So what have I accomplished over the past year? Not much, if anything at all, socially. I've stayed confined to my corporation, the Khumaak Flying Club. I've always had the impression that a corporation would demand a lot of time, something I don't really have in abundance. In the past twelve months, in addition to working a crazy schedule, I've taken business trips to London and Sofia.
I'm now at a point that I've grown attached to my corporation and really don't want to leave it. Yes, a corporation originally designed as a tax haven from the then new 11% NPC corp tax now just feels like home. I know I'm playing the game wrong, but I've developed a play-style that suits my real life and KHU is a big part of it.
So how did I do with the goals I set last August?
My Ships:
Looking back at the KHU fleet one year ago is a real eye-opener. Last year, the pride of my fleet were two battlecruisers, a Cyclone and a Hurricane. I managed to lose the Hurricane on Christmas Eve and then its replacement about 3 weeks ago after a bout of drunken blogging. But the fleet is a lot more impressive than the one that boasted 4 tech 2 ships a year ago.
Tech 2 ships in italics
| Assault Ships | |
| Jaguar | 1 |
| Wolf | 1 |
| Battlecruiser | |
| Cyclone | 1 |
| Hurricane | 1 |
| Battleship | |
| Maelstrom | 1 |
| Capital Industrial Ships | |
| Orca | 1 |
| Covert Ops | |
| Cheetah | 1 |
| Hound | 1 |
| Cruisers | |
| Bellicose | 2 |
| Rupture | 1 |
| Scythe | 1 |
| Destroyers | |
| Thrasher | 2 |
| Frigates | |
| Breacher | 1 |
| Burst | 4 |
| Probe | 3 |
| Rifter | 12 |
| Slasher | 3 |
| Vigil | 6 |
| Industrials | |
| Mammoth | 3 |
| Noctis | 1 |
| Wreathe | 4 |
| Interceptors | |
| Stiletto | 1 |
| Mining Barges | |
| Covetor | 1 |
| Retriever | 1 |
| Recon Ships | |
| Rapier | 1 |
| Transport Ships | |
| Mastodon | 1 |
| Prowler | 1 |
| Special | |
| Echelon | 2 |
| Primae | 2 |
| Zephyr | 2 |
Instead of 2 battlecruisers, the pride of the fleet is now a Maelstrom and an Orca and I have doubled the number of tech 2 ships from 4 to 8. Getting the Orca fulfilled my number one ship acquisition goal but I failed in my secondary goal of owning all Minmatar sub-capital ships. I was over optimistic in how fast I could learn how to fly all of the ships and how much isk I could earn in my playtime.
Show me the money! Last year I came up with 4 ways to make money to finance my planned ship buying spree. So how did I do?
- Develop perfect refining. I managed to gain perfect refining skills in Core Complexion stations last August and went on to get them with Eifyr and Co., Six Kin Development and Nurtura. I never really used them as mining proved to not interest me that much. However, the skills come in handy when reprocessing low quality loot and drone minerals. And I don't sell the minerals on the market; I keep them for my own manufacturing purposes.
- Establish a datacore mining operation. I still haven't fully developed the operation, but I have expanded it from 1 agent to 6. And like my refining ability, I keep the datacores for my invention work.
- Doing courier contracts. Doing the courier contracts wasn't as much fun as I thought. Well, it was fun but really not profitable given my cash reserves at the time. In January I managed to make 30 million isk running contracts mostly within the Minmatar Republic. I decided to give up on that area until I had enough cash to make it worthwhile. I still haven't managed to amass the cash. Besides, running the distribution missions is easier and just allows me to relax (unless I'm running through low-sec).
- Planetary Interaction. The one thing that I didn't think I'd be able to do is my biggest source of reliable income. I was concerned about the time commitment but I'm able to do all my PI work in about 15-20 minutes. Then I'm usually going to sleep. But I estimate I'm making 200 - 250 million isk a month in high-sec. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but I don't think that is too bad given the effort I put into it.
Ramping up production. As usual, something at the bottom of my list winds up as something I really wound up doing. Of the eight tech 2 ships I own, I have manufactured five of them: Mastodon, Wolf, Hound, Stiletto and Rapier. And I have created a lot more tech 2 blueprint copies. Here is just the ships I can build.
| Ship | Runs |
| Cheetah | 2 |
| Hound | 1 |
| Mastodon | 4 |
| Muninn | 5 |
| Prowler | 3 |
| Rapier | 1 |
| Stiletto | 2 |
| Vagabond | 4 |
| Wolf | 1 |
I've also spent some time doing material research on some of my tech 1 ship blueprints which reduces the production costs by requiring less minerals. So far I've only produced ships more my personal use, but I get a nice sense of satisfaction when the ships launch from the production facilities.
The Year Ahead
So what do I want to accomplish in the year ahead? I've thought about it for a week or so and came up with this list.
Cool Ships. I want to finish my goal from last year of owning every sub-capital Minmatar ship, but I can't see that happening. So I'll lower my goal and try to own every ship except the Panther, the Minmatar black ops ship, and the faction ships.
Excluding the faction ships doesn't mean I won't try to own any. I just have a way I want to acquire them that I don't think I can get done by next August. I want to purchase the 2 run blueprint copies of the Republic Fleet Firetail, Stabber Fleet Issue and Tempest Fleet Issue from the Minmatar BPC agents. Why won't I succeed this year? Let's just say that I need an unmodified standing of 9.2 with the Republic Fleet to get the Stabber Fleet Issue bpc and my current standing is .07. So if I manage to get any faction ships this way I'll consider it bonus points.
Oh, and this year I will finish up getting the skills to fly all of the sub-capital Minmatar ships. I've already created the skill queue in EVEMon to do it.
Manufacturing. I want to build on the infrastructure I've created building ships for myself to start building items for sale on the market. In Everquest 2 I didn't really get into crafting for the market until year 3 and it looks like the pattern is going to hold for Eve Online as well. Before attempting to sell any tech 2 ships I think I want to sell tech 1 items first. I still need to do a lot of material research on blueprints but I have an idea of how I want to proceed. I do need to continue building my datacore farming network and perhaps try to find some sources closer to my home base.
Wandering Rose. Although today is Rosewalker's birthday, I needed to decide what to do with Wandering Rose. I've read some authors who say that as they write that some characters just develop a personality of their own. The same is true for Wandering Rose. Originally created as an industrial alt, she has turned into the CEO of Khumaak Flying Circus and a pilot devoted to the cult of the autocannon. Where Rosewalker is more comfortable sniping at a distance, Wandering Rose prefers to get up close and personal with the enemy.
Since Wandering Rose is the CEO, I've got three main goals for her. The first is to get the Elite Core Competency certificate. I just like having it because it means I shouldn't have any fitting problems. The second is to build leadership skills. Not just Corporate Management, but she needs to have the ability to use gang links as well. She flies a Hurricane in combat now and since I prefer shield tanking, the shield efficiency and shield harmonizing links would be perfect while running missions. And since a CEO should fly in style, I'd like to get her trained up to fly a Sleipner or a Claymore. The third goal is to continue improving her industrial skills. As part of that I'd like to finish up the starter profession certificates. And given my upcoming trip to Bulgaria, I might also put the Production Manager Elite certificate on my wish list.
Can I accomplish all of that in 12 months? I doubt it, but that won't stop me from trying.
Get out of my comfort zone. I've gotten really comfortable in Heimatar and Metropolis. I don't need to leave the Minmatar Republic, but I probably need to spend more time in low-sec. The way the game is developing high-sec is going to receive a series of nerfs over the next year and I need to get over my fear of space where people shoot at you. I need to get to the point where I take ships into those regions that don't stay cloaked throughout the entire trip. That's right, I need to shoot at things.
I also need to go into some places where the NPCs are a bit more unfamiliar. That means doing exploration in high-sec as well as finally entering some C1 or C2 wormholes. What happened Christmas Eve shook me up and I've played it safe ever since. Now that the corp is a lot better off financially, I can take a few more risks.
Role play. I would really like to get into role play. I even set up an account on the Backstage forums but didn't log in for months until last night. I wrote up background stories for both Rosewalker and Wandering Rose that I should update and post someday. I was actually disappointed when CCP decided to make it so others can see your standings with all the factions and NPC corporations. That was one less way to make the role play tie into the game.
I'm not really sure how to get introduced into the role play community within Eve. I guess that's one thing I can try to learn.
Too much? Am I trying to do too much? Probably. But if I try to do more than I possibly can, I can't claim I have nothing to do, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment