Reports From Sisi

I got online a few nights ago on the test server and had about 10 minutes to snap some screenshots. Spent most of my time trying out the new planetary interaction but didn't have time to experiment. Its till very early though so no hard information you can depend on anyways. But in the process I got some wicked shots of the new Scorpion hull in the Tech II Widow colours.

Enjoy!

The Flight of the Unintentional Bait Ishkur

We had a small to medium gang roaming around Providence when word of a U'K fleet of interceptors and assault frigs nearby reached our ears. I was in my Ishkur named Isuldur and was asked to provide eyes in the next system and "get off the gate" which means 150+ km so I can scout and still hop-warp to the gate if need be. Unfortunately, I didn't have any such bookmarks in that system so I foolishly decided to make one instead of hugging the gate.

Six enemy ships were in system, three Crows, a Wolf, a Jaguar, and something else I do not recall. I warped away from the gate and then back at 100 km and started to burn out with my afterburner to 150 km. A few seconds late, when I was at about 120 km, the enemy fleet warped to the gate. I was too far to snag but two crows warped off and I knew they would be back at 100 km to cut the distance. I should have warped off at that point but I was 134 km away from the game and moving fast, I thought I could reach 150 km and then warp to the gate before they caught me.

I was wrong.

I hit 150 km as they warped back, but the slow down to turn around 180 degrees gave them the time to land and lock me. Just as I reached almost 75% speed to warp, they scrammed me. Since flight was out, fight it would have to be!

I figured I was dead. Too close to the gate for most of my fleet mates to warp to me, to far to burn out to. Regardless, I locked up the two Crows and activated my weapons (3 blasters, 1 nos, 1 warp scrambler, and 1 tracking disruptor... yes, I know, they don't work on missiles but I was in "throw everything at him!" mode) as well as my defenses, a small armour repairer and a damage control unit. My shields were gone in a flash but momentarily the armour held pace with the damage and a smidgen of hope blossomed in my breast. "Warp to me if you can!" I pleaded to my fleet.

Suddenly the Crows attempted to break off and a warp disrupt bubble expanded around me as some fleet members were able to warp and a Flycatcher dropped a bubble in hopes of catching the enemy. But they made their escape. Well, all but one. Remember that Crow I locked and threw everything at? Well, once I remember my drones and had my warp scrambler on him... he started to take a beating. I'd like to think I would have killed him myself but I don't mind sharing the killmail with a mate in a Hurricane.

That was a close one. I'm one lucky bastard tonight.

I Didn't Know Spectre Worked At CCP

When I saw this image in the latest Dev Blog on planetary interaction, I immediately thought of Spectre:

I'm really liking everything I'm hearing about planets, sounds like a lot of fun for a OCD empire builder player like me. I'm looking forward to building up a production network without the hassle of a POS or empire waiting lines.

Baby update: Everything went well on Monday, baby #3 is doing fine, big and strong. Mrs Kodachi is also well. I'm home last night and today with the twins for a break.

Fiction Friday: No Choice

Welcome to the last "chapter" of my story arc. Hope you enjoyed it!

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

* * * * *

"I'm sorry Mr. Kodachi, there is nothing else we can do."

It was the thirtieth time that day I had heard someone tell me that and I was so sick of it I felt like punching someone.

I was too tired to think about what my father's curt message really meant when I got back to my room and I simply took some pain relievers and crashed into my bed. Ten hours later I popped some more drugs and had a long hot shower to clear my thoughts and wipe away the lingering smell of my brother's burned flesh. I threw out the clothes; I figured I probably would never get the combined stench of my unwashed body and his injuries out of them.

Finally coherent I pondered what to do about my father's message. I tried a return message but it came back unread and informed me I was blocked at that end point. I then messaged my mother to try and get a feel of what was going on but her reply held no comfort for me. She told me how my father was furious and raging about our ineptitude and how he had no sons anymore. I could feel her sorrow at being unable to help her boys but truth is my father was a tyrant and held complete control of all the family's finances such that my mother was for all intents and purposes his slave.

I was wondering how long my father's wrath was going to last when I received the message from the infirmary about our insurance coverage being revoked and asking me to come to them as soon as possible. My stomach lurched and I then knew just how furious my father was.

* * * * *
"I'm sorry Mr. Kodachi, there is nothing else we can do."

That sums up my first conversation with the infirmary official. My brother was in stable condition but without the insurance coverage to pay for further care I had two very unattractive choices: I could allow them to remove the advanced life support and transfer him to a public ward where he would most likely linger for a few days or weeks before dying from an infection or blood loss, or as his closest living relative I could sign the contracts that bind him to serve the infirmary's parent corporation once he was healed until such time as his accrued bills were paid, in essence turning him into an indentured servant.

I stalled for a bit while I tried to contact my father and mother to explain the situation, but my father refused to answer and my mother's endpoint was blocked as well, probably my father exerting his will over my helpless and enslaved mother. I tried contacting friends of the family in order to hopefully get a message through or elicit some monetary goodwill but the reception was cold or rebuked at every turn. My father was a powerful man back home and the news of his displeasure at his sons had traveled faster than the speed of light it seemed. More than ever I felt very alone and so wished I could talk to my brother, but he was still locked in a coma for his own good.

I couldn't let my brother die and the faceless bean-counters behind the infirmary's caring facade knew it. Reluctantly, I signed my brother's freedom away.

* * * * *
Not only was the insurance coverage gone, so was access to what little funds I had left in my account. I discovered this upon returning to the hotel and being told to pick up my things in the loading dock when my key pass didn't work anymore. I swore profusely at the desk clerk and was quickly and roughly escorted from the premises by security guards that looked more like Sarum Plains Buffalo. Unsurprisingly, most of our stuff had been rifled through while unwatched on the loading dock access corridor, and I was only able to salvage a single suitcase of clothes. "It doesn't matter to Korannon," I thought bitterly, "the corporation that owns him will provide for him now."

So that is how I found myself wandering the station's promenade with a single case of clothes dragging behind me on wheels, practically oblivious to my surroundings and with no where to go. My legs got tired after an hour and I found a bench to plop myself down on. I felt numb. I just didn't know what to do.

"Hi there."

I looked up numbly and saw a man in a naval uniform smiling at me. It wasn't full dress uniform like you saw at formal occasions, but it was perfectly creased and clean. I wondered what he was doing here. "Hi," I mumbled.

"You look like a man whose lost his way."

I was about to snap back an angry reply but suddenly realized I had walked far from the main promenade and was in an offshoot where a lot of small companies had offices where people worked. Behind the military man I saw a State Navy recruiting office that was brightly lit and empty.

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess you can say that."

He sat down beside me and took on a fatherly tone of voice that I had heard in holos but never heard from my own father.

"When you're lost, you can either go back the way you came even if it means crawling through shit you can't stand and giving up stuff along the way, or you can stay where you are and hope someone finds you. Or you can go forward and not look back."

I looked at him. He was in his mid forties, grey at the temples and face lined but content. I knew he was trying to see if he could recruit me, but I appreciated his laid back approach. I was alone and any friendly face was a welcome site.

"You look like hell son."

I gave a rueful smile and tried to keep from breaking down. "I've been through hell." He nodded and pulled out a card from one of his pockets. "Here, take this. Its the address of a hostel on the surface. Tell them Randal sent you, they can set up up for a while until you figure out what you are going to do." I took it.

"Now I have to do my job," he said in a joking voice. I was cheered by his kindness and responded, "go ahead."

"State Navy is looking for strong young men. We pay a decent wage, giving you training in advanced technologies, and.... "he looked at me conspiratorially, all part of the act I assumed, "there is a new program for volunteers looking to become a capsuleer."

I perked immediately up at that last part, thinking to Barak Vorn and the other pod pilots I had heard of, immortal and respected the cluster over. "I'm listening."

He saw he had a foot in the door. "A regular tour is five years of service. One year training, four years on duty. You can apply to the capsuleer program after the year's training and then its another year of training and evaluation if you get accepted." Extra emphasis on the 'if' I noticed. "Then you spend six years serving the navy as one of its pod pilots, then you're free to go."

I thought for a minute, and being a good recruiter, he knew when to shut up and let me convince myself. The pay was better than living in a state welfare complex in some backwater moon, and the prospect of becoming a capsuleer was too enticing to pass up.

"I want to know more."

He affected surprise. "Don't want more time to think about it, consider options?"

"That's not necessary. There is nothing else I can do."

I'll Be Back...

On Monday we're off to the hospital to get the newest member of the Carebear Brigade going, so I'll be AFK for the next couple of weeks. I may still be seen in game from time to time as life permits, probably moving excess assets to Amarr and liquidating them. If you're looking for a rigged Domi, Megathron, Armageddon,  Abaddon, or Nightmare at a fair price drop me a line.

Tonight I'll be writing the last entry of my current Fiction Friday arc. Hope you enjoyed it, I might start it up again in the summer when things quiet down at home.

Call Me Lord William

More information about Tyrannis' planetary interaction can be found from this Ten Ton Hammer interview with a senior producer from CCP. Some points of interest...

So the general idea is that everybody can play EVE, every player can do stuff on any planet, and the more people that use a particular planet, the less valuable it is for that particular player. And of course there are over 65,000 planets in the game. And you can interact with each and every one of them. Including those that are in wormhole space, which can actually be quite challenging.

 Emphasis mine.
And:

TTH: Right, right. Will there be a new set of skills that players will need to master?
Torfi: Yes. Absolutely. Your ability to master a planet, to manufacture, build up, and manage it, will be bound by skills. But again, the barrier of entry is really low. We want people to get in on and get a feel for this feature early. And also, I should mention that the planetary interaction should not be thought about as a feature to replace any action that is already going on in EVE, today. It's more augmenting and re-experiencing EVE. It doesn't require you to sit and grind. You go and you build up infrastructure, but then you set up some manufacturing cycles and infrastructure, and that interacts while you are playing the game. Then you can go back to it and make sure that everything is going well. Lube the machines, so to speak. And collect stuff from them to sell to someone else, or pick it up. But in general you can actually be playing and profiting from planetary interaction while doing all of the other interesting things that you can do in EVE.

More:

We're not saying that your installation in high-sec is going to get blown to smithereens the day DUST hits the market, but for low-sec and zero-sec, DUST 514 will definitely play a part of allowing you to mess up other peoples' infrastructure and have interesting gameplay connecting the planets and mercenaries down on the planets in a very meaningful way. A way that is yet to be revealed, of course.

Not done yet:

TTH: Will the planets have some manufacturing and research possibilities that are currently done on stations?
Torfi: They won't have the same, no. We are not going to be competing with the industry, research and manufacturing on the stations. And they're not going to be competing with mining. We are not replacing any of these game systems. They will be a separate ecosystem, so to speak.

And finally:

TTH: Any timeline on this? I know you said it was a summer expansion.
Torfi: The goal is to have it out on the test server in little more than a week. It's going to be very embryonic. It's funny, because it's a recurring debate: we choose to put our stuff out really early, onto a test server, even if the UI isn't finished, the core experience isn't finished, and the pipeline isn't finished. Both to get player feedback, and also just to get people hammering on it to see what it can take. Some of us would prefer not to release anything until launch day, but we feel that it's better to get as many eyes on the feature as possible, and as many fingers clicking the buttons as possible, as soon as possible. But often it's confused or mistaken for a beta or for the real thing. What they're watching is just active software development.

Very exciting! I can't wait to see it in details on the test server.

At What Point...

... does the insane network of political coalitions fall apart?

 This image, shamelessly borrowed from A Mule In Eve (link above) shows the "Southern Coalition" on the left, the Northern Coalition on the upper right, and tiny little Provi-Bloc on the lower right. At some point it all has to unravel... right?

RIGHT?

Simplify

I started trading again.

I took 850 million ISK, put my trade alt in a hub, and told him to make money or get shot in the face. Not really sure why, its not like I need the money as I have a ton of ships already. I think I figured with time being constrained for the foreseeable future, I wanted something easy I could do to still log in and be active in Eve.

As part of this summertime activity, I think I need to simplify my hanger. I'm going to move a whack of assets gathering dust to Amarr and sell them. Then take the ISK and invest it in more trading or whatever. After all, I don't really need several battleships doing the same thing (short range low sec brawler) and I think I'm good after the third sniper cruiser. Perhaps if I played more often and lost ships more frequently I would do well to have lots of spares, but right now all I'm doing it collecting ships that I have barely any experience with.

We'll see how much money I'm left with after selling off extra assets and playing the casual trading game. If I get half way to affording a Wyvern, I might decide to make the push and go for the ship. We'll see.

* * * * *



Let's take a moment and check in with the Carebear Brigade! Its been a while since I peek in on my high sec miners...

Why those lazy layabouts! Time to whip them back into shape!

Tactical Withdrawal

With the new member of the Carebear Brigade due on Monday my life has been shifting gears. The pregnant wife can't get around as much to take care of household chores or the boys, so I've been picking up slack there, and when the new baby arrives, I'll be pretty much AFK for two weeks if not more.

This would not be a problem if Providence wasn't burning on the edges.

I like to have a lot of ships in my hanger, a ship for every purpose and doubles of important ships like sniping battleships. I roughly tallied up the value of the ships in my hanger in Providence, and the list started like this:

Carrier
Dread
Widow
Tengu
2 x Megas
Rokh
2 x Domi
Armageddon
Abaddon
Tempest
Typhoon
Raven
...

And then I started into the Battlecruisers. All ships fitted out too (except the Raven that I got on sale). Needless to say the thought of coming back from leave and finding the outpost in enemy hands with several billions ISK worth of ships was not attractive. So I began a pull out of assets from Providence to low sec within one carrier jump away. On Sunday I finished and breathed a sigh of relief, my hordes of ships safer in low sec.

I think if I get some spare minutes here and there I might trim the fleet down to a more manageable level.

Anyways, the process of the multiple jumps (carrier can only carry two battleships at a time) took up all my reserves of fuel so I had to send Derranna out last night to pick up some more in case I do find some time and I jump back with a couple PvP ships to Providence for one more go.