25/08/10 15:39 PM
| Jaspet | 55.92 |
| Omber | 55.99 |
| Hemorphite | 62.18 |
| Pyroxeres | 68.21 |
| Hedbergite | 74.04 |
| Veldspar | 65.77 |
| Kernite | 88.68 |
| Plagioclase | 84.13 |
| Scordite | 68.17 |
| Spodumain | 75.94 |
| Dark Ochre | 95.49 |
| Gneiss | 95.24 |
| Crokite | 172.65 |
| Bistot | 216.26 |
| Arkonor | 270.56 |
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Having recently wrapped up Astrometrics IV, I headed out in my trusty Heron. I really like the ideas & mechanics behind exploration and I was excited to put it to work while I was working toward training the rest of the skills on the List™. My home system was empty so I warped next door to see what they had to offer. After my unskilled 431 second scan, what should appear to my multispectral probe but a Gravimetic site. Nearly lost in excitement I warped off to the first planet, simultaneously destroying the first probe and pulling up the system map to chart out the Quest probe layout.
The tiny system had two outer planets and a group of tightly bunched inner bodies. I figured out the best way to use four probes to completely cover all of them & then began another unskilled 431 second scan. On the very first run up pops a signature with a 0.6 AU accuracy. As I warped off to the point, I again bid goodbye to another set of probes & loaded some Gravimetic Combs to track it down. The first scan returned nothing, as did the second. On the third I could scarcely believe my eyes. A signature with an accuracy of 0m!
Flush with success, I cheekily warped to 0m and scanned the asteroid contents while aligning towards my home system. It was a small to medium belt of 15-20 rocks with about 175,000 units of various Omber derivatives. Arriving back home, I jumped into the Lou Ferrigno, loaded a fresh set of Omber I crystals and cleaned out the cargohold. The rest of the corp had long since docked and headed off to other pursuits. I knew this was going to have to be a one woman show. I opted to go with jetcans and risk the flippers as I was on a role as well as a bit of a time clock. Approximately an hour and fifteen minutes later I was busy loading the last of the ore and heading off to refine the whole mess.
Then I got a bit proud and maybe a tad cocky… (to be continued)
I’ve finally wrapped up several skill sets that I have been wanting for some time. I can finally fly the whole range of Caldari industrial, transports and freighters. I can’t afford my Bustard, Crane or Charon yet, but I can fly them.
I also saw the devblog about the coming changes to the transports and I think they are good changes. I’m not so sure they were ‘broken’ per se, but they sure weren’t fully utilized. This may encourage more players to get into them and train beyond Transport level 1.
Also tucked into this blog is some ninja posting about the buff to the Mackinaw that allows it to finally fit two Ice Harvester Upgrades II and an increase in cargo hold that will let you hold 2 full cycles.
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.
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.
While continuing to learn how to reprocess modules more efficiently, I’m back in the Lou Ferrigno for several more sessions with my favorite space rocks. I like to think of my self as a Asteroid Psychologist taking rough rocks and releasing their inner potential. What was once merely a rock in a limited and captive environment, being stifled by the gravity of a local celestial body is given purpose and passion. Who knows how far they can go.
They could end up in your next shield extender, afterburner or rifter. They have almost unlimited potential. And to think so many people want to put a stop to it. All the time I hear, “Don’t mine.”, “It’s not worth it.”, and “In defense of these poor rocks we are declaring open season on you and your hulk.” It’s enough to make me almost want to cry. Why would people be so completely ignorant of the untapped promise locked in these modest, unassuming rocks.
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 
I couldn’t resist the title now that I have for the moment completed my mission grind. I now have enough standing with the local corp to refine my ore at 100% before taking it to market. For weeks I’ve just been sitting on my rock collection while I ground through mission after horrible mission to get enough standings. An unexpected bonus is that I have enough LP to pick up one of the specialized social skills from the LP store [nothing else of interest to a non-Amaarian pilot]. Now that I have my 6.7 standings, I’m refining on every trip out. The next major hurdle is getting it to the right market.
Speaking of refining, I’m finishing up Refinery Efficiency V so that I can start training Scrapmetal Processing and Ice Processing. Of course this also necessitates training Hydromagnetic Physics and Metallurgy. It really bothers me that inefficiency would take so much from the modules and fittings that I want to refine.
I was relaxing in my favorite pod, sipping on some nutri-goo after a very long and successful set of Blockade missions. It’s almost kind of sad how easily these traders let their private jumpgates get stuffed up. So I had cleaned out all the Sansha scum and was relaxing while perusing the nearly 200 m3 salvage I had cleared. It has been a good day.
The music was softly playing in the background and I closed my eyes for moment. Only for a moment and the moment’s gone. But so was my connection. The universe-wide, pod system shutdown caught me while I was dozing. I had missed my latest skill training completion and was so angry with myself I screamed. Unfortunately I then had to explain to my family on the other side of the coms why I was screaming and it wasn’t at them. There’s another couple of hours of training I’ve lost.
Someday I’ll write a book, “All The Things I Could Have Trained”!
I hear a lot of people talking about mining as a means to be able to do missions or support a PvP habit. I’ve always viewed missions that way. It’s a necessary evil for mining. You could concievably mine without ever running a mission [check out the macro mining isk-boys] but as a complete miner, you will conceivably need to refine some ore at some point. Then it’s nice to have a better than 6.7 standing with an NPC corporation. How do you get that if you are a dedicated miner?
To be sure, you can use connections to get a little bit closer, but at some point you’ll need to actually run a mission to even get started. Given that a large portion of mining training has not been in combat related skills, doing missions for standings can be a slow process. I’ve approached this rather in the same way that Dee Carson talks about training your learning skills. I do a mission now and then as time allows or when I’m done for the day with all of my mining trips.
I have skills to mine well in an Osprey, so that allows me to also pilot a Caracal. The tank is shield tank is also something that I’ve trained based on needing to survive in belts. Drones as well. The only thing missing is the weapons skills. I evaluated missiles v. gunnery skills and opted to go with the missles. This was based in part on the desire to possibly use a Drake or even Raven later on down the road as well as the ability to do mission specific damage.
So I mostly run level 1 and 2 missions for standings. Occasionally there is a level 3 agent that offers courier misssions that I can run for a bit more standings. Finally there is one other use for running missions, the LP store. There are some great mining implants that can be had from those stores. Not much else that a miner needs from the LP stores.
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