Significant Numbers

There are occasions where life sneaks up on you and gives you a surprise. Over the last few days H hit a landmark number of skill points. I knew it was pending, but it slid on by without much notice.

I now have 59 skills at rank 5 and 63 at rank 4, with a total of known skills at 216. Big numbers. Not bad for someone who has refused to do a neural remap.

Where the hell did the time go I have to ask? Things are now a far cry from the old days where you could tick off several level one skills per day (and sometimes per hour). Measurement is in days, if not weeks almost without exception.

Even the alts are experiencing such things – one is finishing off his last warfare specialist skill before a remap (quite happy to play with his brain structure like it’s playdoh or something. Double standards, but hey). Another is finishing off Jump Drive Calibration V. Clone upgrades are not insignificant on the iskie front.

I also tried for the first ever time bringing a support character into a mission with gang warfare links, cap transfer and reps. H flies Gallente, with a view to mobility and DPS. Tankage is reasonable and actually very good in circumstances where I can dictate range. Especially with the support of nearly maxed damage Ogre IIs. Cap stability I hear you ask? What cap stability?

This approach works really well most of the time. You have to be careful when there are webbers and scrammers about, but the hobby IIs generally take care of those pretty quickly. What I can’t generally do though is aggro an entire room in a L4. The incoming DPS is just too much. Against Minmatar where the damage is against the weakest Gallente resist… well lets not talk about it.

My absolutely most hated mission is (not unexpectedly) Enemies Abound V. Timed spawns for a start. Ships that are quicker than mine, and a crap ton of DPS, especially from the Daikatanas. If you’re not killing quick enough, you’d better be prepared to bug out FAST.

Well, I haven’t got to V just yet, but I triggered the entire room of EA 1. DPS there is also not insignificant, esp if the Navy Orions get to their optimal (think blaster fit Megathron all up in your face). I warped in the support, watched my base armour jump from over 12k to over 14k, resists up another couple of percentage points, and cycle time on the repper drop below 9 seconds.

0.o said I. Slapped on the remote reppers and cap transfer, and started the killingses. And I tanked the whole damn room while remaining cap stable. Didn’t even need to pull out the rep drones. Or move.

Two things crossed my mind immediately. Firstly, this is way too easy. Is this cheating…?!?!? Secondly, I’d better not get too used to this. No wonder people get absolutely toasted in PvP if they’re so used to semi-afk missioning. It would definitely encourage bad habits.

God only knows how the missile techs get on when they first head into low/null, because all you need do is sit there, hit F1 and make sure the hardeners/boosters are running…. and that won’t keep you from the cold, cold touch of space for very long at all.

Anyways, enough rambling.

Fly Smart,

H

Update 1 – Well, V is done with a little help though I would also have to say this: remember to put in the right damn hardeners next time!!!!!

Update 2 – Couldn’t figure out why our Cal State standings were kinda borked… then a corpie pointed out a very useful function under the corp standings. Right click enables you to see which people are contributing and how much. One of my alts must have done something ever so small at one time or another, because his standing is -0.0…. Great. Super. Not.