-- Douglas Adams
It's a brand new year in EVE online. I thought a bit about what/if I wanted to post concerning the new year. Year in review? I've only played 3 months. New Year's Resolutions? If I stop being so utterly fail I won't have anything to post about. I finally settled on posting what I hope to be accomplishing within the next 12 months. A timeline of personal goals if you will. Hopefully having it to refer back to will provide me more things I will have failed at as their deadlines pass, which will mean more things to post about. So please, join me on this look ahead.
At the moment, all I can say I reasonably fly is the Punisher. Now, theoretically, I can jump into an Amarr Battlecruiser and go to town any time I want...but even I don't want to fail that spectacularly at the moment. I've got my trusty EVEMon skill plan for the next year set up and I think I've displayed an amazing amount of restraint by not actually planning to train the Spaceship Command skills necessary to fly a new ship until after I've gotten in all the support skills to fly it well. So what new things will 2011 hold in store for me?
February 2011
By February 1st, I'll have trained all I'm going to train in my current Punisher fit. In theory I could spend another six months getting everything to level 5, but it's just not going to happen. This will mark the moment I abandon training on the Punisher and focus on bigger and better things. With the confidence this brings I'll probably start pulling out an AC fit Vengeance a bit more and see if I can't get a couple of kills with the added support of a web to tackle prey as I train for...
March 2011
March 1st brings with it the necessary Rocket/Missile Support skills to fly a Tech II fit Vengeance. All I'm really missing are the Rocket skills, and a month gives me enough time to get them all to level IV. It will also put me in striking distance of...
April 2011
The first truly new ship in terms of tactics added to my lineup, the Rocket fit Malediction. You may have noticed a Khanid theme starting here, and you'd be right. I just can't pass up the sexy paint job. The fit I'm looking at is a kiting ship through and through. It can't be hit by or caught by any frigate sized vessel, sans other interceptors, and can lock down larger vessels waiting for support to arrive. It will honestly spend most of it's days as a gang ship sporting some extremely fast tackle. I wanted to make sure I had something to offer during gang roams before setting out on the extremely long road to...
June 2011
The Arbitrator. I'll be honest with you (and myself) and go ahead and say I may cheat some on this one. I've already taken out (and quickly lost) one Arbitrator hull during a gang roam with Blood Money, and might be tempted to do so again before June, but this will mark the date when the training for it will be over. Plenty of drone support skills out there to master, plus some EWAR thrown in for good measure. All in all, it provides a good base to move towards...
August 2011
Amarr Recons. Practically at the same time, since I'm getting the actual Recon Ships skill last, I will add the Pilgrim and Curse to my hangar. An excellent addition in that the Pilgrim can make for a fine solo roamer while the Curse truly shines in gangs where it's range means it won't be able to tackle alone. Unfortunately, with my extremely limited shield support skills at this point, I won't be able to use all the fits for them I'd like, but that should be remedied by...
September 2011
No new hulls, but a whole new bag of tricks with the ones I've got. A full month spent on Shield Tanking skills brings with it a lot of new options for ships, and even on my Armor tanks they've got to shoot through the shields first, so it couldn't hurt. Only a month away from...
October 2011
I again commit treason on the Amarr principles of pretty lazorz and train for the Sacrilege. I'd say it's an appropriate name for the ship seeing as it's an Amarr hull armed with Heavy Assault Missiles. Maybe next year will include even more Amarr Treason with a HAM Drake added to my list. Only time will tell. Finally bringing the year to a close is another gang supporter...
January 2012
357 days away, I can add a flagship to my fleet in the form of the Damnation. Two solid months of Armored Warfare and Leadership training lands me at the helm of this 100k EHP behemoth. Tanking over 500 damage per second while lending my entire gang a boost to it's own tanking abilities, hopefully I'll finally be invited to some roams with this ship in my hangar. Of course, the first one I lose will probably make me weep for a solid year over my wallet balance.
So there you have it folks. Probably a bit more Tech II hulls on that list than there should be, but I still really enjoy flying a Tech I frigate and can always step back into one if the wallet is looking a little thin. My wallet has a nice buffer on it from my days of mindlessly grinding Level IV missions in high sec before moving to Piracy and I've already got some passive income sources arranged that mean all that ever really separates me from another ship is a little bit of time. Of course, it would be nice if some successful ransoms and loot drops presented themselves from time to time, but I'm not getting my hopes up. After all, I am just the FNG.
Personally if you are interested in gangs I would train up the Malediction first. Don't worry about weapon skills, the Malediction is all about speed and catching a target. Let the gang do the damage when they catch up.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The Mal is definitely a great choice for a gang tackler. I spend most of my time as a solo roaming Pirate, which I'm hoping will benefit more from AFs. Also, because of Evasive Maneuvering V, the Interceptors are a little slower to get into...and I wanted to be able to fly something different within the next month or so.
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