How did it all start – my first year in New Eden

August 22nd, 2005

It was a sunny summer morning. I got up early, even though I still had over a month of summer holidays. This is one of the aspects of student’s life I miss a lot: three months break in the summer. I started browsing the internet, looking for something on sourceforge. And there it was: this little banner of EVE Online.

A friend, who attended classes with me, told me about the game earlier the same year. A colleague of his started the first polish fansite of EVE: eve-centrala.pl. My friend didn’t say much about the game itself apart from the fact it’s about spaceships, but this was enough to get me started. I have browsed the EVE website and a couple of fansites which I could find on google. I liked the setting and I liked the concept, but didn’t want to start playing a game with subscription.

So this morning, when I saw the EVE banner, I have decided to give it a try. I have signed up for the trial quickly and downloaded the 500 megabyte client package. I was to learn later that this was the ‘Cold War’ edition, which then had little meaning to me.

I started up, watched the intro and created a new character. I really liked rolling eyes in the old character creator 🙂 This day Lukas Rox was born. This is my first screenshot from EVE:

My skills were so limited, that I barely flown the rookie frigate. I was nowhere near being able to kill NPC pirates, not to mention other players. Not knowing EVE and not having anyone to guide me, I have flown around the nearby systems and kept mining Veldspar. It was the only way to make ISK I knew of at the time. In on of the high sec belts I have seen the might Megathron for the first time. It was fitted with mining lasers and pilot had a funny bio saying “If you’re mining, do it with style”. I have decided to make a career in mining. This would let me make enough isk to get better ships and time to train all the important skills. Of course learning skills were not the top priority, because I wanted to fly and use everything first. It was a costly mistake, but of course I was oblivious to that fact. Exploring EVE was a lot of fun for me, and I’ve been learning quite a lot of stuff.

Are noobs the only miners in EVE?

Career in mining was not a quick one. Skills to fly a Mining Barge were going to take a while, and mining Veldspar wouldn’t make quick ISK either. I have switched the noob ship to an Atron, and then quickly upgraded it to an Imicus. I saw a lot of people mining in Industrials, which were saving the time of warping back and forth to station. So as soon as ISK and skills allowed me to, I have switched to an Iteron. I also wasn’t mining Veldspar anymore, because Plagioclase was selling for more ISK.

It was not long before I finally finished my first goal I set for myself in EVE: I have trained the Mining Barges skill and bought my first Procurer. It was Christmas, and I had some more time to play. So I made friends with some other guys and we went to mine in low sec for the first time. I flown to Oulley in a mining barge. I didn’t yet know how stupid this was, but no one was around to teach me that lesson, so my Procurer has survived.

I also did my first level 4 mission then. A group from Center of Advanced Studies NPC corp was doing missions together, and all ship classes were invited to the gang. I was piloting a Catalyst class Destroyer to kill frigates, which were warp scrambling our tank battleship. This is what made me lots of ISK quickly, and let me buy a Retriever barge.

The nullsec adventure

The guys I met when mining in low sec invited me to join their corp. They have already settled in Q-TBHW system, and I liked flying with them, so I didn’t hesitate to join. Kahn Mer was the FC who run me down the pipe. You had to have instas – bookmarks that would land you on top of the gate – because at the time even manual warp would throw you 15km from the gate. In nullsec this is of course equal to death. I would learn later, that Kahn is extremely charismatic person, and we would form a very profitable venture together. At this moment Lukas had 3 million skill points then, and the biggest ship he could fly was a cruiser.

We have moved to Y8R-XZ, a dead end system in Geminate, and it would later become our new home. Of course we have been mining Dark Ochre and ratting, which was a nice source of ISK. The CEO trusted me with operating the POS, or rather the moon mining operation. I was to empty the silos and move all the goods to the corp hangar array.

Lukas Rox’s skillset was expanded into battlecruisers and electronic warfare, so not long after I attended my first nullsec roam. We ended up gate camping, and I have scored my first kill that day. I was still worried of losing my ship, so I had warp stabs fitted. They were only cutting into my CPU, because at that time they didn’t gimp ship sensors, as they do today. I have lost a bunch of ships (and pods), but I liked the thrill of PVP. Unfortunately our alliance leadership was slowly deteriorating and a few corps engaged us in a war, that would eventually drive us out of nullsec. I have lost countless pods at this time, and have decided never to go back to nullsec again.

It’s the Torchwood Time

Kahn Mer, me, Fozzion, English Don and Torqumanda have started a new corp: Torchwood Industries. I have trained skills for production and – finally – battleships. We were mining, making stuff and running level 4 missions together. We were making more ISK than in nullsec, while in the safety of high and low sec. We even went to low sec to mine the Dark Glitter ice, but we failed miserably, losing a bunch of mining barges and other ships to local pirates. But even with this little setback our venture lasted for over a year and made me enough ISK to buy a Thanatos carrier and all the skillbooks. Of course we did PVP as well, because a few corps decided that bunch of industrials are a fair target. What they didn’t know however was that we knew how to defend ourselves. The first real PVP experience I gathered in Torchwood would help me later on, when I was to hone my skill and become a pirate in The Citadel low sec in late 2007.

How did your adventure with EVE begin?

Feel free to leave a comment (or if you are into blogging, I invite you to write your own post about Your first year in EVE).

Fly safe o/