Blown to Bits

Do you EVE veteran pilots ever have one of those days where you get almost nothing accomplished other than losing a bunch of ships and dying over and over? Yesterday was my first day like that, and man did it totally stink.

I knew my luck had to run out sometime. A month into the game and I hadn't been podded.. until about 24 hours ago. I wanted to continue my "independent LP earning, plex running" mind set that I had been set on for the past week or so. With my d-scan and finally figuring out how to use the factional warfare button ("there's a factional warfare map?!"), I felt unstoppable. But it pretty much came to a screeching halt after getting blown up three times back to back.

The first time, I got nuked just on my way out to the system I wanted to plex in. By a neutral or something. I don't even know, it happened so fast. I kept my head up and headed back to Egg to reship.  I headed out again to another system to try again. "If at first you don't succeed.."

I headed into another system and checked local. Another good guy was in system, and that was about it. I warped into the novice plex and he was there. "Cool!" I thought. We could team up or something, or watch each others back.. I mean, after all, he's purple.. right? So we're allies? Or something? There was a little under a minute left on the timer so I just orbited. The next thing I knew I was targeted and blown up. And then my pod! I had failed to check local chat upon entering the plex, and I had missed when he asked me to leave. I'd forgotten that LP was distributed based on how many people were in the plex, and Mr. Purple was upset I had come into his plex. Now I know it's considered bad form to try and join in someone uninvited in a plex. But the podding? Really? Was that necessary?

I QQ'd a little, I won't lie. Someone in corp made it a point to talk to him or one of his "superiors" or whatever in his corp, and he convo'd me and apologized and gave me isk for new implants. I too apologized for coming into his plex and failing to see him asking me to leave, and explained that I was new. At least I wasn't trolled.

I went back out again after reshipping AND updating my clone (I'm learning!!), but was caught by a Jaguar. All in all, I lost three punishers yesterday in the matter of about an hour and a half. I felt defeated, sure, but what was even more defeating was the fact that I knew this would be going on for a long time as I still find myself finding my "sea legs". I have to expect to lose ships regularly, and losing everything once you get blown up is still a hard thing to adjust to, especially after coming from other cookie cutter MMOs. It made me question if this game is really for me, the same question that made me end up leaving all those years ago without returning. How can I compete with these vets that have been playing for eight years or something? How can I make isk without dying, to spend on ships that will eventually get blown up? I had to remind myself that we learn more from our failures than we do from our wins. I can't even fathom how many ships out FW leader, or our other corp officers have lost over the years. Probably too many to count.

I logged after that, partlyto frustration, though before I did some good people in my corp gave some uplifting advice and told me to stick with it. "Don't distress! Everyone has days like those in EVE! Keep your chin up!" I'm looking at you, Tigerfish Torpedo and Jericho Willis.

I got back on much later in the evening, and our corp was already in fleet and on the prowl. I joined in a Tormentor and met up with them a few jumps out. We had a decently sized fleet and I was feeling good about things once more. We jumped into an enemy heavy zone and sure enough, battle ensued. I was dead almost instantly. I mean, I literally took like, two hits and was gone. I didn't even have time to broadcast anything. I don't think I've ever actually successfully broadcasted for armor or rep before. I was lucky enough to get my pod out and head back to home station to reship. Again, for the fourth time that day (in which I had only played a little over two hours). On my way back after reshipping, I heard our FC comment "Hey, we didn't lose anyone! Awesome work." I had to break the news. Oh well, I have frigates upon frigates lined up in my hangar. As soon as I rendezvoused with the fleet, they called it a night and started heading home.

Ah well. What are you gonna do? It's frustrating as hell, but I know if I stick with it I can do awesome things in game and maybe one day, all on my one. Maybe. But like my corpies told me, keep my chin up and expect the losses, as much as it sucks. But boy, does losing ships feel lame or what?