Day 14 : Highs and Lows. Well, lows anyway

A couple of mistakes made before day 14 even gets started.

1) The nearest mining barge I can get isn't 38 million, its around 5 million. The Procurer is the baby brother of the other mining barges. Still able to equip a Strip Mining laser but smaller with less space for cargo and other, possibly life saving, mods. It'll take me four days to get the necessary skills to pilot one without the faffing around with Minmatar frigate piloting that I'll undoubtedly engage in anyway. It all sounds good right? Along the way to realising my mistake I also realised it would take over 45 DAYS to train the skills for the large mining barges. I'm going to be jet canning for a while.

2) During the break in the football last night I sent a shuttle down into Minmatar space where I've never been before. After the football I jumped it on manual through a couple of dodgy systems to a station where they were selling a blueprint for the Rifter, the Minmatar frigate I'm so interested in. I spent 2.5 million on this and then flew it back, in a shuttle, through the same dodgy systems like an idiot. I have no idea why I did this but in the middle of the night I woke up, felt sick and dizzy and threw up. I'm thinking the illness came first and made me do some odd things. I had better check yesterdays blog entry. The alternative theory, god forbid, is that doing something stupid in EVE causes me to throw up a few hours later. Worrying for both the level of involvement this would indicate and for the fact that I'm going to be throwing up a lot in future.

The bonus for the hairbrained trek across space was that one of the dodgy systems I ran through had a "Factional Warfare" status showing. I've got to look into it but it looks like I can get involved in the various wars between the four factions. Something for much later, maybe in a corporation. First of all I need to do some exploration and I don't want peoples navies shooting at me everytime I jump through a gate.

What am I doing tonight? Mining again of course! I was just getting comfortable again when I spent 2.5 million on something I didn't technically need, but that I just wanted. Maybe I'll branch out and try some low-sec mining. If I go armed there are bounties available on the rats in the asteroid belts. I've only just figured out how to track when these get paid to me, some payment history charts off the main wallet screen. It's not much but it more than pays for ammo. I'm also aiming at mining for particular minerals so I can use my expensive toy blueprint to actually build something. At least one of the minerals involved is going to involve a trip into low sec space, and probably a ship loss.

By the evening I need something keep me awake. I get bored of mining and go nosing around 0.4 space in search of interesting ore. I don't find any, I find a couple of rats and blow them out the skies. Then a battlecruiser pops out of nowhere and turns me into flying toast within about 20 seconds. It could have been minutes but compressed down by terror. At least I don't have to fly home - she has podded me too. Back to the backup clone. Sigh. Thanks Friday night. Well. At least I've been through the experience, and damn it was fast. Had my reactions been at normal levels I'd have still got a pasting, but I might have got in close enough to cause some trouble. Maybe. Well - thats the name of the game. At least I survived as long as I did!

I actually feel like I'm in EVE now. I've seen the brutality. I'll be staying out of low sec for a good long while though. This might be a bad overreaction on my part.

Oh yeah - and I'm in this game for the long run now. I have a favour to pay back. The bitch has a 40 million bounty on her head.

UPDATE: late on I got curious. It killed the cat, so I decide on an Atron class fighter I've never used before but happen to have a copy of. I stick a couple of spare guns on it, a speed increasing low power unit and a microwarp drive. I round it out with a shield and a repair unit just because that's all there is in my hangar. I jump back to the system where I saw the person who fragged me.

A couple of computer controlled opponents attack but it turns out they can't handle the Atron's speed and I zoom around them and kill them in a series of small bites. This is exhilarating but not as exhilarating as finding my opponent hanging in space 125km from the asteroid belt. I've bookmarked some safe warp locations and head back out to them, crisscrossing the asteroid field and she warps out. I think at first that she thinks I'm scouting or making a tempting target for a revenge squad.

She then warps back in using an Atron herself! At this point I play chicken again. I'd engage but I've stuck cheap shitty guns on. I dock at the local station. I'll be back and the Atron will be tooled up. In a bizzare turn of fate Spotify decides to play the Top Gun "Danger Zone" cheese track during the encounter. The Atron will be named "Maverick". I enjoyed that bit. I'll be back. Sporting of her, but I'm only 14 days old, and just not ready. /salute Saeline. As they say where I come from.