Still Alive, Still Rambling

It has been a busy few months for me and hard to believe that my last post was back in April. Mid April real life took over pretty hard and didn't leave much time or willpower to maintain the blog. I also sidelined EVE for a while to try out WildStar. This resulted in a shortage of EVE shenanigans to write about and talking about my skill queue choices and passive market PvP didn't seem too interesting. However, with the 1 year mark passing on my first character I thought it would be good to take a (brief) look at where I started, how things are going and how I feel about the game in general.

It's funny to think back to a year ago and just how much I've learned. I started playing EVE because I just wanted to try something different. I remember getting to grips with the UI and blindly meandering from place to place figuring out what to do. Wide eyed with ambition I was going to take over the universe... or die trying. Oh boy did I die. First in the tutorial missions, because I couldn't be bothered to read the wall of text. Blah blah, use the unfit frigate to go blah blah suicide mission blah blah. Then in a wormhole, because I didn't know what sleepers were but wormholes were mysterious and intriguing. Then to mission rats because a tech I fit Raven with no drones is made of paper and can't get away from frigates. But I was doing okay, from each failure I learned and slowly but surely I was building up some ISK. Then I joined BNI and died a whole bunch more. Fortunately Atrons are cheap and my wallet didn't evaporate too quickly. Eventually I found my feet.

Fast forward to the present. I now run 4 accounts maxed out at 12 characters. jEVEassets tells me I'm worth ~50B in total, the majority of which is invested in the market. I'm space comfortable and able to fund just about anything I want to do in the game. More importantly, I'm still learning and still having fun. Currently I'm doing a bit of everything and able to sink a bit more time into the game again. For PvP I'm either flying with BNI (never not bomb blues) or out hunting solo on my faction warfare alt (I finally got some legit solo kills, woo!). I've also build up a mini high sec trade "empire" across 4 characters which also double up as my personal logistics network along with my JF pilot which gets plenty of mileage. Finally I'm testing the waters with industry which has proven quite profitable so far and a nice side project when other things are quiet or just for a change of pace. Life is good.

Moving on I have a few things planned. I still need to play around a bit more with DED sites. I'm at the point where I could train into a Tengu so some extended trips in null sec could be fun. I quite like exploration so adding combat ability on top should be interesting. My trading continues to expand and I'm comfortably able to make ~5-8B ISK per month with a fairly passive trading strategy. At most I spend ~30 minutes per day updating orders and managing my item stocks. Usually this gets spread out between downtime in other activities such as quiet periods during a fleet or during form up. I find the markets in EVE fascinating and I'm learning more about them every day as I research additional investment opportunities. Other than that, now that my JF pilot has perfect skills, I'm training him into a Blops. I foresee some solo hot drops in my future!

Overall I have plenty on my plate to keep me busy and interested. One of the most interesting developments has been Brave Collective's progress from low sec chaos to a much more organised null sec sov group as part of the HERO coalition. So far I've enjoyed it and it has been a great natural progression for me. It has also fascinating to watch how much the metagame can change an alliances approach to EVE, for better and for worse. Either way, living in null has been a great learning experience for me and really helped round out many of my EVE activities. Just one more step towards universal domination.

Space Truckin'

I had a rather interesting adventure last night in my efforts to assist the final evacuation of Barleguet assets. A lot of folk left stuff behind thinking we would return and the logistics guys are now working overtime to shift all the contracts. I think I cleared ~20 contracts last night and more keep coming in. I actually quite enjoy stretching the legs of my Anshar. My plan is to keep going up until this weekend and then evaluate how big the backlog is. Most of my jumps went fairly routinely and I got a bit of a rhythm going. Occasionally my cyno characters would get popped but my JF was never in danger. Though, I did end up on a mini adventure.

My derpitude started on Monday when I was positioning my cyno alts. I had forgotten that my Anshar was still in Sendaya after moving all my usual alpha cynos away from there. Derp. So I quickly podded Bizar Raizen over and into position. "Skill point penalty". Oh shiiii.... My skill queue had JUST passed my current clone. So off goes Evasive Maneuvering 5 on a short holiday. Good thing I'm not flying interceptors too much right now. I was facepalming pretty hard at that point but there was work to be done so I soldiered on, got my Anshar back into Highsec and started making my way over to Stacmon. However, I also remembered that burn Jita could fire up at any time. So I logged on another character in high sec, got him in a Rifter and went over to web my Freighter for faster warps. I had never done this before. I thought that it would be possible to web someone whilst in their fleet without concord response. Unfortunately I was wrong... Another lesson learned.

Roll on Tuesday. With everything in position I started the ball rolling and blitzed through 10-15 contracts in just over an hour. Along the way I had a few... interesting encounters with my cyno characters. When I light a cyno I cycle it off, set station as destination and then turn autopilot on. This means that if the character survives the 10 minute cycle then it will dock on its own and I can focus on other stuff. If it dies and gets podded then I just end up inside the station in a new noobship. However, when minimised I still get sounds from that client (yes EVE has sound!). So should someone target me, for example, I hear the locking sound. I usually just ignore it and focus on my JF pilot making sure it is safe. Though sometimes I come back to the cyno to find them alive... and next to an enemy wreck. Yesterday I was able to add a Cruicifer to my tally of AFK kills with cyno characters. The other being a Nemesis which didn't even get through my shields. They were evein kind enough to leave 3 Hobgoblin IIs behind which I scooped up, adding insult to injury. Station guns are a cyno's best friend.

After my 15th or 16th contract I noticed someone looking for help moving stuff from a more obscure location in null sec within jump range of Barleguet. So I got in a chat with them and agreed to pick up the contract if they could get me a cyno out there. Once at the location, I go into the contracts menu to grab their contract. After accepting I look in my assets menu a little confused. I didn't have anything at the station I was docked in. I did however have stuff at an old null sec station Brave were working out of in Y-W6. Turns out I had accepted the wrong contract. Blargh. You see, I didn't really want to go out to Y-W6. I flirted with it on the Monday night since there were a few contracts there. I got a cyno alt in position, had modules donated by a nice Brave member who happened to have a cyno ship out there and then proceeded to light the cyno. Unfortunately, I had miscalculated the jump distance and was unable to actually make the jump from Stacmon (I forgot I only had JDC3 and needed JDC4). Before I could jump to Barleguet, which would have put me in range, the cyno ship got popped by some locals who didn't appreciate me lighting cynos on their doorstep. So I was a little hesitant to go back there for any more contracts.

However, now I was in a bit of a pickle. I was reluctant to toss the 200M collateral and the contract customer was not online. My only realistic choice was to get it done. I quickly grabbed the correct contract for my current location, delivered it and then made my way back to Barleguet. Fortunately, I was able to pod one of my cyno alts directly to the Y-W6 station. The next issue was locating a cyno generator and some ozone as there were none in the station. A quick look on the market showed that there were some 2 jumps away in TXW. Out I go in my pod without much to lose as it was an alpha clone. On my way there I find the TXW entry gate bubbled but no locals in system. I continue on, grab a cyno and some ozone and fit it onto a rookie ship. Okay, now to get back. I jump back into the bubble and suddenly realised that I was in a bit of a predicament. There were rats on the gate. Holding cloak I try and figure out what to do. Without much to lose I decide to make a beeline for the closest bubble edge. The rats start to lock me and a Breacher appears on grid, at the opposite side of the bubble. My heart skips a beat it as it starts to lock me too, then I realise it will be out of scram range. I click the next gate and start spamming warp. As soon as I exit the bubble I align out and warp before the red boxes appear. Phew, I could breathe a sigh of relief. Time to get my cyno sorted.

I arrive back at the Y-W6 station and dock up, noticing a Hurricane sitting on the undock. Balls, that might slow me down a bit. I undock anyway and start moving towards a reasonable cyno position, ready to dock back up if needed. Just as I look over to my other screen to prep my Anshar the Hurricane pops me. I was about ready to give up at this point until I noticed that the cyno generator and ozone both dropped! Quickly I get in my new fresh rookie ship, undock, loot my wreck (which was still directly on the undock) and dock back up again. At least I wouldn't have to go on another shopping trip yet. Evaluating my options, I decide to log off that character for 10 minutes and grab a drink in the hope that the Hurricane would get bored waiting. Logging back on, I find it still sitting on the undock. Being impatient, and probably a little stupid, I decide to try again anyway. I undock and creep into a good cyno position. The Hurricane doesn't lock me this time. I get my Anshar on the Barle undock ready to go. I light the cyno and look back over to my Anshar pilots screen. I right click the capacitor and get to the jump to button and hold for 5 seconds while I check the cyno isn't locked up. Things look good. I jump and I dock. Great success! So I load up my Anshar and get ready for the jump home. Interestingly the Hurricane still hasn't killed the cyno yet. As I undock my Anshar it looks like the Hurricane has woken up. He locks me up and takes a chunk out of my shield as I jump out. Safely back in Barleguet I breathe a sigh of relief as I watch the Hurricane pop my cyno ship. I don't think I'll go back to Y-W anytime soon. The locals aren't very hospitable.

A HEROic Deployment

Moving day

Moving is a pain. The logistics of moving a bunch of stuff in EVE can be awkward but has been an interesting learning experience. I'd stockpiled too many ships in Barleguet which I somehow hadn't managed to tactically disassemble yet (blow up). Not for lack of trying either! One of my Scythes has lasted at least 6 fairly large scale fleet fights without popping. That included a major fight with an RvB Ganked roam. For ships I use on a regular basis, such as the Scythe, I had been keeping 3 in stock at any one time. That way if I lost 1 or 2 in quick succession there was always at least 1 standing by so I didn't have to scramble to refit another ship. It also meant that I could plan ahead a bit and bring in my own modules during a hauling run. However, this has made shifting assets a bit of a nuisance. I had ~15 fit and rigged ships stockpiled in Barleguet which I didn't really want to disassemble as it would destroy the rigs. During the move I overheard a nice piece of advice. They described the "1 carrier rule". Basically, in EVE if you aren't packing light then you are doing it wrong. Only keep 1 suitcase (aka Carrier) worth of fitted ships in 1 system at a time. This makes sense and will be something I try and keep to whilst deployments and moves are always on the horizon.

Although I had mismanaged my ship stockpile, I had dealt with my market operation quite well, letting it slowly empty out without bringing in any more goods after the deployment was announced. I think I did a lot better than those who choose to firesale at the last minute. By the moving date I only had ~1 billion worth of sell orders left which I was able to fit into a blockade runner and move to the new system. In the end I just shifted a few of cruisers with the convoy fleets then moved an interceptor and then a bomber solo. I think in future I won't stockpile so many ships. Overall I've done alright with the move and been able to cut losses. Having to leave ships behind is a little irritating, though I think that's just a minor case of ocd. There is also a chance we will be back there at some point. I only left a couple of cruisers behind and the rest were frigates. So I can always jump back and get them blown up in some solo PvP. I'm not yet ready to give up the fight on having a clean and organised assets menu though. Better planning in future will help with that. In 2 weeks I will also have my own Jump Freighter, so moving lots of assets in future will be much less painful.

Marketeering

I'm now working on building up my market again in the new home system. A lot of items were heavily overpriced so I've been steadily ferrying in doctrine modules and listing at Jita + 20% to start driving down prices and make them more reasonable for the alliance. Whether 20% is reasonable or not I don't know. I've not had many complaints but it seems much fairer than the 50%+ that I've seen on a lot of the other key modules that we use. Moving hulls is also an area I'm looking into. I've put off moving them via alliance courier contracts currently as our haulers are dealing with a heavy backlog of other contracts. There have been complaints about hull prices relative to what they were previously in Barleguet. However, my understanding is that Barleguet relied a lot on local production for smaller ships, which isn't possible in Sendayah as there are no manufacturing lines. This means that breaking even on common frigates, such as the Atron, requires a hefty markup after considering courier costs. Even if everything were to be hauled personally from Jita the cheapest I could conceivably get an Atron down to was ~700k just to break even after factoring in the cost of jump fuel. This makes provision of <1million ISK fast tackle frigates for newbies a bit difficult. However, In 2-3 weeks when I'm running my own Jump Freighter I'll look into this a bit more. I'm planning a nice side project involving a foray into manufacturing. My goal is to get Atrons, and other low profit per m3 hulls, down to ~15-20% markup on Jita sell prices while still maintaining a slim profit margin.

Explosions

Although I find the logistics stuff somewhat enjoyable, I know most people enjoy the pew pew. Well, there's been plenty of that. I had a bit of an EVE bender this recent weekend so all the content blurred into 1 culminating in a huge subcap fight in Sendaya on Sunday. The main objective of the deployment, as far as I am aware, is to mess with sovereignty. Actually taking sovereignty doesn't seem to be a priority but I guess only time will tell. Over the weekend I got into a couple of siege bombing fleets targeting sov structures. Looking at my killboard I seem to have lost a bomber, though I can't remember it so it can't have been a notable loss. However, flying the bomber has been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot about the importance of tacticals and essentially strafing a target by aligning out back and forth to celestials to escape when things get hairy. I think mastering this is something I need to work on and will be important when I start actually bombing stuff. Also, being able to cloak up and essentially spectate a battle, such as our support fleet landing, is also quite fun and interesting. I like the idea of being a cloaky scout and scanning down targets so it might be time that I whipped out a buzzard from time to time.

Other than structure bashing stuff over the weekend I also got out in my Scythe a few times. We broke up a few gate camps here and there and generally tried to clean up Sendaya a bit. I also got myself into a bit of a predicament. Some sort of a sov timer was coming out and we were disorganized. So pings went out and we formed up as fast as possible and made best speed to the location. Being disorganised myself, I forgot that I only had a a couple of hours before I would have to leave. Logging out in nullsec mid fight isn't exactly conductive to survivability. However, I decided to go anyway and mark up the expected loss to the benefit of the operation. 20 or so minuted after beginning the structure bash a Harpy fleet landed about 150km off and we started bouncing. It was clear we couldn't outrun them forever and eventually their fleet caught us in a bubble. This was about as late as I could possibly stay. I managed to get out of the bubble and had to close game and run. At the time I'd written off my Scythe and 20M pod (silly implants).

2 hours later I return and the operation is over. However, I'm also not dead. Success! Though I must admit, at this point I was kinda hoping I was dead as it was 18 jumps back to Sendaya. Since I'd already written off the ship and pop I decided just to YOLO (cringe) it back to home. I start jumping and notice a friendly in local. They strike up a private conversation with me and offer to scout ahead in their interceptor. Most of the way home is clear until 2 jumps from home where we find a gatecamp. Drat, what to do now? I'd reached a system with stations, so the option available was to log off. However, I had come so far already, I was determined to get home. So I log on mumble and check the fleet finder. Turns out there is a fleet forming up in the doctrine I'm flying. Perfect timing. So I join the fleet and find out where they are heading. Turns out they are on their way to clear the gate camp before looking for content. After breaking the camp I decide to stick it out in the fleet.

This where shit starts to get real. I can't remember all the players involved as I was pretty tired at this point, though there were roughly 3 groups and almost 1000 ships involved. I'll probably get this horribly wrong but lets try. The engagement started with an organised fight with a large caracal gang. I think this is the gang that also brought Archons, which were disposed of rather quickly, but I'm not 100% sure*. All I know is that we killed Archons in record speed at some point in the beginning of this series of engagements. The stream of missiles from the Caracals was pretty incredible, though it seemed like waiting for missiles to land before each target switch allowed us to chew through them rather quickly with our Thoraxes. This was only the beginning though. Shortly after that a Tengu fleet and a Tornado fleet landed and we had a bit of a Mexican stand off. Eventually our fleet sided with the Tornados and we began trying to engage the Tengu fleet. However, we were having trouble getting them into our desired range. They were also using a frigate as a warp out point in order to maintain range on us. I believe the FC referred to this as a tow line, a pretty cool tactic which I hadn't seen before. During this engagement we ended up with another local spike. A 100 strong Navy Apocalypse gang who also brought Archons as support. I have no idea who ended up shooting who to be honest. In the end we had killed the majority of the Apoc's and added a few more Archons to the tally, killed a ton of Tengus and held the field overall. I don't think I've seen a wreck field that big before. I also don't think I've seen a wreck field looted and salvaged that fast before!

So far I'm fairly positive about this deployment. The content seems readily available and so far the structure grinding hasn't been dull as it has brought fights. I've also learned a lot and am much more comfortable operating in null sec. I'm also wondering how long I can hold on to this Scythe. Did I mention that it's the same Scythe from the start of this post? I've certainly got my moneys worth out of it. It's a good thing CCP are adding new paint jobs to ships because this Scythe definitely needs a new one. I feel like it has graduated beyond it's rust and duct tape roots.

*Update after reading about the fight elsewhere. The Archons were part of an AHAC and BS gang which we were fighting prior to the Caracals. The Caracals didn't stick around for long after the Tengu and Tornado fleets got involved. Next time I'll try and pay attention to write a proper AAR rather than going off my hazy memory.

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.

Bumbling Through: 6 months in Part 1

I didn't expect this to be so long when I started writing, so here is part 1. Hopefully it's not too boring but it might offer a nice perspective on a new players foray into EVE online.

Background: My stable of characters

My first character, which is now my industrial/hauling alt, was created on 13th August 2013 making it just over 6 months old. Bizar Raizen is a little younger and was created on 4th September 2013 with the goal of being a PvP character, though I started him off as a mission runner while initially skilling up via dual character training. Just under 2 months later, at the end of October he liquidated his assets, joined Brave Newbies and moved out to Barleguet. Unfortunately in those 2 months a rather excessive amount of time was spent rushing to the point of sitting in a Raven, rather badly, making his skill set almost useless at the point of joining Brave. I'll get to that later. In December I received that Collector's Edition for my birthday and transferred my trade character onto that account allowing me to run my 2 "main" characters simultaneously. I filled the 4 empty character slots with trade alts which sit at various trade hubs and make up my, now rather lucrative, trade network. At time of writing my net wealth including various assets is ~10 billion, not too shabby!

EVEs Tutorials aka "Here's a Rubik's Cube, go fuck yourself"

I had a rather rocky start in my first couple of months. I really derped... a lot... but I soldiered on. Coming off the tail of 2 years of theme park MMO gameplay I was in the habit of not reading NPC text and everything being easy mode. Unfortunately, the tutorials (and missions) in EVE almost always have a gigantic wall of text with random bits of flavour text here and there and the key information required to complete the mission hidden somewhere within. The "click button, receive bacon" mentality I had been brainwashed into really made the tutorials a pain in the ass at first. I was eager to get into the meat and potatoes of EVE and couldn't really be bothered sitting through walls of text to get to the spaceships. So, naturally, I didn't bother reading them properly. One that really comes to mind is the suicide mission where you are supposed to lose your ship. I think I had an Atron which I had been building up and fitting through the missions. The mission gives you an unfitted ship to use for the mission and explains that it is a suicide run. Without reading the text there is no way to know you were given another ship or about to blow up. So off I go. Pop goes my Atron. I docked back up at the station, confused that I just completed the mission despite exploding, only to actually read the damn mission information and proceed to facepalm. I had other facepalm moments through the tutorials but I managed to get through. So off out into space I went with a head full of grand ambitions of building an unstoppable space empire. I was destined to rule the universe. I was going to win EVE.

30 minutes later I was dead. You see, I bought the game through Steam on sale, a decision which I now regret with every ounce of my being*. It was called the "Explorer's Pack", or something to that effect, presumably off the back of the Odyssey expansion. With that pack I got a fancy skinned Magnate with the modules to get started exploring. So, I took it out and went to the first signature I could find. It was a wormhole, no way was I passing up on that. It sounded cool as hell! So, I jumped in and started scanning again. I don't remember what the next signature was, I just remember a bunch of red crossed making short work of me (Sleepers). My dreams of dominating the universe thoroughly shattered, I grabbed my Venture from the tutorials and set off into the asteroid fields of Perimeter. I needed to shoot lasers at something that wouldn't shoot back.

30 minutes later I wasn't dead. It was refreshing! So, like many unfortunate fools in EVE I spent a couple of weeks mining**, building up some ISK eventually upgrading to a retriever. It was soul destroying, but I had a plan. I had heard tales of people making unholy amounts of ISK station trading. Once I was making an acceptable amount of ISK per hour mining in my retriever I started training trade skills and being a no life 0.01 ISK undercutter in Jita. With the Daytrading skill I was even able to do it while mining next door in Perimeter! It was working, sort of. In my first month I had reached ~200million ISK. I could see that it was viable and as my capital went up so would my earnings. However it was soul destroying. I was getting very bored very fast and thus Bizar Raizen was born.

Missioning at 0 fun per hour

One of my Rift buddies at the time had started playing EVE again on the side and was set up out in Khanid somewhere doing industry. So out I went with Raizen to cut my teeth on missions as I skilled him up. Being overeager and impatient I rushed through the standings grind and ended up at level 4 missions well before I was suitable to run them efficiently at all. I had worked my way up from Level 1 to 4 in typical fashion, moving up from the Frigate on Level 1 missions to the Battleship on Level 4s. It was my undoing. At each step I sold my previous ship and subsidized the next purchase via my station trading earnings. So, the Raven that I had bought represented my entire wealth on Raizen. I also hadn't insured it. I lost it on my second Level 4 mission when faced with my first dose of warp scrambling by NPC ships. It was a right kick in the nuts. I was never in danger of giving up at that point but I knew I had to do something else. I had to suck it up and take the plunge into PvP before I burnt out on the repetitive nature of my current gameplay style. So, into corp finder I went. Into the search box went "Brave Newbies". Off to Barleguet I toddled. It was time to be BRAVE.

* I think Steam is great. I've been using it since it launched when it was truly dreadful. The modern incarnation is actually a fantastic piece of software in my opinion. I have more games on it than I care to admit to. However, EVEs integration with Steam is an absolute aberration. With other MMOs you still get a separate account and can bypass Steam if desired. With EVE however you are forced to launch the EVE launcher through steam where it logs you in with your steam account automagically. You can then launch the game. This becomes a pain for a multitude of reasons which I won't list here.

** I don't really think miners are fools. I just don't understand them. Particularly those who mine solo. If mission running is 0 fun per hour (out of a maximum 10) then mining is -1 in my books.

Negative Reinforcement: The little Viator that couldn't

EVE is a pretty harsh game. In the past 6 months I've learned a lot. I'd say the majority of that learning has been through making mistakes and getting punished for it. EVE doesn't pull any punches when you make a mistake, so you have to either learn quickly from them or die. I've lost plenty of ships in PvP now. Every time I lose a ship I look back at what caused the loss and try and learn from it. Every time you fail, there is usually something you could have done different to have altered the outcome, even if it isn't instantly apparent. So far none of my losses have really been that traumatizing. I went in expecting to fail. I went in expecting to learn.

This is a story about how I lost my first Viator... to a suicide gank.

Poor Viator, how I loved you so.

Above was the fit. I lost it in a 0.6 system. I lost it to 2 destroyers. I was a target of opportunity and I had made a bunch of mistakes. I had just completed an alliance courier contract and had made my way safely out of low sec. Being a little restless I decided to turn on auto pilot and go grab a beer. That was mistake number 2. Why was auto piloting mistake number 2? Well, mistake number 1 was forgetting to refit for travel after completing the contract. Usually I adjust my cargo for the contract in question using cargo expanders then swap out my lows when I'm done. This may have saved me, but I'll get to that later. Upon my return to the computer I cracked open my can of beer and started pouring it into a glass whilst watching my ship land and begin slow boating to the gate. This was mistake number 3. My desire for beer was stronger than my desire for the structural integrity of my trusty Viator. Mid pour, about 1/3 of the way into the pint, I started taking fire. I was about 10 km from the gate I was approaching. I quickly put down the glass, continuing to pour, but freeing up a hand I grabbed my mouse, turned on my hardeners then microwarp drive and tried to rush to the gate. Willing my Viator onward I eventually got popped ~3-5k from the gate. These were mistakes number 4, 5 and 5 and a half. Mistake number 4 was the hardeners, I had no shield left by the time I turned them on making them useless, I needed to get them on during the warp before pouring my beer. Mistake number 5 was trying to rush the gate, I might have been able to warp out, since the align time on a Viator is relatively low. Mistake 5 and a half was continuing to pour my beer.

Not my actual beer but pretty close resemblance.

Mistake number 1 comes back in here. By forgetting to refit for travel, I had also gimped my defence due to the 3 expanded cargo holds which reduced my ships maximum velocity and hull ehp. With 10 km to go to the gate I had drastically reduced my chances of reaching the gate for a jump. Also, if I had the nanofibers fit I would have had a significantly reduced align time which may have allowed me to warp out instead.

The morale of this story. Don't autopilot, even in highsec. All of the mistakes mentioned would have been avoided if I had been manually piloting. Even an empty cargo hold will not make you safe. Something I forgot was that blockade runners, like the Viator, cannot be cargo scanned. They also have relatively low effective HP, allowing a small group of cheap destroyers to pop them. So my attackers had no idea that my cargo hold was empty aside from my 3 travel fit modules. To them I was a tasty loot pinata and relatively low risk as they could pop me for such a low investment. Unfortunately, the story doesn't quite end there. In the mild shock at losing my Viator I forgot that a green egg was about to pop out. I forgot that the clone wasn't clean. A few seconds later, I realized that I had just lost a lot of ISK.

+5s and a token christmas present.

EVE is brutal. I fucking love it.