I finally finished up what I considered a fairly good set of mining skills for a high-sec carebear-ette. All I’m lacking is the full set of T2 mining crystals. Additionally I thought I would start working on getting started on some production skills. I finally got that rolling along and realized I should be inventing as well.

I had decided at about three to four weeks into my pod-pilot career that I should focus on running any missions with one particular NPC corporation. I looked around at what I wanted and decided I like what Lai Dai had to offer. They covered a spread spectrum of endeavors and didn’t seems to rule anything else out. I wanted to fly for them as well, but it seems their rigorous application and acceptance procedures excluded me because of a technicality of my Achuran heritage or some such nonsense. I liked their spread of stations and coverage as well as the offerings from their LP store, not the least of which was the much vaunted ‘Highwall’ HX-2 mining implant.

So after specializing for a long time and even catching some flak from my then corp mates about not using ‘their’ corp and agents, I managed to get enough standings for a perfect refine. A couple of weeks later I was able to get a jump clone. And finally last week was able to afford my much coveted implant.

All of this to say, I have a lot of standing with them and was curious if there was a way to continue to leverage that to my benefit. Well, it goes back to one other reason I had selected Lai Dai originally. There are a lot of research and development agents within the Lai Dai corporation and they cover a large area of space and range of research endeavors. I looked at the spread and realized I have access to all off their R&D agents and was only lacking the prerequisite skill areas to begin earning research points for datacores. The datacores are requirement for invention of all kinds of various modules.

I started with Hydromagnetic Physics. Why? Well, my study of Ice Processing had required that I gain more than a passing familiarity with Hydromagnetic Physics and so I could immediately access high level agents by training Research Project Management. On a side note, RPM is a charisma heavy skill in the science field that for an Achura is painfully slow to get trained. I’ve stopped training it after four rounds as it will take another month to maximize it. In the mean time, I’ve also picked up Caldari Starship Engineering so that I can possibly work on some of the ship invention as well as sell some extra datacores.

The final skill endeavor has been to get some exploration work done. I had learned enough Astrometrics to use all the various exploration probes and some of scanning speed training, but knew that at some point I would need to move into a tech 2 ship to take full control of exploration. So I embarked on a journey to train Electronic Upgrades V I could train for a Covert Ops frigate. On a somewhat related side note, it turns out I need that for something completely unrelated. Manufacturing. Really, Manufacturing? Apparently you need various encryption methods for invention which require some skill at hacking which in turn relies upon… Electronic Upgrades V. So coming full circle, I’m training for scanning again so I can invent the T2 mining crystals so I can train for level IV of the various ore refinement skills to be able to use them in my modulated strip miner 2′s. Whew. I sure hope I don’t need to train any other skills along the way…

I managed to get my skills trained to the point where I can begin to use Research and Development agents. They are a particularly secretive and demanding bunch of people on the whole. Once you get in with one it seems to pretty straight forward, but the initial hurdle has been immense. Science, Research, Research Project Management, any one of 20+ specific skills are necessary to even engage their services. Then there is a trifecta of skill that need to be trained to make the most of your agent’s time and earn more research datacores. Connections, Negotiation and the specific research skill all go into determining how much the agent will accomplish.

So all that to say that at Connections III, Negotiations II and Hydromagnetic Physics III, I’m earning about half a datacore per day. Given the current market conditions, this translates into about 100,000 isk per day. I likely won’t bother selling the datacores for cash though, as I will want them for invention. The Hydromagnetic cores are good with both ships and modules. I am training to also use Caldari Starship Engineering as that will be necessary for ship invention as well. This requires me to max out Mechanic which I’m sure I’ll need for hull tanking later in life.

On a more technical note, I’ve continued to update my spreadsheets to reflect the on-going nature of my skills and pursuits in EvE. Toward that end, I’ve learned a lot also from Letrange and his own calculations. I know a lot of people he’s helped out, and I can only aspire to help half as many. One of the many insights gained from talking with him is the wonderful patience he exudes as he trains, manufactures, PvPs, researches, or anything else [including make mistakes - rare].

The worksheets now calculate isk/jetcat of ore, isk/m3 of ore, refine rates, inventory current values and I am putting the beginnings of the blueprint originals in [in large part thanks to Letrange again for the motivation if not the actual format]. As is true with any work of science, it begins to take on a life of its own, apart from any previous contributions. I have all new formulae and functions and it nearly makes me giddy. Soon it will be time to buy some new shoes and handbags!