Skill Training Completed

I did it. I finally chose the skilltraining path that I would stick to for perhaps the rest of my character's EVE life. Up until now, I have been training all the basic skills that I would use no matter what ship I flew- learning, electronics and engineering, navigation and minimal missile and gunnery skills. I reached 7 million Skillpoints with my achura character and I still consider myself a noob as far as SP goes.

Up until recently, I flew in corp piracy ops with a rifter, upgraded to a typhoon that thinks its a rifter, but no tech2 ships and no clearly defined role in the gang, other then 'tackler', and 'really big tackler that also NOSes'. Tackling is very useful in itself but tackling pilots are a dime-a-dozen. I experimented with flying Caldari ships in gangs. I trained up the ECM specialization skill a bit and piloted a griffin and a Blackbird. I never experimented much with Amarr or Gallente ships. I hear bad things about Amarr technology and I am not interested in babysitting a flock of drones, so Gallente were out of the question.

In any case, I did not spend too many skillpoints in either race. Most of my pod pilot education was spent studying non-race-specific skills. But the time was drawing near. I was itching to do something different, or at least improve in what I was already doing. That day, I found I was at a crossroads. I wanted to fly tech2 ships, but I couldn't decide which one. I would of course start with the T2 ship requiring the lowest skills- the interceptor. I could fly the Caldari Crow which has strong offenses. Or I could fly the faster Minmatar Stiletto with stronger fleet support and the damage output of someone's wet laundry.

The decision wasn't limited only to which interceptor I would choose. It would determine what race's ships I would eventually fly. Choosing the stiletto meant I would also, eventually, choose the tempest, huginn, rapier, and all the other minmatar ships. I would fly fast and I would have to train up a great number of different skills to get up-to-par. I would, from what I hear, eventually be proficent at both solo piracy and gang piracy. Choosing the crow would mean I stick to Caldari ships such as the Rook, Scorpion, Buzzard... I would be great at supporting the gang with ECM, and I would do so quickly because the skill requirements are low, but I would be denied the joy of speed and my wallet would suffer because ships are expensive. I would have to decide eventually, and invest ten whole days into one level of one skill.


Ten days after that, I received an evemail from myself, telling me of what I already know:
"Training of the skill Minmatar Frigate to level 5 has been completed."

My decision hinged on one thing: speed. I loved flying at high speed in my Rifter. Even moreso with my corpmates' gang skills. Almost every ship I have ever flown for the past several months has been fitted with a MicroWarp Drive, and nanofibers went into every lowslot I could spare. A set of Snake implants is on my Christmas wish list. I have learned that speed in itself is a great offense as well as a great defense. Speed can be the thing that decides whether you win or lose. Even if you don't win, if you can go fast enough at least you won't lose. Speed is also expensive- a set of faction nanofibers will cost you hundreds of millions and the best deadspace MicroWarp Drives usually cost you your firstborn child. I don't even want to talk about the cost of Snake implants. The upside to all the cost is that, given a competent pilot, the more ISK you put into a ship the less likely you are to lose it. Unfortunately, some day the ship will be destroyed, so one must strike a balance between speed and affordability.

Flying a high speed ship also requires a measure of skill(not necessarily skillpoints) that isn't used when flying low speed ships, and its a heck of a lot more fun.

Hopefully I've made the right choice, I will stick to it in any case. My first Stiletto is more useful in fleet then my Rifter, both as a scout and a tackler. I'm in love with my interceptor's warping and sub-warp speed. My skills are good enough that I am able to pilot it competently. I have scouted for gangs and jumped into several hostile fleets without losing it yet.

Cleared for publication by: Ander