EVE Online Blog: Hook and line, but no sinker

Saying that BattleClinic is a "comprehensive" resource for EVE players is an understatement of Guinness Book proportions. Downloaded and printed the eighty-eight page New Player Guide PDF. Teeth have only sunken into the Ultra-Quick Start for New Players bulletpoints on page four. Have a ways to go.

But that bulletpoint guide is rife with wish-I-would've-known-that-at-your-age-young'un material. One pilot, Llanthas Freedark, contributed (because BattleClinic is a wikipedia of sorts, though don't believe it's quite so Wild West in nature) "Your first priority in game should be to get all six basic Learning skills. Get them all to at least level three before you do anything else."

Good call. Only acquired enough ISK to purchase two of said Learning skills, however. Sorted the market out from lowest to highest prices, with Instant Recall for my Memory and Learning for some improved training times overall. Both found in a system only three jumps away. Good again, because the Missus just watched Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson get Old Yeller-ish over a golden lab in Marley & Me and she's feeling particularly needy. No time for "ratting."

Looked up again, saw the Osoggur side of the Amamake gate, Amamake being my final destination. Hesitated. Conspicuous yellow dot next to Amamake's security rating on my HUD.

Full stop. Bring up map and hone in my location. Osoggur, current location, had already dipped to a 0.5 security rating, though several Concord ships still pattered around the jumpgate in viewscreen. Still. Something about Amamake's 0.4 rating rings dangerous. Continued hesitation.

Begin pulling up statistics with a sense of urgency. Each button torched the screen in varying globules of yellow and red depending on the offending statistic. All signs pointed to very, very bad. Twenty-seven pilots in Amamake system, ten of them docked. Fine. But also: forty-five escape pods killed in the last twenty-four hours. Seven of those kills within the past hour.

Dawns on me. A moment's hesitancy at that jumpgate, I'm completely convinced I just prevented myself from becoming the eighth death in the past sixty minutes. Hook went through the cheek but managed to not hit any nerves.

Cannot seem to locate through market channels whom I purchased the two books from, but it's apparent that the tantalizingly low (but not suspiciously low) priced books were a deliberate lure for new pilots like myself to be drug into a dangerous, low-sec system in order to provide dinner for some unscrupulous pirates. Rampant speculation, but the end result would've played out the same.

Pulled a one-eighty and headed back for the "carebear" safety of the 0.8-rated Odatrik system, place where I'd made the remote purchase. Needed to rethink next step, but it's obvious that I'd just spent seventy-six thousand ISK -- a goodly sum for my newborn character -- on two skills that I was in no position or competency to retrieve. The two books will sit there a while.

Going forward, ensure that I inspect security level of destination, along with interim systems between. Need to be capable of picking up purchases.

Back in Odatrik, queued up thirteen hours of Energy Management training to level three. The introduction of Certificates is a new hand to shake, but apparently this last skill will earn a certificate in Core Integrity which, according to Concord, represents a basic level of competence in structural integrity management. Certifies that the holder has solid damage-absorption skills.

One lesson this certificate doesn't teach is the avoidance of having to take damage in the first place. Quite sure the pirates sitting on the Amamake side of that jumpgate would've taken any certificate from me and wiped my backside with it. Only a few days in. Have to get used to this carebear badge stitched onto my breast pocket for several more weeks.