This week in skill training

Drones V
Astrometrics III, IV (ongoing)
Target Painting I
Armor Rigging I
Energy Pulse Weapons I

Skill Queue - Yay!

So, I've been playing EVE on and off for about 5 years; setting alarms, swapping skills here and there when all of a sudden: The Devs announce a skill queue system!

This is very exciting news.

I haven't bothered to read the forum replies, MMPORG forums make me sad, but I'm guessing their chosen method of implementation is going to come under some fire but I think it's really thoughtful. Allow me to discuss.

The Devs were talking about skill queues a while back in one of the CSM meetings and they said that they didn't like the idea of people setting huge queues and not logging on for a year. I thought this was a bit odd - surely they only care that people are coughing up the monthly fees. Reading the post above however leads me to believe that the EVE Online Development team really do love and care about the game - they actually want people to play the game.

That gives us the 24-hour skill queue. Put up to 50 skills in the queue and as long as they all begin training within 24 hours, all is good. That means all those stupid mid-range skills you can usually only get to at the weekend can be queued up and run through in a day. I also noticed in the UI mockup that you can queue the next level of a skill, which is probably the thing that I am most excited about.

Now, obviously there are going to be some limitations in this system - what if I go on holiday? But the important thing to remember is that it is the start of a system that once in place can be tweaked later - if CCP see that suddenly people are playing so much more because now they can actually use all that cool stuff they bought, maybe they'll make it even better later on.

Marvellous!

This week in skill training

Hull Upgrades IV
Minmatar Industrial IV
Fuel Conservation II
Signal Acquisition I & II
Idetic Memory III
Astrometrics II

This week in skill training

Electronic Upgrades V (yay)
Covert Ops I, II & III
Instant Recall IV
Hull Upgrades IV (ongoing)

Finally got my Cheetah, now I'm going to spend some time going back and picking up some of the useful bits that I've been neglecting. Generally, I'm pretty happy with the shape of my skills now, I'm currently very focused in one area and it really shows when I shoot at people (and when people say "You're ratting here in a jaguar?"). Gives you the warm fuzzy feeling again.

This week in skill training

Electronic Upgrades V (ongoing)

urg, will it ever end? :)

This skill has ammused me. First off, it is almost completely useless, no-one would ever train it for its inherent bonus:

"5% reduction of sensor upgrade CPU needs per skill level."

No, the only reason anyone gets this baby to level 5 is Covert Ops.

When I first started training it, the timer was 15 days and some change until my overexcitement got the better of my judgement one day and I lost my attribute implants. That put it up to about 17 days and a bit more change which was irritating. I spent those 2 extra days training up some of my long-neglected learning skills and managed to get the timer back to about 15 days and chopped time off a whole bunch of other skills.

Sometimes EVE's skill meta-game drives me to distraction, other times I get that warm fuzzy feeling from having accomplished something worthwhile.

At least whilst I'm training an important long skill I don't have to make any difficult descisions about what to train next...

This week in skill training

Science III

Hull Upgrades III

Energy Emission Systems I

Assault Ships V (ongoing)

Last week in skill training

Informorph Psychology I & II

Shield Upgrades IV

Assault Ships V (ongoing)