My Boring EVE Life

One of these days I will start writing about cool stuff again. But for now, I’m just chronicling my EVE-related activities. For some reason, my coding project is taking up quite a bit of my free time, but I think I have the most urgent part complete.

Over the weekend, I managed to figure out how to download market information using the ESI and then storing it into a file. My first query involved downloading all the information for tech 3 subsystems. Since the introduction of the new subsystems in July 2017, I only have a couple of more weeks to play around downloading the entire dataset. For now, the only things I need to do are code in a start and stop date and then I’ll be able to start doing a few other things with the ESI, like maybe trying to figure out how to insert the data directly into a database.

Why collect the data in the first place? Over the last few months I wanted to play with consumer price indexes in EVE. Looking at the PLEX and black market RMT data, I thought creating my own price index points would shed some light on economics in MMORPGs. The subject I am most interested is what does the conversion of a game to a hybrid payment model do to the in-game economy. My only problem was that the tech 3 subsystem data was missing. I just solved that obstacle. I just hope I haven’t forgotten everything I learned about the CPI. Hopefully I took good notes.

In New Eden itself, I have continued my practice of ignoring Abyssal space and so far, the latest live event. I think I will wind up partaking in the event, though, if the SKINs are those Chainbreaker Khumaak SKINs I saw in the shop. Of course, I have so many SKINs from playing Project Discovery and I still haven’t injected a single one. I guess dressing up my ships isn’t a high priority. Which reminds me. I need to wash my Stratios. The ship looks like a slightly toasted marshmallow.

I still haven’t built a CONCORD ship as my factional warfare experiment continues. The new character I created for factional warfare is almost two weeks old and been in the militia since 4 July. I have to say that so far, a new character, at least in the Minmatar (and probably Gallente) militia, can pull in some nice ISK, even only running one or two plexes a night. I started out with 3 Slashers (2 properly fit) and 600,000 ISK on 4 July. Nine days later, I still have my original Slashers plus an additional two I purchased early Thursday morning. With over 52 million ISK still in my wallet, I can afford more. The only reason I haven’t bought them is the pain of moving the ships around. At this point in the experiment, I don’t want to bring in my main characters who can fly Orcas and Mastodons. Let’s just say that transporting mass amounts of cargo in a Wreathe is a pain.
I now have proper fittings for all five Slashers, although I only learned Mechanics IV, the skill required to fit Damage Control IIs, while I was sleeping last night. I was waiting on that skill to complete before trying to fight someone. Besides the improved tank, the self-imposed requirement allowed me time to amass a bankroll.

Did I just suggest I wanted to partake in PvP? While the money is good, plexing sucks. A few times I wondered if I should log into my main mining character because sitting in a complex is so boring and no one was roaming through. I guess I shouldn’t say no one. I saw quite a few Minmatar militia pilots and a few Gallente militia pilots. I even spotted a couple of Amarr pilots. They don’t seem to hang around very long, at least in the nice quiet neighborhood I patrol. I did wind up scooping a corpse in a complex.

I think what I need to do is start paying closer attention to the status of the war zone. I think getting involved in a fight over a structure might be interesting. I watch the militia chat and check the control board in the factional warfare tab to see where the action is. I’m still at the stage of trying to build up a nest egg and a stash of ships so losing a ship or two won’t hurt. But I think I’m almost at the point I can get a little more adventurous.

As for other activities, I don’t think I did any low sec mining over the past week. I’m thinking of doing a little ninja mining in a wormhole. I did run a couple of data and relic sites, but I even have spent the time probing down wormholes as well as combat and gas sites I don’t run just for the practice. Right now, I just need to decide whether I want to enter wormholes that lead into low sec or go for ones I can enter from high sec. The low sec option just feels right for some reason.