Updates

Despite not being able to log in on the weekend except for 30 minutes last night (travelled out of town to two Thanksgiving Dinners) I do have a fair amount of points to go over so I figured one post to wrap it all up and get us on the go for the rest of the week was called for.

1) Politics - The war with Idle Empire alliance ended in the middle of last week and the war with Privateers alliance ended this past weekend. Out alliance leadership seems to be pleased with overall performance although I'm ticked I didn't get out more often to participate and get in on a couple kills. I might have to go visit Mynxee just to get something to put on the killboard (and yes, I'm not letting that go until you get me back ;-) ).

I'm not sure what the next step is for the corp and alliance, but I'm hoping its a more dedicated push into 0.0 space where combat can occur without security penalties. I'm not opposed to another war either.

2) Skills - Kirith finished up Shield Emissions IV and Remote Armour Repairing IV on the weekend giving him access to the Large Tech II versions of both module types. He's now back on Jump Drive Operation V which is 41% complete and another 12 days to go. The only multi-week skill left on my Carrier Plan is Tactical Shield Manipulation V which I need for the Capital Shield Booster module.

Derranna on the other hand, is finishing Archeology IV today and then Astrometric Pinpointing IV and Astrometric Triangulation IV for better probing as I'm considering trying some exploration again after reading Mynxee's awesome guide.

3) Industry - The four Onyx cruisers came out of the factory last night and I put them up for sale in Amarr at 97 million each. Once one or two of those have sold I'll be able to buy the parts for the 100 Invul Field IIs I need to build next.

4) Mechanics - The latest Dev Blog on a new feature called Certificates is a great idea. In essence it is grouping skills into logical sets to help players see what skills are helpful for a particular task. For example, using railguns is more than just training the Small, Medium, and Large Hybrid skills, its also the support skills like Motion Prediction and Controlled Bursts, etc. Worse are skills that cross multiple skill groups so are not as obvious.

Plus, although they specifically said its not intended to act like an Achievements system in other games, you know obsessive-compulsive players (like yours truly) will HAVE TO train up to get certified as "elites" in one or more fields. Damn, just looking at that screenshot makes me itch with desire for this feature already even though it won't improve ship flying ability one ioia.

Good move CCP, good move.

5) Metablogging - Google Reader has a "Share with Note" feature so that you can have a feed that contains blog posts from your reader that you can share with a short note. I considered adding it to my blog but I'm getting concerned at the size of the sidebar already. I'm considering moving to a three column design but I really like the current layout. Decisions, decisions.