Reporting for duty

I’m back! I decided to play for at least a couple of weeks before writing again to see whether I wanted to commit to playing and blogging. There remain questions I need to answer: What do I want to do differently this time? Do I want to build a community or join an existing one? How will I add value to the experience of others?

 

I logged off sometime in 2015 and moved on to other adventures. I vaguely remember being burned out from trading and wanting more PvE content. One of my friends invited me to play a new MMORPG, which engrossed me for several years. I built a community of about 100 players and ran events every weekend. Life got in the way, and I had to take a break from that as well. Then bigger changes occurred to my human form until one day a little bit of free time and nostalgia led me to install EVE Online on my laptop.

 

I’m a lot more relaxed in my approach to gaming than before. Thus, I adjusted my scope of gameplay when I decided to upgrade my main account to Omega. I had also forgotten so much about the game that I had to read threads, ask questions, and watch guides before feeling safe to undock. My desires were to look at space, spin ships, and destroy NPC pirates. But before I could do all that, I was instructed to change the fitting of my ships as the marauders had their slots shifted around.

I used to multi-box missions in a Vargur and a Paladin; now I run them in just the Vargur. Thanks to the Bastion Module the DPS doubled, so I feel like I get things done with less effort piloting one ship. It could be that I am less dexterous than before—or simply rusty. EWAR can get a bit annoying in certain missions due to the nerf. I'm also having a blast zooming around with the Micro Jump Drive. This is my favorite module right now.

 

 

In 15 days, I made 1.6 billion ISK from level 4 missions. I only counted bounties and agent rewards. I’m sitting on 1.2 million loyalty points, which could be converted to a few billion ISK. I wanted to see if I could sustain Omega using PLEX, and the answer is yes. It only costs 1.38 billion ISK per month using the 24-month option. I could also trade with the money I made. Market PvP isn’t as fun as flying spaceships though.

Trading was a double-edged sword that enriched and exhausted me. I did leave my future self a small fortune though. My assets have appreciated in value. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my net worth in 2024 is approximately 800 billion ISK. The problem is that the most expensive items in my possession move extremely slowly. For example, it took one seller almost a year to sell the ‘Silvershore’ Greatcoat on the forums. I’m going to have to be very patient.

It's clear that a lot of love has been put into making EVE Online more welcoming to new players. The daily goals are a nice way to earn 300,000 skill points every 30 days, which I consider to be 1.8 billion ISK in value—that’s two Large Skill Injectors worth of SP for me. If you weren’t taking them seriously before, you should. I get 25 NPC kills from missions and either manufacture an item or scan cosmic signatures to clear the second objective every day. After my dailies are done, I go back to running missions.

 

Anomic missions stumped me. I am slowly learning about each burner agent. Dax Jr. hasn’t trained any missile skills, so fielding the Worm is currently not an option. I can do the Guristas agent in an Ishkur. The first time I attempted it my modules burned out, so I had to log out to reset the mission. Instead of training for multiple frigates, I’ve opted for the all-in-one solution: the Nergal. Here is a ship I had not seen before.

 

I can’t count the number of new ships that have been released during my hiatus. There’s a slew of pirate vessels and destroyers. I am guessing the developers wanted to incentivize small fleet engagements. Most of the new offerings do not interest me. What intrigued me was the Triglavian weapon system. The Entropic Disintegrator, is unique in that the damage amplifies the longer one fires at a target. It’s the perfect vessel for burners, but I can’t find other applications for it yet. It probably means I’ll have to train for another ship to exploit the Abyssal Deadspace.

 

Abyssal Deadspace seems to be the endgame PvE for many content creators. Hopefully I’ll become more knowledgeable about Abyssal filaments by the time I’m ready to fly a Gila with passable skills. I’ve grown so complacent in my mission hubs and Jita that risking ship and pod sound like a bad deal. Still, players are saying T0s are designed to be novice-friendly and impossible to fail. I could prove them wrong.

 

I’ve been going to Jita every other day to shop. It’s eating into my savings. Uedama has become a dangerous place. Taking a freighter through that route involves high risk. Until I figure out a way to travel safely, I’ll be in my trusty blockade runner. There’s also a dedicated stream called UedamaScout.

 

The infrastructure outside of the game has evolved to a degree that was unimaginable when I last played. Remember a time before streaming and Discord? There are more communities than ever in a game that is famous for its culture of security and hostility. I’ve been watching guides on YouTube to catch up on the expansions I’ve missed. EVE Online is more accessible than ever and seeing more than 32,000 pilots online at peak hours shows that the game is doing well 21 years after its launch.

I have to address the two latter questions I posed in the beginning. I think I'll take small steps by familiarizing myself with the new expansions, and then see if there's a niche that I can carve out. I'd like to run a corporation centered around missions and industry. I suppose that's what most highsec communities provide anyway. I'll have to write a separate post to solve these conundrums.

 

I would like to thank my old friend Aeon Noblemagus, who encouraged me to write again. I’ll need more nudges along the way and ideas for what to write about.