Is what I have chosen to do. It’s basically a cat and mouse game. You go into a plex, and wait out a timer. If it runs out, you get LP. And if someone else shows up and is flashing orange/red, you warp of. Now I’m sure it could be way more interesting if there is actual combat involved, but alas this is EVE Online, and it’s not exactly a fair and decent game.
Allow me to explain, but first … this:
Never thought I would get to meet a Wingspan employee
As usual in this household, a relaxing and uninterrupted gaming session is unheared of, so for reasons that will be kept a secret, I had to go AFK. Seeing how I was into faction warfare zones I figured being in a safe would be all right. Well, I guess not.
That is hilarious. Also notice how he ganked me in a Nereus hauler? Genius …
Anyway, back to the war. The Gallente (green) are clearly the underdog here, because they are loosing the war. Or not. I have no clue. If you check the warmap there is more blue than green.
This little fukker kept respawning and respawning.
So I did manage to get into a social groove I guess. Installed teamspeak and sat in the one of the fleet rooms. Missed out on a response fleet because there was an issue with the authentication and I kept getting errors. When I did manage to get it working the fleet was done. So I roamed around a bit, following the guys in TS and understood little. I did learn about the battlefields, where the big LP gains are, etc.
But I do wonder what the new player retention is on this. People often point out FW as a good starting point for new players to get into PVP. I challenge that. No way. FW is either where you come across some of the best PVP players out there, players with amazing knowledge about the rock, paper, scissors that is EVE ships. Players that also bling out the living daylight out of their ships. Yes I’m talking to you dude that called me out because I wouldn’t engage in my Rifter while you were flying a Nergal. And then there are the multiboxers that roam around with a fleet of destroyers.
I made the decision to join Faction Warfare. Spur of the moment thing. I knew what I was getting into. And no, not talking about the actual pewpew or exploding ship stuff. None of that actually. There has been literally no pewpew or explosions so far.
Reasons for that? … Well … I did expect actually. You see, in the past I may have referred EVE PVP to Call of Duty. There is a twist ofcourse, in that there is a lot more to it. PVP in EVE is a lot like rock, paper, scissors. And a fight is often decided beforehand, depending on the fits, starting point, skills combined with server ticks.
But imagine for a moment that in order to play Call of Duty, you had to first:
Get you hands on ingame currency to buy weapons/gear
Craft or buy your weapons every single time you respawn
Get all the logistics done to deploy your weapons near/towards the frontlines of battle after every respawn
Yep something like that. The vast majority of people would stop playing in a heartbeat.
So I joined a Gallente FW corporation. The Frog Pond. It was recommended ingame to me. After some checking they are the newbie group of a pretty known group of Gallente FW players. So after applying I had to:
Register to discord #1 frog Pond
Register to the Frog Pond AUTH service
Give full ESI access
Link discord to Frog Pond AUTH service
Register and give ESI access to the main corp AUTh thing to get acccess to Teamspeak
Also link to discord
Register to Galmil & Galmil HQ AUTH for ESI and link discord
And some other stuff I’m probably forgetting
So now there is a **ton of new shit in my discord, I’ve been granted access to a lot of reading guides here and there. Do note, this was 2 hours into my precious evening gametime already.
Now, please, I mean no disrespect to anyone. Obviously the people running this are committed. They are doing this for free(?) in their spare time. I get the ESI stuff and the need to make sure there are no rotten apples to ruin everyones fun. But goddamn … you know?
Doing my part in the defence of the Federation
So where is this going to take me? No idea. Hopefully the LP I can make will provide a decent income to fund the inevitable losses. In the coming weeks hopefully I’ll have more time in the evenings to join some fleets, see how that works.
EVE is a game that gives back what you put into it, but if you are lacking time in the first place, then … yeah, you can be left wondering.
Join a corporation that is into faction warfare (Gallente militia). I came across these guys. They seem like a nice fit.
Also join a nullsec bloc corporation and live life inside a blue(ish) donut. I keep seeing these YT roam videos with small zergs, seems like fun
Experience a NPSI fun fleet. Now I just have to find one that is not planned in weird timeslot. I mean 15:00 in the afternoon? Who has time to sit behind their PC during an afternoon uninterrupted?
Get into higher tiers of Abyssal deadspace
Get into higher escalation tiers of DED missions
Do some C1 or C2 wormhole ratting
The solo wannabee pirate life is going to get shelved. It is way to time-consuming, and not to mention somewhat boring. Yesterday I decided to venture out into lowsec and find me an easy target to gank. System after system, either empty voids or people in Lokis gatecamping. The occasional frigate that is doing faction warfare, lots of pods zooming by.
And then, there he was. A lonely venture out in the wild. Oh boy, right when I was about to call it quits. The lord rewards a patient man doesn’t he?
Nope he doesn’t. I forgot … ventures are made with default +2 warp stabs, and that means you need to pay attention during fitting. Yeah, he was down to armor when he warped of. So that was an hour well spent …
I really don’t get the people that complain about highsec being unsafe and how the ganking is out of control. I mean, I had to look for over an hour to even find a target to gank. No, the people that complain about this are looking at this from the wrong angle.
What is broken and out of control is alts. People playing with 2-3-6-10 accounts at the same time. Yeah, you come across these people a lot during your time in EVE Online. Most aren’t even shy about it and just add a 001, 002, 003 … at the end of their character name. Look at the majority of EVE streamers and YT creators. All play with a minimum of 3 alts.
That what I should have done. Scout with an alt in a cloaked ship, slowboat next to it, and warp in my main in a T3 cruiser with so much alpha damage it would have instagibbed the poor venture.
Like the guy in a Loki sitting at the Resbroko gate from highsec to lowsec. All day long. Blapping frigates, and haulers, and capsules. Look at it. Dear lord. All is fair in love and war and EVE Online I guess? Now you could say it’s not much different than a cloaked ship jumping a Venture in an astroid belt … Or could you?
Recently CCP decided to send out an email with your year in review statistics. They are puzzling to be honest. I have not logged that many hours in total since returning, but still I’m in the top 40% of players? That is weird.
Again, not sure what the next stop is. Faction warfare seems nice, but it’s going to be a PITA funding it, not to mention refitting and all that.
Shut up Mick, because it really is not. Everything takes so damn long in EVE, which is a good thing. It’s not instant gratification. But unless you have been playing for years on end and have a fortune sitting on the side, something easy as faction warfare is a time sink just to be able to fund it. Because you are bound to loose a f*ckton of ships in the process.
Wormhole space? I’m the king of wormhole scanning. I am. For some reason every anomaly I scan down is a wormhole. Give me combat anomalies please thank you. So maybe join a wormhole corporation? Seems interesting. Kingdom of Bretonia corporation peaked my interest. They had a reddit thread going not to long ago about a big battle in their wormhole. Sounds cool, but I have no idea how you could survive all that as a newbie. Also replacing ships, restocking … challenging it seems. But solo wormhole living, lots of cool YT videos about that as well.
There is also Noir, a mercenary corporation that does all kinds of things. There are based in Thera, which I never heared about. That actually makes wormhole life more interesting. A central wormhole hub that has threads all over known space. How amazing. See, so many things you are unaware of as a ‘new’ player.
After meddling around aimlessly doing PvE in high sec I turned to the dark side once more. I’ve shot Abyssal thingies, security mission thingies, and arc mission thingies. Went over to combat anomalies and shot at thingies some more. Got some loot and lost some loot. But it’s not something that will keep me entertained in the long run.
So I read up on some of my older blog entries, and it’s true what they say about EVE Online. It is a difficult game, a game that demands so much of your time. There are countless other games out there right now that are better to play, by which I mean they provide you faster relaxation and satisfaction. But they don’t give the same experiences. The stories you can remember even after all these years. Reading back on my newbie exploits in lowsec. My venture into mission invasions and stealing loot. And the memories came right back. Don’t ask me about a game of civilization or fallout I played years ago. But the crap you do in EVE, it sticks for some reason.
So I have returned once more, to the gutter that is suspect behavior.
Oh dear lord, what am I up to?
I met Baron Biggles. At first I thought he was just an uber PvE machine, but upon inspection this guy has taken mission invasions to the next level … with a battleship. Genius! He was right when he choose the name Baron. But for some reason I keep reading Baron Giggles. Oh well.
Then there is Rei, who is speaking words of wisdom, alas I heared rumors that people actually shoot back at you in lowsec, and usually with more than one in a fleet. So that would totally and completely ruin what I am trying to accomplish? So thank you Rei, but I hope to see you next time. Also, don’t shoot yellow wrecks next time, giant waste of space missiles!
Then there is Dounox, who got a bit triggered. Poor guy, I acted like a total noob when I got into this winter nexus event anomaly. Truth be told, I wasn’t even lying. I couldn’t get my overview to work. Could not see his battleship on my overview. I flew all over the place, missed two wrecks to loot because of the damn menus opened trying to find out what the hell was wrong.
He shot his wrecks at the end, the anwser all these needy greedy battleship owners do. Sharing is caring brother! Say it with me people. Sharing is caring.
At the end, ahh, instant satisfaction. No mission arc from any sister can compete with that.
Sorry, clickbait title. But I did loose two ships in about 30 minutes. Also not just like that. Mostly pilot error, being unpatient and without focus. Also, maybe alcohol.
First loss was my trusty caracal. This cruiser has been with me for so long, it was well on its way to become a heirloom piece. I’m not even sure what happened. I think it was in an astroid belt? Or a combat site?
Second loss was more expensive. When the caracal went down it was obviously a clear case of ‘Didn’t need that ship anyway’. And seeing how my taste in ships is swinging to Amarr laserboats my eye fel on the Maller. I really like the way you are able to quickly switch out the spectrum lasers. Also it hits pretty hard from a distance. And it looks really cool. So after some shopping and fitting I needed juicy targets, and after a couple of easy level 2 security missions my eye noticed this ‘Wightstorm Forward Base‘ combat anomaly. Feeling pretty confident about my new cruiser I did not hesitate and warped into the combat anomaly.
Now … dear reader, you should know some alcohol was being consumed at the time. It was a relaxing evening, kids were off to bed, wife was out with friends. Ahh the bliss and joy of a grown man and his computer game. I remember vaguely it took a whole 0,5364 seconds for me to realise I made a critical error. Seems this is not just ‘a’ combat anomaly, but is related to the current timed event. Right … euhm … I knew about that. Maybe.
Is there a lesson to be learned? Sure there is … Do we know what this lesson is? Ofcourse not … Are we going to learn this lesson? Hell no …
Back to Abyssal filaments for Hanz it seems. We need more spice. That new Maller is waiting for us. Wait what? Are you going to buy a new Maller Hanz? Damn right I am, that thing looks amazing.
After my little hissy fit yesterday I returned to T1 Calm Filaments. I asked some advice in the Abyssal Lurkers channel, and no other than Caldarijoans was kind enough to help out with some advice. Invigorated by the knowledge of an expert I refitted a new Punisher and got out into space once more.
And the second I warp into the deadspace pocket it turned into choas and mayhem. For some reason I could not see ‘reds’ in space. I could see them on the overview tab, but on screen, in space. Nope nother to be seen. This threw me off for a couple of seconds, and those vital first seconds into the Abyss are important. You can get your bearings, see what you are up against. Set your trajectory. But now in my case, none of that. I was still sitting still, like a duck in space. Later it turned out I accidentally pressed ALT+Z to disable something with brackets…
Now I would like to continue with “heroic coollness, nerves of steel, expert piloting skills …”, but in reality, the above screenshot tells the real story. And that is, I have no idea how I survived. Somehow, I did adapt and got out of range when I needed to. Barely, but alive.
The second room gave me a Striking Leshak battleship, finally some room to breathe and recover. Approach at an angle, orbit and let your armor and shield recover while nuking from closeby.
The third room was small frigates/drones that were no real problem, and I ended with a meager 4 minutes to spare. The loot at the end was worth a little over 6 million ISK (I think). So I’m wondering if the added time and difficulty is even worth pushing T1’s? Is there a bigger chance for item drops/blueprints the higher the tier? I need to look into that.
The jump from T0 to T1 Abyssal Deadspace went relative easy. No real problems. The Punisher really is an awesome little frigate. Until I met this guy. A Devoted Knight. Dear lord, what was that.
I admit. I panicked. Like a little girl. I may have screamed a bit. Or a lot. I really am not sure anymore. It’s like the game is rigged, in a way to seriously screw you over if you complete like say three runs successfully in a row. It started with this fellow right here. A battleship. Obviously it’s a battleship, so getting up close was the course of action. Took a while to get him down …
But I did have to log out after losing my Punisher to the Devoted Knight. No rage quit, but more like a ‘why am I wasting my time with this’ -quit. I find it rather irritating that there is no ingame information about the NPC’s you will encounter in Abyssal Deadspace. You have to look up YT videos (that are often either clickbait titled, outdated, or just plain wrong). I felt cheated out of my time. EVE has a way of doing that.
I understand that the way to tackle these Abyssal things are very ‘easy’ for veteran players. The basics are the same: approach, traversal, … orbit this one, kite that one.
But going in ‘blind’ or semi-blind is irritating because every time you loose a ship, you loose so much time refitting and buying everything again. Not to mention getting your hands on some more ISK to do all the refitting and rebuying in the first place. So yeah, I’m rather annoyed right now. Abyssal filaments is a nice way to earn some ISK, but at this rate, not sure I’m going to make a lot of profit. Skill issue? Definitely. Lack of knowledge issue? Probably.
I did try exploration the other say. Fitted a little Heron (?) and went of into the unknown. Jumped a few wormholes, almost got ganked near a WH entrance, also forgot to bookmark a WH entrance/exit and had to rescan it all over inside WH space while avoiding a Manticore probing me. A very entertaining hour that was, but it did not earn me a single ISK. But I don’t think exploration is for me because it is the ultimate of boring. The scanning alone with the blue bubbles. Dear lord. No thank you.
Awesome game-time today and actual awesome progress. Had a blast with an Amarr Punisher dual rep fit, and it actually plays very fun. It’s fast, can take a beating, and has modest to decent damage output. The mid slots are maybe a bit lacking, but it makes up with loads of low slots and four in the high meaning four turrets pewpew’ing away at whatever it is you’re pointing them at.
I’m actually temped to bring it inside a T1 Calm filament, and see how it holds. I may need a bit more practice on the approach. The Abyss zone is actually rather small(ish), and with the speed the Punisher brings, depending on the room you’re in. Add the weird towers that sometimes appear in the Abyss, well it’s a recipe for more dead clones in space…
The very fact rewards scale better when you enter the Abyss in a frigate is a nice bonus. Actually it’s more than nice, it’s much needed.
I wonder if a Tristan would work out in a T0 Abyss. Most probably it would. NPC rats usually start targetting your drones when you get far away, so I suppose it’s the same in an Abyss? A problem could be that a lot of the Abyss enemies are very fast frigates or drones, and I’m not sure the small drones you can use in a Tristan are up for that task. But it’s worth a try. Lets call it science ok?
After spending an entire evening running only T0 filaments, switching it up constantly (Exotic, Fire, Gamma and Electric) I am pretty convinced I got the T0 covered, in a Punisher. Who would have predicted that? So the jump to T1 is near. Again, it’s probably going to be both the Amarr Punisher and the Caldari Corax.
I also found out where most of my stuff still is, and oh boy …
No way I’m going to be able or willing to haul all that stuff back to where I’m now. Not that it’s worth all that much. Some frigates, destroyers and an occasional cruiser. But still it sucks.
And I’m finishing with the following. What should I do with all these unallocated skill points? Should I spend them all on the skillplan I’ve queued? Or wait until the there’s some big spenders on the horizon?
The universe has a funny way of doing things. And that appears to include the Abyssal space parts of the universe as well.
Everything was moving along just fine. Just awesome. One dark filament after the other.
And then for some reason, I activate a Calm filament without noticing. I didn’t even notive it when I moved inside. What did prompt me to get a clue was the very fact this Strikegrip Tessera ripped me apart so fast I had no clue what so ever. Didn’t stand a chance. Period.
Upon investigation it seems I’m not the first victim of said Strikegrip. User Iamfang had the same encounter in space and did not have a clue why his ship returned to sender. He got some advice that I maybe should have anticipated, but does that count when you accidentally activate a Calm filament? Questions questions … Also I found this gem of a site that actually made me gasp at my monitor mumbling sounds like ‘Ohh’ and ‘Ahh’. And then there is this awesome YT video with all the rooms you encouter in a T1 Abyss. So the Strikegrip is a battlecruiser that eats destroyers for breakfast. Check.
"Strike Grip Tessera BC room, Orbit at 20km to keep out of range, Make sure you are using Caldari Navy drones as this one will target your drones when you are out of range. return the targeted drone to drone bay and send a fresh drone out then bring the new targeted drone back repeat until it is dead so you dont lose drones"
In short, user error twice. Once for going into a Calm without knowing, and two not knowing what to expect.
Once cloned I decided to try something new, and fit a Punisher to try out a Tranquil Filament. After some flying around to get a fair priced fit I jumped in and it worked out. It was different. You really have to fly, orbit, keep your optimal range going. So different than a missile boat. I really like the fact that switching out ammo types is easy and fast in an Amarr ship. But as I’ve focussed on missile ships only it was clear that my skillset is not high enough to manually do higher tiers with a Punisher. But I got 3 or 4 filaments done with it and parked it.
Greedy for more and feeling confident I then decided to switch back to a missile boat, and here is where user error gets introduced once more. Get ready for it, because I took a Caldari Navy Hookbill into the Abyss.
And this was the result. Dear lord, what was that? The DPS application of the Hookbill was lacking, so hard. Damn it was kinda sad. The Skybreaker Disparu couldn’t kill me neither, but his repair ability was to much for the meager Hookbill damage output. So at the end, I flew outside the bounds of the Abyss, just to see what would happen, how long it would take to self-delete. And it took longer than I thought. It’s mostly like a battle royal game, where you get damage as you enter the ‘storm’.
At least I have these nice screenshots to show for it.
All in all, an evening with lots of learning moments. To bad the learning moments in EVE are costly ones. The purchase and fitting of the Hookbill really set me back ISK wise. So I’m back to switching to some SOE and agent missions to get some funds back.
Some rare and valuable game time this evening resulted in me doing some Dark Abyssal Filaments. I hoped to do some in the test server first, but apparently the test server is not available at this time. So the only thing to do was to jump in head first and hope for the best.
And I’ll be damned, but it was actually fun. Granted I did not have any real problems, only one room of the 8 runs I’ve done so far got tricky. I wasn’t paying attention to my speed, and I suddenly noticed the old u-boat was flying at 1,000m/h or something. That was a fun ride. Other than that a bunch of frigates and the occasional little drone, maybe a cruiser? Could be wrong about that.
But I really enjoy Caldari missile ships. There is really no substitute for fire and forget weapons is there? Well maybe there is but don’t tell me just yet please.
The whole Abyss stuff is where I’m going to spend most of my time now. Lots of different filaments to try out, and I really want to try different ships, see how they handle. Now to grind some ISK to purchase the filaments from the market. Depending on where you are regionwise, the prices fluctuate a lot. Don’t want to spend all my ISK on just filaments do I?
Scumbag Hanz Riemannder finds New Eden 