Learner FC - Welps for all

So my alliance are asking for people to step forward and have ago at FCing, so I thought I would give it a crack, and document my fleets as and when they happen. After all, what’s so bad about losing a few internet spaceships?

My first fleet went out last Friday, the ships were t1 cruiser and the fits were armour tanked brawlers, my favourite. A few people moaned about the choice of armour as shields have more speed but I have poor shield skills and I love blasters! After forming up and some bullying encouragement on coms we set off down the chain into low-sec of the Aridia region. After consulting DOTLAN I decided to head for Onanam, it had seen the most kills in the last 24 hours so away we went, it took me a fair while (and a gentle reminder) to remind me that fleet boosts were a thing, and I could warp the squad! (My advice to any new prospective FC is to ask somebody to explain fleet/squad/wing boosts and how to control them, it’s confusing to say the least!).

We had a very lucky encounter with a retriever on the way, the unfortunate soul jumped into our impromptu gate-camp and promptly exploded. Why ever they thought that was a smart idea I don’t know?

We reached our destination without much fuss but there was nobody around to kill or be killed by. After further DOTLAN consultation it seemed as if it wasn't worth going anywhere else, so we started to slowly head home. I noticed a few of the gates were fairly active so we set up another gatecamp. After a while a Viator blockade runner jumped through, somebody got tackle and we started chewing away on it.  Now, alarm bells should have been going off here for several reasons:

1.      This guy shouldn't have got caught.
2.       He was tanking our combined DPS way too well.
3.       He wasn't really making an attempt to get back to the gate or align to a celestial

My inexperience lead me to ignore all of the signs hindsight has provided with me and a few seconds later a thanatos, appeared on grid along with a harbinger and proteus, it was hot drop o’ clock!. I was primaried and blasted off the field but the rest of the fleet managed to get out. We lost one further cruiser to the thanatos’ fighters but with the help of that retriever we won the isk war for the evening. And now I have a kill mail with a carrier killing me on it - bonus!  

As a learning experience it was good, I wish we would have got into a proper fight – or at least tried to put some bait out for a better challenge but that will come in time.  I learnt that scouts are always good, bait is always to be taken, and hot drops are not fair.

Buying a new me?

I am contemplating attempting to buy a replacement for my alt. TJ is my second attempt at a character and thanks to the guidance of others he has very well placed skill points – and hence has become my main.  My alt (while having more SP than TJ) has a more eclectic mix of skill points, most of which don’t suit my needs any more. I have always browsed the character bazaar, watching fantastic characters come and go but I have resisted buying one in the past. A small part of my being able to resist the temptation of an all singing, all dancing character is due to me wanting to learn to play the game properly, but largely due to my tremendous ability not to make any isk – what so ever. 

So, why the change of mindset? Why do I want to try and replace my faithful alt? Well I feel as if I have gotten to the point where I have learnt enough about the game, and would like some more flexibility to try my hand a new things.  TJ needs his core skills boosting a little – which will take the next few months of training, core skills are important – but so is having fun! I get a little frustrated watching my alliance mates hop from HICs into Carriers, into fast tackles then a range of t3s, ECM ships, the list goes on. It also sets me a new goal in game, it’s easy to burn out on eve but having and achieving goals keeps people subbed and playing.  My last goal was getting into a proteus and flying it well.  Now I have the proteus, it’s fantastic! But I won’t be able to set myself another ‘ship’ goal until my months of core skills are done.

So, how to raise the ISK? There is a wealth (pun intended) of material a simple google search away on market trading, incursions, ratting blah blah blah – basically get rich guides.  I seem to have real problems making ISK – I’m lazy! But equally it’s something I’ve never really set my mind to. I’ve maintained a wallet balance of around a billion for the last month or two, soaking up losses, making small amounts of ISK here and there, but that’s not going to get me the new character! 

I intend to have a dabble in the market – but I feel I will have limited success here, sitting looking at numbers/items/profit margins does not interest me, being in space does. I will try my best to suck gas, find combat sites, rat, scan, hack; the list goes on but I’ll be taking full advantage of my C5 home! I won’t have any of the ‘classic’ PvE ships at my disposal, I don’t have many shield skills and I mainly use blasters. But I’m sure there are work arounds! 

My aim is somewhere around 10 – 15 bil, I’d like to do it inside of 3 months, but the way I make ISK the new character might turn out to be a late Christmas present to myself! Only time will tell, and if I change my mind about spending it on an alt that’s a hell of a lot of care free PvP I can enjoy!

Wormholes and 'New bros'

I havn't posted for a while, so I'll make up for it with a wall of text exploring my thoughts on new players and wormholes. Also I hate the term 'Newbros', but it made a nice title.

TL;DR I am a new(er) player, I wish there were more new(er) players in W-space. Why don't you see more new guy corps in lower class wormholes??

Despite the whole 'Eve is dying' attitude on the forums and in space there are a lot of newer players entering and exploring New Eden, and some of them find an interest in wormholes.  I like wormholes - always have done. I like the idea behind them, the mechanics and the community. And so do a fair amount of newer players I have spoken too, sometimes however wormholes (and the people that live in them) become very intimidating.  

Before I go on I want to make three points - hopefully which will become clearer as this post develops.

1. Eve is a multi-player game
2. The 'progression' built into eve is rarely used 'properly'
3. Eve is a multi-player game

I first jumped into wormholes to live and play with just over 3million SP and now having 14mil SP I am part of a C5 PvP alliance. Luckily for me I have been supported by fantastic and very experienced players. I, and many others like me are living proof that you don't need 50mil SP and a carrier alt to thrive and have a blast in w-space, sure life would be easier with those things but I am supported buy a great group of people - which brings be very nicely to point 1; Eve is multi-player.

Wormhole (J) space is hostile, very hostile, in fact I've never entered a more hostile feeling place in any game I've ever played (although there were some pretty brutal levels in Spyro the Dragon). For this reason new players need help and lots of it, Eve has a steep learning curve and wormholes have a learning overhang - but properly supported anybody can succeed.  

Stating the obvious here, but there are 6 classes of w-space, C1 - C6. I often only see PI alts in c1 - c2, and hear remarks such as 'c1 - c2 just ain't worth the time' etc., which brings me to point 2. There are wormholes where groups of supported new players could live, grow and learn in an environment that can allow them to PvE to support losses. Of course at this level you are not going to earn a fortune, but if you if you see wormholes as a place to enable to you swim in isk, in my opinion you are doing it wrong. If you catch these enthusiastic newbies early, you can help shape their SP and get them into more enjoyable stuff faster, both enhancing their eve experience, your eve experience and adding a new pilot to pewpew with/against into the wormhole community.

Of course there is a minumum level of SP to fly in wormholes - but you don't have to always assume that is a c5/6 hole with a leet PvP corp. I see a depressing amount of new players that jump to that conclusion and give up on wormhole dreams and end up in highsec, or worse as nulbears. 

The problem with this c1 - c2 'cresh' for learner corps are more often that not the big boys. I have semi contemplated starting up a beginner friendly wormhole PvP (PvE funded) corp that can act as a starting ground for those interested. Given the small community that live in wormholes it would be fairly easy to spread the word about this with the big corps and attempt to get them to down ship a bit to take us on. Because if 1 thing puts newer players off wormholes it's getting destroyed by 50 t3s. (Disclaimer: I know eve Uni have a wormhole campus, but in my experience they keep themselves to themselves in the wormhole scene.). 

I'll finish with point 3) Eve is a multiplayer game, if the wormhole community want to bring new players in we need to accept they need help and new players need to be aware they can get help - I would have biomassed my beautiful dreadlocks long ago if it wasn't for a few players that have helped me learn to survive and have fun in wormholes.

I am open to opinions on this post - but I feel that new players bring a level of passion, excitement and enthusiasm into a corp that can snap bittervets out of their 'eve is dying' attitude and maybe even provoke them into having a little fun.

Please discuss, 

TJ

P.S My opinion on the whole 'Eve is dying' thing is: Eve is not dying, it's stagnating due to a large portion of the community ignoring newer players.

First Capital Kill

I know I said I wouldn't return until I got blown up... but kills....

This story starts with two Bestower industrial ships being spotted leaving our static and heading down the chain to the highsec, at the time the chain looked like this:

Home > C5s > C5a > C3a > HSa 

                             |

                                        |_ C5c

After a morning of huffing gas and bringing in supplies this sounded like fun. We tracked the pilots to Jita, formed up in cloakies and then we sat and waited, and waited... and waited.. and waited...

During the wait people went poking around our other connections and noted a loki, chimera and orca online in another C5 connected to the static, we largely ignored them though - not much chance of killing anything with that Chimera about eh.

After much waiting, we saw the two Bestower pilots leave Jita, and this is where things started getting interesting, and a little bit weird. Scouts local to C5a started jumping around, we figured to scout out for their returning industrial, a pod and a Covops belonging to the C5c corp jumped past our cloaky hole camp and continued on their way to highsec. Then nothing. So we waited... and waited...

Finally the scout inside C3a reported an Absoultion command ship on scan, this must be that pod returning - screw the Bestowers we have waited long enough! "Hole fire", bubbles went up and the party started!

The Absolution started to drop, he was tanked well but the fleets DPS was slowly grinding him down. As he headed back to the hole to try and jump out of our trap a few of us jumped through to catch him, his desperate attempts to jump free of our trap left him in the loving arms of two proteus', who proceeded to finish him off. As the Absolution was going down an Orca arrived on field... was this our birthday?!

Bubbles were reapplied and we went to town on the Orca, all the while scouts feeding us information about the Chimera heading our way. Now we needed to drop this orca before the carrier got here to rescue it - which we achieved just in time.

Now for the capital - he was in trouble and none of us really understood the series of events that lead us to this part of the story, but who care fireworks to be had.  Pings went out on Jabber and afk members were poked in the face, a cap destroying fleet was assembled in a matter of minutes. 

Guardians were scrambled to give the neuting ships cap and offer some protection against the fighters from the carrier. The only real moment of panic came when a mobile depot was deployed, but we quickly dispatched it before he carrier could refit to escape. After about 5 minutes of shooting, excitement and prayers to Bob the carrier went down. Champagne was opened and loot was pillaged.

First Blood

Before I tell you this tale I want to apologize for the lack of blogging, I've been in the process of moving house and real life logistics are worse than eve wormhole logistics! But now I have my new house and internet up and running. So, lets continue...

I've been missing eve and logged on for the first time in a while to do something other than update skills, I had an hour or so to play so thought wahey lets get stuck back in. I'd left myself docked up in Amarr so I got off the comfy station sofa, and jumped into my Proteus - it felt great to be back in space!

I jumped a few systems away from the hustle and bustle of Amarr and started scanning, I found a Z971 connection into C1 space.  I'm starting to learn that whenever you discover a wormhole that is not a K162, it often means that there is nobody active inside to have scanned out, or they have closed the wormhole down and will be watching the scanner - either way it's no good! I decided to jump in non the less and as soon as I refreshed D-Scan I was rewarded with a Drake and wrecks on scan. I perked up immediately, this could be my first kill! 

I tried to calm down a little bit and do some quick research, he could have come from highsec or be a resident, I narrowed down the tower quickly and linked the two corps - he was a resident. I have developed a small routine when I jump into a wormhole now, but all of this went out the window entirely - I was experiencing a rush that was made from a blend of panic, excitement and the need to get a kill under my belt! 

As I floated outside their PoS I turned on my sensor overlay to reveal the green diamonds in space that could contain my prey. Using a 15 degree Dscan I rapidly span my camera around pointing at every green anomaly  I could see, I finally found him in an ore site and warped in to 100km to make sure I wasn't de-cloaked:

I see you...!

I could see him, and he couldn't see me - it was really exciting and I challenge any other game to give this kind of thrill! I watched him for a second as he started to tractor wrecks towards his ship, I waited until a wreck got within 10km of him and bookmarked it.  I warped out to a near by celestial and then span my ship around - it was now or never. The possibility of a trap only entered my mind as I entered warp, but it was too late now trap or not I wanted this drake dead.

I landed, decloaked, activated my MWD and pointed straight at him to bump him. As I did all this I targeted him and breathed a sigh of relief as I got a positive lock and my scram pinned him down. I calmed down a little bit now as I was committed, I overheated my guns and set to chewing away on his shields. 

For the first 10 seconds it was all going really well, I was feeling confident... until he dropped ECM drones. I have read about how these little fun spoilers can ruin anybody's day so I thought he was going to escape - I did my best to keep bumping him out of alignment expecting to be jammed any second.. But the Jam never came! 

No jam please... (worst pun ever)

His missiles dented my armor a little and ruined the wax job I had gotten which was annoying, but other than that he did no damage before he eventually popped - I just wish I had grabbed a screenshot of that.

I felt great, I warped back to 70km or so off their PoS to see a tempest sat there... crap I had totally forgotten to pay any attention to D-Scan... Oh well I survived and have learn many lessons from this first kill! I saw his pod land and he reshipped into a Proteus and decided I'd leave their system and move on.

A good day was had and I am now hooked!

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