First loss mail.

Have you ever gone back and looked at your first loss mail? I’ve been playing on and off since 2006 and looking back at that mail I can say I’ve learned a lot.

My first loss was a Brutix, and it was a bad bad fit. A classic example of flying a ship I had no idea how to properly utilize. I’ll give the details in a minute but this looks like the kind of thing that would make the failmail segment on Fly Reckless.

Being a noob and never having played a game like Eve before I was shocked, angry, and raged at my killer. I think I naively even put a million ISK bounty on him.

Here now is the hilarious fit from my first loss ever.

High Slots:
250mm Carbide Railgun I
250mm Carbide Railgun I
250mm Compressed Coil Gun I
250mm Compressed Coil Gun I
(At least they were medium sized guns)

Mid Slots:
Medium ‘Hope’ Hull Reconstructor. (A noob move if ever there was one)
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Medium CS-L Emergency Shield Overload. (That’s right, a shield booster on a
Brutix. )
(Empty Mid Slot)

Low Slots:
Warp Core Stabilizer I (Lets just get the worst out of the way first)
Local Power Plant Manager: Reaction Control I
Type-D Power Core Modification: Diagnostic System (Yup, another shield
focused module.)
Medium Armor Repairer I
(2 Empty Low Slots)

2 Hammerhead I drones in the drone bay

I can count at least 7 fitting faux pas here.

#1, in big blinking letters….Warp Core Stab!
Then there are the empty mid and low slots.
Shield modules on a ship that gets armor repair bonuses (face palm).
2 different types of guns, granted they were at least the same size but that doesn’t make them identical.
Hull Reconstructor?? WTF?
Only 2 drones??

Not the worst fit ever seen on a Brutix, but still pretty bad. If you haven’t gone back and looked at your first loss you should. I can almost guarantee it’ll give you a chuckle.

Almost a Whole New Universe

I’ve been thinking about some of the differences I’m seeing after a year of being out of the game.

The first thing I noticed was the new jump gate animation. I really like the “moving through a dark tunnel” animation more than I did the old disappear effect.

I’ve also noticed that plex prices have gone up a bit. When I took my break they were hovering around 500 mil or so and now they are up around the 700 mil mark.

I see that they made scanning tremendously easier. You don’t just get a ladar site or a radar site, instead it gives you the type of site once you get the scan resolution close enough. Now I know whether it’s a ore site or a hacking site without having to refer to my cheat sheet. I never did memorize what the different sites were because exploration was always a sideline activity for me.

The new mobile structures are pretty cool. The mobile tractor beam made grinding out Sisters of Eve missions easier, faster, and more profitable.

Another thing that made doing all those missions easy and quick is the Micro Jump Drive. Using a Dominix, sentry drones, and the jump drive make missions go pretty quick. I just land on grid, drop my mobile tractor beam then activate the jump drive. Once I jump forward about 100 km or so I drop the sentries and start popping NPCs.

The new Sisters of Eve ships are pretty interesting. So far I’ve ground out enough LP to get a Astero and a Stratios. I doubt I’ll be getting one of the Nestors, it’s about 600k LP just for the blueprint!

I’m sure there a many more differences, both small and large, that I haven’t run across yet simply because they don’t affect my gameplay. MMOs are a constantly evolving experience. They have to be if they want to stick around. It’s just like Big Tom Callahan said, “You’re either growing or you’re dying, there ain’t no third direction.”

Monday Update 4-28-14

Not much going on this last week. I ground out a ton of Sisters of Eve missions so I could get blueprints for the Stratios and Astero. I’ve got them stashed in a station near the area I plan to do some exploration in. Other than that I haven’t done much but grind missions and sell the loot. I’ve been using a Dominix with sentry drones, a micro jump drive, and a mobile tractor beam. The mobile tractor beam is incredibly useful for running missions. As soon as I land I drop it then engage the jump drive to get some distance and drop the drones. The NPCs don’t seem to be able to connect me with the tractor array because they never attack it. Where was this thing when I ran missions as my main income source?!

I put in an application to Aideron Robotics today, I’ve got most of the housekeeping and PvE chores I wanted to settle done and I’m ready to move back into the war zone.

Monday Update 4-21-14

Not much to say for my first update. I’ve been using up all the blueprint copies I made for inventing interceptors and assault frigates as fast as I can. Back before I took my break I was interested I dabbling with tech 2 production. I’m still interested in it but starting out producing ships without any prior experience with the system may not be the way to go. I’m just going to use the copies for invention and then sell off the results. I’ll keep the BPOs I bought just in case I want to try making ships.

I want to try out some of the exploration stuff again so I’m grinding out some LP with the Sisters of Eve so I can get an Astero blueprint. It looks cool and I want to see if it’s better at probing and hacking than a Helios.

I like to play the Somerblink lotto and I finally won my first promo blinks. The first one was for an Arazu, I was happy I won but was also a little underwhelmed. I put it up on the market in Jita and got about 138 mil for it. For my second promo win I hit a much bigger jackpot, a Vargur! That baby netted me about 930 mil!

Guess I had more to say than I thought I would. There are still a few things I’d like to see to before I start looking for a corp in ernest though.

Monday Updates

I’m going to start giving my Monday updates about my activities in game for the week again. The first few probably aren’t going to be very exciting as I’m mostly getting some of my side projects going again, PI, invention, exploration, and grinding Sisters of Eve LP. Until I find a new corp to hang with I won’t be doing much PvP, I’m not really the solo gunslinger type. Even if I don’t find a new corp right away I will be rejoining the Gallente militia as much for the LP rewards as the fights. Selling items from the LP store was my main source of income before I took my break.

Taking Yet Another Swim in the Pod Goo

I restarted my Eve account after exactly a year long hiatus, (I really didn’t plan that it was just a weird coincidence) and I spent my first day just moving things around. I moved all of my assets in Yvangier to the nearest high sec system until I find a new home. I also started up production on my one colony and made the rounds to my research agents to buy up all the data cores I could. I didn’t have the time to look into my research/invention operation yet, and I honestly don’t remember where I was going with that enterprise except that I wanted to produce Gallente AFs.

I’d like to stay in the faction war scene for now as it’s the best way I’ve found to make ISK and I still love flying the small ships. I’ve started browsing the corp recruitment forum to see if there are any interesting looking groups out there. What I’m looking for now is an established FW corp with a heavy US time zone presence. I’m a very shy and introverted person and I want to try to change that. I’m also going to try to use Twitter more than I have in the past.

Anyway, here’s to another dip in the pod goo!