July was as languid as the weather though I doubt capsuleers ever experience seasonal changes in our pods. The corporation that hired me turned out to be a more of a loose social gathering than a group put together for a purpose. The folks in Australia proved to be formidable conversationalists and were around when I was online thanks to the proximity in time zone. All save one or two, devoted their effort to running missions. Since it is more profitable to solo missions in high security space we only saw each other when someone requested assistance.
Rather than wait for a corp ops I decided to organize one myself. I gathered those online for a new challenge. An epic arc seemed like the perfect choice to break the dull routine. It piqued everyone’s interest and soon there were five pilots in my fleet. We warped to the Impetus beacon in Dodixie; however our grand adventure ended before it even began, as none of us had the standing to access the agent. For my lack of preparation and stupidity, I paid everyone a few million ISK to compensate for their lost time.
Returning to my hangar, I hopped into my Imicus which had two Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rigs, geared for probing. Within an hour of roaming, I discovered my first wormhole entrance in Sharuveil, a low sec system in Gallente sovereignty. When I mentioned my finding in the corp channel I received hesitant replies. Solarius, a regular at our public channel, asked to be invited when I told him it was a class 3 wormhole. Soon he was clearing each anomaly in his shiny Paladin, flawlessly making his move like a chess grandmaster would, knowing exactly where to be after each trigger. I remained cloaked at a safe distance cheering at him. When we got out, he generously shared a portion of the loot which turned out to be quite sizable. At the time the prospect of WH hunting felt far more lucrative than repetitive missions.
Later on I tried to reenact the short but intense WH operation. One corp mate brought his Drake, the other a Hurricane, and I my Dominix. It soon became clear that the three of us combined could not match the graceful performance of one man. In fact we were barely able to clear one site. The Drake pilot told me he had to refit heavy missile launchers because his HAM Drake was constantly webbed. Meanwhile our Hurricane pilot was caught up fitting his ship as he couldn’t really decide how he wanted to tank his ship. I wasn’t any brighter using my drones for DPS. By the time I lost my third drone, the Drake returned only to leave again shortly to pick up an AB. In hindsight, it could have been disastrous had another pilot entered and jumped on us. After this incident my WH exploration came to a halt. I had to find a new platform, be it missiles or lasers.
My miner alt, who I logged into once a day for PI, was ready to pilot a Hulk, but due to poor timing his new found ability coincided with Hulkageddon 3. So instead for two days I took out my Imicus to probe down Hulks that were mining in gravimetric sites and those bold enough to brave asteroid belts, subsequently delivering intel to those hungry for miners’ blood. Watching suicide gankers explode in front of my eyes was worth waiting for however it quickly bored me.
In the closing days of July, the corp withered and waned due to lack of leadership. The CEO had left to try out another game leaving his employees in the dark. None of us were delegated any roles to utilize the POS that had been anchored weeks ago. It was only natural that no one knew which direction the corp was headed. The disillusioned scattered away and finding myself alone in the channel became more frequent. I tendered my resignation.
My next stunt was the trade hub marathon. Only it wasn’t margin trading that I was involved in. I jumped around Jita, Amarr, Dodixie and Rens spamming the local channel with a linked ad that led to my thread in the character bazaar. On the ninth day, I bought a Caldari pilot with 14 million SP.
I had briefly considered the Rattlesnake as Dax Jr's next ship before delaying cross training in order to allow his Gallente skills to mature. Since he can comfortably handle level 4 missions, he's taking time off to train learning skills to 5/4 which is nearing completion. Unless asked to fly assault ships, Dax will most likely continue building on drone skills.
David Vendetta is a combat pilot with virtually no wasted points. Previous owners have kept him pure Caldari. For unknown reasons he's never seen combat despite his capability to field a wide array of PvP ships. Currently he's on a two-week Tengu plan, which will be followed by Falcon/ECM skills.
I no longer intend to keep my third toon. He is to be sold in the coming months.
Once again I am looking for a corp to join. If you're familiar with WH corps, please let me know. Thanks.
