Virtual Worth

In one of the most intelligent posts I've seen about Real Money Trading, Cameron Sorden writes what I wish I could have last week when I tried to get my thoughts out.

What are you really paying for in your monthly fee? That’s the real question. If it’s just for access to a service (and I’d argue it is), that’s fine… but does the company also own the time and effort you’ve put into your personal advancement just because they say they do? The problem right now is that no one knows the answer to that question. Everyone has an opinion and they vary widely, but until it gets settled in court, the truth is that we just don’t know.

Rad the whole thing.

New Record!

I'm happy to report that eTReMe Tracking is showing a new record for number of visitors in March at 538 which beat the previous record set in January of 502.

This is me being pleased.

Serpentis Rats, I'm Coming For You

My esteemed ans respected CEO (who reads this blog sometimes, natch) was able to jump a few ships up to our home in Syndicate; my new Rokh battleship, my old reliable Falcon Recon cruiser, my untouchable Raptor interceptor, a long ranged Harpy Assault frigate, and a Blackbird cruiser and Rifter for emergency situations calling for disposable ships.

I'm missing my Manticore Stealth Bomber, Drake Battlecruiser, Cerberus Heavy Assault Ship, and most importantly, my Onyx Heavy Interdictor. But all of those ships are rigged and cannot be transported by freighter so I would have to slowboat them down which is 20 jumps one way through high sec from Nonni to Stacmon. Not attractive. Maybe some night this week.

Saturday morning I found myself in 0.0 with my new Rokh equipped as such:
8 x 425mm II rails (*drool*)
100mn Afterburner II
Tracking Computer II
2 x Large Shield Extender II
2 x Invulnerability Field II
2 x Power Diagnostic II
3 x Magnetic Field Stabilizers
No rigs
5 x Vespa II drones

Its DPS is an impressive 430 without including the drones (539 with them) with antimatter ammo at an optimal of 50km and 29km falloff. A defence rating of 96 DPS which is not impressive for PvP but adequate for ratting when you include the hit point buffer of 18K shields and resistances at 58.6/66.9/75.2/78.3 which is decent if not outstanding.

All in all, a solid ship for ratting or throwing DPS into a gang should the need arise.

I'll need to get a sensor booster or two to make decent use of its range with Spike Ammo. Its DPS falls to 287 but it has a range of 209 km optimal plus 29 falloff which means I can hit as far as the maximum targeting range of 250 km. One sensor booster would let me target 172.8 km so I'd need two.

While ratting with a corp mate one morning a red came waltzing through and our alliance scrambled a defense force to try and lock him down. He was in an Arazu which has the covert ops cloaking. This allowed him to easily escape but he failed to get any kills and he had to run in order to get away. Good work team!

Derranna completed Jump Drive Operation IV last night and is on the last major hurdle to the jump freighter, 20 days of Jump Drive Operation V. Should be complete on April 20th.

Speaking of Derranna, she was trying to refuel the POS yesterday but a couple of pilots were gate camping in Aunenen in an Onyx and Phobos, two Heavy Interdictors. I decided to wait until this morning before downtime and STILL one of them (the Onyx pilot) was there. Fortunately, a window of opportunity arose and I skipped through with two weeks of fuel.

This week is all about getting Derranna into 0.0 to assist Kirith with ratting. Also, some more cloaking device production.

PWNED!

Last night I logged in for a bit and found my CEO asking for a cynosaural field in our new 0.0 home system. I was in the system but didn't have the module to do as he asked.

I flew to a nearby station and picked up what I needed and was heading back when I ran into a gate camp that had been set up in the minutes since I last warped through. Normally when I'm in my Buzzard Covert Ops ship that is not a big deal, but these guys also had deployed a large Warp Disruption bubble on the gate, 35 km of NO WARP FOR YOU in all directions. And I was smack dab in it.

I tried to run to the nearest edge with my cloak on, but they were experienced and quickly closed in on my location and managed to get within 2000 metres to decloak me. Soon I was locked, warp scrambled, and dead. But I had made it to the edge and got my pod out to avoid having to buy new +3 implants.

Not the glorious start to my new 0.0 life but an important reminder of the hazards that it holds.

Flurry of Activity

Its no great secret that Strife Mercenaries has been looking for a 0.0 home since we reformed a couple months ago. First we considered Foundation and Veritas Immortalis in the Great Wildlands area, but those didn't feel right. Then we joined up with Slyph Alliance in Providence region but found them not to our liking.

We settled in Lonetrek after that since a couple senior members went back to ATF alliance and there was a possibility of bringing Strife along (after the rest of us rejected a merger) but the terms were ludicrous after negotiations and we decided to look elsewhere.

After many long weeks of looking at leads and talking to corps and alliances, we found something that sounds promising enough to try. We are joining with several other corps to found an alliance called Rejuvenate and we'll be making our initial home in Syndicate. I'm very excited at this new turn of events and looking forward to revisiting the region I cut my first 0.0 teeth on in 2006.

So with the decision made last night we begun preparations to move our initial ships into Syndicate by staging in Placid region. I'm taking a selection of ships such as my new Rokh battleship for ratting and fleet warfare and a Falcon recon for PvP and scouting. Probably a few frigates as well. Derranna will move down too in a clone to do some short range hauling as needed and she and Kirith can scout for each other.

Also, Large Hybrid Turret V completed successfully and I'm starting in on the Large Rail Specialization skills, soon to be followed by 9 days of Motion Prediction V for Tech II blasters. It is certainly an exciting time in Strife.

Nearly Forgot

My latest Eve Tribune article on the Force Recon Rapier.

Sometimes You're the Hammer...

... Sometimes you're the nail.

On Monday night we were the hammer. Last night I logged in to find my CEO organizing a gang. Well sign me up! "What do you want me in, boss?" I asked eagerly.

I had my Onyx and Falcon as usual, but also several PvP frigs: Manticore Stealth Bomber, Harpy Assault Frig, Raptor Interceptor, Buzzard Covert Ops, and even a Rifter. The CEO considered and decided on 0.0 fast frig op. With an evil grin, I jumped into my Raptor.

(As a side note, it is my belief that every pilot capable of even basic PvP when called upon should always have ships ready to go in 5 minutes or less. Nothing annoys me more than stalling an op because people are fitting ships and unsure what to take.)

My Raptor is built on speed and tackling. Its bonus gives it a 28 km range with a Tech II warp dirsuptor and I can fly it at a speed of 5600+ m/s (an orbit at 25km at 4500 m/s) for as long as I have cap booster charges, and that's a long time. Damage is pitiful though as my three 75mm Gatling Rail IIs are more for annoyance than deathblows.

We headed out for 0.0 space. Along with my scouting Raptor we had two Assault frigs in a Wolf and a Retribution and an Electronic Attack frig Sentinel equipped with some bonused tracking disruptors. We didn't have much luck early on; targets were either safe spotted or ran to safe spot as soon as I jumped in. I did almost find a Cyclone battlecruiser ratting once but when a Nighthawk Command ship and some other nasties showed up on scan, we thought better of engaging.

Next system over we ran into a Cormorant Destroyer on a gate. Destroyers are Tech I ships that are easy to kill so we moved to engage. He jumped and I gave chase, but I wasn't fast enough on the other side to lock and scram him. Next gate, same thing. We jumped and found ourselves at one of the hub systems in Pure Blind region where a NPC station exists and allows corporations a safe place to regroup.

I warped to station to see what was going on. I didn't stay on the station though and good thing. I was 50 km out when a Huginn undocked. They are Minmatar Combat Recon ships capable of turning normal 10 km ranged Stasis Webbers into 34-40 km ranged Stasis Webbers. In other words, they are the death knell of any speed tank ship. Warp, dammit, WARP!

As a second Huginn and a Crow interceptor appeared on scan, we decided this system was too hot for our presence and we moved on. And then we made a mistake.

The next system had three gates: the one we came through from the NPC station system, one that led on down the pipe, and another that led to a dead end pocket of two systems. I moved on to scout down the pipe a system which the Wolf and Sentinel pilots checked out the dead end. The Retribution pilot stayed on the jump-in gate ready to go either way. In hindsight we should have moved on right away in case those Huginns and Crows gave chase but we were eager for kills and the blood lust clouded our sense of self preservation.

The Retribution pilot reported gate activation and saw two Huginns, two Crows, a Deimos HAC, and a Crow frigate jump in. Oh crap. He fled to the system where I was and our gang thus found itself split in two with a deadly enemy gang in between. Not just deadly, it was our antithesis, the one type of gang we had absolutely no hope against.

We tried to get our Wolf and Sentinel out but the Huginns are awesome tacklers and the Wolf was destroyed. I moved on to the next system to make sure we weren't in a trap on both sides while the Sentinel pilot came in with the enemy gang hot on his heels. At this point had the Retribution pilot headed for the outbound gate when I did we might have escaped with only the Wolf lost but for whatever reason he didn't warp and suddenly he was behind the enemy gang.

He warped late into the gang and they jumped with him into the next system where me and the Sentinel already were. The Retribution couldn't warp off and was caught. Our CEO bravely charged in to try and let him make it back to the gate and jump through to perhaps get away, but it was not meant to be. The Sentinel went down, followed moments later by the Retribution.

Leaving me all alone in a ship with crap for damage against a gang built around killing fast ships. I ran. Fortunately, if the Raptor is good at one thing, its being fast and its 13.5 AU/sec warp speed ensured that none of their ships would catch up to me unless I stopped (which I didn't) and I was safe unless I ran into a massive gate camp with a bubble and some insta-lockers (which, again, I didn't).

As I jumped back into low sec, I found a nice station to dock in and once again suffered survivor's guilt.

* * * * *
Also, today I finally finish Large Hybrid Turret V! At 9:50 pm.

New Training Plan

Remember that Absolutely Positively Set-In-Stone Training Plan? Well, perhaps not so much.

There are a number of factors that made me want to alter the plan.

1) The Vindicator is looking more and more like a n impulsive buy that really isn't worth it when I can buy 4-5 Rokhs for the same price and similar abilities.

2) The Chimera carrier I bought is calling my name.

3) I looking up some costs of skill books I need just to fly the carrier. They will cost me just over 1 billion. ONE BILLION! HOLY CRAP!

I still have a decent chunk of ISK but not quite one billion. And since the Vindicator would only be a pimp ship for showing off, I think selling it and getting the skills I need for the carrier is a more prudent choice. After all, the carrier can be my pimp ride. So my new plan is to finish the Tech II rails and blasters for Rokh-riding fun, and then get Tech II heavy missiles (already trained up the basic skill to V so no delay there), and then push for the carrier. In theory I can sit in the carrier on July 23rd.

Skill plan for Kirith Kodachi:
1. Large Hybrid Turret V
2. Large Railgun Specialization I
3. Large Railgun Specialization II
4. Large Railgun Specialization III
5. Large Railgun Specialization IV
6. Motion Prediction V
7. Large Blaster Specialization I
8. Large Blaster Specialization II
9. Large Blaster Specialization III
10. Large Blaster Specialization IV
11. Heavy Missile Specialization I
12. Heavy Missile Specialization II
13. Heavy Missile Specialization III
14. Heavy Missile Specialization IV
15. Caldari Battleship V
16. Drone Interfacing V
17. Warp Drive Operation V
18. Advanced Spaceship Command I
19. Advanced Spaceship Command II
20. Advanced Spaceship Command III
21. Advanced Spaceship Command IV
22. Advanced Spaceship Command V
23. Capital Ships I
24. Capital Ships II
25. Capital Ships III
26. Jump Drive Operation I
27. Caldari Carrier I

The skillbooks I need to purchase:
Heavy Missile Specialization = 3 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

* = I know they are not on the plan but using a carrier without them trained up is pointless making them practically mandatory to train in August.

Eventually I'll need more skills like Fighters, Capital Shield Operations, Capital Shield Emission Systems, and later on Black Ops and Marauders.

All plans subject to change.

Monday Night Mining... Not

Last night I logged in earlier than expected and was ready to do hauling for the mining op (as my miner, Derranna, was off picking up stuff in the freighter in Amarr) but to my display, no one was on. So I ran a couple missions and got Technological Secrets which is a three part mission. The first part I completed easily, the second part was a simple high sec courier run (in which I forgot the package the first time) and the third part... damn. The third part is set to go in low sec.

I logged off for a bit to visit with the wife and such. Later on I log in to see if MNM is on or not and to my surprise found a PvP op being organized. One member was in Placid region already in a Deimos, and another was embarking from Nonni right now in another Deimos. I decided to join in and picked my Falcon to act as scout and tackler.

We hit the space lanes aiming for 13 jumps to our first member. Unfortunately he got into a tango with a Drake and a Blackbird when we were just heading out. We tried to get there as fast as we could since he was tanking them nicely, but then he reported a Minmatar Hurricane battlecruiser arrived and helped to put the hurt on him.

With our third member down, me and the other Deimos pilot decided to start hunting ourselves. Ah, good old Placid. There was a lot of activity in the system we were in and I was picking up targets on the scanner and then seeing them leave, probably just passing through the sphere of my scanner. Then a target showed up and didn't leave. I narrowed it down to near a belt, a Caldari Cerberus HAC. He couldn't be there really, right?

I warped to the belt regardless not really expecting to find anything there. But when I came out sure enough there was the elite tech II ship just 11 km of my bow. I hit approach, target, and activated the scram and web. As a bonus, he was flashing red which meant he was a bad boy to someone else and I would not suffer a criminal countdown. I caught him in my tackle gear and then activated the EWar to jam his missiles. Now I was hoping two things: that he didn't have Friend or Foe missiles that don't need a lock to hit and that he didn't have friends nearby.

Normally when hunting in my Falcon, a Heavy Assault Cruiser (HAC) is a target I avoid simply because I lack the DPS to break its tank. But since I was hunting with a mate in one of the highest DPSing cruisers in the game, the Cerberus was dead meet. My gangmate warped in and turned on the blasters and drones and the target melted in short order. It was a good clean kill and medals were given all around (although my buddy hasn't posted the killmail yet so maybe we need to rescind his medal).

By this time two other mates had caught up to us in a Minmatar Hurricane battlecruiser and Stabber cruiser and we set out looking for more victims. My time was limited and although I almost caught a Catalyst in a belt, no other action was to be had.

Tomorrow, Technological Secrets 3/3 in low sec!

Character Selling

An anonymous commenter on my An Old Face post had this to say:

Selling characters isn't really all that "cool."

Ah, well.

I responded there with:

Well, that is a common opinion and I can understand why someone would feel that way.

On the other hand, grinding missions or ratting for 23 straight hours is not cool to me as I can't do that and make the isk like someone in college or on summer break can. And other people think having more than one character at all is not cool. It all depends on your point of view.

I prefer the live and let live approach. :)

But I want to expand upon that as this is an issue I struggled with a lot last year before I bought and sold an Eve Game Time Card (GTC) for ISK. It was something I was going to write for the Eve Tribune but what the hell, they can't get all my good stuff. ;)

There is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when it comes to making ISK in Eve.

The Good is all those things you do in game that were designed to make you money, or evolved from the game mechanics. Mining, missions, ratting are the big three; manufacturing, couriers, researchers, trading, salvaging, exploring, alliance or corp creation are the less popular but still common; pirating, corp thieves, scam artists are even more rare but very notorious. And they all occur within the game itself.

The Bad are all the bannable offences outside of the game mechanics. Buying ISK or ships or characters off of Ebay. Hacking accounts. Macro-mining. Selling services for ISK (although there are exceptions). The game developers have stated these are against the EULA and thus getting caught at doing these are grounds for expulsion from the game.

The Ugly is the grey area. These are actions outside of the game mechanics but are allowed by CCP. Selling characters, buying Eve GTCs from approved sellers for and reselling them for ISK, selling select services such as website hosting for corps or creating graphics for forum sigs or corp/alliance banners are all acceptable in the developer's eyes.

But a lot of gamers look down on the Ugly ways of getting ISK. They feel they are just other methods of Real Money Trading which is bad for the game overall. It causes inflation, or dilutes the experience, or encourages "farmers" who don't actually play the game but exploit it. (Its worth mentioning that this mostly applies to GTC selling and a little to character selling, not so much to graphic artists.)

So I am not surprised to see that my selling of Sarah last year and Optivus and Barak this year would elicit some disapproving frowns from those who feel that the Ugly should be lumped in with the Bad. Or perhaps they just feel its cheap, or cheating. I didn't "earn" the billions of ISK, I just exploited the system.

To which I answer thusly: get of your fracking high horse and take a good look at yourself. Eve allows your character to progress while you are offline. Eve allows you to build things and research things and sell things while you are sleeping or going to work or making out with your girlfriend. In fact, practically only the "big three" require you constantly at your keyboard to make ISK.

Yes, selling characters is meta-gaming but so what? I don't have hour upon hours to grind out ISK the way a high school student on summer break or a college student with no deadlines might have. And having more money is key for me to having lots of fun in this game. And if I do it in a way you don't like, tough. Its a game, and I'm not doing anything that anyone else does not have access to. I didn't sign up to play by your rules, I signed up to play by CCPs rules and seeing as they not only allow it, they have put in place a forum and instructions to explicit do it, I think I'm in the clear here.

I'm not a purist. I'm here to have fun and for me, having fun is not 101 missions to earn my first billion, or slaving over the mobile labs inventing for months to irk out enough ISK for my first carrier.

Well, that incoherent rant is over. Carry on. Normal posting resumes in 3, 2, 1....

Bad Timing

Thursday night after taking care of all the corp's research endeavours I had about 15-20 minutes left of online time. I decided to grab the Onyx and do a little gate camping. I sent Derranna in her Blockade Runner and cloak to sit and watch and pick up any loot and seeing that the gate was clear, I jumped in.

I immediately saw a Gallente Viator blockade runner sitting there on the gate and foolishly decided to engage. It was either a stupid pilot or a trap and in hindsight I should have just got comfortable or waited until he left, but I was eager for a kill and still a little euphoric after escaping from the Battleship Suicide Op the previous night.

Well right after I engaged a Triumvirate Vagabond decloaked and engaged. Shit. Heavy Assault Missiles are great for damage but suck at hitting fast targets and the Vaga is the fastest cruiser vessel in space. Scrammed I was unable to warp off, and having just performed a criminal action I couldn't jump through the gate or face the wrath of CONCORD. Unable to hurt my attacker, I was forced to die the slow death from the gate guns and the Vaga. A buddy of his in a Pilgrim came to assist and kill my cap but it was a done deal already. I could have tried to tank longer with the cap injector but I was more interested in getting my pod out safely.

I talked to the pilot in local after I docked and had to wait out the criminal counter. Was it a trap that I eagerly fell into? No, he said, he was just sitting there talking in chat and saw a red flashy and decided to engage. Just my bad luck this time. Ah well, I bought that Onyx for gate camping only and expected to lose it sooner or later.

I spent Friday and Sunday morning running a few missions to work on my security status since at -1.43 I was approaching dangerous levels. This week, if I can't get in some gang PvP with corpmates, I might try can flipping again.

Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah Revealed

So along with the Jump Freighter, I plan to purchase the Ninveah soon.

"Ok Bill, we know you want us to ask so... what the heck is the Ninveah?"

I'm glad you asked!

You see, it started over 15 years ago when I got into playing Warhammer 40K. Eldar and Chaos were my two armies and after 10 years of concentrating on Eldar I started to really work on my Chaos to the point where it became my main army. As the obsession grew in, I got into Epic and Battlefleet Gothic in a big way.

Battlefleet Gothic is basically a recreation of the create age of sail in space 40,000 years in the future. Massive kilometre-long ships ponderously duelling long range battles of apocalyptic proportions... for a guy that grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars fantasies it really appealed.

So I was collecting a Chaos fleet for my Black Storm renegade marines and I needed a flagship. A big flagship. Something terrifying. I settled on the largest of the Chaos ships that were not called Planetkiller, the Despoiler battleship. Its a super-carrier that puts the fear of god into most opponents.

I wanted a cool name, something biblical perhaps. I was going for "Nineveh" but in my usual lazy-assed fashion I just wung it (winged it?) and settled on Ninveah (pronounced Nin-Vee-Ah) which coincidently appears to be an alternate spelling for Nineveh sometimes on the internet. Who knew?

Here is the flagship Ninveah Despoiler Class battleship:

(Click to Embiggen)

Hence my blog, which was originally just a Warhammer blog, was titled after the inner-most spaces of this impressive flagship.

When I started Eve, I decided early on that my favourite BFG ship would be reborn in New Eden so right from the beginning, years ago, I knew someday I would have a Chimera class carrier and its name would be Ninveah.

Of course, I'm month from flying one but dammit, I'll own it!

An Old Face

I was browsing contracts for the Nomad I'm going to buy when one auction caught my eye:



Sarah Elkadar? Is that my original Research Assistant I created back when Kodachi Enterprises had that research POS in Hrober in Molden Heath? Derranna Elkadar's sister?!

Why yes it is:


Good to know she's still out there and judging by her auctioning a frigging Jump Freighter, doing well for herself.

*sniff, wipes a tear* Makes a gamer proud. I sold her after I took the POS down from low sec since I lost like three loads of fuel to INFOD *shakes fist*. When I later put a new POS up in high sec, I really wish I had kept her and had to create Sun Tomah to replace her. Ah well, live and learn.

Hey You! Come Kill Us!

Last night I log in to find a couple corp mates with a dilemma: the insurance is about to run out on one of each of their battleships. What should they do?

Well, there is only one thing to do: head to the local 0.0 hotspot and get themselves killed while taking out anything they possibly can. Hot damn, sounds like fun, sign me up.

I hopped in my Scorpion, threw in some ammo and Sensor Booster scripts, and headed out to the rally point. Our CEO and other director joined us as well, the former in his Dominix (not Dominatrix as I foolishly wrote a couple days ago... its easy to get confused, everyone just says "Domi") and the latter in a tech 1 throwaway Arbitrator cruiser. Along with my Scorpion and the original Dominix and Armageddon battleships, we're ready.

We jump into 0.0 from Torrinos (one of the few if not the only place where 0.0 and high sec border each other) and much to our dismay there is no gate camp. We wait a few minutes but it becomes apparent that no one is coming to play. So we start some playful banter in local chat.

"I'm in yur system... campin yur gatez"

"I'm limboing under the gate!"

"Can I be primary? I've never been primary before."

Who were we talking to? Well you see, one of the big scary alliances, Triumvirate, frequents this area and there is an outpost in system. With 15 people in local and only 5 of them us, we figured their intel channels were abuzz with comments like "who are these guys?!"

Eventually a Tri pilot in a Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruiser came out to check us out. I easily jammed him with one ECM but he wasn't there to tango, just to see what was up. I'm sure they scouted Torrinos to see if we had more hiding and waiting, but it was just us five suiciders (suicidees?).

After about twenty minutes and quick buzzes by the Vaga pilot and a stealth bomber and Covert Ops frig, it became apparent that they would probably not engage four battleships within range of jumping into high sec. And we really wanted to die. So we warped to the next gate into 0.0. I imagine the Tri pilots started to salivate as they watched us go.

We jumped into the next system, the Vaga keeping pace with us. We knew now it was only a matter of time. The gate activated and a Neutral Typhoon battleship appeared on the overview. Man, wrong place wrong time. We jammed, scrammed, and webbed that poor bastard and tore him a new one, but in the meantime gate rats took out our Tech 1 cruiser buddy. Ah well, one for one.

Then Tri decided to play. The gate activated... and activated... and activated. And in seconds my overview was filled with red flashies. And the one that caused the most fear in my heart was the Falcon.

You know what happens when two ECM jamming ships tangle with each other? The faster locking one wins. Well in Eve all things being equal smaller ships lock faster than bigger ones and even though I had two sensor boosters, he probably only needed one to lock me faster and jam my ass making my ship the biggest and most useless battleship within ten jumps. To rub salt in the wound, besides the Falcon pilot they ignored me; they knew I was out of the fight. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the Falcon had all Caldari racial ECMs.

My compatriots put up a fight taking a ton of damage but as you can see from the kill mails we were heavily outnumbered. On the upside, we took down a Rapier before dying which made everyone's day. Hell, going on a suicide mission and dying was the plan, getting the Rapier and the Typhoon was pure bonus.

What happened to me? Well, I was jammed as Tri brought it and I decided to jump back through the gate as I wasn't doing anything on this side. I suppose I could have stayed to keep the Falcon busy but I wanted to be more than a static piece of scenery. On the other side there was a bubble and a Devoter Heavy Interdictor (not sure if the bubble was from him or not). I engaged despite knowing that I had the damage of a wet paper towel, but if one of my gangmates jumped in perhaps the Devoter would go down. An enemy Taranis showed up but an Interceptor that I could easily jam was the least of my concerns. On Vent I heard the rest of the gang die in fits of laughter, and a Scimitar showed up on scan, so I decided there was no point dying when I could not take anything with me so I warped back to the Torrinos gate and made my escape.

That's right. I failed at the mission objective by surviving. Of course, I might have been motivated by the fact I was still in my +4 implant clone just a little, but only at the end when it became apparent everyone else was dead and I had no chance of getting a kill before death.

It was an exciting adventure and I got in on another kill which was nice (I missed out on the Rapier being jammed to hell and all).

Plan Jump Freighter A Step Closer to Reality

I put Barak up for sale on the forums this week and had some nibbles of interest here and there. I started the auction at 4 billion and a buyout of 6.5 billion. I wasn't sure if I could get a full 6.5 but I figured it was worth a shot. I wanted at least 5 billion because combined with my current wallet that would afford the Nomad jump freighter.

Well, I had an offer on Monday for 5 billion buyout. I considered it but politely turned it down as I figured I could get more. Today my patience ran out and I approached the pilot that made the offer seeing if he was still agreeable to it. He said yes, we negotiated the transfer of isk and character, and now I'm 5 billion isk richer.

Could I have gotten more had I waited out the auction? Maybe. But I got what I needed to satisfy my goals. April 20th can't get here fast enough.

DAMN! Denied!

Las night I had plans. Wife was napping, evening was clear, just me and sweet Eve for 2 or maybe even 3 hours! If the wife woke up, I could still get an hour of uninterrupted game time.

What to do? What to do? Gate camp in the Onyx? Sweep Pure Blind of weak targets in my Falcon? Can flipping in the Rifter? Mission running in the Drake? Decisions, decisions.

Then my wife came downstairs just as I was finishing some housework and complained in a hoarse whisper that her throat was closed up and her tongue was numb. Uh oh. That's doesn't sound good. We immediately left for the hospital since she's 31 weeks pregnant with twin and we were not going to take any chances whatsoever. Four hours later we're home, she was mostly suffering from dehydration due to her extremely sore throat from being ill on the weekend. She's better today and her mom took off work to watch her.

Needless to say, no Eve last night. Sigh. Perhaps tonight.

On the upside, one week to Large Hybrid Turret V! Why oh why does the last half of a long skill seem to take twice as long as the first half? Gah.

Boom! Headshot!

Last night I finally had an hour to myself and decided to take out the Falcon for some hunting. IN low sec I pinged a Vexor on scanner and some guys taking in local about what I thought was a complex or mission, so I tried to narrow down where this Vexor was. I finally determined it wasn't at a belt so I got within 5 AU (I've been using the distance of the scanner a lot lately to help narrow targets) and then docked to put on the Recon Probe Launcher. Back out in space, launch probe, got Vexor, warped to it.... Damn, empty ship at a POS.

I opened up the scanner again and this time picked up a Bestower, and Amarr hauler. I was half sure it was at a POS already but on the off chance I threw out another probe and a minute and a half later I got a hit. Warped to it and landed in a belt 30km from the ship. Fortunately for me, I also landed more than 2000 meter from any objects so my cloaking field was not disrupted.

I started to advance on the hauler, plotting an intercept course and hoping he would not warp off before I could get him. I hit 19 km and deactivated the cloak and spammed the lock button. Was he going to warp off before the 6 second cloaking recalibration and the locking time had passed?

No. Now the question was whether he had an warp stabilizers fitted. Survey says... no. He's locked, scrammed, webbed, and jammed. My two heavy blasters (damn scan probe launcher) start working and soon his ship is a wreck. Nothing really worth looting except a couple Giant secure cans and I'm short a hauler of my own to carry them, so the kill mail and a bit more prestige on the killboard will have to suffice.

I'm at the point where hunting with the Falcon is not fulfilling enough. Too many targets that my pathetic DPS can't handle. I'm considering altering the Plan to slip Gallente Cruiser V in there but then I see its an additional 22.5 days... and I figure I'll have to suffer for the time being.

Force Recon Articles

In case I forgot to mention it, here is my Caldari Falcon article from last week and this week's Gallente Arazu article.

Cleanup In Aisle Jita!

This weekend was tabbed "Cleanup" weekend or "Taking Care of Loose Ends" time.

First off, I decided to get Barak ready for his sale but giving all his assets to Kirith for selling, keeping, or disposing. That meant his transport ships, carrier, and several other misc items from all around New Eden. By 9am Saturday he was done and 24 hours from being dropped from corp.

Kirith then had to do some travelling to repackage and sell those Station Containers from Barak, and at the same time take eight 350mm II railguns to Gulfonodi in anticipation of completing Large Hybrids V in about 9 days (single digits!!! *swoons*). While out and about I stopped in Jita to pick up my new set of +4 implants I lost when the Cerberus went off the reservation.

Finally I stopped in Amarr to buy a bunch of moon materials and other items for building cloaking devices and Invulnerability Fields for the corp. Then back to Lonetrek where I completed a level 3 in low sec I had left over from last weekend.

Derranna in the meantime, had to pick up the moon materials in Amarr I purchased with Kirith, and also did a run to Motsu and back to bring his Vindicator battleship home since he can't fly it himself yet. Then Sunday evening I completed housekeeping with a trip out to the POS to refuel another week.

Now that all that crap is done, back to normal.

Ack! Where did the week go!?

Between real life tasks on Wednesday, Battlefleet Gothic on Thursday, Eve patch difficulties and extended downtimes, I haven't been in New Eden1 much in a while, and it might not change too much for the next couple days as we are going away for Saturday and not back until Sunday afternoon. However, next week I'll be back to a mostly regular schedule.

In the meantime, the beauty of Eve's skill system shines through. Despite not playing much, Kirith is 45% of the way through the 22 day slog of Large Hybrid V and I'm starting to think about buying some Tech II large rails, 450mm and 350mm for my precious Rokh, the Insisto Oblivium II. Sigh, still 12 days left.

As for Derranna, I had to switch her up some to avoid patch downtimes so that she's partially done Minmatar Freighter IV (26%) and just finished Advanced Spaceship Command III this afternoon when I had a chance to switch it on. Right now she's 15 minutes from finishing Jump Drive Operation I which doesn't open anything up for her despite being a brand new skill (sad face) and I need all five levels of it to get to training Jump Drive Calibration (more sad face) but that represents the bulk of the training I have left for my Nomad Jump Freighter (happy face).

By the time I'm back Monday I'll be even closer to my goals without moving a mouse! Thanks Eve!

Newbs Taste Like Chicken

So I played a game of Battlefleet Gothic last night against Soupcat (Mike?) and his Ork fleet. Being only his second game, it was an unfair advantage to me to be using 1000 pts of Chaos. But hey, its all I got.

I chronicled my standard and plain 1000 pt fleet here, and his fleet consisted of a lot of escort sized ships (around 20) and one Onslaught cruiser whose ten hull points concerned me. Then I remembered that each cruiser I have is equal to 6-8 of his escorts and I relaxed and let my guns do the talking.

And talking they did. My rolling for lances was amazing with a near constant stream of hits that pulverized the ork fleet before they got in range. When they did get in range two of my cruisers were crippled in one turn; the first from a considerable bomber wave and the second from a salvo of 15(!) torpedoes. But the juncture had been passed and my return fire eliminated the major threats.

It would have helped had we remembered brace for impact though. So consider it a training exercise and I expect a rematch in the coming weeks!

Learning Curves of Various MMOs

As provided in graph form by Winterblink.

Battlefleet Gothic Tonight

I've been trying for three successive weeks to get in a game of BFG and tonight I may finally accomplish it.

Its only 1000 pts against a relative BFG newb, but I love the game and it will have to do. My fleet:

Caligo Eternus - Archeron Heavy Cruiser with Chaos Lord Diomedes
Darknight's Pride - Devastation Cruiser
Dark Viper - Carnage Cruiser
Capricorn Retaliation - Slaughter Cruiser with Chaos Lord Kirith and Marine bodyguard
Cosmic Fire - Slaughter Cruiser

I typically fly in 3 formations: The Archeron and Carnage form a long range firing pair of lances and weapon batteries, the Devastation provides close combat patrol fighters to kill enemy torpedo salvos and bomber wings, and the Slaughters use their speed to bring their awesome short ranged firepower to bear once the enemy is engaged and vulnerable.

Battle report tomorrow!

Pre Patch Hunting

I logged in last night to find an op about the start, a simple roaming gang in 0.0. Happy at the timing I jumped in the Onyx and flew out. Our fleet consisted of 3 Stealth Bombers, 2 Inties, 1 Black Bird, my Onyx Heavy Interdictor, and our Fleet Commander in his Slepnier Command Ship (Tech II Battlecruiser, one of the nastiest ship classes known to PvP).

We quickly found a gate camp on another access to 0.0 space being run by a Dominatrix battleship. One of our interceptor scouts went in and engaged, and suddenly a Covert Ops Rapier decloaked and engaged. As we warped in our pilot went down but we were good for getting revenge and that rigged Rapier was destroyed. The Domi was smart and withdrew from the gate.

We stuck on the gate hoping for some victims to come through. Several minutes later the Dominatrix and Rapier pilots returned, the former still in his Domi and the latter in a new Vagabond. We couldn't repeat the kill on the fast vaga Heavy Assault cruiser and when a third enemy in a Gallente Astarte command ship arrived and a couple of our stealth bombers were down, we knew we were out gunned and decided to live to fight another day.

Since the Rapier was easily 8-10 times more expensive than our little tech II frig losses, we called it a victory.

Training Update

Well, since I announced my plan back here last week about my future training, I'm happy to announce that I've stuck to it so far and currently have 15 and a half days left of Large Hybrid V. These skills that take more than two weeks kill me, but fortunately I find that once you get into them the break from logging into manage skills is a nice change.

Derranna's training for the Jump Freighter is going well too. She's knocked off Navigation V to open up access to Jump Drive Operation, and took care of a level of Advanced Spaceship Command and Minmatar Freight skills. She's currently got 15 hours left on Advanced Spaceship Command III, then she need level IV (4.5 days) and level IV of Minmatar Freighter (9.5 days).

After that, the only big hump left is the 20 days for Jump Drive Operation V, and then 3 hours after that completes she will be ready to fly the Nomad. The evening of April 19th is the current target date, so I expect to be selling Barak in the week and a half before that, probably starting around April 4th.

Turrets for Everyone!

The patch coming tomorrow (was originally meant for today but rescheduled for tomorrow) includes a rare gift for Caldari Rail pilots: extra turrets! Or more speficially, turret hardpoints.

Back in November I wrote in a post:

The Moa only has four turret hardpoints so while it can tank decently, its got low DPS. So I turned to Gallente and the Thorax has everything I want: lots of blasters, decent speed, ok tanking, drones, and not too expensive.

And:

The Ferox is like a big version of the Moa: not enough turret hardpoints especially when compared to the fearsome Brutix. The Drake is ok for missile guys, but the Mrymidon fits my style a lot better. Favourite? Brutix for the same reasons as the Thorax.

And in December I opined about the Eagle:

Unfortunately, the DPS is not impressive at 131 and a volley of 484 won't scare off anything but the smallest frigates and perhaps destroyers. Quite simply its a fleet support setup, and a Ferox in sniper fitting can do the same DPS at 110 km for a quarter of the price.

One wonders what CCP was thinking when they designed the Caldari rail boats. I suspect it was that the Gallente ships using blasters would be at a disadvantage against a Caldari ship using the same number of rails if the Gallente ship had to cross the distance in a certain amount of time giving the Caldari pilot plenty of time to pepper him with shots before he got there. Of course, game mechanics (e.g. stargates, speed of warping away) and Micro Warp Drives (which I think need to be removed or vastly modified) conspire to prevent such a situation from ever happening most of the time.

The result is that many of the Caldari Rail ships are seen as underpowered. After all, look at the rail ships that are considered successful.

Raptor: split weapon system but damage is secondary to warp scram and speed.

Harpy: 4/5 weapons are rails and it boasts amazing range and damage for a frigate.

Vulture: Tech II abilities and fleet command warfare links make up for the less than stellar damage of only 5 turrets.

Rokh: A covert admittance to the failure of split weapon systems, it boasts 8 turret hardpoints, equal to the Gallente Hyperion and one more than the Megathron, thus making it more than acceptable as a fleet rail ship.

Look at a Ferox: a sniping setup with 5 tech II rails of the largest calibre and Spike ammo gives an optimal of 110 km (14km falloff) with my skills, and a damage rate of 141. A Brutix with 7 medium sized blasters boasts a 274 DPS at 5 km optimal. Adding two heavy missile launchers to the Ferox boosts the damage up to 187, but their range is only 73 km.

What it effectively means is that if a target is over 74 km away the Ferox is gimped for damage, scaring only the smallest or least tanked vessels. That's not to say their isn't a role for such a sniper but that it was so small and unpopular a role, not to mention easily filled by other vessels, that it became pointless. The Moa and Eagle suffered similarly.

CCP recognized this and decided the easiest thing to do was allow pilots to add more turrets to these ships, so each of them is getting an additional hardpoint. That means in their designed role, sniping, they effectively receive a 20% increase in damage (Ferox) or a 25% increase (Moa and Eagle). For example, for the Ferox it means 168 DPS at 110 km instead of 141. The Eagle now boasts 160 DPS at a mind-boggling 164 km optimal, making it the prime fleet support ship. And the Moa now has the range and DPS of the old Ferox!

Make no mistake, none of these three ships are uber-pwnz-mobiles now. But they are better equipped to use range to their advantage without being saddled with having to use shorter ranged heavy missiles to supplement their DPS.

What D&D Character Am I?

This test was pretty in depth with over a hundred questions and some real head scratchers in terms of my personality. I am not surprised at all to see it picked Ranger for me. I am pretty law-abiding with a deep love of nature.
(Hat Tip MMOG Nation)

* * * * *
I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Ranger (4th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-11

Dexterity-9

Constitution-13

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-15

Charisma-13


Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Rangers are skilled stalkers and hunters who make their home in the woods. Their martial skill is nearly the equal of the fighter, but they lack the latter's dedication to the craft of fighting. Instead, the ranger focuses his skills and training on a specific enemy a type of creature he bears a vengeful grudge against and hunts above all others. Rangers often accept the role of protector, aiding those who live in or travel through the woods. His skills allow him to move quietly and stick to the shadows, especially in natural settings, and he also has special knowledge of certain types of creatures. Finally, an experienced ranger has such a tie to nature that he can actually draw on natural power to cast divine spells, much as a druid does, and like a druid he is often accompanied by animal companions. A ranger's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Warms My Cold Pirate Heart

Wilhelm of the blog The Ancient Gaming Noob writes about his birthday and his daughter giving him a Nintendo DS Lite so they can play Pokemon together.

However, my daughter did have something in mind for me. After discovering on the flight back from Maui that her DS had wireless connectivity and that there were multiplayer options in Pokemon Diamond, she seemed pretty determined that I had to have my own DS and copy of Pokemon so that we could play together.

These posts about the gaming he and his daughter have, whether its Pokemon on the DS or Lege Starwars on the Wii, rely make me excited and happy. You see, my wonderful wife Mrs Kodachi is pregnant with twin boys and is due near the end of April. So in a few years I can look forward to early morning Saturday games with my boys as I teach them the ins and outs of video fun.

New Forum Sig

Part of being Eve-rich is that I can splurge on things like a new signature done by a photoshop pro:
Nice eh? I got it done by Bid Up who runs the Logo Shop for Eve players.

Vendetta

Saturday morning a big winter storm was blowing through so I had a few hours to kill. I ran some missions to work on my standings with Caldari Navy, but then got assigned another one in next door Passari and as I didn't feel like loosing another ship, I decided to wait for quieter times during the week.

I decided to hunt for some targets. I jumped into my Falcon and headed towards the Placid region next door. For the next hour and a half I looked for a target in low sec space to kill and found nothing. No ratters, no miners, nothing. Through Placid, then Citadel, and finally back to Lonetrek region. Finally I spent 15 minutes hunting a Blackbird cruiser that I never got close enough to even sniff.

Frustrated and annoyed I came to the Dantumi system and opened my scanner one last time. A Rifter and Thorax appeared on scan and I went to work, doubtful of finding anything. A few minutes later the Thorax left system and only the Rifter was there. A couple times I thought I had him but I would warp to an ice belt and nothing there. I became confused: I could get him on a 5 degree angle on the directional scanner, and using range finding I determined he was practically on top of the belt, but warping there revealed him nowhere to be found. What up?

I became fixated on this Rifter.

I warped once again to the belt and did range finding to narrow him down. Damn, he's within 2500 km of the belt, enough to be off grid but close enough to make my mouth drool. I decided to scan him down because after all, the rest of the morning had been a waste. I opened the market browser and saw a recon probe launcher and Snoop scan probes two jumps out. I leave to get them, having to gimp my setup a little to fit it on. I come back, warp to belt, open scanner and see he's still close by. Probe launched! Ninety seconds to scan... got him!

I warp as close as I can and arrive to see him speeding away. Dammit, I think, he's running! But wait... he's not warping. I try to approach and lock but he's 21 km away and moving fast... in a straight line? I realize he is AFK and doesn't know I am here. I unlock and cloak to determine my options. I'm not fast enough to catch him; he's going around 600-700 m/s and I hit only 212. I can't get ahead of him as there is no objects to warp to and warp back from. If I want to kill him, I need to be faster.

I move from fixation to obsession. This Rifter needs to die for taunting me so.

The market browser again, this time looking for after burners. Two jumps away again. I warp away from the Rifter, by this time he's 50 km away, and vow to return. Minutes later I'm back. Warp to the belt. Deploy probe. Scan 90 seconds. Got him! Warp to him, by the time I'm on his position he's already 20 km away. I move to intercept and activate the AB. He's at 24 km away... 25km.... come on, come on, back down to 24 now that I'm at full speed..... 26! DAMN! He's still to fast!

Obsession becomes VENDETTA. This Rifter must die!

Fortunately, I took precautions when I got the afterburner and picked up a Micro Warp Drive at the same time. I warp to station in system, dock, refit the MWD gimping my setup even more, warp back to belt, drop probe, scan, got him, warp to his position, move to intercept, activate MWD... YES, I'm closing on him! The question is now can I catch him with my webber before my capacitor gives out.

I watch the distance close slowly and my capacitor seem to drain away quickly. Come on, come on, I need to be within 10 km, that's all. 16... 15.... come on, just a bit more! 13...12...11... almost, almost... 10! Webber activated, MWD off! I GOT HIM!

I orbit at 3000 meters and open up fire with my two Heavy Neutron IIs. His shields and armour melt away and in seconds he is in his escape pod. I targeted it as well and finished him off with a satisfying splat. It cost me a lot in security status but this guy had pushed me into madness through no fault of his own except being slightly out of reach too many times.

In the end it cost me a lot of time and money to get him, but at least I did not dock empty handed. Its quickly becoming apparent that if I want to get more PvP I'm going to have to go out to 0.0. I've avoided it so far but at Saturday's dry spell I need more options.

Join The Eve Web Ring

In order to get out into the community more (February numbers are down compared to January! Oh no!) I figured a good place to start would be the Eve Web Ring! So there it is in the sidebar, please check it out.

I Remember Now...

... I hate fishing.

Yesterday I talked about how gate camping was like fishing, right? Well, I remembered last night, I hate fishing. Too boring.

I had an hour last night and decided to try the gate camping thing again so I hopped in my Onyx, flew over to Aunenen, and began camping.

For a while I saw a lot of shuttles, rookie ships, and frigates, but no incoming haulers, miners, or cruisers. Then one guy who was buzzing me in a frigate left then came back from a station in system flying a Mammoth industrial hauler. I can't catch ships that are leaving system since they warp to the gate and jump, but this guy didn't jump. He sat there.

I locked him to scare him off. Maybe he's afk for some reason? I check his bio and see he's a 2005 pilot, so definitely not a newb. I smell a trap.

I break my lock without activating any modules. He then locks me. Uh huh. I can figure out what's probably happening here. He's got a tank and a warp scram on that puppy and if I engage him, he'll try and tank my damage while the sentry guns fire on me or worse, buddies of his will warp in and kill me. Since I would attack him first, I wouldn't be able to jump.

I don't react immediately as I want to see if he will make the mistake of attacking me first, giving me rights to attack him and flee through the gate should his buddies appear. He manoeuvrered to try and get between me and the gate for bumping me out of its range, but I wasn't born yesterday (despite what my earlier Cerberus loss might suggest).

Figuring that any attacks I launch on any targets coming through the gate would allow him to snag me, I warped off and check out another gate.

Besides that excitement, no good targets presented themselves. One hauler was a possible target but the pilot logged as soon as he saw me and hadn't uncloaked and the game autowarped him away as a result. Another time an Amarr Arbitrator cruiser jumped through but I was extra leery of traps after tangling with the Mammoth pilot that I held off targeting and let him get away.

So after an hour I had no kills and no losses to show for it. Meh. It could be it was just a slow night, but I expected more kills. Maybe next time.

Shooting for the Stars

Once you have a goal, you need a plan to get there.

Since I started Derranna down the path of Jump Freighter pilot, the skill training was easy but the hard question is how to get a Jump Freighter, specifically the Minmatar Nomad. Just like get a cake for a birthday party, there are three ways to do it: buy it premade, buy the mix in a box and bake it, or bake it from scratch.

Premade: Easy enough. Get about 6 billion ISK together and find it on the market or on contract and bam! You own a jump freighter. Downside is that you are paying for all the middle men who had a hand in its construction, from the inventor to the haulers to the constructors.

From Mix: Buy an invented Nomad BPC and built it myself. The BPC is about 1.1 billion ISK, and I would need Capital Ship Construction skill for 75 million, and a rough estimate of the parts is around 4 billion ISK. Not to mention the construction time and hauling that would need to be done. Still, I could potentially save myself 500-750 million ISK for the effort.

From Scratch: Basically the same effort as the previous method except I would try and invent a Nomad BPC myself. I would need Minmatar Encryption Methods and Minmatar Starship Engineering skills and a Cryptic Ship Data Interface but their cost could be absorb as long term investments into invention in general. Consumables would be the Fenrir freighter BPC, 64 Mechanical Engineering and Minmatar Starship Engineering datacores each per attempt, along with a Decryptor to improve ME and perhaps number of runs. Assuming 50% success rate I'd need at least two attempts and the Fenrir BPC runs about 300 million itself so guesstimate 400 million ISK per attempt and another 200-300 million ISK for the invention skills and interface.

Summary: About 6 billion to simply buy the ship, about 5.5 billion to build it from a BPC, and about 5.5 billion to invent it and get the Minmatar invention skills and interface for future efforts.

So the question is, how much is my effort to do the work worth in the long run?

Me = Idiot

A quiet day at work so I thought I would log on and work on my level three missions.

I completed one and thought I would do a second. Yeah, yeah, click accept, yeah, yeah Passari system, got it, let's go, let's go.

I warp to the gate and the system name sounded familiar. Check out the mission details after hitting jump and as the system changes I see this "WARNING Auto pilot route will take you through low sec!"

Right. Passari. The low sec system next door to Lituria. Ah crap.

As the grid loads I see a gate camp and I know my mission running Cerberus is dead meat even ignoring the fact that two Heavy Interdictors are in the camp along with a Rokh and a Megathron. And they are all flashy red.

It took a little while as my tank held up nicely, but the outcome was never in doubt, especially as the Phobos bumped my webbed ship away from the gate just to make sure I wasn't going anywhere. Estimated total loss of 94 million plus the cost of replacing my +4 implants which will cost another 50-70 million. Fortunately, the implants can wait as they are only needed to calculate training time when you start training, and I have another 20 days of Large Hybrid V to go.

As a side note, when I got podded I appeared deep in 0.0 space at a station that is the base for Sylph Alliance because I never changed my medical station. I had to pod-jump back to Nonni.

Gate Camping = Fishing

I finally got Onyx number 2 out gate camping for a bit last night and came to the conclusion that Gate Camping is a lot like fishing: you sit there all quiet waiting for the gate to flash like a nibble on your line, and then a target appears and you decide to engage or not like whether or not you have picked up weeds or an actual fish, and then combat as you engage and hope he can't escape just like struggling to reel a big fish in, and then the thrill of victory as you pop the target or land the fish in the boat.

I only got a lowly Badger equipped with a Miner II, a Mining Upgrade, and a Civilian Shield Booster in the 30 minutes I was free to camp (and I had to spend 15 of those minutes waiting down the aggression timer from killing it) but it was exciting. I'll probably try it again.

I cut the effort short when a Triumvirate pilot in a Megathron showed up on the gate and didn't jump through. Hmmmm, a pilot of one of the most feared alliances in the game at the moment, flying a battleship that could easily tank me and kill me, and he has a negative sec status? Jump, JUMP!!! "I was ready to quit anyways!" he says as he slinks back to station.

It was like fishing for trout when a 30 foot great white shark appears.

Can Flipping

Can flipping is a technique in Eve used to try and get some high sec fighting.

Basically, all ships have cargo holds and when you mine, the ore goes directly into it. The problem for hard core miners is that their cargo holds fill us fast leaving you with two options: put the ore into anchored Giant Secure Containers (GSCs) and pick them up later, or jettison the ore into a temporary container ("jet can") that lasts an hour in space and pick up the ore from it later. The GSCs are secure as they can be password protected and anchored so other players can't take off with them, but they only hold a bit more than a good mining ship and take more work. Most players make use of jet cans that hold a lot of ore but can be taken from by anyone.

If you take stuff from someone's can, they can shoot at you without CONCORD getting testy. But if they shoot at you, then you are free to shoot back. So the tactic is to take the ore from their jet can, put it into one of yours, and hope he either engages you for stealing or takes the stuff back which looks like stealing so you can shoot upon him. That is can flipping.

Last night I bought and fit up a second Onyx to try gate camping but my scout Derranna was moving stuff in the freighter far away and I didn't want to disrupt her efforts to log in another scout, and as time was short anyways I cruised around the systems looking for cans to flip. I've never done it before and was looking forward to trying it out. I was flying a Tech 1 Rifter frigate for fun, hoping some miner would decide to give me a run for my money.

I found a retriever mining into a can and flipped his can, but he had no reaction and simply started a second can. I warped out, got into the gank Falcon, and warped back under cloak to see if he would take my can with me apparently not there, but still he didn't bite. I had to log then or I would have tried to grab the ore I stole in a badger. Note to self: buy disposable Badger hauler.

* * * * *

In other news, on the ride home from work I was thinking about Eve (as I often do) and thinking about alts. I got Barak last year because I needed a freighter for hauling massive amounts of materials Razor Tech's manufacturing activities. Derranna was training up for one but Barak had one already and was available for the right price. The carrier skills was merely a bonus

But now Derranna has her own freighter and the only use I have for Barak is his jumping ability in the carrier when I was in 0.0 space with m3 corp and Sylph alliance and future adventures. I don't use the carrier for combat and I don't train his skills any more so no fighters, increased drone ability, or capital remote repairers. The current plan is to get a carrier for Kirith who will train up all the bells and whistles and so in the fall I can sell Barak.

So the thought occurred to me that if I only use his carrier for hauling, a jump freighter would be far superior at it AND Derranna's training for a jump freighter would not take all that long if I recalled correctly. And once she has the skills for it, selling Barak would provide a good part of the ISK required to buy the sucker since its the third most expensive ship in the game after the Titan and the Mothership classes.

I opened up EVEMon and selected the Nomad, the Minmatar Jump Freighter, and hit the Add Skills to Plan button. Turns out Derranna can have the skills to fly a Jump Freighter by mid April which is a hell of a lot sooner than Kirith can fly his carrier. So the process started this morning with Navigation V in the queue.

Time to start saving my pennies for the 6-8 billion required to get that sucker.

I Feel Like Camping

I've never done much gate camping in my Eve Career. Usually I'm part of roaming gank squads for the few times I am actively PvPing.

But after seeing the sheer carnage that Triumvirate caused in Aunenen a week or two ago with their gate camps, and the extra pile of ISK I have, I feel the urge to give it a try. The question is, how?

There are two ways to run a gate camp. The first and most obvious is with numbers: a few damage-dealing battleships, a couple fast lockers and tacklers, and an urge to shoot at everything that comes through the gate.

The second method is the solo method. This requires a ship that can lock, tackle if need be, and do serious damage while tanking the sentry gun fire if in low sec. A tall order.

I considered doing a blaster Rokh and going for slow haulers and miners coming through a gate. The damage is impressive enough to kill them before getting to warp (hence no need for tackle) and its tank is more than up to the job. The problem is the lock time: even with three sensor booster IIs with scripts it works to about 5 seconds to lock a hauler (according to this tool here.) Combine that with no tackle and the number of kills I would rack up would be small.

So I looked at building an Onyx just for solo gate camping. Cheaper, higher scan resolution, powerful tackle module, and sufficient tank and gank to get the job done. Here's what I came up with:

[Onyx, Gate Camper]
Lows:
3 x Ballistic Control System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Mids:
2 x Large Shield Extender II
2 x Invulnerability Field II
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 400
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Speed
Highs:
5 x Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Terror Rage Assault Missile
Warp Disruption Field Generator I, Focused Warp Disruption
Rigs:
2 x Core Defence Field Purger I

DPS measures at 359, Defence Rating of 226 on over 9K shield points and good resists, and cap lasts over 2 minutes without cap booster. For ganking small cruisers and haulers, its good. Only problem is ships with MWDs.

Two Parter Article on Logistics

When I was back in m3 corp I wrote a long post on the forums about logistics since I was quickly becoming their logistics go-to guy. Since the Eve Tribune was looking for a good article on such a topic, I recycled my post, edited it, and its now published here.

Part 2 coming next week! Cheers!

Absolutely Positively Set-In-Stone Training Plan (Subject to Change)

OK, with the advent of the Vindicator to my stable of Ships-I-Want-To-Fly, I've come up with the Ultimate Training Plan for 2008. Ready? Brace Yourself!

1. Heavy Missiles V
2. Large Hybrid Turret V
3. Large Railgun Specialization I --> Tech II Large Railguns for Rokh, March 26th
4. Large Railgun Specialization II
5. Large Railgun Specialization III
6. Large Railgun Specialization IV
7. Motion Prediction V
8. Large Blaster Specialization I --> Tech II Large Blasters for Rokh and Vindicator, April 12th
9. Large Blaster Specialization II
10. Large Blaster Specialization III
11. Large Blaster Specialization IV
12. Caldari Battleship V --> Just some General Improvements for Rokh, Scorpion, future ships, May 26th
13. Gallente Drone Specialization I
14. Gallente Drone Specialization II
15. Gallente Drone Specialization III
16. Gallente Drone Specialization IV
17. Heavy Drone Operation IV
18. Heavy Drone Operation V --> Tech II Ogres for Vindicator, June 22nd
19. Gallente Cruiser IV
20. Gallente Battleship I
21. Gallente Battleship II
22. Gallente Battleship III --> Megathron, Dominatrix, Hyperion, June 28th
23. Gallente Battleship IV
24. Minmatar Frigate IV
25. Minmatar Cruiser I
26. Minmatar Cruiser II
27. Minmatar Cruiser III
28. Minmatar Cruiser IV
29. Minmatar Battleship I --> Vindicator! July 10th
30. Minmatar Battleship II
31. Minmatar Battleship III --> Typhoon, Tempest, Maelstrom, July 12th
32. Minmatar Battleship IV
33. Warp Drive Operation V
34. Jump Drive Operation I
35. Jump Drive Operation II
36. Jump Drive Operation III
37. Jump Drive Operation IV
38. Jump Drive Operation V
39. Jump Drive Calibration I
40. Jump Drive Calibration II
41. Jump Drive Calibration III
42. Jump Drive Calibration IV
43. Black Ops I --> Widow Battleship, August 25th
44. Black Ops II
45. Black Ops III
46. Black Ops IV
47. Advanced Weapon Upgrades V
48. Marauders I --> Golem Battleship. October 1st
49. Marauders II
50. Marauders III
51. Marauders IV
52. Advanced Spaceship Command I
53. Advanced Spaceship Command II
54. Advanced Spaceship Command III
55. Advanced Spaceship Command IV
56. Advanced Spaceship Command V
57. Capital Ships I
58. Capital Ships II
59. Capital Ships III
60. Drone Interfacing V
61. Caldari Carrier I --> Chimera Carrier, November 29th
62. Caldari Carrier II
63. Caldari Carrier III
64. Caldari Carrier IV
65. Tactical Shield Manipulation V
66. Capital Shield Operation I --> Captial Shield Booster for Carrier, December 28th
67. Capital Shield Operation II
68. Capital Shield Operation III
69. Capital Shield Operation IV
70. Leadership V
71. Fighters I --> Fighter for Carrier, January 8, 2009
72. Fighters II
73. Fighters III
74. Fighters IV

There you have it!

...

I'm never going to stick to that for 321 days.

CHA-CHING!

That my friends, is the sound of a cash register. But we'll do things in chronological order.

On Friday evening I got in on a roaming gang operation into 0.0 space with four other corp mates. We decided on a mix of ships: Pilgrim Force Recon for scouting and initial tackle, Blackbird for damage suppression, Vexor for DPS, Purifier Stealth Bomber for DPS and secondary scouting, and I got to take my Onyx out finally in the role of super tackler and DPS.

We toured through Pure Blind and once ran into a Deimos Heavy Assault Ship. I popped out the Warp Disruption Field bubble after he jumped through a gate into our waiting fleet, but he was 20 km away and warped off. What the hell? I thought my bubble was 28.8 km? Well, it turns out that the focused beam of the module is 28.8 km at Heavy Interdictor level IV, but the unscripted bubble mode is only 19.1 km. I guess it makes sense: scramble everything within 19 km or one ship within 29km. I can live with that.

We almost tangled with a Slepnir Command Ship later on but we had to warp from a gate where a couple gate rats were shooting on us and he slipped by in the process.

It was looking like my curse was going to hold (i.e. any op I am on sees no successful action) when our scout locked down a Raven ratting in a belt. We warped in and pounded it to smithereens before it knew what was happening to it. A nice kill and we suffered no losses on the operation.

* * * * *
On Saturday I had someone offer to buy Optivus at the buyout price of 3 billion which I immediately accepted. It took a day to work out the logistics (Optivus into NPC starter corp, buyer freeing up a character slot and sending ISK, me transferring character) but by Sunday morning I had myself 3 billion ISK in my wallet.

Well of course I immediately went on a spending spree.

The first thing I purchased was a Minmatar Fenrir freighter for Derranna. She had skilled up for one last fall but the Widow project didn't pan out into the billions liked I had hoped and I didn't feel like going through the hassle of selling Barak's Obelisk freighter to only turn around and buy a new one. Now that she has the big ship, I can sell the Obelisk at my leisure.

The next thing on my shopping list was some BPOs I wanted for my collection. It was either one big battleship BPO (Raven or Rokh) or a bunch of small ones, so I decided to be practical and buy the Drake, Ferox, Osprey, Badger, and Badger MKII BPOs. This will help the corp once they are researched up and most of them will be useful for invention purposes too.

I still had almost half of my windfall, so I decided to buy a luxury item for Kirith, a faction battleship. Faction battleships are special vessels that do not have BPOs available for them on the market, they can only be found through rat droppings or some can be purchased in Loyalty Stores for massive amounts of loyalty points and some ISK and/or dogtags. They are typically better than regular battleships and very expensive.

So I had some choices. The obvious choice was a Raven Navy Issue (aka the Caldari Navy Raven or CNR) which is considered to be one of the best mission runners available. With more hitpoints and the ability to have 7 launchers over 6 on the Raven, its not hard to understand why. But I really didn't feel the need for a mission running ship.

The next option was the Rattlesnake pirate battleship which has a mean passive tank from what I hear. Its a missile boat with a bonus to Large Hybrid damage as well which makes it attractive to me. Plus its based on the Scorpion hull, always cool. But I really didn't want a missile ship that would make me regret not having Tech II cruise missiles. So I decided to look at the hybrid based ships.

The Megathron Navy Issue (aka Navy Mega) is a popular vessel for Gallente pilots boasting an extra low slot and more hitpoints but no extra turrets for more raw damage although the extra low slot would be good for an additional Magnetic Field Stabilizer. I was going to buy one of these but decided to be even more pimp.

The rare Vindicator pirate battleship caught my eye. Having an extra mid slot instead of extra low slot but similar hitpoints as the Navy Mega, its real attractiveness is the larger capacitor and less capacitor penalty for Micro Warp Drives which means this vessel is built to be a fast hard bitting blaster boat. Sign me up! I bought one even though I don't have the Gallente or Minmatar Battleship skills to fly it (all pirate faction ships require two player races skills to fly as they combine features of both of them) but once I get large rails (and now blasters) I'll begin the trek to the Vindicator.

And I still have a ton of ISK left over. I replaced Derranna's lost Mastadon and I'm going to buy some faction modules for the Vindicator, but I might get that CNR for missions after all.