Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

It dawned on me recently that I had hit a bit of a dead end in Eve. The dead end is ISK. Odd, though true, I have discovered my capacity to earn ISK has now exceeded my ability to spend it. I'm not a big believer in being a hoarder just to boast of my ISKiness, so I went on a spending spree, spending attrocious amounts on Skill Books on a mid-term plan to gain a 3 in every possible skill that doesn't require training for more than a day.

Not sure if this meets the criteria of the all-purpose specialised in nothing character, but I seriously doubt it. The truth is that there are enough skills useful to me as a future PVP pod pilot that I could continue spending ISK like water for a while yet.

It's intriguing to discover making ISK in Eve is not the biggest concern I'll ever have as a player. I think the skills are the problematic party! I'm currently facing up to the prospect that very soon I'll be facing a period of skill prioritisation where the lengthened training time of multiple days starts to slow down my character growth and push me into a specialised path. ISK may yet again become a factor once I purchase and begin outgrowing a Caldari Drake Battlecruiser, but for the moment I've decided to sit down and think hard on where I, as a PVP character, should focus the upcoming long skills.

At the moment I've spent upwards of a week and a half training for ECM skills, spurred on by the CIDEV Frigate Tournament. In turn, the cap eating ECM modules have sparked a new craze in maxing out all those basic skills like Electonics (which I want for another skill to boost ECM strength). Learning skills to increase skill speed and attributes are again biting for attention. I may actually pull up Battlecruiser 4, and then switch to hitting 4 on all learning skills I can possibly buy the skill books for. Then move to the long haul for level 5 skills in Learning.

The other newly emerging factor is that when ISK temporarily ceases to be a problem, you just know Frigates and Cruisers have reached the point of being disposable. You know what happens when you have disposable ships? You feel less inclined to safeguard them! I think it's nearing the time when I will set course for low-sec and get myself killed a few times over to learn from the experience.

On this random tangent, it spurs the idea that this path is effectively equivelant to paying around 5-10 million ISK a pop to gain Lowsec Survival 5 as a skill . People who lose their ships on risky adventures and cry about it after really must be irritating to experienced players. Here I am predicting the loss of upwards of 50 million just to play chicken with all takers down in lowsec. Weird attitude on my part? I do have implants in my clone's head, and no, I don't yet have a 8.0 standing to use jumpclones. I pretty much assume after Learning skills and I can live without them for a while continually killing or being killed down in lowsec until I have an 8.0 standing with some NPC corporation.

Maybe I'm just insane? I haven't seen much of a push towards PVP in CIDEV other than the Miss Galancia inspired bloodthirty jaunts after the Eve Tournament (I bet the lowsec oldhands just love the post-Tournament period when everyone want a taste of PVP suddenly ).

I'm no Pirate so I will probably ramble around displaying myself as a bumbling idiot player who doesn't understand anything about lowsec survival, and is therefore so in need of being podded as a lesson. The aim is to attract a fight, get killed, and then figure out how to improve my chances for next time.

Maybe if I ask for directions to Jita in Local it will attract a few vultures?

Now that the blog has been googled, it's become the target of the usual blog spammers that afflict all blogs. To head off any epidemic of comment spam while allowing readers not to fall afoul of delayed moderation prior to their comment publication, I've installed the Recaptcha plugin which in my opinion is the only free Captcha worth using since it includes an alternative for those with vision problems.

It's same old story, Caldari web application programmer joins website-less Corporation. Inevitably Corporation gets a website...

And so http://www.crimsonindustries.com was born. Home of the Crimson Industries and Development corporation.

The new website is still in its infancy but I have installed a reasonable frontend, forums, killboard, and the starting point of some online reference guides and future Corporation applications. The purpose of the website, obviously, is to offer the Corporation a boosted online presence while allowing for out-of-game communication using the forums. I'll be press ganging Corpies into signing up for forum accounts during the week.

The Eve-Development Killboard took some work to get going. The Eve-Dev.net website lists the current stable version as 1.2.2. Unfortunately that version does not install and results in failing MySQL queries. Luckily a search of the forums and some detective work uncovered regular snapshot downloads of the current in-development 1.4 version. Maybe whoever prepares these could use export in place of checkout since the download also bundles the excess .svn directories. In any case I went one better, figured out where the subversion repository was lurking online, and checked out a fresh copy myself direct to the server . Installation was flawless - a significant improvement over 1.2.2.

The website was also modified a little to work in-game. The In-Game Browser (IGB) has crap CSS2 rendering ability and all the usual CSS layouts fail - the IGB is pretty poor either way since the Eve client doesn't even seem to give it a new thread so it's really slow. But semantic HTML does make for a pretty decent IGB page - so all IGB requests are responded to without any CSS links. A simple user agent check server-side strips the CSS styles from requested page headers. It looks quite good - perhaps some minor styling and spacing issues some custom IGB css can easily fix.

The site is currently powered by the Zend Framework 1.5 and HTMLPurifier and runs on PHP5. Obviously overkill for simple sites - but I plan on layering in some handly utilities for the Corporation to utilise both in and out-of-game.

P.S. Apparently it's popular to use PHPNuke for corporation/alliance websites. Please don't. I haven't seen such an explosion of PHPNuke since the early 2000s and it certainly wasn't pretty or secure back then either.

Maugrim McFiriba, Caldari Entrepeneur (and bane of the Guristas). That's me.

When I first entered Eve I found myself lost in a very large ocean (some call it a sandbox, but the ocean is bigger, so there!). And it's true - in any big ocean you will inevitably become lost, aimless and without direction.

My biggest step in discovering how fun Eve can be was joining a Corporation and discovering the internal compass that seems to spark to life. Crazy Kinux just posted a guide on finding the right Corporation so do please go read. It's sound advice.

Joining a Corporation provides a huge benefit. You should now have access to the collective knowledge of the Corp. They should be more than willing to share it. And they should offer your gameplay a bit more structure than simply completing Level 1 Missions. At the moment my Corp is organising a private tournament to provide some combat experience to all members. We're only using Frigates (which become cheap disposables in Eve very fast ) but seeing how others fight and how effective their tactics are is invaluable. You won't learn that by yourself without doing it the hard way!

For me, in my first week as a Corpie, I learned that Salvaging = ISK, Social Skills = Level 2/3 Missions = ISK, Mining Ops = ISK, and above all else: ISK = Skills. Do learn those skills. Here's another one: Implants = Faster Skills.

These apparently microscopic nuggets of wisdom were shared with me in my new Corporation some weeks ago and have stood me in good stead. Yet they seem to float outside the perception of so many new Corpless players. They say Eve has a steep learning curve, and they are absolutely right - it's horrendous at times. What new players miss is that like any great mountaineering expedition things go far easier with a support team and companions.

So go join a Corp!

And yes, Crimson Industries and Development are recruiting, so feel free to message myself or my CEO, ViolenceFetish, in-game. Or apply at our Uitra State Academy head office. See? This blog post does indeed have ulterior motives. What can I say - I'm Caldari.

Klaxons blared aloud with their distinctive shrieking, resounding in Captain McFiriba's ears as he paced the command deck of the Narcissus Prime. At least he preferred to think of it as the command deck. Space being a premium on a Caldari Caracal, the dwarf sized consoles and holographic tank were slotted in between the oddly angular bulks of the Damage Control and Ballistic Control puters. Pacing room was severely limited in the cramped space. The Captain's chair was actually installed into the depression of the lower pod hemisphere.

Safety first. At least for the Captain.

Hunted eyes carefully gauged the Captain's expression of distaste. Unlike McFiriba these dogs were not unlike the salvage the Endeavor, docked nearby, usually carried in its bays. Most of them were pitifully undertrained but there was always the chance of a glimmer of intelligance. Not always a good thing when you're the only crew member with a pod...

"Cap'n! Gurista frigates bearin' 230 mark 32!"

Maugrim's cool reserve broke as a grin spread across his youthful face. He even managed to ignore the accent of the crewmember exported almost perfectly from one of those ancient Old Earth swashbucklers with pirates and the inevitable damsel in distress.

The silent collective groan of the crew was obvious in their slumped shoulders and rolling eyes but Maugrim couldn't care less. A puter malfunction two days earlier had sent his first Caracal spinning to it's destruction as shield and navigation sub-systems ceased responding to commands. With Gurista missiles and shells slashing through the hull sprouting quickly frozen gusts of lost atmosphere, Maugrim had activated his pod without delay. Luckily the crew that time had managed to sneak out of harms way in a rather innovative contraption bolted together out of cargo containers launched seconds before the Nefarious exploded.

Maugrim was very curious about which of these luckless people had brain activity sufficient to put together a makeshift pod right under their Captain's nose down in the cargo bay, and worse yet, actually fit it with thrusters. He'd neglected to track past salvage no doubt. If he really wanted to dig deeper he'd track down any mysterious disappearances of Afterburners and Oxygen tanks in the Station logs and look at who had access to the bays that day.

Still, even the scum deserved a chance of escape, so Maugrim had thus far not persued his investigation. Might end up being the wrong individual being ejected from an airlock... They no doubt were relieved he hadn't pressed the matter, and were even more likely to have "borrowed" another Afterburner and a few cans while his back was turned. Well, Maugrim could afford to turn a blind eye. Avoiding a mutiny was a higher priority when the airlock was located right outside the bridge!

"Range 34 clicks! Velocity 398 m/s! No sign of any ECM activity."

Maybe it was Cathbadh behind this escape pod construction project? The very picture of a devious rat, if ever there was one, Cathbadh claimed to hail from Amarr. Once he'd claimed to be from Minmatar. The paradox was not lost on the crew who to a man appeared very reluctant to cross him. Personally, Maugrim suspected it was a little of both. His fearsome reputation was both thoroughly obscure and yet that very obscurity seemed to lend him a mythical air that impressed the crew to no end. He was also the finest engineer in three systems if the rumourmill was any indication and it was mystifying why he turned up on Maugrim's doorstep a month back begging for employment.

"Range 31 clicks! Incoming! Incoming!"

Grimacing as the first salvo of Flameburst missiles splashed against the shields seeking some hull to ignite and dissolve, a crew member twisted awkwardly to one side and punched a set of buttons. Instantly the exterior view was shaded a pulsating blue hue as the Tech 2 Medium Shield Booster pulsed fresh energy into the shields regenerating them almost instantly.

Time to kill or be killed, thought Maugrim, and he waved a hand at the holotank in a completely unnecessary gesture of arrogance. Any Caldari bureaucrat would have been impressed.

"Mr Locke, clear my overview if you please. Rapid fire on all launchers!"

Locke, another enigmatic personality and the resident Gunnery officer, spat in disgust and glared at Maugrim as he would at some amazingly stupid Midshipman. Ah...

"Mr Locke, designate the closest bogey a priority and release a Hammerhead drone on the next closest."

Freaking stupidity! Maugrim cursed internally. He'd been hounded into purchasing a selection of Drones, and Locke had been very loud in his disapproval after the Captain managed to warp out of one particular encounter with Blood Raiders whilst completely forgetting to withdraw his Drone. Locke seemed to treat all Drones with equal respect, and got upset at the idea of having one wandering in Deadspace without a bay to settle in. Locke was oddly supportive of his Captain but he had a habit of imposing far too much personality on his beloved Drones.

The newly installed Arbalest Assault Launchers blasted back at the Gurista vessels spitting a torrent of EM and Kinetic death. The first two frigates detonated as their fusion cores lost containment. The next two fared little better. By the time the blaster boats had entered range there was nothing but space dust left of the first attack wing.

The second fared no better...

The Cruiser now stripped of it's mobile units was almost pathetically easy. Fitted with an Overdrive Injection System fresh out of Jita, the Narcissus Prime orbited at long range, outpacing the Gurista cruiser's tracking systems. Gun fire rattled harmlessly into outer space or deflected uselessly off the shields. In the meantime, light missiles or no, Locke's missile fire never wavered. Wave after wave of missiles swept the 20km to their target, briefly illuminating the hull in a wave of fiery light.

Eventually the Gurista succumbed to the inevitable in an awe inspiring fireball imported from Hell.

"My compliments, Mr. Locke, excellent shooting. Ferris, please inform Mr. Cathbadh we will be docking immediately at our rendevous Station and transferring to the Endeavor to salvage what we can."

"And...ah...pull in that Drone would you, please?"

Not forgetting a Drone again, swore Maugrim.

The last week has been a hectic voyage into new star systems in hunt of those elusive Agents who'll provide me missions at my current standings with the Caldari Navy. I located one such Agent (albeit a dodgy looking fellow who's biography in the Corporation Manual noted him as having a -16 quality rating). But he's on the second tier of Navy agents, and beggers can't be choosers. I'm flat broke after spending some ludicrous money on skill books and training. We won't mention my strategic investment in two rather expensive augmentations - apparently my Charisma leaves a lot to be desired, along with my Memory...

Thankfully this guys pays. He offers some pretty stupid missions including Reconnaisance and more then one Gurista hunt but it pays the bills. I've located a much better Tier 2 Agent five jumps away. Effective quality of 2! Moving again soon. With my new Caldari Catalyst (Destroyer) now kitted out as a Salvager, I've been pulling in much better cash from Burned Logic Circuits and other valuable wreckage. Quite a profitable sideline compared to the mission payouts!

Before I got too stuck into missions for this Caldari shark, I paid heed to my mentors' advice and paid a visit to Jita. The gates in were once again jammed up with Freighters so it took a while before I docked at Moon 4's Caldari Navy Assembly station. Once there I pulled up the local Market data and began the expensive process of buying a new Caldari Caracal (Cruiser) for fitting. I've dubbed her the "Narcissus Prime". May she send many a Gurista to their graves - miscreant pirates!

Fitting was finally determined to follow the "Active Shield Tank" strategy. Given a month's worth of hard training, it was far easier now to take this route. I started by low slotting in a Damage Control module - actually a named variant with 11.5% resistances across the board to shields, and slightly lower to armour. Not that we Caldari put much stock in those ridiculous Gallente claims that armour is best. Liberals! In beside the damage control module I went with an Overdrive Injector II to boost my maximum speed. Not essential, but a few missions may require some outpacing of the enemy while my shields regenerate. Otherwise I'd prefer to go with a Ballistic Control module to boost my missile damages.

In the high slots I kept it simple: five "Arbalest" Light Missile Assault Launchers racked with 1500 each of Bloodclaw, Sabretooth, Flameburst, and Pirahna light missiles from the cargo bay. The missile selection will ensure I can adapt to any enemy defenses quickly and have the most lethal damage dealing possible. I have considered shifting a few slots to Heavy Missiles - I'll patiently wait for some telling experience in the field. So far, light missiles have been sufficient except for the one occassion where six Cruisers appeared on the scanner! A lot of running back then - curse my lack of foresight in not fitting an Afterburner II on a recon mission.

In the mid slots I've setup an active shield tank. I started with a named Medium Shield Extender for around 900 additional HP to shields. Next up was a Medium Shield Booster II to shrug off damage and keep my shields topping up really fast. Alongside these, I purchased a selection of Shield Amplifiers. I only intend fitting two of these, but I'll swap between the four I purchased depending on the expected damage type dealt by the enemy. Lastly I decided to fit a Medium Capacitor Booster armed with 400's. This will replenish my capacitor on the fly to keep the Shield Booster running continuously (well, for as long as I have the 400's to charge it!).

To test this all out, I set course to Poinen to meet up with fellow Corporation mate, Pilot. Once in-system I zipped out of warp right on top of his Drake and proceeded to pummel it with Sabretooth light missiles. In case you're wondering, when I say pummel, I mean more like tickle. Drakes are not impressed by single salvos of light missiles . The return fire bled my shields back to the magic 60% mark before the Damage Control and Shield Booster system came online and worked them back to 80%. I was being hit rapidly by heavy missiles now, orbiting the Drake at a distance of 30km.

Altogether this test of wills was ultimately satisfying. There was no way I was going to put a dent in that Drake, but I was shrugging off damage from a lot of heavies and my velocity was at least 100 m/s higher than the Drake's even though it had its own Overdrive fitted. It was nice to see my active tank hold up under pressure.

I ran a few missions with Pilot to get a feel for the new Caracal fitting. I was very impressed. The Narcissus Prime was unfazed by Gurista and Drone fire, and performed impressively in the field. The active shield tank was more than capable of maintaining shield integrity. Some concentrated fire at close range would certainly put her armour at risk but I have no intention of engaging targets at short range - 30km and their ships might as well self-destruct!

This had me cracking up for way too long!

Courtesy of Eve-Pirate.com:

My week in Eve Online was, as it was for so many others, a bit of a disappointment. On 11 March, the new 1.1 Trinity patch was postponed to the following day. On 12 March the suggested 16:00 GMT patch completion time was extended far into the evening.

Unfortunately the new Trinity 1.1 patch, once the game was again open, seems to have suffered from a number of QA woes with early reports of a database problem that apparently required an eventual restoration from a backup. Apparently the cause of the extended patch downtime. The Eve Online API remained offline as I logged off yesterday (13 March) at midnight.

My biggest pain was probably a newbie mistake, I parked my Caldari Osprey cruiser in Jita the night before the actual patching event. Never again...

When I tried logging in yesterday it took a total of almost 4 hours to successfully achieve a login into the incredibly congested Jita system and escape to Perimeter. To boot every second system between Jita and anywhere else had Traffic Advisories noted. I even got a few messages stating "Jita system is stuck"!

It wasn't a total write off. In between play times I've built up my skills in three essential areas (new players take note): Social, Connections, and Negotiation all at level 3. I have no idea why these are not highlighted in flashing pink characters in the Tutorial because once you get these you are well on your way to gaining access to more profitable Level 2 missions! I felt a bit silly after it took me almost a month to realise what these skills meant - my research never quite covered them online...

Nevertheless I feel a lot of comfort about my progression these days. My mission setup includes a shield-tanked Caldari Caracal (Cruiser) for the main fighting, a Caldari Kestrel (Frigate) for wreck collection, and my newest addition to the McFiriba stable - a Gallente Catalyst (Destroyer) which will be my primary Salvaging ship from now on. Another note to new players - at times you make a lot more salvaging all those wrecks than you do from the mission itself! Train Salvaging early on and keep a spare Frigate/Destroyer fitted with one or more Salvager I's and if you can fit them one or more Tractor Beam I's.

On the mining side of my game plan, my fleet includes a Caldari Osprey (Cruiser) for mining and a Caldari Badger II (Industrial) for hauling. My eventual goal is to get hold of a Mining Barge (a Retriever or similar) to replace the Osprey with - that's going to be a long term goal unless I use an alt character since I have crap all related skills other than Mining 4 .

As readers familiar with my Caldari ancestry will have noted, I am indeed cross-training into Gallente skills. I have Gallente Frigate IV and next up is the Gallente Cruiser skill. Thereafter I'll cherry pick from relevant Gunnery skills. My fleet to date?

Frigates:

Caldari Kestrel

Cruisers:

Caldari Caracal
Caldari Osprey

Destroyers:

Gallente Catalyst

Industrials:

Caldari Badger
Caldari Badger II

Others:

Too many Shuttles!

I intend purchasing a Gallente Frigate to complement the Kestrel for some future PvP tackling platforms. At present I can accept the loss of Frigates in PvP fighting whereas losing a Cruiser would be a damaging setback. With Level 2 missions and a more focused high-capacity mining capability, I should be heading down the path towards a Battlecruiser (maybe a Gallente Myrmidon, or a Caldari Drake depending on price/skills at the time). That still a bit away though - in the meantime I need to sharpen my skills in three areas: Capacitor, Gunnery and Attributes. As I've begun to notice, I currently am unable to use a ship and outfit to its full advantage because I lack the skills to minimise capacitor/processor costs which limits the type and meta level of modules I can fit.

In a PvP way though, I can outfit a Kestrel which can run an Afterburner I and Scrambler without any perceptible capacitor hit. A little more skill training and perhaps I can jam a Webifier I in there without losing capacitor charge too fast! My tackling ability will finally become useful at that point...

I've been a feeling a wee bit overawed recently in the last two Mining Ops I've ended up in. In the first I spent hours wheedling away at a Veldspar asteroid and pouring my pitiful 600+ m² of ore into the group Canister floating near us for pickup. There I was, a trained Caldari Soldier (with messed up Missiles apparently for PvP ) mining in my Osprey - a truly pathetic sight.

Well, no more! The power of Eve came to the rescue by allowing me to solve my serious mining inexperience by training additional skills (no restrictive classes here, har-har!). Back a while ago I trained up to Mining III, and Caldari Cruiser III. Good enough for an Osprey and some Tech I mining lasers. Now I have trained up to Mining IV (Tech 2 lasers ftw!) and Industrial Ships II. What does that mean? I get to use mine faster using the Osprey when needed, but I can also act a pretty decent hauler in smaller mining ops with my brand new ship - The Badger II!

Yes, the Badger II is a marvel of modern technology. It's plated hull gleams in the sunlight, it's twinkling lights alternate across its graceful exterior, and the twin mini-thrusters only serve to accentuate the power house main thruster when you see it streaking at full power across your screen...

And by God, it's slow!!!

It doesn't so much streak, as...well...mosey across your path at a pace so sedate you'd be forgiven for thinking the pilot had fallen asleep at the control stick. I keep wondering if it would go faster if I attached 4 10MN Afterburners and pressed the activation keys simultansously... Maybe it would go faster...somewhat.

At the very least though, the Badger II is the ultimate hauler for a cheap-assed PvP pilot with restricted cashflows in backwater systems doing some nondescript mining ops. Its base cargo capacity is relatively impressive (for a guy with two Cruisers and several Frigates), and with some Cargo Extenders mine is somewhere over the 7000m² horizon. I could almost match two Badgers in default configuration for hauling with the right kit. I may end up figuring out whether the older Badger I have in my possesion will do as an expendable salvaging platform - another newly trained skill I'm eager to succeed or die at .

I hope to put the Badger II to good use somewhere in The Forge in a mining op soon.

My other preoccupation which I fast realise may have been an early mistake is to stop training utility skills and take a timeout to train up more of those Learning skills so I can push up my Memory, Intelligence and Will attributes to save future time in training. I really want to get minimal access to Mining Barge and train Refining so I can access more funding from my mining persuits, and I could even save time just by focusing a few days on the Attributes some of those skills and their dependents require to reduce training times.

Another factor emerging is that with a Caldari Caracal missile boat and a fairly cheap (but effective for PvE) shield tank, I don't need a bigger ship class yet. I've basically topped out at a Caracal and it take a while to collect both the skills and the funding to make stepping up to something like a Drake (or lower) worthwhile. I may seriously actually look into another disposable Cruiser like the Moa, Caracal (or another racial variant even) to go larking around in low-sec with.

I figure I really should use a disposable expected-to-be-rubbed-out ship for low-sec adventures. This and the NPC rat extermination business will be my fun-factor for a while - hopefully enough of the second to boost my standings among the Caldari. With Missions/Mining acting as the main income source to support it and my grand future designs.

After just a few weeks in Eve Online I'm convinced that if you're not in a Corporation within a few days of starting then you are missing all the fun. I keep going back to tales of people joining Eve Online and being "ganked", looted, and "smack talked" in the game before leaving for WOW or something worse.

The quotes mean the terms are largely new to me . Ganking seems to be getting yourself killed either by a suicidal attack from another player, or by someone overwhelmingly superior in both equipment and skills. Smack talking seems to be code word for idiots who have no sense of social cooperation and proceed on that basis to mock you, state outrageous claims, and which lean heavily towards pointless insults and even bullying by egotistical eejits. If I ever do turn to PvP as a privateer smack talkers will be my favoured target...

None of that's happened so far to me on any serious level since I didn't need to keep exposing myself to ridicule on the local/rookie channels once I joined a helpful Corporation. In my first week I got plenty of grief from the local channels (sometimes even the Rookie channel) - I suspect because of the timezone differential most of this was sourced in teenage angst suffering folk from the American eastern seaboard who are coming online after school as we GMT players sit down for the evening to do a spot of mining or mission running.

I was initially fearful I'd wind up a member in a relatively immature Corporation where people use too many Z's or S's in every sentence - but the Crimson Industries and Development (CIDEV) corporation has turned out be a confident bunch of folk who know their stuff. I fell in with a good crowd! In the last two weeks I've been mining, mission running, tracking how our Corporation develops (mostly from idle chat since emails in Eve seem restricted at the Corp/Alliance level to cut down on noise - emails actually have a pretty restrictive character count limit), and where we may fit into the overall Alliance strategy set by the Evolution Alliance.

At some point soon I hope to take my gaming down into 0.0 space - I honestly expect to die horribly multiple times and I'm looking forward to learning from those experiences and finally getting my head around operating in totally insecure space with only my Alliance mates to keep me floating. High security space is fun - but people have to resort to canister interference to try provoking you into a real battle (and that seems a bit sad at times since whoever owns the canister is likely in a lesser-defended Osprey/Barge/Hauler...).

What I'm really concerned about is overcoming the level of knowledge taken for granted by the more experienced members. Each week I find a new set of terminology and mentioned-in-passing nuggets of information about the state of the Corporation that clearly fly right over my head. I know for example some of us can manufacture items, though how that works is a total mystery as yet. I know this among other things (like our supply of Ore) are essential to success in 0.0 space but how that works to increase our prosperity is beyond my current level of knowledge and experience.

Essentially, I need to figure out how to make myself valuable. I had a boost last Sunday when some chatter resulted in an hours long mining op taking place back in Otela which netted a flood of Ore (well, a flood for Ospreys and Badgers!) - I spent quite a while rumbling along in my Badger doing the hauling with dazler. We sold everything at a discounted price directly to the Corporation - so they pay out standard prices less the 10% Corporation tax rate, and in return get refined materials like Tritanium at a lower cost than going directly to the market. Stuff like this helps the Corporation in its future planning for 0.0 space and such - I may not know the details yet but the belief I've offered valuable assistance (on my current small scale ) and received a healthy cash injection of somewhat under 2,800,000 ISK to buy more toys (Combat Drones) with is invaluable.

My objective for the next week is to stick my nose into more facets of how CIDEV operates so I know who's doing what, how, and most importantly WHY!

P.S. Forgot to mention it last entry - but Goonfleet have a series of Youtube videos in a basic "101" lesson series for mining/tackling/scanning etc. Well worth viewing at 7-10 minutes a pop to figure out some basics as you proceed in Eve.

So last weekend the Crimson Industries and Development (CIDEV) Corporation held their training weekend sessions. There were two in all - but I only caught the first held in Uitra (I think the second was more a repeat for early risers on Sunday).

We started off by exploring how to connect to TeamSpeak. I was without a mic Saturday afternoon but I logged in to listen into the channel as ViolenceFish commenced the lesson. I even managed to record an hour of audio later but I didn't start recording until late into the lesson - still, having something to review still holds value when there's an experienced player talking for any length of time!

Part I was basically how to mine without being wiped off the face of the Eve universe. Mining is really an essential component of the game. Surprisingly it's not as boring as one might think - or rather it's not that boring when there's a group of you chatting away and multitasking from a laptop doing some idle writing on a comedy piece. The other factor that makes it fun is that you do make money from mining - the group effort really pays off even if all you're doing is shuttling Azure Plagioclase ore between an asteroid belt and a space station in an Industrial Ship like the Caldari Badger (if you haven't experienced the Badger - it's a bit of a slow ship ).

A few things I've picked up on mining is that I need to maximise my mining rate. So out with weighing my Osprey down with defensive clutter like Missile Assault Launchers, and in with Drones. The Osprey can carry a few Drones for defence in addition to a single Missile Launcher, leaving three hard points available for Mining Lasers. Couple that with a fairly effective shield tank (good enough for rats all the way down to 0.5 sec space) and I'm set for group mining ops.

The second part of the lesson covered Webbing, Scrambling and Jamming. I found this area fascinating stuff since so much of it was new knowledge.

Webbing uses modules like the ubiquitous Webifier I to severly limit a ship's velocity. Less velocity means they can't escape your range (a lot more important for close-up gunnery ships perhaps) and can't maintain their maximum traversal velocity (which means their relative velocity on a tangent to you ship is reduced making tracking them with guns/missiles easier and allowing a greater chance of hitting them!).

Scrambling is a simpler concept - using a Warp Disruptor or other scrambling module (there are short and long range variants) you can prevent a ship from warping away from the engagement to escape. There really is a satisfactory feeling when you've scrambled and webbed a ship pinning it in space. It's also interesting how a Frigate can use these tactics to pin down a far larger foe like the Drake whose heavier missiles are almost worthless against a fast moving Frigate maintaining a high traversal velocity. Although a Drake with some energy neutralising (neuts) or energy draining (NOS) modules will quickly drain your ship's Capacitor of energy to disable the web/scramble. Or hey, it could be armed with light missiles afterall...

Jamming and ECM were also demonstrated. There I was pinning down a Drake when I suddenly discovered I was targeted by something called a Blackbird. Suddenly I couldn't get a target lock on anything... You can imagine how it feels sitting there armed to the teeth with weapons, scramber and webber, and not being able to lock a target to use them on!

The last piece of excitement was tracking down a player who'd stolen something from us. He was flashing red to everyone in the Corporation. Since our ships had joined the same Fleet - ViolenceFish could warp us around as a single combat unit (bit disorienting at first since I did not know that was possible until today!). Whoever the poor guy was he exercised no discretion and lost his second ship after firing on us (and just as we were ordered to let him be to collect his whatever modules his last ship's wreck dropped). Some people lose all sense of self-preservation in the heat of the moment...

I did scramble him at least once - so the lessons had some effect . Now that I've seen even more possibilities to play with I want to get my Drone training completed to lvl 3 for various skills and look around for some basic skills in jamming/scrambling.

Really - so many damn skills I'd love to have!

Only one day had passed since the Otela Incident and I'd gotten into trouble doing a small mining op with fellow Corp member dazler. After a Sunday of mission running I decided to try out my Osprey again (try and recoup some of it's 2.5m ISK cost!) this time in Uitra where we had primarily Veldspar asteroid belts. It took us so little time to get into trouble...

Our main mistake, and one newbies everywhere are no doubt destined to repeat was to use a canister in a highly populated system without having a hauler to keep it relatively empty. Not a good idea. A few days earlier I'd heard the term "can flipper" for the first time - referring to a another player who interferes with your can (maybe stealing some of the contents, or just shuffling items around inside it). The effectively causes the flipper to turn flashing red in the Eve overview meaning you now have the right to attack them without Concord interfering and blasting into a dozen types of plasma... But that's not a good idea - can flipper may be doing this to deliberately provoke an attack.

The whole thing got messy at first. The flipper couldn't attack us or Concord would wipe him out, so he needed us to attack first so he could legally respond without a Concord response. Luckily, we notified the Corp and they filled us in on why we shouldn't let ourselves be baited into attacking. Since this guy was zooming around in a Tech 2 Interceptor I was more than happy to sit by and wait him out.

To help us out, a fellow Corp member turned up in a Caldari Drake and that's where the wheel really fell off our kart. Accepting the flippers offer to trade Missiles, our Drake was put in the position of being pitted against a far nimbler foe which couldn't be hit by the Drake's complement of heavy missiles. In turn, our misunderstanding of how red flagging works meant the rest of the Corp was no longer able to attack the Interceptor since that opportunity had timed out.

So you have a Corp who can't attack the enemy without provoking a Concord response, one member who is attacking (safely since the Interceptor was flashing red to her), a Drake with heavy missiles and no Drones, and an Interceptor who chose that timing to activate a Warp Disruptor (Scrambler) on the Drake while easily dodging missiles.

In this scenario - the Drake's owner would be seriously irritated. They can't warp away to avoid action, their weapons are effectively useless, and the rest of the Corporation is helpless to assist her. Our Interceptor friend proceeded to attempt blackmail - and we sat around for quite a long time waiting for him to get bored and just leave (or just fiddle with another canister so we could dust him).

This being the second mining op disaster/mishap in as many days I was sure I could hear the frustration of the Corp's more experienced members singe a few of us for getting into this situation to start with . Eventually the Interceptor got bored and left the Drake free to return to a station.

Lesson of this incident is that we needed more lessons. Going into a scenario like the above and not knowing how to react, or reacting badly, is just a recipe for disaster. Personally I've determined that I should assume I will die badly in-game sooner rather than later and that accepting that loss is going to an important factor in my continued interest in the game. Space is a harsh mistress...

Compounding that Saturday's experience, at least one member clearly expressed their continued drop in morale after these setbacks. I really don't get people who feel the need to give up and just get demoralised over what amounts to life in a truly extraordinary but dangerous environment. Get over it.

Next weekend we'll be taking lessons on Mining and Tackling from ViolenceFish which I will be attending to get the basics down on how to avoid such mishaps in the future. If we newbies had become less excited and reactionary things might have taken a far more advantageous route when someone came to the rescue in a Drake...

About a week ago I had my debut into the Mining scene when we held a Corp mining op on Saturday. In preparation I had trained up my Mining and Cruiser skills to a sufficient level that I could operate a Caldari Osprey (Cruiser) which is the best mining platform for the Caldari Cruiser class.

It took me a while to actually purchase, fit, and get to Otela so I ended up missing over an hour of mining action. Jita at the weekends is just plain horrendous! I swear that system will kill me before Eve does. The lag is enough to make you weep in frustration - even with the higher prices you can get there for some equipment looted from pirate ship wrecks...

Back in Otela the 100% mining op for Crimson Industries and Research (CIDEV) which is my corporation by the way, was in full swing. I'm still getting the hang of identifying ships and knowing what they're capable of but trust me when I say an Osprey is great but no match for some of the ships I saw that day. Bend an eye towards a high range Mining Barge for example fitted with Strip Miners. So we commenced mining in Otela which has a 0.6 sec rating. The lower the sec status of a system, the more powerful the "rats" are. To the uninitiated, a "rat" is basically a NPC Pirate which turns up to torture miners.

Thankfully we had enough Drones and Missile Launchers to see off any threat from rats, though one of our colleagues in a Bantam was taking heavy damage whenever they showed up. For myself I had my Osprey fitted out with a Shield Recharger and several Shield Extenders. It was a small shield tank but sufficient for the rats all swarming in Frigates.

If you don't know what tanking is, it's worth exploring before you go too far in EVE. I am tanking shields on my Cruisers which means I have trained skills to increase my shield recharge rate and lower CPU/Capacitor needs of shield upgrades, purchased Shield Rechargers for an extra boost in shield recharge/strength, and added some Extenders to increase overall shield hit points. You can also fit upgrades to reduce damage to shields from certain damage types like EM and Explosive.

Our mining was going well, and we had a huge hauler transporting from our shared canister to a local station. A 100m ISK hauler. Suddenly without warning two Cruisers from Goonfleet warped in and before anyone could react let loose with Missiles. Mere seconds later that 100m hauler was so much scrap metal - and the return attack from the Concord Police which wiped out the attackers was little consolation.

This was my stunningly effective introduction to the concept of Suicide Ganking, where a player who can afford it can buy a ship, enter a high-security system, wipe out a target, and be wiped out in seconds by Concord - effectively committing suicide to kill something impressive for the local Alliance killboard. I'm fairly certain a lowly Osprey would not be targeting (unless someone was really loony) being a cheap ship to replace (2.2m+) but it certainly ups the fear factor for someone who'd just made their first trip into a 0.6 sec star system!

In anycase it was a bit of a downer and the mining op broke up soon after. Not sure if our mining offset enough of the loss to make it worthwhile but I suppose the loss of one member personal ship has less of an impact on a Corporation's day-to-day condition. It did have the impact of reducing morale among a few members. It's plain annoyance when the complaining of another tips you to the point of sharing their anxiety before you catch yourself, embrace simple logic, and realise that Eve is not an easy place to survive and you either roll with the knocks or quit the game .

I spent the rest of the evening running some missions - my mining career on hold. Losing a 2.5m Osprey would have carved up my remaining net worth into ribbons...