Cliffhanger!

In The Flesh

For one reason or another I found myself in the Olo station again as it was roughly in-between where I was and where I wanted to go, a short detour was not a problem. I've not moved most ships and material to the new alliance location, partly because it's not really all needed and also my ingrained cynicism about anything new.

“These carbon based life forms will never last!”, I say to myself, a little laugh, almost a grunt escaping my lips.

I knew Roku would be in station, or at least close by, and I'd organised a meeting in the flesh, the first in over two and a half years. The obvious venue is one of the station pubs. Thinking back to when I stepped upon this stations floors again after all the null security operations, I compared the stations down there to here, it was remarkable how much like home it seemed here. The problem with null security stations is they are either filthy or empty and almost haunted by capsuleers of the past. However the majority of your time is spent in a ship dispensing death, or more often these days, watching the bad guys while cloaked up and hoping to get in a sneak attack before you're once again out numbered and out gunned.

Olo station was clean for the most part, but it looked lived in, it had a life over and above the people moving about. It has shops, clubs, pubs, and a myriad of other attractions for whatever your desire. While I'm not a huge fan of people as a rule sometimes it's useful for a pod pilot to be reminded they're around and ultimately they are what this is all about in the end.

I find the pub I'm looking for and locate Roku, he waves me over.

“Roku!”, I loudly call out, even though I'm close to the table, it's noisy in here tonight.

“Hey Yos, good to see you! Damn I'd almost forgotten what you looked like as it's been nearly three years!”, he says putting an emphasis on the “three years” part.

I sit down and try to look sheepish, and fail.

“You know how it is. A week goes into a month, that month goes into a few and before too long here we are, nearly three years down the warp tunnel, although it's more like two and a half years for the record.”, using a rather amused tone.

“So how do you like the changes to the warp governors? I heard CONCORD made them make the change New Eden wide to try and slow down our expansion.”, Roku has sort of leaned over by this stage and tries to say this in a conspiratorial manner, he's not very good at it.

“Well they've made space bigger that's for sure, as it now takes what seems like a hell of a lot longer to get anywhere in any ships that matter. How is it with the Orca and Freighter?”

“Not great to pretty damn boring, it's certainly slowed down the hauling operation, but we get there in the end”, mumbles Roku.

I'm wondering how much he had to drink before I arrived.

“Although on the bright side I can now catch up on heaps more Holo Porn while in transit from gate to gate!”, he adds rather unnecessarily.

It's at this stage my communicator starts buzzing, surreptitiously I have a look and the news isn't good, it is time to go. I bid my farewell, by this stage Roku's actions are confirming the earlier drunk suspicion, I recommend he call it a night.

As I'm leaving, and on the threshold of the establishment I give a flourish with one arm while saying, “Time, tide and wormholes wait for no man. I bid you adieu!”

I'd be surprised if anybody heard me or cared.

'Tis The Season To Punch Somebody

Recently I passed the one hundred million skill point mark.

Actually this milestone passed while I wasn't really paying much attention so if their was fireworks and a parade I must have missed it.

It's funny how my skill points have been allocated as in the early days, when I had less of an idea than I do now, I pretty much threw them around in much the same fashion as a primate redistributes its own crap.  As time moved on I learnt the game some more, obtained some advice from those with more time in the game, and slowly directed the massive ship (ego) that is SS Yosagi to a new training track.  These days I can use most ships that I wish to pretty well, I still have some holes but generally it's okay.

When it came to training up the alt account I had a much better idea of my goals, so that character has tens of millions less skill points but is very similar in capability in PVE and PVP.

These days with my main character I'm starting to hit a training wall, either the next step is a month or so of training to finish off a skill or the remaining options are for pain in the arse ships like Titans etc.

I guess as problems go it's not a huge one.

The Yule Lads Christmas time promotion moves on.  In case you don't know each day we can click on a number (essentially the date) and collect some in game items.  I've yet to receive anything beyond a run of the mill T2 module but I'm hoping it'll improve as we get closer to the day of roast potatoes and collapse. A few weeks of insane people made insane by this time of the year and seemingly feel they can treat other people in an insane way and I'm over it all.

Insanity.

It's The Quiet Busy Time

The alliance is very quiet at the moment.  It's funny how this time of year seems to crit the alliance for wrecking damage.  Our alliance, like many others I've seen, seems to revolve around a few key people, lose those for some reason and things grind to a halt.  We've had a coincidence of events which in isolation would not usually be an issue but combined, the time of year, and the interest of several potential recruits, it is causing an issue.

We've just lost a key null sec member, more will probably follow.  We've been trying the null sec experiment but have been unable to reach that critical mass of members down there to make things happen, rather than reacting to events and trying to make the best of them.  Recently we've been waiting until low server population so we can scuttle out of the station and destroy some NPC rats until somebody takes enough interest in our system and then we are forced to scuttle back inside.

Comparing ourselves to cockroaches could be a bit of a stretch, but it seems apt, also I sprayed one last night in RL with outdoor spider spray, so it's either dead or gathering his cousins for an invasion seven nights hence.

Rubicon continues to slowly reveal itself.  Interceptors have become the de facto null sec taxi.  I've not been seriously challenged moving to and fro in my inty, in some ways the warp speed changes have made low and null security space more accessible.  However the other side of that coin is with high sec and larger ships.  I now find myself using the larger haulers less or just using them to traverse known ganking spots.

How to create more space?  Make the ships that matter, move slower.

POCO's are interesting.  The initial land grab in my area may be over but I noticed two of the POCO's I would normally use were destroyed and not replaced.  I threw up my own, set the tax rate fairly low, free for corp, free for alliance, and we'll see what happens.  With other POCO's I don't own I'm in the habit of checking the tax rate everyday before I move material through it, I've been caught in null sec by somebody jacking the tax rate right up so I'll not be caught again.  What I'm hoping will happen with the high sec ownership change is some people will drop out of PI, thus improving the planets they're now not using as they will have more time to recover.  That's the wish anyway.

Right now though I'm waiting for an afternoon appointment, it's 30 degrees Celsius, the humidity seems to be at approx one billion percent, I'm looking forward to the afternoon storm and change of wind direction, we have an outside chance of rain.

Winter expansion my arse!