mikeazariah

Mike sat with the local “Scotty” and sipped a coffee as a group of groundlings, heavily armed, trooped by. “I brought them in from a convoy that was being hit.” He said to his companion.

“Saw the after action report. Glad to see that you finally figured out what the differences in ammo were. If you’d gone in with your usual antimatter the action wouloda been done before you got in range.”

Mike snorted. “Ya ya, the Snark now can hit at whatever range I need. And I do so love being able to let the folks know I am coming with a long distance tap on the shoulder.” He watched the group move off, heavy weapons group bringing up the rear. “Gods, never get me down there in the Dust. Poor saps got no shields, no armor, just standing out there waitin to be shot.”

“This from a guy who takes missions against groups of enemies thrice his mass loadout on a regular basis?”

“Yeah, well,” Mike reached back and scratched around one of the plugs on his skull. “I got the advantage of training and a good ship under me. I’ve looted mining turrets off of some active pirate ships. Who in Hels name mounts mining equipment going into battle?”

Scotty looked up in the air and whistled.

Mike grinned. “That was a special case . . . and I found some nice stuff out there in the wormhole. Place was lousy with rare roids.” He nodded back to the groundlings. “Ya know they all carry shovels? Maybe they are hoping to hit it rich on some dusty planet somewhere . . . ”

“Or it is to bury their friends.”

Mike sighed and whispered, more to himself than to the ‘Scotty’ “Better them than me.”

——-

The Lt was outa earshot so Chucky spoke loud enough for the others around to hear him. “Theres that poddy who got us out.” One finger flickered in scout sign identifying Mike on the side, sipping his coffee. “Freak.”

“Freak?” Wilkinson was the new guy, Everybody called him the ‘talkie toaster’.

“Depends on his hunk a metal to keep him alive, goes out where a single mistake means ‘pop’. Prolly doesn’t even know how ta shoot a pistol. Sits in ‘is little pod an pushes buttons. No real control o’ situations. Ya hear wha the Lt said? Guy came in solo to hit those pirates. He don’t travel wif no backup, don’t have nobody ta watch his back. Freak, pure an simple.”

“Not all poddies are freaks, some do help the war effort, don’t they Chucky? Don’t they?”

“For a while, but bein all out dere in space all alone do things ta their brains. Sooner or later they all snap. Read the interspace news. Top Minnie guy in their military . . . even got man-dolls made that look like him. ‘E just plead guilty ta dealin in slaves.”

“A Minnie slave dealer? Noooo.”

“Like I said, its bein out there that does stuff ta their brains. This poddy ‘ere. Ya he saved our bacon this time. But don’t color me surprised if he is the one hittin our transport 6 months from now.”

Wilkinson looked back at the man scratching some implant plug on the side of his head and shuddered. “Better him than me.”

******
Lessons

Make a small note for yourself as to the different hitting ranges of your ammo and carry an assortment. This is even more important when you are the slower ship and the other guys are dictating the range. Let them dictate, just be sure you can still hit them wherever they are.

I think that Dust 514 will be an interesting experiment, but the differences in platform, game style, and customer base is going to, for the most part, make us into two different entities tied together only in name. Far too hard to see any actual effects from one changing the other. Just imagine a group trying to take a system logging on to the Dust and playing for the wrong side . . .badly.

mike

Mike muttered “Money or Life’ as he sat in a dingy little cafe on the station above Dantan. It was a question faced by many a capsuleer at one point or another, most trying to find a balance between the two. Money . . . a life of staring at asteroids or following charts and trends trading. Life . . . taking the Jaguar out and risking long odds for small returns, fun but not profitable.

He had always had a philosophy of a JOAT (Jack Of All Trades). This meant he could do a bit of anything he wanted but he was finding that he was never very good at anything. There were dozens of ships he could fly, poorly. He took almost twice as long to get Veldspar from a ‘roid than the miners around him. When he browsed the latest designs being worked on in the shipyards he would take notes of ‘loadouts’ then sigh realizing he did not yet have the skills to operate the more complex weapons or shield augmentations.

The waitress refilled his cup and moved through the room checking other customers before putting the heated pot away and clearing a table of dirty dishes and a small tip. He watched her, his mind far far away, but something slowly sunk in. Everyone has to make the choice, not just capsuleers. The thing is that most people decide NOT to decide and live their quiet lives watching the prizes sweep past them, never reaching out.

He came to the off the main concourse dineries because he wanted some peace, not having to listen to the trash talk of faction types, or watch the shady deals in the light of day. He came where the dockyard crews ate and relaxed. Where the people who made the stations run ate, not the bosses but the people who did the actual work. The menu glowing on the table before him proved he was not on the usual stomping grounds for pilots. Food and drink was an order of magnitude less in price and far far more filling and . . . well . . good. The human staff were not dressed (or undressed) to interest the customers, their clothing was utilitarian and basic.

Had the workers and clients here made their choices? Did they ever realize that they had choices? Were they just living life one shift at a time and working for small bursts of fun? He pulled out his pad and typed in a question. “Why are only some people capsuleers?” The Galnet connection seemed slower here and the answer, at first, didn’t make sense. It was neuro-research and educational studies written in very academic and formal language. Almost more than formal, it felt like authors were being deliberately obscure. {The ability of the participants within the non-control group were seen to have low achievement of the intended objectives vis a vis the absorption of the neuro-depositions of the advanced curriculum in direct relation to their normalized scores on the Weisman and Kurriachi achievement levels in standard cognitive processes.} Or {The few participants who managed the mninimum achievement levels within the intial testing were often found to be subservient to a stronger member of the cohort and were almost alternative personalities, reflecting an ‘out-of-the-box’ cognitive process in relation to the primary participant onto whom they had attached themselves. These alternative thinkers (or alts) were often cats paws for the stronger personality, seemingly willing to sacrifice themselves or run the most menial or repetitive tasks for their dominant ‘friend’.”

Mike ran his finger over the text a few times and made some side notes on his pad, translating the text into something resembling a laymans version when the full meaning hit him. He looked over at the waitress who was now staring off into space . . . no, at an imbedded Galnet contact. She wasn’t bored, she was distracted by something only she could see, or hear. He looked at her a bit closer and noted the iridescent tattoo on her left breast. [For The Horde!]

Ah.

She had made the choice, based on her ‘cognitive ability’.

Mike shrugged and went back to his coffee. When he left, though, the tip on the table was enough to pay the womans salary for a week. He had not made a decision to go for ‘Money or Life’. Like everything else, he would be a JOAT and do a bit of either, whenever the mood or the shiny ship called. It was a big universe and room enough for him to be what he wanted to be, when he wanted to be it.

****

Lesson: Eve is not WOW, we are all in the same universe, the same shard, the same unreality. But here you have to think. Hard to believe but it is true. Even Goons are a cognitive group, for all their anarchy and chaos and general goofiness . . . there are minds back there. Search a podcast lesson by the goons and see for yourself. Find leaked internal documents of tactics and builds and you will know they are not all nutters, it is just how they work and play.

The ‘low cognitives’ seldom get past the 14 day trial. They get discouraged when they haven’t leveled up. Or when they get concorded for doing something they were warned not to do.

Then they return to elves and dwarfs, quests and raids and they are happy

Oh, and Goons? If you are looking for me to join you on a run or two I will willingly do so in exchange for a collateral deposit to my account. Said deposit will be a promissory note against any predictable actions and the resulting clone and ship replacements.

A disease? No, a weakness would be a more appropriate term for it. Mike could not resist the shininess of a new ship. That smell as you stepped inside. The empty hull fittings waiting for the best a pilot could afford or imagine. He had managed to hold on to his isk for a week, maybe two, before he went crazy and bought the latest hull. Now here he stood in the docking bay, looking at the sleek lines, the glistening metal and cursing.

“Dammit, all my isk went into buying you, what the heck am I gonna attach?” He tapped a pad and called up his local stores. “Hmm, small armor repair . . . shield extender . . . ” He winced, hearing the lessons that had been drummed into him early on. ‘Never mix gun ranges’ ‘Either tank shield, armor, or hull. Only a fool tries to tank on separate levels.’

His instructor had been one for statements, usually at full volume. ‘The most dangerous weapon you have is not mounted in the ship, but between your ears. Sadly, some of you are going out there unarmed.’ He had glared down the line of students in Mikes final flight training class. ‘Some of you idiots are just itching to head for zero zero and make a name for yourselves. The nearest transition to lowsec is full of folks willing to tell you the name you will have. Noob, target, FC.’

A student on Mikes right blurted out “Fleet Commander?”

“No, idiot, Floating Corpse.”

Mike snapped back to the present a faint smile on his face. “He was right. For then. But if I want to fly this then I will fit what I can, with what I have . . . and we will see whether the locals had as good a teacher as I did.”

He started making fitting orders on the pad. It would be a monstrosity but it would get the jobs done.

and ooooh shiny the Jaguar just screamed FLY MEEEEEEE

*****

Lesson one: Flying a bad ship fitting is not suicide. It just means you have to be more careful and better skilled.

Lesson two: Would you REALLY want a ship that was no risk? Might as well become a macro-miner in 0.9 stripping belts.

Lesson three: You are the one playing. Listen to other folks advice but YOU decide what is right for you.

You have no idea how often the Help Channel hears the question “Which is the best ship?”
We try to explain (If we help regulars are in a good mood) that this is an unanswerable question. It depends on skills, need, playing style and where the heck you are going to take it. (If we are not in a good mood . . . well after a few minutes the ISD speaks gently to us to straighten up and fly right.)

If you have not been to Help channel and you know something, come help. If you know nothing, come learn. If you are like me, and stuck in between the two extremes, come and do both.