Low Sec Roaming

Well, spent a large proportion of this week running around null sec and amazed at how empty it is.  Having spent the last eight months in high and low sec was amazingly peaceful out there.  I realise that I was not in large contested areas but still I did expect to see more people.

Jumped into one system where two guys threw up a bubble as I jumped through but luckily they were in cruiser (or BS, too busy to look as I was trying to get away) sized ships, so just burned out cloaked and jumped on.

Was surprised at the lack on stations and now see why logistics is such a big issue in null sec.  JF much needed as well as a good POS somewhere definitely required if am going to take full advantage of everything out here.

Decided it was time to better my PvP skills so am planning on doing an Agony Unleashed Basic PvP course at the end of the month; will let you know how that goes.

Got myself a tempest recently and have realised how much my skill based was shields orientated so back on to core training again.  Will help though with sorting out a proper PvP fitted hurricane so time to stop putting that training off.

Anyway fly safe ...

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.

Scanning Skills Part 1

Introduction

Ok so I need to be able to scan, what skills are there and what should I learn when and why?  This is just a small post to start this whole topic off.

Fundamentally there are only four skills associated with scanning:

• Astrometrics
• Astrometric Aquisistion
• Astrometric Pinpointing
• Astrometric Rangefinding

Before you start you will need science at level 3, however all characters have this as a basic skill at this level so it is easy  to start.

Skill Descriptions

Ok before going through the training stages it worth describing the skills.

Astrometrics (Rank 3, requires Science 3)

The skill at operating long range scanners (probes).  The skill allows you to use one additional probe per level.  Starting with 4 probes at level 1.  This is a vital skill and you should aim to get this to level 4 asap.  This frees up all the other skills for you to access and also gives you more probes.  Ultimately with 8 probes out you can be scanning two locations simultaneously.

Astrometric Aquisition (Rank 5, requires Astrometrics 3)

Skill at the advanced operation of long range scanners.  10% reduction in the time taken for a scan probe cycle.  Starting time is 10 seconds.  So how much does the standard deviation really affect me?  Well if you are scanning at 4AU resolution and an anomaly to reading a distance of 0.681AU then it could actually be 4.681AU away, so when you reduce your probe range for the next scan there is a change you might miss it altogether.  This skill comes third in my list of importance and I would suggest getting this to 4 as soon as range finding has been trained.

Astrometric Pinpointing (Rank 5, requires Astrometrics 4)

Greater accuracy in hunting down targets found through scanning.  Reduces maximum scan deviation by 10% per level.  Starting scan deviation is 100% of the total range that the probe is set to.  This is probably the least important of the four skills as it does not affect your capability to find something and therefore should be one of the last skills you train to max.  It does however provide you with a huge benefit when either chasing down other capsuleers, trying to find that high value radar site before anyone else or just processing the 20+ sites you have found in w/hole space.  SO yes aim to increase it but not before you have focussed on the others.

Astrometric Rangefinding (Rank 8, requires Science 3)

kill at the advanced operation of long range scanners.  10% increase to scan probe strength per level.  Training this up is vital, your going to need all the scan strength you can get so you should target training this up as soon as possible.

Training

You are going to undertake the process of learning the scanning skills in several stages.  Why?  Well first and foremost the skills are ranked reasonably high and to train these all the way through is gonna be boring, and furthermore these skills are not the only ones you are going to need whatever active you are going to be doing so expect to break these up into stages.  This is going to get a lot more focus in Dominion where there will be specific scanning / exploration career paths so will be interesting to see how close I am.

Novice

This is very much a straight out of the box capability.  You have just started playing EVE, get the skill book and jump into a frigate and your away.  The draw backs here are that some of the higher value, harder to find anomalies are going to be out of your reach in finding (locking down to 100% and warpable).  So you are going to want to get up to beginner asap.

Beginner

This is where you will start to find your getting good at scanning, you have worked out your system for managing the probes and have found a pattern for scanning.  This level is good for exploration and will give you a good setup for finding anomalies.  You will probably plateau here for a little while as you will now need some of the other supporting skills (hacking and archeology).

Intermediate

Your now getting into the professional scanning, fleet support type of role here.  Your skills base is now getting to the point where your ship scanning skills are at a speed where you can scan down pilots quickly and effectively and are useful with fleet scouting and recon roles.

Elite

World is your oyster and it is time to train up on something else.  Congrats on getting here.