To “Black Ops” or Not
According to The Quarterly News Letter quarter 2 2010, the Black Ops Battleship has increased in popularity by 40 percent since the quarter 1 news letter, from 260 ships to 364 currently in use.
It would seem that our pilots are changing their minds about the merits of the covert ops ship, and coming to realise that it was never meant to be a sneaky pawn mobile, but rather a covert fleet tool, to be used for sneaking a fleet of covert ships into an unfriendly neighbours back yard.
I have been training the skills for a Widow, the Caldari black ops ship, for what seems an eternity. Many pilots consider the high skills not worth the benefits of these ships, but then the same pilots probably wouldn’t train for a Carrier. You might ask why am I training for the black ops, especially considering that I am something of a care bear.
Well the answer to that is because I want to be able to offer more of myself to the corp than just the industrial stuff.
I know that am pretty useless at PvP, but with this ship I could bridge the guys who are good at it into a system, cloak up until they have done their stuff, and then bridge them out again.
That, is what I believe the Black Ops are designed to do, and corporations like “Dirt Nap Squad” are putting it to good use.
Did anybody read the report of a 20 man fleet of Stealth Bombers, recon ships and a lone Widow that stalked and destroyed an Archon-class carrier? Heh, I did. 
My choice of black ops is the Widow, and not just because my character is Caldari, but because I think she is the best in her class. She has good missile bonus’s, and a 30 percent bonus to ECM jammer strength.
Missiles would be for “just incase”, ECM should be able to keep her safe until she can warp to safety.
Two cyno alts would be utilised at each end of the portal, one to bring us in and the other to take us home. Because of the incredibly high amount of isotopes required to jump ships through a black ops portal, a transport ship filled with said isotopes will come along to ensure that everybody can get back home.
All I need now is enough brave pilots, and an unsuspecting group of victims to test the plan.
Still in Limbo
Yes I am still in limbo after having been evicted from Providence, along with the alliance and our corporation.
The alliance and corporation have very nicely set themselves up in a Northern null space, and already hold sovereignty there. But it took a huge amount of PvP to get them in that position, and as you are probably aware, PvP is not my forte.
So I am currently bumbling around High security space trying out some of the features of EVE that I have never given much thought to, such as R&D Agents.
I have been reading a lot about Research and Development agents lately, which is something I passed over in the beginning as being not worth my time. But after a couple of chats with my friend Cootsy, it finally dawned on me that I was missing out on something here, that this was a way to make ISK without having to go to the office every day, or even every three days, as is the case with Planetary Interaction.
Making use of R&D agents does not come free however, there is a large amount of work to be carried out up front in order to get them to even talk to you, let alone work for you. What? Oh! You didn’t read the link above? Well to quote a part of the above mentioned link, “Rather than the usual missions, R&D agents can be asked to do “research” for you. Once an agent is working for you, you get Research Points (RP) from them to trade for Datacores (available from the agent with RP as currency) to sell or use in invention.” And better still, I quote: “It’s very important to know that the RP are generated on a daily basis, so each day your total RP will increase by a set amount regardless of whether you interact with the agent or not.”
Now isn’t that better than Planetary Interaction? And to think, it has been around for years.
The consequence of all this, is that I am training up three of my characters in the skills required, and at the same time, carrying out missions with the normal agents to get them to the required standings. I want to be able to use the highest level of agent, and believe that the time spent getting to that level will be well spent.
I will eventually venture back to nullsec and try to assist my corporation buddies in anything that is not too PvP related, although I have no objection to small gang PvP, and will gladly help make up the numbers for them.
There is even talk that we may, one day, attempt to build our own station,,,, now that is a project that would really interest me.
Into Tyrannis
Well I am back on the Internet and into EVE again, with a great big smile on my face.
I have to apologise for my absence over the past several Months, but real life crept up on me, and gave me a great big kiss, yeah it makes a change doesn’t it.
To keep it short, an old friend turned out to be the love I have been waiting my whole life for, and we have spent the last few Months moving in together, and organizing phones, adsl lines, as well as setting up the study. 
The phones took the longest by the way, which was only to be expected, considering the fact that I live in South Africa, where it has been proven that a pidgeon is faster than our Internet.
It seems that every time I come back to EVE, there is something new. This time it is Tyrannis, and “Planetary Interaction.” Maybe not quite as exciting as I would have liked, but being more of an industrialist than a PvPer, I will definitely get a deal of enjoyment out of it.
On the 7th of June I parked my trusty Crane in one of the main hubs in my area, thinking that the new Command Centres would only be seeded in high activity areas. Imagine how I felt when they were seeded everywhere lol.
Oh well, I ran back home, picked up a number of various CC’s and headed for the planets I had picked out previously. Then with a lot of Wiki pages open, and some help and good advice from my friend Zama, I set up my first colony, 
which I then followed up with three others. 
Now it is just a matter of managing the colonies, and waiting to see if they make a profit, ho hum.
It is nice, but….I think it could have been so much more.
To me, planetary interaction conjures up visions of docking on Planets, and having command centers and other buildings that you can actually enter. Maybe even move from your mine/extractor to your Processor. Take a walk to your launchpad, climb into your ship and head back out to space with a full load.
I don’t know if this is actually going to be a part of Dust, but something like it would be nice for EVE.
Sitting out in space and dropping icons on the planet surface is hardly “Planetary Interaction,” not for me anyway.
But for all that, I still enjoy playing EVE.
A Time of Change
A few very busy weeks have passed since my last entry here, plans have been made, discarded and new plans formulated, and everything is in a state of fluid motion.
I have dropped my plans for learning about moon mining and complex reactions, and have instead turned my attention to ship building.
Null-sec is always in need of ships due to the amount of PvP going on all the time, and so we decided that we would set up another POS purely for construction, using my old wormhole equipment, it’s a good job I decided to buy a large Amarr tower instead of a small one. I have added to what I already had by purchasing three more corporate hangars, an advanced small ship array, a component array and another maintenance array. If the tec.2 frigates prove to be profitable I will also buy an advanced medium ship assembly array for the production of tec. 2 cruisers.
One of our members, Jae, is a keen ship builder and has jumped into the role with all his usual energy and enthusiasm, while I plod along at a more leisurely pace.
I haven’t done much in the way of PvP since my return, although I did lose two Stealth Bombers in one evening, one to a bit of local defense, and one to NPC Rats, ha ha that’s right, Rats! I forgot that I was flying a paper ship lol.
I also joined a 300 man fleet recently which I soon decided was not for me, I could not join the TeamSpeak audio and consequently could not hear any commands. The whole thing was just too much for me and so I gave up and logged off.
Oh yes! I also lost my Mackinaw to gankers recently while mining ice for the POS fuel.
I was informed after the event that a Hulk gankathon was under way, I must admit that I did wonder why there were so few people mining.
Well in a couple of days I should have the skills to research my tec. 2 BPO’s, I have the materials to build the tec. 2 ships but need to do a bit of mining for the normal minerals.
With a bit of luck by my next post I will be able to say that I have successfully built a number of tec. 2 ships.
