Two Hundred and Ten Million Skill Points

I thought I was done with these skill point progress posts.  I said at 200 million skill points that I probably had enough skills trained on my main and that I should start working up an alt because you become completely spoiled after a while by having every primary and secondary skill trained up to at least IV and usually V for any fit you want to fly.

And I stood by that for maybe seven months, turning off training on Wilhelm and running up skills on an alt I could leave behind in Delve for things like homeland defense fleets while otherwise deployed.

And then CCP added more ships to the game and my goal of being able to fly all the subcaps reared its head yet again and now I am another ten million skill points up on my main.

As I do with these posts, here is my skill point journey so far, broken out in ten million skill point increments.

• Start Playing EVE Online – August 2006
• Ten million – November 2007
• Twenty million – June 2008
• Thirty million – January 2009
• Forty million – August 2009
• Fifty million – March 2010
• Sixty million – November 2010
• Seventy million – August 2011
• Eighty million – June 2012
• Ninety million – December 2012
• One Hundred million – rolled right past with the battle cruiser split
• One Hundred and Ten million – September 2013
• One Hundred and Twenty million – April 2014
• One Hundred and Thirty million – October 2014
• One Hundred and Forty million – May 2015
• One Hundred and Fifty million – December 2015
• One Hundred and Sixty million – July 2016
• One Hundred and Seventy million – January 2017
• One Hundred and Eighty million – August 2017
• One Hundred and Ninety million – February 2018
• Two Hundred million – August 2018

And here is where I stand on skill point distribution.

Spaceship Cmd  70,558,541 (66 of 81)*
Gunnery        19,565,141 (36 of 52)*
Drones         17,036,708 (22 of 26)
Fleet Support  13,351,107 (14 of 15)*
Missiles       11,111,853 (22 of 26)
Navigation      9,660,314 (13 of 13)
Engineering     8,939,855 (15 of 15)*
Electronic Sys  8,159,689 (15 of 15)*
Scanning        7,168,000 (7 of 7)*
Armor           6,131,137 (13 of 13)
Shields         6,074,039 (12 of 13)
Science         5,714,282 (21 of 39)
Resc Processing 4,756,183 (22 of 37)
Subsystems      4,096,000 (16 of 16)
Trade           3,821,020 (10 of 14)
Neural Enhance  3,810,275 (7 of 8)
Targeting       3,207,765 (8 of 8)
Rigging         1,944,630 (10 of 10)*
Planet Mgmt     1,612,315 (5 of 5)
Structure Mgmt  1,446,824 (6 of 6)
Production      1,157,986 (5 of 12)
Social          1,130,040 (5 of 9)
Corp Mgmt          24,000 (2 of 5)

~Total 210,477,704

Items with an asterisk changed from last time I checked in.

My skills broken out by levels.  Lots of level V skills now.

 Level 1 - 1
 Level 2 - 3
 Level 3 - 38
 Level 4 - 90
 Level 5 - 224

As usual, Spaceship Command got the bulk of the last ten million points, rising by about 7.5 million points since last check in.  The Triglavian menace drove quite a bit of that.  I can now fly all of the Triglavian ships from Damavik to Leshak, including the Tech II models in the middle.

A Damavik and a Vedmak

I’ve only flow the Damavik in combat so far, back when DBRB had his Triglavian roam, but I have a Leshak sitting in my hangar for structure shoot ops.

I just make a “bzzzzzzz” sound in my head when I see a Leshak burning something down

I also made sure I could fly the Monitor… not that I plan to be an FC, but just as a completionist skill.  I want to be able to fly ALL the subcaps dammit!

Likewise, the coming of the Triglavians and their new weapon systems meant that gunnery also got a boost in skill points.  I didn’t go tech II across the board there, just where I thought it might be required.  Again, Leshak is ready on that front.

In the other areas… I guess I tuned up a few skills to level V.  The only other one I remember clearly is Armor Rigging V, which I trained out of my reserve of unspent skill points, when I realized that my Guardian would go slightly faster if I had that trained.  We were on an op with Asher and listing out all the skills that might make ships go faster for the armor Ishtar doctrine we were flying and that was the only one I did not have maxed out.  I will spend skill points freely for a bit more speed.

That all got me pretty far along for the ten million skill point milestone, but I was still short.  So I trained up one silly skill.  I trained up Capital Ships V.  So, when it comes to the age old question… or at least as old as I have been writing this series of post… of how far I am from flying a titan, the answer is now “under two hours.”

It only took me a dozen years to get from about 168 days to under two hours.  That is real government project level efficiency there.

And now I am back to training up that alt.  He is nearly done with tech II logi skills.

Don’t Forget to Claim Your Skill Points

I may complain at how much skill points have been cheapened by CCP’s recent propensity towards handing them out relentlessly… they have become CCP’s hammer and every problem seems to be a nail these days… but I am not too proud to go collect them all the same.

So I wrapped up the most recent bonus week of skill points for just logging in last night.

Last handout collected… just for an alt, of course

CCP was nice enough to give us eight days in which to collect the seven rewards, so if you missed a day along the way you can still catch up.  You have until downtime (11:00 UTC) on the 24th.

If you missed two days though… well… I guess you didn’t want it bad enough.  I don’t know.  But don’t worry.  There will no doubt be more skill points handed out at some later date.  And the return of the skilling spree, where just killing somewhere between one and ten NPCs will get you some skill points, carries on.  So you can still do that.

Skill Point Bonus Time Again in New Eden

I really wish more people had picked SKINs in that survey CCP did about a year back on what sort of rewards we like.  Apparently we all put skill points at the top of our list so now it is all skill points all the time when CCP wants to give us something.

So CCP announced this morning that it is now Bonus Skill Point Week.

When in doubt hand skill points out!

The routine is the same as it has been in the past.  From today, October 16th, through October 24th, log in every day after down time (which is at 11:00 UTC) with every account to claim some free skill points.

This time around CCP did not say up front how many skill points one could accrue over the course of the week, but the usual split between Alpha and Omega clones is in place.  Basically, you get some skill points as an Alpha, but you will get more, probably a lot more, as an Omega, and the login screen will show you just how many more as an enticement to subscribe.

How to collect your skill points are covered in the announcement linked above, but I am sure you could figure it out if you just logged in to look.

This event joins the return of the Skilling Spree, which came back at the start of the month, as the events for the season.  I am sure some are holding out hope for a new Crimson Harvest, the graphically stunning event that ran last year around this time.  We shall see.

Speculation as to why CCP has decided to throw more skill points at us, what it might mean to MAU/DAU numbers, and how this might relate to the one year anniversary of the Pearl Abyss acquisition and the bonuses related to it will no doubt come up as a topic over on /r/eve.

I, for one, won’t turn up my nose at the offer of some free skill points.  The effort is low enough that I’ll log in my Omega and Alpha accounts.  I don’t think I’ll go so far as upgrading any of the latter however.

EVE Fanfest Home and the Finale of the Long Summer of Skill Points

One hates to look a gift horse in the mouth, but there are times when you feel like you’re getting too much of a good thing.

We’re all injector addicts to a certain extent it seems

And so it has been for me with CCP’s DAU/MAU boosting efforts during the Season of Skills event.  For over a month you were invited to log in every day with every character to earn some free skill points by blowing up between 1 and 10 NPCs.

10K for my alpha clone

I could see that becoming a drag if I tried to that with every character every day, so I decided to focus on a few Alpha characters that were already at their 5 million skill point limit.  The only way they could get more skill points was to subscribe, buy those special injectors (I think), or jump in and shoot some NPCs daily.

I managed to do that diligently for about a week, then started to slide.  By this week I was paraphrasing Linda Evangelista and saying, “I don’t even undock for less than 50,000 skill points.”

Sometimes the party just runs too long.

But I no longer have to think about that.  The NPC shooting portion of the Season of Skills has wrapped up and we are on to the final round of CCP asking us to log in on the promise of giving us something for free.

This weekend if the bonus skill point weekend.  On August 23 through 26 log in each day for another grant of skill points. Alpha clone accounts will get 75,000 skill points while Omega clone accounts will get 250,000 skill points if they log in all three days.

So don’t forget to log in Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in order to collect… those days being after down time in UTC, so if you’re running late you can grab the last grant if you get in before down time on Monday.

Also coming this weekend is the next stage of the EVE Invasion World Tour, with the Fanfest Home edition.  Somebody in Finland won the contest to have an EVE Fanfest event staged in their home.  No tickets are available, so we’re all going to have to watch it on the CCP Twitch channel… or watch replays on the CCP Twitch channel, since it will be kicking off in the middle of the night out here on the Pacific coast.  We’ll see how quickly CCP makes replays available.

CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson is set to present, along with Creative Director CCP Burger, about the past, present, and future of EVE Online, so I am sure we will be hearing more about the wonders of the Chaos Era and Hilmar’s depth of knowledge about the game.

CCP Clarifies the Skill Point Killing Spree Event

Last week, when CCP announced the Season of Skills event, I lifted their copy directly and trimmed it some for brevity and clarity, which are often the same thing.  I also changed “skill points” from being capitalized, because the world doesn’t need that.  But what they said at the time about phase two of the event, the Killing Spree, was:

Answer CONCORD’s call to arms and fight the Triglavians by gaining as many Skill Points as you can during Skilling Spree between 24 July and 21 August for destroying NPCs! Get rewards ranging from 10,000 Skill Points for one kill, to the rarer 50,000 Skill Points for more kills per challenge. Then, use those Skill Points to train essential skills for piloting bigger, better ships with advanced weaponry.

That strongly implied, to my mind, that players would be required to get out and shoot Triglavians in the invasion sites that have been popping up around high sec.  That has since been clarified on the event page to read (emphasis mine):

Answer CONCORD’s call to arms by fighting the Triglavians and various other foes. Gain as many Skill Points as you can during the Skilling Spree between 24 July and 21 August for destroying any NPC in New Eden! Get rewards ranging from 10,000 Skill Points for one kill, to the rarer 50,000 Skill Points for more kills per challenge. Then, use those Skill Points to train essential skills for piloting bigger, better ships with advanced weaponry.

This hearkens back to a past experiment where CCP gave us skill points if only we would login, undock, and shoot an NPC.  That was the “recurring opportunities” thing that they introduced a little over three years back.  It lasted for about a month, after which they decided that the “thrill of the hunt” was not thrilling enough and pulled it.

So now this event will give us skill points if only we will login… and undock… and shoot an NPC.   Or some NPCs.  Everything old is new again.

… to kill some NPCs once a day for about a month

Only this time there is random factor involved, as your daily task will reward 10K, 25K, or 50K skill points.  Depending on how much the random number generator likes you, you could earn between 280K and 1,400K skill points.  It also lines up to how many NPCs you need to blow up, 1, 5 or 10.

Who said gambling was dead in New Eden?

Only 10K for my alpha clone

On the plus side, this isn’t a big hurdle to clear for some skill points.  And the skill point totals are about the right size to be worthwhile to a newer player.  If I were starting out… or was an Alpha clone already at the 5 million skill point cap… I would be logging in every day to shoot something.

On the down side… well… the forum thread about this event doesn’t seemed thrilled about the random nature of rewards and there is definitely a vibe in there about the value of skill points to players when CCP seems intent on handing them out regularly. (Bonus points for the new player who suggests revamping the skill point system so players upgrade skills by using them.  I think every new player goes through that phase.  I know I did.  I am pretty sure I did a post about it as well back in 2008 or so.)

Also, it doesn’t really tie into the Triglavian event.  I guess it doesn’t have to, but when you open up with something about “fighting the Triglavians” in your first sentence, some might consider it a bit of an out to basically add “or any other NPC you happen to run across.”

For example, he’ll do

Not that I am a fan of the Triglavian invasion event.  I logged in a high sec alt to give it a try, went where The Agency told me, and… nothing.  I don’t know if that system was cleared already, if I needed to do something, or even if I was setup correctly to see the Triglavians.  I am willing to bet they are off in your overview by default.  And The Agency was mute on anything beyond location, so I flew back home and did something else.

Anyway, people will complain about anything and everything if given the chance, myself included, but some will appreciate the extra skill points in whatever quantity they arrive.

The kick-off announcement for this part of the Season of Skill Points can be found here.

 

Pondering all these Free Skill Points

When in doubt, give skill points out!

-Unofficial CCP Motto

As I noted earlier in the week, CCP is giving us more skill points as part of their summer event.  The first day out of the gate I was able to claim 275,000 skill points.

First day Omega reward

And while the first day was big, there are still more skill points coming over the next six day.

More skill points coming

The question is what should I do with them?

Bitter vet problems and looking a gift horse in the mouth, I know, but here I am.

Traditionally I have hoarded free skill points, let them accumulate on my main and primary alt, as a buffer or back up in case I suddenly needed a skill one day.

Holding on to them

I am not sure why I might need a skill right away… dreams of running across a capital ship where the pilot has ejected come to mind I suppose.

And given that you can buy most skills remotely now, I guess if I ran across a Nyx sitting idle and abandoned, I could buy the Gallente carrier skill remotely (which auto-injects it as well), apply some skill points, and jump on in to make off with my new found prize.  But even with the profusion of super carriers, and idle Nyx or Wyvern is still an unlikely find.

Furthermore, the skill points necessary to hop aboard one of those are pretty trivial compared to the skill points I have socked away.  Gallente Carrier I, the skill I would need to make off with that imaginary Nyx, is about 2 hours of training time with my current attribute configuration.  But I have easily a month worth of skill points to hand.

The problem is that I don’t have any skills that I really NEED otherwise.  My main is past the 200 million skill point mark and, while I returned him to training to catch up with the Triglavian hulls, so he can keep his “fly all the subcaps” badge, he is otherwise mostly just filling in the corners, getting to level V on some skills that might marginally improve his ability should he, for example, suddenly take up flying a black ops battleship.

The only hill left to conquer, when it comes to being able to fly ships, is titans.  And for titans I need Capital Ships V, which would run me more than two months to train.  I could dump all my horded skill points into that and be just 35 days or so away from flying a titan… but what if I run across that theoretical abandoned Nyx?  Won’t I feel silly if I’ve spent all my skill points then?

So I am unlikely to spend those skill points without need, but I also have more than enough to meet any immediate need or abandoned super carrier.  Where should I put them?

I can always put them on one of the two alts I have on the same account as my main.  But I have always had an odd relationship with alts on a single account.

One of those alts is actually somewhat useful when it comes to skills.  After my main hit 200 million skill points I swapped training over to him, so he is around the 30 million skill point mark and can fly frigates and cruisers and at least one of the doctrine battlecruisers at this point.  He is trained up enough that I got him in our corp and put him in the 1DQ1-2 Keepstar with a couple of doctrine ships so he could be available for homeland defense fleets.

The problem is that you can only have one character actively training at a time, and when the choice is between my maintaining the versatility of my main in a world of the ever changing meta that can see flavor of the month doctrines come and go before I can buy the appropriate ship (or, more commonly, just after I buy the appropriate ship), or work on training up an alt who is about 170 million skill points behind… well, most of the time it is easier to just jump clone (or death clone) myself to where a fleet is happening and be done with it.

This is less of a problem on my primary alt account.  There my primary alt clocks in at close to 150 million skill points and can fly most sub-caps, but hasn’t wasted time with areas like boosting or marauders or black ops battleships, areas I pursued with my main and then never used.  I also have a secondary alt there who has about 40 million skill points and who acts as my high sec ferry pilot.

She… my only female character in EVE Online… can fly most of the subcap hulls, but not active a lot of the modules, so buys and fits ships in Jita, then flies them out to an NPC station near wherever we are deployed to contract them to my main or primary alt, who then pick up the ship.

Between the two of them I can find a use for the extra skill points… or I could, if I didn’t feel the need to hoard them obsessively.  This is a personal failing.  I am one of those people who gets a special potion or something in a game and then never uses it because I might REALLY need it at some later date.  My bank in several MMORPGs have such items, kept until I got so far past when they might actually be useful that I just put them away and forgot about them.

So of all of the gifts we’re going to get over the week of free skill points, the ones I will use immediately are the cerebral accelerators.  Those actually speed up your current training queue, and I have long training queues on every character.  And I won’t even have to worry about which character to use them with, since only one character at a time can be training. (Unless you buy the multi-character training thing, which I did not.)

All of which is a lot of tsuris over what is probably a non-issue for most EVE Online players.  But I accidentally let the post I had planned for today go live a day early, so to fill the empty day you get to hear about my skill point angst and how I over think these things.

I am usually much better when CCP gives us SKINs.  But if they just GIVE us SKINs, then we won’t buy SKINs.

So what do you do with your free skill points?  Do you save them like I do?  Spend them on things already in your queue?  Find some special skill you might otherwise ignore on which to lavish some skill point attention?

EVE Online Summer Season of Skill Points

CCP once again proves they think we’re all about our skill points… and they are probably not wrong.

Login rewards in the form of skill points return to New Eden as CCP announces the Season of Skills event.

Things capsuleers do to themselves…

Unlike the 16th Anniversary event earlier this year, where you had to log in for 16 days during the event to claim all your skill points and other goodies, the Season of Skills event will be broken up into three parts.  But each part will reward you with skill points, and an Omega character can come up with at least a million it seems if they actively peruse things.

All date ranges are from downtime to downtime, which means they start on the first date after 11:00 UTC and end on the second date before 11:00 UTC.

Bonus Skill Point Week – July 17-25

Log in every day throughout Bonus Skill Point Week and get free Skill Points.  The traditional split between free and subscribing players will be in force.  Alpha pilots can claim up to 200k skill points over the week, while Omega will get up to 650k skill points.  Cerebral accelerators, which speed up skill training will also be awarded.  I hope we get a SKIN or two along the way as well.  Some SKINs will be on sale, but I want more.

Skilling Spree – July 24-August 21

Get rewards ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 skill points for killing Triglavian invaders.  A single kill each day is worth 10K skill points.

Bonus Skill Points Weekend – August 23-26

Log in each day over the weekend for even more skill points.  Alpha clones will get 75,000 skill points  while Omega clones will get 250,000 skill points if they log in all three days.

What Does It All Mean?

I guess it means that we love it when CCP generates skill points out of thin air and simply gives them away, but hate when they generate skill points out of thin air and sell them.

At least we hate it in the short term.  Three weeks later and CCP is still selling that starter pack that got so many people so bent out of shape, but it doesn’t seem to bother anybody now.

Anyway, I won’t say “no” to most of these free skill points, though I doubt I’ll be killing Triglavians for the middle segment of the event.  I honestly have no insight nor idea what is going on with the high sec end of the invasion event.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to draw a constraining circle around a few things, it sounds like the invasion events might be resolving towards the end of August, so that might also be the point when we hear what CCP has become definite about the null sec blackout as well.

Other coverage:

• Evehermit – Skill Point Explosion
• The Nosy Gamer – Everybody Gets Skillpoints
• CCP – Bonus Week Instructions