:: cigarette boats ::

Recently I've moved to a different region of space. The decision to do so was based on a desire to meet another player whose blog I've been reading and have been a fan of. It is true that a region isn't required to hail another player as I could've added any player as a buddy contact and open a conversation at any time. But out of enthusiasm to meet the writer whose blog that I've been reading I had felt that it was necessary in order to uphold pure fandom.

The issue of traversing the interstellar warp portals wasn't an automatic decision. Readers familiar with my body of work recognize and hopefully identify with my apprehensive nature in entering lower security spaces. However to get to Korsiki I would have to make eighteen warp jumps, four of which were of a security rating of .3 so that was something to consider. Since those four systems were in the latter half of my journey I knew that it would be okay to step away from my PC and get a pot of coffee going.

Once I returned to my PC with a cup of fresh brew I saw that those .3 systems were two jumps away. That was fortunate to have caught them as I had yet to verify if there were any problems to be aware of. It wasn't until I was at the precipice of my final jump into the low security systems that I stopped my auto-pilot and pulled up the map of the galaxy. It is important to check for any ships destroyed and can be done so through the information that can be gleamed from the map. First, I check to see if there has been any ships destroyed in the last hour, all four had none. A second and in a certain way redundant check was to see if any pods were destroyed in the last hour, again there were none. And finally I checked for the number of warp jumps made within the last hour, of which the four systems had some but nothing worth noting. By this time I felt that it was safe to go continue my trek. As my shipped warped into each system I kept my eye on the local channel. With each jump it became clear that there was minimal activity in each system.

During one particular jump between systems I saw something for the first time. As my Thorax was flying through the warp tunnel between star systems there was another space traveler in my warp tunnel. That was very exciting for me to see that as we had both independently chosen this particular route to fly and coincidentally warped at the same time and shared the same path.

So eventually I made it to Korsiki and got through unchallenged. So now that I've made it to this system where is this EVE blog writer that I've admired. At the time of arrival she wasn't online. So while waiting I wanted to kill time through completing missions. As I was new to this region of space there were not many agents who could offer me a job. In an adjacent system there was a couple of level 1 mission agents who did offer me work, and although they were delivery missions I took them anyhow. So that leads me to the whole point of this write-up.

My cruiser class ship Thorax without any speed accelerator fittings is relatively slow. Although I'd love to have it pimped with a Micro-Warp Drive (MWD), to have one fitted with the rest of my fittings would use up too much CPU and power. Instead I have a simple afterburner that increases my speed by about 1.5 times the base speed. So you can imagine that I'm quite sarcastic when I say that I'm giddy with excitement when I accept delivery missions.

As I warped to the pick-up point I asked the help channel about which Gallente ship would make the best cigarette boat. The unanimous choice by the responders was the Taranis. After reviewing the needed skills to pilot a taranis, I then changed my training to accommodate the necessary requirements to be able to pilot such a craft.

Two days ago I had finished getting one of my required skills to level 5, and now I'm doing the same to Engineering. As it'll take 19 days to complete I've got a bit over two weeks remaining to complete that training. Since I had canceled my auto payment to play EVE by now my monthly subscription has ended. This isn't the first time that I've canceled a subscription to EVE, and won't be the last. In another month or so I'll rejoin the game and move forward again as I'll continue training for piloting a battleship.

So that ladies and gentleman is where I'm at in the galaxy of EVE Online. I'll see you again someday, at which time I'll continue my writing on my experiences in what is a very deep and challenging game.