Stealth Bombers

I have a love hate relationship with Stealth Bombers. I love the concept of my Manticore, but I hate how I never find a reason to use it. The problem with the Stealth Bomber is two fold:
1) They are not very stealthy; and
2) They are fragile as heck.

The upshot of those two things is that they sure as hell better be able to kill what they uncloak to shoot at because chances are they won't survive the counter-blow. And since they can't currently warp around cloaked it means that either the enemy gets a chance to react to the arriving Stealth Bomber or you have to set up ahead of time and wait for a viable target to wander by. So typical use of the ships is to hunt industrials or frigate in low traffic areas. Hardly a glamorous life if you ask me.

Recognizing that Stealth Bombers are not in a happy place, CCP Chronotis has been batting around ideas to change them:

We are looking into improving and focusing bombers to be more bomber like with a more focused target group and bonuses which compliment this role much better.

The role of a stealthy glass cannon is to ambush and deliver a large amount of firepower through volleys of torpedoes onto large targets. To facilitate this new role better, the bonuses and some of the attributes are being changed appropriately.

So what are we looking at changing exactly?

1. Bombers will be able to fit covert ops cloak

However they will have a 30 second cloak reactivation delay. This means they can warp in cloaked and better surprise their targets in a true ambush. However once they are committed to the fight, they will not be able to recloak quickly as a drawback so choosing the right time to strike is essential.

2. Bombers will be able to fit and use siege launchers and fire torpedoes.

This allows them to inflict a high amount of alpha damage on larger targets and be serious threat to them. In gangs with other ships and available strategies will add significant damage to the fleet. They will no longer be able to fit cruise launchers as a result.

3. Bombers will gain bonuses to torpedoes

Each racial bomber will gain a damage bonus to their racial damage torpedoes (EM = amarr, Explosive = minmatar, Kinetic = caldari, thermal = gallente) and a torpedo explosion velocity bonus so they can better hit large targets which are moving in addition to a torpedo velocity bonus increasing the range and speed of the attack.

The line "[t]his allows them to inflict a high amount of alpha damage on larger targets and be serious threat to them" is telling; they want Stealth Bombers to be able to attack cruisers and bigger and not be a frigate killer using cruise missiles.

Its an interesting tact and a hard one at that. How do you create a frigate based hull capable of delivering significant blows to a well tanked crusier or battleship without unbalancing the ship entirely? Obviously almost all targets will require more than three torpedoes to be destroyed and since they are close range weapons, the bomber will be very vulnerable after uncloaking to attack.

Of course, one could argue that a team of stealth bombers with covert ops cloaks could be very dangerous. Even two might take out a tech 1 cruiser quickly with bonused torpedoes... but does that mean a single bomber is essentially useless on its own? That seems counterproductive.

If I had the design reigns what I would do for Stealth Bombers is simple: allow bombs to be used in low sec. That is to say, make them true bombers and forget the cruise missile and torpedo madness that only leads down a rabbit hole of not enough tank and not enough damage.

If bombs were allowed in low sec, the Stealth Bomber could not only be a big damage dealer with its alpha strike bombs, it could utilize its ECM and Energy Neutralizer bombs as well causing much havoc and hilarity. Well trained pilots with a bombing run could turn the tide of battle, or set up a superior number force for disaster with a well placed neut bomb. I know it can currently do these things in 0.0, but the smaller gang mechanics in low sec would benefit more from its abilities in my opinion.

They would be balanced by the fact that the bombs are more involved in aiming and shooting and can hurt your own fleet's ships if they are in the area of effect. And with no covert ops cloak, you have a chance to see them coming.

Tech II or Faction?

As my wallet grows (20 cloaks sold, 70 invul fields on market with another 70 ready in three days) I've started thinking seriously about the Nightmare I'm going to buy. Particularly the fittings.

Most of the ship is easy to fit out with tech II gear or faction if affordable. The problem is the weapons: I want tech II damage but I don't want to spend the two months training time to get them. I could settle for best named I suppose, but if I'm going to spend 900 million or more on a ship I figure I can spend a bit more on the weapons.

So I fired up the contracts this morning before work and checked out the faction Mega Pulse Lasers. There are four versions, Amarr Navy, Ammatar Navy, True Sansha, and Dark Blood and they all appear to be the same with a nice increase in raw damage over best named and Tech II Mega Pulse Lasers. No tech II crystals unfortunatley, but I can accept that.

They are expensive, ranging in price from 65 to 90 million a piece with average prices around 75-80 million. I mixed and matched and picked up a couple for 65 million, one at 72 million, and one more at 75 million. Spent more money on those four modules than on two entire Tier 3 battleships.

According the EFT the difference is about 32 DPS total and ten more minutes of capacitor energy when everything is running. Not much but every bit counts.

Almost Saw Action

With sick kids, its hard to get online. But Friday night I managed to sneak away and log in to assist in our war against The Initiative Alliance.

I had flown a new blaster Harpy up to the area the week before so when I logged in I found the fleet and coordinated with them to search for targets. There was very few enemies around Caldari space so when we found one that was moving around and not AFK, we tried to box him in immediately. Unfortunately, he was flying a Malediction interceptor and proved elusive to nail down, only catching a glimpse of him at a gate once.

Later on we got a report of two enemies in a system ten jumps away from my position. I hauled ass and even risked a few jumps through low sec but avoided any confrontations to arrive and camp a gate for a bit while a gang mate searched surrounding stations. Then we determined they were using one of the stations as a base when I flew to one to investigate and saw a war target in a Sacrilege dock up. Reinforcements arrived and we began our camping of the undock point.

About five to ten minutes later my wife came into the computer room and handed me a baby that would not go to sleep, and his brother was kicking up a fuss with what turned out to be an ear infection. Called to higher duty, I reported "Baby Aggro" for the second Friday in a row and docked up. Sigh.

Good news: later on our fleet did nail a couple war targets, and the next day launched an assault on a couple enemy starbases, destroying one and reinforcing the other.

* * * * *

In skill training news, Derranna has only three weeks left of her skill plan. Her navigation and shield skills have been brought up to scratch, and she's working on her armour tanking and energy skills now, with construction skills and gas harvesting later on. After that, she's going to spend a couple months working on training for the Scimitar logistics ship and associated Tracking Links and Shield Transporters.

Meanwhile, I have decided that Kirith will start working on Command Ships next after the Amarr cross training is done.

No Blog Banter For Me This Month

I didn't get a good chance to sit down and write something for this month's blog banter (sick kids and busy work), but I will be putting the links to those that did in here. As more are reported, I'll update this post.

Speed Fairy, The Hand of BoB

CrazyKinux's Musing, No where to go...

A Mule in EVE, Rolling to the Warzone

The Ralpha Dogs, Two Tales of Glory and Honor

One Man and his Spaceship, Times they are changing

OZ's House of the Evil Dead, Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side

The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Who the Hell are They?....

I am Keith Nielson, He Gave Up the Stars

Life in Low Sec, Six Degrees of Seperation

A Merry life and a Short One, Die Bard

Roc's Ramblings, Mythology

Dense Veldspar, EVE Blog Banter #6

Letrange's EVE Blog, A toast to the disolution of BoB

Fumbling in Space, Scarnan Vs The Fleeing Bankrupt Hordes

Taken To Task

In my post where I strove to point out that 200 km jamming Falcons were not as powerful as 150 km jamming Falcons, I was taken to task by commenter ReatuKrentor:

I'm curious, is gaining 3.92% more jam strength worth more for a Falcon then having a larger action radius? After 3 SDA's you only gain 2.83% and 1.06% from the 2 augmentor rigs(going from a strength increase of 156.93% to 163.08%). a max skilled falcon would go from 14.124 to 14.6776.
That doesn't seem all that significant to me over having a 200km action radius where you have 100% effect from jammers, instead of having 162 km.
Falcon novice but I know math(whelp).

My response:

If you boost the range of the ECM, you have to boost the range of your targeting as well. Hence its at least two modules/rigs removed, maybe more depending on skill levels.

In LurbyJo's case, she removed an ECM module and two strength rigs for the ranges, which while perfectly adequate for performance I'm sure, is a downgrade from maximum jamming capability.

And his rebuttal:

to make maximum use of your range ability without the range rigs you need a sensor booster anyway, falcon only has 150km base locking range.
But even if you don't fit ecm range rigs, I still don't really see the benefit in using the rig slots to boost ecm strength as the gain is so small after 3 SDA's. I would think you would gain more benefit from fitting different rigs, such as ecm range rigs or targeting range rigs or those rigs that reduce the recalibration time of cloaks(targeting systems stabilizers, -10% recalibration time)

Basically the point I think he is driving at is that fitting a Falcon out for maximum strength is a waste since stacking penalties on the Particle Dispersion Augmenter rigs and the Signal Distortion Amplifiers; in other words a Falcon setup for 200 km is statistically as effective as one set up for 150 km. Its a fair point and to be honest I never worked out the math, so I shall do so right now.

We will use my skills which are all at level IV in this area of expertise as they are more representative of a typical Falcon pilot than someone with all level V. Your mileage may vary. We'll also assume tech II / best-named gear (except the rigs), and start with 7 racial ECM mods in the mid slots of the Falcon. Furthermore, we'll attack a Tristan, Thorax, and Megathron in turn and assume we have only two Gallente specific ECM modules.

The first case is where all 7 ECM mods are on the target.

# of SDA / Rigs	On Racial Strength	Off Racial Strength	Frigate (10)	Cruiser (15)	Battleship (21)
0	7.776	2.592	98.5	89.1	76.6
1	9.3312	3.1104	99.9	94.4	83.7
2	10.95319	3.65106	99.9	97.6	89.3
3	12.20313	4.06771	99.9	99	92.6
4	12.54842	4.18281	99.9	99.3	93.3
5	12.68143	4.22714	99.9	99.4	93.6

The second case is where two on racial ECM mods and one off racial is on the target.

# of SDA / Rigs	On Racial Strength	Off Racial Strength	Frigate (10)	Cruiser (15)	Battleship (21)
0	7.776	2.592	96.3	80.8	65.2
1	9.3312	3.1104	99.7	88.7	73.7
2	10.95319	3.65106	99.9	94.5	81.1
3	12.20313	4.06771	99.9	97.5	85.9
4	12.54842	4.18281	99.9	98.1	87
5	12.68143	4.22714	99.9	98.3	87.5

As you can see, the stacking penalties really hit hard after the third strength boosting module/rig and since the Tech 1 rigs only give a 10% bonus their impact is really negligible in the first scenario, and still not very powerful in the second scenario.

So to answer ReatuKrentor I have to say you are quite right, even the third SDA gives minimal improvement over two and having a rig to extend ECM range and ship targeting range along with a Signal Amplifer II in the third low slot would be a perfectly viable setup (or any other utility rigs / low slot mods for whatever purposes).

While I was correct that there is a increase in the strength of the ECM, I was surprised at how little of an increase it was on the battleship especially. The extra percentage points are minimal at best. To LurbyJo, I extend a heartfelt apology for coming on so strong on my incorrect assumptions.

Command Ship or Battleship?

Tony at Eve's Weekend Warrior has an excellent article on comparing a Nighthawk, Raven, and Navy Raven for level four missions. Check it out!

Command ships are in my future after the Nightmare training I believe.

LurbyJo, Is That A Challenge?!

In yesterday's post about the ECM ship changes proposed by CCP a comment by follow blogger LurbyJo was made which included the line:

Actually, 200km is very common and many pilots are better. I jam at 212 optimal with no jam strength loss.

I accept your challenge!

The optimized Falcon setup for highest stength ECM jamming with perfect skills gives racial ECM mods an optimal of 162 km with falloff of 41km. That means at 200 km range your hit rate is arounf 50% due to being beyond optimal range.

Now, you could use Particle Dispersion Projector rigs, one of which will bring the optimal to 194 km BUT you have to sacrifce not fitting a Particle Dispersion Augmentor rig in place which means you have a signal strength loss to get the extra range.

But wait, I'm not done.

The max targeting range of a perfect skills Falcon is 150km which means that beyond that your jamming strength is effectively zero. Its easy to fit fits or mods to boost targeting range, but once again you need to sacrifice something that increases your jam capabilities in order to fit it.

My point is (and I know I'm belabouring this a bit but I think its important) that you absolutely cannot jam as good at 200+ km as you can at 150-160 km. Sacrifices, as slight as they might be, had to be made to achieve that range. In my experience most Falcon pilots go for maximum jam strength in the min-max calculations but I acknowledge that others in businesses more worried about sentry gun range may opt for longer range.

EDIT: In hindsight this post sounds rather combative toward LurbyJo and for that I apologize.

Its just that there is so much misinformation on what a Falcon can do going around for the past year that I immediately go on the defensive when I see any hint of someone suggesting the Falcon is godlike at 200 km. Sacrifices have to be made to jam from 200km, its not an out of the box ability.

Its All About Power

I've spent the evening internally digesting the proposed ECM changes.

The thrust of CCP's effort appears to be addressing the range of ECM which is commonly refered to as "jamming from 200 km away" in a high pitched whiny voice. Its a slight exaggeration; more like 150 km away but for most pilots that fight in the 10-30 km range it might as well be on the far side of the moon.
Dee Carson of the Miner with Fangs blog whose opinion I mightily respect is strongly opposed to this approach as chronicled here, here, and here (in chronological order). In his last post:

No matter how loudly the checker players whine about Falcons sitting out at 200km 'permajamming' and how emphatically they support the currently proposed changes, their real beef is with jam strength.

And the proposed changes do not affect that at all. Falcons are still going to jam an interceptor with one module everytime and have a 94% probability of jamming a cruiser sized hull with 2 modules.

I agree. I've written before how the issue with ECM is the design of the ships and their midslots not being used for shield tank/tackle/MWD and electronic warfare but rather being exploited all for ECM. The proposed changes in effect will mean that ECM ships will still jam with a certain degree of consistency, range be damned.

It will be nice for people up against Falcons and their ilk to have them closer to engage with but in small gang fights I still think people will be screwed when the Falcon uncloaks and negates the firepower of half their gang in one fell swoop. Not to mention what two Falcons can do.

In the end, CCP will do what they feel is best and I will adapt. I'm actually looking forward to a Rook with a drone bay and more "grrrrr" to it, like a sibling to the Cerberus with less tank but ECM instead.

Update On Probe Strengths

Last week in my Eve Masterclass - Probe Strength post I sung the praises of using the Deep Space Probes for exploration as their high strength at long ranges made it easier to nail down the types of some signatures.

Well, CCP noticed the same thing and didn't like the implications I guess.

Today' latest patch completely nerfed the base strength of Deep Space Probes from 20 to 5! A huge hit and it means that Deep Space probes are identical strength as Combat and Core probes at equivalent ranges. The end result is that the only reason to use a Deep Space Probe now is for exploration content at ranges higher than 32 AU, or ship probing at ranges over 64 AU. In other words, useless in 90% of the cases. Sigh.

I just bought some Sisters Deep Space probes last week too. Grrrr....

KenZoku Reloaded

Looks like the exemplars CCP held up showing they have changed alliance names in the past did not hold up under scrutiny. GM Grimmi explains:

We appreciate the feedback from everyone. After reviewing all of these very valid concerns, we were compelled to go back over the information we’d collected in this case and carefully weighed it again against the precedents set in the past. Ultimately, we felt we had no other recourse than to reverse the name change, the key factor being that during this re-investigation we learned that the KenZoku alliance was created several months before the BoB alliance leadership switched hands. That being the case, the name change request was not submitted within a timely manner, as it had been in the legacy cases we were holding up as examples.

We will be contacting the CSM for input regarding our naming policies.

As I said in my point 1 yesterday, if it was not a special circumstance I have no problem with it. Since it appears the other cases were different then KenZoku to BoBR, then I support the camp of not allowing the change. The ex-BoB corps wanted a quick alliance so they joined their backup Alliance KenZoku instead of making a brand new one, so they are stuck with KenZoku.

I still think its a tempest in a teacup. LOL

Humming Right Along

Much to my pleasant surprise, the last three Onyxes sold rather quickly and soon after the twenty covert ops cloaks arrived from the factories and I put them up on the market. I like selling covert ops cloaks, they move off the shelf much faster than ships.

With my wallet sitting at just shy of 750 million ISK and the cloaks selling for 8.8 million, that put me right around 910 million ISK, steps closer to my dream... Since Derranna was idle and there was more ISK to be made, I purchased the parts for the 140 Invulnerability fields to be made and got them to factories.

Next up, time to check the market prices and profit margins of Widows and Vultures.

"IMCOMING!"

With a hat tip to Massively.Com's James Eagan, I heard that the Nerfbat is coming to visit an ECM ship near you and me very soon. Xiphos83 from A Misguided Adventurer has already weighed in. Since I've talked about Falcons and ECM in the past, I figure I should get off my tired duff and read it.

Venerable CCP Chronotis writes:

Generally the ECM optimal range is a little too long with massive optimal ranges possible which would place the ECM specialised ships so far out of the fight to be almost completely safe but suffer no effective hit quality decrease. To bring them closer to the fight we are looking at swapping the base optimal and falloff ranges so at the longer ranges jammers would be operating more in falloff and hence have a lower chance of 'hitting' with their jammers at the extreme ranges.

No issue with that. I love the long range on Falcons but I can understand it being frustrating and possibly breaking to have it so.

The [Signal Distortion Amplifiers] are something of a conundrum. They are really only worth fitting on the ECM specialised ships and are the only EWAR enhancing module we have besides the rigs. Currently they increase your ECM strength and we were looking at swapping this to an ECM range bonus and altering either the base strength of the jammers or the ECM strength bonus of the ships so they become less required in every setup and the low slots could be used for tanking for example.

Odd... we'll have to see how this plays out.

We have been looking at all the ECM ships (Griffin, Kitsune, Blackbird, Falcon, Rook and Scorpion). We wanted to ensure each ship had a more focused role which was not just bigger, longer range and better than the others so only one wins outright. The two main themes we were looking at was short range brawler and long range sniper. The brawler would focus on ECM strength at shorter range and the sniper would be longer range but weaker with niches in these areas for each of the ships.

Er, Widow? Beyond the glaring omission from the list of ECM ships (defined by me as ships with an ECM bonus) then I lick the concept of two types of classes. Let's see how they intend to proceed.

The falcon has been changed to be similar to the pilgrim in its role as a ECM brawler at shorter ranges. It has a bigger ECM strength bonus whilst losing its ECM optimal range bonus. In addition its agility and base velocity and have been increased to allow it to be more manoeuvrable at shorter ranges.

Summary Falcon changes

- ECM Strength Bonus increased from 20 to 25% per level
- ECM Optimal Range Bonus removed (52km optimal / 81km falloff w/ 2*SDA IIs)
- Increase in general manoeuvrability (might give agility bonus to it to replace the ECM optimal range bonus)

Agility bonus, while appreciated, might be better served by a shield/resistance bonus if its going to be a short ranged "brawler". Also, fix the weapon layout while you are in there and give it three turrets like a true Ishukone tech II ship (Vulture, Eagle, Harpy).

The rook operates at longer ranges, able to attack at distance and whilst having a weaker ECM strength but longer ECM range than the falcon can lay some real damage on its target gaining a heavy/heavy assault and standard missile velocity bonus in addition to a small drone bay for additional utility.

Summary Rook Changes

- ECM strength bonus decreased to 15% per level
- ECM Optimal Range bonus decreased to 15% per level (92km optimal / 81km falloff)
- 5% Heavy/Heavy Assault missile velocity per recon ship level added (105km range with heavy missiles at max skills)
- 25m3 drone bay / 25 mbit bandwidth added

Whoa! That is a HUGE drone bay for a Caldari cruiser, and a sniping ship at that. (Again, the Rokh gets the finger.) Personally, I think they are mixed up; I would have made the Falcon the weaker strength / long range sniper and the Rook the close ranged Brawler with higher strength ECM.

Scorpion:

We are looking at putting the scorpion into the short range brawler role. To that end we are looking at removing its ECM Optimal range bonus, increasing the ECM strength bonus a little and adding a cruise/siege launcher rate of fire bonus so it can get close and personal.

Summary Scorpion Changes

- removed the ECM optimal range bonus
- increased the ECM strength bonus to 20% per level
- added a 5% RoF bonus to cruise & siege missile launchers per level.

If you're going to do that (and I kind of like the idea) then give it a fifth missile launcher hardpoint. It will still be less DPS than the Raven but give it a reason to think about brawling.

Overall I am opinion-neutral on the changes. As long as I can still jam a couple enemy ships with reasonable confidence, I'll adjust my piloting style to make full use of that ability.

(I'd post these comments on the Eve Online forums but after ten pages of rants, accolades, and general whinging I figured I'd avoid that cesspool and stick it here.)

* * * * *

UPDATE: Apparently CCP Chronotis visits my blog as he took my advice today. *waves at CCP devs*

The falcon is the "sniper" of the two ECM roles having less ECM strength and more ECM range.

Falcon:
Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
20% Bonus to ECM Target Jammer Optimal Range per level
10% Bonus to Medium Hybrid Optimal Range per level

Recon Ships Skill Bonus:
20% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level
-96% to -100% reduction in Cloaking Device CPU use per level

Attribute Changes:
+1 turret hardpoint / -1 launcher hardpoint


The rook operates at shorter ranges, able to launch a stronger ECM attack and whilst having shorter ECM range can lay some real damage on its target gaining a heavy/heavy assault and standard missile velocity bonus in addition to a small drone bay for additional utility.

Rook:
Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
10% Bonus to Light & Heavy Missile Velocity per level
10% reduction in ECM Target Jammer capacitor use per Level

Recon Ships Skill Bonus:
25% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level
5% bonus to heavy and light missile kinetic damage per level

Attribute Changes:
+25m3 drone bay
+25mbit drone bandwidth

Extra turret for Falcon, check. Rook as close range brawler, check. If you're going to change ECM this way instead of my EWAR Hardpoints idea then this makes the most sense. Now we just need that extra missile hardpoint on the Scorpion...

Rebuttal

I said my piece about BoB Reloaded yesterday but one comment I wanted to address more explicitly to get clarification. I said as my last point in my rant:

4) It was a stupid mechanic that allowed not only the alliance to be disbanded in one night but the name stolen as well at the same time. Closed corporations and alliances should STILL reserve the name for a period of 6 months IMHO, and only after inactivity for that time period should the name go back to the public domain.

In the comments, Cryon posted:

4) It wasn't a stupid mechanic that allowed the alliance to be closed. BoB deliberately chose to get rid of all the shares in the executor alliance. Keeping shares would have meant a vote with a 24 hour timer. The fact they chose to remove this safeguard to get rid of the requirement to vote in other areas does not make it "stupid" that the timer does not apply to this mechanic. They made a choice that had repercussions in reduction of their security and ultimately paid the consequences.

*double-take*

That is the first time in months I've heard that tale. The way it went down in every retelling from various sources I've run across is that no votes were required; but rather a pilot (Harragoth) incorrectly had director access in the Executor Corp and that allowed him to boot corps from the alliance without any restriction. When all the corps were removed, then alliance could be closed without issue immediately. Never have I heard of anything about votes, shares, or circumventing timers until Cryon's comment.

Now, I have absolutely no direct experience with Alliance mechanics so I can't say one way or another which is correct, but I do know you can't "get rid of shares" that easily. I am unclear what Cryon means there but as I understand it, if something requires a vote then its 24 hours for the vote to take place regardless if all the shares are held by one person or not. So I can't see how a vote could be circumvented by doing anything to the shares. Admittedly, the corp interface is one of the most poorly designed areas in the game so my knowledge could be very lacking in this regard.

So Cryon, in my eyes your story is the outlier from the rest. Can you expand on your comment and give more details? Can anyone else provide insight? I really want to know for curiousity's sake.

What's In A Name?

The corporations that were in Band Of Brothers alliance before the Goons swept it out from underneath them all joined a logistics alliance called KenZoku. They could not recreate BoB because the Goons made a corp of the same name immediately after disbanding the alliance.

Life moves on.

Then this past week the Eve GMs looked at a petition from the ex-Bob-now-KenZoku alliance leaders to rename KenZoku to Band Of Brothers Reloaded, and they acquiesced to the request. You can imagine the uproar.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

1) If this is not a special circumstance like they claim, then I have no problem with it. As per the post:

"We have previously changed names provided a petition was created within a reasonable timeframe and the situation warranted such action."

2) People need to grow up. The temper tantrums and wild accusations of favouritism over a simple name change are pathetic.

3) CCP should have had better optics on this. If they did receive the petition two months ago and took this long to decided to enact the change requested, then they need to revise their planning. And simply saying "we've done it for others before" is inadequate for the attention starved Eve Online Forum Whores; they need to provide examples to shut them up.

4) It was a stupid mechanic that allowed not only the alliance to be disbanded in one night but the name stolen as well at the same time. Closed corporations and alliances should STILL reserve the name for a period of 6 months IMHO, and only after inactivity for that time period should the name go back to the public domain.

Stupid false controversy. Sigh.

Internet Chieftains: A hole in the dike?

Hardin's new blog is well worth the read so far:

Internet Chieftains: A hole in the dike?

Go, read, subscribe.

Upgrade!

Well, I did up my taxes and my wife and I determined there was a little bonus for each of us to get something we wanted. My wife decided to look into a new camera and I went for my new graphics card.

I spent a decent amount of effort looking for a card that would meet all the requirements. My current NVidia GeForce 7300 LE was a model a couple years obsolete, and I knew from Andrew's computer and my work laptop that something in the 8000 or 9000 series would suffice.

I first looked at prices and was considering a GeForce 8400 or even a 9400 but then I found this webpage and realized that they were lower end for casual gamers and regular desktops. While it would have been a big improvement over the old card, I wanted something that could run Dawn of War II with Tyranids on the map.

Finally I found a GeForce 9800 GT on sale in one of the local store's website (so no shipping costs) and while it was a bit more than I was looking to pay, it promised to give me the performance for the foreseeable future that I wanted. I picked it up and spent last night working to install it. There were some difficulties... a secondary heat sink had three prongs in the way, the power cord was too short, Sean and my wife were tired and cranky... but finally I got it in and turned it on.

Of course, it was not perfect. The power cord could not reach the DVD player and video card at the same time (so I'll be looking for an extension today) and the drivers were on a DVD that I could not use... and ASUS' website was down last night... and my download rate was pathetic and took three hours to download the drivers (it only took 7 minutes this morning though, I think windows was updating last night too). Sigh. Finally this morning drivers were updated, card was functioning, my resolution was back to 1920x1200, and I started Eve.

Old Graphics Settings:


NEW Graphics Settings:


Click those babies to get a good look at the differences. Of course, the second picture is with everything turned on, probably more than I require. I'll do some real testing and find the sweet spot in terms of effects and FPS. I'll have to try some Dawn of War II too and see if I can up the settings a bit.

Eve Tribune Article - The Drake

Another week, another Fighting Spacecraft article in the Eve Tribune: the Caldari Drake.

Soldiers of Fortune

We have declared war against a large 0.0 alliance, so this puts my wormhole expedition plans on hold again. No worries, w-space is not going anywhere.

While plotting the doom of our latest enemies, I once again considered my options in terms of PvP vessels and once again considered cross training to Gallente or Amarr. The Falcon may be a great gang ship but for solo work against the prepared it is greatly lacking. The Pilgrim is most attractive right now, but in order to make best use of it I would need to get Amarr Cruiser V and Recons V... two skills that are not known for being quick.

Instead I might just stick to interceptors and assault frigates... which makes me wonder about cross training to Gallente Frigate V, only 8 extra days. Taranis, Ishkur, Keres... all very fine vessels. Very tempting.

Eve Redux

Over at Massively.Com Brendan Drain posted an article rhetorically asking if wormholes have revitalized Eve. Its a good read and covers a lot of points I had considered writing up myself: new null sec space to access from high sec and low sec, new exciting PvE encounters, no major alliances claiming up all the space... it has definitely provided a huge exciting boost to the options players have when they log in.

Don't get me wrong: Eve was very vital prior to the advent of Apocrypha, but the addition of new dynamic non-claimable 0.0 space has been nothing but a good idea.

* * * * *
Sorry for the short post; I am beat. Twin B.... oh what the hell, I already told you their names... Sean has a terrible cold making it hard for him to sleep so SWMBO and I have been trading off hours throughout the night comforting him and trying to get him to sleep. Poor 11 month old doesn't know what is happening to him and makes him very sad.

Small Cluster

There I was, checking on the sales of my Onyxes (3 down, 3 to go for the official count) when who should I see in an old Strife Mercenaries channel but the famous Grismar, author of Grismar's Eve Wiki which was one of my most visited sites when I was a neophyte pilot.

Turns out he is a friend of Cronyx Ravage who he knew from a corp they used to be members together in*. That corp? Fine Goods for Fine Gentlemen. Of course, Cronyx was the pilot that joined Strife and brought the attentions of FINEG upon us last year, upon which we imploded and scattered like a supernove heralds the end of life of a star.

Alas, we burned to bright too quickly, but that is ancient history.

Back in the present, I chatted with Grismar about the new wormholes that have seduced him back to the game and how they are the sources of Tech 3. I love the single shard architecture.

* = Grismar left FINEG well before the war and destruction of Strife Mercs, so I hold no grudges against him.

Helpless

Last night I was online sorting ships, picking out those that would fit in the Orca for my wormhole expedition. There was some reds in the area but no fleet was organized to go after them yet and I was not really available to help out since I had no available voice comms at my location and I could be called away any second.

Suddenly a call goes up that a corp member is going to need help now. He had jumped into our system and two hostiles were on the gate there with him ready to engage. I jumped in my Falcon Pinpoint II and undocked, determined to try and help out if I could.

I warped to the wrong gate at first; in my hurry I didn't read the chat correctly. I then warped to the correct gate at 100 km and as the bubble faded I was presented with an ugly picture on my screen. My original corp mate and another corp mate were there valiantly fighting but they were outnumbered by 5 to 2, the enemy sporting three battleships and two Heavy Assault Cruisers. I would have decloaked and tried to help even the odds but one of the enemy was only 13 km away sniping at the gate. Without voice comms I didn't know how close my buddies were to going down but judging by the enemy firepower, I guessed it would not be long.

So I held my cloak. It burned me to do so, but if I thought there was a chance to save them I would have thrown my Falcon into harm's way in a second. Alas I figured I was too late and I was right; seconds later the battleship of my corp mate blew up. The other corp mate that came to help in his battleship appears to have made it away safely. I stayed to provide some intel from the battlefield but soon thereafter I was called away and I logged with bitterness in my mouth.

I really need to get on and get some good PvP in. I need to kill something.

Disconnect

Over at pjharvey's blog, he opines about the usefulness of the Skill Queue.

Indeed, this small addition to the game has revolutionized skill training. Thousands of pilots have tried early levels in skills they didn't think about before, and many early morning and late night log ins to switch a skill have been avoided to the betterment of mankind.

I love the skill queue. I would not give it up.

But.

But... I do lament the fact that I feel disconnected from my skill training a lot more than I used to be.

What I mean by that is when you sit down and log in to change a skill because the current one training is about to finish, you get a feeling of accomplishment. "There! Gallenete Drone Specialization IV! Hooray!" Its the "ding" in Eve. Its the hit from the drug addiction.

But the skill queue has taken it away from me. I trained four levels of various drone skills for Deranna last night and I don't feel a thing. Correct that, I feel cheated! I WANT MY DING BACK CCP! DAMN YOU!

* * * * *
Ok, I'm back. I went to get a Coke. Caffeine is my other drug of choice. Where was I? Oh yes...

I do wish I had a ding. I've been using Certificates a little to get that feeling, but its not the same. New ships definitely help, and new weapons would too. I guess I just need to cross train more, get some Amarr and Minmatar ship skills and some Projectile and Lasers. Oh that reminds me, need to train for the Nightmare soon...

I guess I'll fill one addiction with another. For now.

"DING!"

Wormhole Classification

I knew someone, somewhere, would not stand at rest and lest wormholes not be classified in some coherent manner such that pilots can figure out what they are getting into. After all, 0.0 space has its true security rating to determine the quality of rats even if its not displayed in the game itself.

Sure enough, here we go. Heck, they've even got a map. Allow me to explain...

Some pilots working with the data and eve client, and perhaps some help of friendly devs in IRC channels have determined that there are nine classes of systems. Classes 1-6 represent the wormhole space systems, and class 7, 8, and 9 represent high, low and null sec respectively in k-space.

The six classes of wormhole systems go from easiest difficulty at 1 to hardest at 6. Each of the general descriptions from wormholes covers two classes: Unknown means 1 and 2, Dangerous Unknown means 3 and 4, and Deadly Unknown means 5 and 6. Obviously the difficulty of the Sleepers and the resulting rewards vary depending on the class of the wormhole.

So far so good?

Well there is more. If you look at a wormhole you will see it has a name like K162 or N110. These names are not random. A wormhole of a certain name will always lead to the same class of space. If you are running around High sec and find a wormhole named Z457, if you look at the handy chart in the map linked above you will see that it leads to a class 4 wormhole system (better put your mouthguard in).

Note: there is the line about the K162 wormholes that is not clear. What I think that means is that if the wormhole's name is K162, it leads to a system of the same classification that you are currently in, so its not always set in stone.

Update: Looks like I was wrong about K162 wormholes. From the Scrap Heap Challenge thread, 5th page:

"If you read the map K162 are exit wormholes. There are two kinds of wormholes, ones that spawn inside the wormhole system itself and lead to wherever(therefore making an exit wormhole(k162) on the otherside) and those that spawn in known space and lead into wormhole space(these have the designation)"

End Update

So this chart allows you to look at a wormhole name and determine at a glance if you are entering easy Unknown space or slightly harder Unknown space. Not a huge deal for a prepared gang perhaps, but very important for a solo pilot looking for some easy anomalies.

You'll also notice on that map how the w-space systems are grouped into distinct regions. As soon as someone figures out how to tell the constellation and region IDs of a system, expect them to start mapping systems to the locations. Eve players are obsessive like that.

P.S. The white systems on the map, before anyone asks, are Jove systems. No, there are not any wormholes that lead there.

Planning An Expedition

With the war against Caerelleum Alliance over and a couple visits to w-space under my belt, I'm starting to think about a longer sojourn into the unknown.

A single ship is not sufficient for an extended stay in w-space. A well piloted Marauder might last a couple days but even its considerable cargo bay will run out of space or ammo. So I've accepted that I need my alt to accompany me in something with cargo space... but that rules out the Covert Ops. So how will we do probing effectively? And what if there are others in the system that need killing? If I take my Cerberus which works well against low end Sleepers, it totally gimps me in taking on anything in PvP except the ill-prepared or AFK.

In the end there are two ways to go. Either Kirith in the Dominix and Derranna in a Prowler with a probe launcher is my team, or I go all out and use the Orca.

Mobile Base One

The advantages of the Orca for w-space expeditions is plainly obvious. Kirith can do probing in his Buzzard covert ops frig, and then once safely ensconced in a wormhole system I can use the Orca's ship hanger to store the Buzzard and grab the Cerberus. Hostiles in system, switch to a PvP interceptor or Falcon. You can even modify the ship's fitting in space. Hell, I can even put an assembled battleship in the cargo bay and eject it when in W-space and have Kirith kit it out right there.

To protect the Orca while in space a cloaking device is highly advisable but the other two high slots could be a Warfare Link for shield resistances and a probe launcher for emergencies.

Best of all, even with a battleship in the cargo hold there is still enough room for something else, like say a POS tower.

Immobile Base Two

I know the logisitics of keeping a tower fueled in w-space. But what if the tower was a temporary structure with nothing but a slew of guns for defence? And the Orca can carry a few weeks of fuel?

While risking an 80 million or so tower to a passing gang intent on destroying might seem like a lot, consider the defence it provides the Orca and others using its facilities. A bolt hole to hide from roaming gangs; a place to go AFK from; a place to swap ships or to probe from. For the extra protection it gives to the 600 million + Orca the price tag of 80 million and a few days of fuel seems worth it.

And if I select a Class 1 or 2 w-space system (more on Classes of w-space systems later) that frequently connects to high sec, its feasible that I might be able to get regular refueling runs anyways. If not, just tear down and store in the Orca until I can.

Admittedly there are risks to that plan, but I'm a smart guy and know how to alleiviate many of them with careful use of alts and such.

Summary

Even if the expedition is a complete and utter failure, it looks like a lot of fun and not at risk from easy destruction by low sec denziens like a low sec tower would be.

So look out wormhole space, here I come!

Stalker

You might remember back at the end of January me posting about my ingame stalker MeLuvYU LongTime who had declared war on my industrial corp with a corporation called Kirith Kodachi's Fan Club.

Well, shortly after that I received another evemail that got a little creepier, with a link to a woman in a bikini and calling me by my last name. My real life last name.

Now, I've not made special efforts to hide my identity and anyone familiar with google and this blog could nail down who I am pretty easily. I've just seen no need to advertise as this is a gaming blog, mostly about Eve. But still I was perturbed and filed a petition as a way to make an official record of the harrasment. I have no problem with in-game war decs, hunting, killing POSes etc, but that's all in game. You take your griefing out of the game and I get a little worried.

Next abour a few days later I got an anomymous comment on my personal blog that I keep for friends and family to know what's going on with the Boys and my wife and I. That comment posted my home phone number. I deleted it even though, again, I have not taken great steps to hide it in the past.

It was quiet since then and I thought maybe this annoyance had blown over. Then this morning I noticed a comment on last night's post linking to my personal blog by an anomymous commenter. I deleted it, but on my most recent post another link to my personal blog again by anonymous. I deleted it again.

To save them the effort, here it is for everyone. If you really feel the need to know that Lukas is teething or Sean is standing or what family we visited last weekend, knock yourselves out. It doesn't get updated very often and the content is not scintillating by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the anomymous commenter, I've disabled commenting without logging in. I'm sure there are ways to get around that but if you are going to spam my posts with useless drivel, at least give me a name even if its fake.

In the past I've suggested someone at FINEG might be behind the alt MeLuvYU LongTime. I take that back; this doesn't feel like them and I'd hate to drag their name through the mud if they had nothing to do with it.

Eve Master Class - Probe Strength

Pre-Apocrypha, the most crucial thing about improving probing skills was to decrease your scan time. Starting at 600 seconds and working your way down from there, aiming at around one minute for the best abilities/modules/implants.

Now, duration is a joke to worry about and its all about scan strength, baby. Since you can't tell if you are chasing a magometric, gravimetric, or unknown site until you get a hit with strength of 25% or more, finding your way out of wormhole space with its plethora of cosmic signiatures can be problematic if your skills require you to hone down to the closests ranges to get the information.

This post is to introduce you to the scan probe relative strengths and the methods (and their relative effectiveness) to increase them.

Base Stats

The first thing to understand is why Deep Space Probes are your friend. In Figure 1 we see the base stats of the standard probes.

Figure 1 - Base probe stats.

As you can see, the Core probes get the highest strength and lowest deviation but you need to get to 0.25 AU to accomplish this. At 0.5 AU the Combat and Core probes are the same except the Core probes cannot detect ships (so I've heard, I've not confirmed this mechanic). But notice how the Deep Space Probe has the same strength but at a range four times longer?

What essentially that means is that you can cover larger areas of space with Deep Space Probes when searching for a particular item like a wormhole or enemy ship. Although the deviation is significantly worse, it should allow you to get about 25% on many targets to determine if you want to continue to narrow down the hit by switching to Core or Combat probes, or just ignore it and move on to the next hit.

For finding exits in wormhole space, I've taken to covering the centre of the solar system where the majority of signatures are found with overlapping Deep Space probes set to 4AU range; this quickly gives me multiple hits over 25% strength and often the Unknown I'm looking for.

Increasing Strength

Derranna has trained in probing and I've invested in multiple items to assist in her abilities. First look at Figure 2 to see the adjusted scan probe stats when she is using them.

Figure 2 - This is what training, faction launcher, rigs, and implants will get you.

As you can see, the strengths have jumped by over 100%. How did she accomplish that?

First off, using a Covert Ops frigate is essential, with each level giving a 10% increase in scan strength. Secondly the Astrometrics Triangulation skill is also extremely important as it also gives a 10% increase in scan strength. Train both of these to level V and you have immediately more than doubled the strength of your probes.

Next you can fit Gravtity Capacitor Upgrade rigs to your Covert Ops frigs. The tech 1 version gives a 10% bonus per rig while the tech II gives a 15% bonus.

For a 5% bonus, the Sisters probe launchers can be used. Its not much of a jump but every bit counts.

If you have a little ISK to burn, consider investing in a Poteque Pharmaceuticals 'Prospector' PPH-0/1/2 implant (slot 8) for a 2%/6%/10% increase to scan strength of probes depending on the version you use. Derranna has the PPH-1 for the 6% increase.

If you have a lot of ISK to burn, you might consider the Virtue implants that give varied amounts of scan strength bonuses depending on whether you have the set or the Virtue Omega, but they were too rich for my blood.

So Derranna, starting at a base of 40 for the Core Probe has:
Covert Ops V = 50%
Astro Triangulation IV = 40%
2 x Grav Cap Upgrade rigs = 20%
PPH-1 implant = 6%
Sisters Launcher = 5%

Which when all multiplied together gives: 112.1904 or 113 rounding up.

My combat character is not as prepared for probing, although he does have a fancy implant.
Covert Ops IV = 40%
Astro Triangulation IV = 40%
1 x Grav Cap Upgrade rigs = 10%
PPH-2 implant = 10%
Sisters Launcher = 5%

Which gives 99.6072 or 100 rounding up, still not too shabby but he can't use the Deep Space Probes because he doesn't have Astrometrics V yet. Note: if he was using a non-Covert Ops ship with no rigs, his strength drops to 65.

So the lesson of the story is this: Use a Covert Ops frigate and get the skills to IV if not V because that is where you get the most bang for your buck. Get Astrometrics V so you can use Deep Space Probes to narrow down desirable targets. Then consider the implants, rigs, and faction module. If you follow these instructions, your probing will be faster and easier.

UPDATE: Latest patch completely nerfed the base strength of Deep Space Probes from 20 to 5! A huge hit and means that Deep Space probes are identical strength as Combat and Core probes at equivalent ranges which means their only advantage over Core probes is at ranges higher than 32 AU, and over combat probes its ranges over 64 AU. In other words, useless in 90% of the cases. Sigh.

The Road Home

A quick login last night showed space devoid of any other pilots so I whipped out the Deep Space Probes (more on these in the next post) and in five minutes had a wormhole heading back home. It was degraded and soon to collapse so I quickly logged Kirith in and sent him through. The tunnel held and Derranna scooted through as well. I was in some deserted high sec system in Sinq Laison and I set course for home, about 21 jumps away.

When I got back to base, I realized it was just in time to take the Onyx components out of the factories and put the BPCs in to build my 6 Onyxes themselves. Then I took care of invention getting 2 Covert Ops Cloaking Device BPCs that I will build this week.

Shut Up, We're (Finally) Talking

Shut Up We're Talking podcast episode #44 is published with your humble writer as a guest. Check it out here. I had a fun time, Darren and Karen are really great to chat with.

Geek Weekend Part 3 - Twilight Imperium

Last time Andrew and I met over a game of Twilight Imperium, he beat the ever-living snot out of me. This time I was out for revenge!!!

Alas, it was not meant to be.

However, this time we got the carnage in pictures! I'm gray, Andrew orange.

Setup:


Turn 1:

I ran into horrible trouble right away. Two of my exploration fleets ran into Distant Suns counters that killed most of my infantry. Getting a good start can be so crucial and this immediately put me behind the curve because now I have to spend two turns to go back to get more infantry, or build a new fleet to send out. On the other side, Andrew ran into trade good depots. This trend would continue.

Turn 2:

Andrew makes a big push to the middle of the board to occupy a great system beside Mecatol Rex, while I moved laterally to shore up my disrupted advance. Worth noting that Andrew got a free Spacedown on his advanced on the top-left of the image. And more trade goods. Meanwhile, I lost another infantry to a toxic spill. Sigh.

Turn 3:

I wanted to make a push for the centre but before I could, Andrew jumped some forces to the planet I was eyeing up. Desperate, I tried to claim some space there but as you can see from the zoom below, I was badly outgunned:

He has 3 Dreadnoughts... I have two cruisers. In Eve it would be like me taking 2 destroyers up against 3 battleships.

Turn 4:
At this point I added up his resources and my resources to see how far behind I was. The thinking being if I could deliver a couple stunning victories, I might pull myself back into this game. I was getting 21, a decent amount... but he had amassed 44. Quite simply speaking, I could destory his entire fleet and he could still build more ships than I could muster. He agreed with my assessment and I conceded with the hope of getting a second match in right away.

Game #2
Feeling that the Distant Suns random markers really screwed me over and helped to boost Andrew at the same time, we decided to try a game without them. With the uncertainty of exploration removed we both were able to expand rapidly and concentrate on positioning more, and finally my flawed strategy was revealed without being obfuscated by random events.

Andrew advanced much the same as before, and I was able to secure my backfield without disaster.


But as the turns developed, while I consolidated my control over numerous systems near my home, my opponent leaped over systems to attack directly into the middle once again. I launched a counterattack with a Warsun but found myself exposed and vulnerable.




I choose to fall back and Andrew took the retreat to attack, blockading and invading several system in my home region. I tried to fight him off but I was on my heels and despite successfully beating up one fleet of his, random enemies and more orange fleets to back them up hemmed me in and Andrew took control of the game.





Seeing my doom, I conceding once more.

Analysis: without the bad luck I was able to see the flaw in my plan. While securing a solid industrial base close to home gave me lots of resources to build with, it limited my tactical options for blunting Andrew's fleets advances, allowing him to strike where I was vulnerable and fight on my turf while building up resources and bases in the middle of the board, ensuring I would never be able to take it back.

On a board where home systems are so far away from Mecatol Rex and the powerful centre, a fast advance to a forward base is crucial even if it means ignoring valuable resources in the backfield. Lesson finally learned.

Next time Nemesis! Next time!

Geek Weekend Part 2 - Dawn of War II

I really enjoyed the first Dawn of War and played the multiplayer against Andrew several times (he still complains bitterly about the Cheesey Eldar in those games... webway portals are my friends) so when I had some birthday money I quickly purchased Dawn of War II.

Friday night I played a few levels in the campaign to get the hang of the new mechanics, and then multiplayer games against the computer to see the mechanics there. I got hammered in the first attempt, downgraded the computer to easy to get the hang of it in the second try, and then back to normal for victory in the third. Convinced I got it, I told Andrew I was ready.

Saturday night we got online and decided to play some two versus two with us working cooperatively against an Easy and Normal PC.

The first battle with my Eldar and Andrew's marines against Easy Orks and Normal Space marines proved to be a lot harder than we expected. The orks were virtually unseen, but the computer's dreadnoughts went on several rampages through our lines. Eventually we wore him down and took the prize.

In the second battle Andrew tried Tyranids and the computer tried Tyranids and my computer's graphics card choked to death. Or maybe it was just my computer choking on the processing. Or whatever. The point was it lagged to unplayablity and we exited.

Andrew went back to space marines and we tried the map again, this time our computer foe using Eldar and ... I can't remember. Orks? Or Marines? *shrugs* Doesn't matter as we easily rolled the computer back and quickly took control of the board and the game.

The last game really highlighted our different styles of play: Andrew was rolling up his side and getting as deep as he could early on, brawling with enemy troops up and down the board; while I cautiously advanced in a line making sure nothing could get behind me, and once I had control of at least half of the objectives I sat in defence waiting for the enemy to come to me, cutting him down from positions in cover. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Andrew's advance might cripple the enemy's economy but runs the risk of collapsing if it get counter successfully while my style of advance secures my lines but allows the enemy to build up more resources for larger attacks.

It was a good time but it highlighted my dire need for a new video card. Andrew's computer is not much newer than mine but has a video card one generation newer than mine and he was able to run easily at medium settings while I'm chugging at low. Come on Tax Return!

Next: Twilight Imperium

Geek Weekend Part 1 - Adventures In W-Space

I logged in Friday evening and checked out what was going on. Turns out some of my corp mates grabbed a wormhole from home and were lost in space. Well, not really; they had found a new exit but it was 21 jumps from where I was. I decided against the travel to where they were and opted instead to have Derranna look for a wormhole of my own to inhabit.

After one jump I found one and unlike the one from last week this one actually went to regular unknown wormhole space. Score! I grabbed Kirith and a Dominix and went jumped into the unknown.

Wormhole #1
After securing a safespot I set Kirith out to find some cosmic anomalies and see what could be done. I found one with some frigs and cruisers and I went to work... only to realize I grabbed the wrong Dominix. In my haste, I jumped into Brooklynn, my PvP ship with a bit armour hitpoint tank but no self repair. I was able to kill the first wave and start into the second, but I had to warp out with a battleship remaining and wasn't able to go back since my armour was low and not going back up by itself.

Annoyed, I jumped back into k-space, went to base, and got in Hudson with his Large Armour Repairer. Back to the wormhole, saw it was still up, and back into w-space. I sought out a new site and went to work. Hudson did less damage than Brooklynn did since it only fit four Electron Blaster IIs instead of 6 but the damage repair was handy and being able to salvage on the fly was nice. No drone problems as I managed to keep the aggro on my ship. I warped out after the first wave was done as I had other plans to attend to. I warped my characters to the wormhole and wisely jumped the non-probe ship out first; good thing as it collapsed the wormhole behind it.

Kirith docked up but Derranna logged out in wormhole space.

Later on Friday evening I logged in and decided to get Derranna out of w-space. My corpmates from eariler in the afternoon were lost in w-space looking for an exit. I was worried I would suffer the same fate.

Trying out Deep Space probes I found I was able to narrow down a signature to a wormhole pretty quickly. Although Deep Space Probes can't get to the 40 points of strength that Core Probes have at 0.25 AU, they have higher strength at equal ranges and thus allowed me to identify the Unknown signature sooner.

Derranna came out in High Sec in Khanid Kingdom space, a 17 jumps away from where she started.

Wormhole #2
Saturday evening I decided to look for another wormhole so I could try out my Cerberus instead of the Dominix. A few systems later Derranna had a hit and scanned it down. There was a neutral Cerberus sitting on the wormhole, and I debated holding off on jumping through. As Kirith arrived I decided to throw caution to the wind and send Derranna through to investigate. There was a drake on the other side but nothing else on the scan so I got cocky and drove Kirith and his Cerberus heavy assault ship into the wormhole as well.

On the other side the Drake did not lock and I warped off safely. A few minutes later the drake disappeared from scan allowing me to get to work.

I was quite surprised to find only one cosmic anomaly in the system. I figure the rest had been cleared out, or maybe this system was shortchanged in the random distribution. Whatever.

I warped in and found two sentry guns accompanied by a frigate and a cruiser. As the heavy assault missile went to work I carefully monitored my shields and managed my tranvseral to limit incoming damage as much as possible. Soon the enemy was gone and the second wave spawned, this time 3 frigates and 2 cruisers. Again the HAC held up under the onslaught. Finally the last wave spawned and I was faced with what appeared to be two battlecruisers and two cruisers. My shields never dropped below 50% and my heavy assault missiles tore them up.

The Cerberus passed inspection at this site. The only downside is that is had no tractor and salvager so I had to send Derranna in afterwards to clean up the mess.

Of course, the good times couldn't last. While I was salvaging the wrecks I picked up a hit on the combat probe and I immediately safe spotted while I determined what was out there. One battlecruiser. Hmmm, as I launched more probes to narrow down his position he talks in local.

"Hello, anyone out there?"

Ah, the plaintive cry of the fearful.

I checked his corp info and his age; he is a 2009 character so is probably not a big threat to my Cerberus even in his Drake (I've narrowed him down to 75+% so I can see the ship type) but I worry he might be bait for a trap instead of just a foolhardy noob. I debate the options as I warp in on him cloaked; attack, or carry on as I was, or hide?

Deciding not to chance it, and it was getting late, I decided that discretion was the better part of survival and logged. If I had the Dominix with warp scram I might have risked the attack, but the Drake could too easily escape from my PvE Cerb.

* * * * *
I logged in a bit Sunday to look for an exit out. A scan revealed several ships in the system so I launched the probes to narrow them down and see what was up. I eventually nailed down a Hurricane battlecruiser and warped in at 100 to see what he was doing... and as the warp bubble collapsed I found myself pulled to within a few thousand meters!

CRAP! WARP BUBBLE!

Thank the eve gods I wasn't unlcoaked by the bubble, wormhole, or Hurricane. I turned around as fast as my ass could carry me and got out of the bubble's range, warping off to safety.

"Maybe I'll wait until the weekend is over," I say to myself with nervous sweat still on my brow.

Next up: Dawn of War II

*CRASH*

I logged in last night to run some errands with Derranna and just as I approached the first gate, Eve crashed. Not just my client. The whole damn thing.

Gah.

Eventually it came back and until it did I practised more in Dawn of War II for some online play against some foul WoW player this weekend. Really wishing I had my graphics card update right now.

My wife is gone with the kids for the weekend so I have plans. DO I EVER!! Tonight we got some Dawn of War II and the re-recording of the SUWT podcast, and maybe a little Eve if the opportunity presents itself. Tomorrow Andrew and I will have our rematch game of Twilight Imperium to see if I can stop him from getting on a winning streak followed by some more Eve (and maybe more DoWII if Andrew has time). Finally Sunday I might sneak some more Eve in if I find time between some chores.

Fun overload!

Onyxes Sold

The last two of my initial three Onyx builds finally sold. The market was hopping but the competition was fierce with constant undercutting. Now I need to buy the part to build the next 6 all at once and get them up for sale.

I've been concentrating so much on Apocrypha that my industry activities have been neglected. I have more Cloaking Device BPCs and Invulnerability Field BPCs to invent so I should get on that.

But the wormholes... they call to me...

But I need the money to fund my Nightmare obsession. DANGIT! I need more time!

Eve Tribune 2 For 1

As promised, my Vexor fighting spacecraft article, and a short filler article on the lack of Moon Minerals in w-space.

The Sweet Smell of Apocrypha

I started the download for Apocrypha expansion before I left for work yesterday so it was all done and ready to go when I got home last night. After the house had quieted down for the evening I settled in and started to check out what CCP hath wrought.

First thing I did was play with the skill queues, setting up my characters with skills for the next 24 hours so that Derranna can finally finish High Speed Manoeuvring IV today and then start Remote Repair Drone Operation IV while I'm at work. Sheer brilliance.

Then I played with the graphics settings. Allow me to explain my conundrum.

Back when I first got my latest PC it came with a decent NVidia 7600 graphics card that ran the new premium client quiet well on my 19 inch monitor. I could even run two clients with a bit of extra lag.

Then this past Christmas I saved up my pennies and purchased a 24 inch widescreen monitor to enhance my Eve experience. But although Eve looked gorgeous in the 24 inches of screen space I found the video card chugging to keep up. My frame rate dropped such that running one client was choppier than running two clients on the smaller screen. I tried reducing graphics so that it was running bare bones and it was definitely playable, but not ideal. A new video card has gone on my wish list but with only one paycheque coming into the house its not high on the priority list.

So I decided to see how premium light would work on the current setup. I turned all the graphic settings off or to low and reboot. I have to admit that looking at ships up close in this setting looks like ass... but everything does run very smoothly. I even was able to have two clients running without noticable degradation on the active client. I didn't take any screenshots last night but I'll try to get a couple to compare for you.

With the graphic settings settled for now, and no war targets buzzing about, I decided to try out probing with Derranna. She had a Cheetah covert ops in Ordat equipped with a new Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher and a couple probing rigs, and in her head is the implant for 6% improved strength strength (if I read the patch notes correctly) so she is prepared to find stuff.

I started in Ordat and my inital probe got a hit on a Cosmic Signature. Off to work we go!

The time I spent on the test server learning the new system helped speed this up immensely. In less than 15 minutes I knew it was an Unknown type and due to Derranna's ship/module/rig/implant bonus she had it at 100% with the probes at 2AU: it a wormhole.

I warp in and saw a Buzzard sittig on the wormhole, and I check the info to see it leads to low sec space. "Okies," I said to myself, "let's check it out!" I jump and materialize in the Huola system, Bleak Lands region. I notice red flashing hostiles sitting on the gate in a Bhaalgorn faction battleship and an Onyx heavy interdictor. My Covert Ops easily evades them and I watch them for a while to see if they'll go through. But no, they sit there and camp the wormhole.

That's when I realized the Eve has irrevocably changed.

You see, living in Sukanan constellation has meant that bad guys had one way of entry through teshkat and that required going through high sec. It gave a kind of early warning system to rally the defenders and hide the women and children (most of the time).

However, now wormholes means that it is possible to circumvent the normal routes and sneak into someone's backyard without them even knowing you are nearby. Send an alt through to probe down a mission runner while the big and nasty ships are waiting on the other side of the wormhole. Or have an escape route from a chasing gang. Or a secret trade route. And so on.

I knew this intellectually a long time ago but last night it viscerally hit me: Eve has changed.

Brace yourselves.

Fighting Spacecraft Series III done

Coming out in this week's or next week's issue of the Eve Tribune will be the Gallente Vexor Fighting Spacecraft article representing the last one of the series III and the 12th one overall.

I've started planning for series IV and work has begun on the next Caldari ship. I originally considered doing the Ferox but since I had not done a tier II battlecruiser yet (in fact I've only done one battlecruiser, the Brutix in series I) so I upped the ante to the Drake.

The Amarr haven't seen a battleship article yet and I've not done a tier II battleship either so the Apocalypse will get the treatment. For Minmatar I might do the Thrasher destroyer but I'm leaning towards another cruiser first, most likely the Rupture to highlight some of their more advanced vessels as I've looked at older classes a lot for them.

Finally we will be back to Gallente who haven't done a frigate yet. Looking at the selection, I haven't done an interceptor yet so the Atron is looking like a decent choice.

I really enjoy writing these articles, it allows my creative side some room to roam while not tying me to plot or character development. Plus its given me a chance to play with the graphics program a little bit and get better in that regard.

The process to writing one of these is fairly simple but time consuming. First I spend a little while looking at the ship in EFT and EveMON, then visiting Battleclinic and the Eve-O forums to see players fits. Once I have an idea for how the ship is generally used, I roughly map out the variations such a vessel might have gone through in the service to its respective navy, understanding that they are less likely to have solo-capable ships but work in actual squadrons and fleets. I also see if I can work in some left-field versions to try and reflect research and innovation and the result progress.

Typically most ships have options of long range versus short ranged weapons (heavies versus HAMS, blasters versus rails, etc) so I make sure to cover the options if they make some sense even if a player pilot would not ever fit in such a manner. For example, rails on a Brutix.

Once I have the variations and timeline worked out, I work on the actually fitting for the variation I have deemed the current fleet standard, coming up with technical sounding names for systems and the possible producers of these items. This is the hardest part, trying to be original while not disregarding anything I wrote before; often I will compare to previous articles to see what I wrote there to keep some internal consistency.

Variations come in three types: precursor classes that are obsolete or near to it, optional weapon fittings for the standard class, and advanced versions which encompasses Navy Issue and Tech II. Some hulls have pirate faction versions which I fit in as however seems reasonable, like the Scorpion / Rattlesnake. I use the variations sections to describe how the class came about, how it is different from the standard class, and what ramifications (if any of import) it had on the New Eden political/military scene.

Once its all written in a first draft I re-read it and look for typos, sections that need further extrapolation, clarifications, etc. This doesn't take too long usually. After all that is done I open up Gimp 2.0 and make the main ship graphic that adds some spice to the otherwise dry technical article.

The end result is something that I hope is a cross between a technicial readout and historical record. For me its not enough to know what a ship can do, its also important to know how it came about.

* * * * *

For those who are looking for quick links to the discussed articles, here you go:

Caldari	Amarr	Minmatar	Gallente
Griffin Caracal Scorpion	Punisher Coercer Augoror	Bellicose Typhoon Breacher	Brutix Hyperion Vexor

Book Review: World War Z

I asked for the book World War Z for my birthday based on a reccommendation from Winterblink and Urban Mongral on their Warp Drive Active podcast. I started reading it and had trouble putting it down, it was that good.

Written in the style of a written documentary composed by the author visiting and interviewing survivors of the zombie near-apocalypse a decade or two after the events, it is engrossing in its authentic feel and vivid stories. I was sad when it ended; I wanted more from this fictional world where everything has changed.

Overall, I give it a rare 5 out of 5 stars.

Patch Day Skill Training Update

Apocrypha patch day is here. Before I left home for work I started the 1.4 GB download so that hopefully when I get home I can log in and set up my skill queues. I'm so looking forward to being able to take care of those short skills in one go.

Kirith is training Caldari Drone Specialization IV and Derranna is on Repair Drone Operation IV for the patch day. Speaking of skills, let's review the current state of the plans, shall we?

Kirith has been working hard on his Winter Plan that got Gallente Battleships inserted into it last month. Now that I'm skilled up nicely for Dominixes, Megathrons, and Hyperions I'm back on track with the miscellaneous skills for things like Remote Sensor Dampeners, tech II Heavy Drones for Caldari and Minmatar, better overheating repair, and better booster usage. Oh, and Target Painting. All in all, another 28 days to go and none of the skills are more than 4 days long, the longest being Biology V at 3 days and 21 hours.

After that I might spend 21 days on Amarr ship skills and Energy Turret skills in preparation for a Nightmare battleship. Later on this summer I'm committed to training for a Phoenix dreadnought for the corporation's benefit. but maybe Command Ships first. We'll see.

On the industrial side of things, Derranna has made huge strides in improving her ship piloting abilities. Her afterburner and micro warp drive skills are all at IV so she can use tech II versions of the modules, and she can now field five tech I scout drones or 5 tech I small/medium/heavy armour maintenance bots. Create for the 75 m3 drone bay on the Orca. She's got 11 days of shield training next, followed by 16 days of energy and hull training, and then 5 days of Capital Ship Construction II & III and Salvaging II to IV and Transport Ships III. After than... who knows? Maybe time to look at Logistic ships.

Shut Up, We're NOT Talking!

On Saturday night I had the extreme pleasure of sitting down with Darren, Karen, and John to talk about topics as a guest on Shut Up, We're Talking podcast.

I had a great time once my nerves settled down, and we covered some Eve related stuff as well as the Darkfall launch and concept. We even had a Michael Zenke driveby which was very exciting and caused me to utter the phrase "chassless aps" at one point instead of "assless chaps".

I guess you had to be there.

Unfortunately Darren emails us all the next day to sadly inform us the recording got corrupted somehow. So we're going to try again next weekend with new topics. *crosses fingers*

Back To War

Well, the short war against Mugen Industries ended only a few short weeks ago but they have not left the area. In fact, some friends of theirs appears to be moving in. Caeruleum Alliance has been seen dropping moon probes and moving ships into nearby high sec areas so we war dec'd them this past weekend to show them they are not welcome here. They also appear to be Japanese based so we exepct to see them working a lot with Mugen to frustrate activities in the Sukanan area.

This war does put a crimp in my wormhole exploration plans; I wouldn't feel right leaving my alliance for parts unknown during a war and there is no way to go out and jump clone back like you can with Providence 0.0 space. The good news is that wormhole space, once it arrives tomorrow, isn't going anywhere soon. No rush to get there first, the real trick is surviving once you do get there.

To facilitate my efforts in w-space, I had Derranna bring back her extra Cheetah and Prowler from Providence as I wasn't planning any operations out there in the near future. I almost made a boo-boo in the process as she was set to "high security space only" in the autopilot instead of shortest, so the route picked was straight through constantly camped HED-GP system. I didn't realize until I was warping to the out gate and noticed the next system was high sec instead of low sec.

Sure enough, I got pulled into an anchored bubble. Crapping my pants I turned around and looked for a warpable object. There wasn't a gate camp thank god, but a Taranis did warp in as I was aligning. Fortunately I got to warp before he got me. He followed me to the planet I picked in my hurry and almost landed on top of me when I foolishly picked warp to zero in my panic. My luck held out as the closest he came was 2900 meters and I warped to a safe spot with Covert Ops Cloak on.

Once things had cooled down, I warped to the gate on an angle to avoid the bubble, comfirmed it was clear from way out, and then spot-warped from 150 km out to make it into high sec.

Lucky.