The following is taken from a forum post by one of our members, Sone Eto, who went on a a weird adventure and was kind enough to share it with us in a forum post:

Friends and Enemies,

Gather around once again while a tell another tale of mystery, intrigue, danger, riches, and incompetence…

Small Shattered Camping Trip

Long ago, the elder gods provided us wormholes..and they were good. These wonderfully unpredictable pockets of space were never meant to be settled..and yet capsuleers built homes there. Among these brave pioneers were Eve University’s own Wormhole Campus. Led by Azmo with his large innuendo, Conky Furnaceman, and once-legendary logistics pornographer Urban Oxide, this group shook their fists at the gods and screamed into the heavens “SCRAM ON IMICUS WWW!” Through months of procrastination and the ability to fill out a simple form, I proved my mettle to this elite group and joined the WHC.

Since joining, I learned of Small Ship Shattered Wormholes (C13). These are relatively rare wormhole systems that offer significant bonuses to armor, small weapons, and signature radius while also providing more cosmic signatures to scan down and exploit. The unique feature of these systems is that they only make connections that allow small ships (frigates and destroyers). Additionally, like all shattered wormholes, you cannot anchor structures there. That means that you can’t really live in one beyond a daytrip………right?

I decided to defy the gods as our forefathers did by taking a camping trip for around a week into one of these C13 holes. I don’t have any alts which meant that I got one ship. My goal was maximum flexibility in order to partake in as many activities as possible while inside. For me, this meant the Confessor:

The Fit
[Confessor, Little Camper]
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Small Armor Repairer II

Cap Recharger II
1MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II

Dual Light Beam Laser II
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Dual Light Beam Laser II
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Dual Light Beam Laser II
Dual Light Beam Laser II

Small Nanobot Accelerator I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit II
Small Nanobot Accelerator I

Imperial Navy Standard S x16
Gleam S x16
Aurora S x16
Sisters Combat Scanner Probe x8
Sisters Core Scanner Probe x8
Nanite Repair Paste x47
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S x16
Relic Analyzer II x1
Salvager I x3
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II x1
Stasis Webifier II x1
Cap Recharger II x1
Core Probe Launcher I x1
Medium Inefficient Hull Repair Unit x1
Scan Rangefinding Array I x1
Data Analyzer I x1


Although I have no idea what I’m doing, this ship is perfectly suited to the Wolf-Rayet effects of a C13 and, being a T3 destroyer, it is very flexible thanks to its multiple operating modes (defense, sharpshooter, propulsion). The fit above depicts it’s pvp hunter mode for catching those pesky explorers and kicking them out of my swamp. In addition to this pvp fit, I also packed another cap recharger and energized nano plating for a cap stable sleeper site farming option. I brought along a rangefinder, relic analyzer, and data analyzer for running exploration sites along with some salvagers.

For utility while in the hole, I packed a mobile depot for changing fits, a mobile tractor unit for farming, nanite paste, and a hull repair unit. I brought along a secure container to hold my loot in case I overflowed the cargo hold as well.

Preparation (29MAY)
I saw that a small shattered hole (J000304) was scanned down in the WHC mapper so I filled my confessor’s cargo hold with the largest secure container I could find and dropped it at a safe inside. The idea was that I could deposit loot there but otherwise stay away from it; these containers are relatively safe because they cannot be combat probed. However, by combining dscan skills and autism, it is possible to manually scan down these containers. I decided to take the risk anyway. After dropping the container, I flew back to the WHC and filled up the confessor with the fits, utility items, and lots of laser crystals.

A New Home (29MAY)
The first thing that I tried was running some of the sleeper sites; I don’t normally fly confessors so I wanted to get a feel for it. Against a Perimeter Camp and Perimeter Checkpoint, it did great! Around this time, I noticed a Heron on dscan with scanner probes out. I warped to a safe, deployed the mobile depot, refit to pvp/gank/combatscan, and pulled the depot back into my cargo hold. A quick scan found him and I got a kill: https://zkillboard.com/kill/76989986/ along with his pod https://zkillboard.com/kill/76990012/ . He was double warp core stabbed but the sheer dps of a confessor in a C13 made this a non-issue.

Dude Where’s Your Container? (30MAY)
The next day, I notice that my secure container is no longer on dscan…hmmm. It turns out that if you want these things to stick around, you have to anchor them. I didn’t realize that you even could anchor them in shattered wormholes. Well, the connection to WHC had closed so I was stuck now; looks like I’ll be living completely out of the ship’s cargo hold. I scanned down all the signatures and started checking connections to see who my new neighbors were. I found a C5 that led to ANOTHER small ship shattered wormhole (J000186). Since I was completely free with no attachments, I moved into this hole and did a relic site (120m isk).

What? Another C13? (01JUN – 02JUN)
After doing two more relic sites the next day, I continued scanning and checking connection. To my surprise, I found yet another small shattered wormhole (J000652). This one was connected directly to my new home; I moved in once I had exhausted the content of my home. There, I ran 4 more relic sites and found a C1 connection…

Danger! (02JUN)
By this point I had around 400m in my cargo hold so I was hoping for a highsec connection to get rid of the loot. The C1 did not disappoint; I warped to the highsec hole that I had scanned down just in time to watch an explorer jump through it into highsec. I followed to see how close to a tradehub or WHC connection it was. The system’s proximity to useful places wasn’t spectacular and I had a change of heart…this was meant to be a camping trip not a sightseeing tour. I jumped my 400m of cargo back into the hole to head back home to the small shattered….BUBBLED…A Sabre decloaked, bubbled, and started engaging (with me polarized). I was no longer in a nice Wolf-Rayet effect system which meant that the confessor isn’t nearly as strong (I also am not familiar with it’s matchups/meta at all). I decide to engage back; it did not go well. I started to die and made a decision to attempt an escape. I aligned to the sun, switched to propulsion mode, overheated my afterburner, and prayed. The Sabre chased and bubbled again, I keep burning for the sun. I screamed at the ship to go faster so loud that my neighbors called the cops; once Concord arrived, I told them this is J-space and that they had no authority here. I made it out out the bubble and into warp. I limped home and assessed the damage: down to 33% hull and lots of modules heat damaged. I used the hull repairer that I brought and some nanite to get myself fixed.

Gas Sites Experiment (03JUN – 04JUN)
My home had tons of gas sites and I was curious if I could force more signatures to spawn somehow. I activated 18 of them by warping and then checked again the next day. Almost all of the sites had disappeared but that also included non-gas sites. Although I specifically activated these to see if I could force them to despawn (and maybe be replaced), I remain skeptical that my actions caused these sites to disappear. I ran a better sleeper site during this time: a Forgotten Frontier Stronghold (40m isk).

Killing Deployables (05JUN – 06JUN)
The next day, I found a nullsec connection and hopped into it to look around. I found 5 rattlesnakes on dscan then something interrupted me in real life; I cloaked up in the nullsec on the hole and dealt with it. Upon return, I was greeted by an Ares on dscan with scanning probes out looking for the only signature in system: my wormhole connection and me. I jumped back in and got out of there as quick as I could. After running another relic site and FFS sleeper site, I was looking for something to do. I had noticed a mobile depot in my home for a couple of days by now so I asked the diplos if we were allowed to kill them. After getting the clarification that even anchored mobile depots are fair game, I shot it into reinforcement and had to wait 2 days to finish it off. While waiting, I popped back into the nullsec, combat probed a Mobile Tractor Unit left by one of the ratters and killed it: https://zkillboard.com/kill/77150922/

Homecoming (07JUN)
Today, I found a nullsec connection that was 6 jumps from the Nullsec Campus. I considered asking for a scout to get there and then find a way back to WHC but decided to dive back into my shattered hole and continue the camping trip. Then…I found another C1 that led to a highsec that was 2 jumps from a WHC connection. I decided to take the hint and come back home to the WHC thus ending the trip.

Summary
Isk Earned: 464m (https://evepraisal.com/a/mjei4)
Isk Destroyed: 10m

Lessons Learned
I recommend that folks give this kind of trip a shot. I wasn’t able to be as active as usual due some real life events but it was a great time. Trips like this will teach you to prepare, be radically self-sufficient, and put you in situations that you weren’t expecting. Some lessons learned:
– You can anchor secure containers and mobile depots in shattered wormholes, do it.
– Always take a hull repair module on a trip like this
– Bring a large variety of fitting options even if its making your cargo hold bulge, relic sites ended up being my primary income source rather than the sleeper sites that I expected
– Make tons of safe spots and rotate them often. I found myself decloaked a lot changing fits and warping around; having good safes was very helpful
– Use a wormhole mapper! Being able to see what signatures are new between logoffs is great
– I found 3 small shattered wormholes in a week only scanning the chain mostly 1 level deep. This makes me wonder if small shattered have a higher-than-normal probability of being connected. Is it possible to nomad from small shattered to small shattered in a confessor to get even more content?
– Go have an adventure!

If you too want to go on weird, crazy adventures and tell your corp mates about them so they go “cool”, then Apply to Join EVE University today.

This post is pulled from a forum post by Sone Eto. See the original post here 

This is the final installment of Porsche Amarr’s experiences over his two years in EVE University. We would recommend reading up on Part One and Part Two.

PART THREE: Going forward

My main is training up to be a Carrier pilot (just working through Fighters V). My three Omega alts are training into Rorquals (maybe two months to go). I’m not really sure what will come next after that. A move to nullsec (NSC?) might be a logical move to breakout the capitals and try to make some money (watching dscan more than ever before). Wormhole life is very enjoyable though and there are some really good people in WHC.
Bombers Bar fleets have left me quite humble. I have already decided that if I lost a few rorquals to BB fleets, I would actually be happy to be giving other people the content and the thrills that I have had. With the increasing PLEX prices though, I am questioning whether to have three Rorquals sitting in space mining to pay for themselves or not but will cross that bridge once they are trained.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to return to mining or to get into ratting but I want to see what these are like as incomes sources. Sisi has been useful for the journey for a lot of fitting and fighting practice and Rorqual mining is not that inspiring on Sisi. No idea if it all makes sense, but if I blow billions trying to make billions I can absorb it. That said, I do very much like the feeling of staying ahead in the ISK stakes.

Progression in Eve Uni through titles is quite helpful. I still have the elusive Graduate title to apply for and I am happy that my killboard has been decently populated these days and that I have spent time in many different areas of Eve. On the service component, time as a Personnel Officer should be relevant and I know there are others who give huge amounts of their time in management and support roles across the campuses. It has been surprisingly tricky to land other staffing roles as they seem quite popular but any are still worth applying for if you are interested and can give the time. I try to skim the wiki from time to time and make minor improvements where stats or game mechanics have changed. The wiki is well maintained though.
On reflection, it is interesting that in a normal uni, one can pay fees (aka taxes on PI, profit margins on PI/gas/loot buyback, taxes on ratting, structure fees), study hard and graduate without needing to join a faculty or even the student rep association/council. Eve Uni is a game through and relies on people to give to the uni so that it can operate but let’s see how that plays out.

Lessons

• Mining – Can be a good way to make initial ISK – watch dscan, only fly what you can afford to lose, align wherever possible, fleet up and watch each other’s backs…
• Exploration – Can be a more lucrative and interactive way of making ISK than mining – be prepared to lose ships in wormholes but exploration quickly tends to pay for itself and more.
• Station trading – Skills and standings are essential to make any sort of profit margin when station trading. Plan carefully before shelling out too much ISK.
• Risk=reward – Nullsec or wormhole life will pay better returns on the same activities but for increased risk of loss. Similarly, higher-scale of station trading can make/lose more.
• In fleets – Comms is essential, regardless of whether you are young or old, what languages you speak or your gender. Even listening then typing anything in fleet chat. Nearly all fleets have audible comms through Mumble, Discord, TS3, etc and they are really important to effective fleet coordination.
• Be new when new – Don’t ever have an issue with being new. There are a small number of elitist jerks out there but most fleets, esp in Eve Uni, are excellent and appreciate the importance of training/briefing people. It is not possible to have perfectly-skilled fleets every time, we all start somewhere.
• Play the game – Actually playing the game is really important. That may be station trading, mining, PvP, corp roles or various other things but it is important to decide what you enjoy in the game at any given point and find ways to be doing it. Worrying about ISK can be soul-destroying so if you can find ways to make enough ISK to fund your playstyle, the game will be much more enjoyable.
• Time has some real value in this game – time taken to fly to systems to recover low level PI can actually provide less ISK than other activities. However, as mentioned, if this is your way of playing the game (for example, flying to collect PI allowed me some peace from station trading) then enjoy. PLEX can seem like a disturbing but fast way to make ISK. It may irk some as it likely means that we would pay more for Eve than other games or pay to play but time is a reality and for working people it is easy to lose sight that we can spend tens and hundreds of hours on activities to make ISK that we can genuinely make in one hour at work. Something to seriously consider. I’m not sure I would give back my thousands of hours of game time trading, mining and PIing in place of PLEXing because I strangely enjoyed the long-term scenario playing out but some may crave more real-life efficiency.
• Researching BPOs – Needs to be part of a plan or it will never make money (do what I say, not what I do… no, I really need to sort this out for the amount of training and game time that I have put into this).
• Research agents – Not sure that datacores are worth the skillpoints, even over the very long-term after the ISK generation becomes almost free.
• Manufacturing – Margins seem to be very, very tight in manufacturing. There are many items that sell below their production cost. It is very important to be selective before getting into manufacturing. Some BPCs can be quite lucrative but may have to be found or earned first.
• Learning – Never stop learning and researching in Eve. You don’t have to embrace spreadsheets. There are lots of tools out there to help. Pyfa, Eve Mon, Fuzzworks, Eve Marketer and many more. The Eve community, although we can’t have game mods, are very creative and provide lots of sites and apps to help improve different parts of the Eve experience.
• Eve Uni – Between the services, the wiki, the forums and the classes/fleets, Eve Uni is a phenomenal experience for new players. In a game, a break from reality, a place to chill, it really is wonderful. AMC and WHC have been excellent and are highly recommended for their respective playstyles. If you have read this far, thank you. I hope you get as much joy from Eve Uni and the game as I have so far.

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)

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)

Porsche Amarr has been a member of EVE University for over two years, and wrote up a summary of his time, trying out multiple playstyles and campuses. Part one covers his time in the Amarr Mining Campus, and becoming a Freshman and then a Sophomore.

The following sets out my journey in Eve Uni since joining in January 2017. After two titan kills last night, I starting reflecting on how far I have come and how good Eve Uni has been all along the way:

PART ONE: Amarr Mining Campus

Mining
The mainstay of many new pilots, my first campus is/was AMC (not sure if we ever leave or just spend less time in a campus). I worked through a Venture, into a Procurer/Retriever and into a Skiff/Mackinaw and up from Mining Laser Is to Modulated Strip Miner IIs with crystals. Spent some time learning different ore types, reprocessing amounts and system security status – graduated from Veldspar and Scordite to Pyroxeres. Dabbled in a few missions.
After a short time in the uni, I applied for and received the Freshman title.

Classes/Fleets – HSC and NSC
Another essential part of learning Eve Uni is classes and fleets and between work and travel, I tried to attend as many classes and fleets as I could. The Mumble lectures, especially when combined with slide shows, wiki pages and practical sessions were helpful but I have nearly always found it essential to go and implement the knowledge and skills asap after each class to really learn/retain it.
It has always struck me, particularly in a game, how people will give their recreation time to prepare and run classes to the benefit of others and I have great respect for the Eve University Education Directorate and all those who get involved.
I realised early on from classes and fleets that, with a dodgy ping and a lack of affinity, solo PvP was not really going to be my thing. With little in the way of ISK, each ship loss was a heartbreaker.

Mining gets bigger
After some time mining, following another mainstay, I scaled up and two more mining accounts appeared. This was despite a few brushes with CODE and other gankers which sometimes caught me AFK or watching a movie and got my expensive mining ships. In highsec, losing Exhumers is an expensive business, even with three Exhumers going for hours at a time.
The AMC buyback service has always been fantastic and the increased scale of mining saw quite a few billion in buybacks over several months and some decent tax/profit margin.

Research
With ISK comes the quest for more ISK and I thought I’d try my hand at researching and inventing BPOs/BPCs. Without too much research (to be honest), I bought a whole lot of ship and equipment BPOs and started to lodge them in stations near AMC. I worked on lab skills to improve research and spent a reasonable of time popping into stations to build ME/TE on lots of BPOs. Having at least 15 and then 25 sets of BPOs being researched at a time seemed a logical way to make money but in itself just led to having lots of BPOs in stations.

Invention/Manufacturing
With a large and fairly regular supply of ore coming in from my main Eve gameplay in mining and a lot of time to think, I started contemplating actually using the materials for manufacturing instead of just selling to the Uni but first I needed to decide what to make. Without probably effective research, I decided to make Tech II drones. I started copying the drone BPOs but first shifted to build all the Tech I ship BPCs that I had collected from starter missions and elsewhere. At this point, I looked at the invention process and realised that additional materials would be required.

Exploration
Needing decryptors for invention led me to start exploration, initially in highsec and then very briefly in lowsec. I slowly started to train scanning, hacking and archaeology skills up and spent time in highsec getting hold of decryptors from data sites and some decent loot from relic sites. It was interesting work in highsec but a bit nerve-wracking after being instakilled on my first journey into lowsec and then settling on the odd wormhole daytripping.

Missions
As mining slowly began to drive me insane and exploration would periodically frazzle my nerves, I started looking further afield and messed around with some missioning. It had enough variety not to be too repetitive and was quite quick early on. Some security missions here and some courier missions there.

Station trading
Around this point, I decided to try my hand at station trading. I did a lot of reading about it and, like many things in Eve, I realised that it needed a reasonable amount of preparation to be a serious station trader. I was amassing some ISK from the mining operations and bits were trickling in from selling manufactured ships and explo but I needed to train up trade skills and work on my standings.
This is where the next main was born, as a dedicated station trader. With three toons mining on the screen, I spent quite a bit of time working the fourth through courier missions (no combat skills) to raise Caldari Navy and Caldari faction standings to decent levels. I trained Margin Trading to V and even Market Tycoon to V. For many months, I would have three toons out mining and one toon with 100 to 150 open trades at a time, sometimes playing the 0.01 ISK game and other times using some decent sites to identify reliable, high-volume trades. On some days, I would make a billion ISK from trading. On other days, I was trying to have a life – if triple-boxing miners was not driving me completely insane, 0.01 ISK trading threatened to – not complaining, it actually felt fantastic to be somehow in control of the game. Although, I was joining some fleets and classes but I was not really risking too much (or actually using any of the ISK that I was making). Periodically, I would make a silly mistake and get ganked during wartime on my main or on one of the alts but I was generally not losing any ISK anywhere.

Research
It was about that time, staring at lots of windows multiboxed on a screen that I discovered research agents and datacores. Without realising that the value is reasonably limited, it looked like free isk after an initial train, so I set my toons onto research training. At that point, there were also standings requirements which only suited one of my toons, so I checked on the most lucrative datacore returns and set off to make friends with research agents. To this date, they simply plug away giving research points each day and I should get organised and go and redeem the RPs for datacores to use/sell.
A bit disappointed by the lack of standings on my alts, I kept looking for other ways to make ISK as passively as possible as station trading was taking up a lot of my time but seemed far and away the most lucrative activity.

PI
I found Planetary Interaction (as it was then) and proceeded to skill into and set up 5 planets close to AMC. There was quite a bit of clicking involved but once each planet was set up, things became much easier. I had no idea what I would do with the products but they were being produced fairly passively – except for the time spent travelling to the planets from the trade hub to collect. These built up, as were the researched BPOs and some explo loot.

Service – Personnel Officer
After quite some time, maybe a year in the uni, I started looking at the Sophomore title. There was a suggestion that experience was one thing and then some service or giving back to the uni another. I had very little killboard to speak of and I had a few forum posts but I never felt in any sort of authoritative position to be giving advice to other unistas.
I saw an advert corp email for Personnel Officer positions and thought it would be worth giving it a go. I had performed that role in a work environment directly at one stage and then as a supervisor so while it wasn’t complicated in a game environment, I had a reasonable amount to learn. The application process was a little bit of a Catch-22 because Sophomore was preferred but it was going to be difficult to pick up Sophomore without some service. Thankfully, the Personnel Department accepted my application and I became a Personnel Officer.
For a number of months, I would monitor the chat channels, provide advice to potential applicants while scanning the queues, processing applications and running interviews. The personnel process itself, is not overly complicated, but I realised that I was not very (Eve) worldly. It took time to learn some of the cues to look for that might suggest an application was dodgy. I learnt about various corps and alliances, wardecs and diplomacy. Sophomore came early on.
The PO role was quite interesting and seemed to fit with my playstyle of mining and station trading as I could process applications and run interviews between trades while still having decent anti-gank vision of my miners. It was only when I went on a longer work trip that I was bumped off the list and the email said I would be welcomed back at any time but work hasn’t really slowed down much.

Part Two will cover Porsche’s experiences of the Wormhole campus and trying out more PVP. 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)

One of our newest members, Hanayo Shihari, spent their first day in EVE University exploring the campuses available. Here is his fantastic write up of his experience:

“My first day in the UNI, and I decided to visit every Campus HQ, and got an extra special surprise when I got smartbombed (first lossmail!) and spawned in my med clone with EGGS in the system! (First ever wormhole!)

I didn’t stay long in each system, just popped in, said Hello and took a screenshot.

High Sec Campus – First Impressions? BUSTLING! Wow, so many people flitting about, just in the few minutes I was there I could tell that the HSC must be a popular choice for unistas.

Low Sec Campus – I understand that this campus moved (recently-ish?), from what I saw as I flew through, there seems to be something for everyone! Access to every type of security space, and it seemed very central, like close to other campuses. I felt like I could live here and experience a new part of the game every day.

Null Sec Campus – Thar be bubbles! Granted, I didn’t actually see any bubbles, but I assume they’re here somewhere. The sense of leaving security and safety behind was very real just on my way through. Jumping into a system and seeing even one name in local without a blue or green icon was enough to sharpen the senses and make me think about my next move.

Amarr Mining Campus – Friendly people! I didn’t spend long here, but Resource Harvesting, Processing and, Industry absolutely fascinate me. I’ll definitely be spending some time with the AMC in the future, perhaps when I’m no longer an alpha and can fly something more useful than an alpha-fit venture.

Project Solitude – This project seems really interesting to me. This campus area was another bustling group of systems, full of people flitting about and doing their eve thing. It was like being in New-New Eden (lol) like a self contained universe of it’s very own. I can hardly wait to spend some time here and learn what it takes to survive far from standard trade routes.

Wormhole Campus – I really lucked out here! This was the one campus I was sure I wouldn’t get to see for a long time, however after I got smartbombed back to my med clone today (which was my first ever non-scripted lossmail, like not from the tutorial missions), I replaced my Heron and figured I’d scan down a relic/data site or two in my “home” system, just to get over the lost time and isk. Imagine my surprise when I scanned down a wormhole, which I would typically ignore because as an alpha I can’t cloak, only to notice a BOOKMARK right on top of the signature! Eggs spawned in my home system! That must have used up all my good luck for the decade.

I couldn’t very well pass the opportunity up, and jumped through. My very first ever wormhole. I had no idea what to expect, since this is one thing I haven’t done much research on (being an alpha and a newbie) but luckily the Dormitory was right there, so I zipped over, grabbed a screenie and docked up to say hello.

Special thanks to Shizuka Shinano for saying Hi and pushing back that unbelievable (and amazing!) sense of loneliness that comes from wormhole space!

I can’t wait to visit again.

Thanks to everyone that said hi as I passed through, and to the Uni itself for providing this amazing and diverse community for experiencing so much of what New Eden has to offer.

Now if only this had helped me make a decision on where to live!”

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

This post is pulled from a forum post by Hanayo Shihari. See the original post here.

The Faces of EVE University are colorful and intriguing. With this interview series we want to bring to light some of the personalities that make up the staff of our alma mater, who tirelessly work to the advancement of learning.

For this installment of our series we sat down to talk to our Director of Human Resources: Jilokari Kurvora. He enlightens us about how he became a director, what his work entails and how the departments he oversees work together.

Hideo Date: For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do in New Eden and in EVE University in particular?

Jilokari Kurvora: I am Jilokari Kurvora, Jilo to my friends (pronounced GeeLo).  I’ve been alive since 8th November 2014, I am a Wormhole Dweller, and love to do solo exploration especially because I never know where I’ll end up. In EVE University I am the Director of Human Resources overseeing and setting policies for the the Recruitment, Orientation, Mentor, and Titles Departments.

Hideo: How did you start off playing EVE and how did you become part of the Uni? 

Jilokari: Well I did try to get into EVE earlier, but my PC wasn’t really up to the challenge. I was always really inspired by the videos for EVE Online, the whole pioneer spirit of the game and I was especially drawn to the sandbox element. All those unscripted player generated actions and impacts fascinated me. So when I finally got myself a decent gaming PC in November 2014, I downloaded EVE online and chose a Caldari character (Who doesn’t love a bit of space capitalism). Off I went into the cold hard space only to get blown up in a ball of fire 3 jumps from the starter system. After a few days in game I came across EVE Uni, thought this is the place for me and never looked back.

Hideo: Could you tell us a bit about how you managed to climb the ranks to the heights of Director of HR?

Jilokari: I’m a highly qualified assassin and I got better shoes out of it.

But seriously, since you asked nicely Hideo, I actually started off my EVE Career by becoming a Personnel Officer. I mainly did it because I was fascinated on the inner workings of Corporations in EVE, specifically how they reflected real life, just with more spreadsheets. From there I became a Senior Personnel Officer, I’m told in the fastest time ever for a promotion, so I must have done something right. A few months passed and the opportunity arose for me to move into Personnel Management. First as Assistant Manager then Personnel Manager, which I thoroughly enjoyed because my PO’s and SPO’s are awesome guys and gals. In 2018 I was honored to be asked to become Director of Personnel, a role which I only held for a few months before stepping into Director of HR when our last Director of HR, Dune Barphsaq, stepped down.

Hideo: So as you are newly inducted into the role of HR Director you must have a pretty fresh view on things. Could you give us a glimpse into your daily workload?

Jilokari: Well at the moment it’s quite busy, as Director of Personnel I had two departments under me, Personnel and Orientation. At the moment I haven’t backfilled the Managers in those departments so I’m doing the daily manager tasks, such as monitoring the queue levels, answering questions of officers and members, and keeping the departments records up to date. I also check into all the slacks to see what the conversation is across the Uni and try to keep up to date. You can also usually find me trawling through the forum, keeping up to date on developments there. In addition to that I’m getting to know my other departments, Titles and Mentors, reviewing feedback and looking for ways that we can make the service we offer better for our members.

Hideo: Your Directorate in particular seems to have a lot of varied departments under it, how does it all fit together in your mind?

Jilokari: A great question! I think the simplest way to look at it is my Directorate inducts, orientates, supports, and marks progression of Members in the University. We are the first people they interact with when joining and a constant presence as they progress.

Hideo: How is the relationship between the departments?

Jilokari: It’s all about the relationship for me! I’m a massive people person, and I think that some of our best work gets done when we all work together as a single unit. Each of my departments impacts on the other in some way, whether that be Personnel creating work for Orientation, Orientation driving titles or mentor applications, it’s all interconnected. Do I think we have it nailed just yet? No, but I do know that the folks of the HR directorate are awesome and we have begun to make small changes to improve communication between the departments, which can only serve to improve the members experience.

Hideo: How do you keep track of the different departments?

Jilokari: Well lucky for me I have a great team of Managers and Assistant Managers who keep me updated with what’s happening in their respective areas. Besides that I have the slack channels to keep up to date with the day to day information as well as the awesome portal that our Director of Web Services has been building and I have a tonne of spreadsheets. Seriously I have so many spreadsheets…

Hideo: How did you handle the change over from Manager to Director? I assume the time you need to put in now is much increased?

Jilokari: There is certainly a lot more to be aware of, and an increased sense of responsibility. I’ve definitely seen an increase in the amount of time I spend looking through the forum, discussions on slack, actions like removing inactive members, and applying in game titles etc. It can sometimes feel like a second job, but I wouldn’t change it for the world! One of the more interesting things for me is trying to become more visible to members. Gone are the days when I could just not log on for a few days because I felt like it, or stick purely to exploration. As a Director I think there is an expectation from our members that I be seen participating, which is great, but just as an advanced warning to our members and FC’s: beware my PvP foo is not strong.

Hideo: You’ve already made a few internal changes as well as introduce a significant change to the titles within EVE Uni. You also were quite busy with the recent introduction of the new EVE Uni Portal. Would you care to elaborate on what has happened so far during your tenure?

Jilokari: Oh I think you pretty much covered it there. We are still in the process of rolling out our new University Portal which is looking awesome and will make life so much easier. I stepped into the role fresh off the back of the Uni wide survey, and it was clear that there were areas that our members felt we could evolve and I agreed! I’d say the biggest changes were allowing alpha clones to apply for the Freshman progression title, and allowing members who returned to the Uni or swapped their character to transfer any progression title they held over. We have lots of good ideas on where we can take the HR Departments in the future so watch this space.

Hideo: Is there pressure from students, prospective members, or upper management to shift the bureaucratic nature of EVE Uni’s recruitment either way? If so, how do you balance your own goals and vision for the department with those outside perspectives?

Jilokari: Internally I don’t see there being any pressure really, we can get a bad rep externally sometimes though. I think EVE Uni’s recruitment process is a bit like marmite. (the food – if you can even call it that, not the alliance) Some people love it, some people hate it.  Ultimately it is there to ensure that someone is right for us and we are right for them. When I first joined the Uni it was almost a 2 week wait, now on average it takes 4 days from application to accept for an applicant with an average wait time of 4 hours in our queue. Do I think we can improve on the process? Sure and it’s something that I will be looking at closely. I’d also point out that while people are waiting to join they can still take advantage of our Wiki, and our classes which are both publicly available.

Hideo: The introduction of officers dedicated to orientation is a relatively recent addition to HR. Has the program been as successful as management hoped?

Jilokari: I wouldn’t call Orientation new really, it is the youngest of our Departments and I would say they have done an amazing job! The challenge we have as a teaching corp is that we share so much information it is too easy for our new members to get lost. Orientation helps to focus a player on some specifics that may be useful for them based on the play style and interaction they have had with our community at 7 and 28 days, making it a little bit easier to assimilate into Uni life. I think it’s also important that we balance that out though,  because EVE is a harsh game, and people need to learn how to be somewhat self sufficient. To quote my bio “Education is not the training of facts but the training of the mind to think!”

Hideo: How do you personally see the importance of mentors for the experience new players in EVE University get?

Jilokari: Oh I think mentors are really important for newer players. EVE is such a complex and varied game, I regularly come across applicants who want to learn everything.  Mentors can help hone their knowledge and help them get more out of this wonderful game. I think that Mentors contribute highly to people sticking around and not getting burnt out or frustrated. I wish we had more Mentors.

Hideo: What would you say is the biggest hurdle EVE University, and your directorate in particular, will have to overcome in the next year?

Jilokari: Honestly, the biggest hurdle for the HR Directorate is staffing. We have some amazing people who do great work but people move on, find other interests which means we are always recruiting. I am passionate about keeping our wait times for interview and titles low, as well as having mentors to spare. I also want the HR Staff to actually enjoy EVE and not have to spend all their time doing space admin, so yeah, we need to keep a good flow of new staff.

Hideo: Well that’s it for my questions so far. Do you have anything else you want to talk about or any closing statements?

Jilokari: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the HR Directorate, I would say that my door is always open so if anyone needs or want to raise anything about the HR Directorate they can contact me wether in Slack or via forum message.