Milestone: Cross-training Complete

Yesterday I undocked in an Ishtar. Just moments before I had also undocked in an Arazu and a Lachesis. On its own those three events hardly seem important, people undock in those ships all the time. For me however, it isn't so much the ships themselves (although they are cool), as what they represent.


For the past three years, since I first realized that we were not locked into our race choice, I've been on a mission to cross-train all four races. Yesterday, undocking in those three ships, represented the culmination of that goal.


I can now fly every PvP ship in the game, Battleship and under, for all four races. T2 and T3 variants included. (Although Caldari T3 is the only T3 I fly in combat, my other skills still need work before I undock in those.)


Gal Cruiser V was the last ship skill remaining that unlocked those three ships, and more of course. I left it until last so I'd have time to train up my drone skills and a few others first. These things take planning and lots and lots of time.


So now what? For the past seven months I've been hard at work on the next phase of the plan, what I call the Hard V phase. While I already have a lot of Vs trained, there are still many more that need to be worked on. I haven't taken on a new skill in over a year, having loaded up on all the skills I need a long time ago. So now it is time to focus on finishing topping the rest off.


The ultimate goal is to have Rixx at level V on all BS and below skills. That path will take another 2+ years to accomplish. Maybe more, I haven't finished calculating it all out yet.


Then what?


If I know CCP at all, I suspect we'll have some new skills to train along the way, so that path could stretch out past three years or more. As things stand now, Rixx won't be moving beyond BS skills. Ana is my character for those and she is already a badass at the Archon and will be training Black Ops next.


So, unless CCP introduces a new ship class, Rixx can fly all the shiny ships he will ever be flying.


In some ways, while yesterday marked an important milestone, it also kind of made me sad. One of the purest joys in all of Eve is dragging a new ship into the hanger, fitting her up and then undocking her to see what she can do.