stargrace

Locked Out (again)

stargrace October 11, 2024 1Comment

I found a nice bunch of gas and decided to do some huffing – thankfully I also keep a mobile depot and some probes and a scanner with me, because the exit out of this wormhole closed behind me and I needed to find my way back home. These days, it’s more of an annoyance than anything else, I’ve never been completely lost in space before, and eventually you will always stumble into some system that has a jump that leads out of the wormhole, whether it’s to highsec, nullsec, or lowsec. We’re 11 days into October, and I’ve made just over 1 billion ISK for the month, sitting at 1.3b. I’m hoping to use all of the ISK I make this month to purchase some sort of structure to place somewhere in a wormhole – with the understanding that it might just get blown up the very next day. I’m still undecided as to what sort of structure I want to place, I’m leaning POS just to get my feet wet and to learn the ropes, despite the higher fuel cost. That would allow me less stress about placing / taking down a structure but I could also learn about wormhole control and how to roll them. Or maybe I’ll just continue to suitcase for a few weeks until I feel more comfortable. I still haven’t found the perfect spot to be, yet. I don’t think I want a high sec connection, but a quiet C2 with a C1 static might be alright. I don’t want to draw attention to myself while I live there, but I also don’t want to always be completely out of content. It’s a delicate balancing act.

This week most of my in-game time (when not focusing on PI) has been trying to work on the Crimson Harvest event. Have I mentioned how much I dislike this event yet? It’s frustrating to have to constantly reach after VERY specific sites – I can’t just do any hacking site, it has to be a certain one. If I find a crimson one I don’t get credit. WHY?! Why is this a thing. Events should be fun and while I realize that EVE is nothing like other MMORPG that I play – I can’t help but wish it was just a tiny bit more familiar, because everything shouldn’t have to be a struggle.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at with things right now. As always, play your way! o7

EVE Gaming

What’s Going on?

stargrace October 10, 2024 0Comment

A lack of blog posts – but instead I’ve been posting video of my adventures over on YouTube. They’re not fantastic quality, but it has been fun posting stream-like episodes of my adventures in space. I keep trying to fit into games like World of Warcraft, but since I have almost zero community in game, I haven’t been able to make it stick. The same can be said for GW2. I love playing, but I have limited time, and in EVE Online I belong to a handful of communities. I think that’s why I’ve been sticking with it for so long now.

I’ve been slowly (very slowly) working on my Crimson Harvest points. I’ve looted a number of ship skins, including a few for ships I actually fly. I’d love to find a helios version (does one even exist?) since that’s what I fly most of the time. The hacking sites are quite simple for me to do these days, though I have failed a can or two along the way. Things have fallen back into a familiar pattern that I’m enjoying quite a bit. When the servers come up from their daily restart I do PI on all my characters (that’s 5 characters, 6 planets on each), and then I start doing dailies on whoever I can before I have to tend to real life (I usually have just shy of an hour, which is enough to get dailies done on all 9 of my characters). Once I’m finished with whatever real life dailies I have to tend to, I decide if I want to do some exploration, mining, working on missions, gas huffing, or just flying around exploring. I’m getting more comfortable with multiboxing, and running 3 accounts seems to be a nice balance. I know there are people with far more (and others adamant about keeping just one) but any more and I think my attention wouldn’t be able to keep up. I normally do mining with 2 retrievers + a porpoise for boosts, and I have everyone with mining / boosting augments. Some days are better than others as far as ISK return – I did find a really expensive faction module this week that was worth 300,000,000 ISK which I promptly sold.

I’m usually flying a Helios for exploration, but I also venture off into the Astero. I fly a Vexor, Ishtar, or Typhoon for regular combat stuff. I fly a Tengu for C1-C3 sleeper sites. I fly a Wreathe for distribution missions, and a Squall for hauling PI, an Epithal for hauling PI around the wormlife freeport. I do have a stratios that doesn’t get much use at all, and since I’m no longer backpacking with the Orca, that has been sitting in the hangar collecting dust. My Jita alt can fly a Viator, but I haven’t purchased one yet.

There’s an announcement coming today which I assume will be about the next expansion. CCP had mentioned months ago with the release of Equinox that the Sov changes wouldn’t HAVE to take place until the following expansion – and that transition date is October 29th, so I can only assume that we’re going to be looking at some sort of expansion in three weeks. What will be changing? No idea. Equinox has been lackluster to say the least, and I doubt anyone would call it any sort of revival.

In any case, I’m really happy playing EVE, and I hope folks are not too upset at the lack of updates here. Fly your way! o7

EVE Gaming

EVE September (personal) Economy Update

stargrace October 2, 2024 0Comment

Well, another month has gone by – and my ISK is almost where it was when I bought the 6 months of game time that is going to last me until February, I should be able to easily purchase another 6 months if I wait for a sale, considering I still have 4 months to go. At the start of the month I was in the negative, as that was when I had randomly decided to sell & then re-purchase my mining barges (currently flying 2 retrievers + 1 porpoise). I did lose one hulk to an infested carrier that warped to my mining anomaly (I didn’t even know that was a thing, lesson learned) which is why I made the decision to downgrade to retrievers. Far less expenses involved, and mining is a ‘slow and steady’ activity anyway.

I did also complete the monthly goals on 8/9 of my characters, falling just one day short on the final character (but earning the plex/isk reward, which is what I was really after).

I continue to do small time industry, making mostly drones and ammo (I did branch out a bit this month and started making repairers). You can consider these the ‘consumables’ of the EVE world, so they’re always in demand. People leave drones behind, they get blown up, they seem to just wander off on their own. It’s not a lot of ISK, but it’s slow and steady throughout the month which is more important to me and the type of gamer that I am.

I’ve been selling the PLEX I get from the daily rewards, but I might try to hang onto it, I know with 3 active accounts (3 characters max per account) that it would accumulate nicely and may even help when it comes time to purchasing game time. I also know that I’m pretty rubbish at ‘saving’ anything, and that extends to skill points and items to use later. I tend to sell it all, and then re-purchase it when I need it.

October / Halloween events start soon, so that should be fun. There may even be some ISK earning opportunities with it depending on what items we can get. In the mean time I’m thinking of taking all of the ISK I earn for October and putting it towards placing a structure in a wormhole – under the assumption that I could lose said structure the instant I place it – if I can even finish placing it. Most structures require 24h to anchor (I believe, I’ve never anchored one before so this information could be wrong) which is one of the reasons that a lot of people go with a POS despite the heavier fuel cost. Since I’m unfamiliar with rolling holes (what you do to secure a WH) and the whole thing seems confusing to me, I’m just not sure how I want to go about it yet. If you have a guide or some suggestions, let me know! In the meantime, I’m still flying the skies and trying to decide where I want to live.

As always, fly your way! o7

Gaming WoW Gold Making

WoW September (Personal) Economy Update

stargrace October 1, 2024 2Comments

Have I mentioned lately how much I’m loving the newly revamped Tradeskillmaster website? Well, I am, and the improvements keep coming. I decided to do an update for September even though I’ve only been back to Warcraft since September 23 so my ledger is a bit sparse. You can see that September 29th was a great day for sales and the rest of the week was pretty steady. I did take 1 day off from posting just to get the timing all under control (I post every 24h and it has to fit within my morning schedule, if it doesn’t then I leave it be until the next day).

The next screenshot shows how much I made per server, with my top 10 (I actually sell on 22 servers at the moment) along with the sales quantity per server. The more servers you can spread yourself over, the larger chance that *something* will sell. I (currently) sell exactly 1 full inventory worth of items on each server, and I restock once a week. The more time you devote to making gold, the higher your chance at returns – but I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, and I limit myself to 1h or so a day. One full inventory of items across 22 servers hits that threshold nicely. If I started selling more than one full inventory worth, or I increased the number of servers I was on, then the amount of time it would take me would also increase. I’m not interested in that at this point in time.

The third screenshot shows where the gold went – most of my sales comes from transmog, so weapons and armor is no surprise. In third place is recipes. I purchased some TWW recipes for my blacksmith, and she also worked on her professions for the first time this expansion, so that’s why there’s so many purchases under the trade goods category. I’ve also been doing some fishing to relax, and I’ve been selling all of that back on the auction house (I expect it will drop significantly in value a month from now). The consumable category includes the haunted memento which is the only item I sold in that category, I don’t typically deal with consumables (this is a category that Blizzard has it under).

Over all, I’m pretty happy with how September went. Old items are still selling just fine (none of the items I sell are from The War Within) and if you’re looking for big numbers, that’s where you’ll want to focus – but I focus on the long game, steady sales. I’ll leave the current expansion stuff to the big players who are devoting a lot more time to it than I am.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

EVE Gaming

New Videos – Stargrace in Space

stargrace September 30, 2024 0Comment

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you might remember that I used to do a fair amount of streaming over on Twitch, but my schedule is difficult to work with, and I often feel absolutely exhausted in the only ‘free’ moments that I have. I feel that streaming is an activity that you need to spend at least 1-2 hours steadily doing in order to allow people who want to watch to drop by. If you’re only streaming for 15 minutes, chances are no one is going to watch.

Because of this I decided that I should try my hand at creating YouTube videos, instead. I’ve got one series on the go right now called ‘Stargrace in Space’ which is (of course) all about EVE Online, with other series in mind for other games. I’m fairly confident that I’ll add a RimWorld series, and probably some World of Warcraft content (maybe not right away). This isn’t the same as streaming, but it is some content creation that fits within my sporadic play times. I can easily record a video here and there, with no pressure if I have to step away. I can edit in the moments in between, too. If you’re interested in watching my EVE series you can find it on my channel here. The quality right now is not the greatest, I’m having some growing pains with OBS & my microphone set up, but give it time and things should go smoother. We’re just about in October, and all sorts of in-game events will be popping up all over the place, and I’m looking forward to sharing that with everyone.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

stargrace

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