Bumbling Through: 6 months in part 2

Part 2 of my review of my first 6 months of EVE

Being a noob BRAVE

So I was in Barleguet. Fortunately my trader was still afloat and sustaining enough income to fund some cheap frigates for my first forays into PvP. I had no idea what I was doing but apparently this was normal and importantly I wasn't alone. I started joining small roams whenever I could. Multiple times I'd jump when I was supposed to warp. I'd align to the wrong gates because my autopilot was still set to safe. I'd forget to jump and get caught. I'd get blapped by gate and station guns for aggressing too early. I was really bad but I was having fun and I was learning. One night during a roam in nullsec we ended up in a bubble after jumping a gate blind. I ended up in my pod but managed to escape and eventually regroup with 2 other guys. They braved 10+ jumps through null just to get my pod home, avoiding bubbles and teaching me about tactical bookmarks on the way. I'd offered to self destruct my pod so they could rush without waiting for me but the insisted. At the end one game me the ISK to replace the frigate I lost too. It was fantastic. The community in Brave Newbies really cemented my place in EVE. I realized I had found what I was looking for. It was where I wanted to be.

Since then I've been a part of so much content it's hard to remember it all. I've tackled and killed a carrier. I've helped take and defend POSes. I've seen a Titan up close and been thrown into the depths of nullsec via it's bridge. I've been out on a roam with a random Battleship  leading the way as a scout, just because we could. I've saved people in structure as a heroic logi bro. I've been bombed into oblivion and laughed about it. I've learned a lot. The most important lesson I've learned is to forget about ISK per hour and embrace a better metric. Fun per hour.

Gambling Trading into riches

I mentioned in part 1 that my total wealth at time of writing is ~10 billion ISK. Those keeping track up until now will realise that I probably had ~200-300 million when joining Brave Newbies, which is about right. Towards the end of November I think I had just about scraped over the 1 billion mark. At this point I invested in my 3rd character slot, activating training via a PLEX purchase. This would be my Amarr trader though it wouldn't see much use at this point. I also had a ridiculous stroke of good fortune. After a rather heavy drinking session, with the more sober of the group talking us out of going to the Casino, I got home with a gambling craving. With ~300-400 million ISK to my name, I did what any sensible drunk person would. I wen't on SOMER Blink and deposited almost all of it. I was a moron, and rarely touch Blink these days. Fortunately I was a lucky moron. I went to bed with 2 Billion ISK in my Jita traders wallet. Around the same time he finished training into his Viator (which got blown up and is detailed a few blog posts ago), allowing me to start hauling into low sec. This is when I really started raking it in. You see, lots of ships blow up in Barleguet (or nearby) thanks to the Bravery of the local pilots. Taking my opportunity I started doing what any normal EVE player would do, I set up shop and started to seed the market with the help of my trusty Viator. It also took much less effort that the way I was trading in Jita, since orders didn't need regular updating and allowed me to place more focus on my PvP activities, especially as my skills were allowing me to play more diverse roles in fleets.

Multiple accounts already

At the start of December I got the collectors edition for my birthday from my partner. This is when my trading really took off. One of the first things I did was invest my ISK into some PLEX which allowed me to transfer my first character (trader/blockade runner) over to the second account. I also started up dual account training and filled out the other 2 slots along with the now empty 3rd slot on my first account. These 3 new characters would be my dedicated Jita, Dodixie and Rens traders freeing up my previous Jita trader to do more hauling and dabble in other activities such as exploration. Being able to run both accounts was also an incredible eye opener. It really is a huge force multiplier for various reason but in this case it was allowing me to manage my market operations while PvPing simultaneously. Downtime during or between fleet ops is now filled with nerdy spreadsheeting and market work (which I actually really enjoy)!

Moving fowards

From January and until now I've been getting into a comfortable the routine of updating my market stuff, checking if any particular items need restocked then hopping on the BRAVE mumble to look for PvP content. My market operations are now in full flow, mainly via arbitrage by moving items out from Jita. Organising my market work doesn't take up too much time or can be done while running both accounts together. It is also fairly flexible and allows me to invest more time for greater returns. I'll look to expand this into different areas and improving efficiency but I'm very satisfied with my results so far. Now that my market work is fairly stable and consistent I wan't to keep my focus on PvP. I've recently trained into a few ships that I want to spend more time in, particularly bombers (the manticore is just damn sexy). I'm also training towards higher end logistics ships such as the Scimitar and Guardian since in larger fleets I tend to prefer flying logistics. Also, moving foward I'm going to try and get into some smaller scale combat. Probably some solo stuff in frigates to get a feel for things and try and arrange/get involved in small gang fights.

Overall I'm really enjoying the game. I've had a few tough losses to stomach, like my Viator and Pod from a couple of posts ago. However, things are moving forward nicely and with my ever increasing skillpoint total I'm sure there will be plenty more opportunities that open up on the horizon. I'm not much closer to controlling the entire Universe but one can continue to dream.