Blog Banter #14: A beginning is a very delicate time...

Welcome to the fourteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, in which I ask the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

With the future you have to first look at the past. 2009 was a good year for me in-game, with industrial activities growing over the year, but eventually hitting a wall of making profit, but not as much as I'd hoped when I started. 2010 will start re-evaluating the trading decisions made, with an aim to get out of small profit items and concentrate on big 1 million profit per item minimums. So my first aim for 2010 is to move from a 500 million isk turnover a month to a few billion. How to get there? Well invention was the plan for 2009, and skills are finally coming online to invent just about every module in existance (plus the ships). Aim was to get every skill needed to L4, and that will complete in mid-March, allowing me to compete in all T2 markets, and not just concentrate on small minorities.

Big aim for 2010 is to get the POS up - I've identified a system for this, miles from my usual hangouts - we don't even have an office in the system. Out of the way as its not for moon mining, but for reactions. Carefully placed one jump of a jump freighter from Empire - as this will factor heavily in logistics once I can afford one. The POS will be for T2 moon goo reactions and research (copying) of BPO's. I expect I'll visit it once every few days to move the reactions around, but it will NOT be my main hang out. I've also started logistics of fuel over the past month and have 2 weeks of fuel for a large pos there now. I need more for safety as the aim will be to get to having a jump freighter to factor as mentioned, and hauling fuel is relentless when you are 27 jumps from your main hub!

My other aim is to actually join an alliance and get some 0.0 or wormhole PvP boots in the latter part of 2010 - not done that yet, but I think DSTIC's industrial roots will help many a 0.0 alliance in logistics in terms of being able to build vs buy.

2010 will also involve getting back to blogging 2-3 times a week again as far as out of game activities go - works been a nightmare, and blogging even on my phone on the way to work isn't possible right now...

Dust 514 is interesting, if its going to be released this year (I hope) - I expect I'll be getting whichever console is required. CCP hurry up and commit, as I don't want to end up with the wrong one (PS3 or xbox, I'm not getting both).

I have renewed EVE for all of 2010 (on annual subs) - so I will be about - and I will be blogging about EVE once more. Look forward to chatting in game and seeing everyone more in next couple of weeks when work winds down from the post Christmas madness.

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - A beginning is a very delicate time...
2. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - Words, words, words…
3. My God It's Full of Stars - What Now?
4. The Elitist - Plans for 112yc
5. Into the unknown with gun and camera - Show me the money
6. Ecliptic Rift - Enabling the future
7. Inanity and Doom - New Year's Resolutions, New Eden Style
8. Break Vol - Blog Banter #14
9. Guns Ablaze - What Now?
10. Adventures in Mission Running - The Way Forward
11. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Things I want to do
12. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - The Year That Will Be
13. Roc's Ramblings - WordPress ate my blog
14. Vive Virtual - Frontier Living
15. A Mule in EVE - Next on the chopping block
16. Prano's Journey - I Peer Into My Crystal Pod...
17. Life in Low Sec - Expanding the Franchise
18. The Light of Stars - Testing the claims of CCP
19. A Memoir From Space - A New Direction
20. The Chronofile - Blog Banter 2010
21. FlashFresh - What now for Flash?
22. EVE Opportunist - Fyreite in 112
23. Mike Azariah - Jiorj
24. Yarrbear Tales - Year in Review
25. More to come...

Melted Capacitor Consoles

Is it just me or Post Dominion has the drop rate, er disappeared for these?

Over past month been missioning in Empire (over 40 missions with full salvage from all of them), and now down in Low-sec for 2 weeks now (again ran many anoms, many belts, many radar sites etc). And er, not a single cap console. Whats going on? Prior to this I got a few at least.

This is all in Gallente space, but if I'm right this could result in a huge huge increase in price to these and modules that use them... (CCC rigs).

Can anyone comment so I can get an idea if this is just me or not - I've been playing EVE a lot this month (in preference to blogging sorry!) - with over 70 hours clocked up!!! - which is more than I usually would play!

The grind is almost over...

Now patching to Dominion 1.0.2 and thought I'd blog while it patches :)

Well finally last night I got to point where all bar one research agent in Core Complexion inc is available to me.

This is good news for me - and means I can return shortly to low-sec, and go exploring again from a FOB or two. The nice thing will be my invention/research will continue while I'm gone.

Dominion though - has anyone else noticed, is it quicker for you? On my machine it appears less memory hungry AND more responsive - a great improvement in fact - despite the new in game browser.

Apologies for lack of decent blogs on Industry recently (what its all about) - but my limited time gaming is best spent actually doing stuff rather than blogging for this last few weeks. Normal service will resume... shortly. What I can say is the corp right now has 600M in cash, 700M on market, and a mineral reserve that can support manufacturing for another 3 months. This despite some big spend outs recently in preparation for the move back to low-sec...

What am I hoping.... 0.0 alliances to er, remove some stakeholdings, and rent to small corps. This will allow more of us to move out there and upgrade. More pew-pew, more monies. But I'm waiting with tenterhooks to see if this is case or not. What I can predict is mineral prices will increase shortly with all of the freighters being destroyed in past week.

See you all online shortly, patching has completed on my 2 clients.

Post Vegas Musing

Well, back all safe - bit delayed last week, then jetlagged - whichpaid heed to me actually blogging, but I did manage to get back to skill change and restock the markets for the corporation. Vegas was aweesome. Makes me consider flying over from UK for eve-vegas. I do get lots of air-miles from work some years, so I've gotta hope for 4-5 flights uk-us next year to make that dream a reality. I should be able to get the hotel comped, so I only need a flight - the girl at the players club was offering all manner of deals to get me back!

This week - well, I've been in final phases of slog to get L4 agents for another corporation, which should mean I have almost all datacores covered once complete. Plan then is relocation into low-sec again and a set of hauling of the various items at each end of the pipe (loot from low-sec to high, and new ships from high to low) - that have been stocking up over the past few months.

Finally once all thats complete the rest of the corp members hopefully will be able to help with a POS deployment operation in the next fortnight - ideally pre-Dominion, but maybe after.

Work has screwed with me though - aim was to get a day off to play EVE post release - (booked a couple of days after release - but work has stymied that move by "unbooking" the Friday I wanted due to a colleague taking a flight to Nashville, TN, leaving us shortstaffed.

Can't wait for the deployment of Dominion - still dream of a 0.0 system of my own. Once day - but I'll need capital ship first, which is a few months away now. And I'll need the ubiquitious Cyno alt/alts once I have Capitals anyhow, which is more training.

Yes I have voted - do your stuff and Vote for the CSM now. Its the last day today for voting - and if you don't vote you *may* end up represented by a set of fools on the CSM. Of course, you could want that - but equally I think a bunch of Yarrr types may be resented by the carebear majority - so vote and make your choices known.

Hope to see you all online - I know its Turkey weekend in the US - so hopefully lots of people online to chat to this weekend - and have a nice holiday everyone.

Off on hiatus for 1.5 weeks

Apologies for lack of posts recently - been preparing for the 1.5 week trip to Vegas. Stressful - now on way to airport, and typically have forgotten my toothbrush. Always forget something, but at least it doesn't appear that anything important is missing.

The good news - I've been playing EVE a lot more this past few weeks, but havn't had a chance to blog about it due to actually playing. Highlights - sorting out the corporations mineral needs for the next 3 weeks with a bulk order, which should allow the rest of the members to produce stuff if they want while I'm away.

The good news is the other 2 coporation members will be taking up the mantle while I'm gone. Jax is back - he had computer hardware issues and work issues meaning he hasn't been able to play for a few months. Its glad to have him back though - as it means industry wise we're set for the next big expansion.

Dominion - we have been working on our plans for pre-Dominion - needless to say we have plans for all of the corporations cash reserves, and I'm hoping we sell 50% of the on market goods while I'm gone to assist in the cash-heavy investment in materials for the next stage of growth. If some of my math is right from word from Sisi, the release of Dominion could be very profitable for us.

The actual stats are 700m on mkt, 350 million in bank - and a mineral stash sufficient probably for another 700 m- 1 bln of goods for market sale.

Basically its great stuff and I'm happy with current growth. Hitting the 1 billion in cash mark will likely happen eventually, but we prefer right now to keep our investments actually fluid, and to reinvest every isk we make in order to make the growth keep occuring.

Anyhow hope everyone has a good Bonfire night (its a Brit thing) - and will see you all weekend after next.

Fanfest Video roundup

Okay, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on some of the videos from Fanfest 2009. I've been watching every day at lunch instead of writing Blog posts, hence the hiatus, but hours of video does tend to take hours to get through!

Videos + a brief summary of my thoughts from the weeks watching...

PVE/PVP Roundtable discussion - Awesome both of these, and some valid points being brought up in the discussions especially in regard to ECM power, and ECCM lack of it in PVP imho.

CCP Panel - great questions on future of EVE and Dust integration. In summary, initial integration is limited, but sadly we can't gank the Barges as they fly between planets. Shame.

CSM Panel - Nice to hear from the delegates from this round. I'm not personally going to be going in for next CSM elections, but will be on the one after. I would possibly be shot if I agreed to the Sundays and trip in February right now considering other commitments with work, I'd never get to see the girlfriend.

GM Panel - Great to hear GM's are involved in scrum with regards to tools development to help them help us. Nice to hear they play the game as much as us too! Certainally beats some games I've played before - where the CS and GM experience is sometimes somewhat outsourced and seperate from the Dev's.

To watch next week Scrum and Agile Development, Game Design and the Ecomomy sessions.

Oh, and you all so have to listen to the Orchestration of in game songs - DJ Margeir was awesome. PLEASE repeat this next year - I am defeinitely attending fanfest anyhow, but I love orchestras - and orchestras playing Computer tunes is great.

Oh and you have to watch the Alliance panel presentation that Goonswarm (Darius Johnson) gave. Its not on youtube yet, but tentonhammer has the goods. Made me die laughing.

Hope you guys all have a good weekend - at the moment DSTI is concenrtating on producing items enough for the holiday period (I leave for holidays in about a weeks time now - so the mineral queue and production is concentrating on making sure I don't run out of stuff in the interim).

Oh and Rojaz - I've not been ignoring you - just I typically am away from computer whenever you chat to me!

Fanfest

Thanks to all of the wonderful bloggers for showing us how good FanFest was this year. I'm not going to link them all as the other blog pack members have already done that this week already - but Ombeve and Roc specifically had great reviews up.

I will be going next year, the g/f has approved it, and may do the Sisters of Eve thing, she noticed my sad-face all weekend and realized why, great person she is :) I hope CCP release the dates asap for Fanfest 10 - why? Well, work leave is the only thing that will prevent me making it next year, and both early October and early November (previous Fanfest times) are somewhat contested times to go in my team. My boss likes the Caribbean in Oct/Nov, and my other colleague is actually off this week on a late summer break.

Right now, its only a few weeks until my big Vegas adventure though, so have been setting up ready for this in-game...

I've not been online much though just simply moving minerals and building vast quantities of ships (taking 20 days to build is not uncommon). This is so that I can reduce the mineral stack just a little prior to holiday...

The other big thing, is my annual accounts are due for renewal in November and I'm based in UK. I done the maths, and I've worked out that at the moment its close in price to go back to Timecards compared to buying annually (added to fact paying annually hits wallet a lot harder in Nov). At current exchange rates, a year of time codes = $209 - compared to €131.40 a year on credit card = approx £120 a year. At my banks's current exchange rates, to pounds, time cards = £134 for 360 days (ie time cards = only a 15 quid impact). I think I'll be buying in batches of ETC's - as if the Dollar falls against pound, ETC's will again beat yearly subscription prices with a movement in exchange rates. Link to Shatteredcrystal for those interested in this - disclaimer, I'll get some referral funds - but if you feel like making me happy, click on this link before purchase... I'm taking a risk that dollar will fall relative to pound basically...