EVE

EVE September (personal) Economy Update

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

New Videos – Stargrace in Space

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!

The Helios Adventures Continue

I’m still using the Helios as my main exploration ship of choice – it doesn’t do any combat what so ever, but it’s fast, has enough room (unless you happen into the Silent Battleground, or a lot of Sleeper Caches), and is really budget friendly. Plus, it’s tiny and cute. Can’t go wrong with tiny and cute.

The Tengu has been my C1-3 choice if I feel like doing combat sites, but I haven’t even bothered for a little while now. I was contemplating training my Signal Cartel character to the Tengu, but I’m not sure if that’s the direction I want to go. My main can fly one, and it already gets very little use.

The Astero (and the Stratios) are great ships, but I tend to leave them in high sec. Since moving to the Wormlife Freeport, I spend less and less time in high sec. Not necessarily a bad thing. I did also record some video of me flying around on my Signal Cartel character – unfortunately there’s some sound issues with my set up, and there’s some clicking sound that I need to figure out. Hopefully once that is solved, I’ll be able to get some YouTube videos posted about my adventures. I thought about live streaming it, but I’m not confident enough in my abilities, and in a PVP game like EVE some time-lapse is handy.

For now, I’m keeping all three accounts active. I’m getting used to multiboxing, and EVE O Preview has been pretty easy to figure out. It’s different from multiboxing in say, World of Warcraft, but not too different. I think I’ve only left my accounts behind a handful of times when I warp off, hehe.

As always, fly your way! o7

Deepflow Rifts?

This event has ended now (I believe) but it was fun while it lasted, minus the length of time it took to scan down the rifts. You would park outside the rift (looked exactly like a wormhole), and start using salvaging modules on it, and then you’d pull out loot. You could get more loot if you used more salvagers, but if you used too much, you’d spawn bad guys. You had to find a balance. The ISK wasn’t great (especially if you take into consideration the time it took to find a rift, which you should) but it was a weird little event.

I appreciate the events like this, they liven things up a bit. I do think it was much more difficult to find rifts than I would have initially expected, but that’s OK.

Did you partake? Was it interesting? Let me know in comments, and as always, fly your way! o7

Keeping Organized (Bookmarks)

Keeping things in game neat and tidy (no matter the game I’m playing) is something I’ve always really enjoyed doing. Organizing banks? I’m all over it. Trying to empty my inventory? Sure thing! Of course that carries over into EVE Online, too, where I need to keep a LOT of different things organized.

One of the first things I wanted to do was to set up a way of sharing my bookmarks across all of my characters, and then having a way to know what those bookmarks were for. I have a very simple system. If it’s a system I frequent, or one I’ve never been in before but I’m spending some time in, I set up a safe (or two). In wormholes that means I take the perch that I’ve made for relic/data sites, and I convert those into a safe once the site is completed. These don’t expire.

Perches do expire, I set them to 2 days.

The rest of my bookmarks follow a simple system. Their SIG number (the 6 digits at the start) followed by what it is (C1/3, HS, NS, LS, etc), followed by EOL (end of life) if the system is nearing the end – or just brackets with the size of ship that can fit through. If it’s a relic / data site, I bookmark it anyway even if I have no intentions of completing it because if you get disconnected or log out, you will lose the sites you’ve already scanned. I bookmark it all, set it to 2 days, and then if I go back to the system I can easily tell if I’ve already scanned it down.

I keep two different folders, one is for ‘universal’ bookmarks like the safe / instadock / instaundock that all my characters share, and then I also have a WH folder just for my Signal Cartel character. I can always drag bookmarks around if needed, but none of my other characters travel nearly as much as that one.

You can only keep 4 folders online at a time, so I tend to keep my 1 universal folder + my independent folder + 2 misc folders if / when I need them and I’ll offline anything I’m not using. If things are getting too crowded I’ll remove some of the less used safes, I’ve also started adding the date to the name of the safe so I know when I made it in case I feel I should make a new one.

If I’m just passing through a system I almost always set the bookmarks to expire – there’s a limit on how many you can have per folder, and I want to make sure I always have room for the ones I use on a daily basis (like the undock ones, those take time to make). I can always make another safe when I need it – and if it’s a system I frequent I keep those bookmarks, too. Important structures I use a lot, the market, etc.

If I’m mining something in specific I’ll bookmark a few ore nodes so I don’t have to slowboat through the belt, but that can be hit / miss depending on my mood and how busy the area I’m in is. So far, the system seems to work for me. I also use Pathfinder to keep track of where I’m at / where I’ve been for longer WH trips, I don’t use it at all when I’m travelling around in highsec (which isn’t too frequent, these days).

I have been thinking about moving my marketing alt to Jita, right now I’m actually based at one of the other market hubs, but I think I’d like to see how a fast moving market could be. I can finally fly a Viator, and I doubt very much I have anything worth while that would get me ganked (other thank flying a viator, which cannot be scanned, so people assume you’re bringing in the big bucks). I’ll have to think on it a bit more. You might remember that when I returned to the game back in April, I attempted to haul 500,000,000 worth of stuff to Jita in an Iteron V and was promptly killed. I won’t be doing it that way again. I actually haven’t been back to Jita since, the event bothered me that much. I’m still not a fan of ganking, as much as it is part of the game. In any case, nothing is set in stone and we’ll just have to see where I end up. As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Fly your way o7

Nomadic Gamer