards PvP. It takes essentially no training time for a pilot to scout and tackle effectively, and not much more to provide effective electronic warfare support. I have a number of alts that could easily become mains, moving Casiella to a background character for fiction writing and semi-passive income via datacores, trading, and perhaps some science and industriy.

This doesn’t contract my thoughts on nonviolent play, I should note. I have a character dedicated to truly nonviolent play who will start to see more action next week, but he primarily exists for roleplay (in a solo corporation) and planetary management. Some press releases on the Intergalactic Summit, checking on my planetary production networks every four days or so, that sort of thing.

Yeah, so maybe I just can’t easily decide. I don’t know whether that’s wrong… see? I did it again!

Right now, miniprofessions in EVE get boring quickly. Sure, I love scanning down sites and taking lots of screenshots, but when it comes time to use my codebreaker or analyzer modules, basically it comes down to sitting and waiting.

Pilots can’t actively do anything to reduce that waiting time, as we have a classic geometric distribution here. With Hacking IV, a Codebreaker I module, and no rigs, you have a 25% unlock chance and thus will take an average of four tries. If you have Hacking V, a Codebreaker II module, and an infrequently-used Memetic Algorithm Bank, you have a 52% unlock chance, which takes an average of two tries (or median of one, if you want to get really precise). The same calculations apply to Archaeology and its modules and rigs.

If the only way to improve things comes down to skill training and equipment, then what the pilot does when actively out in the sites doesn’t feel as fun. Maybe CCP could do something about that, though.

Personally, I’d like to see some sort of mini-games implemented. Skills and equipment should still matter, but perhaps a small mathematical puzzle or cryptogram could speed up the process. Alternately, success could improve the quality of the loot or discoveries. Due to EVE’s international nature, some of these might prove difficult for localization into other languages, but no doubt those dedicated and professional game designers sitting on top of the world can come up with something appropriate.

How would you improve the exploration miniprofessions?

So I got a little frustrated today. Not with emoragequit at the game or the community, I should note. But I’ve had a bit of RL frustration and just wanted to clear my head without a bunch of conversation. EVE serves as my primary pastime, of course. If it doesn’t relax me, I’m doing it wrong. Feel free to psychoanalyze me all you want, but, like most citizens of the 21st century, I have a complicated life from which I want to escape once in a while.

I decided to roll an anonymous trial alt and run through the new tutorial missions. I did the exploration career agent first. While it leaves the scanning patterns a bit murky for those new pilots who might not otherwise know much about it, the wiki links should take care of that (more or less). The “implants” tutorial had a minor bug in that it didn’t actually grant the Cybernetics skillbook, but for less than 68k ISK, it doesn’t really matter. Early missions give more than that, as I didn’t even play ‘smart’ and already have over 700k.

So what will this character do? For now, exploration and salvaging. I don’t want to powergame my way through EVE, but rather enjoy it for what it offers: a fascinatingly dark and gritty SF universe. With spaceships. And duct tape.

Tanker Explosion Test by SiamEye

While finishing up a mission in Frarn in my new Typhoon, I saw a salvager show up on my overview. No worries, I don’t mind. He does his thing, I do mine, and neither of us can complain. He flew a Malediction and seemed to know his business. We didn’t talk much, but I suppose that particular relationship doesn’t require a lot of communication.

As I got close to finishing the mission, another salvager showed up in a Vexor. Except he also looted my stuff and went flashy. Figuring I could handle a cruiser with my own drones, I opened fire upon him.

Bad move. The Vexor wasn’t too much trouble by himself, but with endless Amarrian battleships trying to tear large chunks out of my armor, he eventually wore me down. I couldn’t get away and I couldn’t work through his own armor. He had a Myrmidon friend there who also looted, but I chose not to fire upon him, figuring that would not lead to good things. (Not that this worked out a lot better, heh.)

Eh, live and learn. Check for possible backup and don’t engage another pod pilot when you’re already under heavy fire from NPCs.

(I’ll update with a killmail later.)

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves, “What Now?” What will I attempt next? What haven’t I done so far in EVE? Was it out of fear, funds, or knowledge? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

Destination : Future by gilderic

I’ve had a rough idea of how I would like 2010 to go (EVE-wise) for a while, at least in some senses though not necessarily others. So let’s take a look…

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This patch needs a closer look.

I’ve taken several days off of EVE Online to enjoy some time with my family and loved ones (plus, oddly, a lot of work). However, CCP have released the Dominion patch notes so I thought I’d take a few moments to review some welcome surprises (and reminders) found within! In general, this post will address little bits of the expansion that haven’t already received lots of attention, so no talk about sovereignty and factional ships and such.

And post a comment about your favorite bits!

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