All Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion

Well, that's me back from holiday and ready to go.  I have as yet not managed to get back into my ship but I know for a fact that lots has been happening whilst I have been away.  As Mangala has already commented, we (ACME) are on the move.  I do not know a huge amount yet but I have been reading my corp mails in Gate (which is handy when you cannot log into the game) and know that we are moving.  Whatever the fundamental reasons for all of this I have to say that I think most of the guys I fly with will be pleased with this; why?  Well ACME has grown a huge amount recently and with a total of 13 systems to hand we were pretty full it has to be said.  So whatever story you want to believe change is always inevitable and so I am just going to grasp it and move to whatever system we are pointed.  Change is always fun and keeps EVE alive and it is even better when you have no director roles etc to worry about.  So will keep you posted with what happens.  For now though you will have to wait as I will need to log on to find out what is happening myself.

One Grain of Sand Less

If it weren't for the fact that i am actually on holiday i would be logged in right now.  So even though I cannot climb into my ship I can at least send you a small post card whilst I am on relaxing on some small moon somewhere.

It is amazing now how much information you can get, even whilst you cannot climb into your ship.  I logged into Gate and read up on the latest posts which are rather significant from a corp / alliance point of view (more on that later when it is common knowledge).  A quick check of EveMaps and I have a rough update on the political situation that I am slowly getting to grips with (spent too long in hi/low sec and am trying to catch up fast).  A quick run through the latest from the EVE Blog Pack and I am pretty up to date with everything; a main pointer here is that Crazy Kinux is not on the list.  After that I log into EVE Metrics to look through my API and work out what to do with my training next (though my training list is already 470+ days anyway).

Well I will be back on in a few days time and it looks like I am going to be busy.  Signing off for now.

Fly Safe

KT

Thanny Taunting

A few of the guys my Corp (Sp4rtans) decided to taunt a Thanny.  The Thanny pilot managed to get himself a GCC timer and so opened himself up for a little fun.

Taking Her Out For A Spin

Well it has been ages since I got a nice new shiny ship for KT.  I always seem to be getting stuff for my alts with KT just doing the same old and raising ISK whilst others benefit.  But not today, thanks to a very good corp mate (for jumping back to Jita), I now have a Loki.

This is my first T3 ship, and rather than savouring the moment and putting the whole thing together slowly and appreciating the moment I acted like one of my kids at Christmas and shoved everything together with gusto without really paying to much attention to the subsystems building process, threw the modules in and then sat there in station and spun the thing round for a while.  I had not really meant to be online last night, but other stuff got cancelled and well, I acted like a giddy school kid as I played with my new toy.  It was only when after a quite couple of minutes on TS did someone laugh at me and ask if I was spinning my ship in station.  I blushed and had to admit that I was.

Back when I started I did wonder if I had picked the right race to be honest.  Minmatar does come under fire for its somewhat Airfix approach to ship design, however after using an alt that flies other races I discovered I was now pretty much attuned to the resilience of duct tape and speed which you can go.  There are some good looking ships in the whole Minmatar arsenal; the Rifter for example is a popular ship, and I am now going to add the Loki to that list too.

Well after getting a good look in station I joined a fleet and ran a few PLEX to see how she handled, check out the tank and also see what the DPS is like.  On paper this thing looked pretty good; the tank held easy, with only the use of the hardeners I could easily manage a full wave aggro in the hardest PLEX, DPS though is uncertain and I am going to have to play around with that for a while I think.  On the whole though a great ship.  I have used a Maelstrom for so long long doing basic PVE that I also have a big game play change to get used to as well so will keep you posted.

0.0 Perceptions

Well I have just read Manasi's latest blog offering and can say without a doubt that is is true.  Having played and loitered around hi and low sec for a long time with the odd excursion into NPC 0.0 and a very rare dash to 0.0, sovereign claimed 0.0 is one of the most calm and peaceful areas you can be in.  Especially one that is on the rim of New Eden.  I have logged in to find +100 blues in a system, plenty of PLEX to do and lots of ISK to earn.  A CTA (call to arms or other ops) are fun, ok so you might lose a ship and even your implants but you would manage that if you got a war in hi sec.  So stop dithering and move out now.

Skilled First?

Heaven forbid I am actually sitting here skilled up to fly my Loki and the ship ain't in my hanger; now that is a first.  Ok, I am not completely level 5 maxed out yet (though surprising not far away), but I am ready to take my future ship out, so where is it?  I even have the ISK for run a faction / T2 mix until I can afford the real bad boy. I now have to sit patiently until a very good corp mate pops back to hi sec and picks up the parts (a huge thanks for that ... you know who you are), and then I have to wait till I can log on again, which other than the odd skill queue refresh is gonna be a couple of days away ... sigh.  I also have to thank said corp mate for going through my load outs last night and coming up with something a little more nasty, so today will be playing with that fitting to get real grips with what is consists of.

Anyway here is to great corp mates and a new ship fairly soon ...

Ship Wish List

Well with too much non-game time on my hand I have plenty of time to work out what I want to get out in 0.0.  Examining my current ships list, looking at what I am missing and the game play out here I have come up with a few ideas of what might be next, I have inlcuded two ships for an alt of mine along with a faction battleship for another toon I have access to.  I have not however included any caps for KT yet as I still need to work out exactly what I want from that yet.


Want:

Dramiel, just because.  Great for fleet fleets for fast tackle and some DPS with the bonus of having a drone bay in there.



Cynabal for fast cuiser with some attitude.  PVP all the way.

Loki.  For general PVE and PVP and just because I want to.

Tengu.  For the pure tank that this thing has.  A real PVE machine.

Rhea for my alt to get some proper hauling capability.  Why the Rhea?  Well simply because it does have the largest capacity of all the jf.

Rorqual, so i can finish of the industry streak that my alt has been stuck in since the day I started it.

Rattlesnake for another alt that can fly a mean Caldari ship and is getting some rather healthy drones skills.

Grounded!

There is nothing more frustrating than a grounded pilot. My online game time has been cut significantly due to unforeseen circumstances. To make the best of this I am now planning my next ships fittings and planning new skill queues (my current one is well over a year and that is just filling in gaps).

The worst thing however is the reduced income that comes with this. If I was still in high sec then any real gaming would be gone ... completely. The only thing that makes this worth still playing is the ISK you can make in a well established and upgraded part of 0.0. One of my fellow pilots recently was saying he had just made his first Billion in a day, which six months ago I would of thought completely impossible, yet dreamed of doing. So here I am with much less playing time but still have the potential to earn more than I ever could in hi sec.

War ... Again!

Why is it that when I join a corp I get war dec'd.  Well not that I have joined too many corps (2 to be precise) but anyway there you have it; 100% rating so far.

Small corp has dec'd alliance so will see what that brings.  I have no real plans to be down in hi sec atm so unless they are planning on coming out to Branch is gonna be quiet.

Moved!

Well, after 15 months of playing and being in the same corporation (NERF) I have moved.  I have join a few of my old corp mates out in Branch (Sp4rtans) and am now part of the NC (for my sins).  So new times ahead and different challenges but am looking forward to it.

I had been thinking about how a new corp / alliance actually moves out into 0.0 successfully and I had been coming to the conclusion that it can but only with difficulty and that is even more apparent now that I am out here.  This is further backed up in the latest CSM minutes where they talk about the difficulties of getting new alliances out into 0.0.

Anyway, running various ops out here now and enjoying it though at the same time my online time has been cut back significantly so in some ways I think I will be making the same amount of isk I did before.  Anyway lets see what happens; can use the extra time not playing to work on some Loki and Tengu fits.

DIY Charon

Well she's made and sitting in an alts hanger ready to be assembled and flown.  Funny how I always manage to get the ship before I can fly it.  Anyway at least there is no fittings to worry about here.

Freighter seem to fall in to an odd bracket; they are officially not capital ships, yet due to their size you need capital construction to build this ship, along with capital parts, which in turn needs a fair amount of minerals.  However time and effort can see you make one of these for considerably less than market value .. especially if you have access to capital BPC.  Anyway will climb into this beast short and take her for a wallow (could never spin in this thing).

Downtime Again

Crumbs, its been ages since I posted on here ... will try and catch up on things as life is never quiet; well not until CCP decide to move to a newer server room; this is the longest downtime I have ever know in over a year of playing.

So, I have now been flying this capsule of mine around for over a year, and feel pretty comfortable with most aspects of Hi and Low Sec space.  I have yet to really get to grips with Null Sec, sure I flown around a bit, done an Agony Basic course and a few corp roams but as far as I am concerned that does not really cut it.  But will get into that in a little more detail later.

Our new alliance is now over six months too, and it is easy to see why there are only a handful of larger, successful alliances and a lot of smaller ones with burned out leadership.  Being a director changes your attitude towards EVE a lot, and I have to say, I am not sure if that is for the better or not.  The collapse of  BOB and Goonswarm is telling and not a surprise.  It is not all bad however, we have a great group of capsuleers and momentum is building .. watch this space.

Well I would certainly not class myself as rookie anymore, skills allow me to comfortably run all missions, though would always run a logistics alt for level 5s, and this year should see me close out the final set of basic skill training ready for a longer term future, so learning skills max'ed, elite core etc.

We have been pretty much war free now since the last one I talked about and people have settled into their normal routine of missioning and mining, but I have to say that now I have settled down and am looking at some of those rank 14 skills I feel a little more of a pull towards 0.0.  I am happy with most game mechanics and am needing something new and a little less mundane, but always needs to be done as a balance with other stuff, the main thing being isk.  Establishing a steady income is a steady task right now and one that I need to be able to achieve without playing 24/7; see what happens.  Anyway, this gets me up to date, though I will endeavour to throw more regular write ups in even if they are shorter.

Happy New Year One and All

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.  Life has not been boring at all .. and currently it looks like that is not going to stop.  I realise it has been a while since I last wrote on here, is always difficult to keep things up; as writing here means I am not playing EVE or RL has taken over.

In the last month I seem to have managed to do many new things; some good and some not so good.  I have spent a fair amount of time roaming around null sec recently getting to grips with the ins and outs of things and breaking down those images of null sec being a terrible place.  Our corporation finally sorted itself out and has started up a new alliance; some of our old friends have joined us, we have new friends, and some weren't invited.  From here we will see what is going happen; there is lots of ambitious talk at present and I am excited to see what happens.

I lost my first ship due to not paying attention whilst missioning in low sec; I am not going to complain though as I learn a huge amount and also discovered that I am not as bad as I thought I was.  It took my aggressors rather a long time to kill my ship and if I had a way of breaking the scramblers I would of managed to get clear.  What else did I learn, well in the words of Douglas Adams ... "Don't Panic."  With a clear head there are lots of things you can do (even if that is sit and watch your shields slowly turn red).  Still I lost the ship which is a shame but onwards and upwards.

My own plans are also getting bigger and I have to say I am going to need to work on my isk for some of those to happen.  With this taken into account I guess the next stages for me as a approach my first year are:

• Continue to work on my core and gunnery skills.
• Train up tech II cruisers.
• Get some PvP experience in null sec.
• Maybe start some tech II frigate construction.

Well will check on this through the year and see what happens.  Anyway hope everyone had a great time over the holidays and fly safe in the New Year.