The Next Step

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This is the time of year when we sometimes pause to reflect on where we've been and where we might be going next year. I suppose in the coming weeks I'll be doing my fair share of that as well. But today I thought I'd spend some time talking about it from a skills perspective.


This time last year my goal was to train Sabre/DIC/HIC and start flying those ships. Funny, since I spent only a few short months after writing that in Null Space. I did achieve that goal right away and even though I don't fly those ships much, they have still come in handy from time to time. Even in Low Sec they have their uses. The super long point of the Broadsword, Devoter are especially useful on Cap kills. And while the Devoter sucks at delivering DPS its tank makes it useful when breaking up gate camps or station camps.


I never got around to training Logi V, it is still stuck at IV and probably will be for another year. Rixx is a combat pilot and his focus remains on training combat related skills. Eventually he will get around to it I suppose, but not any time in the near future. My ultimate goal for Rixx remains, to fully train all four races up to and including Battleships. The underlying principles behind that goal are largely finished, the support skills, the gun skills, the weapons, powergrid, etc. Most of the coming year will be spent on topping off some key skills to level V and expanding the ship skills underneath BS.


For example, Recon V, which he is training right now. At least two of the four BS skills to V and I'll probably get around to finally finishing Gal Cruiser V which is the only one of those I don't have.


As for Ana, her goal next year is Black Ops, JF, and then Dreadnaught or Super Carrier, depending on how much I can afford. She has spent the last nine months training every Carrier skill you need to level V and she is right in the middle of training Cap Armor Rep to V at the moment. She is well on her way to being a truly badass Carrier pilot.


At a little over 55m skillpoints it is interesting to think about where Rixx will be this time next year. While I was looking forward to the Sabre last year, I don't really have a ship class I'm looking forward to next year. So instead my focus is going to be on getting better at the ships I do fly, filling in some of the remaining holes in my skills ( there are still a few, do they ever really go away? ) and becoming even more of a terror. To myself and others.


If I had to do it all over again ( ugh ) I wouldn't have jumped into the cross-training so soon, it did hurt early on, but having done so is finally starting to pay off now. So no real regrets.


What are your plans for the coming year in regards to skill training? Anything you are looking forward to?