Supercarriers on the Horizon

    It appears that Pandemic Legion is starting to base a half dozen Supers in a POS they forced into Providence.  There has also been a lot of potential hotdrop hostiles roaming about, probably looking for a good enough target to attack. This is the kind of potential problem that the forces in Providence IMO are not prepared at all to repel. The NRDS alliances desperately need to make the building of a sizeable Capital fleet their priority in the coming months. No system has fallen yet, but the bait was taken last week when SBUs were deployed and a slaughter between NRDS forces, PL, AAA, and others erupted where the NRDS forces were shoved aside for a cap battle including dreadnoughts.  Being swatted aside should tell people we need to start preparing for more difficult times ahead.

Ice Crunch

It appears that there is a new coalition of pirates that have attempted to disrupt or even profit from people mining Caldari ice. This "coalition" of pilots are calling themselves The New Order. There are several unaffiliated corps involved with some possible goons support lined up. two systems in particular seem to be very active:  Kamio and Haliama.  They are just over the Caldari border and are transitted by many. Expect Caldari ice and it's products to start to increase in prices. They are even podding people in highsec as well.

Holiday Season it's not

  As we approach Christmas, it seems like people get more nasty in the Eve universe. You can't borrow someone's ship without collateral. No one likes to help scout for your tranny and intel becomes as accurate as a blind archer in a competition.  As I continue my parts assembly for a Carrier to sell, I am reminded how small I really am in Eve. Pandemic Legion and Test decided to "offline" all of CVA's jumpbridges with 6, I repeat, 6 supercarriers.  I did what everyone else did, watched. It appears that the fun times haven't started yet. Even cloaked macharials are finding their way into our sov space without too much anybody can do about it.  On a good note, I have been gutting a Bistot grav site for about 24 hours so it's hardly been a cramp on my style lately.  No mistletoe in space please.

More Trouble

     It seems that the supposed negotiations between TEST and CVA to reduce tensions between Catch and Providence IMO are a farce.  Not only have there been more activity into our area, but the fleets are obviously bigger. Lap dogs like Tribal Band have been very active around, trying to disrupt what they can without full provocation. Convenience is being tested and there is a sense that we have to rethink our fleets and offer more protection to the industrialists.  As I continue to stockpile materials, the CEO graciously opened the labs remotely to me, so I can begin ME on all of the bps that I have sitting around, including the Tech 2 components.  Getting those more efficient will really help my bottom line.  I'm going to start offering the components on the local market and use the profits for minerals. I am starting my first Carrier build and I need to start stockpiling parts for it. I hope to have at least half of the components made by the end of November.  With only myself making them, they will take a while between PI, ice mining and trying to help with local fleet assistance.  Other than that, it's been very boring in Null lately........

The bottle Gets Shaken

     In the past two weeks, some turbulent times have started to affect us boring people in Providence. As Red Overlord imploded upon itself, it's "friend" -A- has been giving ground to TEST in Catch. TEST has  also decided to revisit areas in Providence to stir up us natives again. Not sure what this means long term. They have been attacking and disabling certain POSs as well as JB facilities to reduce Providence's logistical abilities.  This means to me that they are attempting to splinter and separate certain alliances in the NRDS coalition.
     There has also been some housecleaning in one of the alliances. Apparently, Volition Cult has has  had some splintering of their members. The Rising Stars have left and taken several FCs from Volition with them. IMO, there has been a difference of opinions with the leaders of the group ever since they decided to de-emphasize their pvp only roots and take up sovereignty in Providence as part of the NRDS coalition. I think this will be a larger blow to Providence than people realize. What few roams I went on while over with Volition's training academy, the few that I dealt with will be missed. IMO, Competent FCs are scarce in the NRDS coalition. Hell, warm bodies willing to fight can be few and far between depending on the time of day.
     Which leads me to my other beef of the week.  We have substantial hostiles continuously disrupting our space, yet some of the leader are off filling gaps in CVA's defensive areas. WTF? How many members do they have that are sitting on the sidelines while leaders of our group are off protecting them? Get rid of our disruptions first and then work out from there. BTW, don't bitch when people show up with fits you don't like after you were begging people to join your defense fleets minutes before.  When you buy my ship, you can tell me how to fit it, what color to paint it, and how many fuzzy dice go on the bridge.  Something tells me that I need to learn how to fly some caps in the next few months, especially if large fleet engagements are coming to my back yard. Time to get off the sidelines and start to defend....

New Home, new home

     It appears I was just longing for old companionship. I wound up going back to my old alliance, but several things are different now.  Eternal Evocations decided that being shot at first (NRDS) isn't that fun anymore. They abandoned their space in Providence and moved to Immensea. CVA approached the Yulai with a trade that they could not refuse. So, the Klampets packed up their wares and moved to Beverly, Hills that is.  They finally have their pocket of systems that they have  always wanted. Everything is still in flux and chaos, but it is getting organized in  better fashion everyday.  I look forward to my new digs and corpmates and hopefully my slice of the new pie won't take too long to be pushed in front of me at the table.  We'll see if I can run my own POS next.......

Summer of Funk

     After 3+ months of hacking away in my new environment, I haven't learned much other than some things may look to be a good match, but it always doesn't work out like you planned.  I left my comfortable environment to get trained in pvp by a very reputable corporation. The unfortunate thing is that this corporation and their parent alliance are pretty much Euro time zone. That does not work for me with the RL situation.  I have missed most roams and training due to this difference and I have not really taken advantage of their expertise.
     The other problem is that we have been on a constant wardec it seems for the last 6 weeks and most of the corpmates are either hiding, using alts, or just not active right now.  It's been pretty lame and I think I'm ready to try something else. Maybe I will shop around for another corp/alliance based in Providence and get out of this boring highsec crap. You cannot make decent isk in highsec unless you suicide gank, wardec people or just rob others blind.  I'll start to sever ties with the current group and divest myself of their assets that I have been borrowing.

OMG

          Well, I haven’t had much to write about lately in Providence. I have tried to crank out more Tech II bpcs on smaller items like missiles, ammunition, and other components that I may want to use in the near future. I have tried to get more involved with Sovereign defense and have had mixed results so far.  Now, getting to the bulk of my thoughts. After downloading the Inferno update(which I will admit was very smooth this time around), I began to look over some of the changes. I happened to be in my Prorator at the time. I thought my montior was set too low and then I realized that they darkened the shades on it as well as other Amarr ships in my inventory.

            As far as some of the new things that are getting some buzz, I think the ships are getting the most run right now. I absolutely love the new look of the Kestral/Manticore design. Even my Purifier looks totally different in a good way.  I have yet to see exactly all of the new ship redesigns, but from the chat channels I am on in game, that seems to be overwhelmingly the best part of the expansion.

            I would say the new inventory interface is and will be the biggest change both good and bad for this update. I was having blonde moments after blonde moments for the first 5 minutes of trying to see what the heck was going on and I realized that this one of those things that people are going to either love or hate about the game. To me, it gives you more space in the station view for looking at other things.  In space, I have to remember to readjust the inventory window smaller before getting involved with anything too complicated.

            As far as missiles go, from what I have seen on other ships firing at targets, the effects are very impressive looking so far. It seems like the damage hits before the visual effects take place. I have yet to fire any myself, so I will have to follow up this at a later date.

            Research is going to get a whole lot more expensive when it comes to Tech II items. I went to highsec today to visit my favorite level II research agent only to find that instead of me earning around 140 research points for a completed mission, I received a tiny 33 points instead. Now that is going to change a lot of invention options going forward. Not only are you not going to earn as many RPs towards datacore purchases, but you will also have to pay some isk to get datacores. I am glad I was able to stock up from the market before the update. I had anticipated that if this rumor was true, datacore prices were going to spike. It will also leave me a few cheaper options for datacores. I currently only get one type of datacores from a Caldari agent. I’m also 1 level away from research level 5 and can then add more research agents by learning research project management. I do have a lot of Tech II bps already in inventory.  I think I’ll try to clear some of them out before I go crazy buying up expensive datacores on the market.

            All-in-all, I think this update has brought as much interest as it has controversy. We’ll probably see about 6 small patches in the next week addressing bugs and complaints, but I think these changes will be for the better of the game once everyone figures out their blonde moments and try to keep an open mind. I for one look forward to using some of the new modules in this update and figure out a new wrinkle for putting isk into my pocket.  If only my French corporation would hire more of us mouth-breathing English –speaking players so I can understand the corporate channel more....

Better Late than Never

            I haven’t made the time to write in a while.  It seems that there are a few things that are in play right now in my mind. Burn down Jita has so far had mixed results. 500 billion isk was thrown around a number for the total losses by all parties involved. I really don’t have a concept of that much isk in the game.  The most I have ever had is around 650 million after selling a lot of ships and other equipment to others in my corporation. I guess 500 billion thrown around by a large alliance like the Goonswarm is not that much when they can field 50 titans at a time on a given battlefield. 

            I  myself would have planned it a different way. I would’ve announced it and made it very public like the Goons did. 12 corporations/alliances declared war on them which I find very humorous. Why give the Goons a free shot at you in front of Concord like that instead making them earn it more. If I was the goons, I would go through all of
Jita’s stations, inventory all of the corporate offices, and declared war on each office-holder in Jita. The rent is very expensive in Jita. Also, you know those corporations frequent the system and probably operate there as well as neighboring systems.
A few locator agents and you have more than enough targets to go attack. Hell, I would have done the same thing at Rens, Amarr, and Dodixie as well. With the amount of alliance members they have, they could cover them for a month and shut down the major marketplaces in Eve. That would’ve been much more effective and it could last longer than this campaign will.

            As far as Hulkegeddon goes, when you’re in nullsec space, it’s always Hulkageddon.  The only thing I won’t try to do for a while is afk ice mine in highsec.  I have been very fortunate lately about not losing any mining vessels that I own.  I also have stepped out and tried to do some more PVE as well as trying to join some defense fleets. Last week, I joined a CVA group that was trying to snare a Cynabal, a Sabre, and a Talos in a neighboring system.  Not sure what the plan was; the hostiles were about 120 km from the jumpgate we were camping and no one was really moving.  I only had a Moa lightly loaded since I don’t have any tech II hybrid capability.  I began to loiter between the fleet and the hostiles about 100 km from the hostiles. Past me went two interceptors with now support, flying separately towards them.  The hostiles surgically picked them apart in no time.  It seemed like the group lacked cohesiveness in order to attack the three hostiles that were present. I made a slow circle and realized that the Talos had started to close on me and opened fire. I was getting hit by him, but I was able to start returning fire and doing very little damage to him.  I was probably 55 km away when I was able to warp out and save my skinny little mining ass. I had flown back to the gate and saw no one around. I guess my version of fun was over for the night.  

            After that little event, it seemed like a fleet sniper would be a ship to work on flying next. The fleet I joined had to try to work close in and absorb significant amounts of damage before properly engaging the hostiles. A fleet sniper that could engage around 90-100 km would have forced the issue and made them either flee or close to attack the sniper.  I scored a few cheap BPCs of a Naga, Talos, and the other two tier 3 BCs and decided that my weapon of choice would be a Naga. After learning the large hybrid skillbook up to lvl 3, I built one and slapped some meta 3 350mm Hybrid turrets on it with some other trinkets to help with range and damage. I decide to try plutonium charges for their damage potential. With 2 Tech II sensor boosters running, minus scripts, I am able to target objects out to 145 km. With the plutonium charges, I can barely nick targets around 90 km and increase the damage as the range shortens up through 65 km.  I’m even able to hit Sansha frigs out as far as 80 km. Not bad for a newbie miner.  My next goal is to get tech II hybrid turret ability of the medium variety.....

Is It Me......?

     Is it me, or does anybody looking for cheap loot want to take their cloaky ships to Jita during the Goons campaign and pick through the debris while the bullets are flying all around you.  I would imagine that the remaining Goons will make sure they remember your character's name for future punishment.
  
     Is it me, or does it seem like there are certain ships that are pretty much nearly impossible to counter in EVE.  A well equipped Falcon comes to mind...

     Is it me, or does it seem like the majority of people are overreacting to this potential mineral crunch.  I was in highsec the other day where someone was trying to sell Condensed Scordite for a 100/unit in Domain. I cannot for the life of me figure out why some dumbass would pay that price for a pretty common ore instead of figuring out how to light a mining laser instead.  Have you seen the prices for a Hulk lately?  The real benefactors to this panic are the basic miners who usually have ores sitting on the market for weeks before someone is willing to pay their prices. My concern going forward is that basic fundamentals get so far oustripped by the lack of supply for materials that you see corp and alliance incursions into soveriegn space over developed mining systems and outright fights over little scraps left by strip miners.  Bots beware, the crackdown with such things like "Hulkageddon" may become monthly occurances instead annual ones.  Maybe the Amarr with their lack of ammunition needs become a little more stable and a little more relevent.  In my previous few months on EVE, it seemed like they were getting marginalized by the other races' equipment and ships.

Maybe Some Enlightenment

     I was just going to reposition some of my Jump clones to better highsec systems when we get hit by another Wardec.  This one will probably be just as interesting as the last few; highsec alliance members will scream and cry that they're being attacked unfairly and that we need to go protect them.  As they have been told many times before, stop operating in highsec and support the sovereignty that exists in Providence and no one will be attacking you.  Each of these wardeccing corporations just sit in the main shipping lanes and pick you off with little or no effort.  It's pretty predictable when you see multiple fighting ships with neg sec status, with one or two cargo ships hanging around gates waiting for the "right" cargo to come by the gate, even when you're not wardecced.  The travel around Niarja is becoming just short of lowsec nowadays as there is no AFK cargo pilotting like previously. Enter at your own risk, and beware of large groups. 
     Getting back to the proposed reduction of loot drops that is being reported after April 26th,  I think I can finally understand what CCP is trying to do going forward.  According to what I have been reading, the mining/producing component of EVE has been on the decline for a while now, and they are trying to jump start that profession.  I believe that a portion of the PVP/ratting population of EVE has been getting very brazen and wreckless that they have little or no aversion to losing ships, clones, etc in the game.  I think this concerns CCP and they feel they need to reign some of the "free will" of the game.  Unfortunately,  I also think this will reduce the amount of people that are willing to spend the time playing this amazing game going forward.  There's a reason why most people don't want to mine in EVE and I don't think this change will dramatically alter this reality: as dynamic as the EVE universe is, the short attention span that exists in most people tell me that something as tedious as grinding rocks will not appeal to most people playing any video game, let alone EVE Online. If a war over resources breaks out, as I think it might, CCP will spark a new struggle, aggravate the general masses again, and give most something to think about.  Maybe some risk aversion will start to come back into the game.  If mining becomes as lucrative, or even more lucrative than other aspects of the game, the isk hoarders will simply change professions.

New Role?

   It appears after the last earnings report for our corp, they are apparently looking to increase the profits of the corporation.  IMO, there are several things going on with this. I'm only going to address one of those right now.  I am now finding out that we are sitting on some pretty valuable moons in regards to mineable materials.  I have also discovered that we are way under-utilizing these assets into profits.  I had responded to my CEO after he put out the earnings for the corporation and asked for suggestions on how to make more. I dangled a few ideas out to him and he seems very interested.  It appears I am kind of becoming the moon goo guru for the group, especially since I was buying and making tons of it for months in my CL2  home away from home last year.  I am hoping to find more favor so I can at least buy the finished products at a discount. They should at least do that since I'm the one holding onto the reactions, and the complex reactor among other things.  Mining may become just a hobby if this takes off....

Evidence

   Everyone is all hot and bothered about the potential change in mineral supply.  I have seen some prices climb steadily on types on minerals that I buy.  I have also been checking out eve markets and other places and I have noticed a very significant increase in the amount of unfilled buy orders versus sell orders for minerals such as Megacyte, Zyrdrine, and Nocxium.  While I don't think that we have hit the highpoint on mineral prices, the trend appears to set up for a dramatic wait-and-see for the end of the month. The market is tightening up, and we'll see what dries up first, minerals or items made from minerals.  Either way, Indy guys like myself stand to make good isk if we position ourselves for the run up. 
   On another note, a new small grav belt was open for business today after I finally found it.  I was a little embarrassed for someone 6 months ago who routinely had to scan the static wh exit in my home just to go get supplies.  After the probes cooperated, I was able to set up for a little bit and take close to 160,000m3 today in mostly Plaglioclase and Kernite.  These two ores are not normally found in our space and they contribute the 4 minerals I cannot keep in stock right now: Isogen, Mexallon, Pyerite, and Tritanium.  It seems the last two I cannot ever get enough of here in Providence.  I would jump through hurdles to get my hands on Zydrine and Megacyte in highsec. How ironic that the other two are scarce around here at reasonable prices....
   My next highsec adventure is to compile a Heretic blueprint and some more cruiser and battlecruiser BPCs in case the predictions are true and market does dry up.  A premium for certain ships is already starting.  Hulks have been up 20 million since I bought 1 two months ago. Noctis seemed to keep rising. I've seen them go up about 25 million over the same time period and they have similar mineral needs that a battlecruiser build would be; but you've got at least 20-40 million additional profit per build with each of these babies.

It's a good thing that my buy orders for Viscous Pyrox and Fiery Kernite keep getting filled in highsec....I'll need my pile to get higher and higher for the coming drought.

Sold!

     Well, I wasn't even able to try out my Impel before the CEO decide he wanted to buy it off of me.  I'll have another 125 million in my wallet, but I have to figure out whether I buy the materials to build another or just pocket the difference I'll make and buy another in Jita.  In Jita they are selling for about 116 million.  I'm already up 9 million.  Unfortunately, I have tied up 40 million in the 4 BPs I bought at auction for Impel builds.  10 down and 30 to go....
     Let's see what the second build will cost me.  I start out with only having a few extra Tech II components made for this, plus the extra minerals, the morphite, the RAM Starship Modules, and the Construction blocks. I'll go with the assumption that I don't have any components made; that way I can continue to stockpile for other frigs or the two Tech II cruisers I want to use eventually.
     The Impel needs the following Tech II components:
   55 Fusion Thrusters
   99 Radar Sensor Clusters
1320 Nanoelectrical Microprocessors
3850 Tungsten Carbide Armor Plates
   33 Antimatter Reactor Units
 220 Tesseract Capacitor Units
 275 Linear Shield Emitters

     I can build the capacitors, the armor plates, and the microprocessors with my BPOs that I have for those units.  I unfortunately cannot make the moon materials for these items so I'll need to build the components from bought materials or I have to buy them already made.  From past experience, I know that the microprocessors are usually pretty expensive either way.   I'll use that as an example analysis for our discussion for the non-indy people reading this.
     A quick look at the blueprint for the Nanoelectrical Microprocessor reveal that I need three advanced moon materials to make these.  Now, for every race, they have the same basic items that are needed for their tech II components.  You have one or two neutral materials and then the race specific material added to them.  For Amarr components, they all have Tungsten Carbide in them.  If these were Minmatar's version, the Nanomechanical Microprocessor, they would have Fernite Cabide included instead.  The other two materials are Nanotransistors and Phenolic Composites.
The unresearched recipe to make one of these microprocessors is 13 Tungsten Carbide, 1 Phenolic composite and 6 Nanotransistors.  The Tungsten Carbide I have but for argument's sake, I can get the materials for about 111 a piece, for a total of  1,443 per microprocessor produced.  The phenolic is easy to figure out selling for 750 a piece.  The nanotransistors will put me back 7,300 each unit for a total of 43,800. That brings the total cost for each microprocessor to 45,993.  They are currently selling for around 39,000 a unit in Jita, so it's definitely better to buy them if you cannot make any of the moon materials.  Researching the ME on the blueprint well help drive down costs too, but in the end you have to be smart about what it costs versus making to materials.

     If I am to total the cost of the above components instead of making them, I would be paying about 98 million if I source them from accessible highsec markets.  If you add in the 10 million for the BP, I have a decent profit from my CEO of 17 million.  He can afford it.......

Ka-ching!

   As a miner, your main goal is to gather resources for either your own production or somebody else's. The market can be a fickle friend sometimes. Over the past 6 months, I have spent numerous hours gathering minerals to use towards projects.  I have built several battleships, capital ship components, lots of ammo, and other components for my consumption.   Today was a dream come true for a miner with nothing to build.  A corpmate bought a capital ship component from me on the market the other day.  I saw him online and asked what he was building.  He said it was the last component he needed to build a Rorqual.  He then started on about needing lots of minerals to do his builds and that he spends most of his time travelling around Providence to gather them.  I had mentioned the piles that I was currently sitting and he showed a lot of interest.  I took an inventory of what I had: 16,000 Megacyte, 19,000 Zydrine, 5,000,000 Tritanium, 1.1 million in isogen, etc.  He offered me 225 million for everything.  I did a quick calcualtion based on how much they would sell for in Providence and he was paying about a 15% premium over what they would've been on the open market. BOOM! Just like that I'm sold out of my minerals. and I had cleared the market in the 5 minutes it took to gather the stragglers and make the contract.
     That is a good day for someone like me.  I also have more than enough to finish the two other builds I was working on.  My Impel needs another 400 or so Tech II components to be made.  I also need a dozen or so high end PI items to be made/bought so I can finish building another large Amarr tower for a corpmate.  That will also fetch about 300 million for myself.  Since I'm flush with newfound riches, I can get a few skillbooks I have put off for greener pastures and I can resume rock crushing for the next big score. Arkonor and Mercoxit are still available for my strip turrets so I can get back on the horse and inventory more minerals in style....

The scattered thoughts of my scattered brain

     If you haven't guessed yet, I'm strictly an indy guy in the game of Eve.  I have no epic shootouts to brag about, no podding of hostiles in our sovereign space, and no questions or reccomendations on the latest Rifter fits floating around cyberspace.  I merely have three things to consider right now: 1) How to best utilize my time playing the game; 2) What is the next skill to help me research, refine or build: and 3) what to build, mine, or research next? Here is where my lack of specialization in my skill building has killed my character. I start down a path of skillbuilding so I can start an activity, but I do not develop enough of said skill to get that damn certificate that seems to make the goal not only attainable, but also more effective.
     I have gotten limited access to alliance labs now, and I can do the three basic tasks(ME, PE, and Copying) right now.  The one drawback is now I have to transport my invention paraphenalia back to highsec where I can continue that work.  I have decided to start buying up Bpos of all of the little things that can be invented to a Tech II level and research the hell out of them until I figure out the invention part in the Providence area.  Since I'm remoting the other three activities from the corp office and not at the lab, I could be doing something else wrong that I just haven't figured out yet.  Until then,  I'll be content with my current activities.
     With all of my previous invention tasks, I currently have enough Tech II Bps to keep me busy for a while.  I can clear out the 50 or so that I'm sitting on and I'll still have plenty of time to stock up on the datacores and copies for the next push to invent.  And right now, I'll finance the tech II components by mining Mercoxit in our grav sites and selling Enriched Clear Icicle and Glare Crust to my corpmates.  BTW, Morphite has been selling for higher and higher amounts lately.  It seems that it has stayed above 5400 per unit, almost twice what Megacyte sells for.  It also appears that the demand for it has only increased over the previous few months.  The only thing that is keeping the median price from spiking would be the "savvy" buy orders set up for anybody who doesn't truly understand what they are selling and just hits the sell button too quickly. I have been selling this mineral way too cheaply in Providence for around 3600 a unit.  In Amarr, the 2500 units I sold went for at least 5420 a unit. A healthy sale price of almost 5850 could be fetched if I wasn't so damn impatient with wanting the isk right away.  It looks like my new drug of choice will be Mercoxit.  Not a lot of people where I am at have worked up to it yet and I can easily mine 1500-2500 Mercoxit a week without very much effort or competition.  With every 250 units of ore making me 501 units of Morphite, 27 million isk on the low side is what I can pocket for about 3.5 hours of non combat, non creation activities.  Not bad if you are looking for a different mining angle that not a lot of others work up to.

Rookie ships

   During my time in Providence,  I've noticed that we get wardecced a lot by turds in highsec corporations who prey on the highsec members of our alliance.  They are not used to being shot at since they reside in highsec and do not follow ANY protocols for wartime operations.  In Sovereign space, they usuallly do not come into our area and make trouble. They would be bubbled, outgunned and usually podded before they can escape.  I happen to follow what a lot of people do; I use an alt in highsec to ship, buy, and generally use to do things in highsec.  My character that is not alliance affiliated happens to be Caldari.  I podded over to the next station and low and behold, a redsigned Ibis was waiting for me from the insurance company(wish that was true in real life).  I happen to think that the Ibis is very cool looking now. It has a symmetry that was not found in the earlier design I can appreciate more. Still can't load it out with anything cool, but that's why it's a rookie ship.
     From what I saw, the Amarr ship still looks like a piece of crap. As far as the other two ships go, I have not looked at them yet. I won't even be able to look or make a comparison with the Minmatar ship because; one, I don't have a Minmatar character; and two, my main character still believes in slavery and wouldn't think of lowering himself by flying a Minmatar rustbucket anyways :)
     I am hoping that with an increased emphasis on ships and equipment, the creators have the wisdom to freshen up the rest of the frigate ranks and even consider my wild idea of a tech III frigate for each playable race.  I think the modular idea in the strategic cruisers is a great idea and you could even tie the role of the frigate and it's bonuses to the modules added in its build.  Hell, when are we going to see the Jovians start an occasional incursion to freshen up their genetic lines?  Why can't they capture and brainwash a few unwilling residents?  But I digress.  I must of been daydreaming again.....

Today's Observation

     I realized something the other day when I logged on at night(my night, not according to the Eve clock) that something people never discuss, but is front and center in everyone's face.  The universe that is created in the game Eve online is a very diverse environment.  You could get immersed into a different way of playing the game each week for months and not get bored of the game.  I have seen some players come and others go. It seems to me that the long term players find enough satisfaction to keep going through the boring periods.The players that stick around have one of two things going for them. They either find a niche they cannot get bored from, or the player simply has enough diversity in his game that one does not get lulled into a repetitive, boring environment.  
     I myself fall into the latter.  I have about a year and 5 months worth of game time invested in Eve Online now. Most of my skills have some development and I'm starting to open up the more advanced skilbooks that lead to larger ships, more specialization, and greater enrichment. My skill diversity allows me to change focus if I get bored with what I am doing in the game. I am to a point that I can sustain a certain amount of isk coming in and I can accumulate enough resources to be self sufficient.  If I cannot make it,  I  will make something else that is substantial that I can sell for those items. I used to think that the be all end all was that I could always make whatever I needed; whether it's a ship, module, or other item. When now, I realize that in order to be successful, a niche has to be found.  I'm ok with that. I used to think that I had to be the best at what I do. Well, if that was the case, I would have had to be one of the first players of Eve and be sitting on 5-10 times the amount of skillpoints that I currently have.  The niche is there for everyone.  You must find one if you are to thrive in Eve.  My current niche is very comfortable for the time being. If I need more from the enviroment, I will go seek it like I did a year and 5 months ago....

Voting

     Hopefully, you all are going to vote during the CSM election. I personally don't
 know any of the candidates myself. That is also my responsibility as a voter. I need to do the research to be an informed voter.

     On another note, the established mining in our alliance continues to give us more of the good ores that all miners have dreams about.  Anybody want some Megacyte?

Welcome to Providence

     One thing for sure, my new home on this expansive game, has been by far the most interesting of them all. During the three months I have operated in the Providence region, most of the previous experiences that I have accumulated have helped me in some way or another. Tech II rules in this region, as it probably does in most other lowsec/nullsec areas.  The other day, I called on my honed probe skills to help find anoms in my home system. Those skills allowed me to survive in a lonely wormhole system for 5 months this past year.  BTW, if you want cool neighbors, I can give you a good address to look up....
     As far as backgrounds go, I've had my fair share of non-combat losses, poddings, stupid moves and good luck.  I have benefited from good advice from both indy characters and pirates alike. I was naive like everyone is when they first join up. You find a couple of neat things to do, like mine Veldspar and you think you're now a player; maybe even take a couple of low level Sansha rats out for about 6,000 isk and you think you can fight now.  Then you decide to travel to one of the Eve bazaars, like Amarr, Jita, Rens and see all of the cons, fighting, and trinkets to buy in the Eve universe. And then you realize you may be playing a game online with thousands of people all over the world but you could easily be at a real life marketplace somewhere in the world.
     Eve has a tendency to mimic life in so many ways.  People try to better their lots through many different avenues. One of the intriguing things that drew me in to Eve during my trial period was this diversity that I didn't know the details about yet, but knew that it existed for me to explore.  In a corp that I had founded, I butted heads with a guy that was cold and calculated when it came to trying to make isk in the game.  I was always telling him that there was a lot of value to learning in the game and that was just as important to me as the isk it made me.  Mining and the industrial side of the game appealed to me instantly.  Going out and putting in the work to make something that someone else wanted to buy made me feel like I was accomplishing something without harming others.  Unfortunately, the predators in the game of Eve have differing values.....

     Now in the Providence region, I have waded into full blown sovereignty, its politics and ideals, as well as the competition to make something of yourself.  With a harder area to operate in, the higher rewards come with higher risks, but if you can't handle it, don't undock............