Gateway Quadrant for the ???

Yeah, CCP suckered me back in with this promise of an updated "new character experience".  Yup, it's updated...  You get to die again.  Well, actually, you are forced into it, no option this time around.  I had high hopes at first when they handed me an Astero to fly -- wow, new characters are getting ... oh, I have to get it blown up and me with it... Ok, now it makes sense.

Afterward, you walk through the new skill "experience" and how the AIR group has whole plans (I think someone discovered the old skill certificates system and put a new face on it) you can just dump into your queue (of course, you need to purchase the books at a markup over what you can find them for in the market from NPC vendors).  And... may the gods help you if your not-so-new character never bothered with all those useless fighting skills because you don't have much choice of slot configuration on a freighter... cuz, you don't get anywhere until you train up those initial (aka REQUIRED GUYS AND GALS) AIR plan skills...

Yeah.  

Once Aura (bless her blue skin) dumped my new character on the tender mercies of the career agents (yup, same old same old here) - I abandoned the "new" new character experience and went back to playing my Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3 characters...

Yup, CCP made changes - they're still pushing PVP down your throat as if there is no other valid game play and if you aren't in a corporation you don't deserve to enjoy the game.

Sigh.

Well, I dropped by... but, I am gone again.

Maybe, if CCP survives another five years, I'll see if they've made any real improvements to the game or if they are still rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

Until next time.  Be safe out there.

Yin

CSM 14 Q3 2019 Minutes...

This week, I sat down and worked my way from the start to the finish of the published CSM 14 Q3 2019 minutes.  I think this is the first time in the entirety of the nine years I've had an EVE account, that I actually read the entire document.

I was searching for some glimmer of a clue that CCP has a plan or glimmer of a plan for what they want to make EVE into.  The closest I got to that was on page 39, with:

"Aryth says that CCP Seagull had a vision but right now CCP seems to be throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks. "

That pretty much sums up the way that I've been feeling this year.  The torrent of skill points for logging in and playing have not helped.  In fact, if anything, these events have deepened my despair that there is a future in EVE Online for a "Lone Wolf" player style.

Therefore, I have cancelled all my accounts and as their time expires, I will just disappear.  I doubt I'll completely walk away, but the game is not worth paying for.  I'll play the alpha level game - it is just as "rewarding" as the omega level game, and does not cost me anything other than the time I throw at it.

No, you can't have my stuff.  CCP wants money out of the economy, so I'll just lock it all away as insurance against some future time.  Who knows, CCP might come to their senses and find a direction that includes something (new and challenging) for Lone Wolves to do.  If that happens, I'll at least come back to try it.

In the meantime - if you are staying, I wish you all the best.

bye.

I will not dump my Occator!

Hermit posted yesterday that it was time to throw out the Occator and start using an Impel.   Hold on one little second.

For Yinmatook to throw away his Occator that as currently fit can do the MWD/Cloak "quick warp" trick (which is different from the MWD trick that Hermit is talking about) and fit up that Impel that is not able to do that trick, would not only cost the price of an Impel and fittings, but would require that he go purchase the Amarr Industrial skill and train it to level 5.  That is 19 days (or a two injectors and some hours).

Instead, if you are willing to give up the MWD/Cloak quick warp, here's an Occator fit that is fairly cost effective and has more EHP than the Impel.

[Occator, Haul G]

Centum C-Type Energized Explosive Membrane
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Centum C-Type Energized EM Membrane
Centum C-Type Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
800mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates

EM Ward Amplifier II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Medium Shield Extender II

Prototype Cloaking Device I
[Empty High slot]

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II






Yes, this thing costs more than the Impel (140M isk rather than the 14M isk Hermit's fit has). 

As for the Centum/Corpum/Corelum C-Type modules - purchase the cheapest one available -- they have the same fitting attributes.

One other thing.  Perhaps my copy of Pyfa is out of date, but testing the fits on SiSi, I find that they are actually 100K and 99K EHP, not the 121K and 118K that Pyfa is showing me.

Anyway... whichever ship you choose to fly.  Tank it!

Spring cleaning.

I have finally taken the time (5 minutes... woohoo) to look over the list of blogs that I claimed to follow for the past five years and throw out the ones that I really don't even look at anymore.  I even added two admitting who I am really paying attention to.

I do watch the CCP patches, but sadly, I am finding nothing to draw me back in.  I don't play EVE for "companionship" - hell, I have a wife, five children, ten grandkids, an elderly cat and a sister-in-law and a couple good friends for that stuff.  I play EVE to escape from the pressures and battles of life.  To be honest, EVE has grown to suck at that.  I am finding Diablo3 to be far better at that, right now.  However, I have not completely walked away from EVE.  I still log in and fiddle with Yin's skill queue when it looks like it is getting too low (like less than 200 days of training) and keep my copy of pyfa updated.

I do hope that eventually, CCP adds something for the solo player to salivate over instead of more and more for the massively large alliances to drool over and chase.

Life is real, EVE is a game.

Woah! Really?

This Crimson Harvest event, now that's interesting...  Yin managed to get enough points yesterday that he got the first level of rewards.  The mystery box contained a speed booster.  He popped that like a sailor going... well, yeah, fast!  Thirty minutes later, while speeding through a system running from Ghesis to Amarr on one of those blasted purchase that last bit of kit runs... the speed booster expired and the Apple computer rebooted.  Say what!?!?!?!  Ouch.  All I can say is the speed boost is nice while it lasts, but the after effects are painful.

Be careful out there - and watch out for Crimson Harvest drugs!

Where did Yinmatook go?

Yinmatook has been retrenching.  Fighting off a serious bout of not wanting to play.  The end result (at least the plan right now) is to consolidate onto two accounts.  One character now works for a new puppet master and a second is thinking about making the same move.

The bottom line is that I play this game to unwind, and I play it alone.

I don't want to get into massive fleets and have the massive headaches of always having to wait for Charlie to get his act together and show up for the event.   I've been in large guilds on WOW and EverQuest and learned long ago that nothing starts on time, and usually will be at least two hours late starting.  Given my life, that means I don't get to take part -- the alarm goes off at 5am whether I've had my eight hours or not.

I also cannot afford to have this become another "job" -- I've got three of those IRL, and I don't need any more.

What is my beef with EVE?  Well, I am fed up with claim jumpers.  I am out there running missions in a Marauder fit for PvE, and some damn PvP fit cruiser shows up and starts looting.  If I wanted to do PvP, I'd be out in a PvP ship.   However, if I take a PvP ship out to do PvE missions, I get to file an insurance claim -- and the insurance payout on a Marauder sucks. :/  Until CCP fixes that - EVE is just something I do in off moments and I am not going to pay anyone $500 per year for that.

Instead, I've been playing Elite: Dangerous and Guild Wars 2.  Both of them are games that you buy once and play for free forever (well, unless you want to go into their store and buy things).   I've also been fighting with physics in the alpha Besiege game!

If you drop by Teshi (Domain) or Murini (Kador) -- you might find Yinmatook running missions occasionally -- but don't count on it happening often.

Ta...

The times they are a-changin

I work at a University in Information Technology (IT).  That means that contrary to popular opinion - summer is when I'm stressed, working overtime and scrambling franticly to upgrade all of our servers and services while the students and many of the faculty are away on their "summer break".  Now that the fall semester has started back up, this is when I get a brief respite - that is, unless some one of the multitude of rushed summer upgrades was not quite right - and then the frantic pace continues until it gets resolved.  Well - for me at least, the lull has finally arrived and I'm able to take stock of where I am with EVE and what I am doing for the next few months...

And... I'm doing a lot of things.

• The Hi-Sec POS is stored in the corporate hanger and the fuel has been sold.  I'm going to hold onto it until Christmas to see if I feel a need to use it again or if I'm going to sell it.
• One of my characters (with about 75million skill points) who is a generalist - nice to have along on almost any kind of mission - is being sold.  That transaction should be complete this week.
• Two of my four accounts are going to be stripped of useful characters, and the other characters either destroyed or left on the unrenewed account.
• The character that I started when my daughter and her husband got me playing this game in 2010 is off to join a null sec renter corp (renting space from NC., I believe).
• The character I acquired from a friend that started playing in 2003 and left in 2011, is for the next month or so, running lvl 4 missions in hi-sec with one of the industry characters fleeted up to get their standing raised - after that, if Null renting is good - she's likely to join that same corp (which means turning the corp CEO over to one of the characters that is being trained for that position right now).
• Two (possibly Three) industry characters will be maintained.
• One NPC corp, hide my time online from everyone, for sanity, character will be maintained.
• The still wobbly part of the decision is whether that third industry character gets moved, or if she is abandoned to leave me with a slot for training specialist characters for sale on the character bazaar.  At this point, I'm almost definitely planning to move that character.

The markets seem to finally be settling down.  The cost of making things have fallen dramatically, and prices are slowly following those costs down.   I've still got some tech2 modules that are profitable to invent/build/sell - and I continue to be able to realize a profit every month from doing that, even with doing all the work in a station.

I'm actually looking forward to the invention changes that are due to drop next week.  Being able to start up a multiple run invention job so I can devote less time to the industry side of the operation.  Giving me the ability to log in once a day to set up the queues, instead of trying to be able to log in about every four hours to start up a new set of invention jobs.  I really need to make some time to get on SiSi and try that out, so I know what I'm doing next week ;)

Ya'll be safe now...
  Yinmatook