inspiration..

In support of Rixx's anti WCS program...

Merry christmas!

jingle bells , mining smells, plexers run away! Oh what fun it is to be in lowsec Christmas day...

Merry Christmas all, I will be posting again in the new year, until then I will be terrorizing my family and lowsec. Will let you all know what I got and gave from the corp secret Santa and may even have some more vids..cya next year..

dashing through lowsec ,in an untanked Indy crate ,through gate camps I go, laughing all the way, ho ho ho!

a bold new world..sort of

Ok so I have been toying with an idea for a while, putting "some stuff" on YouTube as a complement to my blog posts, a way to read my take on events and also see how shit went down. So last night I downloaded Bandicam and liked the way it worked and decided to take the plunge..

Fair warning, I will be posting raw footage , no editing to make me look better (i tend to try to kill everything and wind up loseing as often as I win) and I will show losses not just kills, most will be combat stuff but may do the odd guide and some exploration sites I think are interesting.

So tonight I went out to test my filming prowess.. the first fight I got can be found here I found a cormerant lurking in a small plex ,I warped in and found a comet on the gate which I started to engage, he ran away and I almost followed, in retrospect I wish I had. But I decided the cormerant needed to die and warped in, what I didn't see with all this distraction is my corpmates warning me this guys fit will probabbly kill me, and as predicted he does

Next I decided to redeem myself , I jumped in a venge and went back out, while roaming one of my esteemed frosty corp mates told me he found 2 slicers in filet but was unsure about engage ing solo in a sentinal... So I naturally offered to help and began flying out, on route however I was told the slicers had left. Upsetting.

However. There was a nice Tristan sitting in a plex...that would even the score board for tonight, and most tristans are brawlers and wouldn't stand a chance against a venge..

So in I warp expecting a brawler match which you can watch here.

Turns out this Tristan was a kite fit and really gave me some trouble, I didn't want to kill his drones as I didn't have him scramed and he would just run away and I was burning through Nanite paste while manually piloting trying to slingshot close to him..at one point I thought I may lose when the ancillary rep per goes into its 60 second reload, but I did manage to close the gap and sink my teeth in, but props to the guy, he had a assault frig worried for a bit. Kill mail here.

Hope you enjoyed the vids , will try to post them as often as I can. Astral.

the 5th element

I have been day dreaming today about my idea for expanding faction warfare.. the pirate factions...

Wouldn't it be great if you could join these pirate factions and earn LP for doing what pirates do...killing everyone else lol , no orbiting buttons only way to earn LP is killing. And to make it a bit more harsh joining drops you to a instant -10 and makes every faction hostile..make it a real lifestyle changer, a but the LP store sells pirate faction mods ships and boosters ....my god, it would be beutiful

In a unrelated matter I have only been getting on for half hour at a time lately as the new puppy and house training is eating more time than I ever thought, so when I got on tonight I was eager to throw myself into the first fight I could... So as a few of us stalked ladister and a TIPAKS gang turned up trying to bait us into a obvious tarp, I somehow managed to convince everyone fuck it, let's have some..didn't go well for my venge

Ah well ships is ment for sploding.

What did grate on me was I then flew over to dodixe to grab a Tristan and derped into concord..thought I was good until I hit -5 but turns out at -2.7 the police get most upset in a 0.9 system..just goes to prove, concord are wankers :)

silly ship

Just a quick post, if your flying a breacher..a brawler fit won't win much.. a brawler fit against a vengeance won't win ever. dead breacher

never even dipped to below 60% shields, and I was armour tanked.

better maps..

Ok so it's not a big thing but it pisses me off, the map system in eve is clunky inefficiant and CLUTTERED! seriously the galaxy star map is useful for some things but shows very little info, I defy you to use that only when planing roams or jumps and not look at dotlan...

So why is it dotlan a third party site (and an excellent one at that) can display regions in easy to read ways that are chock full of informationy goodness, yet the "official" in game maps suck ass? Why and we have the option to see the star map in 2d similar to dotlan but with the options to drill down through the data or have scrolling information or some other fancy display?

Wouldn't be a game changer but would make life a lot easier, just because the option of a decent map is available out of game doesn't mean it shouldn't be put in the game, does it? Crack on ccp..

boosting alts thoughts

Low sec is full of awesome solo and small gang PvP. Some people like to get an edge using booster alts, which is a very legitimate game mechanic..but...

Using a booster alt is a lot like using steroids in sport, it may help you win a few more races but ultimately you wind up with a shriveled weinner and a unhealthy dependancy in the place of real skill.

Rubicon and tuskers.

So Rubicon has hit.. not as big a impact as I was expecting , but I like it. The warp speed changes are cool, the SOE ships look hot (must buy one soon)

I have yet to see a ghost site (admittedly haven't been looking) or any mobile structures, tho I'm sure blowing them up will provide some amusement.

Have had a nice run of solo kills the last few days, really feeling the PvP groove back , I tend to favor brawler ships like the Tristan or vengeance but have been taking out a varied mix. Check my kill board if your interested in specifics.

Now lately the tuskers and my CEO rixx have had a little (public) disagreement that resulted in the tuskers declaring war on stay frosty. From mine and most of our corps point of veiw this made no difference and was quite funny, still after a while rixx made a amusing apology of sorts and the war ended.. then I saw this eve mail..

Dear Stay Frosty members, As you are aware, The Tuskers declared war on Stay Frosty after several months of co-existing in Hevrice. The reason for the war being declared were simple: we finally became tired of our members individually, as well as a collective, being slandered and lied about to present a negative image of us to the wider eve community. After a month of war, despite what your leadership promised in terms of pushing us out of our system as well as the allies it had tried to court including Negative 10 Alliance / the united , it showed no signs of abating. On the contrary, it escalated before your leadership wisely chose to establish a secon dary base far from our home. Several times throughout the war, your CEO as well as several Directors reached out to our leadership to find the terms necessary for the war to end when it was clear that the war was having a negative effect on your corporation. It was decided that if your CEO took certain actions then we would end this war. Whilst it is clear that he has not honoured the spirit of the offer given, nevertheless he has met the letter. As we keep our word, the war has therefore ended. If your CEO reneges on his side of the agreement then the war will be back on and we will no longer restrain ourselves; we will make it our goal to give your corporation the most unpleasant time in EVE we can. We hope it will not come to this. We have nothing personal against Stay Frosty members and we hope this will continue to be the case. Fly dangerous Stay Frosty, The Tuskers

Now this pissed off a few of my fellow frostians, some replied with sarcastic evemails, I am more literal, so when I logged in tonight and saw rixx saying there was a tusker Brutix on there station I decided to send my response and jumped in a harby, and let off a few rounds..Now the Brutix had the good sense to do nothing but dock up at half armor (sensible with a dozen frostians in sys and only 2 tuskers) however this vexor was less sensible.

Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against any of the tuskers, but I despise the arrogance that they think they can have ANY impact on my play. Please consider that kill my response to your epeen letter. Astral. Frosty as FUCK .

operation 2.billion

So I recently have been burning through ships with astral like a loon, I have a habit of always being on the attack to the point of reckless. This has put a strain on my isk and since I have moved I don't have the cash spare to just buy a couple of plex to top it back up :(

Hence was born operation 2.billion, I intend to take 50 million start up capital and trade my way to 2 billion as fast as I can.

Last night I flew down to jita to stock up on my speculations, I intend to supply certain lvl 4 mission systems with Stuff I find lacking and often have to trott back to a hub to pick up, they may not sell as fast as station trading but I think this could work...

back.

Have been tied up for the last month moving house, I am now in the new place with everything sorted, and with a new puppy (which seems to think my office/ gaming room is his toilet). With any luck I should be back out hunting and blogging about it very soon.

giving away faction scorps

It seems the comunityhas gone in to rage over ccp giving away free stuff to fansites (specificly blink)

Here is my only comment on this rage threadnought...get a freeking grip. That is all

balance. and 300

So today I was out roaming in my fave venge fit with a few other pilots from stay frosty and our great CEO rixx, and I got in two very different fights, first I found a guy that I attacked yesterday, he was in a thrasher again, yesterday he killed my Tristan before some friends joined and killed him, today I knew the venge would eat him As you can see rixx jumped in on the tail end and got the final blow.git.

Then I see a enyo and slasher at a plex.. so I figure, I can hold or kill the enyo while my mates get here.. I warp in call for assistance and go to work, the enyo is matching me blow for blow (tough ship) and my corpie's land as we both enter structure I go pop as the enyo has about 20% structure left and the stabber against 3 frosty ships..and the git's both manage to escape!!!

In the past this may have bothered me but now days I hunt in the week and run some lvl 4s at the weekend, with the trading I do it allows me to go through venges without every worrying about the loss and "can" lead to some great fights. Trick is striking a balance between isk generation and fun. Tbh I find the weekends to crowded with more bank fleets and gate camps. the solo or small gang fights are in MY opinion better in the week.

On a side note this post is # 300 for me, it's been a lot of fun and rewarding process so far and I can't wait to see post 400 or 500 roll round.

RL puppies and musings

Ok so many things are happening for me at the moment, firstly I am moving home in a couple of weeks, from a two bed apartment to a nice house.This is mainly because I am getting my awesome wife a puppy

actual puppy, cute right?

Any who ... Back to eve. I have been packing ect lately so not playing as much as I'd like but I have gotten the bug again for some exploration, will now be switching at will between full on pirate killing at will (or when I can) and running some exploration sites, I may even have a few ideas how to combine the two...

odd kill

Ok, haven't been on much lately as have a lo t of stuff going on in RL, however I did manage to get out for some fun tonight, was only on for a bit and only got 2 kills but 1 was weird. First was this poor soul. Nothing really odd there.

However on the way back I found my odd kill, in costelle there was a fleet on d scan running the incursion but also a buzzard on scan.. and sitting in a plex? Wtf? So I warp to the gate warp in expecting him to cloak and run..nope just sits there looking at me, so I launch drones to try to break any cloak he trys and burn towards him, still expecting him to cloak or warp or something but oddly I get tackle, he dies fast then I check the kill mail and see this!!

Little note to anyone thinking this is A good fit, cov ops ships do not make good PvP ships, you can use then to kill people doing exploration but what was going on in this dude's head I have no idea! /astral

randomness.

I warn you now this may be a tad random.

Firstly I will be moving in the next month in RL and all the assorted crap that goes with that, packing and having all things like TV and internet installed at the new place. Up side is I will move from regular broadband to the top fibre you can get with virgin (120mb) so that should rock.

I haven't been shooting people to much the last two weeks as I am also going through a restructure at work and we are trying new ways of working such translates to me doing more hours and being smashed when I get home ready to do diy or packing :(

I have managed to get Vespa running lvl 4s and earning again, she is also making more isk as I sleep using a fairly low profit but steady station trading system I have developed, which returns about 10-15% a week. With 80 mill invested and Dr investing half the profits it adds up to a good passive ish income. If anyone is interested in how to do this leave a comment and if there are a few I will do a post on it later.

For now I need to go kill some thing /astral

the pirate price.

Can anyone be a Pirate in EVE? sure but it WILL cost you.

I have been kind of quiet on eve the last couple of weeks, this is mainly due to my lovely wife buying me the steam version of final fantasy 7 and me going on a serious nostalgia kick, but also due to me needing to do some work with my alt vespa.

Thing is being a pirate in eve is A TON of fun, it really fits almost any play time, of course the more you play the better you get (a reason I will always suck against players with more time, but it's a reality I am happy with) ,trouble is it can be an Expensive way of life. You actively put ships in danger all the time if your good or lucky you kill more than you lose but you still need to replace what you lose, and unless your a pro chances are the loot won't always cover the bills. It tends to be feast or famine.

For that reason most pirates have alts that top up their wallet. I'm no different, I have 2 alts vespa is my money maker however before she has done some mining and a bit of station trading, I did for a while consider taking her into faction warfare but I just can't get on with being prey. So I have been training her up lately to run level 4s in a raven, that is a slow tedious process.

During the time I have been training vespa I have been selling the odd plex to keep my PVP habit in ships(some players seem to look down on this however some people have time to earn more in game some earn more at work and prefer to spend their time in game doing what they enjoy, both valid options imo) Once I get Vespa sorted I may reactivate my second other account with more alts to assist in PVP and PVE.

A new bounty system for a new lowsec.

Following on from a previous post on ways to improve lowsec I have done a lot of thinking about other methods of improvement, and I keep coming back to a chicken and the egg scenario, pirates want people to fight in lowsec that are not pirates and other people don't come because the pirates want to kill them!

The solution is quite simple, the implementation isn't. We need cops..but we don't need concord.

carebare types stay away from lowsec because on the whole if they meet a pirate they will die. And PvP In lowsec means pirate or FW. We need the third option...BOUNTY HUNTERS.

do away with the silly notion of assigning a bounty player to player but let concord assign a bounty against you that is about 10% of any kill mail value, say you pop a 20 mill ship your bounty =2 mill .

Now I know your thinking this is exploitable, any bounty system will be but what if to claim it you had to have positive sec status over +1 and be registered with concord?

now we have another valid PvP option for lowsec that pays well..gives good fights and affords the soft carebears some protection, now they feel safer in some areas of low. Thus creating hunting grounds for pirates who inturn provide income for more bounty hunters.

it's still exploitable but would make lowsec the home of PvP.

"Don't fuck up what we have.."

Ok so the other night Rixx Javix, our beloved CEO was on crossing zebras with Marc Scaurus talking about lowsec and how it is nowdays and what changes they think are needed.

Firtly, as someone that has lived in lowsec for the better part of 4 years, it is LOADS better than it was, wasnt long ago I could fly 4-5 systems and see NO ONE!! at that point only pirates explorers and the odd FW dude was in lowsec, and if you stayed away from the perma camped entry systems you could spend weeks alone. now days lowsec is teeming with life... the only problem is not all of it wants to fight.

During the podcast the overall sense i got was "lowsec is better now, not perfect but don't fuck it up trying to change things", which I do understand but, I think I have a solution that would make everyone happy.

First double the LP payout in FW plexs, we need that to be a way to make people rich, because greed inspires daring.

Second, as part of the Capture procedure for the little (or big for that matter) FW plex's you need to orbit, once a enemy militia pilot enters the plex and the count down begins a Interdiction bubble is erected in the site, this could be sold in the lore as a last ditch effort by personal in the plex to hold out for reinforcements to arrive..

Lastly, and this is what will make for the most fun Any milita pilot that kills a pirate is paid the LP reward as if he had killed a enemy Militia Pilot multiplied by .5 of the pirates negitive sec status :) This would mean what ever you get paid for killing a T2 cruider for example, if it was piloted by a pirate at -10 sec status you woud get 5x as much!! this could again be justified in lore as the empires working to root out the ruthless capsuleer pirates.

Can you imagine the FW fleets roaming lowsec looking to not only engage the other side but the pirate fleets too? That atron might take a crack at the pirate in a merlin as if he wins it is a awesome payout!!

Anyone have any sparkling insights into this?

Blog banter 48

We Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 48th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page. This month’s topic is a request from CCP Sisyphus who wants to know how important is Lore in EVE Online?

“How important is ‘fluff’ in Eve online? Would eve online be the same if it were purely numbers and mechanics, or are the fictional elements important to the enjoyment of the game? Would a pure text, no reference to sci-fi or fancy names, still be an engaging game? Should CCP put more or less emphasis on immersion?”

I felt the need to contribute to the blog banter this month, I have quite a passion for this subject as I'm sure almost every blogger will. ever notice how almost every blogger try's their hand at fan fiction at some point ( with differing levels of success)? the back story in eve is vague enough to write in almost any story you could imagine but detailed enough to provide a rice emersive environment, and the best part, its constantly growing changing and evolving ..due mainly to the players. One of my favourite parts of the "templar One " novel was where mordus is describing how he came by a wreck of a revelation after quite a well known null sec battle, the players are generating the fiction and the fiction inspires us to generate more! Taking away the fiction in eve wouldn’t really hurt the game play but it would be like having a colour TV for the last 20 years then going back to black and white. Dont take away our fluff!!! Links : Roc Wieler Blog banters

venge roam

The last couple of weeks has been slow for me kill wise, have died a few times getting into fights I shouldn't havent started like this However tonight my illustrious leader rixx fancied taking a mwd venge out for a spin, now a venge is one of my fave ships ski grabbed one and out we went and we with a couple of the other stay frosty lunitics got some great kills.. it started with this enyo, the faction NOS was a nice drop..then we found this algos.. we killed him twice I think but I missed the other kill. Lastly I almost soloed this nice Talwar, rixx arrived just before he popped.. then I did something stupid (ish) we found a incursus at a plex, rixx and I warped in and started eating it, then a punisher landed, the incursus was almost in structure so I peeled off to grab the punisher..what I didn't realize is rixx had burned out his launchers..then a Tristan landed as well..I didn't realize till rixx popped he hadn't killed the incursus. Saddly the 3 frigs managed to pop me before I could finish the punisher. Can't seem to find the loss mail but will link it later. Was a good fight but I was gutted the faction NOS in the hold dropped too :( Still was a fun Friday afternoon. /astral

cutting teeth

Ok so got on a kill mail for stay frosty today..was roaming about looking for some poor fool to fight in a maldiction when I heard 1 system over were some nice targets. I warped over and did a little digging and found my friends were getting ready to kill a caracal at a large plex. Being in a inty I decided to go for tackle, and ran in guns blazing..

Of course I couldn't break the tank of the caracal but I did hold it still till back up arrived. I warped out at 50% structure but we killed it. It's slowly coming back to me.
/astral

A Humble Realisation

I used to consider myself a fair pvp'er. The last week since I joined Stay frosty have mainly been moving some ships out to hevrice and doing a little Roaming in between, and I have come to realise I may have been ok a couple of years ago..the game has changed some what and I am found lacking.

Since joining I have had only 3 fights, lost 2 and drew one.  The draw was my vengeance Against a stabber..I could'nt close and he couldn't break my tank with his tracking. My first loss was a rifter, was a fair fight and I was soundly beaten. Second loss was a slicer, landed far too close to a incursus and didn't make range fast enough..was a little bad luck and a little bit me not reacting as fast as I should.

So it seems I am not the player I once was. But then I'm not the player I once was...

Before I couldn't afford to replace my losses a always flew on a shoe string budget, nowdays I have isk.. not billions but I'm not skint. And I have several stable incomes supporting Astral. Guess all there is to it is to keep plugging away until I get good again, or better at least.

And my early impressions of stay frosty..rixx was right.

Awesome corp and a great bunch of pilots.

/astral

Rum.

Piracy is in my blood...knew id go back...found a good bunch of reprobates.
Member 111 of Stay Frosty.

A collection of thoughts.

Do you ever feel like everything your thinking  is overly complicated?
my thoughts at the moment is that exploration is no longer viable as a solo profession in eve that can match lvl 4's for isk, that said I dont want to leave lowsec.
I could go to null and be a drone for some alliance but thats not really me also gun turret diplomacy posted a elleqent post wich pretty much sums up my experience with null.
I could go back to faction warfare but found that didnt hold my interest long.
which only really leaves piracy. there are 2 corps I concidered asking to join, stay frosty run by rixx javix over at Evoganda, or go back to fla5hy red. however my isk is still primarly generated by astral, if he drops back to flashy (again) it makes it harder to get the isk I need to buy shiney death machines..so now I am thinking make more money to buy a plex to duel train vespa so she can run lvl 4's but that could take a couple of months and a billion isk i could use to buy ships...

my head hurts.

good deed.

Was buying some ships to go hunting explorers the the other day when in local i noticed a player asking for hand outs , normally i ignore these but this one for some reason i looked at.
the player was less than a day old and was asking to borrow 10000 isk as he had spent all his isk on a skill book.
the fact he only asked to borrow a pittance made me remember when i was new and struggling for every scrap, so in a moment of goodness i gave him 5 mill and some advice.
feels good to be nice.

I then proceeded to hunt and harass defenseless explorers in lowsec to nalance the karma :)

Thoughts on exploraton now

So  I have been playing with the new exploration mechanics for a couple of weeks now and I have a few thoughts to share..

first, the ass has fallen out of the decrypter market,  you are lucky to get a mill a pop now where you would get 3-14 mill before. this will recover in time but the market will never be what it was, I predict with the loss of profit and the novelty wearing off in 3-6 momths it will go back to about 2/3 of what the market values were, at least I hope so or radar and mag sites wont be worth doing again.
combat sites are generlly left by the influx of new explorers in lowsec, they are as a rule unwilling to bring and risk a combat ship so true explorers can still make a living running these and picking up the odd deadspace mod.

I have thought about the expansion a lot and I cant help feeling taking the rats away was a mistake, it makes the sites far to easy to run. I agree with hi-sec sites having no rats  but low and null should force you to up your game a bit.
The solution I would propose is no rats but only low level common decrypters in hi sec, in low sec have a few rats that force you to bring a cruiser or AF, but have a chance of droping rare decrypters. Null sec rats should maybe make you bring a Bc Or HAC but have a good chance at droping rare decrypters.
we need to put some risk and skill back into exploration otherwise it will remain a starter profession that goes nowhere.
/astral

i am legion.

just bought my first legion.
that is all.

Free Stuffz...

I am the operator of an offical Eve online fan site, and have been for quite a while. I joined the fan site program as it lists you on the eve site with a link hoping to get mere people looking at the blog when I first started it, however it has some perks.. like free stuff now and again. Now I could hoard this stuffz and keep it all to myself...however that seems unfair- ish. So Im going to give some away and sell some cheep :) first to give away will be

The Quafe men's and woman's T-shirts from fan fest!! these will be FREE to anyone IF you follow this blog and give me the best reason to give them to you in the comments. Second will be a Quafe dropsuit for dust 514.. this comes in voucher format so I can't post a pic but I will email this (ingame) again to anyone following the blog who leaves the best reason why they want it in the comments. ( I don't have a Playstation so its useless to me) Lastly, I got a nice frigate...a Tipan to be exact. This im going to sell, HOWEVER if it is too one of my blog readers I will let it go cheep like the budgie. here is the current cost in Jita

as you can see the cheepest is 517 mill, the most expensive is 1.5 bill. If one of my Readers would like it, 320 mill. first come first served. If not will sell it in Jita to one off the 400 mill buy orders. All Items will be contracted over in Dodixie for collection. giveaways winners and there reasons will be poasted next wednesday other fansite owners are not eligable...you got your own stuffz.

New Feature.

As I am finding a butt load of BPC's that Im not to sure what to do with, I have decided to sell them via some in blog advertising, each week i will put out a post of what is currently up for sale, alternatively, just check the site its on the right. Gimme a shout if you interested All BPC's and BPO's will be delivered to Dodixie for collection once a agreement has been made. Please email any offers ingame. All sensible offers accepted. 1- Large Signal focusing Kit II COPY - 2 runs 1- Large Hybrid Metastasis Adjuster II COPY- 2 runs 1-Large Semi Conductor Memory Cell II COPY- 2 runs 1- Small Drone Scope chip II COPY - 2 runs 1- Reactive Armour Hardner COPY- 10 runs 2- Incognito Data Interface COPY- 10 runs 1- Incognito Tuner Data Interface COPY - 10 runs

exploration tips

Just sharing a few bits of info I have picked up over the last few days.

1- you can fit a cargo scanner to scan the cans in data and relic sites now and see if they have anything of high value in, it helps you know what to grab when the cans pop out.

2- a site neural-boost posted this handy loot guide to help u know which cans to grab once you have scanned..
 Data Site
  * Data Minicontainer:
  * Blueprint Copies
  * Modules (Reactive Armor Hardener, Ancillary Armor Repairer, Ancillary Shield Booster, Large Micro Jump Drive, Target Spectrum Breakers)
  * T2 Rigs
  * Data Interfaces (including Ship Data Interfaces)
  * Faction Starbase Structures
  * Skill Books (Encryption Methods skills)
  * Data Sheets
  * Equipment Minicontainer:
  * Hydrogen Batteries
  * Material Minicontainer:
  * Carbon
  * "Pirate Faction Alloys" (everything that uses the icon of for example Positron Cords and is under market group Materials & Research > Components > Research and Invention > Prototypes and Decryptors > [any pirate faction] Materials)
  * Parts Minicontainer:
  * Decryptors
  * Datacores
  * Electronic Parts
  * Scraps Minicontainer:
  * Metal Scraps
Suggested Loot Order: Parts > Data >>> Rest (if you scanned the profession container's contents first and saw a valuable blueprint, you should prefer data minicontainers over anything of course)
 Relic Site
  * Data Minicontainer:
  * Blueprint Copiies
  * Faction Starbase Structures
  * Spatial Attunement Unit (new item, used for manufacturing of the new T2 scanning upgrades modules)
  * Skill Books (Encryption Methods and Rig skills)
  * Data Sheets
  * Equipment Minicontainer:
  * Hydrogen Batteries
  * Material Minicontainer:
  * Salvage (T1 and T2)
  * Carbon
  * Parts Minicontainer
  * Salvage (T1 and T2)
  * Electronic Parts
  * Scraps Minicontainer:
  * Metal Scraps
Suggested Loot Order: Parts = Material > Data >>> Rest (if you scanned the profession container's contents first and saw a valuable blueprint, you should prefer data minicontainers over anything of course)

will post more on this subject later.
/astral
 

new layout.

My blog has had a mini makeover, as I am finding renewed interest in eve and blogging I thought id tidy the site a bit...let me know any thoughts :) /astral

Early thoughts

Odessey is live today, and seems to be working well, I understand some people are having trouble with seeing the new racial skills, but seems ok to me.
The new UI and graphics look good but arnt really game changing,  the new gate jump animation is a little distracting but looks better.
Tonight I ran about 30-40 systems scanningfor sigs and found a few dozen combat sites but they wernt the object of tonights ..roam I spose.
The explorers must have been out in force as almost every system had been harvested but I did find 3 radar and mag site...er sorry 3 data and a relic sites....I found the new probe mechanics much easier tbh.  Running the sites themselves is now a doddle as there are no rats ( still a few pirates to avoid in lowsec however), the mini game is simple enough.. bit like minesweeper, in general I find the master node to unlock the can is on the far side on a perimiter node..or the next row in. The loot from the radars wasnt bad, about 22 mill each the mag site wasnt worth a mill.
I think the next week or two will see a lot of would be explorers try the new mechanics out before getting bored and heading back to missions or pvp..until then pickings then pickings will be slim.
For those interested I was using a cov-ops set up with t1 codebreaker an analyser or what ever they are called now and for scanning a t1 expanded probe launcher with 8 sisters core probes...Didnt have any trouble scanning although I did lose 1 data can and 1 relic can  that may have been avoided with T2 modules.

Also.. a fun game for the pvp players...scan down a radar site then park a cloaked pvp ship in there..fun ensues...just saying ;)

musing 3

It seems when doing pve in lowsec some people think it is a good idea to try to omni tank and fit "some" pvp mods just in case....this is wrong. fit pve for pve, if you get in a fight your dead eitherway, only way to match a pvp ship, at pvp, is with a pvp setup. dont gimp your fits.
0/

First ded space complex

Tonight I had a go at many first ded complex,  I have  done many mag and radar sites but have always avoided the combat sites thinking them not worth the risk, however I have been reading tales of making billions from a single site, so I decided to give it a go.
While out scanning near home I found a unrated serpintis outpost, I grabed a spare harby I had for pvp and sort of fitted it for fighting serps and gave it a whirl.
Wasnt to bad..lost two drones as I was watching d-scan instead of the aggro but the harby muddled through.  Saddly the shadow serp didnt spawn and the site didnt escalate, but with some tweaks to my method I can see me running these more regularly...hopefully in aT3.

musing 2

ok I give up..I need a T3 for exploration...time to save half a billion  :)

please help my sanity..

Ok so exploration suffers with a small problem, a lot of the time you log on to go find some nice radar or mag sites only to find some inconsiderate git has already done them! They will re-spawn, but that takes time, so what to do? trading only takes me so long, and mining is like watching paint dry. So in a effort to "be productive" I bought a nice new mission apoc to go do some level 4's when I need some down time, also kinda easy to do when you don't know how long you have to play. I did a couple solo the other day...I forgot how dull they are by yourself. This is where you guys may be able to help... I am NOT looking to join any corps but if there are any players flying around Fricoure (or near by) that are interested on fleeting on a casual basis please mail me :) I am happy to continue running level 4s solo but would enjoy some company, I am on mainly in the evenings UK time, I may or may not be doing other stuff in low sec (super secret take over eve plans, but when I do venture back to high sec a couple of times a week, PLEASE SAVE MY SANITY!

musing #1

when you step back and look at it for what it is...eve is a very pretty game.

comparisons.

I have been playing a lot of games recently, mainly on the xbox, the upcoming launch of the 720 or what ever it will be called has got me going through all the games I bought and left laying around never played or completed as I don't want to buy anything else really until the new console is out. 9 oddly the game that has my interest the most on the upcoming xbox atm is destiny by bungie, looks like a cross between halo and eve..if it is it will be amazing. as for my MMO gaming I have been sadly lacking, in part due to building a impressive catalog of films and tv series which needed downloading, hence restricting bandwidth. When I have had the laptop available I have been playing a mix of Eve and STO, while eve will always have my heart and mind I am enjoying STO, the pve is simple it's easy to just pick up and go and can be played at a very relaxed pace, if you step away from the keyboard for 2 mins it doesn't really matter, do it in eve and you and most of your assets are toast. In eve my trade idea is still going, im not making billions from it but I cut a decent profit, plus its not to time intensive, I may start doing some missions again soon, the exploration I do is fun but the sites have often been stripped clean before I get on. Who knows may even open my corp to a few mission runners..could always use the chat to liven the game up again. /Astral

I cant seem to quit you eve

Well another short break from eve...yet again I'm back. Every time I think I'm done with eve, I walk away for a month or 6 before I get that itch, to play a game like eve, sometimes i even go so far as to see if there is a game that has all the features eve has ...nothing does, and i have finally realized what it is I think that keeps me coming back. When First started I thought it pvp that drew me to the game, but I get my pvp fix playing shooters like halo or GoW on xbox. Then I thought it was the pirate life and lowsec... then it was the open nature of the game and exploration. I think I have it now, I thought a lot about why I wanted to come back this time, it's the player driven economy. it's a rare and almost unique thing but it is such a big part of what makes eve feel real and not a theme park, it sets eve apart and at a core level almost everything in eve revolves around it. After much thought I have decided to return with astral vespa and sekrit banker as a fledgling trade corp (will dabble in everything though I imagine) and have begun investing the 300 mill I had laying about into various trades..lets see if I can become richer than god or blow my wad on some dodgy deals. Time will tell