With over 170 million skill points on my main character in EVE Online, I have mostly gotten used to be able to just do what I want to do without worrying about training something.
Not that there isn’t always something to train. And my skills are sub-cap focused. I still can’t run out and fly a super carrier or a titan. But then I don’t have the ISK to play in that league anyway. But these days when a new doctrine comes up or Asher has some new fit to try out on us, I am generally good to go. The joy of having 185 skills at level V.
My alt, on the other hand, is about 50 million skill points behind and it feels like he needs to train something new every time a new doctrine comes up. He is perennially a skill short… which is the way I felt with my main 50 million or so skill points back as well.
But my alt is ahead in a few categories, one being scanning. At some point I put him on track to train up all the skills under scanning to V.
Going all the way to V isn’t always a good use of your time. Sometimes you need it to unlock tech II modules or ships. You have to have the racial frigate to V to fly the racial cov ops frigate and you need the racial battleship skill to V to fly the racial black ops variant. But going to level V for the actual cov ops or black ops skill, maybe not so useful.
Anyway, since he was all the way to V I sent him out on the last deployment, the camping trip to Impass, in a Buzzard with a fit I borrowed and changed a bit.
[Buzzard, Combat Scanner w/ cov cyno] Co-Processor II Micro Auxiliary Power Core II 5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive Scan Acquisition Array II Scan Pinpointing Array II Scan Rangefinding Array II Scan Rangefinding Array II Covert Ops Cloaking Device II Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher Covert Cynosural Field Generator I Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I Small Processor Overclocking Unit I Liquid Ozone x400 Nanite Repair Paste x100 Sisters Combat Scanner Probe x16 Sisters Core Scanner Probe x8
Not brilliant, but it worked. The idea was just to scan and be a warp-in or a cyno target. I chose the Buzzard mostly because I had a couple of the hulls on hand (so of which I have had since probing looked like this), but the extra mid-slots didn’t hurt.
The Buzzard in space
I am a bit bummed he never got to light the covert cyno, but combat scanning turned out to be fun. While the sight of combat probes on directional scan caused most solo ratters to warp for safety (mission accomplished), I was able to scan down mobile depots, mobile tractor units, and even abandoned drones to shoot. I became the bane of MTUs in Impass, with my alt scanning them down quite easily and my main warping in for the kill.
MTU whore
I was pretty pleased with the whole combat scanning thing when we returned home from the deployment.
A few days later back in what I consider my home system we had a few trespassers. I was on my main and had another Buzzard to hand. It was a similar fit, but tech I, since Wilhelm isn’t all trained up on scanning. So I undocked, launched combat probes, and set about to see if I could find the bad guys.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t see them. They were cloaked up somewhere. But I wondered if I could find something they might gravitate to, so I fished about some more until I found a deployable. As I tightened the scan in I saw it was a mobile depot. So I honed in on that, getting the probes tighter and tighter around it, until they were on top of it in with the tightest setting possible… and I couldn’t get the result to 100%, so I couldn’t warp to it.
That was disappointing.
Later I flew my alt over just to give it a try in his Buzzard, fit as above, and he scanned it down without a problem.
See, it’s right there
All of which made me decide that I needed to get Wilhelm trained up in scanning, just in case, something that illustrates the ongoing problem with my alt plans.
Back in the day when I created my alt, it was to train up complementary skills. At the time he was the hauler for my mining main. As time has gone on however I have come to use him for parallel tasks, handing ships back and forth so if I cannot get my main to the right location for whatever reason my alt can take over. My alt, for example, is now trained up to fly my Apostle for capital ops, should the need arise.
But with a 50 million skill point differential, there are still quite a few gaps. And, as noted here, the gaps aren’t always in the direction one would expect.
