Eve Online.... Main's and alts....

Terms for characters like 'main' and 'alts' are very grey depending on the player and how they use their characters. For some a main character may be the current character that is in use and all others are alts regardless of the skills or possessions.
The main characters on my accounts were the first characters created. The one with the most SP and the focus of the accounts ongoing skill point application. I think most Eve players are in that mindset.
The purpose of a second character, alt, on that account was to do the things that helped or supplemented activities. For me it was to do things I didn't want my main tainted with like PVP entanglements. My first alt was made as a pvp alt. I needed to divide my training time with this new pvp alt. At least until it became obvious that a second account and a second main would be more beneficial. Thus the second account was born. Over time each account had a main and an alt. Each alt was focused on specific tasks. At one point the alt on the second account was assisting the functions of the first account's alt. Hauling and moving ships to assist with the pvp he was engaged in. While the Mains stayed in the background grinding SP.

Early alt training....

As time has passed those alternative characters have lost their specific purpose and along with new alts have been defaulted to mirror the "mains". The use of plex to enable extra training queues has made this expand beyond anything I had previously considered. Kudos for CCP money making. I did buy plex for training time and in doing so the alts have gained a broader base of skills as well as a a focus into more T2/T3 ships, weapons systems and modules. Not necessarily a bad thing, more skills means the better they can function and in turn the more they can help. Extra time and skills have made those alts become super sized. No longer do they have 'a' specific task, they have developed into racially specific mirrors of the mains. Complete with mission hubs (numerous factional corps & SOE), exploration hubs, PI setups, datacore farming, mining and production.

Skilling up alts has become a large part of Eve gameplay. 

I choose to check each character daily, update and reset their PI gathering. Maybe twice a week gather that PI and once a week sell it. I alsp check skills but with the new 50 skill queueing list that check it is a far rarer thing than it used to be. On my mains it does look funny to have far flung level 5 skills that are month's of training each x50. The daily PI check and update is more of a holdover from the 24 hour skill queue than anything else. Habit.

 

My characters are:

Main (Caldari), 

Second Main (Caldari), 

Main alt(Caldari), 

Minmatar Alt, 

Amarr Alt, 

Gallente/Null Alt (Caldari). 

Of all of these the last in the list is the newest in this super alt transformation. He was almost exactly like my main alt in terms of skills. He doesn't have much standing above 1.7 with any faction aside form the Servant Sisters at 2.02. As for Corps he has the basics from the tutorials and SOE epic arc but only the SOE corp at 7.30. You can guess from that he has only ever done SOE missions. He is only disliked by 3 pirate factions and the True Power npc corporation. So he has in essence been factionless with regard to the four main powers in the game. 

Pretty much a blank slate and a good starting point. Therein lies the problem and the asset of a good alt. That clean slate with 40 million SP is now a character of it's own with a purpose and not just a 5 million SP alt with a task.

Today his transformation from a standard Caldari based alt into a racially specific Gallente drone is all but done. I have successfully transferred ships and gear from my other characters to him.
His main station is a Gal Navy level 4 mission hub. As he does not yet have the standing to use the lvl 4 agent he currently has a few ships in a lvl 3 hub not far away doing the standings grind between war dec's. Moving to this new Gallente home was done mainly via semi afk self hauling and a large courier contract. All of which didnt' take as long as I had thought it would. Getting this gear and clearing his own Caldari based inventory was done as a like for like swap with my other characters. Spare Gallente BS for the Caldari BS he had etc.

My main also traded him a lot of lesser Gallente ships he had collected as well as mods and ammo in a bit of a clearout. While this was going on my character also cleared out most of his ships and gear from null. Moving what he could use to his Gallente base and transferring the rest to my other alts/mains. Nullsec is back to being a very bare bones operation. Over time this will build up and then the clearout cycle will begin again. Clearouts always seem to be ongoing.

At the moment there are two systems that I work from in null. The first has my PI setup, a 5 planet self contained production line. The PI could be worked more efficiently but it does the job. The local station there has a few Epitals for the PI work as well as the collection of pvp shit fit T1 frigs and dessies. This station is also where I had started my market hub. I've since cleared out that market and only sell a a few T1 haulers. Some spare ships and T1 mods and minutia are stored in a station container.

The other system is my main ratting (RLML Caracal) and mining (Procurer) system.

I had tried a Dominix to do anomalies but found that the speed of the caracal in killing BS rats in the belts was a faster isk generator then the Domi in the anoms. Not to mention a wiser use of lesser isk should it get blobbed. I was surprised the Domi was lacking for this purpose but it is what it is. So I decided to get the domi out and stick with the lower cost caracal which has surpassed all expectation. A few T1 haulers, some T1 hauler and ammo bpc's as well as a healthy supply of ammo and drones round out the stations inventory.

The Domi I moved out of null will eventually be the centre of a new level 4 mission hub for him with the SOE. I still need time to test and correct fits for him. It's all part of the process and part of the fun.
I also need to see if there is a suitable datacore I can farm. As well as some relic/data site's that can be run. 

With the current invasion of his null space by the CFC their friends I've not been doing any ratting or mining. I did transfer him to hi-sec to spend some time in his better implant clone but I'm thinking of a jump back to a clean clone and trash some of the shit fit's in a blaze of assplosions. Then again I might pull him from the null life and give the hi-sec life a spin for a while before rejoining null or moving onto something else with him.

Time will tell.

If I were to go through all of my charecters I'd have a blog series. I may try and do up one more blog with some more info on how they are setup. I still really, really, really need to try and get a an entry done on my STO activities.....