Monday 29 June 2009

Back in game today

As mentioned in my previous posts, I now have a couple of weeks ingame in the evenings during the week - so I'll be cranking up eve-radio, and playing 7-11pm Mon-Wed. I'm also not-on-call for once, meaning I get to drink beer and play eve. A mix of danger and fun!.

Good news is CCP have offered me 5 days of no-risk, no credit card down, playtime on my old characters. Why is this good? Well, around 300million of "stuff", 100 million of raw isk - amongst other items can be traded from my old characters to my "current" character. This is a quick win for me :)

The plan:
1/ Earn lots of ISK - personal funds are at 75mil levels, which isn't great. Even with the above "isk injection", I'll still be lower than I want. Having a hanger of T2 goodies sure is expensive.
2/ Start the road to Battleships.
3/ In the meantime, I may have to go back to doing missions in high-sec, purely for status gains - as the plan is to actually sign up for 2-3 level 4 r&d agents asap. Datacores required asap.

The POS, well, shall be put up at *some* point over next few weeks I imagine. The big issue here is the time to refuel - I really need to fly enough fuel down for 6 months to stop fuelling being an issue.

Sunday 21 June 2009

Feature I'd really like in EVE

I really missed this obvious usability thing in the last Blog Banter..

but...

Why can't a bookmark (I make "Home" and Safespot bookmarks) - be aligned to if you are in the same system as a bookmark. After all you can warp to it. Why can't I align to it?

Am I the only one this bugs?

Saturday 20 June 2009

Week of EVE

Well, I did manage to log in Tues and Weds - and caught up with Jax for essential personal and corporation chat.

The bad news is, no more exploration sites found, and my aim of making money via this have hit a dead stop. I actually think I am going to have to hit Level 4 missions asap - for both the monies gathered, the modules for refining, and for the faction gains... The faction gains being the most important for my characters right now - as they will open Level 4 R&D agents, which I need to consider if only for the free (ish) ISK generated.

As mentioned, I'm still well on the path to having a mining character in a Retreiver barge - expect it to take about another month for Hulk goodness. I think I will be going for the Hulk - purely due to the lovely mining sites I'm finding in low-sec, and the fact they should fix the perennial problems of getting high-end minerals for coporation building activities.

I will be back online for periods this coming week and the aim is to get some ships relocated to the cosmos area of Gallente space to finish up the remaining missions I have there.

Next week also starts the push for battleships.... purely for utility, but having them available will help greatly in the future for both level 4 missions and some of the combat sites I'm finding in low-sec. Aim is to have 3-4 of them, a mega and dominix in high-sec for missioning, along with a ship or two in low-sec for some of the exploration content.

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Exploration

Apologies for lack of posts recently - I've been away on a mini-break, unexpected.
The good news is I'm back online, and for substantial periods for next few weeks (6 ish). Expect to see me this week online Mon, Tues, Weds and a bit of Thurs. I'm working next week so time will be limited then. The following weeks I'll be back on same days. Time to play EVE, and lots of it! I seriously can't wait.

Yesterday:
My little section of low-sec space has been quiet recently. Very quiet. All the locals appear to have up-sticks, so literally its me, myself and I in the 3 systems surrounding mine.

I went scanning, and looted a radar and a mag site - around 40 million of loot collected.. I also tried a unknown combat site, and the 24 battleships inside did not appear to like me much. Both my little ishkur assuault frigate and my Vexor couldn't handle the heat in there. That was most annoying for me - I havn't had a good combat site in seemingly months, and when I get them my current ship skills mean I just can't finish them. I'll be breaking out the HAC soon, once I have money to actually buy it to hopefully rectify this. I also plan to get some basic battleship skills and a Dominix/Megathron for similar activities providing low-sec stays this way. Last night I also found a large grav site - almost impossible to scan even with my rigged Cov Ops frigate - it mades me most annoyed I didn't have a barge locally to be able to mine the site. Next purchase for industrial division will be a mining barge equipped to be able to mine such sites.

The big problem recently has been personal funds. I still like to separate corporate activities from personal ones - and the corporations industrial activities are mostly pretty much self-funding and profitable (though they are aimed at making the funds to keep the offices running). My personal desires to fly in lots of shiny T2 ships mean my personal funds are not so pretty. I have a super-valuable hanger, filled with lots of shiny's. This is why I'm aiming to get a lot more playtime in over the summer - to make substantial isk to be able to buy more :)

I've not seen many wormholes locally recently (none in fact, in the 3 systems I survey) - but hoping for an expedition into WH space once I get a ship capable of dealing with sleepers....

The other plan is to go back to cosmos space with a AF and salvager in tow to finish off the cosmos chains I'm working on for quick, easy, faction gains - to enable L4 R&D agents hopefully quickly.

Finally over the period of next week - providing folk are online, I aim to contact back a potential new corp member or two who have eve-mailed me (though they havn't been online at same time as me, which doens't bode well). I'm generally online 18:00-23:00 EVE time on Mon, Tues, Weds for next 6 weeks as discussed, although next week may be a washout due to work trip as discussed.

More updates on my activities tonight tomorrow.

Friday 5 June 2009

Eve Blog Banter #8 - legalised Gambling

Welcome to the eighth installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by 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 here . Check out otherEVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from me, Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums."

My views on this are simply - Gambling. The real world has it, and with the 4 factions in EVE, isn't it crazy to think that there isn't gambling going on between the citizens of the world - if so, why can't pod-pilots see part of the action. It would also introduce another career path to the game - bookmaker.

How I think it should be implemented:
  1. A betfair like market approach - basically with CCP not investing any ISK in the market, but instead taking a 5% cut off winning bets, with none off losing. Allow users to both bet and lay on in-game events. Maybe a skill to reduce the CCP take, or similar to betfair, high volume traders getting automatic discount.
  2. Basically similar to the market in-game - bets placed should be taken out of current funds or a corporate wallet.
  3. Skills would limit amount of bets you can have in play at any one time similar to trade.
What would we bet on:

  1. Factional Warfare - who will own System X at date X. Should encorage both sides to place bets, and fight more strongly over single systems. Could be great fun.
  2. Individual PvP bets/matches. A match announced systemwide, both players move to a locked down deadspace - and fight to the death/one leaving arena. Possibility of match fixing, but what doesn't have.
  3. 0.0 Sovereignty - who will own region X at downtime on date X. Could destabilise 0.0 a little, but PvP is fun right?
  4. Real world terran sporting events perhaps. After all the non pod-pilots in the EVE universe must bet on sporting events, and these may be a universe wide market.
  5. In WiS - could have casinos, fruit machines, poker etc.
Anyone else got any further ideas?


List of Participants:
  1. CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a little game of SecWars?
  2. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, that new thing is so shiny!!!
  3. I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 - Return of the Top Gun
  4. Once More from the Beginning, 8th EVE Blog Banter May 2009 Edition
  5. A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
  6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
  7. Helicity Boson, Bantering the blog
  8. Achernar, Unique adventures
  9. Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and secondary factions
  10. The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
  11. Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What new mechanic should be added to Eve?
  12. One Man And His Spaceship, Blog Banter 8 - Something new to ponder about
  13. Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog banter 8: mentorship
  14. EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be boarded!
  15. The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
  16. Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
  17. A Mule in EVE, Expanding EVE
  18. Letrange's EvE Blog, 8th Blog Banter
  19. Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #8
  20. The Nude Nerd, Blog Banter #8
  21. Scop's Log, Blog Banter #8: "We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!"
  22. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #8: Charisma Tanking
  23. Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #8: It’s Like Tetris for OCD People
  24. Diary of a Pod Pilot, EVE blog banter #8: Killing in the name of
  25. Talk Unfraid, Physical Communications
  26. Sceadugenca, EVE Blog Banter #8: Fighter-Class Ships and Sqadrons
  27. Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, 8th Blog Banter
  28. Into the Unknown, Eve Blog Banter #8: Player Bases
  29. EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #8
  30. Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #8: The Exasperation Factor
  31. Symptom of a Greater Cure, EVE Blog Banter: #8 - Tug Me Away
  32. EVE Journey, OOC - EVE Blog Banter #8: Marine Leader : “We have secured the ship, Sir!”
  33. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, All Hands on Deck! We are at War!
  34. Ripe Lacunae, Into the Great Unknown (Eve Blog Banter 8)
  35. Mdhi Lihu's EVE Online Blog, 009 - Blog Banter #8
  36. Break Vol, EVE Blog Banter #8
  37. Inanity and Doom, EVE Blog Banter #8 - If I Ran The Universe
  38. Once More from the Beginning, EVE Blog Banter #8: Devil's in the details
  39. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #8
  40. Still more to come!!!...

Thursday 4 June 2009

Back in action

The graphics card arrived last Friday, and was installed by my deft hand. Slight issue though I've learnt though experience that a Stanley knife is not a good tool to cut cable ties with - resulting in a heavily bandaged painful thumb. This has made using the computer a pain - I'm only *just* over this.

However on Sunday I did have time to fly a ship or two back to high-sec in order to deal with the market as my "good sellers" were selling or sold out in many cases. After 8 manufacturing jobs had been setup and the corp mineral stock pile decimated, I quickly realized that it was time to spend out the corporations POS stockpile to buy more minerals for future endeavors (as such buy orders can take weeks or months to fill). Prior to the buying, corporation had 600mil in bank. With a refilled stockpile, we have 200 mill...

Skills wise, I have the skills for HAC's and could fly a HIC within a week or two, all fully T2 fitted out. Downsides are my personal funds are lacking due to lack of exploration recently, so I can't buy the ships or equip them - yet!

Invention wise, I'm getting there... I have most of the skills required now, and most of the datacores all stored ready for use. I don't have any research agents yet - so need to do some more work in the COSMOS constellation to more quickly gain faction with Gallente to make that process quicker. Scarily now through missioning/exploration - I may have enough tags to please the Datacenter agents also - which is another quick faction gain. What I don't have is the research POS for quick blueprint copies.

Oh and I've had a fair bit of Fanmail (well 3 eve-mails) and even some ISK donations from my readers - so thanks for that... I will blog further about this topic in the future :) Needless to say feel free to contact me in game or eve-mail me.