Wormhole tip

One tip for easily orienting yourself after exiting a wormhole back to K space is to leave an item at each major trade hub. You can then open your assets and easily scan how many jumps you are from the hubs when you end up in an area that is unknown to you.

More warm bodies!

Last night was wormhole logistics, as my IRL brother is joining the Corp at our WH POS. I scanned an exit with only 3 jumps through quiet low sec. We then spent a huge amount of time planning what modules he should bring in to allow for flexible fits for Sleepers and for PVP.

As an aside, I really cannot wait for the upgraded in game browser! Being able to browse battleclinic fittings without alt-tabbing out will be pure win! With the collective wisdom at battleclinic, I have been playing around with different Myrmidon fittings against the sleepers. I am getting much more comfortable solo, but still prefer the fleet approach!

I also sold my first batch of salvage, which made me enough ISK to cover my T2 Myrmidon and buy 5 more skills!

All is going well with our WH ops. We occasionally get ganked, but the risk/reward works out pretty well with basic precautions taken.

Stuck scanning

One challenge of living in a WH is the time it takes to continually scan exits and explorable sites. Usually the Corp speads this task around, but I was the only one on last night and I scanned out 3 sites without finding the static high/low sec exit out of the 8 possible sites. Guess I'll keep hunting! It seems like the recent WH have only lasted a day or so, keeping me very busy scanning. My scan times are variable, but it seems to usually take me 10-40 minutes to scan a site out. I guess I should train the scanning skills higher...

I am anxious to find high sec access so I can bring my new Myrmidon in, as well as stock some Barrage ammo for the corp!

Excuse me while I frag the sky!

All the EVE Dust buzz has me jonesing for a Planetside fix. I was seriously hoping after the EVE FPS buzz from fanfest last year that CCP would surprise us with a Planetside layer added to the existing space focused EVE content.

During the heyday, massive battles in Planetside were epic! Defending a base from a massive zerg, roaming in Magrider wolfpacks, and bombing the hell out of infantry ants remain favorite gaming memories.

CCP has expressed a desire to focus on building emergence into their games, but it appears that they have chosen to focus Dust into a smaller map format. I hope I am misunderstanding the snippets of game info I have seen so far, because the emergent chaos that would erupt in Planetside was phenomenal. I firmly believe CCP could really do a massive FPS right.

SOE failed to give Planetside the dev love it needed to remain a great game. They never fixed the bases or changed mechanisms to make the game more fun and less of a zergfest. Planetside and EVE came out around the same time and look at the huge difference in post release development!

My new hope is that CCP will decide to make an FPS component for EVE after Dust runs its course on the current gen consoles. I sincerely hope that they look to Planetside for cues on combining air and ground vehicles with infantry in a tactically complex manner that is able to influence SOV. Of course, if CCP makes it, it will likely be deeper and more intelligent with a good likelihood of long term development and support! I can't help but dream about what would be to me the perfect game!

Skill progress

In a few months I'll hit my 1 year mark in EVE, as I started playing right before the Quantum Rise expansion was released. I started very slowly, playing a lot of LOTRO in the early months while I trained up all the Learning skills. Since then I have focused on training the basics and I can fly Assault Frigs, Cov Ops, and regular ships up to BattleCruisers at 17 million SP. I have focused on Drones, starting with Special Ops ( in the old system of picking a starting profession that has been replaced) which gave me a head start on Drones.

Starting as an Intaki Reborn, my Intelligence and Memory were skewed very high. I am currently trying to train the vast majority of skills requiring these attributes on my skill plan before I remap my attributes to favor Perception and Willpower. This has led me to delay serious training into Cruisers or Battlecruisers, only taking these skills to level 3.

Having recently moved into WH space, I am now aware of a distinct need to bump up my skills in ships, and especially gunnery. Being a drone specialist was great on regular missions, but the sleepers are a bit too hard on drones! That's too bad, because I have really enjoyed the playstyle with drone operation.

I have invested heavily in Science skills and am hoping this will pay income dividends into the future. My Science plans have been put on the backburner for now given the increased profits that can be found in WH space.

My current EVE Mon plan runs to 8/22/2010 and that doesn't include blockade runners which I think would be very useful for WH residence. I think it is funny and amazing that it will take me 2 years of training to get the basic general skills in place. This includes training all the shield and armor compensations, blaster and railgun specializations, etc. I also have the Stealth Bomber on my plan, having already trained Cov Ops. Being deficient in missile skills will make the bomber take a bit longer than I wish...

I'll try to give a more coherent overview of my skills and training direction at the 1 year mark. The depth of EVE and robustness of possibility space therein ensures that one's skill plans never stagnate! Hopefully tech 3 ships will be much more affordable by the time I can fly them.

Scanning first!

Yes I'm late to the party.

Yes it was also very cool to scan down my first WH.

And here's my new home base!

Pushing Boundaries

In what seems to be a common EVE story these days, my Corp has colonized a beautiful Wormhole system. I dumped the +4 implants for a fresh disposable jump clone in case I get caught by a roaming pirate gang and headed for the high sec entrance that just opened for a new adventure.

My Corp provides "disposable" ships for all to share at our large tower base, so I brought my sneaky Helios to practice scanning and help with reconnaissance. There has been a bit of conflict lately in the WH, and I think I may bring a Myrmidon in as well as my skills are a better match for the drone happy Myrm.

The word on the street is that the WH project has been highly profitable, so I hope my next update includes a fatter wallet!

The game you play even when you don't.

Eve is a great game for someone like me who is too busy to be a regular gamer at this phase in life. I can keep skills training, and feel like I am progressing even if I only get to play once a week or so.

The other awesome thing about Eve is the active online community that provides endless interesting entertainment. The sandbox is so deep it can actually provide a matrix for emergent drama. I can't wait to see where things head with the Sov changes and with Dust. The community provides education, insight, and opinions that make "out of game" time almost as good as in game time. Until CCP comes out with an iPhone EVE client, I will have to rely on the EVE community to stay connected to New Eden when I am working too hard!