EVE Online

Resubscribed to EVE and have been logging in and undocking again daily. I’m a bit rusty, but it’s slowly coming back.

Was a bit meh on the price hike but when they did the 3 month Omega + 3 month MCT again I caved in – actually had been eyeing to resub for a week or two before that but glad I held off, but there were actually different reasons for waiting. So now I’m on two Omega accounts instead of three and we’ll see how that will play out.

I hadn’t properly played since October if zkill is to be trusted, and realistically, for my playstyle that’s accurate.

Big patch landed yesterday, r/eve is mostly meh as usual but apart from a few graphical glitches and the Mumble Overlay not working with DirectX 12 I’m good.

Another milestone, the last one was in August. This time it’s a bit moot as I’ve not been playing for a while, but the account was subscribed and I was dutifully filling up my skill queue.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         27,613,126  62 *
Gunnery                   15,773,685  40 *
Drones                    8,859,375   18
Missiles                  8,390,514   23
Navigation                7,327,839   13
Engineering               6,842,040   15
Subsystems                4,096,000   16
Fleet Support             3,843,169   12
Shields                   3,496,158   12 *
Electronic Systems        2,863,220   14
Targeting                 2,575,530    8
Armor                     2,547,805   11
Scanning                  1,899,374    7
Resource Processing       901,035      9 -
Neural Enhancement        778,275      5
Rigging                   679,060     10
Science                   502,275     13
Social                    434,510      6
Planet Management         394,040      4
Trade                     359,530      8
Production                276,743      4
Structure Management      24,040       1
Corporation Management    250          1

* = changes since last time
- = CCP took away some skills

Skills at Level 5:   119 (+9)
Skills at Level 4:   121 (-7)
Skills at Level 3:    41 (-4)
Skills at Level 2:     5 (+4)
Skills at Level 1:    26 (-1)
Skills at Level 0:     1 (-3)

And another milestone, the last one was in May. My EVE main is now at 90 million SP. Before extra login SP it was kind of easy to calculate the cadence, if you didn’t use injectors. Now the amount you get every day may seem small but over the months, if you claim them all on one character, they do add up. Conveniently I spent most of my unallocated SP this week to train a few skills from III to IV, so now it’s actually 90m spent and I don’t have to wait to post.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         22,799,402  61 *
Gunnery                   10,358,264  36 *
Drones                     8,859,375  18
Missiles                   8,390,514  24 *
Navigation                 7,327,839  13
Engineering                6,842,040  15
Subsystems                 4,096,000  
Fleet Support              3,843,169  12 *
Shields                    3,198,119  12
Electronic Systems         2,863,220  14 *
Targeting                  2,575,530   8
Armor                      2,547,805  11
Scanning                   1,899,374   7 *
Resource Processing        1,039,545  14
Neural Enhancement           778,275   5 *
Rigging                      679,060  10
Science                      502,275  13
Social                       434,510   6
Planet Management            394,040   4
Trade                        359,530   8
Production                   276,743   4
Structure Management          24,040   1
Corporation Management           250   1

* = changes since last time

Skills at Level 5:   110 (+17)
Skills at Level 4:   128 (+5)
Skills at Level 3:    45 (-12)
Skills at Level 2:     1 (-1)
Skills at Level 1:    27 (-4)
Skills at Level 0:     4 (0)

And for some reason the login SP has made my alt lose progress even more, standing at just shy of 46m.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 14.

Yeah, that went great. Had the plan to sub to FFXIV this weekend and then… EVE happened. I’ve not been that active for months. After all we’re moving and there’s other stuff to do. Hopefully this settles down soon because right now I’m losing sleep. Mostly because I’m hyped, but also because there’s so much to do.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 6.

Some parties in the war are claiming they’ve won World War Bee II, and… it’s complicated.

Goonswarm is (rightfully) claiming they’ve won by not losing. Vily (of TEST) is claiming that the PAPI coalition has won simply by not being the Goonswarm, who were boxed into one constellation for a while. But their defenses didn’t break, and we (PAPI) didn’t manage to win.

That’s why our (BRAVE) (new full, ex-interim) CEO Dunk Dinkle declared that we (PAPI) lost, in a refreshing honesty that wasn’t very common in this war (from all parties). And while I agree with the assessment of the situation, I would have called it an unfavorable stalemate that’s worth abandoning. But I’ve not been involved in the war for quite a while, so I accept that “we lost”.

And this is great. My whole hope for the last year had been that the blue donut would be broken up and we could go back to have fun again. I’ve no love for the goons, but this war in it’s original motivation and with TEST’s plan was simply stupid. It’s not that we (BRAVE) could’ve really said we wouldn’t join, but it still sucked that we lost our space in Catch (and Impass, but I never liked Impass anyway). Querious is nice, but to me there was nothing wrong with Catch.

Anyway. We’re evaccing now because our leadership thinks the goons will come for us soon. I personally think they will go after TEST first and not BRAVE, but we are kinda close and I guess it’s warranted. I hate moving, but this time I was quite better prepared than last time.

The only thing that REALLY sucks is tearing down my PI setup, again. I’m not sure I’ll do this again in this form, but I probably will do it again in some form, but not in the near future.

So maybe there will hopefully be more EVE posts again on this blog in the near future. The war has ended and I prefer losing 10 times over it continuing. Even if the goons are coming for us, it’s not the same war. If you’re interested in what happened in the war, Wilhelm wrote at length about it, every single week. I didn’t read any of those war update posts, not because he’s a goon, but because I was so not into this war that I even stopped reading about it, even there. I’m pretty sure I read about EVE on Wilhelm’s blog before I even started playing in 2013, so that might tell you something.

The next few weeks and months will certainly be very interesting. Alliances leaving coalitions, corps leaving alliances, players leaving corps. People joining their comrades in other alliances, people going to the former enemy. I’m sure we’ll lose some people, as will most of the other alliances. My guess is that Legacy will stop existing in its current form. I’m optimistic though and I’m looking forward to the future, because I’m happy in BRAVE.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 4.

Another milestone, 80 million skill points on my main. Last milestone in February.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         20,713,077  60 *
Drones                     8,859,375  18
Gunnery                    8,765,560  34 *
Navigation                 7,327,839  13 *
Engineering                6,842,040  15 *
Missiles                   6,518,514  21 *
Fleet Support              3,656,894  12 *
Shields                    3,198,119  12 *
Targeting                  2,575,530   8 *
Armor                      2,547,805  11
Electronic Systems         2,224,395  12 *
Subsystems                 1,312,530  16 *
Scanning                   1,191,530   7
Resource Processing        1,039,545  15 *
Neural Enhancement           745,347   5
Rigging                      679,060  10
Science                      502,275  13 *
Social                       434,510   6
Planet Management            394,040   4
Trade                        359,530   8
Production                   276,743   4
Structure Management          24,040   1 *
Corporation Management           250

* = changes since last time

Skills at Level 5:    93 (+13)
Skills at Level 4:   123 (+9)
Skills at Level 3:    57 (-4)
Skills at Level 2:     2 (0)
Skills at Level 1:    31 (-3)
Skills at Level 0:     4 (-4)

I guess the big changes are that I completed our FAX and Dread skill plans (Caldari for now and damn you, JDC V) and could apply for our cap group. In reality I should probably train those T2 guns the Phoenix I bought is fitted with… but on the other hand my Dread alt is still in training and I’m not keen on losing this one, with the recent spike in prices, I was happy enough to get one for the old price after the update had landed… Other than that I guess the majority of the 10m came from JDC, and Fleet Support skills (yay, I can boost now), some T3C subsystem skills, finishing up some of our Doctrines and slowly working my way to being able to fly all combat subcaps.

80m is an important point for silly reasons (skill injectors only give the original 500k back if you are under 5m skill points, 400k under 50m, 300k under 80m, and only 150k after 80m), so I took the opportunity and a bit of disposable income and bumped myself over the hump, I think from 77.x to 80.x and didn’t spend it, so that’s why I’m only posting this now, with 80m actually spent. I’m not a huge fan of skill injectors, but they’re a reality and now I used some for the second time and don’t plan to in the future (unless I become filthy rich, which I seriously doubt :P). It sucks a little because now my main alt isn’t exactly 40m behind anymore, so maybe I’ll ninja edit those stats in here in a month to keep track.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         15,316,772  53 *
Gunnery                   6,110,380   34 *
Engineering               4,233,570   13
Missiles                  3,917,985   19 *
Drones                    2,562,742   18 *
Navigation                1,622,590    9
Electronic Systems        1,481,570    8
Targeting                   951,765    7
Armor                       933,255   10
Shields                     833,805   10
Fleet Support               527,530    2 *
Neural Enhancement          527,530    4
Rigging                     508,024   10
Science                     483,690    4 *
Subsystems                  426,040   16 *
Planet Management           394,040    4
Scanning                    184,000    7 *
Resource Processing          24,250    4 *
Structure Management         24,000    1 *
Social                       23,072    4
Trade                        11,079    4

Skills at Level 5:    53 (+13)
Skills at Level 4:    74 (+18)
Skills at Level 3:    81 (+5)
Skills at Level 2:    12 (-1)
Skills at Level 1:    15 (0)
Skills at Level 0:     8 (-20)

Another milestone, 70 million skill points on my main. Last milestone in August.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         19,046,390  59 *
Drones                     8,859,375  18 *
Gunnery                    8,668,110  33 *
Engineering                6,764,540  15 *
Missiles                   6,097,024  21 *
Navigation                 5,431,133  13 *
Armor                      2,547,805  11 *
Shields                    2,260,080  10
Electronic Systems         2,162,395  12 *
Targeting                  2,154,040   8
Scanning                   1,191,530   7 *
Resource Processing        1,015,545  13
Neural Enhancement           745,347   5 *
Rigging                      679,060  10 *
Science                      498,525  10 *
Social                       434,510   6
Planet Management            394,040   4
Trade                        359,530   8
Production                   276,743   4
Subsystems                   171,510  16 *
Fleet Support                530,030   7 *
Structure Management             750   1
Corporation Management           250   1

* = changes since last time

Skills at Level 5:    80 (+8)
Skills at Level 4:   114 (+22)
Skills at Level 3:    61 (-5)
Skills at Level 2:     2 (-4)
Skills at Level 1:    34 (+10)
Skills at Level 0:     8 (-1)

Free SP: ~710k

And because this is how math works, my alt hit 30 million.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command          9,660,740  44 *
Gunnery                    4,905,650  30 *
Engineering                3,972,785  13 *
Drones                     2,485,080  16 *
Missiles                   2,334,123  18 *
Electronic Systems         1,481,570   8
Navigation                 1,239,003   9 *
Armor                        933,255  10
Shields                      833,805  10 *
Rigging                      508,024  10 *
Science                      483,690   3 *
Targeting                    429,423   7 *
Planet Management            394,040   4
Neural Enhancement           279,530   4 *
Scanning                      98,386   6
Resource Processing           24,250   2
Social                        23,072   4
Trade                         11,079   3
Fleet Support                  8,000   1 *

Skills at Level 5:    40 (+10)
Skills at Level 4:    56 (+16)
Skills at Level 3:    76 (+6)
Skills at Level 2:    13 (-9)
Skills at Level 1:    15 (-4)
Skills at Level 0:    28 (+14)

Free SP: ~350k

It’s been nearly a month since I posted about EVE, but that’s not for lack of playing. I think I played a lot more than WoW, despite the leveling. But for some reason I don’t enjoy writing about the war, so I don’t.

But last night (2h after I went to bed) I finished training Caldari Carrier I and that means… I have a suitcase now. For people not playing EVE, it’s usually quite hard to move more than one ship at a time, like, the one you’re flying. There’s the Bowhead, a large, slow non-combat vessel that’s mostly used in HighSec, and if the ships are not assembled you can stuff them in a Deep Space Transport, or a Freighter, or Jump Freighter. But when you’re moving your assembled ships, as in move ops during the war perhaps, it’s either taking many, many Titan bridges (or gating), or having a suitcase. Which basically means all Capital ships have a Ship Maintenance Bay with 1 million m3 of space for assembled ships, which means roughly 10 cruisers or a few Battleships. And if you don’t use your capital for fights, you call that a suitcase – and now I have one. First I wanted to go for a Ninazu (yay, Gallente) and bought a cheap one, but then I had second thoughts because our fleets are shield tanked and not armor tanked, and so I sold it (for a profit) and bought a Minokawa a few days ago. And today I finally jumped it to our home system where I can fill it up and then go towards where the war happens. But this was quite some training time, quite some ISK invested (hull + skill books were nearly 2 billion), but now I have it. Oh, and of course I also needed an alt to light cynos, and this means another ~250m cyno ship. Anyway, case closed.

In this post Redbeard had asked how EVE’s World War Bee was going, given that Wilhelm obviously was reporting from the Imperium side and Mailvaltar hadn’t posted about EVE since August either. And because I kinda didn’t pay attention I only saw the comment a few days ago, sorry – so maybe I should actually write something.

I’m still not a huge fan of the war, I don’t like the goons but I don’t subscribe to purging them from the game. No problem in dunking them, though. But that kind of limits my encouragement to take part in as many stratops as possible, more so because I prefer small to medium gangs over big ones over 50 or even 100 ships. Unfortunately with the blue donut there are not really a lot of random fights to find unless we go to Delve. And while we’ve been trying to get a few small gang roams in BRAVE in the last 2 months, a few people have left to join some of the dedicated small gang PvP groups and I can absolutely understand them; if that is what brings them enjoyment the most, they won’t find that in a Null bloc in the current meta.

Anyway, we seem to be progressing quite fine, it’s a bit of a meme now that we needed 5 Keepstars until one survived. I think I only joined the 5th battle which didn’t see any real action. I liked the time in Querious but it always felt a little dead once we had anchored the P-ZMZV keepstar, didn’t really get any fights when I tried to roam solo. Delve is now a little better but I still seem to not find any fights that are engageable with a solo Cruiser. It’s either 3v1 or nothing.

My main is in Delve now in our staging keepstar (and has been in the 3 main ones before this one), but all my alts live in Catch and I’m actively playing them. My highest-SP alt is good enough to fly anything up to Cruisers, so that’s the way to go for all pings in Catch and Impass and I don’t mind burning a jump clone. With the 3+3 MCT deal I’m training up some roles on some alts, would be a lot easier if I was better at long-time planning instead of chasing new ideas every 2-3 months… Also apparently it’s hard to stay on topic for the war if you don’t find it that exciting.

My losses since the war started weren’t actually that bad, the expensive stuff in proper fleets, the Navy Cruisers in small gang roams, but as it’s mostly Querious/Delve… part of the war I guess. But I’m leaving out my losses in our Catch Standing fleet or if we chase away Wormholers in Impass, otherwise it would be a pure tally of what I flew when playing EVE – and I think that would be misrepresenting that I don’t spend all my time in the war.

• Eagle – 1
• Muninn – 1
• Jackdaw – 1
• Osprey Navy Issue – 2
• Omen Navy Issue – 1
• Crow – 1
• Hound – 1
• Cormorant – 1
• Coercer – 1
• Talwar – 1