Changes

I've left the Alliance to try and find fame and fortune elsewhere.  Sad to go but it seemed like the right time.  I would like to try more of the low and zero sec side of Eve, most likely with some PVP and war decs.  I'm chatting with a corp in my time zone at the moment with the intention of applying to join tonight once the 24 hour cooldown for rights from my own corp expires.  From what I've seen so far they seem like okay people, my current/old corp will stay open however as I setup an alt as the CEO a while ago for this purpose.

Last night I made the journey to the corp system in Gallante space.  The Gallante don't like me very much as I've spent so much time in Caldari space shooting up the Gallante Navy for missions.  Thankfully the journey was uneventful so transfer of goods shouldn't be an issue, though I should be able to source what I need locally anyway.

So interesting times are ahead!

In game blog reminder

I'm back from my trip so the blogging should pick up again.  Just a reminder that I also have an in game blog at http://yosagiyojimbo.blogspot.com/ which now has a couple of posts and should benefit from the same increased posting frequency due to me being "here".

* (02-March-2011)  This post was on the Gallente Exile blog which was merged with this blog after this blog post was made.

The Waste

I'm sitting at the bar in Hurtoken station idly watching a dust storm on part of the planet below, it doesn't look very large but it would still be uncomfortable for anybody down on the surface.  The dust tendrils seem to reach out from the source of the storm, trying to grasp something downwind, without success as the storm is forcast to fade in a day or so.

I try not to think of the waste, of the death that surrounds me, however those thoughts seem to find me when I'm at the bar, after a few drinks.

When I lose a ship in combat, which does not happen often, I'm usually able to warp away in my pod, only poorer for the ISK and face I've lost in the fight.  What I leave behind are the bodies of the crew, floating in space, already dead or flailing around and rapidly approaching a death from asphyxiation or the cold.  Depending on the ship I was flying those numbers may vary from tens to hundreds, if not thousands.  I've never met any of them, the pod pilot area of most space stations is quite removed from the normal areas, it is supposed to be easier that way.  From time to time I dream of them, faceless masses I've surrendered to the void in our empire games.

The waste.

Wormholes!

This is an example of a Wormhole entrance in Hurtoken.  Wormholes have expanded the Eve Universe greatly and are being used more and more.  We now have corporations who are living almost exclusively in a Wormhole, have a Player Owned Station (POS) and the various support facilities that enable this lifestyle.

In some ways these people have cut themselves off from the greater Eve Universe while providing materials to that same Universe from the mining operations, missions etc.

This has created more space in high, low and, zero sec space as the more adventurous players are moving towards Wormholes which is making more space for new players etc.

Above you can see my Helios about to explore a Wormhole in a high sec system, this Wormhole is unstable and will collapse within the next 24 hours.  Essentially it is a direct conduit from this high sec system to, in practical terms, a zero sec system with no local chat, truly wide space.

Be aware.

Mining The Black

Sitting in a back water system, watching the local traffic scanner and keeping half an eye on the state of the mining crystals.  I would like to say it's an exciting life but mining for myself or the corporation is boring.  However if you are really unlucky it can suddenly become quite exciting in a horrible way. At the moment their is only three other pilots in system, mining, docked or running their own agendas I guess.  The names are familiar to me and I to them.  We will not be sending each other greetings Holo-Vids any time soon so they are comfortable tenants for this system.  I prefer to mine here as it is a few jumps away from my busy home base, where local numbers can spike at three hundred plus, but here if the local population reaches double figures it is an event.  So I mine into the hold, not really targeting any particular type of ore, just strip mining the belts as either myself or the corporation will need it all given enough time.  The rats in this system are small, and while I do have a full drone hold of combat drones they are rarely troubled from their electronic slumber. The hull of my mining ship, and the resistances of my shields make the local rats an annoyance only, usually I send out a combat drone when I am fed up with the constant pounding of the ineffectual attack on my ship, the rat is destroyed and I recall the drone, leaving me with the constant and hypnotic sounds of the strip miners and the activity in the hold when the ore is brought aboard.

The cargo hold is starting to fill up, soon it will be time to warp back to the station and deposit my ore.  I align the ship to the space station in readiness as the next complete mining cycle should fill the hold completely.  Aligning the ship in this circumstance is really just a small way to break the monotony, but a useful thing to know should my mining activities take me into a less secure system.  The hold is full and I start the warp sequence, noticing that local traffic has reached fifteen.

Keeping an eye on local space as the mining ship starts warping in case I'll have some visitors when I return, nothing appears and then I'm in the warp tunnel.  The warp journey is a shorter one, only 14AU or so and then the shuddering begins as the warp collapses as I hopefully approach the station.  There it is, the same old station, appearing the same old way.  I ask for docking clearance which is approved after a longer than usual delay, sometimes it's shorter than other times.  My suspicion for the delay is academic really, I think it's caused by docking controls intense boredom looking after such a quiet system with little traffic.

The docking control system brings the ship into my docking bay and the ore is dumped in my hanger bay for later refining or transport.  Checking local again the increased pilot numbers seem to have gone, it could have been an attack group or just a coincidence, hard to say.  I undock and warp back to the belt, ready to fill the hold again.

You little thief!

I was busy with some other tasks so I was semi-afk mining, just plinking away at the asteroids, using another corporation member to pickup the mined product and having a pretty relaxed time.

During my mining stint I sent the drones out a few times to rid me of the local rat ships that pound on the hull with their little guns, I was soon surrounded by a dozen wrecks.

I had a few locals warp in and out during my time and this guy looked the same, have a look and leave.

He flew to one of my wrecks and then looted the contents!  On my threat display he was now flashing red, I could legally attack at any time!! 

I laughed and laughed, welcome to two years ago pal, ahh the nostalgia.  Back in the CAS days I saw this quite a bit.

Using one of the faction Minmater Rifters he stole about 5k of loot from destroyed system rats, hardly a fortune.  If he wanted a fight between that and a Hulk he wasn't going to get it from me, I kept mining.

You gave me a highlight that day and for that I thank you.

2 Years In Game!

A couple of milestones in the last week or two. I have reached just over two years in EvE Online and I have also moved past thirty two million skillpoints. Of interest is what the new Evemon is telling me. According to Evemon I am thirty days behind where I should be given the skills I have trained and my current attributes. So from the Evemon point of view, considering that remapping your attributes is a recent ability, if I had the perfect attributes at the beginning of my training, and trained the exact skills I have now I would have reached the thirty two million mark one month before I actually did. Oh well.

Two years in the game. Not much has changed but then again it has, not very helpful I know. From my point of view the change has been gradual but I have found the biggest change to be the massive reduction in lag, especially in Jita and other trade hubs. I remember the closer I flew to Jita the lag would rise and then logging into Jita was a lottery and could take five minutes or more for the ship to appear at the gate so I could warp to station. Now I see 800+ pilots in system with little issue.

My biggest regret is the loss of EvE TV. It helped the immersion of the game to view in game news readers and then it gave us a natural progression to the tournaments and the reporting of the fights. That still happens but I miss the weekly (?) broadcasts.

In the future we have the next expansion which is interesting, walking in stations, DUST 514, etc. As an MMO EvE seems alive, more alive than some others.