So I Went and Got Myself Another Dommie…

…only this time I’m not going to go getting it blown up on a mission my first time out. It was affordable enough, and now I just need to to come up with a good loadout. I’ve been searching, but not finding a lot of good options. Any ideas are most welcome.

The reason I bought the Dommie is because…well, why not? I can afford it and having a fully-fit Dominix handy can’t hurt. Plus, I’ll be able to use more drones and that’s always a good thing.

So, right now, that’s what I’m doing: Trying to come up with a Dommie setup I’m happy with. Once I do, it’ll be time to buy all the parts, put them together, and get back down to business.

Grrrrr…

The last few days I feel like the fates are conspiring against me playing EVE. Every time I’ve sat down to play, the phone rings or there’s some other reason I have to stop and go deal with real life. Last night I had to give up on a radar site I’d just successfully tracked down when friends showed up unexpectedly. The night before, another friend needed an emergency pickup at the train. It’s always something.
So, this weekend I’ve made sure that I have a block of time on Saturday with nothing to do, and kitty co-pilot Jazz and I are going exploring.
More as I have it…

Busy, Busy, Busy…

…and not a lot of time for EVE.

It’s been a busy week in RL, hence my lack of posts this past week or so. Last night I logged in for a while and checked out a few systems, but I was pretty exhausted so that didn’t last long. I’ll probably have some time tonight so I expect Jazzy (yes, the new kitty has a name now) and I will go exploring and make a little ISK.

In other, mostly unrelated news, I’ve found myself jumping into Need For Speed World for a quick race or high-speed chase with the cops. It’s something I can play and have fun with for ten minutes at a pop when I don’t have the time to play EVE. It’s not something I expect to invest a lot of time or money into but it is kinda fun in short bursts, like APB.

Anyway, more soon, fly safe.

A Short Semi-Respite

We had a new and unexpected addition to the household yesterday, a little silver and black kitten I’ve named Jasmine, or Jazz for short. As you might imagine, the last twenty-four hours since she’s arrived have been a little busy, without much, if any, time for EVE. She’s becoming quite skilled at locating a comfortable spot on my lap and settling in while I’m at the computer, so I expect I’ll have a co-pilot on many of my upcoming explorations.

One interesting thing I did discover when I finished my last skill training and went looking for something useful to train was that I had one glaring omission from my curriculum from the last time around: Advanced Drone Interfacing.

Talk about a game-changer. Most of the damage I do to NPC’s is from my drones, but until the other day I could only field three Ogre II’s at a time despite being able to carry six in the Myrm’s drone bay. Eve-Mon tells me that Level 3 will finish training about 2pm tomorrow (eastern US time of course, says the Jersey girl), and once that happens I’ll be able to launch a full bay of Ogre II’s at my enemies. No doubt I’ll be having some serious fun with that ability.

Oh, and there is one other reason I haven’t spent any real time in EVE over the last couple of days. STO just got a major update so I’ve been spending a little time in there checking it out. Actually, I’ve probably spent more time with STO in the last day or so than in the last month or two before it, but that’s not an especially high hurdle. I will say that the solo mission I did was a lot of fun and I’m sure I’ll do more. At the same time, it’s a good thing that I have a lifetime sub to STO because now that I’m back in EVE I’m not sure I’d be willing to keep paying for STO over the long haul, at least not as the game has been since launch. There are supposedly big changes coming soon, so as a lifer I’m willing to see what’s just arrived and what’s coming soon before I make any final judgments. At this point, there’s really no reason not to.

In all honesty, I need a little break from EVE every now and then anyway. Both the skill training and STO’s update, not to my mention my new feline friend, are perfect excuses to take a day or two off. I want to keep it fresh and interesting and one good way to do that is to mix it up at least a little.

Til next time, fly safe.

A Bizarre Expedition and a Visit To Lagland

Last night, a comment on my last post clued me in to why I couldn’t warp to the Gurista hideout I’d found. I had indeed been offered an expedition in my journal. By the time I saw it, though, there were only about seven hours left to get it done so I wasted no time moving both my ships along with all my exploration mods and ammo to the system my journal indicated.

When I got there, I went in with the Thorax and found plenty of enemies, and quickly realized I was overmatched. I warped out, went beck to my staging station, and came back with the Myrm, but when I did all of the enemies took off. Gone. Poof. All that time spent moving everything over and suddenly there was nothing to do there.

As luck would have it, though, I found myself with all my stuff in an area I hadn’t explored yet, so I’ve decided to make that system my new temporary base of operations while I check out the local systems. Those that I’ve checked out so far have yielded about a million ISK in cargo and salvage, but nothing especially great in terms of profits.

And maybe it’s because it’s a Sunday, but when I warped to many of the cosmic signatures I scanned down today I’d discovered that someone had beat me to it.

I also did something today that I probably haven’t done in about two and a half years, and for the very first time because I had an actual reason to do it, not just to go be a space tourist. Reviewing the loadout on my Myrm I realized that some of the drones I was using with it were really far beneath the level it was capable of handling. So, I unloaded a bunch of Hobgoblins and Hammerheads and realized I only had two Ogre II’s, which are my favorites to use with the Myrm.

I have to admit I laughed a little when I went to the Market screen to buy five more Ogre II’s and found that the best local price, by at least 50%, was in Jita. I’d been to Jita all of once in my EVE career, very early on when I’d just made a trek out there just to see what the heck was so special about the system that everyone seemed to talk about it constantly. As I remembered, it was entirely unremarkable, other than that there were well over a thousand people in Local and the lag getting in and out of the system was by far the worst I’ve ever experienced in this game. Since that was almost three years ago, I hoped that by now it would be better. I bought my Ogres and set off for Jita.

I didn’t really notice any problems until I got one jump outside of Jita. First, as soon as I arrived it was pretty obvious that just about every ship in the system was headed in the same direction, toward the gate to Jita. When I got to the gate, there was fortunately no waiting line to jump in like there was the last time I was there, but the lag was definitely noticeable.

Once in the system, I docked and picked up my Ogres without much trouble, scanned through the offers in Local just to see if there was anything interesting, and then headed back to the gate to get back where I was exploring. When I clicked the button to jump out though, I didn’t go anywhere for several seconds, and then the screen went black and stayed that way. After nearly a minute, the phone rang and I stepped out of the room for a few minutes. When I returned, I found myself on the other side of the gate and headed back toward my staging system.

Y’know, maybe it’s just me, but I seem to remember CCP swearing up and down a while back that they were going to do something about the lag in Jita. Certainly, I have to say it’s better than the last time I was there, but by no means is it what could be called good. A black screen for well over a minute at minimum just to exit the system doesn’t indicate to me that CCP has finally got a handle on this issue.

Now, to be honest, I haven’t really given a shit one way or the other since I’ve only been there twice and I’ll probably never go back unless I have a really good reason like I did today, but nevertheless it would be nice if CCP could figure out a way to deal with the issue and make the trip a nicer and faster one for everyone who has to go there.

Gettin’ Experienced…

…but slowly, so very, very, slowly.

It may be just that it’s been a busy Saturday on TQ. Today it seemed especially hard to track down cosmic signatures, though I did run across and scan down my first magnometric signature. Big frakking deal. A few thousand worth of salvage for all the time it took to scan it down. Feh.

I’ve never been especially big on mining, so when I’ve scanned down a signature far enough to discover it’s gravimetric I give up on it and move on. At the same time, though, I know there’s a lot of ISK to be made at those sites so I’m reconsidering that. I dunno…I know there’s ISK to be made there, but boredom is also a factor.

Right now, I’m just playing “High-Sec Hit and Miss”, which is to say that basically I’m just picking a direction toward systems I’ve never been to or haven’t been to in a while and heading out to see what I can find. Most of the time this method seems to work pretty well and I find at least enough stuff to keep me interested and engaged, with a decent payout at the end. Today, not so much, but it’s really the first time since I came back to EVE and started exploring that I haven’t been happy with my daily take.

Another thing I ran into for the first time today was a signature that didn’t indicate a type once I’d scanned it down to 100%. Following this led me to an acceleration gate that sent me to a second room with a few enemies and another gate. I took out the enemies, gathered the few paltry items from the wrecks, then hit the next gate. This room had several more enemies, and during the battle I was notified that three Guristas had fled but my ship’s computer had determined their most likely hiding spot in case I wanted to go chase them. After I’d dealt with the room, I attempted to pursue, but was notified that natural phenomena prevented me from warping there. Interestingly, this did not prevent me from warping elsewhere. Quite bizarre, and not really worth the time and effort invested. Oh well.

So, I think I’m gonna go check out another system or two or three or…before bed.

Til next time, fly safe.

The Thorax Flies Again

Sometimes, I think I’m too damned creative for my own good.

Tonight, I was scanning down a radar site that was a little tougher than than most so I thought it would help if I added a couple of extra probes to the five I already had out there. It helped a little at first, but the reality was that it made it a lot harder to keep the rest of the probes aligned. After a while, I got rid of the two extras and went back to a five-probe scan pattern. Once I did that I was able to scan it down in just a couple of tries. There are times when simpler really is better.

Before I found this little three million ISK treasure trove, though, I’d done another run through my assets and discovered that I own not one, but three Thoraxes. Since two of them are out in 0.0 where I’ll almost certainly never see them again, I decided to go get the one I had in high-sec, just a quick thirteen jumps from where I was.

I flew the Magnate out there, stripped it down, threw the parts in the Thorax’s cargo hold and headed back to where I’ve been exploring. Once back at my current staging station, I refitted one of the Thorax’s high slots with my Core Probe Launcher I, stuck a Codebreaker I in one of the mid slots, loaded up with ammo and probes, and off I went.

Once I’d successfully scanned down the radar site, I flew the Thorax in, took out the few guards there, and hacked and looted the containers and wrecks, all without having to go back and get the Myrm to finish the job. I like.

Hell of a way to make a living, but a lot easier than running missions, that’s for sure.

Explorations

So today I went out and scanned down several more cosmic signatures, bookmarked some anomalies to go check out with the Myrm later, and found one radar site which brought me a few million in loot after I went in with the Myrm and took care of the NPCs. Not bad for an afternoon.

I’ve decided that I need to upgrade the ship I use to do my system-to-system exploring in. The Magnate I got for finishing the exploration course just ain’t cutting it and it’s not like I can’t afford it, so I think that’s going to be my next in-game project. Hmmm, I think I may just happen to have a spare Thorax lying around here somewhere…

Out of game, I realized the other day that I still haven’t read “The Burning Life” so I think I’m going to get that for my Kindle after I’m done with the Star Trek novel I’m reading now. Yes, when I jump back into this game, it’s generally with both feet.

And hey it’s nice to see CCP finally taking an interest in updating its fan site page. I like the idea of EVE Gate/Spacebook too. I used it to send a message to someone in-game the other night just to try it out and it seems to work pretty well. The one thing they’re going to have to be careful about is information control, who can see what, etc. I can see a real concern with EVE Gate being players wondering if their information is secure enough to have it in there and not have to worry if the right people are able to see it. Not everyone wants a site where anyone can go and see where they’re currently located and other vital information they may or may not want to share.

Oh yeah, and I when I went into that radar site, I found myself up against a pretty fair amount of Guristas but my Myrm handled them pretty easily. Damn, I love that thing.

It’s really amazing how easily it all comes back. I was a bit concerned that I’d forget to do something or massively screw up in some other way in combat and cost myself my battlecruiser, but no…at least, not yet. This site had by far the most enemies I’ve faced since coming back to the game, but I just fell into that rhythm you get into when you’re being attacked by NPCs. You know what I mean, that “…lock, lock, lock, lock, lock, approach, engage drones, orbit, engage, approach next target, lock new target, engage drones, orbit, engage, approach next target…” thing you get into when you don’t really have time to think or do anything other than keep up with the masses of incoming enemies.

The short version is I’m having a pretty good time with exploration so far, and its getting progressively better as I continue to train up the relevant skills. I don’t know how long I’ll be doing it for or how often in the future, but right now I’m having a blast so who knows?

Until next time, fly safe.