I am going to have a look at what changed in Eve to see if I can piece together some history around why mining became so misaligned by a section of the player base. Although to be fair, I know before I start, in many respects that question is already wrong. You should be wary of any assumptions (or prejudices) you have before you start concocting a wrong headed questions and answers.
A lot of MMO players struggle with Eve Online because it strikes them as terrifyingly ‘open ended’. Nothing is obvious to a new player when you start playing. The game gives very few hints. Up until relatively recently CCP has not really helped new players that much. This has been left up to the community . Whilst there is an incredibly dedicated community in Eve they certainly have had their work cut out for them. Thankfully this has now changed dramatically with CCPs recent updates. The game is now much more new player friendly than it has ever been.
My first challenge was to skill Karen into a proper tank and to develop some decent drone skills. I knew this was probably going to take a while but as long as I stayed alert I would probably be able to survive long enough to have something that was going to make a solo Ganker think twice. I also aimed to be able to stop NPCs from being any kind of threat. This is what it means to go down the rabbit hole of Eve. You start with a problem or even a positive goal, set out your plan to get to your goal and off you go.
I wasn’t expecting this part of the game to become such fun! CCP had completely revamped ship builds with a new in game fitting management tool whilst I had been away. And like Wow! To the right of this text (hopefully) is the build I was aiming for. This can be assembled in game and you can see where your skills are lacking, you can adjust your fit with relevant modules and tweak a fit to your own style of play. You can see that the goal for me was to get a better shield. I knew from playing on Mori that the damage ‘type’ the Non-Player Characters (NPC’s) pump out is important. From the Eve University Wiki I could see that The Angel Cartel Pump out 60% Explosive Damage, so Explosive Resists would be handy, I also added a Damage Control II as well as Reinforced Bulk Heads for added tank. Again Eve University have this covered in a beautifully written page on Tanking.
By the time I had all of the skills into the training queue it was going to be around two full weeks whilst Karen skilled into these modules. Also notice how I only had Acolyte I Drones which only deal 20 EM HP damage – this is of course the wrong type of damage for Angel Cartel rats. Again showing just how complex the game can be. I would later need to reskill into Valkyrie II drones after finding this important fact out! Once again you can look at the Eve University Wiki page on Drones for more information. But as always this is the game. It is about problem solving, setting goals and cracking on with doing what you need to do.
The problem though is that I was vulnerable and very aware that this was the case. It was back to some skills I had learned when playing Mori in Low Sec, a really handy tip I learned from an EZStreet member and of course scouting out Gankers from Zkillboard’s Ganked page.
DScan is your friend!
The simplest solution to having no tank is to watch local very closely and just not be there when Gankers appear. This was going to be a bit of an inconvenience but really it wasn’t that big an issue. I would later learn that this routine is essential to be able to effectively play other parts of the game and it really is so basic it should be developed by everyone. I got into the habit of watching local, when the number changed I would right click and look at who had arrived. Characters with a minus security rating, new characters and anyone with mediocre ratings deserved special attention. I would often also look up characters on Zkillboard to see if they were into ganking. I was especially careful when any kind of destroyer came onto DScan especially at low range. I found myself developing a habit of warping at the first sign of anything untoward. I would also just log off for the day if the system looked suspicious or sometimes roll over to Moriarity if I felt like PvP.
Control + A on Local Chat
A second really handy tip was to left click on any character in local chat and hit <Control + A>. This has the effect of highlighting all characters currently in the system. Anyone new to the system is not highlighted and can be checked out fairly quickly. These were simple methods I developed over the next week to stay safe. As time went on I was starting to enjoy mining more than running around in factional warfare. This became especially true as the time I spent with Karen in COSMOS developed. This was especially the case when I was introduced to the all ‘new’ moon mining by COSMOS CEO Dan Dingle.
On these ops we would often find ourselves in systems that were at a cross-roads, by this I mean these systems were ‘on the way’ to somewhere. Local was constantly changing and it could get very stressful to figure out who was new to the system. Hitting Control-A and highlighting who I knew was there made it much easier to see who was new. I could use one character to highlight all and another to check the security status of those coming through and D-Scan for new ships.
Warning signs on D-Scan included any Catalysts or Thrshers. In fact post Gank if I saw any of these in local I would just dock up. My best defence was not to be there when the gankers arrived. Certainly until I had the right skills and ship fit. The interesting thing is that over the next few weeks I got this so well practiced that I became a little complacent.
During one of our ops someone appeared in local annoced themselves as our ‘Ganker for this evening’. I docked immediately and waited, but then they left local. We got back to mining. It was a corp op and we were enjoying chat on vopice comms and before we knew it the ganker was on grid shooting. I panicked thinking quick quick. Found it difficult to get all of the drones in on time and the ore over to Karen’s hold. Honestly if they had landed beside me I was definitely going to lose my ship. Too slow! Too Slow!
There were just no guarantees really other than staying completely alert. This was before CCP decided to update mining of course!
Everyday Eve 