The learning continues..

Not that I ever really expect to know everything about the game, or even a small amount but it is interesting to note that more or less everytime I log off from the game, I have experienced something new or made a mental link/leap to understanding a little bit more of the game.

My latest is finally starting to get a grasp of the ship loadouts that I fly.  Up until this point, I have mostly scoured the internet looking for ship loadouts that made sense to me for my style of play.  This is good to give you a foundation but I always felt that I was not really participating in the process, more playing the sheep that follows.  Now, I understand that popular fits are popular for a reason and absolutely should be taken note of, even so the following are a few traps I’ve fallen into as a new player:

1) Bigger guns!  got to get bigger guns! – no.  in short.  This is not the answer – it is much better to specialise in one weapon than be mediocre in a few, whatever the size

2) I just popped – more armour is needed! – not necessarily true.  Having spent a few nights on the roam with some corpmates, I was surprised at how many different approaches to limiting damage there actually are.  Yes, you can shield tank, yes you can armour tank if you want to stand in the middle and take a pounding but this is not the only answer.  Speed tanking is very effective (although I’m not really brave enough to try that one yet) but also think about ewar, being Gallente I am specifically thinking ECM drones here.  If the target can’t lock you, he can’t hit you (this was a particular revelation last night, time to train up the drones a bit more). 

3) Is the armour repairer really worth it?  Possibly if you are out for a long roam but there are nearly always stations to dock in – is it better to bring the pain with an extra damage modifier and go for the faster kill or better to try and keep yourself in the engagement longer.  Jury is still out on this one, but having lost all of my ships whilst trying to rep, I’m no longer convinced that the cap is worth it – particularly if we are going to bring in the ECM drones..

4) Corp.  Yes I read it numerous times but it really does make a difference to be in a good corp – just listening to the vent chatter around fits and tactics goes a long way to answering questions or pointing you in new directions that might not have been considered.

Next to consider is the engagements I’ve been in where I have lost ships.  A lot of times, I’ve been simply out ganked – as mentioned above this brings into question the use of the armour repairer.  It hasn’t saved me in those scenarios so I no longer have much faith in their worth.  Other times I have been neut/nos’d – initially my response was to train up autocannons as they just keep going, not requiring any CPU.  This bothers me though as I’m not getting best use of the bonuses for the ships I fly (most notably the Thorax).  This has caused me some frustration, BUT if I can introduce the ECM drones, this is a problem that may no longer exist (albeit the jamming is chance based).  So, specialise in Hybrids & ECM drones appears to be the answer here.

So where does this leave me with the other equipment I’ve so far been using?  I don’t really like using Nos as it removes an extra weapon slot and they only drain down to the equivalent of my own CPU which in my mind means that they are only useful if you are already screwed.  To me, this is not the way to approach a battle.  Neuts are more effective but they take more cap and also remove a weapon slot, again something that doesn’t really sit comfortably with me.  Armour reppers have already been discussed.

Conclusions?  lose the nos/neut, armour reppers, add the damage modifiers and medium hybrids (specialised) and try to avoid damage via ECM drones.  Lo and behold, a training plan is born.  This may fail spectacularly when put into practice, but it is a plan and loadout that I have realised fits how I currently want to approach engagements and feel most comfortable with at this time.  No doubt this will adapt, be tweaked and grow and its effectiveness is still yet to be seen but it is a conclusion that I have come to through personal experience of numerous losses which puts me back in the pilots seat, as it were.

Suicide ganking in Jita

Spent nearly an hour fitting up a new Thorax in Jita yesterday, only to have it ganked when undocking from Jita!  Bah.

I’m sure that the Thorax is jinxed for me as I never get to keep them for very long.  Luckily it was insured but I still lost 10mil for my efforts.  To make matters worse, I hadn’t moved my clone from my previous home base so now I have a 20 jump journey to make to get back to my new home station.  Grr.

Changing fortunes

Been a while since my last update, largely because I’ve been flailing around a little trying to find my place in the eve universe.  I joined the pirate corp but didn’t manage to get a kill during my couple of weeks there so when the opportunity of a breakout trainer corp presented itself I jumped at the opportunity.

Nearly 2 weeks and still waiting for my first kill…

The rush of pvp is such that you want it all the time like any good drug, although I’m starting to learn that what makes it so special is the waiting inbetween, the hunting of the prey as it were.  Not sure this much waiting is usual mind..

In the mean time, I’ve set up an alt (largely to act as a courier had I stayed in low sec pirating) – originally I intended to not really train up any skills other than those that were absolutely necessary, but in the lull of activity I’ve decided to get her involved in my trading experimentation to take the effort off my main to keep dropping the shit picked up back at the trade hubs.  To this end, it’s been reasonably successfull – having read a number of forums and doing as much research as I could into trading, I started to get frustrated by the lack of forthcoming info on what exactly to trade.  Having spent a week or so doing it, I now understand why – those items for the quick kill are few and far between, certainly for a lower isk character.  All I can say is exactly what I read time and time again.  Do the research, look and you will find.  in less than a couple of weeks, I’ve turned a 9mil starting fund into 55mil, and for the most part that was done by trading only 3 or 4 different items over and over again.

My next venture to supliment my trading during low pvp activity is to look into exploration.  This is one of the aspects of eve that had real intrigued me when doing the starter missions, so figure I’ll go back and look at it again.  Watch this space.

Finally learnt the lesson.

After losing my last Thorax to a gate camp the other night I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I’m positive all seasoned players know that bigger is not better when you are hoping to engage in pvp for a new player such as myself.
Mission running and ratting will let you get away with upgrading to a larger ship and certainly a minimum of a cruiser is required to take down some of the spawns in low sec but, and here’s the point, you can’t fit them right without better skills. And while I have been making isk faster than I have been losing it by ratting, my heart really is in trying to become a successful pirate and learning the ropes of pvp.
With that in mind, I’ve chosen to stick to frigates for the time being and channel my funds into those, training up the skills to try and squeeze as much out of them before I start looking to upgrade again.
What is yet to be seen is whether or not I can maintain my income at the same rate against loss…

Ahh, the Rifter…

Being Gallente, I really really really wanted to stay within race for my ships, but after much deliberation, I decided to train up the (easy) skills in order to use a Rifter.  What can I say…It’s everything and more that I’ve read about.  I so wanted to be able to believe (even naively) that the Incursus would be a contender but, and here is the truth.  The Rifter rocks.  The house.  And the earth.  And the sky.  It really us all it’s cracked up to be and more.

The title of this post was going to be…

…Day 3 and I still have my Thorax.

Instead, it’s ‘pop, there goes another one’

Interesting night last night and once again more valuable experience gained, not so much in playing the game but definately in understanding the wealth of information thats available and analysing what to do with it. 

Had a productive evening ratting in my favourite 0.2 spot but there was an unusual amount of activity of pilots coming through the system.  At first, I figured they were pirates on a roam so I kept docking, waiting for the all clear and then heading out again.  A quick look at the profile of the pilots showed them to be, on majority, pirates of which there were many big hitters.  Playing it safe, as I thought, I would rat, dock, rat etc.  After a while I realised that they weren’t on a roam and got a little more comfortable staying out in the belts (aligning to an appropriate object each time someone appeared on local for a quick exit if needed).  I figured something big must be happening but they seemed largely indifferent to my being there so clearly I wasn’t an object of their attention.  This should have been a warning sign but I didn’t see it.

After boosting my ISK by a few million, I headed back to the station to ascertain the higher value loot to carry back to my home station for selling, loaded up and set off for the small 2 jump back to 0.6 space.  Undocked, kicked in the warp drive (to zero for the stargate obviously) and ..

.. jumped straight to a gate camp.  This is my first, but I had read a little before hand – I started mashing the jump button and got through.  To be caught in the other half of the gate camp on the other side.

Locked in place, I wasn’t going anywhere and resigned myself to death with the hope that I might be able to save my clone.

Pop went the ship.  Mash went my finger on the ‘warp the fuck out of here’ button, pop went my pod.

On analysis, I could have at least sent out my drones and attacked the nearest target in the hopes of at least scoring a point for confidence in PVP engagement, but to my dismay I just sat there waiting for the innevitable.  Shame really as I had hoped I wouldn’t freeze like this again under attack (there were more flashy red. -9+ pirates here than I had encountered before so was more than a little overwhelmed) and that I would go down fighting.  Not on this occasion it would seem.

The shame really isn’t that I’ve lost another Thorax – I’ve built up enough ISK now to not really feel the impact of this, but the loot I was carrying was substantial in it’s worth – roughly 10 mil.

Lesson learned this time?  abnormal  activity definately requires a quick analysis of the map to look for pod deaths, activity etc for the route home!

Its a long haul, learning the basics of low sec life, but I feel like I’m getting there..

Ratting in 0.2

Found another nice quiet lowsec ratting area, this time in 0.2 space. Got a commadore spawn which was nice and easily dealt with so best part of 3 mil in total for the night which I am very happy about. What it means is I now have a couple of ratting areas that appear to be underpopulated enough to bounce between should undesirables appear on scan.
I also had 2 revelations last night;
1) following some basic survival rules meant I came home with my shiny thorax (yes another one, I determined to make it work..
2) DCU’s are not passive…yep, that’s right, I didn’t realise you had to actually turn the bugger on. Faithfully fitted to all of my ships and never actively used it would seem. Doh.

Ratting in 0.3

Took a shiny new thorax out ratting last night in low sec space. If
you’ve read any of my previous posts you will no doubt be aware that
my previous encounters with nlthis ship has ended in disaster and
while I can’t in all honesty say that I still have the thorax, it was
at least more profitable than my previous excursions and only tainted
with my own stupidity of ‘that one more rat’ syndrome that I’m sure
many have fallen into.
I found a nice quiet spot in low sec, no one on local and a dozen or
so belts to explore so off I went. Got a few BC spawns so was soon
pulling in nearly 200,000 a pop. Marvellous.
Then someone else popped into local, a quick look at their profile
showed them to be someone to avoid so I brought in my drones, aligned
toy exit Gate and waited to see what happened. After a couple of
minutes, he left local and I was on my own once more. Back to the
ratting then.
Ten minutes later, he popped back on to local and I was fced With a
choice… At this point, I know he has cone back for me so I can
either jump to my safe spot and see if he leaves again, jump to he
gate and call it a night or continue ratting and hope or the best. The
latter was my choice and was definately the wrong one..
The pirate jumps into my belt, so I spool up the warp drive for my
exit gate. But nothing happens. I’m confused as he is not yet in
webbing distance only to see that the npc I had ben ratting had webbed
my instead. Bugger. Nothin lef now but to kick in the afterburner an
hope I can break it before the pirate reaches me. No dice, he is on me
in no time and all I can do I spam the warp to 0 icon for when my ship
innevitaby goes pop. I get away clean and back to my home base.
Overall, I am up on the night even minus a cruiser but a valuable
lesson has been learned. If you are on your own and someone else pops
into local, it’s time to leave.

Jack of all trades…

In my continuing exposure to eve, I decided to take a look at the trading aspect of the game last night. After some searching I found an excellent link from crazy kinux’s website on the basics. I have to say, I find this aspect absolutely fascinating and while I have no experience of this concept either in game or in real life, the guide was easy to follow and has opened up a whole world of (financial) possibility. I took the scatter gun approach and put sell orders for my maximum allowable trades (currently 41) for a cross section of my higher value junk that I’m unlikely to need, certainly in my current experience of the game. If I had’ve simply ‘right click-sell’ on these items I would made tens of thousands of ISK’s.. 20 mins of placing sell orders however and I have made 1.4mil…whilst asleep!
Now this might not be much in the larger scheme of things but for someone with a current bankroll of 20mil total, this is a large increase to my current funds for little work on a fraction of the items I have for sale. Now some of them might not be wanted but if I pick only the top 5 sellers it should be possible to learn enough about the rise and fall of the markets to gain a reasonable amount of experience to suppliment my income from mission running and pirating.
So while I don’t think this is my calling, it can be set up with minimum effort and as long as you don’t need immediate funds this looks to be a great way to make some extra whilst away from the game.

Double lives..

Went on a roam last night with a few of my corp mates. Was a little lost at first to what was going on but I think I caught up within reasonable time (once I had sorted out my access to the vent server). After roughly an hour and a half of roaming, we still hadn’t managed to pirate anything, or even engage anything for that matter. Got me to wondering about my low level income as it is at the moment and figured that, even though the corp offered replacement ships for those lost in the acts of piracy, I still felt like I had to maintain my own sense of personal income. With that in mind I set off tonight looking for some hi sec lvl II missions to run. Luckily, there was an npc corp I had good standings with a couple of jumps away and off I went. 4 missions, 2 hours later and I’m 6mil better for it. Looks like this might be they way forwards in the short term whilst I get my ‘illegal’ career off the ground.