House Keeping

This entry has been written from an ‘out of character’ perspective to ramble about my week in EVE a bit really.

I heard a big piece of news the other day (important in my world at least!) but I’m not sure its quite time to talk about that yet.  Soon though, so consider yourself teased. 😉

What I have been doing is a bit of getting my house in order.  I have an alt who I use to supply the low sec market of the system I base out of, which for most of the time I’ve been in FW is Eszur.  I relocated for a bit while Ushra’Khan was operating out of Isbrabata but once U’K decided to exit Fw for a return to null sec and I parted ways, production was shifted back.  I have been a bit lazy with my small-scale industrial inkerings lately though so have set about gearing back up.

The market has been looking a bit shabby so I set about filling out the T1 frig/dessie gaps along with the rigs supply.  My approach is to manufacture locally but with limited capital (I am far from being a wealthy player so don’t have a large pool of ISK for this) and low volume hauling.  I don’t own a jump freighter and taking something as bulky and vulnerable as an Orca deep into low sec would be smart without a strong escort, which I don;t currently have.  So my approach is the occasional blockade runner filled with minerals to supply what I can’t buy locally.  As such, the stuff i build can’t be too mineral intensive as volumes quickly become unwieldly.

I find that T1 frigates and destroyers can be made in large enough numbers to meet local demand without having to spend too much time hauling.  Occasionally I branch out into some ammo too.  Rigs on the other hand are ideal for this setup as salvage components take up such a small amount of space that its easy to move enough parts to make large numbers of rigs.

the Eszur market is already looking better to my eyes.  The main reason I do this (other than turning into a bit of a bear in my old age) is to help out with the militia war effort.  Bolstering the supply lines a bit can only help our boys fight the good fight so I consider it a part of doing my bit for the Minmatar cause.  It isn’t a money maker as the effort going into the project is fairly high for the profit margins I make on sales.  Then i tend to just plough all the ISK back into buying more stock and expanding my range of sell orders so the profits vanish anyway.

In other news, I’m preparing Ugleb for the arrival of Odyssey which really is not far away now.  I recently realised that my exploration related skills frelect the amount of time I have put into this area of the game in the past.  Hacking and Archaeology skills were both sat on a measly level 3 while my probing skills were similarly low, so i have been taking a bit of time to get this skill set a little better fleshed out.  Exploration is an area I have always intended to get more involved with but found the mechanics a bit underwhelming and never liked the idea of needing to switch between a probing ship to find the sites and a second ship for actually running the sites.  Hopefully Odyssey will deliver on its promise of alleviating those issues.

Last night that PS3 I bought off ebay turned up, so I have spent the afternoon tinkering with it.  this is the first console I have ever owned so I’m muddling through a bit and getting used to the controller and menu layout.  Mostly I’ve been finding that everything I press requires that I download an update or new content.  Right now the Dust514 client is patching up to the current Uprising release build then I’ll have just enough time to make a character before going to bed. Guess I’ll play the game tomorrow. 😉

Interestingly though, Dust does have a player counter on it.  Currently there are just under 8,400 players online while the Aura app on my phone reports 49,000 playing EVE.  I have no idea if that is typical but I guess at this point of launch week the Capsuleers still outnumber the Dust bunnies around 5 to 1.  Not bad though as I think 49,000 makes this a fairly busy Saturday for EVE, although I’ve not been keeping a close eye on it.

What I have done a bit today is play the Slay mini game available in the Event Horizon Lounge, which is Dust’s virtual lobby area as part of the Playstation Home thing.  PS Home is a sort of hybrid social media/virtual storefront system where PS3 owners can wander about playing mini games while being not-so-passively marketed at with posters for other stuff they might want to splash their cash on.

The Event Horizon Lounge has a merc Recruitment officer NPC who tells you a bit about the EVE universe and backstory as well as telling you that there is free stuff to be had by watching the videos on show in the lounge and by winning games of Slay.  Slay itself was originally developed for Incarna and is one of the few parts of the project that saw the light of day.  At heart it is similiar to the Risk boardgame but with a sci-fi spin and a few more rules than it is easy to take in at first.  I’ve played a few single player games and I’m starting to pick it up, although I’m at little risk of actually winning a game yet! 😉

Well, the patching is done so I guess I’ll fire up Dust for the first time and see what character creation is like.  More first impressions later…