EVE Online

Today I saw a pre-ping for 19:00 EVE time that sounded interesting. A FUN fleet (which means nothing else than “not for complete beginners” and not “totally important strategical op”, so the majority of fleets. So I came on and was pleasantly surprised they were handing out ships (I got a Dragoon for ~8m ISK, I guess the Talwars were a little more each) and we were already around 50 people and were about to undock when shit got real really quick and everyone was told to get to the Coalition comms and in an important fleet. We all? kinda did and then some other newbros and I noticed we had no idea what to *exactly* do. And of course the other Mumble server hadn’t remembered my password, so I had to fiddle with the Password manager on one screen, with the route planner tool on the other and I’m kinda surprised I arrived in time…

At least I wasn’t the one being told to shut up in comms, but as I sat there at the staging undock, probably in a wrong ship (it’s cool that they announce “X fleet” but if you’ve never been on one of those because you can’t fly it you probably don’t know which Logi and Tackle are ok to bring) I missed the Titan jump bridge (actually no idea how you’d activate it, or if you need to be near the Titan and I didn’t even see the any Titan in the overview… as I said it was very hectic). So I just stayed on comms and listened and flew back to our staging in hopes that our original fleet would be reformed.

It seemed I was lucky because just 30mins later it indeed reformed and we undocked and went hunting for… something. Oh, of course I got lost before something big happened (I blame some people talking over the FC and I jumped a gate I shouldn’t have) and was killed, so I bought a second Dragoon, minus 2-3 fits that weren’t available and try to catch up to the fleet. That took a while, I avoided a few neutrals and actually managed to find them again. Not sure if there was a real plan but after a lot of jumping (definitely more than usual) we actually got into a fight and maybe we even won the ISK battle. I got on 5 kill mails as a Neut, and only spent like 7m of my own money, yay.

But there’s definitely some things I need to relearn:

• Listen closely and get to know the damn NullSec system names in Catch
• Not overlook broadcast for reps, and actually get into Logi again
• Sort overview “better” so I can lock/align/jump quicker

Anyway, it’s 1 am and I was busy for roundabout 3h and had a lot of fun. As I write this some stratop ping goes out, I think I’d be kept more busy in USTZ or AUTZ, but such is life.

It’s Blapril and this is post number 5.

Phew, getting back into EVE isn’t as easy as getting back into a fantasy MMO where you run around and mash buttons, but it’s fun.

Last night we did another small fleet with a few Arty Thrashers and actually managed to get 2 good kills in before most of us died. (80m + 70m versus our combined ~20m). Yeah, I know, this is kinda ridiculous but it’s nice for total beginners and people who feel like total beginners.
Today I wanted to get rid of some Ore I had mined back in 2018 (I guess?) and as my main reprocessing contact doesn’t play right now and my HighSec alt only gets a ~68% yield out of 87% I was advised to not reprocess myself. I had totally forgotten how tedious hauling is though and so I first noticed that I didn’t even have a Miasmos handy (with the Ore hold) and that it would take like 30 trips to Jita, which is kinda ridiculous. So today I learnt about compressing ore, no idea how long it has been ingame, but I had never heard of it because I had always gotten my ore reprocessed directly in the system I reside in. So the only problem was that there was only 1 POS in the next system where I could do it, but 30x 1 system is a lot better than 30x a few into Jita. Fortunately I had to do some work-related reading to do today so I could (maybe for the first time in my life) do a few clicks in a game while reading on the second monitor, with a clear conscience. Awesome. Also I spent my lunch break doing just this. Oh, and did I mention that I found several tutorials that told you how compressing should work, but not how to do it?

Intermission: How to compress ore in EVE Online

Go to Utilities -> Structure Finder, uncheck Stations, see which POS are close, fly there, unload your Ore into the Item Hangar and then RIGHT CLICK the Ore and choose “Compress” and don’t try to use the “Reprocessing Plant” icon on the right side menu. Not all POS that have the “recycling” Reprocessing Icon in the Structure Finder allow you to compress, so if there’s no menu point when right clicking, load your ore and find another POS.

OK, back to the story:

Then I only had to take 3 trips to Jita. My old rule of thumb was only packing ~75m worth of goods in a badly tanked Industrial but I was told a better formula was 3k or 5k ISK per EHP, so with a 10k EHP ship that would be 50m worth of stuff. As I didn’t have the fits handy and didn’t waste any more time I just packed 70m worth of stuff, flew to Jita (it worked), and then bought some better stuff for my Nereus (compressing is awesome, didn’t need to use neither the Miasmos nor the Extended Cargoholds), so that it had 20k EHP. In the end I actually made ~250m but that’s about it now, no more old stuff and resources just idly sitting in a station that I can sell. Now I have roughly 1b to spend on NullSec fun and then I’m completely out of money as I don’t have any income except one (probably badly setup) PI thing. Might get a second one

It’s Blapril and this is post number 3.

I’ve never actually written much about EVE Online, despite playing on and off. At the start of the year I forgot to cancel my 3-month sub, so it was supposed to end in April and I only flew around a bit in highsec, running missions, shooting rats, getting skill points. Wouldn’t say the money was wasted, but it wasn’t spent well either. So then I actually remembered to unsub in February or March, but then CCP had this offer of free 3 months of double character training with a 3 month sub… and because I’d probably spend most of March and April indoors anyway I gave in.

But this time I actually wanted to get back in action, so a little over a week ago I submitted my application and have been a member of Brave Newbies again for a few days and today I finally managed to undock and die in a bubble. Interesting how much you can forget in 2 or 3 years, but I only lost my fleet once. And found them again. Then we died in a gate camp and only 2 of us survived. And then I died while trying to reunite with the folks in new ships. Ah well, it was fun and I hope there will be a few more training runs with free handout Thrashers or something cheap, because I was actually i bit surprised that even the “total beginner” fits got to 10-20m easily. And I’m absolutely not space rich.

It’s Blapril and this is post number 1.