My EVE Online Story
Hello everyone! My name is Cael Caderu. I am the CEO of Nobody In Local (SA.FE), a corporation in the Deepwater Hooligans (BIGAB) alliance. You may also recognize me as the former executor of Of Sound Mind (SOUND). I am individually enrolled along with most of my corporation in the Minmatar Militia, operating out of Turnur.
My EVE activities at present cover a mix of scouting, FW skirmishing, lowsec and nullsec PVP, industry, market-making, and corporation management. I do a bit of many different things (although certainly not everything in the giant and wonderful list of things you can do in this game!)
My story begins in the system of Nakugard, in Metropolis, in 2014. I was a bored highsec miner, terrified of PVP. A slightly more experienced friend convinced me to try diving into nearby Great Wildlands in an Imicus, and learning through trial and error to slip by Sabre camps on the way is when I fell in love with this game. Still, when all of my friends quit, I did too.
My story properly starts in 2017, when I rejoined the game to play with another friend and joined Of Sound Mind. Ironically, that friend stopped playing just about when I started, but for me this time was different. Playing with experienced mentors allowed me to rapidly pick up skills and enjoy content that I would not otherwise have had access to. I still learned some skills through trial and error, but others I picked up through chatting with corpmates. There are so many specialized systems in our game, and even in a corp of 20 people you benefit from having friends who just know things about areas youāve hardly touched. I fell in love with the wormhole space hunt, stalking prey in a slow-moving cloaked frigate angling for just the right place and time to call in my backup. I also came to love the intricacies of moving supplies through w-space, especially under hostile conditions such as games of hole control.
I stayed with SOUND from that point, through repeated moves where we sought the best mix of PVP and PVE content for us. āHigh classā wormhole space, Minmatar faction warfare, Syndicate, a joint sov null deployment with Deepwater Hooligans, pirate lowsec, back to Syndicateā¦ etc. With the arrival of the faction warfare rework, we were excited to try FW again and redeployed to Lantorn, settling there and making our name among the organized Minmatar militia alliances. Eventually, however, I found that while we were getting a steady stream of skirmishing content (2-5 pilots), we were lacking opportunities for midscale fleet battles (10-100). SOUND had been a one corp alliance for as long as I had been a member, so we made the call to shelve the alliance and move the corp (Nobody In Local) in with our friends in Deepwater Hooligans. I have been a member of BIGAB for almost three months now, based out of Turnur in the Amarr/Minmatar warzone.
My CSM Philosophy
This section is copied wholesale from my CSM 17 run. If it aināt broke, donāt fix it!
At its best, the CSM is a body of subject matter experts. CCP are the game designers in the room, but being a game designer does not make you an expert on small-gang combat, or sov warfare, or logistics, or life in wormhole space, orā¦ you get the idea. An effective member of the CSM needs to be able to identify and convey to CCP (and other CSM members) where their own expertise lies. When a developer is describing some idea, an effective CSM member can point out if there are unintended consequences that affect their domain of expertise. When a CCP employee is asking what members of a community actually want, an effective CSM member can speak to both frustrations their community members have, and equally importantly speak to the highlights of gameplay experience for their constituents.
It is not the job of the CSM to force CCP to listen. The CSM is an advisory group with no actual power. Moreover, like a cybersecurity consultant, the CSMās successes are basically invisible. Proposed changes that were dropped or changed due to input from the CSM are not and cannot be visible to the general EVE public. This does not make the CSM any less important or effective. Without the CSM, CCP has no real window into the in-game lives of any players, and our game would be very much the worse for it.
Areas of Expertise
Living in Turnur gives direct access to lots of different parts of space. That said, based on my day to day activities I would suggest thinking of me as a lowsec candidate first and foremost. In a given week, these are the kinds of things you might see me doing. (Note: This does not include other things I would like to do but donāt right now.)
FW Skirmishing and Fleets
- āSoloā and small gang PVP on the scale of 1-5 humans, 2-10 characters.
- Multiboxed PVE plex running
- Minmatar militia open fleets (~5-30?)
Fleet Command
- Warzone fleets at a scale of 5-30 people (mix of bashes and āchill plexing/pvpā. I would love to run battlefield fleets but there would have to be a battlefield active when Iām onlineā¦)
- Backup FC roles (backup target calling, anchoring, logi FC) for PVP fleets at a scale of 2-100 people
PVP Fleets
- Flash forms for hunting via Turnurās wormholes
- Blops
- Brawls of various sorts in the 30-100 people scale
Scouting
- Wormhole chain finding
PVE
- Gas harvesting
Industry
- On average 1 character of lines active
Marketeering
- Market-making in Rens and wherever BIGAB is deployed to
Corp/People Management
- Miscellaneous HR tasks, although this is pretty limited now that Iām just managing a corp within an alliance
- Stocking corp supplies
Other
- Answering questions in the No Question In Stupid thread and other similar threads on r/eve. (Iām u/actually_ixex there)
Why the CSM?
A critical component of a successful CSM is broad representation. I was happy to See Arsia Elkin and Mark Resurrectus on CSM17 last year to represent Faction Warfare- and Wormhole-based players. I am able to speak to the needs and experiences of a variety of groups that donāt traditionally get much representation. I believe that I can communicate thoughtfully and effectively with both CCP and my fellow CSM members. Iām running because I love EVE, I honestly think the CSM is a useful tool for improving it, and I think I will be an effective CSM member.
What You Can Expect From Me
Almost a copy of last yearās. I apparently forgot lowsec pirates in my outreach list and that is now fixed.
If elected, you can expect me to serve with professionalism and dedication. I care, deeply, about our shared game. Working with CCP and with other members of the CSM for the good of EVE is a given; you can also expect me to be responsive to other players whether or not we have history with each other. Specifically, I will hold regular AMAs on r/eve (where Iām currently active as u/actually_ixex and often can be found in the newbie help āNo Question Is Stupidā thread). You can additionally expect me to reach out proactively to faction warfare, lowsec pirate, wormhole, and unaligned nullsec groups so that their voices can be heard.