One month later - Learning things the hard way

Well here we are, it has been one month exactly since I've started playing EVE, and a couple of week since I've joined my corporation, and boy do I have a lot to learn, not only in trainable skills but in playing skills also. I am getting a lot of teaching from the people in my corp though because most of them have been playing EVE for a few years and their experience can literally save my butt. It can even be intimidating sometimes; I join a fleet with my decently set up Rifter, but most ships around me are usually cruisers and battle cruisers of every make, sometimes with modules I haven't even heard of. At least I have one advantage, I am the Speed Demon >:)

Since moving to the edge of Empire I've had a few special experiences, some good, some... well, not very bad but very annoying, which validates my choice of career in the game. As my ISK is rising rapidly to my constant ratting and salvaging, I can start to field much better equipment in the ships I can fly, to the point where I got overconfident. I have a Thrasher destroyer I use for ratting and with 7 250mm guns, a FM-3 Gyrostabilizer and the correct ammo, rats basically have no chance, even the cruiser-sized ones. So of course in the search for more ISK I went to low-sec systems and the experienced players will see what's coming. I got attacked by pirates in either much bigger and better-equiped ships or in much bigger numbers. It happened exactly twice and since then I've studied deeper into how to move in 0.4-0.0 space by mapping and bookmarking the place in advance, and not sticking around for "just one more wreck to loot/salvage". Losing a ship is annoying because you have to buy another one, but in one case my cargo hold was full and in all I must've lost about 5 million ISK. In another ratting mishap, the efficiency of my ratter was actually my downfall. In Hi-sec the rats are frigate sized and my ship usually 1-volley's them, and sometimes worse. So in am asteroid field filled with cans I accidently targeted a can as I was trying to line up a wreck for salvage, but a few of my guns were still looking for target and I hadn't noticed. So the next I warped to I got this message saying "Your security rating has been lowered" and Concord delivered me a beating to remember. Now THAT was frustrating !!!

But don't worry, there were good experiences too! The fleet ops with the Clown Punchers for instance. I didn't get to shoot much targets because my comrades are A LOT faster than I am at picking targets, scrambling and webbing them, and then finishing them off but it's a great feeling to fly around in a big fleet and watching people scurrying in front of you. Also in my ratting sorties, I got to find a nice prize to cash in and give me a big boost. There was a Domination spawn at an asteroid field in the Osuggur system in Heimatar and after finishing them off I looted and found something of interest: a Dramiel blueprint. I asked my industrialist buddy Letrange what it was worth because I had a feeling it would be more than the usual loot, and sure enough, I was 40 million ISK richer !!!

So now it's just a matter of improving all my skills in-game and out-of-game, and applying all I learn to better my EVE experience. It's been a month now and I'm only scratching the surface.

Fly safe !!!

Here goes nothing...

The faithful words of Lando Calrissian as he plunged into the bowels of Death Star II. That's pretty much how I'm feeling right now as I just started moving my ships and items to the edge of Low-sec space in the EVE-Online galaxy. This is my first foray into the world of MMORPG, and I've been missing out on some great gaming!

Let me introduce myself. My name is Benoit and I am known in EVE as Cozmik R5. In other multi-player games I was known as r3dfiv3 but I decided a slight twist would be good in this new universe. So now you know what the R5 is for ;) I was introduced to EVE by my great buddy Rob, aka Letrange, who is something of an industrial mogul as CEO of ChaosStorm. This coupled with about a year head-start on me allowed him to give me a good kick forward as he was able to give me right off the bat a better ship, gobs of equipment, quite a bit of ISK, and of course all important advice on what to do to survive in this well-populated galaxy that can have danger lurking right on the other side of the next stargate.

So after some time getting used to the EVE interface, learning some all-important skills, and beeing able to financially support myself, Mr Letrange introduced me to his friend Arancia, who is CEO of the Clown Punchers Syndicate. The Clowns are a corporation that lives for one thing only, PvP (player-vs-player if you didn't know). And that's basically what I'm into, having played deathmatch games for about as long as I've had contact with the Internet. I'll leave the fancy industrial stuff to Letrange, I just want fast ships with big guns :))

So here I am moving all my precious belongings 14 jumps away from my current safe home in Hi-sec space to the fringe of the galaxy, just a few jumps away from the dreaded 0.0 space where CONCORD is absent and getting your ship shot up is a good possibility if you're not careful. But that's OK because that is EXACTLY what I want to do: punish the pirates who prey on hapless victims without even giving them a chance in this dangerous universe. Of course, I don't want to start talking too much because before I become an authority in Low/No-sec space I have some soup to eat and some skills to learn, but I don't worry about that too much; EVE is not a game about racking up skills at an alarming rate and it's not a race. But eventually I will have access to the toys I need to make my name known, and maybe revered or feared! Of course, that's not something I can do alone in this universe so my buddy Letrange and my new buddies over at Clowns' should be more than able to help me to accomplish my goals in EVE.

Well, back to ferrying ships across light-years of space to my new home-away-from-home, the Berta system !!!