The Plan: Plateaus and new peaks

     The training plan has thankfully reached a few new high points in the plan for Eve domination.  Sort of unanticipated, but as the core skills all get up near max, that makes it much easier to start branching out sideways into many new shiny boats.  It also frees up the mental load, and allows one to think of other interests in the Eve-verse.

     The main has finally gotten into his Hulk and is nearly trained to Exhmuer 4, which is where he'll sit for a while.  Rep is up to lvl 4 with Carthum, so a lvl 3 R&D agent is busy plugging away at about 100 RP/day.  Not a lot, but a start.  I could, and want to, talk to a lvl 4 R&D, but I need to train the science skills up to lvl 4, and that takes a little over 3 days x 4 skills.  I have some other things that I want to do before devoting a couple weeks to that.  Incursions are coming along nicely, and I'm planning to try to FC a some fleets, starting tonight.  I'm 4 days away from flying a fairly shiny-fitted Bhaalgorn, so I bought one along with some faction webbers, and other mods.  I'll point the toon at flying that and then it will hopefully be fairly easy to get Incursion invites with a tricked out dual-web boat.  That would mean more isk.  At the same time, if I find I am fine with FCing Vanguards, I can get isk whenever I want to built a corp/alliance fleet, or just PUG it.  After that, I'll see about topping up the science skills while mining/Incursion-ing isk, and then put him in an Orca to help with transportation duties to get back to COSMOS missions, as a better transport boat for mining ops, and as a possible future WH closer.

     My main alt is now only 2 skills out from a perfect Orca pilot, but those two skills are going to be almost 2 months of training.  She's got the books now, so she's headed towards R&D skills as well now and should be ready to talk to agents by the time all her skills are up.  She's also going to Metallurgy and Research 4 (at 3s now) and I'll start picking up some BPOs and work their ME and PE up in prep for later.  I'll get her warfare link skills all up to 4's (mostly 3s now) so she can run a boost Orca for the COSMOS and lvl 4 combat missions, and provide ship fitting and loot/salvage storage.

     The other two alts are now perfect hulk pilots, and topped off the last of their drone skills to lvl 4.  They're now also training up some of the science skills to do some R&D.  The one alt will be then heading towards a logi ship to help support mission running, while the other goes straight at combat ships.  The logi alt also has metallurgy and research up to 3 already, and will go to 4s to help with basic ME and PE duties too.  I could easily dual box two DPS incursion boats, but until I get more experience, I doubt I could dual box a logi and a DPS.  So, the combat alt will head towards some kind of a shiny and double the Incursion income.

     The two newest toons are slowly building up their skills as needed.  they can both fly BCs in support of some of the tougher COSMOS missions, but they are also just finishing off their last science skill for the R&D agents, and they can both run lvl 4 missions with Carthum too.  After that, the one toon goes towards the last 7 or 8 days for her Hulk, while the other does the last 8 or 9 days for his Iteron 5.  When that is reached, they'll both head towards the 12 day span for lvl 4 science skills, and then go for multiple R&D agents.  I might get one of them to start doing ME/PE research too.  The other alt has high salvage and ORE industrial skills, so it'll run salvage duty on the higher level missions while the other 2 combat boats (BSs of some flavour) will finish up mission sites and one runs off for more missions.

     I'm not in any rush to sprint up to the control panel and hammer the "I WIN!" button, so as I look more into the indy side, I see more areas of Eve to explore.  They are all rather time intensive skills though, so I'll make sure they can all fly some decent combat and support ships first before going too hard at manufacturing.  There are so many unique missions to run, in so many different areas of Eve space, that I think the wormhole part of the plan will be put on pause for the time being.  With a higher competency and interest in indy play, I'm looking more closely at POS operation.  My main can set up a high sec POS now, and between myself and a couple others, we'll either massage the players of a corp or buy a high rep corp to set up a POS.  Lots of time for that as I start picking up certain BPOs and research them.

The Plan: Pie for everyone, part 1

     I like pie.  Lots of different pies.  Some not so popular, but still pie.  Pies are handy in other ways than filling that sweet spot, they're good for organizing things into manageable slices.  Whether that's rhubarb, lemon meringue, chocolate ice cream, or information.  Pies, I think, are the awesome sauce of life.

     Eve gives you running totals on skill points, and indicates how many skill points you've spent in each of the major skill areas.  For someone with a head for numbers, they can likely picture that in their mind.  For someone like me with a head for pies, it just makes me hungry, and I wonder how much whip cream I have left.  If I can organize the skill points into a pie shape or pie chart, well, that's almost as good as hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream.  While Eve itself can't perform such feats of culinary organization, Evemon certainly can, which you can find if you randomly dig around long enough.  Which I did, because who actually reads the instructions that come along with software, right?  Am I right?  I think I'm right.

     My plan for skill training and Eve experiencing and experimentation involved a number of stages, and as it is pretty much still chugging along in the intended direction, all the tertiary skills that were needed here and there, to accomplish said plan, were sort of unanticipated at the time I planned my plan.  I had a pretty good, but rough, idea of where I wanted to go, but was fairly unaware of all the other supporting skills I'd need for some aspects of the plan.  Looking at the prerequisites for all the skills is pretty time consuming, and, well, boring.  Even still, I am slowly getting to where I want, and wanted, to go, and that is pretty cool.  Thinking about all the extra skills I needed, though (especially with the addition of R&D to the plan), I was curious how the skill points were actually being spent, so I thought I would whip up some pies and see.

     My main started out without any plan, other than me seeing how many different kinds of shiney spaceships I could fly, and it was awesome.  Not extremely efficient as far as flying ships well, but definitely fun for flying different ships.  my friend had great focus and aimed straight at specific ships, well up the skill tree, but I was all over the place.  Even now, it's still the biggest slice of pie.  I pointed the toon slightly sideways at mining as getting up to level 3 combat missions with mediocre combat skills was a bit of a pain, so industry got a lot of love too.  Surprisingly, science is the 2nd biggest slice of pie, but that is no doubt because of the scanning skills, mining prerequisites, and most recently, the science skills for R&D.  Taking the time to finally round off most of the core skills brought engineering and electronics up a lot and now gunnery, drones, with the other two, are pretty well fleshed out to level 4.  Mechanic, I thought, would be bigger, but most of the skills are only trained high enough to just get into the level 1 rigs, so lots of skills are trained, but not very high.  Navigation also has most of the core skills up to 4, but it is supprisingly small too.  Missiles were trained up and aimed at stealth bombers, so it's small, and the rest of the smaller slices were specifically trained only for individual tasks.  I don't see too much leadership training until I start looking at things like carriers for this toon.  There will be more points going into industry for his hulk (3 days to go), and then a few more refininng skills for different mining crystals, but then he'll be getting a lot of love in the gunnery and ship departments to start flying the big boats, plus likely a base Orca pilot.  The combat and ship skills will also help a lot for level 4 combat missions, Incursions, and the COSMOS missions.

     My main alt started life specifically as a miner, first at a hulk, then as an Orca pilot.  Pretty skill intensive to head for maxxing out the miners and transport and industrial command ships, so it's no wonder spaceship command is such a big pie slice.  She's going to go Caldari for the combat ships as very few points have gone into anything but industrials.  Industry is big because she is also the main refiner.  Leadership is big because she is also the main booster for the mining fleets, so the other leadership skills were also trained.  The plan is for her to fly carriers and logi ships too.  It'll be easy to build those on top of the leadership skills she's already got for running mining fleets.  Her core skills are up to the same level as my main, but she has minimal combat skills, and needs to top up her basic drone skills.  She's 4 days away from mining director 5, and then just needs 2 more level 5s to have perfect orca skills.  They're big skills though.  Warfare link specialist and ore industrial.  I'll fleet her up with the otherr missions runners to build rep for the month+  it'll take to get those skills up, then she can top up her drones and start working on her ship and missile skills.  She's also going to pay a role as either research, invention or production.  She'll run as fleet booster for running level 4's and be an on-site fitting service in case mods need to be switched.

     The 2nd also also started life directly as a mining alt, but also trained her for running a Mammoth for the little mining fleets.  Not as many skill points as the other two toons, but the majority are in industrial ships, and then supporting industrial skills for T2 miners and crystals.  Science is big because of astrogeology 5, and it will get bigger when she heads toward the R&D skills.  Engineering is big in proportion to the rest of the core skills as she has nothing in combat skills, and the rest of engineering, electronics, navigation and mechanics are only skills in support of running a hulk.  Enough skills in PI to get to level 4, and that's it.  This toon is going to be Minmatar, will likely be a basic Orca pilot eventually too, but mainly a combat pilot with a secondary in manufacturing.  Right now, she's a perfect miner and is working on topping off her drone skills.  Next will be R&D skills, then a quick shot straight up to battle cruisers to help with missions and run COSMOS.

     This is my brother's toon that he hasn't had time to play in a while, so I'm making sure the electricity stays connected, and the grass gets cut :)  It has more skill points than the other two alts, but not as many as my main.  He started it aimed at mainly combat ships, LOTS of combat ships and had basic gunnery skills trained to get into some cruisers.  I took it and aimed it at an Iteron 5 so it could shuttle ore as I jet can mine with the other toons.  After that, I put it in a hulk and it's 2 days away from being a perfect hulk pilot now.  It's staying Gallente.  It can fly a freighter and a blockade runner, and I also intent to spend a couple days to get it into basic Orca pilot skills.  The big boats it can fly are the explanation for the ship heavy skill distribution.  Once it's done with the hulk, it'll top up it's drone skills, and then the science skills for R&D.  It has mostly level 4 skills in all the core areas as well, and will head toward mainly combat ships and carriers, so the slices of gunnery, and ships, with possibly more drone and some missile love, are all in its future too.  Big boats, big guns, and it'll be doing the COSMOS runs too.

     Between these 4 toons, all the races are covered, for flexibility, but my main is high enough in skills that it's very easy to switch between the faction boats of the different races, and likely in time, all the boats.  All the toons will/do have salvage skills and can fly a Noctis, so I can scoop some extra shinies during missions too.  Having all 4 races should allow for good flexibility in speed running level 4 missions.  The other two toons will be covered in another post . . .

The Plan: It's all good, yo

     So, I had a slight speed wobble with too many choices, and not enough adults around to help me with said decisions, anon.  Not to fear though, 3 more wobbly pops and I was pretty much back on the straight and narrow.

     As skills have been slowly chugging along, I was running 3 of the toons through Amarr missions to not only help get the Amarr rep up to the recommended level 4, but also, simultaneously, and at the same time even, get the Carthum corp rep up as high as possible to crack open the highest level research agents I could.  That way, I can be slowly squeezing out research points to buy the data core chumblies that I need later for invention or manufacturing, or I can just sell the data cores for beer and chicks.  In Utopian terms, that would be a whole lot of DCs with three toons, for 6 accounts, with max number of research agents going.  over 100 level 4 research agents?  Oh baby!  Mind you, opinion waxes and wanes as to the profitability of data core farming vs the time it takes to do it.  It's all time wasted anyway (it's a game, derp) and one way or t'other, the cores will get bought and used.  It's still free cash.

     So, the main toon is finishing up the last bit of level 3 for the research skills needed for the local agent, and he'll continue doing missions until they are done (in about 2 days or so) and then maybe I'll be able to talk to a level 4 research agent, which would mean more training time, but I'll start him with a level 3 anyway.  The other two toons have done engineering 5 and are a couple days out from science 5, then they can train up the relevant research skills too and start their agents.  The other three toons have engineering 5 done, but are going after maxxing their hulk (exhumer 5) and orca skills (director, industrial and warfare link 5s) before training for science 5 and the tertiary skills.  While they are doing that, they can still mine, which even in high sec still garners about 100 to 150 million a day, and that keeps the PLEXors flowing :)  I'll send the main on his first COSMOS missions with a little salvage support from one of the other research toons, and when I have a handle on the first of the COSMOS lines, the three research toons should be close to level 4 mission agents.  I'll group them up with the miners while the miners crush rock and train their science/research skills, and the researchers can level all 6 Amarr and Carthum reps at the same time.  Lots of grinding, but I can switch it up between security, mining and fedex missions, and the missioning isn't that tedious to me.  Also, while the three research toons are doing the missioning and COSMOS support "thing", they'll be training to get into hulks which only entails learning astrogeology 5.  Then, for LOLz, I can go out in my own little mining fleets with an orca and 5 hulks.  That should be good for a nice little isk boost.

     Also, on the main, I built up an Incursion boat and got it ready to rock, so there's always those to play around with for variety and isk loveliness.  I'll see if I can get an alt in there too, and/or get a couple corpies and start getting our feet wet in sanctuaries.  All the research skills that I need to do data cores will also help with other manufacturing and invention tasks too, no doubt.  So, SO many things to do in Eve.

The Point?  Plans are a satisfying thing, if you manage to stick with them, and wait it out to see your shiney new skills come out o' the oven, yo. 

The HMCS Plan: she's slightly adrift . . .

     The plan was, and still mostly is, coming along quite swimmingly (note the nautical theme . .) but as I sit at about stage 2.8, getting to the starting point of stage 3 is going to take a little longer than planned.  The problem isn't anything major and it's not like I wildly underestimated the amount of time it would take to get everything trained to level 4 (which I did a little anyway . .), the main issue is concurrent activity.  Concurrent activity, as in more passive bidness going on in the background to earn isk, fame and world conquest.

     In checking out some of the COSMOS basics, starting with Amarr, it's recommended that I be at least at a rep of 4 with them to start.  Not a problem.  I was 2.97, and now I'm up to about 3.5 with level 4 in Social and Connections (plus I went to 4 in negotiation to boost my ph4t l00tz too).  Progress is coming along nicely as I run mining and fedex missions with three of the toons and mine with the other three.  It's steady, reliable income with a rep boost to boot.  Not the fastest progress, but it keeps the training que full.  So, the "problem", or more of an "issue", is that I would like to be grinding out a little data core love while all this stuff is going on, just prior to, and during, the COSMOS stage.  I only need about 2 billion more isk for a Michi's implant and a Gallente freighter, and then it's all gravy.

     I picked the Carthum Corp to get the rep up with because they were close enough to my AO that I didn't need to move tons of ships, via slowboating and shuttles, halfway across the universe or farther.  I can access some level 1 and 2 R&D agents with them right now, and I all I need is some cursory training in the science skills to pique the interest of said agents.  Most of the toons are level 5 in engineering already, and 4 in science.  4 days and they can all be up to Science 5, and then I can start getting the individual research skills and quickly get them up to level 1 or 2, 3 at the most.  I only have to worry about 2 to 3 skills each, as well.  The main 4 toons are all done everything else, and now are up in the drone skills and finishing them off.  Then I was planning to go after maxxing the orca and indy skills for a freighter, as well as the exhumer 5 skills for mining.  The problem is, the R&D skills aren't cheap, and I'd like to get the freighter and the Michi's and be done with that part of the plan.  I also want to get the other 3 toons done with their astrogeology and get them into hulks as well.  The question is, which to do first.

     I think the smart thing to do is to go for Science 5 first, buy and train the R&D skills, and then start getting some data cores, even at a low rate.  In the mean time I can get to some hard mining (which is the easiest and fastest way for me to make isk, ATM) and then once the three toons go back into astrogeology to get the hulks, I can be slowly churning out "stupendous" amounts of data core goodness.  I can always run some more missions later to boost the rep so I can eventually access level 4 R&D agents, but I imagine that is going to require some fairly major time investment in skill training too.  The upside is, I already have three extra hulks that are sitting in a low sec area that was supposed to be an area for some mining ops, but life and timings never really allowed for that to happen any more than once or twice.  I can pull all those boats out before the area fills up with too many pilots and then I'd have to pop their rigs and take them out with a blockade runner.  Then I can switch off between running missions for Amarr and Carthum rep, and mining for iskies.  It'll maybe be closer to the end of Oct before I start the COSMOS runs.  In the meantime maybe I'll throw a few skill points at the other toons to get them well up into the gunnery skills and make sure their cruiser skills and med weapons are at a decent level to help oout with some of the tougher missions.

The Point?  Having a plan is great, but it's a smidge of a bummer when you find out you could have had something planned for, and running concurrently, had you known about it.  It's sort of hard to plan for something that you weren't aware of.

The Plan, she's a'rollin' nicely

     As time passes and all the enjoyment of skill training completion messages passes from minutes, to hours, to interminable days and weeks, as a rather ADHD type of guy, it's nice to slowly see level 4s piling up in all the focused skill areas.  I'm surprised that I've stuck to my plan as well as I have.  Way to be an adult, yo!  I have fairly well resisted the massive urges to turn all those nice little green check marks into long empty rectangles.  In resisting those urges, therein lies progress.

     All the toons are close to nearing the end of phase 2 of universal domination (at a snail's pace), and they are finishing up the last of the electronics skills, if not already moving on to drones.  Drones are a bit of a buzz kill because a lot of the skills are multi-day even to just get to level 4s.  I'm not going to level 5s in anything yet, unless it was a prerequisite for something of greater glory.  Whilst mopping up errant skills, and making nicely stacked rows of skills, 4 blocks to each, I started looking a little further down the road towards the minimums required to talk to the COSMOS mission agents.

     Lots of good advice out on the intarnetz, lots of good walk-throughs (I'm not much of a story-line reader . . ) and most seemed to recommend that if you're starting with Amarrrr, which I arrrr, I should head into the COSMOS missions with a rep of 4 so as to not have to stop and grind rep once I've started the missions.  No problem, I'm almost at 3 and I'll make sure Connections and Social are at 4 too.  4s are sort of my "thing" right now anyway :)  Chicks dig 'em.  So, I'll throw three toons at some ice mining whilst I track down some Amarr agents, close by, to start grinding some rep with the other toons that can't use mackinaws yet.  I'm keeping them all fleeted up and while the rep grindage will be lessened, they all get a boost, and I'm ok with the pace/timeline, even though I'm at the end of Sept already.

     Now, frequently usually at least once per orbit of the galactic centre, I like to think I'm not too bad at lateral thinking.  While looking for suitable agents though, both past and now, I assumed that Agent Finder was the name of the window that the agents could be found in.  Right?  Makes sense.  Am I right?  Never actually ran a mouse up to the TOP of that little panel.  Never had any idea that it was actually a BUTTON.  Man . . .  But hey howdy hey, how about that agent finder!  Is that some awesome shit or what??  Man, that thing . . . rocks.  Period!  Like I give a shit that a titan's doomsday weapon can turn entire fleets into sparkling salvage goodness with a single AOE firecracker, but how about that agent finder!!  That does such an amazing job at finding an agent compared to drilling through agents, and their corps, and then the types, and whether they think you're cool enough to talk to them or not.  At any rate, I located some mining and distribution agents and I'm seeing a gain in standing in all the toons.  It was also good practise at loading up my little gypsy caravan (as much as I can at this point with an orca and some transports) and moving them to my new area of operations.  I'm not concerned that it might take a little longer to get to a standing of 4 because I want to stockpile a little cash for some PLEX to have on hand and some shinies I still need/want to buy.  Mainly just a freighter.

     It's nice running some missions again vs mainly mining and some scanning.  Some of the distribution missions also require some simple manufacturing, so that has really started to demistify the whole production aspect of the game as well.  Time to think about some indy skills and some BPs too, but that's more time and iskies.  I'll focus on getting the other 3 toons into hulks first for some hard core mining fleet goodness, while getting the freighter/blockade toon finished up and start the last toon on exhumer 5.  I need to be mindful to keep some extra cash on hand during missioning as the missions aren't exactly bringing in truck loads of cash at level 2 and 3.  There's always the research agents for rep too.   Mmmmm . . . datacores . . .  Soooo many things to do :)

The Point?  Nice, steady gains can be realized by sticking to "the plan".  Can be boring at times, and stressful, especially when tempted by new siren-song skills that open up, but focus, STAY focused.