Gone Ratting

Seems like this poor Republic University alumnus is quite active at the moment with lots of projects progressing nicely. Only this diary here seems to suffer a bit from that. I’d like to rectify that by showing you a few data grabs from my camera drones to explain what is going on.

The first shows my trusty Gilgalad tanking the brunt of the damage while helping to bust wrongly imprisoned civilians out of a Sansha holding facility.

(Yes Reap that is your Nighty on the pic :-) ) It is always nice to happily chat away with corp mates while flying together and I seem to get better with that - which is the first thing I am happy about. The second thing is that I already had the chance to set up my very first cynosural beacon.

I even survived waiting those 10 minutes sitting duck. It would have been totally worthwhile though, because I could see a majestic carrier up close (Keris you do have quite some cool ship!).

Yeah and as third is the charm, I did manage to get out into lawless space and visit my corp’s small (but very nice) sanctum there. I did travel in the fast and nimble interceptor that can be seen here taking in the sights of the system.

Thankx to my corp mates I already got a nifty piece of Minmatar technology out there (thankx again to Az!) and did my first ratting against the Angel pirate cartel that tries to waylay civilians gathering raw materials from the local asteroid belts.

This btw is the picture of the very first "rat" I engaged with my Cane. And I have to say that I quite like ratting. Especially for someone with not too much time to captain his ship it is much easier to find the time to visit a few belts than to get through one huge mission, so I am quite happy atm.

Hope you are having a relaxing time as well!

The Quafe Conspiracy

My last exploratory mission to see the fabled EVE Gate, which is quite literally the origin of our people, is already so long ago, that I thought I should do another one. I consider myself a good Gallente citizen (as the Gallente Federation was so nice to allow me to live under their sovereignty, the corp I am in is also quite happy to be there, and my contacts - especially in Federal Customs - are the best I have). As a good citizen I of course followed the abdication of the Gallente president with quite some concern and the resulting new elections even more.
Just before the new elections did take place, I did notice some interesting developments: Out of the lime light in Gallente low-security space there suddenly was more activity then before. Most of this activity was centered to new Roden Shipyards Manufacturing Centers being constructed. Jacus Roden, the owner of Roden Shipyards, also happened to be the most visible contender for the Gallente presidency. Not long after that the build-up, his winning of said elections was announced. Coincidence or no coincidence I wonder.
Curiosity got the better of me and finally - a few months after the actual election - I did take a look at one of those shipyards. I was hoping that now, after the fact, my visit wouldn’t draw too much attention anymore. The target of my investigation was in the Heluene system and I did find quite some activity going on there. Most impressive was the Obelisk freighter docking at the manufacturing yard.

It is quite a dangerous undertaking to bring an Obelisk to a low-sec manufacturing facility! Especially with no noticeable protective fleet around that is quite some undertaking. But the most astonishing part was that there was a huge Quafe advertisement to be seen there. This makes me wonder: why such a huge advertisement for a secret low-sec manufacturing facility? And even one from another company? Might Quafe - the company famous for its beer - be involved in Roden’s way to power? And why would a starship (and terraforming) company have a secret agreement with a beer company?

Any ideas?

Aside from that it was really nice to see some change going on and interesting to see that the company of the new Gallente president seems also to be helping with naval patrol duties (those Roden Shipyard’s Megathron battleships with their distinctive coloring look really nice btw).

For another travel report to a Roden Shipyard Facility please do look at the interesting one at EVE Travel!

In the Wolf-Pack

My being a bit silent here doesn’t mean I haven’t been up to stuff – to the contrary I did advance quite a few of my plans nicely. One of those was to finally take a Wolfpack Seminar at Agony University. And this is exactly what I did. My basic seminar has been over half a year so it was nice to manage to be on another of those interesting Agony Seminars (took me long enough anyway, though part of that is also due to me not finding a course set up for my timezone before that).

It was quite a special seminar and I thankful to Agony that I was able to be in it. The first special part was that it was in the new format (spilt over two evenings). This is quite a nice idea, as the huge block in the Basic seminar I took was quite difficult to manage. It is easier to find the time for 2 shorter evenings than the time for a 8+ hours monster session. Not only that, but it is much nicer for concentration as well.

The second special part was that it was the first wolfpack where Azual was the primary theory instructor. I wouldn’t have guessed that it was his first time though as he did it quite professional. He did manage to blend quite a lot of experiences and examples into the theory which was very educational and made it easier to digest as well as much nicer to listen to.

The pack undocking.

The third special part was that it was the first time Granger FCed a class. So this was another first as well. In my PVP basic the FC was Caldak and it was really nice to see different FCs with different styles in action. If I had to choose I’d say I liked Granger’s FCing better as it felt a bit less heavy-handed, but I guess that’s personal preference and depends on the style you like.

Wolfpack in warp.

I was happy that I did understand quite a few things much better than on my first basic roam. Among one thing was that this time I actually new which system we were in. On the other hand though I still didn’t get all those reports that came in from the various scouts, so thumbs up for the incredible job the FCs do by being able to go with that much information (and I am sure there isn't a logic processor implant that helps with that) and form strategies and decisions from all that.

Upon entering a system where the largest fight of the day was held I did encounter the problems which have been reported due to stargate electronic loop-backs into our ship’s computers. So I missed that but I still was happy as I felt like I was participating (a t2 sensor booster helped in that regard as well 0:-) ).

Another nice thing: I could do a bit celebrity-watching:

TeaDaze’s elite frig.

Ofc I wasn’t "only" happy to see Tea but quite a few other faces I did recognize, like Guy Fletcher, Scrivet and glepp whom I remember from my Basic course as well as Aether who was then "just" an Alumni but got back into Agony it seems not so long after the seminar. As far as faces go: Babyface UK (an ex-corpie of BTC) you didn’t manage to hide from me as well ;-)

At the end of the day I even managed our suiciding against the coordinated Stealth Bomber strikes by Evoke. So not only did my rifter survive the basic course but my Trasher did survive the wolfpack seminar as well. I guess I must be doing something wrong.

My flight home the other day:

Thankx Agony and my corp (Black Thorne Corporation) as well (as the corp payed for the nice seminar 0:-) ).