14/06/10 11:39 PM
| Jaspet | 47.03 |
| Omber | 47.14 |
| Hemorphite | 55.62 |
| Pyroxeres | 57.70 |
| Hedbergite | 66.18 |
| Veldspar | 66.67 |
| Kernite | 70.01 |
| Plagioclase | 72.02 |
| Scordite | 75.25 |
| Spodumain | 80.33 |
| Dark Ochre | 98.81 |
| Gneiss | 100.86 |
| Crokite | 185.46 |
| Bistot | 232.34 |
| Arkonor | 288.02 |
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Among all the recent changes that have been announced coming to the galaxy, I’ve tried to hold my tongue and just let others discuss the to death. I’d like to think I had learned from experience after crying foul for the Quantum Rise Apathy Patch [personal code name QRAP!] that really did nothing more than introduce 1 new ship, a couple new ways to build it and some rear-end servicing [oh, wait, I mean "back-end, database and hardware upgrades]. The combined effect was not only under-whelming, it was quite frankly disappointing in that a supposed ‘industrial’ upgrade for EVE was little more than a collection of little patches and a mini-Rorqual. Thanks for the ship but don’t try to… Gah, have to stop going there.
So, coming back to the Apocrypha changes, I’m trying to remain more detached and aloof. I know I’ll continue to fly my ships, mine/mission/manufacture my way to dominance and generally let any changes wash over me like Trinity, Empyrean Age and QRAP have done before. I look forward to new things becoming available in the form of exploration [never mind that a Sisters' Launcher now seems like an over-investment] and wormholes [Sleeper NPCs will severely hurt me] and adding a RAM disk that just makes my mouth water. I am even excited that they are revamping the character creation process and experience. Hopefully gone will be the crazy decisions about locking yourself into something that you have no idea what it entails. New players will have a greater freedom to really explore what is possible in the galaxy before committing to a given career.
But what about the over-all experience? My burning question relates not to how well a new capsuleer can find his way out of the loading bay and into a microwarpdrive fitted Rifter, but more along the lines of, “Mistakes made early on help define all of us as pilots and who we are.” If we just let things float and allow everyone to flip around at whim, there goes some part of our ships’ souls so to speak. Don’t you want to learn as you go? The arguments against the New Player Experience [NPE] changes so far have come down to two basic points however, that completely miss the experience as I’ve defined it.
The GoonFleet, ah, goons, are upset/worried/troubled that reducing the starting pilots to 50,000 skill points will result in capsuleers being unwilling to train for 2 days to get into the aforementioned MWD Rifter for 0.0-sec PvP ops. I’m more inclined to think that people are just shocked by the appearance of the change from 800,000 average skill points to 50k. Nevermind that a new pilot will learn skills at an accelerated rate until they reach 1,600,000 skill points, it must be just plain wrong to reduce the amount of skill points you start with.
The second discussion surrounding the NPE is strangely not about the NPE at all, but about the efficacy of the Learning skills themselves. There are two distinct camps that either want them abolished/banned/nuked/removed/plastered all over the asteroid belts OR they like them and think they are a positive aspect of the game. The first crowd views them as a unholy time sink that are only trained because they are forced to do so if they want to be competitive. They are angry that they train for something that doesn’t make their ship fly faster, guns track faster, missiles fly farther, manufacturing go smoother or mining more lucrative. They just want them gone because they are a, “kick in the balls to players” who want to train real skills. The second, somewhat less vehement group either acknowledge that the learning skills, “aren’t fun” but want to keep them, or they whole-heartedly love them as one of the things that make EVE great.
I have to admit my own personal bias here, and state that I think the choice to train your learning skills or not is part of that fundamental ethos that helps the galaxy of New Eden be what it is. Pilots that fit a shield booster on a Vexor or autocannons and artillery on a Typhoon are generally laughed at for making poor decisions, but there isn’t a cry to change the system so there is one tank system, one weapon or one propulsion option.
TL/DR; The Learning skills are about choices and reward. Grow-up, make a choice and live with it. Don’t demand that something be removed because it doesn’t fit your specific style.
With the plethora of skills, ships, modules, options, directions, et cetra available in the galaxy, I am constantly torn between heading off one direction and then another. I’m sure you’ve all face similar decisions: choosing to train for a little bit more missile damage; ship agility; drone speed; construction efficiency; mining yield; scanning speed [eek]; better tank. The list goes on and on forever! An acquaintance of mine has focused on frigates and frigate related combat skills since he started playing three years ago. He estimates that in another year, he’ll have all Tech 1 and Tech 2 frigates and their associated skills trained. He is looking to possibly move into cruiser level skills then for the next 3-4 years. His comment, “What other option in the galaxy even allows for a 5 year plan?”
This got me to thinking about what I wanted to do for the rest of this year. I began by looking back and taking stock of how far I have come since first hardwiring into the capsule as well as where I am currently. Corporately I’ve managed to be part of a dead and dying corp, a new alliance and finally a solid industrial corp as part of a silent, unspoken alliance. Job-wise I’ve transitioned from a mainly mining pilot to one that also does a fair amount of research and manufacturing, scanning and hauling, missioning and mining. I love the jack-of-all-trades mentality I’ve developed and really want to pursue that.
So in reflection, I’ve come across a goal of sorts: Everything. I like being utilitarian and having efficacy. I wonder what that will look like. In looking ahead, I have some more general goals like keeping my training rate high [another 20,000,000 skill points], earning money, having fun and flying ships. Given that it looks like you will be able to change your skill point specifications for the new update, a whole world of possible career options open themselves up to exploration. The more specific goals about which I might have are proving a bit more elusive. So, I wrap this up with a quick question about your goals for the year?
Well, there’s been a complete dearth of posts from myself as I’ve had a very busy two weeks. Though I’ve been able to fly around a lot, I haven’t had much time to sit down and compile a coherent thought. [Those of you who are reading this, stop laughing at the last statement about coherence.]
We removed a couple of no-shows from the corporation. It’s always a tough decision to make, but after only popping in once after joining, you begin to wonder at their future potential. We’re about as laid-back as you can get in an industrial corporation, but we do prefer at least some warning that you might be scarce for the next couple weeks, months, years. On the flip side, we’ve had three new people join us that are shaping up nicely to be good support for the corporation.
In a comment to a previous note, someone asked about the exact difference that the training skills made in terms of skill training. I’m working on adding all of this up and will try to get a more complete answer calculated. I know for instance that training your learning skills can reduce the time to get into a Hulk from over 90 days to slightly less than 60 days [including time spent on the learning skills. Similar calculations are true for PvP, PvE and Market Mavens. I'll try to have a more complete answer for you in the future. Have to spend some quality time with my trusty calculator.
On a related note [calculations], I’ve managed to rebuild my spreadsheet [with kudos to Letrange for an interim sheet while mine was reduced to electrons] to a pre-crash state. It’s a good thing that the School of Applied Knowledge trained me well to handle this sort of thing before I started piloting around the rest of the galaxy. I can now reliably pick various BPO’s that we own and run the numbers to see if we will make a profit on them. Given that we mine almost all of our ore, the manufactured products are technically all profit, but realistically only if we make more off the pieces than we make off selling the minerals outright. We could undercut a lot of markets to move merchandise, but would only be hurting ourselves. By giving the inventory full market value, we cut into our profits as well as weaken the overall market by potentially providing a cheaper source of refinable ore. I’ve done the same thing to others by buying large quantities of items that were more profitable when refined and either resold or manufactured into to more valuable items.
I’m working at slowly rebuilding my wallet as well after spending a lot of getting some production underway. I’ve got a fairly decent supply of various T1 drones on the market and they are providing a steady [if somewhat low] amount of income. I’m also working on doing a lot of jobs for the FedMart corporation out in Everyshore. I need the ability to refine my ore out there more than I have loyalty to my Caldari upbringing.
More to follow…
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’m finally almost to Caldari Industrial V. It’s been a long week, but I can finally see the end. Well, I can see it a week away. I thought about just training Gallente Industrials to level five, but since I also knew I wanted to fly a Charon, it seems frivolous to do both. At least at this point.
It’s been rough only having the Badger Mk 2 and it’s ~10-13.5 m3 capacity. Even with the 4 GSC’s it only hauls 16,000 m3 worth of my stuff. If I forego the bonus yield of my MLU 2’s on Lou Ferrigno, I can slot in a couple of Cargo Expander 2’s and actually care more than my industrial ship. Something about that seems wrong. 
After I have the Charon, I’ll probably go back and pick up the skills for the Iteron Mark V, but until then, I will make do. Since I have been focusing on mining, I haven’t been the one entrusted with hauling on any group mining ops. For that matter, there haven’t been many group mining ops lately. I also just realized that even though I will have the skills for a freighter, I’m roughly 1,500,000,000.00 isk short of actually slotting my pod into the beast.
And finally, I’ve decided to pick up and train Transports to level 1 to shift into a Bustard for intermediate hauling in the interim.
How we conceptualize the universe around us plays an important part in determining what we find enjoyable. I once commented to a friend that I am that most detestable of all MMO participants. I am the carebear’s carebear. I find an enormous amount of fulfillment and satisfaction in helping people out and even more so if that person is an industrial ship flying, mining & manufacturing, POS-building, spreadsheet yield calculating fool of an EVE player. I see EVE as a relatively inhospitable, cold place that takes new pod pilots and tends to mount their broken, lifeless corpses on the ends of blasters and auto-cannons while simultaneously spreading any remaining biomass all over the scrap metal shavings to gum up the salvage scavengers.
From this point of view it a short jump to utter fatalism, that if we’re all going to die, we might as well go out with a bang and take any poor pods we meet along the way with us. There are some people who do this very well and with aplomb. They warp, web, point, shoot and pod all in the same breath. They tend to speak loudly and carry large sticks. The are only two options, death and victory. May the gods forgive any poor pilot who happens to escape their wrath. Anyone who runs is then inept and unprepared for life and will obviously meet their end in a quick and hopefully painful manner. How dare someone not engage them in combat! What lowly, incompetent fools to think themselves above an encounter. They should be vocally and wildly ridiculed from the com channels so that everyone else can look on in disgust at their craven behavior.
Or you can decide that this is a place that obviously needs your kind and patient touch. Your isk can make the difference in a young pilot’s life. They might decide that there’s nothing worth the time and energy when the world is out to get them. Oh, how extravagant the gift of a new frigate seems to the player who loses 2 in the first couple of days. The bonds of fraternity forged on the sharing of information and piloting proficiency are strengthened by the application of liberal amounts of understanding and redemption. What uncommon operators and precious pilots lie beneath the common dross of humanity waiting to be refined?
There is a balance that must needs be reached between the pain and providence of new players. Heavenly help does not replace the harsh reality of hell in space. Neither does being beaten bloody mean better basics. If we are to watch our world continue to grow, we need each other. You pirates shoot, maim and kill. However know that I will be teaching other to run, hide and if necessary crawl.
I don’t know where to begin. It seems the universe is going to change radically in the next couple of days. The faithful, foolproof capsuleer mnemonic skill training system is going under a radical frameshift resulting in a cessation of training when you capsuleer membership dues aren’t paid. It seems that even though the system was unintentionally created this way and has operated this way without fail for the last 5 years, it has now become a necessity.
The sadness comes from the loss of many good capsuleers. It seems times are getting lean and the inability to keep your dues paid is nothing new. However, now without being able to continue to learn, it is likely that a lot of players won’t be interested in coming back. They’ll likely pick up jobs planetside or maybe just fly off the radar somewhere….
For myself, I don’t think I would have still been playing if this had been in effect from the beginning.
It’s been a busy last couple of days. I have been perpetually thwarted by every attempt to undock. First it was a family emergency that required more than my passing attention to the information being fed down the hardwiring. Then there was a business trip to meet with a potential client for ongoing mineral sales. He was wanting to buy consistent quantities of certain minerals on a guaranteed schedule at or above market rates. The problem turned out to be the client’s backers were slightly less than reputable or even honest. It wasn’t shaping up to be a good time.
I managed to get back into the Lou Ferrigno and get several million units of Veldspar, Scordite and Kernite mined. Now that I have the standings with those Tash-Murkon Family posers, I can refine for more than I can sell the ore for. I don’t have the manufacturing skills yet to produce much with it, so I go for the profit. As I was making trips back and forth to the station, I would check the available mission ops for something interesting. The next to last trip in I noticed they were offering a chance to retrieve some minerals for war and knew the area would offer some Gneiss as well. I’m all for working through kind of ore I can get, so I pulled my records on the area and saw some battleship sized baddies.
I have been putting this off for some time, but I finally broke down and fired up heavy missile training. I hoped this would help it go a bit more smoothly. I checked my training times to make sure I could get it finished before the mission offer went away. Knowing that it was going to work, I flew off to make the last couple of jumps on the last sales trip. I’ll have to let you know how the heavies work out in real world practice. I might miss the missile-per-second firing rate of my seven little assault launchers.
I moved a bunch of my Tritanium to market today. I’m still using a Badger II as I don’t have the resources to use a Charon yet or the skills for something like an Iteron V. The result is that I move about 1.6 million minerals per trip. At the current market rate, that means I’m getting about 4.9 million per trip. As it’s only 6 jumps, I’m ok with making the jumps and moving it to sell it.
Having made some isk, I was contemplating going back into the field to make some more roids cry, but somehow got distracted by a item link to a Drake battlecruiser. Suffice it to say that 31 million later, I’m right back where I started isk-wise. I’ve never owned a BC before and barely have the skill to fly the thing. I have the tank and support skills, but haven’t spent much time learning the weapons systems. As a primarily industrial character, I didn’t use much beyond the occasional assault launcher or 150mm rail gun. So now I have a very well tanked passive drake without any launchers. Hilarity never ceases.
This is a topic that I’ll probably come back to at some point. Apparently at somepoint in my career, I made the following statement to a good friend. “I am that most dreaded of MMO players, the care bear.” I tend to upset the natural order of things by needlessly throwing resources at things that could be better put use wiping the virulent infection of my fellow humans from the universe. I constantly waste isk, time and other things to put people that I hardly know into new ships, get them started training new skills, help them get set-up for mining/research/learning/pvp/pve/et cetra.
Case in point: Today I happened across a young Caldari pilot fresh into the SAK and had an overwhelming desire to just throw help at him. He really didn’t seem to know a PDS from an SPR but that only further spurred me to fill his wallet with my isk. To top it all off, he was genuinely interested in learning the game and getting over the learning curve. I almost couldn’t contain my enthusiasm at finding someone so ready to play the game and learn the ins-and-outs of a complex system like EVE.
We talked a length about skill training, mining, missioning and the general accumulation of wealth and power. In the end, I gave him over half of my net isk worth in new skills and equipment that would have taken him a couple of weeks to obtain on his own. I pointed him toward such perennial favorites as EveMon and EFT so that he could begin planning for his own future and make educated decisions [or at least ask educated questions]. By downtime I had made a new friend, had helped a new player and lost over half my isk. Sheesh, what was I thinking
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