Coming Full Circle

Hello, faithful readers and friends. There I was, minding my own business, several months ago, thinking I’d never play EVE again (if I thought about it at all), when I received an email from the Mittani.

“Huh, what does Mittens want?” I asked my toddler.

“Bum bum bum ba ba ba,” the boy replied, then vomited puréed beets onto the couch.

I clicked on the email, and it turns out my son wasn’t far off. Something about a big war, a call to arms, blah blah blah. I clicked the little trash can button and went on with my life.

But then the old familiar thoughts that lead to a return to EVE kept popping up. The Mittani had planted the seed. Soon I was looking at EVE forums, toying with the idea of coming back, rejecting it again and again. But also slowly talking myself into it, little by little, over the course of several weeks.

Finally I decided just to log in, maybe suicide gank a Retriever or two just for casual fun, and see if any friends were still playing. Then I’d log off forever.

Good Old Hek

Noob Again 

I found myself in Hek. Like the last couple times I logged in, I found myself a little saddened that this once great trade hub had been reduced to a couple hundred trading alts, not even talking to each other. Maybe 4 guys pathetically camped the station undock at the Boundless Creation Factory.

I briefly caught myself pining for the old days when there were 600 in local, lively local chat, dozens trying to taunt the foolish with various station games, the Resident Outlaw of Hek, Solstice Project, buzzing around in a Thrasher, flashing -10, terrifying the EVE Uni noobs who wandered over from nearby Aldrat.

All gone, I thought, the dustbin of history... 

Then I set about my business. There was a Retriever on dscan. My scout warped in and checked his fit. Not much tank. Sweet.

I checked my hangar. There were some fitted Catalysts there I had left from previous years. A T1 fit will probably do the job, I figured, but what the hell - a T2 fit will make sure it’s done right, in the event that my calculations are wrong.

I undocked, was duly warned that a criminal was in system, warped to my instant undock bookmark, then to my target. I overheated my Light Neutron Blaster 2s. 

I dropped out of warp, the giant mining barge looming beside me, oblivious to its danger. I quickly established a target lock, warp scrambled him to cut off any potential escape, and opened fire. 

The Retriever’s shields stripped away in mere seconds. Then his armor was shredded by my Void S. His structure bar dropped until only a thin shred stood between his pod and the big empty of space. Then - what? My ammo ran out. WTF? Boom. CONCORD reduced my beautiful Catalyst to dust. 

The miner laughed at me. The shame, the horror, was indescribable. How could this have happened? Gosh darn these CCP villains - they must have “rebalanced” the game mechanics just to fuck with me. 

I can see them now, those dirt bags in Reykjavik, laughing deep and long over their sheep brains and mead (or whatever those people eat over there). “One day,” they giggled through their long, glorious Viking beards, “Haedonism Bot will come back. They all come back. And the first thing he’ll do is try to gank a Retriever in Hek. Our records indicate that’s always the first thing he does. Let’s just tweak a few mechanics here, ha ha ha.” Darn them! Darn them to Hek!

Anyway, I added a couple extra rounds of ammo to each of my guns, and 15 minutes later I went for another Retriever in Nakugard. Boom - another Catalyst thrown away, another smirking miner chuckling at my incompetence. 15 minutes later I failed a third consecutive gank in Lanngisi.

Full Circle 

Okay. Time to take stock and reassess. I once considered myself somewhat competent at this game. Obviously that is no longer the case. 

I don’t even know what half of these ships flying around are. What the heck is a Triglavian? I don’t know a kikimora from a coconut.

I was once a noob. Then I became a fearsome pirate. Then a bittervet. Today, I have to face the facts. I’m a noob again. The only way I’m going to get good again is to do it the same way I did the first time I was a noob.

Back about 2013ish, my old friend Media Assassin, then of EVE University, gave me a stack of fitted Merlins, and sent me out into the wilds of Syndicate to kill capsuleers or die trying. I challenged myself to get on the killboard, one way or another, every day for a month. That was the month I transformed from carebear to killer.

If I wanted to do it all over again, I would have to embrace my noob status, get a stack of cheap ships, and learn to EVE all over again from first principles.

Next time I’ll tell you how it went.