Tidy up

A mission runner’s “you reap what you sow” would roughly translate to “you loot what you wreck.” By June I managed to hoard 824 items in two solar systems. When I opened my hangar or assets tab lag was noticeable, getting worse after each mission. Thalis Malu, who was listening to my predicament, uttered the one line that changed everything forever. [insert image of light bulb here] [playback sound effect of angel choir]

[ 2010.06.04 08:24:37 ] Thalis Malu > I keep all my items in station cans

[ 2010.06.04 08:24:57 ] Dax Jr > what are station cans?

[ 2010.06.04 08:25:40 ] Thalis Malu > Ship Equip\Deployable\Cargo Containers

[ 2010.06.04 08:25:55 ] Thalis Malu > Station Container

Following his instruction I opened the market interface to find several station containers for sale at 10,000 ISK in Ignebaener. Shortly thereafter I moved back to Auvergne where even more items where sprawled about. But I had to pay over tens times the price for one because systems near trading hubs have inflated tags on them. I bought fourteen and began sorting them:

A station container has 1,000,000 m3 capacity so unless you're a hardcore miner space won't be an issue. Note that they were designed for corporate hangars, to serve as audit log secure containers. This means every time an item is moved the transaction will be logged. The initial setting will lock down anything dropped into them for security reasons. To use these cans with ease, a pilot needs to tweak the configuration.

Right clicking on a station container will bring up a contextual menu like above. Choose configure container and check on 'unlocked.' I doubt people will need passwords for personal hangars but it's never a bad idea to set one for expensive deadspace modules. Rest assured, even in the worst case you'll get hacked but those Chelms' will be safe.

Dominion patch enabled players to view the contents of station cans in their assets tab but search isn't available yet. You will have to open each container to move items into them, which I think could be improved if one could drop items directly on the icons. This could get annoying when you have over a dozen to manage. I think fourteen is a bit excessive because it requires so much clicking.

How do you manage your inventory?

Monthly Progress Report

June had been a rollercoaster ride in many aspects of the game and real life. Suffice to say that I’ve been overwhelmed by reading which, at this stage, takes priority over writing. In-game Dax became the archetypal carebear devoting most of his time grinding missions, salvaging wrecks, and sometimes snooping around markets for a better deal. My browser’s default website has been replaced to EVE-survival’s MissionReports from EVE Gate, which further attests to my carebear status. The discovery of new channels, namely eve-bloggers where fan meets celebrity, was a pleasant surprise. HelpMyMission channel is as entertaining as it is helpful so if you’re running missions and need a hand or want a whacky bunch of humorists to cure your boredom, drop by.

Joining a player run corporation was a big step forward in Dax Jr.’s online life that also took away a good chunk of my attention away from posting. When I finally decided to move out of the NPC corp, numerous personnel officers and sometimes CEOs offered to take me in. However it soon became clear that due to time zone issues, I’d be online alone if I were to join these wonderful corps. That was when I met admiral darkhammer, the CEO of Dark Forge Enterprise, formerly Dark Forge Enterprises. He promised me plenty of kangaroos(Aussies) and the like(Kiwis). Wormhole exploration or null sec access wasn’t immediately available but instead the corp would start from the bottom up.

In the first week my alt tagged along others to mine in a gravimetric site while Dax Jr. participated in level 4 mission fleets. Membership ebbed and flowed but darkhammer dismissed it as a natural process. I was more concerned about the lack of communication and inactivity as a group. The frigate tournament dissolved quietly when people enlisted in the ladder left the corp, leaving me as the victor to claim an Imperial Slicer. New players who joined as miners turned into born-again mission runners when they found out that they could make more money by running missions. Mining ops came to a halt. Questions were raised as some grew impatient of the direction things were going. No one, save a few who were involved in setting up a POS, knew what was going on. It so happens that a few days prior to this inquisition darkhammer bought the service of a player with high faction standing to anchor the POS. Everyone realized then that two leaders were solely responsible for financing this project. The delegation of roles or building corp infrastructure had been put off until after the corp had transitioned to a new entity that owns a POS. It finally happened this week and it’s only the beginning. We will need to acquire blueprints, fuels, various modules for our structure, and more importantly new talent to help the corp grow. Had I joined a mature corp, I would never have known this process firsthand.

Dax Jr. traveled to Minmatar space last month to claim modules bought off contracts. Other than that movement was limited to mission objective systems.

My initial plan was to finish primary skills but the queue took twists and turns to suit my needs because Dax Jr. is the only playable character. Mechanic V just got completed and by tomorrow he will train Thermodynamics. I am still debating on when I should finish the rank 1 learning skills which were left off at IV. I find piloting the Dominix to be boring and am considering cross training Caldari. Dax is expected to suffer from my whims for a few more months before he finally settles on a long term plan.

The industry alt will be able to fly Hulks by Monday. Perfect timing for Hulkageddon III. This one will have to stay docked during the entire event and work on other skills until the coast is clear.

Then there’s the third alt. My obsession for learning skills lead me to create him. He’s going straight for 5/4 learning with a full set of +4 implants in his brain. I still have another month before I set a career path, but he’s most likely to fly Amarr combat ships.

Real life is expected to get even busier in July but I will try to post more often, as things are picking up speed in EVE. If you are interested in joining our corp, please contact me or leave a message and I’ll get back to you.