TL:DR - A personal update from the Some Time Later newbro challenge: ship progression, corporation growth, missions, mining, standings, skill plans, and the slow process of building a home in Amarr space.

A Quick State of the Corporation

When I started this new character, the goal was absurdly simple: get into a Thorax. That was it. Not conquer null-sec, not build an empire, not become some terrifying industrial overlord. Just start again, work through the early game, and see how long it took before I could sit in a cruiser that felt like home.

Somehow, that small personal challenge has turned into something much bigger. The corporation is now sitting at around 184 pilots, which is genuinely lovely to see. We are not doing everything yet, and we are still very much in the mustering phase, but people are joining, chatting, mining, running missions, scanning wormholes, and generally making the game feel alive.

Settling into Amarr Space

We have pretty decisively moved away from Exordium and into Amarr space. Jopra has become one of our mining areas, with local groups already operating there and a few rules around refining or contributing a percentage of mined ore depending on who you mine with.

I will admit, I am not as close to all of those arrangements as I probably should be. That gives me a useful layer of plausible deniability, which is always healthy in EVE Online. But the important part is that people are finding their mining legs, learning the local area, and getting used to operating together.

The other key location for us is Iro. That is where we are currently basing industry, staging ships, and generally trying to build a foundation. It feels like the right sort of place for this stage of the project: practical, central enough for what we want to do, and quiet enough that we can figure things out before getting too clever.

The Personal Journey So Far

On the personal side, the character is doing better than expected. After roughly three weeks, total assets are around the 200 million ISK mark, although a decent chunk of that value comes from odd items and implants rather than pure liquid cash.

The wallet itself is far less impressive. After buying a skill injector, which hurt more than I would like to admit, I am sitting on about 18 million ISK. That is not ideal, but it is also part of the point. Starting again means money matters. A 24 million ISK cruiser is not nothing. A lost ship would sting. That makes the early game feel sharp again.

Ship Progression: Frigates, Algos, and Finally the Thorax

The ship journey has been interesting. We started in frigates, tried a few options, experimented with the Federation Navy Comet, and came away underwhelmed. The Tristan remains absurdly good for what it is. I still think of it as the reliable little workhorse that quietly outperforms expectations.

The Catalyst did not really grab me, but the Algos was much more enjoyable. Drones are useful, flexible, and forgiving, which makes the Algos a strong stepping stone for a newer pilot.

But the milestone was always the Thorax. And now we are there. The current fit is very much a work in progress: a blaster boat built around charging in quickly, getting into range, and headbutting the enemy until either they explode or I do. It is not elegant, but it is very entertaining.

The Thorax is a classic Gallente cruiser built around hybrid turret damage, tracking, speed, and close-range pressure, which fits the way this character has been developing. It may not be the perfect PvE choice, and I probably should have tried the Vexor first, but this challenge is about the journey more than the spreadsheet answer.

The Thorax Feels Like Old-School Frigates

One thing that surprised me is how cruisers now feel like frigates used to feel. That might sound ridiculous, but old EVE frigates were slow, clunky, and awkward compared with the modern ship experience. The whole ship tree feels like it has shifted upward over the years.

Flying the Thorax now feels like reaching the point where the game starts opening up. It is still risky, still skill-limited, and still vulnerable if I do something stupid, but it gives level 1 and level 2 missions a very different rhythm. It feels like progress.

Corporation Projects Are Starting to Matter

Because people have generously donated to the corporation, we have started turning that support into corporation projects and freelance-style rewards. The goal is simple: give members things to do and pay them for doing it.

At the moment, we have projects around killing NPCs, running missions, and other early activities. A payout of around 5,000 ISK per NPC kill is not going to make anyone space-rich overnight, but it gives new players a reason to undock and lets the corporation recycle donations back into activity.

This is one of the things I like most about where the corp is going. Donations do not just sit in a wallet looking impressive. They become incentives, projects, and little nudges that help people play the game together.

The Value of Being in a Group

One of the best moments in this update was being critiqued live on the Thorax fit. Someone pointed out that a web would probably be a good idea, and they were probably right. That is exactly why being in a corporation is better than trying to figure everything out alone.

If you are soloing EVE and wondering why the game feels empty, my honest advice is to stop doing that. Throw an alt into a corporation, join a channel, talk to people, and see what happens. Last night, a group found gas in a wormhole and went off to huff it. That kind of thing happens naturally when there are people around.

Standings Are Still Weird

Standings remain one of those shadowy systems I understand just enough to know I should understand it better. The character has some unexpectedly high Gallente standing, and I am not entirely sure how that happened. If it is repeatable for Amarr, I would very much like to know.

What is clear is that social skills matter. Social, Connections, Diplomacy, and Negotiation all help with mission running, standings, access, and rewards. If we are going to stay in Amarr space and work through agents, then training those skills is probably not optional for long.

Skills Are the Real Bottleneck

The biggest blocker in the challenge is not really ISK. It is skill points. You can get into a cruiser quite quickly if you focus, but getting into a cruiser and using it well are very different things.

For the Thorax, the hull is only the beginning. You need gunnery skills, tanking skills, capacitor skills, fitting skills, and enough support skills to stop the ship feeling like it is being held together with tape and misplaced optimism.

That said, levels 1 to 3 train quickly, and that is where new characters can make a lot of progress. Drones are a good example. Drone skills add damage, speed, control range, and flexibility, but eventually you hit the longer trains like Drones V, and those early limitations start to show.

Building Skill Plans and Corp Fits

One of the next practical jobs is building better corporation skill plans. We already have a simple “get started” plan, but I think the next one needs to focus on social skills for mission runners, followed by clearer plans for mining, drones, and basic cruiser progression.

We also need proper corporation fits. The current Thorax fit, affectionately known as Susan, is a starting point rather than doctrine. Over time, it would be useful to have standard fits for common newbro activities: mission frigates, destroyers, mining Ventures, scanning ships, basic PvE cruisers, and perhaps eventually fleet doctrines.

*i.e. never using battleships to mine...that's a thing from 2004

If people know fittings well, sending those fits in would genuinely help. A corporation full of newer players benefits enormously from simple, affordable, sensible fits that people can understand and replace.

What We Might Do Next

Right now, the plan is to stay in Tash-Murkon and keep building. Mining in Jopra, staging around Iro, running missions, exploring wormholes, and creating more corporation projects all feel like the right next steps.

We have talked about structures, but the timing is not right yet. If we put structures down, they will almost certainly be through an alt corporation, and we will not be loudly announcing them before they are immediately war-decced and destroyed. This is EVE, after all.

There is also interest in wormholes, filaments, ninja mining, and maybe even Pochven trips once people are comfortable enough to lose ships in entertaining ways. The important thing is not to rush. We are still building the base.

What I Am Enjoying Most

The surprise for me is missions. I did not expect to enjoy them as much as I have. There is something about the thrust and parry of a mission in an imperfect ship that brings EVE back to life.

When your tank is not guaranteed, your capacitor matters, your ship is still new, and the fit is questionable, even simple PvE has tension. That tension is fun. It is the thing that gets lost when you become too rich, too optimised, and too safe.

Final Thoughts: The Challenge Is Working

Overall, the newbro challenge is progressing better than expected. The corporation is growing, people are finding activities, donations are turning into projects, mining fleets are forming, wormhole trips are happening, and I have finally achieved the very silly goal of getting into a Thorax.

There is still a lot to do. Skills are a blocker. ISK is tight. Standings need work. Fits need refining. The corporation needs structure without becoming too serious. But that is exactly what makes this stage interesting.

The best things in EVE are often emergent. A casual corporation started on stream becomes a group of nearly 200 pilots. A new character becomes a cruiser pilot. A mining fleet becomes a regular activity. A random wormhole becomes an evening of gas huffing.

If you want to join, the corporation is called 'Some Time Later'. There are no real requirements. You can be a veteran, a new player, an alt, or someone who just wants to see what happens. Come fly with us, lose something affordable, and help us work out what this thing becomes next.

Post in the comments any tips or suggestions for this challenge run through and thank you for reading, you must have enjoyed it brah? maybe i can tempt you with a Patreon Membership? that cup of coffee price tag per month supports the channel immensely and makes you an Executive Producer.... bargain am i right?

Love, hugs and manly back pats all round

CEO P