Shiny happy people holding hands

Skill point Milestone

Today I've reached the big "Five-O". That is, Laedy is now at 50 million skill points!
The skill I'm currently training (Shield Compensation lvl 4) is not very exciting in itself, but it is indicative of a new direction I plan to be taking in EVE soon.

You see, for most of my EVE career I've been a Gallente armor tanker. This year I've cross trained into Minmatar and have flown some shield Hurricanes and Ruptures, but I have never flown an actively shield tanked ship.

Well, I've been inspired by some of my friends that have been flying Cyclones and Maelstroms lately, and so I decided it was about time for me to train up my shield skills better and to try these ships out.

I don't yet have the skills for large T2 projectiles, but I can already do a mean Cyclone so I'll be trying it out soon. Any suggestions on other cool active shield ships I should try, please let me know. I can't wait!

Mad Bombers

Is my brand new corporation !!!

Actually, those big exclamation marks there are an attempt at me trying to be very positive and happy about finding and settling into my new home. The truth is, I'm still quite sad about leaving my former corp, Bi-Polar Bears.

As you may have read in my last few posts, I've been hanging out in Amamake a lot in the last couple of months. This meant that I was often shooting at Minmatar militia and also fleeting up with random friends. The Bi-Po guys were always very tolerant and let me do my own thing, considering I'm Australian and in a different TZ to most of them and all. In the last week though, things became a bit awkward, as I found myself fleeting up with the enemy, and shooting some semi-friendlies. Oops. So, since I'm quite stubborn and was not likely to change my behaviour, I thought it was best to leave before I caused any real trouble.

It's weird you know, whenever I leave a corp I always feel like I'm breaking up a relationship or something. I left on good terms though, so that's a good thing. I love the Bi-Po guys a lot, but for now we'll have to remain "just friends". Just a shout out to my buddies Loren Gallen (one of the most scary and best pilots in EVE), Eddie Valvetino, Ashenshugar, Grom, Calderus Rex, Sirah and others. Much love, thanks for all the roams. I learnt a lot from you guys ♥

The GOOD news is that I have a lot of friends in Mad Bombers already. People I have known in the game for quite a while, and some of them (Azi and Zamone) I have actually met irl. There are lots of Aussies in there too, so we have a lot in common and play in the same Timezone. They are a great bunch of guys and girls, and I know I will call this corp "home" for quite some time.

Mad Bombers - So awesome, we RP as ourselves.

I'm already starting to settle in, and trying to overcome my 0.0 fears (we live in Venal). I even got some nice solo kills in my Taranis yesterday!

The kindness of strangers

(The post below is an account of my latest thoughts and experiences on the generosity of people in EVE)

Upon making the decision to change corps, I realized that I would no longer have my income source available to me. That is, the very easy and lucrative Factional Warfare missions (which on average, I can make 100million ISK per hour running those lvl 4's).

I came up with a cunning plan to grind up a skill-less alt into the Gallente militia just to pick up the lvl 4 missions for me. I spent 4 hours running about 15 missions. When it came to my very last mission I terribly messed up. I got distracted, and my speed-tanking dramiel alt died. Seriously, I'm so bad at PVE.

That was me ^ emo-bear

I was pretty emo about this, so I decided to dock up and go and hand in all the missions (about 14) and get the standings for my new alt. Well guess what? Apparently you can't get standings for Factional warfare missions unless you are already in the militia as well. My new alt was not in the militia, and there was no way she could get in because she didn't have the 0.5 standings required. So it was a catch 22.

I was idling in system, feeling sorry for myself when I saw a fellow blogger in local. He was flying a Tengu, and I asked him to come and help me tank that last mission so I could complete it and then go to bed. Understandably, he declines because we are in low sec and I think he feared it could be a trap to gank him. He then tells me he's a fan of my blog, and gives me 50 million isk to help cover my Dramiel loss! How nice is that? I did feel a lot better. I don't know if I should say his name publicly here, but I thought it was really sweet.

The next day I get into Mad Bombers corp, and I tell them in corp chat my story at being emo about the dramiel and also of losing my income supply. I was saying how I'm  not sure how I'm going to go about making isk now etc... Next thing I know, my wallet flashes and I have 100 million isk in there! One of my new corpies, Jason Marshall, decided to give me isk just to help me feel welcome. Well, it sure helped, thanks Jason! (I think he might have been drunk though, not sure).

I've had a lot of people be generous to me in this game. Last Christmas, a complete stranger gave me 50mil isk as well. I had actually just killed his ship in Old Man Star, and he was still jovial enough to give me a present (he may also have been drunk).

I'm not sure about Karma or whatever, but I do often try and be nice to people. Pay it forward, that type of thing. I often find myself replacing ships of noobs I just pirated, or just giving them isk and advice on how to defend themselves in the future. Most of my pirate friends think I'm weird and a complete bleeding-heart. Don't get me wrong, tears can be fun too (I love reading hate mails etc) but sometimes the satisfaction of helping others is even better don't you think?