The Better Angels and Training Freeze

I played for a couple of hours last night and had some interesting experiences, including a nice validation that I'm getting the hang of combat. But also making dumb mistakes like warping out and leaving drones behind, then forgetting where I parked them!

The Gnosis pilot from my first post, John S, contacted me after reading the "I Wanna Be A Ninja Salvager" post and said, jokingly, that if he'd known that was my career path, he wouldn't have given me access to those wrecks!  He wrote a very nice description of how much better life is on the honest side of the street (is it grave-robbing or "relic analysis"?) and offered to help out with equipment etc - we're based at the same station.

In my short time in the game I've flitted from career-plan to career-plan. I'm sure this has happened to most Eve players. Each new area of the game that you learn about has a way of grabbing your attention and I've trained some skills in that area, then moved on to the next shiny thing.  I think that Ninja Salvage got my attention because it seems to be low-risk and high-reward.  What pilot in high-sec is going to risk getting killed by the police ("Concorded") by killing my cheap ship over a few thousand ISK from a wreck?

In a nutshell that is what happened last night. I had time to probe and glom onto three mission runners.  I did this by finding myself a system with lots of NPC kills in the last 24 hrs and NO asteroid belts.  I scanned the system and picked out a ship far outside the plane of the ecliptic, so there was no chance they were at a station or planet.  All three were large ships doing missions, and the first two were standard run-and-grab-wrecks Ninjaing.  I only reached a few in time, though, because those large ships used tractor beams to bring the wrecks close and I thought keeping my distance was polite.  The pickings were slim, just a few thousand ISK each.

The third site was a revelation though. When I arrived, the ship I'd scanned was not there, but the low-level Serpentis pirates WERE. I thought "well, lets see if I can actually fight" and deployed 3 Hobgoblin drones. I only have Drones III (see training issues below), so that was my limit.  But it was a great!  By keeping my distance from the pirates and staying up to 35 km away from them, my drones had plenty of time to bring down all the pirates, four waves, which I then looted and salvaged. The work of an honest yeoman! I got more results, and had more fun, in this encounter than in the other two.

I was unable to salvage one of the wrecks, a Shadow Serpentis dude, because my salvaging skills aren't high enough yet. But looting his wreck yield 1000 of Faction Shadow Antimatter, which the game told me was worth 12 MILLION ISK!  Turns out is really isn't...buyers are paying about 4 million for it. Which ain't chump change!

Training Issues

My wife and I are sharing an account and since she needs it more, she is doing the training. But I need another level of Drones, I need the ability to add a couple of things to my ship, so I may need to put my foot in the door and train for a day. CCP offers, for $20, the ability to train 2 characters simultaneously for a month, but its not urgent enough for that yet.

Ship Used

[Imicus, Imicus Ninja Salvage]

Nanofiber Internal Structure I

Nanofiber Internal Structure I

Nanofiber Internal Structure I

1MN Afterburner I

Small Shield Booster I

[empty med slot]

[empty med slot]

Salvager I

Salvager I

Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

[empty rig slot]

[empty rig slot]

[empty rig slot]

Hobgoblin I x2

Hornet I x1

Hobgoblin I x1