Down in the New Eden dumps
2nd October 2009 – 5.31 pmBack in known space, and I'm feeling in a bit of a funk. I just cannot get started with anything. I have some Lai Dai agents waiting to give me missions to run, my manufacturing plants could be churning out some more modules to put on the market, or I can stand ready to help move everything back in to a new w-space system. Being pulled in three directions seems to leave me floating in space.
I would manufacture some more modules, but I have only found a handful of items I can produce that reliably turn a profit on the market, and I have several stations stocked with them. To expand would require finding new gaps in the market, or buying and researching new and potentially risky BPOs. ME research takes quite a while to complete, and trying to get a couple of spaceships and some of the new rigs moved through the labs is taking up all of my slots currently. I could train in the advanced laboratory research skill, to increase the number of research jobs I can run at a time, but not only would it distract me from my current goal of piloting the Damantion but the number of corporation laboratories is also limited.
Running missions is a good idea, as increasing my standings with Lai Dai, or any corporation, will offer several benefits. The availability of high-level R&D agents is always useful for gaining datacores for invention, and good standings with an NPC corporation allows for efficient ore refinement and access to jump clones. But despite the cluster of Lai Dai agents, a gaggle of them in a single station, the mission base is quite a few jumps from my manufacturing base, which in turn is quite a few jumps in a different direction from our corporation's base.
To get anything done requires a chunk of travelling time first, and if I am going to be travelling, as quick and enjoyable as it is in a Crane, I would rather be helping to set up the medium tower in a new w-space system, because then I could get involved in combat with Sleepers in exotic systems. And it's not just the pretty nebulae that attracts me to w-space operations, I freely admit that I like the company and camaraderie of the corporation fleets, the feeling that I am contributing to something I couldn't achieve on my own.
So I wait, hoping for an opportunity to arise, the finding of a suitable w-space system, as I sit in a station. I don't want to make the many-jump journey to my manufacturing or mission base if I am going to be called back once I get there, but the call doesn't come. Finding a good w-space system isn't guaranteed, particularly if we want a reliable exit too, so it is unreasonable for me to expect one. I am clearly drawn to the more exciting adventures available to me in New Eden, but in wanting them I find instead that I stagnate. I mustn't only wait for something to happen, I also need to realise my own goals and work towards them.
4 Responses to “Down in the New Eden dumps”
Heh, you're not the only one. There is so much to do that I fear I often don't get any of it done. Tower fueling, resource deliveries/pick-ups, manufacturing, sales, invention all vie for time and energy when they are already in short supply. But, we asked for Osbert, and now we have him.
Is there any way to move your manufacturing base closer to either the agents or the corporate HQ? Is there something particularly advantageous to your current People's Republic of China that it couldn't be repositioned to say Bangalore or perhaps Vladivostok. [Note: System names may have been changed to protect the guilty.]
have you investigated jump clones? if you don't have the standings, there are a few corporations in providence region that give you temporary standings in their player owned outposts for a certain fee. that way you can jump to your manufacturing base and then back to wherever you parked your crane whenever there's a wormhole exit.
Do you have any good scanning skills? Exploration is not only good for finding wormholes, but also regualar space content that can be exciting and invigorating. Plus a cheap Heron and probe launcher can be purchased almost anywhere.
My scanning skills are good enough to scan down a wormhole about thirty seconds after the bookmark for it has been dropped in a can by a colleague.
I intended to get a probe-equipped ship and try my hand at exploration, but wormhole operations opened up before I quite completed the training plan. As there is an occasional need to get myself out of w-space safely when no one else is around I picked up the skills again, getting hacking and archeology for good measure.
I had a quick go at scanning in high-sec a couple of months back. I felt quite pleased with myself at scanning down a complex, only to find that it was visible on the directional scanner. But exploration is certainly an option for quiet moments, thanks for the suggestion. It's good to be reminded that I can use a cheap tech I ship instead of needing a covops ships.