I tried something new this week for the Eve Tribune: Kirith's Fighting Spacecraft: Caracal
It's complete technofluff so comments as to its quality, if it "works", improvements would be appreciated since it is the start of a series for me.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Age Distribution in Eve
An interesting post with poll results on 200 Eve players' ages over at Miner With Fangs. Go, read. In the comments are links to two more ago polls by fellow bloggers Mynxee and Manasi.
Some Pictures
Some screenshots to enjoy.
Here is one of me reducing Mynxee's Rifter to space dust:
Here is Cap'n Sandi chasing me in his Rifter yet refusing to shoot.
Here are those nasty Abaddons I had to avoid in low sec on Sunday.
Here is one of me reducing Mynxee's Rifter to space dust:
Here is Cap'n Sandi chasing me in his Rifter yet refusing to shoot.
Here are those nasty Abaddons I had to avoid in low sec on Sunday.
Um... What?
I didn't get on very much last night but when I did as Derranna I received an invite to a convo from Cap'n Sandi himself. Well, I was surprised (not that he knew of my alt but that he would bother to convo me at all) and curious as to what he had to say.
I'll avoid the biting sarcasm about how he figured out how to use a locater agent to see I was in Providence 0.0 space (i.e. AY-YCU system), but for future reference, FINEG pilots, know that I assume you are aware of my location at all times, ok? I'm not surprised if you show up in local. Moving on.
I can think of many taunts and threats FINEG could use against me. Some I would reccomend:
"Trying a POS in 0.0 eh? Hope you guys bring a carrier to defend this one!"
"Hiding behind CVA's skirts in Providence won't save you."
"Great, I don't have to worry about losing sec status now when I kill you."
"Leave your corp behind to deal with us, eh?"
"There are no missions to run in Providence you know."
"You're going to have to run farther than that."
"Unlike you, we are not afraid to follow people into 0.0"
You get the idea. There are lots of ways to smack. This is however not one of them:
"I heard AY-YCU is haunted... [...] Ghosts and goblins come out at night"
*Stunned silence*
What the f*** was that? This is not the first time he mentioned ghosts. Back to his last blatherings in local:
[ 2008.09.28 02:27:53 ] Capitan Santiago > too noob to do missiosn solo kirith?
[ 2008.09.28 02:28:15 ] Capitan Santiago > or you just afraid ghosts might appear?
So we seem to have a theme here in that Cap'n Sandi considered himself and the rest of FINEG to be "ghosts" and "goblins" apparently, and that I should be scared of them. I can only think of a couple possibilties:
1. Cap'n Sandi is indeed 7 years old and thinks monsters hide under his bed and are in his closet.
2. Cap'n Sandi is an adult with a warped and odd sense of humour, and thus finds his threats the height of hilarity.
3. Cap'n Sandi is playing Eve while drunk and/or high, and thus finds his threats the height of hilarity.
4. Cap'n Sandi is just plain dumb.
I suspect 2 or 3 are the strongest canidates. Regardless, that has to be the strangest convo I've had in Eve to date.
I'll avoid the biting sarcasm about how he figured out how to use a locater agent to see I was in Providence 0.0 space (i.e. AY-YCU system), but for future reference, FINEG pilots, know that I assume you are aware of my location at all times, ok? I'm not surprised if you show up in local. Moving on.I can think of many taunts and threats FINEG could use against me. Some I would reccomend:
"Trying a POS in 0.0 eh? Hope you guys bring a carrier to defend this one!"
"Hiding behind CVA's skirts in Providence won't save you."
"Great, I don't have to worry about losing sec status now when I kill you."
"Leave your corp behind to deal with us, eh?"
"There are no missions to run in Providence you know."
"You're going to have to run farther than that."
"Unlike you, we are not afraid to follow people into 0.0"
You get the idea. There are lots of ways to smack. This is however not one of them:
"I heard AY-YCU is haunted... [...] Ghosts and goblins come out at night"
*Stunned silence*
What the f*** was that? This is not the first time he mentioned ghosts. Back to his last blatherings in local:
[ 2008.09.28 02:27:53 ] Capitan Santiago > too noob to do missiosn solo kirith?
[ 2008.09.28 02:28:15 ] Capitan Santiago > or you just afraid ghosts might appear?
So we seem to have a theme here in that Cap'n Sandi considered himself and the rest of FINEG to be "ghosts" and "goblins" apparently, and that I should be scared of them. I can only think of a couple possibilties:
1. Cap'n Sandi is indeed 7 years old and thinks monsters hide under his bed and are in his closet.
2. Cap'n Sandi is an adult with a warped and odd sense of humour, and thus finds his threats the height of hilarity.
3. Cap'n Sandi is playing Eve while drunk and/or high, and thus finds his threats the height of hilarity.
4. Cap'n Sandi is just plain dumb.
I suspect 2 or 3 are the strongest canidates. Regardless, that has to be the strangest convo I've had in Eve to date.
Monday, September 29, 2008
One Server To Rule Them All...
... And in the Darkness Bind Them.
I was reading a post on Massively about Eve's single "server" architecture (the quotes because its a cluster of servers really) and it got me thinking about how unique this design decision makes Eve.
Every Eve player in the world can interact with every other at a moment's notice, and if they choose to, fly together. Every event is local in a sense, every power bloc is neighbours to everyone else. Its especially relevant for Eve Bloggers as they can run into each other in space and exchange pleasantries if they choose. We all share the same space.
It also creates larger populations for markets, more potential pirates and victims, larger and grander conflicts involving thousands of characters over months, the list goes on. Having 200,000 accounts on one shard opens a lot of possibilities.
While it has its own problems, I hope that future MMOs will copy this model and it will become the norm instead of the exception.
I was reading a post on Massively about Eve's single "server" architecture (the quotes because its a cluster of servers really) and it got me thinking about how unique this design decision makes Eve.
Every Eve player in the world can interact with every other at a moment's notice, and if they choose to, fly together. Every event is local in a sense, every power bloc is neighbours to everyone else. Its especially relevant for Eve Bloggers as they can run into each other in space and exchange pleasantries if they choose. We all share the same space.
It also creates larger populations for markets, more potential pirates and victims, larger and grander conflicts involving thousands of characters over months, the list goes on. Having 200,000 accounts on one shard opens a lot of possibilities.
While it has its own problems, I hope that future MMOs will copy this model and it will become the norm instead of the exception.
Cha-Ching!
Yesterday was "get me some money!" day.
The mission running from Saturday provided a nice little boost to the wallet to cover ammo expenses and such, but I needed more seed money to get the industrial alts going. I decided it was time to sell off some stuff.
I opened up my module container and grabbed everything that wasn't Faction, Tech II, or best available (i.e. Salvagers and Tractor Beams have no other versions). Then with 11K m3 of stuff I went to market and started selling. I made about 140 million ISK, a large part of which came from 16 x 350mm Prototype Gauss Railguns I used to need for the Rokh before I got the Tech II skills.
Later on that evening, I had some time to get in and I decided to try my run to 0.0 once more. Sunday evenings are still busy but since its past midnight in Europe the server population is not as thick as Saturday afternoons or evening and I felt I might have a chance to get closer at least. It took thirty minutes to make three jumps. It was busy and I was extremely cautious, but I managed to get into the low sec system bordering 0.0 before calling it a night. Then this morning when I logged in before work and downtime, I easily scouted myself without worry into 0.0 and to my destination system where a public station was available for docking. Gotta love CVA. Now when I log in on quiet weeknights I can rat in 0.0 instead of wasting away in low sec with nothing to do.
Not that I expect too many quiet weeknights in the near future... Blackwater Alliance (i.e. m3's alliance) has declared war on Idle Empire alliance. I won't go into the political reasons for the war but suffice to say that Idle Empire is home to many known pirates. The war went active yesterday and I plan to take a couple ships to the warzone this week for some action maybe next weekend. The boys seem to be settling down to sleep for the night before 9pm now, so Sunday evenings appear to be my best chance for consistent gametime going forward. Time will tell.
The mission running from Saturday provided a nice little boost to the wallet to cover ammo expenses and such, but I needed more seed money to get the industrial alts going. I decided it was time to sell off some stuff.
I opened up my module container and grabbed everything that wasn't Faction, Tech II, or best available (i.e. Salvagers and Tractor Beams have no other versions). Then with 11K m3 of stuff I went to market and started selling. I made about 140 million ISK, a large part of which came from 16 x 350mm Prototype Gauss Railguns I used to need for the Rokh before I got the Tech II skills.
Later on that evening, I had some time to get in and I decided to try my run to 0.0 once more. Sunday evenings are still busy but since its past midnight in Europe the server population is not as thick as Saturday afternoons or evening and I felt I might have a chance to get closer at least. It took thirty minutes to make three jumps. It was busy and I was extremely cautious, but I managed to get into the low sec system bordering 0.0 before calling it a night. Then this morning when I logged in before work and downtime, I easily scouted myself without worry into 0.0 and to my destination system where a public station was available for docking. Gotta love CVA. Now when I log in on quiet weeknights I can rat in 0.0 instead of wasting away in low sec with nothing to do.
Not that I expect too many quiet weeknights in the near future... Blackwater Alliance (i.e. m3's alliance) has declared war on Idle Empire alliance. I won't go into the political reasons for the war but suffice to say that Idle Empire is home to many known pirates. The war went active yesterday and I plan to take a couple ships to the warzone this week for some action maybe next weekend. The boys seem to be settling down to sleep for the night before 9pm now, so Sunday evenings appear to be my best chance for consistent gametime going forward. Time will tell.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Online
It was one of those rare Eve weekends where I find myself with multiple hours to play. It seems to happen once a month or so when the Mother In Law comes up to visit and I am free to scuttle away.
So beyond the "excitement" of Cap'n Sandi coming to smack me in local and decline to actually, you know, engage, there was some other goings ons.
On Friday night I felt eager for a fight and found out as I settled in that the alliance had just finished a big battle with Atlas Alliance in which apparently one of their carrier pilots was quitting Eve and wanted to go down shooting so he and several friends took his Nidhoggur and parked it in one of our belts with several ships for support. And proceeded to taunt us.
Well, our alliance and friends rose to the challenge and took that carrier and support fleet down. And all the action was done just before I logged in. My PvP curse is back on folks; all the action happens when I'm not around.
I patrolled the constellation to see if any stragglers could be engaged but it was quiet. I spent the rest of my evening moving more combat ships to the corporate head quarters and preparing a ship to go to 0.0 with.
Saturday night I logged in determined to get into 0.0 so I could rat some ISK back. The low wallet was really stinging and if I didn't rat I would have to start considering selling some stuff. *GASP* So with Derranna using her new Cheetah Covert Ops to scout for me I prepared to jump into low sec on my way to the show.
Except... there is an Abaddon on the low sec jump. Waiting.
Hmmm. The tier III Amarr battleship is a nasty piece of work and with the right setup can deal damage equivalent or better than a good Blaster Mega. My Cerberus wouldn't stand a chance if tackled and I felt risking the jump was not prudent. Fortunately a couple jumps through high sec could get my into the low sec system through another gate and I decided to try that.
Jump clear on both side and I was in low sec heading to the next gate.
Uh oh. My Abaddon pilot is in local and he's with a corp mate also in an Abaddon. In the next system I decide to cloak and move off the gate instead of warping. The two Abaddon hostiles jump in and spend the next few minutes patrolling the system I was in, the one I came from, and the next one on my route. These guys are looking for kills and I had no intention of adding myself to their killboards.
I docked up and jump cloned back to base to wait for quieter times to sneak myself into null sec. Checking corp comms I found a friend was going to run some missions so I offered to help out. It was my first time with a new setup on the Rokh, trading the two Power Diagnostic Units for a Tracking Enhancer and Signal Amplifer for more locking range and more optimal range. The idea is to use Antimatter ammo more and use lead ammo for those 120km + engagements.
The ship performed adequately although I did feel the loss of the extra cap from the PDUs, but with the cap booster I never felt worried. We were halfway through the second mission when Cap'n Sandi showed up and started jabbering. All in all I earned a good chunk of ISK from the bounties and I will probably use that to start some manufacturing again to get the wallet growing more from that direction as well.
EDIT: I forgot that before we started that second mission an alliance member in a Dominix was engaged in a belt by an Astarte command ship. We (and several others) rushed to engage and the Astarte was quickly reduced to rubble. I failed to get in on the kill mail as I mis-warped to the first belt of the eighth planet instead of the seventh. Sigh.
Next time!
So beyond the "excitement" of Cap'n Sandi coming to smack me in local and decline to actually, you know, engage, there was some other goings ons.
On Friday night I felt eager for a fight and found out as I settled in that the alliance had just finished a big battle with Atlas Alliance in which apparently one of their carrier pilots was quitting Eve and wanted to go down shooting so he and several friends took his Nidhoggur and parked it in one of our belts with several ships for support. And proceeded to taunt us.
Well, our alliance and friends rose to the challenge and took that carrier and support fleet down. And all the action was done just before I logged in. My PvP curse is back on folks; all the action happens when I'm not around.
I patrolled the constellation to see if any stragglers could be engaged but it was quiet. I spent the rest of my evening moving more combat ships to the corporate head quarters and preparing a ship to go to 0.0 with.
Saturday night I logged in determined to get into 0.0 so I could rat some ISK back. The low wallet was really stinging and if I didn't rat I would have to start considering selling some stuff. *GASP* So with Derranna using her new Cheetah Covert Ops to scout for me I prepared to jump into low sec on my way to the show.
Except... there is an Abaddon on the low sec jump. Waiting.
Hmmm. The tier III Amarr battleship is a nasty piece of work and with the right setup can deal damage equivalent or better than a good Blaster Mega. My Cerberus wouldn't stand a chance if tackled and I felt risking the jump was not prudent. Fortunately a couple jumps through high sec could get my into the low sec system through another gate and I decided to try that.
Jump clear on both side and I was in low sec heading to the next gate.
Uh oh. My Abaddon pilot is in local and he's with a corp mate also in an Abaddon. In the next system I decide to cloak and move off the gate instead of warping. The two Abaddon hostiles jump in and spend the next few minutes patrolling the system I was in, the one I came from, and the next one on my route. These guys are looking for kills and I had no intention of adding myself to their killboards.
I docked up and jump cloned back to base to wait for quieter times to sneak myself into null sec. Checking corp comms I found a friend was going to run some missions so I offered to help out. It was my first time with a new setup on the Rokh, trading the two Power Diagnostic Units for a Tracking Enhancer and Signal Amplifer for more locking range and more optimal range. The idea is to use Antimatter ammo more and use lead ammo for those 120km + engagements.
The ship performed adequately although I did feel the loss of the extra cap from the PDUs, but with the cap booster I never felt worried. We were halfway through the second mission when Cap'n Sandi showed up and started jabbering. All in all I earned a good chunk of ISK from the bounties and I will probably use that to start some manufacturing again to get the wallet growing more from that direction as well.
EDIT: I forgot that before we started that second mission an alliance member in a Dominix was engaged in a belt by an Astarte command ship. We (and several others) rushed to engage and the Astarte was quickly reduced to rubble. I failed to get in on the kill mail as I mis-warped to the first belt of the eighth planet instead of the seventh. Sigh.
Next time!
The Cap'n Speaks!
I was running a level four mission with some corp mates in my trusty Rokh Battleship Saturday night when Captain Santiago of FINEG shows up in a Rifter.
But nothing. Until:
I wasted a good 45-50 minutes of his time and that's enough for me. :) Note that I did not directly communicate with him via evemail, convo, or in Local. The above local log was all there was in the chat box.
[ 2008.09.28 02:18:46 ] Capitan Santiago > Kirith Kodachi RokhPretty lame smack if you ask me although the line about Ctrl+Q being the fastest made me chuckle. After the mission we go to turn it in and a FINEG alt pipes up:
[ 2008.09.28 02:19:22 ] Capitan Santiago > 30 secs till log
[ 2008.09.28 02:21:42 ] Capitan Santiago > Ctrl + Q is fastest way
[ 2008.09.28 02:27:53 ] Capitan Santiago > too noob to do missiosn solo kirith?
[ 2008.09.28 02:28:15 ] Capitan Santiago > or you just afraid ghosts might appear?
[ 2008.09.28 02:33:24 ] Capitan Santiago > Doing vengeance?
[ 2008.09.28 02:33:54 ] Capitan Santiago > not a bad mission, cake walk
[ 2008.09.28 02:35:47 ] Capitan Santiago > Hey so how is derrana? good?
[ 2008.09.28 02:36:11 ] EVE System > Channel changed to XXXXX Local ChannelCurious to see what the Cap'n would do I went back in Thorax Mynxee's Bane and we circled each other for a while outside the station.
[ 2008.09.28 02:36:52 ] Zer0 CooL > run kirith!
[ 2008.09.28 02:41:59 ] EVE System > Channel changed to YYYYY Local ChannelThen this after several minutes of nothing happening:
[ 2008.09.28 02:42:19 ] Capitan Santiago > omg you came for me
[ 2008.09.28 02:42:29 ] Capitan Santiago > or did you forget your drones?
[ 2008.09.28 02:56:14 ] Capitan Santiago > wanna go to a belt?So I warped to a belt, he shows up, and we continue to circle each other. Now, I'm under strict corp orders to keep my sec status above -2.0 AND I didn't feel like giving him kill rights so I thought I would let him shoot first. No sentries, right?
But nothing. Until:
[ 2008.09.28 03:01:41 ] Capitan Santiago > im not grinding sec for a rax killWell I'm not doing it for a rifter kill either. So I docked and logged. And as I warped:
[ 2008.09.28 03:02:12 ] Capitan Santiago > lolI gave up on the solo war dec against FINEG because I came to realize it was pointless: I didn't have the numbers to bring them to combat unless they had more firepower, and I was tired of flying alone. But I saw no point in trying to explain that as I doubt anyone in FINEG is looking for explanations.
[ 2008.09.28 03:02:19 ] Capitan Santiago > u war dec and run like a pussy
I wasted a good 45-50 minutes of his time and that's enough for me. :) Note that I did not directly communicate with him via evemail, convo, or in Local. The above local log was all there was in the chat box.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Contract Confusion
The m3 Corp has a policy of ensuring pilots remain active in the corp with a rewards and penalty system. If you get enough stars for participating in fleets or fulfilling contracts you are granted a reward and conversely if you fail to participate in scheduled ops or impromptu call to arms you get strikes. Too many strikes and you face possible ejection.
Being a guy not online a lot I was forced to miss a scheduled roaming gang last night (Thursdays are usually bad and last night was triple whammy as I went to give blood and Twin A was up late) so I wanted to make up for it. I checked corp contracts and saw one for 37 Mechanical Engineering Datacores and I thought "here is my chance to get a star!". Sigh, mmo players are always slaves to the 'ding'.
I went and got the datacores and brought them to the station. I brought up the contract and happily clicked Accept.
Wait. What?
I've got 74 Datacores now and my wallet is 10 million ISK lighter. Oops.
In my excitement at the potential of getting a credit for corp involvement I failed to notice that the contract was giving datacores in exchange for ISK. Odd I thought but it was a good price so I wasn't too distraught.
However in seconds the director who created that contract contacted me and informed me that contract was meant for the corporation itself, not any corp pilot. I think he set it up wrong and thus was very surprised when I accepted it instead of him accepting it on behalf of the corp. I quickly sent the datacores back to him in exchange for my ISK and cursed my luck; I had -1 star (i.e. a strike) and 37 datacores I didn't need.
Better luck next time.
* * * * *
In other news, Kirith is still chiseling away at Caldari Carrier IV which should be finished middle of next week, and Derranna completed Astrometrics V last night so she can use all of the scan probes and can train Jump Portal Generation should she ever get into a Black Ops or Titan. Heh.
She's now working on Signal Acquisition IV to increase he scanning time, and soon will beaver away on Astrometric Pinpointing and Triangulation for increased scan accuracy and strength respectively. Oh and she will get a couple levels of Archeology like I had planned a while ago but forgot to learn the skill for.
All of that will take about 16 days so what will she do after that? Well with Derranna its always a crap shoot until I actually train something but I'm thinking right now some module upgrading would be prudent. Get her so she can use micro warp drives for example, or some improved shield skills.
Being a guy not online a lot I was forced to miss a scheduled roaming gang last night (Thursdays are usually bad and last night was triple whammy as I went to give blood and Twin A was up late) so I wanted to make up for it. I checked corp contracts and saw one for 37 Mechanical Engineering Datacores and I thought "here is my chance to get a star!". Sigh, mmo players are always slaves to the 'ding'.
I went and got the datacores and brought them to the station. I brought up the contract and happily clicked Accept.
Wait. What?
I've got 74 Datacores now and my wallet is 10 million ISK lighter. Oops.
In my excitement at the potential of getting a credit for corp involvement I failed to notice that the contract was giving datacores in exchange for ISK. Odd I thought but it was a good price so I wasn't too distraught.
However in seconds the director who created that contract contacted me and informed me that contract was meant for the corporation itself, not any corp pilot. I think he set it up wrong and thus was very surprised when I accepted it instead of him accepting it on behalf of the corp. I quickly sent the datacores back to him in exchange for my ISK and cursed my luck; I had -1 star (i.e. a strike) and 37 datacores I didn't need.
Better luck next time.
* * * * *
In other news, Kirith is still chiseling away at Caldari Carrier IV which should be finished middle of next week, and Derranna completed Astrometrics V last night so she can use all of the scan probes and can train Jump Portal Generation should she ever get into a Black Ops or Titan. Heh.
She's now working on Signal Acquisition IV to increase he scanning time, and soon will beaver away on Astrometric Pinpointing and Triangulation for increased scan accuracy and strength respectively. Oh and she will get a couple levels of Archeology like I had planned a while ago but forgot to learn the skill for.
All of that will take about 16 days so what will she do after that? Well with Derranna its always a crap shoot until I actually train something but I'm thinking right now some module upgrading would be prudent. Get her so she can use micro warp drives for example, or some improved shield skills.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Death By Death
Last night I wrote a post about how the carrier was the "end-game" ship for me but not the actual "end-game" as I had tonnes of things I still want to train for like command ships, other faction ships, etc. But I went and posted it to the wrong blog. How embarrassing. I didn't even know until Andrew came around and commented on how noobish I was. Sigh.
Anyways, I had some rare game time last night as both boys and my wife went down early at 9pm. I logged in and found myself with the carrier and many hours to go until jump cloning so I decided to wing the 20 jumps back to Tash Murkon in the Kitsune of Doom. While I was travelling I got officially registered on the Team Speak server and joined the low sec and 0.0 intel channels.
Once back in Tash, there was nothing special going on so I decided to move some ships around, getting more combat ready ships into low sec and upgrading my Onyx Heavy Interdictor with a Tech II shield booster that I couldn't use last winter when I built the ship. Now the only major move I have to do is to get a clone and ship into 0.0.
I'll get Derranna to scout me in with her Cheetah Covert Ops, but what ship should Kirith head down with to start? Something with DPS for ratting and space defense obviously, but not so big as to be unweildly. The Cerberus served me well in Syndicate but the Drake is cheaper and can do the PvP half decently. I think I'll start with the Cerberus and get a Drake jumped down at a later point in time.
I won't have time to be online tonight but I should sneak in some play time Friday night as the Mother In Law is coming to visit the boys.
Anyways, I had some rare game time last night as both boys and my wife went down early at 9pm. I logged in and found myself with the carrier and many hours to go until jump cloning so I decided to wing the 20 jumps back to Tash Murkon in the Kitsune of Doom. While I was travelling I got officially registered on the Team Speak server and joined the low sec and 0.0 intel channels.
Once back in Tash, there was nothing special going on so I decided to move some ships around, getting more combat ready ships into low sec and upgrading my Onyx Heavy Interdictor with a Tech II shield booster that I couldn't use last winter when I built the ship. Now the only major move I have to do is to get a clone and ship into 0.0.
I'll get Derranna to scout me in with her Cheetah Covert Ops, but what ship should Kirith head down with to start? Something with DPS for ratting and space defense obviously, but not so big as to be unweildly. The Cerberus served me well in Syndicate but the Drake is cheaper and can do the PvP half decently. I think I'll start with the Cerberus and get a Drake jumped down at a later point in time.
I won't have time to be online tonight but I should sneak in some play time Friday night as the Mother In Law is coming to visit the boys.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
How Much For That Carrier In The Window?
As I wait for a test to complete at work, I find myself with a minute or two on my hands and the question raised in my head by Mynxee's comment to the last post. How much investment in terms of ISK has the carrier been?
Well, there was the 378 million yesterday. Other skill books:
Fighters = 45 million
Jump Drive Operation = 10 million
Jump Fuel Conservation = 20 million
Jump Drive Calibration = 30 million
Advanced Spaceship Command = 50 million
Capital Ships = 400 million
Caldari Carrier = 500 million
The carrier itself along with some fuel and BPCs for modules was about 900 million if I recall correctly, and building those modules required about 40 million in minerals.
So rough estimate? About 2.333 billion ISK. And that is non-faction fitted. Yeah she is an expensive beast.
Well, there was the 378 million yesterday. Other skill books:
Fighters = 45 million
Jump Drive Operation = 10 million
Jump Fuel Conservation = 20 million
Jump Drive Calibration = 30 million
Advanced Spaceship Command = 50 million
Capital Ships = 400 million
Caldari Carrier = 500 million
The carrier itself along with some fuel and BPCs for modules was about 900 million if I recall correctly, and building those modules required about 40 million in minerals.
So rough estimate? About 2.333 billion ISK. And that is non-faction fitted. Yeah she is an expensive beast.
Shopping Spree
I could only get online for 20 minutes last night so I decided to do some quick shopping. I made the list of things I needed to get the Chimera carrier operational and opened the market browser.
Heavy Neutralizer II - 1,234,948
4 Capacitor Power Relay II - 4,715,880
3 Templar Fighters - 48,000,000
3 Firgolg Fighters - 48,000,000
3 Einherji Fighters - 48,000,000
2 Drone Control Units - 75,995,000
Capital Shield Booster - 45,000,000
3 Capacitor Control Circuit Rigs - 53,497,000
Advanced Drone Interfacing Skillbook - 13,500,000
Capital Energy Emissions Systems Skillbook - 9,000,000
Capital Shield Emissions Systems Skillbook - 9,000,000
Capital Shield Operation Skillbook - 22,500,000
Total = 378,442,828
Wow. And that's for a "ghetto" carrier. With that spending spree I'm down to my last 26 million ISK in my wallet. Ouch. On the upside, the carrier has almost all of the parts to be ready for duty with only a couple more fighters/drones and my skills needed to catch up.
Once I had purchased all that crap I had Derranna run around in the freighter and pick it all up. Now I was faced with the question of how to get it to the carrier; combined it all amounted to just over 66,000 m3 which would be perfected for a couple runs in a scouted industrial, or even a quick jump with the Nomad, but both of those ships were 33 jumps away in Minmatar space. With only the freighter on hand and impatientence spurring me on, I decided to run the risk of scouting the freighter through myself as it was only one jump into low sec and not a busy choke point system.
I waited until this morning before downtime and used an ECM ship (Kitsune) for Kirith to scout so he could break the lock of any ambitious and curious tacklers. The jump went very smooth with nary a soul to distrub me and soon the supplies were in the hanger with the carrier and the frieghter was back in high sec space ready for the long trip home.
Heavy Neutralizer II - 1,234,948
4 Capacitor Power Relay II - 4,715,880
3 Templar Fighters - 48,000,000
3 Firgolg Fighters - 48,000,000
3 Einherji Fighters - 48,000,000
2 Drone Control Units - 75,995,000
Capital Shield Booster - 45,000,000
3 Capacitor Control Circuit Rigs - 53,497,000
Advanced Drone Interfacing Skillbook - 13,500,000
Capital Energy Emissions Systems Skillbook - 9,000,000
Capital Shield Emissions Systems Skillbook - 9,000,000
Capital Shield Operation Skillbook - 22,500,000
Total = 378,442,828
Wow. And that's for a "ghetto" carrier. With that spending spree I'm down to my last 26 million ISK in my wallet. Ouch. On the upside, the carrier has almost all of the parts to be ready for duty with only a couple more fighters/drones and my skills needed to catch up.
Once I had purchased all that crap I had Derranna run around in the freighter and pick it all up. Now I was faced with the question of how to get it to the carrier; combined it all amounted to just over 66,000 m3 which would be perfected for a couple runs in a scouted industrial, or even a quick jump with the Nomad, but both of those ships were 33 jumps away in Minmatar space. With only the freighter on hand and impatientence spurring me on, I decided to run the risk of scouting the freighter through myself as it was only one jump into low sec and not a busy choke point system.
I waited until this morning before downtime and used an ECM ship (Kitsune) for Kirith to scout so he could break the lock of any ambitious and curious tacklers. The jump went very smooth with nary a soul to distrub me and soon the supplies were in the hanger with the carrier and the frieghter was back in high sec space ready for the long trip home.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Smuggling
Last week when I moved all my stuff to Dodixie from Gulfonodi, it was a simple matter to package it all up in courier boxes and use Derranna and the Freighter Of Constant Motion to hoof it over there. Rigged ships that were cruisers or smaller easily fit in the packages as well as the non-reigged ships getting repackaged. All in all I had about 2 full courier parcels.
However, there was a number of items I had that could not be courier contracted to Derranna; illegal items like navy tags, drugs, weapons, and slaves.
Some items are not illegal everywhere in high sec. For example, Amarr Navy Tags are prefectly fine in Minmatar space. Another example is Slaves that are cause for serious retribution from the Republic while the Amarr Empire smiles and nods as they look the other way. Other items are pretty much illegal everywhere such as drugs and small arms.
Being illegal means there is a risk for travelling with them through high sec. NPC Custom Agents have a chance of scanning your cargo and if they find contraband they will fine you. I'm not sure how much but considering I had a Badger Mk II full of stuff, I was very nervous about getting caught. But I refused to leave it behind; I'm a packrat and I live everything with me.
There are rumours that high standings with the faction of the custom agents might grant you some ability to sneak by if they do scan you as they may look the other way, so travelling from Gulfonodi to Dodixie was not to bad as I have high standings with both Minmatar and Gallente factions. However, I was contemplating my lot in life on the weekend and decided that Dodixie as a high sec base was "one foot out the door" from m3 in Task Murkon and I should jump in with everything in one place so I'm not distracted off in Gallente space.
Since Derranna still had the Slowest-Ship-I've-Ever-Piloted in Dodixie and all my stuff was still in freight cans, it was a simple matter to kick her off last night down to Tash Murkon. This morning before downtime, I followed with the Badger-of-Illegal-Cargo, much more nervous since a lot of the trip was through Caldari and Amarr space where my lower faction standings with them might inspire the custom agents to take a closer look.
Fortunately, the trip was uneventful and my stuff is now consolidated in one place (with the exception of the Ninveah itself which is still being prepared for its December unvieling in Caldari space).
However, there was a number of items I had that could not be courier contracted to Derranna; illegal items like navy tags, drugs, weapons, and slaves.
Some items are not illegal everywhere in high sec. For example, Amarr Navy Tags are prefectly fine in Minmatar space. Another example is Slaves that are cause for serious retribution from the Republic while the Amarr Empire smiles and nods as they look the other way. Other items are pretty much illegal everywhere such as drugs and small arms.
Being illegal means there is a risk for travelling with them through high sec. NPC Custom Agents have a chance of scanning your cargo and if they find contraband they will fine you. I'm not sure how much but considering I had a Badger Mk II full of stuff, I was very nervous about getting caught. But I refused to leave it behind; I'm a packrat and I live everything with me.
There are rumours that high standings with the faction of the custom agents might grant you some ability to sneak by if they do scan you as they may look the other way, so travelling from Gulfonodi to Dodixie was not to bad as I have high standings with both Minmatar and Gallente factions. However, I was contemplating my lot in life on the weekend and decided that Dodixie as a high sec base was "one foot out the door" from m3 in Task Murkon and I should jump in with everything in one place so I'm not distracted off in Gallente space.
Since Derranna still had the Slowest-Ship-I've-Ever-Piloted in Dodixie and all my stuff was still in freight cans, it was a simple matter to kick her off last night down to Tash Murkon. This morning before downtime, I followed with the Badger-of-Illegal-Cargo, much more nervous since a lot of the trip was through Caldari and Amarr space where my lower faction standings with them might inspire the custom agents to take a closer look.
Fortunately, the trip was uneventful and my stuff is now consolidated in one place (with the exception of the Ninveah itself which is still being prepared for its December unvieling in Caldari space).
Monday, September 22, 2008
Accepted
I was travelling for the weekend but always checking my iGoogle page for updates on Kirith's corporation. Sunday morning I got the good news: I was in m3 corp. Elated I logged in Sunday night to see a populated corp chat channel and an alliance chat channel and I immediately went to work reading the corp and alliance mails.
Halfway through the corp mails I saw one warning of hostiles in the area threatening harm to m3 pilots for harbouring me. FINEG has come to town.
Insert long suffering sigh of frustration here. I immediately contacted the director online to explain the situation and why these guys were coming around. I felt guilty that I had not explained it during the application and interview process but really, where do you insert the fact that this corp may or may not come after me depending on their mood? They did ignore me all summer and they have not bothered any other Strife leadership that went on to other corporations.
Of course, this could be part of their plan: try and force me to be isolated in my own corp or in a public corp and drive me to pay their extortion fee; perhaps they see me as a weak link since I was the one that opened negotiations with them last spring. Well, I have no intention of giving them a red cent and I get the feeling that the m3 directorship will not be intimidated by these guys.
In the meantime, I need to get some channels and forum access set up and get into the swing of things.
Halfway through the corp mails I saw one warning of hostiles in the area threatening harm to m3 pilots for harbouring me. FINEG has come to town.
Insert long suffering sigh of frustration here. I immediately contacted the director online to explain the situation and why these guys were coming around. I felt guilty that I had not explained it during the application and interview process but really, where do you insert the fact that this corp may or may not come after me depending on their mood? They did ignore me all summer and they have not bothered any other Strife leadership that went on to other corporations.
Of course, this could be part of their plan: try and force me to be isolated in my own corp or in a public corp and drive me to pay their extortion fee; perhaps they see me as a weak link since I was the one that opened negotiations with them last spring. Well, I have no intention of giving them a red cent and I get the feeling that the m3 directorship will not be intimidated by these guys.
In the meantime, I need to get some channels and forum access set up and get into the swing of things.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Interview Over
Last night I go on and there was the m3 Director I needed to talk to. He was available so soon I was on their Teamspeak and chatting away. I turned on the charm, got over my phobia about talking on comm software (I literally hate my voice and thus hate speaking to people I don't know on TS and Vent), and went for broke.
I think it went really good. He basically said that m3 is looking for pilots that are present in corp activities when they are online and not off in some corner of space doing their own thing. Which is perfect for me because this is exactly what I want; I've done the solo thing, I want to be part of something. They want combat pilots; that's all I train. Experience capital pilots are a plus; I plan to become one. There were other things but you get the idea. After all, I'm a 32 million skill point pilot with his own carrier and small fleet of non-capital ships and a desire to participate in corp activities... I'll fit in a lot of places. :P
The only big strike against me, as far as I can tell, that might persuade the directors and CEOs of m3 to give my application a pass would be my time online. I estimated at four hours a week spread in numerous short sessions more often than not. With the Twins at home and working regular days, its hard to sit down for even an hour more than once a week and even then I have to be aware that a cranky child or two supercedes Eve time. I hope it improves in the coming months but I cannot make any guarantees.
So now its wait and see mode. They'll probably get back to me in a day or so and then on Monday I'll know whether I am saying hi to my new corp and alliance mates or looking for something new.
Anecdote: After the interview I was telling my wife (aka SWMBO) about it and how I was hoping I'd get accepted and she turns to me and says with exasperation and teasing in her voice, "They do realize its just pretend, right? Its not real!" This coming from someone who gets into a panick over what is happening to her favourite characters in her soaps every day. I avoided pointing out the hypocrispy because I don't need to experience a thousand bee stings to know that poking a hive with a stick is a bad thing to do.
I think it went really good. He basically said that m3 is looking for pilots that are present in corp activities when they are online and not off in some corner of space doing their own thing. Which is perfect for me because this is exactly what I want; I've done the solo thing, I want to be part of something. They want combat pilots; that's all I train. Experience capital pilots are a plus; I plan to become one. There were other things but you get the idea. After all, I'm a 32 million skill point pilot with his own carrier and small fleet of non-capital ships and a desire to participate in corp activities... I'll fit in a lot of places. :P
The only big strike against me, as far as I can tell, that might persuade the directors and CEOs of m3 to give my application a pass would be my time online. I estimated at four hours a week spread in numerous short sessions more often than not. With the Twins at home and working regular days, its hard to sit down for even an hour more than once a week and even then I have to be aware that a cranky child or two supercedes Eve time. I hope it improves in the coming months but I cannot make any guarantees.
So now its wait and see mode. They'll probably get back to me in a day or so and then on Monday I'll know whether I am saying hi to my new corp and alliance mates or looking for something new.
Anecdote: After the interview I was telling my wife (aka SWMBO) about it and how I was hoping I'd get accepted and she turns to me and says with exasperation and teasing in her voice, "They do realize its just pretend, right? Its not real!" This coming from someone who gets into a panick over what is happening to her favourite characters in her soaps every day. I avoided pointing out the hypocrispy because I don't need to experience a thousand bee stings to know that poking a hive with a stick is a bad thing to do.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Carrier Planning
So last night I jump cloned up to the station where my carrier was stationed and watched as the crews continued their training, drills, and storing equipment. Currently the Ninveah has no modules or drones installed but plans are being drawn up and soon I will begin the process of instructing the station crew and ship crew to equip the beast for battle.
This is my current working dream setup (note: click images to embiggen them). A lot of faction modules for best performance, good solid defense, and when the shield transporter is off its cap stable at 51%. With Caldari Carrier IV I can throw out 11 fighters/drones (level V is planned but since its over 60 days I might as well plan without it) for over 950 DPS.
I spent a lot of time browsing ship setup forums on Eve Online, Scrapheap Challenge, and Battleclinic to come up with this setup but comments / suggestions are always welcome.
Now, I'm not going to be able to afford all those faction modules at once so I made sure I can make the same setup using Tech II modules only.
Here it is. Resistances are not as high, shield boost amount not as impressive, and its not as easy on the cap (although the difference is mostly negligible). However, it is vastly more affordable and as I earn more ISK I can replace modules with the superior faction versions.
In either case I plan to hold a slew of drones beyond the 11 fighters covering as many eventualities as possible.
This is my current working dream setup (note: click images to embiggen them). A lot of faction modules for best performance, good solid defense, and when the shield transporter is off its cap stable at 51%. With Caldari Carrier IV I can throw out 11 fighters/drones (level V is planned but since its over 60 days I might as well plan without it) for over 950 DPS.I spent a lot of time browsing ship setup forums on Eve Online, Scrapheap Challenge, and Battleclinic to come up with this setup but comments / suggestions are always welcome.
Now, I'm not going to be able to afford all those faction modules at once so I made sure I can make the same setup using Tech II modules only.
Here it is. Resistances are not as high, shield boost amount not as impressive, and its not as easy on the cap (although the difference is mostly negligible). However, it is vastly more affordable and as I earn more ISK I can replace modules with the superior faction versions.In either case I plan to hold a slew of drones beyond the 11 fighters covering as many eventualities as possible.
Introduction to Carriers
New Eve Tribune article up, this one called Introduction to Carriers. Its all about introducing players to carriers strangely enough.
FINEG - POS Siegers
Not me this time. A friend, an ex-Strife pilot, had a POS in some out of the way place that he was using for R&D much like I planned to. Well he was gone for a few days and came back to find it in reinforced thanks to my "buddies" at FINEG.
My friend said the worst part was he was planning on taking it down today anyways. One week earlier and he would have been OK. I have some sympathy for him but he was quite aware of the nastiness I went through with my POS in August; he too underestimated FINEG's determination and investigative talents for finding those towers.
At least he got a couple months out of the thing unlike my tower which was destroyed within a week. Sigh.
My friend said the worst part was he was planning on taking it down today anyways. One week earlier and he would have been OK. I have some sympathy for him but he was quite aware of the nastiness I went through with my POS in August; he too underestimated FINEG's determination and investigative talents for finding those towers.
At least he got a couple months out of the thing unlike my tower which was destroyed within a week. Sigh.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Curriculum Vita
Curriculum vitae is Latin meaning "course of life"As I prepare for an interview to try and get accepted into m3 corp, it occurred to me that it would be nice if I had one spot where I could point and say "that is what I am about" like a resume or a CV. So I'm am going to write a post describing such things and then link it on the side bar near my name so I'll have a URL to give to people to say "there, that is me".
* * * * *
Kirith Kodachi, Caldari Deteis
Pod Pilot since Sept 2006
I am a combat pilot specializing in Caldari Hybrid ships. I can fly all non-capital Caldari Tech 1 vessels and in the Tech 2 version I can operate proficiently in Frigate hulls and the HAC, HIC, and Recon classes. As well I am a Chimera Carrier pilot with good support skills for capital mods and fighters.
I am capable of using all sizes of Tech 2 Hybrids (i.e. Railguns and Blasters) with very good support skills, and I can use Tech 2 Heavy and Heavy Assault missile systems with good support skills. I am also trained to level IV on all ECM skills.
Currently I am training skills for Command Ships and Logistics cruisers.
My full skill set can be seen here.
I have participated in many areas of combat piloting in New Eden including extensive mission running for the Republic Fleet, low sec and null sec patroling in both individual and cooperative scenarios, null sec defensive operations, Factional Warfare for the Tribal Liberation Force to the rank of Venge Captain, exploration, and null sec pirate hunting (i.e. ratting). While I have done some illegal activities in my two years in New Eden space, it has never been my focus; I much prefer looking for a fight than a gank so to speak.
Employment History
Sept 2006 - Feb 2007 : Interstellar Privateers of Res Communis (Inactive) - Low sec (Placid) and null sec (Syndicate) small gang fighting, ratting. Attained rank of Director of Manufacturing.
Feb 2007 - May 2007 : Strife Mercenaries Inc. (Inactive) - Empire war declarations, mercenary work, mission running. Rank of Director.
May 2007 : No Quarter - null sec life in Venal, some exploration.
May 2007 - July 2007 : Kodachi Enterprises - Solo mission running and some exploration in Molden Heath. CEO.
July 2007 - Oct 2007 : Omen Incorporated / Coreli Corporation - Null sec small gang fighting, POS logisitics, and ratting in Fountain Region. Part of Exuro Mortis alliance.
Oct 2007 - Nov 2007 : Interstellar Privateers of Res Communis (Inactive) - Low Sec solo hunting in Placid.
Nov 2007 - Jan 2008 : m3 Corp - Low sec hunting in Essence, null sec ratting in Wicked Creek, mission running for Caldari Navy.
Jan 2008 - May 2008 : Strife Mercenaries Inc (Inactive) - Low sec (Lonetrek) and null sec (Pure) small gang fighting, mission running, null sec life in Providence as part of Slyph Alliance followed by null sec life in Synidacte as part of Rejuvenate then Wrath alliances. Responsible for corporate POSes. Rank of Director.
May 2008 - Sept 2008 : Katana Securities Incorporated / Insisto Armamentarium - Solo complex capturing in Factional Warfare for the Minmatar Republic followed by solo COSMOS and regular mission running to raise standings for high sec POS.
Oct 2008 - May 2009 : M3 Corporation (Blackwater Alliance) - Low sec combat, empire wars, null sec roams, some mission running.
May 2009 - Present : M3 Corporation (Intrepid Crossing Alliance) - 0.0 warfare in Drone Regions.
Miscellaneous
I have a second account on which I train the industrial character Derranna Elkadar who owns a Fenrir freighter and Nomad Jump Freighter and is capable of tech 2 production including all non-capital Caldari ships.
I write a blog called Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah in which I chronicle my Eve adventures. I also am a regular writer for the weekly news magazine Eve Tribune.
Deafening Silence
On the weekend I submitted an application to join m3 Corp through their website, filling out basic questions about who I am, etc. The next day I put in an application in game. Later on I sent an evemail to a director I had flown with before asking politely if my web application was received OK.
Nothing. No response at all. It has me considering the possibility that m3 is reluctant to allow me back and if they reject my application I don't know what I will do.
The time I spent in m3 last winter was some of the best in Eve and I left only because the promise of being a director in a new corp with real-life friends was dangled before me. In hindsight I wish I had not gone to Strife 2.0 as all that is left of it is bitter-sweet memories and a shared channel. Had I not had the twins arriving in late April I would have applied to m3 right after Strife collapsed but I knew my online time would be compromised for the summer. Now that there is hope of semi-regular sessions back in Eve, I was looking forward to being part of a solid active corporation again; I was looking forward to seeing people in corp chat once more.
Still, no news is good news, right? As long as they haven't came out and told me to get lost I still have hope. Maybe the recruiter is reviewing my blog entries to see what I've been up to for the past eight months. If so, I must say that she/he is especially good looking and intelligent and they might just find some ISK dropped in their wallet someday soon *wink wink* *nudge nudge*
* * * * *
In other news, I packed up all my belongings in Gulfonodi and set them up in the moving truck. I picked Dodixie in Sinq Laison region as my new high sec base of operations for Kirith because its a decent market hub and the region is very central to all other high sec regions with links to Caldari, Amarr, and Minmatar space.
Update: got a reply today, gonna setup a chat/interview. First hurdle passed: no outright rejection! Yay me! :P
Nothing. No response at all. It has me considering the possibility that m3 is reluctant to allow me back and if they reject my application I don't know what I will do.
The time I spent in m3 last winter was some of the best in Eve and I left only because the promise of being a director in a new corp with real-life friends was dangled before me. In hindsight I wish I had not gone to Strife 2.0 as all that is left of it is bitter-sweet memories and a shared channel. Had I not had the twins arriving in late April I would have applied to m3 right after Strife collapsed but I knew my online time would be compromised for the summer. Now that there is hope of semi-regular sessions back in Eve, I was looking forward to being part of a solid active corporation again; I was looking forward to seeing people in corp chat once more.
Still, no news is good news, right? As long as they haven't came out and told me to get lost I still have hope. Maybe the recruiter is reviewing my blog entries to see what I've been up to for the past eight months. If so, I must say that she/he is especially good looking and intelligent and they might just find some ISK dropped in their wallet someday soon *wink wink* *nudge nudge*
* * * * *
In other news, I packed up all my belongings in Gulfonodi and set them up in the moving truck. I picked Dodixie in Sinq Laison region as my new high sec base of operations for Kirith because its a decent market hub and the region is very central to all other high sec regions with links to Caldari, Amarr, and Minmatar space.
Update: got a reply today, gonna setup a chat/interview. First hurdle passed: no outright rejection! Yay me! :P
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Skills Update
I don't think I've had a good skills update post in a while! Let's fix that shall we?
Kirith has been working on a lot of skill areas at once. I finally finished Shield Upgrades V to complete my Summer Break list of skills with the exception of the Compensation IV skills. I also got Large Blaster Specialization up to III and not IV yet. Some other time I'll finish that up.
I'm still staring at Advanced Weapon Upgrades V and both wanting to train it and wanting to avoid it. Perhaps I'll put it on over December. Sigh.
I got the Fighters skill and trained it up a couple levels, and I've been working on Caldari Carrier skill up to III so that I can throw out 8 semi-decent Fighters now. Level IV for the carrier skill is 11 days (and another 63 days (!) for level V, holy cow!). I'm also working on the Jump skills right now so I can jump the carrier farther and more fuel efficently. Plus they lead up to Black Ops Battleships.
Later on this fall/winter I'll get the Capital Shield Booster and Capital Shield and Energy Transfer modules. Along with Advanced Drone Interfacing my carrier will be considered combat ready. Hopefully I'll have a corp to use it in.
* * * * *
Derranna is currently working on probing skills (although she does have the Archeology skillbook and prerequisites that I have to pop in someday when I remember). She's working on Astrometrics V right now to give her access to the last of the probes I want, the Ferret and Observator Deep Space probe.
Then she will hone her skills with Astrometric Pinpointing and Astrometeric Triangulation I - IV and finally Signal Acquisition IV.
After that? As usual, I'm not sure with Derranna. We'll wait and see what I feel like 22 days from now.
Kirith has been working on a lot of skill areas at once. I finally finished Shield Upgrades V to complete my Summer Break list of skills with the exception of the Compensation IV skills. I also got Large Blaster Specialization up to III and not IV yet. Some other time I'll finish that up.
I'm still staring at Advanced Weapon Upgrades V and both wanting to train it and wanting to avoid it. Perhaps I'll put it on over December. Sigh.
I got the Fighters skill and trained it up a couple levels, and I've been working on Caldari Carrier skill up to III so that I can throw out 8 semi-decent Fighters now. Level IV for the carrier skill is 11 days (and another 63 days (!) for level V, holy cow!). I'm also working on the Jump skills right now so I can jump the carrier farther and more fuel efficently. Plus they lead up to Black Ops Battleships.
Later on this fall/winter I'll get the Capital Shield Booster and Capital Shield and Energy Transfer modules. Along with Advanced Drone Interfacing my carrier will be considered combat ready. Hopefully I'll have a corp to use it in.
* * * * *
Derranna is currently working on probing skills (although she does have the Archeology skillbook and prerequisites that I have to pop in someday when I remember). She's working on Astrometrics V right now to give her access to the last of the probes I want, the Ferret and Observator Deep Space probe.
Then she will hone her skills with Astrometric Pinpointing and Astrometeric Triangulation I - IV and finally Signal Acquisition IV.
After that? As usual, I'm not sure with Derranna. We'll wait and see what I feel like 22 days from now.
Time To Move On
The hauling operation from last week was nice in that I got to do something with someone for a change. I've spent so much of the past four months doing solo activities that I'd forgotten how even the simplest cooperation is many times more rewarding then solo play.
The war against FINEG has not been what I expected. Being alone trying to find a small group of pilots spread out over several regions has not been very exciting. I've decided to move on before I go and get my ship killed and have even less to show for it. But I'll keep them in my address book this time; I'll not underestimate them again.
So I'm moving on to the next phase of my Eve career. A lot of the ex-Strife pilots have found a new home recently with a corp / alliance out in Fountain region, but quite frankly those gypsies will probably have found something they don't like be the time I applied and moved out there and decide to leave again. I've been burned far too many times by that jig, and as much as I like those guys I want something permament.
So I've decided to try and re-apply to m3 corporation that I reluctantly left at the beginning of the year to help found Strife 2.0. In hindsight it was a bad idea but I hope to rectify that if the leadership at m3 will let me.
The war against FINEG has not been what I expected. Being alone trying to find a small group of pilots spread out over several regions has not been very exciting. I've decided to move on before I go and get my ship killed and have even less to show for it. But I'll keep them in my address book this time; I'll not underestimate them again.
So I'm moving on to the next phase of my Eve career. A lot of the ex-Strife pilots have found a new home recently with a corp / alliance out in Fountain region, but quite frankly those gypsies will probably have found something they don't like be the time I applied and moved out there and decide to leave again. I've been burned far too many times by that jig, and as much as I like those guys I want something permament.
So I've decided to try and re-apply to m3 corporation that I reluctantly left at the beginning of the year to help found Strife 2.0. In hindsight it was a bad idea but I hope to rectify that if the leadership at m3 will let me.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Top Secret
For the past week I've been working on an operation that required a certain amount of discretion, hence why my posting was more theory than practice. Now that the operation has been concluded successfully, I can divulge some details.
An associate of mine has a large manufacturing project that he has been mining minerals for in a quiet part of high sec. This area is quiet because it is a pocket of high sec isolated by a jump through low sec from contiguous high sec. He wanted to move the minerals he had mined from this pocket into regular high sec, then to another region where he wanted to take it three jumps into low sec.
And the amount of minerals he wanted to move? Over 1.2 million cubic meters. Yeah, not a job for your typical industrial.
Phase one was getting the minerals out of the pocket. There were three choices: 1) use regular hauler for umpteen trips, 2) regular freighter for two and a half trips, and 3) jump freighter for 4 trips. The jump freighter was deemed too risky as the area we were operating in was very concentrated with aggressive that would think of nothing of investigating a cyno beacon in local and tackling anything that came through. So we decided two quick trips during quiet hours by a regular freighter would be the best route.
With my associate scouting we carefully snuck the freighter through the low sec system four times over 3 days, not once having anyone so much as sniff at us. We canceled a trip on the second day when my associate saw a Raven wreck on the gate and some nasty battleships on the scanner. We weren't in a hurry.
Once the minerals were in contiguous high sec, it was a simple matter of moving them to the other region's high sec base. But now we had to get the minerals to the low sec station three jumps in. At first blush a regular freighter scouted by my associate might seem to be the most logical route due to the volume of minerals. However, faced with multiple jumps we were concerned not only with the next jump but what might be coming up behind us. And since it would require 12 jumps through low sec all told, the odds of someone seeing us and preparing a trap along the route were higher than the one low sec jump back in the other region.
It was time to make use of the jump freighter. With its ability to avoid any stargate jumps through low sec and the ability to jump right out of high sec to the target station, and that the larger number of low sec systems involved meant an easier time cyno-ing back to a system adjacent to high sec added up to it being a better choice despite the larger number of trips involved.
So one morning we got ready, my associate at the target low sec station to make one cyno, me with Kirith at the jump back point to make the return cyno, and me with Derranna in the Nomad. Even though it was a weekend morning, we never saw so much as another soul at either cyno point and after thirty minutes the deed was done, the Jump Freighter back in high sec, the fuel bill paid (10 milllion ISK) and I was on my way back to Gulfonodi.
An associate of mine has a large manufacturing project that he has been mining minerals for in a quiet part of high sec. This area is quiet because it is a pocket of high sec isolated by a jump through low sec from contiguous high sec. He wanted to move the minerals he had mined from this pocket into regular high sec, then to another region where he wanted to take it three jumps into low sec.
And the amount of minerals he wanted to move? Over 1.2 million cubic meters. Yeah, not a job for your typical industrial.
Phase one was getting the minerals out of the pocket. There were three choices: 1) use regular hauler for umpteen trips, 2) regular freighter for two and a half trips, and 3) jump freighter for 4 trips. The jump freighter was deemed too risky as the area we were operating in was very concentrated with aggressive that would think of nothing of investigating a cyno beacon in local and tackling anything that came through. So we decided two quick trips during quiet hours by a regular freighter would be the best route.
With my associate scouting we carefully snuck the freighter through the low sec system four times over 3 days, not once having anyone so much as sniff at us. We canceled a trip on the second day when my associate saw a Raven wreck on the gate and some nasty battleships on the scanner. We weren't in a hurry.
Once the minerals were in contiguous high sec, it was a simple matter of moving them to the other region's high sec base. But now we had to get the minerals to the low sec station three jumps in. At first blush a regular freighter scouted by my associate might seem to be the most logical route due to the volume of minerals. However, faced with multiple jumps we were concerned not only with the next jump but what might be coming up behind us. And since it would require 12 jumps through low sec all told, the odds of someone seeing us and preparing a trap along the route were higher than the one low sec jump back in the other region.
It was time to make use of the jump freighter. With its ability to avoid any stargate jumps through low sec and the ability to jump right out of high sec to the target station, and that the larger number of low sec systems involved meant an easier time cyno-ing back to a system adjacent to high sec added up to it being a better choice despite the larger number of trips involved.
So one morning we got ready, my associate at the target low sec station to make one cyno, me with Kirith at the jump back point to make the return cyno, and me with Derranna in the Nomad. Even though it was a weekend morning, we never saw so much as another soul at either cyno point and after thirty minutes the deed was done, the Jump Freighter back in high sec, the fuel bill paid (10 milllion ISK) and I was on my way back to Gulfonodi.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Eve Healers - Why So Few?
Most MMOs on the market follow the formula of the "Holy Three": the tank, the DPS, and the healer. For example, in a fantasy MMO one would have the knight/paladin in heavy armour up front in close combat with the enemy, a wizard dropping powerful spells to greatly hurt the target, and a cleric casting spells to keep the tank or wizard alive as needed.
Many games gravitate to this model because its "economically optimal", i.e. it makes sense for the character best at healing to focus on healing skills instead of DPS or tanking skills. In fact, in many games a character is locked into a role so firmly that trying to do either of the other rolls is not only sub-optimal, its terribly inefficient.
Eve somewhat follows the pattern. It allows players to concentrate on tanking skills and modules, others for doing as much damage as possible, and there are a couple ship classes dedicated to "healing" in the form of remote armour and sheild repair, as well as energy transfers. But they tend to be very very rare. Why?
The main reason is that any pilot can learn to tank, do DPS, and heal with equal efficiency. There are no classes nor limitations on what can be used so a player does not have to make a decision in the beginning of his character and be stuck with it for the rest of his career. Since healing tends to be less exciting than causing damage, and players can find a balance between tanking and damage, healing tends to be a second or third choice in role in a typical operation.
Secondly, NPCs are completely outclassed by the players in all but rare instances. In level four or less missions, ratting, and many complexes a single experience player in the right ship and setup can tank the incoming damage by themselves so who needs a healer? (This point goes hand in hand with my desire for missions and ratting to be more difficult BTW.)
Thirdly, in PvP the enemy will quickly identify healers and dispatch them first ignoring any obvious tank until later. The Logistic class of cruisers, while being T2, are still just cruisers. Only the heavily armoured Carriers are capable of being effective healers in engagements without threat of quick destruction, and most pilots reserve that kind of tonnage and effort for larger combat situations. Regular small engagements are not ideal carrier deployment areas.
Fourthly, spider-tanking. Related to the first point, since all pilots can do all things, sometimes they try to do so in a cooperative effort in which every ship has a remote repairing module. Then a gang of say 8 battleships can engage and turn the remote reppers on the ship called primary and keep it alive while their combined firepower take out the enemy one at a time. Since all of the ships in the gang are DPS, tank, and healer, there is no weak spot for the enemy to concentrate on. (Of course, there are tactics to use against this one but that is not the purpose of this article).
Finally one more point: counter-intuitively, the death penalty encourages less healing. How you ask? Since the ship and mods are lost upon destruction, this leads pilots to often fly less than perfect ships and modules for their skills (i.e. don't fly what you can't afford to lose). Subsequently, we get into the mindset of expecting to lose our ships at any time during an operation and knowing that the loss of one ship does not affect the whole too drastically in many cases, hence less need for a healer to keep us alive.
To summarize, Eve rewards balance and flexibility over specialization most of the time.
Many games gravitate to this model because its "economically optimal", i.e. it makes sense for the character best at healing to focus on healing skills instead of DPS or tanking skills. In fact, in many games a character is locked into a role so firmly that trying to do either of the other rolls is not only sub-optimal, its terribly inefficient.
Eve somewhat follows the pattern. It allows players to concentrate on tanking skills and modules, others for doing as much damage as possible, and there are a couple ship classes dedicated to "healing" in the form of remote armour and sheild repair, as well as energy transfers. But they tend to be very very rare. Why?
The main reason is that any pilot can learn to tank, do DPS, and heal with equal efficiency. There are no classes nor limitations on what can be used so a player does not have to make a decision in the beginning of his character and be stuck with it for the rest of his career. Since healing tends to be less exciting than causing damage, and players can find a balance between tanking and damage, healing tends to be a second or third choice in role in a typical operation.
Secondly, NPCs are completely outclassed by the players in all but rare instances. In level four or less missions, ratting, and many complexes a single experience player in the right ship and setup can tank the incoming damage by themselves so who needs a healer? (This point goes hand in hand with my desire for missions and ratting to be more difficult BTW.)
Thirdly, in PvP the enemy will quickly identify healers and dispatch them first ignoring any obvious tank until later. The Logistic class of cruisers, while being T2, are still just cruisers. Only the heavily armoured Carriers are capable of being effective healers in engagements without threat of quick destruction, and most pilots reserve that kind of tonnage and effort for larger combat situations. Regular small engagements are not ideal carrier deployment areas.
Fourthly, spider-tanking. Related to the first point, since all pilots can do all things, sometimes they try to do so in a cooperative effort in which every ship has a remote repairing module. Then a gang of say 8 battleships can engage and turn the remote reppers on the ship called primary and keep it alive while their combined firepower take out the enemy one at a time. Since all of the ships in the gang are DPS, tank, and healer, there is no weak spot for the enemy to concentrate on. (Of course, there are tactics to use against this one but that is not the purpose of this article).
Finally one more point: counter-intuitively, the death penalty encourages less healing. How you ask? Since the ship and mods are lost upon destruction, this leads pilots to often fly less than perfect ships and modules for their skills (i.e. don't fly what you can't afford to lose). Subsequently, we get into the mindset of expecting to lose our ships at any time during an operation and knowing that the loss of one ship does not affect the whole too drastically in many cases, hence less need for a healer to keep us alive.
To summarize, Eve rewards balance and flexibility over specialization most of the time.
The Great War
Hat tip to James Eagan at Massively, I was pointed to this great article over at Rock Paper Shotgun called The Great War:
There’s a war going on. It’s one of the most bitterly contested conflicts imaginable, fought over many months by an international cast of veteran warriors. An entire galaxy is at stake. You probably even know someone who is caught up in it, fighting for his life and those of his comrades. As many as twenty thousand people have fought in its battles. This war is the Great War of Eve Online; the largest virtual conflict ever waged.Mostly written for non Eve players, I encourage you all to read the whole thing.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Boosters Part 2 - Manufacturing
Also just noticed latest issue of the Tribune is up with my Boosters Part 2 article on Manufacturing them. Enjoy!
Eve Tribune Needs Your Help!
The Eve Tribune has hit some rough times financially due to economic changes in the game that diluted some of the publisher's income, so it is now accepting donations of ISK from appreciative players to help pay the writers who slave over their articles every week to keep the paper running for the last three years.
Also, there is an upcoming recruitment drive for more freelance writers. When I get more details I'll point you to them.
Also, there is an upcoming recruitment drive for more freelance writers. When I get more details I'll point you to them.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Boyscout or Hitchhiker?
I didn't get online last night so you get more speculative thinking posts from me today. The topic this time is are you a Boy Scout or Hitchhiker in Eve? I'm talking about your hanger contents.
The Boy Scout (or Girl Scout as the case may be) lives by the motto "Always Be Prepared". In Eve that means having a hanger with many ships of different classes, containers filled with various ammo types, and hundreds (or even thousands) of modules of various levels of quality and cost. That way the pilot can prepare for any mission in seconds from their stores and undock ready to fight/haul/mine in the shortest possible time.
The Hitchhiker however likes to travel light, keeping only a few ships ready in the hangers and buying whatever they need for the next mission or making do with the ship on hand. Their assets are always counted on one hand, and when they lose a ship they fly back to the nearest market hub and plan a new ship for the next adventure. They live by the seat of their pants, roaming free and not tied to one specific locale, easily joining and leaving corporations and alliances as the wind and their whims take them.
But their are downsides.
The Boy Scout can turn into the Packrat with too many ships and modules they will never use. They forget how the ships are armed or what modules are where. Ship builds get out of date as they get better skills and access to superior mods but they have too many ships to go and refit all the time. Moving them from place to place is a monumental effort involving freighters and multiple cans, not to mention the problems with assembled and rigged ships. Joining an alliance and moving out to 0.0 space often takes so long that they are useless for days if not weeks. Slow to respond to changing situations, they are an anchor on their fellow corpmates' necks.
On the other hand, the Hitchhiker can turn into the Vagrant who is never prepared for any task and is always fitting a ship just before an op. "What should I put in the last mid slot?" and "Anyone have some EMP ammo?" are often questions the Vagrant will ask on vent, preventing gangs from leaving for a roam until he is ready. Worse, he may only have frigates available for a battleship mission or a heavy battleship for a quick lightning strike by smaller craft. Never ready on time and always scrambling for a ship at the last minute, he may move around the galaxy quickly but his usefulness is lacking when he gets there.
Most pilots fall inbetween the Boy Scout and the Hitchhiker. I lean more towards Boy Scout with occasional forays into Packrat territory. I got to thinking about this as I looked at all my modules the other day and thought it was time to liquidate the majority of them.
The Boy Scout (or Girl Scout as the case may be) lives by the motto "Always Be Prepared". In Eve that means having a hanger with many ships of different classes, containers filled with various ammo types, and hundreds (or even thousands) of modules of various levels of quality and cost. That way the pilot can prepare for any mission in seconds from their stores and undock ready to fight/haul/mine in the shortest possible time.
The Hitchhiker however likes to travel light, keeping only a few ships ready in the hangers and buying whatever they need for the next mission or making do with the ship on hand. Their assets are always counted on one hand, and when they lose a ship they fly back to the nearest market hub and plan a new ship for the next adventure. They live by the seat of their pants, roaming free and not tied to one specific locale, easily joining and leaving corporations and alliances as the wind and their whims take them.
But their are downsides.
The Boy Scout can turn into the Packrat with too many ships and modules they will never use. They forget how the ships are armed or what modules are where. Ship builds get out of date as they get better skills and access to superior mods but they have too many ships to go and refit all the time. Moving them from place to place is a monumental effort involving freighters and multiple cans, not to mention the problems with assembled and rigged ships. Joining an alliance and moving out to 0.0 space often takes so long that they are useless for days if not weeks. Slow to respond to changing situations, they are an anchor on their fellow corpmates' necks.
On the other hand, the Hitchhiker can turn into the Vagrant who is never prepared for any task and is always fitting a ship just before an op. "What should I put in the last mid slot?" and "Anyone have some EMP ammo?" are often questions the Vagrant will ask on vent, preventing gangs from leaving for a roam until he is ready. Worse, he may only have frigates available for a battleship mission or a heavy battleship for a quick lightning strike by smaller craft. Never ready on time and always scrambling for a ship at the last minute, he may move around the galaxy quickly but his usefulness is lacking when he gets there.
Most pilots fall inbetween the Boy Scout and the Hitchhiker. I lean more towards Boy Scout with occasional forays into Packrat territory. I got to thinking about this as I looked at all my modules the other day and thought it was time to liquidate the majority of them.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Things I DON'T Like About Eve Online
Being a hardcore fanboy of Eve Online takes a lot of energy and might give off the impression that I think CCP can do no wrong. But there are things about the game I do not like so I figured I would enumerate them now.
1) Hidden Mechanics.
Here's a story from my Warhammer days. In Warhammer range and distance are paramount to attacks but pre-measuring was strictly not allowed. You had to eyeball it first and declare your action (be it shooting or charging) before measuring to see if you were successful. Then a new game came along called Epic (still a Games Workshop game but different scale) and in it you were always allowed to measure, at any time, for any purpose. You know what? It made the gameplay better because it removed the guessing from the strategy and allowed you to fight with your tactics and not with hopeful guesses.
In Eve there are many features whose mechanicsare hidden from public view, such as invention, loot tables, spawning rates based on true security, mission distributions, etc. Sometimes players can decode the mechanic from enough instances but its all guesswork, the truth hidden in the bowels of CCP's Icelandic offices. I hate hidden mechanics because it makes it harder to determine the flaw (if any) in the design, and you end up with a few players finding it and exploiting it until it becomes common knowledge and then fixed in a patch.
2. Repetitive missions with lackluster rewards + missions are too easy after a certain point.
Eve missions are typically "go and kill" or "go fetch" (aka courier). The lack of differing objectives combined with repetitive mission assignment (i.e. how many times do I have to get Attack of the Drones!?!?!?!) makes your brain bleed after a while. Go in, kill the bad guys, go to the next pocket. We need escort missions and sneaky covert op missions, or missions that span a system or systems.
Plus the rewards are pathetic. Not in terms of value of ISK, but in terms of excitement. Oh looks, more named modules, more salvage, and some ISK and loyalty points. Yay *yawn*. Where are the special items agents give for particularly hard missions, medals for excellent service, access to restricted stations?
Finally, once you get to the point where you can fly a battleship with T2 gear, 90% or more of the level four missions are cakewalks. I know Eve is not a PvE game but having level five missions be (a) in low sec and (b) require gangs to run really blows and (c) have shitty rewards really blows. I want level 5 that are least more difficult than level fours but can still be run by expert mission runners. I don't even care if they are in low sec and have low rewards, give me the challenge!
3. Ship Customizations
While I don't support the wholesale customization of ships, small customizations would be cool. Extra antennas and pods, racing stripes, small corp logos, etc. It wouldn't be much to add a level of immersion to the game.
And while I'm on the subject, the Tech II Caldari ships with the cameo patterns? Not cool.
4. Uninteractive Planets
Besides moon probing and mining, we do nothing at all with the plethora of planets in the universe. We can warp to them but really we are warping to a point in space near them. And its funny how no matter which direction you come from, you always end up in the same 1000km grid beside the planet as everyone else when you warp to it. Unrealistic but done for gameplay reasons.
Give me planetary services we can access based on the population of the colony, give me ways to exploit the resources, give me more! Something anything would do.
5. Let Me Be Free
Let me warp to any point in the system without having to make a bookmark there first. Its stupid, STUPID, that I cannot point to a spot on the solar system map and tell my ship to warp there. I mean, what is the fracking problem CCP? How does it break the game in this age of 23 second scan probers to allow players to make deep safe spots with a click of a button instead of this crazy crap that goes: "warp from A to B and make bookmark as you fly between them, and then..."
Its moronic CCP, fix it now.
6. POS Wars
I've never been directly involved in a 0.0 POS war but it strikes me as especially stupid that system soveriegnty is determined by who has the most POS towers anchored. Not invading the planets, not assaulting a space station, not controlling the star gates. No, its how quickly you can spam the moons with your towers and/or destroy the towers of the enemy.
And we all know the assaulting a tower is a mind-numbing affair. (So I've heard.) There had got to be a better and more realistic way to do it CCP. Find it.
* * * * *
That's all for now folks. Thoughts and comments encouraged!
1) Hidden Mechanics.
Here's a story from my Warhammer days. In Warhammer range and distance are paramount to attacks but pre-measuring was strictly not allowed. You had to eyeball it first and declare your action (be it shooting or charging) before measuring to see if you were successful. Then a new game came along called Epic (still a Games Workshop game but different scale) and in it you were always allowed to measure, at any time, for any purpose. You know what? It made the gameplay better because it removed the guessing from the strategy and allowed you to fight with your tactics and not with hopeful guesses.
In Eve there are many features whose mechanicsare hidden from public view, such as invention, loot tables, spawning rates based on true security, mission distributions, etc. Sometimes players can decode the mechanic from enough instances but its all guesswork, the truth hidden in the bowels of CCP's Icelandic offices. I hate hidden mechanics because it makes it harder to determine the flaw (if any) in the design, and you end up with a few players finding it and exploiting it until it becomes common knowledge and then fixed in a patch.
2. Repetitive missions with lackluster rewards + missions are too easy after a certain point.
Eve missions are typically "go and kill" or "go fetch" (aka courier). The lack of differing objectives combined with repetitive mission assignment (i.e. how many times do I have to get Attack of the Drones!?!?!?!) makes your brain bleed after a while. Go in, kill the bad guys, go to the next pocket. We need escort missions and sneaky covert op missions, or missions that span a system or systems.
Plus the rewards are pathetic. Not in terms of value of ISK, but in terms of excitement. Oh looks, more named modules, more salvage, and some ISK and loyalty points. Yay *yawn*. Where are the special items agents give for particularly hard missions, medals for excellent service, access to restricted stations?
Finally, once you get to the point where you can fly a battleship with T2 gear, 90% or more of the level four missions are cakewalks. I know Eve is not a PvE game but having level five missions be (a) in low sec and (b) require gangs to run really blows and (c) have shitty rewards really blows. I want level 5 that are least more difficult than level fours but can still be run by expert mission runners. I don't even care if they are in low sec and have low rewards, give me the challenge!
3. Ship Customizations
While I don't support the wholesale customization of ships, small customizations would be cool. Extra antennas and pods, racing stripes, small corp logos, etc. It wouldn't be much to add a level of immersion to the game.
And while I'm on the subject, the Tech II Caldari ships with the cameo patterns? Not cool.
4. Uninteractive Planets
Besides moon probing and mining, we do nothing at all with the plethora of planets in the universe. We can warp to them but really we are warping to a point in space near them. And its funny how no matter which direction you come from, you always end up in the same 1000km grid beside the planet as everyone else when you warp to it. Unrealistic but done for gameplay reasons.
Give me planetary services we can access based on the population of the colony, give me ways to exploit the resources, give me more! Something anything would do.
5. Let Me Be Free
Let me warp to any point in the system without having to make a bookmark there first. Its stupid, STUPID, that I cannot point to a spot on the solar system map and tell my ship to warp there. I mean, what is the fracking problem CCP? How does it break the game in this age of 23 second scan probers to allow players to make deep safe spots with a click of a button instead of this crazy crap that goes: "warp from A to B and make bookmark as you fly between them, and then..."
Its moronic CCP, fix it now.
6. POS Wars
I've never been directly involved in a 0.0 POS war but it strikes me as especially stupid that system soveriegnty is determined by who has the most POS towers anchored. Not invading the planets, not assaulting a space station, not controlling the star gates. No, its how quickly you can spam the moons with your towers and/or destroy the towers of the enemy.
And we all know the assaulting a tower is a mind-numbing affair. (So I've heard.) There had got to be a better and more realistic way to do it CCP. Find it.
* * * * *
That's all for now folks. Thoughts and comments encouraged!
Industrial Revolution
Did I say Revolution? I meant evolution... actually more like devolution.
When the tower was destroyed I didn't lose a lot of material aside from the POS structures, but I did lose a lot of momentum on the industrial side of things. I closed up shops, put BPOs into storage, and concentrated on moving into war mode against FINEG.
But the wallet has fallen from its heights of a month ago; new implants for Kirith and Derranna (her first +4s), a Firblog BPO for fighter production, new ships and modules, skill books, ammo... it all adds up. My wallet dipped below 250 million isk today as I upgraded Derranna's clone and that's just not cool. Time to get the money maker making more money.
The POS was not a necessary component to my plans, it was just a time saver in exchange for POS fuel. Public labs can still be used despite the long queues and with prudent searching and traveling I can get the shortest queues available. Also, if I get several projects on the go at once and stagger their completion times approrpiately, Derranna can keep busy and the ISK flowing in and I won't notice the queues as much.
So what projects will I run with? Cloaking device invention of course, Firblog production eventually, Invulnerability Field invention again, Tech II frigate and cruiser invention most likely, and maybe even some Tech I ship production with some low mineral buy orders. I also might try out the rig produciton business again.
When the tower was destroyed I didn't lose a lot of material aside from the POS structures, but I did lose a lot of momentum on the industrial side of things. I closed up shops, put BPOs into storage, and concentrated on moving into war mode against FINEG.
But the wallet has fallen from its heights of a month ago; new implants for Kirith and Derranna (her first +4s), a Firblog BPO for fighter production, new ships and modules, skill books, ammo... it all adds up. My wallet dipped below 250 million isk today as I upgraded Derranna's clone and that's just not cool. Time to get the money maker making more money.
The POS was not a necessary component to my plans, it was just a time saver in exchange for POS fuel. Public labs can still be used despite the long queues and with prudent searching and traveling I can get the shortest queues available. Also, if I get several projects on the go at once and stagger their completion times approrpiately, Derranna can keep busy and the ISK flowing in and I won't notice the queues as much.
So what projects will I run with? Cloaking device invention of course, Firblog production eventually, Invulnerability Field invention again, Tech II frigate and cruiser invention most likely, and maybe even some Tech I ship production with some low mineral buy orders. I also might try out the rig produciton business again.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Home Sweet Home?
I moved to Gulfonodi back in February of '07 when the newly formed Strife Mercenaries v1 moved there to run around in low sec Molden Heath. I worked through the ranks of Republic Fleet agents and got to the level four agent in Gulfonodi which was perfect because he never sent me into low sec.
Gulfonodi remained my main high sec base throughout my time in Strife v1, No Quarter, IPORC v2, Omen Inc, Coreli, M3, Strife v2, and ultimately the Katana Securities in the factional warfare. It was always nice having a base where my mission Rokh and salvager could await my attentions in slow moments when I needed or wanted to run a few level fours.
But times have changed. The thrill of solo missions is long gone and Gulfonodi is getting busier and busier these days. The lag spike on Saturday happened when over 100 people were in local. It used to be a busy day with 50 in the system. Finally, Molden Heath is just too far from everything else in the galaxy and the market is not great there; I want to be closer to the centre of the action.
So I'm on the lookout for a new high sec home base. I'll let you know where I decide to go, if anywhere.
Gulfonodi remained my main high sec base throughout my time in Strife v1, No Quarter, IPORC v2, Omen Inc, Coreli, M3, Strife v2, and ultimately the Katana Securities in the factional warfare. It was always nice having a base where my mission Rokh and salvager could await my attentions in slow moments when I needed or wanted to run a few level fours.
But times have changed. The thrill of solo missions is long gone and Gulfonodi is getting busier and busier these days. The lag spike on Saturday happened when over 100 people were in local. It used to be a busy day with 50 in the system. Finally, Molden Heath is just too far from everything else in the galaxy and the market is not great there; I want to be closer to the centre of the action.
So I'm on the lookout for a new high sec home base. I'll let you know where I decide to go, if anywhere.
Not What I Was Expecting
Friday night I logged in for a good long session (ok, 2 hours is long for me now) and immediately checked to see if any known FINEG pilots were online. None. Hmmmm, what to do? I was feeling like relaxing so I decided to run a mission with my level four agent. He spewed out some rogue drone mission and I quickly went to work dispatching them with mechanical efficiency.
The Rokh with its 350mm Tech II rails and newly added Tech II Shield Boost Amplifier had no trouble. Soon I was back in my salvager getting the material rewards of my hard work. Then Amaro Ray logged in. I immediately left the rest of the salvage for the depredations of deep space and jumped into my Thorax that I used to spank Mynxee in some duels earlier that week. I had my agent look up his location and groaned when I saw the result. Ashokon, deep in the Genesis region, high sec to boot.
I set out determined to make an effort to find him. Apparently he decided the same thing because halfway there in Gallente space I warped to a gate only to see him pop up in local and decloak at the same gate.
Now when faced with a sudden enagagement an Eve pilot has to do many things. First he has to see what ship he is facing, typically from the overview. He has to recall from the name of the ship what race and class it is and what its capabilities are, not a small feat considering there are ~40 ship classes per race (not including the faction ships). Then he has to add the pilot's known abilities both in terms of skills and raw PvP skill, and his own ship, setup, skills. Sometimes you also have to add in further factors like sentry fire and other possible combatants engaging later. With all those factors combined in his head he gets a rough estimate of the odds of his success and best course of action whether it be to engage or retreat.
The thing is, you get about 1-2 seconds at most to recall the information and calculate the odds before the enemy comes to his own decision and acts first. If you decided to run one second after the enemy has you scrambled, well, your odds just went way down. This is the difference between experience and noob pilots: the vets can make those snap decisions long before the rookie has even realized that a Myrmidon is a Gallente battlecruiser and more than a match for a Thorax cruiser.
Seeing Amaro Ray in a Mrymidon was a surprise as I had not seen him in one before but I knew my odds of survival if I engaged were low; the Mrymidon is infamous for its tanking ability and my Thorax build was all about the quick kill. So I ran and he gave chase.
I tried to lead him back to Rens where a new Drake was outfitted and ready to party. I was willing to test its mettle against the Gallente counterpart so I kept waiting for him at the next gate and letting him see me warp off. But a few jumps out he disappeared from local and I figured he took a wrong turn. I rushed to Rens to grab the Drake and went back out to find him, stopping at my base in Gulfonodi to see if he was there. Depite 30 minutes of looking I didn't see him again and my locator agent put him back in Ashokon before I left to do the dishes.
Saturday rolled around and I once again found Amaro Ray online and cooling his heels in Genesis region. As I prepared to head out I (and everyone else) was hit by a lag spike in Gulfonodi and I spent the next 20 minutes simply trying to change ships and leave system. While I was doing that Chaotic Theory logged in and I was able to get a location check placing him in Madrimilire in Domain region. Do these guys never stick together?
Deciding to check out what Chaotic Theory was up to since he was a less active member and might be more easily surprised, I took out the Drake and plotted a course for the Amarr heartland. About 18 jumps later I arrived and was pleased to see the war target still in local... and right on the gate!
He was in a Pilgrim Force Recon and I felt confident I could take it so I hit the engines and went for the gate as he jump through. I then chased him through a couple system hoping to show up close enough to grab a quick lock and scram him but he was quick with the cloak and made good his escape everytime. Finally he gave me the slip in the Caldari border zone and while I searched nearby systems along the route I never saw him again.
Frustrated I logged out. This is the problem with a one man war against a small corporation: no support when I need it to track and trap the war targets. Still, I did get out and at least saw the enemy and didn't loose any ships yet. Part of me wonders if they are spread out on purpose to make it harder for me to go after them. Time will tell.
* * * * *
As I ran that mission on Friday night I was struck by how much I didn't want to be doing it alone. The time for me doing lots of solo missions has passed, I need more interaction. If I could be sure of consistent gaming time a week, even four hours total, I'd try and join a corp again. But life is still too jammed with twin baby responsibilities to be able to be a useful part of someone's organization. Its frustrating but this too shall pass.
The Rokh with its 350mm Tech II rails and newly added Tech II Shield Boost Amplifier had no trouble. Soon I was back in my salvager getting the material rewards of my hard work. Then Amaro Ray logged in. I immediately left the rest of the salvage for the depredations of deep space and jumped into my Thorax that I used to spank Mynxee in some duels earlier that week. I had my agent look up his location and groaned when I saw the result. Ashokon, deep in the Genesis region, high sec to boot.
I set out determined to make an effort to find him. Apparently he decided the same thing because halfway there in Gallente space I warped to a gate only to see him pop up in local and decloak at the same gate.
Now when faced with a sudden enagagement an Eve pilot has to do many things. First he has to see what ship he is facing, typically from the overview. He has to recall from the name of the ship what race and class it is and what its capabilities are, not a small feat considering there are ~40 ship classes per race (not including the faction ships). Then he has to add the pilot's known abilities both in terms of skills and raw PvP skill, and his own ship, setup, skills. Sometimes you also have to add in further factors like sentry fire and other possible combatants engaging later. With all those factors combined in his head he gets a rough estimate of the odds of his success and best course of action whether it be to engage or retreat.
The thing is, you get about 1-2 seconds at most to recall the information and calculate the odds before the enemy comes to his own decision and acts first. If you decided to run one second after the enemy has you scrambled, well, your odds just went way down. This is the difference between experience and noob pilots: the vets can make those snap decisions long before the rookie has even realized that a Myrmidon is a Gallente battlecruiser and more than a match for a Thorax cruiser.
Seeing Amaro Ray in a Mrymidon was a surprise as I had not seen him in one before but I knew my odds of survival if I engaged were low; the Mrymidon is infamous for its tanking ability and my Thorax build was all about the quick kill. So I ran and he gave chase.
I tried to lead him back to Rens where a new Drake was outfitted and ready to party. I was willing to test its mettle against the Gallente counterpart so I kept waiting for him at the next gate and letting him see me warp off. But a few jumps out he disappeared from local and I figured he took a wrong turn. I rushed to Rens to grab the Drake and went back out to find him, stopping at my base in Gulfonodi to see if he was there. Depite 30 minutes of looking I didn't see him again and my locator agent put him back in Ashokon before I left to do the dishes.
Saturday rolled around and I once again found Amaro Ray online and cooling his heels in Genesis region. As I prepared to head out I (and everyone else) was hit by a lag spike in Gulfonodi and I spent the next 20 minutes simply trying to change ships and leave system. While I was doing that Chaotic Theory logged in and I was able to get a location check placing him in Madrimilire in Domain region. Do these guys never stick together?
Deciding to check out what Chaotic Theory was up to since he was a less active member and might be more easily surprised, I took out the Drake and plotted a course for the Amarr heartland. About 18 jumps later I arrived and was pleased to see the war target still in local... and right on the gate!
He was in a Pilgrim Force Recon and I felt confident I could take it so I hit the engines and went for the gate as he jump through. I then chased him through a couple system hoping to show up close enough to grab a quick lock and scram him but he was quick with the cloak and made good his escape everytime. Finally he gave me the slip in the Caldari border zone and while I searched nearby systems along the route I never saw him again.
Frustrated I logged out. This is the problem with a one man war against a small corporation: no support when I need it to track and trap the war targets. Still, I did get out and at least saw the enemy and didn't loose any ships yet. Part of me wonders if they are spread out on purpose to make it harder for me to go after them. Time will tell.
* * * * *
As I ran that mission on Friday night I was struck by how much I didn't want to be doing it alone. The time for me doing lots of solo missions has passed, I need more interaction. If I could be sure of consistent gaming time a week, even four hours total, I'd try and join a corp again. But life is still too jammed with twin baby responsibilities to be able to be a useful part of someone's organization. Its frustrating but this too shall pass.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Tracking the Enemy
In the time since I decided to become official Eve stalker of FINEG (note: my stalking is limited to their in game lives and websites; I care to know nothing of who they really are and live) I've compiled some decent information on them, most from their own kill board and public forums.
I'm guessing that their 0.0 base of operations is the CVY-UC system in the Curse region based on the description of their history:
I'm also confident that their low sec base in Derelik region is in Faspera system. Between these two points I hope to have some chances to see them and perhaps even engage an opprotunistic target although I would prefer to keep my fighting to Empire where neutrals could not interfere and bubbles would not be a concern but I will try to do what I have to in order to bring the fight to them. I know they love the Broadsword in FINEG (used in 424 kills, almost twice as much as the next highest which is the Ishtar at 232).
I'm currently guessing their time zone is west coast NA making it difficult for me to catch them in their prime time. On the other hand, perhaps that is better for me to avoid getting seriously outnumbered 3+ to 1. Make no mistake, I'm on my own here and its better if they are not working together when I move to engage.
I'm guessing that their 0.0 base of operations is the CVY-UC system in the Curse region based on the description of their history:
We decided to move into Curse finding it had good rats and lots of great targets. During our timezone we found a system nearly empty , dead end , great system to live in. However during the Euro timezone we found out that a major alliance lived there namely TCF.As well their kill board has the most kills in that system (354, over 250 more than the next highest) and my locator agent has put them there a few times. Looking at a map of Curse CVY-UC is definitely in TCF's area of influence and the best cul-de-sac system in the region.
I'm also confident that their low sec base in Derelik region is in Faspera system. Between these two points I hope to have some chances to see them and perhaps even engage an opprotunistic target although I would prefer to keep my fighting to Empire where neutrals could not interfere and bubbles would not be a concern but I will try to do what I have to in order to bring the fight to them. I know they love the Broadsword in FINEG (used in 424 kills, almost twice as much as the next highest which is the Ishtar at 232).
I'm currently guessing their time zone is west coast NA making it difficult for me to catch them in their prime time. On the other hand, perhaps that is better for me to avoid getting seriously outnumbered 3+ to 1. Make no mistake, I'm on my own here and its better if they are not working together when I move to engage.
Going to War
The war declaration against FINEG went active last night but I didn't have time to log in as I was busy with the twins and my wife. C'est la vie. I do hope to get an hour or more tonight as the MIL is coming for a visit and I'm watching the twins while my wife and her go to the movies and the mall.
Sigh. Where was Eve when I was in college and had lots of free time?
Anywhoo, in the lead up to war I've prepared some jump clones and ships in various locales so that if I log in and find out some FINEG pilots are on, I might have a chance to track them down.
In other news, I've been working on three skills at once for Kirith and I've gotten to the point where I've got one hour left on Leadership V and Shield Compensation IV and 23 hours on Caldari Carrier III. When those three are finished, I plan to spend a week doing Shield Upgrades V for easier fitting of Large Shield Extenders on my ships primarily. Then more Carrier skills.
Finally, I spent a good chunk of change this past week. Not only did I buy and outfit a Thorax for dueling with Mynxee, there were some other ship purchases including a trophy Worm frigate which I bought from a friend at a discount price because I love the Merlin hull and couldn't pass the chance to own it once more. I owned one a long time ago before I had access to tech II frigates but was so hard up for cash I sold it and regretted the move ever since.
And I also bought a Firbolg BPO that I slipped into a queue for ME research last night. In case you didn't know, the Firbolg is the Gallentean fighter used by carriers and while I don't intend to limit myself to one type of fighter (that would be foolish) I do hope to be able to supply them to myself and allies at cheaper than market prices. Its a long term investment as I'm thinking of training Derranna up for carrier construction. Its just a wild thought at this stage while I'm trying to figure out what to do with her, go combat training or more indy. We'll see. She's still working on her hacking and archeology skills in any case, followed by scan probing skills.
Sigh. Where was Eve when I was in college and had lots of free time?
Anywhoo, in the lead up to war I've prepared some jump clones and ships in various locales so that if I log in and find out some FINEG pilots are on, I might have a chance to track them down.
In other news, I've been working on three skills at once for Kirith and I've gotten to the point where I've got one hour left on Leadership V and Shield Compensation IV and 23 hours on Caldari Carrier III. When those three are finished, I plan to spend a week doing Shield Upgrades V for easier fitting of Large Shield Extenders on my ships primarily. Then more Carrier skills.
Finally, I spent a good chunk of change this past week. Not only did I buy and outfit a Thorax for dueling with Mynxee, there were some other ship purchases including a trophy Worm frigate which I bought from a friend at a discount price because I love the Merlin hull and couldn't pass the chance to own it once more. I owned one a long time ago before I had access to tech II frigates but was so hard up for cash I sold it and regretted the move ever since.
And I also bought a Firbolg BPO that I slipped into a queue for ME research last night. In case you didn't know, the Firbolg is the Gallentean fighter used by carriers and while I don't intend to limit myself to one type of fighter (that would be foolish) I do hope to be able to supply them to myself and allies at cheaper than market prices. Its a long term investment as I'm thinking of training Derranna up for carrier construction. Its just a wild thought at this stage while I'm trying to figure out what to do with her, go combat training or more indy. We'll see. She's still working on her hacking and archeology skills in any case, followed by scan probing skills.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Colour Me Intrigued
Word on the streets is that there is a Buffy The Vampire Slayer MMO being created (somewhere Andrew just sprained his eyeballs trying to roll them).
Since I am a big fan of the Buffyverse I feel a certain amount of curiosity about this game. Hmmmm....
Since I am a big fan of the Buffyverse I feel a certain amount of curiosity about this game. Hmmmm....
August Review
A couple days late but whatever.
In August we had our first full month of tracking statistics since my old blog tracker died. It reports 2709 unique visits comprised of 1691 first timers to the Sanctum and 1018 returns. For the record:
In August we had our first full month of tracking statistics since my old blog tracker died. It reports 2709 unique visits comprised of 1691 first timers to the Sanctum and 1018 returns. For the record:
Returning Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person is returning to your website for another visit an hour or more later
First Time Visitors - Based purely on a cookie, if this person has no cookie then this is considered their first time at your website.
What that means is that 1018 returns could be the same person loading up a page once every 61 minutes. But I'll take what I can get.
My busiest day was Tuesday, August 26th with 154 unique visits. Right around the time FINEG came back into my life; it figures my suffering would attract the most visits.
Duels
Since I read about Mynxee's adventure in granting a 1v1 duel I became entranced with the idea of taking a ship to challenge her. After all, reading her blog gives me a lot of confidence she will honour such a duel and I've always wanted to tangle with a Rupture as I hear they are very deadly cruisers; some boast they are the best T1 non-faction cruiser.
Back in the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 I did some solo-pirating and my ship of choice was the trusty Thorax. It suits my style nicely; fly straight at the target as fast as I can and hope I can kill him before I am dead. None of the Caldari Tech 1 cruisers can do that job quite so well.
So it was off to market to put one together. Presenting my solo-Thorax:
Highs:
5 x Heavy Ion Blaster IIs with Caldari Antimatter and Null ammo
Mids:
10mn MWD II,
Statis Webber II,
Best named Warp Disrupter (needed the CPU hence not T2)
Lows:
Damage Control II,
400mm Rolled Tungsten plate,
3 x Magnetic Field Stab IIs
Drones:
5 x Vespa EC-600s
The concept is simple: Charge the target ship, get them webbed and scrammed, kill my MWD when orbiting at 2.5 klicks, and pound the shit out of them while hoping the ECM drones break their lock once or twice and they die before I do. It doesn't work against multiple targets very well but has a decent chance against Tech 1 ships of similar tonnage or smaller.
I flew to Mynxee's area and challenged her to a duel which she eagerly accepted.
Duel #1 - Thorax Vs Rupture
I warped to her at 20km (0km would have been better for me but I didn't want to have an unfair advantage) and moved to engage. ECM Drones attack! Soon I was orbitting and blasting away and her shields and armour melted under the onslaught. Soon she was in her pod.
"What happened?" I queried. She got me to half shields but no drones or anything after that. Turns out a combination of overview malfunction (not showing fleet members) and ECM Drones caught her flatfooted. A bittersweet victory I offered to wait while she got another ship.
She agreed and decided to come back in a Rifter.
"A Rifter?" I thought to myself?
Duel #2 - Thorax Vs Rifter
Typically: frigate + web = death
This rule was not excepted today. As she arrived I quickly got her Rifter in my 12km ranged webber and she watched helplessly as my blasters reduced the frigate to a wreck. I didn't even bother with the drones this time.
Determined to destroy me, and seeing I was agreeable to going against something Tech II, she vowed to return in her Rapier force recon.
Duel # 3 - Thorax Vs Rapier
She came in at 20 km and immediately used the long ranged webs to hold me in place despite the MWD. She moved to 26-27 km and began plinking away at my shields while I struggled to move like a crippled freighter.
I had only one chance. The ECM Drones.
"COME ON, little buddies! Give daddy one lock break!" I encouraged them.
Suddenly the ship lurched as the stasis effect ended and the velocity climbed in leaps and bounds. The drones came through. I began to close the distance, 25, 22, 18... come on, 12 is the magic number. Suddenly 12 flashed up and my webber engaged and I knew I had her. The Thorax acheived optimal and my weapons opened up.
"NOOOOOO! Not my Rapier!" Mynxee wailed. She hit her warp button and flew off the grid. In all the excitement I forgot to engage the warp disrupter but truth be told I would have let her go anyways as I already had two of her ship kills notched in my hull.
With that my time was up and we exchanged pleasantries as I docked and logged off.
Good fights Mynxee, thanks for letting me work out the rustiness a little. I suspect FINEG will not be so accomodating.
Back in the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 I did some solo-pirating and my ship of choice was the trusty Thorax. It suits my style nicely; fly straight at the target as fast as I can and hope I can kill him before I am dead. None of the Caldari Tech 1 cruisers can do that job quite so well.
So it was off to market to put one together. Presenting my solo-Thorax:
Highs:
5 x Heavy Ion Blaster IIs with Caldari Antimatter and Null ammo
Mids:
10mn MWD II,
Statis Webber II,
Best named Warp Disrupter (needed the CPU hence not T2)
Lows:
Damage Control II,
400mm Rolled Tungsten plate,
3 x Magnetic Field Stab IIs
Drones:
5 x Vespa EC-600s
The concept is simple: Charge the target ship, get them webbed and scrammed, kill my MWD when orbiting at 2.5 klicks, and pound the shit out of them while hoping the ECM drones break their lock once or twice and they die before I do. It doesn't work against multiple targets very well but has a decent chance against Tech 1 ships of similar tonnage or smaller.
I flew to Mynxee's area and challenged her to a duel which she eagerly accepted.
Duel #1 - Thorax Vs Rupture
I warped to her at 20km (0km would have been better for me but I didn't want to have an unfair advantage) and moved to engage. ECM Drones attack! Soon I was orbitting and blasting away and her shields and armour melted under the onslaught. Soon she was in her pod.
"What happened?" I queried. She got me to half shields but no drones or anything after that. Turns out a combination of overview malfunction (not showing fleet members) and ECM Drones caught her flatfooted. A bittersweet victory I offered to wait while she got another ship.
She agreed and decided to come back in a Rifter.
"A Rifter?" I thought to myself?
Duel #2 - Thorax Vs Rifter
Typically: frigate + web = death
This rule was not excepted today. As she arrived I quickly got her Rifter in my 12km ranged webber and she watched helplessly as my blasters reduced the frigate to a wreck. I didn't even bother with the drones this time.
Determined to destroy me, and seeing I was agreeable to going against something Tech II, she vowed to return in her Rapier force recon.
Duel # 3 - Thorax Vs Rapier
She came in at 20 km and immediately used the long ranged webs to hold me in place despite the MWD. She moved to 26-27 km and began plinking away at my shields while I struggled to move like a crippled freighter.
I had only one chance. The ECM Drones.
"COME ON, little buddies! Give daddy one lock break!" I encouraged them.
Suddenly the ship lurched as the stasis effect ended and the velocity climbed in leaps and bounds. The drones came through. I began to close the distance, 25, 22, 18... come on, 12 is the magic number. Suddenly 12 flashed up and my webber engaged and I knew I had her. The Thorax acheived optimal and my weapons opened up.
"NOOOOOO! Not my Rapier!" Mynxee wailed. She hit her warp button and flew off the grid. In all the excitement I forgot to engage the warp disrupter but truth be told I would have let her go anyways as I already had two of her ship kills notched in my hull.
With that my time was up and we exchanged pleasantries as I docked and logged off.
Good fights Mynxee, thanks for letting me work out the rustiness a little. I suspect FINEG will not be so accomodating.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Choices
Since I'm going to war all by myself, I've been considering ships to use. In groups your choice of ship is dictated by the needs of the group and the style of PvP you are looking for. But solo is much more refined as you need to accomplish all tasks by yourself.
Introducing the Holy Triangle of Eve ships:
Gank: DPS, tackle, EWAR, all the offensive weapons to keep your enemy in combat and hurt him.
Tank: Shields, armour, speed, EWAR, all the ways you keep yourself alive.
Cost: more accurately, cost efficiency. Ideally you want to minimize the cost to replace the ship.
All ship setups measure differently on the triangle. In gangs you might focus on one vertex or even one part of a vertex as a part of the group. For example, a Falcon provides scouting and EWAR while a Tech 1 Rifter maximizes cost efficiency as a disposable tackler. In solo flying you typically want to attempt to maximize all three points on the triangle as much as possible.
Tech 1 frigates maximizes the Cost point at the expense of the other two. Tech 2 frigates decrease the Cost efficiency but are slightly better in the other two.
Tech 1 cruisers with tech 1 gear are very cost efficient and some damage and defense, but with Tech 2 gear that cost efficiency decreases while gank and tank increases. Tech 2 cruisers increase the gank and tank even more but seriously reduce cost efficiency.
However the best bang for your buck is the Battlecruisers and Battleships. With lots of slots for both tank and DPS while still having insurance that covers the cost of the hull, they are the ship of choice most often for solo combat pilots. Since battlecruisers use cruiser sized weapons and defenses, they tend to be slightly more cost effective than battleships at the trade off of less overall damage and tank.
So I'll probably faced with these choices, I'll probably get some cruisers setup in various regions ready to go. Maybe a battlecruiser or two here and there for more "Omph" when I need it.
DISCLAIMER: These diagrams are in no way scientific or support by facts or figures. It is my "back of the napkin" opinion.
Introducing the Holy Triangle of Eve ships:
Gank: DPS, tackle, EWAR, all the offensive weapons to keep your enemy in combat and hurt him.
Tank: Shields, armour, speed, EWAR, all the ways you keep yourself alive.
Cost: more accurately, cost efficiency. Ideally you want to minimize the cost to replace the ship.
All ship setups measure differently on the triangle. In gangs you might focus on one vertex or even one part of a vertex as a part of the group. For example, a Falcon provides scouting and EWAR while a Tech 1 Rifter maximizes cost efficiency as a disposable tackler. In solo flying you typically want to attempt to maximize all three points on the triangle as much as possible.
Tech 1 frigates maximizes the Cost point at the expense of the other two. Tech 2 frigates decrease the Cost efficiency but are slightly better in the other two.
Tech 1 cruisers with tech 1 gear are very cost efficient and some damage and defense, but with Tech 2 gear that cost efficiency decreases while gank and tank increases. Tech 2 cruisers increase the gank and tank even more but seriously reduce cost efficiency.
However the best bang for your buck is the Battlecruisers and Battleships. With lots of slots for both tank and DPS while still having insurance that covers the cost of the hull, they are the ship of choice most often for solo combat pilots. Since battlecruisers use cruiser sized weapons and defenses, they tend to be slightly more cost effective than battleships at the trade off of less overall damage and tank.
So I'll probably faced with these choices, I'll probably get some cruisers setup in various regions ready to go. Maybe a battlecruiser or two here and there for more "Omph" when I need it.
DISCLAIMER: These diagrams are in no way scientific or support by facts or figures. It is my "back of the napkin" opinion.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Full Circle
Well, I'm back in Strife Mercenaries today.
As review, last winter I was a Director in Strife Mercenaries and things were running well. PvP and mining ops, group cohesion was decent, morale great. But we wanted some 0.0 space.
We tried Slyph alliance but decided the space was not good and the alliance was a little arrogant in fleet ops. We tried joining Rejuvenate alliance but didn't like the executor, so took most of that alliance and created Wrath alliance. But then the politics, crappy space, and time demands were too much and we limped back to low sec Placid, dejected, drained, and depleted.
Then the war with FINEG struck just as we were at our most vulnerable and things went downhill quickly. Since the boys were coming and I knew I'd have little time to play properly, I decided to go into Factional Warfare and with the rest of the directors either on break or frustrated to quitting, the corp disintegrated. Strife still existed but with alts and inactives in it for all these months.
Now FINEG has shown they have no let their war with Strife end with the fall and dispersal of the corp. I've been tracking their movements and times in Eve, and I've decided that I want to declare war on them (not that I'll be able to cause much if any damage on my own, but I want the option if I find them in high sec of engaging, or doing so in low sec without sentry interference). I considered using one of my alt corps like Katana or Insisto Oblivium but it felt fitting if I were to go back to empty Strife and use it. So I checked with the other shareholders and with their approval I'm back as a director of Strife and put the vote through for declaring war last night.
Although I got some moral support from my ex-corp mates, they are all too involved in their own business in new corps and alliances to help me with my little vendetta, so its me against the older and more experienced pilots in FINEG. I'd look into getting a killboard but I think I'll need more of a deathboard, LOL. Still, it could be fun and if I get lucky I might even get one of them.
See you in space FINEG.
As review, last winter I was a Director in Strife Mercenaries and things were running well. PvP and mining ops, group cohesion was decent, morale great. But we wanted some 0.0 space.
We tried Slyph alliance but decided the space was not good and the alliance was a little arrogant in fleet ops. We tried joining Rejuvenate alliance but didn't like the executor, so took most of that alliance and created Wrath alliance. But then the politics, crappy space, and time demands were too much and we limped back to low sec Placid, dejected, drained, and depleted.
Then the war with FINEG struck just as we were at our most vulnerable and things went downhill quickly. Since the boys were coming and I knew I'd have little time to play properly, I decided to go into Factional Warfare and with the rest of the directors either on break or frustrated to quitting, the corp disintegrated. Strife still existed but with alts and inactives in it for all these months.
Now FINEG has shown they have no let their war with Strife end with the fall and dispersal of the corp. I've been tracking their movements and times in Eve, and I've decided that I want to declare war on them (not that I'll be able to cause much if any damage on my own, but I want the option if I find them in high sec of engaging, or doing so in low sec without sentry interference). I considered using one of my alt corps like Katana or Insisto Oblivium but it felt fitting if I were to go back to empty Strife and use it. So I checked with the other shareholders and with their approval I'm back as a director of Strife and put the vote through for declaring war last night.
Although I got some moral support from my ex-corp mates, they are all too involved in their own business in new corps and alliances to help me with my little vendetta, so its me against the older and more experienced pilots in FINEG. I'd look into getting a killboard but I think I'll need more of a deathboard, LOL. Still, it could be fun and if I get lucky I might even get one of them.
See you in space FINEG.
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