I had to delete everything I wrote for the first part of this game diary entry because it consisted largely of profanity. Basically, it was just the F-word over and over, with an occasional S-bomb or CS-er.

Read why after the jump.

I just lost my really cool ship. I didn't have insurance, which isn't that big a deal, because it wasn't an expensive ship. But still. It was the principle of the thing. Plus, it had a great capacitor battery I'd salvaged from some pirates. I quite liked that battery. It really helped, given the firepower. I guess I can probably buy a new one somewhere. But I'm only learning about ship components by finding them and looking up what they do. Until I stumble across something in the wreckage of some pirate ship I'd just blown up, I don't know the first thing about it.

Mainly, it's just that I didn't think I was actually going to get shot down at this point in the game. I lost a couple of the basic ships during the tutorial because I had no idea what was going on. Now I've got a handle on the basics, which means I can learn about things like capacitor batteries.

As I'm scooting back to the Imperial Academy in my escape pod, I peruse the market listings for where I can replace my ship. It was a Punisher I'd purchased because I'd overheard some guys on one of the chat channels singing the Punisher's praises. And sure enough, it was pretty sweet. I had used it to breeze through a few minor combat missions without so much as breaking a sweat. For a couple of battles, I didn't even have to fire up my shield booster. Ha ha. Combat in Eve Online is going to be a cake-walk, I thought! Select target, lock on, activate lasers. Repeat as needed. Occasionally give an orbit command to keep from straying too far off.

But then I got to a mission in which a space station started "webifying" me, which cut my speed dramatically. A ship with a longer range stand-off attack danced around outside the reach of my lasers. After chasing the ship around for a while - it was futile, because I was never going to catch up with him given the reduced speed of my webified ship - I realized I needed to close in and destroy the station first. But as I plodded towards it and the longer range ship plinked away at me, my capacitors and shield booster reached their limit. So I had to warp to the nearest space station, fix the armor and hull damage I'd sustained, and then warp back in closer to station to do the mission the right way.

So while Eve Online may not have a very good tutorial, it was teaching me how to play.

But then I got to the mission I'd just attempted. I had to fight off waves of ships, which was really gratifying given how my Punisher was bristling with weapons (experienced players will laugh at my description of three laser turrets as "bristling", but this was quite an upgrade from my rookie ship with its single civilian gatling laser). These battles with swarms of little flitting ships were a refreshing change from the toe-to-toe slugfest of the average MMO.

I fought my way through about ten waves of weak ships with names like Minions and Servants, careful to head them off as they approached rather than sitting and waiting for them to converge on me in groups. My lasers flashed. My shields glowed. My capacitors held. Its battery helped.

Then ships called Slavers and Plaguers arrived. A group of about six attacked me at once. They were using some sort of tracking disruption on me, as well as some sort of special ability with a countdown bar. I didn't like that, because I didn't know what it was doing. They managed to knock down my shields and chew up my armor in no time flat. I didn't stand a chance. So I warped out, repaired my damage, and tried again. I got a single kill before having to warp back out again for repairs. On my third try, I misjudged my positioning and timing - it was entirely my fault - and I lost my ship as I was trying to warp out.

So I cussed for a while and then got to the business of buying and kitting out a new ship before my escape pod had even made it back to the Imperial Academy. I've got one picked out. It's only two jumps away and it's not just a Punisher. It's a doozy, with enough weapons to earn the adjective "bristling".

Next: My spaceship. Let me show you it.
(Click here for the previous Eve Online game diary.)