Day 50: Drone Mania

I’ve finally learnt Drones to level 5. I’ve been waiting for this all week! I cannot believe that it is such a let down. I feel a bit deflated by the completion. Yes, I can now fly 5 drones at a time but what does that mean? Have I lost sight of my original plan or is completing a skill in EVE always such a let down. Anticipation is everything.

It turns out I can balance my drone load when mining and include mining drones. They don’t add much but it is a start. I hate how I have to drag them in every time rats appear. Rats treat mining drones as an aperitif.

Drones level 5 does open a lot more skills, some I don’t even need yet but that I am going to learn to level one. I kid myself that this is preparation but really I am just getting off on the fact that I am learning skill levels in thirty minutes or less. The sense of achievement for seeing the level number tick over.

I do end up focusing a bit. My drone damage rises by quite a lot and I am ready for the next step with this type of combat. It’ll be good in level three missions. I can see the Vexor being prepped for flight right now.

I’d normally get some mining in, but I can’t see the point since on Wednesday the new game patch is going to introduce huge ore bays for the Mining Barge I have. It ruins the chain of six secure cans I have anchored in a local belt. I was stupidly proud of setting up this chain of cans. I think the whole mechanics of ore bays haven’t been thought through enough. We’ll not see so many belts containing cans, labelling said belt with the identity of whoever put them there. Mining will become even more anonymous in hi-sec. Again I am provoked into thinking that the owners of EVE want us to “progress” from hi-sec into low-sec and beyond. I find this a bit unfair since I’ve been a bit of a low sec adventurer already. At least I know I’ll be doing more of that. Probably in a Procurer that is heavily tanked. Mind you, when I started EVE, Procurers were going for about 5 million. Speculation on the new patch improvements has raised them to stupidly high levels. They now sell for around 12-14 million, as much or more than a Retriever. The Retriever is still the hi-sec miners friend, a lot of miners are going to go for this instead and stay in hi-sec. I’m constantly amazed by the fact that EVE is so much of a sandbox that it is self regulating. Will hi-sec remain the same for miners, only more anonymous? Will more people head to low sec in newly safe ships? There is a great ecology here, a complex system of pros and cons, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.