Goodbye, Station Spinning

        Like it or not, Incarna is here. What will be the first thing you check out?

        I think, for me, it will be the following in order:

1. Captain's Quarters. I hadn't seen them on SiSi yet.
2. Aurum clothing. I buy virtual clothes in Second Life. I don't imagine EVE being very different.
3. New turrets! My Dramiel already looks badass. I can't wait for the new turret models to make my ships look more badass.

        As for what's new with me, I've got Medium Energy Turret V in the queue for patch day. Because patch day inevitably turns into patch week with something new and large such as this.

        I've been debating over whether to train Minmatar Cruiser V first, or Amarr Cruiser V. So I decided to train both. They will hit the queue after I get Medium Pulse Laser Specialization trained. After that I'll be training the Tech II cruisers to IV, followed by AWU V. That takes me to the middle of September and brings with it a lot of versatility: Logistics, Recons, HACs, and Hictors for both Shield and Armor fleets.

        My grand plan is to put a Zealot to use running Incursions, since they seem to be very lucrative. I also have another money-making plan in the works, but that's another month or two away before the plan can be revealed.

Amarr-ked Improvement

        After taking a grueling amount of time training up Tech II Projectiles, Knee took a small trip back to Empire space via Jump Clone Express. His old home base doubled as a great place to make a skillbook run. Able to put Tech II guns on Maelstroms and everything smaller, Knee decided his Minmatar training was adequate at the moment and he needed to embrace his humble side.

        Despite TEST employing Shield fleets in their Maelstrom-fielded strategic ops, there were also other fleets regularly formed that called for Armor. Since Gallente ship performance has lately been considered lackluster, and Minmatar choices are limited to the Hurricane and the Loki, the best option is to fly Amarr.

        Like most slave children who are lucky enough to be rescued by their Matari brethren and sent to be raised in the Heimatar region, Knee grew up with strong prejudice against everything dealing with the Amarr. Still, the older he has become and the more exposure he has had with the people themselves, he had to admit two things. First, that Amarr people aren't all bad guys out to enslave him. Second, they can build an array of truly impressive ships.

        One such ship is the Zealot. A Heavy Assault Cruiser that is difficult to supersede. It's fast, it has a small signature making it hard to hit, and "Short Range" Pulse Lasers can do amazing damage at 35km when using Scorch crystals.

        Knee liked the concept of infinite laser ammo. He never liked having to estimate how much projectile ammo to haul around, though being able to choose your damage type is handy. Lasers simplify the process to selecting the optimal crystal for your engagement range, with no reload delay.

        Within a few days, Knee had learned the basics of Amarr ships and Laser turrets, all the way to Battleship level. Taking that knowledge to Tech II would take a lot more time, but since Beam Lasers seem to go unused, that simplifies the training a bit. Still, the plan contains three big time consuming skills that cannot be ignored for this type of ship:
Medium Energy Turret V (10d)
Amarr Cruiser V (16d)
Advanced Weapon Upgrades V (20d)

        Everything else in the plan is another 22 days - Assault Ships to Heavy Assault Ships and Pulse Laser Specialization. It will be worth it, though, for it will enable Knee to be able to fly Armor or Shield at any time.

Tech II Guns Take Forever

        Medium Artillery Specialization is finished. Sharpshooter V is required for Large Artillery Specialization, as is Large Projectile V. In total about 24 days of training for those two skills alone. So much for April.

        The good news is that the guns will see plenty of use.

What's New?

        Skill Training: I've completed Minmatar Frigate V and can now fly Assault Ships, Interceptors, Cov Ops, and EWar vessels ... though who would want to fly a Hyena anyway? The WoW Rogue player in me loves Cov Ops. I have a lot of missile skills to train before I can fly a Stealth Bomber effectively, so right now I'm just having fun scouting around in a Cheetah.

        The next step is the long, arduous, but necessary path to Tech II guns. Projectiles are the flavor of the month and my Gunnery has been neglected for far too long.

        Please support the relief efforts in Japan. So far I have donated 12 PLEX to CCP's campaign for good. I encourage everyone else to participate if they can.

        I should have an interesting Op to talk about tomorrow.

Neural Remap

        Everything was prepared ahead of time. It was just a matter of throwing the switch.

        For the past seven months, Knee's learning plan had been focused entirely in support and infrastructure. All the non-combat tools that he would need to be a better combat pilot. Sounds contradictory, but take into consideration that a fighter pilot needs more than guns. He needs engines, shields, armor, and even a few tricks up his sleeve. Some of those tricks include overheating modules, jury rigging, electronic warfare, and astrometrics. Knee knew them all. He was ready.

        He sat calmly in Medical while the doctor's aides busied themselves around him. Some were taking scans, others were hooking up equipment, and still others were running calculations. Neural remaps were not everyday procedures. Official regulations limited their use to once a standard year, though occasional grants by special request were possible. Knee was well-trained in Science but still did not understand the technology behind changing the brain to influence a person's mental capacity. Something about optimizing neural pathways. The scientists explained it best as "flashing" the brain the same way a data storage chip is written. Both are electrical systems, after all. When you abstract it to that level, it simply becomes a matter of circuit design. Knee was comfortable enough with the concept of implants supporting the brain's functions, but rewiring the brain itself was beyond his comprehension. He trusted the people around him.

        When the aides confirmed everything was ready, the attention turned to Knee. He was focused, almost trancelike, on completing the final skill in his set, drawing in data from the invisible voice in his head. Finally he opened his eyes and Aura, connected to his implants, proudly announced "Skill training completed." He looked at the head doctor and nodded. One of the nurses applied a quick sedative and the experts went to work.

        Within moments, it was finished. They removed the sedation and Knee regained consciousness. As he regained his bearings he could feel the eerie effects of the procedure. His willpower was higher than ever before - he knew no fear. His perception was nearly off the charts. He was able to predict the aides' actions and movements almost to the point of seeing into the future. He reveled in the feeling. He felt superhuman. He felt like a Capsuleer.

One Week Till Remap

        EWar is finished. I saw the power of ECM during Alliance Tournament VIII and I had to buy in to it. Should I choose to fly a Caldari ECM ship, I will be evil in it. The alliance loves EWar people too.

        So what's left?

• Nanite Operation IV and Nanite Interfacing IV for heat repairs.
• Anchoring IV for drag bubbles.
• Salvaging IV for looting.

        That's it. Less than a week away. I'm excited!

The First Anniversary

        Today marks my first anniversary of playing EVE - Knee's birthday.

        Coincidentally enough, it also marks a nice skill-training milestone. Cynosural Field Theory IV finished today, putting me at just over 20 million skillpoints. An average of 2280 sp/hour.

        So, the year in review?

        After going through the tutorials, I pack up my free ships (Thrashers and Slashers and Wreathes, oh my!) and haul them 22 jumps from Matari space to my coworkers' home just outside Jita. From there I go up the missioning chain - Level 1's in a Thrasher, Level 2's in a Rupture, Level 3's in a Hurricane, and Level 4's in a Dominix. I get over 8.0 standings with the Caldari Navy, allowing me to keep some jumpclones in highsec for times when I need to go skillbook shopping.

        That's where the blog begins. The general malaise of solo missioning causes me to head to nullsec for some fun. Meanwhile I'm training exclusively Int/Mem skills in anticipation of a Per/Will remap which should last me for a good year or two. Having looked at some character skill profiles who have skillpoint totals over twice what I have, I'm pretty confident in my support backbone, and when I add Tech II ships and guns to that, I should be pretty solid.

Life in Fountain, Day One

        Rigging training is complete. Onward to the final set of Electronics skills - 11½ days. Removed a couple of unnecessary skills from the plan, saving three days. It's now a total of 18½ days until the remap.

        My courier contract is already completed. All of my equipment is now here. Awesome service!

        Researched the market for buying a Maelstrom in the future. The station is well-stocked with the hulls, guns, and faction ammo necessary for the job. Very impressive.

One Month Till Remap

        The agonizingly-long Int/Mem skill plan is nearing completion. Today marks the end of training all Astrometrics skills to IV. Next on the agenda is about 9 days' worth of Rigging.

        I mixed up the plan a bit - added some things and took some other things out. I decided to put off all the Subsystems skills until later when I finish training Cruiser V. It may be less efficient but I'm getting impatient. In place of Subsystems I substituted Anchoring IV so I can use Large Warp Bubbles. Should be a handy skill to have in 0.0.

New Year's Resolution - The Master Skillplan

        For quite a while now, I've been working on my master skillplan. My ultimate goal is to be able to fly any sub-capital warship and be awesome at piloting it. This will increase my versatility and hopefully my overall experience. Thanks to EVEMon, that ultimate goal is about 2 and a half years away.

        Such planning takes discipline. Support skills in EVE are more important than the ship skills themselves, as the ship is useless if the pilot can't use it to its full potential. To that end I have been training exclusively Int/Mem skills for the past few months. Today marks the day when the Navigation branch of the plan is completed.

        Without further ado, commence pretty graphs! Here's my current skillpoint distribution:

        As I promised in School's Out, I dumped my reimbursed Learning skillpoints into Leadership fleet boosting, an excellent investment that will be useful in a Battlecruiser, a Command Ship, or even a Strategic Cruiser.

        I'm still debating at what point I cut the umbilical cord and get into the sweet, sweet combat skills, but it's looking to be sometime between Mid-February and the beginning of March. At that time, the distribution will look like this:

        During that time, I'm planning to train some more levels in Rigging, Astrometrics, EWar, Tech III Subsystems (Defensive, Electronic, and Engineering), and a couple of other vital skills.

        After that it's remap to Per/Will for a long long time, hence why I want to get everything else out of the way beforehand. First priority will be to skill for a Tech I Maelstrom since that's the current fleet flavor of the month. That's just a few days away. After that will be a fairly logical progression:

Tech II Minmatar Frigates and Tech II Small Projectiles

Tech II Minmatar Cruisers and Tech II Medium Projectiles

Battlecruisers V and Command Ships

Advanced Weapon Upgrades V and Tech II Large Projectiles

Minmatar Subsystems (Offensive, Propulsion) and Strategic Cruiser

All other Gunnery Support skills to V (Rapid Firing, Surgical Strike, Trajectory Analysis)

        The remainder of the year will then go to cross-training Amarr, starting the process anew - Frigates and Small Lasers, Cruisers and Medium Lasers, Battleships and Large Lasers. This will allow me to be useful in Armor fleets. By the end of Perception / Willpower Year 1, the skillpoint distribution will look like this:

        2012 is devoted to boosting up my Drones skills: getting Tech II Sentries and Heavies, as well as Drone Interfacing V. I also sneak in Gallente Frigate V and Cruiser V so I can play around in an Ishtar and use Dramiels and Cynabals to their full potential. The remainder of the year is devoted to the Caldari, training all the Missile skills as well as Caldari ships. After 2012, it will look like this:

        2013 wraps things up by skilling up Gallente and Hybrids in the same manner. After that, who knows? Capitals, perhaps?

School's Out!

        Read the latest CCP Dev Blog and rejoice!

        It's been a hotly-debated topic for what seems like forever - the Learning skills. Like most beginning pilots, I mocked the fact that I had to spend an entire month to learn how to learn before I could learn the things I wanted to learn, lest I give up time due to the lack of efficiency.

        Now CCP has announced their intent to implement what seemed to be the most agreeable compromise, unsurprisingly devised by the CSM. Learning skills are going away and we're receiving +12 to all attributes instead, plus a reimbursement of all skillpoints invested into Learning.

        "Great," I thought, "I can accelerate my skillplan and be a month ahead of schedule." Then the comment feedback got my wheels turning.

        First was Trebor Daehdoow's suggestion that if your neural mapping allowed for Learning skills to train at a rate higher than what you were currently working on, then train Learning skills now before the reimbursement and get a return investment of skillpoints that's greater than what you would have gotten if you had just continued with your skillplan.

        Then came a comment from Ishina Fel who said, "Time to make a list of all those CHA-based skills I want maxed..." With CCP Zulu's announcement just a few days ago that the PLEX-for-remaps idea was getting scrapped, I was annoyed that I would have to train Charisma skills at a low rate because I don't see a Charisma remap plan as worth a year of training time. I would run out of skills that I would want.

        Wow, what a double whammy to solve both of those problems. I have switched to training Eidetic Memory V which is bringing me more skillpoints per hour than my current skillplan. Then I can drop those reimbursed skillpoints into Leadership at an equivalent rate of 2200-2300 an hour instead of 1350 without the need for a remap!

        What will this buy me? With currently 2 million in Learning which will turn into about 3 or 4 million by the time we get reimbursed, I can go from zero in Leadership to having Leadership V, Wing Command III, Warfare Link Specialist III, and a couple of levels each in Skirmish, Armored, and Seige Warfare Specialist. Not bad. It may be a little bit of a sidestep, but it's a perfect opportunity to take advantage of Learning skills one last time.

RL Distractions = Level 5 Skills

Being on call this week at work, I don't have the privilege of blowing up spaceships at my leisure. It's a perfect time to train an 11-day skill.

Meanwhile, I have a couple of purchases to talk about. Stay tuned.