Fittings

I have setup a group photo album on my photobucket account so everyone can post their fittings, descriptions of those fittings, and commentary.



The photo album can be found here.
The password to post content is aufgremlins.

Also please remember to properly tag your uploads so they are easier to find.

For example, I have uploaded a build for my Onyx so I put the following tags on the image:

• Onyx
  

• Heavy Interdictors

• PvP

The group album will also be included in the list of links on this blog.

Ice Mining

Host: Maduin Ardens
Location: Warouh
Date: Tuesday June 23rd
Time: 02:00 EVE | 10pm EST
Ship(s):

Retriever
Hulk
Mackinaw
Orca (if beneficial)

Goal(s): 200x units

Low Security - Travel

Traveling down a low security pipe is one of the most challenging skills for a new player to learn. And the reality of the situation is that most of the trouble stems from fear of the unknown. In order to hopefully alleviate some of the anxiety of traveling through sometimes hostile territory, I am writing a guide on how to get about in low security space.

Please carefully read the documentation below, as your ship worth hundreds of mil may very well depend on it someday when you least suspect it.


FAQ

Player: What kind of ships can you get through low security on an average night?
Scout: Any ship you want from a shuttle to a freighter.

Player: What are my chances of being caught?
Scout: Depends greatly on your ship, skills, knowledge, and of course pure luck.

Player: So it is okay if I attempt to take my only battleship down the pipe instead of a shuttle?
Scout: Generally no, if you are taking anything of substantial worth, and you do not feel that you understand these concepts already, please seek the assistance of veteran members.

Player: How many people in the corporation lose ships traveling through the low security pipes?
Scout: Oh, it depends, some people lose ships more than others, some never lose ships, that's what this guide is for, so that we have more of the latter.

Player: Is there a particular ship that I can fly that will almost guarantee that I travel safely?
Scout: Yes and no. If you fly a shuttle, Interceptor, ship that can warp cloaked, or otherwise nimble ship, you may be impossible to scramble but you can still be smart bombed.

Player: Smart bombed?
Scout: Yes, some pirates will sit battleships on the gate and as they see you warping onto the grid they activate a row of as many as eight smart bombs which may even pop your shuttle before you exit warp, and your pod before you can warp to safety.

Player: Wow, I just shat in my pants a little, do pirates smart bomb a lot in the Kheram or Yong pipes?
Scout: Here, have some wet wipes, Stinky. And no, I have only heard of it happening once in those pipes.

Player: If I want to get valuables in and out of Providence, I should do it myself right? I mean the (ESC), a corporate hauling service,  prices are pretty steep for a new player like myself.
Scout: No, but a veteran member may be willing to haul some of your loot in a few runs down the pipe for free in their transport, just consider it a courtesy haul, but not something that you should expect to be repeated.

Player: How dangerous is low security once I have passed the pipe?
Scout: It really depends, but there have been periods of weeks or more when Mamet was as safe as Empire, and also periods when it is like a gauntlet of death and destruction.

Player: What about 0.0 space?
Scout: Safer than Empire if you know what you're doing.






GUIDE



Warp Disruptor



First things first, let's talk about how pirates snag newer players. First, they're going to have ships capable of taking sentry fire. That means battlecruisers, heavy assault cruisers, heavy interdictors, command ships, battleships, and etc. Second, if there are more than one of them, and they know what they're doing, they'll have either a fast tackle like a HAC, or they will be sensor boosting a tackle of any kind. Third, they are going to warp disrupt you. Low security gates got a buff last fall that included a wider radius for possible exit points via the gates themselves being made larger. A good majority of the time you will pop onto the other side of a gate anywhere from 15-30km from the nearest player on grid, and that is warp disruption range. So what do you do to give yourself an edge?

You fit these, for travel only, on your ship:




Warp Core Stabilizer




Inertia Stabilizer



What do these do? Well for every warpstab you fit you can negate one warp disruptor on one of your aggressors, for every two you negate a warp scrambler. For every inertia stablizer you fit, you will align faster to warp which gives you an edge if your aggressor cannot target you before you warp away. These are by no means fail safe.


Overview


Corporate Member - Threat Level: None

Alliance Member - Threat Level: None

Affiliate - Threat Level: None

Non-Aggression Pact - Threat Level: None

Fleet Member - Threat Level: Not Established

Neutral - Threat level: Not Established

Aggressive - Threat Level: Uncertain

Kill On Sight - Threat Level: High

War Target - Threat Level: Extreme




LOCAL













The local window is your friend, as noted above, you should keep it open and expanded at all times. As you can see, there is a red currently in the system which alerts me to potential danger should I encounter them in space. These are important points of note to be aware of at all times while residing in low and null security.

thecitadel
As you may note from the picture above, the Citadel channel, thecitadel, is open at all times while I travel as well. This is an intel only channel, and is only to be used for intelligence purposes. You may post information about red hostiles only, never post any information about neutrals, blues, or corporate and alliance members unless hostile actions have been taken against other neutrals, blues, or corporate or alliance members by said parties. You may report and observe the following behavior while watching the Citadel channel:


FOF - Friend or Foe requests

Example as noted above in the picture (click the link for full size). You will receive a friend or foe response indicating whether that player is marked hostile per CVA rules (see the audio blog linked ingame in the AU-F guides mailer by Varian Knight).


Status - System Status Requests

Query: X6AB-Y status?
Response: Clear.

You may only respond with a phrase that indicates the system is clear without revealing whether neutrals or blues are present or respond with information about existing reds in the system at the time. You may receive various responses that a majority of the time will clearly indicate whether the system presently has a high degree of safety. 


Aggression - Conflicts In Space

Report: Engaged by two reds/neutrals, Misaba, Curse and Hurricane, at belt XI-IV!
Response: How long can you hold?
Report: Minute or two, hurry!
Reponse: OMW! 

You may report active engagements in thecitadel as they occur to yourself or other person(s) of interest in low security Domain space and the Providence region.  However, please do be cautious about listing blue information, a simple blue Abaddon engaged by X ships at stargate Y in system Z should suffice, and you need not list that the blue is in a fleet, and what the composition of that fleet is.  Response teams need form up based on RED intel only, because not only is blue intel not allowed in Citadel, but more than likely if the blue fleet is outnumbered then any help that arrives need face the bulk of the reds themselves.  It may sound complicated, but as long as you keep one thing in mind, blue intel to the absolute bare minimum when reporting active engagements, you will do fine. 








Starmap














Upon opening the starmap (F10) and hitting the toggle button until you have a view of the EVE universe, you need to make note of a few points of interest. First, you will want to set your waypoint plotter to prefer shorter distances, so that the plotter does not give you routes that circumvent wide swathes of space just to avoid going into low security at all costs. As noted above, please select the prefer shorter routes option.













After setting your destination, you may note that a plotter appears on the starmap directing you to your final destination. This is an important factor when planning a trip that you are unfamiliar with as you can use the starmap to gauge the temperature of the pipe you are about to traverse.


















As noted above, you may modify the filter parameters for the display of the starmap such that you gain valuable insight into the activity levels of your area. If you look at the picture of the plotter, you may notice that there is a mouseover popup indicating that there has been one ship destroyed in the past hour in the Unefsih system. This information may very well save your ship and pod should you decide the system is definitely being camped, even if no one in the Citadel is reporting it.

Before traveling an unfamilar pipe, or before you gain the experience and comfort level with being able to gauge the temperature of the pipe, always use the starmap both going in and coming out of low security space.




Directional Scanner For Travel














Open up your directional scanner, and set it to use your active overview settings, scan at 1,000,000km, and use a 360 degree scan. When traveling from stargate to stargate, or having jumped through a stargate, do a quick scan out to this distance to get a good idea of whether or not pirates are sitting off grid waiting to warp in on you or give chase to the next gate. It also becomes very useful given one of the protips listed below.


Summary

When traveling through a low security pipe, the most important thing is to expect the unexpected. There are neutrals flying about, they may sometimes be hostile, they may sometimes not, but so long as you are certain within a reasonable level that no KOS or Aggressive players are within the vicinity of the pipe you intend to travel, your chances are just as good as the next guy. Please use caution, but do not be afraid to travel the pipe, it all sounds a lot more dangerous than it is. Just make sure you really use that caution, or you might end up as a statistic on the killboards.






Pro Tips
















Warped to 0m of a stargate and now I find myself on grid with unscrupulous pirates! HALP!

Do not panic.
Do not fire.
Do not jump.
Wait.

There is a thirty second aggression timer a player receives in any space at any time when they engage in a hostile act that bans them from jumping through a stargate or docking at a station. The last thing you want to do is land on grid with a gang of reds, panic, and either fire shots off at them, or jump through immediately.

Let them assess the situation as you do as well. They may find that there are not enough of them to snag you, or even pop you, or they may get trigger happy and every one of them or enough of them begin firing on you, thus allowing you to jump through the gate, and warp away to safety as a majority of them cannot jump for thirty seconds.

Whatever you do, stay calm, do not panic, and realize that the chances are good in some circumstances that you will get away scot free if you play your cards right.


Jumped through a stargate and now I find myself on grid with unscrupulous pirates! HALP!

Do not panic.
Do not break gate cloak.
Do not fire.
Wait.
Burning back to the gate can be your friend.

There is a thirty second aggression timer a player receives in any space at any time when they engage in a hostile act that bans them from jumping through a stargate or docking at a station. The last thing you want to do is land on grid with a gang of reds, panic, and either fire shots off at them, or try to warp away immediately.

Let them assess the situation as you do as well. They may find that there are not enough of them to snag you, or even pop you, or they may get trigger happy and every one of them or enough of them begin firing on you once you uncloak, thus allowing you to burn back to the gate you came through, jump, and warp away to safety as a majority of them cannot jump for thirty seconds once they have fired on you. This becomes even easier when you are fitted with a MWD on a small ship.

Whatever you do, stay calm, do not panic, and realize that the chances are good in some circumstances that you will get away scot free if you play your cards right.



Tacticals

Hop in a frigate or an interceptor, fit a microwarpdrive and overdrive injectors, and go zipping off through space merrily making tactical bookmarks as you go. Most importantly make some offgrid bookmarks that allow you to warp to a point off the grid from a stargate and use the directional scanner at 1,000,000km to detect if there is a camp present. This is especially important when reds are present in the system you jump into or they come into the system as you prepare to jump to the next gate. Other tacticals include combat tacticals at 150km, safety tacticals at 350km, and exit tacticals at 15km.

Neutral Alts

Login to your account, create a neutral alt that you will never train, put him in a shuttle and fly him to Kheram or Yong and dock up. You just got free eyes on the system, and will know when reds are present. Logon your alt, take a peep at local, assess the situation, then relog your main, and zip down the pipe. Gravy.

Monday June 22nd - PvP

Command: Mendolus
Rally: Misaba
Time: 02:00 EVE (10pm EST)
Ship(s):

1x Interceptor
1x Scout
1x Bait
+x Cruisers, Battlecruisers, T2 variants of both

Role(s):

Training
Orientation
Roaming
Providence Circuit

A New Chapter

Since everyone has so graciously and much to my absolute delight (Of course guys can be delighted! *teehee*) decided that they would rather live in 0.0 space than mess with the bloated redundancy and tomfoolery of Empire, I am going headlong into my latest project in the name of the corporation. While Empire is still fun for a nice relaxing time and to make some risk free money, I think most people have gotten a taste for the wild out in 0.0 and they know that the real entertainment occurs there.

That being said, a new phase in the corporation will dawn in about a month and a half.

Yes, as you might have noted from the header image, I am talking about Jump Freighters. These badass haulers of the game can pretty much guarantee that we are never hindered again by trying to haul fuel, modules, minerals, ore, ships, goods, materials, fluffy stuffed animals, kitchen sinks, and exotic dancers, both in, out, and around low and null security.

What will this mean for the corporation itself? Well suffice it to say, we will be able to devote far less time to logistics and far more time to fun, anywhere, anytime. You wanna mine in G7AQ-7 where the phatty ore lives? Feel free! You mine enough to fill my Ark's hold and it's worth the jump fuel, guess what, it gets hauled to Mamet where Huff refines it at 100% and we are all stinking rich over night.

On August 13th, at 2:21:06AM in the morning, I will officially be able to fly an Ark in the name of the corporation. This. Is. Win.


P.S. Please bear in mind these JFs cost +3bil so as a personal investment I would never request, encourage, or even entertain asking someone else to acquire a JF as well, though I would welcome if more than one of us could fly one.

P.S.S Also please note that a lot of systems are cyno-jammed in Providence so I am not absolute certain at this point how well a JF from our alliance can get around out there at the moment.

Forums Redux

So I have decided that the forums are a lot of maintenance that does not always result in much work, so we are going to be slimming them down to just a number of catch-all style areas for us to post updates, and such.


We will still maintain the following: introduction, general, guides, and ships (deleting for now but may reintroduce).

The rest is going to be merged or eliminated and moved either to the mailers ingame, or to blog updates on my blog, for pertinent details like, what's going on this week, what cool stuff is happening the next week, and the like.

It is a bit much for me to maintain the forums and the ingame mailers both, so this new slimmed down forums format will mean I do not make such a sour face when I look at all the forum sections we have now that are so rarely used even by myself.

Frozen In Time

So, I collect corpses. Yes, those frozen bodies floating through space, the glint of ice as the sun catches a sharp angle while it slowly spins aimlessly through the void, this all fascinates me. Why, however? Do I also torture small woodland animals, and delight in other similarly heinous behaviors? No, not really. It all kind of stems from a fascination with dead stuff like most guys have especially at a young age (Yes, you know who you are, poking a dead bird in the eye with a stick at such a tender age, that was you!) but also for me a throwback to the Diablo days when it was all the rave to PKK fools and steal their ears, making a sinister collection of grotesque trophies to show off to your friends.

In EVE, this could not be more true for me, as every corpse I collect only encourages me to collect more. Granted, a lot of the corpses I have now (+100) I have merely scooped from some random point outside a station or stargate, or had generously contracted to me by a fellow member, but some of them, yes those precious few, I have either caused myself, or been within a jump or two and inbound, attempting to stake my claim on the finer art of pod killing.

What is the reason I carry them around in all my ships though? Surely this must be a sign that I am a decrepit hermit who babbles and drools while stumbling around like a drunk baboon. No, there is a reason for this too, and I think this is the best part of it all, as follows below.

I fly mostly covert ships that can warp while cloaked, and ... though I try not to claim such things often, I am very good at it. How many times has Mendolus lost a covert ship or been podded? ... 0. So the thing about corpses is, they are unlike any other material goods in the game, when you go to jettison them in space, rather than appear in a can a few meters from your ship they instead randomly spew out up to 15km from your ship and begin their aimless frozen journey through space once more, unfettered by a can or other similar container.

So the way I figure it, I have such a wonderful track record with living in low and null security for eight months and having never been caught by hostiles in a covert ship, that if they do in fact pop me, I'd like to give them a little surprise.

Can you imagine it?

Pirate A: Helios uncloaked! Point! *his Ares nimbly acquires a target lock and scramble*
Pirate B: Engaging! *KABLAMMO, the Helios goes down in flames with little effort*
Pirate A: WTF? There's a corpse out here, but we haven't podded him yet?
Pirate B: O-M-G *screams giddily like a schoolgirl* Residual podding! I heard about this in nooblet training! He's dead!
Pirate A: No, no look he's still on grid in his pod! *forgets in his haste to point out that the corpse name does not match the pilot they engaged*
Pirate B: That's a bug you stupid cu#@... wait wtf it just warped away, AHHH!!! Mothatrucka!
Mendolus: Mwuahhahahha! *evil rumbling laughter echoes through the comms on the pirate's ship panels*


Ah yes, sweet sweet victory, you drooling sacks of pirate monkey sweat, you may take my ship, but I haz... the last laugh!






Ok, so it's obvious I have quite the imagination, but really, how awesome would it be to give someone a good start after they actually manage to snag the kill of all kills, a covert ops ship, only to see some poor hapless corpse shoot off into space like a greased turd out of the smoldering wreck. Even better, I tend to carry three or four corpses at a time in most of my covert ships.

Ah yes, most excellent *rubs hands together*.

Delegates, And Old Battles

It has become infinitely clear to me over the years that I cannot do everything. More so than that, I cannot do everything right for that matter. There are limits, even as I work to the bone to haul fuel for four to five hours a night for a week straight, to what I am capable of withstanding insofar as administrative duties are concerned.

Because of this, we have begun to branch out responsibilities, asking for all takers to hoist a torch and carry it in the name of the corporation. Alone, most of us could never hope to accomplish what we have done together while also enjoying the process itself. I found myself not enjoying it recently after having hauled fuel and modified POS setups every night for almost two weeks, so I took a little break, just a few days, for a few hours, playing Warcraft with Rasnow's wife and her friend. Talk about revitalizing. Though EVE holds its weight in gold for me now, and I have a place here that I would not want to give up for all the tea in china, I was raised on fantasy games, and they are in my blood. It was quite the throwback, to roll around, smashing things with sharp objects.

But when it was all said and done, I came back, rejuvenated, even more proud of what I have been able to do in EVE, and ready for more. The catch is, I need to delegate roles. I try really hard to keep people safe from responsibilities, burdens, or adminsitrative issues, because this is after all, a game, and I would like to believe that most people can just hop on every night, pair up with some corporate members, and go have fun. The reality however, is that this game has a high degree of committment required to build anything of lasting presence, such as POS, or 0.0 operations, or even simply being in a corporation or alliance itself. So while I have diligently tried to keep most of the administrative stuff behind the scenes, I have not always been able to do so.

I am reminded, talking about burdens, of what occurred when we placed our first POS in Mamet courtesy of Fogwlker's tireless efforts to grind rats in 7Y until his fingers bled, and we had all the fixings for a full fledged POS in space. However, much to the collective chagrin of the leadership, and honestly not really at any fault of Fogwlker's, a misunderstanding occurred upon successfully deploying the POS those many months ago.

Yes, I am sure quite a few of you remember, but let me spell out the culprits just the same; Rishal, Krill Arborshate. More so Rishal than anything else, as I will be explaining in full clarity for the first time I am sure.

Ok, so the basic idea was, let us throw a large POS up in low security space, and we can utilize it for blueprint research that everyone can make money from. Not only that, but just the mere deployment of a POS in low security being a milestone for a corporation relatively new to low and null security, as we had only been in the Domain area for a couple of months at this point, becomes an issue of progress and confidence that the corporation does in fact set and meet goals.

Well, it cost Fogwlker 600,000,000.00 ISK for his own personal investment, and initially the corporation and members also funded some 200,000,000.00 ISK overall to fully fit and establish the POS with maybe one or two labs, and some other miscellaneous goods. The initial agreement between Fogwlker and myself was that A) the corporation would literally be indebted to him until said debt was recompensed and that B) the corporation would set one mobile laboratory for public use only and the other labs would be for corporate use to progress the corporation and pay him back. Fogwlker attempted to run some jobs the evening following the deployment of the POS and found that he was unable to do so. He simply asked in the corporate mailer, if the lab was going to be set to public use soon because he was under the impression it was going to be available for all members as he put it. Unfortunately for us, his honest and deserving question, got twisted into a big dramatic scene by Krill and Rishal. Suddenly the leadership was being affronted with all sorts of demanding questions about why we were suddenly locking down the POS and that no one could use it and how is it going to help the members.

Let me paraphrase what occured in a nutshell after dozens of hours of meetings over vent for a period of a few days straight. Fogwlker simply did not realize that the deployment of the POS was very tiring to the point that I had not gotten around to messing with the lab access, and Rishal took it upon himself to take up the fight for the little guy as he saw it, basically in the end asking me a series of ludicrous questions about the basic use and purpose of the POS.

If Rishal had his way, the POS would have been set for open ended, total public access at all levels, and that not a dime from the POS would go to fueling it, or progressing the corporate interests. He actually asked, literally asked, "How is this POS going to make the member's money?" implying that it would somehow start showering people with ISK the moment it was onlined. I just shook my head at this point, I mean seriously, the guy was basically telling me that I should spend countless hours of my time fueling a POS. It would end up being with my own wallet because at this point the corporation had 40,000,000.00 ISK to its name, was generating maybe 20,000,000.00 ISK/wk and the POS required 200,000,000.00 ISK/mo to fuel, I mean I told him this, it is simple mathematics. Yet he persisted in arguing that the POS be used publically so individual members can line their wallets. I mean, we already owed Fogwlker 600,000,000.00 ISK and we were well in the red on paying for fuel to keep the POS online let alone paying him back, so where was the money supposed to come from? My wallet? I had enough time finding a single day of the week at the time and sometimes still now to do anything to line my own wallet, let alone repaying 600,000,000.00 ISK to Fogwlker and purchasing hundreds of million ISK worth of fuel to keep the POS online while everyone else got rich, or so Rishal thought. I think he believed the POS was some sort of easy button that you just pound on and ISK shoots out like a slot machine.

So finally, I got tired, and reached my limit of dealing with him, which says a lot because I have a somewhat ridiculous tolerance level, and I told him the following. I said, "Look, the corporation cannot afford this POS if the POS does not make money for the corporation, so here's what I'll do, I'll leave the fuel we have now in there, it's about two weeks worth. But I will stop fueling it, and set the fuel hangar to public, and the members themselves can pay for, fuel, maintain, and upgrade or manage the POS entirely, and I will have no part of it." All I get from him over vent is an immensely sarcastic response full with indignation in the form of a "OH WELL THANKS, THANKS FOR THAT!" So yes, he was basically telling me with that statement that I work for him, and everything I do should be to line his and every other member's wallets, so neither he nor anyone else has to do any of the work. Shameful.

I mean seriously... seriously, I'm supposed to fuel the POS with my own money so everyone else can get rich? At this point it was laughable, I mean we now know exactly how much research can yield, and it is an investment of about 250,000,000.00 ISK/mo which you can turn into 500,000,000.00 ISK/mo but we are talking a team of 3-4 researchers keeping 4-5 labs going 24/7 for a month, then someone like GAT has to be in charge of selling those BPOs to buyers. But at the time we had no inkling of our profit margins, not only this, but we had two labs, two. And I knew that two labs were not going to make every member in the corporation rich, this was pretty obvious to anyone with half a squirt in their head. We are talking 250,000,000.00 profit per month split between 4-5 people which may take them individually 4-5 hours a month to maintain. So that is 50,000,000.00 ISK per person for 4-5 hours of work per month. That is 10,000,000.00 ISK/hr which is about what you can make mining veldspar in a Hulk. Not exactly a recipe for getting rich and famous. But surprisingly that 250,000,000.00 ISK/mo is just about as much as it costs to fuel the POS so surprise, surprise, the POS breaks even thus far, being able to maintain itself solely through blueprint profits while the officers work hard to find ways to increase those profits over time by branching out activities or researching more effectively. This is how it is supposed to work.

But needless to say, Rishal moved on, claiming we did not have enough PvP opportunities for him and that he wanted to pirate, all the while when he never participated in the PvP opportunities we did have because he was too busy doing L4s and being a carebear. So what was done was done. Everyone was on board with the way Fogwlker intended the POS to be used, and though Fogwlker did absolutely nothing wrong in asking honest questions, others took those questions and turned them into some sort of turf war via scandalous drama that was never there to begin with.

These types of things, the immense work involved, and the occasional spat on the actual work, are one reason why delegating responsibilities helps everyone in the long run. Rishal had lifted one finger to show up in a T1 cruiser and sit around picking his nose while we deployed the POS. I however, spent 7 hours the first night, 6 the next, and 4 the following just hauling fuel and modules to the POS, and setting it up. If Rishal had done some of this, maybe he would not have assumed everything was so easy as "Let's all get bloody rich by waving our hands in the air and saying some magic incantations!"

Now, I think it is pretty rare that you stumble upon someone as bullheaded as Rishal was about the issue, but I think responsibilities are a good thing for a group of players who want to set group goals. Thus far, the officers have pretty much been working to the bone to provide opportunities for the members, and while countless members have also contributed in their own way, Merthe with donations, Meatay with his Orca, Rayth with his donations and projects, Fogwlker with his constant ratting tax revenue and POS investment, Kematian with his donations, etc. the actual hauling, maintenance, fret, worry, and time keeping this stuff running or a schedule going, or a training regimen provided, has been at the mercy of the officers.

This will of course, change shortly, as we are introducing management positions and new gangs at the corporate level, such as diplomat, quartermaster, commissioner, guide, foreman, rearguard, network, and logistics.

What is the lesson here, after I have recounted a period in the corporation where I wanted to throttle one or two former members until their eyes popped out of their heads?

Some things looks easy on paper, but are vastly different in practice.

I have found myself overwhelmed with duties in the past three weeks after having deployed our third POS a little more than a month ago, and this must end. I refuse to burnout! I have the highest burnout threshold of anyone I have met thus far in MMOs, granted that I do not always go around asking everyone what their burnout rate is, but I was one of the last to burnout on Warcraft in my guild as all my officers slowly tapered off into being in a position where enough was enough, I finally caved myself, and admitted defeat, when I found myself sitting atop buildings ingame for hours a night, just staring at the screen, paralyzed to deal with any administrative responsibilities or even answer simple questions about policy or scheduling.

This must not occur again, and I am here to say, that I will be devoting more energy to that end, than I had in the past when I thought that I could withstand anything.

In closing, I should remind you, please remember to kick me out of this rut, and tell me to post something cheery next time, as the last three posts, although one was very sentimental, have all been fairly serious in nature, this must also stop!

WTB [Cataclysms] WTS [Some Responsiblities, Stress, and Rewarding Work]

Looking Back, Stepping Forward

Last night I spent a few hours showing an old friend the game. He had been a long time friend and officer of mine in Warcraft years ago, but he had grown weary of the game and was looking for something new and exciting. Having tried EVE previously but not being too impressed at the time, and honestly I understand his sentiments as at one time Warcraft was the only language I could speak, he was here again to give this space MMO we have all come to love a fresh look.

So there I was, miles away from his starting zone but curious to put the new player experience to the real test. His character was a day old, and having tried the game once before likely more than a year ago, he probably remembered very little from his previous and short lived experience. Here was a veteran of Warcraft, but a rookie of EVE.

From my experiences with ZeeOhSix when he first came on board here at the AU-F I was determined not to simply give him any handouts to help him along, as even with the best of intentions, sometimes giving someone a free head start only costs them in the long run. Zee, with his wise and particularly intrepid ways, informed me that he would in fact not accept any assistance that he could not earn with his own two hands, so long as he was equally responsible for the work.

However, how do you let a day old player come participate with a year old player and not just shower them with free stuff and fun? I made a compromise, being an old friend who I had not talked to for a very long time, I figured, let's give his new player experience some real pizzazz! Originally, and even now to a point, Amos is waiting for this experience still, I had a corporate orientation package planned. You bring a new guy in, fresh off the trial, and what do you do to really show him the game so he knows what the rest of us do, that this is the bee's knees of MMOs? Well, in my mind you do one of two things, you bring him on some L4s, or you bring him 0.0 ratting. And the whole time you do this, you are talking about PvP with him and how this amazing money you are making goes towards it.

Much as I suspected there were almost tangible gasps of excitement and fun as he saw millions of ISK ding in his wallet while I pounded on swarms of NPC rats in an L4 and he floated around taking pot shots at them in his Executioner. As we chatted, shared a mutual fondness for MMO gaming, and got all riled up by talk of PvP, PvE, and all that EVE has to offer to a newer player, I started thinking about my own experiences as a rookie EVE player. Here he was, zipping around in a frigate that sells for 50k and he was watching millions of ISK plop in his wallet every 15 minutes. Every once in awhile he would get aggro and a single shot would get a lucky hit on his agile ship and he would be almost into structure, his frigate ready to burst into pieces and scream through space in a ball of flame.

This was me, more than a year ago, zipping through missions in my little Atron, so proud of my fast little sexy ship that seemed such a huge step forward from the rookie ship. Here was me losing that ship, thinking to myself, "PvE is so hard, I am going mining!" By the way, did you notice my fit? "Oh just a light neutron blaster, a civilian gun, a shield booster, this passive targeter once I can fit it, maybe the rats won't know I'm about to fire on them and I can stealth in, that should do the trick," I would say to myself as I fit my new ship thinking I had finally gotten into a powerful, fast, and agile tool with which I would annihilate these difficult L1s!

It is times like these, although I always know these things in the back of mind, when the realization comes roaring back, how far I and those around me have come since those days so long ago. When did it become common for me to float around in space in ships worth more than a hundred million, watching as my wallet hovers at nearly a billion on more than one character, taking such slight amusement at seeing it go up and down by twenty million every once in awhile as I peruse the markets, rat, or sell goods? I used to think a named sensor dampener drop off frigate rats in 0.6 space that was worth 3,000,000.00 ISK was a fortune and that I had so much money I could buy the biggest ship around and everyone would be impressed by my Vexor because it was such a big ship. I used to hop in my Vexor worth a few mil, and mine space rock in a ghostly empty solar system for a few hundred thousand ISK per hour dreaming of a Brutix battlecruiser as my wallet creeped forward towards the legendary 26,000,000.00 ISK that I needed to purchase it. People who own Brutix must be rich beyond belief, after all, that is not just a few hours of mining, but a couple of weeks worth! I used to take that same Vexor into L2s, poorly fitted, poorly skilled and experienced, and warp out, hull on fire, swearing PvE was the devil and I could not imagine how anyone made a living in the game from it because it must have been designed by idiots bent on tormenting new players.

It is with much gratitude and a great fondness that I look back and know that I got to experience that sort of awe and spectacle at how vast and open the game is, and that although at the time I felt like an Assault Frigate was obviously only piloted by the most veteran players in the game, that I would somehow, make it there someday. Make it to be that veteran who flew all the amazing, unbelievable ships that only the most accomplished and experienced people in the game could ever hope to fly.

But what about the new player experience, now that I am a veteran, I can pass off to a day old player a couple of L4s and a storyline, and suddenly he's looking at 20,000,000.00 ISK in his wallet after a few hours in the game? Let's be honest, the awe and wonder will not go anywhere, but the toil and frustration will. I wish I had someone like me taking me out, showing me the finish line as it were, or in reality always a new beginning and journey, the epitome of PvE, an L4, and encouraging me to think of low and null security as this wonderous place where players police themselves, and where untold riches were ripened to the point of absurdity, waiting on someone to just pluck money as if from the air itself. I spent months, months, being deathly afraid of low and null security as if it were some death trap that you jump into and suddenly found yourself assailed by hostile players at every turn. Months grinding the same L3s, the same asteroids, the same goal to get into bigger and bigger ships. Months I could have been skilling up to dash into low and null, make wild stories about good times, and be free to roam about and experience the full force of the gaming experience EVE has to offer.

These days, having nearly forgotten on a day to day basis, what it was like in those early times for me fresh off the press and still in an NPC corporation, I go out to 0.0 once a week or so, I bring a buddy, and I rake in a few hundred million ISK in a matter of hours, and though it pleases me greatly, it is business as usual. Let me not forget, nor take for granted, that half the fun is in the discovery, splendor, wonder, and awe one experiences as one journeys through this game with endless possibilities. Let me not forget, how it feels to be amazed, shocked, and thrilled to play a game that is so vast and intricate.

Looking back for a few hours last night, and then looking forward to the horizon of my gaming experience, I can only hope to continue this journey with friends, and help others along their way, as I would have wanted to be led myself, more than a year ago.

I used to think the Enyo was the epitome of success and experience, that only the most accomplished of players could fly or afford them in pitted combat. Now it sits collecting dust in my hangar at Misaba, the very first one I purchased and the paint barely has any scratches on it. Suddenly accomplishment takes on a whole new meaning for me. Having escaped the sense that material goods ingame like the POSs we have placed or the cruisers we now offer for pennies on the dollar are the measuring stick of success, I now look at who I am surrounded with on a nightly basis, and realize that is the true success. Though I always knew this in the back of my mind, last night I was reminded of this simple fact, in blazing clarity.

I may be busy almost every night, I may not chat, I may seem short, or say little, and I may be neck deep in corporate administration or hauling for hours every night for a week in a row sometimes, but I always peek my head up from the trenches now and then, and smile as I watch all my friends having a good time and dreaming the same dreams I had so long ago, of guts and glory and lasting memories.

Darwinism

I hate to be facetious as I was once there myself, a rookie who was so nervous to travel down a pipe or just try to exist at all in low and null security at any given moment that I feared for my ship constantly, as were many if not all others, but sometimes I find it hard to be patient with people who expect everything to be handed to them. Why pay money to play a game online only to constantly expect your entertainment experience to be foisted onto you or spoon fed?

We recently had a dramatic turn of events concerning a newly joined group of European players who came on board at the AU-F to try and stake their claim on the game as it were. They were brash, energetic, full of questions, and sometimes subtle demands, but everyone gets their fair chance in player groups led by me, so I let them in. Much as I initially suspected, they soon grew into a fairly substantial problem, as they lacked training, failed to attend training events, read the forums, join the mailer with guides, or in general put forth an honest effort to acclimate to their new environment out in Domain and Providence.

Sure, some of them they had been playing the game off and on for a year or more, but let's be honest, these guys are amateurs with extreme expectations and high maintenance. From demanding that there be mandatory yet random operations every night, yet not actually joining these operations as they were ongoing, to repeatedly questioning or asking about every little detail of corporate business, I knew from the first few days that these guys were eventually going to pull just the wrong string, giving me the perfect reason to hold a majority no-confidence vote at the leadership level to remove all of them in one fell swoop.

I believe actions speak louder than words insofar as words are an action. From the moment I logged on the evening of Tuesday the 9th of June I knew that the situation was coming to a head as news spread of one of their group losing a Drake in an attempt to shoot down the Yong pipe by himself. This attempt as it were, ended rather predictably, with the utter humiliation of the pilot, and his own discontent coming to a head concerning what he perceived as some sort of lack of action on our part.

When asked whether he scouted the pipe, checked the starmap, asked for a status report in the Citadel, viewed the Citadel for five to ten minutes, or had fit warp and inertia stabilizers on his Drake, he responded, and bear in mind that I am expanding on his thoughts by making them coherent, he responded simply, "I asked in Citadel for status and received no response after five minutes then I took a shuttle into Yong, but then due to my own laziness and lack of planning, I had to go grab my Drake from Mista which took ten minutes, so by the time I went to go down the pipe a gang of pirates had started camping the gate and I died in a fiery ball of shame."

I'm sorry, but if you spend more than four or five hours accumulating 100,000,000.00 ISK for a Drake and even go and buy a faction hardener for it, yet you are too lazy to spend more than fifteen minutes (sloppily at that) preparing to take it down a low security pipe or expect others to drop what they are doing at any given moment to do it for you so you do not have to learn how yourself, then you deserve to lose it.

So, after few harsh words traded back and forth, mostly in a courteous but heated discussion, a no-confidence vote was taken by the leadership present at the time to remove all related individuals from the corporation. The reason for this is because during the discussion, the topic of protection came about, with such questions as (with satire included), "Why can't the Alliance mop up these pirates for us so I do not have to learn how to play the game?" or my favorite, "Why can't CVA immediately repel a fleet of +100 hostiles the moment they enter Providence, don't they just sit around all night long in circle jerks waiting for a hostile fleet that size to jump into Providence once every two to three months?" You can see me shaking my head right now with my face in my palm, I know you can, because it is one of those slow facepalms where you just wanna punch a puppy as it makes you so frustrated at how insanely lazy some people are.

What does this all mean? Well, suffice it to say, the leadership at the AU-F is here to help those who help themselves, and that is the bottom line for me. We work tirelessly to provide players every opportunity to excel at the game and further their entertainment interests, but we will not hand hold you to the finish line. We provide the means, you provide the way. I never hesitate nor fail to do whatever I can to assist those who are assisting themselves by putting forth their best efforts but need assistance, be it survival training, fitting advice, tutelage on game mechanics, social dynamics, political power structures, or just anything in general. But when I catch a whiff of people who would rather be lazy and sit back while others do their work for them, those people earn every bit of the kick in the ass I give them as I shove them out the door.

Needless to say, after Ghastous pulled a Holier-Than-Thou attitude with me both in the public channel and in a private chat, accusing me in private of being an oppressor, he took his merry band of failtards and camped our mining crew in Warouh. So much for taking the high road, as it were, eh? After a failed attempt to suicide gank Vhero Min, who I remind you had almost no interaction at any point with our European friends, in his Retriever, they all logged in humiliation and we have not seen hide nor hair of them since.

Good riddance. Give me more Nlors and less bastages!

And, as a shot to the face with a creamy finish, I contracted their loot back to them from the smoldering wrecks CONCORD left of their ships. Chivalry is dead? I think not.

Coming Of Age

Battleship master, Mithos Victus, has finally come of age, reaching the near plateau of his training regimen for large sub capital ships. Having reached the ability to command a full squadron of Ogre II drones Mithos is prepared to venture forth in the name of solidarity, brotherhood, and the pursuit of glory.

Should we remind our readers of the surmise of battleship fleets as heavy hitters with a hard wall of tank, they would know that the age of the battleship fleet has dawned in low security space, and this is exactly what Mithos intends. See you in the fray, guns blazing, cigar smoldering, lips curled in a dastardly grin as we put to shame our willful aggressors. Huzzah, the corps!

EVE - Simulacrum

EVE. Cold. Desolate. Unforgiving. If you thought you came here to find shades of purple, you will only find one shade, red. Live, die, and breathe by the fingertips you lay so gingerly on your mouse. There are consequences here, unforeseen, and often heinous in comparison to other more reticent entertainment venues, eagerly welcoming every stray consumer who waltzes by.

As a castaway from previous venues, with a long, rich history in leadership, I have been most pleased, with the immersion level, depth, intricacy, and scope of this game. May my foes tremble in rage that I bear down upon them without relent, never wavering in my resolve to dispense justice with extreme prejudice, in an environment where crimes need not go unpunished.

Welcome to hell, soldier. Now light that cigar, because you won't get a chance to listen for the singing over the sound of your ship's hull bursting apart.