Descent into madness...

I was reading through my Capsuleer feed when I came across this post from The Planet Risk Show. It seems that their corp is looking for miners to join them in null sec. As I read through the post I found myself thinking, "I wonder what that would be like." I've been spinning my wheels in my current corp. Many of them have been exploring wormhole space and I'm not sure if I want to go that route.

So I talked to Merinid Dormer last night and the conversation went well. He gave me a brief rundown of what null sec mining is like. The only thing that might stop me is the inability to go out and handle mining on my own. With high sec mining I'm find with just my Hulk and my Orca. With the null sec mining fleet Merinid was talking about involved scouts doing recon, dedicated haulers, etc. It really sounds grand.

I've already talked to one of the CEOs of my current corp and let them know I might be making the move to Null sec. They are a great bunch of guys and I'd definitely miss shooting the shit with them in corp chat. I do also have a few real life friends in the corp as well. Also it would be kinda funny to go from high sec to null when the title of my blog is .5 or Higher!, but several bloggers have had the same issue before.

I guess I'll just have to mull it over. So what do you think? Any other null sec miners out there who can shoot me a few words of wisdom or encouragement, or perhaps a horror story or two to make me cry?

A Tale of T2 Crystals

To use T2 Crystals or to not use T2 Crystals, that is the question. Actually, it is more likely an intensely debated subject. I've seen a lot of miners who fly their own Orca alongside their Hulk and have countless hours grinding the rocks who say T2 Crystals are useless. I've also seen countless people who think they are better than sex on a summer afternoon. I've typically fallen into the previous camp. I looked at the cost, the extra training time and heard about the break rates and decided they aren't for me. But now that I'm getting myself maxed out on pretty much everything that has to do with mining I find I need to revisit the issue.

It is kind of hard to complain about the cost of T2 crystals when I'm flying a Hulk next to an Orca I also own, I have an Obelisk in the hanger, and a Highwall mining implant shoved in my head. So here is an in-depth analysis based on nothing but the math. My apologies if I'm repeating information found elsewhere, but no where have I seen people really take the issue to the bottom of the well. They tend to merely harp on one or two things and ignore the larger issue. So dive with me into math and statistical analysis as I explore whether or note T1 or T2 crystal are the better choice.

It all comes down to nepotism - Alternate History Meme

Last night I was chatting with the lovely people in the Eve-Bloggers channel. Jerran Ragnar (author of Victoria Aut Mors) spoke up. "We should all do a post on the same topic tomorrow!" Silence ensued. I offered up that I thought that could be interested and asked what Jerran had in mind. More silence ensued. Someone else pointed out "I thought that what CK's Blog Banter was for?" This time the silence was tinged with that wonderful aura of "Yeah, moron." I came to Jerran's defense saying that just because CK did it didn't meant that we couldn't play Newton to his Hooke and claim it for our own. Sadly we were still without a good idea, but then Mike Azaria spoke up and said "Well, the blog banter tends to usually be forward looking. So why don't we do something looking into the past?" (Please note I am paraphrasing, so Mike - don't pod me.)

Through a quick round of "pass the buck" Jerran was selected to lead us off and has done so with his latest post. He went ahead and summed up the meme as thus -

“What would you change about Eve if you could go back in time?”. It can be something about the world itself, game play, or anything else you can think of.

He went the route of exploring the setting of the game and thought about taking capsuleers out of the capsule. My entry is a bit more focused on a game mechanic that annoys me and I'd like to explore through a short work of fiction with a summary at the end (so if you don't like the fiction you can fast forward.) Enjoy!

Epic Fail

I've fallen drastically behind on my posting due to a large influx of real life. In the past month I have done the following:

• Witnessed the birth of my first child
• Survived the holiday madness including transporting said child to several family gatherings
• Gotten back into Eve as mining makes for a good profession while waiting for a baby to cry
• Managed to avoid joining the ranks of the many unemployed for now

So with my return to Eve I can say fairly certainly that not too much has changed for me with the release of Apocrypha. Mining wasn't touched too much by the last expansion, though since I stick to high-sec I also haven't seen the changes that have been brought about by sovereignty. I have, however, reached many of my short term goals for both of my accounts. So now I get to start to head down some new paths.

Before I begin to venture too aggressively into the world of potentially doing low-sec mining I think I'm going to explore missioning. Fortunately one of my characters is already well on his way to being able to handle some serious missioning. The other character is going to work on raising his drone skills and exploring some more defensive skill sets. I have seen some pretty impressive examples of what a properly fitted Hulk can withstand. I need to explore this more before taking my baby into risky waters.

All in all I'm looking forward to a good year in Eve. It will probably be vastly different from my past year.

Multi-Tasking while Mining

So, I'm sure if you are a miner you've done it. You've dumped your cargo hold into a waiting jetcan or Orca and then run to get a soda, or use the bathroom, or take a shower. In fact, I have many daily routines now worked down to the point where I can effectively accomplish them between cycles. I'm sure when my wife gives birth I'll be able to prep a bottle or change the baby in the same time span in short order.

The point is that mining doesn't always require undivided attention. Now, there is always the chance that a two minute distraction will lead to far more than two minutes and you'll return to this. But the chances are that most of the time you are safe. Pull in your mining drones, set the drones on the Orca to protect you and your danger is minimal.

But even I'm actively at the computer I'm doing things in the foreground while I mine waiting for the sounds of turrets to rouse me from my slumber, or the computer informing me it's time to target another rock. I've posted to this blog, I've shot the shit in Corp Chat, I've worked on websites. And then I discovered the joys of Hulu. I can run two Eve clients, one on each monitor and staple Hulu in the upper left hand corner of one monitor and watch episode after episode of shows from Dead Like Me or Death Note to simply classics like Highlander.

So what do you do while you grind the rocks?

ISK for ObelISK

Well, I've almost gotten to the point where I can fly an Obelisk. Now the one thing stopping me is ISK. As we speak I am training up Advanced Spaceship Command and then I have to drop 90,000,000 on Gallente Freighter. Once that is out of the way I merely have to scrape up the 800,000,000 for the Obelisk itself. Fortunately, one of my Corp mates builds them and has one he said he'd hold onto until I could get the cash together. I'm starting to get to the point in the game where accumulating large stockpiles of wealth are possible.

Soon I'm going to have to turn to missioning for standings. Any recommendations on that front will be welcome. Are you familiar with Zoars and Sons? Give me some pointers!

The Cold Calm of Space

"The Asteroid has been depeleted."

The soothing tone of the computer filled the cabin, the only sound other than the gentle humming whirl of the mining lasers and machinery deep within the ship, the subtle vibrations that play up and down and outer hull, and the soft and distant hiss of airlocks opening and closing as mining drones repeat their endless dance to and from the large rock floating in nothingness.

The soft moan of cushions as the chair moves, a few commands and the lasers shift to the next rock. Another touch and the targetting computers lock onto a new victim, placing the rock into queue for oblivion. A few more quick checks show that the cargohold is nearing capacity. A typed command informs the crew to intiate another transfer to the Orca that looms nearby.

All of the lights are turned low, that is how I like it. The dim readouts on the control panel provide all the needed illumination without taking away from the spendid kalediscope of space. The Orca hangs over my ship, filling up a portion of my view with the steady pulsing glow of her shields playing up and down the ship. I watch as the cargo containers drift from one bay effortlessly to the other, no tractors for guidance, just a simple push and physics to take care of the rest.

My lasers cut across the field of vision, adding their own bands of light to the fireworks display, and all set against the milky green blackness of Abhan's solar system. The sensation of just hanging in the maw of nothingness, a few feet of hull between me and complete emptiness beyond human comprehension is such a powerful feeling. For hours I will sit in the captain's chair and just wonder what it would be like to enter the airlock and hit eject without an egg, without a suit, with nothing but my nakedness touching the cold unfeeling soul of space.

Apparently I tried it once. I don't remember. Sure, I remember getting into the airlock and overriding the safety, but I don't remember what it felt like, to be truly alone in space. The MedLab techs said that it was too quick of a death for their to be any sensation, that my body would have merely vaporized from the depressurization. Another told me that it isn't uncommon to lose those last few minutes, especially if the ordeal is too traumatic for the mind. "Perhaps," she said, "We just aren't programmed to remember what death feels like."

I think it is something else though. Space is outraged at our audacity. We probe and prod and reach beyond all natural limits. We defy space, we defy death, we defy everything in our quest for power and understanding. Space holds tight to her secrets, she holds fast to whatever she can keep from us, making us tear the mysteries from her breast. But what space doesn't understand is I don't want her knowledge, I don't want her mysteries, I don't want her secrets. I just want her embrace.

"The Asteroid has been depleted."

Oh well, perhaps another day.

(My humblest of offerings to the great works of Fiction that Eve has inspired. Please let me know if you enjoyed this installment and I'll be sure to include more in the future.)

Pictures of my baby

Well, I was able to get all three cargo optimization rigs - amazing how much easier it is to secure large amounts of ISK when I can somewhat quickly move 7,000,000 tritanium to the highest price area in the region.

So there she is. I'm very happy with her - currently fitting Salvagers and a Tractor Beam because I can't use my gang links yet, but by the end of the week those will be online and ready to go. It is definitely a milestone for me as a Citizen of New Eden. It is bigger than getting my Hulk. I hope that I have as much love for my Obelisk when I'm finally cruising in that.

A Whale of a Ship

I apologize for the post title, I'm sure the pun has been used before, but if it has it is only because it is so bloody accurate. My alt got into their Orca for the first time today, and it is a beautiful thing. I'm now 5 days out from training Leadership 5 so I can start using all the Ganglink modules. Two quick impressions, and then I have to run to a Saturday morning workshop (stupid real life).

1. Holy cubic fuckton of space. I could pretty much fit almost everything I own in every station in my Orca (and I'm not even running 3 cargo rigs yet.) I know this probably means I just don't own a lot, but it is still impressive.

2. Dear god it warps slow. It is like watching my grandmother trying to parallel park a huge Oldsmobile, just slowly turning and inching along.

I'm sure I will post more about this later and let you all know what type of rigging I come up with for it (probably cookie cutter) but, man, good times so far.

Loose Lips (and Wives) Pod Ships.

I've been rather busy this past week and a half. I'm a teacher and school just went back into session after summer vacation. That means that I've been back to work and trying to get a classroom set up, student names learned, lesson plans created, so forth and so on. Needless to say that the job that pays for Eve has to take some precedence over Eve itself so my time mining has been woefully limited.

Finally I get a chance to play with the holiday weekend, so this morning I fire up my two copies of Eve (what good miner doesn't have an alt account training an orca?) and head out to grind some roids. Cue wife who needs a few moments of my time. Thinking that she means "a few moments" in the sense of a regular human I decide not to bother docking both my ships and run downstairs to see what is up.

I'm sure now all the vet players are shaking their heads or beating it against the edge of their desk.

Needless to say, "a few seconds" turns into several minutes - it isn't like I could tell my wife "Hold on hon, I need to check on how my ships are doing since you are talking too much." During which rats show up, eat my mining drones, and pop my retty (fortunately my Hulk is much sturdier and they didn't get that). I come back to them chewing on my Hulk's shields. End result I lost the following:

5x Mining Drone 1
1x Retriever
2x Expanded Cargohold 1
2x Hobgoblin 1
1x Survey Scanner 1

After the payout from insurance I really didn't lose that much ISK (less than a 1M overall) but I did lose valuable mining time getting a replacement. This probably never have happened had I launched all my combat drones, or if I had realized that my wife's definition of "a few seconds" was considerably longer than that of a normal humans.

Lesson learned, isk payed.Definitely glad I always insure my ships though.

Enough Ice for 10,000 highballs

So, what does a high sec miner do on Saturday when the fields are ripe with roids? Typically the corp I'm in runs a mining op every few weeks (it depends highly on whether officers want to bother and whether there is interest from the other members.) One thing I loved about these Saturday morning operations is that you were given an equal share of the haul based on how long you mined for. That meant that when I was flying around in my Navitas (oh god I remember those days) that I would potentially walk away from a Saturday Op with 10 to 20 mil in ISK or minerals. This was huge for me, I could never have hauled that much rock on my own. Now that I'm flying a Hulk when I participate it is a way to give back. It helps newer members getting to the bigger ships faster and as a new player I knew it was impressive to be in a fleet with 15 other miners, watching the lasers crisscross and devour all that is before them.

But this Saturday was something different. As the fleet formed up we rolled out to Sigga and pointed our Retrievers, Hulks, Mackinaws, and Orcas towards the Ice Fields. We were going to to try to take down an ice cube. Now, for those of you who have never bothered much with the dirty details of ice harvesting let me walk you through it.  In the middle of the ice field there are over a dozen floating chunks of ice, just like asteroids. These rocks can range from anywhere around 30,000 units to 110,000 units of ice. Ice harvesting lasers take a much longer time to cycle than traditional strip miners. I don't have maxed skills, but as an example, in my hulk the lasers take 342 seconds to cycle with an Orca Boosting (that is over 5 minutes).

Now this is the frustrating part, every cycle from a laser only gives you 1 unit of ice - the exception being a Mackinaw, which will give you two. So if you want to take down a ice cube you are talking about generating enough man hours to power through 30,000 cycles. This was a pretty might undertaking and while I doubt were are going to make our goal it was still an impressive sight to see. I decided to include an image for you to enjoy: