Faulty Clone

Stupid biology.

Spent several days planetside and in station, then had to jump into my Prowler for a short trip to Jita. Came back, tried to leave the egg, passed out and when I came back to my senses I see the ship again! Doctor says something about my lungs and some implant abuse. Looks more like someone from medical personnel had some booze abuse. That was my first flight after the latest clone upgrade!

Doctor says they're going to fix that ASAP. Until that time I'm locked in the pod. It's finely tuned to my DNA and it's cheaper than renting out a medical wetbed.

Not that I'm complaining, I'm fine here in the metal body. But I'm already missing the ability to physically reach those medical people. In a potentially harmful way.

Is seducing a girl considered harmful these days? What if she's Civire?

Old Base, New Style

It's that time of the year – another brain rewiring. Logic and wits this time. Again. Should be helpful in poker games.

Yes, I'm still playing those. 100 millions lost so far. 98 actually but those other 2 won't last for too long.

I'm still feeling wealthy and I've even bought me the suit I liked. No need to advertise the discount I got. Also got me neat boots. They are good indeed – I no longer feel the urge to take off my shoes when watching news.

These things – poker and apparel – still require some source of isk. Using my new brain powers I've decided to optimize my gas extraction colony on Penirgman V. Studying advanced planetology this very moment. Not as horrible as I imagined, really.

Next step – polish those astrometrics skills and set sails to low-populated areas.


And yep, I'm back to Amarr space. It's some kind of reconstruction here, I've seen lots of gold plating and some religious statues around. I hope I won't have to move to one of those monk cells.

Programming for Free, Spending ISK for Fun

First thing was to avoid the problem I encountered last time and add some kind of a warning system for training queue expiration. The result is here.

The next thing was to aid my Duvolle colleagues with their programming project. Some stuff about security certificates and secure connections but it doesn't really matter. What is important is that they had no design when they implemented their framework and they needed a brain to fix the stuff. That was quite an interesting challenge itself. At some point it wasn't even related to programming and looked more like math and geometry and topology and even philosophy. The result was a document and then it took some more time to actually implement the code. Now the next part is to prove that theory is right and do it in a set of small comprehensible steps. Why not, I'm liking it, really.


So far these things give me no cash. As I sit on my billions spending nothing I can afford me some charity if it is fun. But any activity where you can win or lose money is more fun. That's what I was told by those lab slackers. Who introduced me to poker. Then I found a place where capsuleers play poker spending millions if not billions of ISK.

Lost 55 millions ISK so far. Not going to stop.

Other news: I'm nearing the end of Social Skills training and next one will be probably programming. I'm liking that, really.

Also I'm thinking of getting me the 'Esquire' coat. It does look good on me.

The Dark Side of Gallente Education

Ow.. My head.

Well, that trading stuff study took a little bit longer then expected but it was finally done. Of course I didn't want to waste the time though I immediately started learning the planetary and social stuff and moved for a while to Ainaille where Duvolle Labs research center is located. Sitaleere Beene is my agent here and is quite a nice guy even if he's gay. Hey, we're in Gallente Federation now and everyone has rights to be gay!

Anyway I was learning planetary stuff and helping him a bit with research until one day I mentioned getting the Business Tycoon Elite level certificate (guess that was around time when I mentioned the Improved level Colony Management certificate). And that was a mistake from me.

Consider a lab full of Gallente personnel willing to celebrate just anything and here's me with my Elite level certificate. And I'm a capsuleer. And rather friendly one. And having a couple billions isk... Gotta count how much days that party lasted.

In the end it's me passing out without noticing the warning about expiring skill queue. The how-s-that-thing-for-skill-training-called was idle for about 7 hours. Not good.

On a totally unrelated note I got rid of my facial hair.

You'd expect a picture of a partying girl here. And that's me contradicting your expectations.

Back to Gallente Roots

Living in Bourynes decided to check the latest capsuleer crash course and refresh all that knowledge myself. So I took a break from Advanced Trade classes and headed to Trossere where playgrounds for rookies are currently located.

All those courses and trainings took just a few hours. First using Velator for a bit, then Navitas, then switched to Atron and it wasn't that bad. Tristan on the other hand is a bit too slow after all those minnie ships.

As for rewards – a crapton of books, some modules which I reprocessed to minerals and two Iterons. Mark I. Not anywhere near the size of cargo I had to haul.

So I looked at the map and hey, it's Scolluzer nearby. The nearly abandoned WWES office. And there I found a better ship – Iteron Mark III. Now that's closer.

And only when piloting that itty I realized that that's my first time piloting Iteron ever at all. Yeah, gallente enterpreneur and never been in Iteron. The answer is I switched to minne ships that early. Used Hoarder, then Mammoth, then my forever beloved Prowler...

I got about a week more Trade studies – finishing up Corporation Contracting classes – then it's social stuff. And maybe I'll fly around in gallente ships more. There's a dozen of Incursuses stationed in Scolluzer. Nice.

Sidenote: It is possible to get from Trossere to Penirgman and back in under 40 minutes. All you need is pimped up Claw. And resolve to stand the vertigo. Note to self: I should not do that again. Ever.

Humanity Sciences

Reporting in from Bourynes.

Living in Amarr space I nearly forgot how .... liberal gallente female students tend to be.

Not just female actually, but I'm trying to ignore others.

Science vs Monsters

It's all about certifications actually.

Getting all the social data uploaded into my brain won't really help me in my life. Getting a certificate showing that I do have all those databases uploaded on the other hand ... nope, won't help as well per se. Still the fact that I'll be entitled by University of Caille creates a warm fuzzy feeling.

Remote education has its limits. I'll have to travel to Gallente space in near future. Not that I'm tied to my current location at all.

On the other hand we have those recent Sansha appearances. I mean capsuleers. SYNE alerts about those events are the only things that blinked on my commpad in the last days. Maybe I could go and try my best to help fighting those monsters.

Guess no.

My Dragonfly is ready to launch and course is set to Bourynes. Writing these lines and off.

Ah, wait, a mandatory sexy girl.

Money! Prices! Sources!

Lots of sources. Tons of data. Long list of prices. Not that good with money though.

I've got a piece of code to fetch some basic price data on a given item. But that isn't what I have to deal with in reality. In reality I want to know Amarr sell prices and Jita sell prices and base my approximations on these, not on some generic median prices gathered all over the cluster. That's just ridiculous – noone would listen to me if I come and say "Sell me some trit for 3 ISK each as this is the median price in the cluster." No, I'll head over to Amarr and buy some trit off market at lowest sell price. Or set up a buy order a little bit higher then the highest buy price. Whatever I'm up to at the moment. I might probably check other prices in Domain or even could visit Tash-Murkon or Kor-Azor.

Now that's when things get complicated. I don't have a sure way of acquiring these prices other then manually writing it all down. And that's where automation comes to mind. And price sources. Right, eve-central. With a little extra of course. Like "Which is cheaper – buying stuff in Amarr or getting it in Jita and paying extra 1% for hauling? Give me an 'A' or 'J' and an approximate cost of the winning one."

That's more like the kind of app I'm trying to get. But that's rather complex indeed. It asks for some way of defining these formulas and formalizing my own requests. And even before thinking on the inner structure of the app I have yet to write down what I in fact expect to get from it.

And I've made some progress at that. Like a ton of stickies and several pages of a boiled down text.

And no, naked chicks aren't included. It's internal so it has nothing to display. The main app which will be using it is a totally different thing though.

Fiery

Just three words — I am mining!

Went out in my Loki to check surrounding systems and at first there was nothing on radar. Then I hit a faint signature. Getting strong signal isn't as intriguing as getting a really weak one. So I was really excited. Turned out to be a gravimetric site but even the most intensive scan didn't give em the exact position and warp-in coordinates. That's when some arcane scanning techniques came in.

A large field of Jaspet, Omber and Kernite, all for myself. While Jaspet is superior in terms of isk/m3, I still don't possess enough knowledge about its structure to start using Jaspet mining crystals. This leaves me to mine Kernite. Fiery Kernite.

Mining it for a second day now. Soon the Fiery variation will be depleted and I'll switch to Luminous one. And that's still a lot. Both in hauling and refining.

No idea what to do with those minerals though. Doesn't matter — I'll spend them one way or another.

And now I'm just watching the fiery rocks being eaten by strip lasers to be later stored in a huge pile in the local station.

Changes

My last whine about uneventful life, huh? Gotta change something about that you say? Change yourself first you say?

So I did! Got me a stylish tattoo across the left cheek. Opted out from couple of rings in my ear though.

No idea if it is anywhere related to my current programming activity but there's been a load of progress as well. Stuff is working, I got some ideas implemented and others crawling around my head. Will provide some nice screenshots soon.

Listening to a radio with some uptempo smooth music helps too. It really wakes up my brain from the long-lasting slumber.

Also a semi-naked chick. No particular reason, just to keep the cheerful mood. And rather nsfw to not fall into happy-rainbow-and-unicorns kind of cheerful mood.

And there's no reason to not post such nice ladies after all.

Planetside Adaptation

I haven't had time to pilot anything these days. Planetside business, station-based work. It's not just I haven't undocked in a while, I haven't even got into pod at all.

While not touching the pod yet, I suspect the feeling will be close to one I had when plugged in for the first time. Hope that won't make me vomit or hinder my navigation or anything else.

Anyway I've got to change something about that. Sitting in one place wasn't ever what I really wanted to do. But I totally have no idea what exactly I've gotta change. I'm struggling to finish my currently undergoing projects but one of those is currently listed as "think about what I want to get from this at all" and it's not going anywhere.

Out of ideas.

Can't even find a sexy picture for this post.

Facelift

Nothing fancy – a bit of plastic surgery, some facial hair and a new haircut. No genetic modifications such as eye color change and I don't plan to change my gender in some near future.

A nice new suit too. My good old comfy robe was just too old.

It Has Begun

We've failed to stop that bastard Kuvakei and now New Eden is getting swarmed by those mutants.

It all began in Yulai where Kuvakei had borked the CONCORD station and started doing something evil with the star. There we went and started battling some Sansha ships and by the time I got to the wormhole within the range of my gravimetric jammers, Kuvakei announced he's done doing his arcane stuff and said us all to visit him in the Promised Land. Then he said something about Slave 32152 and then he and Slave Ation disappeared and were later reported sitting in the Promised Land.

There are rumors that the 32152 one tried to go there too, but got caught in the collapsing wormhole. Somehow I feel that it were my jammers that did the job.

Then there was a warning about Yulai star going boom and we all all ran away. Apparently it did not collapse, but still something wasn't right.

Then the fleet proceeded to the Promised Land (quickly losing pilots to both pirates and fear of those pirates) and by the time we reached the system we've found a horde of pro-sansha pilots and we weren't really able to prevent Kuvakei from finishing his work.

The fleet withdrew, I got a bit late behind and followed them on my own and in the end was caught into cate camp in the Antem. Lost my ship, saved my clone, came back to Pen, all the usual things.

And now those sanshas started swarming New Eden. At least there weren't any reports of anti-civilian activity. The only thing they do is turning our space into less cozy place.

This can wait. At least until we get more organized. Getting a hundred of random pilots is not a good way of fighting off those incursions.

Especially if you're in a throwaway Rifter.

A Busy Day Kicking Sansha Ass

It all started with decoding node 09 of Sansha relay. Which gave us Hakeri (4 populated planets), Horir (4 populated planets) and Huttaken (3 populated planets). H-systems. Sounds like porn.

Saturday we set up a vigil, waited for some time and went back home.

No idea who came up with times – 20:00 to 21:00 Eve time. Then there was evacuation when I got my Fenrir and even picked up a few thousands of refugees in Horir.

The next part is when I hopped into my ECM Blackbird and went to Horir. We're sitting, waiting for those freaks to come and taste our guns and the next thing I know is that we're heading to Afkanat. Horir wings go to Afkanat, Hakeri wings head to Odatrik.

In Afkanat there was some intense action which finished with Citisen Astur losing her (its!) Chimera. In few minutes it reappears in Odatrik in another Chimera and loses it too. And then there are reports of yet another incursion in Amamake. Our fleet is split into two halves across the universe, there are reports of RED fleet engaging Sanshas in Amamake and our FC decides that we don't go in there.

Then that CONCORD officer, Dorgiers or what was his name says that we should keep watching those H-systems and also keep an eye on Antem for some obscure reason known only to him. So I fly to Horir, then to Huttaken, then back to Horir and suddenly I see Sansha hole appearing right in front of me. We have a fight and close two holes (same shit goes on in other systems as well) then strange stuff begins — spikey ships appear, fly around, then disappear. And totally no Sansha dropships. They aren't here for humans.

Then Dorgiers says that Citizen Astur is haxoring something secret in Antem. And shouting in Antem local about "50 minutes left until I get all the secret porn decrypted and downloaded." Of two ways to Antem everyone picks longer but safer. We hug Antem gate and when about 10 minutes left until Astur got all the porn downloaded we jump into system and warp to our scout who has probed Astur's Wyvers. Local pirates flee from our combined fleet of about 20-30 ships of all sorts. And then we help Dorgiers' Nyx punch that Wyvern, switching our fire towards local pirates when those show up. When Wyvern goes down, one of those crazy Sansha loyalists comes in Archon. And we whack that one too.

So far it was ok as I felt being in a fleet and having a support and even if our equipment wasn't top-notch, we weren't really afraid of pirates. But then I wave goodbye to everyone and attempt to go back to Pen myself. Through low-sec. It all goes smooth until I jump into Atarli. That's when I see half a dozen pilots in local and a moment later I see them all around me hugging the gate.

I have already learned that if I'm in a quick frigate, I should burn back to the gate. But I'm in slow-ass Blackbird which is totally unfitted for a fight. 6 ECMs, 3 missile launchers and ECM-boosting stuff. No way I can survive if they engage me. But then I think — What the hell? This ship is designed to be cheap, I'm ready to lose it, and in I jump I will be in high-sec already and I even have a spare ship there!

So I initiate the warp. They start locking me but I warp before I'm scrambled. Either those guys were slow or they didn't feel like killing a single Blackbird. Both are unlikely actually. So I warp to a planet, then warp to a safespot, then warp out to high-sec. And head home.

Now that I'm thinking about why they let me go, I'm suspecting that either they didn't want to aggress as they were on their way somewhere or they were suspecting I'm just a scout or bait for a larger fleet. These cases make me feel better, but back then it was really heart-pumping situation for me.

Yeah, running alone through gate camp is indeed a lot more intense then fighting in a group. Even in a small group.

Brain Jam

Totally no idea what could have happened to my brain in the last days. At first it started with a totally uncontrolled slumber – the REM timer went haywire and I woke up in about 16 hours totally un-refreshed. My head felt like a total mess. I do blame sleep-learning the "Advanced fleet armor management." Still these things never caused issues like this.

Next night wasn't much better — this time REM timer didn't even register ANY sleep at all. So when the alarm went off and I wandered to my office and it all was really strange (broken ATM flashing yellow screen, suddenly withered plant on an empty reception desk) I wouldn't be much surprised to see a real ghost. While it all felt real, the seeming was too irreal (turned out that ATM was really broken and plant was withered some time ago, I never noticed that before).

And now, when my brain is no longer responsible for any rational thinking, a totally different body part jumps in. I've spent last hour discussing where to get proper rubber toys to arm a dozen of exotic dancers or which issue of CreoDron catalogue listed a fully-autonomous 10-limbed fucking drone. Which would hunt dancers and do what it is designed for. And send the real-time projection of the process onto my holodesk.

Screw it all. Off to bed. And no REMs this time. Just plain old rest.

Moar Piracy and Some Consequences

My irregular planetside shift schedule prevents me from attending most of our small yarr-sessions. But the good side is that "most" is not "all".

Anyway, tonight I tasted the blood of battlecruisers. First we aggressed a blinky-red Brutix. Little we knew about how strong his tank was. The tree of us (my Rifter, our leader's Slicer and one Merlin) were not enough to overcome his armour repairers. By the time we decided to disengage our leader got caught by his drones and ripped before he managed to warp away. Anyway, that was a nice fight. A little blood-pumping.

And then we proceeded to find softer targets and in the end we saw a pair of Hurricane and Apocalypse. In a belt. Killing bloods. With a loud "Yarr" we engaged that Hurricane and reduced it into bits. Totally non-combat fit. It was a plain salvage ship which backed the Apocalypse.

After little pause (and loud warnings about us, evil pirates, in the local chat channel) we decided to proceed and our leader in a different Slicer .. got caught by a properly equipped Hurricane. And smashed.

Without the lead we decide to leave the place and get back to our bases. So I jump through a gate and see two more BCs. And the moment I try to warp to safety, I'm caught. Two more seconds and my Rifter is torn by yet another Hurricane's autocannons. They didn't get my escape pod luckily.

So... As usual, my loss happened when I said to myself "I'll just get there and then take a break." Another thing to note is that I should not try to warp if I managed to jump into a camp. Even if I'm in a nimble frigate.

Adrenaline is still high and I need some relaxation now. Docking permission granted, and I've already ordered a couple of sweet-ass nurses for me to ease the pain of losing my ship and not getting high enough insurance to cover the loss of all the guns and shields on it.

Docking now.

Small Scale Piracy

So I got in touch with a gang of aggressive newbies led by a low-sec veteran, assembled a Rifter, armed it up and joined them for some illegal action. Last week we just ran around searching for a target of opportunity, but seen noone other then a huge gate camp. Not our target I say.

Yesterday the run was much more organized. I showed up early enough and even got me enough ammo. First we found a Maller. I warped into belt, saw that Maller, asked our commander if it is ok to engage, then approached and scrambled that poor newbie. He didn't last long and with that setup he had no chance even against me alone — a mix of short-range lasers and artillery, coupled with shield booster and hull repairer on a ship of amarrian design is not the greatest idea.

Then we traveled a bit more looking for someone else (and losing one of our caracals to a gate camp on the way). There was some Coercer jumping between belts and we decided to lay a trap. One of our guys, piloting an Incursus, went to a belt and got attacked by a Hawk. Our team jumps in, then we tear that Hawk into bits. Incursus did not survive the encounter though.

In the end it's two kills.

Yarr I say.

Manage the Stuff!

I've rewired my brain yet again recently. This time I'm focused towards social interaction and manipulation. Which is handy when you're dealing with market brokers, station authorities, fleet mates or corporation members.

As an attempt to get used to my newly acquired powers, I've tried a small market manipulation. Nothing fancy, just artificial price increase for a certain module in a certain region. That worked but not as smooth as I expected. When I already decided to just sell everything I got, more competitors arrived. The usual 0.01-isk war began and I thought I had to make even more investment just to keep my projected profit.

Then some guy comes, buys everything off market and relists it with a huge additional price. I jump the train and throw everything I acquired just below him. Again, more competitors arrive (right now it does seem a lot more profitable then when I did the same thing, which lures lots of traders) and it's 0.01-isk war again, but this time I'm going to follow it and sell my stock of those modules.

The projected income would be a bit over 100 millions. Which is not that much considering it took over 2 weeks already. Still better then keeping my isk stale.

Industry Cogs in Action

So it is working. Not yet sexy enough but at least it does its function.

Since the moment I started using it, I discovered two bugs already. Those were fixed immediately.

Now gotta find someone who wants to check the Planner as well. I've already contacted a friendly 0.0 industry monger, but that guy seems to be quite forgetful.

P.S. It's hard to express how interested I am in ORE Primea or what is the name of that ship.

P.P.S. Note to self: think twice before posting when sleepy. My missive makes little sense even to me.

Think Before You Act

It was like 2 or 3 weeks of not doing anything in the space. Except some Sansha action. Still I needed a way to put my industrial skills to work. So I run some calculations, check some numbers and realize I could try inventing Devoters for a nice profit. 4 runs – 4 fails. Yeah, fine. Need more. Bought more stuff, started some research. And then I find out that I'm not actually that good at building such complex ships. Currently I possess no skill to build a Devoter. And not in any foreseeable future.

So... Gotta find someone who will build those for a share of profit.

Seems like that military-aimed augmentation does interfere with my industrial mindset. I wonder how will the social neural mapping work. About a month and a half till remap.