The plan was "Tech 2 Missiles!" And for several days I dutifully trained Heavy Missiles V.
And then yesterday, with still many days left to go, I switched to Propulsion Jamming V.
Why?
Well, you see, I had some spare Moa blueprint copies that I threw in the lab to try and invent some Onyx BPCs. And I succeeded. And while checking out the blueprint I clicked on the info for the Onyx ship, a Heavy Interdictor Cruiser. And while reading the details I realized "THIS SHIP IS THE BOMB!"
High resists, damage bonus, lots of mids for shield tank, and can use a new module called Warp Disruption Generator which acts like an Interdictor Bubble or can be modified by a script to act like a regular warp disruptor except with infinit strength.
Well damn, sounds awesome. So I broke down and started training for them.
What can I say, I'm weak.
* * *
Note: irregular posting due to holidays.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Cerberus Versus Drake
Alasseo left a comment to yesterday's post agreeing that the Eagle is poorly situated in the game right now, and that "[t]he next thing to note is the Cerb sucks too[...] fly a Falcon, only t2 combat caldari cruiser worth bothering with."
As soon as I saw that, two thoughts popped into my head. I really should compare the Cerberus to its battlecruiser complement like I did for the Eagle and that I do have a Falcon and I love it already. ECM and warped cloaking FTW!
Ok, now onto Cerberus versus Drake.
Deep down, I know how this is going to shake out. You see, last year there was an expansion that released two new tech I ships for each race, a third battleship and a second battlecruiser. The new battleships fit in nicely into the faction's fleets complementing instead of replacing the other two battleships each faction had, such that each one had a cheap simple battleship, a moderately expensive damage dealing battleship, and a very expensive tanking battleship. Even today all three battleships of each race sees use in some situation or another.
But the new battlecruisers were a different story. For Caldari and Minmatar (and Amarr?), the new battlecruisers seemed to completely obsolete the old ones, and for Gallente the Myrmidon was obviously superior over the old Brutix in many ways but the old warhourse was still decent enough to see use.
But for the Ferox, the ten million ISK lower price tag did not make up for the drop in quality compared to the Drake. Or more accurately, the powerhouse Drake was more than worth the extra ten million ISK it cost to use it over the lackluster Ferox. The Drake does more damage, doesn't have a split weapon system, has one more slot in mids and highs, has a damage bonus instead of a range bonus, more shields but the same recharge time meaning it has a higher recharge rate, more capacitor even though its weapons don't need energy to fire... in essence the only thing the Ferox can do better is long range sniping support which is not a role usually required in 95% of a typical player's gaming.
Heck, the Drake (and Mrymidon) even got a slight shield recharge nerf in the middle of last year so that it didn't tank as well as some battleships!
So all of this is to say that I'd be surprised if the Cerberus can even come close to the Drake for damage and tanking. Time to run the numbers: to the EFT-mobile!
*runs EFT*
OK, assuming my Tech II missile skills are trained as per yesterday's post, and I train Battlecruisers another level to IV (been meaning to do that for a year now), here is what we have.
Cerberus: 5 x Tech II Heavy Launchers with Scourge Fury Missiles = 342 DPS, 1832 volley, 74 km range, and about 49.5K effective hit points.
Drake: 7 x Tech II Heavy Launchers with Scourge Fury Missiles = 368 DPS, 2462 volley, 35 km range, and about 65.6K effective hit points.
So we see the Rate of Fire (ROF) bonus of the Cerberus manages to keep it competetive in terms of DPS, it has twice the range, and over 2/3rds the tank. As well, being a cruiser gives it faster speed and agility so all in all I have to say its not as bad as I thought in comparison. Of course, the 80 million ISK price tag compared to 32 million for the Drake should be taken into consideration, as well as the fact that the Drake has room for 5 Tech II light drones whereas the Cerberus has none.
As soon as I saw that, two thoughts popped into my head. I really should compare the Cerberus to its battlecruiser complement like I did for the Eagle and that I do have a Falcon and I love it already. ECM and warped cloaking FTW!
Ok, now onto Cerberus versus Drake.
Deep down, I know how this is going to shake out. You see, last year there was an expansion that released two new tech I ships for each race, a third battleship and a second battlecruiser. The new battleships fit in nicely into the faction's fleets complementing instead of replacing the other two battleships each faction had, such that each one had a cheap simple battleship, a moderately expensive damage dealing battleship, and a very expensive tanking battleship. Even today all three battleships of each race sees use in some situation or another.
But the new battlecruisers were a different story. For Caldari and Minmatar (and Amarr?), the new battlecruisers seemed to completely obsolete the old ones, and for Gallente the Myrmidon was obviously superior over the old Brutix in many ways but the old warhourse was still decent enough to see use.
But for the Ferox, the ten million ISK lower price tag did not make up for the drop in quality compared to the Drake. Or more accurately, the powerhouse Drake was more than worth the extra ten million ISK it cost to use it over the lackluster Ferox. The Drake does more damage, doesn't have a split weapon system, has one more slot in mids and highs, has a damage bonus instead of a range bonus, more shields but the same recharge time meaning it has a higher recharge rate, more capacitor even though its weapons don't need energy to fire... in essence the only thing the Ferox can do better is long range sniping support which is not a role usually required in 95% of a typical player's gaming.
Heck, the Drake (and Mrymidon) even got a slight shield recharge nerf in the middle of last year so that it didn't tank as well as some battleships!
So all of this is to say that I'd be surprised if the Cerberus can even come close to the Drake for damage and tanking. Time to run the numbers: to the EFT-mobile!
*runs EFT*
OK, assuming my Tech II missile skills are trained as per yesterday's post, and I train Battlecruisers another level to IV (been meaning to do that for a year now), here is what we have.
Cerberus: 5 x Tech II Heavy Launchers with Scourge Fury Missiles = 342 DPS, 1832 volley, 74 km range, and about 49.5K effective hit points.
Drake: 7 x Tech II Heavy Launchers with Scourge Fury Missiles = 368 DPS, 2462 volley, 35 km range, and about 65.6K effective hit points.
So we see the Rate of Fire (ROF) bonus of the Cerberus manages to keep it competetive in terms of DPS, it has twice the range, and over 2/3rds the tank. As well, being a cruiser gives it faster speed and agility so all in all I have to say its not as bad as I thought in comparison. Of course, the 80 million ISK price tag compared to 32 million for the Drake should be taken into consideration, as well as the fact that the Drake has room for 5 Tech II light drones whereas the Cerberus has none.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Caldari Heavy Assault Ships
As I mentioned, with my recent windfall I bought the Heavy Assault Cruiser (HAC) skillbook and I plan to buy one of the ships. The question is, which one?
They are two vastly different ships available in the Caldari line.
Eagle
The Eagle is based off the Moa hull and is similarly designed for rails with four turret hardpoints and bonuses to optimal range and shield resistances, as well as further bonus to optimal range again and damage. That means in a sniper configuration of 4 x 250mm Tech II medium rails with Spike Ammo, 3 x Magnetic Field Stabilizer IIs, and 2 x Tracking Computer IIs (optimal range script) the Eagle can reach out to 177 km with a 14 km falloff, ranking it with fleet battleships for range.
Unfortunately, the DPS is not impressive at 131 and a volley of 484 won't scare off anything but the smallest frigates and perhaps destroyers. Quite simply its a fleet support setup, and a Ferox in sniper fitting can do the same DPS at 110 km for a quarter of the price.
However, the Eagle can be equipped with blasters which benefit from the ship bonuses as well. With 4 x Heavy Neutron IIs with Void ammo, 3 x Magnetic Field Stabilizer IIs, and a shield tank that has all resistances at 80%+, it can throw out 355 DPS at 7.1 km (and 3 km falloff) or 279 DPS with Spike ammo at 12 km optimal and 7 km falloff. Sadly, again a battlecruiser seems to do the job better with a Brutix with 7 x Heavy Neutron IIs outdamaging the Eagle even without Magnetic Field Stabs in the lows albeit at half the range, but when dealing with anything under 15km the range is not often the selling point.
To summarized, the Eagle has equal or slightly better performance than battlecruisers that are a quarter of the cost. While it has some attractive qualities (better range, high resistances) is it worth the price tag?
Cerberus
The counterpart to the hybrid based Moa is the missile based Caracal, and congruently the Caracal hull is the basis of the missile spewing Cerberus.
With my pitiful missile skills using best named heavy launchers and T1 non-faction missiles, I can get 259 DPS (1500 volley) and still have a tank twice as good as the blaster Eagle. Holy crap. Well, you say, the Eagle is more of a range vessel than the Cerberus. Oh yeah, I counter? The above setup for the Cerberus is throwing those heavy missiles out to 133 km!
I started writing this post on the fence but actually running the numbers for it has convinced me that the Cerberus is the only real answer, especially as I am currently on a Tech II missile training regime now that Recons (and soon HACs) are finished.
So let's extrapolate: assume my support skills for missiles are trained up and I now have access to Tech II heavy missile launchers and ammo, a training time of about 30 days from today. It means that fitting 5 x Heavy Missile Launcher IIs with:
Tech I Scourge Missiles = 294 DPS, 1570 volley, 154 km
Tech II Scourge Fury Missiles (aka high damage) = 342 DPS, 1832 volley, 74 km
Tech II Scourge Precision Missiles (aka frig killers) = 264 DPS, 1413 volley, 70 km
In other words, I can almost match the DPS of the blaster Eagle at ten times the range and twice the tank. At a range of 150 km the Cerberus out damages the sniper eagle by a three to one margin and has ten times the tank. In addition, facing some nasty enemy resistances to one damage type the Cerberus can change missiles to find their weakness, the Eagle cannot.
Cerberus it is!
They are two vastly different ships available in the Caldari line.
Eagle
The Eagle is based off the Moa hull and is similarly designed for rails with four turret hardpoints and bonuses to optimal range and shield resistances, as well as further bonus to optimal range again and damage. That means in a sniper configuration of 4 x 250mm Tech II medium rails with Spike Ammo, 3 x Magnetic Field Stabilizer IIs, and 2 x Tracking Computer IIs (optimal range script) the Eagle can reach out to 177 km with a 14 km falloff, ranking it with fleet battleships for range.
Unfortunately, the DPS is not impressive at 131 and a volley of 484 won't scare off anything but the smallest frigates and perhaps destroyers. Quite simply its a fleet support setup, and a Ferox in sniper fitting can do the same DPS at 110 km for a quarter of the price.
However, the Eagle can be equipped with blasters which benefit from the ship bonuses as well. With 4 x Heavy Neutron IIs with Void ammo, 3 x Magnetic Field Stabilizer IIs, and a shield tank that has all resistances at 80%+, it can throw out 355 DPS at 7.1 km (and 3 km falloff) or 279 DPS with Spike ammo at 12 km optimal and 7 km falloff. Sadly, again a battlecruiser seems to do the job better with a Brutix with 7 x Heavy Neutron IIs outdamaging the Eagle even without Magnetic Field Stabs in the lows albeit at half the range, but when dealing with anything under 15km the range is not often the selling point.
To summarized, the Eagle has equal or slightly better performance than battlecruisers that are a quarter of the cost. While it has some attractive qualities (better range, high resistances) is it worth the price tag?
Cerberus
The counterpart to the hybrid based Moa is the missile based Caracal, and congruently the Caracal hull is the basis of the missile spewing Cerberus.
With my pitiful missile skills using best named heavy launchers and T1 non-faction missiles, I can get 259 DPS (1500 volley) and still have a tank twice as good as the blaster Eagle. Holy crap. Well, you say, the Eagle is more of a range vessel than the Cerberus. Oh yeah, I counter? The above setup for the Cerberus is throwing those heavy missiles out to 133 km!
I started writing this post on the fence but actually running the numbers for it has convinced me that the Cerberus is the only real answer, especially as I am currently on a Tech II missile training regime now that Recons (and soon HACs) are finished.
So let's extrapolate: assume my support skills for missiles are trained up and I now have access to Tech II heavy missile launchers and ammo, a training time of about 30 days from today. It means that fitting 5 x Heavy Missile Launcher IIs with:
Tech I Scourge Missiles = 294 DPS, 1570 volley, 154 km
Tech II Scourge Fury Missiles (aka high damage) = 342 DPS, 1832 volley, 74 km
Tech II Scourge Precision Missiles (aka frig killers) = 264 DPS, 1413 volley, 70 km
In other words, I can almost match the DPS of the blaster Eagle at ten times the range and twice the tank. At a range of 150 km the Cerberus out damages the sniper eagle by a three to one margin and has ten times the tank. In addition, facing some nasty enemy resistances to one damage type the Cerberus can change missiles to find their weakness, the Eagle cannot.
Cerberus it is!
Eve Update
So, what has been going on? Well, and update.
I got Optivus in the locations I needed for him to be my cyno alt and successfully moved the carrier up to Wicked Creek on Monday. That allowed Kirith to really get into ratting with the Rokh I brought up.
I also ran into a little windfall of ISK from investments I had made (100 million ISK to be exact) so I decided to splurge and buy that Heavy Assault Cruiser skillbook I avoided earlier since finishing Recon IV and I'm going to also buy one of the HACs. The next post will be comparing them to see which one I want.
In Razor Tech the Widow was successfully built and put on market, but demand has not been hoping. I'm going to let it sit for a week or so before trying an Auction contract. In any case, I won't be building more until the player skill base catches up and increases demands. Sigh, my dreams of huge profits appear to be dashed. Now its an effort to recover investment and a modest profit. In the meantime, regular production of ship and module invention has resumed and should make some more money over the coming weeks to wash down the disappointment.
I got Optivus in the locations I needed for him to be my cyno alt and successfully moved the carrier up to Wicked Creek on Monday. That allowed Kirith to really get into ratting with the Rokh I brought up.
I also ran into a little windfall of ISK from investments I had made (100 million ISK to be exact) so I decided to splurge and buy that Heavy Assault Cruiser skillbook I avoided earlier since finishing Recon IV and I'm going to also buy one of the HACs. The next post will be comparing them to see which one I want.
In Razor Tech the Widow was successfully built and put on market, but demand has not been hoping. I'm going to let it sit for a week or so before trying an Auction contract. In any case, I won't be building more until the player skill base catches up and increases demands. Sigh, my dreams of huge profits appear to be dashed. Now its an effort to recover investment and a modest profit. In the meantime, regular production of ship and module invention has resumed and should make some more money over the coming weeks to wash down the disappointment.
Spotty Blogging
The lack of updates has been due to me recovering from surgery last week. While I've been playing lots of Eve in my recovery time, blogging is not as easy to get motivated for with a medicated head. So expect posts today and tomorrow, but then lackluster updates until the new year as holidays sets in and quiet time is lost.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Optivus' New Purpose
I finally figured out what to do with Optivus.
I didn't want to run a third account, so I was going to transfer him to my main account that had room. I considered making him a cyno alt to replace over-used Derranna, but if he was on the main account he couldn't do it. Can only have one character per account logged in.
So I struck upon an idea: I moved Sun Tomah, the least used of my second account characters, to the main allowing Optivus a home with Derranna and Korannon on the second account. This puts him in position to be my cyno alt for Barak and eventually Kirith.
Setting him up has been a challenge, mainly getting into 0.0 safely with the cyno ship. I failed once because of a gate camp with a bubble where everyone was blue to me (Optivus joined m3 to get rights to Wicked Creek) except one Taranis that was neutral and killed me just as I got out of the bubble. Sucks. I did get my pod to station though, bought a new ship in 0.0 and set up in a nice out of the way system with a station and range to low sec and Wicked Creek. Now I'm working on getting a second clone safely to Wicked Creek.
Side Note: Widow is in the factory, due out late Sunday night! Woot!
I didn't want to run a third account, so I was going to transfer him to my main account that had room. I considered making him a cyno alt to replace over-used Derranna, but if he was on the main account he couldn't do it. Can only have one character per account logged in.
So I struck upon an idea: I moved Sun Tomah, the least used of my second account characters, to the main allowing Optivus a home with Derranna and Korannon on the second account. This puts him in position to be my cyno alt for Barak and eventually Kirith.
Setting him up has been a challenge, mainly getting into 0.0 safely with the cyno ship. I failed once because of a gate camp with a bubble where everyone was blue to me (Optivus joined m3 to get rights to Wicked Creek) except one Taranis that was neutral and killed me just as I got out of the bubble. Sucks. I did get my pod to station though, bought a new ship in 0.0 and set up in a nice out of the way system with a station and range to low sec and Wicked Creek. Now I'm working on getting a second clone safely to Wicked Creek.
Side Note: Widow is in the factory, due out late Sunday night! Woot!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
GTFOOJ!
Inevitably once or twice a week someone will post on the Eve Online forums something along the lines of "I can't log in, all I get is a black screen" followed by the question from users in the know: "Are you in Jita?" If they answer yes, the answer is simple: "GTFOOJ".
Five thousand system in Eve, lots of space for 30-40 thousand online players, right? But in any commercial arena sellers and buys congregate in market hubs to simplify the act of finding the best deal for both sides. Every region has a hub system, sometimes more. But Jita is the uber-hub, the system where the most buyers and sellers congregate. During peak times it can reach over 600 players in that one system, even in off hours it rarely drops below 200.
The problem is that Eve is not designed for 500+ players in one system all the time doing hundreds of transactions that spam the database. Fleet battles of hundreds of players stress a system temporarily but only for hours. Jita is busy 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its the system that never sleeps.
And sometimes it can't handle the load and players get stuck. Can't log in, can't undock, can't do anything. A quick petition and a GM moves you from the system to a neighbouring one. Pity the fool who has assets in there that he needs and can't get to. Of course they go to the forums and whine prompting more experienced or smart players to respond "Get the FUCK out of JITA!" After all, Jita doesn't lag because the server is insufficient, Jita lags because players keep going there until they can't go there anymore. (Shamelessly stolen from Crumplecorn's sig)
The point of this post? Guess who had to go to Jita?
I needed some parts for the Widow build (as I chronicled earlier) and the only place I could find these parts, Capital Jump Drives, for a reasonable price was in Jita (8.5 million compared to 100 million in Rens... stupid price gouging opportunists). Even worse, I bought nine of them and they are each 10,000 m3 in volume requiring the use of the Freighter of Doom! Freighters, as you might have heard me rant before, are slow to turn, slow while warping, and generally a pain in the ass. And in the traffic jams near Jita's stations and gates, a freighter can become dead weight. And that is ignoring the possibility of black screen of frozen doom.
So I planned my operation carefully. I took the freighter to Perimeter system adjacent to Jita earlier in the week and left it there. Then this morning, 10 minutes before downtime, I jumped in the frieghter and sped to the Jita gate, jumped through, warped to station, spammed the dock button, docked, loaded the parts, undocked, hit the warp to Perimeter gate button, watched for like forever as the freighter turned to align (stupid Jita 4-4 station facing opposite from all gates!), celebrated with a naked dance when it hit warp, agonized as it warped sooooo slowly to the gate (stupid 0.7 AU/sec warp speed), and jumped into Perimeter with 3 seconds to spare before the server went offline for downtime.
Whew, made it! Now tonight I can set up a leisurely route to the corporate office and prepare for building the Widow on Friday.
Five thousand system in Eve, lots of space for 30-40 thousand online players, right? But in any commercial arena sellers and buys congregate in market hubs to simplify the act of finding the best deal for both sides. Every region has a hub system, sometimes more. But Jita is the uber-hub, the system where the most buyers and sellers congregate. During peak times it can reach over 600 players in that one system, even in off hours it rarely drops below 200.
The problem is that Eve is not designed for 500+ players in one system all the time doing hundreds of transactions that spam the database. Fleet battles of hundreds of players stress a system temporarily but only for hours. Jita is busy 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its the system that never sleeps.
And sometimes it can't handle the load and players get stuck. Can't log in, can't undock, can't do anything. A quick petition and a GM moves you from the system to a neighbouring one. Pity the fool who has assets in there that he needs and can't get to. Of course they go to the forums and whine prompting more experienced or smart players to respond "Get the FUCK out of JITA!" After all, Jita doesn't lag because the server is insufficient, Jita lags because players keep going there until they can't go there anymore. (Shamelessly stolen from Crumplecorn's sig)
The point of this post? Guess who had to go to Jita?
I needed some parts for the Widow build (as I chronicled earlier) and the only place I could find these parts, Capital Jump Drives, for a reasonable price was in Jita (8.5 million compared to 100 million in Rens... stupid price gouging opportunists). Even worse, I bought nine of them and they are each 10,000 m3 in volume requiring the use of the Freighter of Doom! Freighters, as you might have heard me rant before, are slow to turn, slow while warping, and generally a pain in the ass. And in the traffic jams near Jita's stations and gates, a freighter can become dead weight. And that is ignoring the possibility of black screen of frozen doom.
So I planned my operation carefully. I took the freighter to Perimeter system adjacent to Jita earlier in the week and left it there. Then this morning, 10 minutes before downtime, I jumped in the frieghter and sped to the Jita gate, jumped through, warped to station, spammed the dock button, docked, loaded the parts, undocked, hit the warp to Perimeter gate button, watched for like forever as the freighter turned to align (stupid Jita 4-4 station facing opposite from all gates!), celebrated with a naked dance when it hit warp, agonized as it warped sooooo slowly to the gate (stupid 0.7 AU/sec warp speed), and jumped into Perimeter with 3 seconds to spare before the server went offline for downtime.
Whew, made it! Now tonight I can set up a leisurely route to the corporate office and prepare for building the Widow on Friday.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Promotion
With m3's move into 0.0 space, I made my carrier available to the corp for a certain number of trips per month. Fortunately, the alliance we joined has carriers setup already so I wasn't called upon right away for any hauling.
In planning my efforts in this regard, I inquired with the directors about who in the corp was overseer of logistics. The answer to my surprise was "you". After a couple of posts setting up the logistics arm of m3, I was officially named Logistics Officer.
Its amazing how my pride I feel in this promotion in a pretend internet spaceship corporation.
My first order of business is quantifying the corp's hauling capabilities outside of myself and determining what needs to be done.
In Other News...
I bought some desperately needed new RAM for my PC so now I can run the new graphics without issue, and even can run two clients for carrier jumping with only minor difficulties switching, nothing I wasn't experiencing before.
In planning my efforts in this regard, I inquired with the directors about who in the corp was overseer of logistics. The answer to my surprise was "you". After a couple of posts setting up the logistics arm of m3, I was officially named Logistics Officer.
Its amazing how my pride I feel in this promotion in a pretend internet spaceship corporation.
My first order of business is quantifying the corp's hauling capabilities outside of myself and determining what needs to be done.
In Other News...
I bought some desperately needed new RAM for my PC so now I can run the new graphics without issue, and even can run two clients for carrier jumping with only minor difficulties switching, nothing I wasn't experiencing before.
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Best Laid Plans...
Back in the summer when I heard about the new ship classes coming and being available through invention only, I decided to try and cash in on the early rush once the expansion was released.
I did the research into what ship class I would go for (Caldari Black Ops Battleship, aka "Widow"), what skills would be needed to construct it (Cruiser Construction IV, Battleship Construction IV), what would be needed to invent it (32 Mechanical Engineering and Caldari Starship Engineering datacores, Scorpion BPCs), and what parts would be needed to build it. A lot of this information came from the test server.
I then proceeded to stockpile datacores, decryptors, minerals, and ship components for the anticipation of the expansion and at least one success at invention.
You see, the calculation was that the odds of a battleship invention attempt succeeding was about 20% with my skills. Adding a decryptor increased the odds by an uncertain amount as well as the number of runs on the T2 BPC, but the decryptor cost about 22 million isk and the datacores cost about 80 million isk. Per attempt. So I planned for 5 tries which I figured had decent chances of at least one success, somewhere between 67% and 83%. That cost about 500 million isk to set up. Quite a gamble.
By the time the expansion was due I was ready. I had enough materials to build one Widow right away and it would fund the purchase of more materials for the next Widow. Since each ships cost about 200 million in parts to build I wasn't rich enough to stockpile more than that.
Well the expansion came and I threw my 5 invention jobs in the oven and a day or so later I took them out to great news: 2 successful inventions creating a 5 run BPC each. I was still a week from having the skills to build so I moved them leisurely to the factory station. I quickly verified the skills and saw everything was in place. I checked the parts and noticed that they added something: capital jump drives.
Scowling I checked the market and saw NOTHING. I ended up having to go to Jita to buy some and worse, could only carry two at a time because they were huge, 10k m3 each! As I carried a couple back from market I checked the blueprint again and that is when the worst news hit.
They had increased the requirements from the test server to deployment such that a lot of materials had doubled in number. And since I figured I was set for parts last week I had spent money on skill books and investment payouts so the corporate wallet was drained by the purchase of the capital jump drives. And I needed about 100 million ISK more of materials. Panic set in.
Fortunately, I was able to make a small loan from a friend, purchase the moon materials, and get them into the factories to make the required ship components. I'll be a day late on building the Widow but it will happen. Hopefully initial price gouging for the new ships won't deflate too quickly.
I did the research into what ship class I would go for (Caldari Black Ops Battleship, aka "Widow"), what skills would be needed to construct it (Cruiser Construction IV, Battleship Construction IV), what would be needed to invent it (32 Mechanical Engineering and Caldari Starship Engineering datacores, Scorpion BPCs), and what parts would be needed to build it. A lot of this information came from the test server.
I then proceeded to stockpile datacores, decryptors, minerals, and ship components for the anticipation of the expansion and at least one success at invention.
You see, the calculation was that the odds of a battleship invention attempt succeeding was about 20% with my skills. Adding a decryptor increased the odds by an uncertain amount as well as the number of runs on the T2 BPC, but the decryptor cost about 22 million isk and the datacores cost about 80 million isk. Per attempt. So I planned for 5 tries which I figured had decent chances of at least one success, somewhere between 67% and 83%. That cost about 500 million isk to set up. Quite a gamble.
By the time the expansion was due I was ready. I had enough materials to build one Widow right away and it would fund the purchase of more materials for the next Widow. Since each ships cost about 200 million in parts to build I wasn't rich enough to stockpile more than that.
Well the expansion came and I threw my 5 invention jobs in the oven and a day or so later I took them out to great news: 2 successful inventions creating a 5 run BPC each. I was still a week from having the skills to build so I moved them leisurely to the factory station. I quickly verified the skills and saw everything was in place. I checked the parts and noticed that they added something: capital jump drives.
Scowling I checked the market and saw NOTHING. I ended up having to go to Jita to buy some and worse, could only carry two at a time because they were huge, 10k m3 each! As I carried a couple back from market I checked the blueprint again and that is when the worst news hit.
They had increased the requirements from the test server to deployment such that a lot of materials had doubled in number. And since I figured I was set for parts last week I had spent money on skill books and investment payouts so the corporate wallet was drained by the purchase of the capital jump drives. And I needed about 100 million ISK more of materials. Panic set in.
Fortunately, I was able to make a small loan from a friend, purchase the moon materials, and get them into the factories to make the required ship components. I'll be a day late on building the Widow but it will happen. Hopefully initial price gouging for the new ships won't deflate too quickly.
Friday, December 07, 2007
The March Towards Warmaster Continues
Last night I had a challenge game against Marc (Mark?) aka Tyranous_Dominus or TD for short. We agreed upon 1000 pts so I was feeling very crazy and wanted to be nasty. Here is the army I picked:
Terminator lord
Daemon Prince
Dreadnought
2 x 6 marines
Defiler
3 Obliterators
TD's army:
Sorcerer
2 x 11 Noise Marines with sonic blasters
Obliterator
Defiler
We rolled up a Choose Your Mission result which TD won and promptly picked Cleanse, gamma level.
My strategy was simple: advance the four assault monsters en masse and try to overwhelm his defenses before getting shot or counter-charged to death. I decided to go for a two-pronged attack with the chaos lord and daemon prince moving up the right flank while the Defiler and Dreadnought advanced up the left. The obliterators waited for deep striking in the warp and the two marine squads were merely objective holders.
TD deployed each of his large Noise Marine squads facing off my attacks, with defiler, obliterator, and sorcerer behind them in reserve.
On turn two the crux of the matter came to a head and TD made the fatal mistake: he wisely withdrew the Noise Marines on the right away from the advancing lords, but stood his ground in the face of the advancing war machines on the left. I got lucky and the dreadnought rolled a blood rage and fleeted decently towards that squad so that on the bottom of turn 2 the defiler and dreadnought hit the Noise Marine squad together.
The carnage in that single hand to hand spiraled upwards to take over the game for all intents and purposes. Neither the dreadnought nor defiler would flee, and the Noise Marines were similarly fearless but lacked weapons to hurt the walkers. TD sent in the sorcerer with meltabombs and his defiler and obliterator to even the odds. As the defiler rushed in the dreadnought calmly spun around and smashed it to pieces with one blow. The sorcerer and obliterator missed. Next round luck was with me again: he only managed a stun on the dreadnought (on the penetrating table no less!) and a stun on the defiler which was quickly ignored.
Now my chaos lord was in range and charged the sorcerer. The sorcerer's force weapon (DAMN! Forgot about that!) flared and he got two hits but failed to wound both times. In return the lightning claws ripped him open twice, and the dreadnought finished him off. The obliterator was dealt with by a quick backhanded swipe from the defiler and TD knew the game was lost.
When my 3 obliterators showed up I deep struck them deep to distract the other noise marine squad. They sacrificed their lives but bought me enough time to deal with the main battle and then overwhelm them in the last two turns. They did take down the chaos lord before the end though. Small victories must be found where they can.
Conclusion: massacre for the Black Storm!
Analysis: I think TD made only one poor choice: to stand and let the defiler and dreadnought assault him. Had he backed off and used a couple more rounds of shooting, perhaps one or both of the war machines would have gone down and given him a much needed respite.
As it was, he still might have been able to salvage the game had either the sorcerer or obliterator killed their respective enemies, but luck was not with him and they failed in their mission.
I think TD's army is well constructed, but power fists on those squad leaders (or even meltabombs!) could have made a world of difference.
Good game!
Terminator lord
Daemon Prince
Dreadnought
2 x 6 marines
Defiler
3 Obliterators
TD's army:
Sorcerer
2 x 11 Noise Marines with sonic blasters
Obliterator
Defiler
We rolled up a Choose Your Mission result which TD won and promptly picked Cleanse, gamma level.
My strategy was simple: advance the four assault monsters en masse and try to overwhelm his defenses before getting shot or counter-charged to death. I decided to go for a two-pronged attack with the chaos lord and daemon prince moving up the right flank while the Defiler and Dreadnought advanced up the left. The obliterators waited for deep striking in the warp and the two marine squads were merely objective holders.
TD deployed each of his large Noise Marine squads facing off my attacks, with defiler, obliterator, and sorcerer behind them in reserve.
On turn two the crux of the matter came to a head and TD made the fatal mistake: he wisely withdrew the Noise Marines on the right away from the advancing lords, but stood his ground in the face of the advancing war machines on the left. I got lucky and the dreadnought rolled a blood rage and fleeted decently towards that squad so that on the bottom of turn 2 the defiler and dreadnought hit the Noise Marine squad together.
The carnage in that single hand to hand spiraled upwards to take over the game for all intents and purposes. Neither the dreadnought nor defiler would flee, and the Noise Marines were similarly fearless but lacked weapons to hurt the walkers. TD sent in the sorcerer with meltabombs and his defiler and obliterator to even the odds. As the defiler rushed in the dreadnought calmly spun around and smashed it to pieces with one blow. The sorcerer and obliterator missed. Next round luck was with me again: he only managed a stun on the dreadnought (on the penetrating table no less!) and a stun on the defiler which was quickly ignored.
Now my chaos lord was in range and charged the sorcerer. The sorcerer's force weapon (DAMN! Forgot about that!) flared and he got two hits but failed to wound both times. In return the lightning claws ripped him open twice, and the dreadnought finished him off. The obliterator was dealt with by a quick backhanded swipe from the defiler and TD knew the game was lost.
When my 3 obliterators showed up I deep struck them deep to distract the other noise marine squad. They sacrificed their lives but bought me enough time to deal with the main battle and then overwhelm them in the last two turns. They did take down the chaos lord before the end though. Small victories must be found where they can.
Conclusion: massacre for the Black Storm!
Analysis: I think TD made only one poor choice: to stand and let the defiler and dreadnought assault him. Had he backed off and used a couple more rounds of shooting, perhaps one or both of the war machines would have gone down and given him a much needed respite.
As it was, he still might have been able to salvage the game had either the sorcerer or obliterator killed their respective enemies, but luck was not with him and they failed in their mission.
I think TD's army is well constructed, but power fists on those squad leaders (or even meltabombs!) could have made a world of difference.
Good game!
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Freeze Frame!
Last night the massive Eve upgrade called Trinity was complete and I quickly downloaded and installed the patch. With the game running I threw in the Scorpion BPCs for my invention jobs and began downloading the "premium content".
You see, the code upgrade uses the old engine, but if you're graphics card can handle it, you can download the new graphics engine with all new ship skins and graphic fancies. My new Dell was in the good list so I installed the premium content and ran Eve and oooohhhhh'd and aaaahhhh'd at the great looking graphics.
One problem however: while sitting in station my client would just freeze. Solid. I could alt-tab out to windows and get back in but it would happen again. I tried lowering graphic options, windowed and fullscreen, etc but no luck. It would still freeze on me.
Despondent I switched back to the "classic" graphics as I ran out of time trying stuff last night.
Tonight I plan to try some new video drivers and a couple other graphical options that might help out. If not, I'll be forced to stick with classic for a while.
You see, the code upgrade uses the old engine, but if you're graphics card can handle it, you can download the new graphics engine with all new ship skins and graphic fancies. My new Dell was in the good list so I installed the premium content and ran Eve and oooohhhhh'd and aaaahhhh'd at the great looking graphics.
One problem however: while sitting in station my client would just freeze. Solid. I could alt-tab out to windows and get back in but it would happen again. I tried lowering graphic options, windowed and fullscreen, etc but no luck. It would still freeze on me.
Despondent I switched back to the "classic" graphics as I ran out of time trying stuff last night.
Tonight I plan to try some new video drivers and a couple other graphical options that might help out. If not, I'll be forced to stick with classic for a while.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Anxiety
I've talked about how there is high sec, low sec, and 0.0 space in Eve right? You would think that low sec would be halfway between high sec and 0.0 space in terms of safety right? Reality is that low sec is only a fraction safer than 0.0 space, and often it can be far less safe!
You see, low sec differs from 0.0 in three points:
1) There are NPC stations almost everywhere.
2) The gates and stations are protected by sentry guns that will fire upon anyone that does an aggressive action towards another player; however, battlecruisers and battleships are barely scratched by the guns.
3) The belt rats suck and asteroids are only marginally better than high sec.
The result of these things is that there is no overwhelming reason for a corporation to try and hold a low sec area compared to a 0.0 area. In 0.0 there are far fewer stations so fewer places for enemies and pirates to hide, the belts rats and asteroids are superior quality, and the low sec sentry guns don't scare off any serious threat anyways. With no corporations patrolling and protecting low sec space and NPC police providing essentially no real protection and low sec being the zone you have to cross to get from high sec to 0.0 and back, it all makes low sec space a haven for pirates, roaming gank squads, and gate camps.
Ok, I have set the scene.
For safe money I run level four missions in a high sec area, that way the only threat are the NPCs I'm fighting. No one can scan me down and attack me without CONCORD police showing up in seconds and killing their ass. They can steal from or salvage my wrecks but my expensive battleship is safe unless I am stupid.
Then I got offered a mission that took place three jumps away... in low sec. Normally when this rare occurrence occurs I turn down the mission and take the next one. But damn, its a storyline mission. You see, when you complete 15 missions successfully for a faction you get offered a special unique mission called a storyline mission. Not only do they have regular ISK rewards that all missions have, they sometimes have special rewards and they have huge impact on faction standings the regular missions do not have. To put it simply, the rewards of the offered mission were sufficiently high enough for me to work at getting past the risks of running a mission in low sec space.
And that is where the anxiety comes in.
First off, I had to get my expensive battleship into the low sec system. Fortunately it was only one jump from high sec space; unfortunately, the gate camps tend to show up on high sec to low sec jump gates. So I made use of an alternate character (alt) with a cheap ship to scout the gate for me on the low sec side and make sure it was clear for my ship, the Insisto Oblivium II.
Once in the mission I still have to watch out for pirates that are resourceful enough to have a ship with scan probes. Although most missions are run in what is called "Deadspace" which has a property of making things in it 99% harder to scan down, its not impossible to do. Heck, I've done it myself many times, especially since any drones you use also have a chance to be picked up by the scan probes.
So not only am I fighting a hard mission against rats swarming me, I'm also paranoid that pirates are going to warp in on my any minute and attack me which would be certain death. Mission running ships are notoriously poor at PvP. To make matters even more scary, one time I had to warp out after I aggro'd 4 battleships and 6 battlecruisers and my shields weren't holding, I accidentally warped to a belt instead of a station only to find a neutral pilot in a rifter there. As I frantically turned around to warp to the station, I prayed he wasn't interested in scrambling my ass and calling for help as I wasn't sure my drones would kill him fast enough. Fortunately, he ignored me and I was off.
Eventually I completed the mission and received my standing increase and reward which was a Siege Warfare Mindlink implant worth around 10 million ISK on market, but even more to me as I plan to use it someday in my kickass Vulture command ship I'm planning.
Now to get back to figuring out how to get to 0.0 space with a decent ratting ship!
You see, low sec differs from 0.0 in three points:
1) There are NPC stations almost everywhere.
2) The gates and stations are protected by sentry guns that will fire upon anyone that does an aggressive action towards another player; however, battlecruisers and battleships are barely scratched by the guns.
3) The belt rats suck and asteroids are only marginally better than high sec.
The result of these things is that there is no overwhelming reason for a corporation to try and hold a low sec area compared to a 0.0 area. In 0.0 there are far fewer stations so fewer places for enemies and pirates to hide, the belts rats and asteroids are superior quality, and the low sec sentry guns don't scare off any serious threat anyways. With no corporations patrolling and protecting low sec space and NPC police providing essentially no real protection and low sec being the zone you have to cross to get from high sec to 0.0 and back, it all makes low sec space a haven for pirates, roaming gank squads, and gate camps.
Ok, I have set the scene.
For safe money I run level four missions in a high sec area, that way the only threat are the NPCs I'm fighting. No one can scan me down and attack me without CONCORD police showing up in seconds and killing their ass. They can steal from or salvage my wrecks but my expensive battleship is safe unless I am stupid.
Then I got offered a mission that took place three jumps away... in low sec. Normally when this rare occurrence occurs I turn down the mission and take the next one. But damn, its a storyline mission. You see, when you complete 15 missions successfully for a faction you get offered a special unique mission called a storyline mission. Not only do they have regular ISK rewards that all missions have, they sometimes have special rewards and they have huge impact on faction standings the regular missions do not have. To put it simply, the rewards of the offered mission were sufficiently high enough for me to work at getting past the risks of running a mission in low sec space.
And that is where the anxiety comes in.
First off, I had to get my expensive battleship into the low sec system. Fortunately it was only one jump from high sec space; unfortunately, the gate camps tend to show up on high sec to low sec jump gates. So I made use of an alternate character (alt) with a cheap ship to scout the gate for me on the low sec side and make sure it was clear for my ship, the Insisto Oblivium II.
Once in the mission I still have to watch out for pirates that are resourceful enough to have a ship with scan probes. Although most missions are run in what is called "Deadspace" which has a property of making things in it 99% harder to scan down, its not impossible to do. Heck, I've done it myself many times, especially since any drones you use also have a chance to be picked up by the scan probes.
So not only am I fighting a hard mission against rats swarming me, I'm also paranoid that pirates are going to warp in on my any minute and attack me which would be certain death. Mission running ships are notoriously poor at PvP. To make matters even more scary, one time I had to warp out after I aggro'd 4 battleships and 6 battlecruisers and my shields weren't holding, I accidentally warped to a belt instead of a station only to find a neutral pilot in a rifter there. As I frantically turned around to warp to the station, I prayed he wasn't interested in scrambling my ass and calling for help as I wasn't sure my drones would kill him fast enough. Fortunately, he ignored me and I was off.
Eventually I completed the mission and received my standing increase and reward which was a Siege Warfare Mindlink implant worth around 10 million ISK on market, but even more to me as I plan to use it someday in my kickass Vulture command ship I'm planning.
Now to get back to figuring out how to get to 0.0 space with a decent ratting ship!
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Decisions
As is often the case in Eve, I need to decide what to do next.
This time it is Derranna and her training. I know that once Trinity is installed and running she will be training Battleship Contruction to build any Widows that we happen to invent, but what next?
The first obvious choice would be to train Caldari Encryption Methods to V to improve invention efforts by a fraction more. Twenty days.
Another less obvious choice would be Cruiser Construction V so I can build command ships in the future. Again, Twenty days.
I purchased the Minmatar Freighter skill book and I could continue to train it up, two days for level III and twelve days for level four... but I don't have a freighter yet. (Interesting side note: Minmatar Freighter is a rank 10 skill so for Derranna level V would take over 71 days. Holy frack!)
Or maybe instead of science skills I could improve her piloting a bit. A few levels of Warp Drive Operation could make flying the Mastodon a bit better through Teonusude and Magiko. Some shield skills wouldn't hurt either.
Decisions, decisions.
This time it is Derranna and her training. I know that once Trinity is installed and running she will be training Battleship Contruction to build any Widows that we happen to invent, but what next?
The first obvious choice would be to train Caldari Encryption Methods to V to improve invention efforts by a fraction more. Twenty days.
Another less obvious choice would be Cruiser Construction V so I can build command ships in the future. Again, Twenty days.
I purchased the Minmatar Freighter skill book and I could continue to train it up, two days for level III and twelve days for level four... but I don't have a freighter yet. (Interesting side note: Minmatar Freighter is a rank 10 skill so for Derranna level V would take over 71 days. Holy frack!)
Or maybe instead of science skills I could improve her piloting a bit. A few levels of Warp Drive Operation could make flying the Mastodon a bit better through Teonusude and Magiko. Some shield skills wouldn't hurt either.
Decisions, decisions.
Conquer Club
So I've been trying out Conquer Club like I mentioned last week and I have to say I am impressed.
You are allowed four games on the go with the free account and the selection of maps and game options is quite invigorating. I played (and lost) on a classic Risk board and right now I have four games going on, another on the classic board, one on Middle Earth, one on a map based on Neverwinter Nights and one based on areas around the Great Lakes.
Some boards are very simple, others have complicated rules and bonus structures. So far I've stuck with the basic boards that are most like Risk.
I see this website staying on my morning rotation for a long time to come.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Temptation Overwhelmed Me
I've been playing a bit with Barak's carrier the infamous Aluminum Falcon.
As I fitted it with mods I could use I became a little despondent. A beautiful ship like this needs awesome armour repairing and two Large Armour Repairer (LAR) IIs was not cutting it. An LAR II gives 800 hitpoints every 15 seconds for 400 energy so I was getting 1600 HPs for 800 energy every 15 seconds, so about 106 HPs per sec at 2 HP per energy.
A Capital Armour Repairer gives 9600 HPs every 30 seconds for 2400 enegy. That's 320 HPs/sec and 4 HPs/energy. Not to mention it takes one low slot instead of two.
The problem was I needed to buy the skill book (17 million ISK) and the module itself (around 45 million ISK), and then I would have to stop Kirith's training in order to train the skill.
Well, I broke down and gave Barak the money and trained up Capital Armour Repairing I so he could fit the module on the carrier.
But I couldn't stop there. Oh no! Once I stopped Kirith I looked at Barak and said to myself, "Hey, its only 2 days to train up Gallente Carrier III. That would give me another drone to control and everyone knows 8 drones are much cooler than 7." So once Capital Armour Repairing I finished I grinned maniacally and started Gallente Carrier III. Poor Kirith.
The skill finished late last night and Kirith continued on his journey to Recons a few days later than expected while Barak gets to enjoy his more effective armour tank and extra drone.
But the temptation remains. Barak now wants Fighters, the ultimate drones, and another level of Gallente Carrier would be sooooo sweet....
As I fitted it with mods I could use I became a little despondent. A beautiful ship like this needs awesome armour repairing and two Large Armour Repairer (LAR) IIs was not cutting it. An LAR II gives 800 hitpoints every 15 seconds for 400 energy so I was getting 1600 HPs for 800 energy every 15 seconds, so about 106 HPs per sec at 2 HP per energy.
A Capital Armour Repairer gives 9600 HPs every 30 seconds for 2400 enegy. That's 320 HPs/sec and 4 HPs/energy. Not to mention it takes one low slot instead of two.
The problem was I needed to buy the skill book (17 million ISK) and the module itself (around 45 million ISK), and then I would have to stop Kirith's training in order to train the skill.
Well, I broke down and gave Barak the money and trained up Capital Armour Repairing I so he could fit the module on the carrier.
But I couldn't stop there. Oh no! Once I stopped Kirith I looked at Barak and said to myself, "Hey, its only 2 days to train up Gallente Carrier III. That would give me another drone to control and everyone knows 8 drones are much cooler than 7." So once Capital Armour Repairing I finished I grinned maniacally and started Gallente Carrier III. Poor Kirith.
The skill finished late last night and Kirith continued on his journey to Recons a few days later than expected while Barak gets to enjoy his more effective armour tank and extra drone.
But the temptation remains. Barak now wants Fighters, the ultimate drones, and another level of Gallente Carrier would be sooooo sweet....
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