Carebear in disguise

It is incredible how much junk begins to accumulate as your capsuleer career goes on. As you move to different corporations, work for different agents, or just move your base of operations when you become too predictable.

I am in the process of moving gear around in the hopes of joining a nullsec sovereignty-holding corporation, but there is so much that it becomes overwhelming! My freight service has already filled 8 obelisks just to collect together ships I’m hoping to use in proper combat! All my invention gear and manufacturing supplies took up another pair of obelisks. And then I found my old orca, stuffed to the crow’s nest with ships, ore and mining gear!

There are some fantastic capsuleer-oriented services out there, but there doesn’t appear to be a hangar maid service. All they would need to do is sort my gear into piles labelled along the lines of invention, mining, manufacturing, missions and killing, and then arrange transport to the favoured solar system. That is the kind of thing that maids do, isn’t it? Or am I thinking of a different kind of employee?

/save and exit

I’ve been spending more and more time planetside, recently. The never ending fight against serpentis is becoming a real drag. Don’t get me wrong, it is lucrative and every now and then it becomes interesting, but those interesting moments get fewer and further apart.

I note with interest that the Scope has reported that the wormholes used by Sansha Nation in their recent “recruiting drives” turn out to be linked to Jovian space! Wow! What could possibly link those two disparate factions? I may have a dig around with my favourite Helios later.

Currently I am waiting for my application to Ushra’Khan to be processed, but now that they have achieved their goals of retaking Unity station and providence from the slavers, there is a large exodus of combat oriented capsuleers from their ranks – including many of their recruiters and diplomats! Maybe joining them is a risky option? Are they on a burnout cascade, or is it just time for a long vacation from the war against slavery? I guess I should try to work this out, but I’m already on my fifth Jovian MaiTai cocktail and it is barely lunchtime.

Concord allowed capsuleer’s rights to ravage planets for basic materials, but frankly the point is lost on me as the planets were always where I liked to escape the life of being a pod pilot. Building extraction plants and hiring locals on multiple planets just isn’t a fun idea. It won’t help when the extraction plants start to devastate the local ecologies and economies, too! But then, what else have I got?

Another (related) depressing news item has been the apparent ineffectiveness of the Council of Stellar Management in correcting many of the capsuleer technologies. Apparently, almost all resources are being used to enhance the planet ravaging features recently allowed. I am quite disappointed that the CSM have not got the power I originally hoped they’d have, but I am more disappointed in how the corporations dealing in capsuleer technology see their technology used in the future. It will come to a point where the capsuleer will be associated with planet and station life instead of the much more powerful ships they now use. Why would I want to exert myself by running about a station or terrain, trying to achieve an objective that would probably involve killing several people, when I could just wipe them out with pinpoint accuracy from orbit?

Well, despite all this depression and disappointment, I do have a few nice things to note (other than these great MaiTais!). Rixx Javix has created an excellent banner advertising this blog of mine. I think it looks great, and is well worth the ISK I happily paid for it.

Also, my cousin will be taking his final exams in the Open University of Celestial Hardship next month, and I am hoping to finally have a wingman to help me through my planned nullsec habitation plans. Good luck to you, mate, and don’t worry, I won’t name you here so that you are forever tainted by association with a carebear!

/save and exit

Firstly, let me assure you that a moon-stationed tower, commonly called a POS, is a pain to destroy even when the forcefield is disabled. It is doubly so when you can not muster enough force to destroy it quickly!

I had been contracted to find a good spot and place a POS tower for some associates who do not have the cordial relationship with the Gallente Federation that I do. I scouted out a few candidates (in the client’s favoured system) where the resident POS tower was disabled. There were no unoccupied moons in this system, which is why the client contracted me for the job I suspect. A disabled POS has no forcefield, and usually no facilities and weapons, due to a lack of fuel, and I was careful to make sure that these towers were not likely to ever be refueled before the time came to setup my client’s little piece of paradise. I gathered a force of laser-wielding friends and we descended on the tower.

I say “a force”, but really it was “a trio” which is more like a kid with a popgun than a battalion of soldiers – sadly it was the best I could do at the time with the expenses I was allowed (the client did not want to get involved due to possible legal ramifications if the resident tower’s owner should return.) We targetted the POS tower and set our guns and drones to firing and I suspected it would take a long time, but I never would have bothered if I had known it would take about 48 hours! If anyone should get into the situation where they want to destroy a POS tower, I heartily recommend finding a force of mercenaries to do the hard work for you. The cost is definitely worth it!

The 48 hour destruction of the POS was completely uneventful, although I managed to recruit some friends in battlecruisers to come and help. I am sure we would have done the job with just three battleships, but the extra firepower was welcome.

That was just the beginning! I also had to create a brand new corporation according to the client’s specification and file registration papers with the Federation Administration which, due to the nature of bureaucrats everywhere, took over a week to complete! Only then could I place the large POS tower in the required spot. Let me tell you, POS tower destruction is only slightly more boring than POS tower construction. It took an hour to anchor and power up the POS tower, but it felt like another week of filling in forms for a soul-less, vapid, evil gallente corporations administration officer!

However, that also passed uneventfully and I spent the next week hauling facilities and weapons to the POS and then anchoring and onlining them. The client was very pleased with the result, and after some requisite training in the tower’s maintenance procedures, and a small period of waiting for the corporation training required by the client to actually use the facility, I was able to pick up my gear and find somewhere else to live.

But, to be honest, I am exhausted after that ordeal! I will never contract myself out for that kind of job again!! I need a few weeks rest, then I am off to nullsec regions to begin my career as a soldier of fortune (and I will flatly refuse to place any POS towers while I am there! )

/save and exit

Well, the corporation known as TransMiners is about to bite the dust. As CEO of that corporation, I have been very disappointed by the lack of interest most of my members have shown in any venture I put forward. Is it a lack of interest in capsuleer life, in general, or just a lack of interest in following me? I’m not a tyrant, so I couldn’t force them to do anything, but this means I have done next to nothing for this whole month too! Except help the Sisters of Eve as an off-the-books mercenary. (Perhaps I shouldn’t mention that here? No matter, my agent has plenty of room for plausible deniability.)

Only three TransMiners pilots have actually boarded their ships in the past month, so the costs of running a corporation’s hangar now outweighs the tax payments coming in. TransMiners has a very light tax policy to help the young pilots and to encourage the older pilots to stay, but I either need to put a draconian tax policy in now and penalise the pilots currently flying or leave the corporation and head out in a new direction to start again.

The wormhole operation has already been ended (for now) and I have arranged to help someone setup a POS tower in high security empire space in return for them looking after the R&D needs of my ship production line, but once that POS is up I think I will head out to providence and aid the Ushra’Khan in their fight against the slavers. If they’ll take me, of course. If not, I am sure someone out there could use a pilot of my skill level to bolster their sub-capital fleet. All I require in return would be a place to setup the manufacturing part of my ship production line.

In other matters, the fifth CSM elections have finished and the renowned capsuleer pirate and (more recently) mercenary, Mynxee, has been awarded with the chair of the council. Much of the council are highly qualified capsuleers, covering the spectrum of legal and fiscal outlook. Congratulations to all the members and I hope that they manage to bring the capsuleer’s latest concerns to the power blocks of New Eden, as well as guiding the capsuleer technology further forward to greater profits.

/save and exit

As anyone who even glances at this blog before should realise, I have been dragged into so many wars this year it is just not funny anymore! We were at war with The Blood Wraiths who our alliance management felt were beneath our notice. Personally, I thought they had some decent stats, but my opinion may not carry much weight when I am wearing my carebear hat and I was living (relatively safely) in a wormhole.

The war lasted a few days, and the alliance management found a diplomatic solution just after I exited the wormhole to go and help my allies in their difficult battles. (I had just lost that gas mining cruiser in the wormhole to an incredibly quick use of combat probes, too, so I was feeling a bit grumpy at the time.)

Then, as I figured I would have to wait for a few days to get back into the wormhole as the corporation as a whole employs a lot of radio silence to keep our position relatively safe, I found a few things to occupy myself with. But another war was declared within two days! Another one!! Oh this is annoying.

I was going to take a very active role in this war and take out my frustrations on these new bullies (who were in four different wars at the time), so I got myself setup in the systems they occupied most frequently and went to sleep for the night. When I awoke, I found that the alliance had been disbanded by the alliance management and now the corporation was alone again! The reasons given for disbanding was that there had been too many wars, which is a lame excuse I reckon. (They’ve had three wars this year, I’ve had seven!)

So here we are again, a small group of snaggle-toothed carebears left alone to fend for ourselves until we either find another alliance to support us, or disband ourselves. As the name of the corporation is TransMiners, I suppose it gives an impression of weakness to anyone who sees it and attracts these war-deccing bullies, so perhaps we need to change it. I have a lot of thinking to do in order to keep myself sane and my corp buddies safe.

/save and exit

The Council of Stellar Management is now in its fifth election. These guys are the only real organised voice that capsuleers have amongst the powers-that-be in New Eden and it is the duty of all capsuleers to put in their informed vote for a representative. If you are having problems deciding who to vote for, check out Dierdra Vaal’s helpful site.

Strangely, I was told by my friends planetside that an important government election was going on there too. I wonder if there is a helpful way of deciding who to vote for there? Even though I spend most of my time in space these days, I make sure I vote in my home planet’s government elections so that I have somewhere decent to retire to when I get too rich to safely carry ISK around under my mattress in my ship.

/save and exit

After all this time, I get back into the wormhole and I lose my gas harvesting exeq to a proteus within my first hour. All respects due to the pilot of that ship – I didn’t even see probes on scan! Perhaps I need to hit the scan button every four seconds from now on? Maybe every two?

Interstellar Forces are at war again. First time since we joined them, I think. Then they get a second wardec from mercenaries. At least this lot aren’t too afraid to fight. I’ve not engaged them myself, yet, but they field marauders, recon and strategic cruisers and all sorts of tasty salvage just waiting to happen. Shame they also insist on using neutral remote repair ships too.

Now I have to get out of the wormhole, get back to my combat ships, and pick them off one by one. Or get destroyed myself everytime one of them looks at me. Either way is fun, really.

save and exit

Have any of my fellow capsuleers noticed a reduction in the number of experienced pod pilots recently?

It seems that the concord registry is recording normal pod-pilot concurrent activations, but many of the pilots I spend time with seem to be staying planetside at the moment!

I’m not the only one who has noticed, either. The Python Cartel’s 00sage00 mentioned it in passing too.

Is there a problem with capsuleer technology that I have not suffered yet? Or has a better adrenaline rush appeared planetside, keeping the usual pilots occupied?

/save and exit

The w-space we try to occupy seems reachable most often from Amarr space. It is as if the wormholes have a preference of ideaologies, or some other bias. For the past three months, whenever I asked for an entrance location from whoever was in there, I was invariably disappointed to learn that I would need to transfer my ship equipment more than 20 jumps! Maybe I’m lazy, or just impatient, but that is too far for a journey in an orca or obelisk, and remaining sane would be very difficult.

Last night the entrance to the w-space opened only 4 jumps away! Needless to say, I grabbed my wormholing gear and got setup immediately. It’s the first time I’ve been in this new w-space and the wolf-rayett star makes the visuals very distracting, but still beautiful in their own way. I felt like handing out cookies in celebration of the beauty and the success of finally returning to the sleeper systems.

I fully aim to resuscitate my plans for building a Tech 3 cruiser or two for use within the w-space we are in – I have all the concord-sanctioned skills necessary, and they took time out of my training queue that I could’ve put to more practical use, so I am going to make a big effort this time.

When I’ve made the first strategic cruiser, I was going to name it after the system it was created in… Maybe I should think of a name for the w-space system and just impose my will on the sleepers until they see sense and change the system info broadcast. It might happen!

Choices for names, though? There is a great book created a long time ago, before the New Eden wormhole collapsed, that was very popular. It may have been non-fiction, but I can’t see it somehow. It was the most popular book of it’s time, so may have been the basis for some obscure religion or two, but I just find it a great escape into much simpler times. I shall draw a name from that book and hope that Tolkien does not smite me for my impudence in using His work (as some of the less restrained news media outlets would have you believe is possible!) Lothlorien? Mordor? I’ll have to read it again for the perfect name.

/save and exit

To keep the corporation a significant influence in the future of the alliance I have called for my pilots to begin looking towards learning to fly capital ships and “ships of the line”. I was wondering about my own capital ship training last time and I have decided to train for Dreadnaughts. Then (maybe) carriers.

However, I am thinking of training for black ops ships first, specifically the Sin. There are many skills required to fly a black ops that are also required in capital ships, and there is a logistics issue when travelling deep space: If you are taking large quantities of cargo into deep space where most people would like to steal it or just blow you up, how do you make certain that your cargo ships are safe if you only have limited combat resources at the time? My idea is to use the covert Cyno ability of the black ops and blockade runners. The amount of cargo you can take this way is limited as blockade runners are not mega haulers, but with enough runners, good scouting and some luck you should be able to get a fleet of blockade runners across several systems quickly and then they can hide while each cyno bridge is created.

Obviously the idea is still rough, especially as the blackops ship is vulnerable while creating a cyno bridge, and I don’t have much knowledge of using the cyno bridge ability of jump capable ships yet, but how would this method compare to more established jump freighter and heavy carrier support cargo transportation?

TransMiners is still young and capital pilots are not common yet, so the blackops route seems to me a good compromise. Comments?

/save and exit