Tip toe into null sec

Do not die - check
Bring a gun to a knife fight - check
Insure ship - double check. 

Well after 2 days of null sec PI my storage facility from the extractors are about 40% full. That is with 23 hour cycles. Much nicer then the high sec counterparts. 

   After going through the PI rounds I decided to take my Rusty ol Domi out for a spin. I looked with the on board scanner and had 2 Sansha anomalies. This ship is design for tank and PvE.  So. I fly out to meet 4 cruisers, 2 battleships, and 8 missile turrets. I got into half armor alot quicker then I expected.  While mulling this over I remembered I had the Thanatos. 

  A quick change up and I flew back.  To the wrong site. This one just had 4 cruisers. My carrier is not fitted for war. I had 6 warp stabs on it. This made for some funny fighting. My targeting range ended up being 19 Km. Still it was nice to see 504 drones to pick from. After a while I went back to station and got rid of the stabalizers. Fitted 2 med shield boosters onto a capital. ( the only thing I had collected) and flew back out. Started to re engage and a new face showed up in local. 

A red face, and here I am in a phenomenally fail fitted carrier in a non cyno Jam system. This is a bad idea, and being the carebear I am. Took my capital tail between my legs and ran away from the 2 mighty cruisers I was fighting. 

  He left after 5 minutes or so, but I'm not risking my main vehicle to move to and from null sec. 
-Jason. 

The Cyno Blues

I really hate cyno generators. I mean in reality it is not that big of a deal.  My alt only has 350k of skill points, with the lowest clone at 900k. 

  A T1 cruiser with a generator and fuel and that's it. Though it is annoying to buy a ship for 3 mil. Insure it for 700k and only get a 2.3 mil payout. 

  But it is the whole sitting 0m off a station in low sec with a Red -8.4 security guy flying back and forth from said station, that really makes you sigh. For reasons I do not comprehend he did not target me and get a quick gank. 

  So the alt survived for now....

Jason

Asking for directions

Thank goodness for hot fixes 

Yesterday I am finally getting the 3rd character set for a cyno alt. And send him down to pick up the fuel. And I kept getting a low sec point. 

   My fix was to go to DOTlan maps and chart my own path. 

    Glad to hear that it's been corrected. 

CSM : Jaded Tears

I really didn't have much to say this morning. So I read for a bit on capsuleer. 

  Which lead me to the CSM review. Reading the article reminds me so much of real life politics. Where there is only one right answer - the writer's. 

Referring to people who question as Tin Foil Hats. Or inserting the word supposedly, it was like reading the local newspaper come election time. 

All this said, I do plan on reading and promoting his article and website. Just to help raise the awareness of the CSM. 

But I'm a little bit more jaded. After all, alot of what is said to us is the infamous - trust me. This coming from a game that at it's core design fosters distrust and scamming. 

The best thing to do, though is read it yourself. http://keithneilson.co.uk/the-csm-summit-june-2010-thursday/

-Jason 

Planetary Interaction: My carebear tears

Have you ever done something that loses money, isn't all that much fun, and is a little frustrating?  Yet, you can't help yourself and you keep doing it again and again. 

That is my planetary interaction experience. It's either stop what I am doing every 30 minutes to take 5 minutes to refresh or throw it to 23 hours and let 1/2 the plants stay idle cause I can't get them enough resources. 

Also there is no in between. 30 minutes, 5 hours, or 23 hours. What about a 8 hour work day?  I sleep longer then 5 hours ( or at least I want to.)

   All of this and I have made less then 5 million in products. There are ways to make isk off of this, I know. But not in high sec doing it the way CCP wants you to do it. 

    So I am waiting for my 3rd account to finish a few skills then I will try null sec.  The motherload better be there. 
-Jason 

Steps to become a ninja

Lost in eve is a nice podcast. 

He goes through the news articles, touches on PI, and then tells a story of an in game experience. 

This week he covered something I particularly found nice. Ninja mining.

The goal here is 
1) to scan down a wormhole
2) go in and cloak 
3) drop an extractor down on a planet - he recommends a Basic
4) leave
5) in the comfort of your station open up a can of extractors and devestated the planet for a short period of time. 
6) when it's time for bed or the wormhole is reaching it's natural life cycle you warp back in. 
7) drop in a spaceport ( this flags as a customs office in the overview - so if someone is watching they will notice)
8) dump it all to space station. 
9) warp in and grab it ( hopefully no bubble)
10) run like a flaming banshee to the exit. 

Congrats you just stole minerals from the occupants. 

Over course when I got home I didn't find a wormhole in my system. Then I got spouse aggro.... And it was all over. 

Jason 

NPE

Well in making the 3rd account, I got try out the new player experience. 

  (Old man voice) "Back in my day, ( hobble hobble) we didn't have all those high fluletin fancy Blueprints! (shake my cane). All those choices of carEer paths. BAH!!  We were given a stick and bail of wire and told to make our own Titans. I remember I had to walk to nearest jumpgate in the snow!!! Up Station!!!  BOTH WAYS!!!!!  You young wipper snappers have it too easy!"

-cough-  umm hurts my throat. 

Overall it was ok, I did rush through how to turn my ship. I was suprised at how painful it was to kill a rookie pirate with a civilian Gatling laser. 

   I was given a few Blueprinter missions. But as far as I could tell I had no clue where to go. (assuming I was new). The first couple lead me fairly well. But the last one I had to get some Isogen and it never told me I needed to find a 0.6 or 0.5 sec space and what asteroids to look for. 

  For me it wasn't a problem, but if I was a new player not committed to the game. Well it is possible I could have rage quit 2 hours into the game. And I didn't even get ganked. 

  Also I lost connection. So when I got back on, the tutorial kept trying to get me to redo everything I had done to begin with. At one point it would even let me warp unless I turned it off. 

  Sad
-Jason 

Eve gate redux

Eve gate. Ehhhh
 
   So I saw I made 24 mil roughly on Capsuleer. But I don't know what I sold. 

And since I am hard at work (hahaha) I decided to try eve gate again. 

  first time I have log on in about 2 or 3 weeks. I see Kirith likes the tweets. I didn't even realize I had him to view. I did have 1 tweet in there. 

  So I threw up the fact that I just purchased a 3 rd account so now I can train for cynos. And the my dream of 2 hulks and an orca can be realized. :). Hmmm. 

Now I need another computer
Jason
 

PI - the UI needs some love

While I am not the biggest reader. Ok I barely read. I haven't noticed people talking about a problem I have in planetary interaction. 

  The timing of extractors going off line. I know I mentioned it a little bit on the podcast. But yesterday was just another prime example of not understanding what I am doing. 

   After the failed podcast recording, Tuesday. I jumped online at 5 pm and saw my entire lava planet workers were on strike. I choose the 23 hours till depleted option. Thinking I would have time Wednesday to move the production process onwards.

  Wednesday 4 pm came and it said I had another 2 hours. So my math is off 5 pm to 5 pm is 24 hours. Plus 1 more equals 25 hours total. Yet it said 23 hours till depletetion. 

    And another thing. You can't stop them in their mining process without scrapping the entire extractor and rebuilding one. I was hoping to stop mining and rescan so I wouldn't have my planets doing nothing during my sleep time. 

   It bugs me so much, I might get off my rear and head to Jita's Park and see if I can get a CSM member to sponsor me. 

-Jason 

Ok so my foot tastes a little funny, but I'm used to it.

There is a proposal already raised for CCP. To look at some of the functionality of PI.

Let's see if I can get the link

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1335480

Opps I did it again

Well phoey
  

   I can't find my headphones anywhere to the iPhone. 

    So I nick'd my bosses computer speakers for the day. 

     Now everyone at work gets to listen to day 3 of the alliance tourney. 

   -Jason 

Frustration to relaxation

Special thank you to Kirith Kodachi for reminding me to look at the My Eve section of the forums for new podcasts.  I have been remiss in that. 

    Last night, I spent roughly 4 hours working on iClone. Trying to get things setup. I was really starting to get a feel for the software and it's limitations. I rendered a 30 sec trailer but the watermark they put on it makes it look like 3D image without the glasses.

    So I settled down for a session of ice mining.  You know what? Ice mining is great. The rock never depletes and,with an orca near by, it's just every 8 minutes move the load from the mackinaw to the orca. Was able to unwind from iClone, then get wound up (good way) for SW: The Old Republic. 

Overall a nice way to end the night. 
-Jason. 

6 jumps in 4 hours

Yes, I was at my computer the whole time.

I went from low sec entry to the pocket. It is roughly 6 jumps long. What took my 4 hours was at each station i would turn at least 90 degrees from my destination and cruise to 200 KM from the gate. Then bookmark the spot. It just takes time traveling at 200 meters per second.

But I got to the pocket unscathed, and was able to cyno in my carrier. Which landed 10 KM from the station. Still working on the specifics of that one. I made a jump clone (yeah!) and grab an t1 amarr frigate. Threw a warp stab in the back and off I went. There was a brutix that hanging out at one gate. I didnt really pay much attention as I was spamming the warp then jump button. Part of my book market was (to Empire) or (to LSS). So when I am in a non cloaky t1 death trap I have less thought pattern and more... go go go.

Now I am mining ice, cause that thanatos sucks fuel down like it was the 70s all over again. (yes conversvation is at 5)

My high loading zone is a nice little spot. But it is double jump into empire. All the single jumps are a little too unsavory for me.

-Jason

And the idiot award goes to....

On behalf of all the idiots out there, I would like to accept this award. 

Decided to actually move the carrier yesterday. Grinding missions is just grinding me down. I need some ore. 

  As my last couple of posts lead you to believe I am clueless (shocker I know) on how capitals move. Well, that is not entirely true. I understand the basics. I guess it is more accurate to say I do not have personal knowledge of the mechanic. 

  Anyways, when I get up in the morning and finish the whole shower/dress thing I have 15 minutes before Eve logs for it's daily downtime. Great!  That should give me plenty of time. 

Log in, and move the scout and the cyno to position ( I kept them log in high sec for my peace of mind). 4 minutes left. Log into my main and shed the Domi I was in. 3 minutes. Pause training ( boy I could blog about that hassle) and jump! 

Error - it appears I already have a jump clone here. I made one a long time ago I never used. 

2 min 30 sec - ok. Dock at the other station.  Undock, warp, (soooo slow) redock. 48 seconds left. Well phoey. I log off all 3 in the right spots. 


Did you catch my mistake?   It's pretty obvious. 

I'll give some time. 


That's right. 


  So I am at work, doing the work thing. Going over the whole moving the carrier thing. Looking at it from different angles to make sure............

 Oh noes!!!!!!! In my rush to get pod from the station to the other, then seeing there wasn't enought slack time,I called it quits. WITHOUT TURNING MY TRAINING BACK ON!  Major DOH!

  So there went approx 10 hours of training. 

Hello, my name is Jason.  And I'm an idiot. 


Idiot update. 

This morning I go again. Now everyone is prepositioned, I get ready. 7 minutes left. And there sits a Sabre off my carrier stations bow. Now I am 101% positive that the sabre could not chew through my shields/armor.  But it wasn't the game plan. 

   Sabre finally got bored, and I jumped. ( yes I remembered to turn training back on) I click undock and pop the cyno. 

Error - you cyno requires fuels. 

    What?!??!  Remember when Kirith recommended to use a t1 frigate/cruiser.  Well I went out and bought one. Then moved all the stuff to the cruiser. Then chanced my mind and move " everything " back to the cyno ship. 

    So it's my mortal enemy's fault. He made recomendation knowing I would be an idiot and forget the fuel. 

End of the story : I ran back grab the fuel. Got back and the sabre was back floating around station. Bastard finally left at 2 minute mark.  Undock, lit cyno, and spam jump you bastard. 

  carrier is now in a few low density zone. So those people living in Aeschee - have a wonderful life. I have no plans to go back. 

-Jason
      
  

The great Boris

Between the garage sale, mom coming over, and Eve giving me a 6 hour mission - diddly got done. 

   I read SW:ToR comic, the best thing about that is listening to Darth Haters podcast to pick up the smallest details and expound upon them. 

   Good news for podcasting is alliance tourney. Of course I forgot to charge my phone last night so I cannot stream the video now.  But atleast there will be a 5 second talk on it. Wonder if Erin will watch some?  

I still love Boris Hotches' interpretation on the tourney.  Ships fly by, lasers fire, ships blow up.  He would have been great as an announcer. 

  does anyone know the rules of getting a jump clone in player controlled station ( in null sec?)

Have a great weekend
-Jason 
   

It's not paranoia, if they really are out to get me

You know what is worse then being a noob. 

  Being a paranoid noob.

  I got the 2 recon ships fitted and skilled to fly. I sent one approx. 200 km off the station where my carrier is. And the other one I found what looks like a quiet spot (this is eve. Quiet is relative) in my jump range. 

   Now the last ship I lost was when leaving my carrier. I saw a Moros and atleast 4 battleships. There is roughly 25 people in system. 

   And I have never done this cyno before. Personally I would rather not lose my carrier. 

    It is my understanding that if I get a point on me, I can't cyno jump. There fore I was fitting it with my low slots full of stabilizers. 

   What I am hoping for is (10 minutes before eve closes)

1)  have all 3 ships ready. Carrier, the station observer, and the cyno. 
2) fleet up
3) pop cyno
4) undock
5) I have no idea, but I am hoping to right click on the cyno guy and spam jump. 
6) pray it works

  What annoys me the most is my belief that CCP should atleast be able to tell me how to do this. It's annoying trying to work out the mechanics of how to jump in a pirate system. 

  next time remember : Buyer beware ( no wonder the guy put the carrier on the market)

-Jason 

PI: Mr Roboto

I'm pretty sure this will be my last Planetary Interaction post for a couple if weeks while I wait for my skills to catch up on the Elite Command Center. 

If your real lucky it will also be my last post, but I doubt it. 

 A wise man would shut up now, since to really cover today's subject I need to be in front of my computer. So let me continue...

During my small time on SiSi I would just roam planets scout and throw extractors where ever. While this was fun, it is not a good idea if you want to really do something. 

  You need a plan.  The best way is to look at what your end product you want to make then go backward. 

    Right now I am sure there are smart brainiacs working feverishly on Excel to bring all the schematics to life. So far I haven't found them yet. If you think I'll do that - your insane. 

   What I did do was bounce around different processors and look at what they will make. So lesson one. 

   Not all planets are created equal. 

   The processors on certain planets will make an item, that no one else can. So not only do you need Elite CC for the power grid, you need to find the right planet to make stuff on. 

    Case in point : Robotics. You will need robotics for Pos fuel and T2 production.  Robotics comes from advance processors not high tech (ie you cannot get the highest and work to lower schematics) to make robotics you need XXXX ( meaning I don't remember) and mechanical parts.

 To make mechanical parts, you need blah blah blah ( nope, drawing a blank )     To make blah blah blah, you need something somthing and nobel metals. Nobel metals can be found on Plasma Planets ( very rare ) or Barren planets. And on Barren Planets, they are the least resourceful of the 5 listed. 

  So demand for robotics will be twice as high as the rest, but it's base items are one of the least populated in high sec. Hence - demand. This means if you don't care about PI at all 

1) you stop reading a long time ago 
2) all you need to do is find a barren planet throw down an extractor on the Nobel Metals and sell them when you get around to it. Cause there will be a market. 

  it also might impact the PoS fuel market and T2 ship market pretty strongly. 

  Already CCP has stumbled and cut off the PoS fuel prematurely and then brought it back.  So you know where this is headed. 

  I do appologize for not having all this stuff memorized, but if you want me to expand / expound on the schematics drop me a line. 
-Jason 

PI: Captain Obvious

Side note : as expected you can use Function keys when in planet mode. 

I am starting to rationalize the PI slider.   

There are 2 small triangles on the slider. 1 on each side of the color bar. The left one is to the minimum and the right - maximum. 

   My belief is that it is similiar to Gain on an amplifier.  Since I am in Empire space the minerals are not as abundant. Hence I can increase the gain to show me where the highest minerals are. But if I was to go to Low or Null sec then my settings would be oversaturated and everything would be white. 

That is why the video they move the slider to just showing red, while I chose to just start white. 

Same topic. Different note. 

  Worked on remote sensing. First off I had a parts run 4 jumps over. So I set my mode to planet and made the jumps while my view stayed the same. This does make docking painful, but the jumps are nice. If you did this style for a long time. Might need to add stations to an overview tab - to help with docking. 

   As far as how to remote view other system planets while sitting in stations , I  found a way but it is a bit convoluted. 

   I opened the star map. On the solar system tab, you just move the cursor to isolate the planet then click on planet mode. Fairly straight forward approach. 
 
   For far remote viewing, I went to the star map tab and right clicked a star. I didn't find planet mode. But I did finally use a very old feature. Show system in side browser ( sorry I can't remember the name they call it). Anyway, it is the one where it gives you 4 windows. Top being the universe, next is the region, next is the constellation, last being the solar system. When you right click on a planet in the solar system, it will give all the moons, belts, and the planet. Going over the planet will give you the planet mode option. 

 Now  came my next roadblock. You can scan with in your Remote Sensing skill range. The planet I really wanted to see was 5.22 LY away. And my range (currently) is 5 LY. 

   One last note: while I was looking around I went to the building tab in planet mode and hovered over the command stuctures. Elite said I didn't have Command Center upgrade to 5 (yet), advance - 4, improved - 3, standard -2. All these are true (right now). But the intresting thing was when I goto limited. It tells me I don't have the command center in my cargo hold. Which made me wonder, if I have a CC in my hold and remote sensor into my range. Would the computer let me drop a CC on a planet far away?

  My guess is No. Eve uses a linear denail system. In that once I meet one condition then the next road block will pop up. So that if I get a CC in my cargo hold, then it will say something like you are not in range. 

    But if it doesn't,  that would be awesome. 
-Jason 

PI : Did I mention my scanning ability?

It seems my ability to scan wormholes has migrated into my ability to scan planets. 

  cause I just don't get it. Yeah I watch the CCP video 3 times. And yes I have remote sensing at 3. Understanding thermal graphs : check. 

  Its the slider I am lost on. 

  You pop up a planet, click scan and select the largest bar (since it has the most resources). Makes sense so far. The planet goes thermal. And it has low resolution, now here is my deal. If you take the slider and move it all the way to the left - the planet goes white (for the most part). What I was doing was moving it all the way until the white just started to appear. Then thought that was the hotest and there for the best concentration. But I have no idea if that is true. 

On the subject of remote sensing. The skill talks about scanning planets up to 9 light years away. That is a long distance. I have yet to see something in a solar system measured in LY. Much less 9. Which leads me to wonder can I scan planets in other solar systems. And even more importantly, how?

  As for planetology and advance planetology,  what do they really do?  The attibutes tell me they are rank 4 and the memory/chrisma. But not how they effect anything. 

Either way, I'm still training to level 5. 
-Jason

Beginings of my long PI journey

Intresting note:

  As I am sure most people found, you can view planetary mode away from planets. 

   This presents intresting dynamics when running mind numbing missions. I waited until I was on the last battleship then picked a local planet to scout out.   

My remote sensing skill wasn't acivated yet (it will get to 3 around 7:10 tonight). This means that there wasn't a whole lot I could do right then. I didn't try to use the Function Keys to see if I could still fight effectively. Will try that another time. 

Overall with no skills and in high sec. The planet was pretty dry on mining, but not empty.  This time tommorrow I will be working on plantary to 4 to get advance to 4. My overall goal is to get all 5 skills to 5 ASAP. Or as fast as jumping in and out of implants will allow. 

I have about another week to get another recon. Still I might just wait and keep grinding for that jump clone.  Then I could keep the recon permenantly down there.

I believe I will do more posting on PI. It has tickle my funny bone a bit. 

  wasn't it weird that the 2 main skills cost an odd amount. Right down to the .01 isk. I have no idea why, but I am sure it means something. 

  oh and by the way,  Star Defender has a great post on the products on PI. 

-Jason 
  

What to do, What to do...

Well there is rarely a good thing about playing 3 MMOs.

But when Eve goes offline (I only had 4 minutes left on getting my mission finished... whew), that means I can roll right into EQ2 with no thought about WAHHH!

Played with the Rat for a bit. Got his tinkering up to max allowed, I was able to get a skill up every time I tried now. Which means - I am alot luckier then I have ever been. Or they changed the rules on me... again.

I see that Song Li has got a new show out. Sweet!!!

Congrats to Mynxee for becoming president by a large margin.

And last but not least, most blogs talk about what to do for the 18 hours of withdrawl from Eve-crack. Sleep, see a movie, go outside and look at the bright shiny thing in the sky.

Me, I get to repair a septic spary head.
-Jason