Wave Serpent Turret

I finished the Wave Serpent chassis on the weekend, sealing the deal and glossying up the gems. Now I'm working hard on the turret and driver:

Back On Track

The angst and drama from yesterday morning have subsided, and we are now moving as a whole towards the goal of making lots of ISK as quickly as possible from the purchased BPOs. The hardest part will be securing enough minerals in order to start building and KEEP building the battlecruisers and battleships, but should we prove able to do that, the money shold roll in.

This is a perfect example of why pre-planning and discussion would have been ideal, and why impulse plans are not. Had we discussed and agreed to do this a week before the downtime, we could have pre-purchased and transported the minerals and been ready to go hours after downtime. Now we are probably not going to see our first products roll off the assembly line until the weekend or early next week. Oh well, spilt milk and all that.

In other Eve news, Kirith finished his last Learning skill last night and started in Caldari Industrial III so I can fly me some Badger MKIIs. That will be done around noon and then I will start working on other skills to get them all up to higher levels before branching off into bigger ships.

Downtime

The Kali patch was installed yesterday and this morning I got up early to log in and try it out. I experienced a bit of lag at first, but it could have been my connection. So far, everything seems ok. Except one little detail...

I look in my corp mail this morning and see a whole plan for making ISK from new blueprints someone bought last night after the downtime was over. It pissed me off immensely.

The plan was good for the most part, although I had some ideas for improving it. The investment and initiative were great, nice to see a corp member throwing down some serious money to by those expensive blueprints.

No, what pissed me off at first was that the plan called for someone else outside the corp to build the ships from the blueprints because they "have perfect build skills".  Well, what the hell is Derranna? Chopped liver? I just spent two months training her including 18+ days for Production Efficiency 5 so that she can build as good as anyone else in Eve. There is no better.

Then the more I considered it I got ticked because the plan was proposed, discussed, and pratically decided upon before I even got out of bed this morning. No one, as far as I know, from the Manufacturing or Marketing divisions were contacted to disucss it. I understand corps sometimes need to be nimble and react quickly to make a buck, but surely we should have been given a chance to give input before extorting corp members to buy minerals and transport them to a system we have no base to be used in building ships by someone who is not in our corp. And they have agreed to use corp funds to do all this. One director and one diplomat can authorize the purchase of millions of ISK of minerals to be transferred to someone outside the corp without some discussion? WTF?

Here I am not using the corp wallet at all as I build up my plan and expertise to produce items for profit for the corp, and now I feel like a cautious idiot.

So yeah, I am annoyed and I've venting here. I'm pretty sure the people involved were not trying to cut anyone out of the process. After all, it IS a good plan from the looks of the market and we might stand to make a killing. I just think we need to review the plan and get more people on board before we go off half cocked buying minerals and giving them to someone else when the character I invested in for the corp can do it just as well as anyone else can.

Kali is Here

Well, being installed on the servers anyways. To keep you occupied in the meantime, here are some pictures from flying with Al last week.

Al and I on patrol:
 

Combat Training:

And my pretty Merlin returning from a mission:
 

Enjoy!

Bad Weekend For EvE

Besides some action Friday evening, I had hardly any quality time with Eve this weekend.

Friday evening I got out into some PvP with Nhi'Khuna which saw us get absolutely owned when we attacked a red-flashy pilot. Tech II drones equals pain. Still, it was fun to be out hunting. Of course, Nhi'Khuna went out later that evening with others and bagged a whole lot of shit, but that is my lot in life it seems.

Saturday morning I flew up to High Sec space in a shuttle to pick up a +4 Memory implant from John, aka Marcus Fint. It cost me 43 million to buy but I'm going to try and turn around and sell it in Pelille for 50 million since I die too oftent o really want a 43 million ISK implant in my clone.

The corp is considering running a PoS with another corp on the other side of the galaxy. I expressed my reservations but I'm willing to go along with the majority once we make a decision. I'd prefer to run at least one more Itrin-like operation before this project, but we'll see if it pans out that way.

Derranna got Production Efficiency 5 finally, and has started Lab Op 5 with my eye on Adv Lab Op up to 3 or 4 after that. Then the factory skills to operate them at a distance. Kirith is on the last learning skill (Focus 4) now which should be done later in the week. I did Navigation 4 and Warp Operation 4 over the weekend so Focus 4 would not finish during the Kali downtime starting tonight.

I'm still on the fence about what to do after Focus 4. So many options! But I think I'm going to put off any major decisions and work on leveling up existing skills to decent levels, then branch off once those are up to par.

Bad Weekend For EvE

Besides some action Friday evening, I had hardly any quality time with Eve this weekend.

Friday evening I got out into some PvP with Nhi'Khuna which saw us get absolutely owned when we attacked a red-flashy pilot. Tech II drones equals pain. Still, it was fun to be out hunting. Of course, Nhi'Khuna went out later that evening with others and bagged a whole lot of shit, but that is my lot in life it seems.

Saturday morning I flew up to High Sec space in a shuttle to pick up a +4 Memory implant from John, aka Marcus Fint. It cost me 43 million to buy but I'm going to try and turn around and sell it in Pelille for 50 million since I die too oftent o really want a 43 million ISK implant in my clone.

The corp is considering running a PoS with another corp on the other side of the galaxy. I expressed my reservations but I'm willing to go along with the majority once we make a decision. I'd prefer to run at least one more Itrin-like operation before this project, but we'll see if it pans out that way.

Derranna got Production Efficiency 5 finally, and has started Lab Op 5 with my eye on Adv Lab Op up to 3 or 4 after that. Then the factory skills to operate them at a distance. Kirith is on the last learning skill (Focus 4) now which should be done later in the week. I did Navigation 4 and Warp Operation 4 over the weekend so Focus 4 would not finish during the Kali downtime starting tonight.

I'm still on the fence about what to do after Focus 4. So many options! But I think I'm going to put off any major decisions and work on leveling up existing skills to decent levels, then branch off once those are up to par.

Changing Eve Plans

Originally I was going to finish my last learning skill late Monday and be free, free as a bird.

Then the announcement went out that Kali was deploying one hour before that last skill would finish. DOh! So I decided to interject Navigation 4 and 5 which will take me to after the deployment of Kali (Revelations is just sooo long to say!) and then I will jump on Focus 4 to finish next Monday.

Derranna will have no problems as her Production Efficiency finishes Sunday afternoon and then flows into Laboratory Operation 5 for 6 days more. Then Advanced Lab Operation to get some more slots.

Wave Serpent Looks Cool

The Wave Serpent chasis is almost done. All I have left is to do the grill at the back, spray the sealant, and then do the cockpit canopy. I got fancy last night trying out some script and thorns. I'm pleased with the result.

Moving

I had to cancel my training with Al last night because the corp is moving wholesale out of Itrin. The operation was a success and now we need a break before the next one. I took all my mods to Asanot and a couple ships so that Dennis could transport it all in the freighter along with all the rest of the corp's belongings. Then I put all my Caracals and Merlins except one on the market for a month. Try and make some money off them instead of running back and forth from Itrin to Asanot for a couple hours. Easy enough to buy or make more later.

Once it was all cleaned up, I jumped in my last Merlin and flew it back to Pelille, showing Al the corp hanger stuff. Tonight if Al is not on, I might jump to 9GYL and fly with others if they are around.

Training Day

Last night Al (aka Optivus) and I flew a training mission in which I showed him little details that experience pilots take for granted. Warping to gang member, warping the game, agent mission bookmarks, NPC aggro, etc. It was cool and fun to fly with another Merlin pilot. Unfortunately the rest of the corp was off PvPing in Itrin but I feel its important to give the newbs attention to help get them up to speed faster.

Tonight we are going to try and fly again, this time looking at mundane stuff like the corp hanger, trading items/money, Escrow, and bookmark copying and usage. After that Al should be ready to fly missions or PvP as he sees fit.

I also picked up a Badger MkII last night as it was in the Pelille base and the only Badger for sale in Placid was 8 jumps away. I only need Caldari Industrial 3 to fly it and I have that skill at 2 already. Next Monday when I'm done Focus IV (Happy Dance!) I'll plow into that skill so Tuesday night I can fit it out.

Director

Woohoo! I got promoted today as the Board of Directors voted unaminously (with one absention) to raise me to Director. Awesome. My efforts in the research and manufacturing and marketing areas is paying off.

Best part is I get to continue to work towards making the manufacturing department profitable and I get to use the executive spa and exercise room.

Pictures from the Weekend

Here's a picture of me flying my Badger:

Here's me attacking an asteroid during the dark time before my first kill:

And here's the latest on the wave serpent:

Gems are in progress.

Setting Up

Last night I was setting up a hanger of ships in Pelille for flying with Al and John. Al made it down to Pelille, but John's had more trouble and nearly got ganked. Plus John seems to be more care-bearish than others and is loath to lose a ship on a slightly risky jaunt. He's talking about wait a month until he can get in a bigger boat. Egads!

But that's the thing about Eve: everyone does what they want how they want and no one can make you tow the line. Awesome. So John, if you are reading this, take your time and do what is fun and comfortable for you. Maybe one week I'll fly up to high sec space and fly some missions with you. :)

Al on the other hand, you're going into Boot Camp with me! We need all the firepower we can get on the front lines as our home is being invaded. *cracks whip*

Eve Goings Ons

On Saturday I got a good chunk of playing time in. First off I got Derranna back into Empire space to pick up her new run-around ship, a Mimitar Probe frigate. Its got speed, decent cargo space, and good for a little mining. But damn if it ain't goofy looking.

Then I played with Kirith. Friday night I tried to get into a PvP op and after some frustrating waiting for people to get their ships together, we headed out but the targets were few and far between and besides a corp mate getting smoked at a gate it was no luck. Apparently, if your sec status hits -5 and you become a red blinky on the overview, anyone can attack you insight of the sentry guns and not get fired upon. Ouch, good to know.

Saturday was even more frustrating. I went out with some guys but we couldn't find any targets. Then, while three of us waited at a gate while another scouted out the next system, a few ships show up. Nobody's blinking red so we sit there nervously. Suddenly a battleship targets and blows my caracal out of space. Ouch! He tanked the sentry gun fire and warped away after putting me down. I went back to base and jumped in a Merlin but the action was over. Even worse, a couple times while jumping with the Merlin my Eve client would freeze and demand a reboot. Pissed me right off the second time, but I didn't lose any ships because of it. Stupid home PC.

At this point I had lost 4 caracals overall in Operation Outhouse and participated in no attacks. Despondant, went back to Derranna and did some mining. Mining! Egads, how I had fallen.

But there was some whispers on vent and I kept one ear open. Suddenly a corp member comes on and says "I've got targets two systems over! Who wants to help?" I couldn't resist. I switched back to Kirith, jumped in another Caracal and undocked. Hooked up with two other guys and we slip towards Bantish. The gang leader went into the system to lock a target down while me and the other guy wait outside the gate, mouse icons over the jump button.

"I got him! Jump now, warp to me!"

We fly into action, jump the gate, warp to the leader. Drones are flying as the bubble collapses and a second enemy in a Maller warps in to help his fellow. The first target blows ups and the second gets scrammed. I lock and let the Caldari Missile Spammer let loose. The Maller is one against three and doesn't stand a chance. In seconds his ship is destroyed and I get my first Kill Mail, showing how I laid the final blow.

YAAAAARRRRRRRR!!! I'm a pirate now, me!

Man, what a blast. Targets 4, Bill 1. But I've got my first taste of blood now. Muhahahahah!

As a bonus, here's picture of my character sheet revealing the bulk of learning skill points I've amassed.

Good news is I'm almost done. Today at four I'm be done Clarity 4, Presence 4 by Friday, and Focus 4 by this time next week. Bad news is, I keep changing my plans for what I'm going to do next! One moment I want to drive to fly interdictors, but Lucius is going to do that and I want to improve my other basic skills first. Next moment I want to improve all my existing skills including the missiles and stuff. Then I was considering moving up to a Ferox and training Gunnery skills and becoming a master sniper. Sigh.

Fortunately, skill points are coming fast and furious and anything I decide to do will be quick coming.

Golden Marine 11 On the Books.

The 11th Golden Marine is done and over with. See the Deep Space forums for details. 

I didn't play myself, but I had a good time visiting with friends, watching the games, and eating Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. Yum.

Again, congrats to Ryan to winning it all with his Dark Eldar.

Al Wanted More Eve Pictures...

So here is my hanger in Itrin. Sweet, ain't it?

All ready for serious PvP.

What Next?

So I committed to 2000 pts for the Eldar Megabattle. Last night I added up how many points I had painted using the new codex. The total came to 1793 and it wasn't pretty. Only 262 pts in troops. Frig.

So the question becomes how do I make a good 2000 pts list painted and ready for April 1st? Well, let's look at my current range of options.

HQ:

Here I have my two farseers and three warlocks painted and ready to go. I can't foresee leaving any of them behind for any reason. I've considered using the Eldrad rules for Farseer Ianthus to give him some gravitas on the field of battle and that pumps up the points, and giving him a bodyguard of three warlocks. The other farseer would be taken as an IC and join the squad to give me a Seer Council with some serious power.

Elites:

All I got painted in this category any more is my two squads of Striking Scorpions. One 10 man squad riding in a wave serpent with a power claw, the other 6 man infiltrating with a Biting Blade. The new rules make the weapon worth it. The wave serpent has the twin brightlance which is a bump in points.

Troops:

I'm very weak here. One guardian squad with 10 guys and an antigrav platform, and 6 jetbikes. I've got the wave serpent I'm working on right now for the guardians to bump them up a bit and make them more flexible, and rangers in the queue that I guess I better buckle down and finish. The real question is can I paint up the ten Dire Avengers in time for April 1st? I guess I'm going to find out.

Fast Attack:

The Warp Spiders are fast attack now, and only 152 pts with the five models including exarch kitted out. Also the perennial two vypers with scatterlasers are still a solid addition.

Heavy Support:

The Shadow Weavers are much cheaper now and still as effective. Ive got a selection of Dark Reapers to field but I really need a new Exarch with Tempest Launcher. Finally I have the option of a Falcon or a Fire Prism. I love the Fire Prism but need the Falcon for the Seer Council so unless I get painting a lot, I'm going to have to go with the Falcon.

---

After that quick analysis, I think my goal should be to finish the wave serpent, 5 rangers, and 10 Dire Avengers. That's not an impossible task. With those added to my troops area, I can weed out some other units of questionable use and have a proper list ready. Yay me!

 

Jump Clone Enabled!

Watch that first jump, its a woozy!

Last night I joined Dark Reality and zoomed deep into Amarr space to get two jump clones set up. I then zoomed back to Pelille, and made my first jump into one of my new clones. Easy as pie! That's just fricking awesome. I then sped into Itrin (picking up a spare Caracal along the way). I now have the ability to go to Pelille and back with the click of a button (and a 24 hour cool down period after each jump). My third clone is going to be destined for 31MLU to be my mining/ratting dude.

In other news, I've made some first steps towards actually selling products for profit by biulding a bunch of ammo to put up for sale. I'd put it up myself but brokerage fees can be reduced by someone with the correct skills so I'll depend on my corp mates there. If the ammo sells well, we'll move on to common mods as they finish researching.

Wraithbone

Out of all the improvements in my painting style for Eldar, one of the simplest things that makes the most difference has been my new approach to doing wraithbone. In the past all I would do is paint the target ivory and call it a day. No longer! Now I base in ivory, cover it in a really watered down beastial brown, and then highlight with ivory over top. It gives a nice effect of being more organic and bringing out details. Last night I applied the technique to the wave serpent.

Here's a close up of the before and after:

Quite the difference, eh?

Next step is to tidy up the black and red, then begin the highlighting in the dark blue and blazing orange.

Must Paint for Megabattle!

Only 136 days until the next Eldar Megabattle, the Hunt for Khirian! I've committed to fielding 2000 pts and to do so I need to get painting in order to field something worth fielding. So time to start painting during TV again. Last night I got back into the wave serpent and finished the blood red and started the wraithbone areas.

Still in rough shape, but start to come together.

I'm Leaving IPRC...

Ha! Fooled you!

I am leaving IPRC, but only for a day. I'm getting some jump clones and to do that I need my corp to have a +10 standing with the corporation that owns the starbases with the medical facilities. However, corp standings to NPC corps (who own all the stations not deep in 0.0 space) are notoriously hard to raise because it depends on the average of all players in the corp that have any standing with the NPC corp. Confused?

So, to get around this certain individuals set up small one person corps and then run missions to the max with an NPC corp to raise their own standing (and thus the 'average' standing of the corp) to the point where they can get jump clones. But here's the kicker: anyone else who joins that corp that has no standing to the NPC corp is treated as having the standing of their corp. Thus was born Jump Clone Services corporations.

I'm joining Dark Reality (tonight hopefully) and getting a couple jump clones, then re-joining IPRC. The clones will allow me to switch from Pelille, 9GYL, or Itrin with ease. The only downside for me is the 24 hour wait period after jumping into a clone.

In other news, I'm very intrigued by the rumours of Faction Warfare coming in Kali, aka Revelations. I'm considering taking a leave of absence from IPRC to fight for my nation for a while, earning medals and ranks. Sounds very cool and appealing to me. We'll see how it goes first though.

What If Japan Won the War In the Pacific?

Well, last night that is exactly what happened.

Playing Axis & Allies: Pacific with Andrew the game usually follows a pattern. Early on Japan rules, but slowly the superior production of the US and British wear down the Imperial fleet and finally Japan has one last gasp to try and take a capital and ultimately fails.

Last night's game with me as the Allies and Andrew as Japan seemed to be following that pattern. Andrew was getting frustrated and ready to surrender, I was feeling confident and sure of victory. Then, BAM! I lost an entire fleet in exchange for one transport. Another lopsided land battle the same turn and suddenly I was on the defensive with time running out at a rapid pace. I tried to stem the flow of VPs to Japan but it was too late as Andrew took the Chinese capital and forced a surrender of the Allies.

In hindsight, I was too confident and threw far to many units to their deaths in uneven battles, depending on superior production to save me. Andrew played a poor to middling start of game, but finished very strong with some awesome moves and strategies in the end game. Axis and Allies: Pacific remains as one of the best two player board games I know.

Bonus, we finished in three and a half hours.

Game Night!

Got a game with Andrew playing Axis & Allies: Pacific tonight. Wish me luck.

Plastic Everywhere

Here are the new warwalkers all assembled (weapons are magnetized, not glued):

And the growing pile of plastic to be painted:

Things Move Faster Than Expected Sometimes

Part of my Manufacturing Empire dream for IPORC was opening a corp hanger in 31MLU, and then storing all main BPOs there. Then other bases would remain stocked for production by creating and shipping BPCs to them. That way all research could be focused in one place, and BPOs would never need to move again.

My manufacturing superior Lucius also felt a need to open a corp hanger in 31MLU for other reasons. You see, if you start a manufacturing or research job from the corp hanger, anyone with the proper roles in the corp can view and manage those jobs. So he went to the directorship and explained his case for a 4 million ISK per month office in 31MLU, which was agreed. It opened and I moved all the BPOs into the hanger and started three new jobs from there. Sweet! Now I just have to push forward on my building for profit vision and getting more BPOs over here.

Lucius also expressed the possibility of his own research alternate character coming into the corp, which could mean even more research, and I'm now thinking that perhaps training up to Advanced Lab operation would not be such a bad idea.

On the other side of the galaxy, Kirith has managed to consolidate almost all his resources and I'm heading him back to Pelille area so I can use a jump clone service to get a couple jump clones. One I will take to 31MLU, another to stay in Pelille, and the third will head back to the opertion area. That way I will have some flexibility for mission running, PvPing, or ratting/mining as I see fit.

Weekend Activities Part 2

On the Warhammer side of things, Friday afternoon I got my box set of warwalkers and immediately spent the rest of the weekend gluing them and the last three Dire Avengers together. All I have left is the magnets in the weapons. Pictures forthcoming this week.

Weekend Activities

Learning PvP in Eve has been hard for me. First off, I'm never online when the rest of the guys are mixing it up, and when I'm soloing I have no one there to say "Don't do that!!". Take Saturday morning for example...

I had a couple hours and a couple caracals made up so I went hunting. First I engaged a target too big for me, a battle cruiser, and appropriately got all blown up. I warped back to base in my pod, jumped in a second caracal and undocked... not remembering that the global agression counter still hated my ass and sentry guns started firing. Ack! I warp off... but not to a safe spot. Instead I warp to a gate, with more sentry guns with the hate on. Boom. Fuck.

I spent the rest of my playing time saturday and sunday morning replishing my supply of ships and mods and ammo. Sunday night I was ready for another hour of PvP, but lost half of it waiting for a corp mate to join me. Had I realized he would need so long to decide what mods, undock, try it out, go back and refit again, I would have just gone off by myself. Sigh. Needless to say, still no killmails for the Billster.

I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to say PvP is not for me. I'm either online when everyone else is not, or can only get online for an hour and have to leave before the operation even gets going. Solo PvP has been utterly brutal on my ass, losing three caracals in exchange for scratching the shields of others due to my own stupidity. I'm so frustrated cause I want to be a hunter and am not making any progress.

So I'm thinking of a career change. Mission running, Mining, or Trading are all options. Mission running has the advantage of requiring similar skills as PvP so I would continue to train in that direction and perhaps come back to PvP in the future. Mining on the other hand would play into my manufacturing side of things, providing minerals to Derranna to build stuff to sell. Trading is the least attractive, requiring lots of travelling and researching the markets.

I have a few days to make a decision as my learning skills are finishing in a week or two. I have 2.1 million skill points, of which 1.6 are in Learning skills, so if I'm going to make a Career change, now would be the time.

Work Work Work

Well, not really. Last night was taking care of business night. Derranna flew back from Empire with her newly trained Laboratory Operation skill at Lvl 3 and started three more research jobs, then scooted over to 9GYL to take some fresh BCUs out of the oven and throw some Scourge Heavies in.

Back in the hunting grounds, my main man Kirith purchased four Caracals from Neferata and a Badger industrial on escrow at a cheap price. I then had to consolidate all those purchases into Itrin which took a fair amount of time. As a bonus, I realized I hit 2 million skill points last night. The learning skills delay is starting to feel like its worth it as I'm only 2 months in exactly and yet over the hump of 2 million. Of course, a lot of those are in Learning which don't improve my flying or anything else, but it will all be worth it in the long run.

Tonight if I get a chance I have to outfit all my new cruisers for combat. Time to get back out there!

Doh!

Lucius and I transferred some blueprints over to the lab only to find they were the wrong set of Spare BPOs. Oh well, no big deal. Then I discovered I didn't have the right skills for operating multiple labs. I confused multiple factories with multiple laboratories. So I swung up to Empire today and got the basic skill and should have it trained four levels tonight so I can operate five at a time.

Still, making progress even if it is not in a straight line.

In other news, I put the first of my magnets into the Wraithlord and his weapons last night. I can now swap weapons with ease. Because the mangets were a lot smaller than I expected, I had to use two to make a good join. That way it will only come off if I turn it upside down and shake it. With only one it was a little less secure.

Oh I almost Forgot!

My mini rare earth magnets arrived in the mail last night, 200 of them. They're sooooo tiny! I'm going to have fits trying to get them in the right spots. :P

Manufacturing for Fun and Profit

Phase 1 of the research plan is coming along, with approval to research 12 BPOs granted and plans underway to move them the four hops to the research station. Little do the members of IPORC realize this is but the first step of my grander plan to build the corporation into a manufacturing empire! Muhahahahah!

Unless of course they read this blog, in which case the cats out of the bag. Oh well.

The next few phases will involve research more BPOs, but also starting to push the corp to explore building ships, mods, and ammo for selling. Here's what I think the ideal plan would be.

All of the BPOs are at a station with factory and lab slots. When we are not researching our BPOs, we are making BPCs from them. These BPCs are then transported to 9GYL or our current base of operations for keeping supplies stocked. Sometimes we can sell the BPCs to people looking for short term manufacturing abilities at a cheaper price than buying a BPO and plus it is researched so it is more effiicient and quicker.

At the same time, we are building stuff to sell out of our BPO station. We don't want to overstock, so we build a few things we know people are always looking for (ships especially, ammo and mods to a lesser degree) and sell them at a competitive price. Since our BPOs will be researched and our manufacturers are top quality, we cut out as much overhead as possible allowing us to sell lower than average yet still make a healthy profit. 9GYL is too remote for this type of activity, the research station is a bit more central and attractive.

The only difficulty to all this plan is mineral procurement. As I discovered when investigating my own manufacturing corp, buying minerals is easy, its getting them to the factory that is the time consuming and risky part. However, I hope as I build inroads with my plan I can mobilze the corp as a whole to provide the minerals either by transporting them for the manufacturing division or providing loot for melting.

Its all so exciting!

Epic Battle

Pictures can be found here.

Chris and I played our delayed 4000 pt battle on Friday night and it was quite the tilt. However, in the end Chris' big tank formation proved to be too mobile and intimidating for me and my artillery proved to not be enough to swing the game my way.

I did get first turn and I did nuke the Vultures out of the picture. I did prevent my Banelord from dying although he was at one point at the end of four turns, all damage coming in the last turn. But the rest of my army was outgunned and I was outplayed by the crafty general that is Chris.

Ah well. Next time Chris, next time.

Lesson learned this time: Imperial Guard blobs are far more resilent than any other detachment in the game. Assaulting them with a normal sized unit means they have a +3 advantage to start due to outnumbering and the Commisar. My bikes finally learned the hard way that they will not be moved so easily. Marines and Eldar are easy to kill, IG? Bugger they are tough.

Interlude

The basement re-working is complete. My workbench of doom has been succesfully replaced with some cupboards for decent storage:

And my new painting friendly table from Ikea and shelves from Canadian Tire:

A lot less room, but far more storage space for both Kim and I.

Lots of Action

Whoa, where to begin? Let's go with Eve.

Derranna spent Saturday morning organizing the blueprints in 9GYL and determining which ones were copies and which were oringals, sorting them into proper containers. This required Show Info clicks on every blueprint which took about an hour and a half, but its done and recorded. Now I can start working the group to push for some research on our originals to improve efficiency. I have big plans for the manufacturing division I tell you. Well researched BPOs allows us to make well researched BPCs which can be used in our warzones or sold for profit. Its all good baby.

Next I tried to do some solo PvPing and was doing ok, having fun and all that. Then near the end of my mission I tracked a industrial to a station but it gave me the slip, however a frigate appears on the overview. In my excitement I lock and fire forgetting that in low sec the stations have sentry guns that do not like it when you do that. BOOOM!!! I laughed all the way back to base in my pod. Lesson learned.

On Sunday night I was in on a group hunt. At one point there was 9 of us in the gang, but after a good hour and a bit I had to run. Too bad, it was just getting exciting. Ah well, I was happy just to get some action with the team finally, but I suspect I need to continue to work on solo PvPing due to my time constraints.

Next, Epic battle report from Friday night.

Close, But No Cigar

Last night I *almost* got my first taste of real PvP action. Adam and I hooked up in Itrin but the corp we are at war with, Short Attention Span, was camping the station and they outnumbered us: we had a cruiser and a frigate, they had a few battleships and battlecruisers. Ok then. So I swapped characters back to 9GYL and continued my efforts to become manufacturing master of 9GYL. Produced some ammo, identified the blueprints for the directors, investigated the lab queues in our local factory. All in all a productive evening. I'm quite pleased.

"But wait! There's more!"

I also glued some Dire Avengers while watching TV, now got 7 of 10 done. They take a surprising amount of effort to trim and assemble properly, but they look sweet when complete. Tonight I have a game of Epic versus Chris that should be a blast. He assumed I wasn't taking any war engines because I've been avoiding them against IG players lately, and I snuck in a Banelord. So while he has a couple Shadowswords, he doesn't have the Death Strikes and I have extra artillery for knocking out the Vultures. Gonna be a wild fight tonight!

Learning Learning Skills Really Blows

I feel like my main character Kirith has been stuck in neutral forever! I've got my memory and intelligence attributes maxed to the point I'm willing to go (to max that last level would take years to payback apparently) and started working on the level 5 of the Will Power and Perception attributes. Then the tier 2 skills for them. Sigh.

Novmember 17th or thereabouts I'll be done learning the Learning skills. Of course, I'm ignoring the Charisma skills for now just because I don't need that attribute for the forseeable future and can always come back to it. Once I'm done the learning, I start into skills that improve the ships I fly now, like boosting agility or CPU output, while still moving towards the Interdictor. By Janurary 28th, I should be flying into battle in my new ship.

I Found My Niche

Well, maybe.

Interesting turn of events last couple days. Monday I was asked to use Derranna to build a ship for someone in 9GYL but pissed off the CEO because he wanted to control hanger access for the corp and wants all manufacturing direction to go through two other directors. Ok, a little confusion, no harm done. But in the ensuing discussions I raised some questions and realized something important: the two guys that do manufacturing for IPRC only do manufacturing, they don't DO Manufacutring. Enter Bill.

They've never looked into doing material or time research on the BPOs. They've never analyzed the mineral (and hence ISK) savings, never tracked how much it cost to build what they have built. They kept the hangers stocked, players in ships, and bought minerals where needed, and they did a damn fine job, no doubt about it. But they are not interested in making the Manufacturing division profitable or efficient, but that is exactly what I was investigating for Kodachi Enterprises before committing myself completely to IPORC.

There is a role here to fill and it is a perfect fit for me. Science and Industry expert with an eye towards becoming Director of Industry. MUHAHAHAHAHA! Of course, first I have to convince everyone in the corp that its in their best interest to hand those reins of power over to me, and that will take some time. I've made some good first steps yesterday showing how research can save the corp lots of minerals in certain cases, and I've been instructed to expand that research further and find out the time frames and costs involved. Stuff other people don't want to do but that I love. I'm weird that way.

Meanwhile, we've been having some success in the target zone (and by 'we', I mean everyone else in the corp except me :P ) hunting the bad guys, and the local corp has declared war upon us. Great, I'm in a war zone. That means that they can fire upon us even in high security space. Wonderful.

Adjustments

I didn't get to play Eve today except to kick off an ammo manufacturing job in 9GYL, but I did do a lot of thinking while reading incoming reports of others getting in on the action. There are a few issues to be being a good corp member in terms of PvP:

1) I tend to be online early in the evening while most others are online later in the evening.
2) I only get online for about an hour and some operations need that long to simply find a target
3) My character is still young and can't fly decent ships for PvP alone.

Realizing this I have to make some adjustments to my expectations that I can live with. So the new plan is to concentrate on my missions and business and jump into PvP operations when I can. Try to do my part fo the coproration as a utility man, taking on solo missions like scouting and hauling to keep the hunters hunting. In a few months when my skills improve, I'll start looking into solo PvPing in cruisers and such.

Patience is required, and I'm notoriously bad for it.