8 years since my arrival on Calypso

Log Entry for the 17th of August 2014.

Monday, judging from my notes this was a full day. It was the 8th anniversary of my arrival on Calypso. I normally end up with some kind of gift from the one outside of the screen but this year nothing, he says I have to wait a while.

The day began with a celebration hunt with Wolta we took on the Riptor who were clearly unaware of today’s significance and whilst bringing a global to the party were somewhat lacking in generosity.

I returned to the Oratan Miners with Feyn healing me, she had acquired a Gyro FAP smuggler of some type and was eager to try it out in spite of not quite having enough skill to be in the SIB range, she started off using a Herb Box and soon had enough skill, I tried different armour combinations in order to balance staying alive with keeping her busy, both of us had taken skill pills and did not want to waste them. The Oratan were generous with a few globals, odd considering how the humanoids of Entropia Universe hate us so much (I have worked out why that is). I paid Feyn’s decay plus a tip as I had done quite well scoring 4 globals in the hour and a positive return.

Gravis GLR-29 Rare item HoF

Happy Birthday to Cee

Later I returned to the Oratan and again did well, this time with 2 globals and a HoF, I was quite confused by the HoF, I got the fanfare, I got the HoF style swirlies but looking at global spam I noticed I had got 69 PEDs, whilst this is a lucky number I did not think they awarded a HoF for it (although that would be entertaining and a little weird). I checked the HoF board the lowest one was 500 and something so clearly I had got this wrong. I rechecked global spam and noticed a second entry, it seems I had found a rare item a Gravis GLR-29, I had not had one of these before, I guess it was a present from Arkadia, thanks chaps. The hunt returned another positive result, I could get used to this but something tells me I had better not.

I made a few purchases in some of the Arkadian shops as well as placing several auctions and having a few sales. I decided I needed to visit Calypso briefly so headed off in my Quad Wing, there was an item on auction there that I would like to trial and Pamela needed stuffing! I think that deserves an explanation, the shopkeeper at my residence on Calypso is called Pamela for 2 obvious reasons, having sold some items from her she was in need of re-stocking. Now I could have just said that I needed to re-stock my shopkeeper but that would have been dull. I will not explain this again in future posts.

The journey their was fairly uneventful, there was pirate at Arkadia who flew away so I took the opportunity to head toward Crystal Palace, En-route I spoke with Bonnie who pointed me at a clip of her destroying Normandie, now she stressed several times that this was not her fault so I can only assume that it was and that she is in denial. I do like the clip so am including it here:-

The music reminds me of GTA 4, I shall have to check as it’s been a while.

Approach to Calypso was uneventful though on arrival I could not find a TP, looks like they have been messing with Port Atlantis again. I placed my bid on the item I was after then found a TP and headed to Treasure Island Castle. After stuffing Pamela (5 times), I checked a few items in Calypso storage to see if they could be auctioned, the ones I was interested in were those that came with the Gold Starter Pack as I am very near to using all the skill pills and want more. Obviously if I purchase more I will have spare items to sell however it seems I cannot do this on auction so I will need to test if I can trade them.

I headed spaceward and arriving at the space station discovered that micjack was making a nuisance of himself along with one other of similar ilk. I just could not be bothered with it tonight, I know some of them will repair the damage but that’s just to make themselves feel better, the vehicle is still decayed. I left myself sitting in space while I did a few other things, checking in now and again to see if the coast was clear, it was not and twice my quad had been turned around so he was clearly trying to encourage some reaction. It was too late to continue so I logged.

My notes were right, Monday was a full day.

Tuesday, at login I waited to die and after revival spawned my Quad and left the Space Station. I had a quick look about and noticed no one so headed toward Crystal Palace, no one gave chase, I skirted Crystal Palace planet side and slightly z minus on an arc before heading for my selected Arkadia entry point. It was an uneventful journey although in Space Chat someone was somewhat miffed at micjack. There was an exchange of words at some point micjack said “you talk crap you can stay up here with me all night”, I was wondering if this was prison lingo?

I arrived at Arkadia, grabbed some ammo and headed to the Oratan Miners, arriving with about 58 minutes left before the servers were being shut down for patching. I took a skill pill anyway and began shooting, in less than an hour I had scored 6 globals, this has to be a record for me. There were warnings in global spam of so many minutes until the servers shut down, I just kept shooting squeezing every drop of skill out of the skill pill, with about 20 seconds to go I started on a fresh Miner in the hope that a little leeway might be given, that the chap performing the shut down was getting a cup of coffee but no luck, I was about halfway through when the connection dropped.

"I have no nose." "How do you smell?" "Awful."

Ma tête me fait mal

I reconnected in the evening and worked out the return it was another positive one. I tried the Oratan again but at Steadfast Firebase (my usual location) the Oratan Miners were not spawning, apparently this was the same in the PVP area. I did find a spawn that worked West of Implacable Firebase but it seemed my armour did not work, I think the graphic showed it as equipped but that it was not. This made the task a bit tricky so I gave up on it after just 2 rounds with a smallish loss. Donning the Viceroy armour no longer removes my hat, the back of my head and most of my nose become invisible as the helmet does not display at all.

I succumbed to the Skill Pills and bought me the bronze starter pack for $5, this had just 5 pills in it, I gotta have my fix. As the pills give a 50% bonus and last an hour it means I get 30 minutes of skill gain for 10PED which is a total bargain. I have not been able to TT or drop the other items but that could be due to a new bug.

Bonnie tells me there are a couple of bugs in space, it seems the repair movement is wrong and that the mobs no longer give chase, the first is no big deal but the second will make Space Skilling difficult, lets hope that gets resolved soon.

One other thing I noticed today, my average combat skill has risen to level 31, this probably happened sometime last week and I just did not notice but it’s nice to see it crawling along once in awhile.

Wednesday, I raised a support case about the armour and Oratan issues, just so it is logged.

I was impatient, I was only about 2k kill points from completing the Oratan Stage 5 (80k) mission so I dusted the ghost webs off of my ghost armour, fished the ghost spiders out of the ghost recesses, lubed the ghost joints with some ghost oil and donned the armour before heading off to Steadfast to see if the Miners wanted to come out and play, sensibly they did not. I headed over the hill, I’ve been over the hill for quite sometime now, well on the way down the other side to be honest but that did not deter me from trying my luck at the closest Oratan Camp. I did not partake of a skill pill, with the big delays between waves it would be a waste. The Slashers did want to play and so did the Lancer, the killpoints were going up but by the end of the camp I was about 900 short. I headed North to a second camp and these Slashers wanted to play too. When I killed the last Slasher I received notification that I had completed the Oratan Stage 5 mission. Obviously I finished off the Lancer before returning for my reward which was almost 7PED of Dodge, this gave me nearly 2 levels, not bad. I did take the Stage 6 mission which requires a further 60k of killpoints, so easier than the stage 5.  Completion of the stage 5 means the only investment of time I have left in Arkadia is the 1200 Riptor challenge at which I’m at about 750.

Thursday, as my Viceroy armour still did not work, there having been no further updates, I decided to work toward the completion of the 1200 Riptor challenge using my Pixie armour, this was slow going with more healing than I care for. It also resulted in a loss, I’m guessing it’s back to business as usual as far as that is concerned.

Friday, on login I was surprised to see Wolta on-line, we caught up on the week and I asked her about her Viceroy armour, she told me it was working fine. I tried mine again this time removing my hat first and it looked normal so I grabbed some ammo and headed out to take on some slightly larger Riptor, the armour worked fine and the hunt was much easier and speedier, I even considered taking a skill pill but was unsure of how long I could stay on line for. The results were a big improvement on yesterday but then it would be hard to do much worse.

Saturday, the Smugglers decided not to show in underground but the Oratan thought it was time to attack Repulse Firebase again, I spent quite a few hours here, there was a distinct lack of big Lancers which was a shame as they give good evade skills. I did not lose too much here considering the hours of entertainment involved. I did have a few crashes but no where near as many as in the past and I was running at max graphics mode so this was a big improvement. It seems the IFN are always calling for citizens to assist them but then completely fail to turn up themselves and leave the citizens to do their job. I find myself wondering why the Oratan want Repulse Firebase so badly. In the evening it was Space Skilling Saturday which provided a welcome change of pace, nice to slow down and relax after the mania of the Oratan.

Sunday, I returned to Repulse Firebase and once again stood in the thin green line, I did not do too bad and gained a few skills. I had a few more crashes today but they were not to much of a detraction. Once the Oratan had given up I went to the nearest Oratan camp and took on the slashers and the lancer there, which resulted in two globals after which I headed to the furthest Oratan camp, I do not do so well here. I missed the middle distance camp as I am not tough enough and spend most of my time healing. Because of all the Oratan deaths I had been responsible for today I have effectively made a start on the 60k Oratan IFN challenge.

Later I tried the Riptor and made the first profit since Tuesday, managed a couple of small globals and at the end I was at 1051/1200 for the Riptor IFN Challenge, so that challenge should come to an end soon. I had taken a skill pill for this hunt as I knew it would contain very few pauses so I would get the greatest advantage from the pill.

The overall result for the week was a return of just over 96% with which I am more than happy, looks like I will be giving Arkadia another chance. Looking at the length of this log entry I have had a busy week, it’s been a lot of fun.

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Every which way!

Log Entry for March the 23rd 2014

I have spent most of the week in Space, skilling where possible, some was with Wolta on the Monday evening. My feet did not touch the surface of a planet (Calypso) until Thursday night. Maybe it would have been sooner but the Gold Card lock out issue took me off line for a day. Support was very speedy when it came to re-synchronising the login sequence with my Gold Card.

The New chat system was something of a shock! I struggled for about an hour before I had to go out and that hour was very frustrating. However on my return I began to get to grips with it, it’s very flexible with many new and good features, some fundamental changes are causing me a few issues still, I’m used to main chat staying in focus until I press ESC and am struggling to break the habit, the consequences are that I start typing while the main screen has focus and various windows pop into existence, which can be inconvenient. That’s not a criticism the update is a definite improvement and I am particularly glad to see off-line messaging available. There are a few bugs known and these will no doubt be resolved soon. Nice work MA.

Hunting this week has gone well for the most part, I have had some positives and some negatives and there has been an approximate correlation between decay and loss which is what I expect to see. That’s based on a statement made by an MA representative (Marco I think) a long time ago which basically said that MA makes their money on decay. I have hunted some Drones on Calypso, Riptor, Oratan Miners and Slashers on Arkadia. I even got globals from 2 consecutive Oratan Miners on Sunday plus a smattering of others during the week.

Six assorted skill gains this week plus a Hit Point increase, I’m now at 164. Looking at the skills I’m getting quite close to new levels in many hunting skills so I expect a spate of level increases over the next few weeks.

I took possession of my new base of operations on Calypso, Lake view #1 and have managed to procure a shopkeeper to install there. I need a week or so on Calypso to move my possessions and set up the new base, a dreadfully dull task, I moved just 3 items and got bored. Maybe this week will see me moving.

Vinge has been making good progress in her discipleship which is nice to see, she is crafting away when possible and joined us for Space Skilling Saturday 10 so more of an increase there. Hopefully we will do more together soon, some kind of hunt would be good.

Been a busy week, I’m bound to have forgotten something!

K’ching

Log Entry for June 17th 2013

Wolta has reached level 25 Vehicle Structural Engineer, awesome news for any transports we will be running in the future, excellent work Wolta. I am intending on discussing our plans for the Pathfinder with her this coming weekend, I think it’s time to try and get some more regular passengers, hopefully we will come up with some kind of plan.

I have been doing some more car racing with Nocturaline we tried Chug’s circuit a couple of times with one win each, we also tried racing around lake Penzance which is quite an exciting and flexible circuit, Nocturaline thrashed me on that one.

Tiger decided to try the pit again and this time survived but did not challenge me for leadership, we decided that in such circumstances the challenger can have the Soc. ranking system changed and he and PBG elected hunters, this has been changed and I am now telling the world that I’m a “Great Hunter”, this is clearly untrue. I do not like the ranking system but it is not my place to change it.

I seem to have gotten some enthusiasm back and spent some time hunting this week. I have managed to reach the 6k mark of the 30k Rextelum Iron challenge.

On Friday night I was East of Saba Camp tying to reduce the numbers of Rextelum I had already had a small global when I hit nice HoF, 1800 and something PED, been a long while since I hit one that big and as far as I know it’s the highest I have ever been in the Hall of Fame, 3rd place. I was naturally rather pleased. I became more pleased soon after when Wolta pointed out I was at number 15 in BIG Industries 100,000 PED Supernova event and that this event was due to end the following night, the prize was 1000PED for the top 100 loots during the event.

On Saturday evening Wolta and myself teamed and managed a 3 global Rextelum hunt, I managed a small gain whist Wolta managed a small loss, I think I just managed more hits on the bigger of the globals and that made all the difference.

Also on Saturday (at least I think it was Saturday) I joined Drop Zone for an Opalo Proteron hunt, this was great fun as usual but I was very tired and the soothing sound of gunfire made me nod off twice, waking each time at the revive, after the second time I called it a night.

The prize giving for the BIG Industries event was Sunday evening, Wolta and I did attend but there were some issues, Blastoise had connection problems and kept disconnecting, a bit sad for him really, I am sure he would have liked to participate more. Freyr stepped in and handed out the cash although I am sure Blastoise did some. I did leave and come back after about 30 minutes or so as clearly there was a lot of trades for them to get through. It was odd to find myself standing around in the company of so many heavy hitters but I hope to have the opportunities to get used to it!

The Karma Killer has reached tier 1.9 and is ready for an upgrade, I am in the process of getting the required materials together, I will be adding more accuracy enhancers, it is an unlimited weapon so it is very important for it’s economy to reduce the number of misses.

The old limited armour parts continue to expire and be replaced with Ghost, I think I just have the harness, thighs and gloves to burn now.

Some bigger robots turned up, well I say bigger they are the same size and basically the same robots just tougher, there were at least 2 (Shared Loot) All Time Highs from these. I did have a little go but quite often got nothing in spite of firing a lot of PED into the mobs.

A busy week for Cee

Log entry 17-02-13

The week started poorly, on Monday hunting had still not recovered from Sunday. I was trying a few Allo and Esto when I got a call from an old friend from EUC one Una Griph Alconbury asking me if I would like to do the Daikiba wave event near to Odysseus Landing. It had been a while since I had done it and had not seen Una for a while either so I headed for the TP and then to the Wave Event area by air.

The event started slowly, I was massively overprotected at the start as I had put on the ghost armour but we worked our way through the first couple of waves. Una had also invited slartybartfass slarty bummel and James Dont GiveUp so this turned into quite an EUC reunion. We soon ploughed through the Daikiba and despatched the boss. Good fun if brief.

Tuesday night and the loot was no better, at least for me, James did rather well though, I am glad to say. I also had issues with weapons not firing and FAPs not FAPing while out hunting and decided to quit earlier than usual, I even had problems trying to sell to the TT! I did manage to put a bid on an A105, the price is quite low and I am bound to be outbid but worth a punt.

Wednesday, loot was still poor, so poor I had stopped hunting and was going through some calculations as to the economy of amps when I received an e-mail from MA. The content of which was to do with the tenth anniversary of EU/PE, I could not help but smile when I read the last paragraph, which I quote here :-

“Finally, as some of you may have noticed, MindArk has already started celebrating by juicing up the loots, globals and HoFs! No one can be sure when this insanity will end so be sure to grab your share of these Modified Loots!

I tried a few atrox, the return was poor and I left the hunt half done.

Thursday, I picked up were I left off with Wednesday’s atrox hunt, unfortunately the loot picked up where it left off too! Later I finished off the BSF Kaamos on a few allo and esto, I’m kind of sad to see it go, I liked the weapon but the MU is now too high for it to be a practical choice. It was during this hunt that I reached the 4k mark of the 5k Allo/Esto Iron Challenge. Later still I hunted with a P5a, it felt slow and weak by comparison but I think I finally got one of those globals MA were touting in their e-mail.

Friday, I spoke with Wolta and we planned Saturday’s trip.

Saturday, off to Arkadia aboard the Pathfinder, see here for more details. On Arkadia I tried hunting some Nusul solo, the results were quite poor but I did complete stage 2 of the challenge (I think it was stage 2!), I also tried some mining wich came out pretty even. Later I tried some Nusul in team with Wolta and the results were even worse than solo so we went to 8 Coins and had a crack at some Scoria, they proved a bit tough for two armed with P5a but we managed it and even got us a small global of about 80 PED, we were both delighted to find that 75.87PED of that was an ESI.

Sunday, Wolta, Henry and I tried some more Scoria, it was much easier with 3 but the results were not as spectacular. I also tried soem mining but that yielded a very poor return. Soon it was time to return to Calypso, the log for that is here. I tried some more hunting but results were as poor as the rest of the week. I finished the week off having a long chat with Calico about almost everything, it was really nice to catch up.