Providence and me

How have I been faring the past week or so, ever since joining a corporation in the hell that is NullSec?

Well, it has been a learning experience that is for sure. But I’m getting there. Providence is different, not what I expected. Which is pretty dumb, since I have zero experience with NullSec, so there’s that …

Providence is like, … the wild west? No wait, it definately is not the wild west. It has rules and people there, that agree to do things a certain way. Actually, it’s pretty damn civil and organised.

ACTUALLY, it’s a freakin’ beacon of light and decency. There, I’ve said it. It’s out. Bam, just like that.

But what does that mean for the rest of New Eden? Well, the opposite ofcourse. Lawless profiteers, scumbags, evil no-good vultures … (attention: dramatic scene here!).

Because everyone else seems to think Providence is some sort of Irac or Afghanistan or Serbia, where you can just blow shit up because of *reasons*. It’s true. If you want PvP every single evening. Then join a corporation or alliance in Providence. Because every single night there are roaming groups of thugs looking for prey.

Again, maybe it’s like that everywhere in NullSec, I have no clue.

Am I bothered by this? Not really, it sure is a learning experience like I said. I paniced. I wasn’t paying attention to local. And when I saw a red pop up in my combat anomaly, I just warped to the first thing I could click on with my mouse. That happened to be a stargate, where two other red were waiting, with an interdictor. Yeah, wham bam thank you mam …

My main issue right now is finding a decent (fun) ISK income. My game time is pretty limited to the evenings, and I loath engaging in boring gameplay that is deemed necessary.

I tried planetary interaction (3 planets atm), and I get why it is an easy passive income, but it is by far the most boring thing I ever experienced in EVE. Yes, even minimal time to P.I. could reap some easy ISK, but sorry, nope, my time is precious and I will not spend it this way. I want fun stuff dammit.

Ratting seems decent. Just have to pay attention to where I choose to rat, and the sudden appearance of reds in local. I’m doing some trial and error, learning to keep my traversal as high as possible and stuff.

Exploration is what I’m currently doing, and it is pretty neat. Sometimes you get lucky with the loot.

What about the corporation? (Orde van Oranje Nassau)

Nice people, same language. Helpfull, guides, tutorials, you name it.

But we are in Providence. And here is the thing about Providence. It has structure, organization, fleets, defences, … but it’s not a huge bloc. It’s made up of all these different corporations, that all own a little bit here and there in the region.

It is a strenght, and a weakness.

Then there is the newbie factor. When fleets go up, calling for battlecruisers, battleships, you name it, the big guns, it’s hard for a ‘newbie’ to get into it. Especially when ISK is a factor. And skill learning. Sure there is the ‘tackle’ ship, or the ‘logi’ ship. But lets be honest, how much use is a newbro in a role that’s either very specialized, or just a ship for the meat grinder?

I’ve been stocking up some pre-fitted ship on our staging point. Some cruisers and tackle frigates. Hopefully next time there is a CTA or a fun fleet, and I happen to be online (*sigh*job), maybe I can participate.

Today was an unexpected fun day. Met some other player while exploring data and relic sites, and we talked a decent hour about newbieness, ships, ISK making and what not.

Providence … beacon of light and decency 🙂

Time to get out of my comfort zone and HTFU

So there I was, dwelling in Null Sec Impasse, Catch, … all these lovely places where solo EVE’ing is just meh.

I had a few exciting moments, one in particular where I jumped in a new system, and was greeted with an Interdictor and some other dudes. But I kept my cool, and with some luck I made it through the bubble, and warped away.

Big link

Yep, that gets your heart pumping. But for the most part, I am getting bored. Fast. There is just so little do do as a solo player with low skill training and low ISK income that is viable. Maybe there is, and other know how, but that’s not really helpful to me anyway.

So I decided to join a corporation. Yep, you read that correct. And after a bit of searching, I landed at the doorstep of the Orde van Oranje Nassau. A Dutch speaking corporation that lives in Null, more so, they live in Providence. They are part of the Apocalypse Now Alliance. Obviously I did some homework, read all about these NRDS rules, the last war (invasion) of Pandemic Legion in to Providence.

Needless to say, a very content rich location in New Eden that’s for sure.

So I’m currently reading up on corps rules, alliance rules, fleet doctrines, Teamspeak this, Mumble that, Discord here, chat windows everywhere, … and so much more. I have access to Jump Gates in Providence now, which makes it so much easier (seriously, wth).

I am a total newbie, and the game just went to an entire new level. Interesting times for sure …

Nullsec. Epic adventures await. Or not?

Expecting a swift death by noobieness, a guaranteed poorly fitted Nemesis ventured out in Null Sec space. Where to go? Which direction from Gallente space should he choose?

Being a lazy Gallente pilot, he chose the most convenient. Straight down. In to Providence, onto Catch, then Immensea and to finally land in Impass.

He had heared of this ‘war’ between Test Alliance anf Fraternity on a little something called Reddit. True or not, it seemed like explosions would be around every corner.

Well, not really …

My first feet in Null Sec were kinda exciting to be honest. Gate campers, mobile warp disruptors on lots of gates. Attention was needed to travel Null Sec. Yep , I guess that is one way to make Null Sec more exciting?

Mobile small warp disruptor bubbles everywhere.

And then I ventured further and further in to peoples backyards, and the bubbles were no more. Mostly lonely space. Beautiful space, but lonely.

link

On occasion you startle people, for the lack of a better word. Your sudden appearance into a system makes you a target. They follow you from gate to gate. Obviously traveling in a Covops ship puts you in an advantage.

Here is my very noobish take on Null Sec. It is a very personal opinion, biased, based on zero factual things (is that even a word? Factual?).

Why on earth is there a local in Null Sec? Wouldn’t it be better if the anonymity (like wormhole space) was there? The moment you load in to a system, bam, your presence it announced to all. 10km away, 40AU away, it doesn’t matter, everyone and their dog knows you are there.

I thought there would be more targets of opportunity in Null, but in reality, that is not the case. Mainly because you are pissing in someone elses backyard with a big spotlight on your ass.

So now I’m heading deeper and deeper into Null, with nothing but torpedoes in my loading bay. Honestly, I didn’t expect to make it this far. If that was the case, I would have brought a mobile depot, a core scanner and some probes. Then at least I could scan down WHs.

What to do next? No idea. Guess it’s onwards until I meet my demise …

On a side note, I did cancel the Omega subscription on my alt account. There really is no need to have a scanning alt. Sure it could have an advantage in certain situations, but for me, no … not necessary at all. I thought I’d just keep skill queueing the character, but it just seems waisted money to me.

Abyssal Calm Filaments. What the serious fuck

So, I’m liking the Caracal cruiser. A lot. Did I mention I also like missiles?

I look up the guides on the interwebs. The fittings. The what nots … It’s just a Calm Filament right? I mean surely it’s not that hard right? So a Firestorm Filament it is …

Into the great unknown!

Well, first fuck-up is 100% on me. In my enthousiasm to get in there, I totally forgot to stock up on missiles. I was using the Caracal as a RLM boat, and things were going ok(ish).

First room, it’s ok. New playground, need to get my bearings. Oh look, just a tiny battleship to kill. Things are not going super fast or awesome ovepowering, but we get it done …

First room

Then I make it to the second room, and again, a Battleship and some smaller stuff. No biggie. Tank was holding, capacitor was doing fine.

Second room

Suddenly, my ship stops firing. “WTH, keep firing assholes!” I yell annoyed towards my screen. “At this rate I am not going to make it…” Then I notice … No more missiles are being reloaded … oepsie …

Oepsie numero uno

Yeah, ok. Pretty dumb. I wasted a lot of time not knowing do I loot everything, is it worth it? Yada yada. But if I got to the third room, I’m pretty sure I could have finished it.

No problemo. Shit happens. Like McBain says, up and atom. So we try a different Calm Filament. Maybe an exotic one this time?

Time to head in again.

I got myself a new Caracal, because I love missiles. But this time I switched to HAM. Main reason the reload on RLM is a royal PITA. So we warp to the first room, and …

What kind of demon is this?

Just when I’m about to start talking smack ala “Say hello to my little HAM” … this Striking Leshak rips my ass in half. Like … he wasn’t even sweating.

I never got close to him. Downside of HAM systems I guess? He just zapped me into never-never-land.

Oepsie numero dos

So that’s Abyssal shit 2 VS 0 Hanz Riemannder. Yeah not what I expected honestly.

Exploding in space: Part One

Slow evening yesterday, so I decided to play around with different fittings and ships. There’s so many cool looking ships in EVE, and I am one of those suckers who actually lets the looks of a ship dictate if I like it or not.

I wanted to try a missile boat, main reason that I have never tried one before. I usually stick with my Gallente or Minmatar stuff. Time is the most important thing in EVE since training skills to level five take a long time.

So I decided to fit a Bellicose. Granted it is not the first ship that comes to mind when you think of slick-heavy-dooms-day-machine. Actually it looks like a deployed sniper rifle …

And then I took it out for a spin, a little level 2 mission I got from an agent in some station. Everything goes well, I get the mission done fast and furious. DPS I’m still not convinced, but I shrug it off because of my lackluster missile skills. Luckily the Bellicose has a decent drone bay, my drone skills are in a good state (Yay Gallente !), so they did most of the work for me.

Time to head out a second time, and this time it seemed the server gods threw me a curveball, because the mission actually had a serious punch. And I did not see it coming. And yes, I totally misfitted the Bellicose.

– Recommended generic setup: Fast DPS for blitz, Strong Tank for thorough

– The damage is pretty massive if the trigger is killed first and group 2 spawns, so be prepared to warp out

Damsel in distress

Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable. Not CAP stable.

Yep, learned an important lesson right there. Sacrifice a little DPS to gain that oh so important CAP stable fit. When I triggered the mission objective a huge group of pirate frigates spawned in the mission pocked, and they ripped my Bellicose a new b***hole in space. The shield booster I had equipped drained my capacitor way to fast. My DPS application wasn’t up to par, and before I knew it, kaboem. I could have warped out, but where’s the fun in that?

So I jumped in my trusty old Vexor, and man what a difference. CAP stable with an armor repair module combined with a reactive armor hardener. Let the drones do the talking

Main reason I’m trying out this mission stuff right now is the Abyssal instance content I want to try out. I was hesitant to use the Vexor because it is so slow and sluggish, but after what happened here, it taught me a nice lesson. Slow and sluggish, but sturdy and tanky. Yeah, I’ll take that for now thank you.

I am however going to give the Bellicose a second chance so it can prove me wrong.

Low Sec love affair

If there is one thing to say about Low Sec systems in New Eden, it would be the very fact that it’s kinda in a weird place. That is, if you are a risk averse, lazy solo player like myself.

From a lore point of view, it’s a link or bridge to Null Sec. Space is dangerous, and the four factions can’t police force every system in the galaxy.

Then there is the game design point of view, where it’s the same idea. A stepping stone from High Sec, less secure, but still rules and things you need to know (gate guns, station guns, security loss, crimewatch, …).

But what reason is there to actually go to Low Sec? What advantage does it give? For the solo player?

I’ve been roaming around Low Sec for quite a few days now, and I’m always encountering the same people. It’s weird.

Anyway, I’m realizing that the trap that got me to cancel my subscription last time has sprung again. I need to really change my way of thinking how I want to play this game. And that leaves me with some sort of gameplan. Some goals to reach, stuff I want to have done, or tried.

So here goes:

• Join Bomber Bar at least once. I view these guys on Twitch on occasion. Now, I’m pretty sure viewing the highlights is way more exciting than actually participating in these sometimes 6 hour long ordeals. But then again, the end result is usually big explosions, and I’d like to experience that big fleet/swarm feeling.
• Wormholes
  • Either explore WH’s on my own. Just head in there, with the explicit notion of loosing my ship. Think Voyager or Lost In Space, you’re out there and make due with the odds and lemons New Eden throws at you.
  • Or I could join a Wormhole Corporation. Now, this is more difficult to achieve, but there is EVE UNI Wormhole Campus. Some sort of newbie aid to educate wormhole life.
  • Jump from WH to WH to WH and come out on the other side of the galaxy. Because reasons …
• Null Sec
  • I’d like to take my Stealth Bomber and just roam NS. And experience a bubble gate camp. Then either die in a flaming ball of fire, or escape it.
  • Roam different systems from different coalitions/alliances. See the differences.
  • Shoot easy targets in NS. Maybe there is more miners in NS?
• Ship training
  • Train my character into Strategic Cruisers. I’ve been toying with the ingame fitting tool, and boy oh boy, is that HAM / RLM Loki eyeballing me or what?
  • Get a couple more mastery levels in Strategic Bombers.
• PVE
  • Experience at least once all the different calm Abyssal instances.
  • Upgrade my Vexor to shinier status.
  • Try different ships (Cruisers) in Abyssal instances. I’ve gotten myself into Gallente and Minmatar ships over the years.
• Exploration
  • Decide whether or not I still need a scanning alt
  • Make at least 100M ISK from exploration. (Pretty useless I know, but I’d like to know how long it would take, how profitable exploration really is).

There is probably more I’m going to add in the next couple of days, but I believe this is a good list to start with.

Low Sec. Anyone home?

I’ve been reading up on things like security status, Crimewatch, CONCORD. All the things you need to know if you want to fight dirty and generally speaking be a douchebag.

And the more I read about it, the more it seems that everything you do in High Sec (and even Low Sec) will make your life traveling there miserable. My security status is currently sitting at a comfortable -0.9. Nothing to be worried about, but a couple of more unprovoked attacks on capsuleers and that -2.0 will be there before I know it.

Repairing your security status … yuck … don’t get me started. Either an awful grind with security missions, or grinding asteroid NPC’s, or buying tags from the marketplace (that require ISK I don’t have to spare).

The Way of the Ninja has been put on hold for a while. It’s tedious and so much work for very little payoff. I believe after 16 years of EVEdom, most players kinda know what you’re up to when you suddenly appear in their mission complex.

LOW SEC

That brings us to Low Sec. I bought myself a nice cozy Nemesis. I had the skill requirement, and had never flown one of these in EVE. So I figured why not. Equipped it with some U-boat stuff, and went off to the wild wild Low Sec.

Now, I prepared myself for this exploration trip to Low Sec. I learned about the MWD trick, practiced it (even though it’s not really necessary in LS I believe?). I didn’t warp to 0, used D-scan a lot.

And nothing …

Low-Sec life as advertised

Granted, I probably looked at the wrong places. The best spots are I’m guessing close by or in faction warfare systems. I have no idea how that stuff works, only that I’m not that keen on it.

And I’m not bitching that there are no easy targets in Low-Sec. No juicy mining barges or whatever. I know why they aren’t there (OP is not me btw). Because of people like me, preying on that easy kill. Where all the odds are in my favor. Risk-averse players.

Like Victor Alexander says:

… stop flying ridiculously overpowered ships that have a really high chance of winning solo engagements. Because everyone KNOWS it’s OP so they will either avoid you or blob you.

Citation

That’s cool, and these people are certainly out there in Low-Sec. You start to recognize the names in local, the ships they fly (Daredevil, Imperial Navy Slicer, Firetail).

I did almost get me one little kill, on a Venture. Scanned him down near an asteroid belt. He was doing some sort of escort mission I’m guessing, because of the NPC mining ships? I landed at the worst possible location, had to slow boat to him while cloaked.

Finally got into range of my warp disruptor, and when I finally got to U-boat some torpedoes into space, he warped off into the unknown… Right, I forgot, Ventures have a +2 for warp core strenght.

Then the taunting began (not from my end). Come here, fight one on one. Get a decent ship, yada yada … There were more people in the system (what should have been a clue for me, because most Low-Sec systems I visited yesterday were void of any life). Turns out they were all from the same corp, and that Venture was probably an alt character.

So that got me thinking, am I risk averse? A noob? A wannabee?

Nope .. just lazy …

I mean look at that link. This is some serious business. The ship meta is just … it’s what makes EVE both amazing and exhausting. I don’t have the time, the energy, the willpower to get to that level of expertise. Sure I could just fly and have fun, loose a shitload of ships and ISK in the process, and then either grind ISK, or buy plex, or get a ‘station-trading-alt’ or whatever it is what people call it, to fund this circle of fun. And then yeah, maybe I will learn by trial and error.

But not in this lifetime. Nope, sorry. Please, call me risk averse all day long if that makes you feel happy. Guess I will keep on U-boating torpedoes on unsuspecting Ventures and other ships that happen to be near, because it is so much easier.

Now if only they (CCP) would be nice enough to update or change the way cloaking works, because half the time I’m flying and warping from place to place without even noticing my lack of cloak. Yeah I’m zoom out a lot most of the time, and the little green flashy thingy circle on you co-ops cloaking device is the only thing indicating the fact that you are cloaked.

I did scare a Battleship when I warped at 10km off a stargate. Uncloaked, without knowing it. The pilot was kind enough to PM, asking why I wasn’t cloaked. Yeah ok … euhm … lets pretend that never happened ok?

One shot away from paradise (aka I got CONCORDEDED)

So … suicide ganking. There is theory, and then there is practice.

Or in other words, how CONCORD got to me in less than 10 seconds. No clue what the f**k happened.

All was looking good.

Things were looking good the first 2 seconds!!

– 0.5 system
– Apparent AFK miner
– Not to heavy tanked Retriever
– Optimal range

Let loose the dogs of war!

Hanz, in a Catalyst, ready to blow shit up.

Yeah, that did not work out as planned.
So the idea was solid. I thought I had enough total damage to get him, but for some reason unknown, the good people from NPC CONCORD-land arrived on scene in about 10 seconds? I didn’t time it (doh), but it sure as hell wasn’t 21 (19) seconds I was promised.

So what went wrong? Did CONCORD spawn closeby already? Was there other pirate-peoples in the system doing the exact same? Who knows these things?

Well shit, I guess I should have done my homework. A glance over at Zkillboard tell us that in the Augnais system quite a few ganks happen now and then, and that a cheap T1 fitted Catalyst usually isn’t up to the task of molesting a Retriever on its own. Okay, that mistake is on me.

For instance, a fellow named Calrizzan (Lando is that you?) ganked a Retriever on his own successfully, but he was using a T2 fitted Catalyst. Macha Mong also did a solo Retriever kill, and bam, she’s using a T2 fitted Catalyst.

Yep, say no more, I underestimated the art of the gank. Or to be honest, I was trying to gimp my way in the Catalyst love-boat business. So T2 fits, here we come. To be continued …

Mining barges. Throw rocks at them

I was wondering how much DPS you’d need to lay down pirate law regular good old fun in space.

Oh hey, look –> EVE University. No idea if this is correct, ever was correct in the first place. Maybe they are just trolling would-be-gankers that are lazy like myself :-).

Anyway, the article states:

Response time from CONCORD

Security Rating – Base Response Time
0.5 – 19 seconds
0.6 – 14 seconds
0.7 – 10 seconds
0.8 – 7 seconds
0.9 & 1.0 – 6 seconds

So 21 seconds in 0.5 systems (without pre-spawning CONCORD somewhere else). That’s doable.

Problem is, why are mining barges armored like a freakin’ beast?

The average mining barge these days.

Also, and I have no idea how long this has been around, but apparently there are mining frigates that can equip a cloaking device? Boy, it sure seems I’m quite the noob when it comes to ingame knowledge.

Yesterday, I tried a little of this and a little of that. Remember I said I wasn’t going to make the same mistake last time I quit EVE. That I’d try a little of everything EVE has to offer.

Well, I tried PvE agent security missions. Got myself a nice cozy Vexor, equipped it with basic bling bling, and went out. Doing level 2 missions is easy, but they are needed to get to level 3. Jesus fooking A Christ, is that stuff boring. And I mean boring boring boring. An hour, maybe hour and a half. That’s when I called it quits. Never again. Did some career agent missions, same stuff, will never touch it unless absolutely necessary.

There’s exploration, it’s ok. But not for long. Maybe diving into low-sec or WHs will make it more exciting, but meh.

Mining, yeah there’s that. But it will be a cold day in hell when I jump into a mining barge and point lasers at rocks.

Low-sec PvP, still either Call of DutyEVE, or jump from gate to gate, to gate to celestial, to gate and back and dock and warp and hope you get the drop, in your preferred range setup, get point, yadayada. Sure exciting and cool. But not really. Except if you’re Jebi and stream on Twitch, yeah than you’re cool. Me, not so much.

But hey, we were talking about mining barges.

I did some scientific research (read: I opened Zkillboard) and compared kill reports of various mining ship, to get an idea of the average damage that needed to be done to make things go BOEM.

The numbers are not final nor tested. Just a very very global average …

The Scientific Research Project Done During Lunchbreak:

The Venture
Untanked: +/- 700 total damage needed
Tanked: +/- 2500 to 5000 TDN

The Mackinam
Untanked: +/- 9000 TDN
Tanked: +/- 10.000 TDN

The Covetor
Untanked: +/- 3600 TDN
Tanked: +/- 6000 to 8000 TDN

The Retriever
Untanked: +/- 6500 TDN
Tanked: 7500 to 9000 TDN

The Procurer
Untanked: 15.000 TDN
Tanked: +20.000 TDN

The Hulk
Untanked: +/- 6600 TDN
Tanked: +/- 9000 TDN

The Skiff
Untanked: +/- 18.000 TDN
Tanked: +/- 26k to 30.000 TDN

MTUs are still tanks in space

And I’m no fan of these evil objects in space. So the less there are floating in orbit in every system, the better if you ask me.

Pew pew, for hours on end

Seeing how no one is even bothered when their MTU is going kaputt (is ISK so easy to come by these days?) I might as well switch to a pure DPS Catalyst ship and get the job done.

Well, ok … maybe sometimes people get bothered …

Also, I learned that ganking pewpew’ing with a Catalyst can be done quite cheap, so I’m going to try that. What no-good wannabee pirate would I be if a simple something like “security rating” had any meaning to me. Well, besides the obvious problem with faction police, and navigating high sec space with bouncing gates.