Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 - an EVE year in reflection

The blogger in me has been lazy this month. So lazy that this will be my 4th post in December which is a far cry from the 8-12 I normally produce. It's been a busy time and a sick time for me. I've had strep and bronchitis in the real world. Work has been uncharacteristically busy and family life has been the usual whirlwind that Christmas time whips up. My EVE time has been just as busy with my return to the carebear life from a small stay in 0.0. I've added members to my corporation, I've joined a new Alliance, and I've stepped up in the role as CEO and stake holder of both. I've got goals again that require action and planning. I am flying with some truly awesome people and having a lot of fun doing indy stuff.

Yet what really has 2010 meant for me in the EVE sense? In asking myself this question my brain kind of goes fuzzy at first. There is no solid answer as to what it's done for me and what I have done with my time. The easy answer is what 2010 in EVE has cost me financially which amounts to US$359.76 for the year. Compare this to buying my lunch each day I work at US$2080 for the year it's not that expensive. My cell phone costs me US$1200 ish a year as well. So financially EVE is a good thing for me.

However what good has it done for me in the grand scheme of it all? Back in January 15th of this year 2010 I started to blog about my EVE life. Back then I was a pimply noob with 2 accounts and a whole bunch of nothing else. I was handing out advice to noobs while barley having made it past the trials myself. I thought that traveling between Lonetrek and Sinq Laison was a long trip. I make this trip weekly now as if it were going for milk.

In February I started to think about PvP in EVE. I posted some comical Tristan and Incursus fits that make me chuckle today. I realized that while tanking skills were awesome they need weapons skills to be of any use. I also lost my first drake when I got it stuck in a structure and did not know about CTRL-Q and E-Warp. I was so pissed at loosing 50M and now I make that every other day organically.

March-July I bitched about real Life getting in the way of my EVE time. I lost direction in EVE and ended up joining a new corp. to focus on PvP with ZombiNutz. This lead to Null and sometime in the lawless space. I learned a lot about gate camps and how to safe up. I spent a lot of time station spinning and shooting POS and SBU. I lost ISK faster than I could make it and soon decided that I was not pulling my weight in Null and the right thing to do was pull out.

The rest of the year I spent bitching further about my real life getting in the way of EVE. I talked about PvP and some ideas I had for some fun things to do with T1 frigates. I roamed solo in Lowsec and could not get a Fair fight for the life of me. I realized that one man alone could not pull of my ideas and this is when the first sparks of my current EVE life began.

For the last few months of 2010 and even now as I finish this post. I've been seeking out people to share my EVE time with. I've added some select nice folks to Healthcare for Space Hermits and will continue to do so. In turn I have joined the PIES alliance which is comprised of some very talented and fun to fly with corporations. I log into hellos now and what are you doing today? I have fun flying with these people even on mind numbing ICE ops. We joke and help each other out.

So really what I have done in 2010 is realize that EVE is a very lame solo game. It is by finding the right people to play with that this game really starts to shine and take flight. I am driven again and can find so much to do and enjoy in EVE now. It even fits in with my Real life schedule allowing a little less time bitching about it.

So to all a happy and safe New Years Eve. See you in 2011 for some more blogging and internet space ships. Fly safe in New Eden and rip it up and have a safe AWESOME time in the real world.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Monday, December 20, 2010

OLD TOM - The Orca comes to play on the carebear ranch.

In my childhood as a blond haired lad growing up on coastal rural Australia. The ocean was always there as a place of play and financial success for many. I spent a good amount of my life in or around a small coastal fishing town Called Eden. It's situated on the southern east coast of Australia in the state of New South Whales and the town itself is smack bang in the middle of Two Fold bay. Said to be the southern hemispheres 3rd deepest natural harbor. I've spent hours of my life sailing, swimming, surfing, scuba diving, and snorkeling in this bay and the surrounding coat. Eden is known historically as a whaling town in the late 1800's and has a good amount of documentation around cooperation of whalers and orca during this time. Hunting whales when that sort of thing was considered cool. AS a result there is a local ledged and set of bones associated to an Orca called "Old Tom" who was the last orca to work with whalers before the decline of whaling. You can read about him here

So when I finally got around to adding an ORCA Industrial Command ship to my hanger recently it was a no brainer to name it after the legendary whale from my towns history.

Undocking in "OLD TOM" is like flying a small base around. It's got all the creature comforts a mining fleet or a worm hole crew might need. Sure it may not have a clone bay but that's what it's big brother the roquel is for. Given its size it aligns and warps fast enough that I don't feel the need to make coffee. It's got enough mids for a fair shield tank. The highs are there for gang links and the lows are perfect for utility mods. 3 large rigs and it's a pretty fun boat if you are mining rocks or supporting a small fleet. I'd not recommend you take it for a stroll into lowsec or Null sec alone but if you had a small force with you I can see how this boat would also be handy.

I've fitted Mine with a typical Highsec mining fit as such:

Highs:

Mining Foreman Link - Laser Optimization
Mining Foreman Link - Mining Laser Field Enhancement
Small Tractor Beam I

Mediums:

Invulnerability Field II
2 x Large Shield Extender II
TDB (Survey Scanner or second INV II)

Lows:

2 x Expanded Cargohold II

Rigs:

3 X Large Cargohold Optimization I

It's nice to sit in a belt now and rip stuff apart not having to hall rocks away constantly. More time getting the rocks done means less time mining. This makes me happy.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Where in the universe is EVE SOB –December 2010 – late Edition

It is time for this month’s “Where in the Universe is EVE SOB” post where every month I summarize where I am at in EVE. I also throw in some real world stuff and the top CNN headline of the day for a historical WTF was the world doing back then element.

The new normal?

Here I am on the 9th getting to my monthly "first" of the month every month post out. While EVE time remains busy and productive. The same is also true with RL (cry me a river SOB) and such it seems that my blogging is the first thing to get skipped.

Added to that the dry and repetitive nature of carebearing there are only so many ways I can say "Made another 375M ISK this month from PI!" or "Training to build ship type X or mod type y this today!" This leaves me with an odd sense of not wanting to bore the crap out of the folks who do read this blog. So I post when I have something "exciting" like a new hull to shoot rats with or when I find a new way to make ISK.

So what am I doing:

Actually this past month has been busy! HCSH has joined a new alliance of super nice carebear types and we are doing collaborative carebear things together. The carebear ranch is now sharing ops with all the farms around it and the social aspect of the game has brought rewards. Perhaps I just joined a dropkick NULL sec alliance, but if I had this level of peer interaction out there. I'd would probably have found more time for gate camps and CTAs. Ah well water under the bridge. Right now I am thrilled with my new Sister corps and there pilots. Having a blast ripping up rats.

I have a dirty dark secret to share. See a while back I swore off mining and claimed it would be a long cold day in hell before I flew a mining ship in and asteroid belt. Well not only did I recently buy another Hulk. I also bought a Mackinaw as well. and have been doing weekly mining ops for both rocks and Ice. So all you wicked evil sinners out there better pack warm when you pass over. I still cannot say I enjoy mining but I do like making stuff which requires mined stuff.

Things I am training:

SonOfBraben: A whole lot of Science skills mostly. I did take a detour to sure up my RR drones and some of the base skills for a Gallente BS hulls. Kind of makes sense with a good chunk of my skills all ready invested in Drones and hybrids. Even if this guy is supposed to be pure Indy, I believe we all need to be able to shoot back to some level.

ZombiNutz: With the Raven fit done and the time I am in a fleet increasing a lot. I've actually taken a break from training hulls and guns in favor of leadership skills. So I am training leadership type stuff for both bearing and Pew Pew. Loving the extra boosts for very little time invested.

The Sisters: No change here. The Nuns are going about the daily duties at the P.I. convent with diligent devotion to the faith of making me ISK.

Real Life Stuffs:

The squirrels have abated and the bird feeders have the last few brave winter birds pecking away at the seeds in 13 F weather. We have had some snow all ready but nothing you can take a sled out on. My boys were sledding on frost this week full of eager extreme sledding mojo. My 5yo actually got a 2 foot jump off frost and you gotta love that little man. One second he is a quiet soft spoken lad who still sucks his thumb and snuggles with his mommy. The next he is in Thor mode yelling and smiting down foes while sliding down a rail.

Christmas is getting near and Santa is going broke accommodating the lists but knows the joys of the day will wash away the worry of the expense. My boys 5 and 7 both wanted iPADS and well Daddy does not have an iPAD so Santa is going to be a jerk this year and bring legos and Wii games and bikes and TOYS that are for 5 and 7 year old boys. Sheesh! lag gods all mighty why is it that kids want to be 21 the day they are born and drive an ariel atom to school? It takes all the combined efforts of Mrs. SOB and I to slow these boys DOWN and make them be KIDS! Yes I love them all the same and would not really want to change the drive them both have. These two will go far.

CNN Headline for Today:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/09/assange.profile/index.html?hpt=C1

Cheers

EVE SOB

Thursday, December 2, 2010

MIA EVE SOB

This week my duties as a professional geek have me hotel bound and working through the early hours. I am cutting over Fiber Channel fabrics replacing 5 year old director switches while not letting the customer facing services fall over. It’s tedious attention hungry work at 2am. As you might imagine this leaves me no time for EVE.

It’s funny though right before I hit the road for this current real life work adventure. Some pretty cool things happened in EVE. My corp. became a member of a brand new Alliance. The alliance founder and my sister corps are super nice people and the few times I was able to join them on ops. It was a riot.

I also had just hired a few new folks and owe them some of my time to get them moving down a path of interest to them.

I was putting some wear on my new raven as well and getting ready for some Alliance Level 5’s in the near future. I added some skills to make the drake perform a little better too. So the carebear PvE life was busy and actually fun. We are also getting ready to see what the Sansha folks have to offer when they are unleashed. Knowing my life and its timing they have all ready over run highsec and all the fights are done. :)

Anyhow, this week is almost done and I’ll be on my way home soon. In another week work pretty much grinds to a halt. SO a little more time for EVE is coming and I’ll be back soon. When I get settled a fresh"where in the universe is EVE SOB?" and some more info on the alliance. Perhaps some ravings about my next big plans.

Until then my beloved EVE and all those I share it with. I miss you.

Cheers

EVE SOB