Income. I'm not filthy space rich. I'd like to be but I'm not. Until Odyssey I made the bulk of my income through exploration. I considered this my main income. I did the pewpew at red crosses and occasional found shiny modules and valuable items. The changes to Odyssey changed exploration. It is easier. It is more poplar. You can get into it early. There is no more need of tanked ships to deal with NPCs in sites. There is no more need to duel box a scanning ship and a damage ship. Everything changed. A game was introduced. I spent a lot of time testing it because it directly effected what I had spent my time doing..
I also came to dislike it. I have not scanned since my last review of the Odyssey changes. I don't know why I dislike the system so much. It isn't bad. I think they have done a lot of fantastic things with the system and the UI. I do hate the mini-game. The spew containers are horrible. For some it is fun. For me, I found myself chasing after cans, hitting dscan, collecting wads of space junk and I just walked away. There is more to do than exploration in Eve and I decided to leave exploration for those that wanted to do it.
I could have stuck to just looking for the DED complexes. I debated it. But I was tired. I was tired of scanning and I had other things to do with my time. I had changing interests. I had other things to do. Other things to explore. I was also burned out on scanning. I was deeply, deeply tired of dropping probes. I was also very angry over some changes. I'm still spitting mad over the fact that probes automatically portal their way into your cargo when you leave system. I have a habit of boycotting what I do not like. Such as the Hurricane changes. Such as the homing pidgin probes. Or the fact that both my pod and freighter can see 'exploration sites'. Such as the fact that exploration was ripped out of the exploration system.
A few weeks ago I commented that I was going to learn to mission. My major steps have been accomplished. Last year I started making some alts. I've had various reasons for them. One in particular I've been skilling up. She has an interesting mix of skills and when I went to look at her I realized that she had the potential to be a fantastic mission account. She is an Amarr pilot and I was only a few days away from large T2 lasers.
The waiting for T2 lasers is a reflection of my understanding of the game. The way living in low sec and growing up PvPing has molded my world view shows very much in my molding of a character to PvP. Kaeda took pity on me and helped me understand what a mission fit ship would be like for level 4s. I don't comprehend it still. My PvE has been in low sec for so long and I've never done the high sec missioning thing past doing level 3's with Chella back with her shield Myrm.
Now I am entering into the realm of level 4 missions and I have no idea what to do. I figure that I should be embarrassed. I'm not. I've never been great at fits and min/maxing. I've come to understand the theory more but doing amazing things with fits isn't me. I'll build a happy, standard ship each time with zero creative ability. It is almost embarrassing because I pride myself on my creativity but it has boundaries. Big, big, being bad at ship fit type boundaries.
That is why I run to other people like a child with a skinned knee lusting for a My Little Pony Band-aid.
Kaeda helped me with a fit and went over the entire resits and other stuff that mission runners care about. It doesn't sit correctly with me. Hopefully, I will figure it out. Of course, after I got the ship together I realized that I did not have drone skills. Or navigation skills. Whoops.
At first I thought that it would delay my plans to venture into the land of level 4 income. Then, I decided that if people could get into battleships in a week I could have subpar Nav skills. I'd accept that I had 4's instead of 5's and my drone skills would catch up eventually. I plan to have logi on the field until I know what I am doing.
Now some may say but level 4 missions are whatever. They are. Sure. I'm fine with it. It is something I can do while doing other things like moving my freighter or in the evenings when I don't have time to participate in fleets because of work. I can also do it in high sec. I love low sec but sometimes I am to tired to do active in space things in low sec.
It may make me a horrible person. Beyond that, it is a part of the game I haven't experienced. I don't want to go back to incursions. I really, really don't. The community isn't for me. I like to have my alone time doing things at my pace. I tire of hearing about this shiny module and how much ISK that person has. I will live in my poorness on my own.
Speaking of being poor. I am about halfway to my jump freighter goal. Ueber was kind enough to roll off of his blink winnings (different from his hoard in Oddelulf) and let me use an Ark he had laying around until I get my own. He doesn't use jump freighters because of laziness. This means the chances of being called on to hand over my lease is on this side of not there until I have my own in a few more weeks.
Soon I shall chortle in a pool of level 4 mission running goodness. Or not. We'll see.
I also came to dislike it. I have not scanned since my last review of the Odyssey changes. I don't know why I dislike the system so much. It isn't bad. I think they have done a lot of fantastic things with the system and the UI. I do hate the mini-game. The spew containers are horrible. For some it is fun. For me, I found myself chasing after cans, hitting dscan, collecting wads of space junk and I just walked away. There is more to do than exploration in Eve and I decided to leave exploration for those that wanted to do it.
I could have stuck to just looking for the DED complexes. I debated it. But I was tired. I was tired of scanning and I had other things to do with my time. I had changing interests. I had other things to do. Other things to explore. I was also burned out on scanning. I was deeply, deeply tired of dropping probes. I was also very angry over some changes. I'm still spitting mad over the fact that probes automatically portal their way into your cargo when you leave system. I have a habit of boycotting what I do not like. Such as the Hurricane changes. Such as the homing pidgin probes. Or the fact that both my pod and freighter can see 'exploration sites'. Such as the fact that exploration was ripped out of the exploration system.
A few weeks ago I commented that I was going to learn to mission. My major steps have been accomplished. Last year I started making some alts. I've had various reasons for them. One in particular I've been skilling up. She has an interesting mix of skills and when I went to look at her I realized that she had the potential to be a fantastic mission account. She is an Amarr pilot and I was only a few days away from large T2 lasers.
The waiting for T2 lasers is a reflection of my understanding of the game. The way living in low sec and growing up PvPing has molded my world view shows very much in my molding of a character to PvP. Kaeda took pity on me and helped me understand what a mission fit ship would be like for level 4s. I don't comprehend it still. My PvE has been in low sec for so long and I've never done the high sec missioning thing past doing level 3's with Chella back with her shield Myrm.
Now I am entering into the realm of level 4 missions and I have no idea what to do. I figure that I should be embarrassed. I'm not. I've never been great at fits and min/maxing. I've come to understand the theory more but doing amazing things with fits isn't me. I'll build a happy, standard ship each time with zero creative ability. It is almost embarrassing because I pride myself on my creativity but it has boundaries. Big, big, being bad at ship fit type boundaries.
That is why I run to other people like a child with a skinned knee lusting for a My Little Pony Band-aid.
At first I thought that it would delay my plans to venture into the land of level 4 income. Then, I decided that if people could get into battleships in a week I could have subpar Nav skills. I'd accept that I had 4's instead of 5's and my drone skills would catch up eventually. I plan to have logi on the field until I know what I am doing.
Now some may say but level 4 missions are whatever. They are. Sure. I'm fine with it. It is something I can do while doing other things like moving my freighter or in the evenings when I don't have time to participate in fleets because of work. I can also do it in high sec. I love low sec but sometimes I am to tired to do active in space things in low sec.
It may make me a horrible person. Beyond that, it is a part of the game I haven't experienced. I don't want to go back to incursions. I really, really don't. The community isn't for me. I like to have my alone time doing things at my pace. I tire of hearing about this shiny module and how much ISK that person has. I will live in my poorness on my own.
Speaking of being poor. I am about halfway to my jump freighter goal. Ueber was kind enough to roll off of his blink winnings (different from his hoard in Oddelulf) and let me use an Ark he had laying around until I get my own. He doesn't use jump freighters because of laziness. This means the chances of being called on to hand over my lease is on this side of not there until I have my own in a few more weeks.
Soon I shall chortle in a pool of level 4 mission running goodness. Or not. We'll see.
I find mission running to be a pleasant diversion from the more serious aspects of EvE. I mine for the same reason. There's nothing wrong with mission running (or mining, for that matter). It does help to have a goal, like getting corp standings to jump clone level, or getting corp standing to lossless refining, etc. Plus, it doesn't hurt to build up the LP for cashing put later :)
ReplyDeleteIf you want to look at some decent fits that might serve as a guide, go try searching Jester's Fits of The Week over on Jester's Trek. I don't always agree with everything he posts, and some of hit fits just don't work with how I like to play, but they are a damn good basis for modification. Alternately, look at some of the Incursion fits out there. They all require tweaking (because they are designed to run without local reppers), but again, a nice basis for modification.
The other thing about mission running is the two general approaches - blitzing or completionist. I've done both, blitzing when I was primarily after the LPs and/or standings, completionist when I was after max bounty/salvage. Decide what approach you want to take and stick with it until you've gotten your goal. But don't be afraid to change horses in mid-stream, either. Some missions almost beg, plead and cajole you into a certain approach, like Worlds Collide (all that salvage), or Dread Pirate Scarlet (blitz for an implant and avoid the potential bugs in the mission that can make salvaging a pain).
Also, don't forget to check out the Mission Survival Guide, if you want to min/max your mission running. I didn't for a long time, wanting to experience things without the spoilers, but after a month or two, I caved and now consult the guides religiously whenever I run missions.
You shouldn't need logi to make mission running work, but it certainly does help a lot. Though with the new Incursion-esque AI, mission rats switch targets, so logi aren't as invulnerable as they once were.
One last thing on Incursions. It sounds like you may have hooked up with the wrong bunch (or maybe not). Give Warp To Me Incursions a look. They encourage and allow players new to Incursions using T1 ships and there's not the pressure to go super shiny, like a lot of the other communities (yes, they do encourage people to migrate towards pirate battleships, but I've yet to see them turn down a player in a T1).
Thanks :)
DeleteI'm used to managing the rat aggression. Right now I do a sleipnir/scimitar combo in low sec. It would be nice to just plunk down my battleship.
I think that I am used to my coms and my boys. I don't understand high sec life. I often had to bite my tongue over pvp and low sec discussions. I flew logi for incursions.
Learning about standings and such will be a new thing. The entire NPC standings area is one I have ignored.
Hi Sugar. Agree on the exploration points. And I too have done little exploration since Odyssey went through.
ReplyDeleteOn the mission running front, and I'm sure that others have made the same point, you'll need a way to deal with frigates and the like.
Once they're close enough, you'll be scrammed or webbed. Drone skills are the most reliable, provided you know how to keep the aggression on you. They'll eat your drones by preference otherwise.
There are no battleship sized weapons outside the cruise/CNR (max skills plus rigs and probably a TP) combo that will damage a frigate sized ship even semi-reliably once they get that close.