Sunday, December 23, 2012

Alliance move completed; recruitment commences

After spending a month in the alliance Mildly Sober, No Fixed Abode made the step to the main alliance Mildly Intoxicated earlier this week. Mildly Intoxicated is smaller than our previous alliances, but this is mainly due to the fact that the industrial wing of 'Mildly' is concentrated in Mildly Sober. Combat pilots live in Mildly Intoxicated; those who are primarily non combatants remain in Mildly Sober. Taken together, Mildly Sober and Mildly Intoxicated are about the same size as LEGIO or SaS had when we joined them.

Mildly Intoxicated gained name recognition with the last Alliance Tournament, where they performed well, and they even got to shoot at CCP devs on SiSi in preparation of this tournament, too! Finally their name popped up again when news came out of the new Nulli Secunda led bloc in the south, of which Mildly Intoxicated is a part. We already knew them by the way, because one of our previous members ended up there and they used to be blue to us in Catch, until earlier this year.

Our move to Mildly Intoxicated marks an important moment in No Fixed Abode's history. I used to say: "we shoot rats, reds and 'roids". This is still true, but the main focus of our activities is now clearly the 'shoot reds' part. We still have industry, but it is no longer a core activity of our corporation; combat is. The funny thing is that this makes me CEO of a pvp corporation. Me, the non confrontational diplomat! This is clearly something I never expected, earlier in my eve career..

Yet, I think it's good to clearly define ourselves as a pvp corporation. It focuses our efforts and that should help with recruitment. We have a great team, we've become friends, but we could use a few decent guys! Having the numbers to run our own operations is a goal of ours, and I hope that having a clear focus on combat will help with recruiting those pilots. Focus, dedication and good killboard stats should help bring in the desired reinforcements :) If you think you would like to fly with us, eve mail me or join our public channel No Fixed Channel for a chat.

Monday, December 10, 2012

If you could own one Eve Online spaceship in real life..

..which one would it be?

It's something I think about every now and then, usually when I'm bored commuting from/to work. "Oh man", I'm thinking, "I'd rather be in a spaceship than on this train. But which one would I choose, if I could?"

Now that mankind may be a theoretical step closer to an actual warp drive, the question on how a warp capable space ship might look and work is more interesting than ever. And Eve Online's extensive range of vessels is an inspiring source of ideas in this regard! Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks along those lines:


TianCity is responsible for all marketing activities in China [...] They have done some really innovative things to make EVE more visible in China, including [...] having EVE featured in a CCTV (Chinese national television) program about militaries of the future, which included some high-ranking Chinese military officers talking about EVE spaceships.
..although, to be honest, I have no idea what these officers actually said about Eve's space ships!

Back the the question at hand: what Eve Online spaceship would you choose? The first warp driven space ships mankind builds (..if we ever succeed, of course) would probably be little more than an Eve Online shuttle: very limited in size and scope. But let's dream bolder dreams and look a bit further in the future..

It might be tempting to take some military vessel such as a Battleship or Battlecruiser, but I think I'd go with a cloaky Helios. Traditionally, our existing space vessels so far have primarily (but not exclusively) served peaceful purposes. The Voyagers, Mariners and Pioneers carried cameras, not guns, and neither did the Space Shuttle or the MIR space station for example. Thinking along those lines, it makes sense to look for an exploratory vessel first. And given that we have no idea what we might encounter once we drop out of warp, it would also make sense to make it a cloaky, stealthy ship. The scan capabilities of the Helios would help us do our research, while a single mining drone might help us acquire precious samples of asteroids. So, there's my daydream.. explore the wonders of the universe in a Helios.

What's your ship of choice?