Shut Up We're Talking #52

I'm happy to report I got invited back to guest on SUWT #52 with Andrew. We had a good time recording it as I was much more at ease with the process and more ready to speak instead of just listen.

Back to regular blogging on Tuesday! (Monday is holiday here in The Great White North.)

Mid Vacation Update

I'll let the Carebear Brigade tell you about the trip to the zoo:

"Sooooo tired......"

On the other hand, we'll let them rest.

I've had some free time to fool around in Eve. No solid blocks but bits and pieces here and there while at home farting around.

With Derranna I tried some high sec scanning one night and found a Ladar site with a couple gas clouds. I experimented with gas cloud mining and trained up a couple levels in battlecruiser so I could make an official kick ass gas cloud miner out of a Hurricane.

Kirith has purchased and outfitted a couple interceptors and I did manage to run a mission in the Nightmare one evening. As expected, it rocked.

I also got out my mining character I have and did some ice mining with Derranna using the Orca as hauler and mining booster. Seems like a nice quiet activity that might go well with a POS for R&D some day.

On the R&D front I invented 9 Manticore BPCs out of 16 tries (very nice) and should be building them next week.

On the trade front, increased competition has driven down the profit returns as expected but I'm still making nice coin when I get a chance to log on and adjust market orders.

For Skills, Kirith is almost done Advanced Weapon Upgrades V (finally!) and Derranna is training Logistics II as I type this.

Another week to go!

Mid Vacation HOLY CRAP Post

From the latest Dev Blog called "COSMOS":

The starting platform will have your character, corporation and alliance profiles, a new mail system and a new contacts system, which brings in two-way agreed friendships. The mail and contacts system will have parallel functionality on the all-new COSMOS website as well as in-game, so you will have the same mail and other information both in- and out-of-game. Following the first release, we will be churning out additional features and will have an ongoing team of developers and designers working full-time on COSMOS.

Emphasis mine on the TRULY AWESOME bits. I'm telling ya, quality of life features take little effort and go a long way to customer happiness.

Gone Fishing

I'm going on vacation for the next two weeks so posting will be light if not non-existent. Hopefully there will be some time in game while I'm off but I make no guarantees.

When I get back the corp should be heading back to 0.0, I'll be writing more articles, and showing off the trillions of isk I earned trading ;)

Fly safe!

More on the Fall of IRC

In the Eve Tribune this week, I give a more in depth view of my thoughts on the fall of IRC. Its worth noting that when I wrote it, we were still intending on staying in the alliance.

Ok, This Is Insane (Not!)

Ok, I admit I went into hyperbole last post about the potential profits of trading. No one is going to make 347 million ISK from 100 million by trading for a year.

As MarvinDaMart said:

Oh yeah its the easiest way to make isk. But don't kid yourself that your performance at the start can be extrapolated to what you make when you have 10s of billions of isk. As you start to saturate your markets you find that new isk markets become harder to exploit to the same degree and rather than 18% / 4 days you may find that its closer to 8 or 9 %. I currently average 1.5% per day but this is on tens of billions of isk so that amounts to hundreds of millions / day.

BTW you should check out the eve program called EMMA on the forums. Its a great way to track your isk making progress. It cost 100 mill but its well worth it imho. Anyways good luck!

The point is, every market has a sweet spot where beyond that the more you invest the lower the return. You can't buy more items than people are selling and you can't sell more items than people are willing to buy. Plus, competition from other traders cuts margins, as do game mechanic changes, market fluctuations, etc.

My last post should have had a disclaimer about these facts but I was a little too "in the moment" while writing it, drooling at the thought of buy a few dozen Wyverns for use (ignoring the fact you can't dock them). ;)

Still, there is money to be made by the patient and the clever. I recommend giving it a try.

Ok, This Is Insane

I started my commodities trading on Monday with 791 million ISK and a general thought of "let's turn it into more ISK". With about 30 minutes of effort (spread in several ~5 minute chunks) for 4 days I've turned it into 934 million ISK, about 18% profit return.

Holy crap. I'm flabbergasted. I mean, I knew I could turn a profit but I did not expect it to be so much so fast. It does help that I have lots of ISK to start with but at this rate I will have doubled my money in about 23 days.

So the real question everyone wants to know is how long would it take to turn 100 million ISK at 18% return every four days into a billion ISK? 10 billion? 50? Well, let me put it this way... in two months it would be over a billion, four months would net you 14 billion, and in one year it would grow to 347 TRILLION ISK.

Now, I'll gladly acknowledge that my experience may not be typical. Perhaps the market is particularly hot or maybe my competition is slow on the draw this week. But still, this is the easiest ISK I've made in Eve.

Angel Extravaganza

Last night I was watching TV with the wife and the laptop and everything in Eve was in order: no industry this week while I played with the markets, market orders were all up to date, and all my stuff was in the right stations. I had about an hour to blow and several options, but a few of the options worked best if I was using two clients and the laptop's graphics card was not usually up to that task, and since I don't like PvPing while distracted I decided to do a mission.

I haven't done a mission in months, solo or in a gang. It would be nice change of pace to see how the Nightmare holds up in a short mission, I thought to myself. So I jumped in the Draconis Diabolic and flew to my old haunts in Molden Heath. I haven't been back here since mid last year. Feels good, like a favourite shirt.

I talked to my old level four agent in the Republic Fleet and he seems all happy to see me again. Of course, I can tell his true feelings by the mission he assigned to me: Angel Extravaganza, one of the longest missions you can get. Sigh. I fucking hate that guy.

So I head out and battle the Angels once more. The Nightmare performed very nicely indeed. Its 20K shield points proved a nice buffer that meant I rarely needed to run the Shield Booster, and the cap was stable to about 75% when the booster was off even with weapons and hardeners running. What this meant was that I could pulse the booster every once in a while and then have the cap regenerate on its own in between pulses. And the DPS this thing throws melted most of the Angel rats in short order like blasters would but at much more flexible ranges. P.S. I love how switching crystals is instantaneous, my god, that is so handy.

I finished the first two rooms before heading off to bed, and this morning before heading to work I cleared the rest. The only time I had trouble was when the Gist Saint battleships would maintain range of about 32-33 kilometers and force me to use my Standard crystals instead of Multi-frequency ones to hit him.

I got a nice chunk of change and a hardwiring implant for afterburner speed or duration, I can't remember which. Here are some pictures of the proceedings:



Yeah, I like my new ship. :)

Podcast Overload

When I first considered recording my own podcast at the beginning of June, the field of Eve only podcasts was very sparse. Fly Reckless was back with a new host, but the Drone Bay and Warp Drive Active were still AWOL and Titan Weekly was defunct.

Of course, as soon as I said I'll make one everybody else got in the act and now we have a surfeit of podcasts. Along with Fly Reckless:
- Warp Drive Active and The Drone Bay are back
- Podded Podcast has started up again
- Declarations of War started

So of course I enter into existential angst mode. Can Eve support yet another podcast? How can I make it different as to not repeat what others might do just as well or better than me? Should I hold off until the field thins a bit?

I pondered this as I listened to the latest Warp Drive Active podcast today. I came to the conclusion that my Broadcasts from the Ninveah podcast would bring something different as I plan to do shows that focus less on my activities or the current null sec news sound bites, but more on broad topics affecting the game with more consideration involved as to the implications. For example, Eve Online Series of Poker is as much a part of Eve as mining now, should it and other player run side games/events be integrated more into the game as Ambulation comes to fruition, or should they be left outside the confines of the game? Should the devs code some sort of stock market and regulated banking system or should it be left in the hands of the players? These are examples of topics that I think can be explored more deeply in a show that focuses less on news and "what are we doing lately"... not that there is anything wrong with that. I love hearing about how other pilots play the game and the shenanigans they get into.

So, too long/didn't read version: podcast is still a go for this fall. I'll be lining up my first guest in the late August timeframe.

A Little Bit Darker

So I get the word last night that our esteemed corporate leadership (and I say that without sarcasm) have found a new alliance opportunity for us. For security reasons I won't spill the beans until its official in a couple weeks. But one thing of note that I can talk about is that we're trading in our mostly pristine white hats for something a little bit darker.

says if we join , all gloves are off and there are only 4 things that are off limits
1. No ransoming
2. No high sec can tipping
3. No high sec ganks unless it is a red
4. No shooting blues

When I joined m3 back last year we were strictly NRDS policy (Not Red, Don't Shoot) which still provided us lots of targets but was considered an anti-piracy position when living in Sukanan low sec constellation. In IRC I can't remember what the exact policy was but I have the impression it was fairly benign and not accepting of going into low sec and ganking neutrals.

With this new alliance, those restrictions are gone. As you can see above, a lot more targets are fair game. On top of that we are expected as a PvP corp to keep up a certain level of combat efficiency, i.e. get more killmails than lossmails. That is intimidating for a casual player like me but I'm game to give it a try.

Another thing that is an issue (and by "issue" I mean something to deal with as a matter of course, not something that is a problem) is that they probably run in faster ships like interceptors and HACs. Unfortunately, my hanger got a lot smaller with the ships I left in DIZ to die and I currently have 6 battleships in my inventory but only one Harpy Assault Frigate and two Falcons. Time to go shopping for some small ships like Stealth Bombers, Interceptors, and HACs.

Oh wait, I do have one HAC in my arsenal, a sniper Eagle. Still need the rest though.

All in all, going to be a busy August!

Quick Update On Trading

When I started the trading effort on Monday I had 792 million ISK to invest. As of this morning I have 871 million in ISK and orders. I admit I am making money faster than expected. This requires a new post tag.

That is all, carry on.

Shut Up We're Talking #51

Whenever I was losing at tennis to Andrew in our weekly games, I could always think "at least I've been on SUWT and he hasn't". Well, now I've lost that one solace has he got to be the guest on this episode much to my dismay.

In this podcast they talked about the Ricdic stealing money from Eve bank and white collar crime in Eve in general. I don't have much to add that they didn't cover but I will say that I have vacillated back and forth from more developer control of financial institutions to less. Right now I'm at the "leave it alone" stage and I'll tell you why.

In the Lore, players represent people who are, for all intents and purposes, above the law of man. They are an immortal elite class of super rich that care very little for the happenings of the billions on the planets below. The faction governments are at best peers and at worst annoyances to be dealt with as the capsuleers see fit. There is no government organization that could run a bank for them and enforce any punishment should the pod pilots steal from them. In the end, the pilots have to provide the service for themselves and police it themselves.

In regards to player run banks, the operates of Eve Bank have learned from earlier failed banks and set it up so that if a teller like Ricdic went bad and stole from the vault the effect on the bank as a whole would be mitigated. Despite losing hundreds of billions of ISK to Ricdic and have a run on the bank, it remained solvent and operational and is still doing business. Dynasty Bank however was not setup as well and people lost money when it went south.

* * * * *
In regards to the Guiding Hand Social Club theft, I want to clear up the incident as it got a little muddled in the podcast. Here is an article about it from PC Gamer. This event happened in 2005, not 2008. The theft occurred of assets in the corporate hangers and corporate wallet, not the targets personal wallet or hanger even though the assets stolen could be considered hers. And they did not take her out to null sec and kill her, they lured her out and then turned on her as the theft occurred.

Minor points, but it supports Andrew's statement that ISK in your wallet and assets in your personal hanger are safe from theft. You have to be scammed out of your money and stuff.

* * * * *
Finally, I want to say I totally agree with Andrew that what Blizzard is doing with gender changes, hair and facial changes, and even server changes can be considered micro transactions. Not only can be, HAVE to be even though they don't fit the word micro very well. They are not Account Services; account services is updating your payment details or paying for more game time. Perhaps in the past once could consider moving a character from one server to another an account service, but I think that time has past for me. They are microtransactions, players paying for upgrades/alterations to their character with real money.

All in all a great podcast!

My ALT Has More Skill Points Than You!

I totally missed that when Derranna got Minmatar Cruiser V trained up she passed over 40 million skillpoints. Here is her skill category breakdown.


For comparison, here is how Kirith's 47.9 million skillpoints look like:

Random Thoughts

Without any real thought behind them:

1. Make POS towers and modules unavailable from NPCs. Instead seed the blueprints and make players make them.

2. Same for all the trade good items (maybe).

3. Goons do not suck at this game, they are not easy pickings, and they are not the worst thing to happen to Eve. If they choose to throw away ships in engagements it is because they can afford to. If they choose to play hard using metagaming like spies and propaganda, you better be ready for it. If they have the diplomatic skills to keep a large list of alliances blue, you shouldn't complain when they bring friends to a fight. Sitting in your forums and saying they suck and you are going to kill them all is really stupid when they can read that and use that to bolster their morale as they remove your alliance from the map.

I'm not saying they deserve big kudos for killing Bob's sovereignty, but they do deserve acclaim for moving into Delve and Querious wholesale and finishing the job. Who else could (or even would) try that and succeed?

4. Tech II versions of the Tier 2 battlecrusiers and Tier 3 battleships are due now.

5. As is the +25m3 drone bay on the Rokh.

6. More Faction ships. I want a faction Blackbird and Moa. And Faction Ferox.

7. More powergrid for the Nighthawk while you're at it.

8. Damn my throat hurts.

9. Yeah, that's it for now.

New Ships

Here are the setups I decided upon for my new ships.

Abaddon:


This ship is a compliment to my Blaster Rokh, trading sheer damage for improved range of Pulse Lasers, tackle capability, and a huge buffer tank. It can take a world of punishment and still slap a guy around, plus the warp disruptor and webber will keep targets in place while I finish them off.

Also, when I talked about my Rokh battleship in my dust up last week I mentioned I have four Magnetic Field Stabs and Mr Krishan commented that:

Um... the 4th magstab is definately wasted. Stacking penalties will give you almost no bonus from it, compared to other modules.

The stacking penalty means that the fourth mod is about 28% as effective as the first. This means that instead of giving a further 10% damage bonus and -10.5% duration speed up, it only gives a 2.8% damage bonus and -2.9% speed up bonus. But when dealing with large damage dealing ships like the Blaster Rokh that translates to about an additional 50 Damage points per second for that fourth module. When going for pure damage, I find the other options for this particular ship setup are not as attractive.

Basilisk:


Asssuming I'm working without another Logistic ship, this setup is designed to be cap stable while pouring out the shield repairs and energy transfers. Plus it has enough fitting room to switch to four large shield transfer arrays if cap energy is not required. The Drone Link Augmentors are there to allow me to send the light shield maintenance drones up to 94 km away should the situation call for it, and I put a little bit of tank on there in case a stray missile comes my way. I mostly see using this in POS repair ops or PvE situations.

Nighthawk:


I had a very hard time deciding on a Nighthawk setup. I wanted to make a true command ship but the lack of adequate powergrid meant I couldn't get 6 heavy missile launchers, a warfare link module, propulsion module, and a solid tank on one ship. The best I could do required a Reactor Control Unit and had only 6000 shield hit points (albeit with awesome resistances) and that seemed inadequate for a battlecruiser class tech II variant. The other option I did not explore was to forego all 6 missile launchers but I think I'd rather try the Vulture than gimp the Nighthawk like that.

Since I don't need another level four mission running ship (I've got the Nightmare for that thank you) I decided to make a Wormhole ship for fighting sleepers. Solid passive tank, some DPS, and a core probe launcher.

I'm tempted to drop another Ballistic Control System for a fourth Shield Power relay and put that recharge in the 760 points per second area but I'm worried that the DPS is too low already. Thoughts?

Consolidation

The move to Metropolis from Tash-Murkon region and then the several trips to D-IZ station in Etherium Reach stretched me out a bit over the past two months. Then escaping from D-IZ before the xXDeathXx/Goon noose tightened also scattered me a bit. Couple those events with several purchases of ships and mods and I was all over the place.

Since m3 corp was out of IRC we were free of the opportunistic wars declared on the alliance and I used Derranna and her trusty tech II haulers to consolidate assets like they were going out of style last night. I visited low sec where the carrier was stationed to pick up my mods and ammo from null sec, visited Rens to pick up the new mods for the new ships (another post on that later), Hek to get some Logistic drones for the carrier which I ashamedly admit I didn't have before, and Illinfrik to pick up some skill books. Kirith himself flew down to Pimebeka in Tash Murkon region to pick up a PvP Dominix battleship that got left behind in the inital move.

By the end of the session all my assets were in one place for Kirith (with the exception of the stuff that got left in 0.0 sadly), and another for Derranna. As we are between alliances (but in talks I hear to join a new one) I'm not planning on moving anywhere else for the moment.

On the industrial front, I need to build the Invulnerability Fields I invented and get some more invention on the go. That's tonight's task.

In skill training news, Kirith is half way through the slog that is Advanced Weapon Upgrades V. Derranna completed Minmatar Cruiser V and is doing the week training for Long Range Targeting V after which she can fly Logistic cruiser Scimitar. She'll still need more training for the modules though.

Finally, a shout out to Carver who evemailed me and gave me some kind words about my blog and told me his corp and alliance had room for me if I was looking for a change of venue. I really appreciate the offer but as I told him the pilots in m3 are my buds right now and I enjoy flying with them for the foreseeable future.

Hello baby!

I get back from Jiu Jitsu class and check my reader feeds to see a new Eve Dev Blog waiting for me. It starts off with basic stuff about increasing rewards for militia pilots and then gets into the new faction items available only to militia Loyalty Point Stores.

That's when I sat up straight in my chair.

Faction Drones.

Faction plates and shield extenders.

Faction implants that increase sensor strength.

Faction cap charges that are 25% smaller.

Faction energy transfer array and power diagnostic system.

Hello baby! That's some sexy shit. The new drones are especially interesting:

1. Faction light, medium and heavy combat drones (drone types are based from the FW militia):

Attributes: -15% damage, +10% tracking, +100% armor and shield hitpoints next to TII drones.

Offer requirements: x5 of them for x5 TI drones, between 3,000-5,000 LP and 3-5m ISK depending on the size

2. Faction sentry drones (drone types are based from the FW militia):

Attributes: -10% damage, +5% tracking, +100% armor and shield hitpoints next to TII drones

Offer requirements: x5 of them for x5 TI drones, 6,000 LP and 6m ISK

I like that they don't have more damage than Tech II drones but better attributes in tracking and hitpoints.

And the new cap charges?

5. Faction cap charges (sizes from 100 to 800, available for all FW militias):

Attributes: 25% less volume than regular cap boosters

Total requirements: x20 for x20 regular cap boosters, between 100-2,000 LP, 100k-2m ISK depending on size

This is huge (or smaller actually)! Because not only can you get more charges into your cap booster, you can carry more of them in your cargo hold which is nice for cap heavy battleships that count on those charges for tanks and weapons during PvP.

These new items are not game changing but its definitely going to shake up the field of ship fittings. I can't wait to see how they price on the market a few months after the patch.

Investing

When I lamented my embarrassment of riches last week ReatuKrentor commented:

Use money to make more money? then when you have more money use it to make a lot of money? then upgrade the Ninveah to a mom? jus'sayin'

Sigh. It would be the responsible thing to do. Even if I don't go for a Wyvern so I'm not trapped in a Mothership all the time, I could build up a nice bank account in case I ever need to purchase the Ninveah II. And I do have a lot of ships in my hanger already.

I've done commodities trading on a small scale (i.e. in the hundreds of millions) before and made a nice little profit at it. I think its time I tried it again on a larger scale and see if I can't turn my ISK into something more formidable.

But I'll do that after I setup my new ships.

So Long IRC

In a week my CEO went from "yeah, we'll stick it out and help rebuild" to "Enough of this, cheque please!". I don't know what the straw is that broke the camel's back, but I've seen and heard enough to understand where he is coming from.

When I announced we were joining IRC in May, X1376 commented:

I should wish you all the best, good luck, iron nerves, balls of steel and especially a good stomach. The last one will be needed, when you enter IRC full of incompetency, secrecy and drama. I grown there and left IRC when patience with leadership run out.

I don't know about drama as I've been in political situations with far more drama over less happenings. I can't comment on incompetency as those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But the secrecy of IRC high command has got to be the most insane.

Yes, we were infiltrated by spies and I can understand not wanting to announce plans publically on the forums. But at the same time, not announcing anything left most of the membership in the absolute fracking dark and virtually helpless to prepare for events.

Couple that with the ultimate debacle that has been the withdrawal from the dronelands and I can see how my CEO just got fed up with it. Since he wasn't part of the High Command he knew barely more than we did, and after the announcement that we were withdrawing to Curse region we pulled our stuff out immediately only to watch the rest of the alliance flounder. No organization breakouts, no alliance coordination, half in Curse, half stuck in DIZ, and then one after another corp leaving.

IRC has (had?) some good people in it, and some great FCs. But High Command has got to go. I mean, come on: when high command doesn't even understand the proper way to move 30+ BILLION isk worth of BPOs then its time for new leadership (I'll give you a hint Oldma... it involves a scout... for 1 billion ISK I'll show you and the rest of HC how its done).

In the end though, the greatest failure of High Command has been the inability to keep neighbours friendly. Its great that you're best friends with Ethereal Dawn and all, but not keeping xXDeathXx happy was a recipe for disaster. Joined at the hip and blue up until the opening of major hostilities, they knew all the spots of where to hit jump bridges and cyno beacons and had time to build up the resources to hit hard when we were exhausted from the war with RA. In all frankness, they tore us apart like we were paper towel. The fact we couldn't muster the effort to defend DIZ consistently spoke volumes of how long the fight was going to last.

Ah well, its in the past now. Good luck to the remains of IRC... they're going to need it.

Dammit, Rich Again

Due to the five Manticores that I built selling in a single half day, and an unexpected 700 million ISK coming in from other project, I find myself once more bulging at the seams with ISK.

Dammit, I just got through this problem! Sigh.

In all seriousness, I really am at a loss on what to purchase at the moment. I will probably buy fittings for the Abaddon and Nighthawk and Basilisk I purchased last week but I don't see that going over the 200 million mark.

Hmmmm....

Well, I did buy those skillbooks for a Caldari Strategic Cruiser. And with the latest patch the prices might be coming down.

On the other hand, Derranna is only 100 days from being able to fly a Minmatar carrier and that might be another logistics tool in my arsenal.

Of course, I need a Black Ops battleship for Kirith. He's got the skill to fly one (but not use the jump bridge yet).

Alright, its decided. Widow it is. Of course, I'll build my own as I still have those BPCs from when they first came out. Time to make a shopping list.

Tussle

Last night as I was "watching" TV with the wife on the couch I had the laptop on and I used the relative downtime to consolidate some assets in empire (Ninveah needs logistic drones!), chat with corpies, and manage the market orders.

Near the end of the evening as I was going to get the last of my ships three jumps away, I saw a war target in a Drake battlecruiser on a gate I passed through, specifically Kostantin Mort of Exalted alliance (ok, technically "Exalted." but that period screws me up when re-reading the post). I wasn't in anything that could engage so I carried on my way and picked up my Buzzard. I went back to the system and saw he was still in local but not on the gate.

I warped to my station and saw him sitting on the undock port. I docked as the Buzzard was inadequate for fighting (obviously) and considered my options.

It was a low-odds scenario for me. Not on my main computer, no voice comms, no intel from surrounding systems, no friends in close proximity. For all I knew that Drake could be bait and a fleet ready to jump in and engage me next door. Exalted pilots are not fools.

But...

But I really wanted to shoot him. Action had come looking for me and I was loathe to turn it down without giving it a shot. Despite the little voice in my head shouting "This is a bad idea!", I began to rummage through my hanger for a ship to fight with. I quickly settled on Vera Causa, my Rokh battleship built with one thing in mind: hitting something hard. I figured the Drake would have a good tank so I would try and overpower it as quickly as possible.

I undocked and he was still there and he targeted me. I returned the favour. As faction heavy assault missiles and drones flew at me, I worked to get optimal range and activated my own weapons and sent my ECM drones at him. My shields held up nicely but his shields? Well, when you have a full rack of Heavy Neutron Blaster Cannon IIs with Caldari Navy Antimatter ammo and four tech II Magnetic Field Stabs, almost anything will feel it.

He warped off. I had no tackle gear so it wasn't an unexpected result. Last I saw he shields were falling quickly below the 50% mark and mine were holding nicely and I think had we traded a few more salvoes it would have been very much in my favour. Pleased that I gave him something to think about, I recalled the drones, saluted him in local, and logged to go to bed. I'm sure I won't catch him offguard or alone next time so I'll have to be less cavalier, but sometimes you just need to engage even if its not the best situation to do so.

Cheers Kostantin Mort, hope I see you again.

The Problem With Killboards

Every alliance has a killboard. It can be a useful tool for tracking progress of campaigns and identifying people who need help with their setups.

But the problem with killboards is that they don't necessarily reflect reality. Take for example my stats on the m3 corp killboard and the IRC alliance killboard.

Kirith Kodachi @ m3 killboard

Kills:	17	Real kills:	17
Losses:	1	Real losses:	1
Damage done:	469.46M	Damage received:	5.9M
Kill Ratio:	17 : 1	Efficiency:	98.76%

Kirith Kodachi @ IRC killboard

Kills:	9
Real kills:	9
Losses:	9
Damage done (ISK):	1.5B
Damage received (ISK):	0.34B
Chance of enemy survival:	50%
Pilot Efficiency (ISK):	81.58%

On the m3 killboard I have only 1 loss while I have 9 losses reported on the IRC killboard. That's a huge discrepancy; am I not reporting losses? Take a look. They are all from March 2008 or earlier, including my first ever ship loss of a Cormorant in October of 2006. None of the killmails are from a time I was actually in m3 corp much less IRC alliance. On the other side of the coin, the IRC killboard doesn't have a lot of the kills I was part of while I was in m3 but not in IRC.

These old killmails show up because IRC killboard used to autosynch with other alliance killboards. Hence getting old unrelated killmails. Even the m3 killboard has issues: the two latest POS kills are duplicated and a third one is as well.

So what's the truth? Am I a fierce 17:1 killer or a 9:9 hapless pvper? The answer is inbetween the two numbers and depends on what set of data you want to look at. Suffice to say I try hard to fly the best ship and equipment I can afford in the most befitting manner when online. What more can a pilot do?

Turning Tables

A couple weeks ago I pointed out that Red Alliance was in a failure cascade. Considering how much the situation has changed since then, I figured it was only fair to revisit the issue with a new post.

Let's look at DOTLan maps once more for Red Alliance:


The precipitous drop from their internal strife appears to be levelling out, they've retaken 688T-Z system and station in Etherium Reach and, with IRC and Ethereal Dawn being forced out of Etherium Reach by allies of RA, they have hope of taking more space and assets in that region. In other words, I predict that RA is at the end of their cascade and is in the process of turning things around.

Now, let's look at IRC:


A drop in membership, corporations, outposts, and sovreignty. And much more to come. I have to face facts, its the beginning of a failure cascade and the only question of how far will it go and will the alliance bounce back. M3 is betting that it will and I'm very willing to go along with that bet for now. After all, the other option is to go back to cooling our heels in Empire again and that is not any fun.

My only regret about the time in IRC so far has been all the effort I spent doing logistics to get our corp settled and established in Etherium Reach over the month of June. I didn't have any time to rat or make ISK, and probably lost money due to the fuel bills that were mostly covered by corp payments. I hope the next 0.0 space we inhabit gives me more time for enjoying the fruits of 0.0 space.

(I expect a Goon to drop by and comment to the effect that "IRC will never hold space again... BWHAHAHAHAHAHHA!")

I admit some curiousity on how the stations in Etherium Reach will be divied up by the conquerers. With xXDeathXx claim all the IRC ones, or will some Northern Coalition alliances move in? Time will tell.

Fighting Spacecraft: Ashimmu

Rarely seen on the battlefield, the Blood Raider Ashimmu is similar to a Pilgrim or Curse except with long range webbers too. Enjoy.

Stealth Production

With my move of main assets from 0.0 space complete, I was able to do some leisurely gaming last night and get back on my industrial tasks. Last time I was working on it I had completed 12 invention tries for Manticores and got 5 successes so last night I bought the parts and moved them to the factories to start building them.

Then I looked at Invulnerability Field invention and did 20 tries, getting only 5 successes again. Sigh. Win some lose some.

I might spend some time looking for a local lab with copy slots that are relatively unburdened so I can copy these BPOs again. Anyone out there with a POS with labs willing to accept one of my alts to do copies? Another option is to set up a POS again. Hmmmm, we'll see what the next couple of weeks brings.

Escape From DIZ

I'm writing a piece for the Tribune on the fall of Intrepid Crossing which is well underway. I don't know if it qualifies as a failure cascade when members of 10+ alliances decide you need to die and you can count the number of your friends on one hand.

Regardless, the order has been given to move expensive assets out of the IRC capital of DIZ as sov 4 is going to end on the system and when that happens we expect a hostile tsunami to arrive to take the system. So yesterday the process was begun to get our assets secured away from the heat so we could help in the rebuilding of the alliance.

I had no problems get the Ninveah out safely. I made the first jump solo to an operating beacon and waited in a safe spot in a quiet system while a director prepared the next cyno.

Chimera at sunrise:


Then after the second jump to a friendly POS I waited for another corpmate, an ex-Strife pilot as well, to get his act together and get his Moros on the cyno train. Once there we waited for another director to setup the last beacon in low sec where we could dock and breath a sigh of relief.

Waiting for the next beacon:


Losing cruisers and battleships is one thing; losing a fully equipped capital is another thing entirely (even if its only T2 equipped). So now we can concetrate on participating in the fighting retreat, secure in the knowledge that we go down with our heads held high that it took a lot of enemy firepower after a knock down and drag out war with RA to finish us off.

Getting Riggy With It Part II

In the latest Dev Blog CCP Chronotis explains how the new rigs sizes are going to work. Go and read and come back.

Ok, done?

Right then, so what we have here is rigs that will be divided into three sizes and require different amounts of salvage parts to construct, yet retain the same bonuses and drawbacks of the original. I assume they do this with some boolean bit flags on the back end rather than messing with calibration or something else. Regardless, it means than the price scaling for small and medium rigs will ensure that Tech II frigates and cruisers will have mandatory rigs now as opposed to merely optional for the cheap.

All in all, a decent change.

What I found far more interesting where the bread crumbs at the end of the article:

3. Salvage Conversion

Salvage conversion is something we have wanted to look at for a while. This is the ability to effectively fix broken salvage so it can be used to manufacture Tech II rigs. The most likely way this will be done is a through a reactor which will convert a quantity of broken salvage to fixed salvage in reactors which can be placed at high sec starbases.

This is interesting as it means that the prices of Tech II rigs will fall as people will be able to get the Tech II salvage they need to build them. I applaud this move as long as the conversion from broken salvage to tech II salvage is cost effective in the long run of stabilized Tech II rig prices.

Side note CCP: stop calling them reactors. Call them factories or something else that makes more sense. Sigh.

4. Transport of Rigged Ships

This is something that can be a pain for many of you. There are ways around it such as using courier missions if the ship is small enough with a freighter or an Orca's ship maintenance bay for smaller ships. We will be looking into numerous ways to help alleviate the issue of transporting rigged ships.

Logistics is something very near and dear to my heart. And lord knows, moving rigged ships is a pain in the ass beyond all reckoning (especially when certain CEOs cannot remember which ships can go in which capitals). Rigged Battleships are the worst: can't be packaged in courier contract and can't fit in an Orca.

My reccomendation would be to allow some manner of removing rigs from ships, but causing damage to the ship and rigs as part of the removal process. Or have to pay a station a significant fee to assist with proper rig removal while allowing the player the option of doing it themselves and destroying the rig anyways.

Failing that, perhaps a third state for ships beyond the packaged and assembled states: call it packed. The ship is not completely packaged but its not completely assembled either. It can't be sold or flown but is much smaller than assembled in volume, maybe even almost as compact as a packaged ship. And it can go in cargo bays like a freighter (but not a ship maint hanger which would be assembled ships only still). A packed ship does not destroy the rigs on it.

Some ideas for you to think about.

Vent My Frustrations

I was away from home on the weekend but I was able to get on a PC both Friday night and Saturday for some Eve time. I was looking forward to getting into fleets and seeing some serious action. Unfortunately, I could not get Ventrilo working despite many efforts both nights.

The first night I had DNS problems, and by the time that was resolved it was bedtime (I had to get up early with the twins). Then on the second night, everything was working except Vent. Just would not log me on; Teamspeak worked perfectly but Intrepid Crossing uses Vent. I refuse to be in a fleet operation without voice comms as that is a recipe for disaster so I turned reluctantly to housekeeping duties in Empire that needed attention. Ships to move, stuff to buy, you know.

Last week I pondered what to do with some "found" money and now I have the answer. First off I buffered up my fleet with some new vessels:

Nighthawk


Basilisk


Abaddon


The first two are obvious why I bought them: command ships for fleet command, Logistics for fleet healing/energy. The third, the Abaddon, is simply because I like the Memories of Mynxee Armageddon so much I wanted to have a bigger version. None of the three ships are equipped yet, that will come later.

I also bought a Scimitar for Deranna when she is done her Logistics training, and the complete set of skill books for flying a Tengu Tech III Strategic cruiser. Finally I bought a Hulk and modules for it for my mining alt in case I ever decide to actually do mining with him.

* * * * *

I'll have something to say about the current war situation in the Drone Regions but I don't want to be a source of information to our enemies (although with spies I'm willing to bet most enemies know more than I do). So expect a post later in the week on the subject.

June In Review

Another month come and gone, and for the second month in a row we see growth in the numbers. Good stuff!

Month	Page Loads	Unique Visitors	First Time Visitors	Returning Visitors
Jun 2009	12,292	8,498	5,558	2,940
May 2009	11,507	7,620	5,026	2,594
Apr 2009	11,064	7,328	4,488	2,840
Mar 2009	14,452	8,957	5,733	3,224
Feb 2009	8,997	5,678	3,488	2,190
Jan 2009	5,772	4,013	2,597	1,416

In June we had an average of 410 page loads and 283 unique visitors per day. Busiest day was June 2nd with 1097 page loads and that was due to getting linked by Massively in regards to my "Places I've Been" meme.

June was interesting as our corp's first full month in Intrepid Crossing alliance. Lots of fighting, POS ops, and jump freighter hauls. I also started planning out the Podcast project to start in the fall and determined its name.

With the war heating up in Etherium Reach, the future is promising to be anything but boring.

Pictures From A POS Repair Op

Here are a couple screenshots I thought were worthy of posting from the POS repair OP that me and the Ninveah participated in on the weekend. As usual, click for larger image.

Waiting at the rally point.

Here you see the carriers approaching the POS force field so we can quickly jump in while repairing the tower's shields and the armour on the Jump Bridge POS module (upper left). The cloud of green stalks on the Jump Bridge is armour repair logistic drones from the carriers. The red beam between the Ninveah and another Chimera carrier is an energy transfer beam from each of us, exchanging cap and getting more back in return.


Yum, fresh energy!


Here's another look at the repair op from above the jump bridge.


As the tower returned to functionality, a Rorqual jumped in to put more strontium into it.


Cheers!

Ouch

While my derision at EBank's troubles appeared to be premature, another Eve bank appears to have been not so solid and has cost fellow blogger Manasi some serious ISK:

As of June 14th their website ( where you go to withdraw money etc..) stopped working. I have posted a couple of times on the market forums and did get some info from Hawkblade that the main guy running Dynasty Bank, is…. well MIA . Chances are I got screwed out of 1.1 Billion, yes you read that right…1.1 BILLION. With a B. I had been saving for a long while and to make some interest I dropped it into Dynasty Bank. Again if you have done this as I did, or dear god, even with my recommendation I can only apologize, and say I am sorry.

OUCH. My condolences friend.

Get Riggy With It

So in a recent dev blog they talk about the summer mini-expansion and one of the features caught my eye:

Small, Medium and Large rigs

Ever wanted to build the ultimate speed kite frigate but couldn‘t afford the rigs? Tank your cruiser to the max? Mod your little hauler? Now you can!

We are adding small and medium sized rigs ( existing rigs will be considered large rigs ), which will be cheaper to buy and make. With this we are hoping that more people may get introduced to the joys of rigging and the sorrow of losing your specially fitted beautifully rigged ship. CCP Chronitis will explain further in an upcoming blog.

Rigs, ultimately, failed to reach the price point the developers expected methinks. Even the cheapest rigs are multiple millions and throwing them on a tech 1 frigate or destroyer (or cruiser!) seemed like a waste.

Why did they fail to come down in price? I suspect market forces. After all, the only inputs are the blueprints and salvage parts, the former being relatively inexpensive and the latter costing only time to salvage from NPC wrecks. With all the mission runners and ratters salvaging, the supply of parts should be enough to provide the market with a good number of rigs, but the demand for them to put on larger tech I ships and Tech II ships outstripped the supply by a decent margin.

There becomes two ways to drive the price down: change the supply equation by either decreasing amounts of parts used for each rig or increasing the supply of salvage parts. In a fashion, CCP has decided to decrease the parts used.

The questions are
- how are they going to limit ships to certain sizes of the rigs,
- will destroyers use small or medium rigs, and will battlecruisers use medium or large,
- will small and medium rigs use the same parts in the same ratio but smaller proportions?

Time (and the dev blog) will tell.

Canada Day Hangover

I'm suffering from a Canada Day Hangover and I don't even drink.

Gah, need caffeine.

On the upside, to brighten up my day I see that E-ON magazine #16 is hot off the presses and entering the mail and I can final reveal that my secret project from early last month was writing an article for this issue! Specifically I wrote the test flight article about the Tech III Strategic Cruisers. That was a hard one due to write having particular word counts for each section, trying to decide with Zapatero's direction on how to approach the article, getting it done with good quality in a certain timeframe... and oh yeah learning about all four Tech III cruisers and the vast array of subsystem combinations to come up with builds for each ship.

I can't wait to see how it turned out and the other articles in there.