Actually got off work early (err..on-time, actually. Sad when leaving 'ontime' translates to 'early'. Anyway) I decided to mess around with fitting out my little ship, but I couldn't do anything because I didn't have enough money or space.

I tried to figure out how to get back to the place where I had left off, as far as missions go, but couldn't. The names were too unfamiliar, and there's no straightline path to the next 'place'. I wandered around, and tried to figure out how to steer my ship to go do some mining or something. No dice. Apparently the arrow keys don't control your ship's movement. The mouse just controls your camera view, which always rotates around your ship. Ugh. That kind of thing makes me motionsick, especially if I'm looking one way and moving another - which this game does a lot of. If you tell the autopilot to go to the nearest stargate, it will, even if it means rotating the ship on you. That's not fun for me. I never did figure out how to move the ship, nor how to mine an asteroid to get some raw materials to sell or something. I set up some more training stuff, then decided to create a new character.

Here's another thing I don't like about EVE - only one character per account can train at a time. That's very different from every other MMO I've played, where each is independent of the other. So my new noob has to sit till the old noob finishes training. Blech.

On top of that, the sound was stuttering all night, and when I tried to log off, the game locked up - in mid sound. That was irritating.

These aren't really show stoppers, but they definitely aren't endearing me to this game. Plus the UI is not intiuitive, and I feel like I'm going to have to read a 500 page manual to know what the heck I'm doing or even how to do it.

Maybe if I had more time on my hands, it might be different.

So as I mentioned in my previous post I recently joined up with Lucky Hydra Corp (LHY) part of the SMASH alliance. Arriving out in TDE I didn't realize how interesting things were quickly going to get; here I was in 0.0 with only 10mil ISK, flying a T2 equipped ship that in a fleet would be declared Primary the minute we engaged (Scorpion). What can I say in my eagerness to get back in to the fight my pre-planning wasn't the best. It was after a couple of days that I realized that I needed to get some cash fast.

So whats a guy to do but take advantage of the situation I was in and Rat like I have never ratted before. I headed out to drone space to meet up with a few other LHY members. Getting out there was touch and go as I had to go though some fairly dangerous territory. Arriving out there we spent a few hours ratting for drones. I was surprised by two things first at how relaxing this turned out to be. Second I was surprised at how well my ship was holding up with it's minimal DPS. The Scorpion only has 4 launchers so it's fairly limited in it's DPS (I can't rat BS Spawns in regular 0.0 space as I can't break their tank.). However using T2 Paradise Cruise missiles I was able to generate enough damage that I was able take 1 and 2 BS Spawns in Drone Space. While there would be no way I could have done much solo due to the speed at which my cargo hold filed up. With an group and a nearby POS side we gained enough alloys and salvage to probably build a couple of new battleships.

One plus (and negative) of the night was that I had remembered to bring a salvager with me. For much of the Op I was the only one who could salvage much of my time was spent salvaging. During this time I began to think of how many of us spend hours cleaning up after missions. I couldn't help but think how awesome Salvaging drones would be. Think on it while you would be limited on what you could bring by drone space it's a choice between DPS and efficiency. The balance makes sense as well; you can take up drone space or high slots. While no It seems to be a bit of an over site by CCP after all there are drones for just about everything else why not salvage? I hope this is something that if they aren't considering they will in the future.

While I am able to much with the Scorpion, I was quickly realizing that other then a few situations it was of little use out in 0.0. I needed to start looking toward something else, which brings up the question of what? Do Where do I go, up till now I have primarily concentrated on Mission running and some small gang PvP. Fleet PvP is a new thing to me and I think It will bring me back to Ravens eventually I think. I have been looking at training up Amarr or Gallente ships to help add to my arsenal of ships I can use. Tomorrow is another day and we'll see what it brings...

I Forgot to bring this up last week but while at GDC I had the opportunity to talk to Oveur about Titans. I was curious about whether they were happy with the current state now that they have scene players using them more. His response surprised me in that they were not only unhappy with them but were finding that they were disappointed that they seemed to be almost never used in the thick of combat. To this they are talking about several solutions the most interesting of which could lead to the removal of the Doomsday Weapons ability to fire though a Cryosurnal Field. I am not sure where this will lead but looking in from the outside I am curious to see what the future will bring for these expensive ships...

Link: http://blogs.gamersinfo.net/blogcasts/PodcastFull_DomVan02.mp3

Here is podcast 2 that Dominque and I have done. I hope you enjoy it:

http://blogs.gamersinfo.net/blogcasts/PodcastFull_DomVan02.mp3

Having the pleasure of some spare time, I logged in to finish picking up modules for my Ferox.

And the server cluster crashed.

GAH! Of course.

It took about 15-20 minutes for it to come back up. When that happened, instead of trying to also sell some metal scraps and other stuff while picking up items, I just concentrated on picking up the things I've already bought while selling things along the way. I also went ahead and picked up Caldari Battleships and Large Hybrid Turrets when I happened to be docked at Isanamo XIV/9.

But I've finally got everything but the actual Ferox and the last drone. If I'm not passing out in a few minutes, I'll grab my shuttle and get it - otherwise, it'll have to wait.

Written by: Miles Aeternus; Posted by: Vance Avalon
Well, today marks sort of a milestone for me; I've successfully repelled a pirate attack/ambush for the first time. I have lost a sum total of four battlecruisers to player pirates, and have developed a healthy dislike for them (the pirates). But, I've proven for the first time that I'm not as much of a pushover as I used to be.

A fellow high-sec'er of mine was requesting a cleanup in one of the belts of the system we were in. Me, being a nice guy and all, I say I'll do it and head on over to the belt who's name he had broadcast in local. I was figuring that I'd get a few bounties and resume my flight back to my level 3 agent. Boy, was I wrong.

Apparently, it's not a wise idea to announce your intention to be in a specific spot to the entire system, especially when the current population of said system consists of a few opportunistic pirates. Well, after I had taken out the NPC Moas, I was about to warp out when I notice a pirate warping into the same belt, then locking onto me. Panicking, I set course for a random distant object and set about warping, cursing how slow my Ferox was at doing so. However, before I could finish, he successfully warp scrambled me. I swore and decided that the only thing I could do now was to try and fight my way out; he was in a Maller, and was rapidly NOSing my capacitor. Thankfully, none of my weapons or major systems, save for my shields, relied on my capacitor; and the shields were already buffed out to the max.

Achieving a target lock, I began launching salvo after salvo of heavy missiles at my assailant, as well as scrambling my drones and having them attack. After a minute or so of combat, I was amazed to find that my Ferox was getting the upper hand; my shields were barely at half strength, while I was about to eat into the hull structure of the Maller. Sadly, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor and hauled ass out of there.

In local, he revealed to me that my drones were the reason he fled, but I suspect he simply wasn't well-equipped enough to take on a tricked-out battlecruiser. Still though, my current intent to pilot a Thorax has even more merit; particularly since it can load in twice as many drones.

Heh. And what I threw at him was a motly collection of T1 Medium and Scout drones. Can't wait to see the look on a future pirate's face when he tries to attack me, only to have 5 Vespa II's pummel him and leave him no choice but to flee.

As I traveled from hunting grounds to my home system through low-sec, I came across this guy in a Rupture (Minmatar Cruiser) camping a gate solo. His name was Speed Devil and he had a security status of -3.2. I was still cloaked but I figured he must have had a ship setup with some awesome range to camp this gate. As I recall the sentry guns have a range of 72 km (I have heard rumor that this has been increased, can anyone verify that?) and I figured he must have positioned himself outside that range and was waiting for prey.

Since I was traveling cloaked, I decided to sneak up on him and kill him outside the gun range where he apparently sat. As I approached, I realized that Speed Devil was NOT outside 72 km. What the frak was he doing then? Was he at war and waiting for prey? Was he just fraking, stupid?

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So I jumped in while waiting for dinner and grabbed a mission. Kind of standard "fly to this deadspace gate, go through it, kill a bunch of pirates" one.

Except the big glowing humming gate wasn't there!

There was just a beacon.

After panicking for a couple or three minutes, I realized that when I clicked on the beacon, the overview screen showed me the acceleration gate activation button. So I clicked that and finished my mission.

But ... yeah... that was a bit nerve wracking.

Hopefully that'll be fixed soon. I want to hit a 10.0 rating with this agent before going on to a new one. I'm at 8.0 right now, seem to be getting .1 per mission.