Misadventures of a Terrible Wormholer pt.1

Once upon a time I was a newbie in EVE Online. We all were, and I make rookie mistakes, lost ships doing rookie things, and generally enjoyed my time at being bad at the game.

Fast forward from 2006 to 2020 and I'm still bad at the game, just at a different level of bad. The game has changed by leaps and bounds since then. My love/hate relationship for the game, on the other hand, remains the same.

So about a month and a half ago now I returned to the EVE Universe, for the 29th time or whatever the count is up to at this point, and my first order of business was to find a new corp. I've spent time in nearly all aspects of EVE space throughout the years. I've lived in four different nullsec regions (Vale of the Silent, Branch, Providence and Great Wildlands in order) as well as lowsec (some Amarr FW and some time in Domain and Derelik lowsec) and some wormhole living as well, primarily C4 or C5 holes. 

I knew coming back there were three things I didn't want to do. First, industry. I envy those people that have the patience to mine, build, research, etc their stuff. But that's absolutely not me. I need more excitement then that. Second, Sov Null. Look, I did it, I get it. You can make good money in null, and be relatively safe. But you also run into the blob factor and that's just not my style anymore. Finally, Highsec. Yeah, I get it, but highsec is boring. It's meant for miners, crabbers, gankers, and traders. None of those are me.

So after a bit of searching I found myself a good corp, Protean Concept. These guys are pretty awesome. I've been flying with them about a month, staged in a C4, and they told me at the start they take every fight. Now, I've had a bunch of corps in my past tell me that and then sit in station for 2 hours if a frigate came within 5 jumps. But these guys are the real deal. They. Take. Every. Fight. Even if they know they are gonna be outnumbered and outgunned, they adapt and attempt to fight it for the content.

So after a short interview process, I joined them, and boy let me tell you am I excited that I did. It took me a week or two to move in, tons of ammo and combat ships primarily, but I got situated inside the home hole, what they lovingly call the Foundry, and have been scanning, fighting, and scanning some more ever since I joined.

Now, onto the fun part, where I suck. Eventually they'll likely notice I'm a terrible pilot. I have the attention span of a goldfish and ADHD like a mofo. I try of course, but I generally like to Rambo my ship around to try to keep tackle, and if I die in an engagement, but we still succeed, then, I did my job. 

So last weekend I decided to get some early morning scanning accomplished. We had a new static wormhole and I figured I'd check the chain and see what was going on, maybe find someone to shoot, or even better, more than one someone to shoot. 

So I like to go deep in a chain. Sometimes 7 or 8 jumps deep. Maybe that seems pointless but, I like content, and what's a few extra jumps for a good fight, right? So it took me over 2 hours to scan this chain, I swear every WH had 4 or more connections, so I was in the zone. I was blasting some good music on Spotify (Rock music FTW) and going to town. Eventually though, I realized, I needed food. Well, might as well go dock up.

I get back to our static connected hole and, lo, what is this. A Paladin ratting?! Oh, my, how the EVE gods were smiling upon me. I ping my corp mates in Discord, excited that if we can get 2 or 3 guys online, this is a nice gank.

Then, the bad part. I warp back to the home hole and.... shit... wait... did I save this wrong? Aw fuck they rolled me out of my own god damn home. Touche, Paladin pilot, touche.

So yeah, maybe going that deep isn't a great idea when I'm online alone, 23 jumps later I got back in but not without cursing myself, and that pilot, out a bit more than I'd care to admit...