Avian Gamers Network

Inspired by dbakke and Moge, I have decided to keep up with my own journal. Great idea guys, thanks for the inspiration. I have actually written much more than what you will see below, but I am falling asleep and don’t have enough time to set up the screenshots. So I present to you a taste of whats to come.




Journal Entry: Cyrus Rex: 20060915

A year ago my lot in life was that of a small time miner. I made a living tagging along as a member of large mining group operations. Those group operations provided massive haulers to transport the ore back to the station as well as protection form the many pirate patrols. Life was good and my accounts were growing by the day.

However, fewer and fewer group operations sought out the assistance of my small/old mining frigate. The draw of the rarer ores in deeper space was great and I found myself searching those belts for omber and the like even when I knew the risk was too great for a solo miner. The deeper belts were frequented by gangs of pirates who could out-gun and out-maneuver my clunky old miner. Often times my only choice was to warp away as soon as “rats” entered the belt, leaving my stash behind to be looted.

About a year ago, sick of loosing so much to the pirates time and time again, I stood my ground... and barely got out alive! Frustrated and traumatized, I gave up the mining life and focused on a simpler life.

Until now!

You just let me know when and where and Moniker will be there to haul!

Join me. Join me and together we will rule!

_________________
Moge

Journal Entry: Cyrus Rex: 20060919

I guess it started with sorties from the frontier, filled with excitement, riches, and danger. Those stories re-lit the flame inside me, yet for months I tried to squelch that flame. Over time the urge to get back in the pilots seat was too great to deny. Finally, I received a recorded transmission from an old friend in deep space. In it he spoke of excitement, riches, and unparalleled danger… but above all else I got the impression he needed my help.

Looking at the star-charts and my dwindled finances, I realized it would take several months before I would ever find him. But I also realized that I had to start now if I was ever going to get there in time to help.

The first few days back in the pilot’s seat were not easy. I had grown rusty and unsure of myself. I had to get my edge back, and I had to get enough ISK for a ship and fittings suitable for surviving deep space.

To get enough ISK, I had to start mining again. Yet as I scouted belt after belt, I realized the pirate situation was stronger than ever. I needed to lay claim to a few profitable belts and I needed a frigate that could fight back, so I purchased the “Armor Star”.



I was about to get my edge back!

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20060920

I docked the Armor Star back at home base and proceeded to equip it with my components form my old inventory. They had been boxed up in storage for a year, so I was not surprised to discover some of them unusable. I did what I could to get them in working order, installed what I thought to be the best mix for survival. I had a couple vacant slots left, so I installed a ship scanner and an auto targeting system, both experimental devices I had never used before.

Feeling comfortable in the Armor Star, I set off to clean the rats out of a few belts.



I jumped from belt to belt to belt, yet encountered no pirates. Thinking the situation typical for my luck, I sourly headed back to home base. Figures that the one time I am looking for a fight, there was no fight to be found. Even my attempts to use the experimental devices were a letdown. I could never figure out how to get the auto scanner working. Either it was broken or, most likely, I wasn’t using it correctly.

I did get the ship scanner to work, but discovered it of little uses for my current career. The device is probably better suited for pirates or system authorities.

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20060922

Seems my luck may have changed.

I was rummaging around inside the “Resource Extractor”, my old mining tug, for a series of paper star charts I had jotted mining notes on. It took me a few hours of cleaning up the mess I had left but eventually I found them.

The notes were lifted form a conversation I eavesdropped on a long time ago. One day on a mining excursion I was listening to the public chatter when through the static I somehow picked up a gang privately discussing a new rare rock in empire space. I had jotted down the location and more importantly to me now were the notes I wrote down concerning the specific ship configuration needed to successfully mine such a rock.

On a whim I sat down at the navigational computer and keyed in the rocks location. All the standard public information from the nav-network came up and sure enough the rock had become public record. The latest updated even indicated that it had been just about mined out of existence.

I went to overlay my private region files when I came across something else in my personal directory. Four files lay in the directory that I did not recognize. Upon further investigation I realized they were encrypted, buy the standard Avian keys would not work on them. I scrolled through the mumbo-jumbo of the encrypted raw file for clues. Sure enough towards the end of the file was a non-encrypted comment. The comment was some kind of system routine instruction which was still mumbo jumbo to me, but it was signed off with the initials LA.

I went to my key-ring and pulled up every key I had from Lazy Amy. I chose the last and latest key on the list, sure enough it worked. Apparently the files were downloads I received from Amy, yet never imported to my private overlay file. Executing the files, the binary treasure details were finally revealed to me.

Omber! Several insta-bookmarks to Omber belts.

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20060923

Looking at my ships, I came to realize that the “Resource Extractor” needed some work before heading out to the belts. “Cystem Cyanide”, on the other was an identical Gal Vexor, but time had been easier on her. She was fitted for serious work so I synced the co-processors and headed out towards Amy’s waypoints.



I came out of warp right on top of the belt. Amy’s waypoint was perfect. I quickly scanned the area for trouble, but I was all alone. No rats, no mining competition. I then scanned the asteroids for their composition, a few seconds later, to my delight, the readout came up full of Omber. I wasted no time and started mining.



It did not take much time, however, for rats to appear. They must have been patrolling the many belts in the system. Luckily they jumped in on the far side of the belt. My first instinct was to jump away to safety, but then I remembered a tactic Moge used with his battleship. I raised my shield booster, prepared for incoming fire, and continued mining.



The two rats hit me hard, but my shield booster was negating most of the damage. It did not take long before my cargo hold was full of Omber. With shields down to half, I punched the coordinates for home base and jumped to safety.

Shield tanking the rats gave me an idea. My Itty probably could not shield tank them, and I would not dare leave my ore can in the belt for looters, so I needed a location in the middle of nowhere, a place that rats would not think of investigating. So I jumped to an area in space many AUs away from any popular location. In the future I plan on testing a tactic where I jettison my ore can in this safe spot, there I will continue offloading ore until I finish the belt. Then have my Itty jump in to bring all the ore home, in the cover and safety of the middle of nowhere.

Good stuff, Cy. keep it coming! Love the pics too.

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20061028

Over the months I continued mining the belts, refining my techniques and improving my skills. In my down time I gathered information and leads for my growing mining database. I researched the locations of Omber belts, and overlaid their location onto a series of detailed region charts. These charts quickly proved useful as mining competition continued to grow in the Everyshore region. No longer was I tied down to usual familiar belts, more and more often I found myself forced deeper and deeper into space. Thanks to my charts and database I could quickly decide which systems to hit and which systems were lost causes.



One day I found myself heading to the Ardallabier system to pick up armor hardeners. On a whim I looked at my charts to discover that Ardallabier was indeed a system known to have Omber. Upon further investigation I discovered that Ardallabier was an out of the way system, far form any other Omber system. For several weeks, in the back of my mind, I had a sneaking suspicion that the cause of all the competition in greater Aice/Mies area was the fact that the Osnins Constellation was an Omber hotbed. So many Omber systems adjacent to each other attracted miners from all across the universe. Ardallabier was the exact opposite.

On a hunch I did a belt flyby and discovered untapped Omber belts, the size of which I had not seen in a very long time. I sent a coded transmission to Rylanne to bring her hauler. That night we set up shop at the Fed Mart Retail Center outside of Moon 12. I would use my newest mining platform, Zero Fortune, my Dominix Battleship. Rylanne would use her Navitas for mining, then switch out with her Iteron III for hauling.

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20061215

I continued mining the Ardallabier belts, teaching Rylanne the finer points of the business. She learned how the handle our hauler like a pro, even advancing far beyond my abilities with such ships. She loved piloting giant ships so much that I even bought her a training sim of the freighter class even though we did not own such a mammoth vessel.

Meanwhile as the days turned to weeks and the weeks into months, I turned my focus on improving Zero Fortune’s performance. With the goal of deep space in the back of my mind, it was necessary to eek out every ounce of potential from my old Dominix. Its technology was traditional Galllente design, therefore I knew it would have power grid and capacitor problems. Likewise shield upgrades would make a bad problem even worse.

Instead of upgrading shields I focused on improving Zero Fortune’s armor. Adding kinetic armor hardeners and large repair modules gave the old brick extra toughness. When the switch was flipped, the armor systems of Zero Fortune could withstand the heaviest bombardment I could imagine. However when all armor systems were activated, the burden on the ships power grid was troublesome. To address the power issues I learned every trick I could find that would squeeze out extra power or cut back on existing modules’ power needs. I added a bank of capacitor rechargers and I upgraded the ships power relays so that they could handle the greater load faster and function with increased efficiency.

Together these improvements gave an unending level of protection that surpassed my wildest dreams. I now had one hell of a tank.

ahh the Domi. A great miner, a great tank and great drone base. Gotta love that ship.

I sold off my Freighter otherwise I would offer it as a loaner
1 billion just sitting in .6 space when I lived 26 jumps away in 0.0 made little since. I did have fun seeing how much I could pack into it though.

_________________
Moge

Here Here!

I love my Domi

Eutectic Cap arrays FTW!

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Cyrus Rex: Journal Entry: 20061220

Today I discovered drones. I knew of drones, watch them in action over the years, but their benefit seemed elusive and effort too troublesome. Earlier when I was studying various modules and how they affected various ship systems, I came across Zero Fortunes drone bay. It had remained hidden to me for months, and upon first discovery I considered clearing it out to make room for more cargo space.

When she was not mining, Rylanne spent much of her time meandering across the galaxy unloaded crap for small profits. From time to time Rylanne picks up giant containers full of undisclosed loot for discount prices. She takes the loot and hauls it all over creation looking for buyers. On one of Rylanne’s junk trading runs I found myself looking over the junk for modules I could use. One container had a couple of drones, out of curiosity I loaded them into Zero Fortune to see what they were like before we sold them at the end of Ry’s trading run.



Today we were half way through a leg of crap selling. As usual I ran escort for her on these week long trips. It had been a boring week, the profits were less than stellar, a few even reneging on their original offer price. Her cargo hold was a quarter empty and we needed a change of luck so she scheduled a detour to sell a load of livestock earlier than planned and pick up a load of soil.

We were set to make some sweet margin selling the licestock. Evidently beef is king in the Unel system because not only were the royals paying a hefty price, the pirates swarmed us like flies on shit after we entered the system and one got a good scan of Ry’s cargo. That beef must have been worth much more on the black market.

Their frigates and cruisers set out to disable Ry’s warp drive to keep her from escaping, while their bigger ships stayed back and sniped us from afar. I fired up Zero Fortunes railguns and let loose on the snipers. The freighters were too close for my guns to be effective, so I pealed off to get some distance between the frigates and myself, all the while unloading everything I had on the snipers.



The damage they did to Zero Fortune was nill, so they change tactics and focused fire on Rylanne. I took out the first of four snipers when I Ry’s warp drive blew. At that point I knew there was just too many of them.

Out of lack or habit I had not even thought about the drones I was carrying. It hit me all at once and out of shear desperation I released the drones on an intercept course with the swarm around Rylanne. About that time I was jolted by renewed barrage from the snipers. With Ry escape thwarted, the ratz focused back on Zero Fortune. Their sniper fire was synchronized for maximum penetration. The fight went on; I took out one sniper after another. About the time the last sniper exploded I looked over at the overview to start targeting the smaller ships… but there was nothing there but Frigate wrecks all around me and five happy drones in orbit.