Which basket to put the Eggs in

The only real thing on my To Do list now is to get into a position to be able to respond to any invasion of my home system by the Triglavians.

Most Hi-Sec systems which have fallen are in dead end locations or border Low-Sec. While I have historically lived out of dead-end systems, I am not currently. That gave me a moment of comfort, until I realised Raravoss was neither a dead end nor low-sec border system.

For the most part my answer is being able to flee. With a small effort I got my main Alts in a position to carry everything they owned in an Orca. Since they all have an Orca, that had them covered. My remaining niche Alts tend to only have a couple ships and a small collection of spares. I am working on ensuring they can all move in one or two trips. If two trips are required, I have ensured a Jump Clone is available.

That leaves my Main. The loss of my POCO made the task easier. I ended up being able to sell off 8 ship hulls that were setup just for defending the POCO, leaving a couple PVP ships laying around, just in case. I still had my unused BPO collection, and all the Gift and collectible Memorabilia, and a bunch of ships I do not use but are keepsakes. These I have decided to move into a Trade Hub.

No guarantee they are any safer there, but given the uncertainty, it seems a slightly better choice over any other option I can come up with. When I have finished that process (almost done) I will review what is left and try to get everything into a couple Orca.

As always, this decluttering is cathartic.

Not for the first time I was listening to a newly returned player last night who was in shock. They logged into the game to find they had lost everything but the ship they were sitting in. Think about that. Lost everything. The rules around their Hi-Sec Citadel had been fundamentally changed while they were away from the game not paying attention, and it had been looted. Another person in the channel chortled and gloated over the obscene wealth they had pillaged in High Sec.

I got the impression the returned player become an x-player while I watched.

On the home front we are halfway through a second COVID19 lockdown that will inevitably be extended. The kids are back to remote schooling. We remain comfortable within the house and have been able to adapt to the ever-shifting rules. The normalcy has however taken substantial effort and chunk of spare change, something the kids seem to just take for granted.

Safe is a word

I have always thought (and occasionally remarked) that because I write a public blog on EVE that I should leave myself in a position to be War Dec’d. Just in case I annoy someone that much.

To be eligible for the war declaration system in EVE you need to have a structure anchored in space. These are all the Upwell Structures, POS, POCO or Sovereignty Structures (iHUB/TCU).

With the loss of my POCO, my Alliance / Corporation can no longer have war declared against them. Similarly, I cannot declare war on anyone else.

I have considered what I could do to rectify that – but I think I will have to overturn my rule. I am not a fan of the Upwell Structures or mechanisms for solo players. I used an Azbel and Astrahus for a while, but they were not a positive addition to my day to day game. I could hunt down a POS, which are still on the market, but that will be a short-term fix. I thought they were already meant to have been phased out.

So, for the moment there will be no wars for me. Suicide Gank if I get too annoying.

On the plus side I had an extra 10 ships sitting around prepared for POCO defence, repair or take down. Selling those off will make it easier for me to flee a Triglavian invasion.

(As an aside, I did send an Alt over to check who anchored replacement POCO. It was the attackers. I have noticed a lot of POCO are owned by Pirate / Merc organisations. I said when I first took the planets that they were already on borrowed time. It took 7 years and a third War Dec for their time to run out. Much longer than expected.  The pirates are charging 6% additional taxes.  Cheaper than the average 10% everyone else is in system.)

Missed Content

I logged in today for a few minutes.  I noticed a strange red crossed swords symbol in the corner of my EVE client.  Turns out my Alliance had war declared on it a few days ago.  The aggressor’s BIO suggests they can do mercenary work, while their kill-board suggests they don’t do a great deal of it.  They had reinforced my POCO and about 30 minutes before I had logged in destroyed 3 of them.  Missed content.

The last POCO comes out of reinforcement tomorrow.  Not sure why the timing was so different – it shouldn’t have been.  There were 14 Leshaks, a Nestor and Damnation on the kill mails, and the the POCO were taken down in around 10 minutes.  Not much I could have done about it even if I was aware it was happening.  Maybe I could have got some screen captures?  Never mind.

I have remarked many times that I earnt little ISK from them.  The tax rates were set very low, the minimum possible (just so I could see who was using it) if anyone asked for standings.  Actually, I think it was barely higher than that anyway.  For quite a while the 4 of them combined would only earn 1 or 2M ISK a month.  I haven’t paid them any attention, and I haven’t used them myself for quite some time.  Looking at the Planetary tax income it looks like I made 40M across the four of them in the last month.  That could have been a record.  They might have finally paid for themselves!

I am partially bemused by this turn of events; and slightly embarrassed that anyone relying on them will be inconvenienced (and likely charged lots more tax).

Hiatus

I am still not sure what the final impact is for systems that fall to the Triglavians. When I last looked, the only systems which have fallen either bordered Low Sec or were dead end systems. I suspect the fear of major trade routes being broken were unwarranted. (Not that I would take what I have said as gospel – I have not been paying close attention.)

I am still not doing much in game. Mostly I just log into my character selection screens, do the daily bonus/es, then log out without entering the hanger.

I have had a look at the new Vorton Projector weaponry.

 

The new EDENCOM ship hull prices were OK, but many of the skillbooks were unavailable and modules and especially ammo were ridiculously expensive. I set up a Skybreaker frigate – but found it relatively pointless solo. A Stormbringer cruiser might have been more interesting, but I was literally unable to fit one yet.

I still have a bunch of stuff to sell off, but I lost interest in playing the market games.  I will get back to it at some point.

CCP have released a training boost bundle for sale.

https://secure.eveonline.com/packs/details/?pack=training-boost-bundle

I mention it as in the not so distant past this would have been something players would have been up in arms over. A pay to win sellout that would have filled the forums with spite and anger. I glanced around for some drama and tears, but mostly I just saw people pointing out it was overpriced.

Currently I am getting my gaming fix by playing Minecraft.

..

Outside of the game, we have just entered a second COVID19 lockdown where I live in Australia. Do not be concerned – Australia has a heavy suppression, maybe eradication approach to COVID19. While I accept the reasoning behind this disappointing turn of events, I have found myself frustrated by the inability of most Australians to do math.

In Australia, our COVID19 testing coverage has been like the US. About 11.6% of the population has been covered, compared to 12.3% in the US.

As of today, 0.037% of people tested here have come back positive. In the US it is 1%. You are 27 times more likely to have a positive COVID19 result in America than you are in Australia.

Because the US has around 13 times the population of Australia, it means for each person testing positive for COVID19 here, there have been 350 positive cases in the US.

In the US around 413 people per million have died from COVID19. In Australia it is 4 people per million.

It might seem like it – but I am not actually judging who has done it better or worse. History will decide that, and it will not just be about death rates. What I am doing is putting context around our situation.

Australia is isolating itself from the world, Australian States are isolating from each other, and COVID19 hotspots are isolated even further. The country is waiting on the assumption a workable vaccine will at some point become available.

So – what was the point of the math and discussions on context? In Australia there is widespread fear, panic, and anger. People are quick to turn on each other and cast aside their morals. I cannot fathom if you stop and think for yourself, why you would behave in that way.

Where I live, around 1 in 30,000 are known to have active COVID19. If I limit going out, pay attention to social distancing and hygiene, my risk of exposure is tiny. This is not a complaint about the most recent lock down – the situation in the US shows what can happen if the virus gets a foothold in a population. But it is not something I need to currently be bat-shit scared about.

So far this year in Australia 9,359 people have been diagnosed with COVID19, and 106 have died. Over 400 people have died on the roads, 30,000 people have attempted suicide, more than 1,500 committed suicide, and some 75,000 people would have been diagnosed with Cancer (if we had not all stopped going to the doctors).

(It is funny, but my least liked subject at Uni – Data Analytics, was probably the most useful in real life.)

Now I should be happy with the lock down in the sense it should mean more gaming.  Unfortunately it has had the opposite effect.  Trying to keep my wife and two children from killing each other while maintaining some sort of order and neatness has been more than a full time job.