Eve Online Log

[samroski]

Updating this blog after 3.5 years.

 

The first 2 years were spent doing industry and trade. I found a great corp mate, who took over research and manufacturing tasks. Our POS was running 24/7 and we manufactured vast amounts of T2 goods, and some T1 stuff, and shipped it in our freighters to trade hubs in Amarr and Caldari space.

 

We made many billions. More importantly, I had the opportunity to spend time with a great human being. He joined the corp as a trade apprentice (the apprenticeship program) and got really good at what we do. He had interest in industry, so I made him a director in the corp, giving him access to corp blueprints and our POS, and we never looked back.

 

Eventually we had had enough and called it a day. Our share from liquidation of left over dregs from manufacturing was about 20b each. The corp retained a large number of fully researched BPOs and thousands of BPCs.

 

I lost my way in Eve at this point. Fortunately a couple of PLEX for Good drives gave me direction. I had managed a fund for this purpose for many years, and had kept reinvesting the money. Somehow this did not seem enough, so I liquidated everything I had and donated.

 

Starting from scratch was interesting. I started with buy orders at Jita for the really cheap meta 4 stuff, and for selected cheap lower meta items. Each of these items I sold for just under a million. This got me back on my feet pretty quickly, and I could contribute significantly to the next PLEX for Good drive.

 

The one item that I did not want to liquidate at a throwaway price was my sole T2 BPO. I came into possession of this item by pure luck.

 

I had been following T2 BPOs in the Sell Orders forum for a while, but they had taken a recent hike in prices putting them out of my reach. I suddenly noticed someone offering a cruise missile BPO for 9b. This was a steal, as the current price was at least 12b, more like 15. Unfortunately I had no money as I had recently invested with a friend from MD (Market Discussions forum). A few minutes later I got a message from the friend returning 10b of the investment for a reason I do not recall.

 

So I typed in an 8.2b bid in the auction, knowing that I would not be able to keep up with the bidding later on, as auction end was 10 hours away. A couple of minutes later I received an in-game message from the seller asking me if I was good for the money. He was somewhere near the edge of the galaxy and was making his way to high sec. I was on tender hooks for the next half an hour, but there was no activity on the forums. The seller set up a public contract for the BPO in Lonetrek, and I scrambled from Jita to Sobaseki to accept it.

 

The seller then spent half an hour giving me advice on how to use and take care of the BPO. This made me feel real bad. I did not have the heart to inform him of his folly, let alone rub it in. So I immediately decided to give half proceeds from the eventual sale of the BPO to charity. But my attempts (1, 2) at selling the BPO for PLEX drives were not successful.

 

Since then I have learned that copying T2 missile BPOs costs (next-to) nothing, so I've been churning out max run fully researched copies for a while, which by now could serve the needs of a generation of Eve players.

 

It may be worth mentioning that I tried some null-sec trade using an alt. I first managed to get a ship full of blueprints to an NPC station in Venal where I set up orders for minerals and got T1 manufacturing going. This infiltration was successful at the 2nd attempt. The first ship, full of tons of blueprints, was lost tragically at M-OEE8.

 

I had scouted this area in 2010, and there is a blog for those who are interested. The recent entries are from 2013 when I took in the blueprints, and later got Blag Frog to freighter in stuff for trade. Made a fair bit of money, which also eventually went to PLEX for Good.

[samroski]

My time in Eve for the last 3 years has been sporadic. I would log in for a few days every 2-3 months and generally do one or more of the following activities:

 

1. Firework displays outside Jita, and at times outside Amsen (my birth station). I have been buying fireworks (among other items) for years using regional buy orders, and I have thousands/millions of every kind. I have a fleet of ships at Jita with 6-8 festival launchers each, filled with fireworks, ready to go at all times. In recent years CCP have introduced some great fireworks and my impulsive displays are legendary imho.

 

2. Setting up scores of courier contracts aimed at newish players, to collect items from all over the galaxy and transport to Jita (frequently via other hubs). I have items and ships in every station (thanks to regional buy orders), and I love interacting with couriers. I reward them well and frequently give bonuses and replace their ships/losses (low sec work). I don't really need the items I collect, but it creates interesting gameplay for me and it gives me great satisfaction providing work opportunities for capsuleers with entry level ships (these contracts are generally low volume).

 

3. Trade PVP, where I set up large buy orders at Jita for items I need, and overcut (is this a word?) other traders by large margins, over a longish period of time. Also use sell orders, at times concurrently with buy orders, with healthy undercutting. This creates hilarious situations at times, as I can push people to the extreme. They either break, or end in loss, or the market collapses (for less popular items), or I get what I want, at a rate still better than buying off sell orders. The cost of these items does not really matter as my trade margins are huge (>100%), but tears are invaluable.

 

4. Level 4 missions. I have a number of ships set up for pve, and I have been testing them, trying the newer modules, and trying different fitting strategies with newer slot layouts and newer missions. I love the fact that rigs are not destroyed when removed! This is revolutionary, and should have been there since day 1. To think of the rigs I have destroyed over the years... The market for rigs must have taken a hit when the change was introduced, but I missed it. I'm currently playing around with my tengu layout, as I somehow now have 6 low slots. I tried the Golem a few months ago, and it was super-effective, but the micromanagement necessary for efficiency got to me after a while (painful to even talk about), and thus I'm currently flying the tengu where I push one button and it kills the bugger.

 

With my rekindled interest in missions, I was reminded of the time in Journey's End (8 years ago) where we had great fun doing group missions. On an impulse I made Sam Roski (my alt) CEO of Games Inc., left the corp, and am now looking to join a corp with some decent people who like doing missions.

[madonnagwen]

nice