Day 308

It seems that I haven't had the time to keep up on this diary, but who's paying attention anyways! My agent has had me busy doing a lot of catch up on his back log of missions. He also mentioned my name to another agent and he has started giving me missions as well.

His name is Mulleroder Meimanfroe, and he apparently has a much deeper pocket to pull from as he offers more ISK than Panase, but his missions are also tougher. So far the missions haven't been anything I can't handle, but only the future can tell if things will get more exciting.

Well, that's it for this update. I hope to be able to do some exploring soon and post more pictures up for everyone to see.

Day 302

Well, I finally got back out in to space. It feels good to be back in my pod! My Agent was glad to see me as well. She was eager to get me back out there clearing out those pirates.

I ran several missions for her just to get back in to the swing of things. Most were the same old missions to clear out pirates in the surrounding systems or deliver some goods here and there. I did get a chance to go in the the Guristas and Cartel war grounds to rescue stranded crewmembers. Almost lost my ship a couple of times because I wasn't used to the fast paced fighting but I quickly got the hang of it.

After earning some money doing missions, I decided to do some exploring. I hopped in my new ship, the Zephyr I mentioned before, and set out to do some sight seeing. I found a couple of worm holes in Sireshin and Turianaas and did a little investigating of the Sleeper compunds there. I was worried at first because the Zephyr doesn't have room for any weaponry or defensive equipment so I was a sitting duck for those Sleeper ships.

It turns out that the Zephyr doesn't appear to be a threat to the Sleepers. They quietly ignored me moving around in their area and went about their business. This allowed me to snap quite a few interesting shots of their equipment. You can see some of the new pictures over at my photo gallery.

Well, I'm going to rest up for more exploring and mission running. See you all out there in the vastness of space.

Day 299

I am sure everyone has noticed a lack of updates here. I got tied up with some administrative work that put my travels in space on hold for quite some time. I'm hoping that I should be able to get back to some more exploration and pirate killing soon, otherwise, I fear I may go nuts! Being cooped up on this station for so long takes a toll on a person that is used to the wide open areas of space.

On a side note, it looks like I may be able to get my hands on a new exploration ship. It's a new model that's built just for the job. It is a Zephyr class ship and hopefully will be comfortable to explore in. I will have some pictures posted of it once I am able to take delivery of it and maybe some pictures of it's maiden voyage as well.

Well, I hear the boss coming so I had better get back to work. Hope to see you all out in the wild depths of space soon!

Day 16

Well, here I am again, posting after a long pause. I've been pretty busy with training, agent missions, and searching for wormholes. It has been an interesting experience this last week!

I've gotten all the recommended certifications for my Moa and am now going to start working on building up my weapons skills and other skills to help with shield tanking. I've also learned a few skills to allow me to use probes to find wormholes, pirate complexes, and other ships. I may expand on those skills sometime in the future but for now I will leave them as they are because I am still learning to master the probing interface.

Ever since the incident in the Seyllin system has occurred there have been lots of reports of other unstable wormholes, and the sleepers, all over the galaxy. It's gotten me interested enough to go out and find some of these wormholes. It took me a little bit as I needed to learn Astrometrics but once I had done that I set out to check my local systems out.

At first, I was not having any luck as I had a little trouble learning to use the interface. Luckily there were quite a few other people that were familiar enough with it that I was able to adapt quickly. The problem then was that I couldn't seem to locate any unstable wormholes. I did find quite a few hidden pirate complexes and checked them out. I cleared a few of them out and there were some that were just swarming with well-armed pirates and I couldn't barely touch them. I bookmarked those sites and figure I will go back once I have gotten my skills up.

I travelled to a few other systems and did some more scanning. I only found more complexes and had some fun clearing them out. I had almost given up on these wormholes until I decided to try my home system of Shihuken again. I was able to finally locate my first wormhole not to far from my home station. It's amazing to know that these things can appears so randomly and that there could possibly be a reoccurrance of what happened in Seyllin at anytime.

These wormholes are huge and it was a very odd feeling to travel through one. The experience was nothing like traveling through the wormholes created by the Stargates. Apparently the wormholes also affect my ship in weird ways. I had some issues with my propulsion systems on the other side. Luckily the ship was able to adjust quickly and things were back to normal soon.

I did some probing around inside the wormhole and found quite a few cosmic anomolies and other weaker cosmic signatures. I decided to check out some of the anomolies and found a few of the sleepers hanging around some asteroids and they did not like me being there. I barely escaped from them with my ship in tact. Luckily I had recently updated my loadout to include some shield upgrades and was able to take the hits until my warp drive kicked in.

I went back to scanning around and found another wormhole hanging around on the outskirts of the unknown system. I decided it was worth checking out and found that it lead back to known space and I popped out in the Gallente owned Chamerout system, 11 jumps away from where I started.

I checked out the system because I had never been in Gallente space before and their stations aren't too bad. A little on the showy side for my tastes. Their stargates are as well. I decided I would head back in to check out more of the wormhole system and see what else I could find.

I found a few more asteroid belts with sleepers in them and some empty ones as well. I figured this would be a miners dream with all the untapped resources available. The only problem is with all the sleepers around it would take a small army to safely mine any of it.

Well, I am off to rest up for tomorrows adventures. I hope I can post more often now that my training schedule isn't so hectic.

Day 9

I haven't made an entry for several days now because I have been busy training. I am working on completing the training for the recommended Certifications for my ships. It is probably going to take me several days to get all the required skills.

While training I have been running quite a few missions and even did a little mining. I have managed to save up enough money to buy myself a new Cruiser. I was doing ok with the Osprey, but I felt that I could get a little more use out of something better and since my skills are high enough now, why not upgrade.

I bought a Moa. It cost me almost all of my savings but it was well worth it. I even had enough left over to fit it with some new weapons. I decided to go with a couple 200mm Railguns and a couple Assault Launchers. I am still stuck with some of the old fittings from Death Dealer I, but with these weapons my missions are a piece of cake.

I did some site seeing as well while looking for a new Agent to do some work with. I was hoping to find someone that would offer a little more challenging missions, but I haven't had much luck. The site seeing was worth the time though. I was able to get quite a few good shots of some really beautiful systems.

The Deep Core Mining Inc. has not really been paying off for me so I took a little time out of my normal training to get Level I Corporation Management skill and have started my own corporation. I have named it the Spacelane Patrol Volunteer Corp and am hoping that others may decide that they would like to join as well. I haven't taken the time to do any promoting of the corp but figure I can do that once I get a little money put in to it.

Well, I am off to rest up for tomorrow. Hopefully I can make more frequent posts than I have been, but my agent has been keeping me busy.

Day 7

I've finally finished training for level I cruisers. I've been searching around for the best deal on my first ship and found an Osprey that was a fair deal. I paid 2.5 million ISK for it and now I have to save up for some good weapons. For now I am stuck with the same fittings I had on my Merlin.

I've ran several more missions to try to make enough for at least one new weapon, but in order to get the best weapons I can find for fitting to a cruiser I am gonna need quite a bit more ISK. I'm not to worried though, I like taking out pirates and can keep myself well occupied while shopping around.

I've also decided to leave the corporation I was in because there weren't that many people available and it didn't appear that much was happening with them. Unfortunately, the only corporation I was accepted in to was the Deep Core Mining Inc. I was hoping I would be able to join up with Spacelane Patrol but apparently they haven't accepted new applications for a long time.

That's not too surprising given the fact that most of their force never leaves or dies off. You got to love cloning technology. The fact that once a pilot is about to be podded the capsule immediately transmits your neural information back to you clone station is totally awesome!

It's time to rest up for tomorrow's batch of training and missioning. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get some big bounties from some of the pirates I take out.

Day 5

Today was yet another exciting day!

I was accepted into a new corporation and met several of it's members, including the leader. They were all very nice people and I think I will like being a part of the corporation.

My dealings with my agent at Spacelane Patrol were particularily exciting. I had a few routine pirate killing missions but there were a few out of the ordinary ones as well. Among them were destruction of an ammunition depot, apprehending a corporate spy, and taking care of some Pithii dissidents.

I particularily like the destruction of the ammunition depot. Mainly because there was a fairly large explosion and explosions are cool! I did have a little issue with the pirates in the area but most of them succumbed quickly to my missles.

Capturing the corporate spy had to be the most exciting one. I had to go through a couple of warp gates before I finally found him. The pirates guarding the warp gates were a piece of cake! The corporate spy, however, must have known someone was sent for him as he had quite a few bodyguards with him. There had to be at least 15 of them and I had to make 5 trips to the nearest station to get my ship repaired. Luckily they all decided to hang around long enough for me to complete my mission. All-in-all, I must have spent about 45,000 ISK repairing my ship during this mission. It was all worth it as I made three times that amount once I brought the spy back to my agent.

Dealing with the Pithii dissidents was the most annoying mission. I found that these pirates were more organized than the average everday kind. They had targetting jammers fitted to their ships and packed a good punch with their weapons. I tried my normal approach of dealing with the closest pirates first, but every time I ended up having to warp to the closest station. Apparently the jammers that they had were keeping me from locking on to their ships and that made all my weapons useless. After a few attempts to overcome the jamming I finally decided to try a different approach. I flew around the side of the 3 groups of pirates staying just out of their threat range and attack what appeared to be the weakest group. Doing this I was able to destroy 2/3 of them without being jammed. My agent then notified me that I had eliminated enough of them so I warped back to the station and collected my reward.

I also decided to start looking in to prices for my first crusier. It looks like my only choice to start with is the Osprey and I'm going to need to build up my missle and shield skills too. I know it will be a while now before I am ready to command a cruiser, but I am still excited.

I have about 12 hours left to finishing my training on level IV frigates and then I can start my level I cruiser training. Level I should only take me an hour and a half and then I can test out my Osprey. Of course I have heard that the Moa is a much more sturdy ship, I've found that it will be at least 37 more hours of training after my current skill finishes.

Well, enough dreaming for now. I am off to rest up for tomorrow.

Day 4

Well I have finished a good chunk of my training plan to be able to pilot a cruiser. I am currently studying level IV frigates. Should only take me another day and a half to gain the necessary skill points. I have already purchased the Caldari Cruiser skill book in preperation to start the next leg of my training.

After some consideration, I have decided to accept the invite from the generous stranger to apply for membership in his corporation. I figure that even though I may not last all that long out in the vastness of space, it is always nice to have friends around to help. I always enjoy making new friends.

I ran a few more missions for my agent today and apparently word is spreading around Spacelane Patrol HQ, because I got an email from an agent in the Unpas system asking me to assist her with an urgent issue.

It was just a routine mining operation, but I agreed to help just the same. I'm glad I did accept the mission as I was able to take out a few more pirates in that system. They will not be bothering anyone else anytime soon.

I did have a few close calls today. Had to warp out of battle a couple times to get my ship repaired. The first time I almost didn't make it because I was distracted by an interesting looking piece of debris and didn't realize that my shields were completely gone and only about a quarter of my aromor was left. I almost didn't have enough time to fire up the warp drive, but luckily it kicked in just in time for a fatal missle blow to land. That was a tense situation watching that missle fly over my head.

The second time around I wasn't taking any chances! I had my eyes glued to my ship's instruments watching for any signs of losing the fight. The pirates were slowly eating through my shields while I was hammering away at them with my railguns and missles when, out of nowhere, this pirate sneaks in a powerful missle hit. The damage from the impact complete drained all my shields and half my armor! In a panic I almost didn't get a destination set for my warp drive and by the time it kicked in I only had about 2/3's of my hull left.

That was the most exciting 5000 ISK I have ever spent! Luckily the repairs didnt really cost all that much and I hadn't spent it on other weapons and upgrades for my Merlin or pending cruiser.

I guess the lesson I learned is that even though pirates are fairly unintelligent, they still get in lucky shots and it's always best to leave and come back better prepared than risk losing the ship.

It's time once again to head back to the station and call it a day. I'm going to continue my studies and hope tomorrow is yet another exciting day taking out pirates.

Day 2

I met my Agent today. She seemed like a nice person and we are getting along fine. She's a little on the serious side, but these missions are nothing to be taken litely. On several of the missions there have been times I thought I might lose my ship! Luckily I was paying attention during my training and escaped with my ship intact.

I'm surprised at the number of pirates that are out there. It almost seems like there is an almost endless supply of them. I guess the allure of living beyond the law and hording wealth is a hard temptation to resist for most people.

Of course there are also the autonomous drones out there that seem hell bent on destroying all living beings. So far most of them have left me alone as long as I stay well away from their mining operations. I wonder what they are planning that requires so many resources.

I've done a little traveling around to other solar systems, mostly to grab a few items and skill manuals I purchased, and have been noticing the amount of new pilots out there. I'm glad I am not the only new pilot and don't feel so bad when I have to ask some of the more veteran pilots I have met for help. Most of the vet's seem willing to help out the new comers and that has come in handy on several occasions today.

One of those occasions was while I was working on my skill plan. I decided that I would work toward getting some of the minor certifications out of the way and also work towards being able to pilot a cruiser. After hashing out the first couple of skills I need to train I asked Aura how I would go about doing the research and she wasn't exactly clear on how exactly I went about starting the training and gaining the skills I didnt already know. Luckily I was able to ask a few of the other members of the SWA Corporation and they gladly assisted in instructing me on what I needed to do.

I also had one person contact me about joining his corporation. He seemed like a nice fellow and explained what their main goals were. It appears that they are mainly a mining corp but have position available for other careers as well. He even mentioned that they have quite a few ships available to them that I would possibly have access to if I decided to join them.

It sounded like a good deal, but I am not sure I am completely ready for a change in corporation yet. I politely turned down the invite and advised him that I would add him to my address book in case I change my mind. He took it well and advised me to contact him when I am ready. He was even kind enough to help me out by giving me a donation of 500k Isk.

Boy was I surprised! I am only hoping that all the other pilots I meet are as helpful and generous as the ones I have met so far. I do have a feeling though that there are a few of them out there that are not so helpful and generous though. I was listening in to the SWA main channel and there was mention of quite a few rogue pilots out there that reside in the low security systems. I even heard mention of "pod killing"! That sent a shiver down my spine!

I know that being pod killed isn't the end, but the thought of dieing in the coldness of space is not very pleasant. I am sure the process of transferring to a new clone isn't good for the mind. I've heard tales of memory loss happening if you don't have the Isk to secure a quality clone.

Speaking of Isk, aside from the donation I mentioned above I have made my first million Isk! Of course that is also minus what I spent on new equipment and the new ship I purchased. I did a little research and decided on upgrading my Ibis to a Merlin class frigate. It's a little bulkier but it handles very well. It's also nice to be able to have a better array of weapons.

I fitted my merlin, which I aptly named 'Death Dealer I', with a 75mm Compressed Coil Gun I, a 125mm Railgun I, and two Standard Missle Launcher I's. After insuring it all, I went and did a few missions for my Agent, and lets just say those pirates don't stand a chance! I was even able to take out a pirate cruiser with barely a scratch.

My SWA agent also informed me that she no longer has any work for me, and that I need to set out to find some other work. In my travels I came across an agent that works for the Spacelane Patrol Corp and they seem to have some work that would be suited to my talents.

I've packed up my things and moved to the Shihuken System and am now based out of the Shihuken VIII - Moon 2 - Spacelane Patrol Logistic Support station. I am looking forward to working with them and making the spacelanes a safer place to travel.

Day 1

I did it, I finally joined the Caldari State War Academy.

They have provided me with my very own Ibis to pilot. It's kind of an odd experience being encapsulated in this pod, but it was definitely designed with comfort in mind.

I've flown through the training missions and the controls are starting to become second nature now. Of course, having Aura there to guide me is always a comfort.

I'm on my way back to the Academy station and am still awe struck at the size of the structure. It makes my Ibis look like a flea on a dogs back! I guess if you look at the big picture, we are all small parts in the infinite expanse of the universe.

Well, time to get some rest and prepare for tomorrow. I get a chance to interact with my first official agent. I am looking forward to earning some Isk and am going to work on a skill plan soon.