EVE

PI? What was I even doing?!

I think PI was one of those things I was initially excited about – trained all of the skills, and then kept telling myself “one day I’ll optimize this” and never did. I was earning ISK from it, but I never calculated how much. I would re-set my extraction program once a day, and pick up all the PI stuff once a week. Some I would sell, some I would use.

This week I decided to watch some YouTube videos on how to set things up in a more optimized way, and it turns out that everything I had done with my own stations was completely wrong and was probably not even worth me having it set up. Yikes.

I spent last night removing the PI I had set up, shuffling all of my components around (I even ended up picking up the Epithal for this because it was cheap and why not) and figuring out what planets I actually wanted to do PI on. I wanted something closer to home, I enjoy where I have my base at the moment, it’s close to what I need and I don’t mind making the jumps to get to quieter space.

Anyway, after a few hours the old factories were removed, and then this morning I set about getting the new ones set up. At the time of this post, I have 4 planets set up with 8 factories each (I only had 1 single factor per planet before and I had split the extractions between two raws that were not even related to one another, it was honestly a disaster). I still have one ‘factory’ planet to set up, and that will produce the T2/T3 items. That planet will have 24 factories. Once PI is set up, you only need to check in every so often – but getting it all set up and linked and running, can be confusing.

Do you play Factorio? Enjoy it? Then you’d probably enjoy setting up PI and optimizing it. What I’m making won’t even come close to what I COULD make if I set up my PI in ls or null, but honestly I was content with what I was making before when it was 100% unoptimized and horrible. I just didn’t know any better. I understand that a LOT of people do NOT enjoy PI, and that’s OK. I don’t particularly enjoy PVP, so I’m glad that there’s other aspects of game play that I DO enjoy.

Once my PI is optimized I’m sure I will look at something else that I’ve been using that’s outdated and archaic and update that. I still haven’t finished raising my R&D faction yet either. I don’t lack for things to do, I just lack the time to do it all.

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

Industry? Sure!

Apparently during one of my (many) breaks from EVE, how BPO work was changed – I don’t remember how it used to work, but now, they’re sold by NPC, and you can sell the BPC through contracts. I have quite a few BPO and BPC just sitting around in my hangar, I know I was making some T2 drones at one point, so that’s what I decided to start with for some pocket change. Then I noticed some of my blueprints were not optimized for time/materials, so I decided to fix that on a few of them. I’m not even sure why I have 14 Nereus blueprints, all I can assume is that I was trying to research them into the T2 version (Why? Was I going to fly one? I have no idea).

I spent a small portion of the morning scanning down WH and hoping I’d stumble into a gas site – but I did not. Not even a relic/data site. I did find quite a few combat sites, so I completed my dailies (two quests to scan down 5 sites, and one to kill 25 NPC) easily enough.

I parked myself in the two ice belts that spawn after downtime, and decided to lay low while happy weekend gamers decided to blow one another up. I learned a little while ago the Tengu was hit with the nerf bat, so I may just keep mine parked (it’s expensive to fit) and figure out what I want to fly next. I’ve got quite a few skills but they’re a bit all over the place. Heavy assault missiles V is what I’m finishing up right now, and then it’s on to the specialization.

I’ve been practicing using Pathfinder to map my way around the universe, but haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. It’s supposed to auto-map as I jump, but that function doesn’t seem to work for me, personally. I did learn how to delete old signatures and add new ones, so that’s something at least. I know how to manually add connections, but the auto mapping still eludes me. My EVE folder continues to grow with all of these neat little 3rd party tools, enhancing my already splendid spreadsheet game. I know a lot of folks are preoccupied with flying the most fancy ship they can possibly get into, but slow and steady wins the race, or.. something like that.

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.

Organizing All the Things

It’s really no big surprise that one of my favourite things to do in EVE is to organize. Whether it’s my ships, their fits, my hangar, or industry – I spend a lot of time sorting through things and organizing them. Last night I decided to focus on the ships. I stripped those I’m not actively using so I could take better inventory of what I have, and I wanted to make sure I had complete fits for those I do use. I know I could just share items between ships but I’m not really a fan of that (plus I end up losing / forgetting things). I’d like each ship to have its use and fit it for that use. I’ve also been thinking more about WHAT ships I’m using, and how expensive they are vs. other ships that might be able to handle the same things that I’m already handling. Especially if I’m going to risk losing that ship. In 3 more days I’ll be able to fly the Tengu again (I can already fly it, but I’m waiting on some weapon skills) but the Gila has been great at handling what I need it to handle and it’s not nearly as expensive when all is said and done. I also have a myrmidon, and the Dominix (which I believe I was going to upgrade to a Sin, I have the blueprints for one, at least). Then there’s a catalyst, and even a tristan rounding things out. I’ve got a prospect I’m hoping to take out gas huffing (finding gas has been a difficult task for me as of late) and there’s the venture, too if I want to go even cheaper.

It’s better for me to practice and learn in these less expensive ships, and then when I feel more confident I can start using the better ones. My EVE tasks are not exactly limited, even by using a less expensive ship, and it should give me some experience and confidence.

Industry is going pretty well, I have lots of drones and ammo for sale each day, and they’re moving even though I’m not selling in Jita (I really didn’t want to make all those jumps just for a handful of ISK, I’d rather sell closer to home). I haven’t managed to get my R&D faction up yet, but I know if I just plug away at it slowly the faction will come. I keep getting distracted by other things in space (like that escalation from yesterday).

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

Day 12 (Still Flying)

I’ve fallen into a comfortable routine in the mornings now when it comes to World of Warcraft & EVE. I check my industry, put new stuff in if I’m able to, check my PI, and then do a bit of ice mining until the two belts in my system are depleted. Once a week I travel to my PI planets and shuffle bits around, and once a week I head to the market to re-list and sell. In between all of that, I’ve started ‘ratting’ which basically just means killing NPC (I kill the ones I find in anomalies / signatures). In 4 days I can start flying my newly fit Tengu (hopefully an improvement over the one I was flying in 2015) and in the meantime I’ve been flying a perfectly apt Gila. I did end up losing a Helios this week to a data site when some very nasty NPC spawned and 1 shot me. Helios is not an expensive ship though so I replaced it and moved on. Ships are just ammo, as the saying goes.

For the past week I’ve made more ISK than I’ve spent, so that’s good. I’m experimenting with industry quite a bit, seeing what sort of markets I can find myself in. I’ve also joined a corporation, although I am not entirely convinced that they’re a good fit for me I think it’s more to do with being awkward and not necessarily a ‘them’ thing. For now I continue to lurk and learn, and explore aspects of EVE that I know I enjoy.

A fight in Perimeter

To start things off, I have to say that as a newly returning player to EVE, I have absolutely no horse in this race. I was not a part of the political reasoning to this battle, and I had not even heard about it until this week when someone posted a few PSA about removing items from the structure. There are, of course, two sides. I learned the basics. An alliance put up a trade building in highsec, a few months later CCP changed the rules so that you can no longer do this. As time went on, some drama ensued (as it does in EVE) and one side decided this structure should cease to exist – because it was funding a few large nullsec corps (though from my understanding at the beginning many people were benefiting from it and then things changed) with highsec earnings as they would collect tax. This war would have permanent side effects since you can no longer place this building, and honestly, as has been said a few times over the course of this battle, it’s not actually about removing the building – it’s about the story. You can read about this really long feud over on TAGN, who explained it much better than I could since he has way more experience.

Anyway, at one point there were over 5.1k people in local. It was INSANE. Probably one of the best (and by far the largest) events I’ve ever seen take place in a video game. I learned many new terms, like TiDi, and that it was not in fact lag, but TiDi that slowed actions down so that the servers could cope with so many players being in such a concentrated space. EVE became a literal spreadsheet game, almost turn based. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it before. No one enjoys when TiDi happens but everyone adapts and goes along with it because let’s face it, a space battle with 5000+ people is something to talk about. That’s how I felt, at least.

It took over 5 hours, but both of the structures fell, and I learned things like how timezones play an important role in these battles because of the way TiDi stretches out the fights. I lurked in a few streams, and listened to the community, something I truly enjoy doing. The community of EVE is.. unique. Friends and enemies alike came to twitch to chat, which I wasn’t expecting.

It feels like I came back at a great time to be able to watch this happen, and while I know EVE isn’t all sunshine and roses (anything but) it was still a neat feeling to be ‘part of’ something on this large of a scale. For now, it’s back to my quiet area of space to scan down some more relic/data sites.

Nomadic Gamer