This post is a continuation of Porsche Amarr’s experiences over his two years in EVE University. You can read the start of his journey in Part One.

PART TWO: Wormhole Campus

Still researching and trying to learn more, I looked into differences between lowsec, nullsec and wormhole space. Essentially as a long-term carebear, I had dabbled in a few uni nullsec fleets but really only had experience with exploring into wormholes, so I decided to check out the Wormhole Campus.
I felt like I had decent operations going in highsec but I kept reading about so much good stuff in wormholes. PI was better, researching/manufacturing was better, explo loot was better and it was not clear what each day would bring.

NNiTH
My first foray, which seemed like a prerequisite at the time, was to attend a Noobs Night in the Hole. A few new, scary experiences on that visit stayed with me and inspired me to apply and be accepted into the campus where I have remained to this day. I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually left AMC but I spend a lot less time than I used to when I would mine and mine and mine. I would like to share those experiences but they are usually part of each NNitH and the surprise is an important element of the fun and learning of the night.
As I moved into WHC, I started to see the importance of training up ship, weapons and other relevant engineering and nav skills. I had already trained up most drone skills but was going to need more versatility.

PI
I deconstructed my original five planets and shifted the setup to WHC. A reasonable amount of background research revealed the planets and the command centres needed. Eve Galaxy packs appeared for half price and they including Multiple Character Training. Before long, I realised that one MCT could be used to train up both spare character slots to be decent PI alts (14-15 days each).
After quite a few spreadsheet tabs, the inevitable dreaded scale up occurred. I had four Omega accounts so soon enough there were twelve PI toons (60 planets) setup in WHC. My spreadsheet work had optimised the number of P0, P1, P2, P3 and P4 setups so that I could produce P4 materials periodically. My sanity was already an ongoing issue (not really but kinda in game terms) so I set the PI to a 4-day cycle and later a 7-day cycle. When I pay attention, the setup makes me around 1bil per week but only sporadically as I travel a reasonable amount for work. There is time involved in collecting from and resetting 60 planets but since the changes to Planetary Production there are definitely less clicks each time.
A lot of my PI toons are not at home in the hole but as part of my alt corp and, at least, blue to unistas they can each log off reasonably safely in space.
Setting up and implementing the PI reminded me of the importance of constant dscanning in the hole as I lost an Epithal to carelessness. Hardly any ISK but just a plan to organise to get another Epithal into the hole. My research was right though, PI in J-space was far more productive than a similar setup in highsec.

Scanning/Explo
Scanning is a huge part of wormhole life. It doesn’t take long to learn about statics and WH effects and the WHC mapper is an important and valuable part of that education. Similarly, decent scanning skills, ships and equipment are essential.
I continued to train up my scanning and covops skills. A Cov Ops Cloaking Device is essential kit and being able to scan in a CovOps Frigate is a great improvement (though Astero is still very good, fast and tanky). WHC and the uni wiki has a lot of advice here too (as with just about every topic in the game).
I spent a number of months, particularly when travelling, to log in and check PI and try to get out and do some exploration. It was rare that I could join a fleet and would log in at all hours to different WHC members. It was not overly social but I enjoyed wormhole life and the thrill of hacking/archaeology which was certainly more lucrative than highsec had been.

Mining
Notably, my mining operations dropped considerably when moving into WHC. I had just trained one into an Orca with excellent drone mining skills and then trained another but I have hardly done any mining in the hole. Periodically an ore site will spawn but it has been overshadowed a bit by gas huffing. I also fell off station trading because of the regular travel to Jita.

Huffing
In the early stages of trying out gas huffing, I skilled my main into the Prospect so that I could fit a covops cloak and feel a bit safer. I then found some token and ordinary gas sites and huffed some gas. It didn’t seem that lucrative until I started looking a bit more at the types. I learnt a reasonable amount about the rats and the spawns and to look for both Instrumentals and Vitals for the highest value gases. At the same time, I skilled my four toons into Prospects with tech II gas harvesters and would spend more time scanning for Level III gas sites in higher class wormholes.

Manufacturing
I moved all my BPOs and BPCs into WHC. (Wonderful) WHC members operate certain industrial structures and I contribute directly towards the operation of those sites. Another benefit of moving from highsec into J-space is the improve yields and speeds of reprocessing and manufacturing. Although, admittedly, I am still researching many, many BPOs and inventing lots of T2 and T3 BPCs without a clear plan on how to turn them into money. At least the fully researched BPOs seem to hold their value so it is more of an investment (just need to take perpetual care if ever moving any of the BPOs in space).

Research/Inventions
I recently happened on quite a lucrative manufacturing method tied to events that has made regular use of my four Omega toons – once again, I felt like I was in control/winning Eve. It is an interesting exercise because whenever they are not gathering, it is reasonably stressful. Disconnects and any fleet activities cut into profit margins. Even taking the four toons to go and devour instrumental and vital gas sites feels inefficient. In a strange way, it has helped me start to shift away from pure ISK-making activities because it is causing me to feel bad about going to play the game. Although, as I’ll mention shortly, it is shifting me to different methods of ISK-making rather than away completely.

Fleets and roles
When I as not travelling, WHC would provide opportunities for all sorts of mini-fleets and doctrines. I would still pop out of the hole periodically to join a highsec or nullsec fleet but there would often be daytrippers or small gangs coming through nearby wormholes. WHC doctrines provided simple guidance and would reinforce to me the importance of having clear fleet roles and capabilities so that the FC could make clear decisions. For some reason, this didn’t dawn on me from earlier fleets. I wanted to make minor changes to suggested fitting, either to cater for my worse ping or to do more damage but I started to pay more attention to broader fleet composition and what fleets could do and what they would have to disengage from or avoid completely.
As a result, I have many, many different ships and doctrine fittings in WHC on different toons. The recent ability to add more than one toon to Eve Uni has been a godsend. Similarly, adding a second alt to WHC has been immensely helpful. I still need to share bookmarks between two of the toons (the non-unistas) but it is fairly easy when we all have permission to dock in the same stations.

Standings – COSMOS agents and Epic Arcs
At one point this year, I looked at the standings on my main and decided to try to get them all positive with the main factions so I embarked on the faction standing repair plan which included COSMOS agent missions, various L4 missions and various trips around New Eden. I managed to get my standings up decently, at which point I noticed that my Caldari faction standings were still above 5 but giving me far less benefits for station trading. Since then and all that effort, my Gallente standings are back down below -1 and my base broker fees are back down again. It was an interesting journey and a disturbing once-off to use up the COSMOS agents on one toon.
Epic Arcs are the other activity/time-filler. With four toons, I have skilled into a pulse laser Confessor on each to complete the SoE Epic Arc and three of the toons can fly a Crow to complete the Angel and Guristas arcs without much trouble. The SoE arc helps with my Gallente standings but only every three months (or when I can make the time for it).

Public fleets
The biggest change for me in Eve, more recently, is to have started joining public (not purple shoot it) fleets regularly. PvP had never really been my thing but I started to join Bombers Bar fleets in a Stealth Bomber and found the Armada fleets really enjoyable. Rolling wormholes and dropping on unsuspecting capitals in a huge fleet of bombers, gatecamping or going on bomber roams has been an eye-opener and there are some excellent FCs.
There are a surprising number of groups that run public fleets and I created a wiki page to start linking unistas to those fleets. They don’t necessarily take away from the uni at all as the FCs tend to come from different, small corps and aren’t recruiting, they are simply having fun in the game with a lot of like-minded players who then return to the normal Eve lives at the end of each fleet. Spectre Fleet is another prominent set of fleets and very enjoyable. After only a few BB and SF fleets, I started to look at my zkillboard and wonder if I could build it up. I had no idea initially but after a few fleets, I set out to try to reach 500bil in kills.
Aside from rollers, ECM has become my latest preferred fleet role. Admittedly, I have lost a few Falcons recently but the value from jamming in fleet battles, particularly when bombers and polarised bombers are prone to being alphaed off the field, cannot be understated. Recons (and various support roles) are appreciated and I enjoy losing a few hundred million here or there periodically because it reminds that my ISK making activities are finally being applied towards something that I enjoy immensely.

Titan kills
It was really last night’s public fleet that drove me to write this piece. I joined another Bomber’s Bar fleet and consigned my potential sleep before work to 5 or 6 hours max. It was meant to be a Stuka fleet (so much to learn in this game) but the FC changed it to an Armada at the last minute. For those who regularly read Reddit or have other Eve newsfeeds, it is well-known that Goonswarm Federation is currently engaged in a move north and thus their home areas, that often have capitals out, were ‘relatively’ unprotected.
In short, through a series of careful and calculated moves by an experienced BB FC, we collaborated with other fleets (some generally enemies), to drop into Delve on a Titan (Ragnarok). The fight was epic and surprisingly quick as we destroyed the Titan. This was a massive achievement and last night’s fleet had just begun. Everyone was jubilant. There is always a bit of friendly rivalry between the generally excellent BB FCs and I couldn’t resist but to post in fleet asking whether it would be a record to kill a second titan in a single BB fleet. I didn’t get an answer because the FC was busy on other sets of comms. Sure enough, we dropped on a second titan (Erebus) with other fleets. The fight took a bit longer and it didn’t take long for the adjacent Keepstar to remove some of our ships from the field but the sheer numbers, skills and roles managed to take the Erebus down and add a second titan to our fleet tally.
I had been steadily watching my killboard grow towards my 500bil goal. It was about 490bil yesterday after an earlier SF fleet earlier but after the two titans, my kb was suddenly sitting at just over 650bil. I had been thinking that last 10bil was going to be elusive but it just evaporated. Now I have my sight set on the 1tril mark.

Part Three is the final part of this series, and will cover Porsche’s plans for moving forward and the lessons he has learned from his time in EVE University so far. Look out for it soon.

If you want to follow in Porsche’s steps, apply to EVE University today.

This post is pulled from a forum post by Porsche Amarr. See the original post here (forum section accessible to EVE University members and alumni only)