This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks: The CSM: CCP’s Meta Game? – The CSM, an eve players voice to CCP.Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets toprojects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has not come outthis was not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scamby CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What’s your take?

Wow, what a huge topic. I have been a bit strapped for time. I want to treat this topic in the way it should be, but I want to get this in on time, so, here is hoping that I can organize my thoughts in a cogent fashion. I believe this can be broken down into three areas, the CSM, Software Development, and Player Expectation.

Within discussion of the CSM, there are four areas that need covering. First is the fact that the CSM is a step forward in MMO game development. Second, the concept that the CSM is just meant to pacify the player base without any real input to the development process should be discussed. Third we need to cover the effort put forward over the CSM’s history by the CSM members. Finally we need to discuss the true democracy, or lack thereof, of the CSM voting process.

I feel driven to remind everyone that the CSM is the lone entity of its kind, at least within my realm of knowledge, within MMO games worldwide. Whether we feel like the concept has lived up to its potential or not, it is still a concept that only CCP has pursued. In my opinion that is enough to be considered a big step forward in MMO development and support.

The argument has been made that CCP put forward the CSM concept as a “pacifier” to keep the natives(players) quiet and satisfied that our voice was being heard, but with no inclination to really respond to its input. I would agree that not everything put forward by the CSM has been implemented. I would venture to guess that not even a third of the changes proposed by the CSM have been implemented, though I don’t know that for fact. However, in my opinion, if even one change has been made that came out of the CSM process, then the CSM concept has brought our voice to CCP and it has been heard. Skill queues and ship loadout changes being the major examples of that.

I do realize that there have been a few CSM members that have either not taken their membership and responsibility seriously, have used there membership for the free trip only, or have taken advantage of their knowledge for gain and broken the NDA. However, from the reading I have done across the CSM’s history, the majority of CSM members have been very motivated to listen to the voices of the EVE player base, assemble it into cogent presentation, and have taken those to CCP. Teadaze and Mynxee stand out for CSM 5, but I know they are not the only ones from CSM 5 hard at work. I also have gotten the impression that folks throughout CSM history like Song Li, Vuk Lau, Omber Zombie, and others have taken their election seriously and have tried to do what they can to better the EVE Online for the most players. That kind of dedication within an online game player base speaks volumes to me.

I have read a number of posts and comments indicating that the CSM is not representative of the player base, that the voting process is not high enough profile, and that these things denigrate the value of the CSM. I have heard the “not representative” argument in relation to real life elections as well. If you want to be represented, you have to participate. Abstaining is not helpful. If people want the word to get out, they need to pass it themselves. Some of those complaining that not enough people know are more than capable, and have the tools to bring information of the CSM elections to a larger audience, but don’t. If we want the CSM to be more representative of us, the player base, then we have to be part of that solution, not just commentators on the side.

The second area that needs to be discussed is software development. CCP is first and foremost a software development company. Being a software developer myself, though in the web area, efforts tend to center around what has the best “Return On Investment” and what “low hanging fruit” we can pick to get the most bang for our buck. From all the professional reading I have done about software development, that is a pretty standard approach across the industry.

Within game software development, focusing on the best “Return On Investment” takes on a particular aspect. Game developers primary focus is on growth of the company, thus growth of the player base for each of the platforms they are currently supporting. Tuning of the platform takes second place to this. Bright, Splashy, Explody, Neato, Golly-Gee-Wizz new features is what brings in new or returning players. This effort provides a greater perceived return on investment than grinding away tuning the already existing engine.

Another typical approach within development is to take care of the “Low-Hanging-Fruit”. Low-hanging-fruit are the quick, easily resolved, low resource intensive issue resolutions that help to improve the platform, but pull minimal resources off of the type of development in the above paragraph. Working on low hanging fruit tends to provide a much higher return on investment, so it tends to be a primary focus within development strategy.

Finally, from the reading I have been doing across a number of blogs, forums, and comments, a large amount of the more vocal player expectation is just unreasonable. As a player, expecting the software developer to implement every thing they ask for is just ridiculous. Most players don’t have the technical knowledge of the platform to understand what is necessary to implement their wishes. Without that knowledge, our expectation of immediate response by the software developer becomes even more abhorrent.

I do realize that there are very real concerns with the game platform that need to be addressed, the largest and most prevalent being lag during large engagements. Even though I am not a null sec PVPer, I consider that to be an issue that should be at the top of CCP’s list. There are definitely a number of valid needs that players have expressed that CCP needs to work on.

The biggest issue I see with the whole CSM process is communication. From all that I read, the CSM is trying to keep the player base informed of everything going on. However, CCP seems to be struggling to keep either the CSM informed, or we the players informed of what their real vision for the future. Without that real communications to the CSM, and including them in planning out for the future, CCP is weakening what could be an evolutionary step forward for them, and for MMO development in the future.

See other participants:

1. Growing Pains | CrazyKinux’s Musing
2. CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden
3. CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!
4. Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE
5. A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms
6. CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson
7. Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs
8. CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
9. The Cataclysmic Variable: It’s Crunch Time!
10. The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors
11. CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?
12. Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar 
13. Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings
14. Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo
15. Blog Banter #19: Assumptions
16. EVE Blog Banter #19 | EVE on Real Life
17. A Reality Check | A “CareBears” Journey
18. Quit your bitching | Fly Reckless – EVE Online
19. War has come to EVE | Scram Web
20. CCP and the CSM | Morphisat’s Blog
21. More to come…

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

Wow, what a huge topic to ponder. I would have to say that my playing style and perception of life in New Eden have evolved a good bit in the year-and-a-half that I have been playing. Some areas have changed to a lesser degree while some areas have changed to a greater degree.

It would seem that some background is in order. I joined EVE Online in January of 2009. I was coming over from two years of playing World of Warcraft. I had joined WOW and played it with a number of my coworkers who were members on rpg.net, and thus the guild we were a part of was based around those forums. On those forums I ran across people that were playing EVE Online and talked it up a great deal. I had completely burned out on WOW, had even tried to go back to it, but was looking for something else. So, I signed up for the trial period for EVE Online.

I very quickly ran across people in New Eden that I had known in Azeroth, and they stepped up and helped me over the learning curve that is noobness in EVE. They also directed me to the rpg.net corporation in New Eden. This group of pilots were so very patient with me as I learned the ropes of mining and missioning  and using EFT and EVEmon, and EVEHQ to advance my pilot, Rayne Stryker. Needless to say I was hooked and had already shifted from trial account to paying one.

While I liked running missions and mining, there were two things that caught my attention the most, manufacturing and big fleet battles. Having come out of WOW, one of the things that chafed was that no matter what I did as a weapon smith, I could always raid or badge purchase better stuff, nor could I set up a virtual business selling the stuff I made. I mean, crap, if I didn’t want it, who else was going to. Very early on in EVE Online I was making my own ammunition, and I realized I could have made one of my early frigate, an Incursus. I actually have built three ships that my main now flys, a Dominix, and Ishkur, and a Helios, and that, for some reason, gives me a sense of accomplishment I was not able to get in WOW.

The big fleet battles caught my attention as strongly. Who doesn’t remember, that is old enough to remember, the first time they saw the big battle over Endor, or the initial assault by the Cylons in the original Battlestar Galactica. I even remember the ship engagements from the original Star Trek series, though I watched it in syndication. From those days I had wanted to be a starship captain. How awesome the CCP trailers looked with the big fleets and all.

Once I got a few months in, my eyes were opened to the fact that participation in these big fleet battles was not exactly as I had assumed. Some people still seemed to enjoy them, but there were a number of things that showed me that large fleet engagements would be something for the future, if ever. I was going to need a lot more skills, a lot more isk, and a lot more time.

However, I was very much enjoying the corp’s regular mining and mission ops, as well as occasionally running missions with each other off the cuff. We all enjoyed the camaraderie at least as much as the game play, and this group sucked me further in. Still, at this point I would mine when I wanted to and mission when I wanted to.

Eventually, a number of circumstances occurred that brought me to the point of accepting a Directorship in our corporation for each of my characters. Oh yeah, by this time I had two accounts and regularly was logged in with both, whether mining, or missioning. All of a sudden, it was not just log in whenever, I had to think about what the corp needed, and what its members needed. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and was very flattered that the rest of the board considered me worthy, but it did change my approach.

You have to understand, while I like shooting things, I tend to get more out of building up and constructing things. In RTS games, I am the turtle. So mining, manufacturing, and inventing were up my alley. Just for your information, I already have planetary installations down for all base resources and all Tier 1 products on both of my characters. I want to build POSs and their components.

Within the last 6 months, I have felt myself drifting a little. I am still enjoying doing the industrial stuff. I still want to bring online a solid T1 manufacturing line for our corporation to make solid money so we can help our newbies with ships and such. I also want to spin up a T2 line as well. Finally, one of our other directors has spoken to me about taking a division out into W-space and setting up and doing some T3 production as well. All of these things still interest me.

My money is still scarce. I have not put a lot of time into infrastructure. I am getting the itch to go shoot someone in the face. I don’t do well at FPS games, don’t have the twitch reflexes for them, which is weird since I was properly trained in the U.S. military. I do have this desire to load up some ships and head out into NULL sec and join the chaos out there. I have even built a few T1 hulls to put together kits to be able to reship quickly, since I know I will get blown up pretty regularly.

I have never been a PVPer, not in WOW and not in EVEOnline, at least not yet. But…..I can almost taste how much I want to try it out. We will just have to see if I continue to change as New Eden does.

Other Blog Banter links coming soon.

1. 7 Year Itch?
2. The details of my life are quite inconsequential
3. Evolution of Me
4. Things Change
5. Onward and Upwards
6. The Heroes with a Thousand Faces
7. Life. Evolved.
8. Our ventures in EVE
9. From a guppy to predator
10. Evolution and Adaptation
11. The Past Through Tomorrow
12. A journey, not a destination
13. A long history of a short time.
14. Haven’t you grown up yet?
15. The path of the ninja
16. Whoops Apocalypse!
17. Learning to swim.
18. my time with eve
19. Personal Diary 18.6.112
20. Change is Good
21. Falling With Style
22. Jack of all trades
23. Thoughts of EVE
24. It’s the yellow box, stupid…
25. My path amongst the stars
26. First days in the North “continued”
27. My EVE Life So Far
28. How My Eve Experience Has Evolved
29. EVE-olution
30. Recurring Themes
31. More as they are published…

It was inevitable that he would end up in a Drake. His was called Mayhem, and when he entered an engagement with it, that is exactly what he caused, MAYHEM!!!

Chetin had tasked me with going out and finding Dr. Calus’ former mentor, who had been on the bleeding edge of quantum particle physics and artificial intelligence. He had disappeared recently, and though there was no indication of foul play, the payment Chetin was offering me set off alarms in my head. Which is why I called in my “Equalizer”.

Dyolf and I had undocked and had made our way to the system where Professor Delainen was reported to be. As I called up the bookmark Chetin had given me, Dyolf and I went over our plan again. I was going to warp him in to the bookmarked area first. With his monster shields and missiles, as well as his drones he was going to take out any of the smaller hostiles. I would warp to him and with Thresher’s rails and drones I would focus on the cruiser size hostiles and up. If one of us finished our primary responsibilities first, we would swap over to assist the other.

I engaged Fleet Command and flipped the switch to send Dyolf in to harm’s way. Within 30 seconds of him disappearing into warp, I heard “come on in, the waters great!!!” over comms. I despaired of ever getting him to take combat seriously.

As Thresher slid out of warp my overview lit up with hostile indicators and flashes. I was about three thousand meters off of the port, stern, level quadrant of Mayhem and had a front row seat to hybrid rounds, missiles, artillery rounds, and autocannon rounds impacting his shields. He was giving as good as he got. Heavy missiles were blossoming from his launchers in all directions and making short work of the smaller targets. Something niggled at my consciousness about them, then it dawned on me, they were rogue drones, not the mercs I had half expected.

While this was playing through my head I was unconsciously picking the larger targets out of my overview and locking them up for some personal attention. As the targeting computer completed the first locks Thresher rails thumped and her Hammerheads screamed out of their launch tubes and made a beeline for their primary target. I set Thresher on a course to close on Dyolf and Mayhem so that we could provide a more concentrated core of destruction.

In short order we had cleared up the first pocket of hostiles, moved through a gate we found there, and were wrapping up the second pocket of hostiles. We were provided the fun of having to deal with neutralizer, stasis, and sentry towers in the second pocket. What a joy.

After dispatching the last hostile we closed on Professor Delainen’s laboratory and forcibly removed him from said premises. Needless to say it was a noisy ride back to Stirht for my crew, what with the professor yelling and screaming the whole way. I would say that Dyolf and I were none to gentle with the “good” professor when we delivered him to Chetin, but that would be stating the obvious.

Having received the payment for this run, I let Chetin know that I had had enough fun for one day and would be back tomorrow. Time to go grab the “Scow” and see what salvage we could gather from that engagement. For the mission: VGO Carebears = 45, Rogue Drones = 0.

I had been running missions in Metropolis out of Stirht VII – Moon 4 for Chetin Besrelo. Most of them had been some relatively simple transport mission, with the rare resource gathering mission. I had walked into the office two days ago and got another of what sounded like resource gathering for a Dr. Lamia Calus. As I was getting ready to leave the office, Chetin made the cryptic comment “pirates and mercenaries of all stripes are often found in its vicinity. Don’t go out there in a defenseless mining scow.” Hmmmm, I had already sent the orders over the NeoComm to warm up “Miner’s Dream”, my Hulk. I quickly told the crew to shut down the Hulk and fire up Thresher. I also sent an order to the Hanger Chief to quickly install a basic mining laser.

As I finished making all connections and sliding into my pod I could feel the Thresher’s power plant warming up, the gun turrets running through their warm ups, and the drone launch tubes cycling themselves to prep for action. I ran a quick diagnostic to ensure that the addition of the mining laser didn’t really throw off the cap stability. Everything was in the green and I sent in a call to station control requesting undock. I received immediate clearance and the docking tractors grabbed Thresher and added her into the undock loop.

Upon reaching the system where the Green Arisite was rumored to be, I brought up the appropriate bookmark on the NeoComm and engaged Thresher’s warp drive. Needless to say, I was surprised as Thresher slid out of warp when she reached the designated bookmark.

Aura proceeded to inform me of hostile lock-ons and politely suggested I spin up the armor hardners. With the hardners running, sensor boosters lit off, and the primary repper cycling I commenced locking up targets and prepping the drones for launch. Fortunately, I had iridium rounds loaded as the targets were all out beyond 30km. The Thresher’s 250mm Rails were thumping as I set Thresher’s course towards the center of the ship concentration.

All targets seemed to be focusing on me, which indicated it was time to let my Hobgoblins do their work. I felt the ka-chunk as they were fired out of the launch tubes and set up in orbit around me. An instants thought sent them after my primary target, as I figured that focus firing these ships would lighten the load on my tank faster. Which reminded me to check the tank.

Uh oh, the shield was gone and I was already half way through my armor. Fortunately, that was what I had fitted that second armor repper for. I kicked it into gear and hung on, swapping targets for my guns and drones as I made space trash of these mercenaries. The new “low armor” alarm the hanger chief had installed startled me but was a welcome notification, though it did slightly resemble the tolling of funeral bells.

Slowly but surely Thresher’s rails and drones got the upper hand, and the capacitor held out long enough for the dual reppers to get ahead of the incoming damage. Finally the engagement degenerated into hunting down and popping the last few hulls, mining out the Green Arisite, and planning out the salvaging of the debris. With the ore in Thresher’s hold, drones back on board, guns reloaded, and defensive systems secured, I set course for Stirht. Engagement count, Rayne Styker 36, Mercenaries 0.

Chetin looked up very tentatively, with eyes wide, when I walked into her office. It seems that word of what we encountered had beaten me here. Chetin very meekly thanked me and proceeded to transfer a very tidy sum to my account in payment for completion, more than we had agreed upon. I would have to remember to thank the hanger crew that unloaded the Thresher for being so talkative.

As I picked my NeoComm up off her desk and turned to leave she piped up with, “…uh…Captain Stryker?” I turned and just quietly looked at her. It seems she had another mission for me related to Dr. Calus. I told her I would do it, but I needed some sleep and to do some maintenance, but I would be back soon to run that one for her.

As I walked down the concourse towards my rented room I sent out a call for my “equalizer”. I knew I was going to need him if the missions were going to continue like this.

The problem is, I have been doing some scanning of prices and margins out there and all I can find that has any margin at all, is Ammo and Missles, and that is very small. Don’t get me arong, I don’t necessarily feel like I have to built everything there is a BPO for, I just want to find some key pieces that I can make a steady decent profit on and do them. No, I am not sure what “decent profit” is, but I am trying to figure it out.

I like T2 production, and I would like to get into T3 production eventually. My Corp is totally carebear, not interested in low or null sec, and only marginally interested in W-space, but I am interested in all of this. I may end up having to go this completely solo, which I know is not preferred, and maybe not even possible.

I have read through the article in EON #14 about this. Can anyone offer any ideas or guidance regarding this. I know some of you posted T2 and T3 specific info before, I guess I am mostly looking for T1 guidance, or someone telling me to go on to just T2 production, as well as how to best make money in T2 production. I know margins on T2 frigates are there, but not necessarily great either.

Any info you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Mining Operations Commencing

As the “Miner’s Dream” slid into position over our first belt of the day, I could not help but think back over the things that had happened to me in the last 10 months to put me here. As the Dream’s strip miners came online, my mind drifted back to the last interaction I had had with my parents……

My father had never quite approved of my interests, studies, or the slate of principles I had developed from these.  We were a typical Intaki family, very intellectually and artistically minded, but very adept at towing the party line when it came to Federation politics. There had been a number of “Black Sheep” down through family history. Members who would openly oppose Federation policy or propaganda. It seemed, very early on, that I would be another.

I had followed the path my father had set for me, getting superb grades through secondary school, and getting collegiate degrees in numerous areas of engineering. The whole time, I would grit my teeth and not outwardly show my disdain for the farce, in true Intaki fashion. At the same time, I was keeping my eye on the news and watching with growing alarm as hostilities between the Gallente Federation and the Caldari State grew.

As I completed the paperwork for my latest degree, I came across information on being a “capsuleer”. I had heard of them, but only peripherally, and did not even know there was a path to become one. Being the inquisitive type, I looked into it. Something inside me clicked. This was what I was meant to do. This would get me off this rock, away from the hypocrisy, and allow me to exercise my capabilities to their fullest.

My father responded in the expected fashion at first, but even for an Intaki, I could see that he was not terribly resistant to the idea. Here was his chance to get rid of me and reduce the possibility of my outlook on the current situation bringing down unwanted attention on the family. You see, I didn’t necessarily have any animosity towards the Caldari or anyone else. Sure, they had done some pretty reprehensible things during the previous Gallente-Caldari war, but so had the Gallente. The same was true of this current situation. No ones hands were clean, and with the history of Gallente treatment of the other Federation races, I didn’t see a point in putting my life on the line for that.

So, my father coughed up the isk to get me into the Academy……

The hard working miners of Versus Gloria Omnis

The VGO fleet grew as more and more of our capsuleers entered system and joined us in our initial belt. This belt had Veldspar asteroids over 70,000 units in size, so we were going to do well, even though the expected turn out was not going to match the 16 pilot turnouts we had had in the past.  Of course, things had changed a good bit. I was now the Mining Director of VGO……

I had done well at the Academy, tending to be more drawn to the industrial type ships as opposed to the combat ships. I knew the combat ships were needed out there, as I had heard way to much about the Serpentis and other Pirate Factions, but my mind tended towards creating and building things, not blowing them up. I was very mentally young, and very young in experience.

I graduated from the Academy and was handed my first brand spanking new Velator. I look back on it now and am amazed by how small and limited they are, but at the time, it was the key to unlock a huge realm of experience and possibilities for me.

I read through the initial information the Academy had downloaded on to my NeoConn about initial agents I might try out. I worked with a number of them doing any kind of job. Hauling, Mining, Recon, Pirate Stomping, you name it. I took on each with gusto. There was something so different about even the most minor and inconsequential of jobs out here.

Finally, I had enough money to purchase my first real Frigate. Still being more industrial focused, I picked up a brand new Navitas and its fittings. The difference between that and my Velator were amazing. I could haul more, mine more, and shoot more than I had before. What a great feeling it was to know that I had earned the isk to buy and fit this. During this time, I ran across some VGO members, who provided me the location of one of their offices, and I submitted an application.

I was immediately accepted, and my new Corp mates offered me all kinds of help. Before I knew it, I had been invited to my first fleet mining operation. My contribution that day was negligible I am sure, but it sure was nice to feel part of a group that all had the same focus. I remember flying alongside the Orca of one of my Corp mates and being awed by its size and thinking that one day I was going to be piloting one of those……

Rayne's squad of Miners in action

The fleet had finally grown to a number that there were too many of us for the belt we were in. I split one of our Board Members off as a second squad leader and he took half of our pilots to another belt in the system. It looked like our revenue from this op might be better than I thought, but only time would tell.

I surveyed the belt, taking note of Dyolf off to my starboard side grinding away at the Scordite asteroids in his Osprey. Dyolf was my best friend, which I am sure surprised people since he was a Civire Caldari……

I first ran across Dyolf in the Eletta system, in Verge Vendor. He had just come off a job for the same agent I was working for. We both turned in our “paperwork” and then both headed out of the office, heading for the same bar just down the concourse. As we went to enter, it occurred to me that we might have something in common, and maybe two of us could be more profitable than one.

I asked Dyolf if I could buy him a drink. He didn’t seem real thrilled with the idea at first, but wasn’t going to turn down a free drink. Slowly we started exchanging information. After about 10 minutes of conversation, it became very apparent to me that Dyolf and I complemented each other. I was more industrially focused, and he was more combat focused, being a merc and all. He could protect me, while I made money for us. While I ground away at asteroids, he could haul much larger loads of it away for more profit.

I told Dyolf about VGO, and how they had helped me. He liked the idea of joining, so we fleeted up and headed to the nearest VGO office to get him signed up. From that point on, we were inseparable……

(More in the next installment….)

Current Situation: I am part of, and fill a director’s roll in, a very much “CareBear”, highsec corp in New Eden. Both charaters (2 accounts) are members.I am good friends with a number of the members, and very much enjoy our interaction.

My Gallente, Rayne, is very much industrially focussed. Around 11.5 million skill points. He can fly up to a full T2 fitted Battlecruiser (T2 light drones, but T1 others), can fly a Hulk, and is working towards an Orca. He currently is doing Gallente T2 Starship manufacturing of Frigates (Ishkurs, Taranis, Helios), and an Ishtar. These are all for the corp and with the corps resources, though he does do the R&D for the Starship Engineering cores and the Mechanical Engineering cores.

My Caldari is more pure pilot. He flies a fully T2 fitted Drake and a rigged Iteron V.

Our corp is very focused on being there for the new EVE pilots that need a less threatening and risky environment to start with. This leads us, as a corp, to not be willing to even make a spur effort out to lowsec, nullsec, or into wormholes. We prefer not to do anything that might cause someone to Wardec us, though it has happened.

My “desires”: Not sure if that is the right word for them. Anyway, I want to be able to do the Manufacturing process from one end to the other, T1 to T3. I want to be able to operate POS moon miners to gather the stuff, take it through the simple and complex reactions, and into the components and make stuff that “we” sell. I want to go into the wormholes and do reverse engineering on the sleeper stuff to build T3 subsections.

Other: I have no PVP skills at all. Not just character skills, but personal skills. I am slowly getting to the point that I am willing to risk losing a ship or a pod and it not being the end of the world. The idea of being out in null sec, or in W-space intrigues me, as does the idea of heightened risk and PVP. I want to try everything in EVE, maybe not all at once, but I am not adverse to any parts of it, except maybe piracy, and that may change too.

However, I hate to leave behind the corp that helped me get started, and I don’t want to leave them in the lurch trying to find someone to take over my roll. Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely replaceable in the corp, but I don’t want to screw them over that way.

I post this in hopes that a number of you read it who have done these things, and can offer me advice, alternatives, suggestions as to where to head from here.

Thanks in advance.

~Rayne/Dyolf

We didn’t accomplish much, but it was probably the only time I will every get close to a Titan, so it was worth the trip.

~Rayne

Super Drifter and the Leviathan.

Super Drifter and the Leviathan - 2.

Super Drifter and the Leviathan - 3.

Super Drifter and the Leviathan - 4.

Super Drifter and the Leviathan - 5.

Huh?…….

“Captain Stryker…..can you hear me?”

what the?……ooh

I rolled over in the surrounding goo, got my hands and knees under me, and slowly rose to my feet. The amniotic fluid slithered off me as I spit it out of my mouth and wiped my eyes with the small towel that had been placed in my hand. I could not help but think that is was going to be days if not weeks before some parts of my body, those places that you don’t talk about in polite society, were going to feel as if all this gunk was finally gone. This was my first time transferring to a clone … my mouth tasted like old shoe … maybe there was some carpet nearby I could lick to get the taste out…

“….we have your new NeoCom here and…”

“Wait, hold on, I missed all of that, can you start again from the beginning?”

“…sure…Captain Stryker, you are currently in the Egbonbet VI Moon 11 station. You were transferred here to this clone at the demise of your ship, pod, and previous … uh … form. We have run a battery of diagnostic tests and there seem to have been no physical issues with the transfer. The showers…”

“Wait, hold on, you specified physical issues, I am assuming there were other issues?”

“Well, yes sir. It seems your clone had not been kept upgraded. You lost some of your training for, lets see, ahh, mining barges. You will need to run a refresher course to take care of that. Otherwise everything else looks fine. The showers are right through that door. A new flight suit has been provided as well with all the appropriate corporation insignia and is hanging alongside the shower. We have your new NeoCom here. It has synched to your accounts and has all your mail and agent information. Pend Insurance has deposited the payout on your lost ship to your account already, and your new ship is down in the hangar. Will there be anything else?”

“um…no…thanks…sorry to be such a pain.”

“Not a problem, sir. We are happy to have been of service. Fly safely, Captain.”

As the technician headed out one door, I turned to head through the door indicated as containing the showers. Wow, I was really slow right now. It hit me that the technician was female and here I had been standing there in my birthday suit having a conversation with her. Being a capsuleer, you tend to lose that self-consciousness after a while, but I had not picked up on the fact that she was anchored on my eyes in an attempt not to seem to forward. Ah well.

As the hot water washed over me, the events that brought me here rolled across in front of my mind’s eye.

Needing to upgrade my Mechanical Engineering datacore intake, I had “beat” on my NeoCom until it made a suggestion that seemed reasonable. It looked like shifting my R and D effort in this regard to Boundless Creation would be more profitable. Of course, the closest agent of a decent level was in Hagilur. Hmmm, 0.4 sec. Not my favorite place to be, but I figure I could base out of Bei, and just run into Hagilur to pick up the missions.

The crew had Thresher prepped and ready to go, and I got that old tingle in my fingers as I hit the engine start switches. Presently I got the all systems go message and we launched. The warp from the station in Bei to the Bei/Hagilur gate was uneventful, and the crew kept busy with standard maintenance tasks. Just prior to engaging the jump gate, I toggled the battle stations alarm and sent all crew to the appropriate posts. We weren’t going to attempt this in a half-assed manner.

As Thresher cleared jump, I locked the navcomp on Hagilur V Moon 8 and hit the warp button. As we were realigning, my eyes were drawn to the overview and I realized that I had a red indicator on a ship that was less than 5000 meters from Thresher. I immediately lit up Threshers armor hardners and sensor boosters and had the gun crews load and prep the guns. Man, I was definitely not on the ball. Just before we accelerated to warp, the ship marked red warped out in a different direction.

I checked local, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. That had been one of Mynxee’s Hellcats. Her ship had looked small, though I had not gotten enough of a fix on her to know what type. It wouldn’t have mattered. From what I have heard, a single Hellcat could take a newbie frigate and kick the crap out of my Myrmidon. Well, at least the Thresher with me flying it.

We slid into the docking perimeter at our target station and quickly docked. As the crew prepped Thresher to go back out, I took a stroll down to see Letreid Aunared. She had a mission for me over in Anher, dealing with the Angel Cartel. Good, I always enjoyed a good fight with them. Plus, Anher was back in high sec.

After the excitement of our initial entry into low sec, the battle with the Angels was pretty anticlimactic as Threshers tank barely got exercised. We never had to light off the second armor repper, and what her rail battery couldn’t track, her Hobgoblins could. It was good low risk practice for the drone and gun crews, and gave my electronic techs a chance to do some fine-tuning on our hardners. After downing the last Angel, we headed back through Hagilur to turn in the mission and go get the Scow, which was sitting in Bei. Time to salvage.

The crew of the Garbage Scow had been notified as we reentered the Bei system and had her powered up and ready to go when we docked the Thresher. I sprinted from dock to dock and we were back out heading to the Bei/Hagilur gate in record time. To bad I was in such a hurry.

As we came out of jump in Hagilur, Scow’s overview lit up with large swaths of red. There were at least 10 ships sitting within 20km of the gate, and they were all marked red. I was 13km off the gate. With the new salvaging rigs on the Scow, even with afterburner running, I was going to barely be able to squeak out 300m/sec. With no tank, going back to the gate was not an option. I hit the abandon ship alarm and sent the crew to their escape pods. I locked the navcomp on Hagilur V Moon 8 in preparation for attempting to warp out of this.

With one hand I hit the warp button and with the other I hit the launch button for the escape pods. I hoped everyone had made it to them. I had waited right up to the second when the gate cloak was going to drop. Even being a destroyer, the Scow took a moment to shift alignment and commence acceleration. We were target locked almost instantly, and within fractions of a second shields were gone and armor was shredding into space.

I continued to slam the warp button hoping that even if the ship got blown, my pod would still get to warp before they blew it too. Now that I think about it, I think the HUD showed the Scow starting to accelerate to warp and then being yanked down, but I got podded so fast, that I don’t know if that was real, or just a cloning dream.

As I toweled off and put my jumpsuit on, I kept hoping that all my crewmembers got clear. They definitely deserved a better capsuleer than I had proven to be. I knew of at least two errors I had made.

I had previously read something on my NeoCom posted by Mynxee about being in a situation like that. First, I should have found the celestial object closest to my current alignment. Second, upon realizing that the ship was a loss, I should have attempted to self-destruct, in hopes of catching them enough off guard that my pod would have made it into warp. Maybe that is the difference between combat pilots like Mynxee, and her ladies, and care bears like me. They think of these things in the moment, and I think of them after the fact.

Maybe I would have been better off if the Hellcat I had seen earlier had come after me. At least the Hellcats have the reputation of offering ransoms on pods and ships at times.

As I headed down to the hangar to climb into the bright, shiny new Velator I was given as recompense for this, I was already multi tasking over my NeoCom. Time to purchase a new salvager, and to figure out a better set of agents. Going back into low sec just doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

The day had started with Rayne accepting the delivery of 5 Atrons, 5 Incursus, and 5 Imicus frigates at his “Home” base. Rayne had started these manufacturing jobs the night before to have a ready stock of hulls for upgrading to Taranis Interceptors, Ishkur Assault Frigates, and Helios Covert Ops Frigates. Rayne coordinated with dock personel to move these hulls into the corporations Secure hangar for safe keeping, and then planned out the rest of his day.

With the “interesting” run he had made to Yona previously, he had enough datacores to start another invention job. Since he was lagging a bit behind on Helios blueprints, he went to the corporations “Science & Industry” hangar, gathered the necessary equipment, and loaded it into the cargo bay of the “Cosmic Drifter”, his current Incursus class Frigate. Rayne could not wait to finish the training he was currently undergoing so that he could trade this Incursus for the Ishkur he could almost taste.

Once Rayne had cleared the station, and been cleared to maneuver around the system, he snapped the agile Incursus around on a course for the corporations POS, and hit the jump button on the control panel. Once the Drifter had slid through the station shield, Rayne maneuvered it alongside the lab he planned to use for this round of invention.  Transfering all the necessary equipment and materials to the lab went as planned, and Rayne guided the Drifter back out of the station shield and back to the home station to swap ships.

Rayne had been avoiding it, because he just didn’t like being that far from “home” but he needed to go do some work for Core Complexions so that they would allow him access to some of their more senior R and D agents. Otherwise it was going to take forever for him to do the job VGO had tasked him with. Of course, that did have the added bonus of climbing into the pod of his bruiser, the Myrmidon class battlecruiser “Thresher”.

She had been a hand me down of sorts. Rayne had puchased her from the CEO of VGO, who was her previous capsuleer. This capsuleer had moved on to other ships and other interests. She definitely had her dings, dents, scratches, and scoring, but there was something about her that spoke of a personality all her own. Rayne knew that there were many ships out there that wouldn’t even blink while pounding the Thresher to dust, but it was the biggest and most powerful thing he had ever flown, and he always got a tingle in his fingertips when he belted in to his capsule and hit the engine start buttons on her.

It had been a while since Rayne had flown Thresher, and fortunately the Core Complexions agent handed out a few light missions which barely tested the Thresher’s shields, much less her armor, and gave the drones as well as the rails a good workout. Heading back into Parchanier VII Moon 1 after salvaging behind one of the missions, Rayne’s NeoCom went off, indicating he had a message. It seemed that the Minmatar Republic needed some assistance dealing with the Sansha in the area. Smacking around the Sansha was always good for stress management, so Rayne swapped out the armor hardners on Thresher, climbed into his pod, and requested launch clearance.

The first task Rayne had to complete was clearing out a breeding facility and all aggressors in the area. Once he had cleared the station traffic pattern, he adjusted the nav comp and jumped into the deadspace area that was rumored to contain the facility. As the Thresher came out of warp, Rayne locked on to the jump gate that was there and activated it. He followed this action by spinning up all armor hardners and engaging his sensor boosters. It was time to kick some Sansha butt.

Rayne dropped out of jump in the middle of  two formations of 5 ships each. They were a mix of frigates and destroyers. While this should prove to be simple for the Thresher, Rayne was not about to take any chances and opened up with his 4 250mm rail guns as well as launching a full flight of Hobgoblin drones. Thresher and its drones went through these Sansha like a hot knife through a butter like substance. Rayne destroyed the breeding facility, and every other installation in the area, noted the locations coordinates for later salvaging and headed back to report the results.

The second task the agent had for Rayne was to hunt down two freighters that had been seen in the area flying under Sansha colors to figure out what the Sansha were up to. Again, Rayne warped into the dead space area into a swarm of frigates and these 2 freighters. While Thresher’s Hobgoblins took care of the frigates, Rayne locked Thresher’s rail guns on the freighters and proceeded to pulverize them. Upon leaving nothing but wreckage in the system, Rayne closed in on the freighters’ wreckage to find large loads of construction blocks. That definitely could not be good. Rayne noted these coordinates for later salvaging, and warped out to report his findings.

Rayne’s findings definitely concerned the agent, and while he mulled it over, he sent Rayne on a courier run over to the Vimeini system in Metro. This was going into low sec, which was a bit uncomfortable for Rayne, but he figured that if he kept his D-scan cycling, his eye on the local coms channel, and jumped from gate to gate at 0 km, he should have a decent chance. Fortunately, the courier run went off without a hitch, and when Rayne got back to Parchanier, the agent was ready with a follow up task.

Rayne was being tasked with destroying the Sansha outpost that was currently being built up in the area. Scuttlebutt had it that the deadspace area was composed of 2 pockets, with the outpost in the second one. As Rayne dropped out of jump into the first pocket, Thresher was swarmed by over 20 frigates, with a cruiser and a few destroyers to make Rayne feel welcome. Targets were locked up, the rail guns opened up, and the Hobgoblins went to work. Once the first pocket was cleared, and all structures were  destroyed, Rayne engaged the jump gate into the second pocket.

This inner pocket was not as heavily manned, with a little over a handful of destroyers, a few frigates, and the under-construction outpost. Again, the rail guns cracked, the Hobgoblins zipped, the hardners hummed, the boosters growled, and the Sansha blew up. Finally, all ships were slag, and all structures had been pulverized. With a final set of coordinates for salvaging logged, Rayne headed back in to report to the agent.

Upon hearing Rayne’s report, the agent thanked him, and proceeded to send the information up his chain of command, as one lone battlecruiser was not going to be able to continue to handle the situation. This was fine with Rayne as he was ready to swap to the Garbage Scow and go salvage these battles. While the tractor beams hummed and the salvagers ground away, Rayne decided to do some research on who were the best R and D agents for Mechanical Engineering, and Minmatar Starship Engineering, and that were close to “home”.

Boundless Creation seemed to fit all those criteria, and Rayne headed back into station with thoughts of moving everything home running through his head.