Do You Have a Space Pixel Problem?

Ed. Note: This post is written by Valeria Bovinus, my wife. I've edited for readability, but not content. You can find her other posts here.

The night I realized Tal had a problem was an evening like any other in the Dex/Bovinius household. Our dear children, were snuggly nestled in their beds after their nightly reenactment of the classic bedtime story, “Go the Fu** to Sleep.” Tal was on his computer and I was on mine when he said, “Look I bought a new Chimera.”

This immediately snapped me out of trying to buy clothes without a Disney picture on it for my children and into the world of space pixels, for I’m the wife who knows too much about Eve. Since (fortunately or unfortunately) I can recognize ship classes from their names, this comment set off warning bells.

Me: “Why do you need another carrier?”
Talvorian: “To move my stuff to a new staging system.”

He used a lot of words to explain what ships he was keeping with him, which were meant for low-sec, and a bunch of contingencies and situations.  It was exhausting to listen to.

When I countered that he had too much stuff and that moving doesn’t seem fun, he said, ‘”This is Eve.” But I have more fun organizing a sock drawer than he is having now. If everyone is doing this, no wonder subscriptions are dropping!  You folks have managed to turn space fighting into a chore.  It was at this point I realized he has a space pixel problem.

To help other players (and their wives), I’ve identified a space hoarding grading system:

Space Minimalist. You hear, “We’re moving to a new system,” and think, ‘Great, let me load up my carrier. I hope there are fewer blues!”  Congratulations on the tense, “one carrier”, you lean, mean PVP machine.  You have more time to think about engagements and content than contracting movers.

Average Pilot. You fit your most-used ships in your carrier, leaving some behind that you don’t use very often.  Over time, you may collect ships in caches at different points throughout the universe, which you need to purge every half-year or so.  You only need to wait the hour and a half for the move op to get started (Wife move op post).

Consider Counseling. You spend more time on personal logistics than playing.  Your biggest concern when you hear your corp is moving to a new staging system isn’t lighting up a kill board, but rather lighting up enough cynos to make multiple trips.  Move ops take weeks for you.

Seek Help Immediately. You have more ships than you wife/girlfriend/(mom?) has pairs of shoes.  You will spend more time carting your stuff from system to system then playing the game.  You use multiple characters to deal with jump fatigue.  If you wanted to care this much about logistics, I recommend a job with UPS instead of an Eve account.  You measure satisfaction by m3 moved per hour.

Remember, some of the greatest military forces on earth have been lauded for their stealth.  Caesar in Gaul, the Mongols sacking Europe, Napoleon against Austria.  None of these generals would be remembered if they spent more time packing than fighting.  The 18^th Century British Army was known for carting around their tea sets and fancy clothes.  Yeah, they got their butts kicked by the Americans who were too poor to have equipment to move.

Also please remember, this is a game.  It is supposed to be fun.  Space fighting is fun.  Space packing and space shipping are not.  That’s why you hire people to do it for you in the real world.

A great thing about Eve, is the thriving free-market economics.  If you want a new ship, sell an old one and buy it.  With all of the changes to capital jumping, it seems obsolete to have hangers and hangers full of ships.  Let’s look deep inside our hangars, and if you have a Drake lying around, by the Amarr gods sell it and buy a shiny new Isthar (until that’s nerfed into the ground too).

Spend less time buying carriers and carting things around, and more time blowing up other people’s ships.  I don’t want to hear thrilling stories about your redeployment.  I’d appreciate some content between 8:30-10 US time zone (Downton Abbey is coming this week from Netflix, and my husband needs to be distracted).  Maybe if you all weren’t agonizing over delivering your ships, I’d have some targets.

Oh, and the next time a woman in your life is packing 11 pairs of shoes and 2 suitcases for a 2-day trip, please think of Eve and your hangers before you make a snide comment.  Glass houses, people.

And Tal dear, I know you aren’t hauling my livestock around, so please don’t say you need the new carrier for my stuff.  I had that isk earmarked for some nice NEX boots I’ll never see on screen that you’ll need to pick up twenty systems away.