What's New?

I’ve noticed (and so have you if there is anyone else reading this blog) that things have been a bit slow lately.  Here’s what’s up...

I was doing some level 3 missions with my main character last week and discovered a mission that was just too tough for the usually reliable Vexor.  I gated to the mission location in deadspace (no chance to set a bookmark and come back later at a reasonable distance) and was clobbered by a bunch of Very Bad Rats™.  I did my usual turn and run so that I could send out the drones to deal with them – but they were too tough for my armor repper and I eventually was down to no armor and starting on structure on both attempts to flee.  I didn’t even get a chance to send in the drones!

Time to move up to a Myrmidon. 

So I switched my training from Jack Dancer’s pirate skills and trained the battlecruiser skill on my main character, I also canceled a couple 14 million ISK buy orders for Helios hulls (I hope to do some low-sec exploring sometime in the near future when I get a chance to boost those skills on my main) and purchased a 33 million ISK Myrmidon hull.  I was able to use the modules from my two mission-fit Vexors to fill up the Myrmidon and managed to tank that pesky level 3 mission and give those rats their comeuppance!  But that took a day or two away from Jack Dancer’s skill training and play.

I also took a couple days to train up the market skills for my other alt character who is parked in Jita doing station trading.  That’s been fun as I buy massive numbers of cheap modules and then sell them for 30% (or more) profit.  It hasn’t really been a money font – but the 6 million ISK seed money has more than doubled in a couple weeks.  Adding some market skills will cut down on his expenses and allow him more trades at any given time.

So, after those side trips I’m back to Jack Dancer. 

Jack is currently training Energy Management IV (to boost his cap - he currently has just 30 seconds of cap capacity – so when he gets in a fight he’ll have 30 seconds to win or he loses…) and then will be training Small Projectile Turret V to allow T2 autocannons and then Electronics V.  Engineering V was completed the other day - Jack Dancer's first V!  (To give a sense of perspective, Jack Dancer is just 20 days old today and has about 750k skillpoints - a virtual babe in arms at this point...).

And I put up a bunch of buy orders for named modules for my fleet of Rifters (currently 19 of them) – and purchased several items at good prices.  Plus I ferried some cheap Rifters from the markets where I purchased them to my home base.  Half a dozen of them were only 7 hops away – so those were relatively easy.  But I have another half a dozen about 29(!) hops across high-sec space (the Rifters were very cheap!  140k).  I’ve made that trip a couple times (out in my pod and back in a Rifter) – about an hour on autopilot each way – and have several more trips ahead of me.

Since I'm not a 10 hour a day player (more like a 2 hour a day player on a busy day and a 40 minute a day player on an average day) the progress is generally slow but (hopefully) steady.  And now that I'm doing level 3 missions with my main character I'm happy - the challenge and rewards for Myrmidon level 3 missioning makes for lots of fun.  Things are going well.