Archive for January, 2012


Jitanomics 1

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January 31, 2012

Wow @ Jita!!!

Marqus Aurellius > I’m qutting this shit game and consequently giving away the ISK I’ve accumulated on my journey. Send me whatever amount, 1000 or 1 million, and I’ll send that amount back doubled. Tripples happen for 10m +. Currently down to 800mil.
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
Nikifor Jigurda > Marqus Aurellius not got
Apprix > Clearing my hangars [Multiple Items] 
BuLLet’s Trader > [Multiple Items] Pack of items:officer, faction, ore. Cheap 
Ram Stryder > Mystery Box LOTTO!!! Pick one box for only 50m with a chance of winning a PLEX. Buy a box, sit back and relax, WIN!!! 1 box left!! Check my BIO for details!!!
Thanatisa > [Multiple Items] hangar sellout, cheapest around
Reccordia > Marqus only sends to people in Party Time
Reccordia > If he is sending 🙂
Marqus Aurellius > I’m qutting this shit game and consequently giving away the ISK I’ve accumulated on my journey. Send me whatever amount, 1000 or 1 million, and I’ll send that amount back doubled. Tripples happen for 10m +. Currently down to 800mil.
Amelia Wellington > He isn’t sending
Marqus Aurellius > RawNec 20mil sent
Apprix > Clearing my hangars [Multiple Items]
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
Redia Kasit > somebody wanna frig fight ?
Amelia Wellington > He’s just another one of those unoriginal scammers
Marqus Aurellius > LtCommander Tarkin 10mil sent
Marqus Aurellius > FairyLogic 10mil sent
Marqus Aurellius > I’m qutting this shit game and consequently giving away the ISK I’ve accumulated on my journey. Send me whatever amount, 1000 or 1 million, and I’ll send that amount back doubled. Tripples happen for 10m +. Currently down to 800mil.
Thanatisa > [Multiple Items] hangar sellout, cheapest around
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
Apprix > Clearing my hangars [Multiple Items]
Sgt Bigalow > { BOX 1 }{ BOX 2 }{ BOX 3 } THE MYSTERY BOX LOTTERY – 1/3 CHANCE TO WIN : 20MILLION ISK PRIZE : BUY A BOX…

eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)

Sgt Bigalow > but what would that do for you?

EVEDICE COM > EVEDICE is proud to announce PVPDICE, our 2 player dice game (POKER and HIGHROLL) with 50/50 odds!- create and join public dice challenges- challenge your friends for a private dice gameTry your luck now at http://www.evedice.com/pvp
eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
Ram Stryder > Mystery Box LOTTO!!! Pick one box for only 50m with a chance of winning a PLEX. 1 in 4 chance. 4 boxes left!! Check my BIO for details!!!
eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)
Sgt Bigalow > THE MYSTERY BOX : BEWARE OF IMITATIONS : NEW BOXES AVAILABLE SOON
Nolak Ataru > Selling 1 hour slots with Sex Slave (Race of your choice)! for only $5mill! Reserve your slot today! Slots are going fast!
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
darren Lennelluc > selling hulk 170 mil . convo me
anthar Ataru > want isk? read my bio!
Sgt Bigalow > THE MYSTERY BOX : BEWARE OF IMITATIONS : NEW BOXES AVAILABLE SOON
eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)
Stinky Stan > horror u havent got the hulk in ur contract
Francesco Regyri > who can send me 100k isk please?
Samantha Marley > 30 Day Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) x 3 1.2b
EVEDICE COM > EVEDICE is proud to announce PVPDICE, our 2 player dice game (POKER and HIGHROLL) with 50/50 odds!- create and join public dice challenges- challenge your friends for a private dice gameTry your luck now at http://www.evedice.com/pvp
Ram Stryder > Mystery Box LOTTO!!! Pick one box for only 50m with a chance of winning a PLEX. 1 in 4 chance. 4 boxes left!! Check my BIO for details!!!
Sgt Bigalow > THE MYSTERY BOX : BEWARE OF IMITATIONS : NEW BOXES AVAILABLE SOON
eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)
Sgt Bigalow > i only want one, if its for the left eye
Jacqueri Calroszian > WTB a girlfriend
Sgt Bigalow > u can have mine
Redhexetic > dont think they stock those
Zah T’ahmarr > Pretty cheap for a monocle
eric underwing > monocales get the girls
Francesco Regyri > who can send me 100k isk please?
Boomer Kaboom > Exotic Dancers
Jacqueri Calroszian > lmao
Sgt Bigalow > THE MYSTERY BOX : BEWARE OF IMITATIONS : NEW BOXES AVAILABLE SOON
Ram Stryder > Mystery Box LOTTO!!! Pick one box for only 50m with a chance of winning a PLEX. 1 in 4 chance. 4 boxes left!! Check my BIO for details!!!
eric underwing > Looking Glass Monocle Interface (right/gold)
afonsoericeira > wtb a monocle anyone seen any for sale?
Zah T’ahmarr > Nope keep moving
Sgt Bigalow > ram – if you sell 5 boxes for 50m. how do you profit? when a plex goes for 480m
Sgt Bigalow > [17:21:27] Kreion > The Mystery box game without cheating after shopping all the boxes is declared the winner! Try your luck!
Sgt Bigalow > [15:41:36] Wolfthree Make sure you check out Sgt Bigalow and his Mystery Box game, won 75 mil off his lottery
Eve Holdempoker > Poker-Service : Play our Head’s Up tournament. Entry fee 5mil ISK beat the odds and climb up to win 1 billion ISK. Try us out risk free !! You get 5mil in chips when registering an account on http://eveholdem.linkpc.net ( A mavens based Poker-Service )

EVE System > Channel changed to Local : New Caldari

I only wanted to sell some salvage.

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Low Sec Salvaging: How to be a chicken in low sec!

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 4 Comments
January 28, 2012

Having read about low sec I finally bit the bullet on a slow evening for salvage and went into Rens.  The idea was to give low sec salvaging a bit of a run and see if I got lucky.  I have been reading about low sec for some time and after some of the comments on here got me thinking it might be fun.

So for this I fitted ‘Rabbit’ the Rifter as follows:

‘Rabbit’ [Rifter] (310,000 ISK)

  • 1MN Afterburner I  (5,000ISK)
  • Salvager I (35,000 ISK)
  • Salvager I (35,000 ISK)
  • Small Salvage Tackle I (781,000 ISK)
  • Small Salvage Tackle I (781,000 ISK)
  • Small Shield Extender II (581,000 ISK)
  • Warp Core Stabilizer I (11,000 ISK)
  • Warp Core Stabilizer I (11,000 ISK)

Total price = 2,550,000 ISK

Not expensive and probably the most annoying setup in the history of Eve.  I mean warp core stabilizers did feel a little bit chicken like to me. But what if I actually get some really expensive lewt?  I might find a Tech3 wreck after all!

I powered up the map and looked for ships destroyed in the last hour.  The nearest orangey bit was Amamake.  How hard can it be?

So off I went.  It was exciting knowing I was heading to a more insecure part of the game.  Like always I had taken my time to do some reading.  The most important tip seemed to be bookmarks and knowing how to use my directional scanner.  I had the scanner under control because I had learned how to use that when locating mission pockets before.  The most significant thing seemed to be to try and drop safes all over the place and keep moving around whilst scanning for wrecks.

Anyway I got into Amamake and when the system loaded there were several flashy ships down below.  I took a deep breath hoping they were not too fast.  In less than half a second and in what must have seemed like an age my ship turned. I was scrambled and being shot really fast.  By the time warp kicked in my shields had gone along with half of my armour.  These guys were viciously efficient.

I landed in a station and got Rabbit fixed up and then back out.  It was a bit hairy at first flying around Amamake.  There were some wrecks at some of the belts.  So I scouted around picked up some salvage and then wow!  A T3 wreck!! I was so excited I started to warp before thinking when I landed on the belt I was surprised to find 3 flashing ships and another ship sitting around the wrecks.  Rather than hang around I aligned to the Agua gate cried at not being able to salvage my wreck and then warped out.

After this I travelled from Auga to other low sec systems including  Kourmonen and Kamela, but nothing was really happening.  I was making bookmarks everywhere checking out the belts but in the end there was very little around.  After about two hours I was back in Amamake.  I decided to check out that belt and sure enough the T3 wreck had been salvaged – those pirates know their stuff eh?

I was at the belt for a few minutes salvaging the rest of the wrecks and after doing so warped back to Ossogur.  Total tally for the night (4,467,000 ISK)  covered the price of Rabbit.  Not a lot, it was a pretty quiet run, but I think with a bit more practice and a few more locations it might prove worth while revisiting low sec.

One final point.  Whilst the ISK was not enormous I have to say the adrenalin was worth it.  I know I wasn’t shooting anything, but in some ways I liked playing mouse.

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Back Story: “The Gift”

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January 26, 2012

Moriarity looked at the chip with apprehension. A ‘gift’. He knew what it meant. More augmentation, more vomiting and more headaches. He still did not understand why he ‘needed’ to have an augmented memory and intelligence. Attributes, enhanced to take him where he wanted to go faster and surer.

The problem was he could not decide where it was he wanted to go. Back in his previous life such decisions were always arranged for him. After all, he had been poor and had to work constantly to maintain a simple life. Out here he was a newborn immortal, a member of the transhuman class known as Pod Pilots. He almost regretted his decision to plug himself into this new life. He spent most of his time sealed into a pod, sealed off from his past, from his present and the company of others. He had begun to loathe this new life of isolation and cold indifference.

He had spent forever in the new pilots’ training programme working out how to scan with probes. He was also deeply uneasy with the pure violence of his new surroundings. It seemed everything was hostile and that all around him, New Eden was at war with itself. It was as though the augmentations, the changes that came with those augmentations, had exaggerated the worst and best traits of humanity. Out here the pilots of New Eden were capable of heinous acts against each other. All in the pursuit of wealth and glory.

Then there was the actual flying. His spatial awareness before becoming a member of the immortal class had been poor. He had failed at almost every sport he had tried, his simplicity had meant he had not seen the need to be competitive. Yet here he was in a hyper competitive gladiatorial arena that demanded he show his prowess in the tools of war. He could take risks that others would not and he could see things they could not. He could lose one ship and almost without thinking or feeling he could just turn and buy another, like replacing batteries. But the fighting was not easy; he was struggling to overcome the ‘rats’, as his fellow pod pilots describe them, and his ‘agents’ responded to him with corporate detachment.

It was after one disastrous run that Moriarity was left sitting drinking heavily in the Republic Justice Department in Eystur. The bar was one of those back station places hosted by mortals for mortals.  Moriarity shunned the company of his fellow pilots but found himself isolated and shunned by those around him in the bar. The only attention he seemed to be getting was from a world weary barmaid.  She was probably after a good tip.

“So what brings you in here?” She was staring at him as she wiped the bar.  Behind her several screens glared with a range of different sports from Brutor pit fighting to Slaver Hound hunting. It was one of those bars, you know the type, with that kind of special charm you can only find in the dark oily parts of a station.

Moriarity blinked at her through the haze, trying to collect his thoughts.  “I came for the company….” He wanted to say more; a thought had occurred to him just now, but it was gone.  This was going to be difficult.

She paused and looked at him and smiled. “That explains why you are sitting up here on your own, all broody and dark.” Moriarity was a bit miffed by this.  From what he could tell everyone in this place was broody and dark. Crap.  I am going to get into a conversation. “I think I made a mistake,” he sighed.  “I don’t know why I did it.” He stared at the bartender, then at his glass.

“Did what?” She continued to wipe the bar.

Behind her head Moriarity took in the images of Slaver hounds exploding as they were struck by high calibre rounds. The sport had become popular in the new Minimatar Republic.  “Became a pod pilot,” he said slowly.  He missed ordinary human contact now he had entered the immortal class.  He did not consider that this might happen.  In fact he had not thought about the whole situation at all. That might explain his confusion. It might explain why he seemed to be lost. Paralysed almost.

“Whats the problem?  You get to use and abuse your body, you could drink this whole bar dry, get killed and come back tomorrow without even a hangover!” she grinned.

“Shameless you are,” he said smiling.

“Look, you chose that way. Now you are locked into that way of life there is no point coming crying to me, you should see some of the shit I have to deal with.”  She walked over to another client who was ordering a drink.  Moriarity sat brooding. Moriarity never had to plan much before in his life.  In fact it seemed most of his life had been lived in a goldfish bowl.  Moving from one project to the next, failing at most things and never really achieving anything.  Now he was a pod pilot, actually having a plan was as improbable as winning the lottery in the first place.  A bit like lightning  striking the same place twice.

Moriarity finished his drink and paused.  He looked up and the barmaid looked over tilting her head.  He nodded.  Why not?  It is not as if I have anything to do anyway. She poured another double shot and brought it over to him.

“So watcha gonna do baby?” The tone that she said it in seemed to indicate that he had options.

“I don’t know. I mean some of these people are weird. They have some of the most bizarre call signs.  I saw someone the other day called ‘Body Crusher’ and another called ‘Body Bandit’.”

The barmaid glanced at him.  “Yeah they do that kind of thing, its like something happens to them.  Its why most mortals avoid them, you cannot predict what they will do and after all we only have one life.  Any moment can be our last.” There was something in what she said that Moriarity envied. She was in some way right, Moriarity had seen some of the radio chats in local.  Extreme things being said between pod pilots.  New Eden was full of pilots trying to outdo other pilots.  A kind of collective lunacy, almost shameless in its openness and vulgarity.  Yet they seemed to relish it. How could this be the bold new dream of the future of New Eden?  The very name seemed empty and cold.  He shuddered.

“Take this body.  Do you see anything wrong here?” He stretched out his hands palms facing down in front of himself.  She took his hands and caressed them, her hands seemed cold and rough to the touch.  Her fingers long and narrow, deeply tanned.

“They are very smooth.” She didn’t remove her touch, as though to hold him was to hold onto the untouchable.  There was an intense longing in her eyes.  Yet this skin, this flesh would eventually be consigned to the bin.  Its seemed completely intangible, the mortal touching the immortal. But was she actually touching him?  After all was this his skin?  Does it count if he is really some sort of doppelgänger?

“Too smooth, they should have hair, scars, and they should be blanched and uneven, worn maybe.” He sighed.  “I mean it doesn’t seem to have been lived in.  It ‘feels’ all wrong.” He looked at her intently.

“You’re so lucky.” She said a tear in her eye.  She removed her hand, Looked down and walked off to the other side of the bar.  Making herself busy clinking glasses. Moriarity continued to stare at his glass, brooding on what he had done.  His whole time in the New Pilots’ Induction Programme had been painfully slow, it was as though he didn’t want to finish it.  He knew all the tutors by name, and yet he had failed to graduate. After a while the barmaid came back.

“Sorry for being funny earlier, it is just sometimes I don’t get it.  You people have everything. Yet you come in here all the time moaning about how hard it is for you.  Just try it, try for once to live your life as though every moment should be your last.”  She stalked off.

Moriarity sat for a while longer. If only I could live my life as though every moment was my last.  In an instant the enormity of his decision struck him.  He would never again have the rush that came with knowing his life was in danger.  No longer would he feel the rush that he was about to die.  In that instant it finally struck him what he had lost and he was devastated.   He picked up his ‘gift’, downed his last drink and slowly left the bar.

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New Player Guide to Getting Started with Salvaging

Filed under: Guides — 6 Comments
January 21, 2012

The great thing about Eve, possibly its biggest strength, is that you can escape having to grind missions quite early in the game.  Rather than waffle on about the game I am going to get straight to the point.  The aim of this guide is purely to help a new player get into salvaging.  With minimum fuss.

For the full set of abilities you will need approximately 15 million ISK (Prices may vary according to region).

The following are the ways you can get involved in salvaging associated with these methods I have given a very basic rig setup for each style.

Approaches to salvaging.

There are a number of ways to approach salvaging. The first thing you ought to do is join the “Free Wrecks” channel in game.  The channel is very friendly and a lot of the people there the channel is modded by Lady Aja, Riozuil, Sturmwolke, and Alex Kariik.  Pop in there and let people know who you are and be prepared to travel to get access to those wrecks.

a) Consensual Salvaging

This seems to be the most profitable method but it can be hit and miss because not everyone wants to share salvage. In one evening you can be confident in getting around 25-35 million ISK by simply talking to people and asking if anyone wants a salvager to come along to the pocket.  Basically post something like “Salvager looking for salvage.  Will negotiate a good split on mods and salvage, please convo me for details.”  A few tips:

  • Make sure your CSPA Charges are set to zero – there is nothing more off putting when someone has to pay to talk to you.
  • Think about the conversation, this is a client and you want to be useful to them.  Being useful means finding out what they want and making sure you give them more.  You want them to ask you again don’t you?  So follow their instructions and be friendly.
  • Don’t go demanding things from them after all you are their guest.
  • Join their fleet, if they ask you not to take loot or to give them big guns, or the mission tags do it.
  • Make sure that whatever the split you decided to give them a good deal and you stick to your word.
  • Ask if you can add them to your watch list, if they agree add them and make a list of clients.  The idea is you want repeat business.
  • Buy a station container for their loot, put everything into it and contract it to them after you have finished.

This is a good way to get to know players.  Its a nice entry into the game and you can be earning good money very quickly with minimal fuss and at a reasonable cost.  Another thing.  The risk is very low so you will find that whilst there might be better places to make isk those will carry a much higher risk.  Your immediate ISK problems will be more or less solved.

There is another way to salvage without having to find pockets.  Take yourself off to a COSMOS exploration site located in the Deltole system of the Algintal constellation.  In there you will find spaces full of wrecks.  They will all be yellow and the down side will be that there will be red ships in them as well.  This can make salvaging tricky, with this setup I had to warp in and out a lot and I ended up getting a lot less ISK for the time I had to spend messing around with warping in and out.  So although you can get wrecks by roaming these pockets – you will need to come up with a different type of setup to what I have here.  This setup is a very light fit.

Basic Salvaging rig

Thrasher (Ship) 670,000 ISK

  • Small Tractor Beam I 1,089,000 ISK
  • Small Tractor Beam I 1,089,000 ISK
  • Small Tractor Beam I 1,089,000 ISK
  • Small Tractor Beam I 1,089,000 ISK
  • Salvager I 33,000 ISK
  • Salvager I 33,000 ISK
  • Salvager I 33,000 ISK
  • Salvager I 33,000 ISK
  • 1MN Afterburner I 5,000 ISK
  • Small shield extender II 669,000
  • [Empty Med slot]
  • Expanded Cargo Hold I 1,394 ISK
  • Expanded Cargo Hold I 1,394 ISK
  • Small Salvage Tackle I 820,000 ISK
  • Small Salvage Tackle I 820,000 ISK

Ship Total 7,474,788  ISK

Skills

  • Afterburner 44,000 ISK
  • Armor Rigging 90,000 ISK
  • Destroyers 90,000 ISK
  • Electronics 18,000 ISK
  • Engineering 18,000 ISK
  • Hull Upgrades 54,000 ISK
  • Jury Rigging 54,000 ISK
  • Mechanics 18,000 ISK
  • Minmatar Frigate 36,000 ISK
  • Navigation 24,000 ISK
  • Science 28,000 ISK
  • Survey 32,000 ISK
  • Shield Upgrades 75,000 ISK
  • Salvaging 200,000 ISK

Total Skills = 781,000 ISK

TOTAL = 8,255,788 ISK Total (subject to regional variation).

b) Non-consensual or ninja salvaging

Now this is something I have been forced to do on a quiet night.  Here you will need to be good at scanning.  I am not going to write about that here because there are lots of good tutorials out there.  Especially on uTube.   So get familiar with scanning and especially combat scanning.  It can be hit and miss so a lot of practice would not go amiss!  The point is this you want to find battleships in pockets with large wrecks.  So using the scanning skills is really important.  Find the pocket and then you are in. Here are a few tips you might find useful.

  • Insure your ship!
  • When you enter the pocket always open a conversation with the mission runner and offer a deal.  It is by far more efficient and much more profitable to do salvaging by consensus.
  • Be prepared for them to either ignore you or to become unpleasant.  Many mission runners love their salvage and loot. They will hate you for going into ‘their’ pocket.  Going into the pocket AND salvaging is however a perfectly legal thing to do in game.  So if they get rude simply say that and get busy.
  • It always makes sense to be co-operative but if they decide not to then you can just ignore them and get on with it.  But always offer a deal.  I have managed to persuade quite a few to eventually just work with me.  I always give them a good split
  • Looting is illegal.  That is taking anything out of the wrecks.
  • Do not  loot wrecks that are yellow not even if the mission runner you are with is friendly.  You cannot trust anyone in eve.  You will be flagged and they can shoot you.
  • If they are pissed off – go for large wrecks first then smaller wrecks.
  • In some ways you want to emphasise that salvaging by consensus is better so make sure that if they don’t agree that you work hard and get everything done quickly.  Maybe they might co-operate more in future.  Do you get the idea?
That is it basically.  Its quite simple and for a new player it is a really quick way of a) meeting people, b) getting ISK relatively quickly, c) learning some useful skills such as scanning.

Scanning Rig [Probe, Probe fit] Ship 237,000 ISK

  • Expanded Probe Launcher I 19,999 ISK
  • Prototype Cloaking Device I 1,400,000 ISK
  • 1MN Afterburner I 6,000 ISK
  • [Empty Med slot]
  • Photonic CPU Enhancer I 250,000 ISK
  • Photonic CPU Enhancer I 250,000 ISK
  • Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I 69,000 ISK
  • Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I 69,000 ISK

Scanning Rig Total = 2,300,999 Million ISK

Ninja Salvaging Skills Scanning
  • Astrometric Acquisition 405,000 ISK
  • Astrometric Pinpointing 405,000 ISK
  • Astrometric Rangefinding 405,000 ISK
  • Cloaking  3,150,000 ISK
  • Electronics upgrades 297,000 ISK
Scanning Rig Skills = 4,662,000 Million ISK
Scanning Rig Total including skills = 6,962,999 Million ISK
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Kristina Lynn for helpful comments on the first draft of this guide. Likewise  Keno Skir and Sun’Mar Raholan for their helpful advice on the Eveo forums.  Also big thanks to the people in charge of ‘Free Wrecks’ channel in game Lady Aja, Riozuil, Sturmwolke, and Alex Kariik. This guide owes everything to them and the clients I now have.
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Trust and Corporations

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 2 Comments
January 15, 2012

I was a bit drunk on Friday the 13th of January and figured that it might be safer to stay in the house and play Eve instead of risk getting killed by a freak accident.  The night was not going too well, first of all I gave up on salvaging for a bit and started looking for anomalies. After finding one of those I warped in with ‘Slaughterhouse’.  There were about 6 cruisers in the pocket, they kind of took me by surprise and before you could say “jack rabbit”! Slaughterhouse was gone. “Feck!”

This was quite a big loss in terms of my history in eve.  After all slaughterhouse was the ship that enabled me to start my career properly, it gave me that platform to build from and I would not be where I was now without that ship.  The truth however is, that when I got the insurance payment I thought “Is that all?”  It is very odd how new found riches change your perception. Anyway, I was pondering what to do when I saw the following post in local:

Captain K “Are you new to EVE? XXXXX is currently looking for new players to join our ranks. Receive training and guidance from our experienced members in addition to ships and equipment. Contact me for more info!”

So I did.  Now I am not going to go into the details of the conversation.  I was actually quite enticed by Captain K. This corporation had members from EU and US and so would be active a lot of the time.  They had around 18 pilots online at any one time which to me sounded great.  They would even have liked to have a salvager/explorer like myself on board.  It was the recruitment eve mail that threw me.  They wanted my full access API key at all times.

The reasons given for this was that they wanted to protect against spies because they were forming an alliance.  There was something about this that annoyed me so I sat back and thought about it. First, I was a bit worried that this person was a hacker and might steal all my ISKies which would have made me cry.  I mean CCP say to be careful with it so I assume I ought to be. The second thing was that I was hoping to develop a career as a ‘freelancer’ it seemed to go against that ‘free’ bit.

Anyway, setting aside the first bit, because the truth is I cannot see how the full access API would be such a big deal in terms of security.  The two of us vigorously discussed this and I tend to agree with Captain K that the threat was minimal.  I even asked people on #tweetfleet what they thought, friendly as always and helpful to the last. One reply was:

@TomsAvr  “@moriarity33 Well that depends if you have something to hide.. ;)”

So basically this full access API is like an in game CCTV camera.  You know what I mean?  If your North American you probably don’t.  In the UK we have cameras everywhere, they are on most high streets, on the London Underground, on all buses.  They are there to catch people out doing naughty things like shop lifting and pissing in shop windows when they are drunk.

The first thing was that by making an issue of trust the corporation was almost making trust impossible to build.  From the first step they had said we don’t trust you so give us your full access API.  So the onus was on me to trust them from the outset. But how could I trust them?  There are a few issues here though that goes some way to clarifying the situation.

1) trust is a process that demands commitment from both sides, but it always has an order – first there is a person who has to trust then the person who that person is trusting, the trustee, has to show a reciprocated benefit. In this situation it was very clear I had to trust them then they would have to show to me the benefits of my trust and eventually trust me back.  By making me give them the full access API they were forcing me to trust them first.

2) the situation has to be well defined when it comes to trust and in this respect it was not clear at all what I was getting into.  I have to be clear Captain K was an excellent communicator and I do think that this was a good sign, but the problem for me was just what this situation was going to be and if it fitted the direction I wanted to go in Eve.  The whole starting an alliance thing just made it even more complicated.

3) You cannot demand trust, the thing about it is it has to be offered and accepted and I was going to have to offer my trust.  In this way then as a stranger to this corporation I was going to have to overcome that strangeness in order to be able to get into a trust worthy relationship.  In other words.

4) Trust has to be earned.

So I had to become less of a stranger and establish a pattern of a relationship and build trust to join this corporation.  Did I want to submit or give up a small bit of my freedom as a stranger to join what looked like a good corporation?  In the end I did not apply to join.  But the whole thing has really made me think, isn’t joining a corporation against the whole freelance thing anyway?  What the hell do I mean by freelancer? What if anything am I doing to move that forward?

It occurred to me as well that no matter how much I try to avoid it at some point I am going to have to be able help others develop trust in me, otherwise living in eve is going to be a lonely experience.  So it doesn’t matter if I am going to be freelance or not I cannot avoid the politics of trust and risk.

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Frarn – Mission/Salvage hub

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 2 Comments
January 12, 2012

Ok so having basically failed to get off the ground in Josekorn I had another search around and discovered after a short while that there are in fact things called ‘mission hubs’.  Now that sounded promising, where there are missions there are ships getting popped and where there are ships getting popped there will be wrecks.  “Yum, Yum!”

I found the information here:

http://eve-search.com/thread/839177/page/1

And as you can see these guys have a very nice summary of them for meh:

Alentene, Aramachi, Auvergne, Cistuvaert, Dodixie, Emolgranlan, Frarn, Gulfonodi, Irjunen, Jita (er?), Motsu, Oursalert (?), Penigramn, Rens (?), Umokka

Three of those seemed to be trade hubs and not mission hubs and once more we are back to that – what information can we trust thing.  Some people might have been taking the piss. Anyway the nearest hub was Frarn (which is really difficult to pronouce when you are drunk).  So off I went.  It took the best part of a couple of hours to move so the next evening I decided I was going to give this whole salvaging malarkey a go.  So I sat down for the evening and prepared myself.  The only thing I forgot was the drink! “Feck!”

It was a bit late I had already posted in local in Frarn and had an immediate convo from someone called Aouf.  A bit surprised at this I opened the conversation.

“I am running lvl 4s if you want to come in and salvage them normally I just leave the stuff behind.”

“I am happy to salvage and split it for you – no hesitation, just name how you would like me to do it.”  I had read to be careful about joining fleets so I I asked if he could give me the bookmark.

“All i want is guns that drop for the most part – great way to make money I started off doing the same.” There was a short pause before he replied. But I knew his game!!

“I don’t want to loot – that will get me flagged and I don’t know you as yet. ”

“I will blue all wrecks.”

Woot?  How cool is that?  So I got working with Aouf and within another 10mins had a second job lined up. Mind you the lack of drink did interfere so it was a quick pop out to the off-licence to get a few bottles of wine and some Guinness Export Extra. That was me sorted.  The only thing missing was a Yorkie bar.

After completing Aouf’s mission the next job was with Kristina Lynn and some of her corp mates.  There was quite a discussion about me joining their fleet.  I simply refused to stay in fleet because of the danger to my ship (Softly Sotfly) and she could not be arsed with this.  In the end Kristina stumped up the ISK as collateral for my ship – 6.5million and so I had nothing to lose.  We agreed I would pay this back at the end of the evening.

In the end I need not have worried.  They had me charging around all night – I had no time other than to fill my ship run back to the hangar dump the loot and then back out.  They were running an epic Arc and for the rest of the evening.  I looted everything and split the whole lot at random. By the end of the night (four hours in total) I was a cool 32million ISK better off. Wow!

I am pretty sure others can make more money than this doing other things.  But the key thing is for a nubbins like me I had broken the back of the initial isk problem.  The advantages of doing this were that a) I was starting to get into the style of play I wanted to emulate as a freelancer working with other pod pilots and b) it was busy and relatively risk free for now.

Over the next couple of nights I have got more work with the mission runners.  If I don’t get a reply in local or no convo’s I scan down a pocket and just get busy.  It has been such a success that I am now kind of ahead of myself in terms of ISK and I am now waiting to get my skills up to Cartogropher Standard.  The whole certificate planning business has worked really well for me so far.  Especially as I go from one phase of training to the next.  From the looks of the skills I need I have about two weeks left and then I will basically be ready to train covert ops or even High Speed Helmsman in preparation for salvaging in Low Sec which is on the cards now.

The key thing I suppose is that I am now already out there as a freelancer.  Its a case of consolidating this aspect of the game and preparing for my next steps.  I am in no hurry.  Already in the short time I have been in Frarn I have met some pretty colourful pilots and it has been a lot of fun!

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Through the rabbit hole.

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 2 Comments
January 9, 2012

My salvaging career started slowly, I chose a level 4 agent and travelled to their system.  It seemed to be full of people who were either afk or travelling in and out of the system.  The sheer boredom of waiting around to get a response in local led me to start fiddling around with probes and my scanner.  I thought I might as well go find them if they would not talk to me.

It took a while to get back into the knack of moving the probes around the system, especially with my incomplete skills.  I was working with an expanded scanner probe launcher using combat scanner probes.  I managed to scan down several interesting signatures.  I was first and foremost interested in getting into a mission runner’s pocket so set up my overview with a custom ‘mission’ setup. I found an ‘Armageddon’ on my overview, now bearing in mind I have no clue what an Armageddon actually is, nonetheless you have to agree that it kinda sounded promising. So I started focussing on narrowing down my scanning onto that signature.  Within minutes I was flying gleefully towards it thinking of all the ISK I was going to make from the wrecks.

It didn’t quite work out.  I landed on grid within meters of an afk Armageddon as it travelled away from the station.  Bugger.  So it was back to the drawing board.  I popped back out to the same place and started scanning again.  This time I managed to land on a Noctis that was doing exactly the same thing as the Armageddon in the previous scan. “What is it with these people!” I was grumbling.

It seemed no-one was in space doing anything other twiddling their fingers.  So I started to focus on scanning down complexes and other anomalies.  This bagged me a couple of Angel hideouts where the loot was mediocre.  It was better than nothing but I was not making a lot of ISK for the time spent scanning.  In the end I just gave up and decided to look at one of the ‘unknowns’.  Eventually I zoned in on a wormhole.  It is so hard to get across the excitement and feeling of foreboding.  All of the ISK I had was in my ships and I had to make those ships work for me.

I chatted to the guys in “The Autocannon” about my options.  Go through get blown up.  Go through end up in 0.0 and stuck.  Tgl said “make sure you have an updated clone”. Great! As we talked about it is became clear I could get back out when I went in so I went and got ‘Slaughterhouse’ and flew back to my bookmark.  I sat pondering what might happen, the adrenalin was amazing!  I could lose all of my stuff here and end up back where I had started.  But I am here to explore and so I clicked on the link and went through.

The excitement continued, I mean nothing had happened but I could lose this ship and I needed it.  I was sitting at a computer keyboard with my heart in my mouth.  As the screen loaded the space in front of me was very silent.  TGL3 told me there had been ship kills in there in the last hour and to be very careful.  I sat about for a short while scanned the area and noticed ship complexes which were obviously belonging to The Sleepers.  In the end I borked out, going back through the rabbit hole, and the safety and comfort of high sec space.  The whole insecurity and instability of the situation really got to me.  There is no doubt I will be after more such experiences as soon as possible.

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Backstory – Moriarity’s parentage

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January 7, 2012

It would be a good thing to tell you all about Moriarity, about how his parents were killed by some Amarr slavers, about how his father heroically slaughtered the footsoldiers of the emperor defending his family before being brutally cut down by the emperor’s elite troops.  But the truth is that would be a lie.  Moriarity is nothing more than a pampered good for nothing wimp by Sebiestor standards.  He is also a bit thick.  No-one knows who his father is and no-one cares.

The facts are simple, he won the lottery on Huggar (Pator III) and used his winnings to join the immortal pod pilot class.  When this happened his friends joked that it was likely that Moriarity would forget to upgrade his clone, get shot and forget how to use a toilet, or worse still forget where his ship was.  As we all know, whilst a ship might be safe in a station, that is not what a ship is for!  Something some residents of 0.0 space don’t seem to have figured out.  But perhaps then, there is room for Moriarity after all?

From the beginning Moriarity learned slowly.  He entered the new pilot programme but failed to turn up for most of the classes at the  Republic University School in Malukker because he got a bit sidetracked by the station schematics, some nice looking Caldari pod pilots and a bottle of strong drink.

The white lines labelled “NEW POD PILOTS SCHEME” were lost on him, in fact he barely noticed those as he followed the slim figure of a leather clad Caldari around the station.  Eventually he found himself at the wrong end of the station amongst some seasoned pod pilot veterans of several alliance wars trying to explain how he got there.  Moriarity being Moriarity somehow disarmed them with his absent minded simplicity and they took him under their wings for a short while, promptly got bored and several wedgies later he was kicked out of the club with a brand new nose piercing and an odd looking tattoo on his chin.  They told him it would make him look more exotic.  This hopefully explains the male pole dancer look.

Three weeks later he was still trying to master scanning and gravimetrics.

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Hookers and Blow: the ‘reality’ of eve.

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 2 Comments
January 6, 2012

So a few posts back I recounted that there are a number of channels I have managed to get into in Eve.  If you have been following you will know that for nuubins like myself this has been particularly useful because Eve is a pretty complicated game in some respects.  Anyway, three of these channels are:

  • Tweety Pub
  • The Autocannon (home of R1FTA pilots and friends)
  • I G (The Imperial Guardians  public channel)

Tweety I talked about earlier, friendly guys but they seem to be in the wrong time zone and I have been virtually alone in their channel for the last two weeks.  IG have been pleasant enough but no-one actually got in touch following their recruitment mail despite the fact I had been sitting in the channel for a week or more.  To be honest it doesn’t matter – they are obviously a great gang of people and are very active.  Its just the whole working together thing and the way the corp runs ops and stuff that I am a bit fearful of.  I am worried that I will end up having to work in my free time by being committed to ops. You know like all those moronic raids they have in WoW? What a nightmare.  The main reason though is that an Amarr corp is really not going to fit well with Moriarity’s back story. This is why I never really took the initiative.  I liked seeing what might happen by just being there but without having the will to engage with them on my part I think I will just leave it and quietly move on.

Anyway there is something about the whole process of interacting in these channels that says something about the ‘reality’ of eve. The best way to get this point across is to describe what happened  in one channel and compare it to another.

In one channel there was a character who had the following BIO:

“A liberal muslim ACLU lawyer professor and an abortion doctor were teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist.

“Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!”

At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States, stood up and held up a rock.

“How old is this rock, pinhead?”

The arrogant professor smirked quite Slyly and smugly replied “4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian.”

“Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 46 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now.”

The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of ‘Origin of the Species’. He stormed out of the room crying tears.”

The logic was so obviously flawed and a bit creepy that I actually thought it was a joke. So I asked in the channel:

“Is your bio ironic?”

“Nope.”

“Ok are you like a born again Christian?”

“Yes we are forever born again and again to worship and obey jesus then die horribly again too.”

So this was some sort of Hindu Christian with an obvious hatred for Muslims. The problem was actually trying to decide what was real in this interaction.  This always is the problem with the internets and any other form of mass media  isn’t it? He might still be pissing around?  I could not decide. I certainly still don’t know what to believe.

Then in another channel I discovered another reality. I was faffing around planning and writing the previous blog post and costing up the money I needed for my first salvaging operation.  When I had the answer I mused out loud in the channel that I needed 3million ISK more to be able to get away from NPC missions.  Before I could type anything else my wallet flashed and someone had given me 3million isk!

This would have taken me around two nights running level 1’s.  It is and was a huge deal. It struck me that this was a reality of a whole different order. Suddenly I could plan and get on with Moriarity’s career.  This was quite a step forward. A different kind of ‘reality’. No more missions!!

So in this simple interaction I discovered two realities.  First, there is the reality for us as players, the so called metagaming reality. Here you can never be sure of anything or anyone in Eve. It is not hard to know that the game is full of players who do their best to use this reality to undermine each other; scammers, griefers and alliance leaders.  The second reality, is the reality of Eve for the characters. This reality is composed of brute virtual facts, you cannot do very much without ISK.  It is what is gradually charming me about the game. The ISK was there and I could use it.  It was somehow more real and more concrete for Moriarity than all those musings about the Hindu baby Jesus.

In the channel we joked that I should spend the ISK  on “Hookers and Blow”. Sadly these are not a reality for Moriarity – didn’t I read somewhere that CCP were planning something like this? Anyway as we joked my wallet flashed again.  Another 3million ISK!  I had just received more ISK in ten minutes than I had earned in a week grinding missions!

I won’t go into details of who did what but I will tell you the only channels, of the three named above that I remain in is, “The Autocannon” and the realities of eve continue to unfold.

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Exploration and Salvaging – getting started

Filed under: Day to Day Blog — 2 Comments
January 5, 2012

I am getting closer to being able to focus on exploration.  After my last post I also discovered salvaging and in fact decided I would go for that as well.  In fact salvaging looks like the best way to begin Moriarity’s career.

Using the Certificate planner has been a good way to get started but following the advice of some of the people I have been talking to I think the time is quickly coming when I will need to plan my training more specifically.  I am due to finish my basic artillery training in the next two days and after that I will get Moriarity to develop his field technician skills. Time to escape the boredom of mission running.

Having looked at the following page in Evelopedia: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/High_sec_exploration_(advanced) I got the following fitting:

[Wolf, Exploration] (27.5 million ISK)

Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer (10million ISK)

Armor EM Hardener II (1.4 million ISK)

Armor Thermic Hardener II (1.5 million ISK)

Capacitor Power Relay II  (849,000 ISK)

1MN Afterburner II (1 million ISK)

Cap Recharger II (525,000 ISK)

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S (460,000 ISK)

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S (460,000 ISK)

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S (460,000 ISK)

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S (460,000 ISK)

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I (340,000 ISK)

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I (340,000 ISK)

The cost of the ship plus fittings is a cool 45.294 million ISK for something that doesn’t even help me scan the blooming sites down!  Elite gaming advice always sucks.  The only place I could get help was after chatting to the guys in the ‘Free Wrecks’ channel – very handy.

So where to start? So I am going to have to try and put something together for someone of my lowly level of skills and income.  Following advice from some of the pilots I had been talking to recently in the ‘Free Wrecks’ channel.  See what a bit of scouting about can find you!

I did a search for Eve Fit.  Except it wasn’t called eve fit it is called pyfa, the only way I knew that it might help was because of the picture of the Rifter beside the download link !!  Ok so I downloaded it.  Then discovered it needed some api key thing – and that it just would not get my character information.  So fail on that front!

Anyway this is what I think is a more achievable beginner setup: I am going to begin with salvaging because it is less skill intensive and looks like some money can be made from it.

This will involve 2 Ships a) A scanning rig and b) a Salvaging Ship.

[Probe, Probe fit]

Expanded Probe Launcher I
Prototype Cloaking Device I

1MN Afterburner I
[Empty Med slot]

Photonic CPU Enhancer I
Photonic CPU Enhancer I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

1.33 Million ISK

Salvaging rig

Thrasher (Ship)

Small Tractor Beam I
Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I

1MN Afterburner I
[Empty Med slot]
[Empty Med slot]

[Empty Low slot]
[Empty Low slot]

Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I

6.03 million ISK

Skills

Astrometric Acquisition 405,000 ISK

Salvaging 200,000 ISK

Archaeology 900,000 ISK

Hacking 760,000 ISK

Cloaking 3,150,000 ISK

TOTAL = 12,370,000 ISK

OK these are far from perfect, far from the cookie cutter specification I found on the wiki but I am thinking they will be good enough to get started trying to make ISK by relating to my fellow players and not simply grinding NPC missions.  I am about 3million Short and am due to start the Field technician skill training in 12 hours!!!  Time to rush out and make 3million!

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