The Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination

Just one of the many Vice City songs that transport me back to my living room as a 11 year old. Most of the music I listened to back then was heavily influenced by my Dad, who's always been into punk/rock. Vice City broadened my musical horizons, and along with classics like Kids in America, Atomic and 99 Luftballons, a massive hit of nostalgia is only one song away.

Eve is such a small place these days, so having a dedicated "home" is less important to me. I instead have several smaller hubs, with ships stashed away for content relevant to that specific location.

Jita has the bulk of my ships, as I usually filament in and out from here using pochven/needlejacks. From Jita I can reliably reach any corner of Eve with little effort, and being the market hub of Eve makes it just so convenient.

Another hub of mine is Amarr (for when I want to operate in the Empire's south, without risking a shortcut through lowsec from Jita), and similarly Keberz which is one of the southern-most highsec systems. Keberz is also Brave Empire's HQ, so my corpmates are all nearby.

Finally, I have a handful of ships and items in nullsec located in the Imperium's capital, 1DQ. These are mostly assets taking advantage of the Imperium's infrastructure. Blueprints currently being researched, Dreadnaughts for running CRABs etc.

With Eve being so connected these days, be it through Thera, Zarzakh or Pochven, I found setting up a single home is more limiting than beneficial. I prefer to stay mobile, or I risk missing out on opportunities that may just be a few jumps away.

Exploring everything Helldivers 2 has to offer is its own reward, but there are some things you can do to give your squad the edge even before you find that perfect loadout:

• Utilise the markers on your minimap to communicate with your squad, whether using voice comms or not. These markers will then be displayed on the compass, letting players navigate without having to take their eyes off the fight.

• If you’re passing the extraction point with pockets full of samples, drop them for collection later. That way, if you die before completing the mission, you don’t need to worry about recovering the samples until you’re ready to extract.

• Resupplying has a cooldown. If you’re on a defence mission, be sure to call down resupplies as soon as the cooldown expires. Before long, you’ll be swimming in excess ammo and grenades.

• Shrieker nests can be seen across the map. If you spot one, launch a few rockets/quasar rounds into it to negate the shrieker threat before they become dangerous.

• Speaking of the quasar cannon, it has quickly become my favourite weapon. Unlimited ammo and decent accuracy, use it to snipe bug nests and fabricators from safety. It takes down dropships with ease. Two of these in a squad really lets you put out some damage, covering each other between shots.

• The orbital laser can destroy fabricators, so throw one of these at a large Automaton base and it’ll do most of the work for you.

• Know your enemy! Each enemy has its own behavior and weakspots, be sure to know when to go for the headshot and when it is safer to take out the legs.

• Sharing is caring. If you find yourself in a squad of weaker players, consider offering them your stronger equipment strategems, especially if you’ve already called one down for yourself and it has come off cooldown. A squad’s worth of guard dog rovers is effective, just try to avoid getting in each other's crossfire.

• When things get too hot, fleeing IS an option. Break contact and either move on to the next objective or flank around for another try. You can't succeed if you're dead!

So what are you waiting for Soldier? Get out there and spread some managed democracy.

o7

The most powerful ship in Eve is Friendship. But how can you possibly fly the friendship solo?

Dear reader, cast off the shackles of social obligation. Never again will you have to call for help, only for your "friends" to arrive seconds too late, conveniently. Never worry about having to schedule fleets again. The solo friendship experience is here: Multiboxing.

For the measly cost of the tattered remains of your social life, you too can pay CCP for the privilege to field your own fleet. Spread your attention thinner than your abused wallet as you fail to do with three clients what you could barely do with one.

Embrace the concept of task saturation, for it will be all that stands between you and that ever nagging feeling in the back of your mind telling you to go outside.

Multiboxing! Playing with yourself never felt so good.

Youtube for me is just an extension of my Eve gameplay.

Before I started posting videos, I always felt like I played Eve differently than the average player. Not to say I was better or superior, I had successes and failures like anyone else. I wanted to watch people doing what I was doing. Exploring niche mechanics to get an edge in pvp or isk generation, asymmetric traps and social manipulation.

I decided I'd post the content I wanted to see. The videos proved popular, which encouraged me to search for new methods, new tactics, new new new. My gameplay loop was born: Exploring Eve's mechanics > theory crafting new traps/tactics/isk making method > testing the theory > sharing the results > repeat.

The channel grew, and I was accepted into the Eve Partner Programme. Suddenly my videos were able to supplement my in-game income, allowing me to explore more expensive avenues of research.

Occasionally, people will recognize me in-game, or mention me in Reddit topics such as "what Eve Youtubers do you watch?" I always find it a strange concept. In my mind, I'm not a youtuber. I make videos and post them to Youtube sure, but they are just part of my Eve experience.

I am simply an Eve player who happens to make the occasional video.

Warping to the gate,

Ready to place a bubble,

Who's the next victim?

The use of scout alts is common in Eve. You send a cheap ship ahead in something hard to catch, check the way is clear, and proceed with your more expensive ship. But scouting is also important for pvp, especially when you’re setting traps.

Frequently, I have a scout alt sitting in the system next door to the one I’m camping. This gives me advanced warning of what is inbound. My ship of choice is the Buzzard, a covert ops frigate that I can sit cloaked at a perch overlooking a gate or wormhole.

On one occasion however, I forgot to actually cloak the scout. I must have been distracted, but I left him sitting a few hundred kilometers away from a wormhole. Hours must have passed. A neutral frigate appeared on my scout’s overview. Excellent, another target on his way to my trap. That’s strange, he’s getting closer to my scout, wonder what’s caught his attention? My uncloaked scout, duh.

My scout was swiftly tackled, and I’d resigned him to his fate. Another neutral suddenly appeared on the overview, a tech3 cruiser. Well now I’m definitely screwed. The seconds passed, but I was receiving no damage. It was then that I realised the cruiser had aggressed the frigate. The frigate was quickly destroyed, allowing my scout to warp away.

Speaking to the cruiser pilot afterwards, he’d sat cloaked next to my scout, using him as bait. Eve can be wild sometimes, and there’s always a bigger fish.

I'm pretty happy with the changes that have been made since returning to Eve.

That said, there is one very minor detail that has been missing for a while now. Every time I've taken an acceleration gate into a mission complex I've been wondering what it is about the gate animation that I felt was lacking.

Its pretty enough in the current form, but then I remembered how it used to look. As you activated the acceleration gate, arcs of electricity used to reach out to your ship, seeming to propel you into warp. I always loved that animation, and at some point it was removed. Some combination of old and new would be perfection in my opinion. The warm orange glow of present, mixed with the blue tendrils of electric caress of old. I'm not trying to move mountains here, CCPlease.

Autopilot is not your friend.

Learning how to set destination so that your route is planned out for you is essential, and something you'll likely do multiple times per day in your Eve career. But don't you touch that autopilot button.

Sure your route may be completely in highsec, but an autopiloting player is an easy gank target, regardless of what you're flying. Autopilot also warps you some distance from the gates, and then slowboats you to within jump range, so not only does it make you a gank target but it also considerably increases journey times. The last thing you want to be doing in your first few weeks is spending all your time travelling, yawn.

I personally rarely use autopilot. My main use case is when I need to travel long distances in highsec in a worthless shuttle, no cargo. I accept the risk of getting ganked, and set off before doing something more fun in real life. Maybe I come back at the destination, maybe I'm back where I started having been podded.

Autopilot is a tool to be used wisely, don't let it ruin your fun per hour.