For Posterity

With CCP turning off the old portrait server for the last time I decided to record my past and present looks here for posterity. I think Orea aged reasonably well, but Dhal is looking a bit tired. Dhal does have the excuse of being 4 years older.

Oreamnos Amric - circa YC111

Oreamnos Amric - November YC115

Dhal Ramat - circa YC108

Dhal Ramat - November YC115

Where I've Been

Mabrick over at Mabrick's Mumblings posted a snapshot of his visited systems as recorded by the EVE server. At the end he invited others to post their maps so I decided to take up that invitation.

Orea's Wanderings

You can see from this I spent the vast majority of my time hanging around in Gallente space. This betrays my first two year of EVE as a carebear missioneer. I can see a single route south into nullsec but I can't for the life of me remember what that was for. Other than that, the occasional dot shows where I've jumped out from a wormhole.

Dhal's Travels

It's really easy to see Dhal hasn't moved around much in New Eden. For a toon born in 2005 this map gives and idea of how long it took between my first trying EVE and actually subscribing to the game. Only notable thing I pick from this map is my time spent around Solitude.

Geo's Journey

Geo has only been around for this year but already his spread of travel covers a lot more of the right side of the map. Now he can fly a reasonable stealth bomber I should take him for a wander around the far right of the map and light some systems up there also.

There we go, my main characters' travels up in lights as suggested by Mabrick. So, dear reader, how about yours?

On Building T3s

After a long training queue, Dhal is finally in a position to start building T3 subsystems for Tengus. The skill for building the actual T3 hull, Cruiser Construction, is a slightly long one so is on hold for now while I get the skills to build all the different faction T3 subsystems.

Until this year Dhal had pretty much been wandering the universe with no point or purpose. Even though he's been a capsuleer for many years he had yet to focus on any single career. With Orea moving away into wormhole space it was time to actually focus on some other aspect of the game and industry seemed a good choice.

The interesting thing about low skilled industry is the margins are generally quite low. Randomly picking something to start building can be a bad decision and I quickly discovered there is nothing to be made building frigates or cruisers. Even if you do all the work from scratch - mining, refining, research, building, selling - the return on time is rather low.

To actually make decent ISK from the manufacturing venture I had to sit down with spreadsheets and work out potential profit per month. This was a very organised method compared to the fail method of randomly picking interesting things to build and giving it a go. Ammo is the eternal cash cow and by sitting down and making a proper plan I now turn a tidy profit. All of which has been funnelled back into the T3 business.

Unlike last year, Dhal now won't be seen anywhere near an asteroid belt or near a refinery. I now just buy materials as and when I need them. I guess the next plan is to start using buy orders to further improve the profit margin.

Invention

I just realised it's Friday. There should be a screenshot from around New Eden here but clearly there isn't. To be honest, I've not spent much time undocked this week to facilitate the taking of interesting images from around New Eden. So, what have I been doing? Well, in one word, invention.

And what a time sink invention can be. I like to batch up my invention runs to give me a month of runway. I have about 160 BPCs to turn into about 60 T2 ammo BPCs and do five at a time. With a 40 minute wait between invention runs this basically means I sit at a POS running these with not enough time to go do something else productive, but too much time to feel like I'm being involved in the process. As a result the days just fly by.

Also, I tend to zone out and not pay attention to external interactions indicated on my pod interface. Each time I stir to set another round of invention on the go I find unanswered convos blinking at me. Often the convo initiator has given up on me ever replying. Saying 'hi' seems pointless after 20+ minutes of inactivity.

It would be nice to set a queue of invention tasks up - simply drop all the required materials in the right place and set it running - hint hint. Then Dhal could sit back and relax and Orea could get on with the serious business of stealing liberating Sleeper technology.

Letter From Dhal

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From: Dhal
Sent: 2012.02.12 12:14
To: Orea

Dear Orea,

How is life in the wormhole. I've been busy on my get rich scheme making T2 ammo. Thing is I seem to be having the same bad luck I always do. Every calculation I do suggests I should be getting something like a 45% return on my inventions but it seems I barely hit 30% just now. I'm sure this is just a temporary dark cloud in my otherwise clear sky but it can be mighty frustrating.

I regularly have to visit your favourite system. I know how much you now hate being somewhere with more than twenty other pilots in local (local channel, remember that?). I can't imagine your distress at being in Jita with 1600 other pilots. These days I tend to close the local channel as best I can but sometimes it can be fun watching the scams flash by. Surely nobody actually believes any capsuleer is going to retire and give their life savings for one unit of Tritanium. What would they even want that Trit unit for?

I understand life in the wormhole took an interesting twist for you recently with a promotion to director level. How is that working out? From what you were telling me it shouldn't be long before low level financial analysis is pretty much doing itself. If you need any help reviewing the system you're creating then let me know, I promise not to share your authentication details with anyone, honest... Oh dear, I've been in Jita too long.

Well I should probably get back to purchasing minerals for my new business. I start ramping up production big time in about a week and need to be ready for that. This time next year, Orea, I'll be a multi-billionaire. I'll buy you a drink in Jita 4-4 if you can stomach it.

Best Wishes,
Dhal

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Science Bit

Within New Eden there are many pies to stick your fingers into. To this end I have a close friend, Dhal, who endures the noisy neighbourhood of Jita to fulfil his life goals of making ships and ammo. Some of it for me. Dhal's dream is to build strategic cruisers, but that is a long-term goal requiring ISK which he tells me is in short supply. Apparently learning the skills he requires takes a lot of ISK as well as time.

His current occupation is researching 'tech 2' blueprints. Apparently, once you have an original standard blueprint and access to a POS this can become a profitable area of work. The general flow is to make a copy of the original blueprint and then use the copy, along with relevant datacores, to hopefully invent a 'tech 2' item related to the original item. Sadly this only produces a limited run blueprint copy so invention is an ongoing task. Finally Dhal will take the blueprint copy and turn it into the finished item ready for sale. Of course this ties up more capital until the product sells.

In between each of these steps are long periods of waiting. Personally I think it all sounds boring and rather complicated. I prefer to leave the science stuff to him while I am out exploring the far reaches of wormhole space. I also never did understand why he doesn't just make a permanent copy of the 'tech 2' blueprints he invents but I don't like to ask again.