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Going Against The Grain

There comes a time in one’s Eve career where you must stop taking advice and following the crowd, a time when joining yet another corp sounds dull and boring no matter what they have to offer out where they base their fleets. I used to take everything I heard over the years too serous and never bothered to “try” doing it in a different manner, whether it be a ship fit, a new way of running missions, or starting a new corporation. The first step to my individuality came when I co-founded a corporation with a new friend. We choose to go to w-space on our own. Having joined a number of corps already I had all kinds of thoughts on how to achieve this:

1) Gather around 10-20 others who we “need” to start the corp.
2) Find a suitable wormhole. Get a medium pos as the smallest acceptable size.
3) Come up with a complicated spreadsheet for corp payouts and Ore refining numbers for directors and FC’s to keep track of weekly payouts to members. As well as several other spreadsheets for other tasks.
4) Perhaps the biggest step: invest the isk to get our first pos up and running.
5) Come up with a labeling system for naming the various site bookmarks and wormhole connections.

All these things were common in every w-space corp I was a member of, so naturally I wanted to mimic what I learned and implement them into my new corp. Old conversations of ” we started with half a bill isk, lots of pos guns and T3 ships”, ” you need at least ten or more people”, etc etc. I however, had none of that. We were two pilots. Both with battle cruisers: a Drake and a Harbinger and less than 200 mill between us.
More over: we didn’t want a group with us, we wanted a private venture to make some isk with, temporarily, possibly becoming permanent.

We chose to break the rules, we bought a small pos, sold some assets for just enough fuel to online the thing and no money left for guns. We found a great C3 with a static C3 connection and began anchoring then dumping the fuel into it and brought it online.

Once it was up, we took our ships out to our static and began bringing in some isk. Over a few days we made hundreds of millions each, around 200-400mill/day. We used that money to re-invest in the pos, buying more guns for it, buying a few days worth of fuel, etc. We kept fuel lite knowing if we were found we would stand little chance against a hostile takeover and we didn’t want to waste the money isk filing the fuel bay up.

Weeks went by, we each got better ships and more pos goods each day with every cash out. We scrapped virtually every rule I had known… Armour tanking mixed with shields for my friend, less than half a bill in initial investments, virtually no one else but us living in the wormhole.  Over time we got battleships, T3′s of our choosing without anyone forcing us to go Tengu pilots or have some ridiculous pay sheet to look over on Google Docs.

It all started with taking a risk and going against the recommendations other eve pilots told us were the “right” way of doing things. If not for going with our hearts we probably would have joined yet another cookie-cutter w-space corp with a long list of rules and spreadsheets to look over, doing the same old thing we did in the past. Instead we played how we wanted, with what we wanted to fly.

It reminds me of battle clinic, or NPC chat rooms where ever single player is telling you THEIR way I’d the right way, the only way to fit your ship, or their way I’d the only path to being successful in your own corporation. Just the other night some new guy was being bombarded with scrutiny over his choice of laser turrets. Yet another “pulse over beam/beam over pulse” argument began.

Fed up with it all I simply write a small letter: use what YOU like to use, if you like sniping, go beam. For DPS close range fights use pulse, there is no right and wrong.

They felt better after my message, I’m sure he will pick whatever weapon style fits him and learn to use them properly over time. So many times in eve we get criticised for going against the normal methods, not following the crowd but all it really does it force you to play in a way you don’t want to, or feel you have to. Eve is vast, and wide open to explore if you only learn to do it your way and go out and explore what it has to offer you. Take some risks, but always have reserves if all should fail as it will many times over. You never know what you might find out there!

Back 2 Solo Life

After an exciting return to Eve and a good run with a new friend, I’ve decided to go solo once more. The 2 man wspace run was my best experience in Eve yet!

Since I will no longer be playing as much as I was before I think it’s best for me and my partner to split up. No biggie, as we just will go our own ways. He’ll likely keep selling wormholes, and I’ll resume exploring random space for hidden profits. It’s always been in my nature to move around and not sit still.

Let’s see where my next Eve adventure takes me!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

It started with 100mill & a free gift

I will start off by first telling a short story on how my new adventure began:

Soon a after The new Eveonline, Crucible expansion came out I started out with a simple free 5 days welcome back gift, and was very exited to see the new features and improvements. Someone was so generous to give me an etc (eve time code), I was overwhelmed with joy to be able to return to Eve for a while!

The first place I visit is the recruiting forums and the dreaded recruiting channel… Off of one advertisement for a large wormhole corp I found myself talking with some new friends when some guy randomly says he’s alone in his hole and wants to leave out of fear of being invaded by large corps who would see a lone pilot with a small POS. I mention my past experience with k-space, we start a private convo and agree to go out and run his home sites. Both total strangers only 10 minutes prior. He’s reluctant to share the location of his home and I leave my billion isk ship behind and take a throw away drake to run sites with.  We ended up partnering up, and now co-own our own new wormhole system with pos and have a great amount of isk coming up.

We’re now growing quickly, averaging 80-200mill/day. 9 days later and I have already plex’d my account twice and reactivated a third heavy industry pilot!

All this starting from a generious gift followed by a completely random encounter between two capsuleers. It’s amazing what can happen in Eve sometimes!

Now onto some personal thoughts on the world of Eve tutorials and typical advice most tell the new players of Eve:

I have always read and heard that you needed a lot of isk to make a living in wormhole space,one such guide on the Eve forums goes as far as to say 1bill isk to get started, let me tell you this: our small pos started with just a little over 100mill, my partner is around 2mo old. Basically only flies a drake, I have 28mill sp.

Now over time we have put a few hundred isk back into our pos and defenses. I’m tired of these guides out there constantly over-stating what people “need”, and what they “should have” to get started in Eve.

The guides may be right: 1bill or even 500 mill would make for an ideal setup, but it’s far from manditory.

Another issue are these “must” have level v skills. My friend is around 2mo. Old and under 3mill
Sp and he does most the pos work and had his operation going before I came.

I had always avoided creating a pos in the past because I’m always told to get starbase defense to iv or v, and had always been told all these things about skills and money, it’s just not true. This experience has totally changed my out look on Eve and starting my own operation.

My friend has learned a bit more over time and we’re expanding our operation, even brokering wormholes now. Quite a way to return to Eve online!

Starting any venture in Eve is risky, it’s a roll of the dice. We could have been invaded and died horribly in our first day, or made some noob mistake and gotten locked out… But risks can yield great rewards.

A little investmentand motivation can go a long way, even for new pilots. Of course I never did take my expensive ships and mods into my new friends pos, nor ever logged out in the ratting ship I brought along, always be aware your new friend could get greedy, or close a trap on you at any point, but playing smart, and being aware you can make a lot of isk with little investment.

What I learned from this little adventure is: don’t let being new discourage you from trying something in eve, or talk about large amounts of isk stop you from even trying. You never know how it could work out!

Kat’s Alt Soon To Return

A lot has happened over the last few weeks, Katsumi jumped around 4 Corps trying to find a future venture in Eve. After going back to wormhole space I’ve returned back to nullsec for the time being. I hate this back and forth, but I’m not sure where I belong as of right now, and nullsec is my comfort zone.
While training for an interdictor continues, I plan to revive my main gallente armor RR and drone support alt in about a week! If all goes well in real life: I should be able to pay for Kat and my alt for 1yr. I can’t wait to get my alt back!

Once I finish up interdiction training in 22days (training for the ship plus the sphere launcher) I plan to finally take the route towards an Absolution. I’ve seen command ships in action and can’t wait to own one myself.
Not much else going on at the moment.

Update On New Corp

A few days ago I stated that Katsumi was returning to her roots in W-space with the hopes of a C6 home. The main corp I had in mind wanted a bit more cap. skills than I currently had, and was a bit too pvp oriented. I did, however, find a great little corp living in a C4 with static C3 who still gets quite a bit of daily PVP. These people are easy going and relaxed, but still have a thirst for PVP. It’s actually a nice balance for me, as I like PVP but it’s far from my main focus. They’ve got a great mix of armor and shield boats here as well. The last 4-5 days have been a lot of fun running sites and getting kills in kspace. I’m still quite broke from my nullsec life, but slowly working my way up! The new corp is EU based, which is a little concerning at the moment, as they’re usually on around noonish, which is their peek, and my busy time. Still: I’ve gotten a few good hours during the weekdays with them, and almost constantly on during the weekends. For me: work is when most people are sleeping/offline, and I’m up mostly in the mornings and day (I’m US  TZ). It seems to be working so far.

It’s good to take a break from the nullsec games for a bit. They sure do take a toll on a person! I’m still mildly looking for a C5-C6 corp. if one comes along, and is an experienced corp who knows what they’re doing, I will probably switch, but for now I’m staying here. Great guys, organized and experienced FC’s/Fleets, laid back PVE and good PVP. I still believe W-space is just right for me, as it offers everything nullsec can bring without the same old hotdrop game many experience in null.

We’ve been flying throuh C3 sites like crazy (usually around 30-40 minutes per wormhole!). We salvage/loot all sites and combats, close the wormhole and move right into the next c3 quickly. Once a week we do the C4, including gas. Should be good money! Moving back to kspace means my training has once again taken a slight detour in skills, raising scanning a bit more, and upping a little shield skills. Though I will remain primarly armor tanked, which is great considering how many other armor boats we have. Feels good to be back home!

Anyone Else Obsessed?

I’ve come to realize more than 90% of my Facebook status’ are eve related. lol. Good times.

Katsumi Returns To Her Roots

Today Katsumi enters stasis, to quite the nullsec games for the foreseeable future. I am returning to what was my passion: W-Space living and exploration. I have never truely intended to live in nullsec, it just sort of went that way in my past corps. My first corp I joined solely for w-space moved to null. I then went into another corp who had a mostly dead wormhole corp in alliance, so I got stationed in null. It has been fun, and wielded many experiences, but SOV wars can get old… really old. I’ve put in an application for a C6 w-space corp looking for dreads/carrier pilots, better yet: They’re armor based, which fits my pure armor training and capital remote RR skills to good use! More coming later as I get moved in (Should my application be accepted.).