20070506

What and Why

I’ve been in and out of the Eve universe since the days of the beta and have played a few different styles of characters, never one hundred percent happy with the results. There’s been the carebear miner me, the corp security me, the manufacturing me, the solo mission runner me, the pirate corp me, and now – or at least at some point in the next few months – comes the next iteration of me.

I had been toying with the idea of trying out exploration for a while, but the article in the last issue of EON through me over the edge. The character I’ve committed to the path was born in September of 2005, but only had around six million skill points when I started heading towards exploration. He had been dormant for a while, tucked in a tube somewhere while I skilled up and got frustrated with my pirate alt. Now I’m back to training and aside from catching up with skills that prove useful (Salvaging, for one), I’ve chucked probably a half a million points towards Exploration.

I was going to track my bank account along this journey to give whatever readers I may have some idea as to the costs involved and profits reaped, but in hindsight that’s incredibly stupid. Giving hard numbers along the way could find me in some backwater system happening across someone who may have read this and think, “damn, that guy claimed to have x in his bank account. Maybe I can ransom him for a third of it …”. I still think there's value in tracking and providing some of the information, so whenever I mention my account it will be based in a percentage off of the balance when I started this little diary. Consider all mentions based off of 100% of today’s balance.

Skills

I’m currently working on Electronic Upgrades, which is the long haul skill out of all those required. Astrometrics V will take a long time, too, coming in currently at ~19.5 days, but that one is last on the list. I took the time to boost the secondary learning skills a bit on the advice of EVEMon (a highly recommended wonderful little program) and so far it looks like the skills won't be 100% complete until 15 July, 2007.

By scattering the higher train-time skills I can at least get out in the field and start getting a feel for the system and (hopefully) the rewards.

In the Meantime

I’m running missions and salvaging wrecks to keep the cash flow positive. What with the skill book purchases and all I’ve still got my nest egg, but I’m sure that will start being dinged when I start purchasing things like the Cheetah and the more specialized skill books.

As a relatively diverse character (read: Jack of All Trades, Master of None) I’ve got options. From my mining days I’ve still got my barge with it’s strip miners, so I can take an afternoon rock raping for some easy cash and materiel or I can run missions. The latter is profitable to a certain extent. The level twos I’ve been running typically net three quarters of a million in pay, time bonuses, and bounties, but the real money is found when I take the time to go back and salvage the wrecks. Undocking Freddy Sanford with his two tractor beams and four salvagers makes quick work of even the largest of debris fields, and the recent change involving wrecks holding loot makes everything so much easier. If you hadn’t noticed, under the old system you had to loot first, salvage later (the salvager wouldn’t engage on a wreck holding items). Now wrecks just kick a jet can if you salvage them while they’ve still got contents. It’s a massive improvement.