A year already ?!?!

Well, I'm not quite there yet but on Tuesday, January 20th 2009, Cozmik R5 will have been 1 year out of Minmatar Republic Military School. And because of bloggers and corpmates Coz is able to celebrate his graduation anniversary without being deep-frozen in a cryosleep can, unlike his Gallente cousin Demonia, but hey what can you do, times are rough for r3dfiv3, the entity overseeing his toons lives and destinies, as well as cold. As most of you already know, I live in Montreal Qc and at this time of year the weather turns about as warm as deep space. To anyone who hasn't experienced -30C and below (at that point it's sort of the same thing for Farenheit btw), imagine sticking your head in your freezer, after setting it to max of course. Now stay there for a couple minutes, just enough so the cold seeps into your skin's pores. You think that's cold? Piffles! That's about HALF the temperature Montreal is dealing with these days, and I haven't said a word about windchill factor yet. Brutal is un understatement!

Anyways, back to the subject of Bday! I was mentioning to my buddy Letrange that last year, just like this year, all of New Eden was anxiously awaiting the Alliance Tournament, but a year ago I was day-glo green when the tourney started, I was still fighting this omfg-could-it-be-more-complicated-plz UI, and I didn't know a tenth of the ships, weapons, modules and drones being used. Back then I was probably one of the greenest pilots to ever enter a pure PvP alliance, but having no easy support like free ISK meant I went on 1 of every 5 ops and spent the rest of the time ratting away in Hi-Sec, looting and salvaging like mad to keep the ISK coming, and to make sure I could have at all times 3 fully-fit Rifters and my ratting Thrasher (which I lost on numerous occasions to noob error!). It was a few months before I discovered the joys of Trading, and also before Let gave me that most awesome present of enough BPCs to build a massive fleet of Rifters! I remember giving a shot at ratting the 0.0 Angels with a cruiser and having to bug out mere seconds after landing at the belt because these Commanders (!) would eat me alive. And when I was pointed to battlecruisers I nearly fainted when I saw the price tag. But even with good mods it still took me some months before I was actually able to solo-rat in 0.0 and even then it had to be done carefully; I learned the hard way how some rats warp-scramble you when I lost a Cyclone to a Crow in a belt. Looking in hindsight it was an easy kill for him, and I would now do the same but with the roles reversed.

The main turning points were when my skills would actually make a ship sing. The first time I fit a Rifter in all T2 mods I had become A Tackler, with caps please! Same with the Stabber, then un-nerfed and fast as hell. When I switched my 0.0 ratting ship from a T1 fit Cyclone to a T2 fit Hurricane, I started laughing at belt battleships because I could chew straight through them. And when I got into my first interceptor it was love at first sight. Being on a road towards the pre-nerf Vagabond I did get the Assault Frigate skill, but somehow I was never successful with them. I'll get a new Jaguar to give it a shot again, but as in any other game I know I'm always at my best at high speeds. When going slow I prefer being in a gank-fit Hurricane; gank fleets are great fun... ever seen a Drake insta-pop, or a Megathron go down in 3 seconds? I have :))

And now looking towards the future... I'm currently training Cloaking IV for that elusive Cheetah and Hound I've been avoiding for a long time, and after that it'll be the buffing up of all Gunnery, Missile and Drone skills to be able to fit my battlecruisers to their fullest, which isn't easy as I can fly Minmatar, Gallente, and now Caldari BCs. And then I'll have to choose weather to go towards Battleships (the skill is already in Coz's head, not trained up, plus I own all the large weapon skillbooks), HACs or Heavy 'Dictors, which are skills that are about as expensive as the ships themselves. It'll probably be a path towards a remote-repair Tempest as this will be easier on ISK. Another thing I can never forget though is that currently I'm playing EVE because I've been ALLOWED to continue playing by outside forces. This will hold until mid-April, but I have no clue if I'll be able to go longer. I cannot count on being kept in-game by outside help for the entirety of Cozmik's life. Oh well, I live for the present and right now the present is pretty good in EVE so I won't let that get me down.

So happy grad party Cozmik, you've earned it !!!

o7