Well Rubicon 1.1 dropped yesterday and did not completely crash the game, so another resounding success by CCP I suppose. I think the changes that are relevant to me are the nerfing of target painters and requiring Omnidirectional Tracking Links to be scripted just like Targeting Computers. I can live with the target painter change and the OTLs were frankly pretty overpowered to begin with, especially in combination with Garde IIs. I don’t think there’s much of an issue with them being scripted as you don’t need that much tracking at range anyway, and Garde II tracking is decent by itself.

However the best news is that EVEHQ finally updated and fixed a bug in their reports that left out the summary total in transaction trading reports. So now I can finally stop copying and pasting the list into Excel just to get a sum of the profits. From Jan 1-29 I currently have 4.2 billion ISK profit, but unfortunately PLEX prices didn’t go down from the PLEX sale.

Another plus side is that I finally got cleared through recruitment for my old corp, now I have to find a good time to plan my wormhole deployment. The new mobile microjump structure actually sounds pretty good in terms of allowing me to use sub-BS class sentry ships, since they would let me ping-pong Myrmidons between two such structures and hence let the sentries easily hit Sleeper frigates. Also immunity to warp disruptors, yum.

Nothing much to say about the capital slugfest in BR-5RB, except that every time I see the system name I just think “BRB” which is probably a good predictor of what is going to happen to all those lost capitals. I find it amusing that Gevlon thinks all big fights should be done with capitals though, I don’t think he has ever grown out of the “Big Ship Syndrome” that most new players start with and thinks that Titans are the be-all-end-all ship that everyone should aspire to. Probably because he hasn’t actually done anything requiring combat such as missions or incursions and instead spent all his time hauling and trading (or ganking).

Finally got my recruitment chat done with the corp. It’s primarily an Aussie corp so that might explain the difficulty in finding people. However if I go into wormholing I’m prepared to solo or dual-box already anyway so I won’t wilt from lack of people in my time-zone anyway. Supposedly there is quite a lot of activity down in Syndicate with the alliance in US time zones, I might actually try that out too. Hopefully my application will get cleared in the next few days, after which I can start on the wormhole project.

In the meantime, I’m training T2 heavy assault missiles so I can try the HAMgu for wormhole sites. I’ve slowed down my trading activities too, updating orders mostly once a day instead of twice. I’m still on track to make more than 4 billion ISK in January despite very limited activity, so it’s still good.

On a totally random note, I find it absolutely incredible that there are actually people who will spend their time doing public courier contracts. Man, that is the very definition of sweatshop work… even mining is more fun than that >.<

Most of my time has been spent playing Marvel Puzzle Quest, which very surprisingly my wife has really taken to despite knowing next to nothing about comics and superheros. She's definitely an Achiever though and will rabidly farm for things. She also has much better luck than me and pulls so many more useful characters from the random recruitment tokens.

Assassin's Creed : Black Flag is also getting some playtime from me, at about 29% story completion now. Nice graphics, very nicely done ship fighting and has all sorts of lists to tick off, which really float my boat (har har har).

I previously mentioned that I was applying to rejoin my previous corp. However, the process has turned out to be a long wait. They are not currently recruiting actually, but the fact that I was a previous member lets me rejoin. After filling in the 3 page long application form (again) and resending character API keys, now I’m just waiting for a recruitment chat. Unfortunately I haven’t been logging on to EVE all that much and during the times when I am on, no recruitment officer was available in the recruitment channel. Now they have said that recruitment is on hold due to a new wardec.

Kinda reminds me again of why I prefer solo play… I’m slightly regretting reapplying at this moment. Part of it was that in their due diligence of examining character APIs, the recruitment officer reminded me about my loss of a 3 billion ISK Bestower. Yes yes, I know it happened, in fact I did put a post of it up in the forums telling everyone how it happened you know. I know he was just trying to help and remind me not to do stupid stuff, but yet it felt a little bit like nagging and patronizing. That’s one thing I definitely like about being solo, at least after doing something dumb and losing an expensive ship you don’t get nagged about it afterwards.

On a separate note, I am completely flabberghasted at how so many EVE players seem to think that EVE has a great community. I can only conclude that either I completely do not understand the meaning of the word “community” or this is the most spectacular display of in-group bias I have ever seen. “We may scam, grief, gank, AWOX and verbally abuse everyone, but we’re a great community”. Just look at the EVE forums.

I normally don’t participate in Blog Banters, but this one kinda intrigued me mostly because it ties in to something I was already thinking about. I belong firmly in the camp that EVE has peaked long ago and there will not be any significant increase in subscribers unless something major is done. Why? To me the answer is obvious and simple : the current playerbase.

Over the years, EVE has collected and distilled the scum of the internet into one convenient location. EVE’s reputation as a harsh, no-holds-barred game has naturally attracted (and retained) only 2 kinds of player, the griefer or the people that accept the presence of griefers and are able to deal with them. In my case, I am pretty anti-social and so I tend not to have any dealings with them at all if I can help it. Other games also have asshats, but EVE is pretty unique in that asshattery is not only allowed, it is actually EXPECTED and the game mechanics themselves serve to protect griefers.

Troy Wexler’s story is such a typical one that it serves as a perfect case study. I can just imagine an entire corp thinking “yeah if we work together we can fight them off!” especially if they have been taken in by EVE’s “you can make a difference” marketing. But any experienced player knows that trying to fight back against high-sec griefers that shoot MTUs or can flip or steal mission items is just a lose-lose situation. Even if you succeed in refitting to a PVP ship and killing them, it means nothing and will just encourage them to reship and come back in a neverending cycle of badgering and annoyance. CONCORD in high-sec does nothing except help blow up random newbies, the only defense against gankers is to not be there.

Thus anyone who comes into the game thinking they are going to be a white knight, and hunt pirates, or tries to fight back will eventually be driven into frustration by griefers that know how to exploit high-sec mechanics for their own protection much better than their victims. EVE will never be a “social” game that a group of friends can jump into, because it’s so easy for a small group to be completely shut down by random griefer corps.

There are other reasons too, mainly being time commitment. I can sort of see the expense argument too, since EVE has such a long time frame and really does become much more playable with multiple accounts that it really seems to lock you in to paying multiple $15 subscriptions for extended times. Unlike other MMOs, you can’t just unsub when you’re not playing much only to resub later because of the feeling that you’re wasting skill point training time. Of course I’ve only ever given CCP one payment of $15 and have been PLEXing both accounts ever since, but it’s pretty obvious that most people do pay with RL cash for at least one of their accounts.

It’s such a pity too because at it’s heart EVE is such a complex, deep and beautiful game. It’s pretty well balanced and has interesting gameplay strategies too involving different classes of ships and tactics. Too bad it all lies behind a great wall of gankers and griefers, all shouting that they want the sandbox to remain the way it is, i.e. they have all the power to go around kicking in sandcastles without any consequences whatsoever. I can’t remember where I read it now, but someone also made an interesting comment that another problem is that the existing playerbase has been given proof multiple times that if they kick and scream enough, CCP will cave in to them because EVE is their golden goose. Much like a screaming spoilt 2 year old, the EVE community now uses any excuse to violently oppose any change that would lessen their ability to abuse newcomers to the game.

I’ve not been doing all that much in EVE recently, being partially distracted by Marvel Puzzle Quest which my wife is also playing. The good part is that while I’ve been playing that, I also took the opportunity to do some mining with both characters in Retrievers. Not particularly profitable with each full ore hold of Solid Pyroxeres being worth only something like 3.7 million unprocessed, but I like having a stockpile of minerals around when I want to build stuff, like the Drake I recently baked.

However last night my Iron Man got whooped and had to rest a bit to recover health, so my wife shooed me off to go do other things. Well, guess it’s time to put my wormhole day-tripping plan into action…

My Buzzard, Laserbeak, undocks and starts putzing around looking for a wormhole. In my favourite dead end system, 2 jumps from my base, I find 2 K162s into unknown space. I kinda forgot to try to guess the class of the wormhole from the colors, but decide to grit my teeth and jump into one of them. Here goes nothing!

Ok, I ended up alone, which is always a relief. Opening an in-game browser to wormnav shows that it’s a cataclysmic C1, with some activity in the past few hours so it’s not unoccupied. There’s nothing on dscan so first thing is to bookmark the wormhole (woot! didn’t forget this step!) and then make a safe spot. Once in the safe, I start scanning. My dscan skills are extremely rudimentary, which needs to be corrected soon, but so far I haven’t seen any ships and the system seems quiet. There are 2 combat anomalies and an ore site, and 2 unknowns which turn out to be another wormhole and a data site. Hmm… data site… and Laserbeak has hacking stuff fitted.

Now at this point maybe I should have gone to look at the other K162 to check out the situation, but I’m lazy. Laserbeak is right there to hack the cans, once I clear out the defending Sleepers. The site is called Unsecured Perimeter Information Center and looks to have a fair number of cruiser NPCs, so not quite a cakewalk? Time for Noork to bring the Drake over. I’ve refitted it by dropping a passive thermal shield amplifier and putting on a target painter, so the tank is reduced to about 400 with fleet boosts, but I figure the heavy missiles need some help in hitting frigates.

While Noork starts making his way, I warp the Buzzard over to the entry N110 hole at 100km just to make sure an ambush hasn’t materialised. Shortly after Noork jumps into the system, I see a pod appear on dscan shortly before appearing at the N110. Hmm, so there are people in here… but why a pod? Did he get killed by Sleepers or are there defenders? Still haven’t seen any ships on dscan, although I didn’t exactly make an extensive survey of the system to find out where the towers are etc.

Anyway, I decide to go for it and jump the Drake through. Warping in to the data site, I see a buttload of Sleepers and am immediately neuted by 1 frigate and 3 cruisers. Someone obviously triggered the site already, including the first reinforcement wave.

I was a bit alarmed to see my capacitor vanishing quickly, and pretty soon it’s totally dry which means both adaptive invulnerability fields stop running. Thankfully the tank seems to hold at around 50-60% shields, and the target painter helps a lot in killing stuff. I didn’t launch my Hobgoblin IIs as I figured they would be instantly eaten. After killing all the neuting ships things obviously got easier and I decided to plonk down a mobile depot to refit to salvage drones and see if I could get a first step on salvaging. I was hoping that the Sleepers would not disturb the salvage drones since they don’t attack and cause aggro, but no luck and I had to pull them back pretty quickly.

I wonder what that pretty blue pulsar-looking thing in the background is. After killing everything, I then refit to 4 salvagers and 2 tractor beams and go to work on the wrecks. I didn’t bring a mobile tractor unit due to how much space it took up, but man it’s been a long time since I did manual salvaging with no tractor bonuses and it proves to be a real pain even with the salvage drones helping.

At this point I notice that an Arazu has appeared on dscan. Uh oh. My Drake is aligned to my safe, so I’m keeping an eye out. Of course being a cloaky recon he could suddenly appear next to me but I should be able to warp off before being targeted… I think. A short while later, the Arazu disappers but is replaced by a Pilgrim. I’m getting more nervous here as it’s becoming more evident that someone is awake. My Buzzard, which has been keeping watch on the hole, suddenly sees a Hurricane land on it. Yikes, looks like they’re looking for me.

Feeling alarmed, I pull the drones back and start spamming dscan on the Drake. The Pilgrim disappears and is replaced by a Prophecy battlecruiser and Maelstrom battleship. Uh oh, big guns coming, warp warp warp! In my haste I leave my dear salvage drones behind, poor things. However, upon reaching my safe spot I realise I have another problem, that being my Drake has no cloak. So I can’t just sit at my safe spot since I’ll get probed out. I didn’t even remember to bring a cloak so that I could refit to it, although I was also loathe to drop a mobile depot and wait 45 seconds for it to go online since it’s easily probe-able as well. I warped my Buzzard 100 km off the data site and began bouncing the Drake madly between planets thinking what to do. I had a moment of panic where I forgot what my exit bookmark was called and thought that they had collapsed the exit hole using the Maelstrom. Obviously they couldn’t do that, this being a C1 which doesn’t allow battleships to enter back in, but yeah I don’t think well under stress. After realizing my exit was still there, and watching dscan a bit on the Buzzard, things seemed to calm down a bit.

At this point I made another mistake, and decided to warp back to the site in my Drake to pick up my salvage drones and finish up the last few wrecks. I knew it was a bad idea even while I was doing it, kinda like when I decided to move 3 billion ISK in goods from Jita to Amarr in a Bestower, but yeah… in Keroro Platoon we leave no drone behind! Fortunately I actually managed to pick up all 5 drones and finish salvaging with no incidents, after which I immediately bolted to the exit hole and jumped through. Success!

Meanwhile I had warped the Buzzard to the exit hole to scout first, and while the Drake jumped through I warped the Buzzard back to the data site at 0 to hack the data cans. The Buzzard obviously had a Covert Ops cloak, so I thought I should be safe. I think you can probably guess what happened…

While setting my Drake to jump back to my base, I suddenly heard a target lock sound through my earphones and the sound of weapons fire. After a second of “huh?” I switched back to the Buzzard and saw to my dismay that I was decloaked and there was a Hurricane pointing me. I sat there for another salvo before realizing that he didn’t have a web on me. Aligning to my safe spot and hitting my 1MN AB, I actually managed to make it to 10km away before his drones blew up my Buzzard. Not sure if I would have made it if I had been a bit quicker thinking or had overheated the AB. In any case, at least my pod got out safely.

So that turned out to be 16.5 million ISK in loot, mostly from 3 melted nanoribbons, in exchange for about a 30 million ISK Buzzard. Not particularly productive, but I think I did learn a lot of things from my first wormhole adventure.

1) I need to do a proper recon of the system before doing anything. This includes checking towers, etc. If it’s occupied or has signs of recent activity, forget about it.

2) If I see a ship appear on dscan, I should gtfo. No exceptions, and no doing stupid stuff like “one more wreck” or “just need to pick up my drones”.

3) Might need to revise my Drake fit a bit, or maybe choose a different ship. I got neuted out pretty quickly, so maybe change to fully passive tank instead of 2 invuls. DPS from heavy missiles was decent against frigates, might get more from HAMs but HAMs have pitiful range and the Drake has no prop mods. Salvaging is also still a pain, but I’m not sure how to improve this. Maybe bring a MTU despite the 150 m3 volume, it seems to be worth it. Also BRING A CLOAK, seems more useful than a core probe launcher in that utility slot (the probe can be refit using the mobile depot).

4) I need to make tactical warp ins for any site I’m doing, rather than warp to 0.

The idea of getting into wormholes continues to intrigue me. I tried a POS fitting tool to set up a Large Caldari Tower, “Dickstar” mode of course. Then I realised it gulps 960 fuel blocks a day, which is almost 20 million ISK, and the tower can only hold 3 weeks of fuel at once. Seems kind of excessive in terms of the logistics of refuelling. I could produce some of the necessary fuel components through PI, but then I’d still need the ice mining components to make the fuel blocks.

So a tower still seems kinda excessive when I still don’t even know how much I’d enjoy dual-boxing in a hole. Then it struck me that I should, you know, just go try it out! It shouldn’t be that hard to do a wormhole day-trip into a (hopefully empty) C1-C3 to try things out. I then spent a while EFT-spazzing, as opposed to EFT-warrioring which requires you to actually know what you’re doing. At first I really wanted to go with dual RR Dominixes, because I had just finished T2 Sentries with Yannie and damn it if I wasn’t going to use it!

[Dominix, RR WH]

2x Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
2x Large Remote Armor Repairer II
2x Drone Link Augmentor I

Large Micro Jump Drive
Sensor Booster II (Scan Resolution Script)
3x Omnidirectional Tracking Link II

Damage Control II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
3x Drone Damage Amplifier II

2x Large Remote Repair Augmentor I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

5x Garde II
5x Bouncer II
5x Hobgoblin II
5x Hammerhead II
5x Vespa EC-600

Pretty standard wormhole remote repair fit. I like it since it gives almost a 600 dps tank with plenty of cap from the transfers. Also gives 700 dps from Garde II’s out to 68/12 optimal/falloff and tracking of 0.08, which is really nice. The MJD would let me reposition easily to blap orbiting Sleeper frigates, as well as letting me escape points and most importantly WARP BUBBLES.

So the only downsides are that battleships can’t go into C1 holes, which sort of limits my options. I’m also not sure how fast it would destabilize a C2/C3 hole, I don’t want to get trapped in there. I planned to carry a core probe launcher and a mobile depot to refit (together with everyone’s favourite warp core stabilizers) but still it would be a hassle to find the new exit is 47 jumps away or something like that. Also, the 174 million ISK price tag per Dominix hull is a little bit on the high side for a complete wormhole noob to try out. I still remember buying my first Dominix, also my first battleship, so long ago for 60 million ISK. Ah, the good old days when PLEX were 280 million…

So then I started looking at battlecruiser hulls, which would let me go into C1-C3 holes. Of course so would Tengus, but yeah that’s a bit more than I want to risk at the moment. First try was just downgrading the Dominix fit to dual RR Myrmidons, because SENTRIES. I really wanted sentries because then I could just assign them to one pilot and let me pay full attention to a single client.

[Myrmidon, WH RR]

2x Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
2x Medium Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Drone Link Augmentor I

Sensor Booster II
3x Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Cap Recharger II

Armor Explosive Hardener II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
2x Drone Damage Amplifier II

2x Medium Remote Repair Augmentor I
Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I

4x Garde II
5x Vespa EC-600
5x Hammerhead II

However this only gives me a 290 dps tank, which I don’t think is sufficient for a C3. Also I’m not too sure how well 10 Hammerhead IIs would be able to handle orbiting frigates, since there’s no way to pull range for sentries once they get close. Using a dual MAR local tank with dual cap transfers would give me a 400 dps tank that’s stable at around 43%, but it’s a bit risky since it would require a lot of juggling with the reppers and cap transfers and still wouldn’t solve the problem of orbiting frigates.

Looking through every other racial battlecruiser doesn’t really give any other options, they’re all lacking tank with or without RR. Except… the Drake. Looks like the old wormhole favourite is still ideal for the task.

[Drake, WH passive]

6x Heavy Missile Launcher II (Scourge Heavy Missile)
Core Probe Launcher I (Core Scanner Probe I)

2x Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Amplifier II
Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II
2x Large Shield Extender II

2x Shield Power Relay II
2x Ballistic Control System II

3x Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

5x Hobgoblin II

449 dps tank, 377/285 dps with and without drones. Has the advantage of not giving a shit which side is pointed where or where the hell it is on grid, meaning I can always stay aligned instead of stationary/orbiting sentries. Still cheap, and in fact I have quite a few Drake BPCs on hand. Only thing is I’m not sure how well those heavy missiles hit frigates without rigor rigs or target painters, I’d have to fill up my cargohold with Scourges, and I’d have to constantly switch between two clients. The DPS pales in comparison to sentries, but I think I have to resign myself to the fact that Gardes make everything look bad.

Each ship would carry a mobile depot with the omnipresent warp core stabilizers and a full rack of salvagers and tractors (or maybe a mobile tractor unit instead) to refit for salvaging when the site is done. Of course, I could always just do it with one combat ship and clean up with a salvage ship after that too, but that’s less fun. May be smarter though, hmm.

So after all this planning, I went ahead and popped a Drake BPC into the manufacturing oven. It should be done by now, I just have to deliver it and fit it to join the other Drake I already have prepped.

Now that I’m all set for a wormhole daytrip, I went ahead and re-applied to my old corp, neatly voiding all my planning since they have (hopefully not HAD) a station in a C2 with a C4 static and a high-sec static. If that station is still around, that would give me the benefits of a tower without the hassle of setting one up myself. On times where no one is around, I could maybe farm the local sites in the C2. Ideally though I’d want to farm the C4 since they are less populated, and I can roll the static to find a good one. But I don’t think dual RR-Dominixes can do C4 sites, so I’ll have to see… maybe eventually I’ll be gung-ho enough to bring in dual Marauders.

So feeling a little bit motivated after realizing that I haven’t done anything with my Stratios yet, I sat down for a round of low-sec exploring. First I had to fit it, which required a little bit of shopping at Amarr.

[Stratios, Low sec]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher (Sisters Core Scanner Probe)

10MN Afterburner II
3x Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Cap Recharger II

True Sansha Medium Armor Repairer
Core C-Type Armor EM Hardener
Armor Thermic Hardener II
2x Drone Damage Amplifier II

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II

4x Garde II
4x Bouncer II
5x Vespa EC-600
5x Hammerhead II
4x Garde II

The fit is a little bit bling as I was concerned about the tank ability for combat sites. This gives me a 219 dps cap stable tank, which is really still not a lot, but I intend to dual-box those with my Ishtar anyway so the incoming damage should be mitigated somewhat by higher dps and split fire. A small secure container in the cargohold is just enough to fit in 4 warp core stabilizers (can’t have too many!), a hacking set of cargo scanner, relic analyzer and data analyzer, and a spare assortment of light drones. Add in the obligatory mobile depot and it looks good to go.

The Stratios and Ishtar set off for low-sec together. There was an incursion going on so I didn’t take any screenshots due to the weird off-yellow color. Jumping in the Stratios shows the first low-sec gate to be clear. There’s only 1 other pilot in system and there are some signatures, but I decide to go a bit deeper in to see if there are better opportunities.

The second system has a red Drake hanging around camping the gate. Not a very dangerous gate camp, especially to a Stratios, but nevertheless my first time ever encountering one. The system seems fairly populated so I head off to a neighboring dead-end system while the Ishtar remains cloaked in a safe in the previous system. The dead-end system proves empty and has one signature, which resolves into a combat site! Yay! Except it’s a rogue drone site, Outgrowth Rogue Drone Hive. Ugh. I would still have run it, even with it supposedly taking a couple of hours for a solo Cerberus, if not for this:

Getting through the gate into Room 2 requires the skill “Plasma Physics” trained to Level 4. It also requires a Zbikoki’s Hacker Card.

Well at least now I know what that dumb card is for.

Checking back at the camped gate shows that the Drake pilot has switched out for a Broadsword interdictor, and is also accompanied by a Sleipnir command ship. Fortunately, a few seconds after my Stratios arrives at the gate perch they both warp off. Taking advantage of the opportunity I slip my Ishtar through to another safe spot.

Jumping into the next system, my Stratios then encounters a Procurer. Wait, a Procurer? Unless he’s mining the stargate, that’s a pretty obvious bait ship. A Buzzard also appears and hangs around, making the bait even more obvious. My Stratios warps to my safe and then warps back 50 km from the gate, with the intention of helping out with sentries if my Ishtar gets caught. The Ishtar jumps through as a Talos, obviously an alt of the Buzzard pilot, also lands on the gate. I’m getting a little nervous here as I realise that I’m going to have to test out the cloak-MWD trick. And fortunately I did mount a MWD on my Ishtar. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that it’s quite a bit harder to do the cloak-MWD trick when aligning to a bookmark since I can’t just spam warp like I can when warping to a planet at 0. This results in my MWD expiring before I turn off the cloak, and now I’m stuck without MWD to boost me up to warp speed. Hmm. While I ponder what to do I try to align to a planet instead of my safe spot, since that at least gives me a warp button to spam. As I crawl along 20 km away from the hostiles, they start moving around trying to decloak the Ishtar. I think I’m fairly safe as I’m out of scram and web range, so even if they catch me with a long point I “should” be able to MWD away and warp. Eventually I decide to go for it as a Purifier bomber also lands on the gate to help in the search. I decloak and select warp to 100, and thankfully the Ishtar turns out to be pretty speedy and enters warp almost immediately. After landing I immediately warp to my safe, just as the Talos lands at the planet 70 km away.

As this system seems pretty hot, I quickly make my way to the next gate and jump through with the Stratios. A Ferox battlecruiser, which turns out to be the Procurer pilot’s alt, shows up on d-scan. A bit of scanning at my safe finds 2 wormholes, which I’m not interested in. The last signature turns out to be another combat site, Provisional Blood Outpost. I warped both ships over, eager to finally do something. However it turns out that someone has already cleared the site as all I find are empty deadspace pockets. In the last room, I notice that the Buzzard pilot has followed me… together with his Talos alt.

The same story plays out for 2 more systems, with the Ferox pilot joining in the chase. At this point I figure they are not going to leave me alone and there’s no way I’m going to be able to do anything with the Buzzard just waiting to scan me down. So now it’s time for more of the same, except in reverse as I head back out. I’ve got the hang of the cloak-MWD trick now by going for a planet first instead of a bookmark, so I keep slipping past the Buzzard/Talos and Procurer/Ferox with the Ishtar while the Stratios just flashes past them merrily with ambulance radar spinning before disappearing under cloak.

When I finally jump back into the safety of high-sec, I do a bit of high-sec exploring just to accomplish something and end up doing Asteroid Infestation again, which of course yields nothing except Overseer underpants. So all in all that was basically not a productive session, which did not help dispel my EVE ennui. Some people say they like the excitement of being chased, but to me all I felt was annoyance. PVP in EVE is so pointless, it just reminds me of all those WoW players fighting in the middle of the road in Arathi Basin. Accomplishing nothing, yet puffing out their chests at the scoreboard at the end of the match showing their kills. Even though they lost the match, but they “didn’t want that victory anyway”.

Even though I’ve been back, I have not been spending much time at all on EVE. I tend to get the most excited and eager to play when I have a new project I’m planning, like a new ship to train for and buy and fit. Just before I left for my Christmas vacation, I finished my side project of earning enough LP for two Stratios cruisers. I flew them back to my base and popped them into my manufacturing oven. And ever since then they have been sitting there, untouched and not even fitted.

Part of the reason is that I am waiting for Yannie to finish training T2 sentries. Well now that’s done with, along with Gallente Cruiser IV. Now Amarr Cruiser IV is chugging along, but I still can’t muster the enthusiasm to jump clone back to Amarr space to try exploring again. Missioning in my Marauders is still fun, but the novelty of Bastion has worn off and I don’t have an LP goal to work for anymore.

Lately I’ve been pondering getting into wormholes again. I have some little experience of participating in some wormhole operations with my former corp. If I remember correctly, they had a POS in a C2 with a C4 static and a high-sec static. After about an hour of reading up on wormholes (since my previous knowledge was next to zero) I now know that that’s a pretty nice hole. I think it might prove interesting to set up a POS, which I’ve never done before, and live a nice secluded life in a C1-C3 hole. It sounds nice, but when I start to think about the details involved I get second thoughts. I’d need a medium tower at least, which would cost 300M ISK a month in fuel whether or not I log on frequently. I’d need to find (or buy) a nice secluded hole where I won’t be bothered by anyone else. This probably means a C1, C2 or C3 with a low-sec connection. I’m not as bothered by low-sec as I was in the past, and a high-sec static means a LOT more traffic. A C4 hole sounds like quite a bit more hassle to handle the logistics, although they are supposed to be much more deserted.

At the end of the day though, I wouldn’t really be doing it for the ISK although that’s always nice. It would be more to try things out, although I suspect that grinding sleepers isn’t exactly exciting (in fact what I remember of my previous wormhole ops was even more mind-numbingly boring than missions). The major problem is the hassle of fueling the tower and other logistics issues. I don’t want to have to spend hours every month hauling stuff. Hmmm. I dunno. I’ve read about possibly living out of an Orca instead, but that doesn’t sound like it would give me enough space, plus I’d be out a pilot that always has to sit in the Orca.