My main character just reached 52,000,000 skill points – and I FINALLY completed heavy drones V which feels like it took forever. I’m very glad that’s finally done, and now I’m moving on with small projectile turret V – I believe the current skill plan I have was to optimize my Stratios for Superior Ghost caches in exploration. I try not to load too many skills up in my plan because I’d like to actually remember WHY I am training what I am. It doesn’t always work out the way I’d like, though.
Character overview:
Main – 52,000,000 skill points
PI alt – 1,700,000 sp
PI alt – 2,800,000 sp
Combat alt – 6,600,000 sp
Mining alt – 7,300,000 sp
Market alt – 2,800,000 sp
Exploration character – 13,100,000 sp
None of my characters have *that* many skill points when compared to other characters created in 2009 but I feel like I’m at a comfortable place now with things at least. My exploration character is on an account by herself with no alts, and I may eventually let it lapse to alpha state, I’m not sure. My main can already do all the fun exploration things, so the skills double up quite a bit.
I don’t really use the mining alt any more, but I know they’re nice to have, plus things may change in the future. My PI alts barely do anything except log in, re-set the PI extractors, and deliver their PI once a week. I know activities in Eve really ramp up the more accounts you have, but two is a comfortable number, we’ll see if that changes over time.
I’ve always been curious about Abyssal Deadspace in game, but I’m not very good at the technical aspects of eve, so I had avoided doing them and just stayed content collecting the filaments used to enter them. How they work is quite simple. There are different tiers, with different storms going on in them. You use a filament and warp to a ‘deadspace’ (basically CCP’s version of a dungeon) – but you leave behind a trace of your adventure, which people can scan down and potentially be waiting for you when you exit. To that end, you should make a safe to run these, far away from anything already in the system. Since I was just running T0 in a Tristan I decided to not even bother, if someone wanted to wait for me and gank me in a 0.6 that is OK.
I watched some videos on how to complete them, and dove right in. I did end up losing a drone almost immediately, but the T0 wasn’t too bad. I’m not good at knowing the buildings to avoid (there was one that did damage to my drones, and I forgot to fly away from that one) but I cleared two, and made a few million ISK. It also rewarded me with more filaments so I can try other ones in the future. I don’t know if the loot is worth it, I imagine for the higher tiers it must be, but it didn’t take long and I learned a lot. I don’t know that I would go so far as to say I enjoyed running it, but that might just be because I was feeling a lot of pressure, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Eventually, maybe I’ll progress towards a T1. We’ll see!
A pretty big update went live this week – and I of course had to log in and check things out. To start things off, there’s a brand new tutorial zone, with the ability to create houses and yards – then package those houses up and take them with you when you leave the tutorial and find your way in the real world. Old players as well as new can make their way to ‘Guidance’ and while you can bring things BACK from the zone, you cannot bring things there. There were a few bugs when it initially released, but I’m confident they’ll get them under control. Oh, Guidance also has quests – given by NPC with ! over their heads. I’m excited to see these changes, it’s no surprise that Wurm Online is one of my favourite games of all time.
In more QoL changes – portals were added. You can (for the first time ever) take a portal from the Southern islands to the Northern ones. You cannot bring items via this method, but now my priests who have been stuck on the Northern islands for years can finally make it do my main deed down south. The portals function as more than just a North/South crossing, though. You can actually access ANY zone from them, and if it’s one where you could typically bring items via boat, your items will go with you (ie: If you’re travelling from Xanadu to Exodus). Neat.
The action system has been completely reworked. There were also graphic / rendering improvements (metal is so shiny now!) and I have to say hats off to the team for making these changes. One thing I’ve been waiting on is the auction house features that were promised some time ago, but I’m sure they will come ‘eventually’. In the meantime, I’ve been making bricks, mortar, and more bricks, and more mortar. The castle is coming along – slowly. As it always does in Wurm.
OK, I know the screenshot above is really messy, but I wanted to make an attempt at showing what a typical game play period might look like for me when I have nothing really in mind and want to explore data/relic sites (non combat). I’ve been contemplating trying to move to a new wormhole but I am pretty specific about what I want. This day was a whole lot of ‘NOPE’ and some close calls. So I left my ‘home’ wormhole (it’s covered up, and this post is postdated so none of these connections will be this way when you read about it) and jumped into a C2 with a C1 / H connection. There was nothing much going on there, so I jumped into a C1 that had no statics at all. Maybe I’ve just never paid attention before, I didn’t know there was any such thing. There was nothing there, either – but it did have a connection to a C3 that looked promising. Unfortunately that C3 had a nullsec connection – and they had been hot and heavy on the combat. Kitchen Sinkhole, Fraternity, and Salted Fish Alliance. I accidentally ran right into their little war going on, so I immediately popped back into that C1 with no statics. From there I popped into a C5, which is a fine wormhole if you’re looking to go after gas, mining, or combat anomalies, but the data/relic sites are actually combat sites and not cans – not what I was in the mood for. I knew I’d have to scan my way out of there and find something better.
It had a C4 static, but there was also another nullsec entrance, and I decided what the heck I’ll pop out – YIKES. Immediately I was in B-7DFU which had 44+ Goons just.. there. I popped right back into that wormhole so fast, I was terrified that someone would have spotted me and followed. Thankfully I had already scanned down the whole C5, so I was able to pop over to the C4 static instead. No one followed me (to my knowledge). This new C4 had a C1 and a C4 as statics. I wasn’t interested in the C4 because I knew there wouldn’t be any relic/data sites to make use of, so I decided to explore the C1. No recent kills to be concerned about, most of the deaths on dotlan looked like NPC kills. There was also very little of interest there. Shoot. I was starting to get tired and really had nothing to show for my adventures. I decided to pop into the LowSec connection and see what was around. It was empty! Unfortunately there was also only a single relic site with a few million ISK worth of items. After a few minutes, a marauder popped in so I cloaked and waited to see what he was up to. He dropped some drones so I figured he was ratting, and as soon as I uncloaked in my relic site he scooped his drones and left. I took that as my hint that he might be back in something that was meant to smush, so I once again dove back into the wormhole.
This time I went into a C2 that had a C5 and a nullsec connection. Neat. Also highly valuable as far as wormholes are concerned, there were people living there. FOUR buildings set up – but they haven’t been active lately. In fact, it looks like they had a bunch of people griefing them in early June, they lost a bunch of POCO in the system, and then The Initiative and The Tuskers Co. had a bit of a brawl in there too. No action since June 14th. I wanted to go nose around the buildings, but instead I was distracted by the EIGHT relic / data sites that were in system. EIGHT! FINALLY! Jackpot.
Finally, almost 300 million ISK in my haul, it was time to find a high sec connection so I could dump it off to my market character. Then I’d have to use my scanning character to figure out where my static HS lead to, and make my way back to my orca suitcase. All in all, it was a pretty profitable day, a nice break from gas, and I got to see some cool people doing cool things (and then I promptly flew away before I was discovered, as is my way).
I know I mention it from time to time, but I don’t really make a lot of posts about my days in Signal Cartel, mostly because I don’t want to accidentally cross over into any credo breaking territory. Our stance on all eve players, no matter where they hail from, is neutrality. As neutral as we are, it is (quite often) not always reciprocated. We can defend ourselves in combat – but we do not ever instigate, or perform activities that would lead to putting our neutrality in question. So far I’ve found this corporation fantastic. We basically all just do our own thing, and meet up occasionally for events / classes / every Sunday for ‘coffee’. There is no pressure, as long as you partake in and love activities that involve exploration.
Besides roaming jspace looking for data / relic sites, I help tend the eve scout caches that you may have seen strewn about in systems. These cache include a probe launcher, some probes, and sometimes ‘hugs’ which is just a little extra item to cheer up anyone who might be lost and need our services. Basically, we help people who forget to bookmark exits, or who have had a wormhole roll before they could get back out, or any other manner of being ‘stuck’. We use a co-pilot called Allison who helps us out with all of this, and I’ve really been enjoying my time in the corporation so far. It’s quite different than a ‘typical’ corp, which honestly works perfectly well for me. Some times I don’t feel like being social, and there’s no pressure for that. Sometimes I’m overly social, and that’s OK too. The corporation is filled with like minded passionate people who want to help others and I love it.
We are of course also free to pursue other activities, our exploration ships need funding after all, but the majority of what we do is exploration. My Signal Cartel character also has a lot of combat training to her, but I haven’t really made use of that for some time. I might get into it more and explore Abyssals. These are Eve’s version of instances / dungeons, with quirks, of course. Any way, more about that (if I attempt it) another time.
stargrace 
