January was a total bust when it came to undocking in EVE. I was constantly on edge, listening out for the beginnings of my daughter’s next meltdown – needing to be able to immediately try and interject. The irony of finishing my job, yet finding myself working harder than ever was not lost on me.
Then school went back and it was like someone flicked a switch in her head. Her behaviour went from extreme back to its normal difficult. The Paediatrician who coordinates the various services we use for our daughter (at ridiculous cost) was not surprised. It is apparently common behaviour for her high functioning clients in the autism spectrum. They find comfort in the clear and consistent routine that school gives them, and act up worse when outside of it. At least we have some ideas for next holidays.
My wife and I are still rather rattled, but I’ve finally been able to cautiously start enjoying my unemployment. With the help of YouTube, I’ve been tackling some of the home maintenance items on my To-Do list, such as repairing the drywall my daughter has damaged. I have also been able to undock in EVE.
I feel a little precarious in my NPC Null Sec home. I can log in and have the place to myself for an hour, or I can find one of the local Corps active and not able to do much. The location is still good, but as I mentioned previously I do need to be able to relocate everything at short notice if the situation changes. For that I need a Carrier (until Capitals are reworked anyway). I had two of those, but they were on the other side of the map. I spent some time mulling over how to get one or both of them into the area. The distance however was just too far, with too many dangerous bottlenecks to try and get through.
I thought about trying to build my own carrier, and purchased an Archon BPC set towards that goal. In reality however I’d likely have to move out many times before that hull became a reality.
In the end I stripped my old Archon and Thanatos and put them up for sale. In a process that required far too many Star Gate traversals, I hauled their old fits out of Low-Sec and back to my Hi-Sec home. After watching for a while I was able to purchase a new Archon hull that lies within one Cyno jump of my NPC home.
Next I spent a long time in EFT and looking at Killboards, making some notable changes to my normal Archon fit. Given I fly solo, if I am caught a strong active tank will just delay the inevitable. No one will be coming to rescue me. I’ve now gone for a bigger buffer and some tools to try and shake off initial tackle. I’ve purchased everything I was missing for the new fit, and am almost done collecting it in one place in Hi-Sec. Again this required a lot of travelling.
The next phase will be trying to get 50,000m3 plus of gear to the location of the hull (in a busy and hostile system), and then move the hull across to my NPC Null home all without losing anything. I’m not sure yet on how I am going to manage that. A long wait for a suitable wormhole I suspect.
Here’s the new fit I will probably go with:
[Archon, Transport v2]
Capital Armor Repairer I
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
True Sansha Capacitor Power Relay
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Damage Control II
Shadow Serpentis Warp Disruptor
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Dark Blood Cap Recharger
Drone Control Unit I
True Sansha Heavy Energy Neutralizer
True Sansha Heavy Energy Neutralizer
Shadow Serpentis Large Plasma Smartbomb
Large EMP Smartbomb II
Capital Transverse Bulkhead I
Capital Transverse Bulkhead I
Capital Transverse Bulkhead I
I’ve also added another new ornament to my hanger – a Bhaalgorn that I will probably never use in anger. For no good reason, I’ve always wanted one. Given the price of the hull is now well under 400M, I didn’t go overboard with the fit.
On the way home from Jita
I’ve kept my Rorqual while waiting for news from CCP about what changes they are going to make to it. They posted a teaser image to their Instagram page recently of what might be a capital mining drone. I expect that is what the Rorqual will end up being – an in-belt booster / mining platform. I can’t imagine a situation where I would do that as a solo player, but I’ll hold off selling the hull until its direction is confirmed.
Today I even flew the Victorieux Luxury Yacht for the first time in an age.
It has been good just getting out and about, well – in EVE. That of course requires not getting out of about as much in real life. That has been nice too.
Evehermit 