Day Four

After dreaming about it all night I caved and spent the tenner I saved yesterday by watching the England game at home and signed up for a full account. I had to pay a one off activation fee, the equivalent of buying the hardcopy of the game I suppose. SWTOR was about fifty quid. EVE was three quid. I kid you not.

That was this morning and I had stuff to do so couldn't really go and do a lot with my brand new non-trial account. However since in EVE loads of stuff can just carry on without you I did the following:

a) Learnt the skill for flying the cargo hauler I'd got. You can't learn this skill on a trial account. I had a shower while it was being learnt. It takes about twenty minutes for the first level of it, which is enough for now. Higher levels mean bigger versions of cargo haulers and access to other industrial skills.

b) I insured the cargo hauler. This insures the ship, not the contents of the hold or anything it is fitted with afterwards. It just makes sure you can buy back a copy of the same ship should you "lose" it. I stuck a basic mining laser on it, a shield booster, a mining scanner and some extra cargo space. I jumped one system down and flew out to an asteroid field. I set the ship to orbit the best asteroid I could find using the scanner. The best asteroid at the moment being the one whose type of ore sells for the most. I turned the mining laser on, turned the sound up on the shield warning alarm. Then back in real life I buggered off and had breakfast and got sorted out for coming into work. When I was ready to leave I warped back to a station and flogged the ore. 400,000K ain't much but its a start! More scheming over the weeks to come.

If you lose a ship its gone, and anything it is carrying. I think theres a chance some of the stuff it is carrying will survive so if you can get back to the location quickly, and avoid whatever gunned you down in the first place, I think you might be able to recover something. I'll probably have ample opportunities to find out. Mind you, my original enemy causing the problem would probably still be there.

Technically the ship isn't your avatar. You can have loads of ships but you can only fly one at once so I guess out in space the ship is in reality kind of an avatar. Your avatar/character is actually some kind of uber clone that you sort out at the start of the game and that provides a face for forums and the mini thumbnail in some of the interaction windows.

You could go bonkers on the Trade stuff. As soon as I went beyond a trial account it opened up not just the auctions on the market (I think these were available before) where its possible to do anything, but also "Contracts". Contracts are like giving other players missions - making stuff, mining stuff, transporting stuff. Its bloody insane. You can get scammed here as well if you are not careful. I don't think I'm even scratching the surface either.

More tales soon. I'll probably be bored to death of it in a month!