Crazy Character Bazaar

Hello there blog readers,

Its been an eventful few days. I've bought a new toon with the iskies gathered over last week, found a new corp and eve got my first 6 kills breaking a year long fast of no pew.

THE TOON

Congestion Bomb was purchased by me for 4 billion isk. Some may think that is expensive for a 12m SP toon however the market has been crazy of late. Regardless of worth low SP toons are flying off the shelf at an alarming speed, often people having to pay much more than the toons worth because of the demand rather than the skills.

He, less desirable because of his stupid name, Has BS - Cruiser - Destroyer - Frig all trained to 5, is very neet and pure. Hes only missing a few vital skills to turn him into a decent toon. The Strategic Cruiser to 5 as most will know is useless without Thermal Dynamics which is something else on the "to do" list of this toon but having all subs to 5 already makes him a potentially fully trained legion pilot once I've trained for the T2 guns.

Overall I'm happy with this to on, After redoing his portrait I feel he will suit my requirements well, even with said stupid name. After speaking with a few EvE friends we came to the conclusion that he was a good buy.

THE BAZAAR!

This place was always ruthless, now more so than ever. Something has gone horribly wrong here and Its my hope that CCP implement a real trade system to the game soon.

I experienced with my own eyes, "specialist" low SP toons around 6m SP selling for the same price at 20-30m toons that have the same skill set + more. I'm shocked, baffled even to fully understand the logic behind such purchases. Maybe a reader can enlighten me as to why this phenomenon is occurring?

BUYING A TOON?

If your going to purchase a toon then there are some tips I can give you from my own experiance;

• PvP Minmatar toons sell for alot more than the other races

• Cross-Trained toons between pvp and industry sell for less

• Low SP specialized toons are often not worth the pricetag

• Every billion over the 3b mark increases the SP massivly

• Dont be afraid to be patient, so many toons sell each day you can aford to miss one or two

• Well trained toons come at a premium, sometimes you can get a poorly trained SP toon and flesh it out which has more sp and in the long run will catapult you much further.

The Dreaded FAIL FLEET!

So it finally happened, like I knew it would. I lost my first Incursion battleship last night. All the tell tail signs where there staring me in the face however I chose to ignore them. This blog post will cover what to look out for so you don't fall into the same trap I did.

THE LOSS MAIL

Normally you don't post npc loss mails, however I wanted to have a reference for the blog and to show friends just what happened. eve-kill killboard link

I was lucky, most of my expensive faction mods where saved and the fleet all donated 5m to me to help with the cost of replacing my ship. It was an eye opener for me however, prior to this encounter I had taken for granted just how easy incursions where. Now I see that even though they are easy your life is in the hands of others and that increases the risk factor alot.

THE SIGNS! - what to look for

Fleet formation - Have they got the right setups, ship types and know what they are doing? I failed to notice my Maelstrom was the biggest DPS boat in fleet. We had an un-skilled Mach and some hurricanes... that should of been the first warning.

Knowledge - Knowing you need ore for the mining sites, knowing how to D-Scan a site prior to warping into countless sites either complete or being finished off by other fleets. I ignored this, however its a good indication that the fleets FC is either new or not good at it, either way its not worth the risk of your ship.

Logistics - The guy I usually fly with will not use out of alliance/corp logi and for good reason. It only takes a single bad logistics to causes the death of your entire fleet. In my scenario, I didn't hear them talk about watch lists and I believe the reason for my demise was they where not using the watch list to rep, relying instead on the broadcast system, this is a clear GTFO of fleet indication which I also ignored.

Tags Vs Broadcasting - Tags are nice, most decent fleets will use tags as it removes the split damage factor. If an FC cant/will not use tags it will make it alittle harder for the fleet. This is only a minor detail however.

Language - For the most part this isn't anything done wrong, however I "blame" the fact that the fleet I joined was a french speaking fleet and I'm English speaking with very little known french. The failing of the fleet where nothing to do with my lack of understanding of what was being said on comms but I should of left the fleet at form-up on hearing that it was a french fleet, I didn't because I didn't want to appear racist. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKE! if you cant understand fleet comms then that's not the fleet you should be in, if you do continue with the fleet don't use the excuses of the language barrier to forgive mistakes listed above.

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH

So, with the survival of my faction mods and the donations from fleet members combined with the standard insurance cover I actually didn't lose too much isk. I've already purchases a new Maelstrom this time with no faction gear and I will see if that reduces my chances of joining fleets without a faction web. Instead I've opted for a 2x tracking computer setup as I believe it will allow me to put out more dps in fleets. I will update the blog with my results, until then,

This has been Skadi WinterHunt,

See ya in space o/

Noobie Fitting for sansha fun

A few people have asked me what/how you get a into a fleet for incursions. Also, if a new player should attempt incursions right away or if they will be to complex.

I would recommend people get to at least level 2 mission running if they are new before starting incursion fleets, the fleets themselves are very different from mission running however the basics of the game really need to be mastered prior to taking them on.

The main things to have covered is ship fitting, overview setup, mission running guides so you know about trigger NPC and how waves spawn within missions. There are various guides on the forums and else where covering this.

THE SHIP

Below is the fitting I used. For Minmatar, the Maelstrom is by far the best first ship for incursions, this setup has around a 20 day train with implants, puts out a decent amount of dps even with low gunnery skills and I'm yet to have a problem with it, its important to use faction ammo in incursions.

[Maelstrom, Maelstrom LFSF VG]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II

Sensor Booster II
Tracking Computer II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Caldari Navy EM Ward Field
True Sansha Stasis Webifier

800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
800mm Heavy 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L

Large Core Defense Field Extender I
Large Core Defense Field Extender I
Large Core Defense Field Extender I


Hammerhead I x5

COST - How do I afford to buy this?

Old players should hopefully have savings or a friend that can spot them the start up costing. New players are not so lucky, the easiest way for a new player to get a cash injection is to purchase plex (30 day pilot licence) from CCP and sell them on the market ingame for isk, remember that this will then enable you to make isk so its a worthwhile investment. Alternatively you could make the isk via missions but lvl 2 missions dont really make good money and if your running lvl 3 you will require a ship similar to the ones in incursions.

The faction MODS add alittle "shiney" to the setup and actually require less training to use, The web is expensive but isnt required over a standard tech 1 or 2 web however it gives you that extra chance to be picked up in the incusions channels as longer range webs help the whole fleet out.

Hello there,

So after quitting EvE online for the 100th time after my last "burn out" I find myself signing up for EvE once more. I'll be starting again, a fresh start. Although something tells me I'll find some way to buy myself a toon on the bazaar within the first few months.

It hit me within the first few days that I should make a blog about my return as many other "bitter vets" have left the game since its launch and i'm partly curious to hear peoples own experiences with the love hate relationship that we all share with EvE, as well as documenting my own experiences for future amusement / hindsight.

 

THE PLAN!

The plan is simple... kill the batman... wait no, thats not it... aha! I remember now. Its to run Incursions to grind up the iskies required to buy my way back into a reasonable skill pointed pvp toon.

1. Get 21 day free trial (+30 days free for a total of 51 days!)
2. Get trusted friend to loan you a plex
3. Trusted friend recives plex when you activate with sent plex
4. Get implants off friend and remap for optimal train time (not essential but helps)
5. Train for LFSF Maelstrom, use T1 guns to cut the train time down.
6. Troll Jita until training is done (around 20 day train)
7. Start incusions!

INCURSIONS - The first days

 

 

So, heading into an incursions fleet with a less than month old toon is kinda awesome yet kinda nerve racking at the same time. I had alot of questions, of which many where answered in the incursion channels and forums, however you can theory craft till the cows come home, until you have experienced something you don't really know what to expect.

Here is where it gets interesting, in the first 2 days of running incursions I racked up 2bill isk. These new incursions fleets for anyone thats been in 0.0 are a breeze, not only that they pay better than a carrier in sanctums. Even an average fleet can pull 10.5m per site and run 10 sites per hour. The low sp Maelstrom was still pulling out more dps than many of the non-faction boats in the fleets although I would stress that a faction web will help get you into fleets and a sensor booster and tracking computer will aid you greatly, especially with an under skilled toon. Scimitar logi are preferred over baski as well because although they provide less reps they give you tracking links which speeds up the fleet in general.

COMPETITION - A whole new kind of fleet battle

Something interesting to note regarding Incursions that many people running them don't understand is how the skills they are learning in these fleets are the skills required for pvp fleets of the same size, I think CCP has done some sneaky mechanics here so that their is some kind of progression into pvp which I'm so far liking.

The whole, fleets can compete for the same site game play is really nice. It gets fleets working under pressure and gets them thinking in the right mindset for PvP so overall I expect to see the benefits of incursions in small scale warfare later on in EvE when I start to PvP.

ALLIANCE / CORPORATIONS - The invites start

 

 

Even as a low SP toon, I've been offered a lot of opportunities from past associates as well as new ones via incursion fleets. Its nice to see that knowledge in EvE is still powerful and ISK/SP is only secondary to knowing what your doing. I've met some truly interesting groups via incursions and I can see the potential for them to be used as a recruitment ground.

I myself vowed to stay out of politics, alliance warfare and sinking vast amounts of time into the game because they are the main reasons for quitting last time. The draw to be a "somebody" in eve is a very strong one for me. I'm already toying with the idea of FC'ing again as that is a fun aspect of eve however its the "gateway drug" to more power, responsibilities and all be it crashing and burning in this game. So we shall see where the game leads me.

THE GAME - A reflection thus far

So far, I'm really keen on playing all hours god sends again, which is kinda bad. Must learn to self control. Coming back from around a year out and the changes I've seen and read about which are coming up soon are mostly positive.

Q AND A - the community feedback section

So, I was hoping that some of you give me your viewpoint on some of the changes to the game and maybe go into them a bit deeper if any of them really take off.

1. So why change the scam to cut off MWD only to allow duel prop setups with 100mn afterburners which go faster than 10mn MWD? I know they have fitting issues but I've even seen triple-prop setups... isn't this getting a little ridiculous, ships having 3 engine systems?

2. The changes to fleets, preventing logi from the same fleet rep NPC rats as well as shooting cans causing aggression. I've been in Incursion fleets where the whole fleet has been compromised because a logi has accidental rep'ed an NPC and been concorded, Also just yesterday we had a Nighthawk get concorded for shooting a can in the middle of a fleet in an incursion, I know there where some major issues with trolls in fleets but is this OTT?

3. 0.0 when I left was starting to look kinda pointless, what - other than moon goo - is the point in holding 0.0 space over living in 0.0 NPC? Is it really just for EPEEN status for alliances to be viewable on sov maps?

Thanks for reading, I'm hoping to make this blog a habit so please feel free to drop by and give me your feedback,

I've been Skadi WinterHunt,
see you next time.