The more the merrier.

We are multiplying! Corpmate Ajax joined the blog-sphere today with his first post. This makes the third AU-F member with a blog.

Hopefully he can keep up with Mend because I can't. :)

Someone Loses an Eye

Welcome!

Greed.

There are so many aspects of EVE that mimic real life, but I think nothing reflects true life better than Industry roles. As in real life it is all about GREED.

Yes, you can do a lot of other things to increase your ISK consumption like ratting or exploring or missions or roaming for unexpected pilots (if you are a pirate). The difference is that those will provide you with entertainment while you increase your wallet. That is not the case with Industry.

Putting invention jobs on the station to see if 1 of the 20 invention jobs will produce something or pointing your mining strips to an asteroid are far from being fun or entertaining. There is only one reason we do it.... ISK!

I found the Industry role interesting from reading other bloggers entries. I always done some sort of crafting in previous MMOs, but it usually was just a side thing with little to no importance. That is not the case here. In EVE crafting is a very important part of the game. The ships, the fits, the booster are almost all player created. Yes, you get some stuff from LPs and the occasional loot, but the majority of people buy their stuff from markets or thru contracts.

The original idea was to do some light mining at the beginning while I figured out the direction I wanted to take with the production, but then the ISK started to come in. I thought "If I can do this much with this crappy setup, then how much more I can do with a better setup?!" That lead to a retriever which lead to mining upgrades which lead to refinery V. Then Refinery efficiency and veldspar processing. I kept looking at one thing... the ISK filling up my wallet.

I still want to do inventions and produce Tech 1 and Tech 2 gear for me and to put in the market to have income when not online, but that has been pushed back again and again.

In 4-5 days Armand will start the slow process of learning Gallante Industrial V. An Iteron V with rigs and expanded cargohold II can carry an insane amount of cargo for a Tech 1 ship. This will also open the door for a Viator. This will allow me to participate in the hauler division of our corp. The question is what to do after that.

The original plan was to stop the mining related skills and concentrate on production. The problem is that with a Hulk so close at hand and the invention and production of tech 2 items like shield extenders/hardeners, armor hardeners and med size drones still so far that decision seems wrong.

Hulk... I can already see my wallet icon blinking.... :)

The Mysterious Enigma.

A while back while I was in Mista someone linked an Enigma in local chat. I was blown away by the ship. It was like nothing I've seen before. I tried the usual places for information, but the only place I read something about it was the eve-wikia that the previous link takes you to.

I don't know how the player got that to link in channel. I couldn't link it myself back to corp or alliance channel. I don't know where that ship was seen. And more importantly... How do you get one?!?

Is this a GM ship? Or is it a future ship which information was data mined? Any information is appreciated.

For now I'll leave you with some screen shots:

A thief among us.

The stories of undercover agents and thieves in EVE became real to me this past week. I'll give very little credit to the thief. He wants to think that his operation was a successful corporate hit, but it was far from it. After months of "working" he was never able to steal from the corporation or hinder the corporation and/or alliance in any way. Instead he stole from a group of members who shared their resources willingly with other corp members.

The loot was good. A total of 3 ravens, one scorpion and one navy raven. Still a far cry from a well planned and executed corp hit.

Compared with the loot that he may have been able to get (since this was the w-space project which is producing Tech 3 gear) if he had waited patiently and worked better the social angle it is really not a successful hit.

Mend and Ajax have posted about this also. Please read their comments here and here for more info.

W-space break.

Earlier this week AU-F's presence in w-space ended. All the goods were taken out and the POS dismantled. Last week I logged and had an evemail saying to move all my stuff out since the POS was going offline. This took me by surprise. After asking the leaders of the expedition it was part of the plan. Let me explain...

Phryxia (the name given to this class 3 w-space) was a private project. Two members of our corp, Ajax and Rayth Phaenor came with the idea and funding for the project. I'm not certain of the goals, but Tech 3 and ISK income is definitely in the equation. They were kind enough to open this up to the corp. Me and others (Sarah Turtle and Nlor among a few others) were happy to join. Many combat/hacking/archaeology sites were cleared and parts were salvaged/looted. Asteroid and gas sites were sucked dry. Money was made and Tech 3 components were produced.

It was all good (except one small bump at the end i'll talk about in a future post), but as with anything in life it wasn't perfect. The class-3 didn't produce enough links to similar class w-space. There was also a shortage of grav and ladar sites; our mining/gas harvesting group stood there for days without anything to do. There was also limitation in the POS. The storage wasn't big enough for the amount of minerals that were being extracted from the sites and the refinery (which came at the end) was not able to keep up with the ores coming in.

I have my own list of "lessons learned"

• You can assemble ships in the POS, but you can't repackage them. This is a big logistic issue for someone like me with limited hauling capability. With Armand flying an Iteron IV I was able to bring multiple packaged ships at once, but they all had to be flown back to Empire.
• There seems to be no way to divide goods in a hangar. Everyone can see/take anything. This can cause issues.
• You definitely need a battleship with appropriate skills to be of help. It is also a good idea to have a logistic pilot helping out too.
• All pilots need to have good exploration skillz
• All pilots need to have anchoring skillz
• Not seeing anyone in Local until they speak definitely makes thing more interesting and complicated.
• The refinery penalties are huge compared to Empire. Having Refinery V, Refinery Efficiency V and the specific ore specialization to IV is very important. A hardwiring implant will be cool too.

I'm really happy with the experience and can't thank enough Ajax and Rayth for the opportunity. I also want to mentioned ST and Nlor for all their help and guidance while I was there. For a new pilot like me to be able to experience something like this is priceless. I look forward to future w-space projects. As Dante's and Armand's skillz set grow I feel I can help make the next one even a bigger success.

The Great War and new patch.

This morning as I was looking at my normal source of MMO news I read two interesting articles that I want to share here.

The Mittani (spy extraordinaire) has posted a 2-part article where he tries to summarize the events of the Second Great War. The story starts with a recollection of events long past that setup the stage for the craziness that took place between February and June of this year in the Delve region. It goes without saying that there is a bias in this article, but for those of us that can't follow daily the CAOD forums this is the only summary I have been able to find.

I find the story very interesting. Many wonder if the once dominating force know formerly as BoB will be able to rise again from this defeat. I believe that it wont. I don't want to discard them completely, but I see them at the same level that many other alliances currently in the game. The rumor is that they have an extensive collection of BOPs which gives them good money, but you need more than that to come back.

I'm more curious about the Goons future. What they do now that there is no more war? Will they be happy in Delve? Will they prefer peace instead of war? If they choose the later, who the next target will be?

Long ago BoB attacked Providence/CVA from Delve and failed. Will the Goons try it to see if they can succeed where BoB failed?

I hope to experience that part of EVE, but not yet. Alliance wars require people that know the game, fly good ships and have money to spend. I have neither, so for the time being I'm happy with my little gank fleets.

For those interested in this story :

A History of the Second Great War : Part 1 and Part 2.

I also learned thru Massively that a new EVE patch is coming this Monday (yep, Monday). The changes are not many as we read thru the patch notes, but some of them could really affect us in a positive way. Specifically the changes in T3 production and W-space sites which is the entire point of the W-space project. I'm not very versed in the POS related things, but I think those changes are also positive.

Ratting the easy way.

As I posted previously I got me a Myrmidon. This was destined to be my PVE boat.

Ratting in null is not easy. The good old Vexor was unable to take on those waves of rats. I only attacked those spawns with frigates or no more than 2 cruisers. Anything more was too much. Exploration sites were completely out. I tried it once and immediately became evident that it was a loosing battle. So I was very exciting when I was told that the BC skills were completed. Not only that, but just a few days before was finally able to use Hammerhead II.

I asked in corp forums for help fitting it and Noldevin came to the rescue. After following his suggestions I ratted with Gert. ZOMG!! What a joke! My shields usually don't last long since I have little spent on that training and I have zero fittings to help them, but once the damage goes to armor the numbers are laughable. Cruiser hits you for 10 or Battleship hits you for 40, etc.

I'm still far from the uberness I've seen from battleships in L4 missions or w-space sites, but I'm starting to feel the power. :)

Second loss.

Not a very good start to my PVP life, but an expected one. On Thursday night I suffered my second PVP lost. This time to a Navy Megathron in Misaba. Click for the KB.

As I logged in and planned for a night of exploration a fleet request came in thru the alliance channel looking for pilots to take on 2 reds in the Misaba system. They were both camping outside of the Misaba station. One was the mentioned Navy Megathron and the other some sort of logistic ship. As I understood it from the comment in channel it would have been impossible to take down the Meg without perma-jamming the other ship first.

As the FC plotted some way to lure the ships out of station range, we sat there just looking at each other.

I really like the Megatron. It is a gorgeous ship that packs a punch. I've heard a lot about how the nurf-bat took a swing at it a while back, but I still think is worth its money and training. I will definitely get one in the near future and if lucky maybe a Navy Issued or a Marauder version later on.

Back to my story... After some deliberation and planning the FC gave orders to warp to a position. This is where I made my mistake... I'm still getting used to the way that different FC give orders in the channel. I was already pointed out once for warping too early. Since then I usually wait to see if we are warping as a group (fleet warp) or individually. This time I paid dearly for this.

As it happens I was opposite to the destination given. As I waited a few seconds to see if we were warping as a group or not I noticed people warping out. I started the alignment process when I got tackled. I knew that warping out was out of the question. Since I was under 1k away from the station, I immediately ask the station for docking orders. As my shields melted away and my armor started to give up I requested again and again, but all I got was a message telling me that they were granting me permission soon. At this time I was already in hull. As I waited for the explosion I had my finger over the button to ask access to the station in my pod. Then it happened....

As my ship blew up my screen refreshed and I was in a station, but not the Misaba station. I just woke up in Mista. Yep, I got podded. I have to admit that it was confusing at first. There wasn't time for the Meg to target me and shoot between the time my Thorax blew and the time I woke up at the station. Maybe it was lag... Maybe his drones locked me immediately. I have no kill mail of this, so I guess I'll never know. At least a fleet member was able to scoop all my loot.

I was not upset about the incident and I take full responsibility for it. It was another lesson and a good job by the Meg pilot. I really don't know why I couldn't get in the station. I was already there. Is not like I was far away. That part of the game annoys me. Sometimes I can get into a station immediately, but sometimes it takes 20+ seconds. I don't even know if I can get in while being attack (I think you can).

The worst part of it all was getting a ship back together. One thing I learned immediately is that I need to have a second ship fitted in that area to get back into action quickly. The corp provides us with incredible low prices on T1 ships. So not having another ship ready was a silly mistake.

Battlecruiser... I haz it!

Just a quick update. Dante is the proud owner of a Myrmidon!!! I'm not changing my Thorax for a Brutix just yet, but as soon as I have better skills I will do that move for PVP fleets. For now I'm extremely happy of this milestone which allows me to better rat in Providence.

Null sec state of mind.

After typing that title I had no choice, but to open a new tab to listen to Billy Joel's song that inspired it. :)

For the last 2 weeks life in the Misaba/Mamet low-sec area of Domain has been more difficult than normal. It is low sec, so we expect pirates to be lurking in every corner. But this is different. First we had the visit of a merc corp that moved in to mess with CVA and their friendly alliance in the area. They were roaming in a 10-15 ship fleet. Lots of battleships, HAC and other Tech 2 boats. Our regular fleets were no match to this fleet make-up, so a lot of staying safe (running to Mista, or deep in Providence or inside the station) took place. One night multiple senior pilots put together a stealth bomber fleet (I don't have the skills for that) and took many of the battleships with some great tactics, but with their deep pockets they came back with a new fleet. After that contract expired another set of reds moved to Yong to cause trouble.

These groups stay in the low-sec area and venture little into Providence. They know that the few corporation/alliances that call that area home don't have the fire power to repel them and that CVA don't venture that far out. Is for this that our leadership presented us with a new plan... move fully to Providence.

I am extremely happy about this decision. All my experience so far has been better in null sec than low sec. In null sec things are more in our terms than red terms. This weekend I started all the logistics for me to move without leaving anything useful behind. If everything goes well I'll be living in one of the CVA outpost in a day or two. I have my jc in Thebeka which gives me access to missioning when I need a change of pace, plus is my gate to W-space when I'm ready for it.

Looking forward to new challenges and more adventures!