Just too damn ill to care today (this happens to me all the time - its a long and grim story). Day working from home but obviously I can’t AFK mine due to “space morals” and I’d have to pay attention to the Retriever too much. I can get work done instead which doesn’t make me feel like a lazy slacker. I can stay in chat however and occasionally check up on how the new crew are doing. Nothing much happens all day apart from me having a fight with some code I wrote that I am in too much pain to actually understand what the hell I wrote it like that for. The evening is a different matter. Painkillers and hot water bottles later (yes in this heat I did use a hot water bottle) :
1. My Refining Efficiency skills are good enough so that now it’s just the local tax based on my reputation that distracts from perfect refining. I've been getting ready for the rep' grind using mission running skills and yet I’ll find any opportunity I can to avoid them. Screw missions. If I wanted to "quest" I’d be back playing Warcraft.
2. Everybody is online at the same time tonight, all 4 of us doing our own thing chatting away, sharing mining tips. This is what I formed a corp' for, well this and the tax thing. It’s good to have everyone bantering away, swapping tactics and views. It is odd to be the stats guy, and the knowledge guy, usually I’m behind the curve when I play games.
3. I’m mining and chatting to one of my corp' mates when a large ship ambles into the belt. I pay attention. Its large, but small enough to be a suicide ganker if correctly fitted. I’m aligned to the station I need to run to so all I have to do is press D and, barring warp scrambles, I’m probably safe. I keep an eye on the range and yet all the guy does is wander round scavenging my wrecks. This releases any cargo that those wrecks may have had in them and yet doesn’t seem to flag him as an enemy. I watch on, bemused, as he clears the belt of wrecks. Generally I abandon them on my way out anyway, I’m considerate to salvagers because I’ve been there myself. I’ve never seen someone coolly and casually loot under the nose of someone who made the wrecks. It’s good to watch to be honest, I admire his courage.
4. I’m running two mining loads to market and the hauler is only just handling it. I need a bigger boat! I decide to go for the next Minmatar ship, the Mammoth. It’s over a kilometer long and, let’s face it, I really just want to fly a new ship.
5. While I’m down in highly populated, highest of the high sec space I hear that my corp mate has been can flipped. I start compiling an answer. An Incursus attack ship is nearly made, only minutes away. I have guns, I have ammo. I have none of the other things I need. I will in future keep a PVP based ship on station. If anyone cries out, any noob, and I’m there, I am going to fleet up and help them. In the end I fly out to my corp’ mate and loiter while he mines. It’s perfect because I get to apply fleet mining bonuses for the first time. Even though I’m hanging there doing nothing, his mining is faster. I’m not proud about how I badger and generally growl at a newbie pilot who comes into the belt to mine. I’ve become too paranoid. I’m looking for a fight. Time to go home.
6. Back in the home system, chilling out and grinding some rock. There is another miner here and Rob reckons he is a bot. After Rob pokes him a bit with a battlecruiser I'm inclined to agree. The miner simply goes about his business. Either he is the coolest customer ever, or he is a bot. A bot is an automated player run by someone grinding out money in the game to sell on to other players outside it. They skew the economy and generally make things difficult for everyone else. There is a bit of chat in Local about it which Rob ignores and can flips the miner, dropping the loot as a free for all so he can claim it back. The miner ignores it. Bot. Soon after he this he warps out of system as the belt becomes crowded with us all having a look. Now I have to go look up on how to deal with bots. This is my system and no gold farming idiot is going to mess it up. It’s odd how it has become home. This is where I try to make it back to at the end of the day. This is where I’d rather be mining, despite some possibilities of greater rocks down in the neighbouring 0.5 system. Home. In space in a game? Weird.
If he's just salvaging your wrecks he won't flag up, as far as CCP are concerned wrecks are a free for all, the loot on the other hand belongs to you, if he nicks that he'll flag up. 90% of the time if that happens it's a trap, you kill him, 30 seconds later he's back in a gank cruiser or bigger. Never get into a fight when you're flying a ship you use for PvE, you'll explode hilariously.
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