Alts and activities.

With both my mains training and being super fluffy carebears it boils down to my alts to do things that are off the normal trail.
In saying that the alts usually end up treading the same path as the mains partly out of laziness as I can't be bothered to either switch characters / fly them 20 jumps etc when teaming up with a friend.
Two things are on my mind with these alts.


First is pvp with my main alt in faction warfare ( a friend is into this and is always asking for a wingman ).


Second is pve with my Minmatar alt in a T3 (Currently training into a Loki, it's t2 fit inc. weapons).


The pve will take about a month before the training is done and it can be "tested".
The pvp needs me to get some ships/gear together and then head out to explode, this alt is not training and can be in a blank clone to do so.

So for the future I think I'll be flying to the drum of some pvp, then see how the T3 explodes in a level 4. All with a side of Nullsec PI and ratting to help fund the carnage.

Sounds like a plan for sure and a few things to blog about......

Back to normal....

With the ending of the trial alt I've returned to a more "normal" gaming in Eve.
 
My main is training into all weapon specialisations and upping skill levels to be a better rounded character in "most" skills.... it will still take years. Mining/PI and missioning round out activities.


The second main is playing catch up on my first main skill point wise. About 6 month's behind but on the same road. I've also been getting back into missioning to up the sec status to try and get it to the magical 5.0. Mining and PI are the other main activities.


My Primary Alt is parked up and not up to much at all. I've been considering doing some pvp, maybe joining a friend in faction warfare. Otherwise I might use a plex to get 30 day's of extra skills once I do out a list. PI is the only daily activity on this character.


The Amarr alt has been doing nothing and I dont' plan on doing anything other than support of my null alt besides hauling and selling items for my null alt.






My Null alt has been busy with rejigging PI and belt ratting a fair bit. With red's roaming it's been harder to stick to anom's for isk making, but belt ratting is quick and easy.

My Minmatar Alt is training into a Loki + fit including T2 weapons. I've had the idea of getting this alt into a T3 for a long time but I didnt' want to take away more training time from the main.
Skill points made me think that if she is struggling in a BS with level 4's will she really be able to handle a T3.... probably a bad idea. But Loki's are cheaper than they have been and on some impulsive buying I got one, 5 subsystems, skill books and a wide range of mods for a fit. It may be my most expensive explosion in a mission yet. To get the training going I used a plex. I'll have to finish off the training time with some supplementary skills. Then take it for a test drive.

Eve on youtube....

Another Reddit post about what youtube channels people like for Eve tutorials etc.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/2c0l7j/best_informational_eve_youtube_channels/

Something interesting....

A good Reddit post/replies of interest to Eve.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/2bzi9x/if_eve_is_tough_then_i_must_have_been_really/

So it begins..... Update 12 - Finale

Last Saturday saw the last use of the trial alt. I had traded / handed over 99% of the gear/ships and items bought with isk that needed to be handed over. He just had the scan ship, salvage ship and a dps (if that's what I could call it) ship for killing MTU's.

I got to scan down and collect a good lot form a level 4. Even with the missioner seeing me he only got to salvage one room of 4 from the mission. The rest got me just over 14 million in salvage and loot. So that was good.

Later that day I scanned down an mtu of a mission in progress, seemed like a small level 4 or maybe a level 3 mission. With the missioner still in the pocket I decided to shoot the mtu, this went on for a while, they said nothing in local and didn't try to collect the mtu, they just sat there. I was sure they were talking to either corp members of friends about the asshat shooting their mtu and true enough a crop member landed on grid.
LML Condor, now a 500k SP character isn't a match for any pilot in pvp, I wasn't bothered to really do anything other then orbit and fire back. He blew my ship away in short order, then called me a moron in local, in Russian no less. I responded with a \o/. In response I decided to set a bounty on both the missioner and their corp mate. That really got their attention. The missioner set a 100k bounty and the pvp corp mate set 500k back on me.  Received with thanks. There was a little perverse joy about sullying a squeaky clean 5.0 sec status missioner with a big wanted sticker on their name. I lost an atron and t1 fit worth 2 mill. Seems that I didnt' need to troll to get a bounty after all. With that all done I sold/traded or destroyed the last bits the alt had and logged for the last time.

A trial alt can really fúck about with the normal player base with no consequences. I may not be doing this on a rolling basis but I think I'll return to this form of play again in the future.

I think I appreciate my mains a lot more now. It's a lot harder then it seems to be an unsullied member of the carebear/missioning/indy community. There seems to be an endless supply of ninja ganking players constantly picking away at the carebears. A few nudges and that perfect character that you do so much to protect and shape can fall and fall hard. That tipping point is a fine line and can cause rage quits or retaliation. It all seems to be pointed one way in this game, interplayer conflict, pity, as it's not the game most carebears want to play.

So it begins..... Update 11

Scanning is still driving me a little nuts. Last night I did 2 scanning sweeps, each time I would close range on a "blip" it would disappear. I switched from scanning ships to looking for MTU's only to get a hit on a ship. Hows that possible with a filter only looking for structures. Charming.

I looked up the kill's for the system I've been mainly in and I'm shocked at the number of MTU's that have been killed.... about 4 to 6 a day. That's a lot of lost/forgotten MTU's.

Despite not spending that much time on the trial alt last night I eventually found some salvage and loot.

First was this MTU.

Meh

Then I found a mission that was abandoned by it's owner. So I took full advantage of it.

Loot it all!!!!!!!!

Haul 1

Haul 2

I added on some more skills to the skill queue, it just seems a shame to leave it empty.
Here is a pic of the current skills and the history of skills that have been done in the last while.

I've now traded off a lot of the gear the trail alt has gathered and used his isk to buy some ships and other random "bits'n'bobs". It's been a profitable little venture, but I would have made a lot more isk running two characters in level 4's.

Maybe a return to this in the future will be on the cards. This really is a trial run of a trial and what it can do, which is a lot.

This weekend will be the last time I'll have a good amount of time to devote to this alt. I'll see what luck brings.

So it begins..... Update 10

Scanning despite faffing about with settings has proved to be a royal pain in the áss.
I was only able to get a fix on a another MTU but I wasn't in the mood to bash it.
I think this alt will fizzle out as me heart isn't into it any more. It's become too frustrating.
The alt will probably end up doing some quick scanning runs to see if anything shows up. With one night of selling and trading to get rid of the gear and isk he has.

While I was trying to scan a ship down I also had my main alt logged into my laptop on autopilot to get him near the trial alt. He was ganked and killed, in the time it took to move my hand between the pc mouse and the laptop he was podded.  Kill mail listed a very undervalue kill, I had to repurchase the implants and it cost a pretty penny.
Actions in game like that annoy me. People doing it are worse then any ninja shit. They act as the chaotic choir of the universe, doing things just because they can be done. A sea of lemmings, all trolling the party line. Bunch of asbo's without any rules to regulate them. Like being a dick in the game is a good thing. It's annoying because of the lack of action, you can't act back at the perpetrators. Not in a meaningful way.

So it begins..... Update 9

I think the scanning problems were due to the filter I had in place. It specified BS's / marauders / Tech III's and MTU's. I think if I have the ships separate from the MTU then it will work as it was a week ago.... Up to a week ago I was only using my laptop to play this trial alt and on getting it on my pc I had to resetup the interface and also the scanning profile so I added everything..... I'll change that later today.

Last night saw the usual lack of ship sites and an odd MTU experience. I scanned down two mtu's close to each other. I destroyed one and didnt' get much loot. I warped to the other and it belonged to the same person, odd again but it happens. on destroying it it didn't even leave a wreck.... like it was never there. Ghost MTU.......... wwwwwwuuuuuuuuuu !!!!!! Hahahaha ;-p

Both those MTU's wasted enough time to make me not want to do anything else so I docked up in Jita and purchased a few ships and some gear. I'll have to buy a lot more stuff and trade it in space but will see....

I've had a nudging feeling that I wont' continue the trail alt to another trial alt. I've got paid accounts I can make a lot more isk with. The trial alt was fun and different but I'm better served by my mains and normal alts.

7 Days still to go.......

So it begins..... Update 8

So with the last of the scanning skills trained and having not logged the trial alt on in a day or two I decided to go looking for loot.
Scanning with these extra skills and modules has however decreased my scanning abilities!
I really had no hassle getting players pinpointed and scanned down when the trail was a few days old.
For example yesterday, I scanned the system, probes out at 64 AU, I hit on a BS at 70% scan strength. I lower the probes to 32 AU and move them to be closer to the scanned blob of this BS only to rescan and get the same BS hit at 25% ..... it's wtf frustrating. 
It's the type of thing that's been happening to be a lot of late and its been bad. Scan after scan either removes all hits on moving in tighter on locations lessens the signal strength. It has severely hampered by scanning.

This is the dedicated scanning ship I'm using now:

I was able to scan out two abandoned MTU's yesterday and took them both out. One had loot the other ... not so much lol. At least I can scratch that off the list.

On scanning out a mission in progress I warped into find an MTU with some medium wrecks by it, I orbit the mtu and salvage away. During this the missioner arrives back into the mission, his tank was probably not able to hold the incoming dps as the mission BS's are fast and do a huge amount of damage when close. I'm sure he was surprised to see me with aggro orbiting the mtu, salvaging away. Once I'd salvaged what was there I left ... returning a while later but he had cleared up as he went.

I'll need to recheck the way scanning is done as I think I'm missing something. It can't go from easy to scan ships down to being very hard, not after upgrading skills and gaining better modules to help.

Really not sure if I will get a bounty... I'm not enough of a troll to be annoying enough people get something like that. Besides the bounty really does nothing. I may take him to null to see "what happens".



Aims:
        Scan out MTU's (blow them up and loot)
        Ninja Salvage (make 12 + Million)

        Get a bounty placed on me. (may be harder then it seems)

Music randomness....

I usually listen to a large spectrum of music when gaming, "eclectic" some would say ;-p
Here is a list of music that has been to the fore when on my trail alt.


In no particular order (band-track / track-band, youtube will find them either way).

Conway - The Growl
Device - Villify
Far Cry 3 ( Flamethrower Song )
God Module - Darkness Is
Jamiroquai - Feels Just Like It Should
Mind n A Box - Stalkers
Kryptic Minds - Six Degrees
Nine Inch Nails - Satellite.
Otep - Head
Rammstein - Ich Will
Son Lux - Weapons
Slipknot - Psychosocial (Filth Dubstep Remix)
Stateless - Bluetrace
Lords Of Acid - The Crablouse
TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me
Woodkid - Iron (Mystery Jets Remix)
Zack Hemsey - Vengeance
Beck - E-Pro
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Madcon - Beggin'
Martina Topley-Bird - Sandpaper kisses
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand
Rammstein - Engel
Skyfall Soundtrack - Quartermaster
Soul Coughing - Unmarked Helicopters
Tricky - Evolution Revolution
Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know
The Toxic Avenger - Angst Two
Gesaffelstein - Pursuit
Mirwais – Spoutnik (Crazy Horse Music from 3 Days To Kill)
Robin Hood 2010 Original Soundtrack  - Godfrey
Korn - System
Combichrist - Maggots At The Party
If I had a heart - Fever Ray
nightwish - planet hell
Lacuna Coil - Unchained
Lies - Evanescence

So it begins..... 7

11 Days left on the trail, with luck it'll be fruitful over the weekend.
Nothing new to report as I didn't do anything on the trail alt.

Last night was a return to the carebearing mains and teaming up with a friend for some missions for iskies.


I did take some screenies of my trail alts skills/skill points. One more skill to learn and then on to drones 5 but that's not really needed. It could be a lot more streamlined but not bad considering.

Ninja's and carebears.....

There have been some thoughts in my head about the new trial alt experiment I’ve been running.

Grab the syrup I’m gonna waffle.

I can see why the trial is there and used to hook a player into Eve. Every game has a demo or trial, that’s just good marketing.

But the more time I spent on this trial the more reason I see to go back to use trial alts in an ALTernative manner with no comeback on main/paid/plexed accounts.  Am sure there are players that see how far they can push during a trial, EULA or not.

I have been using this alt to be a ninja salvager, I am no troll, I don’t say anything in local, I don’t hunt for tears. There are people that relish the tears caused and do hunt that way.
During my early missioning day’s I’ve been on the more frustrated side of missioning when a ninja showed up. I have to say that I always accepted it.
As a missioner today I salvage and loot as I go, most of my ships have a tractor and salvager and a set of salvage drones. I may use an MTU but that really does attract attention as it is easy to scan down. 

Source

Source

While I’m doing the Ninja salvaging to shake up my normal carebear playing it really boils down to common sense when missioning and  to avoid the majority of ninja attention.

Dedicated Ninja’s are organised and roll in their own inter corp/alliance groups trial or not, they have support and usually logi support to rep them, they will up-ship and they will tear a player a new one if they can, usually after a missioners wrong move or after a missioner has succumb to trolling.

Ninja alts like my one are no real threat, I impact the isk/hour ratio. I don’t’ have the backup to push the experiment further… I don’t think I would want too. Others with support or a bigger player base of friends/groupies probably wouldn’t think twice about it.

I once saw a Ninja in local replying to a missioner they were salvaging from. The missioner was upset and was very verbal in local. The Ninja was playing it or was genuinely surprised in a “just going about the game as it allows me too” fashion. In that way the missioner was the abuse giving player disturbing the salvager. Perspectives are interesting.

Eve online is what it is. It is the open universe sandbox with few rules. As CCP has said the player is the content.

In a game like that, players will do what they want, they will use the rules or lack of them to push their chosen activity as far as possible.

If it can be done in eve, players, solo or in groups will do it.

Advice for the mission runner:

Keep your safety on Green.  

Loot and salvage as you go.

Use an mtu if there are not too many people in system and even fewer actively flashing amber. (I’ve compiled a list as I’ve been missioning over my time in Eve and know the ninja corp’s/individuals, am sure you will have compiled a list too….. it’s not hard to do.) 

If there are a lot of ninja’s showing in local then expect to get a visit.

If one shows up, scoop your mtu (if you have one out), then dock and make a cup of tea.coffee, kiss the wife or have a 5 minute small talk with someone, use of the time better than raging about something you can't change..

Be conscious and self-aware.

In the last day’s of my alts trial life I intend to make another, trade off the current ships/assets and isk and start the process over again. It's turned into it's own version of playing Eve online.

Trial’s are something that can be used by anyone. It’s free and it’s accessible even if you don’t upgrade to a full account. 

Grab a 21 day trail here and see what you can do ALTernatively. 

This man needs to be a CSM......

http://evehermit.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/winning-at-eve/

http://evehermit.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/be-what-we-want/

So it begins..... 6

Despite spending a bit of time scanning I was unlucky in getting solid fixes last night.
I wasn't in the best of humour for it either and only stayed in the one system. I found a lot of missioners salvaging as they went so there was nothing to loot/salvage.
I did find one Battleship in a mission that seemed like a level 3.... only cruisers and frig rats and no BS wrecks. I left him to it.
On more fruitless scanning I decided to head back to the bookmark of this level 3 and found only a few can's in space.... I checked them out and looted a mill.... Not much at all for a night scanning. It happens I suppose.
 

So it begins..... 5

A lot has been done in the last two days with my trial alt, some of the extra training has been completed and allows for the use of the ancillary shield booster. Which has come in handy when taking too much aggro from npc's.

I’ve also stripped back the scanning ships fit to only include the probe launcher, AB, cpu and scanning mods. I’ve changed the setup of both Tristan’s as well to each use the extra salvager from the scanning ship.

The day before yesterday I went scanning and was very happy with the ease at which the results were pinpointed/scanned down. And was able to salvage with ease. The salvage drones are a great addition. I may change to a full 5 salvage drones instead of 3 as I’ve yet to find an mtu to kill.

I know that I’ve peeved a few people off from their missions and I know a few people have been very attentive to cleaning and salvaging as they go.

On starting to scan out the ships in system I was hesitant to warp to my finds. The carebear in me was saying that I wouldn’t like this to happen to me. I had to remind myself that this alt was disposable, and made for doing this course of action. I put the carebear thoughts out of my head quick enough when the salvaging started.

One example yesterday was a player who was not salvaging as they went. Didn’t have an mtu but it was also luck with timing that allowed me to salvage the first of two room’s so on the second they were about 80% finished killing the mission. The time let me salvage as they killed and catch up to them. They tried warping out to allow aggro to go to me but speed and a small signature was epic in avoiding damage.

With the player returned to finish if off despite me being there, they did so and returned in a noctis, with a full cargo hold including loot I warped to station to unload but on returning they had finished sucking in the last of the loot cans.  

I’ve salvaged a few missions and gained about 14 Million isk. This would have been more had I been more brazen and gained suspect flagging for taking the loot. The evolution of this has made me change the safety from green to amber…. No red just yet.

 

 

 

So I can scratch the "break even" aim off the list.

Aims are still:
         Scan out MTU's (blow them up and loot)
         Ninja Salvage (make 12 + Million)
         Get a bounty placed on me. (may be harder then it seems)