Over the weekend I started a new Trial account, and began training the first toon towards Cov-Ops and Scanning. I'll take that as far as I can during the 14 day trial period and then activate the account fully. I haven't sat down with EveMon and determined anything yet, and I may not bother. I'm not really under a time crunch and in the end it will take the same amount of time to train the skills. I'd just know how long that would be ahead of time if I used EveMon. Really though I have bigger things to worry about, like what am I going to do with Niskin once I get him out of J150533?
The nomad idea is growing on me, partially because I can't think of any other good ideas, but also because it would be fun to blog about. When I first had the idea I was thinking of using a Loki, but that seemed a bit cost prohibitive, though it could be a very effective option. I'll revisit that if the other options don't pan out, but it would be the most expensive route. Other possibilities are a Dominix or Typhoon in the Battleship class or a Devoter or Broadsword in the Heavy Interdictor class. The first order of business will be determining what fits I could use on those ships and how effective they would be. Then I'll look at cargo space and refitting options for versatility.
Whichever option gives me the best balance of target discovery and combat ability with good versatility will likely win out. Combat probes will be a must. Since warping cloaked won't be possible with the current options, I need to be able to find a target, quickly refit (hopefully out of d-scan range) and warp to the target. This could lead to ganks, or traps, or decent fights, any of which could make for good stories.
The upside is that when things go badly, I'll end up back in empire space, ready to try again or try something different. That's as much as I have planned so far. I'll update you when I know more.
Scanning...
There's nothing shiny in the solar system map. The solemn darkness eats away at your soul.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Where do we go from here?
If you're like me, you've seen the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer way too many times. In fact you've watched it enough that upon seeing the title of this post it started a replay in your head that you can't stop and you will curse me for later. You're welcome. Maybe it should say "where do I go from here," but I do have three toons, and this whole intro wouldn't make sense if it said "I" anyway. Plus it's a good way to introduce the idea of a second account and potentially three more toons. Yes, after years of having one account, I may finally have a reason to get a second one.
Running two accounts simultaneously has never appealed to me before, despite the generous returns one could get from doing so in EVE. I don't multi-task well, and I don't have multiple EVE capable PC's, nor one capable of running multiple clients at once. But suddenly I find myself with three characters and a need for at least one more. With my three toons all packed up and logged off in J150533, I'm left unable to do anything else in the game until that's resolved.
Niskin has always been my main, he's approaching 76 million skill points. I had stopped training him a few years ago due to the costs of upgrading his clone after dying. My primary alt, Zibaz, then took over training. First it was skills for being able to run missions, then the skills for a corp CEO and finally the skills for scanning and being able to fly an Orca. Then I made a third alt, Pookiechu, and trained her for scanning and to be a placeholder pilot on a Drake. Once she was ready I launched the wormhole adventure and that brings us to where I am now.
No matter what I choose to do next, it will require some thought and a second account. It doesn't make sense to start a new toon on a new account and then skill that up and use it as my main. Niskin is well rounded and well trained, the best plan would be to get more scanning alts into J150533 so that I can bring Niskin out and use him for something else. As such I'll be starting a new trial account soon, and putting one or two toons in the wormhole in scanning ships. I can then leave Zibaz and Pookiechu in there, pull Niskin out, and if I ever restart the adventure I can just come back in the Prowler with the POS.
This would open up pretty much any opportunity I can think of. I could learn more about trading and try to make a go of it with my shiny new maxed-out Trade skills. Or I could start a roaming adventure in any number of ships. Other options would be joining a corp, in w-space or k-space, or doing production. That's just what has come to me offhand, there are so many options out there.
Roaming w-space in a ship like a space-nomad has some appeal, and no upkeep which is even more appealing. Due to cargo space limitations it would have to be a primarily PvP mission. I've already thought of various options from Battleships to Recons to Heavy Interdictors (which opens up Frigate holes as an option). At the moment this seems to be the most likely option, but I'm getting ahead of myself... right now I'm still stuck in a wormhole.
I'm going to keep blogging, maybe not as often as I was before though. I'll keep you up to date on my plans as I make them and execute them. I also have some other real life stuff I may post. In the end I just want this blog to be entertaining, and wherever possible, about EVE.
Running two accounts simultaneously has never appealed to me before, despite the generous returns one could get from doing so in EVE. I don't multi-task well, and I don't have multiple EVE capable PC's, nor one capable of running multiple clients at once. But suddenly I find myself with three characters and a need for at least one more. With my three toons all packed up and logged off in J150533, I'm left unable to do anything else in the game until that's resolved.
Niskin has always been my main, he's approaching 76 million skill points. I had stopped training him a few years ago due to the costs of upgrading his clone after dying. My primary alt, Zibaz, then took over training. First it was skills for being able to run missions, then the skills for a corp CEO and finally the skills for scanning and being able to fly an Orca. Then I made a third alt, Pookiechu, and trained her for scanning and to be a placeholder pilot on a Drake. Once she was ready I launched the wormhole adventure and that brings us to where I am now.
No matter what I choose to do next, it will require some thought and a second account. It doesn't make sense to start a new toon on a new account and then skill that up and use it as my main. Niskin is well rounded and well trained, the best plan would be to get more scanning alts into J150533 so that I can bring Niskin out and use him for something else. As such I'll be starting a new trial account soon, and putting one or two toons in the wormhole in scanning ships. I can then leave Zibaz and Pookiechu in there, pull Niskin out, and if I ever restart the adventure I can just come back in the Prowler with the POS.
This would open up pretty much any opportunity I can think of. I could learn more about trading and try to make a go of it with my shiny new maxed-out Trade skills. Or I could start a roaming adventure in any number of ships. Other options would be joining a corp, in w-space or k-space, or doing production. That's just what has come to me offhand, there are so many options out there.
Roaming w-space in a ship like a space-nomad has some appeal, and no upkeep which is even more appealing. Due to cargo space limitations it would have to be a primarily PvP mission. I've already thought of various options from Battleships to Recons to Heavy Interdictors (which opens up Frigate holes as an option). At the moment this seems to be the most likely option, but I'm getting ahead of myself... right now I'm still stuck in a wormhole.
I'm going to keep blogging, maybe not as often as I was before though. I'll keep you up to date on my plans as I make them and execute them. I also have some other real life stuff I may post. In the end I just want this blog to be entertaining, and wherever possible, about EVE.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Long Live Bob!
I thought this would be a good weekend for the tear down, but somehow I found myself sitting at my desk eating dinner on Sunday, my POS still up with all of its defenses, and the SMA and Ammo Array still online. Friday night my family attended a fundraiser for a friend of my son's who was diagnosed with cancer. We stayed fairly late and crashed when we got home. Saturday I was supposed to work from home but we ended up being lazy, and I watched Gone Girl and Divergent with my wife. On Sunday I did the work that I was supposed to do on Saturday, leaving me with some free time while I was eating dinner, so I decided to log in and make some progress.
First off I wasn't alone, there was an Astero and some probes on scan when I logged in. I was already in the Prowler, having stashed my Cheetah in the Orca the week before. After warping to a safe that is on-grid with the POS, I started doing warp dives to the batteries that were outside the shields. First were the guns, emptying them of ammo before offlining and unanchoring them. Then the Energy Neut and some ECM batteries. While I was doing this, the Astero disappeared from scan and a Venture took it's place. The name sounded like bait, but you never can tell, I wasn't going to be messing with it anyway.
At this point there were three things left outside the shields, a Warp Disruptor and two ECM batteries, one of which was clustered with the Warp Disruptor. I hit that cluster up next, and just as I had both batteries in my cargo hold, a Buzzard appeared on the overview. I tried to cloak but he was already locking me up. Burning for the POS shield, I hit the MWD but he had already landed a scram. I was going to have to slowboat back into the shields at ~300 m/s. The Buzzard wasn't doing any damage but a Sabre had just appeared on scan. He landed and started shooting, getting through my shields and shaving just a touch of armor before I slid past the edge of the POS shield and their locks dropped.
Both pilots were members of Isogen 5, but not names I was familiar with from the forums. I wondered for a moment if they had read my blog and were watching for me to move out. But as time went by it appeared that these two may have just been in my wormhole by chance. Shortly after our encounter, both pilots convo'd me. They were asking for 200m ISK to leave and roll the connection so I would be assured they were gone. I thought about it for a moment, that was roughly the combined cost of the ship I was in and the tower I was going to scoop. They had given me 10 minutes to think it over. I decided to pass on the offer but didn't have anything witty to say in response, so I logged off.
Knowing these pilots were part of a capable organization, I wondered if they'd reinforce the POS. I had enough fuel left in it to deal with that situation, but it would complicate things. I monitored my EVEMail for the rest of the evening but no structure notifications ever came. For whatever reason, the only time I ever get Corp Hangar Rental Bills is when I'm simultaneously worried about my POS being shot at. This night was no different, the bill came through and spiked my heart rate for a moment before I realized what it was. It wasn't the first time this had happened, it's just a strange irony I keep running into.
I spent the rest of the evening watching Heroes with my wife, she had stumbled upon the series on Netflix, saving me the trouble of talking her into watching it. We watched a few episodes together, then she went to bed and I got caught up to where she had gotten without me. I figured I'd finish up the POS stuff the next night and so I headed to bed too.
The next morning my wife had to wake up at 5:00am, which meant I was going to be awake at that time too. Falling back asleep doesn't always happen and since I had to move my car at 6:00am so she could leave, I laid there and thought about what was left to do. I figured I would have time to make some progress right after she left, right before downtime. As I walked back in just after 6:00am I headed downstairs to the computer room to find that EVE was down. I could have sworn downtime was at 7:00am, maybe I didn't pay attention when Daylight Savings Time changed. Anyway it was back up pretty quick and I logged in to get to work.
With one ECM battery left outside the shields and five hardeners inside, there wasn't much left to do. I bounced and grabbed the ECM battery right away, then worked on the hardeners. Then logged off to grab my secondary alt and use her to log off in the Drake. With that done I switched to my primary alt and got the Orca loaded up. Space was tight, tighter than I thought it would be. All my extra Strontium had to go overboard, and a few Cap Boosters, but that was only a few million ISK worth of stuff. One Magnate didn't fit in the Orca's Ship Maintenance Bay, so I ejected that too. With everything else in place, I scooped the Ship Maintenance Array and Ammo Assembly Array, and warped the Orca to a safe spot. Once it was logged off, all that remained was grabbing the POS in the Prowler.
The time to unanchor a small POS is 15 minutes and that was exactly what I had left before I had to wake up my youngest son for school. Figuring "what the heck" I pulled the remaining fuel, offlined the tower and started it unanchoring. A quick warp back to the on-grid safe allowed me to watch the timer tick down. I ran off and got my son's breakfast ready and started waking him up, arriving back at the computer with 1 minute to go. As the final seconds ticked down, I warped to the tower, scooped it, and cloaked. Then I warped to a safe just to be sure I was clear. With everything complete, I logged off, the wormhole adventure now officially on pause. The tower was up for nearly 100 days, almost exactly in fact. It was within 6 hours of that when I took it down.
The only signs left now are a can and a Magnate, the can will fade quickly, but the ship will remain until it's destroyed or despawns (after 30 days I think). The name of the ship: Long Live Bob
o/
Fly safe and thanks for reading.
First off I wasn't alone, there was an Astero and some probes on scan when I logged in. I was already in the Prowler, having stashed my Cheetah in the Orca the week before. After warping to a safe that is on-grid with the POS, I started doing warp dives to the batteries that were outside the shields. First were the guns, emptying them of ammo before offlining and unanchoring them. Then the Energy Neut and some ECM batteries. While I was doing this, the Astero disappeared from scan and a Venture took it's place. The name sounded like bait, but you never can tell, I wasn't going to be messing with it anyway.
At this point there were three things left outside the shields, a Warp Disruptor and two ECM batteries, one of which was clustered with the Warp Disruptor. I hit that cluster up next, and just as I had both batteries in my cargo hold, a Buzzard appeared on the overview. I tried to cloak but he was already locking me up. Burning for the POS shield, I hit the MWD but he had already landed a scram. I was going to have to slowboat back into the shields at ~300 m/s. The Buzzard wasn't doing any damage but a Sabre had just appeared on scan. He landed and started shooting, getting through my shields and shaving just a touch of armor before I slid past the edge of the POS shield and their locks dropped.
Both pilots were members of Isogen 5, but not names I was familiar with from the forums. I wondered for a moment if they had read my blog and were watching for me to move out. But as time went by it appeared that these two may have just been in my wormhole by chance. Shortly after our encounter, both pilots convo'd me. They were asking for 200m ISK to leave and roll the connection so I would be assured they were gone. I thought about it for a moment, that was roughly the combined cost of the ship I was in and the tower I was going to scoop. They had given me 10 minutes to think it over. I decided to pass on the offer but didn't have anything witty to say in response, so I logged off.
Knowing these pilots were part of a capable organization, I wondered if they'd reinforce the POS. I had enough fuel left in it to deal with that situation, but it would complicate things. I monitored my EVEMail for the rest of the evening but no structure notifications ever came. For whatever reason, the only time I ever get Corp Hangar Rental Bills is when I'm simultaneously worried about my POS being shot at. This night was no different, the bill came through and spiked my heart rate for a moment before I realized what it was. It wasn't the first time this had happened, it's just a strange irony I keep running into.
I spent the rest of the evening watching Heroes with my wife, she had stumbled upon the series on Netflix, saving me the trouble of talking her into watching it. We watched a few episodes together, then she went to bed and I got caught up to where she had gotten without me. I figured I'd finish up the POS stuff the next night and so I headed to bed too.
The next morning my wife had to wake up at 5:00am, which meant I was going to be awake at that time too. Falling back asleep doesn't always happen and since I had to move my car at 6:00am so she could leave, I laid there and thought about what was left to do. I figured I would have time to make some progress right after she left, right before downtime. As I walked back in just after 6:00am I headed downstairs to the computer room to find that EVE was down. I could have sworn downtime was at 7:00am, maybe I didn't pay attention when Daylight Savings Time changed. Anyway it was back up pretty quick and I logged in to get to work.
With one ECM battery left outside the shields and five hardeners inside, there wasn't much left to do. I bounced and grabbed the ECM battery right away, then worked on the hardeners. Then logged off to grab my secondary alt and use her to log off in the Drake. With that done I switched to my primary alt and got the Orca loaded up. Space was tight, tighter than I thought it would be. All my extra Strontium had to go overboard, and a few Cap Boosters, but that was only a few million ISK worth of stuff. One Magnate didn't fit in the Orca's Ship Maintenance Bay, so I ejected that too. With everything else in place, I scooped the Ship Maintenance Array and Ammo Assembly Array, and warped the Orca to a safe spot. Once it was logged off, all that remained was grabbing the POS in the Prowler.
The time to unanchor a small POS is 15 minutes and that was exactly what I had left before I had to wake up my youngest son for school. Figuring "what the heck" I pulled the remaining fuel, offlined the tower and started it unanchoring. A quick warp back to the on-grid safe allowed me to watch the timer tick down. I ran off and got my son's breakfast ready and started waking him up, arriving back at the computer with 1 minute to go. As the final seconds ticked down, I warped to the tower, scooped it, and cloaked. Then I warped to a safe just to be sure I was clear. With everything complete, I logged off, the wormhole adventure now officially on pause. The tower was up for nearly 100 days, almost exactly in fact. It was within 6 hours of that when I took it down.
The only signs left now are a can and a Magnate, the can will fade quickly, but the ship will remain until it's destroyed or despawns (after 30 days I think). The name of the ship: Long Live Bob
o/
Fly safe and thanks for reading.
Friday, February 6, 2015
What Happened?
When I realized I was going to have to take down my POS, I didn't think too much about why. The most important thing at that point was to get started on the process. Now that I'm nearing the end of that process, I've had more time to think about the why, and what the future holds.
This adventure started because I wanted to know if I could survive in a wormhole as a solo player. Furthermore I wondered if it would be a good way to make money in the game. The answer to both questions turned out to be yes, I could survive and I could make good money. The caveat was that the money part was true only if I played often enough. This wasn't a problem initially, I was trying new things and playing often due to that excitement. But as time wore on, things got tedious. The excitement of trying to avoid being ganked drew me in at first, but later served as a deterrent when it was less about making money and more about staying afloat.
I'm definitely one who likes figuring things out and trying those ideas to see if they are viable. As things become routine, I lose interest. That pattern has repeated throughout my time in J150533. Anomalies were fun at first, but once I had run all the different types I stared to tire of them, preferring one specific anomaly over the others. In a short time even that one became boring. Then I moved on to Gas Mining, something I'd done many times before. Spurred on by recent movement in that market I mined everything I could. Once sales started to slump again my interest waned.
The same thing has happened with Planetary Interaction. I'm just now getting my PI operations dialed in to max output and efficiency. Now would seem like the worst time to pack it up, but it fits the pattern. Logging in to restart extractor heads is mundane, and that loot would need to be hauled out, another action that has gotten tedious. I do like scanning, it's calm and relaxing, but it's more fun to do it when there isn't a pressing need. It's just like in real life, I would probably love working if I didn't have a need to do so.
I'll be continuing to think about EVE and of ways to enjoy the game over the next month or so. I'm not deactivating my account at this time. If another idea comes to mind I will certainly blog about it. The next post will certainly be about my final tear down efforts. Beyond that, I don't know what will happen.
This adventure started because I wanted to know if I could survive in a wormhole as a solo player. Furthermore I wondered if it would be a good way to make money in the game. The answer to both questions turned out to be yes, I could survive and I could make good money. The caveat was that the money part was true only if I played often enough. This wasn't a problem initially, I was trying new things and playing often due to that excitement. But as time wore on, things got tedious. The excitement of trying to avoid being ganked drew me in at first, but later served as a deterrent when it was less about making money and more about staying afloat.
I'm definitely one who likes figuring things out and trying those ideas to see if they are viable. As things become routine, I lose interest. That pattern has repeated throughout my time in J150533. Anomalies were fun at first, but once I had run all the different types I stared to tire of them, preferring one specific anomaly over the others. In a short time even that one became boring. Then I moved on to Gas Mining, something I'd done many times before. Spurred on by recent movement in that market I mined everything I could. Once sales started to slump again my interest waned.
The same thing has happened with Planetary Interaction. I'm just now getting my PI operations dialed in to max output and efficiency. Now would seem like the worst time to pack it up, but it fits the pattern. Logging in to restart extractor heads is mundane, and that loot would need to be hauled out, another action that has gotten tedious. I do like scanning, it's calm and relaxing, but it's more fun to do it when there isn't a pressing need. It's just like in real life, I would probably love working if I didn't have a need to do so.
I'll be continuing to think about EVE and of ways to enjoy the game over the next month or so. I'm not deactivating my account at this time. If another idea comes to mind I will certainly blog about it. The next post will certainly be about my final tear down efforts. Beyond that, I don't know what will happen.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Final Preparations
Considering how often I use the Ship Maintenance Array and the Ammo Assembly Array you would think that when calculating my storage needs I would take them into account. Somehow as I've been thinking about this, I've failed to account for them in any of my calculations. Not only that, but once I realized what I had done, I still failed to add them the next time around. Luckily I've been taking some additional precautionary steps.
It occurred to me several days ago that I could train up Industrial Command Ships a bit more on the alt that is going to be logged off in the Orca. He was only a few hours from level 3 and a few days from level 4. Since that directly increases cargo hold space, I paused my main and started training for that. That should be complete in a day or two and then I'll return to the charisma plan on my main.
Over the weekend I logged in a few times, first on Saturday which found me some frigate holes and not much else of interest. Then on Sunday morning I logged in to a decent count of signatures, the most important of which was a K162 to Low-Sec. It led to Ansasos, a 0.4 system in Kador, one jump from Iderion, a 0.5 system in Genesis. I was familiar with the area as I have had a Research Agent in Iderion for a long time. Low-Sec wouldn't have been the best option for what I needed to do with a T1 hauler, but in this low-traffic area the single jump to High-Sec was no big deal.
I took two trips with the alt in the T1 hauler, taking out loot and spare POS mods. On the second trip I left the hauler in Iderion and flew back in my pod. Then it was one trip with Niskin to fly out a Scythe. Once I was out I sold what loot I could, listed the rest on the market, left the Scythe in Iderion, and flew back to the hole.
With that work completed, all that remains is tearing down the POS, packing it up and logging off in safespots. The plan is to do that this coming weekend. That would give me about four extra days of fuel on top of the seven I planned for. Space shouldn't be an issue, I think I'll have some to spare, but if not I have extra Strontium I can dump to make room. I'll probably login one more time before the weekend to double check everything, but it's looking good so far.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)