The Cost of Impatience

So, why is my Alt looking a little sheepish. Does the lack of  a ship behind him give away a hint?

OK, so I am behind the actions of my Alt - it's not his fault. Although this is not something that most people will admit, but I have had a bad run this week when it comes to losing ships. I know that everyone loses ships, but usually not in this sense.

Originally when I started my Alt I had him planned as a logistics character. I trained him up to fly a Crane and an Orca as quickly as I could. Once that was achieved I turn towards the Charon. Along the way I discovered Remote-Repping, so I then trained him down the path of a Basilisk as well as a Navy Dominix with good drone and almost elite armour-tanking skills.

With that all now conquered, what next?

Well, my Alt has absolutely no weapons skills (save the basic gunnery and missile skills he started with), and I thought this was a little embarrassing for the guy. So I turned him towards the field of pew-pew. As he pilots the Navy Domi and with other future plans of him becoming a Vulture pilot for the Command Link bonuses, I set him down the path of Hybrids. And after some mild training, I built him a Brutix and off he went.

I was impressed with the Brutix. It can tank well but the DPS was quite lousy with his current skills (even with the ships' Hybrid bonuses). The Hammerhead II drones were more-or-less his primary weapon. But it wasn't long before he fell victim to warp-scramblers and Battleships in a drone mission. A lot of the problem I have is that my main can tank any mission in his Nighthawk, so I no longer have to be careful about gunning down trigger-ships that call in more aggro. My Alt, I must remember, needs to be careful of this.

So I went back to EFT to see if I could improve the tank, but there wasn't a great deal I could do without buying Tech-II rigs or faction gear. I wasn't prepared to do that. Then I had a look at the Myrmidon. I could get a much better tank and be able to utilise it's Drone-bonuses well. So I went to my nearest trade-hub and started assembling.

In missions, the Myrmidon was able to tank a lot better. The Hybrid rails I had fitted were next to useless, but the drones were able to bring down most ships with ease. However, this ship quickly befell to the same fate as the Brutix. Scrammed and overwhelmed, she, too, popped.

I wouldn't say that my Alt is not ready to take on missions, it's just I need to concentrate more and remember that his tanking ability does not compare to Akinesis. I would return him to the Navy Domi, but Akinesis very rarely needs repping now, so it would be just a hulk of dead-metal floating next to him. To that end, I sat him a Noctis and let him go nuts on the wrecks.

However, the Brutix and Myrmidon are not the issue here. Although no one likes to lose a ship, I am relatively happy to look upon those losses as a learning curve. My real issue lies with the Noctis I lost. Or three of them to be precise.

Losing a Noctis in a mission could be put down to bad luck. How often does someone lose a Noctis in a mission? Losing two is being a bit ridiculous, as you should really have learnt any mistakes after the first one. But losing three is nothing other than stupidity. Or being impatient in my case.

At the moment I am grinding Level-4 missions to gain good standing with Research & Development agents, as I've started Tech-II production through invention at labs in our new Low-Sec POS. So acquiring free Data-Cores is a handy asset in this venture.

So to speed missions up to get faster standing (I'm not really looking to blitz here), I get Akinesis to take all the aggro prior to sending in my Alt with his Noctis before the room is even cleared. Except, in three cases, what I thought was the last wave of targets warping into the mission, in fact, wasn't. And a Noctis doesn't take very long to pop when they are at the mercy of several Battleships and Cruisers.

So my impatience has cost me a lot of precious ISK (and ISK is very precious at the moment). I am very sure that there are not many people out there who can say they are on their fourth Noctis in the space of a week. It certainly isn't anything to be proud of. I certainly will not be warping my Alt into a mission anymore until all the targets are dead wrecks.

Shame on me for only learning that the third time around.

Returning to EvE

Well, I said I would be back around August/September time, and here I am!

It's been a strange time in real life. I passed my course and have now moved back to a real working environment. Although I'm not out of the woods yet with exams, at least now I am out of the classroom and back in the hangar. I'm also enjoying three weeks off, and EvE has been back in full swing for me.

OK, so referring back to my last post I am pretty much over what happened. The new CEO of my Corp called me and persuaded me not to sell my characters and to give everything a bit of time. The offending toons' were banished from Corp after the key members wanted to stick by me (which I will be eternally grateful!). And I am also back with my ex-girlfriend. After everything that happened (the pressures of real-life as well as the personal events in EvE), an interesting twist emerged. The strain that I was put under revealed a medical condition that I have been carrying for over twenty years. I had my suspicions that something might be wrong with me, but never got it checked out. I had to go to the doctors in the end, and the results were interesting. So I am now on medication and will start receiving treatment next month. It's funny how things work out. Had I not had the pressures of my course, the break-up with my girlfriend and the real-life/EvE entanglement I would still be living in an ill state. But after starting the medication I feel absolutely great, and can't believe that I had been living in the state I was for so long.

Anyway... EvE!

OK, so I'm still holding the title of director, although I'm only just getting back into the game. Through my absence, a new CEO was appointed after the original left due to real-life commitments. The Corp moved to a new system where they could focus more on industry and we have settled in a nice little system. Low-Sec is not far away and we have already established PI and POS there, with plans under-way to set up another. The Wormhole POS has been taken down due to lack of use, although affiliates are still residing in there presenting an 'ownership' presence. So it's good to see that the Corp still has direction.

However, there have been many people leave. If memory serves, we had numbers in the high-eighties when I took a break. Now we have just over 50. But it's not surprising. Corp activity is very quiet at the moment. Most people (myself included) are focused on our own things as we set up our new home. We're mostly trying to get established individually instead of as a Corp. I'm happy with this as it gives me a chance to slide back into the game at my own pace. Things will pick up again, though, guaranteed.

As for my characters, I'm very glad I didn't give them away. One thing I made sure of was that I kept on top of their skills. Akinesis now sports over 43-million SP and has an almost fully faction-fitted Nighthawk, which is a very nice piece of kit! Chrieghten has nearly 18-million SP and can fly a Basilisk with all associated logistical skills up to Level-5. I've also decided to treat him to a Brutix and am currently training him to use Tech-2 Hybrids. I thought it only fair to give him the option to move away from RR, salvaging and hauling from time-to-time and actually get involved with some pew-pew. I figured having nearly 18-million SP and not being able to fire any sort of weapon other than a Tech-1 standard missile launcher at Level-2 was a little embarrassing for the guy!

Finally, my in-game activities. Well, before I moved the 17-jumps to our new home I thought I would have a clear out. During my absence, I still needed to buy skill-books and plex, so my ISK funds were almost exhausted. I collected all the ships and equipment that I don't really use and sold up, which brought in a nice lump of ISK. I then packed up the Orca with what little I had left and headed to the new system. The biggest pain was having to grind out Level-3's again to get to the Level-4 agent. But now I'm established and bringing in ISK hand-over-foot. I have PI set up on both accounts and I'm even starting Tech-2 production. So it's all been quite busy. In just over a week I have brought my funds up from around 300mil to 1.7bil, which is a nice little number. Although, after buying myself a motorbike and paying it off over three months has left me a bit short on dosh, so I will have to dent that amount with Plex over the next few days and hold off pimping my Nighthawk out further. Damn!

Well, it's good to be doing this again. I have a lot more time and energy to put back into this Blog than before, so I hope I'm able to regain my audience.

Take care!

Akinesis

Blog Going Off-Line...

Recently, a surprising and extremely unwelcomed event occurred where real-life became entangled in EvE on a very personal level. This has left me more than a little distraught. So much so that I have no interest in logging at the moment and I have decided to step back from the game for a while. Therefore, Blog entries will cease.

I plan to restart in August/September once this course is finally over. Hopefully by then I will be in a position where I no longer care what has happened.

All I will say is: karma is a wonderful thing.

Yes, I'm a Liar!

Ok, so maybe real life hasn't permitted me to get back into EvE as I stated in my previous post. But I will spare you the details. To combat my situation, I'll make bite-sized posts for the meantime. This will probably run until August, which is when I finish this damned course.

When I left our Wormhole a few months back, I had the intention of running Epic Arcs. This didn't happen due to High-Sec War, and I spent many, many hours and lots and lots of ISK fighting the war-targets. Totally drained, I left Lubel to join a Corp that is now run by an old friend who kindly offered me temporary refuge.

This worked out great. I moved away from Ichoriya's continually-nerfed Navy agents and set myself up in a good spot where Spacelane offered better missions. A couple of fellow pilots had relocated there a while back and were making good ISK. So I, jumped on that band-wagon and ran missions without the fear of war. It was like a cool wind blowing in my face on a hot day. I had to grind out Level-3 missions to get my standings up, but the time spent has been worth it. Once my wallet was healthy again, I took the Nighthawk for a Faction-fit upgrade and headed out to start what I originally came back to Empire for - Epic Arcs.

I blew the dust off the Orca and loaded her up with my Nighthawk, a couple of Cormorants and all my equipment. My Alt readied his Navy Domi and we headed out to the Epic-Arc system. I unpacked and warped the 'Hawk to the beacon.

Disaster.

Now, I really should have researched this better. It turns out that the Epic Arc's for the Caldari are done through the Expert Distribution Corporation. I have no standings with these guys. Brilliant.

I made the mistake of assuming that the Epic Arcs were held by the Caldari state. Wrong.

So I am finding myself grinding out Level-3 missions in my over-tanked Nighthawk once again to big up my standings. Apart from being faced with empty dead-end Wormholes, there is nothing more tedious than running L3 after L3 missions.

Still, I live and learn the hard way. As always.

Justifying an Unannounced Hiatus

When I look at the date I last made a post I can't help but curl up into the foetal position and make noises likened only to a dying animal. Especially as it was merely days after an e-mail came through announcing to me that my Blog was going to be added to a very renowned site. No doubt I have now put a crimp on my hard work, and I know it will be an up-hill struggle to return this site to where it would have been had I not dropped off the face of the planet.

So why have a urinated on my own fire?

As usual, real life is to blame. Well, what else could it be? But there is good and bad news to all of this. I have always started with the bad news, so I can end with a high.

Firstly, my girlfriend and I broke up. She called the shot not long before I made my last Blog entry. I'm not going to break out the violins, but it took a while getting use to being on my own again. I'm sure folks can appreciate that writing hasn't been my priority of late. We're still friends, which is something I've not done following a break-up. But she now plays EvE more than ever and we are both still in the same Corp. So far, it's working out Ok. So far.

Second reason is work. I'm approaching the final phase of this course and things are starting to step up a gear. Come May, I will be starting the hardest exams I will ever do in my current career. So I have had much less time on EvE.

And the final reason is High-Sec war. With any little time I get to play EvE, I have been trying my best to manage and fight against War-Targets. A few months ago I left our Wormhole to come and do some Epic-Arc missions and develop Chreighten, my Alt. During my preparation, I decided it would be a good idea to open our Corp to recruiting. I took on many, many good pilots. At the same time, however, I unknowingly recruited some spies for a few griefer Corps. Since then, we have been enduring back-to-back High-Sec warfare. We are currently on our forth War-Dec.

And High-Sec warfare sucks. Big time. At first it was interesting as we were learning quite a bit about PvP. But now, it is really taking it's toll. I can sum-up High-Sec warfare as the following:

- It's a game of Cat-and-Mouse, station-spinning, station hugging and gate camping.

I will make a separate post talking about High-Sec Warfare, so enough said on that for the moment. But to cut to the chase, I put so much time and effort into the first two War-Decs that I pretty much ran myself empty. I was getting 4-5 hours sleep a night due to time-zone differences. I had an over-riding guilt due to the wars being a result of my slack approach to recruiting. So I ended up trying to get myself involved with every fight and also compensate my Corp-mates with ISK when they suffered losses. I, too, lost damn expensive ships through fighting and trying to save some of our new members when they got jumped. Whenever I could I chewed through mission after mission to claw back lost ISK.

Needless to say, the Wars took their toll. By the end of the second war I had churned out 2.5billion ISK, and other than learning a thing or two about High-Sec Warfare I had gained nothing.

When the third War-Dec landed, I had to step down as Vice-CEO and slip into the shadows. I was done. I had literally fallen ill due to life circumstances and even took up smoking again. I was depressed over the break-up, having to move out of my house and into 'student' accommodation full-time, the escalating pressure of work and through the hours I was putting into EvE. Yes, I was upset over Internet-Spaceships. I play EvE because it's an escape from the strains I'm currently facing in the real world. So when EvE slips into the stool bucket, it doesn't leave me with a lot to be happy about during the week. If I could no longer enjoy EvE I had to put it aside.

Socialising during the week isn't all that easy with my work colleagues (mostly due to our older age-group and the fact that most of them are hard-up due to family life), hence the amount of time I can put in to the game on weekdays. But being a social and creative creature I managed to inspire them to get out and do a few things so I wouldn't be sat moping in my room. Albeit the activities were mostly drinking, but the occasions have been good. At weekends, I have been driving back to my old haunt and have had some blinding times with my old friends. And when I've found myself on my own I have been picking up my guitar instead of logging on.

Now I am pretty much reset and starting to enjoy single life.

So, I log on to find a fourth War-Dec is under-way. All of my Corp have had enough of High-Sec war and moved into our Wormhole. Those that are left are certainly gearing up to head out into the 'Hole. For myself, I still have not achieved what I originally set out to do when I left Unkown-Space. I'm not ready to return to the there yet, so I'm Corp hopping for a short while to avoid the war. After-all, I will probably be the only one left in Empire by the end of this weekend and I don't fancy my chances against an entire Russian Corp.

But where's this good news? Well, other than starting to get back on top of life I also treated myself to a new computer. Due to the nature of my job, I am on a pretty good salary. And now that I am no longer paying out for a house it means that nearly all my money is my own so I can afford lots of nice things. I spent a lot of time researching what computer to get, and after doubling my original budget I landed myself a rather special machine. Recently, I mentioned that I could just about run two clients on one screen as long as the graphics are turned right down. Now when I do the same, I can run both windows with max graphics and not witness a slight glitch. I will be picking myself up a second monitor soon so I can run duals, which will truly optimise my EvE experience! I even donated my ever-faithful old computer to the Ex so she can experience decent gaming with Internet-Spaceships.

So, apologies for my unannounced absence. But I'm back now!

And if you read this CK, I hope I haven't let you down too much.

Tasting Rage

I've never 'Rage- Logged' until the other day. I don't feel good about it because, to me, it seems like a childish thing to do.

Here was my situation:

We often run Level 5 missions now as a Corp. Ironically, every time I have taken part the Fleet has encountered problems causing us to slam on the brakes and do a U-turn. For all the times I haven't been there, the next day my in-box is flooded with e-mails stating how successful the Op was and I get nice big ISK figure shoved in my face. But irony is not the issue here.

On this particular occasion we encountered our old (and now rival) alliance. This was a particular small fleet and it turned out they were quite happy to ignore us and carry on with their own missions. The FC of our Op was not so convinced and called for a combat scanner. With none present I was selected to go and re-fit my Drake in the next system to start scanning down the opposing mission runners. I complied, got back into system and fitted my Drake with the Expanded Launcher. To free-up the CPU I had to remove my missile-launchers, leaving my Drake defenceless. Plus, I didn't have the time to go and pick up a cloak. Nevertheless, I began scanning.

By this time, their mission-running ships had docked and their salvaging ships were hard at work. When the salvager's returned, our old Alliance buddies suddenly un-docked in PvP ships and left system. Our combat probes most likely gave an indication that we were actively looking for a fight. Our scout was sat on the stargate in the exit-system and announced they had scattered in different directions. Concluding that they were probably checking for back-up on our part, the FC decided that they would probably return as a larger fleet and called it a day.

Then I got disconnected.

This was not uncommon for me as my Wireless Adaptor hasn't proved to be my best purchase. However, when I logged back on and my ship returned to my safe-spot I found myself landing on top of a small group of roaming pirates who had been in local but never seemed to be any threat. Great. They had obviously scanned me down and started warping to me as I was DC'd. Unsure of how I had managed to miss their combat scanners on D-Scan, I started to ask for a re-fleet in Corp chat. Our ships greatly out-matched theirs and it would have been a sure win. Everyone, however, seemed content on ignoring my 'x' in chat.

To my dismay, the Fleet had already started to disband and trickle out of the system. When I came under fire my 'x' quickly turned into 'xxx'. But my Corp mates who were actually watching chat didn't even know what that meant and started repeating what I had put as if it was a joke. I tried the audio, but everyone was audio'd up in the Fleet channel (I now suddenly see the advantage of Vent or TeamSpeak!). My Alt was still logged into Fleet, but my message was also ignored there.

It took a while, but my Drake eventually popped and I warped my pod back to station.

Here was the convo in my Corp:

Akinesis > x me
Akinesis > xxxxx
Pilot 3 > x
Pilot 1 > XxXx
Pilot 4 > allright well dinner time
Pilot 4 > I'll be back in a bit
Pilot 2 > pvp roam is over
Akinesis > No it wasn't I just lost my f***ing Drake
Pilot 5 > what?
Pilot 2 > what
Pilot 2 > how
Akinesis > Jumped. Why wasn't I fleeted???!
Akinesis > Could do f*** all
Pilot 2 > by alliance?
Akinesis > No, by the others in local
Pilot 2 > u got kicked
Pilot 2 > oh
Akinesis > Yeah, and twice I asked for a fleet
Pilot 2 > sh*t sry man
Akinesis > F*** it

At this point I logged.

I was annoyed that I had been left forgotten in a defenceless Drake while everyone else packed up and left. I think it was bad form. Maybe I have perhaps over-reacted to the situation, and I certainly don't want readers to think I'm bad-mouthing my Corp in this post. I'm just venting. But incidents like this shouldn't happen any more, not with the experienced players that were involved in this operation.

Never mind. I pride myself at not getting angry at internet spaceships and here I am ranting.

Just another lesson learned the hard way for Akinesis.

* Cue sad violin music

The Alternative Character

For the majority of my time in EvE I have been running with one Jack-of-all-Trades character. I knew a lot of people had Alts, but never really saw the need myself.

However, before moving into the Wormhole I was one of the few responsible (and able) to resupply the Low-Sec POS using my Crane. When I moved into the 'Hole, there wouldn't really be anyone left to undertake the task back in Empire-Space.

So, I decided to bite the bullet and start training up an Alt. Chrieghten was born (for those who appreciate the good old British humour, Chreighten is in honour of the one and only 'Kryten' from Red Dwarf. Also, the name is very apt, as Kryten is the service droid).

Chrieghten is my Industry and Logistics Alt so that Akinesis can now solely concentrate on weapons and shields. So, to start off with, I trained him up to mine and haul as I was producing my own ships and modules to take into the 'Hole. Once he was able to fly a Hulk, I moved him straight onto the Crane and then the Orca. However, just as I was about to set him down the path of a Charon, I had a change of heart and started him on Logistics early.

I had recently witnessed a logistical Dominix in operation for the first time. Obviously I knew about Remote-Repping (RR) ships, but I had never really had much to do with them. I know this is quite odd, being that I am a 2007 player, but it is just one of those things that I have managed to inadvertently avoid.

Now at 8mil skill-points, Chrieghten is able to fly a Dominix fitted with mainly Tech-II equipment. This means I am able to fit my Nighthawk purely for DPS and use my Alt to rep the 'Hawks shields. Using this method allows me to steam-roll Level 4's even faster. Fleet-Ops can be a bit of a nightmare now as pilots bring pure DPS platforms and rely on the Logi's for defence, so I find myself juggling the RR between three or four ships and trying to manage the Nighthawk on the other screen at the same time. But it certainly makes everything more interesting.

I will train Chrieghten up to a Basilisk before I move him back to Industry. RR is so handy to have around that I want to make full use of the trade. As mentioned, he uses a Dominix (because of it's drone-bay and it's ability to tank damage if it gets aggro'd), and he also has an Osprey for a cheaper option (as well as the range bonuses being very handy on occasion).

Originally, I was running two windows on one monitor. This was fine as long as I had the graphics turned right down, but now I run my Alt on a laptop and leave the main with the desktop PC. This way I can enjoy full graphics on a large screen.

A shot when I was running two window's on one screen. Chrieghten's Domi often tries to eat the Nighthawk:

But having the two characters on separate machines means I can now run the graphics the way they are meant:

As I often run in Low-Sec, another valuable perk is being able to use Chrieghten to scout the systems ahead. This stops me (and others, if I'm in a fleet) running into a gate camp and saving, potentially, hundreds of millions in ship and component losses (and maybe some implants!). Although I have not finished setting it up yet, running PI alone on two accounts racks up a wad of extra ISK. It can also be fun to play in-character with two separate toons.

I can only liken the Alt situation to driving a car - you never need one all the time you never had one, but as soon as you have one you can never be without it. Now, I always run the two characters side-by-side and often have to fight the urge to start up a third Alt.

My only regret about having an Alt in EvE is that I didn't start one sooner.