The Inside of a Capsule

Contemplating the Future.

I've started using my Captain's quarters lately. It's lonely, and the door the rest of the station remains forever sealed, yet I find it somewhat relaxing. I still have this odd lack of direction in my life as a capsuleer. This version of me is starting to become weary. I haven't died in a long time and this clone is getting old. It's not that I want to die, I'm still scared shitless to think of it happening, but I know the consequences aren't that bad. Even if I die, I'll be fine back in a new clone. It would cost me a few ISK to update my clone and I'll loose whatever I'm flying, but it's all replaceable.

This is my greatest weakness. I have little to no experience with PVP stuff and I'm not used to loosing ships, or clones. I often find myself staring at my open pod, contemplating the future and knowing that death and destruction will find me eventually. Thus is the nature of New Eden. Whether it's Pirates, Gankers, or enemies in wormhole space. The Reapers icy touch extends to all reaches of space and he reaps quite often in New Eden. I suppose he would be a little annoyed by our technology, however, never able to keep his reaped souls as they simply fly back to a station and enter a new clone.

My current goals are still locked on a freighter. I've finally trained enough to fly one, so now I'm improving my refining skills to be able to use our stations, less than adequate, facilities to get perfect refine again. I've stockpiled alot of ore and ice products, now able to refine it without waste. The ice fields have changed, why I don't know. The upgrades to ship computers across the galaxy have included improved scanning algorithms, Ice belts are no more and are now scannable anomalies. The sites are also easily exhaustible, causing pilots to clean them out regularly. I heard of this change early and kept ahold of my ice, but the market already peaked since the change and people are offloading their stock, making the price drop. I will continue to wait until the stock depletes and for the price to rise again before selling. I will keep an eye on the mineral market too and see if it rises before selling specific minerals. I want to save a bit so I can get a Charon somehow. That is my current goal.

I haven't heard from Maya in a while now. She did help a bit with ice mining, but again is opting to stay in station at Hek for a while. Maybe I will wait until I drift up to the porthole of her quarters in a massive freighter before I open comms again. Imagine the look on her face!

Sleeping in Slush

It's been hard to work alone again, but it's a lot like when I started my Capsuleer career. I still have my corp mates, but I normally just fleet up with them for the bonuses to my ship. Maya still insists on staying in Hek with her boyfriend. I've tried a few different things to make some more money. Station trading, manufacturing and other odds and ends. I know I need more direction in my career, but right now I'm focusing on mining. Lately, it's been ice.

I heard by announcements on the subspace network that there will be major changes in a few months to the skills required to fly ships and whatnot. Something about the re configuring of ship's computers by means of subspace network updates. The changes make sense, however, to take full advantage of the changes, I've started training Battlecruisers level V, a 26 day long train.

I'm not just an Industrialist. My first goal as a Capsuleer was to fly as many ships as possible. I cross trained into all the races, and now can fly just about any tech 1 ship from frigate to battlecruiser, and a few battleships as well. Since I've been able to jump into these ships, I also trained some combat skills to be able to use them. I've injected several skill books because I could train them and they were cheap, but still remain at level 0 because I've trained something more important.

That said, I admit I'm still a total carebear, as they say. I do not like shooting at other capsuleers. I know how hard it is to build yourself up and buy the ships you want. To have it taken out from under your pod can be devastating. I've tried it once, and understand the rush you get, but to me, it's more of a panic than a rush. I understand that it's a part of life in New Eden, but I'm not an instigator. Still, no harm in being a Carebear with claws...

Getting back to what I'm doing now. I'm kind of tired of getting to belts that have been mined out by the time I'm able to undock, so I've opted to trying Ice Mining. Currently, I can only use T1 ice mining lasers, so it takes a little bit longer, but there's so much ice out there no one can mine it all.

Ice mining is a lot different. For one, the ship is very cold because of the ice sitting in the Ore Hold. I always have to stay in the pod because the energy requirements to heat the bridge is insane and it would also melt some of the ice in the hold perhaps. I don't want to chance it. There must be something in the pod goo that prevents freezing or something, but it does seem a bit thicker than normal in here. I'm freezing as well, but because of the mind link to the ship, I don't feel it as much because my senses are focused on the ship instead of my own body. It's an odd sensation. It's like your ghost left your own body, and inhabited the body of the ship. Now the mining lasers are my arms and hands, the engines my legs. Everything is done with a mere thought instead of levers and buttons. It's efficient, yet I feel as if I'm loosing my sense of Humanity. Ice mining cycles take so long I often sleep until my hold fills up, then make a mundane trip back to the station. It's boring, but at least there's little input I have to do so I can do other things remotely.

Now I just need to train the skills to refine the damn stuff. After Battlecruisers I suppose. In a month...

Watch Your Wallet...

It's been a while since I did a log. I've focused my training mostly on mining drones and trade skills now. Maya has again asked to remain station bound and has elected to corporation book keeping, and even took a shuttle to Hek with her boyfriend on vacation while he worked at his new job as a broker for whomever needed his services in the market. I decided to make use of his services once last week. Never again.

No offence to Maya, but that guy is a fucking asshole...

Well, that was a little harsh. What happened was entirely my fault and a learning experience to say the least. He could have said something but chose to remain tight lipped and let the transaction go through. I had posted a bit over 3 million units of Tritanium for 5063 isk PER UNIT. The broker's fee was over 140 million isk on it. It was my mistake for typing a 0 instead of a decimal, but needless to say I petitioned the owners of the station to do a mulligan and refund my money. Maya's boyfriend was denied his fat paycheque when the transaction was reversed and got what he would have gotten if I hadn't screwed up. Lesson learned and now this man hates me. Sorry man, but it cost me over 100 million isk. Of course I'm going to try and fix it!

The man and I had some ill chosen words over coms, yet we both swore to keep this between men. Maya needn't know about it, as our dislike of each other might cause her trouble in her job with me. She needed the money and the experience, yet this month she chose to suspend her pilots license, asking me not to pay for it to save up my isk for something else, or to just build up my account. Truthfully, it was alot like pushing a rock uphill. We would both mine out asses off, making just enough for a PLEX for her, only to repeat the process over again. If either of us lost a barge, it would really throw off the cycle and would cause her to sit in a station for weeks while I tried to finish off the cost of the PLEX. This month will be a bit different.

The Squirrel Effect

It's a lesser known concept, much like the butterfly effect, but it's something every new pilot will experience most of their first months as a capsuleer. It's something I like to call the Squirrel effect...

You may be asking, "What the Hek is a Squirrel?" They're small rodents from ancient earth who climb trees and eat nuts. They would be a constant distraction for people who used to walk their pets called "Dogs". Everything would be fine and quiet, then the dog spotted the said squirrel and it would hold it's interest as it chased down the squirrel. When it would disappear, another would appear and pull the dog off in another direction.

Why is this relevant? It's a lot like how a new pilot gets interested in one thing, starts training towards it, makes plans, and invests towards that goal. Then after a while pursuing that goal, something else comes along that piques their interest and they end up turning around and training off in another direction, usually in something that was unrelated to what they were after before. How many of you wanted to be a Hulk pilot, then got to Mining IV and thought, "You know what? I wanna try being a covert ops pilot." Then start training towards that and then change to wanting to be a freighter pilot. It's happened to me lots of times. Like now...

I've spent money on somewhat expensive skill books to train to be able to research Tech II drones, then I wanted to try and make some Tech II frigates. I'd make a T2 BPC or three, then look at them for a bit, realizing how much money it would cost to actually use them and build the item. I realized that most things are cheaper to just buy than it is to make by materials alone, not mentioning the time it takes to put into it. In fact, very few things are worth manufacturing. I don't get it. Why do people manufacture if it loses them money? Maybe I'm doing it wrong or not getting the concept or something.

This time it was Maya to come knocking on my door. My time was spent running back and forth to the Corporation POS in the system in my Thorax getting BPC's and bringing data cores to research T2 stuff. I wasn't in the belts making money and it was getting her worried about income. It was a wake up call to realize I had been wasting time training outside of Mining, into an apparent money sink. I think I just don't have the skills yet to make manufacturing profitable. For now, I will refocus on mining skills and soon Maya can upgrade to fly an exhumer and maybe I can get my Orca out in the fields as she fills it up.

Perfection

A small milestone in the early stages of my career. I've finally hit perfect refine with Minmitar Mining Corporation (MMC). Now it's time to buckle down and start hauling in the ore and make some isk. I'm not sure if i had mentioned before, but my current goal is to be able to afford a freighter, possibly a Charon as it has the biggest cargo hold. The only problem is that it's over one and a half billion ISK, and I'm probably a month away from being able to fly it.

Maya is only about four days away from being able to fly one, however...

She only recently told me this, as I found her suddenly absent for a couple of weeks. She kept avoiding me and found excuses to miss mining ops, then when I finally cornered her in the station, she simply sighed and told me her Pilot's License had run out again. I figured it was about that time again, and looking at my wallet, I cringed at the thought of losing that ISK to keep her afloat. The past couple of weeks, however, were less than lucrative without her hauling ore so I sprang for another PLEX and got us both out into the fields. Hopefully with my improved refining skills and better standings, we can make more money back before next month.

We set up shop in Hardbako this time, lots of Veldspar and the only station is an MMC base with a 50% base yeild refinery, which would give me what most consider "Perfect" refine. The gate is also almost in line with the exit to the station, so it makes shipping with my Orca a lot easier as it warps as soon as I undock. It's fairly quiet too.

A little too quiet...

"Proximity Alert." Aura's voice stirs me from my slumber and I uselessly open my eyes to stare into the green goo filling my pod. I close them again and my mind connects to the camera drones in space. Maya's retriever is bumping into my Hulk and the computers of both ships are pushing away from each other with thrusters and external gravity plating or something. I was never sure specifically how they did it. It's like there's an invisible bubble around the ships and we bounced off each other.

"Wakey wakey!" The comms channel activated in my head.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, slightly annoyed. I had to adjust my position so my lasers would still be in range of the rock I was shooting when the cycle ended.

"You haven't dumped ore in a while. You almost full?" she asked. With a thought, the cargo hold status displayed in my mind and I transferred my full cargo into the jetcan outside the ship just as the laser cycle ended and even more ore fell into my cargo hold. Almost lost the entire cycle. The ore vanished from the jetcan soon after into Maya's ship which had a much bigger ore hold than the hulk. Again, because of the ship re purposing that ORE incorporated a few months ago.

"Are you asleep?" she asked, "Are you getting bored doing this?"

"No, it's just that it's been a while since I controlled the ship from inside my pod." I replied, "It's comfortable. I can see why some capsuleers never leave it."

"Yeah this whole getting out and walking around thing is new, right?" she said, "Something about our immune systems not being able to handle the environment outside of a pod?"

"The wonders of modern medicine." I replied, "But really, there's not alot going on in this system. Even the pirates are scarce."

"Isn't that a good thing?" she said with a smile.

"I suppose." I said with a sigh. Still, not a good idea to fall asleep while your corporation is at war...

Tavern Tales

I sat at a table in the local bar of a Minmitar Mining Corporation station in Libold, staring at my mobile terminal while I went over my industry job queue through the Neocom. It was a small room in the station, the bar was short, the tables few and close together, opting for booths along the wall to save space an increase seating capacity. Satisfied that my jobs were running smoothly, I set down the terminal and glanced up to see Maya Nao leaning back in her chair, her slender fingers around her dirty glass on the table and her eyes staring at me with a curious look on her face.

"Sain Darkwing." she began, tapping her glass, "So, tell me. I've been working with you for a few months now, but you never talk about yourself. It's always business with you. What gives?" It was true. I rarely socialized with other Capsuleers besides over Coms channels while in space and rarely in this setting. The rest of the patrons seemed to prefer seats away from the two immortals in the bar, as usual.

"A business tycoon!" A nearby drunkard proclaimed, then burst into laughter, "Must be Caldari! You look Caldari." Then he paused for a moment, then squinted at me as if trying to see me more clearly, "Are you Caldari?"

I sighed, "Yes, we are." I was annoyed by this man, but he looked as dirty as the rest of the station, probably a Minmitar miner just trying to unwind after a long day in the refinery or something. I turned to Maya after taking a sip of my drink, "But you are right. I don't talk about myself."

"We never talk, period." She said, "Business partners and the most interaction we have are short Coms messages and contracts."

"Correct again." I replied.

"So how about it?" she asked, leaning forward, "Tell me about you."

"Where is your Boyfriend tonight?" I asked trying to change the subject, "Won't he be jealous you're out socializing with me?"

"You're avoiding the question." she said, her eye's narrowing, "Do you have something to hide?"

"Not particularly." I said, taking another sip.

"Your Bio says you became a Capsuleer over three years ago." she said, "How many skill points?"

"Just about Nine Million." I replied, a little quietly.

"How did that happen? For your age I would have expected a lot more than that!" She exclaimed.

"Just after we first started working together and stopped, I took a break as well." I replied, "Being a Capsuleer was a little overwhelming and I had little or no contacts to help."

"What brought you back?" she asked. I took a while to respond.

"I guess it was the challenge." I said. "I want to make ISK, and try new things, collect ships or something."

"And going industrial was your choice?" Maya asked, "You know a lot of pilots look down on miners. They consider the trade to be boring and not worth the time."

"Mission runners and the Combat types." I said, nodding. "Where do they think their ships come from that they so carelessly get blown up? Besides, it's honest, steady income."

"True, but the allure of combat doesn't interest you?" she asked, sitting back again. I heard a clink behind her where a connection port in her back struck the metal backing of the chair through the thin tank top she wore. She lifted her drink and swirled the ice inside.

"Not really. I'm more of a pacifist." I said. Her eyes narrowed.

"Nine million skill points? All of them can't be in industrial skills." she said. A small grin appeared on my face I fought to keep hidden.

"Well I can defend myself, if needed." I said casually. I glanced out the window beside our table at the hangar below. My Orca and Mining Barges were held near the back of the massive enclosed area, but in a row above it, several ships floated eerily in storage. A massive Drake, a Thorax, and a Rifter could barely be seen floating beside the other massive two.

"Those are all yours?" she asked, closing her jaw.

"No. Just the one's in this station." he said, "Did you think all I did was mine?" To my surprise, she became angry.

"You asshole!" She exclaimed, "You've been making enough money to buy all these ships and you only pay me enough to keep my damn Badger running!" I glanced around the room and noticed everyone staring at me now. I don't like attention. Attention can get you killed. Albeit, not really an issue for a Capsuleer. Besides, I had expensive implants installed, but again not something I tell others.

"Maya." I began, "Have you looked at the market lately? The cheapest PLEX in Hek right now is around five hundred and eighty million ISK. I gave you one last month! That's worth nearly another Orca."

"That much?"

"Yes. And I give you whatever ships you need to do what you want." I said, "Any corp ship is yours to use."

"That's another thing. You're not even CEO of your own corporation anymore! What happened there? Why did you leave?"

"So you don't read my logs then?" I assumed. They aren't something I keep private. People on my contact list can link to my logs in my Bio so it's not a secret. She simply shook her head, "I can't be a CEO of one Company and join another. I could have had Darkwing Inc just join their alliance, but then any war target that goes after them would be able to come after you. It's only the two of us in this Corporation, Maya."

"Oh." She said, looking to the table, "Well, if I'm the only one left, does that mean I'm CEO now?"

"Um, no." I said, finishing my drink. It was stronger than I expected, "I transferred it to my sister, Osiph."

"Who? You have a sister?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"She lives in the main trade hub in Jita." I explained, "A station trader. It's just a few extra buttons to press to keep the bills paid. I didn't want to burden you with the task."

"I see." she said, "Probably for the best. I'm not good with math and stuff." She had finished her drink and was now sucking on the ice cubes. That ice probably came from Eygfe Ice field and still had space dust on the inside, but your concern for your health seems to vanish when you know you can't really die. If she got sick from it, she could just take a pod out, self destruct and wake up in a new clone back at the station. Still, it seems kind of wasteful to have to buy another clone because of contaminated ice...

A Wrench in the Works

It's been a while since I wrote in the ol' log. Things have been busy to say the least. I've started working with the Corporation's POS, researching Blueprints and making a few ships of my own. ORE has released blueprints for their new mining frigate, the Venture, which I found to probably be the best gas harvester ship so far. Four new destroyers have been releases as well from the four races respective design labs, all of which I have acquired and begun research on as well. Another new toy I've made are the salvage drones. Those, along with my new Noctis which I proudly manufactured myself, will be a beast in a field of wrecks.

The worst thing about getting new ships is not the insurance payment, but thinking of a name for them. I try to be creative, or witty with the names, but more often than not, I am at a loss. They say it's bad luck to fly a ship without a name, but my creativity often leaves me. When others scan in space, they can see "Sain Darkwing's Noctis" and if they were looking for me specifically, they would know where I am. However, if they saw something like "Wreck Noccer" or something, (Again, creativity is gone) they would have no idea it was me.

That's something else. I've recently received a message from CONCORD that someone has placed a bounty on my head. ME! A harmless miner! Why in Eden would someone want me dead? I was quietly hauling minerals to Rens when someone sitting on a gate placed the bounty. Reading her bio, she seemed to be doing it to every hauler coming through, making them meager targets for bounty hunters. With the changes to the Bounty system, it seems anyone, anywhere can place a bounty on anyone else, regardless of security status. This seems like a good idea for people who are being bad but don't yet have a -5 security status, but there is a fault in the system when bounties can be placed on normal, law abiding capsuleers. CONCORD needs to find another way to fix this. How, I'm not sure, but I feel like a criminal when I'm the only person with a WANTED sign on my portrait in my corporation mining op.

Our mining ops have been few and far between. I've been busy with research and manufacturing lately, but last night I participated in a corp mining op which included an Orca, several Hulks and Retrievers, and a massive Charon sitting among the fleet. They were updated too. They can now use Jetcans making mining ops easier, cutting out the need for the Orca to leave and dump ore in a station when it's full. Threats from war targets however, are the bane of miner's everywhere.

Because of harassment from our War Target, we had to move from our home system to start mining. Things changed, when they were spotted in the next system over, and out security ships engaged her, destroying her ship. It was a sweet victory, since she had destroyed a Hulk and Covetor earlier that day. Although I did not make it to the fight in time, I was happy we got a little revenge.

On another note, Maya Nao has been a huge help to the whole thing. When Corp mining ops are not going on, Maya and I are mining alone in belts, me in my Hulk, the Stonesmasher, and her in the Stonegrazer, mining and hauling the ore back to the station. We've been doing mining missions from the agents of the Minmitar Mining Corporation and they seem to like me alot more these days. The agents call me by my first name, they trust me to complete whatever job they throw my way, and they are even taking less and less minerals from my refining requests at their stations. Soon, I will have what miners refer to as "Perfect Refine" which gets the best net yield of minerals from ore possible. Maya and her boyfriend are doing well aboard the Stonegrazer as well. It took a while for him to get used to the idea of seeing his love connected to wires and cables inside a pod, but she handled the ship gracefully and her voice over the intercom speakers was comforting to him, like the ship was a part of her, protecting him from all harm. He did mention he was feeling a little emasculated for having Maya being responsible for his well being, but out here in the void, it's everyone's responsibility to protect others regardless of gender.