In Between

My jump freighter pilots are currently, stuck, in a mid-point system as one has had their account expire and the other I can't be bothered to login as he can't do anything anyway.

 

Sound bitter do I. Not really, I'm fine. It's not like you have to login to play EVE Online anyway is it.

 

Wanted: One working socket for my Kingdom!

 

I signed up to Discord last week at the urging of my CEO and, as he said, they've been able to speak to me more in a week of that than the past 6 months in-game. Whilst I appreciate Discord and actually am liking it I'm still unable to do much of anything within EVE Online.

 

I tried to jump out two JF's of material on Sunday and managed to get to my first mid-point before my second mid-point cyno character kept closing as he was logging in. The only way I was able to get him to the character selection screen was to close all other clients..

 

Yay I was able to login. Well no, I need the others logged in too in order to do things except as soon as you login another character the "dice of fate are rolled" and you either lose one at a time or all your characters that are logged in.

 

Back to the start I go, do not collect 200 ISK.

 

I gave up in the end and just quit EVE whilst swearing loudly enough my youngest son came and told me to stop saying naughty words. At which point I loaded World of Warships, an online game that I have no issues with connecting to or playing, and spending an enjoyable 40 minutes pummeling enemy ships in my North Carolina.

 

Got my first Citadel on the notoriously-hard-to-citadel Tirpitz at 17km. At the end of my 40 minutes I found I had enough XP (thanks to a 3x XP bonus for first win of the day per ship) to unlock the Tier 9 Iowa class battleship which made me very, very happy.

 

Reaching Out

 

I got frustrated on Thursday or Friday (I can't remember) enough that I decided to do something that I normally would stop myself doing but I needed to do something seeing as CCP Support weren't exactly talkative to me.

 

So I sent CCP Falcon a message on Reddit enquiring how to escalate a support ticket as I hadn't had a response in 7 days and I really needed some help.

 

Kudos to the Gentleman, he responded and whilst he didn't commit to help or promise anything his quick response was enough that I'm not longer stressing about this. I'm annoyed and want it fixed, yes. But I'm no longer stressing about it or letting it bother me.

 

It's out of my control and, after CCP Falcon said so, that Support are dealing with some major issues at the moment that are taking up their time I'm content to sit back and let things take their course. I'm still updating the ticket every couple of days with research I've done and on Friday I spent some time getting to see how Logging worked in the EVE client.

 

Was that a mistake that was. I eventually got to bed around 3am after staring at so many log entries that I swear I was dreaming about get-resource calls in my sleep :)

 

That said, I was able to replicate the disconnections whilst running in Logging mode and I uploaded 6MB of log data to my ticket for someone (hopefully) to check out.

 

Ending with a Laugh

 

NosyGamer posted a funny this morning. He's off to Iceland for Fanfest but before he left he visited r/eve on Reddit. Oh boy what a mistake, as he so well puts it:

The EVE Online sub-reddit is capable of sucking the enjoyment of EVE out of a person faster than an officer-fit Bhaalgorn can drain the capacitor from an Atron.

 

It does occasionally provide entertainment or decent information but it is a horrible place full of trolls, idiots and even more trolls. Since they started the Propaganda tagging with the World War Bee stuff I've avoided the place and I think my IQ went up by at least a few points :)

Progress

Socket Issues

 

Seems my socket closure issue is still a mystery but I have made some progress. My ISP completed and investigation, and even "refreshed" my connection at the exchange (whatever that means) and as a result I managed to get some good play time over the weekend.

 

CCP haven't even acknowledged my support ticket and I don't expect that for a few more days :\

 

I did late Sunday night get issues but I noticed these occurred when I was doing other internet stuff (web browsing, YouTube video watching) and it may be that this points to a possible packet loss issue.

 

Logistics

 

I moved 26 billion in products from null sec to high sec over the weekend via a combination of Jump Freighters and Deep Space Transports. A convenient WH made the trip a little safer but I was still on high alert around Niarja/Uedama areas. I was lucky there wasn't much on but still, I did see a few suspicious ships that could have been scanning me.

 

I was in the middle of moving input materials back to null sec when I received a late request to take a 210,000m3 courier. Fortunately he asked nicely so I back tracked and was able to accommodate the request. It was a good thing too as he reminded me that I'd missed a stack of skill books I needed to bring in.

 

Undock, Get Free Skill Points

 

Fellow blogger EVE Hermit posted a couple of days ago something I found interesting. CCP have announced, after the release of Citadels, that Daily Bonus will be introduced. The bonus will be 10,000 free SP for the first NPC kill a character (NOT account, but character) makes every 22 hours.

 

EVE Hermit comments well on this and I find myself agreeing with him, it's a good idea. Get people out of stations and ship spinning and give them a reason to undock. At least undocked "something else might happen" to entertain you.

 

I'm not sure of the SP reward though, with Skill Injectors only just released and having a big impact on characters free SP for doing very little (potentially 300,000 SP per month) per character) seems more trouble than it could be worth.

 

Time will tell but it's a good idea. I know a few of my characters who will be undocking every day for this, one hasn't undocked in three years, four months and 17 days (as of right now) :)

3rd Party Utilities for EVE Online Links

I saw this question at Reddit and it's something I've never really assembled in one place but I've added to the right side navigation window a new link to the EVE Online Guides for useful 3rd Party Utilities.

If I've missed any or you have one you'd like me to list then please contact ZGG Business Associate in-game.

Silent Runnings

Be Very Quiet

Mrs CEO and I celebrated the birth of our second child (a boy) in late October and this is the primary reason I've been quiet. It's very hard to write new posts, edit ones for publication and even play EVE during a newborns first few weeks.

We've had a few problems, nothing major and certainly nothing that needs a kickstarter or a "sob post" about. Babies have issues, like all things identify what you can control/change and do it. So we did, turns out he might have diary allergies like my side of the family has suffered from.

We did have a very stressful lead up to Christmas as the Monday before he and his older brother were admitted to hospital with an acute viral infection. What we have no idea, the doctors have no idea but they didn't leave hospital until the 24th and then it was into the car for the trip to "the in-laws" and the family Christmas.

We shall sum up that social gathering as "thank fuck its over". With luck I won't see that side of the family for AT LEAST the next three to six months 

Mistress EVE

I have kept up with EVE, using some of my wealth to PLEX accounts instead of paying for them, and have maintained my tower setup and even branched out into more T2 production thanks to new contacts and people I've met.

EVE really is a two edged blade at times. Some days I hate having to do my tower maintenance and the other nit-picking things but then other days I love to dive in and see what my buy/sell order speculation has netted me.

Null Sec Life

Life in Null Sec plods on. I say plod but lots of exciting things have been happening. 

• Operation Frostline sites have appeared and my ratting ship easily handles them (not as quickly as a Smart Bomb Rokh but still I like an element of manual control). I have gotten so many Quafe Zero but I'm yet to see the fabled "PLEX drop"
• Endurance, its a lovely ship and I've invested in a dozen of them for use in Null Sec to mine the local minerals and ice belts (when safe). 30 second cycles on Ice Mining Laser II's is turning a profit within an hour on each ship.
• Logistics are still a pain but I'm not that far into null sec that its too much work. I just wish I could have a few extra ly range on my JF. Still a trip at least once a week to bring in and take out what I'm making. It's profitable but....
• I've found a few local sources and have been in negotiation to buy from/sell to them. Christmas has interuptted this but I'm sure early 2016 I'll be able to source a few raw materials locally and for a better price than Jita Sell.

Possible Expansion

My alliance is doing great work with their own towers in low sec, they're getting fights but also generating passive ISK for very little work. I get materials I need and its win-win all around. 

Seems though the expansion is continuing as they're gotten close to a group in and around Molden Heath and we're starting to see some possibilities opening up there for getting more towers and materials.

World of Warships

Avast Yee Land and Space Lovers.... yeah no won't do that again. 

I'm still finding WoWS a good distraction when EVE is either quiet or I need some time to just relax. Bex plays too and we've had some good games recently enough that we're both going up the Tiers nicely in Russian Destroyers.

I've downloaded FRAPS again (I bought it years ago) and I'm starting to record a few games to video that I'll probably upload to YouTube because they're either great games or contain moments of genius or luck.

The Future

I'm starting to write more and I'm aiming to draft a post at least every day and post a finished one at least four times a week. I would love to do a Ripard Teg and do daily but I don't think I quite have the content or intelligence to pull that off :)

Blog Roll Update

Just a minor update to the blogs I read.

I've removed a couple of now defunct blogs and I've added a new one.

http://absenceofsubstance.blogspot.co.nz/

I've been reading this for a couple of weeks now and I realised that when I open it daily (it is a well written/thoughtful blog) from memory it is time to be added to my daily reading list.

Weekend Round Up

It has been a quiet weekend overall, RL was oddly enough too well except the niggling headache I had over my left eye for most of Sunday. But that went away after a mid-day nap and some panadol so I can't really bitch too much about that.

 

*Tumbleweed*

 

I intended to do some nice wormhole activities this weekend but I received a request from a friend for help on Thursday night in watching a null sec POS. He had eyes for EU/US times but needed help with AU and he thought of me.

 

He offered me a couple of hundred million ISK but friends in need get my 100% discount rate and I was quite happy to do it as it was passive and would not interfere with my other activities.

 

The POS was in a null sec system in Wicked Creek, it had been erected by a small corporation of which I could find no details, pilots had losses (all cyno ships) but no kills and all pilots in the corporation were less than 12 months old.

I was told it was an alt corp used to move Supercapital and Titans for sale. I did not see any during my time online being moved but during US time two Avatar's were moved through the POS that was promptly taken down.

I have recorded names and details in Notes and will remember them in the future but it was quiet for me and I was able to help out a friend. Of course the character I had to use for the monitoring meant that I was unable to participate in a blingy Kronos kill that my wormhole brethren got.

Still, I logged in and did things I guess...
 

Mass Production

Staggered over Sunday I had a total of three Bowheads and seven Orcas come out of the cooker. It's been a pain in the arse moving them all to either trade hubs or systems for sale.

As I can't make any more ships at the moment I've added a load more capital components to the production lines in order to get my mineral stores trimmed back somewhat. At least I finally can start to uses the minerals I've collected over the years and the large stack of blueprint copies I have in my home system.
 

The sale of these ships will be reinvested back into production materials. I've gotten a lot of T2 blueprint copies that I need to use, they're cluttering up my overviews and they should turn a nice profit once complete.

Tower Shenanigans

I appear to have either miscalculated the fuel needed for my towers or someone is siphoning off my fuel blocks.

I don't know which and the list of people who could be doing this is extremely small in the corp I'm in but I've had two warnings over the past fortnight that towers are low on resources. Since I've managed to get my monitoring application running again I've been able to keep an eye on the fuel situation but I've noticed lower than expected fuel in the towers.

I trust the other people who have access to POS roles so I must have made a mistake but it's bugging me that fuel has run out quicker than I was expecting.

Warships!

I have been having fun with World of Warships.

So far I've kept to the US Navy only and I'm now Tier VIII in Destroyer and Cruiser with Tier VII in Battleship & Carrier. I've stopped playing the carriers and battleships at the moment, I'm low skilled in both and need to get some XP to unlock the upgraded hull/skills before I can jump back into them.

I used all my "free XP" unlocking the Tier VIII Benson destroyer and it's 8.5km ranged torpedos and as a result I'm having a lot of fun killing ships who expect only a 4.5km or 5.5km torpedo spread.

I had a few awesome games over the weekend in my New Orleans cruiser and I'm 90% of the way towards the Tier 9 Baltimore which I'm looking forward to as it's AA ability is nearly 20% better than what I have now!

A Death In The Family

The One That Was

She had been part of the family since 2010, I'd built her from scratch. Every component I'd chosen after extensive research and I was confident that I'd have a fast PC for at least 3 years. She had a corsair 80GB SSD that had cost me more than the graphics card, the graphics card was the latest top line AMD card (5970). 

The case was a first for me (and my supplier) instead of having the cables at the rear the motherboard was rotated 90 degrees so the cables came out the top. On the underside were three large fans that helped keep it cool.

The PC was designed to run multiple EVE clients at once and thanks to three monitors I could run ten clients easily without any noticeable lag, not to mention just about any game at high resolution. 

The End

I went to bed the Friday night not knowing the next day she would not wake up. Nothing untoward or indicative of what was to come had happened during the day or evening before.

Attempting to power up the next morning resulted in her appearing to start, the power light was on but no signal was transmitted to the monitors and I could not hear the normal start up noises of the non-SSD hard drives.

Investigation showed that there was an issue with both the graphics card and motherboard. A friend thought that the motherboard PCI-Express slot was most probably the cause of the death and that I would have to salvage what I could.

The One That Will Be

I needed a new PC, data was mostly backed up and the only stuff I needed to get off the hard drives I had could be extracted via a USB dock. Buying a new PC was not something I wanted to do, being unemployed meant I was being careful with money but luck reared its head and a nice tax refund this year gave me a decent budget and selling the bits that still worked raised that further.

Here is the new PC.

A Core i7-4790 @ 3.6Ghz, 32GB RAM and a Nvidia GTX 960 form the basis of this small beast. A 240GB SSD provides the home for Windows 10 with a 3Tb Seagate drive for data. She's small, fast and pretty.

The Cosrsair case is not what I would normally have gone for but I don't need a 20kg monster case any more, the smaller case fits nicely under my desk and is easy to access if I need to get instead to add/remove components in the future.

Data has already been transferred over, Windows 10 is very usable and the return of the Start Menu welcome. EVE runs very fast and even other games I play (World of Warships/Payday 2) are blisteringly fast.

I paid more than I wanted to but if I can get another 5 years out of this PC then it will have been worth every cent.

I guess I have no excuse for not posting blog posts now, time to edit those drafts I have had waiting for work for too long....

The Week That Was

Full Power means Full Speed Ahead

Power was restored a week ago, we've had no problems since then although we've had more rain and wind that did give cause for concern. It certainly was interesting being without power and being early to bed each night was nice... for the first day or two but after two days I started to hate nights. There just wasn't enough light that we had to read so that limited what I could do. 

It's over now and I'm already looking at investing in a small generator or perhaps the new Tesla backup system in case this ever happens again.

Reaction Tower Frustration

I was fortunate not to have anything serious going on in EVE during my unexpected downtime and I returned to full towers and a need to refuel my towers rather urgently. My towers coped without me, I didn't doubt that at all, and the only thing that annoys me about my reaction towers is the need to empty them constantly between 48 and 72 hours of operation. 

The frequency of maintenance is dependant on what they're making but its frustrating for me because it means I need to do things, at a minimum, every two days to ensure that output is dealt with yet inputs I can leave for at least a week (168 hours). 

I could add more silos and chain the outputs to give myself more space but for some stupid reason asilo requires 500 cpu to online. Why the silo, something that should just be inert storage, requires so much CPU I don't know but needing 500 means that in any complex reaction setup you'll only be able to have enough for two inputs and one for output. 

Until the POS receives a massive overhaul there isn't much I can do and so I'm developing OCD with respect to POSes and managing when silos will be full/empty/nearly full.

Returning to High Sec DED Sites

I posted quite sometime ago about the profitability of running sites in high sec and then getting escalations which could result in very profitable loot drops. I know Bex continues to do this and has gathered a good collection of Deadspace and Faction loot but I stopped because I really hate probing.

I mean I really hate probing, I'd rather 0.01 ISK in Jita than probe but I'm working on the skills and I've decided to give it a go. So far, with a little help from Bex on where to look for sites, I've had a much better time than I did before.

I spent about 4 hours in total on the weekend probing and running combat sites and managed to get seven escalations (all Guristas Scout Outposts) from which I managed to get three C-Type Kinetic shield amplifiers, a C-Type Medium Shield Booster and two C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Fields (the latter working out at just under 300m each).

Very profitable for the time and with the practice in scanning I'm getting I'm sure it'll be more profitable for a small time sink.

3D Map Out and Explorers Hate It

That sounded like click-bait for a second. Sorry about that, but no link to follow :)

A while back CCP allowed players to start using a new in-game Map that had plenty of improvements and was all shiny and new. It is good, although I do miss some of the ease-of-use features (such as Jump Range bubble when in a jump capable ship) and finding out what systems were populated or had no pilots with just a single click.

However this same map is now used for the scanning/probing mechanic in-game and it is quite horrendous and frustrating to use. The view resets when you move focus, it certainly uses more processor when running that the previous map and can be very sluggish as a result. Filters are different and whilst there exists all the previous filters they are harder (I find) to apply and then clearly see what the results are.

I do like the new map but I don't have enough experience as an Explorer yet to comment on its usefulness in scanning.

Beauty is not just SKIN deep

Well CCP done fucked up but in a very enjoyable and happy way. Then they said they'd be fixing it and people didn't like that so there was lots of fun had applying skins to ships that should not have had the ability to have skins.

What do I mean, well players found a bug (definitely not a feature) that allowed any ship skin to be applied to any ship rather than what it was designed to do (which was specific skins for specific ships).

Lots of fun was had and there were some very good looking ships appearing on various Reddit threads and on Imgur. However it was a bug and CCP Falcon pointed out (quite correctly IMO) that having a Sarum Family logo on a non-Amarr ship did not "fit" with the Lore and so could not be allowed. He did say that he was discussing this with the development/art teams because a lot of feedback was generated and some was very useful and may influence how skins are developed.

EVE Prosper Market Show

If you're into Market activities in EVE Online then you can do with all the help you can and I cannot recommend that you have a look into the EVE Prosper Market Show. Now up to it's 25th Episode this is an excellent discussion/review programme for not just the EVE Online Market but also features excellent coverage of in-game events and news stories of note.

Seriously, go watch. Lockefox knows his stuff and presents an excellent show for people with any interest in the EVE Online economy.

We Need More Power

After getting excited and posting two decent posts in a day I have been waylaid by Mother Nature. A truely massive storm has hit New South Wales and aside from (what I believe) has been around 30cm of rain in less than 36 hours, over 100km/h wind things have been good.

Well nearly, we have no power. Have had no power since 5:30am on Tuesday and we aren't expecting it to return until either Sunday or Monday. At least that's what the rumour from the neighbours brothers friend, sisters worst enemy.

The entire coast I live on his been hit hard, there was mention of 200,000 homes without power yesterday and they've said this morning only 30,000 remain. The emergency crews have had a lot of issues to deal with so paitence is what we need ot have, 

I've had to resort to reading a book. Yes a real actual physical book although around 5:30pm when the sun starts to wane is the latest I can read it. Candle light just doesn't provide enough light for my eyes to be comfortable reading.

Still, I've been getting lots of time to think about new things to write about... 

A Few Small Things

A few updates on how things are going and what I'm doing in EVE Online. These don't warrant a full post themselves but the information may be interesting to those two or three of you that do read this.

The Reddit Effect

I don't get a lot of traffic and I'm fine with that.

I (primarily) write for myself and for a small number of people who seem to like what I do write (I haven't had complaints that I'm aware of). However I posted a link, as a reply to someone, to the Confessor post I recently did on Reddit and I saw first hand what the Reddit Effect is.

I had nearly 6 times more traffic in a 24 hour period than I normally do and, from that, hopefully I gained one or two new readers. 

So if you did come in thanks to that post, Welcome :)

Moving Time

Apparently I was not following some rules. I disagree to the exact details but I'm not going to get into an argument on the internet about it.

I've been told I can no longer use an alternate system (when my primary is too busy) for my jump freighter. As a result I decided to move all my assets from the system in question, including combat ships that were there in case I was able to get in on a capital kill.

It took me two days but I've finally moved all the ships out and I finally got to fly a Bowhead in order to move them the few jumps to their new home. That was fun.

Milestone Passes

I passed a new milestone last week my total worth according to jEVEAssets passed 200 billion ISK. I didn't notice for a couple of days I think because when I did it was 203 billion. 

It's a milestone, now I need to turn the assets that form the bulk of that into ISK so I can invest in new projects.

Super Characters

Today, in bit over 3 hours, marks the time my last character will finish training for the Aeon super capital ship. Due to the increased number of pilots for sale, the price changes and (most of all) the upcoming changes to Sovereignty in Summer 2015, I don't think there is any point in training super-flyable characters for sale.

It's been fun but time to move on and do something else. If the Super Capital market changes in the future (anything is possible) then I may return, I have my guides and notes to remind me what to do but for now this income stream is being shut down.

20 days

It wasn't my intention to not post for nearly three weeks but unfortunately two medical issues, a trip to the hospital and a whole lot of stress and worry forced me to neglect that which I enjoy far too much.

I'm still not fully well, I'm back at work and seeing far too many doctors but I am better and one good thing about the break (although I still logged into EVE to do basic tasks) was that I got to spend time thinking and I came up with a couple of great ideas for posts as well as new directions for a couple of drafts that I've been working on.

So a big sorry to my (two) readers and I promise to release some content to make up for it over the next few days. 

A Reader Writes

I occasionally get people who know I write this blog send me messages in-game and others are kind enough to post comments on what I write. I had a massive shock yesterday when I received an evemail from someone whom I've never heard from before AND they provided feedback.

Excitement

An actual REAL human being sent me an evemail about my blog and provided both constructive and useful feedback. This was proof that I had real reader who was NOT a bot or a friend pretending to read my writing,

I was so shocked that I had to go have a lie down and that turned into a rather nice nap and well, there went my working day so I went home and played EVE Online. It was a good Thursday overall.

Cynos Suck

The feedback from a fine gentlemen named Edward Olmops focused on my recent complaint about Cynos:

You actually CAN use a cyno when you join a fleet and the cyno is already active. The cyno pilot has to right-click the cyno field and choose "broadcast" or "advertise" or something the like. The cyno will then show up in the broadcast history and anyone in the fleet can right-click the entry in the broadcast history and jump (ensure broadcast settings are correct).

It took me a moment to consider this but in theory this is correct and next time I do a run to high sec I will be giving this a try. It works because by broadcasting the cyno it will make it actionable (because its saved in the fleet window) by anyone in or who joins the fleet subsequently.

He finished with this comment

Typically EVE-like, unintuitive, complicated and mostly unknown feature...

Well said Edward, well said. It is all that you said and as a result unknown to the masses when really it should be something known outside of the few. Thanks for the comment and helping to publicise this unknown feature.

An alternative to the Jump Freighter

Edward finished his mail with a very interesting idea and one that he uses. Since the Rhea nerf to JF range he's started using Deep Space Transports to move cargo via wormholes where he lives. He said that with a little scanning (between 5 to 10 systems to find a HS link) a connection can be found and then using DST's to move goods between his location and the connected high sec.

Of course you are vulnerable to interception using the WH route but it is fairly safe and even a small escort would be enough to put off the opportunist attacker. As Edward goes on to say about using WH's:

No range limit, no cyno chars needed. Living in Stain now for 3 months, we disavowed using JFs and logistics have never been easier (not even when living in Curse and it was just 1 jump).

This is certainly something to consider and I will look into this more as I'm aware of three WH's in the past week that linked my home system to somewhere else (I never checked them) so its obvious that we do get them.

Most of the time I jump out fully loaded (~350,000m3) so using DST will be a bit of work but there are times when I need to move smaller amounts that would fit in a DST so this is something I shall now have to consider and it would be much cheaper.

Thanks Edward Olmops for the feedback and for reading. 

Welcome to the New Year

Happy New Year to my reader.. er... readers. I hope you've had a lovely Christmas/New Year and are looking forward to 2015.

I was unlucky enough to be forced by my wife to travel to relatives and so my EVE Online time was very limited. The forced break was restful but by the need of my time away I was bored and in need to addressing a few minor production issues.

Still a break is a break.

I have had a nice start to 2015, my 'main' got two kills on a POCO bash (his first kill for over 177 days) and managed to profit well from the release of the Bowhead with pre-release investments turning a nice profit of over 4 billion ISK.

A Week In Short

Lore

I really have to thank the EVE subreddit for making me get into the EVE Lore more. A couple of the recent threads about "Catherine's Star" have been fascinating and piqued my interest in what the story I'm involved in is.

I found it funny reading Templar One and reading more about the history of the Amarr that I actually find myself dispising them. Even funnier considering that all my characters are Amarrian and I've ben known to refer to friends who are Caldari as "Caldari scum"... and they're supposed to be our allies!

I don't think I'll go full RP, I'd probably find it a little too weird, but I have enjoyed reading about about the history of the Pirate Factions, the major races and where Sleepers fit in. I'm pretty sure I've only scratched the surface so I have a lot more reading to do.

With Christmas approaching I know I'll be visiting various family so I'll load up the iPad with reading material to keep be entertained.

Ticking Along

Not much to report with my industrial juggernaut. Towers are ticking over, wares are shipped to Jita for redistrubtion, at a nice profit, and unfortunately I've found myself not logging in most days with my null sec characters.

My high sec ones are doing well, nearly three quarters of a million LP for one store from L4 missions. As boring and repetiative as they are I do find time to do a few in a row and the odd Storyline does mean I get some nice loot.

I've had three Shipyard Theft storylines in a row so far, with each one giving me a different Leadership Implant.

New Opportunity

One of my characters will be, very shortly, leaving my holding corporation and striking out on his own. I've identified a new home for him and hopefully I'll be able to join up and see if I can live in a wormhole once more.

I'm sure I can, just got a few skills to update before I do join...

Rhea Approaches

With the release of the Rhea expansion in a weeks time I've been getting ready to make a few Bowhead for myself and friends. I've had to invest in Capital Part BPO's and that's cost few billion ISK but at least I can research and use them for other jobs later.

I'm interested in the new T3 Destroyer although I don't think its going to be cheap to start with, regardless at some point I'll get one or at least try to build one. An interesting premise the Confessor is, with the three modes. Although I really think it will lack in the DPS department with only 5 low slots.

Aside from that I'm not really doing much market speculation or investment. Rhea is going to be my quiet-ish expansion.

A Delay In Broadcast

As soon as I click Publish I will be turning off the PC and heading to the air conditioned rooms of the house for the afternoon. 

I shall later put water in the inflatable pool and then soak until the sun sets and the wife tells me to come in. I shall ignore her, get another beer and top up the cold water.

It got to 41C (~110F) where I live today. I've made sure my animals are indoors or in the share, have plenty of fresh water. 

Until tomorrow, when it should be back down to the high 20's/low 30's.

Status Update

Too Quiet

I've been a little quiet, I'm sorry for those (three people as far as I can tell) who regularly read what I write finding that I haven't been writing. I've actually been enjoying a break from EVE with my family visiting from the UK.

I had intended to continue posting but I've found my time to be rather overused and instead I've been travelling to see more of the country I now call home as well as entertaining my family. Unfortunately tomorrow is their last day here and so I should be back to a somewhat more regular posting schedule.

Paladin Restored

I posted very recently that I'd lost a Paladin during a mission due to an issue with EVE and that I was going to petition the loss. I did and it took a week but the petition was answered and my ship was successfully salvaged.

Unfortunately after I lost the ship I had to jump clone to null sec and when my ship was restored it was located to where my clone currently was and not where the ship was lost. I reported the issue and asked the GM dealing with my case if he could please move the ship back to the system where I lost the ship

I don't know if it was my promise to apply two coats of wax to any restored ship or asking nicely but but the GM did this and and I no longer had to work out how to move my Paladin 52 jumps back to it's current high sec home.

Sadness Continued

A second friend has said they'll be leaving EVE before Phoebe is released, the first still hasn't fully left but as I posted last week they've sold their main character and I know they are in the midst of writing an "Open Letter to CCP" about why they're leaving.

The second person is taking a break, they have said they will be returning but they need to take a break and as a result they wanted to relinquish their towers. Instead I've offered to run them whilst they are absent and I'll reap the benefits (with a monthly tithe to the alliance) until he returns.

Which I'm certain won't be that long :)

Expansion

So I'm expanding my Reaction Tower setup, at least six more towers will need fuelling but as far as I can see they are self-sufficient and will require no importing of materials from high sec. This is great news and aside from fuel I will have very little expense.

I'm moving a character into my friends corporation in order to take over the towers, it will save a huge amount of time taking down then setting up new towers for a different corporation, I won't own the towers but I'll be responsible for them so if they are lost this is my only liability in this endeavour.

I'm quite happy with that.

Preparing for Phoebe

This week will be busy, I have several JF runs I need to do in order to move assets I no longer need in null sec to high sec for consolidation. I've already consolidated 3 of my 5 characters assets in high sec to one location and a bit of dual boxing freighters will allow me to do the remaining 2 characters well before next weeks release.

Extra fuel has been bought into null sec as well as any additional ships/modules I will be needing. I do need to move my cyno characters to their new locations but that can be done after Phoebe is released and I need to make use of them.

I'm looking forward to Phoebe, the unlimited skill queue along with the jump changes are the two biggest features I'm looking forward too. It's an exiting time to be in EVE Online and the direction we're going, although appearing very bumpy, is certainly going to be good fun to travel.

Site News

I was thinking the other day I should post a Site Update to let people know of posts to come and other minutiae that don't really warrant their own post. Finally got around to it this morning, in between my morning work duties.

Welcome New Readers

Welcome Redditors and zKillboard/EVE-Kill people. My post earlier this week on the Titan kill in Mai has generated a lot of traffic thanks to people posting the link to the article on Reddit and the kill on zKillboard/EVE-Kill.

The traffic has been welcome and satisfying to see but I do hope those that have visited stay and check out some of my other posts. Leave a comment (or two) if you have feedback.

The Smiling Assassin

There is one more post to come in the TSA Series, I'm just waiting on some final information from TSA before I post the final part. Unfortunately TSA hasn't been in-game very much recently and until he returns there isn't much I can do. 

And I won't post half complete what I have.

Future Posts

I'm working on posts covering a variety of topics, including:

• Amarr based COSMOS missions 
• Making Storyline BPCs using Takmahl components
• New scams found added to the Know Your Scams series
• Guide to Booster manufacturing
• Update to running Level 4 missions in Null Sec

Of course there will also be posts on other topics that pop up on the forums, other blogs I read or things that pop into my head.

Comments Appreciated

If you have a comment, constructive if possible, or wish to provide feedback, please do so. Its nice to hear from readers about how I can improve the blog

Transmissions Resuming

I'm over the cold I've had and the PSU in my computer has been replaced.

I was all ready to travel to Sydney today but I googled for local stores in a last ditch attempt to find someone closer yesterday and found a company that actually was on my route home.

I'd never seen them or heard of them before but I gave them a ring and they recommended a course of action that meant taking my PC to them. Now I've always built my PC's and this was quite a thing to be asked but I did it and forty minutes later I had a new PSU and a working computer.

Nothing else was damage (fortunately) and I'm back up and running.

Posts shall resume henceforth!

Status Report

Twiddling Thumbs/Turning Wheels

I haven't posted for just over a week and it wasn't intentional. I like to queue posts and have them automatically deployed but over the past week I've been hit by that horrible "writers block" as I could not write anything that I deemed worthy. 

As a result I've been turning my wheels or twiddling my thumbs, whichever makes more sense to you :)

Several posts were written and then torn apart because I thought it was less-than-stellar but I was finally able to write something about the new Industry dev-blogs, although I think more posts are to come on that subject.

CSM Elections

The CSM election is coming along and I have voted so it'll be interesting to see who gets in as new CSM has a lot to measure to considering CSM 8's effectiveness.

Null Sec Industry

My run into null sec industry continues well, I've sold plenty of modules and a few ships but I've also worked out what new modules I need to bring BPC's. 

Supplies of raw materials are good, I had three hauler spawns whilst ratting which bought in a nice amount of mexallon and pyerite so I don't need any for a while and thanks to a friend who has much better station standings than me I was able to bring in a couple of dreadnaughts worth of materials as railguns and he reprocessed them at 100%.

Site News

Happy New Year to all those reading this (and yes it's actually more than the one person I thought!)

 

I have and haven't been lazy over the Christmas period.

 

I have because I haven't published any new posts but I have been writing. Having time off has been excellent because I've been able to read a lot more blogs and the EVE Online forums so I've managed to draft a lot of posts that will be published during January as well as fleshing out a few more Proposed Changes posts that I've wanted to do for a while now.

 

Christmas Gifts

The Yule Lads advent calendar from CCP was fun and I enjoyed checking each day for new gifts. That Aeon Supercarrier I so wanted was never given to me so I'm still a little sad over that oversight.
 

One of my alts is still recovering from the use of the Leopard shuttle, it's a blisteringly fast ship that was used to make a ten jump run during the middle of a war declaration. Fortunately no war targets were nearby but still, got to use the Leopard.

 

Traffic

 

I did have a very nice break and hope you all did, Lorna at A Scientists Life in EVE sent me a huge chunk of traffic on New Years Day so I must thank her for that and I even got my first person leaving a comment (*faints*).

 

Plans

 

Aside from what I wrote over Christmas/New Year I have some ideas for posts over the next 3 months. Drafts are very useful and I shall be making sure there are plenty of posts each week. I'm no Ripard Teg but I do like to write and sometimes what I write does make sense.