Don't stare at the sun!

My first day out on my own was full of lessons, for me at least. I jumped from highsec into a C2 and poked around the system, seeing nothing on D-Scan I dropped my probes and looked for another wormhole. I found another C2, and jumped in.  Refreshing D-scan I saw an Armageddon Battleship, a Helios and a Buzzard Covert Ops along with a tower. Activity! Hurrah, the first active wormhole I have been the ‘badguy’ in!

I set about locating the PoS, I’m still really slow at doing this, but I hope with practice I will get better.  During the time I spent D-Scanning for the PoS I saw the Geddon disappear and reappear a couple of time, I assumed it could be rolling a hole.  I finally found the PoS and entered warp, landing about 70km away.  Just as I landed the Helios swapped for an Epithal, an industrial specialized in hauling planetary interaction products – game on!

I switched my view to the Epithal so I could use the tracking camera and saw it aligning, but as it did it aligned straight for the bright blue sun in the centre of the system – and I couldn’t make out the planet it went towards, there were 4 planets in near the sun so I took a wild guess he went to the plasma planet (I assumed plasma because it is a rarer planet). I came out of warp 10 km away from the POCO to see no ship, I was disappointed so I turned around and warped back to the POS sitting and waiting. The Epithal was already back and aligning to another planet, in the sun again! I tried to follow him again but guessed wrong and landed at another abandoned POCO, I sighed and thought I’d wait. I pinged D-Scan constantly and saw the Epithal disappear and the Helios reappear, I had been foiled by a lack of sunglasses. I was a little annoyed but something I’m learning quickly is that this game revolved around patience.  I warped around the system a trying to see if I could find the Geddon, but he had gone as well.

After this frustrating disappointment I decided to move on, I dropped probes and found an EoL C1. When my proteus materialized on the other side I hit D-Scan and saw a Thanatos and a Nidhoggur, I checked the system again to make sure it was a C1 and it was – talk about overkill!  Now there isn’t much I can do to these ships a lone, but I have never actually seen a carrier in space before – so I thought I’d find the POS and do some sightseeing!

Some might consider this a wasted evening, no ISK was earnt, no pew was had. I don’t think that’s the case, I learnt that I need to be quicker with my decisions but practice makes perfect! I also saw something shiny for the first time! Hopefully tomorrow will bring a kill!

TJ

The Long Ranger

Imagine passing your driving test, and then deciding to go out on a solo 4x4 tour of the Sahara. Translate that into internet spaceships and you have the challenge I have set for myself.  Inspired by Baby Dady’s blog ‘Bob’s Disciple’ I am going off on my own into W-Space in search of targets. I am taking my cloaky Proteus out into the wilderness of W-Space; I am very excited but also a little apprehensive.

I set out yesterday, jumping down our chain into a very convenient highsec three jumps from Jita.  I stocked up on supplies and as I write this my Proteus is being polished and waxed in Jita 4-4 waiting to go. I plan on jumping around highsec until I can find a decent wormhole and branch off away from people and towards glory! I don’t plan to return until my Proteus is destroyed, I have accepted its loss already and moments before its death I will offer it to Bob and ask him to bestow greatness on my next one.

I want to use my trip as a learning experience, luckily my new corp is very supportive and I’m sure I will be bombarding them with questions. I am sure this will be a fantastic learning opportunity and hope to take several things from it:

1. Learn to stalk and not be discovered.
2. Learn about chains, and how to navigate wormhole space in the most effective manner.
3. Improve my scanning.
4. Learn to scout.

I think my trip will help me with all of these things (providing I don’t explode too soon!). I will keep this blog updated with every day’s activities, but perhaps I will keep it vague if I am actively hunting people.

TJ 

Home Sweet Home

The solution to solving any problem is diving headfirst into it.

Perhaps this advice isn’t so sound if your problem is physically solid in nature but in Eve at least, what’s the worst that can happen? 

It is this attitude that helped me decide on my new corp. I have conversations with many, many corps ranging from C1 guys all the way up to the C6 corporations.  Now I consider myself very inexperienced as far as wormholes go, in both skill points and physical pilot experience. Due to this lack of experience I chose to join a C5 > C5 PvP oriented wormhole corp – and idea that I still think is crazy, but the right one.  I decided to jump in higher up the chain because I believe that there is only one way to learn, and that surrounded by the right group of people anything is possible.  The guys I have joined seem great, and more than willing to help a squishy space learner. So from now on the stories should start flowing nicely!

I’ll start with moving day:

Imagine moving everything you own (in my case this is not a fat lot) through a door that may or may not contain several people actively trying to hunt you down and murder you. Oh and on top of that the door might slam shut at any time.Lesson number one: travel light. To me, the logistic of wormhole life is one of the worse things about the whole experience, but I fully acknowledge it is a necessary evil – and I’m sure in future I will take joy out of disrupting other peoples moving.

About thirty minutes after deciding to join up I had shifted my proteus and deimos (thanks to a very lucky highsec entrance) and was on my way back to Amarr to grab a couple of cheaper PvP cruisers when somebody in the alliance chat asked if anybody wanted to kill a procurer.  Always game for some fun, and feeling the need to prove I wasn’t afraid to jump into a ship and shoot stuff I span around in my shuttle and head straight back.  By the time I was back I had gotten onto teamspeak, introduced myself and hopped into my Deimos.

During my travel back the miners had realized our scout’s presence and sadly run away.  Shortly after however, their greed and need to chew on ice became too much for them to resist and three procurers were reported in the belt with a drake and deimos floating around in the system somewhere.  It was then that I was assaulted with a terminology I didn’t understand “jump to NSF on my word”. I started to panic a little, not wanting to appear the idiot and mess up the gank I started clicking around on everything I could until I figured that NSF is ‘Nullsec hole F’, and breathed a sigh of relief as I found the bookmark and aligned.  After a fleet warp I found myself outside the hole waiting for the command to jump through. A saber was going to warp a second before the fleet as a whole entered warp and hopefully trap the hapless miners.

“Jump jump jump”

I couldn’t ask for more on my first evening in the corp – I got most of my stuff in through a nice highsec and got a gank within an hour of joining. And best of all, I don’t have to look at the inside of a station anymore! I’ll leave you with the view out of the window!

TJ

Pastures New?

As quickly as it started it’s over. 

The corporation that I joined up with great hopes of learning about and succeeding in wormhole space is closing. Now I am disappointed, but the only reason our CEO has decided to shut up shop is because of a demanding new real life job, which you can’t hold against anybody - so there are no hard feelings!  I have really enjoyed it so far, so I fully intend to move back into W-Space as soon as I can.

K-space already feels claustrophobic; there are far too many people and I’m desperate to get back into the dark back alleys of Eve, but I’m going to take my time.  I am going to look around for a corp the really suits me, and that I think will offer me a new home for the foreseeable future.  I have often put little thought into choosing a corp, and that is reflected heavily by my employment history. So this time, I’ll do it properly.

For me there are several key questions that must be answered:

What do I want from a new corp?

The most important thing for me with any corp I join is that it must be relaxed. Now, don’t confuse relaxed with lazy or un-motivated, for me relaxed means passionate, dedicated, yet understanding. I also want my new corp to have patience for the new guy which I still am.  I don’t have the skill points, ISK or experience of the majority of wormhole players – but I am very eager to learn.

How big should the corp be?

This is difficult for me to answer.  After being a part of two ‘startups’ I am convinced I want to join up with an established group this time.  I would like to be surrounded by active players, but I also don’t want to be lost in a crowd – I like the idea of a tight knit team, not a blobby rabble. What do you consider as optimum numbers?

What class of wormhole?

I feel I can survive very well in a c4 > c3 static. So I ‘think’ that’s what I am going to aim for.  I don’t think I am ready in any way shape or form for a higher class wormhole, but it’s something to work towards!

What are my ideal corp’s objectives?

I don’t want to join a carebear corp, but equally I don’t have the trader/industrial alts to supply me with a decent supply of isk to keep me in ships. So the corp I join must strike the balance between PvE for isk generation and PvP for isk destruction. 

So to summarize: My current corp is closing down; I’m looking for a new one!

Thanks for reading, and as always – I appreciate any comments you may have!

TJ

Goals

It's time I set myself a few goals for the coming months! Now I've set goals in the past, some of which include 'I'm never drinking again' and 'yeah, I won't leave that until the last minute', both of which I have yet to achieve...

So here goes, I figured if I make them public it might help me get there:

My first goal I think is standard across the majority of wormholers, and many other Eve players:

1) PvP - become good less bad at it!

Skill training wise, I wish to create a near perfect Proteus pilot out of TJ Tamil, his skill points are well placed but there is a long way to go!  Skill points aside, the only way to achieve this goal is practice practice practice, something I plan to do a lot of.

My second goal is inspired by the following message, brought to you by the Proteus:

Your group of 250mm Projectile Turret II misses

Your group of 250mm Projectile Turret II misses

Your group of 250mm Projectile Turret II misses

Your group of 250mm Projectile Turret II misses

2) Get a Tengu Alt

To the amusement of some of you, I enjoy PvE in wormholes - it's less monotonous because at any moment somebody could try and spoil your fun. I like that.  I am however rapidly finding out that the Proteus is sub par for this activity, and as I want to achieve goal number 1 I don't want to spend an age training for a Tengu. So saving for an alt seems like an appropriate work around (I'd welcome some thoughts on this).

My final goal for now, is inspired by goal number 2)

3) Finally save some ISK

Throughout my Eve career so far I have been entirely useless at ISK. Watching my wallet tick up and sitting on a fat pile of space money isn't high up my list of priorities.  I don't think I've ever had over 1 Billion, but I'll need a fair amount to get my hands on a Tengu alt!

I'm sure these goals will take me a number of months, but I shall update when I reach certain milestones!

I would appreciate any pointers you guys/girls have got - even if it's in the form of hunting me down, blowing me up and telling me what I did wrong!

TJ

Meet the Neighbors

Whenever you move somewhere new, there is always a question about the people that will live near by.  Will it be a lovely old lady that will worry if you leave windows open? Or will it be somebody that likes to blast music out on full volume at ungodly hours in the morning? Perhaps a more accurate question to ask when considering Eve wormhole neighbors: will it be a mass murderer that is going to try and blow me up at every available opportunity?!

Well, Kupena met the people we share our home with as he was trying to roll the hole (a skill we need to perfect).  I was not online during our first meet and greet so missed the fun - but I guess this is eves version of taking around a freshly baked pie, introducing yourself and letting your new neighbor know that they can pop round and borrow eggs and milk whenever they run short!

Why howdy neighborito! Have some blaster Pie!

Well they have welcomed us to the neighborhood, and lesson learnt: perhaps it's not the best idea to go out and roll the hole on your own in the dodgy part of town! They made the first move, so now we have got to throw a new guys on the block party! Better start baking some cakes and grab some beers!

I'm sure I can write: To be continued.....

Learning to Hunt

As I've learnt, life in a wormhole is all about the hunt. You can hunt for PvP, PvE, a route to market - one way or another you've just get out there and poke around! 

It was exactly this that Kupena (my CEO) and I did the first night after moving in to the C4.  I was just testing out and learning about 'siggy', and chains in general when I noticed a miasmos on D-scan in a C3 a few jumps down the chain. I let Kupena know via teamspeak and he jumped down with his scout whilst I ran back to our PoS to jump into my brand new, never before flown in anger, cloaky Proteus.  

The 'cloakeus', a ship that has pounced on me in the past and that I have ALWAYS wanted to own.

About one jump away from our PoS Kupena announced that he had a retriever on scan, and was pinpointing it using D-Scan.  My heart raced as I thought that the corp, and I may get our first kill so I upped my click rate in a hope that would move me through space faster... After making it back Kupena updated me with news of a Tempest in system which had since vanished off of D-Scan. In better news, the retriever was still there - he either had  no idea we were in his home, about to pounce - or he knew exactly what we were up to and was laying a trap... The game was on.

Kupena had been busy watching the retriever chewing on ore, creating a safe warp-in bookmark for me. I entered warp towards the spot, and as the belt and retriever filled my screen and overview I got excited and nervous. I started to approach my prey, and as soon as I was in scram ranged dropped my cloak and targeted.  My heart raced as my blasters went to work, always thinking about what had happened to that tempest, was this a trap?  It's all about the unknown!  After 20 seconds or so the retriever went pop, and the pod just managed to escape my grasp. I re-cloaked and warped off to a safe, my hands shaking after our first successful hunt.

Now I need to get into range of something that can shoot back!