A Rock In A Cold Place

Presenting “Sticky Of The Week 2″, with bonus features since I missed last week!

Found an exploratin fit online that was tuned for losec (cloak, plate, etc).  I decided to tone it down a little for highsec and add another tractor and some cargo space.  Hopefully i’ll find enough stuff to fill the cargo.  If not I’ll swap it for tank.   If anybody has insight on this in relation to highsec exploration (will I need cargo space?) please feel free to comment!

Abaddor here, taking my log back from Marko now that we’re back in peacetime. Funny how things work out. Last war we tried to wait it out and it took weeks. This one, we fight back, and it lasts two days. Granted, last time the opposition was a bit out of our league, but it’s a bit ironic. The really funny thing is that some (read: most) of us were actually disappointed when they recalled, admidst the victorious cheers.

Marko was probably one of the most dissapointed. Back to mercenary work for him now. He just got into his first battlecruiser a few hours after the war officially ended, so that was a bit of a blow. He did manage to get some quick work raiding a Gallente camp, however, so all was not lost. He tells me to thank Gillen for helping him design the loadout on the Drake, as well.

I got the Golden II out for a short trip mining yesterday, but didn’t stay out long, mostly because my access to the Corp hanger was needed to secure some modules for Marko’s Drake. He’s tapped out on funds so he’s going to send some extra equipment over for me to put into the hanger and I dumped a small load of ore and minerals in as well.

I’m hoping to get back on the stick today and get some serious mining done, especially since I bankrolled the Drake. Davios is going to lay out the containers I had to pull in for the war so that next time they’ll still have CONCORD protection since he is not a member of the Corp. If he gets that set up and brings his Retriever, the PlanB, out with me and the Golden II, we should be able to get about half the cost of the Drake and equipment back in a couple hours. Of course, this means Marko has to hand his pilot’s license back over to Davios, and I know Markos is itching to get some more time in that bartlecruiser. As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

It’s actually been a little bit of a vacation for Davios and I all-around. Marko has, of course, been busy with the war and his training took priority over Davios. I think that they agreed that Davios will get the skill pass back for about ten hours this week to finish qualifying for the Badger MkII, then he will defer that to Markos for the foreseeable future. As far as my pass goes, Hargatay is pretty much up to speed on scanning and is working on some basic engineering and navigation. He has yet to qualify for the Analyzer or Codebreaker modules, but that’s a pretty long road, so I think I’m going to ask him to hold off until I finish training for the Hulk, which should be about six weeks from now. After that he can finish up those goals, and he mentioned something about a Myrmidon. I guess that’s some Gallente drone-lover boat he wants to do his exploration in. Whatever he wants. Once I’m in a Hulk he can get that set up, I won’t be in a hurry to do anything else. It better not be too long, though, because I want to refine my refining skills (pun intended).

Well, back to the old grindstone, anyways. The ISK must flow!

Well, the last couple of days have been pretty exciting.  Davios finally got certified to command a Retriever and we had our first trip out to the belt with two barges yesterday.  Focusing on plagioclase, we managed to haul about five million ISK worth of ore in an hour.  Not too shabby, if I say so myself.  I’ve gotten my refining skills to an intermediate level, and can use mining crystals for any common ore, so I’m in pretty good shape.  Next step, the Hulk.

Unfortunately, that’s going to have to wait for the moment.  There’s been another war declaration that is taking effect today.  Markos is ready to help fight for the corp, but unfortunately his training was still in it’s beginning stages when he deferred to Davios’s agenda.  Well, now it’s time to start getting seriouse about defense so he’s taking over on that front and I’m deferring to Hargatay so that he can advance his scanning skills and do a little bit of reconaissance, since he’s not actually a member of the corp.

The corporation that decced us is The Protei, and eleven man corp operating out of Ichoriya.  They all seem to be fairly experienced, and among their ranks is Humuhumun…. .  Hum, as I will refer to him from here on out, was a bit of a thorn in our sides about a month ago, and reared his ugly head recently in a can flipping incident that ended in him loosing his Mauller.  Seems he found a corp that was more in-line with his philosophies, and seems it’s time that they’re all taught a lesson.  We’ve got friends coming to the party this time, too, so things should get very interesting very soon.

Mining will have to take a back seat for now, though.  Time to do a little damage.

Yesterday was my 30th day withBarr Heavy Industries, and consequencially the end of my probationary period. I sent a message to David Barr and within moments he hailed me on a private comm channel. We had a quick meeting. Seems we’re both pleased and I was made a full member of the company. I requested assignment to the Excavation Division and was granted the title of Excavation officer. David also granted me an honorary title as Strategist of Last Resort, due to some unique tactical thinking on my part (Plan B: Kill Everybody).

My first act as a full member was to refer a new applicant to David; Marko is now a probationer with BHI. He’s aspiring to join the Security Team. Some teams are starting forays into wormhole space, so I think he’ll be seeing plenty of action soon. I’ll personally stick to my asteroids.

Hargatay got qualified to run a salvaging destroyer, so he’s taking a break from training and I’m back to work on my refining courses. Davios is only a few days from joining me in a second retriever, which is a good thing becaus Markos is itching to get back on the stick.

Meanwhile, the cash flow is starting to look good with several contracts of ore being closed the other day.  Half of that went towards a cybernetic implant, but we can’t make money without spending money!

I was focusing on getting Abaddor into a Hulk.  In my noobishness once i got into a Retriever my train of thought was “better harvesting requires better ship.”  Reviewing the 39 day training plan to get Astrogeology and Mining Barge to V, I was starting to feel impatient.  Remembering the mention of T2 Modulated Strip Miners in Halada’s mining guide, I decided to see if I qualified.  Lo and behold, I do!  So I went out and bought a pair and some Veldspar crystals and went to work!  Well, definitely quite the improvement, and that’s with T1 crystals!  So, given that there are T2 crystals out there that I cannot use yet, but could soon, I rethought my plan.  Of course, getting qualified for these means working on refining skills, including Refining V, which will open up Refinery Efficiency (I got that skill in a tutorial and have been storing it for seven weeks now!). 

So…these new training goals, which will get me into some T2 crystals in a week, should ramp up the cash flow during that long trek to Hulk pilot.  And the Refinery efficiency, trained to a modest 3, should make it profitable to refine instead of selling ore!

This leads us to the first Sticky Note Of The Week!