My wonderful wife is giving birth to twin boys on Thursday and I'm taking a couple weeks off from work to help out. As such, my playing and blogging time will be severely curtailed.
I will be back though, so I'll see you in middle of May.
Cheers!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Skills Update
Kirith is still plugging away towards his precious Chimera Carrier sitting in storage in some Lonetrek low sec station. Sigh.
I whipped off Jump Drive Operation I last night just to simplify the list. As it currently stands, here is my skill plan:
1. Caldari Battleship V (32 days, 17 hours, 30 minutes, 21 seconds)
2. Drone Interfacing V (19 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 27 seconds)
3. Advanced Spaceship Command V (22 days, 13 hours, 12 minutes, 15 seconds)
4. Capital Ships I (1 hour, 47 minutes, 51 seconds)
5. Capital Ships II (8 hours, 22 minutes, 16 seconds)
6. Capital Ships III (1 day, 23 hours, 21 minutes, 19 seconds)
7. Caldari Carrier I (1 hour, 47 minutes, 51 seconds)
Completion: July 8, 2008 4:51:29 PM
Ironically, I could have Caldari Dreadnought trained two days earlier but I don't want a dreadnought first, that will come later once the carrier is up and running smoothly with fighters and a capital shield booster.
Derranna has the Jump Freighter skill now but lacks some support skills required to make it as efficient as possible. Here is her current plan:
1. Jump Fuel Conservation II (3 hours, 32 minutes, 55 seconds)
2. Jump Freighters III (1 day, 18 hours, 59 minutes, 1 second)
3. Jump Drive Calibration IV (6 days, 9 hours, 56 minutes, 44 seconds)
4. Jump Fuel Conservation III (1 day, 11 minutes, 24 seconds)
5. Jump Fuel Conservation IV (5 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes, 26 seconds)
6. Jump Freighters IV (12 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes, 38 seconds)
7. Jump Drive Calibration V (36 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes, 51 seconds)
8. Minmatar Freighter V (53 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes, 34 seconds)
Completion: 8/17/2008 2:52:15 PM
The last skill, Minmatar Freighter V, is not likely to stay on the list due to its long length and minimal value.
I whipped off Jump Drive Operation I last night just to simplify the list. As it currently stands, here is my skill plan:
1. Caldari Battleship V (32 days, 17 hours, 30 minutes, 21 seconds)
2. Drone Interfacing V (19 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, 27 seconds)
3. Advanced Spaceship Command V (22 days, 13 hours, 12 minutes, 15 seconds)
4. Capital Ships I (1 hour, 47 minutes, 51 seconds)
5. Capital Ships II (8 hours, 22 minutes, 16 seconds)
6. Capital Ships III (1 day, 23 hours, 21 minutes, 19 seconds)
7. Caldari Carrier I (1 hour, 47 minutes, 51 seconds)
Completion: July 8, 2008 4:51:29 PM
Ironically, I could have Caldari Dreadnought trained two days earlier but I don't want a dreadnought first, that will come later once the carrier is up and running smoothly with fighters and a capital shield booster.
Derranna has the Jump Freighter skill now but lacks some support skills required to make it as efficient as possible. Here is her current plan:
1. Jump Fuel Conservation II (3 hours, 32 minutes, 55 seconds)
2. Jump Freighters III (1 day, 18 hours, 59 minutes, 1 second)
3. Jump Drive Calibration IV (6 days, 9 hours, 56 minutes, 44 seconds)
4. Jump Fuel Conservation III (1 day, 11 minutes, 24 seconds)
5. Jump Fuel Conservation IV (5 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes, 26 seconds)
6. Jump Freighters IV (12 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes, 38 seconds)
7. Jump Drive Calibration V (36 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes, 51 seconds)
8. Minmatar Freighter V (53 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes, 34 seconds)
Completion: 8/17/2008 2:52:15 PM
The last skill, Minmatar Freighter V, is not likely to stay on the list due to its long length and minimal value.
Hop Skip And a Jump
Last night I completed the move of corp assets from high sec to our base with the Jump Freighter. Man, that is fun stuff. Not as fun as the carrier mind you: at least the carrier had defenses if someone got nosey, the freighter is so much more vulnerable.
The best part about the jump was having Kirith run a huge battleship gate camp on the way from high sec in a shuttle and then later on having the freighter completely ignore said camp by using the jump drives. That just rocks.
Once the stuff was delivered I setup some more POS structures, some defensive and some utility like a corporate hanger array. Not sure why we would need it with the corp hangers in the NPC station only a few hundred thousand klicks away but it felt cool. And I'm all about feeling cool.
With research and manufacturing spinning up again, and the jump freighter taking some load off our CEO carrier pilot, things are looking good.
The best part about the jump was having Kirith run a huge battleship gate camp on the way from high sec in a shuttle and then later on having the freighter completely ignore said camp by using the jump drives. That just rocks.
Once the stuff was delivered I setup some more POS structures, some defensive and some utility like a corporate hanger array. Not sure why we would need it with the corp hangers in the NPC station only a few hundred thousand klicks away but it felt cool. And I'm all about feeling cool.
With research and manufacturing spinning up again, and the jump freighter taking some load off our CEO carrier pilot, things are looking good.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Jump Drive Active
On Sunday the long dreadful wait for Jump Drive Operation V completed and Derranna skipped her pod into the mighty Nomad Jump Freighter. Man it felt good. I immediately put it to use.
I warped over the Stacmon and loaded it up with supplies for our new base of operations, ganged up with Kirith who generated the Cynosaural field in the destination, and WHOOOOSH I jumped out of Stacmon to parts unknown. Wel, ok, parts known. But less secure.
I was eager to make a second trip with corp assets to our new base so Kirith rushed back to a low sec system adjacent to Stacmon (since cynos can't be created in high sec itself) and bought a cheap Condor frigate with cyno generator module. The jump freighter once again whooshed to a new system and I quickly docked it since we were not at a friendly POS and there were neutrals in system.
Good thing too because seconds after I docked a Devoter HIC, Hyperion Battleship, and several other vessels warped in and targeted the Condor and blew it up (I couldn't escape since your ship becomes immobile while generating the cyno and it lasts for ten minutes). Huh. Annoying loss but nothing too serious and I did get the Freighter close to high sec safely. I should have known better than to make a jump on a weekend afternoon but I was excited to try my new toy out.
This morning before downtime I logged in and found the system quiet so I quickly undocked and warped to the Stacmon gate, jumping through to safety. I'll probably make another trip tonight with more stuff for our base.
* * * * *
While all this was happening yesterday a "mandatory alliance meeting" was announced with admonishments that the CEO or representatives be present. Well our CEO was not around so me and another director stepped in to find out what the issue was.
BOOM! Drama bombs left, right, and centre. It was quite overwhelming for me and proved to me why I would never make a good CEO. Confronted by a swearing, upset, and angry CEO of another corp claiming my corp was being negligent, I froze. Faced with confrontation I have two responses: fight or flight. There is not much of a middle ground for me and this time I was in flight mode, I just wanted out of there because I had no idea what had happened or what was happening. (The other extreme reaction for me would have been to go on the aggressive with some yelling and swearing of my own. Neither reaction was good but the second one has more damning ramifications and should only be used in emergencies.)
Fortunately, another Strife director stepped in and was the ultimate diplomat, proposing time to step back and evaluate what the issues really are. It was awe-inspiring to listen to him defuse the situation and calm the waters. Wow. He's got a great voice too; I hate the sound of my voice and it took a while playing Eve to accept it and get on Ventrilo more often despite my discomfort.
Anyways, the drama has died down for now, but no guarantees it won't flare back up again. Fundamentally it seems to be a difference in timezones and command-decision making styles. Hopefully they can be resolved but if not we are prepared to go it alone.
I warped over the Stacmon and loaded it up with supplies for our new base of operations, ganged up with Kirith who generated the Cynosaural field in the destination, and WHOOOOSH I jumped out of Stacmon to parts unknown. Wel, ok, parts known. But less secure.
I was eager to make a second trip with corp assets to our new base so Kirith rushed back to a low sec system adjacent to Stacmon (since cynos can't be created in high sec itself) and bought a cheap Condor frigate with cyno generator module. The jump freighter once again whooshed to a new system and I quickly docked it since we were not at a friendly POS and there were neutrals in system.
Good thing too because seconds after I docked a Devoter HIC, Hyperion Battleship, and several other vessels warped in and targeted the Condor and blew it up (I couldn't escape since your ship becomes immobile while generating the cyno and it lasts for ten minutes). Huh. Annoying loss but nothing too serious and I did get the Freighter close to high sec safely. I should have known better than to make a jump on a weekend afternoon but I was excited to try my new toy out.
This morning before downtime I logged in and found the system quiet so I quickly undocked and warped to the Stacmon gate, jumping through to safety. I'll probably make another trip tonight with more stuff for our base.
* * * * *
While all this was happening yesterday a "mandatory alliance meeting" was announced with admonishments that the CEO or representatives be present. Well our CEO was not around so me and another director stepped in to find out what the issue was.
BOOM! Drama bombs left, right, and centre. It was quite overwhelming for me and proved to me why I would never make a good CEO. Confronted by a swearing, upset, and angry CEO of another corp claiming my corp was being negligent, I froze. Faced with confrontation I have two responses: fight or flight. There is not much of a middle ground for me and this time I was in flight mode, I just wanted out of there because I had no idea what had happened or what was happening. (The other extreme reaction for me would have been to go on the aggressive with some yelling and swearing of my own. Neither reaction was good but the second one has more damning ramifications and should only be used in emergencies.)
Fortunately, another Strife director stepped in and was the ultimate diplomat, proposing time to step back and evaluate what the issues really are. It was awe-inspiring to listen to him defuse the situation and calm the waters. Wow. He's got a great voice too; I hate the sound of my voice and it took a while playing Eve to accept it and get on Ventrilo more often despite my discomfort.
Anyways, the drama has died down for now, but no guarantees it won't flare back up again. Fundamentally it seems to be a difference in timezones and command-decision making styles. Hopefully they can be resolved but if not we are prepared to go it alone.
Friday, April 18, 2008
New Regions?
A week or so back I ordered a copy of the Eve Strategic Maps booklet. I didn't need them: Ombey's 2d Maps work perfectly fine and are probably less cluttered for easy comprehension. And free. But I wanted to buy them as investment in the hobby and to have something pretty to look at. I'm easily amused.
Well today I got this email from the publisher.
Is this related to Faction Warfare coming out this summer? Possibly, but either way I'd better my Rokh battleship more regions are coming to Eve.
Well today I got this email from the publisher.
Thanks for ordering EVE Strategic Maps, which we were expecting toHoly hell. Emphasis mine. If that doesn't mean new regions, I don't know what does.
begin shipping within the next 10 days.
However, we have just returned from CCP’s Iceland HQ where we
discussed some exciting new content which will slightly delay the
shipping of EVE Strategic Maps, but will in fact put you well ahead of
the rest of the player base.
Why? There is, as you may know already, an expansion coming in a few
months, which will introduce completely new content to the world of
EVE. So although your copy of ESM will arrive a couple of weeks later
than planned, it will now contain advance information, allowing you to
take advantage of the knowledge of this new content before anyone
else. CCP has agreed to exclusively reveal this data to us now, well
in advance of it ‘going live’, in order that we can ensure the first
run of EVE Strategic Maps includes the most accurate information
possible.
As you read this, Serenity Steele is busy exploring this new content
in his Polaris Frigate, plotting the data and mapping every system,
planet, moon, asteroid field, ice field and jump gate. With EVE
Strategic Maps on your desk, you can be ready to take control.
We will email you again to let you know when your copy of ESM is on
the way, but for now thanks for your patience. We promise you will not
be disappointed.
Regards
The E-ON / ESM team
Is this related to Faction Warfare coming out this summer? Possibly, but either way I'd better my Rokh battleship more regions are coming to Eve.
Operation Successful
The operation to setup our corporate POS in our new low sec base of operations was a complete success with the tower going up and one month of fuel installed along with several batteries for defense. (The exact details are corporate secrets ;) )
I had an escort in the form of Kirith in Rifter frigate, corpmate Luccul in a Rifter as well, and corpmate Mushi in a Minmatar Hyena Electrontic Attack Ship. There was no hostile activity although local population did go up a few pilots when the tower was halfway through the onlining process and made me very nervous.
With the tower up, I now have to work on getting the rest of the structures anchored and online before next Thursday. Why? Well my wonderful wife (in real life) is pregnant with twins and is going to give birth on the 24th, hence my playing time will be massively curtailed and a couple week layoff is certain (with a longer layoff likely).
Fortunately, I have a good corp to back me up during the break and I'm confident I'll come back to a solid situation.
I had an escort in the form of Kirith in Rifter frigate, corpmate Luccul in a Rifter as well, and corpmate Mushi in a Minmatar Hyena Electrontic Attack Ship. There was no hostile activity although local population did go up a few pilots when the tower was halfway through the onlining process and made me very nervous.
With the tower up, I now have to work on getting the rest of the structures anchored and online before next Thursday. Why? Well my wonderful wife (in real life) is pregnant with twins and is going to give birth on the 24th, hence my playing time will be massively curtailed and a couple week layoff is certain (with a longer layoff likely).
Fortunately, I have a good corp to back me up during the break and I'm confident I'll come back to a solid situation.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Building Sand Castles
Tonight is the scheduled corp operation to begin setting up the new tower in our new empire base of operations. It should be fairly quiet and I don't expect any problems. I've asked for volunteers to help out anyways in case any pirates or mercenaries get any ideas.
Once the tower is up and defended, setting up the industrial structures can occur at leisure.
Once the tower is up and defended, setting up the industrial structures can occur at leisure.
Weekly Dawn Of War Report
Last night Andrew and I met again in vicious virtual combat for three games.
Game # 1 - My Chaos Tau
Although he had a better grip on his Tau than last time, my solid formations of marines backed up by Predator tanks proved to be too overwhelming for his forces.
Game # 2 - My Imperial Guard versus Space Marines
I never even got into this battle. Andrew rushed the Take and Hold objectives and then calmly chewed up everything that I marched out to try and take them back. It ended with many guardsmen being built and then being cut down in seconds by three Landspeeders while the Terminators and Space Marines pummelled by base.
Game # 3 - My Eldar versus Space Marines
This was a long game, 52 minutes all told. It looked like he was going to win early on when his initial Marine squads pushed my soft Guardians around back to the edge of my base, but I recovered with Howling Banshees whose power swords are the nemesis of power armour. Then we both pulled back to build up forces for a while; I developed a force of Banshees, Dark Reapers, and Fire Dragons and he built up Marines, Terminators, and Dreadnoughts.
Then the battle began. It was pretty even for a while but my superior numbers seemed to be getting a slight edge. While the fighting raged we both built up second waves: more Aspect warriors and 5 Wraithlords for me, more marines, Terminators, and Dreadnoughts for him. We also worked on end-game units. While one half the board saw our forces in a pitched battle, Andrew sent a Land Raider and Predator escort to the other side that I countered with the Avatar. The firepower took the Avatar down but not before I gained the upper hand in the main battle and was able to send Fire Dragons and Wraithlords to tear up the tanks.
The battle had swung my way. A second Avatar joined the fray along with two Fire Prisms. Andrew conducted some deep strikes with Dreadnoughts and Terminators but I held the field and began the push into his territory. It took several long minutes and one abortive try on his base and Take and Hold Objectives before I was able to get enough forces and momentum to take the objectives and destroy his base.
It was a close one, and I'm sure he'll make me pay next time.
Game # 1 - My Chaos Tau
Although he had a better grip on his Tau than last time, my solid formations of marines backed up by Predator tanks proved to be too overwhelming for his forces.
Game # 2 - My Imperial Guard versus Space Marines
I never even got into this battle. Andrew rushed the Take and Hold objectives and then calmly chewed up everything that I marched out to try and take them back. It ended with many guardsmen being built and then being cut down in seconds by three Landspeeders while the Terminators and Space Marines pummelled by base.
Game # 3 - My Eldar versus Space Marines
This was a long game, 52 minutes all told. It looked like he was going to win early on when his initial Marine squads pushed my soft Guardians around back to the edge of my base, but I recovered with Howling Banshees whose power swords are the nemesis of power armour. Then we both pulled back to build up forces for a while; I developed a force of Banshees, Dark Reapers, and Fire Dragons and he built up Marines, Terminators, and Dreadnoughts.
Then the battle began. It was pretty even for a while but my superior numbers seemed to be getting a slight edge. While the fighting raged we both built up second waves: more Aspect warriors and 5 Wraithlords for me, more marines, Terminators, and Dreadnoughts for him. We also worked on end-game units. While one half the board saw our forces in a pitched battle, Andrew sent a Land Raider and Predator escort to the other side that I countered with the Avatar. The firepower took the Avatar down but not before I gained the upper hand in the main battle and was able to send Fire Dragons and Wraithlords to tear up the tanks.
The battle had swung my way. A second Avatar joined the fray along with two Fire Prisms. Andrew conducted some deep strikes with Dreadnoughts and Terminators but I held the field and began the push into his territory. It took several long minutes and one abortive try on his base and Take and Hold Objectives before I was able to get enough forces and momentum to take the objectives and destroy his base.
It was a close one, and I'm sure he'll make me pay next time.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
WTB: Shuttle
The latest Eve patch was a minor affair and I didn't pay much attention to it as there seemed to be no major changes. However I missed one thing. One thing that will change Eve dramatically.
NPC Stations no longer sell shuttles.
That's right. The practically defenseless, weaponless, shuttles that were sold at a base price of 9000 ISK everywhere in every station have been removed from market.
So what, you ask?
Well, a shuttle could be reprocessed into a certain amount of the basic mineral Tritanium which meant that regardless of the actions of miners everyone had access to Tritanium at a price of around 3.5 ISK per unit. In effect, it was a price cap that allowed players to keep the price of the mineral artificially low even if all miners everywhere in New Eden decided to never mine Veldspar (the main asteroid source of Tritanium) again.
By removing the NPC sell orders for unlimited numbers of shuttles, the price cap is gone. The cheap source of Tritanium has dried up. And already one day after the patch the price of Tritanium has jumped to over 4 ISK per unit. (Not to mention the price of shuttles! But that is a minor detail in the scheme of things since they can be produced from a very cheap BPO.)
As the price of Tritanium rises, the price of almost everything else in the game will rise. Tritanium may be the cheapest and most common mineral but it is used in almost every manufacturing activity from ships to modules. A typical battleship uses 6+ million units of Tritanium and if the price rises 1-2 ISK / unit that adds 6-12 million on the production costs of the battleship. The more Tritanium used, the greater the price increase.
At the end of the day I think the removal of this artificial cap is a good thing. The market will fluctuate for a while but eventually a new equilibrium will emerge and prices will settle down at a new level. People will adjust and life will go on with the new market for Shuttle production and more opportunities for miners available to everyone.
NPC Stations no longer sell shuttles.
That's right. The practically defenseless, weaponless, shuttles that were sold at a base price of 9000 ISK everywhere in every station have been removed from market.
So what, you ask?
Well, a shuttle could be reprocessed into a certain amount of the basic mineral Tritanium which meant that regardless of the actions of miners everyone had access to Tritanium at a price of around 3.5 ISK per unit. In effect, it was a price cap that allowed players to keep the price of the mineral artificially low even if all miners everywhere in New Eden decided to never mine Veldspar (the main asteroid source of Tritanium) again.
By removing the NPC sell orders for unlimited numbers of shuttles, the price cap is gone. The cheap source of Tritanium has dried up. And already one day after the patch the price of Tritanium has jumped to over 4 ISK per unit. (Not to mention the price of shuttles! But that is a minor detail in the scheme of things since they can be produced from a very cheap BPO.)
As the price of Tritanium rises, the price of almost everything else in the game will rise. Tritanium may be the cheapest and most common mineral but it is used in almost every manufacturing activity from ships to modules. A typical battleship uses 6+ million units of Tritanium and if the price rises 1-2 ISK / unit that adds 6-12 million on the production costs of the battleship. The more Tritanium used, the greater the price increase.
At the end of the day I think the removal of this artificial cap is a good thing. The market will fluctuate for a while but eventually a new equilibrium will emerge and prices will settle down at a new level. People will adjust and life will go on with the new market for Shuttle production and more opportunities for miners available to everyone.
Not Exciting But...
... it had to be done.
Last night a couple Prototype Cloaking Device copying jobs completed (after 18.5 days) and I began to tear down the Iitanmadan Strife POS.
First I had to scout Derranna and her Mastadon Transport ship through the hole that is Aunenen and then less dangerous but still evil Daras. I used Sun Tomah, the research assistant alt, because she was in the area and I didn't have a jump clone for Kirith nearby. So Sun in her rookie newb ship Caldari Ibis quickly scouted out the route and despite a Drake suddenly appearing and looking at me funny in Aunenen it was uneventful.
So at the POS I began the long process of offlining two of the three labs and unanchoring them. Its a pain because it takes ten minutes to unanchor each and they cannot be done at the same time since the tower itself is doing the work and apparently it is not multithreaded. Stupid Eve.
So I had to wait twenty minutes before I could pick them up. I spent the time chatting with alliance mates and corp mates.
Once the unanchoring was complete I scooped up the labs and checked my cargo hold.
Advanced Mobile Lab: 149 million ISK
Mobile Lab: 80 million ISK
Drake BPO: 325 million ISK
Ferox BPO: 240 million ISK
2 x Prototype Cloaking Device BPOs: 180 million ISK
Hmmmmmm... what's that saying about all eggs in one basket?
Realizing that I was perhaps being too ambitious in my hauling efforts, I warped to station in system to drop off the BPOs which can moved by smaller and safer means. As I arrived outside the station I saw a cynosaural field and a Minmatar Nidhoggur carrier appear along with the Hyperion battleship waiting for it. I docked without incident and decided to not risk the run past those two big boys for now.
Last night a couple Prototype Cloaking Device copying jobs completed (after 18.5 days) and I began to tear down the Iitanmadan Strife POS.
First I had to scout Derranna and her Mastadon Transport ship through the hole that is Aunenen and then less dangerous but still evil Daras. I used Sun Tomah, the research assistant alt, because she was in the area and I didn't have a jump clone for Kirith nearby. So Sun in her rookie newb ship Caldari Ibis quickly scouted out the route and despite a Drake suddenly appearing and looking at me funny in Aunenen it was uneventful.
So at the POS I began the long process of offlining two of the three labs and unanchoring them. Its a pain because it takes ten minutes to unanchor each and they cannot be done at the same time since the tower itself is doing the work and apparently it is not multithreaded. Stupid Eve.
So I had to wait twenty minutes before I could pick them up. I spent the time chatting with alliance mates and corp mates.
Once the unanchoring was complete I scooped up the labs and checked my cargo hold.
Advanced Mobile Lab: 149 million ISK
Mobile Lab: 80 million ISK
Drake BPO: 325 million ISK
Ferox BPO: 240 million ISK
2 x Prototype Cloaking Device BPOs: 180 million ISK
Hmmmmmm... what's that saying about all eggs in one basket?
Realizing that I was perhaps being too ambitious in my hauling efforts, I warped to station in system to drop off the BPOs which can moved by smaller and safer means. As I arrived outside the station I saw a cynosaural field and a Minmatar Nidhoggur carrier appear along with the Hyperion battleship waiting for it. I docked without incident and decided to not risk the run past those two big boys for now.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Politics
As Strife Mercenaries grows and develops relationships within the alliance, there will always be the question of "what next"?
Its always a big step taking a corp and joining an alliance whether you are CEO, director, or grunt pilot. New leaders to meet and get to know, new rules, and often moving into new space. We tried Sylph Alliance but that fell through for a number of factors, many of them unimportant to all but a few upper Strife members. We considered renting space but the price tag was too high. Recently we fell in with Rejuvenate alliance which was starting essentially from scratch.
The alliance evolves. We've had our first major decision to make and it involved asking a CEO and his corp to either leave or merge into a subordinate position in another corp in the alliance. Miffed, he picked exile over service. The remaining corps are stronger in relationship with the removal of the craw in many pilots' jaw.
The next major decision point comes to the question of moving. A majority of corps in the alliance want to move to better space in a rental agreement with a larger and more established alliance, but our corporation is sick of moving and leery of the deal. Syndicate may be the armpit of 0.0 space, but its light years better than low sec and lots of opportunity for PvP and making isk.
We had a corp meeting last night to discuss the options and we're confident that our corp will survive nicely regardless of what the rest of the alliance chooses for the foreseeable future. The fact of the matter is, Strife is stronger than ever and growing at a slow but steady pace. And we feel for the time being we have a home in Syndicate and Placid.
Heh, right back where I started in 2006; it just feels right.
Its always a big step taking a corp and joining an alliance whether you are CEO, director, or grunt pilot. New leaders to meet and get to know, new rules, and often moving into new space. We tried Sylph Alliance but that fell through for a number of factors, many of them unimportant to all but a few upper Strife members. We considered renting space but the price tag was too high. Recently we fell in with Rejuvenate alliance which was starting essentially from scratch.
The alliance evolves. We've had our first major decision to make and it involved asking a CEO and his corp to either leave or merge into a subordinate position in another corp in the alliance. Miffed, he picked exile over service. The remaining corps are stronger in relationship with the removal of the craw in many pilots' jaw.
The next major decision point comes to the question of moving. A majority of corps in the alliance want to move to better space in a rental agreement with a larger and more established alliance, but our corporation is sick of moving and leery of the deal. Syndicate may be the armpit of 0.0 space, but its light years better than low sec and lots of opportunity for PvP and making isk.
We had a corp meeting last night to discuss the options and we're confident that our corp will survive nicely regardless of what the rest of the alliance chooses for the foreseeable future. The fact of the matter is, Strife is stronger than ever and growing at a slow but steady pace. And we feel for the time being we have a home in Syndicate and Placid.
Heh, right back where I started in 2006; it just feels right.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Skills Update
Kirith finished Electronic Attack Ships IV on the weekend, and is polishing off Advanced Spaceship Command III today which will be followed by level IV. Then its the big three:
Caldari Battleship V - 36 days
Drone Interfacing V - 19.5 days
Advanced Spaceship Command V - 22.5 days
Sometime in mid June they will be done. (I know I keep repeating this over and over again but its in part to keep myself convinced I'm going to do it, stick with it, and get that carrier by July).
Derranna is in the final stretch for the Jump Freighter, down to under 6 days now. Unfortunately its due to end in the early morning hours on Sunday so I might skip Jump Freighters II in there (9.5 hours) to bring it into waking hours on Sunday. It will take a week to make the Jump Freighter solid enough to use regularly, and then a couple months to make it near perfect in terms of range and fuel.
Worst part is, a lot of the skills I'll have to redo for Kirith's carrier in a couple months anyways. Sigh.
Caldari Battleship V - 36 days
Drone Interfacing V - 19.5 days
Advanced Spaceship Command V - 22.5 days
Sometime in mid June they will be done. (I know I keep repeating this over and over again but its in part to keep myself convinced I'm going to do it, stick with it, and get that carrier by July).
Derranna is in the final stretch for the Jump Freighter, down to under 6 days now. Unfortunately its due to end in the early morning hours on Sunday so I might skip Jump Freighters II in there (9.5 hours) to bring it into waking hours on Sunday. It will take a week to make the Jump Freighter solid enough to use regularly, and then a couple months to make it near perfect in terms of range and fuel.
Worst part is, a lot of the skills I'll have to redo for Kirith's carrier in a couple months anyways. Sigh.
So Close!
This was a busy weekend for me in Eve, so let's start at the top.
Saturday morning I logged in and promptly started ratting, looking for a Shadow Serpentis spawn. I had a few battleship spawns which lined the wallet nicely, but no faction. Sigh. During this time a hostile in an Amarr Purifier Stealth Bomber came in local and we organized a defense op to deal with it.
I jumped into my Falcon and then got the message to warp to a gang member. Unfortunately, the bomber had been destroyed already and the best I could do was get on the killmail of a pod that wanted to be killed anyways.
Later on the hostile returned again with a buddy in a Minmatar Hound Stealth Bomber and we once again rallied to defend our space. This time I got into a Raptor interceptor in an effort to uncloak them with speed whenever they showed up. We played cat and mouse for an hour but no luck and I had to log. Soon after I logged, they were caught and destroyed.
On Sunday I logged in again and soon thereafter the hostile returned for a third time. Well, we formed up the fleet again and this time I got into my Onyx to run a bubble for a gate camp on the stargate entrance to our system. We played cat and mouse for an hour then the hostile logged. But he still had an aggression timer from engaging one of our bait ships. Which means his ship stays in space for 15 minutes before it disappears. Which means it can be scanned out!
Once we figured this out, I warped to station and grabbed my newly delivered Buzzard Covert Ops (thanks for the carrier jump CEO!) and quickly warped to where the Purifier was showing up on scan. Drop a probe, hit scan, and ... what the hell!? Whadda mean 240 seconds!? Turns out I still had a Scan Probe Launcher from earlier exploration efforts and not the Recon Probe Launcher.
We impatiently waited out the timer and curse it all, the Purifier was not picked up. I warped back to station to get the Recon Probe Launcher, back out to space where the enemy ship was picked up on the directional scanner, launcher a probe, waiting 60 seconds (much better!), got a hit (excitement rising!) warp to it, see the Purifier in space, gang is warped to me.... and it disappeared. NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! The timer ran out.
So lesson learned: make sure you have the right launcher for the job.
So close.
Sunday night I had one more chance to log in and surprisingly found our system empty except for me and a corp mate who was afk anyways. Nine asteroid belts all to myself? Sure, why not. I began ratting and was enjoying myself when I got a hit on the On Board Scanner. You see, every system has mini-complex dungeons called cosmic anomalies that can only be picked up by the On Board ship scanner. As you rat you can run this 30 second scan to see if one is within 5 AU of your position.
These mini-complexes are not as difficult as real complexes or exploration sites, but they don't require any special skill or equipment to find.
The one I found was rogue drones which I halfway considered leaving for someone else. Drone rats don't have an immediate bounty that you receive for killing them like regular rats do. Instead they drop valuable alloys that you can take and reprocess for minerals. A lot of work and I wondered if I would have time to finish it but I decided what the hell, first complex in 0.0 for me I might as well try.
The first two waves I had trouble with in my Cerberus. The Heavy Assault Missiles work wonders on larger targets but small fast moving rogue drones were tough to take down and their resistance to kinetic damage was proving frustrating. When the third wave arrived much larger than the first two I said "screw this" and I went to get a real ship.
Out comes the Rokh. Slinging 300 DPS out to 60km put a damper on those drones real quick and I never even had to activate my defenses. Only problem I had was cap since my 0.0 Rokh has no rigs for capacitor recharge on it. A while later the drones were cleared and I sent Derranna in to clean up the alloys and while it took a bit longer than I hoped, it was a good time.
All in all I made a lot of money, picked up a lot of loot, got some high end minerals, and almost got in on a real kill or two. A good weekend in New Eden.
Saturday morning I logged in and promptly started ratting, looking for a Shadow Serpentis spawn. I had a few battleship spawns which lined the wallet nicely, but no faction. Sigh. During this time a hostile in an Amarr Purifier Stealth Bomber came in local and we organized a defense op to deal with it.
I jumped into my Falcon and then got the message to warp to a gang member. Unfortunately, the bomber had been destroyed already and the best I could do was get on the killmail of a pod that wanted to be killed anyways.
Later on the hostile returned again with a buddy in a Minmatar Hound Stealth Bomber and we once again rallied to defend our space. This time I got into a Raptor interceptor in an effort to uncloak them with speed whenever they showed up. We played cat and mouse for an hour but no luck and I had to log. Soon after I logged, they were caught and destroyed.
On Sunday I logged in again and soon thereafter the hostile returned for a third time. Well, we formed up the fleet again and this time I got into my Onyx to run a bubble for a gate camp on the stargate entrance to our system. We played cat and mouse for an hour then the hostile logged. But he still had an aggression timer from engaging one of our bait ships. Which means his ship stays in space for 15 minutes before it disappears. Which means it can be scanned out!
Once we figured this out, I warped to station and grabbed my newly delivered Buzzard Covert Ops (thanks for the carrier jump CEO!) and quickly warped to where the Purifier was showing up on scan. Drop a probe, hit scan, and ... what the hell!? Whadda mean 240 seconds!? Turns out I still had a Scan Probe Launcher from earlier exploration efforts and not the Recon Probe Launcher.
We impatiently waited out the timer and curse it all, the Purifier was not picked up. I warped back to station to get the Recon Probe Launcher, back out to space where the enemy ship was picked up on the directional scanner, launcher a probe, waiting 60 seconds (much better!), got a hit (excitement rising!) warp to it, see the Purifier in space, gang is warped to me.... and it disappeared. NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! The timer ran out.
So lesson learned: make sure you have the right launcher for the job.
So close.
Sunday night I had one more chance to log in and surprisingly found our system empty except for me and a corp mate who was afk anyways. Nine asteroid belts all to myself? Sure, why not. I began ratting and was enjoying myself when I got a hit on the On Board Scanner. You see, every system has mini-complex dungeons called cosmic anomalies that can only be picked up by the On Board ship scanner. As you rat you can run this 30 second scan to see if one is within 5 AU of your position.
These mini-complexes are not as difficult as real complexes or exploration sites, but they don't require any special skill or equipment to find.
The one I found was rogue drones which I halfway considered leaving for someone else. Drone rats don't have an immediate bounty that you receive for killing them like regular rats do. Instead they drop valuable alloys that you can take and reprocess for minerals. A lot of work and I wondered if I would have time to finish it but I decided what the hell, first complex in 0.0 for me I might as well try.
The first two waves I had trouble with in my Cerberus. The Heavy Assault Missiles work wonders on larger targets but small fast moving rogue drones were tough to take down and their resistance to kinetic damage was proving frustrating. When the third wave arrived much larger than the first two I said "screw this" and I went to get a real ship.
Out comes the Rokh. Slinging 300 DPS out to 60km put a damper on those drones real quick and I never even had to activate my defenses. Only problem I had was cap since my 0.0 Rokh has no rigs for capacitor recharge on it. A while later the drones were cleared and I sent Derranna in to clean up the alloys and while it took a bit longer than I hoped, it was a good time.
All in all I made a lot of money, picked up a lot of loot, got some high end minerals, and almost got in on a real kill or two. A good weekend in New Eden.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Quiet Night
My play time last night started earlier than normal and I found myself online with no corp mates around. What to do? There was nothing to sell or research for the corp as we are in the process of moving and upgrading our POS. Nothing needed moving or buying or setting up at this time; still waiting for the Jump Freighter (8 days and 20 hours). No one to form a gang with (except our topic of the last post who I am going to avoid working with from now on).
So I decided to jump in my trusty Falcon and scout out the enemy system where all the action happened last night but this time by myself. Maybe they would get sloppy and I could pick up a cheap kill.
I spent the next hour warping around and using the directional scanner to see if anything would present itself in the Outer Ring system. Once I thought I could track down a Caracal cruiser but it docked. Lots of hostiles in the system and they played it close to the vest, no one was foolish enough to rat with my ugly mug staring at them in local.
After an hour of all cat and no mice I headed back to base as I thought my time was up. Lo and behold, the Mistress of my Existence declared she was going to watch one of her shows giving me an additional hour to fart around. I opted to rat in my Cerberus this time picking up some ISK and loot from the belts to fill my wallet and hanger respectively. After a little while some corp mates came on, we had some discussions, finalized some plans, and generally everything was quiet.
So I decided to jump in my trusty Falcon and scout out the enemy system where all the action happened last night but this time by myself. Maybe they would get sloppy and I could pick up a cheap kill.
I spent the next hour warping around and using the directional scanner to see if anything would present itself in the Outer Ring system. Once I thought I could track down a Caracal cruiser but it docked. Lots of hostiles in the system and they played it close to the vest, no one was foolish enough to rat with my ugly mug staring at them in local.
After an hour of all cat and no mice I headed back to base as I thought my time was up. Lo and behold, the Mistress of my Existence declared she was going to watch one of her shows giving me an additional hour to fart around. I opted to rat in my Cerberus this time picking up some ISK and loot from the belts to fill my wallet and hanger respectively. After a little while some corp mates came on, we had some discussions, finalized some plans, and generally everything was quiet.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Excuse Me?
So after fighting Andrew in Dawn of War, I had some time before bed and I logged into Eve. Took care of some business (Korannon applying at Strife, Derranna getting some blueprints) and then logged in as Kirith to do some hunting for a few minutes.
While chasing a Slasher out in 0.0 in my trusty Falcon IPRC Reborn, I run into a couple alliance mates sitting at a gate outside of a system with an NPC station, a popular place in this desolate part of 0.0. I was invited to join their gang and I figured, sure why not?
Uh oh. The gang was being led by CP, an individual known for being a less than stellar Fleet Commander. I opted to give it a try anyways because I had not yet experienced his issues and wanted to see first hand how he worked. Plus I had a better chance at getting in a kill and one of the better alliance PvPers (according to the killboard) was in gang as well.
So I'm sitting on the gate with two other gang mates, one in a Taranis frigate and one in a Caracal cruiser. Not exactly awe-inspiring. I put in fleet chat my ship and its tackling ability (1 x 20km point, web) and listen on Ventrilo as the two other gang mates try and get a Raven outside of the station to engage so it can't just dock up. I found out later that CP was in a Drake and the other pilot in a Deimos.
By the way, local is apparently populated with reds but the lead team still decides to tempt fate.
The Raven engages (obvious bait ship methinks?) and the order is given to jump in. Then on vent I here that one of the initial two pilots, not CP but the other, is down. Had I known he was in a Deimos I might have been taken aback at the time but for all I know he was in an interceptor and took some drone damage.
I warped in a 70 km since I had pitiful DPS and long ranged ECM. To my surprise I see not only the Raven and the Drake, but also a hostile Cerberus Heavy Assault cruiser, Onyx Heavy Interdictor cruiser, and a Nemesis Stealth Bomber. All Tech II. In fact, the Cerberus is the Tech II version of our gang's Caracal and the Nemesis is the Tech II version of our Taranis. We are severely outclassed here and it explains why the Deimos is a wreck at the moment.
Since no ECM primary was called and the Raven was primary, I used my best judgement to jam as many enemy ships as I could starting with the battleship. The Stealth Bomber warped off and I thought to myself, uh oh, he's coming back at range I bet to hammer me. Our pilots in the Caracal and Taranis are quickly dispatched I believe I heard on vent. Sweating, I aligned for a warp out.
The Raven docked and I heard CP give the order to disengage just as the Stealth Bomber was warping back in. I cloaked and warped, eager to put myself as far away as possible from that nasty hostile gang. I expected the Drake CP was in to dock as long as he could tank the damage long enough for his aggression timer to count down.
Then things got really whacked.
The Raven undocked and CP choose to engage it again. He then calls on vent for everyone to warp back and help him kill the Raven. I'm in a safespot and consider:
1) I think the Caracal and Taranis are dead and I'm the only one left in the gang to assist him and I have neither DPS nor tank;
2) If the hostiles are still there I would be dead in seconds as I can jam one or two ships, not three or four;
3) There is no help coming for us.
But I'm loath to disobey an order from any FC so after a moment's hesitation I decide to warp in cloaked and take a look. Maybe the rest of the reds warped off and we have a window of opportunity to get that Raven battleship?
OH FRACK! I tried to warp in at 70 km again but the Onyx had its bubble up this time and sucked me right to the heart of the action at the edge of the bubble, 10 km from bad guys. Very bad guys: not only the Raven, Cerberus, Onyx, Nemesis from last time but also a Golem Marauder Tech II battleship.
That Drake is toast and the Raven pilot must be laughing his ass off.
I was lucky there was nothing within 2000 meters of me and my cloak does not get disrupted. I warped off to safe spot and seconds later CP and his Drake are dead. I leave fleet and head home as it is time for me to log.
Never again CP, never again.
Post script: The Deimos pilot from our side went and got his plated Megathron while the rest of the action was occuring. After I left gang CP went and got his Raven and apparently they both came back and engaged the exact same hostile gang with an additional Hurricane and Myrmidon battlecruisers thrown in. Together they managed to kill the Cerberus and Hurricane but in the process lost the Megathron (how the Raven escaped I have no idea) which ISK-wise is a roughly equal exchange. However considering we also lost the Drake, Deimos, and possibly two tech I ships I assure you it was not an even exchange overall.
While chasing a Slasher out in 0.0 in my trusty Falcon IPRC Reborn, I run into a couple alliance mates sitting at a gate outside of a system with an NPC station, a popular place in this desolate part of 0.0. I was invited to join their gang and I figured, sure why not?
Uh oh. The gang was being led by CP, an individual known for being a less than stellar Fleet Commander. I opted to give it a try anyways because I had not yet experienced his issues and wanted to see first hand how he worked. Plus I had a better chance at getting in a kill and one of the better alliance PvPers (according to the killboard) was in gang as well.
So I'm sitting on the gate with two other gang mates, one in a Taranis frigate and one in a Caracal cruiser. Not exactly awe-inspiring. I put in fleet chat my ship and its tackling ability (1 x 20km point, web) and listen on Ventrilo as the two other gang mates try and get a Raven outside of the station to engage so it can't just dock up. I found out later that CP was in a Drake and the other pilot in a Deimos.
By the way, local is apparently populated with reds but the lead team still decides to tempt fate.
The Raven engages (obvious bait ship methinks?) and the order is given to jump in. Then on vent I here that one of the initial two pilots, not CP but the other, is down. Had I known he was in a Deimos I might have been taken aback at the time but for all I know he was in an interceptor and took some drone damage.
I warped in a 70 km since I had pitiful DPS and long ranged ECM. To my surprise I see not only the Raven and the Drake, but also a hostile Cerberus Heavy Assault cruiser, Onyx Heavy Interdictor cruiser, and a Nemesis Stealth Bomber. All Tech II. In fact, the Cerberus is the Tech II version of our gang's Caracal and the Nemesis is the Tech II version of our Taranis. We are severely outclassed here and it explains why the Deimos is a wreck at the moment.
Since no ECM primary was called and the Raven was primary, I used my best judgement to jam as many enemy ships as I could starting with the battleship. The Stealth Bomber warped off and I thought to myself, uh oh, he's coming back at range I bet to hammer me. Our pilots in the Caracal and Taranis are quickly dispatched I believe I heard on vent. Sweating, I aligned for a warp out.
The Raven docked and I heard CP give the order to disengage just as the Stealth Bomber was warping back in. I cloaked and warped, eager to put myself as far away as possible from that nasty hostile gang. I expected the Drake CP was in to dock as long as he could tank the damage long enough for his aggression timer to count down.
Then things got really whacked.
The Raven undocked and CP choose to engage it again. He then calls on vent for everyone to warp back and help him kill the Raven. I'm in a safespot and consider:
1) I think the Caracal and Taranis are dead and I'm the only one left in the gang to assist him and I have neither DPS nor tank;
2) If the hostiles are still there I would be dead in seconds as I can jam one or two ships, not three or four;
3) There is no help coming for us.
But I'm loath to disobey an order from any FC so after a moment's hesitation I decide to warp in cloaked and take a look. Maybe the rest of the reds warped off and we have a window of opportunity to get that Raven battleship?
OH FRACK! I tried to warp in at 70 km again but the Onyx had its bubble up this time and sucked me right to the heart of the action at the edge of the bubble, 10 km from bad guys. Very bad guys: not only the Raven, Cerberus, Onyx, Nemesis from last time but also a Golem Marauder Tech II battleship.
That Drake is toast and the Raven pilot must be laughing his ass off.
I was lucky there was nothing within 2000 meters of me and my cloak does not get disrupted. I warped off to safe spot and seconds later CP and his Drake are dead. I leave fleet and head home as it is time for me to log.
Never again CP, never again.
Post script: The Deimos pilot from our side went and got his plated Megathron while the rest of the action was occuring. After I left gang CP went and got his Raven and apparently they both came back and engaged the exact same hostile gang with an additional Hurricane and Myrmidon battlecruisers thrown in. Together they managed to kill the Cerberus and Hurricane but in the process lost the Megathron (how the Raven escaped I have no idea) which ISK-wise is a roughly equal exchange. However considering we also lost the Drake, Deimos, and possibly two tech I ships I assure you it was not an even exchange overall.
Battle Report: Dawn of War
Last night Andrew and I hooked up online (after several patch downloads, natch) and bashed each other around in Dawn of War.
Game #1: Chaos Marines versus Space Marines
I was in a panic mode all game, terrified Andrew was going to march in and destroy me any second. I tried to remember how to play so stayed pretty basic: a couple large units of cultists to throw into the fray supported by some marines to shoot in and kill the enemy as they pummelled the cultists. In support I made upgraded listening posts and plenty of heavy bolter turrets. Finally I added a full squad of Raptors for extra killing goodness.
This allowed me to hold off Andrew's first couple of testing attacks while I developed up to Defilers. Just as the third Defiler rolled off the line, Andrew made a serious attack.
On the "main" front he threw in his forces which I met first with the Defilers and secondly with the Cultists/Marines/Raptors. But while that attack was going on, he sent in a flanking force to pincher me and get behind my lines. Unfortunately for him, my concentration of firepower on his primary attack quickly overwhelmed him and I was able to turn my forces around in time to prevent serious damage. I lost the Defilers in the process, but the rest held up.
I added more marines to the force and a couple upgraded lascannon Predator tanks since Andrew seemed to like Dreadnoughts. I then launcher an all-out attack on his base. Seeing me move in, Andrew launched his own attack on my base and it became a rush to destroy each other.
In the end Andrew's base was setup close enough together that I managed to destroy all the unit-producing buildings first and claimed victory.
Game #2 - Eldar (Me) versus Tau (Andrew)
We thought we would do something different so Andrew tried out Tau and I tried to remember how Eldar worked. It came back to me fairly quickly since I used Eldar in the Winter Assault campaign but neither of us had a clue how to properly use the Tau and when the serious fighting began my horde of Guardians, Dark Reapers, and Seer Council with Psychic-Storm-slinging-action Farseer proved too much and Andrew conceded until he had more time to try it out.
It was fun, I hope we can make this a semi regular occurence as it doesn't take very long to play a game and it is amusing.
Need voice comms though. I'll have to ask if I can use a friends Ventrilo server.
Game #1: Chaos Marines versus Space Marines
I was in a panic mode all game, terrified Andrew was going to march in and destroy me any second. I tried to remember how to play so stayed pretty basic: a couple large units of cultists to throw into the fray supported by some marines to shoot in and kill the enemy as they pummelled the cultists. In support I made upgraded listening posts and plenty of heavy bolter turrets. Finally I added a full squad of Raptors for extra killing goodness.
This allowed me to hold off Andrew's first couple of testing attacks while I developed up to Defilers. Just as the third Defiler rolled off the line, Andrew made a serious attack.
On the "main" front he threw in his forces which I met first with the Defilers and secondly with the Cultists/Marines/Raptors. But while that attack was going on, he sent in a flanking force to pincher me and get behind my lines. Unfortunately for him, my concentration of firepower on his primary attack quickly overwhelmed him and I was able to turn my forces around in time to prevent serious damage. I lost the Defilers in the process, but the rest held up.
I added more marines to the force and a couple upgraded lascannon Predator tanks since Andrew seemed to like Dreadnoughts. I then launcher an all-out attack on his base. Seeing me move in, Andrew launched his own attack on my base and it became a rush to destroy each other.
In the end Andrew's base was setup close enough together that I managed to destroy all the unit-producing buildings first and claimed victory.
Game #2 - Eldar (Me) versus Tau (Andrew)
We thought we would do something different so Andrew tried out Tau and I tried to remember how Eldar worked. It came back to me fairly quickly since I used Eldar in the Winter Assault campaign but neither of us had a clue how to properly use the Tau and when the serious fighting began my horde of Guardians, Dark Reapers, and Seer Council with Psychic-Storm-slinging-action Farseer proved too much and Andrew conceded until he had more time to try it out.
It was fun, I hope we can make this a semi regular occurence as it doesn't take very long to play a game and it is amusing.
Need voice comms though. I'll have to ask if I can use a friends Ventrilo server.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Stocking Up
Last night I was still in Empire for a bit making sure the cloaking devices sold, so I decided it was time to stock up on supplies. Specifically scan/exploration probes, and Tech II heavy missiles.
This took longer than I thought. Not for the missiles, that was easy.
But I needed to buy 20 different probes and each one takes a few seconds to load the market info, select the right order, click buy, but in the number and select ok. Then I had to go to a few stations to pick up the stuff in my slow-assed Badger MKII and then take it back to Stacmon. All the while chatting up a possible new recruit (*waves to Wygg*), keeping track of corp and alliance chats, watching Alliance command channel, and listening to a Director's meeting on Vent.
I was very busy for not feeling like I was doing anything.
Tonight I won't be playing Eve as I have scheduled a game of Dawn of War with my buddy Andrew (aka Karthis) but I should be back on a regular schedule Thursday.
* * * *
Skills update: While working on Warp Drive Operation for Kirith, I slipped in a couple levels of Advanced Spaceship Command to get it ready for the big push that starts at the end of the month (i.e. where I start Caldari Battleship V, Drone Interfacing V, and Advanced Spaceship Command V, 67 days of training combined).
I'm torn whether or not to do Heavy Missiles Spec IV and Electronic Attack Ships IV before then. Its only 7 days and a bit for both so I probably will, but the temptation to toss them aside and go for the throat on carriers is there.
Derranna is still busily beavering away at Jump Drive Operation V, sitting at 47% done with 10.5 days left.
* * * *
I created a new character called Tatianna Dorcha, a Minmatar executive commander, to take over the reins of Razor Tech so Korannon can join Strife as a buyer-seller character for me. It was much easier transfering control to her for CEO than it was last year when I bought the damn corp in the first place. Glad to see CCP fixed that issue.
This took longer than I thought. Not for the missiles, that was easy.
But I needed to buy 20 different probes and each one takes a few seconds to load the market info, select the right order, click buy, but in the number and select ok. Then I had to go to a few stations to pick up the stuff in my slow-assed Badger MKII and then take it back to Stacmon. All the while chatting up a possible new recruit (*waves to Wygg*), keeping track of corp and alliance chats, watching Alliance command channel, and listening to a Director's meeting on Vent.
I was very busy for not feeling like I was doing anything.
Tonight I won't be playing Eve as I have scheduled a game of Dawn of War with my buddy Andrew (aka Karthis) but I should be back on a regular schedule Thursday.
* * * *
Skills update: While working on Warp Drive Operation for Kirith, I slipped in a couple levels of Advanced Spaceship Command to get it ready for the big push that starts at the end of the month (i.e. where I start Caldari Battleship V, Drone Interfacing V, and Advanced Spaceship Command V, 67 days of training combined).
I'm torn whether or not to do Heavy Missiles Spec IV and Electronic Attack Ships IV before then. Its only 7 days and a bit for both so I probably will, but the temptation to toss them aside and go for the throat on carriers is there.
Derranna is still busily beavering away at Jump Drive Operation V, sitting at 47% done with 10.5 days left.
* * * *
I created a new character called Tatianna Dorcha, a Minmatar executive commander, to take over the reins of Razor Tech so Korannon can join Strife as a buyer-seller character for me. It was much easier transfering control to her for CEO than it was last year when I bought the damn corp in the first place. Glad to see CCP fixed that issue.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Buzzard and Kitsune
I needed a new Covert Ops frig to replace the one I lost a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to try out the new Caldari Electronic Attack Ship Kitsune frigate, and I had to sell some cloaking devices for the corp so I jumped back to Empire and got busy.
The Buzzard was first, starting with a micro warp drive and Scan Probe Launcher for either scanning down targets or looking for exploration sites. Pretty straight-forward build.
The Kitsune was next. First off, let me say I've very impressed by the capacitor this thing has; even with a MWD fitted I felt there was still lots of juice in the tank to run it and the other mods. And its fast so I went with a speed tank and ECM tank fitting.
Highs: 3 x Rocket Launchers
Mids: 1 x MWD, 4 x Racial ECM
Lows: 2 x Overdrive Injectors.
Its not the highest jamming strengths but it should be able to take any one ship out of a fight three quarters of the time and it moves pretty fast. I bought a couple cheap shield rigs to gets its resistances up all over 50% too.
I also fit up a spare Drake battlecruiser with Tech II Heavy Missile Launchers. All three ships will have to make there way to 0.0 via the carrier sometime but they are not priorities.
In other news I'm thinking of moving Korannon over to Strife to act as an Empire buyer/seller to free Kirith up from having to come to Empire to do it. I don't want to close Razor Tech quite yet but fortunately I have some free slots to make a new character to act as CEO during the shutdown.
The Buzzard was first, starting with a micro warp drive and Scan Probe Launcher for either scanning down targets or looking for exploration sites. Pretty straight-forward build.
The Kitsune was next. First off, let me say I've very impressed by the capacitor this thing has; even with a MWD fitted I felt there was still lots of juice in the tank to run it and the other mods. And its fast so I went with a speed tank and ECM tank fitting.
Highs: 3 x Rocket Launchers
Mids: 1 x MWD, 4 x Racial ECM
Lows: 2 x Overdrive Injectors.
Its not the highest jamming strengths but it should be able to take any one ship out of a fight three quarters of the time and it moves pretty fast. I bought a couple cheap shield rigs to gets its resistances up all over 50% too.
I also fit up a spare Drake battlecruiser with Tech II Heavy Missile Launchers. All three ships will have to make there way to 0.0 via the carrier sometime but they are not priorities.
In other news I'm thinking of moving Korannon over to Strife to act as an Empire buyer/seller to free Kirith up from having to come to Empire to do it. I don't want to close Razor Tech quite yet but fortunately I have some free slots to make a new character to act as CEO during the shutdown.
Amarr Pilgrim Article
Another week, another article in the Eve Tribune, the last part of the Force Recon series.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Life in 0.0
With Derranna up in our little 0.0 pocket I was faced Saturday morning with a few hours to play and no responsibilities to worry about. Its been a long time since I've done ratting so I decided to hope in the Cerberus Heavy Assault Cruiser I had brought up as a toy and see what she could do.
Derranna went into a nearby gating system to act as an Early Warning System for me and I went off to the belts.
WOW! The Cerberus really rocked the rats and I enjoyed flying it. With 5 Tech II Heavy Assault Missile launchers and regulare Tech 1 missiles, enemy frigs, cruisers, and battlecruisers just melted and the battleship rats took only a little longer than with the Rokh. Right now I'm sticking with the Cerberus for ratting and leaving the Rokh for more extreme encounters.
Unfortunately, the system I was ratting in had crappy spawns of mostly battlecruisers and smaller with only one cheap battleship showing up the first couple times through the belts. Then the chaining started to pay off with a few battleship spawns and then a Shadow Serpentis cruiser spawn in which I picked up a nice faction medium smartbomb module as loot. By the end of the morning's ratting I had picked up about 10 million isk.
I think participated in a small gate camp for a while but had to log before we caught anything of great interest.
On Sunday I was back ratting again, and although there was no faction spawns this time I did see a lot more battleship rats and made my ten million in about and hour or such. Then I went cruising in my Falcon looking for easy targets but nothing presented itself.
All in all a quiet weekend with some ISK making on the side.
There have been some grumblings in the ranks about how the alliance deals with (or rather does not deal with) certain issues and I hope these are just growing pains and that we can work it all out with our alliance mates in good order. I'd hate to have to move again already without the jump frieghter up and running which is only 12.75 days away.
Derranna went into a nearby gating system to act as an Early Warning System for me and I went off to the belts.
WOW! The Cerberus really rocked the rats and I enjoyed flying it. With 5 Tech II Heavy Assault Missile launchers and regulare Tech 1 missiles, enemy frigs, cruisers, and battlecruisers just melted and the battleship rats took only a little longer than with the Rokh. Right now I'm sticking with the Cerberus for ratting and leaving the Rokh for more extreme encounters.
Unfortunately, the system I was ratting in had crappy spawns of mostly battlecruisers and smaller with only one cheap battleship showing up the first couple times through the belts. Then the chaining started to pay off with a few battleship spawns and then a Shadow Serpentis cruiser spawn in which I picked up a nice faction medium smartbomb module as loot. By the end of the morning's ratting I had picked up about 10 million isk.
I think participated in a small gate camp for a while but had to log before we caught anything of great interest.
On Sunday I was back ratting again, and although there was no faction spawns this time I did see a lot more battleship rats and made my ten million in about and hour or such. Then I went cruising in my Falcon looking for easy targets but nothing presented itself.
All in all a quiet weekend with some ISK making on the side.
There have been some grumblings in the ranks about how the alliance deals with (or rather does not deal with) certain issues and I hope these are just growing pains and that we can work it all out with our alliance mates in good order. I'd hate to have to move again already without the jump frieghter up and running which is only 12.75 days away.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Shameless Plugging
Last post saw a comment from my CEO so I thought I would shamelessly plug his blog Shiplog of a Privateer for two reasons:
1) Its always a good idea to kiss up to the boss; and
2) If his readership builds up he will be motivated to post more often and he's an excellent writer.
So go, read, and enjoy!
1) Its always a good idea to kiss up to the boss; and
2) If his readership builds up he will be motivated to post more often and he's an excellent writer.
So go, read, and enjoy!
Changed My Skill Plan... Again
Sigh.
I know, I know, I change my plan every week it seems but you have to roll with the punches. Fiddling with the skill plan is one of the most fun parts of Eve.
I finished Large Rail Specialization IV this morning (for Elite Sniper Goodness!) and was going to wade into Motion Prediction V for Tech II blasters but decided to forgo that route for the time being and push harder down the carrier path for alliance support reasons.
Plus I want to fly my carrier. REALLY WANT.
I'm training some quick auxiliary skills that I want to bang off like Electronic Attack ships (to give me another option for frig gangs besides the Raptor) and Heavy Missiles Specializations (for improved Cerberus and Drake performance and options besides HAMs) before tearing into Warp Drive Operation V. That should take me to about the 20th of April where I will put on Caldari Battle Ship V.
I know, I know, I change my plan every week it seems but you have to roll with the punches. Fiddling with the skill plan is one of the most fun parts of Eve.
I finished Large Rail Specialization IV this morning (for Elite Sniper Goodness!) and was going to wade into Motion Prediction V for Tech II blasters but decided to forgo that route for the time being and push harder down the carrier path for alliance support reasons.
Plus I want to fly my carrier. REALLY WANT.
I'm training some quick auxiliary skills that I want to bang off like Electronic Attack ships (to give me another option for frig gangs besides the Raptor) and Heavy Missiles Specializations (for improved Cerberus and Drake performance and options besides HAMs) before tearing into Warp Drive Operation V. That should take me to about the 20th of April where I will put on Caldari Battle Ship V.
I'm Sneeeeaaaaakkkkkyyyyy
In the old days, getting stuff into 0.0 was a hazardous process of warp stabbed battleships and battlecruisers trying to sneak past gate camps and roaming gangs. And it didn't always work.
With the advent of carrier pilots in our group, and being in alliances with carrier pilots, its a lot easier. Jump the big stuff to 0.0 relatively safely in a carrier's ship maintenance array, and fly to the 0.0 base in an almost uncatchable interceptor. Really, it makes getting into 0.0 easier than getting from high sec to low sec.
But I thought I could scout Derranna into 0.0 flying her Blockade Runner transport ship as I didn't want to trouble my CEO for yet another jump. With Kirith as a scout in his Raptor, I figured it would be easy until I got scared halfway and docked up.
I checked again last night when I logged but the Aphelion alliance pilots were still there and when Kirith undocked to look around, I noticed a Crow. Well, shit. A Crow is the other Caldari Interceptor and is built on combat as opposed to tackling and I figured if that pilot invested any isk in his ship it would go faster than mine. Faction mods, rigs, implants, its not unfeasible that he could get up to 8+km/sec and my piddly 5.8 km/sec would be outclassed.
Since Derranna was still trapped, I decided to run. While the Crow was most likely faster in realspace, the Raptor still owns the warpspace speed and I easily outpaced him back to our base system.
Once there I knew there was a frigate op scheduled for the top of the hour, only five minutes away. I waited patiently for it to start as I had an hour to play and a roaming frig gang would be fun. But aside from me and a corp mate no one else showed, not even the organizer! I would have gone wit just the two of us but he was only in a Tech I frigate with minimal skills and my Raptor is not DPS enough to pick up the slack. So after waiting 15 minutes I decided to pick up some parts a couple jumps away and then head back to Derranna for another try to escape later on.
Around 20 minutes after the scheduled op was supposed to begin the organizer logged in but I figured I didn't have enough time now so disappointed I did my own thing. Sigh.
This morning I was determined to get Derranna out of the pickle she was in and get to base. SO I waited to 10 minutes before downtime and logged in. Those Aphelion guys were still in system but they were all docked in my station. I decided to undock and see if I could make a run for it. In space no contacts on the overview or scan so I made a run for it, got to the gate, and jumped through. The next few jumps were uneventful and the local empty so the old sneaky trick of running the pipe just before or after downtime worked just like in the old days.
With the advent of carrier pilots in our group, and being in alliances with carrier pilots, its a lot easier. Jump the big stuff to 0.0 relatively safely in a carrier's ship maintenance array, and fly to the 0.0 base in an almost uncatchable interceptor. Really, it makes getting into 0.0 easier than getting from high sec to low sec.
But I thought I could scout Derranna into 0.0 flying her Blockade Runner transport ship as I didn't want to trouble my CEO for yet another jump. With Kirith as a scout in his Raptor, I figured it would be easy until I got scared halfway and docked up.
I checked again last night when I logged but the Aphelion alliance pilots were still there and when Kirith undocked to look around, I noticed a Crow. Well, shit. A Crow is the other Caldari Interceptor and is built on combat as opposed to tackling and I figured if that pilot invested any isk in his ship it would go faster than mine. Faction mods, rigs, implants, its not unfeasible that he could get up to 8+km/sec and my piddly 5.8 km/sec would be outclassed.
Since Derranna was still trapped, I decided to run. While the Crow was most likely faster in realspace, the Raptor still owns the warpspace speed and I easily outpaced him back to our base system.
Once there I knew there was a frigate op scheduled for the top of the hour, only five minutes away. I waited patiently for it to start as I had an hour to play and a roaming frig gang would be fun. But aside from me and a corp mate no one else showed, not even the organizer! I would have gone wit just the two of us but he was only in a Tech I frigate with minimal skills and my Raptor is not DPS enough to pick up the slack. So after waiting 15 minutes I decided to pick up some parts a couple jumps away and then head back to Derranna for another try to escape later on.
Around 20 minutes after the scheduled op was supposed to begin the organizer logged in but I figured I didn't have enough time now so disappointed I did my own thing. Sigh.
This morning I was determined to get Derranna out of the pickle she was in and get to base. SO I waited to 10 minutes before downtime and logged in. Those Aphelion guys were still in system but they were all docked in my station. I decided to undock and see if I could make a run for it. In space no contacts on the overview or scan so I made a run for it, got to the gate, and jumped through. The next few jumps were uneventful and the local empty so the old sneaky trick of running the pipe just before or after downtime worked just like in the old days.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Logistics Part III and Done
Last night I had one more run to do for both Kirith and Derranna. Kirith to go get the Cerberus while dinner was being cooked and eaten, and Derranna to pick up parts for the cloaking devices I need to build.
Once they were both back in Stacmon, I logged Kirith and had Derranna complete the logistics operations by renting a hanger and putting the corp assets in relatively correct spots. I then threw the 40 cloaking devices in a factory and patted myself on the back for a job well done.
With Derranna finally free, she jumped in a Minmatar Probe frigate and went out to the bordering low sec system to sit cloaked off the gate. That gave me a pair of eyes to watch for campers while Kirith took his Cerberus, Onyx, and Manticore to our low sec carrier jumping base for transport to 0.0. I guess that would be considered more logistics, eh? Ah well, its done now.
I still have a Drake Battlecruiser and Scorpion battleship in high sec; I'm not sure I want or need them in 0.0. The Drake is a decent ratter but my Cerberus and Rokh can cover that more than adequately (if a little expensively) and I might reconfigure it for Tech II Heavy missiles which will require some fitting experiments and purchases anyways. The Scorpion I didn't bother because I've come to see it as a useful ECM ship for low sec gates and station fighting where it can absorb sentry fire that the Falcon cannot. Otherwise the faster moving and locking Falcon is superior except for having one or two less ECM mods, hardly worth the effort of moving the Scorpion to 0.0 for that.
With all corporate and personal logistics taken care of for the time being, I was free to finally try and sneak Derranna's spare clone to 0.0 this morning before I left for work. I jump cloned Kirith to his Raptor interceptor just inside Syndicate region and Derranna to her Prowler Blockade Runner just outside 0.0. Seeing the gate was clear, Derranna warped on in and I began the process of scouting her to our base.
About four jumps along, I see a neutral in local. I had Derranna cloak while Kirith in his virtually unstoppable interceptor check it out. The neutral jumped into the next system and I followed to find three members of the same neutral alliance. Two I could see at the gate, an Amarr Arbitrator cruiser and a Caldari Raven Battleship; hardly a great concern for either of my ships in terms of escaping them. But I couldn't see what the third pilot was flying and an Interdictor (heavy or light) or a Gallente or Minmatar Recon could really ruin my day.
I decided to play it extra safe and have both characters dock up in a station. I'll wait until later, maybe see if I can get some escort from the alliance for the last few jumps. No rush and I had to get to work anyways.
Once they were both back in Stacmon, I logged Kirith and had Derranna complete the logistics operations by renting a hanger and putting the corp assets in relatively correct spots. I then threw the 40 cloaking devices in a factory and patted myself on the back for a job well done.
With Derranna finally free, she jumped in a Minmatar Probe frigate and went out to the bordering low sec system to sit cloaked off the gate. That gave me a pair of eyes to watch for campers while Kirith took his Cerberus, Onyx, and Manticore to our low sec carrier jumping base for transport to 0.0. I guess that would be considered more logistics, eh? Ah well, its done now.
I still have a Drake Battlecruiser and Scorpion battleship in high sec; I'm not sure I want or need them in 0.0. The Drake is a decent ratter but my Cerberus and Rokh can cover that more than adequately (if a little expensively) and I might reconfigure it for Tech II Heavy missiles which will require some fitting experiments and purchases anyways. The Scorpion I didn't bother because I've come to see it as a useful ECM ship for low sec gates and station fighting where it can absorb sentry fire that the Falcon cannot. Otherwise the faster moving and locking Falcon is superior except for having one or two less ECM mods, hardly worth the effort of moving the Scorpion to 0.0 for that.
With all corporate and personal logistics taken care of for the time being, I was free to finally try and sneak Derranna's spare clone to 0.0 this morning before I left for work. I jump cloned Kirith to his Raptor interceptor just inside Syndicate region and Derranna to her Prowler Blockade Runner just outside 0.0. Seeing the gate was clear, Derranna warped on in and I began the process of scouting her to our base.
About four jumps along, I see a neutral in local. I had Derranna cloak while Kirith in his virtually unstoppable interceptor check it out. The neutral jumped into the next system and I followed to find three members of the same neutral alliance. Two I could see at the gate, an Amarr Arbitrator cruiser and a Caldari Raven Battleship; hardly a great concern for either of my ships in terms of escaping them. But I couldn't see what the third pilot was flying and an Interdictor (heavy or light) or a Gallente or Minmatar Recon could really ruin my day.
I decided to play it extra safe and have both characters dock up in a station. I'll wait until later, maybe see if I can get some escort from the alliance for the last few jumps. No rush and I had to get to work anyways.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The Eternal Question In Eve...
Do I train that skill more or not?
Kirith is in a week long slog of training Large Rail Specialization IV which arguably has very little benefit.
In order to train Large Rail Spec skill at all you need Medium Rail Spec trained up to IV. And same thing with Medium Rail Spec and Small Rail Spec. But once you train the first level of the Large Rail Spec skill, you've opened up access to all the modules and there is no further skills depending on it.
The only benefit to training Large Rail Spec II through V is an additional 2% damage bonus per level. Now training the 24 or so hours for level II and level II is not a big deal but level IV is about 7 days (and level V is 36 days!) so it becomes a question of is 2% more damage worth waiting seven days for?
More generally, what is the threshold of time versus reward for non-prerequisite skill training? Its the question every Eve pilot must face and answer for him or herself during their pod career. For me and my precious Rokh, the difference between level III and level IV is about 8 DPS. Total. That's 1 DPS per weapon. With antimatter, its even less with longer range/less damage weapons. Normally I would say "screw that!" and move on to my next skill except its a pride thing in this case. I want to have one of the best DPS rates with rails out there and Large Rail Specialization IV sounds wicked to others who don't have it, even though you and I know its no big deal.
So Friday afternoon I'll have my little badge of prestige and move on to Tech II blasters and face the next iteration of the Eternal Question... Large Blaster Specialization IV or not?
Kirith is in a week long slog of training Large Rail Specialization IV which arguably has very little benefit.
In order to train Large Rail Spec skill at all you need Medium Rail Spec trained up to IV. And same thing with Medium Rail Spec and Small Rail Spec. But once you train the first level of the Large Rail Spec skill, you've opened up access to all the modules and there is no further skills depending on it.
The only benefit to training Large Rail Spec II through V is an additional 2% damage bonus per level. Now training the 24 or so hours for level II and level II is not a big deal but level IV is about 7 days (and level V is 36 days!) so it becomes a question of is 2% more damage worth waiting seven days for?
More generally, what is the threshold of time versus reward for non-prerequisite skill training? Its the question every Eve pilot must face and answer for him or herself during their pod career. For me and my precious Rokh, the difference between level III and level IV is about 8 DPS. Total. That's 1 DPS per weapon. With antimatter, its even less with longer range/less damage weapons. Normally I would say "screw that!" and move on to my next skill except its a pride thing in this case. I want to have one of the best DPS rates with rails out there and Large Rail Specialization IV sounds wicked to others who don't have it, even though you and I know its no big deal.
So Friday afternoon I'll have my little badge of prestige and move on to Tech II blasters and face the next iteration of the Eternal Question... Large Blaster Specialization IV or not?
Logistics Part II
As I said yesterday, I had ships in Nonni to move to Stacmon so sadly that's all Kirith was able to do. I got three of the four ships moved with only a Cerberus left in Nonni and I'm tempted just to sell that. Derranna was on Freighter duty moving Kirith's mods and stuff along with all the remaining corp assets from Nonni to Stacmon. That's the first time using a freighter I've seen the thing full almost to the brim. We had a lot of stuff in the corp hangers.
Tonight Kirith can work on getting his ships to a low sec port for some carrier jumping (Hooray for my CEO!) to 0.0 while Derranna will go back to Nonni to complete the cloaking device production.
Tonight Kirith can work on getting his ships to a low sec port for some carrier jumping (Hooray for my CEO!) to 0.0 while Derranna will go back to Nonni to complete the cloaking device production.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Latest Eve Tribune Article
Interview with CCP Zulupark about upcoming carrier changes.
Nah, just April Fooling you, that entire "interview" is from my imagination, but its a good one, no? The whole publication this week is an April Fool joke.
Nah, just April Fooling you, that entire "interview" is from my imagination, but its a good one, no? The whole publication this week is an April Fool joke.
Logistics
With the new alliance working out well for us, I've decided to make the move of my personal belongings from Nonni to Stacmon. Most of it is easy: transfer to Derranna and she'll freighter it down in the Galactica. The problem is the rest, specifically, rigged ships.
A Drake, Onyx, and Manticore. They are all rigged, the Drake for higher resists, the Onyx for better active shield boosting, and the Manticore for missile damage. Repackaging ships destroys the rigs and they can't be removed, so I'll have to manaully pilot each one to Stacmon from Nonni, 20 boring jumps through high sec.
Last night I cloned jumped to my Empire clone and flew in my pod to Nonni, contracted the stuff to Derranna that I could, and tonight will begin the multiple trips to Stacmon. Sigh. I could try and sell them using contracts but I want the ships, just not the hassle of moving them. I kinda wish I still had Barak and I could carrier jump them but that boat as sailed.
Derranna was busy last night moving her own stuff around before flying to Amarr to do some shopping for the corp to buy stuff for more invention attempts and building the four cloaking devices BPCs she invented last week. The corp will need the ISK from those cloaks to fund our next project: a new POS.
A Drake, Onyx, and Manticore. They are all rigged, the Drake for higher resists, the Onyx for better active shield boosting, and the Manticore for missile damage. Repackaging ships destroys the rigs and they can't be removed, so I'll have to manaully pilot each one to Stacmon from Nonni, 20 boring jumps through high sec.
Last night I cloned jumped to my Empire clone and flew in my pod to Nonni, contracted the stuff to Derranna that I could, and tonight will begin the multiple trips to Stacmon. Sigh. I could try and sell them using contracts but I want the ships, just not the hassle of moving them. I kinda wish I still had Barak and I could carrier jump them but that boat as sailed.
Derranna was busy last night moving her own stuff around before flying to Amarr to do some shopping for the corp to buy stuff for more invention attempts and building the four cloaking devices BPCs she invented last week. The corp will need the ISK from those cloaks to fund our next project: a new POS.
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