Holiday lull

Just when things were getting interesting, here I am stuck out of game until at least December 31st. For the holidays my ex and I have devised a special schedule and because I have the boys for only a few days, and also because at the time of the switch I was slightly hung over (shout-out to Ouzag, Montreal's culinary god) and a nice coat of ice was covering the landscape, I didn't feel like switching the computers around the way I usually do. This means no EVE for the time being, and no game requiring more than 512mb of RAM or a GF6200. At least rFactor and FS9 run, barely, but I have to use keyboard controls because if I didn't move the computers, I moved my steering wheel and FCS even less.

So while I'm stuck here listening to gobs of holiday specials, as well as the boys' regular favorites like Cars, Go Diego, Star Wars and Men in Black, Cozmik is currently finishing up the Large projectile specialization skills, which will then be followed by the polishing of all the support skills, especially in the shield and rigging departments, in preparation of the next two big things: Command Ships and Strategic Cruisers. Coz can already put his pod in a Loki, but with all the ship-related skills at one he can barely make a note, let alone make the ship sing. Once the skills are up there I could probably do a Vaga/Rapier-ish fit, but the flexibility of a T3 ship means I need to have all the options available before I start plopping down huge amounts of ISK on subsystems. And let's not forget I'm only one set of skillbooks away from the Proteus. Being specialized in two races means twice the expense on ships, but as I can't have everything I'll start by my Minmatar roots. The Dominion projectile buff does help make the choice!

And as for the command ships, Coz cannot sit in one just yet but I'm getting really close. I already bought and injected the Warfare Link Specialist skill, which needs to be at IV, and then the big one, Battlecruiser V. This will give me plenty of time to buy the Command Ship skillbook, and of course the Sleipnir itself. As I mentionned above, I could also get an Astarte (yes, and Eos and Claymore, but I don't fly in big gangs much), but let's just have one to brace myself for replacement. Not to mention that all those serious ships are worth the extra fitting love so I fully expect to fit T2 rigs on them (they're actually affordable compared to what they used to be), and here and there a Faction or Complex module may find its way on the fitting screen. Just for the hell of it I've done some EFT warfare and I have a Loki fit that can tank a sustained 1200 DPS without breaking a sweat, but the amount of ISK involved must be a good down payment on a Titan! I don't plan on going that crazy on Tranquility but as I've said, this is the level when ships start getting serious, even more than just T1 battleships.

So here I am, stuck out of game and dreaming of awesome ships. At least it's good to know that I'm not as burnt out on the game as I thought I was. Will I join another PvP corp soon? Mmmm, maybe not right away. I really love the freedom I have these days, with only my one student who I'll admit is not too bad as a noob. He's going at it slower than I did because he did not try to learn the game before installing it, and did not immerse himself into a pool of sharks, but he's catching on pretty quick. I'm letting him make the mistakes we all need to make, but once he makes them he usually doesn't repeat them... that's better than his teacher !!! Now let's get to Thursday real quick so I can get back on :)

Fly hard, fast and deadly

o7

PS: @Cutter Isaacson... I hope you made it out of J134323 in one piece and with your implants. I'll give you a few W-space pointers if you want when I get back.

From student to teacher

Earlier this week I got a phone call from a friend of mine who I don't see enough of, and as we were shooting the shit I told him that these days my game of predilection was EVE Online, this monster of a game that can take over your life and gives meaning to the phrase "Internet spaceships is serious business". So of course, knowing my buddy is also a gamer I told him to check it out and to brace himself for information overload because EVE has been described as "hardcore for the hardcore" in a review. Apparently that didn't scare him too much.

The very next day, as I was getting ready to go out on a roam with the BOZOs I get another phone call, and the gist of it was "Hey Ben, I'm in the game... and WTF ?!?!?!!111" Of course when you have to listen to your FC you don't exactly have time to give the EVE 101 course to someone who just installed the client, so I told him that I'd join up with him in Hi-sec the following day to shower him with yet more information, and I kept an open convo with him during my roam to help him out as time allowed and threw him a few helpful links to go visit, stuff to read, apps to download, fly only what you can afford to lose... the whole spiel. About the BOZO op: a 35 man Jihad fleet managed to hurt our 15 man HAC gang a bit too much, so we went in their pursuit after re-shipping to BCs and they ran tuck-tailed all the way to their home so they could up-ship to BCs themselves. The result was a 39 vs 15 that barely ended in their favor. Nice job running, Forrest... I don't care what the numbers say, we won.

Back to my noob buddy, on Wednesday night I log into Hek and get the convo going with si Gong, my buddy's character, and start doing the pointers on navigation, checking skills (he had trained up totally useles ones of course!), checking the market, checking "Show Info" on pretty much anything I could think of, show him various ship classes from interceptor to Titan, showed him the awesomeness of Officer mods (showed him Gotan's Warp Disruptor;2 point scram at 35 km... 2 of those in my Arazu plz...3.25 bil each? OK forget it!), and even did some combat in Low-sec where I totally forgot about station sentry guns as I tried to dock up with the criminal timer going. Never fear, I was in a fully T1 fit Rifter and not in the Firetail I showed him moments before :)

And now it seems that si Gong is starting to feel the lure. Tomorrow I'm going to his place to do the EVE 102 course in person, and we'll see if he takes the Drake-sized bait.

So if you see a Jin Mei character by the name of si Gong in Gallente space these days try to go easy on him, but I did advise him on the system's sec rating so Spectre, Mynxee, and all you other yarrin' people, do teach him your type of lesson if you see him in Local. And yes, he's more interested in combat than carebearing so that would actually be a good thing !!!

Fly dangerous and train dangerous noobs!

o7

PS: I'm taking the opportunity to thank Letrange, Arancia, Queb, Teister, Cerui, and all the others who have had a hand in training me when I was an itsy-bitsy noob trying to survive in Curse. I couldn't be here without you!