Monday, June 28, 2010

Roden Shipyards - Faurent

Here's a look at the birth place of the mighty Gallente Megathron at the Roden Shipyards Manufacturing Center in Faurent.
 It's quite the complex, replete with its own advertising.
 Close up of the crowded landing pad.
 A complete and ready to launch Megathron.
 Megathron under construction.

 Quafe!








Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Blog Banter 18: Evolution and Adaptation

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you've started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance - say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!

-------------------

I was born a Brutor in a very traditionalist family.  Therefore it was always very important to us to be self sufficient.  This has really driven how I live in New Eden.  From the get go, I started learning how to fight, my Brutor heritage shining through.  Shortly thereafter though, I learned how to build and manufacture so I could build my own ships and manufacture my own ammo.  The next logical step lead me to do my own research and start producing tech II items and ships which I started using in combat.  With all these skills, I am almost completely self sufficient and able to operate indefinitely anywhere, even in hostile territory.  That I believe is what it truly means to be Brutor and Minmatar, that is our strength.

Mostly, I've flown solo, but I spent time at the Uni with my good friends of E-UNI.  I even spent a short time in Gradient, but my true nature is to be solo, to be free, fighting for the freedom of my fellow Minmatar.  This conviction finds me again a Spear Lieutenant in the Tribal Liberation Force, fighting for the Minmatar Militia.

[OOC] The Player Behind Thurenu

I'm a relatively new player to EVE Online, having started only a year and a half ago.  To kind of give you a gist of how my play style has changed, I'll introduce you to my 3 main toons.

Denderic

Denderic was my first toon.  I climbed the steep learning curve that is EVE with him.  Even spent several months in Eve University and missioning.  Now that I have other toons, Denderic has moved into a support role, being able to fly an orca and command ships giving my other characters valuable command bonuses, as well as exploration.  Using his actual and RP command abilities, he has recently delved into PI a small amount.  After playing for several months however, It became clear how valuable it was to have extra characters to dual log.  This led me to create...






Thurenu 

My now main character, Thurenu.  He's built for pure combat, plain and simple.  He's my missioning, PVP, FW character.  If something needs destroying or someone needs killing, I go to Thurenu.  Since killing and making things go boom is probably the most fun in EVE I can have, he's become the character I play the most, and I enjoy exploring the RP options this opens.  To keep from taking valuable training time away from these two characters, I rolled yet another toon...



Matlik 

Matlik is my industry, mining, manufacturing character.  He does it all, from mining, to refining, research, invention, manufacturing.  Anything non-combat, you name it, he does it.  Kind of embarrassingly, he cant fly a combat ship larger than a frigate, but then again, he doesn't need to.






With these three characters, I figure I can do just about anything I care too in EVE and be almost totally self sufficient.  RP-wise, they're all Minmatar and support the Minmatar cause.  So essentially, I started off small and slow with Denderic and eventually evolved and learned a lot of aspects of EVE.


Apocrypha

This expansion saw most of the development of me as a player as I was just starting out, feeling my way around EVE.  The major highlight for me was definitely EVE-Uni and all the great things I learned with them.

Dominion

Dominion didn't bring many gameplay changes to me per se, but saw me striking out on my own much more forcefully and confidently.  It's also during this time that I started blogging.

Tyrannis

The first major gameplay changes that have affected me came with Tyrannis, mostly including PI, et al.  Denderic set up a colony while Matlik started researching.  Thurenu left Gradient and struck off on his own with the TLF.

The Future

 In the near future, I plan on increasing my self dependency and really striking out and embracing FW from a solo point of view, and learning a lot more about solo PVP.  I see many many ship losses in my future.

I'm looking forward to Dust and Incarna a lot and can't wait to see what changes they bring to EVE.

Fly safe!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

[OOC] The Grind, or How I Play EVE

There has been some recent discussion on how to blog and how to play EVE, so I'll weigh in on how I do it.

First off some background, I suffer from clinical depression and type 2 bipolar disorder.  Even medicated, some of the symptoms poke through, and for me it mainly manifests itself in a short attention span and the need to try new things to stay interested, which is how I play EVE.

I rarely do any sort of grind.  I don't grind missions, LP, or go mining much.  I explore New Eden and try just about anything that strikes my fancy.  I've done FW, been a member of corps and alliances, mined, missioned, done COSMOS and epic arcs.  It's a very Thukker way to do things.  Basically, I do whatever I find fun at the time, regardless of politics, FOTM or outside pressures.  If it's not fun or becomes not fun, I don't do it.  EVE Online is a game to have fun in, bottom line.

My blogging follows those lines.  It's a diary of my travels, for and by me.  Doesn't matter who reads it or even if they like it.  I enjoy blogging and putting my thoughts down, so even if not a single person visits, I'll still continue to blog.  So having said that, for those of you who do enjoy it, you can look forward to many more posts.

Unrelated, I've been lax on posting lately because I moved into a brand new apartment!  I'm all settled in and back in EVE.  The withdrawal was pretty rough I'll admit.

Fly Fun!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Rancer Gate Camps

I've heard the horror stories.  Huge gatecamps, sensor boosted interceptors, and smart bombing battleships, oh my!  But in over two years in New Eden, I've never experience one first hand.  Until today that is...

Minding my own business, I was taking a shortcut through low sec in my trusty rifter.  No worries right?  I can align and jump faster than most people can lock a frigate.  So that takes care of most things.  I jump into rancer and warp across, straight into a smartbombing typhoon.  In an instant, my shields and armor are stripped away.  I will aura to jump as fast as she can, hoping another cycle doesn't go through and obliterate my ship.  Finally, the gate activates and I'm shot hundreds of AU's away from danger, deep into structure.  I limped quickly the last few jumps to my destination, safe, but shaken.

Lesson of the day: Always fly with your damage control and hardeners on.  I wouldn't have made it otherwise.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Lights of Jita

Jita is "The" trade hub in New Eden.  If you need something, legal or otherwise, you're guaranteed to find it.  Buying and selling, however, aren't the only things afoot...


Charon approaches an inbound gate under CONCORD's watchful eye.


The majestic Providence laden down with supplies.



A tech III Legion up to no good.   

A warning to capsuleers leaving Jita.  

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Gradient

I made it!  I was officially welcomed into Gradient and Electus Matari the other day.  So far everyone I've met has been more than kind and very helpful and willing to answer the questions of such a noob as I.  That's about all I got done today between that and a bit of spring cleaning of the hangar.  Forgive me the short post, my implants are frying inside my head due to all the new information I have to take in now.

Shout Outs

I just wanted to give a couple shout outs to the pod pilots whom I'm taking inspiration from for this blog.

Mark726 of EVE Travel, I'm almost infringing upon his intellectual property as I'm copying a lot of what he does.  In this case though, it is the highest form of flattery.

And also to Kaisersoze434 of Flying Bipolar, because I struggle with the same thing and it's good to know there are others who do and still blog.  

And of course CrazyKinux  at CrazyKinux's Musing because he's just awesome at blogging.

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for more posts soon!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Ransoming the Ransomer

I'm not really the piratey-yarr type of pod pilot, but I did earn my first ransom the other day.  It wasn't a lot by pirate terms, but was exciting for me.

A little background up front:  for the last month or so, I've been living out in minmatar low-sec, a poorly traveled constellation there abouts.  I also had deployed a large minmatar dickstar to support my efforts out there.  Well I knew when I put it up that it would be a juicy target considering I can't put up any reasonable defense being the loan member of my corp.  So I wrote it off as lost the minute I anchored it.  This attitude would prove to be helpful towards the end of my stay.

I woke up that morning to aura incessantly beeping at me to tell me I had an urgent notification.  My POS was under attack.  I quickly jumped in my pod and into the closest ship I had with a cloak, a prowler I love flying.  I speed off to my POS to see it indeed being pounded on by a motley crew mostly made of of War Never Changes pod pilots.  They had two carriers and an assortment of support ships, no way I could mount an effective defense.  I was planning on leaving that system as soon as the last bunch of BPO research was done anyway, so a lot of the modules had already been taking to hi-sec.  Luckily the only non-offensive module left was the lab, so all i had to do was cancel the jobs and unanchor it.

While I was doing this I got a convo request from the FC of the enemy gang.  Some of the chat log are posted below.  In summary, they said they'd leave me alone that instant if I transferred 400m ISK to his account.  Not trusting anyone, as is too common in EVE, I declined.  Plus I had already taking the POS's eventual demise into account in my finances.

Then shortly thereafter, social engineering lead to the single greatest coup in my short capsuleer life to date.

Enemy FC: how about working some thing out so we don't have to kill your pos
Enemy FC: what you think
Me: i wont pay if thats what your after
Enemy FC: well the tower is going to cost you 350m to replace
Me: the minute i anchored the tower, i lost it
Me: such is eve
Enemy FC: i am offering you a way to avoide losing it
Enemy FC: ill even scout you to safe space
Me: as a matter of theory, how can i trust you to your word?
Enemy FC: i can get some people that i have ransomed before to vouch for me
Enemy FC:  if they are on
Enemy FC: but it would serve me no good to not houner it
Me: well in all honesty, i cant afford your initial offer or anything remotely near it
Enemy FC: word gets out and i lose my way of making isk
Enemy FC: what can you afford
Me: around 100m, but again i said i wasnt goign to pay
Enemy FC: hmm
Enemy FC: 100 mill and the lab and you have a deal

At this point I was  unanchoring the last lab in the pos with my blockade runner.  I knew I could get out safely without any help from the enemy FC.

Enemy FC: i will escort you out of here
Me: no thanks
Enemy FC: so its worth losing 350 mill over it ?
Me: in short, yes, my time here was worth it
Enemy FC: well then damn
Enemy FC: i reall dont want to shoot a pos
Me: im planning on offlining the jammers for ya

POS bashing is boring as hell.  I wouldn't wish it  on anyone, especially since I had mine configured as the infamous dickstar.

Enemy FC: if you want to be real nice just off line the pos
Enemy FC:  just aline out so they cant shoot you
Me: nah, you've got to work for it atleast a little
Enemy FC: damn it
Enemy FC: ill give you 25mill
Enemy FC:  to turn the poss of
Enemy FC: off

This was the opening I was looking for, now to push it harder.  Him paying me to kill my POS?  Not bad.

Me: 50
Enemy FC: 30
Me: 35
Enemy FC: done
Enemy FC: i just dont want to sit here that long
Me: no prob, nice doing business with you
Me: dont blame you
Me: fly safe o/

Note: Names redacted for privacy.

Making 35m off of a tower I knew I was going to lose wasn't too bad.  The enemy FC was very friendly and honored his deal.  I ended up offlining the tower and getting out of dodge.  All said and done I made 35m off of a tower I knew I was going to lose.  This ransoming thing is turning out to be kind of fun...

Monday, May 3, 2010

Droning on

I was minding my own business running some missions, yes I have some carebear tendencies, when I warp into my mission deadspace.  I was instantly greeted by one of the largest structures I've encountered in New Eden: a drone superstructure.  It was magnificent and awe-inspiring to say the least.  So complete was my rapture that Aura had to warn me about the incoming hostile signatures.  A swarm of drones had exited they're home to destroy the intruder, namely me.  Snapping out of my trance, I proceeded to take care of business.

A wide shot of the entire structure.  Third death star maybe?

The maw of the beast.

Thinking I had seen the worst of it, I warped into the next deadspace pocket and was greeted by an even larger, more complex drone superstructure.  I always get flak for this, but I truly believe drone hives are some of the most magnificent structures in all of New Eden.


Bigger, Badder, Better!

 
It's watching you. 

 In other news, I present to you a shield tanked, rail gun wielding Armageddon.  Those EoM guys really are crazy.  

 
A study in contradictions.

[OOC]   One of the reasons I can still stand running missions is because of gems like these hidden in some of the lesser run missions.  CCP should get kudos for designing some truly spectacular environments in New Eden.  

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Beginning

My journey starts in Abudban having just retired from the TLF for bigger and better things.


Adubdan IV an ice planet reflecting the system's sun.

I hop in my trusty covert ops ship, The Ronin, and head off into the abyss that is New Eden.

The Ronin cloaked but illuminated by the star.

Another shot of The Ronin.

In true Thukker fashion, I'm on a path to find all that New Eden has to offer that most capsuleers don't even know about.  

Saturday, May 1, 2010

About the Author

My name is Thurenu, and I was born and raised Thukker. I have Thukker blood running through my veins and can't fight the urge to just travel. So that is what I will be doing, in my free time. I'll be documenting any neat and interesting places I come across and just overall appreciating the beauty of New Eden. You can expect me to send back home short summaries and lots and lots of pictures!

My main job will hopefully be with Gradient, part of Electus Matari. I've filled out all the paperwork and gone through the initial interview. So, fingers crossed, I'll get in. There will be a little bit of that thrown in here too if something interesting happens. I'm looking forward to my travels!

-- Thurenu

P.S. The Ronin is my ship, the minmatar covops cheetah.

[OOC]

You might have guessed it already, but this blog is going to document in living color my travels around New Eden, with a splash of RP thrown in here and there for flavor. I have indeed applied to Gradient, and pending approval, I'll get to fly with them as well. So stay tuned for hopefully stunningly beautiful shots of New Eden.