My time in Eve can probably be best described as consolidation. I'm faction grinding to make refining better at various locations and going through grabbing the magic 5s in skills that I've neglected over the years. Although I started playing at launch I had a gap in the middle and so I'm only (ha!) at 25 million SPs so I've missed a few along the way. I had one of those "5% over 3 years mounts up" moments that has encouraged me to do a few skill tweakings that will only take a week or so.
Grinding wise I'm actually doing level 3 combat missions in a HAC. I really should be doing level 4s but there's the niggling occasional loosing of ships. I've got an Eagle and I'm really enjoying the railgun fun. I haven't actually taken out my new Raven out of the hanger since buying it. It's not even fully equipped yet but I think I'm going to have to take it out for a spin sooner or later. Variation is key to mission running.
It's summer so my playing time has gone down. I'm busy pretending to be a musician, photographer and archer instead (not all at the same time) and I think that this is key to enjoying Eve as I'll just burn out otherwise. If I was in a corp that was fighting out in 0.0 at the moment then I'd be feeling that I have to play and grinding down my enjoyment of the game. By basically playing in maintenance mode I'm earning some cash, helping my standings and my sec rating is at a rather embarrassing 4.9. I think I've got the best cash generation system for my playing style and no, it doesn't involve trading or mining. It does involve running missions and selling the loot or minerals that make up the loot but this means that my cash generation is down greatly from when I was at my trading peak as it turns out that three or four Freighters fighting over a region can really hurt the smaller trader and so you're very dependant on them getting bored and moving on if you want regular cash. I've got the sales orders going still, but I'm expecting them to get processed sometime next month so it's basically just invested capital at this time.
Despite all of this there is a voice in the back of my mind that says "move to 0.0". I'll have to find a corp that suits me of course, and I'm not in a position to move in the next few months because I don't want to put the effort in yet but I can't put it off for that much longer.
posted @ Monday, June 26, 2006 9:10 PM