Our alliance's war against the corporations Hunters Imperiale and Legi0n continues forward. Although the killboard numbers don't exactly agree, both ours and their show our side with an advantage in kill-loss ratio and damage inflicted. There is no sovereignty at stake and they have not made any efforts to threaten our POS installtions as we don't believe they are trying to boot us from Sukanan, so the kill board stats are the only measure we have to determine who is winning, and in that case we are.
Wars can be good for morale. They promote cooperation and cohesiveness, an us-versus-them mentality. A few good kills and the membership can fly high for weeks, and a prolong seige can foster a frim determination on both sides to see it to the bitter end. However a ops gone bad can kill a corporation and/or alliance faster than a tactical nuclear weapon if the reactions by leadership are not note perfect in their timing and delivery.
Our alliance has seen some people and even one corp leave. Not because of losses as one not familiar with Eve might expect. No, its more the disruption to their game style. Mining and missioning become risky (if not impossible) in wartime and a single loss to your PvE ship or industrial activities can sting worse than 10 losses of PvP ships. Even just being forced to dock up can be frustrating to someone merely looking for a casual evening blowing up rats.
Fortunately for our alliance, the majority has taken to the constant threat of PvP with aplomb and enthusiasm. I know for me its nice to log in and almost always have either hostiles in Sukanan to hunt or war targets to engage in a fleet op. Much better than logging in and finding everyone gone different directions for who knows what activities.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Bling Boat And the Path To Happiness
Back in August I had reached a billion ISK in the wallet. Then by late September I was down to 26 million. Now here we are at the end of November, all my latest merchandise has sold, and my wallet peaked over a billion ISK once more (and I have over 200 million worth of shield mods being manufactured still). Its good to be me.
I was once more tempted to go on a spending spree; Crystal Implants, Faction ships, another battleship, faction mods for the carrier... but in the end I restrained myself for the most part and restricted my splurge to purchasing a new Mastadon Deep Space transport ship for Derranna as a reward for her hard work. I don't have much need for it as the Prowler Blockade Runner is better for low sec and the Mammoth industrial usually is fine for high sec jaunts too big for the Prowler, or even the freighter for big loads. The Mastadon has a bit more space than the Mammoth but far better defenses and two built in warp core stablizers making it a tad better at low sec runs too big for the Prowler and too small for a Jump Freighter jump.
I had to pimp it out of course, so bought 5 Expanded Cargohold IIs and 2 Cargohold Optimization rigs to get its capacity up to 29,242m3. Not bad.
(Click to See A Nude Mastodon)
I still have to figure out what mods can I use that fit in the mids.
Since we're showing ships, here is a peak at my operational fleet hanger:
(Click to embiggen)
You never know what I'm going to throw at you. Note that I didn't edit the picture to circle in red-marker-like highlighting Mynxee's Bane in the middle. I could have, but I didn't. I'm so considerate that way. ;) I also have another Kitsune and two Harpy's on the way to add to the fun.
I was once more tempted to go on a spending spree; Crystal Implants, Faction ships, another battleship, faction mods for the carrier... but in the end I restrained myself for the most part and restricted my splurge to purchasing a new Mastadon Deep Space transport ship for Derranna as a reward for her hard work. I don't have much need for it as the Prowler Blockade Runner is better for low sec and the Mammoth industrial usually is fine for high sec jaunts too big for the Prowler, or even the freighter for big loads. The Mastadon has a bit more space than the Mammoth but far better defenses and two built in warp core stablizers making it a tad better at low sec runs too big for the Prowler and too small for a Jump Freighter jump.
I had to pimp it out of course, so bought 5 Expanded Cargohold IIs and 2 Cargohold Optimization rigs to get its capacity up to 29,242m3. Not bad.
(Click to See A Nude Mastodon)
I still have to figure out what mods can I use that fit in the mids.
Since we're showing ships, here is a peak at my operational fleet hanger:
(Click to embiggen)
You never know what I'm going to throw at you. Note that I didn't edit the picture to circle in red-marker-like highlighting Mynxee's Bane in the middle. I could have, but I didn't. I'm so considerate that way. ;) I also have another Kitsune and two Harpy's on the way to add to the fun.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
To Dread or Not To Dread
AS I was talking capital ship talk with the corpmates the other day I started to wonder if I should train up to be able to use a Dreadnought.
For the unlearned, a Dreadnought is a capital ship much like a Carrier but has a more focused purpose. Instead of having the ability to launcher Fighter drones and do logistics chores, Dreadnoughts are all about shooting large stationary targets with the biggest weapons in game. When your ammo is the size of a bus, you're talking Dreadnought.
Dreadnoughts are very limited in use though as they have trouble hitting battleships just like battleships have trouble hitting frigates. So dreads typically are only used for shooting at Player Owned Stations and other capital ships.
I wouldn't go out of my way to get a dreadnought for myself, but its not unfeasible for sufficiently large corporations / alliances to provide corp assets like a dreadnought for use in operations. In order to be a team player, that's why I'm thinking about skilling up for one as the amount of time we are talking is on the order of less than two months.
But what dreadnought to skill for?
You might think the Caldari Phoenix is the obvious choice but you would be wrong. The Phoenix uses Citadel Torpedoes and my missile skills are average at best. I would need to spend 21 days for Torpedoes IV and V skill training, and for the rest of the skills (not including Seige Module) would be 46 days total.
The Gallente Moros uses capital hybrid weapons (rails and blasters) so that appeals to the railgun user in me more. I would need Gallente Battleship V which is a 47 day odessy in of itself, and then more time for the captial hybrids and dreadnought skill. On the other hand, along the way I open up not only the three Gallente battleships (Dominix, Megathron, and Hyperion) but also the Black Ops Battleship Sin (Tech II Dominix) and king of hybrids Maurader classed Kronos (Tech II Megathron)... and but me within striking distance of Thanatos carrier.
In the end, if I decide to skill up for a corporate dreadnought I'll keep it simple and stick Caldari. Since Eve is flexible, I can always come back for the Moros some other time.
For the unlearned, a Dreadnought is a capital ship much like a Carrier but has a more focused purpose. Instead of having the ability to launcher Fighter drones and do logistics chores, Dreadnoughts are all about shooting large stationary targets with the biggest weapons in game. When your ammo is the size of a bus, you're talking Dreadnought.
Dreadnoughts are very limited in use though as they have trouble hitting battleships just like battleships have trouble hitting frigates. So dreads typically are only used for shooting at Player Owned Stations and other capital ships.
I wouldn't go out of my way to get a dreadnought for myself, but its not unfeasible for sufficiently large corporations / alliances to provide corp assets like a dreadnought for use in operations. In order to be a team player, that's why I'm thinking about skilling up for one as the amount of time we are talking is on the order of less than two months.
But what dreadnought to skill for?
You might think the Caldari Phoenix is the obvious choice but you would be wrong. The Phoenix uses Citadel Torpedoes and my missile skills are average at best. I would need to spend 21 days for Torpedoes IV and V skill training, and for the rest of the skills (not including Seige Module) would be 46 days total.
The Gallente Moros uses capital hybrid weapons (rails and blasters) so that appeals to the railgun user in me more. I would need Gallente Battleship V which is a 47 day odessy in of itself, and then more time for the captial hybrids and dreadnought skill. On the other hand, along the way I open up not only the three Gallente battleships (Dominix, Megathron, and Hyperion) but also the Black Ops Battleship Sin (Tech II Dominix) and king of hybrids Maurader classed Kronos (Tech II Megathron)... and but me within striking distance of Thanatos carrier.
In the end, if I decide to skill up for a corporate dreadnought I'll keep it simple and stick Caldari. Since Eve is flexible, I can always come back for the Moros some other time.
Blog Banter Update
I attached this to the main post from yesterday, but figured many might not see the update so here is the list of other bloggers who participated in the Blog Banter, courtesy of Crazy Kinux.
Participants:
Participants:
- CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #2: Space, the Final Frontier...
- Ombeve: OOC Blog Banter 2
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Internet Spaceships is Serious Business
- Semper EVE: The Allure of EVE
- A Merry Life and a Short One: EVE Blog Banter #2 - This Is My Time
- Life in Low Sec: Blog Banter #2: EVE's Enduring Allure
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - What Drew Me Into Eve?
- Roc's Rambling: Blog Banter #2: Staying in Power
- Sahirs Journey: EVE Blog Banter #2
- Diving into PsychDiver's Psyche: EVE Blog Banter #2: All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Capsuleer
- Archenar: Just gathering intel
- Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #2
- The Ralpha Dogs: The Appeal of the Never-Ending Story
- A Mule in EVE: Mule Psychology : EvE Style
- A Misguided Adventure: Blog Banter - Enduring Allure
- One Man and His Spaceship: Blog Banter 2 - November 2008 Edition
- Letrange's EVE Blog: That Banter Thing
- Diary of a Space Jokey: EVE Blog Banter: How'd I get here ?!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Heart Stopping
Last night I was loading the freshly manufactured Cerberus HACs and the 28 Covert Ops Cloaks into my Nomad Jump Freighter for transport to market. As I was doing this my wife walks in with Twin A and a poopy diaper and hands him to me. Man it stunk!
I hit the undock button and then autopilot to the market where I sell my stuff.
A while later I remember I left Eve on and I stroll upstairs to dock the ship and get the items up for sale.
Except...
"Why... is... my... pod... on... the... ... ... screen.............? "
My heart stops. A mean literally stopped cold in my chest, I swear I'm not exaggerating (much).
All I could think is that my 4 billion ISK ship was suicide ganked while I was away by a fleet of battleships. That it would cost far more than the cargo I was carrying was worth didn't cross my mind, or that the fleet would have to consist of 30-40 ships to kill me in one shot before CONCORD showed up neither. All I could see what NO JUMP FREIGHTER ON THE SCREEN.
Once my heart started pumping again after sinking to my lower stomach, I checked my character see to see a kill mail and see who did this to me. Odd... no kill mail. I checked my assets... sure enough my Nomad was still sitting in my hanger back in my base.
At this point it dawned on me what happened. As I was loading up the freighter I realized I was in my +3 implant clone and not the +4 clone. As my wife was coming up the stairs I had jumped out of the freighter in preparation for the clone jump, but decided against the change as my hands got full with the baby. I figured I'd clone jump later... but didn't get back in the freighter. Instead I undocked in my pod and hit autopilot without looking at the main screen.
Massively relieved, I quickly did the clone jump I wanted, picked up the freighter, and got the goods to market. As of this evening 2 of the 6 Cerbs have sold and all but 5 of the cloaks are gone. Back on track.
I hit the undock button and then autopilot to the market where I sell my stuff.
A while later I remember I left Eve on and I stroll upstairs to dock the ship and get the items up for sale.
Except...
"Why... is... my... pod... on... the... ... ... screen.............? "
My heart stops. A mean literally stopped cold in my chest, I swear I'm not exaggerating (much).
All I could think is that my 4 billion ISK ship was suicide ganked while I was away by a fleet of battleships. That it would cost far more than the cargo I was carrying was worth didn't cross my mind, or that the fleet would have to consist of 30-40 ships to kill me in one shot before CONCORD showed up neither. All I could see what NO JUMP FREIGHTER ON THE SCREEN.
Once my heart started pumping again after sinking to my lower stomach, I checked my character see to see a kill mail and see who did this to me. Odd... no kill mail. I checked my assets... sure enough my Nomad was still sitting in my hanger back in my base.
At this point it dawned on me what happened. As I was loading up the freighter I realized I was in my +3 implant clone and not the +4 clone. As my wife was coming up the stairs I had jumped out of the freighter in preparation for the clone jump, but decided against the change as my hands got full with the baby. I figured I'd clone jump later... but didn't get back in the freighter. Instead I undocked in my pod and hit autopilot without looking at the main screen.
Massively relieved, I quickly did the clone jump I wanted, picked up the freighter, and got the goods to market. As of this evening 2 of the 6 Cerbs have sold and all but 5 of the cloaks are gone. Back on track.
Eve Blog Banter - What Drew Me Into Eve?
This month's EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Brinelan over at The Shard. He asks: What drew us into EVE, what keeps us playing the game and what brought us back if we've ever left?
I was four years old when I was taken to my first movie. It was summer and my parents took me in the old silver Camaro to the local Drive In where they were playing the big hit from last year: Star Wars. It was the summer of '78 and I was lost to space forever.
Over the years of my youth Star Wars, Star Trek, and anything else that involved space ships captured my imagination. I had hordes of space Legos and played for hours in the rec room in the basement buildings space ships and having imaginary space battles.
When I got into computers, space simulation games figured high on my list. Master of Orion series, Star Fleet battles, X-Wing & TIE Fighter, etc. Later as I got into table top wargaming, it was always the sci-fi elements that attracted me into Warhammer 40K instead of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. And Battle Fleet Gothic scratched an itch I never knew I had with its lumbering capital ships and epic space combat.
So one night when I was in the local Games Workshop cleaning up from a battle and I heard two friends talking about this MOO game called Eve, I was immediately intrigued. The one friends was describing how he had a cloaked stealth bomber and he was trying to get a drop on an enemy ship. I left the store very curious but leery; I had never liked the idea of a game you had to pay for every month.
I got on the internet and did some research. I learned about Eve's complexity and depth, sandbox gameplay, open-ended universe... but the only thing that really forced me to break my MMO virginity was the pictures of the sexy array of space ships and descriptions of space combat. I tried it out and the first time I undocked I was hooked.
* * * * *
It may have been the space ships that drew me in, but its not what kept me here. For over two years solid I have played Eve and my desire has not been slaked. Pretty ships alone cannot be the answer, so what is?
One thing is the social aspect. Flying with other people, regardless of the activity, is often more fun than anything you can do alone.
Another thing is the PvP. Not just the one versus one fights, but all the complexities into fleets and maneuvures, traps, scouting, logisitics, etc. From what I've read, Eve is the closest thing to actually simulating warfare on a large scale in an MMO. We don't need battlegrounds or scenarios, those artificial constructs are superflous in a game where combat can occur anywhere or anytime. Its deep, engrossing, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Lastly its the number of options open to a player without having to "re-spec" or re-roll a character. I can do anything I want and Eve offers a lot of things to do.
* * * * *
I can't answer the last part of the question as I have never left Eve. I can't imagine right now even wanting or needing to take a break. And it would take an awesome game of epic proportion to draw me away from her, my first MMO love.
Update: Other participants of the Blog Banter.
Participants:
I was four years old when I was taken to my first movie. It was summer and my parents took me in the old silver Camaro to the local Drive In where they were playing the big hit from last year: Star Wars. It was the summer of '78 and I was lost to space forever.
Over the years of my youth Star Wars, Star Trek, and anything else that involved space ships captured my imagination. I had hordes of space Legos and played for hours in the rec room in the basement buildings space ships and having imaginary space battles.
When I got into computers, space simulation games figured high on my list. Master of Orion series, Star Fleet battles, X-Wing & TIE Fighter, etc. Later as I got into table top wargaming, it was always the sci-fi elements that attracted me into Warhammer 40K instead of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. And Battle Fleet Gothic scratched an itch I never knew I had with its lumbering capital ships and epic space combat.
So one night when I was in the local Games Workshop cleaning up from a battle and I heard two friends talking about this MOO game called Eve, I was immediately intrigued. The one friends was describing how he had a cloaked stealth bomber and he was trying to get a drop on an enemy ship. I left the store very curious but leery; I had never liked the idea of a game you had to pay for every month.
I got on the internet and did some research. I learned about Eve's complexity and depth, sandbox gameplay, open-ended universe... but the only thing that really forced me to break my MMO virginity was the pictures of the sexy array of space ships and descriptions of space combat. I tried it out and the first time I undocked I was hooked.
* * * * *
It may have been the space ships that drew me in, but its not what kept me here. For over two years solid I have played Eve and my desire has not been slaked. Pretty ships alone cannot be the answer, so what is?
One thing is the social aspect. Flying with other people, regardless of the activity, is often more fun than anything you can do alone.
Another thing is the PvP. Not just the one versus one fights, but all the complexities into fleets and maneuvures, traps, scouting, logisitics, etc. From what I've read, Eve is the closest thing to actually simulating warfare on a large scale in an MMO. We don't need battlegrounds or scenarios, those artificial constructs are superflous in a game where combat can occur anywhere or anytime. Its deep, engrossing, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Lastly its the number of options open to a player without having to "re-spec" or re-roll a character. I can do anything I want and Eve offers a lot of things to do.
* * * * *
I can't answer the last part of the question as I have never left Eve. I can't imagine right now even wanting or needing to take a break. And it would take an awesome game of epic proportion to draw me away from her, my first MMO love.
Update: Other participants of the Blog Banter.
Participants:
- CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #2: Space, the Final Frontier...
- Ombeve: OOC Blog Banter 2
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Internet Spaceships is Serious Business
- Semper EVE: The Allure of EVE
- A Merry Life and a Short One: EVE Blog Banter #2 - This Is My Time
- Life in Low Sec: Blog Banter #2: EVE's Enduring Allure
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - What Drew Me Into Eve?
- Roc's Rambling: Blog Banter #2: Staying Power
- Sahirs Journey: Why am I sitting in an internet spaceship?
- Diving into PsychDiver's Psyche: EVE Blog Banter #2: All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Capsuleer
- Achernar: Just gathering intel
- Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #2
- The Ralpha Dogs: The Appeal of the Never-Ending Story
- A Mule in EVE: Mule Psychology : EvE Style
- A Misguided Adventure: Blog Banter - Enduring Allure
- One Man and His Spaceship: Blog Banter 2 - November 2008 Edition
- Letrange's EVE Blog: That Banter Thing
- Diary of a Space Jokey: EVE Blog Banter: How'd I get here ?!
- I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: EVE Blog Banter #2: New Eden Bearhug…
- he Shard: EVE Blog Banter #2
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Ninveah Reporting For Duty!
I had about 30 minutes to log in last night. Not much but enough.
I finished the last batch of invention jobs and found that from 20 Invul Fields and 20 Large Extenders I had 10 tech II versions of each. Exactly 50% which is the expected rate. I'll pull those up to the factory and buy the parts to build them after dropping off the cloaks and Cerbs tonight.
Sukanan constellation was quiet with only one war target docked up and a couple more up in Amarr playing docking games with a couple of our guys. Seeing an opportunity to make that last jump with the carrier, I got Derranna into position outside a POS and I jump cloned to my ship.
I double-checked the intel channels and got on teamspeak. Satisfied that there was lots of blue and no other hostiles except docked-up-boy, I popped the cyno and moved to jump the ship.
WHOOOSH! Man I love that graphic.
The Ninveah materialized a couple kilometers from the safety of the force field and feeling very exposed I boogied in that direction at a solid 80 meters per second. A bit of excitement erupted on voice comms as allies noticed the beacon on their overview but I quickly assured them it was just me.
Damn carriers are slow. I was starting to get paranoid. What if the hostiles showed up in force and zeroed in on my ship before I got to the field? What if the few neutrals in system are hostiles in disguise? What if FINEG perpared a login trap for me and I'M ABOUT TO DIE!?!?!!
Oh, I'm in the force field? And nothing happened? Just my overactive imagination again then. Whew!
So I slowly brought about the prow and aligned to station, nudging the beast into warp with a satisfied sigh. Once docked I gave a "good night" to my co-pilots and logged.
I finished the last batch of invention jobs and found that from 20 Invul Fields and 20 Large Extenders I had 10 tech II versions of each. Exactly 50% which is the expected rate. I'll pull those up to the factory and buy the parts to build them after dropping off the cloaks and Cerbs tonight.
Sukanan constellation was quiet with only one war target docked up and a couple more up in Amarr playing docking games with a couple of our guys. Seeing an opportunity to make that last jump with the carrier, I got Derranna into position outside a POS and I jump cloned to my ship.
I double-checked the intel channels and got on teamspeak. Satisfied that there was lots of blue and no other hostiles except docked-up-boy, I popped the cyno and moved to jump the ship.
WHOOOSH! Man I love that graphic.
The Ninveah materialized a couple kilometers from the safety of the force field and feeling very exposed I boogied in that direction at a solid 80 meters per second. A bit of excitement erupted on voice comms as allies noticed the beacon on their overview but I quickly assured them it was just me.
Damn carriers are slow. I was starting to get paranoid. What if the hostiles showed up in force and zeroed in on my ship before I got to the field? What if the few neutrals in system are hostiles in disguise? What if FINEG perpared a login trap for me and I'M ABOUT TO DIE!?!?!!
Oh, I'm in the force field? And nothing happened? Just my overactive imagination again then. Whew!
So I slowly brought about the prow and aligned to station, nudging the beast into warp with a satisfied sigh. Once docked I gave a "good night" to my co-pilots and logged.
A quick Review on PvE Rokh Tanking
I was talking to another blogger *waves to YoMma* about using the Rokh in missions and giving him my opinions about how to set it up. I have a few opinions on the Rokh to be sure.
One thing that came up was how to best tank the ship and maintain cap functionality and I want to go over my thoughts here.
First the basics: there are two main methods of shield tanking, active and passive. Active is capacitor hungry but can deal with a lot of incoming damage quickly, while passive typically requires no or very little capacitor and can deal with less damage. Both make use of resistance amplifiers/hardeners/rigs to boost resistances.
For a long time I passive tanked my Rokh with 3 large shield extenders for buffer points and an invulnerability field and a thermal resistance amplifier to boost resistances (oh and an anti-EM rig). This gave a large number of shield points with decent resistances at Caldari Battleship IV such that 90% of the level four missions I could run without too much difficulty, maybe with one warp out to recharge shields. The other 10% required a lot of work and multiple warp outs to make it work and were often more hassle than they were worth.
Of course, passive tanking a battleship like that for PvE is a noob mistake. For Passive tanking to be really effective you need a high recharge rate to supplement the buffer tank and resistances and while the Drake can do this handily (indeed is famour for it) the Battleships are not endowed with the same high base recharge rate to work with.
Active tanking works better on battleships with their large capacitors and more mid slots to really make it effective. Instead of the three extenders, a Shield Booster and Shield Boost Amplifier are installed and to offset the much larger drain on the capacitor, a Heavy Cap Booster.
The result I found was that while my shield points had been effectively cut in half or more, I could easily compensate by pulsing the Shield Booster periodically when needed. And since most missions have long periods of low damage and short periods of high damage, I'm not wasting thousands of shield points I don't need. And when the high damage events come, the shield booster can get me through more incoming DPS longer such that I have fewer warp outs.
However, if you go with an XL Shield Booster like I did you will find the demands on your cap when it is active to be very extreme. The question is, should your setup still be cap stable when every thing is active? In other words, should your setup be able to meet the demands of the shield booster that are not met by the Heavy Cap booster? Let's look at an example to see what I'm talking about.
Here is the Insisto Oblivium II:
(click)
As you can see, with the shield booster and cap booster inactive I am almost cap stable, running out after 28 minutes. And that assumes everything is on the whole time; its a simple matter to turn off the invulnerability field when the action dies down.
With the boosters on my recharge rate is 92.8 and consumption is 110.8, a deficit of 18 cap that leaves me dry in 6 minutes. Should I change my setup to get 18 more cap?
No. Here's why.
Cap booster charges are huge.
There, I said. Those 800s are too damn big. They take up 32m3 each so that ten of them take up 50%+ of my Rokh's cargo hold. So assume 12 in the cargo hold and another four that fit in the cap booster itself which has a 12 second cycle time and 10 second reload time. Do the math.
16 cap charges * 12 seconds + 30 seconds for 3 reloads = 3.7 minutes.
No matter how much cap I have, in three and a half minutes my tank effectively is gone, so if the threat that requires the shield booster active is not neutralized in 2.5 minutes, I'm out of there. Hence why I don't care overly much if my setup is cap stable for the shield booster.
* * * * *
Pilots can make setups capable of running a large shield booster or even an XL shield booster permamently without a cap booster needed. This is typically done on a mission ship like a Raven since missiles don't require capacitor and you can get a pretty good tank for it but crap DPS. But it mindless mission running was your goal, a Rokh wouldn't be on the list. ;)
One thing that came up was how to best tank the ship and maintain cap functionality and I want to go over my thoughts here.
First the basics: there are two main methods of shield tanking, active and passive. Active is capacitor hungry but can deal with a lot of incoming damage quickly, while passive typically requires no or very little capacitor and can deal with less damage. Both make use of resistance amplifiers/hardeners/rigs to boost resistances.
For a long time I passive tanked my Rokh with 3 large shield extenders for buffer points and an invulnerability field and a thermal resistance amplifier to boost resistances (oh and an anti-EM rig). This gave a large number of shield points with decent resistances at Caldari Battleship IV such that 90% of the level four missions I could run without too much difficulty, maybe with one warp out to recharge shields. The other 10% required a lot of work and multiple warp outs to make it work and were often more hassle than they were worth.
Of course, passive tanking a battleship like that for PvE is a noob mistake. For Passive tanking to be really effective you need a high recharge rate to supplement the buffer tank and resistances and while the Drake can do this handily (indeed is famour for it) the Battleships are not endowed with the same high base recharge rate to work with.
Active tanking works better on battleships with their large capacitors and more mid slots to really make it effective. Instead of the three extenders, a Shield Booster and Shield Boost Amplifier are installed and to offset the much larger drain on the capacitor, a Heavy Cap Booster.
The result I found was that while my shield points had been effectively cut in half or more, I could easily compensate by pulsing the Shield Booster periodically when needed. And since most missions have long periods of low damage and short periods of high damage, I'm not wasting thousands of shield points I don't need. And when the high damage events come, the shield booster can get me through more incoming DPS longer such that I have fewer warp outs.
However, if you go with an XL Shield Booster like I did you will find the demands on your cap when it is active to be very extreme. The question is, should your setup still be cap stable when every thing is active? In other words, should your setup be able to meet the demands of the shield booster that are not met by the Heavy Cap booster? Let's look at an example to see what I'm talking about.
Here is the Insisto Oblivium II:
(click)
As you can see, with the shield booster and cap booster inactive I am almost cap stable, running out after 28 minutes. And that assumes everything is on the whole time; its a simple matter to turn off the invulnerability field when the action dies down.
With the boosters on my recharge rate is 92.8 and consumption is 110.8, a deficit of 18 cap that leaves me dry in 6 minutes. Should I change my setup to get 18 more cap?
No. Here's why.
Cap booster charges are huge.
There, I said. Those 800s are too damn big. They take up 32m3 each so that ten of them take up 50%+ of my Rokh's cargo hold. So assume 12 in the cargo hold and another four that fit in the cap booster itself which has a 12 second cycle time and 10 second reload time. Do the math.
16 cap charges * 12 seconds + 30 seconds for 3 reloads = 3.7 minutes.
No matter how much cap I have, in three and a half minutes my tank effectively is gone, so if the threat that requires the shield booster active is not neutralized in 2.5 minutes, I'm out of there. Hence why I don't care overly much if my setup is cap stable for the shield booster.
* * * * *
Pilots can make setups capable of running a large shield booster or even an XL shield booster permamently without a cap booster needed. This is typically done on a mission ship like a Raven since missiles don't require capacitor and you can get a pretty good tank for it but crap DPS. But it mindless mission running was your goal, a Rokh wouldn't be on the list. ;)
Monday, November 24, 2008
My Other Names
A meme from Stupid Evil Bastard:
1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names):
James Rosalene
2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad):
Henry Ralph
3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name):
Duwill
4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Orange Tiger (WTF?)
5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live):
I don't have a middle name. So my soap opera name would be just "Carleton".
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning):
... I don't drink either. So call me "THE Red".
7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name):
Wind
8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Strawberry Chocolate Chip. Man, what a gay gangsta.
9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name):
Hunter Napoleon. I actually really like that one.
10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on):
Bruno Addison.
On The Prowl
Friday night the mother in law was up so I was free to load up Eve and fly for a while.
As the client loaded I got a quick flash from a corp mate that FINEG was snooping around Sukanan again. Hmmmmm. Here I am sitting in my Carrier in a hostile system (hostile until proven otherwise in Eve) with our alliance at war and my buddies from FINEG spotted around on a weekend night when most pilots are out for blood.
Yeah, let me take the keys out of the ignition and unbuckle the seatbelt. This baby ain't going nowhere tonight.
With that decision to discretion made, I jump cloned back to base and found out an alliance op was underway in Citadel space. I jumped into my Falcon and headed out to join them. The Falcon, like all of the Recons, is a good all round ship to have in a gang; can scout, ECM to shut down enemy ships, and a scan probe launcher for hunting duty.
The fleet was 15 jumps out so I boogied as fast as I could. Just as I was a few jumps out I hear we got a war target's Drake. And when I say "got" I mean we acutally got it; the war target opted to eject from the ship and run away in his pod rather than go down with the Drake battlecruiser. We found this very odd as it means he wouldn't get insurance for the vessel and we get the 32 million ISK ship. Oh well, his loss.
By the time I had joined up with the fleet we had three more war targets penned in a system. Since I had a scan probe launcher I was directed into the system to see if I could pick up on any of them but I never found them. We played cat and mouse with them for another hour, trying to catch some unawares later on in another system, but the gig was up and they were skittish. Made sense, we outnumbered them considerably at this time.
So we made it back to base without any more kills or any losses and we chalked it up as a moderate success.
* * * * *
I had planned to get back online Sunday night for some more action, but the Twins came down with the cold I had from Chicago airport and are having a rough go of it since they don't know how to hork and spit or blow their noses yet. Sleepless nights abound and not a lot of free time.
C'est la vie.
* * * * *
I found out today that Tony of Eve's Weekend Warrior put an ad for my blog into his rotation:
I really like it, thanks man!
* * * * *
Industry update: the Covert Ops Cloaks are two-thirds done and then last batch of ten will be ready for market tomorrow, while the 6 Cerbs will be ready tomorrow night. Although one of the Cerberuses might fall of the back of the hauler into Kirith's hanger if you know what I mean.
I got 20 Invulnerability Field BPCs and 20 Large Shield Extender BPCs from the labs and started invention on them. The Invuls generated 10 tech II bpcs (right on odds) and I need to pick up more datacores before running the extenders. Probably build them later this week.
* * * * *
Skills update: Kirith is done with Capital Shield Booster skill for now having it up to level III and is working on Shield Emission Systems V to open up the Capital Shield Emissions skill for the Capital Shield Transporter. That's a very important module since a Large Shield Transporter II repairs 85 shield points per sec while the capital version repairs 300 points per second. Should be done that skill next Sunday.
Derranna is finishing up Mining Barge V this week and will be working on Mining Foreman skill to get it to level V thereafter. Once that is done, only one level of Mining Director stands between her and the Orca.
As the client loaded I got a quick flash from a corp mate that FINEG was snooping around Sukanan again. Hmmmmm. Here I am sitting in my Carrier in a hostile system (hostile until proven otherwise in Eve) with our alliance at war and my buddies from FINEG spotted around on a weekend night when most pilots are out for blood.
Yeah, let me take the keys out of the ignition and unbuckle the seatbelt. This baby ain't going nowhere tonight.
With that decision to discretion made, I jump cloned back to base and found out an alliance op was underway in Citadel space. I jumped into my Falcon and headed out to join them. The Falcon, like all of the Recons, is a good all round ship to have in a gang; can scout, ECM to shut down enemy ships, and a scan probe launcher for hunting duty.
The fleet was 15 jumps out so I boogied as fast as I could. Just as I was a few jumps out I hear we got a war target's Drake. And when I say "got" I mean we acutally got it; the war target opted to eject from the ship and run away in his pod rather than go down with the Drake battlecruiser. We found this very odd as it means he wouldn't get insurance for the vessel and we get the 32 million ISK ship. Oh well, his loss.
By the time I had joined up with the fleet we had three more war targets penned in a system. Since I had a scan probe launcher I was directed into the system to see if I could pick up on any of them but I never found them. We played cat and mouse with them for another hour, trying to catch some unawares later on in another system, but the gig was up and they were skittish. Made sense, we outnumbered them considerably at this time.
So we made it back to base without any more kills or any losses and we chalked it up as a moderate success.
* * * * *
I had planned to get back online Sunday night for some more action, but the Twins came down with the cold I had from Chicago airport and are having a rough go of it since they don't know how to hork and spit or blow their noses yet. Sleepless nights abound and not a lot of free time.
C'est la vie.
* * * * *
I found out today that Tony of Eve's Weekend Warrior put an ad for my blog into his rotation:
I really like it, thanks man!
* * * * *
Industry update: the Covert Ops Cloaks are two-thirds done and then last batch of ten will be ready for market tomorrow, while the 6 Cerbs will be ready tomorrow night. Although one of the Cerberuses might fall of the back of the hauler into Kirith's hanger if you know what I mean.
I got 20 Invulnerability Field BPCs and 20 Large Shield Extender BPCs from the labs and started invention on them. The Invuls generated 10 tech II bpcs (right on odds) and I need to pick up more datacores before running the extenders. Probably build them later this week.
* * * * *
Skills update: Kirith is done with Capital Shield Booster skill for now having it up to level III and is working on Shield Emission Systems V to open up the Capital Shield Emissions skill for the Capital Shield Transporter. That's a very important module since a Large Shield Transporter II repairs 85 shield points per sec while the capital version repairs 300 points per second. Should be done that skill next Sunday.
Derranna is finishing up Mining Barge V this week and will be working on Mining Foreman skill to get it to level V thereafter. Once that is done, only one level of Mining Director stands between her and the Orca.
Friday, November 21, 2008
"Skill Training Complete"
I finally finished Tactical Shield Manipulation V this morning and will be able to fit my Capital Shield Booster tonight.
Overall this means I'm in the short strokes of my Carrier training, another two months for full capabilities, and less than 3 weeks to operational capability.
* * * *
In other carrier news, last night I made the second jump of my journey but my time online got called short due to a visit to the blood donor clinic that lasted over 2 hours (110 minutes of waiting, 10 minutes to give my pint of blood... AB+ second rarest type and also known as the universal receiver... all your blood are belong to us).
However, when I logged in quickly to get Derranna back on track to Task Murkon, who should I see in local in this far off jump point but Lemage, CEO of FINEG! Either it was coincidence or he was checking up on me for an easy POS takedown again or even a carrier kill.
Definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for those guys online next time.
Overall this means I'm in the short strokes of my Carrier training, another two months for full capabilities, and less than 3 weeks to operational capability.
* * * *
In other carrier news, last night I made the second jump of my journey but my time online got called short due to a visit to the blood donor clinic that lasted over 2 hours (110 minutes of waiting, 10 minutes to give my pint of blood... AB+ second rarest type and also known as the universal receiver... all your blood are belong to us).
However, when I logged in quickly to get Derranna back on track to Task Murkon, who should I see in local in this far off jump point but Lemage, CEO of FINEG! Either it was coincidence or he was checking up on me for an easy POS takedown again or even a carrier kill.
Definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for those guys online next time.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
WHOOOOOOSH!
So last night I got Derranna's second cyno ship ready (a Vigil) and tore off for the jump point once again. Uneventful trip through high sec and then a few jumps through low sec. As I was looking at the map I saw a system called Rancer on my route. "That sounds familiar" I thought and I ran a search. Oh yeah. Still, its a Wednesday evening and I'm in a fast frigate, what's the worst that could happen?
I jumped into Rancer and saw local was only a few pilots. I warped to the outgoing gate and saw a red flashing Hyperion battleship. "Heh, I thought, I'll be jumped and gone before he can ever lock me.... why am I taking damage? OH CRAP! SMARTBOMBS!"
*BOOM* *SQUISH* ... "Welcome to the cloning facility on Gulfonodi XIII."
Well crap. The smartbombs did in my ship and pod in short order before I could even activate the gate. The ship loss was minimal, the cyno generator a minor expense, the +3 implant set very annoying to lose, and the cost of a new clone stung. Not a serious loss but definitely high on the annoyance list. Especially since I was now stuck deep in Minmatar space far from any assets and no money.
So I sent some ISK to her, sent her off through high sec to the other cyno ship I accidently left in Caldari space, and then back towards the jump system this time avoiding systems known for pirate activity. Yay for high sec autopilot. I got through low sec without issue this time and found my target system not only quiet but abandoned. I was going to wait until near downtime but I figured this was opportunity knocking so I logged Kirith in and packed up the carrier.
I got Derranna in position, checked local was still empty and lit the cyno. Kirith undocked, waited out the timer, and jumped. The Ninveah's first jump under my command. *sniff* Brings a tear to the eye.
As local was still empty, I took some pictures. As usual, click to see full size (high res!):
And as a bonus, here are a couple other pictures from earlier operations.
Here's me in my Falcon with fleetmates in a Rokh and Megathron battleships waiting at a gate for an enemy:
And here is my PvP Rokh at the alliance station camp looking for that hostile carrier:
I jumped into Rancer and saw local was only a few pilots. I warped to the outgoing gate and saw a red flashing Hyperion battleship. "Heh, I thought, I'll be jumped and gone before he can ever lock me.... why am I taking damage? OH CRAP! SMARTBOMBS!"
*BOOM* *SQUISH* ... "Welcome to the cloning facility on Gulfonodi XIII."
Well crap. The smartbombs did in my ship and pod in short order before I could even activate the gate. The ship loss was minimal, the cyno generator a minor expense, the +3 implant set very annoying to lose, and the cost of a new clone stung. Not a serious loss but definitely high on the annoyance list. Especially since I was now stuck deep in Minmatar space far from any assets and no money.
So I sent some ISK to her, sent her off through high sec to the other cyno ship I accidently left in Caldari space, and then back towards the jump system this time avoiding systems known for pirate activity. Yay for high sec autopilot. I got through low sec without issue this time and found my target system not only quiet but abandoned. I was going to wait until near downtime but I figured this was opportunity knocking so I logged Kirith in and packed up the carrier.
I got Derranna in position, checked local was still empty and lit the cyno. Kirith undocked, waited out the timer, and jumped. The Ninveah's first jump under my command. *sniff* Brings a tear to the eye.
As local was still empty, I took some pictures. As usual, click to see full size (high res!):
And as a bonus, here are a couple other pictures from earlier operations.
Here's me in my Falcon with fleetmates in a Rokh and Megathron battleships waiting at a gate for an enemy:
And here is my PvP Rokh at the alliance station camp looking for that hostile carrier:
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Assault Ships Strike Back
Quantum Rise (aka QR) had several changes that alone were fairly minor (some may disagree) but combined had the result of making the Assault Ship frigates viable once again. Here's how.
Change #1 - Base Speed Rebalancing
In general, the hierarchy of base speeds and agility of combat vessels is now as follows from fastest to slowest:
Frigates > Destroyers > Cruisers > Battlecruisers > Battleships > Capitals
Before QR there were some major discrepancies such that some cruisers (*cough*Vaga*cough) were faster than all frigates. That has been redressed.
In addition, speed modules and implants have been adjusted, stacked nerfed, and/or just plain removed so that Ludicrous Speed is no longer obtainable.
Change #2 - Warp Scramblers
There are two types of modules that can prevent a ship from warping away: warp disruptors which are long ranged and can be overcome by one warp core stabilizer, and warp scramblers which are shorter ranged but require two warp core stabilizers to be defeated. Since warp core stabilizers have negative impacts on combat ship effectiveness, warp disruptors were the defacto choice 99.9% of the time.
In order to kill the two birds of MWD speeds being hard to deal with and not seeing warp scramblers being used much, they boosted the warp scrambler so that it not only prevents enemies from warping away, it disables any equipped micro warp drives. Its like a stasis webifer that only works on ships going really fast.
Change #3 - Stasis Webifers
Speaking of these modules, they were also changed so that instead of slowing a ship down to 80-90% of their current speed they now only slow a ship down 50-60% of their speed.
Change #4 - Missile Damage Formula
From the patch notes (emphasis mine):
Small ships using afterburners can avoid damage from missiles and tracking easier then pre-QR. Since the Assault Ship is a frigate sized hull with cruiser-like damage, it has benefited the most out of these changes.
Why afterburners? An enemy with a scrambler and a webber will put your ship to about 50% or less of its base speed if you use a MWD, but only 50% of your enhanced speed if you use an afterburner.
Why small ships? Since the new missile damage takes into account signature radius, a small ship going decently fast can get a decent damage reduction from heavy missiles and bigger. In addition, the less effective webbers means that larger ships will still have tracking issues even if they get the small ship caught whereas before a small ship webbed was pretty much doomed to cruisers and bigger.
One of the biggest hits against Assault Ships before QR was that they were about as effective as Tech 1 cruisers for a much higher price tag. Now they boast better speeds and better survivability from larger ships over cruisers and combined with their agility that makes them definitely worth their price tag. Wolfpacks of assault ships are going to qucikly become one of the most dangerous sights to see in New Eden. Case in point:
Change #1 - Base Speed Rebalancing
In general, the hierarchy of base speeds and agility of combat vessels is now as follows from fastest to slowest:
Frigates > Destroyers > Cruisers > Battlecruisers > Battleships > Capitals
Before QR there were some major discrepancies such that some cruisers (*cough*Vaga*cough) were faster than all frigates. That has been redressed.
In addition, speed modules and implants have been adjusted, stacked nerfed, and/or just plain removed so that Ludicrous Speed is no longer obtainable.
Change #2 - Warp Scramblers
There are two types of modules that can prevent a ship from warping away: warp disruptors which are long ranged and can be overcome by one warp core stabilizer, and warp scramblers which are shorter ranged but require two warp core stabilizers to be defeated. Since warp core stabilizers have negative impacts on combat ship effectiveness, warp disruptors were the defacto choice 99.9% of the time.
In order to kill the two birds of MWD speeds being hard to deal with and not seeing warp scramblers being used much, they boosted the warp scrambler so that it not only prevents enemies from warping away, it disables any equipped micro warp drives. Its like a stasis webifer that only works on ships going really fast.
Change #3 - Stasis Webifers
Speaking of these modules, they were also changed so that instead of slowing a ship down to 80-90% of their current speed they now only slow a ship down 50-60% of their speed.
Change #4 - Missile Damage Formula
From the patch notes (emphasis mine):
All missile types have been balanced to ensure that oversized missiles do not have too much of an effect on smaller ships. As before, ships are still protected from larger missiles by their signature radius. When going sufficiently fast, the damage taken from missiles is reduced by the signature radius to speed ratio, rather than just speed. Going faster or reducing the signature radius will reduce missile damage further. For a ship with the same signature radius as the missile's explosion radius, the missile's explosion velocity indicates the speed at which the missile damage starts to get reduced. The new formula allows for speed tanking using afterburners. In fact, afterburners will in general be more effective than micro warp drive for speed tanking missiles.End Result:
Small ships using afterburners can avoid damage from missiles and tracking easier then pre-QR. Since the Assault Ship is a frigate sized hull with cruiser-like damage, it has benefited the most out of these changes.
Why afterburners? An enemy with a scrambler and a webber will put your ship to about 50% or less of its base speed if you use a MWD, but only 50% of your enhanced speed if you use an afterburner.
Why small ships? Since the new missile damage takes into account signature radius, a small ship going decently fast can get a decent damage reduction from heavy missiles and bigger. In addition, the less effective webbers means that larger ships will still have tracking issues even if they get the small ship caught whereas before a small ship webbed was pretty much doomed to cruisers and bigger.
One of the biggest hits against Assault Ships before QR was that they were about as effective as Tech 1 cruisers for a much higher price tag. Now they boast better speeds and better survivability from larger ships over cruisers and combined with their agility that makes them definitely worth their price tag. Wolfpacks of assault ships are going to qucikly become one of the most dangerous sights to see in New Eden. Case in point:
The fleet was:Indeed.
San Rintu: Kitsune-class electronic attack ship;
Kulmid: Harpy-class assault frigate;
Mr Frog: Ishkur-class assault frigate;
Shae Tiann: Ishkur-class assault frigate;
euan8: Ishkur-class assault frigate;
Khaled Urduni: Jaguar-class assault frigate;
Mynxee: Jaguar-class assault frigate;
RnProphet: Jaguar-assault frigate;
Pacifist Priest: Retribution-class assault frigate;
Jorge Belda: Vengeance-class assault frigate;
Loth'nwenar: Wolf-class assault frigate;
Maltrox: Wolf-class assault frigate;
RoninData: Wolf-class assault frigate;
Jiremjahu Menasseh: Crow-class interceptor;
Thrac: Crow-class interceptor;
VB Sarge: Stiletto-class interceptor;
flashfresh: Rifter-class frigate;
17 ships.
A hell of a lot of DPS.
Out Of Practice
Back in the day when I had the alt Barak Vorn and his Thanatos carrier at my disposal I got pretty good at using two clients to move the ship from one end of empire space to the other, with Derranna and Optivus Slysonn providing the cyno beacons. Heck, I could get from Gallente to Minmatar space with four jumps over a cup of coffee with the numerous jump clones I had set up.
Its been a while and last night it showed. I was setting up for the trip from the carrier's current location to somewhere closer to home. I needed some nitrogen isotopes as fuel so Derranna loaded up the 99K she had from previous aborted POS venture *shakes fist in FINEG's general direction* and a cyno frigate into a Mammoth hauler and set course for Caldari space. Once there I scouted her into low sec and gave the fuel to Kirith before scooting back into high sec.
At this point I realized my first miscalculation. I forgot how small the cargo capacity of a carrier is nowadays. The ~3,400 m3 of the cargo hold and 10,000 m3 of the onboard Corporate Hangers were insufficient to carry all that fuel, much less the two capital mods (Capital Shield Transfer Array and Capital Remote Armour Repairer) which take 4000m3 themselves.
So I brought Derranna back, transfered the excess fuel and modules to her. But wait! I sent the Capital Shield Booster as well! Damn, send that back. Ok, all set; Derranna got back into high sec and set course for the first jump point. Once she got there I opened up the cargo hold to get the cyno frigate ready... except mistake #2: I forgot the damn thing back at the high sec system beside the carrier! I had taken it out to not risk it during the low sec jump and forgot to load it back up.
Sigh. I better get back in shape or this move is going to take forever!
Its been a while and last night it showed. I was setting up for the trip from the carrier's current location to somewhere closer to home. I needed some nitrogen isotopes as fuel so Derranna loaded up the 99K she had from previous aborted POS venture *shakes fist in FINEG's general direction* and a cyno frigate into a Mammoth hauler and set course for Caldari space. Once there I scouted her into low sec and gave the fuel to Kirith before scooting back into high sec.
At this point I realized my first miscalculation. I forgot how small the cargo capacity of a carrier is nowadays. The ~3,400 m3 of the cargo hold and 10,000 m3 of the onboard Corporate Hangers were insufficient to carry all that fuel, much less the two capital mods (Capital Shield Transfer Array and Capital Remote Armour Repairer) which take 4000m3 themselves.
So I brought Derranna back, transfered the excess fuel and modules to her. But wait! I sent the Capital Shield Booster as well! Damn, send that back. Ok, all set; Derranna got back into high sec and set course for the first jump point. Once she got there I opened up the cargo hold to get the cyno frigate ready... except mistake #2: I forgot the damn thing back at the high sec system beside the carrier! I had taken it out to not risk it during the low sec jump and forgot to load it back up.
Sigh. I better get back in shape or this move is going to take forever!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Thoughts On Certificates
So, more of my thoughts on Certificates.
To the unwashed, the latest expansion introduced Certificates which are essentially achievement markers based on skills you have trained. For example, if you have trained up to appropriate levels the skills required to use Medium Railguns effectively, you might be able to earn the Cruiser Hybrids Certificate. In addition, certificates have four levels: basic, standard, improved and elite. Obviously the difficulty in earning a certificate is directly related to its level.
I've got about 80 certificates mostly in the basic and standard category, a few in improved, and a handful of Elites. Here are three of my Elite certificates in the Core skills category showing I have excellent Capacitor, Integrity (i.e. hull and shields), and Navigation skills, and Improved in the fitting skills (I would need Advanced Weapon Upgrades V to bump that to Elite for example).
(As usual, click to see better)
And even though I can use Tech II Large Blasters and Rails, you can see my gunnery skills are only considered Standard since a lot of support skills I've only trained to IV instead of V. Needless to say I was a little disappointed my vaunted gunnery skills weren't certified Elite or even Improved.
(Click for the gory details at 100%)
A lot of veterans scoffed at certificates as a waste of time. They provide no change in how ships or modules operate, they cost nothing to get, and prove nothing in the process. As usual these veterans missed the point.
There are a lot of skills, well over 200 or 300. To a neophyte player, it is more than daunting trying to figure out what to train to be good at something since the skills are divided into categories based on their function. There is no category called Gallente Frigate Command filled with skills that you should train to be good at flying Gallente frigates for example. Instead you need skills from Drones, Gunnery, Engineering, Spaceship Command, and probably Electronics and Navigation. And while its easier for veteran pliots to figure out what they need to train for the next shiny new ship class, it still takes time and research.
Certificates provide a method for pilots to quickly asses the skills they need for certain roles. Want to know what skills are recommended for flying Amarr combat cruisers? Check out the related certificate in the certificate planner:
(click for engorgement)
You quickly see that the basic requirements are laid out in a straight forward manner.
Furthermore, pilots can make certification public so that other pilots can check your information and see what you are specced for quickly without having to scan 150+ skills and filter out the signal rom the noise.
To summarize I think Certificates are a good idea. Something was needed ingame to help new players move forward with their skill training, provide an easy way for prospective recruiters to assess a pilot's compentency, and allow veteran players a quick method for self evaluation of their skills. While they may have little impact on actual gameplay, they are very useful for the metagame outside combat.
To the unwashed, the latest expansion introduced Certificates which are essentially achievement markers based on skills you have trained. For example, if you have trained up to appropriate levels the skills required to use Medium Railguns effectively, you might be able to earn the Cruiser Hybrids Certificate. In addition, certificates have four levels: basic, standard, improved and elite. Obviously the difficulty in earning a certificate is directly related to its level.
I've got about 80 certificates mostly in the basic and standard category, a few in improved, and a handful of Elites. Here are three of my Elite certificates in the Core skills category showing I have excellent Capacitor, Integrity (i.e. hull and shields), and Navigation skills, and Improved in the fitting skills (I would need Advanced Weapon Upgrades V to bump that to Elite for example).
(As usual, click to see better)
And even though I can use Tech II Large Blasters and Rails, you can see my gunnery skills are only considered Standard since a lot of support skills I've only trained to IV instead of V. Needless to say I was a little disappointed my vaunted gunnery skills weren't certified Elite or even Improved.
(Click for the gory details at 100%)
A lot of veterans scoffed at certificates as a waste of time. They provide no change in how ships or modules operate, they cost nothing to get, and prove nothing in the process. As usual these veterans missed the point.
There are a lot of skills, well over 200 or 300. To a neophyte player, it is more than daunting trying to figure out what to train to be good at something since the skills are divided into categories based on their function. There is no category called Gallente Frigate Command filled with skills that you should train to be good at flying Gallente frigates for example. Instead you need skills from Drones, Gunnery, Engineering, Spaceship Command, and probably Electronics and Navigation. And while its easier for veteran pliots to figure out what they need to train for the next shiny new ship class, it still takes time and research.
Certificates provide a method for pilots to quickly asses the skills they need for certain roles. Want to know what skills are recommended for flying Amarr combat cruisers? Check out the related certificate in the certificate planner:
(click for engorgement)
You quickly see that the basic requirements are laid out in a straight forward manner.
Furthermore, pilots can make certification public so that other pilots can check your information and see what you are specced for quickly without having to scan 150+ skills and filter out the signal rom the noise.
To summarize I think Certificates are a good idea. Something was needed ingame to help new players move forward with their skill training, provide an easy way for prospective recruiters to assess a pilot's compentency, and allow veteran players a quick method for self evaluation of their skills. While they may have little impact on actual gameplay, they are very useful for the metagame outside combat.
Ya Gotta Spend Money...
... to make money.
Last night I went and bought the parts and materials to make 6 Cerberus Heavy Assault Cruisers and 30 Covert Ops Cloaking Devices. It was not cheap; the Ferrogel alone cost over 100 million ISK and all told the final bill amounted to around 320 million ISK.
However the profit alone from the Covert Ops cloaks is around 339 million. That's profit, not gross. And it includes invention costs. The profit from the ships is totalled at around 50 million. In other words, once the items are built and sold my wallet should be around 390 million ISK higher than when I started (~930 million ISK). Not bad for a few hours effort spread over a couple weeks, eh?
My goal is to continue to increase production efforts like this so that making a couple hundred million ISK every week is common place and Derranna's invention and manufacturing slots are always busy. If money is the root of all evil I want to be a very very bad person.
Last night I went and bought the parts and materials to make 6 Cerberus Heavy Assault Cruisers and 30 Covert Ops Cloaking Devices. It was not cheap; the Ferrogel alone cost over 100 million ISK and all told the final bill amounted to around 320 million ISK.
However the profit alone from the Covert Ops cloaks is around 339 million. That's profit, not gross. And it includes invention costs. The profit from the ships is totalled at around 50 million. In other words, once the items are built and sold my wallet should be around 390 million ISK higher than when I started (~930 million ISK). Not bad for a few hours effort spread over a couple weeks, eh?
My goal is to continue to increase production efforts like this so that making a couple hundred million ISK every week is common place and Derranna's invention and manufacturing slots are always busy. If money is the root of all evil I want to be a very very bad person.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Twilight Imperium Battle Report
Before I left for Vegas, I got a chance to sit down and play a good solid game of Twilight Imperium with my arch-Nemesis Andrew. See his brief report on the day here with a couple pictures.
Since it was over a week ago and the intervening time has not been kind to my neocortex, I'll spare you the blow by blow account of the game. We were developing a 2 player variant and changing /making up rules along the way, most notably when we up and decided to remove the wormhole Nexus as it was becoming the focal point of the entire board to the detriment of any other strategic location in light of our wormhole-centric board design.
In the end I held on for a slight victory (once we realized we needed an ending point and hadn't really defined one since removing the existing one from the normal game) due to getting an early start and maintaining my slight lead as the game progressed.
It was a good time and we plan a rematch on the Christmas break.
Since it was over a week ago and the intervening time has not been kind to my neocortex, I'll spare you the blow by blow account of the game. We were developing a 2 player variant and changing /making up rules along the way, most notably when we up and decided to remove the wormhole Nexus as it was becoming the focal point of the entire board to the detriment of any other strategic location in light of our wormhole-centric board design.
In the end I held on for a slight victory (once we realized we needed an ending point and hadn't really defined one since removing the existing one from the normal game) due to getting an early start and maintaining my slight lead as the game progressed.
It was a good time and we plan a rematch on the Christmas break.
What up?
I'm back from a week in Las Vegas for a conference. I suffered severe Eve withdrawal especially since the Quantum Rise expansion was released while I was away. Torture of the rawest form I tell ya.
So an update to put things back into perspective.
Skill Training: Kirith is less than 4 days from Tactical Shield Manipulation V and Derranna still around 8.5 days for Mining Barge V.
Politics: Alliance is still at war with Hunters Imperiale and Legi0n corporations and from what I heard last night was doing well. I logged in last night for an hour and a half and helped station camp an enemy carrier, but had to log before any action occurred. I don't know if the hostiles attempted the breakout or not, website is down right now.
Industry: Started up some cloaking device invention and I plan to build some Cerberuses (Cerberii?) this week once I know how many Covert Ops Cloaking Device BPCs I got.
Wallet: Currently sitting over 546 million, still saving up for the Orca for Derranna and maybe an Eagle for Kirith for interceptor sniping.
Certificates: Kirith earned about 80 of them while Derranna was more modest with 18 despite her similar number of skill points. That reflects Kirith diverse combat skills which got more attention than Derranna's industrial and research skills. I'll have more thoughts on the Certificates later on this week I think.
Ok, that's it. Back on track.
So an update to put things back into perspective.
Skill Training: Kirith is less than 4 days from Tactical Shield Manipulation V and Derranna still around 8.5 days for Mining Barge V.
Politics: Alliance is still at war with Hunters Imperiale and Legi0n corporations and from what I heard last night was doing well. I logged in last night for an hour and a half and helped station camp an enemy carrier, but had to log before any action occurred. I don't know if the hostiles attempted the breakout or not, website is down right now.
Industry: Started up some cloaking device invention and I plan to build some Cerberuses (Cerberii?) this week once I know how many Covert Ops Cloaking Device BPCs I got.
Wallet: Currently sitting over 546 million, still saving up for the Orca for Derranna and maybe an Eagle for Kirith for interceptor sniping.
Certificates: Kirith earned about 80 of them while Derranna was more modest with 18 despite her similar number of skill points. That reflects Kirith diverse combat skills which got more attention than Derranna's industrial and research skills. I'll have more thoughts on the Certificates later on this week I think.
Ok, that's it. Back on track.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
No Posts This Week
I'm off to Las Vegas for a work conference, leaving tomorrow at noon and returning late Sunday night. Since I don't have a laptop for internet access, nor Eve playing, I won't be posting.
When I get back on the 17th, regular posting will resume including the battle report from tonight's awesome win over Andrew in Twilight Imperium. MUHAHAHAHAHAH!
When I get back on the 17th, regular posting will resume including the battle report from tonight's awesome win over Andrew in Twilight Imperium. MUHAHAHAHAHAH!
Friday, November 07, 2008
Stumble Into Victory
I logged on for a quick mission tonight and as I headed to my mission agent I ran into a friendly gate camp. As I was in my new Fleet Falcon, I joined the gang and moved into position.
Turns out a couple hostiles were harassing pilots in the next system and we were covering the only way out. As I got ready the gate activated and a hostile Hurricane appeared on the overview. We engaged with our Raven, Megathron, and a couple Drakes but he burns back to the gate and jumps through.
We set a trap and move off the gate except a bait ship and myself. The enemy takes the bait, we tackle with a Rapier, and primary the hostile Typhoon battleship. It takes a few seconds but he goes down. The other hostile in the Hurricane battlecruiser makes a run for it.
Well that fortunate for me, getting in on a kill without the wait. :)
* * * * *
In other news, a corporation called Legi0n has declared war upon us with fighting due to start tomorrow. Looks like I got my new Rokh and Falcon just in time.
Turns out a couple hostiles were harassing pilots in the next system and we were covering the only way out. As I got ready the gate activated and a hostile Hurricane appeared on the overview. We engaged with our Raven, Megathron, and a couple Drakes but he burns back to the gate and jumps through.
We set a trap and move off the gate except a bait ship and myself. The enemy takes the bait, we tackle with a Rapier, and primary the hostile Typhoon battleship. It takes a few seconds but he goes down. The other hostile in the Hurricane battlecruiser makes a run for it.
Well that fortunate for me, getting in on a kill without the wait. :)
* * * * *
In other news, a corporation called Legi0n has declared war upon us with fighting due to start tomorrow. Looks like I got my new Rokh and Falcon just in time.
More on the Falcon
In the last post Galen commented that the Falcon is also popular due to having higher ECM strength than other options. He also commented that:
There are seven ships with bonus to ECM modules in the Caldari fleet. We'll look only at the strength attribute bonus of the ships.
Griffin - Tech 1 Frigate - 15% bonus to strength / level
Blackbird - Tech 1 Cruiser - 15% bonus to strength / level
Scorpion - Tech 1 Battleship - 15% bonus to strength / level
Kitsune - Tech 2 Frigate - 20% bonus to strength per level of Caldari Frigate
Falcon - Tech 2 Cruiser - 20% bonus to strength per level
Rook - Tech 2 Cruiser - 20% bonus to strength per level
Widow - Tech 2 Battleship - 20% bonus to strength per level
The formula for calculating the strength of an ECM on a ship (before other module or rig bonuses) is:
My relevant skills are at V for the Cruiser, Frigate, and Battleship skills and IV for the Tech II skills. So the highest strength ECM module I could throw on would be on the Kitsune, followed by the other 3 Tech II ships.
Of course, there are other factors. Signal Distortion Amps need low slots, Partical Dispersion Augmentors need rig slots, ECM range and capacitor use are also important. But my main point is that the ECM is not intrinsitcally stronger than other available options considering that the "bonus * level" factor for the Tech I ships equals 0.75 while for the Tech II it equals 0.80 due to my lower skills. If I took the time to train to level V for Recons it would be more noticable.
So to summarize, I get about the same ECM range and strength out of a Scorpion as I do with a Falcon and it comes down to other factors like agility, targeting speed, and that oh-so-powerful Covert Ops Cloak. After all, if it wasn't for the cloaking device the Rook would be more popular than it is today.
Should Battleships have stronger ECM than cruisers? That is an interesting question, I assume the thought being that the larger and more powerful vessel should have more resources to pour into ECM efforts. I do not share this opinion. One could argue that the Tech II ships should have better abilities and that the Widow, a Tech II battleship, dedicates its efforts to its jump drive and bridge technologies as to why it does not have a 25% or 30% bonus as a battleship.
Is the Falcon overpowered compared to other Recons? My gut says no.
The Falcon does one thing and one thing only: jam. No tanking, no DPS, no tackle. If there is a coordinated and capable enemy force the Falcon is dead or forced off. If the enemy used available ECCM modules or even projected ECCM, the Falcon can be rendered useless. And on top of all of that, ECM jamming is chance based.
If anything, I think the game needs a new ship class dedicated to utilizing projected ECCM, Tracking Links, and Remote Sensor Boosters much like Logisitic ships work with armour/shield/cap transfers. This Anti-Recon class would give fleets an option to counter all the Recons (except the sad sack Minmatar EWAR... Target Painting... heh).
Well that is my thoughts. Being a Falcon pilot I'm biased I know, but I remember vividly that time Captain Santiago undocked in a Drake with ECCM fitted and ruined my Falcon with a couple salvos. Fortune favours the prepared.
Many people feel that they are overwpowered for a recon, in the same manner that the curse and pilgrim were overpowered.Let's take those two issues on in more depth than my response in the comments.
There are seven ships with bonus to ECM modules in the Caldari fleet. We'll look only at the strength attribute bonus of the ships.
Griffin - Tech 1 Frigate - 15% bonus to strength / level
Blackbird - Tech 1 Cruiser - 15% bonus to strength / level
Scorpion - Tech 1 Battleship - 15% bonus to strength / level
Kitsune - Tech 2 Frigate - 20% bonus to strength per level of Caldari Frigate
Falcon - Tech 2 Cruiser - 20% bonus to strength per level
Rook - Tech 2 Cruiser - 20% bonus to strength per level
Widow - Tech 2 Battleship - 20% bonus to strength per level
The formula for calculating the strength of an ECM on a ship (before other module or rig bonuses) is:
Base strength + (Base strength * Bonus Amount * Ship Skill Level)That is to say you get the same amount of bonus per level, it is not cumulative.
My relevant skills are at V for the Cruiser, Frigate, and Battleship skills and IV for the Tech II skills. So the highest strength ECM module I could throw on would be on the Kitsune, followed by the other 3 Tech II ships.
Of course, there are other factors. Signal Distortion Amps need low slots, Partical Dispersion Augmentors need rig slots, ECM range and capacitor use are also important. But my main point is that the ECM is not intrinsitcally stronger than other available options considering that the "bonus * level" factor for the Tech I ships equals 0.75 while for the Tech II it equals 0.80 due to my lower skills. If I took the time to train to level V for Recons it would be more noticable.
So to summarize, I get about the same ECM range and strength out of a Scorpion as I do with a Falcon and it comes down to other factors like agility, targeting speed, and that oh-so-powerful Covert Ops Cloak. After all, if it wasn't for the cloaking device the Rook would be more popular than it is today.
Should Battleships have stronger ECM than cruisers? That is an interesting question, I assume the thought being that the larger and more powerful vessel should have more resources to pour into ECM efforts. I do not share this opinion. One could argue that the Tech II ships should have better abilities and that the Widow, a Tech II battleship, dedicates its efforts to its jump drive and bridge technologies as to why it does not have a 25% or 30% bonus as a battleship.
Is the Falcon overpowered compared to other Recons? My gut says no.
The Falcon does one thing and one thing only: jam. No tanking, no DPS, no tackle. If there is a coordinated and capable enemy force the Falcon is dead or forced off. If the enemy used available ECCM modules or even projected ECCM, the Falcon can be rendered useless. And on top of all of that, ECM jamming is chance based.
If anything, I think the game needs a new ship class dedicated to utilizing projected ECCM, Tracking Links, and Remote Sensor Boosters much like Logisitic ships work with armour/shield/cap transfers. This Anti-Recon class would give fleets an option to counter all the Recons (except the sad sack Minmatar EWAR... Target Painting... heh).
Well that is my thoughts. Being a Falcon pilot I'm biased I know, but I remember vividly that time Captain Santiago undocked in a Drake with ECCM fitted and ruined my Falcon with a couple salvos. Fortune favours the prepared.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Falcon - More Than Just a Jammer
The Caldari Falcon is a very specific tool. Unlike the Rokh which can perform many roles with different setups, a Falcon is really only suited to one role and that is the ECM jamming King.
Other ECM ships have better speed (Kitsune) or better defenses (Rook, Scorpion, Widow) or are just plain cheaper (Scorpion, Griffin, Blackbird, Kitsune) or even have other roles beyond jamming (Rook, Widow) but only the Falcon can jam and use the Covert Ops Cloak. For that reason it is feared and reviled the cluster over.
Beyond the ECM mods in the mid slots and some Signal Distortion Amplifiers in the lows (and the obligatory Covert Ops cloak!) most people don't give much further consideration to how to outfit the ship and for good reason, it can't really do anything else. Damage is piss poor, shield tank is horrible, and speed is lethargic. But with some imagination and a flair for adventure, you can play with the ship and have some fun with it.
Gang Falcon:
(Click and see big!)
The Falcon I acquired from my production lines yesterday is going to be dedicated to gang operations, hence no need for damage or tank, just jamming. And a scan probe launcher to hunt down targets in space if need be and Derranna is not available with her awesome skills. With a jam strength of 12.5 and seven modules, it can lock down a couple enemy ships without too much effort. There is only one Minmatar specific jammer since their ships tend to have the lowest scan strength and are therefore have the best chance of being jammed by the other modules with their 4 strength.
Solo PvP Falcon
(Click to enhance your size!)
Yes, its fragile and has pathetic DPS. I know. I do it because its damn fun and will tide me over until I can cross train into another faction's Recon ships.
The idea is I can hunt like a ninja in a system, unseen and unheard, until I find the appropriate target and uncloak, jumping on him like a rabid poodle on an unsuspecting mailman. The jammers keep him from fighting back while I tackle and whittle him away with my blasters and missiles. The range of targets this ship can take on is very limited. Battlecruisers and battleships are definitely out, and well tanked cruisers could probably shrug it off, but frigates, destroyers, many cruisers, and Tech II flimsy ships are all prey to me. The advantage is surprise: a large vessel might be more deadly but if they can see you coming they will dock up or run away. The Falcon allows me to sidle up to targets before they even know I'm there.
I've used this setup to kill an Arbitrator before, and an AFK Rifter. Not much but it can work; and its fun.
Other ECM ships have better speed (Kitsune) or better defenses (Rook, Scorpion, Widow) or are just plain cheaper (Scorpion, Griffin, Blackbird, Kitsune) or even have other roles beyond jamming (Rook, Widow) but only the Falcon can jam and use the Covert Ops Cloak. For that reason it is feared and reviled the cluster over.
Beyond the ECM mods in the mid slots and some Signal Distortion Amplifiers in the lows (and the obligatory Covert Ops cloak!) most people don't give much further consideration to how to outfit the ship and for good reason, it can't really do anything else. Damage is piss poor, shield tank is horrible, and speed is lethargic. But with some imagination and a flair for adventure, you can play with the ship and have some fun with it.
Gang Falcon:
(Click and see big!)
The Falcon I acquired from my production lines yesterday is going to be dedicated to gang operations, hence no need for damage or tank, just jamming. And a scan probe launcher to hunt down targets in space if need be and Derranna is not available with her awesome skills. With a jam strength of 12.5 and seven modules, it can lock down a couple enemy ships without too much effort. There is only one Minmatar specific jammer since their ships tend to have the lowest scan strength and are therefore have the best chance of being jammed by the other modules with their 4 strength.
Solo PvP Falcon
(Click to enhance your size!)
Yes, its fragile and has pathetic DPS. I know. I do it because its damn fun and will tide me over until I can cross train into another faction's Recon ships.
The idea is I can hunt like a ninja in a system, unseen and unheard, until I find the appropriate target and uncloak, jumping on him like a rabid poodle on an unsuspecting mailman. The jammers keep him from fighting back while I tackle and whittle him away with my blasters and missiles. The range of targets this ship can take on is very limited. Battlecruisers and battleships are definitely out, and well tanked cruisers could probably shrug it off, but frigates, destroyers, many cruisers, and Tech II flimsy ships are all prey to me. The advantage is surprise: a large vessel might be more deadly but if they can see you coming they will dock up or run away. The Falcon allows me to sidle up to targets before they even know I'm there.
I've used this setup to kill an Arbitrator before, and an AFK Rifter. Not much but it can work; and its fun.
Money Money Money
Despite not being able to log in much the past few days (I do have hope for tonight and a bit on Saturday night after I crush Andrew in Twilight Imperium and Memoir '44) I'm still making stuff and building up the ISK.
The 5 falcons came out of the factories and four made their way to the market (the fifth "fell of the back of the truck" into Kirith's hanger to make a good fleet Falcon, see next post for more details) and two have already sold for about 73 million ISK each, a pre-invention-cost profit of 33 million ISK each. Not bad for an hour's work spread over a couple weeks.
This morning 80 Large Shield Extender IIs came out of the oven and I put in 60 Invulnerabilty Field IIs. That's another hundred million profit once it gets to market.
Saving up for the Orca is hard work! ;)
The 5 falcons came out of the factories and four made their way to the market (the fifth "fell of the back of the truck" into Kirith's hanger to make a good fleet Falcon, see next post for more details) and two have already sold for about 73 million ISK each, a pre-invention-cost profit of 33 million ISK each. Not bad for an hour's work spread over a couple weeks.
This morning 80 Large Shield Extender IIs came out of the oven and I put in 60 Invulnerabilty Field IIs. That's another hundred million profit once it gets to market.
Saving up for the Orca is hard work! ;)
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Skills Update
Kirith finally finished Jump Drive Calibration IV today, meaning his carrier jumping ability is as good as its going to get for now in terms of range. Another 63 days for level V is not something I'm willing to do at the moment.
Another day for Jump Fuel Conservation III, and then I'm putting on the 15 day skill Tactical Shield Manipulation V to open up the Capital Shield Booster skill. Once that is out of the way, its all downhill to full operation and I can finally think about transporting the Ninveah closer to home and start using it in operations.
As a side note, if I splurge 57.5 million ISK I can get and train the Black Ops Battleship skill and sit in the Widow in an hour in eighteen minutes. Tempting, but I don't have the 350 million extra ISK to build it yet, and I'm still 12 days from using the Covert Jump Portal Generator. Maybe next February's project.
Derranna completed her update of the Learning skills and now has all teir one skills at V (except Charisma) and all teir two skills at IV. She's started into her Mining Foreman skill plan which should last for the next three months.
Mining Barge IV & V = 21 days
Mining Foreman I - V = 11.5 days
Mining Director I - V = 29 days
Leadership II - V = 6 days
Cybernetics V = 11 days
Astrogeology V = 11 days
Astrogeology is the gating skill for Exhumers and Deep Core Mining, that's why its on there, and Cybernetics is for the Mining Foreman Mindlink implant. The rest are for getting into an Orca and using the Mining Foreman Links on the ship.
Could a mining career be awaiting me should PvP lose its flavour? Not likely, but large alliances sometimes have a need for a good mining op and a fully equipped and expertly flown Orca would be a good asset to present at such operations.
I'm all about the team.
Another day for Jump Fuel Conservation III, and then I'm putting on the 15 day skill Tactical Shield Manipulation V to open up the Capital Shield Booster skill. Once that is out of the way, its all downhill to full operation and I can finally think about transporting the Ninveah closer to home and start using it in operations.
As a side note, if I splurge 57.5 million ISK I can get and train the Black Ops Battleship skill and sit in the Widow in an hour in eighteen minutes. Tempting, but I don't have the 350 million extra ISK to build it yet, and I'm still 12 days from using the Covert Jump Portal Generator. Maybe next February's project.
Derranna completed her update of the Learning skills and now has all teir one skills at V (except Charisma) and all teir two skills at IV. She's started into her Mining Foreman skill plan which should last for the next three months.
Mining Barge IV & V = 21 days
Mining Foreman I - V = 11.5 days
Mining Director I - V = 29 days
Leadership II - V = 6 days
Cybernetics V = 11 days
Astrogeology V = 11 days
Astrogeology is the gating skill for Exhumers and Deep Core Mining, that's why its on there, and Cybernetics is for the Mining Foreman Mindlink implant. The rest are for getting into an Orca and using the Mining Foreman Links on the ship.
Could a mining career be awaiting me should PvP lose its flavour? Not likely, but large alliances sometimes have a need for a good mining op and a fully equipped and expertly flown Orca would be a good asset to present at such operations.
I'm all about the team.
New Patch Coming Next Week
The second major Eve content patch of 2008 (totally free BTW) is coming down on Nov 11th. The features list is decent and I thought I would give my quick assessment of each one.
Stackless IO & Eve64 - Performance enhancements already deployed, reports are the improvements are great for large battles. I approve.
Alchemy - Meh. Remains to be seen if it has an impact on moon material prices.
Orca and Industrial changes - Orca good, but transport changes I'm still lukewarm on. Remains to be seen.
UI Changes:
- Movable HUD - YES, about time!
- Weapon Linking - Hell yeah, love it!
- Module Activation timers - How did we survive without you!? Such a small change but huge impact.
Speed Rebalanced - AKA Nano nerf. I've come out on the side of supporting this one before, and I welcome our slower overloards.
Cheaper Bombs - Sure, why not? Get more use out of stealth bombers.
Certificates - I can feel my OCD ramping up already.
Medals - Nice touch, I approve.
New in game music tracks - *Yawn*
New Stargates - Ooooohhhhh, shiny!
Autopilot Advoidance System - Useful addition.
Assembly Array Upgrades - Interesting, but not too relevant to me.
Enhanced ETC Secure trading - Very interesting, have to watch how this evolves further.
* * * *
All in all I'm looking forward to this patch, lots of little things to fool around with and increase the depth of the experience.
Stackless IO & Eve64 - Performance enhancements already deployed, reports are the improvements are great for large battles. I approve.
Alchemy - Meh. Remains to be seen if it has an impact on moon material prices.
Orca and Industrial changes - Orca good, but transport changes I'm still lukewarm on. Remains to be seen.
UI Changes:
- Movable HUD - YES, about time!
- Weapon Linking - Hell yeah, love it!
- Module Activation timers - How did we survive without you!? Such a small change but huge impact.
Speed Rebalanced - AKA Nano nerf. I've come out on the side of supporting this one before, and I welcome our slower overloards.
Cheaper Bombs - Sure, why not? Get more use out of stealth bombers.
Certificates - I can feel my OCD ramping up already.
Medals - Nice touch, I approve.
New in game music tracks - *Yawn*
New Stargates - Ooooohhhhh, shiny!
Autopilot Advoidance System - Useful addition.
Assembly Array Upgrades - Interesting, but not too relevant to me.
Enhanced ETC Secure trading - Very interesting, have to watch how this evolves further.
* * * *
All in all I'm looking forward to this patch, lots of little things to fool around with and increase the depth of the experience.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Dear CCP: Hire Some Fracking Forum Moderators
This is why Eve Online forums are a cesspool of uselessness at times:
(Click to embiggen)
What utter garbage. Thirty posts and only 5 of them have "content" I would consider vaguely useful in reading. This is not uncommon in the Corporation, Alliance, and Organization Discussion forum. I'm sick of trudging through mountains of vomit to find the one or two semi-worthy posts to read. Just sick of it.
Come on CCP, clean up the act, make that forum worth reading.
(Click to embiggen)
What utter garbage. Thirty posts and only 5 of them have "content" I would consider vaguely useful in reading. This is not uncommon in the Corporation, Alliance, and Organization Discussion forum. I'm sick of trudging through mountains of vomit to find the one or two semi-worthy posts to read. Just sick of it.
Come on CCP, clean up the act, make that forum worth reading.
Industry Update
The 80 Invulnerability Field IIs I built last week sold in a hurry helping to rebuild my wallet a bit, and 5 Falcons are in the oven for this week.
I did invention to the 20 Invulnerability Field and 20 Large Shield Extender BPCs I had from that aborted High Sec POS but had a bit of bad luck but only got 6 successes on the former and 8 successes on the latter, a measly 35% success rate which is much lower than my expected 50%. Harrumph!
Still, its something. I'll buy the parts for building them all tonight and try to get them built before the weekend is out.
I did invention to the 20 Invulnerability Field and 20 Large Shield Extender BPCs I had from that aborted High Sec POS but had a bit of bad luck but only got 6 successes on the former and 8 successes on the latter, a measly 35% success rate which is much lower than my expected 50%. Harrumph!
Still, its something. I'll buy the parts for building them all tonight and try to get them built before the weekend is out.
Missed It By *THAT* Much
I logged in for a bit last night and to my pleasant surprise some hostiles were in the area at the same time. An ad hoc fleet was rounded up and I jumped into my solo-Falcon as I wasn't sure what we were dealing with yet and the covert ops cloak and ECM gives me some flexibility in terms of engagements.
I form up with the gang and look around. Raven. Megathron. Rokh. Navy Megathron. Another Navy Megathron. Dominix. And my little Falcon cruiser. I offered to go back and upsize to my own Rokh battleship but the FC said no, the ECM would come in handy.
Alrighty then. Force multiplier it is!
Our targets are flying a Dominix and Armageddon and appear to have a mate in a Helios covert ops trying to scan probe out mission runners. We know this because one of our gang was in a mission and narrowly avoided them. So we send him back in with his Domi to start a new mission and after a few minutes we send in the Mega to rat in the belts.
What happened next is kind of fuzzy so I may get details wrong. It all happened so fast.
Pilot A in the mission reported one of the targets, the enemy Dominix, had arrived. As we jumped into system the ratting Pilot B reported the Armageddon engaged him. Our FC gave the order to warp to the Pilot B (and I'm sure Pilot A was like "WTF???!?!?"). While in warp the Armageddon had warped off so as we land the order was given to warp to Pilot B.
Being in a fast cruiser hull I got to the mission gate first and quickly warped into the mission to do some jamming. As I arrived with the FC in his Raven right behind me, the Dominix warped off leaving his Ogre II drones behind. Meanwhile, the rest of the fleet arriving at the mission gate reported the arrival of the enemy Armageddon, probably coming to help his buddy and in mid warp when he realized we were coming here too. He was quickly tackled and destroyed.
I had to warp to a stargate and then back to the mission gate since you can't warp to objects too close in Deadspace missions. Grrrr. As expected, I arrived only to see the flash of the final explosion.
We spent another 20 minutes trying to bait and trap the Dominix pilot but he was spooked and waited out his criminal countdown before docking and whimpering in a corner in station. Ah, for Ambulation to come along so we can continue the hunt in person. (Yeah yeah I know; no station fighting.)
All in all a good night despite not making on the kill board.
I form up with the gang and look around. Raven. Megathron. Rokh. Navy Megathron. Another Navy Megathron. Dominix. And my little Falcon cruiser. I offered to go back and upsize to my own Rokh battleship but the FC said no, the ECM would come in handy.
Alrighty then. Force multiplier it is!
Our targets are flying a Dominix and Armageddon and appear to have a mate in a Helios covert ops trying to scan probe out mission runners. We know this because one of our gang was in a mission and narrowly avoided them. So we send him back in with his Domi to start a new mission and after a few minutes we send in the Mega to rat in the belts.
What happened next is kind of fuzzy so I may get details wrong. It all happened so fast.
Pilot A in the mission reported one of the targets, the enemy Dominix, had arrived. As we jumped into system the ratting Pilot B reported the Armageddon engaged him. Our FC gave the order to warp to the Pilot B (and I'm sure Pilot A was like "WTF???!?!?"). While in warp the Armageddon had warped off so as we land the order was given to warp to Pilot B.
Being in a fast cruiser hull I got to the mission gate first and quickly warped into the mission to do some jamming. As I arrived with the FC in his Raven right behind me, the Dominix warped off leaving his Ogre II drones behind. Meanwhile, the rest of the fleet arriving at the mission gate reported the arrival of the enemy Armageddon, probably coming to help his buddy and in mid warp when he realized we were coming here too. He was quickly tackled and destroyed.
I had to warp to a stargate and then back to the mission gate since you can't warp to objects too close in Deadspace missions. Grrrr. As expected, I arrived only to see the flash of the final explosion.
We spent another 20 minutes trying to bait and trap the Dominix pilot but he was spooked and waited out his criminal countdown before docking and whimpering in a corner in station. Ah, for Ambulation to come along so we can continue the hunt in person. (Yeah yeah I know; no station fighting.)
All in all a good night despite not making on the kill board.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Chimera Progress
As Jump Drive Calibration IV ticks down, I get closer to the point where I can move my Chimera, the Ninveah, to my base. I want to have the Capital Shield Booster on and that will be ready by the end of November.
Here is the current setup. Only Tech II at the moment sadly.
(yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill)
And here is the current contents of the drone bay:
Make note that I don't have the Ogre II skills yet. :/ And the collection of drones is not complete, I still need a couple more fighters, logistic drones, etc.
And here are the skills I still need to train along with the mods I need to fit.
Soon my sweet, soon.
Here is the current setup. Only Tech II at the moment sadly.
(yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill)
And here is the current contents of the drone bay:
Make note that I don't have the Ogre II skills yet. :/ And the collection of drones is not complete, I still need a couple more fighters, logistic drones, etc.
And here are the skills I still need to train along with the mods I need to fit.
Soon my sweet, soon.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
What's In Your Hanger?
Spend enough time in Eve and don't throw stuff out and eventually you collect... stuff. Tourists, drugs, BPC of odd items, etc. So I thought I would take you through a tour of my Miscellaneous station container. Enjoy!
(Click to Embiggen)
I got a mining mission once and, I swear to god, I put eight mining lasers on my Rokh and tried to get the Green Arisite the agent asked for. And after a few minutes I said "screw this" and docked. Hence the small rock of useless ore.
The blueprints are for COSMOS items that require insane skills to build and are not that impressive anyways. The blueprints have a cool factor though. And the Medium Shadow control tower I picked up when visiting Syndicate a while back.
I don't even know where I got Zbikoki's Hacker card from. The Graduation certificates are not Kirith's they were another alt's possession that got consolidated here. Imperial Navy Gate Permit from missions, and I think the R.S. Officer's Passcard was from a COSMOS mission but I could be mistaken.
I love tags, so collected a few of them that I haven't turned in. And Drugs; can't get enough drugs in my hanger. I'm not a user, I just like being badass enough to have them around.
(click to make big)
More drugs. Kirith would be a hit at a rave. Some more tags, this time from the Amarr Navy. No wonder they hate me.
Some trade goods I picked up when I tried NPC piracy as well as some leftover objectives from missions. Yum, Quafe Ultra; its the Red Bull of New Eden. And everyone should have a stockpile of Small Arms on hand.
More mission ID Slices. Then we get into the "livestock"; my pride and joy, the 20 Elite Slaves and 84(!) Exotic Dancers. Don't get me wrong: I feel bad about having slaves but the only thing one can do with them is sell them via a contract or trash them. I think their chances of a good life are better with me than some Amarrian overlord browsing contracts or the station trash compactor.
A Janitorial staff is a necessity on Minmatar stations, and the Khanid Commander is really a hostage kept docile by my drug stockpile. The fact that there is 30 sheep and 30 marines is completely coincidental. "Militants", "Bodyguards", same difference. The prisioners are in the same boat as the slaves really.
The Ship's crew is my pool of spares for when regular crew have to go on leave. And the Slaver Hounds are NOT for keeping the Elite Slaves in line, that's what the bodyguards do. The hounds are for my retirement farm I plan to own someday on Gulfonodi III.
(more clicking, less screenspace!)
The tourists I've had for about a year now; I'd send them home but they won't tell me where that is! As you can tell from the picture, the VIP is very pissed off he is living in a can in my hanger. And in the second row, five freed slaves! W00t! It is possible, I just don't know how... and who would clean my room if I did free the Elite slaves?
Don't ask me why I have several samples of various pirate DNA. Don't ask me what form they take either...
The high-tech small arms cache I keep under lock and key and its ready to go to the militants if the tourists and the Elite Slaves get uppity. The Elite Drone AIs are for all those Elite drones I never plan to make.
The Frentix booster is from when I wrote the Boosters Eve Tribune article. I swear I'm not additicted.
Then we have some implants and mindlinks for future projects, nothing of great interest except the Zor Custom Nav Hyperlink which I may even insert into my skull one day.
Finally we have some skill books I'm scheduled to tra- ... what the hell? Jump Drive Calibration? I already had it? SHIT! That cost me 27.5 million ISK to buy last week! *fumes* I guess I'll be selling a skillbook this weekend.
(Click to Embiggen)
I got a mining mission once and, I swear to god, I put eight mining lasers on my Rokh and tried to get the Green Arisite the agent asked for. And after a few minutes I said "screw this" and docked. Hence the small rock of useless ore.
The blueprints are for COSMOS items that require insane skills to build and are not that impressive anyways. The blueprints have a cool factor though. And the Medium Shadow control tower I picked up when visiting Syndicate a while back.
I don't even know where I got Zbikoki's Hacker card from. The Graduation certificates are not Kirith's they were another alt's possession that got consolidated here. Imperial Navy Gate Permit from missions, and I think the R.S. Officer's Passcard was from a COSMOS mission but I could be mistaken.
I love tags, so collected a few of them that I haven't turned in. And Drugs; can't get enough drugs in my hanger. I'm not a user, I just like being badass enough to have them around.
(click to make big)
More drugs. Kirith would be a hit at a rave. Some more tags, this time from the Amarr Navy. No wonder they hate me.
Some trade goods I picked up when I tried NPC piracy as well as some leftover objectives from missions. Yum, Quafe Ultra; its the Red Bull of New Eden. And everyone should have a stockpile of Small Arms on hand.
More mission ID Slices. Then we get into the "livestock"; my pride and joy, the 20 Elite Slaves and 84(!) Exotic Dancers. Don't get me wrong: I feel bad about having slaves but the only thing one can do with them is sell them via a contract or trash them. I think their chances of a good life are better with me than some Amarrian overlord browsing contracts or the station trash compactor.
A Janitorial staff is a necessity on Minmatar stations, and the Khanid Commander is really a hostage kept docile by my drug stockpile. The fact that there is 30 sheep and 30 marines is completely coincidental. "Militants", "Bodyguards", same difference. The prisioners are in the same boat as the slaves really.
The Ship's crew is my pool of spares for when regular crew have to go on leave. And the Slaver Hounds are NOT for keeping the Elite Slaves in line, that's what the bodyguards do. The hounds are for my retirement farm I plan to own someday on Gulfonodi III.
(more clicking, less screenspace!)
The tourists I've had for about a year now; I'd send them home but they won't tell me where that is! As you can tell from the picture, the VIP is very pissed off he is living in a can in my hanger. And in the second row, five freed slaves! W00t! It is possible, I just don't know how... and who would clean my room if I did free the Elite slaves?
Don't ask me why I have several samples of various pirate DNA. Don't ask me what form they take either...
The high-tech small arms cache I keep under lock and key and its ready to go to the militants if the tourists and the Elite Slaves get uppity. The Elite Drone AIs are for all those Elite drones I never plan to make.
The Frentix booster is from when I wrote the Boosters Eve Tribune article. I swear I'm not additicted.
Then we have some implants and mindlinks for future projects, nothing of great interest except the Zor Custom Nav Hyperlink which I may even insert into my skull one day.
Finally we have some skill books I'm scheduled to tra- ... what the hell? Jump Drive Calibration? I already had it? SHIT! That cost me 27.5 million ISK to buy last week! *fumes* I guess I'll be selling a skillbook this weekend.
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