I didn't post anything for over a month? Strange. I meant to, because in my notes there is at least a title of a post. Somehow I never found time to write about that. It was Metallurgy, I meant to write about the time when I tried to go into Syndicate nullsec to find a station with a short queue on material research. And I did, and tried to research ME on some rig blueprints only to realize they require Metallurgy. Which I didn't have, or so I thought. So I raced to the nearest station with skillbooks somewhere on the edge of Solitude. And once I bought and tried to inject it, I found out that I do in fact had Metallurgy, at level zero.
At some early point of playing EVE I bought every cheap science skillbook, or actually most every skillbook which was cheap and injectable without level five prerequisite. But I didn't train some of them. I didn't think back then that I was going to research ME on anything. And definitely not in a chained way on a POS, which is where the percentages would matter.
So there I was, pointlessly flying through NPC null. At least I didn't die. CovOps cloaks are nice. I hear that in the next expansion there is going to be a T1 frigate with a CovOps cloak. Which is nice, I suppose, especially if it will cost the same as navy frigates. Because I doubt it will cost as much as pirate ships, considering Sisters have agents in highsec, and missions are infinite. Which is a fundamental disconnect with core design of EVE, but there you go.
Anyway, researching ME on those blueprints wasn't really worth that much, because I didn't set up full production for those rigs anyway. Got scared by the costs I guess, hundreds of salvage pieces per rig add up. And I am getting close to first billion ISK. Mostly through basic T2 small hybrid gun production. Recently started to make some drones.
I keep forgetting to update the planetary production. I wonder how the Rubicon change here will turn out. Unless war declaration system is shaken up I fear that POCOs getting dominated by large alliances is something that will happen. Limited wars should really be a thing, limited to a system or a constellation that is. It would at least tie stakes to something.
In the meantime I built a missioning battleship. A rail Megathron. Basic one, not enough ISK to throw at a navy battleship. Also a Noctis. It seems to be doing reasonably fine, although obviously I am getting ISK at lower range for L4 missioning. Still, twenty million per hour is a lot considering how much can you get from ratting in lowsec, at least without enough backup to bring a battleship there. Or having a T3 I guess, although that seems risky, because someone would coordinate to jump that.
Alas, fundamental flaw of PvE in EVE is that it is designed as a time sink. Which is the nature of the subscription base game, but it means that one remains exposed to attack for much too long. And in lowsec these days someone will attack, usually within minutes. Occasionally seconds, if at a warpable location, like a belt or anomaly.
I doubt this will be resolved. Even if there were resources to rework PvE in EVE, which there clearly are not, it is not easy to designed a system which would actually work and be fun. Giving up a time sink, or at least moving the time sink from something requiring being exposed to something secure, with only short smash-and-grab operations, would help immensely. And it would be much more similar to PvP as well, which I am lead to believe consists mainly of waiting for other people, whether enemies or fleetmates, to show up.
I still ignore PvP. Or other people in general. Actually I don't play EVE all that much recently. I pay for the subscription and update skill queues and manufacturing though. It is somewhat relaxing, seeing numbers go up. And I am interested in the development process, still hoping that the promises of new space and such things will go somewhere. And it would just not be the same if I wasn't playing the game, at least minimally. I still like starships. Maybe I should one of these days get a bunch of simple frigates and go on a quasi-suicide lowsec roam. Or, how much DPS do you need to need to bring down a bubble, anyway? I find that I dislike drag bubbles. Do the owners get notified if those get shot at?
