So if you had the blog here linked on your RSS Feed or linked on your blog or Bookmarked as well please update it to the new url link below.

This is the new blog and url on WordPress: Ardent Defender

EVE GoonWaffle Newbie Guide – I had come across this one on Tobold’s Blog as a link to the GoonWaffle Guide. This guide is really funny to read and comical, but I found for my first month in EVE it’s really good with all the helpful hints in a fun way. If you’re a newbie to EVE or never lasted longer than a month before, its really good to re-read it and learn a few things.

Halada’s The Complete Miners Guide v3.0 – This is the most popular and comprehensive guide on Mining & Industry in EVE Online. Who better to learn from than one the first person that made billions and billions doing mining in EVE early days. If you ever want to do some mining in EVE  you SHOULD be reading this guide. The guide has various sections and covers also Industry/Manuf/Research etc activities. It’s really SOLID information to read if you’re not familiar with all these things in-game. I found it a tremendous help and I personally don’t mine all that much or as yet. But I do own a mining vessel which I will complete training to pilot on today.

Joerd’s Exploration Guide v2.0 – This is a great detailed and informative guide to read and gain some good info from if you’re the kind of player that likes to Explore and want to do Scanning and Probing to the best of your abilities to find lots of hidden signature sites and deadspace sites in EVE. It covers all the various skills you will need, probes of various kinds, and the various sites you can explore. It’s pretty solid and not too lengthy to read. I found this a tremendous help as well since I like to explore and will be something I will do a lot of in the future.

Edit Update 05/29/10: The Exploration guide above is a great guide overall and most of it is correct, however the parts relating to specific probes/types is a bit out of date due to changes made during the EVE Apocrypha expansion last year which simplified the probes/types needed for exploration scanning. Doing a bit of research the links below provides all the necessary changes and information to update the guide with the changes.

Probing.

Exploration.

Reading both the guide and the changes below helpful.

I usually find or come across various guides just doing a lot of blog reading and just research and usually just bookmark them for link back to read later for the info. Sometimes its hard to even remember where I found the info originally due to just having the guide file and can’t remember the site where I got it originally. Often if the guides are a help to me, I can only imagine they are a help to someone else who probably don’t read or go through the lengths I often go through to track down and find helpful information for game play. So hope you find the guides helpful in some way which goes a long way in EVE with that high learning curve in learning things.

Silent while Probing and Scanning System for hidden Signatures.

Sometimes its more fun just actually playing a game than spending time actually writing about your time playing it, which actually takes you away from the time you could actually be spending playing the game. By A MMO Blogger.

The day or game session had started in EVE Online with me just being in the high secure starter area playing around just doing some practice at working on Scanning and Probing for Signatures. Was just fun to see what I could find or discover being new to the game on my own and just maybe I could find some Pirate (Rats) hideout and go on some solo mission killing Rats in their hideout in Deadspace. And I actually did find such a hideout spot for Signature as well an Unstable Wormhole leading to another high sec area of space about 11 jumps away in The Forge region.

Into the Void tracking down a Wormhole Signature during Probe and Scanning.

So just being curious I went investigating the Wormhole first. Info on the Wormhole said it was unstable and lead to a high sec system. So I poked my head into the Wormhole and found a new area with nothing much of interest in the new 0.7 sec system but some Space Stations. So I picked up a bookmark to one of them. Flew back to the Wormhole and went back through to where I had originally encountered it. Decided to go followup on that Pirate location Signature I had found and had bookmarked In discovering things to do that seemed interesting in EVE among lots of other things.

My little Salvage Destroyer "The Cleaner".

Along the way I got a call from my Corp a member (Josh) that was about to do some lvl 4 missions not too far away in another system asking if I can or know how to Salvage and if I’d like to tag along and do Salvage Ops job with him doing the mission. Sure sounds fun! Let me get my little Destroyer Salvage Ship I name “The Cleaner”. I am on my way there as soon as I can.

A few days ago I had decided it was time to leave my NPC Corp as a new EVE Rookie and search a bit to find a new Corp that was a bit ideal fit for me to join with and further grow a bit in learning and understanding EVE more as well as Corporation life and interaction. I didn’t do it with haste. I looked in the Corps section on the UI and found some Corps that was recruiting and went over their Bio and such. Some Alliance Corps, some big Corps and some smaller Non Alliance Corp. I had spent some time in review of Corps narrowed the list a bit to just 2 Corps. One Corp was a small relatively new high sec Corp of 8 members (Mostly PvE Missions/Exploration and some minor PvE) and the other was a more established larger Corp existing for a few years that was in an Alliance that operated in both high, low and null sec space (PvE Missions/Mining Industrial Complex stuff and some PvP). Smaller Corp had a lower tax rate as well to consider.

I’m a business man at the core as well in considering all things also. Eventually a few hrs later got an interview with the CEO of the smaller new Corp I had applied to. Lots of questions asked and liked the sound of this new Corp as well having things I had similar interest in. I eventually got accepted and got an invite to my new Corp and moved on just a bit further into the ever more complex universe of EVE Online. So is the start of real Corporate life in EVE. It’s a very good thing to get into a good Corp eventually on the road further getting deeper into EVE. So it wasn’t hard to make friends a bit. They know I was new, it’s not hard to tell of anyone new to EVE.

So later on when Josh asked me if I wanted to come Salvage a mission I was all go on all engines. Up on till that point I was just running some small time Agent starter missions and some Pirates I found around some asteroid somewhere on some mission. Bookmarked the location and went back to salvage the area in my little Amarr Coercer Destroyer fitted Salvage Ship. Mostly I was just picking up a few stuff and some circuits from salvaging and making a few thousand dollars selling them at my the NPC Corp Station I started my life with in EVE. And actually I was really proud of the little money I was being savvy enough to make on my own without having to go Mine Ore in an Asteroid Belt which a lot of new players seem to do. Though you can as well doing that.

I made a few Stargate jumps from where I was and picked up my Amarr Salvage Ship. Fitted with the only thing it had that I really could reasonably afford and invested in at the time was just 2 Salvage I item equipment in slot to do Salvage Ops. Rest of my money I was saving up to possibly get me a Mining Ship a Retriever (About 4 million ISK) to maybe do some mining to earn me some more ISK at a faster rate. With a bigger ship its faster mining capability possibly after I would be finish learning the Skills to do so which would possibly be a few days training time. At the time I was sitting on about 3.6 million ISK. That was my goal and I was working towards it.

Your Mission is to Salvage and Recover a Mission Site Wreckage.

So off Salvaging I went with Josh almost done with the mission and all I had to do was clean up the wreckage from his lvl 4 Agent Mission. He eventually left after I got there once I was though the Accelerator gate site. So I was left to eventually just clean things up all alone. This was something new and fun so was high degree and enjoyment just going from ship wreckage retrieving and salvaging ships for item loot. And there was ALLOT of it. It took me a while! I was relatively new at doing Salvaging Ops so there was ALLOT of things I was learning in the process. There are some people who play MMO games that don’t enjoy learning things that makes them better games or in the game they play. They want the answers to everything with actually learning it themselves or why X is or could be better than Y for a specific reason or logic.

I actually enjoy learning something on my self to be self reliable yet also learning something or finding things to make me better at doing something. So while actually doing the Salvage Operation from Josh’s mission site I was actually learning how to be better at Salvaging and what would be better to even do it faster and with more efficiency.

Lesson Learning: 4 Salvage I equipment on my Salvage Ship would be much better and faster than just having 2 of them equipped currently in my high power slots. Having Tractor Beams would be helpful. I had none. They were too expensive an investment anyway at almost 1 million ISK a piece. Having an Afterburner as well would be extremely helpful to speed up going from wreck to wreck since Salvage Ships move not so fast. I was thinking all this in my mind and kept notes.

Eventually I got the wreck site cleaned up, canned some the loot and eventually make two trips to a local station hauling all the loot since all of it couldn’t fit into my Salvage ship. This was a lot of fun the whole process, plus I had more loot than I ever seen as well with tons of recovered Circuits, Drones, Weapons Components and all kind of stuff I never seen. I just dropped all the loot at a system Space Station since didn’t know if Josh wanted it. He didn’t say. So I just left it all there till later.

Later on Josh logged on and told him I recovered all the wreckage and if he wanted me to send it too him. He laughed! He said It was mine to take and make me some money with it. Ohh! OK! Didn’t know man! Cool I was happy about that. Maybe can sell all this stuff and be savvy and make me some more money to up my ISK balance. I was sitting at about 3.6 million what i had managed to make so far but I can use the money from this salvage sale as well.

Salvaging Mission Accepted. Site Recovery Operations in Effect.

At that same time a few other Corps members was on and they were about to do some more missions and another member asked if I needed money to make. I said sure. I’m not much for getting a handout in any game but I can go do something to make money if the opportunity is there with effort. So I got invited to a Corp Fleet mission ops with 2 members doing again lvl 4 missions in a 16 jump away star system. Again I was go on all engines. I was happy to tag along and clean up whatever. It was all new to me so it was all interesting anyway and see what a lvl 4 mission actually was. On these Agent Missions it was them infiltrating bunkers killing battle ships, various kinds of ships, lots of drones and such. Basically lots a and lots of red dots to me. All cool!

Most the time I waited outside the Accelerator Gate or jump area into the location (Room) till it was a bit less of a HOT ZONE to avoid any aggro from anything in my Salvage Ship before starting cleaning up. Usually after the entire room was on aggo control and spawn control it was fine to jump in and get to work.

This is real work here.

On Room jump in it was a ton of wreckage to get to and clean stuff up. I could say at this point there really is an art to doing Salvaging Ops on a large wreckage field of ships which makes it fast and efficient. I was learning how to do it with some limitations of 1. Lack of Knowledge, which I was learning on the job and 2. With not having the right and correct fitting of equipment on my ship. Learning as I go and getting better at it every stop of the way. At the start of the day I had no idea I’d be in the Salvaging business and would be enjoying it. Who Knew! It was just fun to do and interesting to see.

Admiring the Universe while Salvaging Wreckage.

At times my Corp members was killing stuff and finishing the mission zones faster than I could possibly Salvage the areas. So I was actually slowing them down a bit. They wanted me to go faster if possibly. But I was going as fast as I could possibly go with limitations of knowledge which I was learning as I go and improvising and lack of proper fitted ship Salvage equipment.

I was really moving as fast as I could go, tracking every piece of wreckage and trying to find efficient route from one wreck to another. It eventually helped that later I went and picked up the skill to learn Targeting which improved tracking skills. There are some things you actually have to learn your self doing something which makes you get it that makes you better doing it. And because you actually Get It what ever that “It” is it makes you much better at doing it. I WAS GETTING THIS!

My Ship is configuration is so inefficient for this.

I was learning to be a Salvager doing Salvage Ops! EVE Salvaging 101 was in effect and I was learning it on my own. I was also getting a few valuable pointers from my Corp members as well in how to be more efficient and do things faster. Invaluable Information as well it all was. I find Corp members to be extremely helpful in volunteering information to help you out. Much more so than in any game I’ve ever played as well.

Salvaging a room full of Wreck. I'm having Fun!

All in all I was having a lot of fun and really picking up a fortune worth of stuff to me at least. Often it was anywhere from 1-3 Room deeper into the mission site I had to clean up. Meaning after I was finishing cleaning up one Room in the mission I had to can everything in a can since I can’t hold it all in my Salvage Ship. I then bookmarked the location of the can for later retrieval when the mission was all over since if you don’t do that you wont be able to find the location of the can you left with all the stuff.

After had to use the Accelerator Gate and jump into the next Room and do clean up there. Repeat that if there is a 3rd Room as well in the mission site. So in each Room package a can, bookmark the exact location again for later retrieval. Rinse and repeat that in the next and each Room. In a way as well you have to manage all your bookmark locations for each cans.

Salvaging Operation Logistics & Investment.

Transport Logistic problems needed a new hauler Ship to move stuff. New Bestower Ship Transport Hauler.

When the day had begun I only had 2 Transport Ships those being 2 Sigil both of which I had gotten doing the new player tutorial and career missions. The estimated cost of those two ships which was essentially free on the market was about 1.2-1.4 million both combined. Both of those Industrial Transport Ships was some 19 Stargate jumps away. That can take a while to get to in EVE and a bit slower as well to travel in a transport ship to move one some 19 Stargate jump. As well to try to do so in a roundtrip if I had to actually go and pick it up. Thats a long haul!

So I had to make a choice and an Investment choice as well-being forward thinking. This salvaging loot is valuable! It’s NOT worth my time to make a 19 Stargate jump just to pickup one of two Industrial Transport Ships I had. So I made a investment choice to check the local system market I was in and immediately get me a NEW Industrial Transport Ship that was either in the same system or at least 1 system jump away to immediately purchase and pickup. Fortunately I was able to do that in a heavily manufacturing star system looking at the market with the various Space Stations. I purchased a new Industrial Transport Ship and hauler the Bestower for about 660,000 ISK of what I had of savings which was 3.6 million balance. This was an investment in what I called Transport Logistics for my budding business at the moment in Salvaging and Recovery Operations and future operations in any close by systems. What made it nice as well was that the Bestower had much more hauling capacity than my other transport ship the Sigil.

So off I was back to my bookmark locations for can recovery operation to pick them all up and drop all the stuff off to a local Space Station in the current system.

I need a better equipped Salvage Ship. Learning...........

As I did Transport Logistics moving recovery material hauling stuff my Corp members had moved on to doing another lvl 4 missions and had gotten more missions. Some missions was in another system like 1-2 jumps away in local region. So as they went on doing more Agent Missions I was not too far behind when it was safe to enter a mission area room. Many the missions was like to knock out a heavy bunker full with ships. Some was heavy with drones each giving a different type of salvage recovered loot. Drones seem to drop precious compound metal alloys. Those alloys refined through Industrial processing seem to be worth a Fortune!

Salvaging and Canning.

As I kept salvaging wreck recovered loot and canning them for later pickup eventually over time you begin to notice the difference in the loot and wreckage you were picking up from each wreck. You would see lots of ammo, missiles, rail guns, drones, pirate tags, various components you can fit a ship with, circuit components of various sorts, compound metals and various precious looking compound metals that at the look of them tell you they were very valuable. As well all kind of other stuff. I had no universal idea how valuable or invaluable a lot of the stuff was I retrieved Salvaging. But just glancing at some the stuff I had an idea of sort that much of it was valuable.

Site Transport Operations.

After each site cleanup and canning it was more rounds going back to the station where my transport hauler was. Then switching ships to the hauler to go pick up the cans for recovery and transport. Transport Logistics!

Station Transport Operations.

My Corp members told me that everything I recovered was all mine and I should haul it all over to Jita and sell it all. Jita wasn’t too far away and I could sell it on the market there. I had never been to Jita or even really know what the place was. Jita is a high sec system and seems to be a huge market hub that borders Empire regions. As well seem to be a huge selling hub to unload ALLOT of stuff. So I made my way to one the factory Space Stations there unloaded the Bestower ship into my station container.

The System of “Jita”

The End of the Day Wreck loot Recovery Survey Review.

I ended up hauling 2 full loads on the Bestower over to Jita from all the Salvaging wreckage. This was just one of them. And until I really got to Jita and unloaded all the stuff here into my station item bin I really had not looked over the Salvaged goods entirely to see what I had comprehensively all together. This was ALLOT of stuff to SELL!!!

My character is a Trader by trade. With my current level of skill training I’m only able to sell at most 41 items at a time on the entire market all together. Back in the newbie zone I already had some stuff selling there for trade on the local market in Conaban my home system.

Understanding & Learning the Market System by Observance

So I really couldn’t sell all the stuff I had if I had to let it sit on the market in Jita due to selling limitations. So I started to try to figure out the market while at the time putting up a few items for sale. I had not hit my limitation sale orders yet. So I kept putting stuff up for sale. Was no way I can put this much stuff to sell and sell it all.

EVE really had a VERY STEEP learning curve in all aspects of things in all the various things you can do in every region of the game with all the various things you can do. This is much steeper than in any MMO game I have ever played up to this point. So this is just an observance as well.

While playing around in Jita selling stuff at first I couldn’t figure out what the green lines meant when I was looking at the market orders for open buy orders already on the market. Through different items I would see a different amount of green lines, different amount of item by orders on different items but had no idea what they all meant and why some items had different amount of them either. I was curious seeing this. At first I ignored it, though curious. But I just kept putting stuff up for sale individually and in stacks of item for sale since I had many stacks of some items for sale as well as looking at item historical sale price. This was just fun to do but I was spending a lot of time doing it as well.

At times I would notice the price the game was given me for the market price of an item seemed to have different setting, one being advance view of an item. I started paying attention to this eventually. Various items I would click on and see what value it gave me often at some regional price and you could see how much below or above regional price it was and you could also change the price which was obvious from before. I started to notice how some the price I was getting was connected in some way to the green highlighted buy orders on the market and this started to make a lot of sense to me and I started figuring things out even more which even made more sense to me as well.

Market Fetch Orders

I’m always quite happy to figure things out on my own. There is some fun to me in doing that or researching things on my own. Just the way I always play each game. But I started connecting the dots on the green highlighted buy orders selling stuff on the market in Jita. But these are the same highlighted text I would see on any system market as well.

Eventually I started selling the items at the price that matched the current buy orders that was in what I termed was a reasonable price range compared to the regional price that wasn’t too low. I started noticing all these items I was selling would go the way of “Fetch Orders”. Immediate sale matching to a current market system buy order that was in for that station or region. This made me even pay more attention to what I was doing and so I started even paying even more attention to all the buy orders entirely and seeing if the item I was selling to fetch the orders was reasonable and not some low ball figure.

I sold at a reasonable price the salvaged goods. Some the items I had literally sold of millions of ISK. Some others I held the item when I saw the overall value compared to buy order price which was discounted. Others when the overall value of the item was just too low say below estimated maybe 20k or so ISK in value to not make that much a difference that I cared about. I just all out dumped stuff all to just get rid of it entirely and not waste any more time with it. Allot of that stuff was usually ammo and missiles, stuff like that. Time is money too.

To be honest this really took some degree of time as well to do and mostly sell all the stuff. What was left I hauled it down to a regional system to sell in the local market for an upside on the profit margin vs what I could get in Jita.

At the end of it all I looked at that market dumped fire sale and what I made on the Corps Salvaging Operation sale entirely all together.

A whopping 79 million ISK! Thats quite a bit of money and profit for me as a relatively newbie to EVE when my day started with only a balance of 3.6 million ISK which I earned doing starter lvl 1 Agent Missions. Initially selling some items from missions and working to save my ISK balance vs blowing it and spending it all like a lot of new EVE Online noobs looking at the Rookie Chat.

My Corp members wanted to know the next day how the salvaging operation items went for me and if I was able to sell all the stuff and if it was profitable for me to earn some good money. Hell Yeah it was. Though they weren’t entirely all that amazed they was still quite impressed that I was able to secure that much profit from salvaging all those missions entirely. Much thanks to my Corp members as well for the whole process.

Looking at it all a thought came to me looking at the overall process entirely. Before I was just a small time part-time newbie learning and salvaging just learning things and doing my lvl 1 Agent Missions on my own. Compare that to being able to do much bigger jobs for fun or with my new Corp is an entirely different league of doing Salvaging Ops playing EVE Online or just generally playing as well.

EVE Online is not the kind of game you can really, overall or entirely play Solo! I like to Solo play just as much as the next person who enjoy Solo play on their own and learn to play by their own wits. EVE may be some fun to play Solo, but overall you’re doing it alone and with a lot of limitations of all sorts in the EVE Universe and it’s not the kind of place you want to be doing stuff all alone all the time. Your missing out on allot without a good Corp. You want to eventually find a damn good Corp to be useful to and one that can help you along as well furthering your learning in EVE in a good way and not being a leach like some people like to be in various MMO’s to their Guilds, Corps, Fleet in other games.

Re-Investment of Salvaging Profit and Capital

I like to thing ahead doing things when possible. So with me new found cash balance I made some Investments and some were for Logistic reasons as well.

Investment was made from all the mental notes I made doing Salvaging Ops in all the things I though would help me do a much better job next time Such things as:

1. Bought 2 new Salvage I item equipment at about 25,000 ISK each for my Salvage Ship which brings me to 4 Salvage I item equipment for high power equipment slots. My Ship has 8 high power equip slots.
2. Bought 4 New Tractor Beam I equipment for about roughly 900,000 ISK each item. To fill the other 4 high power slots.
3. Equipped a new Afterburner I item I had sitting around in a station bin and sump the Booster Shield I item I had equipped for my 1 medium ship power slot.
4. Bought some more 4 pieces of low power slot item equipment I didn’t have before to manage my Salvage ship Capacitor Capacity which was over capacity with all the equipment load. As well some new CPU to increase capacity performance and a new power reactor to increase output and boost Capacitor/Power/Shield performance to my ships grid. About 1 million ISK in all for those.

Other major investment. As it related to Transport Logistics I see this as a problem having to go 10+ gate jumps from some far away region with a transport hauler or making a roundtrip of 20+ jumps depending on which system I may have logged into or out of the game in to get to another system which can be anywhere to do logistics moving stuff. With that I put a market buy order for 4 new Amarr Bestower transport haulers that I can eventually stash in a logistically placed route system at a Space Station hub. That would make it easer to get to a close by system to pick up a transport hauler in maybe 5 jumps and not like having to go 20 jumps to pick one up let alone a roundtrip.

As well put in an order for a dozen Amarr Shuttles. Shuttles are FAST and Cheap! Cant carry much except small stuff like Blueprints and Skill Books, little stuff. But very FAST to get to places or logistic places on a route or System Trade hub or a Space Station I may need to get to jump into a Salvage Ship/Transport/Military Ship to get to a system within say 5 jumps or less. Thinking logistically this is a good investment to me to have quite a bit of a small Shuttle fleet of ships. So I placed a buy order for a dozen Amarr Shuttles at 7395 ISK a piece for a block buy order on the market in Amarr System which in at heart of Empire space and likely to get filled soon on oder. That not too far away since my new home system with my Corp is only 3 jumps away if I have to do a transport pickup.

Another Investment was made in a buy order for 3 new Destroyers to make into Salvage Operation Ships. I would need to get orders for equipment fitting on all those new ships as well and later move them to different locations just like my Transport Haulers. Never know when you will lose a Salvage Ship or any other as well for some unknown reason and need to get into another you have available and get back to business. Cost estimated at 1.6 million ISK just for the new ship orders. Fitted equipment cost separate which has been allocated to above in cost.

I’m not yet trained to be able to pilot a Cruiser Ship as yet. The current military ship I’ve been trained to use are a Frigate of which I use a Predator and a Amarr Coercer Destroyer which I mostly fit to do Salvage mission running. Still have to finish learning Frigate IV which is required to learn Cruiser ship command skill training. Should be finished in like a day since the last few days been learning Learning Skills 5 to accelerate my Skill Training rate which they help to do. So even at a few days of training to go to pilot a Cruiser class ship I went and put in 2 buy orders for 2 new different Cruiser ships. An Omen class Amarr Cruiser at about 3 million and a Amarr class Cruiser a Maller at around 3.3-3.8 million ISK each. Hopefully they get market order filled in a day or two.

In a another followup Salvage mission most recently I lost 2 Salvage Ships fully fitted all in a 12 hrs period of time doing cleaning up lvl 4 & 5 Missions with my Corp. lvl 5 missions are quite hard but wreck quite valuable. In one lvl 5 mission I was asked to clean up with a profit split agreement from the Corp members I was with. The mission area was a bit of a Hot Zone with deadly drones. I zone in and one my Corp member was a bit of range away and I got targeted by a stray drone. Before I could zone out of room to a station or any celestial area or marked spot my ship was blown up and I got podded. No biggie let me go get my other Salvage Ship. I checked my Assets listing. Uhh, its 19 jumps away to get to. I had a Amarr Shuttle in a nearby system 2 jumps away. Got to the Shuttle and made a 19 jump dash to retrieve a Salvage Ship and make the roundtrip. For this very reason of logistics is why I need several Salvage Ships in various route locations so I don’t have to make a 38 gate jump in total to get back to mission area. And I don’t autopilot in EVE. I manually Stargate jump the entire way!

When my ship had gotten blown up I had forgotten to bookmark the exact area so I could later get back to it and Salvage all the equipment on it which is worth several millions in fitted equipment. That would save me from having to buy several new Salvage equipment, Tractor Beam equipment and a few other items. It wasn’t till later I really realize the error of not having a location bookmark to my blown up ship location that I realized how much an error it is not having it. Especially since the Corp members had already completed the mission in the time it took to do 38 Stargate jumps. The mission area was now inaccessible or no longer there after I made 38 jumps roundtrip to get back there. Uhh. Lost ship equipment unrecoverable in cost.

In another mission the next day in a lvl 4 mission again doing Salvage Ops I got aggro from a few drones doing Salvage Ops again and tried to zone out the area quickly to the bookmark location I had which was on the Acceletator Gate I had jumped into the room on. Saves me to having to fly all the way to a space station. But when I tried to zone out of the area when I got aggro from a drone I kept getting cannot zone to area due to celestial phenomenon. Could’t figure it out why. Got blown up again lol. Appears thats something you cant do in a mission as well. Hmm good to know that for newt time. Good thing this ship was Insured this time. So I got an insurance payout on this fairly new ship at the Platinum lvl which covered the cost of the ship. But the fitted equipment was more valuable than the ship itself which is uninsurable. Again forgot to bookmark the location again of the blown up ship. And 2 times in a row I couldn’t recover blown up ship equipment meaning I had to go to the market to buy new equipment again. Do you realize this is what causes the robust market in EVE to keep moving which people replacing lost ships and equipment all the time  and ever constantly.

This Is my New Salvage Ship "The Cleaner III" and Equipment Fitting. 4 Salvagers & 4 Tractor Beams and the other Investments for Efficient Operations.

Who say Salvaging wreck wasn’t or could be dangerous business. But it sure is fun. EVE is what you make of it with your own goals to persue to whatever your interest or nature of fun to be. No where in this article piece did I mention I went or was trying to mine an asteroid for Ore to make ISK like a lot of people usually seem to complain about in EVE or got blow up by a Pirate. Don’t mean Mining aren’t profitable either, it is. And can be in the right ship, places and mining the right Ore. I can enjoy mining, but i’m gonna get me a good damn size ship to do it soon. As well the Corp is looking to do some big mining Ops sometime soon. I may not want to miss that as well. Profit might just be too good to miss. But Salvaging can sure be fun work as well, all depends on what you like and enjoy.

Now in the time it took me to write this piece, several hours. By my estimate knowing how many missions some people run in my Corp I probably lost out on making 20+ million or more ISK. Ouch!

So much for being a newbie in EVE with all its learning and stuff people complain about. No complaints from me!

Sitting in the Eye of a Unstable Wormhole in my Predator Frigate.

A Unstable Wormhole Signature I found when I was off alone to Scan and Probe the Universe and track down Signatures for fun and enjoyment. I enjoy finding those things. This one lead to another safe sector of space in the The Forge region. You can have fun in EVE doing odd stuff.

Salvage Loot from a quite long Salvaging Mission Ops.

Turned out to be a major Salvage Ops being fairly new to the business and quite possibly net me a fairly sizable double digit Multi Million profit! As soon as I can sell it all and that’s not even all the wreckage. I had a Blast doing Salvage Ops clean up duty in my new Corp when one the members asked me if I wanted to come along and clean up some wreckage.

Will talk about it later when I have time. Its 0310 AM and can barely stay awake. Can you believe I got Jury Duty at 0830. Umm that’s cutting into business operations. Ahh bedtime….

The Learning Curve of EVE Online vs other MMO's. Haha Awesome!

I wrote it on my other blog over at Ardent Defender in the link in response of Tobold’s most amusing recent review of EVE Online from his most recent comment postings.

Happy 7th Birthday EVE Online!

Initially I took the mission like all others before and up to this point. I’ve done every single mission, completed them all on time to get the bonus reward and thus have never had to turn down a mission and wasn’t about to start with this one. I find value in learning to do things even if it can take a while, i’ve got patience. Once you know it you know it, its engrained.

Just being outside the area Space Station I launched several probes (4) and started scanning. Kinda like a silent submarine in space hunting down its target with active sonar and passive radar. I was finding this fun and it was. Just unique things in EVE that’s interesting in-game play. Though I keep finding various Anomaly’s when I did scan and being able to get their location waypoints on the Gravimetric ones I could just never get their location and kept coming up short with no true detail for waypoint location to actually be able to approach their location. I kept thinking well maybe its random with the mission and eventually I would.

I scanned for hours and nothing. Eventually had to log off and head to work, so retrieved my probes and docked before logging. Though I still had the quest I was going to lose not making the time for the bonus monetary reward. AH well no biggie will get the quest done eventually later. Got off work the next day got home and instead of heading to bed, logged in to try to finish the scanning quest. Undocked Space Station, launched a few probes around the system area, started scanning. A bit of time goes by, still comes up short cannot find exact location waypoint of Singularity for the quest to get the document as proof you did find the Signature and opened the container inside of the area. An hour later nothing. What gives?

So was like, I got to be really missing something here, this is taking way to long and I’m sure that I’m missing something. Re-read the quest, re-read the scanning tutorials and still nothing new. So Eventually……. I pony up I need help here and ask my very first question in EVE and Rookie Chat that I’m doing this specific quest and could not get location of the Gravimetric Signature location at all. Need help!

A few people helpfully responded: “Launch allot of probes”. “How many probes you Launched?”. “Launch probes in square formation”. “Form a Square and Scan”. I was like I’ve launched probes and am scanning, I’m seeing there is a Gravimetric Signature but can’t get location to warp to. Another guy in Rookie Chat goes: “You need 100% Signal Strength to get location”. I was like what does that mean? Same guy a few minutes later drops a Youtube link in the Chat box and said watch it and do that. OK cool, Thanked him for it. Didn’t ask anymore questions. So I link over to Youtube and watch the Scanning Guide Video.

I was like WoW that’s a bit of art to that and much more than I thought or even was doing. Less than 10 mins later I was able to narrow down the Gravimetric Shift Signature. Found the cargo box in the area and retrieve the document to show proof I was able to scan competently enough to find almost ANY hidden Signature in Space. The short EVE Tutorial just didn’t give you enough info in how to go about using and moving the probes and actually triangulating and getting a point fix on a hidden object.

What a difference does good information make. Now no doubt I know exactly how to use the scanning probes, scanner to triangulate and hidden object. Completed the quest, but unfortunately no bonus ISK. The value in learning a skill here beats the bonus reward as well. Next time real treasure in finding a real wormhole on my own.

The game really had a steep learning curve and seem quite complex but I like it even more as the challenge to learn something new which can be exciting, plus the game does have appeal to me. I’m not deterred by various players negative feeling on EVE for one reason or another either. Games are different things to different people in their enjoyment, to each their own. At the moment I’m still in the NPC Corp the game placed me in as a new player and that’s fine for the moment. I’m not in a hurry. For the moment I’m just learning to play the game and understand the functions of things and how to do things as well have enough patience to take my time to learn to play and understand the game. Unlike a lot of new players that seem to start the game and already want to get into a Cruiser or a Battleship or something like that immediately only to lose it just as fast in their haste.

Learning the Ropes

I’m been focusing on just doing the Career Tutorial Missions and really working on the Learning Skills as well with my character. So far have just about 500,000 skill points and 48 skills learned at the moment. Thats including the base Learning Skills to increase attribute skills and accelerate rate at learning new skills. Most skills so far have learned up to at least lvl 3 if not lvl 2. A few others have learned at lvl 1 at least or the not so immediately essential ones at that. But for the moment really looking over most of all the skills I think I’ve gotten most the base and prerequisite pilot skills I think I will initially need to have a good base to learn the other pilot skills and have quite a few good skills to survive and do missions with as well. I’ve spent quite a bit of time really looking over the Skill Books on the market to make sure I picked up all the ones initially that wasn’t already from Missions I though essential and to my trade as well. Trade skills in Trade, Retail and Broker Relations to ensure I can sell my stuff on the market and enough to not be limited in the number of goods I can sell to earn money while reducing the fee that comes out my pocket in fees. Others like Social skills in Social, Connections, Negotiation to increase NPC and Corp standing and bargain and higher interaction fee with benefits. I’m  Trader and so far I think i have the basic skills covered. The other skills can learn later or as time goes along.

As well already learned all the core Learning Skills up to lvl 4 already and some the secondary learning skills up to lvl 2. Other skills and quite a few skill books did obtain doing missions which saves quite a bit buying Skill Books on the market. I find if you just initially do all the tutorials you can pick up a lot of Skill Books that save a lot of money buying some as well. All in all my character is learning base essentials skills for the long-term at an early stage and at a fast rate. Having done that to sufficient degree i’ve queued up starting to learning lvl 5 in the other core learning skills which will now takes some time but will save a lot of time in the end.

I’ve picked up the profession of fitting one of my Frigate ships to do Salvaging and so far though not as yet profitable at my level its enjoyable and I can see the potential of Salvaging that which I often like to kill. Reminds me of Skinning in WoW. Might as well skin it since you going to kill it anyway. So I see a bright future in the Salvaging business and more so once I do invest in a proper equipped Destroyer ship. Have done a little mining but not all that much. But enough to make me a little profit and making money is good in my book so boring or not the $$ adds up at my NOOB level.

Rookie Noobs

What I usually find all too interesting is the Chat Channel in EVE. Its filled with quite a bit of former WoW players as well. In some ways I can get sick of hearing WoW players complain about EVE but that’s short-lived when the Rookie Chat channel is heavily moderated and for the most part I kinda enjoy that in it keeps the Chat Channel on topic. The people who moderate the chat channel are really helpful in the questions they answer and do pick up quite a bit that way as well learning things.

What is really all too Noobish about watching the Chat Channel is how much people can’t find Sulu to save their life if he was standing 5 feet from him. But the thing is in observing the chat channel it’s almost funny and at times nuts how stupid some the questions and thing people keep asking over and over and over and over and over all the time. Not everything but the majority of time the things people ask as new players you can find the answer or its explained to you in the tutorials just doing the starter missions. The great majority of questions I may have had I learned the answer to just doing the tutorial missions which I though really helped a great deal in learning how to do things and understanding others. But it was just all too funny watching the questions that new players ask and some of them were just so stupid it was just funny and these were some of the same players that said they finish the tutorial missions. It was all too funny watching people keep asking where to go or where they should go after they did the tutorial missions or what to do when at the end of each career mission tutorial it clearly tells you where you may want to go to next for agent work to the Sisters of EVE or something like that. It even states it in the chat channel when you log on.

It was all too funny how many new players spend their money on ships and expensive ships as new players barely knowing how to play only to find out they don’t have the skill to use them. Then the players who constantly keep loosing their ship they just bought and get mad about it because they don’t quite understand what they doing yet. It’s just too funny just looking at the Rookie Chat channel. It makes you wonder if some these people even think using their own brains at all. However its worth a good laugh just reading chat channel for the moment as a fast learning NOOB learning how to survive in the wild wild west of deep space EVE Online. And so far I’m enjoying the challenge and just learning to play a new MMO.

Eventually I’ll have to find me a Corporation to apply to. So far not much screenshots either, I just kinda figured out how to take them on my MAC PC.

Anyway still playing STO and probably will for a while however just haven’t had any real extended play session for a while. Usually I can be on at any time of the day just popping in for a little while. However since haven’t been doing any missions for my character it usually means I spend my time at the exchange. It’s probably one my favorite things to do in STO anyway other than doing missions. But then any game or MMO I play I seem to gravitate to play the economic game within the game. Just something I like to do playing with numbers.

Data Sample Game

So for the time I usually spend in STO while at the exchange its been mostly selling Data Samples that’s been sitting in my characters Bank which was ALLOT from exploration and regular missions I accumulated leveling up. None the other few crap item stuff greens or grey item stuff ever sells much so not bothered since it’s just a few items I keep on the exchange just refreshing the item for sale ever other day . So slowly by slowly just been selling off all my higher tier Data Samples whenever I pop in and at the exchange. Not all that interesting but it makes me money just being at the exchange. Some Data Samples sell better than others and over time I figured what stuff sells a bit well vs others and at times have bought up people selling some Data Samples cheap and just resold them at what I usually sold them for myself.

It adds up over time. But until I sold off my own inventory of stuff I never usually buy all that much to resell. But it’s just something fun to do since in STO I don’t  play the crafting game. And so to keep countless Data Samples for me is useless and for that I’ve made a few millions selling nothing on the exchange but just Data Samples individually and in 2′s and 3′s and never more than 11k individually unless the exchange is somewhat empty. But usually I sold my stuff between 4-10k individually all depending on item. Usually I look at what is being sold on the exchange and pick a price so can sell easily and in individual amounts in a day. So much for being useless and some people do say in STO.

Thats as much as I being doing in STO on most days due to a bit of preoccupation with other things. But hopefully soon can get back to some regular play in some way.

The Wild Wild West of deep space In EVE Online

Have had a fascination with the MMO EVE for some years but just never got around to actually playing it. However when Tobold recently picked up the game and started playing it as a project experiment and reading about it on his blog it reawaken my fascination and intrigue in EVE that had somehow was dormant because I had just forgotten about it all together. That was enough to pull me out of a somewhat gaming RUT I was in for some weeks just trying to think of a game with a bit more depth and complication that fits my learning and enjoyment.

When EVE was first launched I had heard about it and had though about playing it, but never got around to actually to it because at that time back then I was playing another sandbox online game/MMO as in Secondlife when the game at that time was brand new. Much different sandbox game that it is today years later. I played that game for a few years as a Sim landscaper, private sim owner and prim modeller and then later on went to WoW. I actually like open games with no predefined goals or endgame to chart your course in that game or destiny as you see fit to whatever end you see fit. I’m not the kind of player that needs someone to put something in front of me to tell me that’s a goal and go get it. I like to find my own and set my own goal to get there.

So recently been reading up on Tobolds adventure and analysis to some degree in EVE Online and now doing some research of my own at other blogs on EVE Online. Reading blogs is something I do allot all over the place so that’s easy to do researching blogs on others that play EVE. As well I use a iPhone so it’s quite easy for me to read stuff even at work since I can download a whole blog page and read it whenever I have a minute. So far skipping from links from one blog to another I’ve found Tipa’s blog over at West Karana on her adventures in EVE quite fascinating. Her EVE adventures are so well written on her deep space activities that I really was fascinated by them as well reading. Only a full year left of her last year to read in my research and I can finish doing that since i’m now up to year 2009 post. I take research reading seriously and its not uncommon once I commit to it to find a blog I like and link on its blog label and read its entire content. I can do that much reading in the name of fun. But quite easy to research when you can go back through all the labeled post on just EVE which is allot and fun to read for my research. Learning to play a game to me is something I invest a bit in either reading blogs, forums, guides while playing a game. No different in the amount of time I invested in learning STO in the beginning either which helped me allot progress through the game on my own quite easily. It helps me to be resourceful while playing a game which I usually play alone.

So with that I finally downloaded EVE Online doing the 14 day trial. Why not its free! I’ve heard all the things most people say about EVE Online and that only fascinates me more because I’m also not deterred by a game being complicated to learn. I’m the kind of player that don’t mind learning a complicated game and or find it interesting to learn it vs hey how long to the end of the game. One the other thing is I like science oriented game, I like Sci-Fi as well and have a deep love for Astronomy and all things Cosmology oriented. So as a game EVE Online fits into that profile as a game as well for me. In some way I believe that if the universe was colonized in some way or barely colonized in other vast areas that it would be like the Wild Wild West in many ways as it used to be when it was. I just take that view of EVE Online looking at the game as it is.

There really is allot to learn starting EVE, but to me that makes it fun as well. Of the faction choices I went with the Amarr Empire being of the Bloodlines of the Ni-Kunnis. Of the choices I had Tradesman and Border Runner both of which seems appealing to me in its own way. Tradesman seem appealing since I enjoy business activities in games and trading somewhat fits my style of play whether fair trading or a bit shady trading in a game like EVE Online. I’m very adaptable to games, I can be shady if the environment makes it so all in good fun. However will see in time how it plays out. Unsure as yet how much impact a Trade skill choice make at this point on ones career path.

So far in my limited play time being doing mostly missions or the tutorial missions and advance to the career mission agent and tutorials just learning the game. So far just enjoying the tutorial missions which in some way is similar to most games tutorials learning their games. But I don’t mind since what I enjoy is learning the game at hand going through the process. At other times just playing around with the Tutorial Help option learning things and just playing with the UI understanding how to do things and learning allot. But it really doesn’t take you long to realize that there is a lot of depth to learning the things you need to learn as well as many other things.

Have figured out how to use the skill options and gotten my character up to at this point 215,000+ skill points covering various skills and for the ones I currently have all at skill 3 level. I figured out running certain Tutorials actually gives you the first book to learn some skills so cool. Been reading the EVE Online forum for starter player and figured you can learn acquire “Learning Skills” which helps you to learn skills faster. So I invested in 3 skill books which I bought on the Market with cash from missions earned. I found the Learning Skills them boost your attribute skills and cuts down on learning skill time. That time was a bit obvious looking at what I took before and what it took after learning skills. So currently working on level 4 of all three of the Learning Skill sets which should give a bigger bonus to learning skills faster. One other skills I picked up for cheap on the Market “Social” at 18k which was needed before can lean another skill Negotiation and Contracting I had a book or two for and seem like a necessary skill to learn. Fumbling through the Tutorials reading I came across Salvaging and picked up 2 books for it so can learn Surveying and Salvaging which was cool. Could only learn Salvaging after learning level 3 Surveying so queued up the skills to get them all rolling.

At the moment using a Punisher Frigate Ship and so far with all the Career Tutorial Missions still working on I haven’t lost it yet. Though in one mission I almost did when I had to go destroy a Pirate Base and had to use the Accelerator Jump thing and had to fight off over a dozen pirate ships to use the other Accelerator Jumper thing and came close to loosing ship and had to warp jump quickly back to station. Just figuring stuff out is cool. However I find actually navigating my ship harder than what i’m used to as compared to say in STO. Currently almost done with my first set of 10 Career Mission Tutorial and will complete the rest to have a good base learning the game before i’m in too deep way over my head.

As for joining Corps playing around with the UI saw a few Corps recruiting. I’ll take my time finding a good Corp hopefully, but probably will try out EVE University when my Career Mission Tutorials are done. As well hopefully get to learn the game better as I invest in my career at the moment. I usually take the long view and if I invest that much time upfront on a game checking it out or research. It usually means i have a high degree of personal interest to play. That usually mean longer than any trial period lasts due to being a more focused player in the games I do eventually commit to playing, getting fully submerged in the game.