Reflections on CCI

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By Gergoran Moussou

On September 11, 2019, I became the ninth person to complete the requirements of the Cross-Campus Initiative after around four months of participation in events around the various campuses.

Like most people who join EVE University, I started at HSC. The most popular activities there, mining and mission running, were what I had been doing solo after finishing the Career Agent missions, so it was a fairly easy transition. The community was quite helpful for getting started. Even though I was unable to pull any L4 missions (and still lack the standings for the agents in Amygnon, since almost all of my solo missions at HSC were with Roden Shipyards). They gave me some good tips on how to do those activities and what ships I should train into for those activities, most notably when I was running L3 missions in a Drake and someone suggested that I train into a Dominix and then a Rattlesnake. Even when I didn’t have a ship which could help clear missions faster, people were glad to let me come along and salvage. However, the general focus of the campus meant that I was mostly on my own for what became my preferred activity: PVP. At this time, E-Uni rarely had PVP fleets scheduled, so most of my PVP was solo roams through nearby Low-Sec space (I had no victories). The first war after this year’s wardec changes was an incentive to do this more: T1 frigates are much more expendable than the Gila which I was using to run missions, so I spent more time outside of High-Sec since P I R A T rarely leaves High-Sec. Eventually, because I was spending most of my time in Low-Sec, for both PVP and exploration (since I found it very lucrative to dive into wormholes in the area), I decided to move to the Low-Sec Campus. My core impression of HSC’s community is that it’s full of people who like to do their own thing while enjoying each other’s company in voice communications, but will generally welcome you to join in if you want to join in on what they are doing.

When I arrived at LSC, I had in mind that it wouldn’t be a long-term stay and that after a while, I would check out a different area of space, either NSC or WHC. However, it quickly became a campus that I was reluctant to move away from. I joined during a golden age for the campus. The incredible work that Urban Oxide, the campus manager put into the campus made it easy to do everything out of there. The community was smaller than HSC, but hugely active and eager to do stuff together. No matter when I logged in (some days, my work schedule made EUTZ more convenient, others, USTZ, and I often did both a couple of weeks into my stay at LSC when I began several weeks of unemployment), there were people eager to do stuff. Usually, that stuff to do involved roaming around in small ships (mainly T1 and navy frigates) to find fights, so I found plenty of fights. One experience which I found at LSC, which I did not experience at all at HSC was interacting with the neighbors. When I was at HSC, I didn’t pay attention to who the neighbors were at all. Because LSC has more interactions with other players (often involving the exchange of ordnance), I kept track of who else roamed CalGal, both to consider what I might be up against and because some of them ended up becoming my friends. Even now that I have moved to a different campus, I keep my medical clone here and generally stage my fleets from here because it is a more convenient location than any other campus for roaming CalGal.

After a few weeks at LSC, I ended up at my current home, the Wormhole Campus. The first thing that I noticed was that there was significantly less room for doing stuff as individuals than the other campuses. I arrived at an unusual moment: after finally applying to WHC after weeks of procrastination, my first visit ended up being to defend some structures which got reinforced in the same weekend that I applied, before I was actually accepted. This mostly involved sitting docked in the Astrahus with a lot of other people waiting in a Retribution in case someone ended up showing up for the timer (fortunately, this didn’t happen, but that was an incredibly boring three hours). After this, I had the opportunity to do a more normal WHC activity, PVE harvesting, because Bacon (WHC’s C3 static) connected to a system with a Low-Sec static to Eugales (LSC’s home system). They formed up a harvester, so I refit one of my Confessors (since it was a Wolf-Rayet system) and joined them for it, making more ISK per hour during that than any other PVE activity that I had done to that point before logging off. I got accepted to the campus that evening, while I was on the way to the staging system for a non-Uni fleet, so as soon as I got back, I moved my scanning Anathema and the aforementioned Wolf-Rayet Confessor into my new home. More than any other campus, things are unpredictable due to the nature of wormholes, so while I have called this my home, there aren’t often any planned events and I therefore didn’t count anything at WHC toward the requirements for CCI. Some days, I’ve been in multiple intense PVP events, I’ve also spend fairly long periods without seeing much PVP in the WHC chain. Some days, we’ve rolled into great systems for PVE (the two main requirements being a small number of connections and a large number of combat anomalies), other times we’ve ended up with systems that either had no PVE content or were too dangerous for it. The main thing that it doesn’t have which LSC has is accessible solo content: as someone who hasn’t trained into any sort of cloaky combat ship yet, I can’t really hunt the chain yet in something which can engage targets that I might find. For this reason, I keep a stock of ships at LSC for use when I feel like solo-roaming. However, the teamwork-focused nature of wormhole living has made the WHC community into an extremely close-knit one.

In addition to the three campuses which I’ve used as my primary home, I’ve done stuff at a few other campuses. The first campus which I checked out was the Null-Sec Campus. I went over for a visit a week or two after moving into HSC and got set up with a ratting ship. Unfortunately, my early visits to NSC ended up being a false start: while I ended up appearing on a killmail for the first time, I got the impression that people there generally flew ships which I couldn’t fly yet (having barely trained into cruisers at the time), so I stayed away from NSC for a while. However, I later ended up returning for some scheduled roams and mining operations. I found the roams to be quite enjoyable as a change of scenery from my usual areas of Placid and Black Rise, while the mining operations gave me some great ISK. My experience of the Amarr Mining Campus has been a pretty good one. I’ve participated in a couple of mining operations on my primary character and many more on my alt which I keep at AMC (sometimes I mine while doing something on my main, sometimes I mine while sitting docked up on my main because of stuff going on in the chain, sometime I mine while not logged into my main, but there’s always something to mine, preferably ice). The community down there is fairly laid-back and relaxed, so when I’m down there, I generally enjoy the social aspect of the campus. I’ve often found amusement in how the mindset of the other miners down there differs from mine with regard to PVP. It was even funnier when the opposite occurred one time and I went on a rather long explanation to some people in WHC’s Mumble channel about which ores are the best to mine and why, despite there being almost no mining of anything other than gas at WHC (although I try to mine some ice whenever we get a shattered system near enough to be worthwhile). The last campus which I really participated in (aside from a couple of visits on my own over the months before I made my way over there) was Project Solitude. Again, like the other campuses in High-Sec space, this is a fairly laid-back community, but the isolated nature has its own appeal which I particularly like. I’m working on setting up some things to do in this location specifically to take advantage of that isolation.

Both times when I changed my primary campus, it took a bit over a week to get fully situated at the new campus. The first time, it was mainly for financial reasons. After moving to LSC and dedicating most of my game-play time to PVP, I ended up both making significantly less ISK and losing a lot more ships, so whenever I saw HSC mission fleets scheduled, I flew over because I hadn’t yet figured out how to make much ISK in Low-Sec. The transition from LSC to WHC was more because I felt overwhelmed by how much more demanding wormhole living is at first and I hadn’t gotten used to the idea that content might be different from day to day yet. Unfortunately, LSC’s golden age concluded soon after I got myself fully situated at WHC (the campus manager stepping down for real-life reasons and the assistant manager leaving E-Uni resulted in a lot of services being suspended and player engagement at LSC dropping significantly).

Finally, I noticed when adding myself to the wiki page for CCI medalists that I had directly interacted with the majority of previous medalists in earning it. Esca Sinak, the last person before me, does not interact with me very often but was in the first fleet that I scheduled and has processed many of my SRP requests. Psychotic Fickity was one of the first people who I remember encountering after joining E-Uni and being introduced to people in Mumble, and ran the first few events that I participated in. Penelore was no longer involved with FCC by the time that I started taking fleets out, but her alt which remained in E-Uni for a few weeks after that was in my first fleet and talking with her in LSC Mumble gave me a lot of informal advice on how to run fleets. She was also one of the people who most strongly encouraged me to head over to WHC. Mike Kingswell is a common fixture at any HSC event that I’ve logged in for during EUTZ hours, particularly when I’ve shown up for the monthly shared can (otherwise known as Mike’s Bounty Mining) and was very helpful when I first posted a fleet on the calendar, suggesting a good route (which I ended up following for the most part). Budda Sereda left E-Uni before I joined, but he still participates in FCC Slack and I’ve gotten some helpful feedback from him.

INTERVIEW SERIES: NEW FLEET COMMANDERS

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Interview with: Ky Hanomaa
by Gergoran Moussou

Image result for EVE ONLINE FLEET CARACAL

Jumping into a fleet can be a daunting though highly entertaining endeavor for a new player.  It can be an even more daunting prospect for new fleet commanders upon whose shoulders rest the success of the mission, the ships employed, and in some cases the capsuleers themselves. Eve University, a premier teaching corporation within the New Eden universe, provides opportunities to learn the aspects of fleet dynamics.  Recently staff writer Gergoran Moussou was able to sit down in virtual space and talk to one of our first-time fleet commanders, Ky Hanomaa, about his experience.

GM: Your first fleet was a kitchen sink frigate Noobs on Patrol fleet, correct? Why did you pick that instead of a doctrine such as BLAP Merlins?

KH: I just enjoy picking my own stuff and not being restricted to doctrine when running with small numbers. On top of that, I don’t need to coordinate with Logi.

 GM: Prior to that, you had a fair bit of experience with PVP. Did it feel any different jumping the gate to the first fight as FC than it did when as a scout or another role?

KH: Not really, the only thing that was different was actually ‘preparing’ the fleet and the expectations that might be tied to running an official fleet as opposed to an AdHoc fleet, which kind of did put a slight bit of pressure on me in the beginning. That stuff usually vanishes after the first engagement as kills are the ultimate icebreakers. Or just having something to shoot at, no matter how small it is.

 GM: How did you feel about your performance as FC afterwards?

KH: The first fleet was a little starved for content and we did run into the issue of a few people engaging a non-flashy target on a gate without having a proper rundown on bouncing. The feedback I received after the fleet was positive however and I was able to reflect on all mistakes I made during the fleet.

GM: What kind of adjustment to your FC style did you make in response to the feedback?

 KH: Actually include gate-gun mechanics and bouncing during the newbro-speech as well as being more open to take fights that might cost me a few ships, and most importantly, make sure I have at least one experienced scout.

GM: I think that might have actually been the fleet when I lost my Kestrel to gate guns even though I knew better. Do you remember what your newbro speech focused on?

KH: I actually struggle to remember, but I certainly said that I wasn’t going to take non-flashy targets on gates since we didn’t have the proper set-up to do so. Probably basic movement commands and broadcasts.

GM: I think I remember what happened with the gate guns now. Wasn’t it that there was a miscommunication and a flashy jumped at the same time as another ship with orange -5 standings?

KH: Yes, the scouts reported a ‘red’ Hecate and an ‘orange’ Republic Fleet Firetail. The Hecate was flashy, so I called to tackle it, but it got away. About three of our guys ended up aggressing the Firetail which turned out to have negative standings with the Uni.

GM: How did you plan your route, did it take long to plan it?

KH: Not really, as my time roaming solo around the area gave me a good idea of which systems regularly offer content during each respective TZ. I was also fortunate to have guys in the vanguard that I could detach to check out systems that weren’t directly on the route while our scouts went to +1.

GM: You’ve staged fleets out of both HSC and LSC. Which campus do you prefer to stage out of, and are there any other campuses out of which you would like to stage fleets?

KH: I liked the flexibility the LSC Market in Archavoinet offered, but with that gone now, I’ll stage from HSC because it turns out that it makes it easier for the newbros as well, of which I appear to get plenty. As for the future, I might consider staging from NSC once I get a good idea of how fleet engagements work in Null as opposed to Low. My NoP Fleets will still stage from HSC, though.

GM: Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about taking out their first fleets?

 KH: Try to attend as many fleets as possible and fill each of the roles a bunch of times – especially scout. It will make it far easier to detect and understand any issues especially newbros could have in these positions. Which in turn helps approaching and solving said issues as swiftly as possible to resume the fleet. It will also give you knowledge about different ship types and understanding what is engageable and what is not.

GM: You might be the most experienced scout who I’ve flown with in the Uni. How much did that help you?

KH: I generally know how much time the scouts need, when to basically ‘give up’ a system and move on as well as evaluating which targets call for vanguard and when a minor spike in local (by the vanguard) is acceptable. I’m also able to give my scouts direct feedback and help them improve and become more efficient in their own scouting-game.

GM: What kind of ships do you like flying? What is your favorite ship to fly in general (solo or fleet, PVP or otherwise), and why?

KH: For PvP, especially solo, I like flying kitey ships. The Imperial Navy Slicer is probably my favorite, followed by the Retribution. I’ve also tried the Garmur, although I find missiles kind of weird and the Garmur a little too pricey. I also like to fly bombers, be it in small gangs or Blops fleets, as the cloak paired with the NullSec Blackout make for really interesting engagements. I generally dislike brawling, as sitting beside each other trying to simply out-dps and/or out-rep your opponent just feels less accomplishing in my opinion. This might be interesting in larger fleet engagements, but when I fly solo I like to try and outmaneuver my opponents and get as much as I can without being caught.

GM: What doctrines are you interested in trying to FC? And which ones have you enjoyed flying? You’ve mentioned Blops, but what else?

KH: I honestly haven’t thought about it much, as the sole reason for me to FC was to provide PvP content for the newbros.   Since I don’t enjoy larger engagements and prefer the Hit-and-Run-Style I would be semi-interested in trying out a kitey doctrine. I also plan on starting to hunt for Blops Fleets under Bomber’s Bar or Spectre Fleet to get the fundamental experiences needed to eventually FC said fleets in a few years. Both of these kind of doctrines are hard to run with the Uni, as they either require you to have enough SP or good manual piloting skills, so I’m not really sure as to whether there’s much sense running them. 

Thank you Ky for being our first New Fleet Commander Interview! Keep doing what you are doing!

Make Magic 14 Work for you

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By: Gergoran Moussou

Are you wondering what to do with those free skill points handed out recently by CCP or what to do with all those skill points you are racking up by killing NPCs?   CCP recently referenced Eve University’s WIKI article on the “Magic 14” as a good place for these points. The Magic 14 is the foundation of any well-skilled character, though it will take a while to max them out, but since the free skill points can’t cover everything, it’s a good idea to have some pointers on how to prioritize those skills. While my specific examples discuss how skills would be prioritized on a character with Omega Clone status, the same core concepts apply to Alpha characters, that one should consider which skills provide benefit while flying one’s intended ships.

The first thing to consider is what you plan on doing with your character and what kind of ships you plan on flying for those activities. Regardless of activity, the optimal ships have basic requirements beyond the Magic 14.  But the Magic 14 do form the foundational basis for piloting and surviving in New Eden.  

For exploration, one of my primary ways to earn the ISK which I spend on ships to use in PVP, the main ship options beyond the basic T1 exploration frigates are T2 covert ops frigates and the Sisters of EVE line of ships, specifically the Astero and Stratios. To sit in the Sisters of EVE line, a character needs Amarr and Gallente skills for the relevant hull size, either frigate or cruiser (and cruiser requires Frigate III of the same empire anyway), so an exploration-focused character needs to mix the Magic 14 in with the basic prerequisites. Aside from better scanning probe strength at Covert Ops IV and V and faster scanning probe speed, the SOE ships either outperform or equal the T2 frigates in PVE exploration activities (while their difficulties in CPU make combat probing impractical). The biggest advantage is that they can engage in combat (many people can attest to the Astero being a capable J-Space hunter ship). While Covert Ops frigates do have weapon bonuses, I would never bother putting a rocket launcher on one of my Anathemas. It just doesn’t have enough durability for it to be worthwhile and an exploration fit already takes up two of the three high slots with the cloak and probe launcher. SOE ships solve both of these problems: Amarr hull skill and ample low slots provide good armor tank for durability and a substantial drone bay allows for combat engagements without spending high slots on weapons (with Gallente hull skill making these some of the most effective drone ships of their hull size). This combat bonus allows an explorer in a SOE ship to take on sites which a T1 or Covert Ops pilot would have to ignore, while also providing a chance at fighting back if unfriendly local players show up.

Because the SOE ships are armor-tanked, the priority skills from the Magic 14 for exploration are Mechanics and Hull Upgrades. Furthermore, their limited CPU means that CPU Management is the next one down. Because the only modules on a standard Astero fit which are likely to use a decent amount of capacitor are the propulsion and repair modules, an explorer does not need to prioritize the capacitor skills until later (with the Stratios’s additional high slots and bonus to energy turrets, which consume the most capacitor of any weapon type), but anyone who has ever run out of capacitor due to a long warp can attest to Warp Drive Operation being a useful skill. Furthermore, there are two other skills which an explorer absolutely needs: Cloaking IV allows equipping a module which is absolutely necessary when flying an exploration ship other than the T1 frigates, while Drones V allows the Astero to use its combat potential. Drones V is such a useful skill across so many ship types that it barely stops short of being as versatile and foundational as the Magic 14, but for ships which use drones as their primary weapon, it is absolutely essential (even for the Guristas line, while the limit of two makes it less important, enough support skills require Drones V that it is essential for those ships as well).

Similarly, combat pilots should consider what ships they plan on flying and how they plan on flying those ships in order to prioritize the Magic 14. Consider a doctrine ship like the E-Uni BLAP Caracal, the backbone of many high-sec mission fleets and ISK-positive QRF fleets defending against war targets. It is a buffer-tanked RLML Caracal, similar to many other corporations’ doctrines for the same ship. A skill plan specifically for this doctrine or a similar one does not generally need much training in capacitor skills because its modules aside from the propulsion module do not use much capacitor. However, if a doctrine uses the Caracal as a newbro ship for people who have not yet trained into the Cerberus, its Tech II counterpart, some Magic 14 skills which are fairly unimportant with the Caracal become essential. Alongside Capacitor Management and Energy Grid Upgrades, which are prerequisites for the Heavy Assault Cruisers skill, Hull Upgrades is essential for the Cerberus because of the Assault Damage Control modules, which drastically increase HACs’ durability if used properly.

One cautionary example about not prioritizing the Magic 14 enough is the mining alt that I recently deployed at E-Uni’s Amarr Mining Campus. In that character’s first mining operation, I had the skills to yield more ore than my main character, simultaneously flying an identical Procurer on the same moon belt, I had trained almost nothing but mining and industry skills on this character at that point and did not realize until I undocked the Procurer that I could not put its T1 shield tank modules online yet (a problem which I immediately adjusted my skillqueue to fix). This same problem repeated itself just over a week later when I undocked my first Industrial Command Ship, a Porpoise, and noticed that while I made sure to ask for Tech I shield tank from the AMC staff selling it to me this time, I forgot to train the Hull Upgrades skill at all, so I was unable to put my Reinforced Bulkheads II module online until the second or third time that I dropped off ore from that first moon extraction and it took a couple more days to make use of the Damage Control II in its other low slot.

A final consideration in prioritizing skills within the Magic 14 is that T2 ships are often much harder to fit, especially since they tend not to be worth the added expense over a T1 hull without T2 modules, which take up more fitting space than T1. The first ship that I ever trained specifically for was the Vengeance, the close-range-focused Amarr assault frigate. I put together a decent fit and bought the modules for it. While I set up a skill plan such that I could use all T2 modules before I trained the T2 ship skill, but when I first tried flying the ship, I noticed that I had neither the CPU nor the power grid to run all four Rocket Launcher II’s, so I needed to train the relevant skills up from IV to V.

In short, most people have some idea of what ships they want their characters to fly. While the Magic 14 are unique in that they benefit all ships, they do not benefit all ships equally. Therefore, while all skill plans should eventually cover the Magic 14, some skills deserve higher priority than others depending on the intended ships. While most of this is with regard to the hard attributes of the ship such as what kind of tanking and weapons it uses, softer aspects such as that an exploration ship is probably going to make frequent long warps are also important considerations.

Eve North

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Pictured: Dairek Alamari [E-Uni], John Silverfox [E-Uni], Zaenis Desef [G4NKS], Professor Academiac [E-Uni]

AFTER ACTION REPORT!

It was strange… and for many, unexplored space. It beckoned. It was out there, waiting. Unistas answered the call, gearing up and intentionally traveling for an encounter on a level previously unexperienced. These brave Unistas; some veterans, some new bros, boarded their various craft and landed on grid near the mighty CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. They fought the blazing heat of the summer star in the frozen lands of the north known as Canada for the op properly named “Eve North”. The following Eve University players are known to have been spotted in local: Dairek Alamari, John Silverfox, Minerva W Metis, Professor Academiac, Mhzentul Lafarius, and Knicpaw.

So, what is it that these Unistas think makes Eve Online one of the most popular MMO games around? Is it the fact that they belong to a popular and long-standing entity inside the game that encourages Friendship and comradery? ( Yes, Eve University, this means you!) “A genuine moment of happiness when you’d spot an E-Uni logo; when you’d see a familiar name tag; or recognize a familiar voice from E-Uni comms. These were people that I spent countless hours of my life having fun with. Capsuleers with whom I’d shared laughs, intense fleet fights and strat ops, silly Internet spaceship arguments, and heated debates throughout the years. They are friends that I’ve never really got to truly know, and then suddenly got to finally meet with them in person! It was euphoric!” Quote by Professor Academiac

Yes, Eve Online players will happily hunt people down in all areas of space even taking down a newbro in a wormhole only to turn around and invite him to join Eve University then chase you down in real world space and try to drink you under the table. CCP hosted both an Axe throwing event and a pub crawl on Friday, a curious conjunction of activities. (Our intelligence operatives are a bit fuzzy on the details regarding the pub crawl but the general assessment is that around 200 Eve players went in and 200 came out having had a great deal of fun, though what transpired in pub-space is still a bit hazy.)

As Alamari so well stated, at the end of the day the game is about the people who play it. “Eve North was a surreal and incredible experience. Witnessing 500 players put aside their in game conflicts, and politics to come together sharing stories, interests, food and the occasional argument was nothing short of amazing. This event also gave me the privilege of actually meeting some great individuals who I spend time talking with everyday. These are memories I will have forever.”

What was Eve North? It was a gathering of real-world people, players and developers, to share some time together in formal and informal settings June 21-23, 2019 talking about the game that tens upon tens of thousands of people play every day. The event provided a series of workshops touching on many aspects of the game focusing on improvements to be made including hints at what we have seen develop in the weeks since of smarter NPC’s and bots being hammered. The evenings provided opportunities for UNI folks to share dinner and not a few drinks with not only alumni of Eve University but members of other alliances. And of course there was always the “after party”. Unistas headed to what was generously described as a “shady divehole” proving perfectly comfortable to wormhole divers such as Alamari as they enjoyed drinks and the music of the cover band playing homage to CCP Guard and Permaband. Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the response of the uninitiated Uber driver to his passenger’s frank discussion of the virtue of bombs, missiles and torpedoes.

Have we mentioned yet, the great adventure of our brave Unistas in their valiant hunt for a Mining permit? They scouted high! They Scouted low and behind stray plants ( foreign objects unknown to these capsuleers), in their quest to find the Mining permit guy ( They were unaware of the guys name)! We are glad to announce they found him and even took a moment to pose for a picture, to mark this mission complete. Thank you Zaenis Desef. Your contribution to this experience will forever be marked by the Mining permits and a photo op!

Upon returning from this newly explored space in the universe what did these Unistas carry back to Eve space with them? “It was a weirdly great experience for a new player who knew little to nothing about Eve and the New Eden Universe…I love the social aspect of Eve.” Said Minerva W Metis . So do we Minerva, so do we. Fly Safe! Fly Dangerously! But Fly!

Special thanks to John Silverfox, Dairek Alamari, Professor Academiac, and Minerva W Metis for sharing their experience with us.

Also, a big thanks to the Alumni of Eve University who stopped by to say Hi and share stories with the current Unistas during Eve North!



Mental health and EVE Online

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For many people games are an escape from reality, and it can be difficult for players to admit, even to themselves, that they are struggling ‘in real life’.

Mental Health Awareness Week

For Mental Health Awareness week in May, one of our members, Shauny Tsero, wrote a fantastic series of forum threads on various matters related to mental health:

Mental Health Awareness Week – A broad introduction, covering various conditions

Looking after your mental health – Providing some tips and possible coping mechanisms

Overcoming fears and anxiety – Summarising some tips from the Mental Health Foundation

Introducing mindfulness – Explaining mindfulness and giving some tips on how to practice it

Suicidal feelings – Some information from Mind on identifying and dealing with suicidal feelings

Where to find support

There is help out there if you or someone else needs some support. Just a few of the support options are:

  • Broadcast 4 Reps is a well known and respected organisation supporting EVE players experiencing mental health issues. You can contact them through their public Discord server.
  • Best of Us is a community project for veterans across the world and provides a support network. You can contact them through their public Discord server.
  • EVE University has support available for members. Our Student Advocates are not mental health professionals, but they can assist members experiencing difficulties in the corporation as a result of mental health conditions and try and make their game time more enjoyable, particularly if they are having difficulty interacting with other members.
  • If you are aware of another player making suicidal threats which you think may be serious make an urgent report to CCP so they can contact the relevant local authorities. Support tickets filed under Game Play Support > Stuck” are high priority and will be reviewed urgently by a GM.

If you are in need of support please do reach out to someone. B4R maintains a list of international hotlines.

Nine Day Camping Trip in a Small Shattered Wormhole

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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…

Image

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 

Part three: Reflecting on more than two years of EVE University

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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)