Fiction Friday - Series 3: Chapter 7

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

* * * * *

I went down the wrong corridor on my way to my apartment, backtracked, then fumbled with the passcode, Nhi'Khuna's words still ringing in my ears .

Did you ever wonder why those mining outpost drones keep going haywire? Why they can't keep them operating normally and not attacking and killing anything that moves? Its because the corporation's competitors hire hackers to attack the drones' programming. All the corporations do it, a constant battle between techheads to see who can erect and breakdown firewalls faster, whose virus detector is more advanced, whose worm is more invasive. Its been going on so long all of the corporations assume its the nature of the business, the lives of poor miners and pilots lost a simple value in the accounting spreadsheet.

I stumbled into my apartment and turned on the lights. I had gotten my food to go so I placed the bag on the counter, not feeling as hungry as I did before.

Those "hard to find smokes" she sent you to get from a system or two over? Smuggling the results of industrial espionage in nano circuits in the packaging. That crate of imported Amarrian spiced wine? One bottle of custom genetic splicing poison. Capsuleers are used to avoid any chance of detection for these things.

I figured a shower, hot to the point of scalding, might help.

Did you ever wonder where the hordes of Guristas pirates came from around here, deep in the State? Why the local military forces are helpless to stop them from setting up outposts, smuggler's gates, black markets? And how can there be so many? I'll tell you why.

The life of the average citizen is hell. Living in industrial complexes on inhospitable worlds with no hope of real advancement, health issues from hazardous working conditions, sometimes forced to watch their children starve while they grow up with rudimentary education and no hope for the future. Its hell, Kirith, and billions upon billions are stuck in it.

Guristas recruiters come around and offer a chance at a better life. An outside chance to be sure, and years of indentured servitude without even the facade of law and corporate regulations to protect them, but one in a million of new recruits becomes rich beyond their dreams so the hordes of desperate souls feel it is worth it.

They go in debt to the Guristas, buying ragtag ships that are little better than deathtraps by borrowing at rates that would make your banker father squeal in delight, and are organized into haphazard fleets. Then with liberal bribes to government officials (and more debt to the Guristas overlords) they get permission to setup shop in a system and mine asteroids, pirate civilian traffic, salvage wrecks, hire themselves out as muscle, move illegal goods or sell illegal services, whatever they can to make a buck.

The shower didn't help. Time for a drink and I head to the fridge.

But the officials want that space for another group of desperate souls. Gotta keep the system moving, right? So they write up official complaints about pirate infestation for the State and get approval to hire contractors to take care of the issue. They take government money, taxed the corporations who bleed it from the same poor masses stuck on the planets, and give it to agent to hire a capsuleer to remove the problem.

The corporation gets some population control on old established colonies, the Guristas get indentured servants for life pretty much, the corrupt officials get the bribes, the agent gets a share and the capsuleer gets a share and the warm fuzzy  feeling of "fighting evil pirates". Everyone wins, right?

As I pass through my living room my neocom beeps and a message appears on the apartment screen. it reads:

"Kirith, good work on that last one. When you're not busy, I have some more work for you. Details below. Love, Lisa G"

I opened up the attachment while a ball of mud sat in the bottom of my stomach. Mining habit under siege, caught between warring pirate factions. Go in, get the miners out. I wondered how much they would be charged for the rescue services. I wondered who paid the pirates to attack the mining operation, and who paid to protect it. I wondered if it mattered.

The offered payment was over 200,000 ISK. I told the neocom to call up the agent. I wasn't sure what my response was going to be.

She came on the viewscreen with her trademark smile and said, "Kirith! Good to see you! You got my message then?"

"Yeah, Lisa, I did."

"So how soon can you get it done?"

I swallowed hard. I thought about everything Nhi'Khuna said, I thought about the image of those "pirates" in the ships I was being asked to engage and possibly destroy, simply looking for a better life with no other choice. And I thought about the money.

"Hello? Honey? What's wrong?" she said with what appeared genuine concern in her voice. A bitter part of me figured it was probably just worry about losing a good tool. I thought about the Navy and how they kicked me out for protecting the innocent; I thought about Rusack and how he walked free after shooting my brother; I thought about Blodel and his slaves that the State simply turned a blind eye to; and I thought about my father.

And at that point my love for Caldari broke. Deep down I realized that up to now I still thought the State was a good thing, perhaps with rough edges, but still inherently good and filled with good people. But no longer. I now saw the greed and corruption that stood over a rotting carcass of an ideal, and the millions of lives it chewed up and spit out as it consumed everything in its path.

"Nothing wrong, Lisa, just got something caught in my throat," I stammered. "I'm just calling to tell you that this mission sounds risky and I'll only do it for 250."

Her face took on a look of surprise and a slight grin. "Negotiating terms now, eh?" Laughing she said, "OK, just this once but only because I like you. Don't think this means it will work ever again." She pressed some buttons and the details on the other panel changed to show the new value for the mission. "You'll get this done sooner rather than later, hon?"

"Yeah, Lisa. No problem."

Reasons To Be Caldari, Amarr, Minmatar, Gallente

So yesterday's post generated some agreement and vehement disagreement. I want to clarify that I'm not suggesting you avoid making a Caldari character; I just found the article in question to have very questionable and subjective reasons.

In the interest of being fair, I'm going to compile a real list of reasons to be Caldari, as well as Amarr, Minmatar, and Gallente. I expect all readers to take me to task and give me a good fisking as needed.

Caldari
- Their missile based ships are excellent for PvE. Drake, Raven, Navy Raven, Golem, Tengu... these are the best end game PvE ships due to being able to select the missile type for the target, excellent range, massive shield tanks, and room for DPS mods in the lows.

- In certain setups, they can project turret firepower farther than anyone else with the Rokh, Harpy, and Eagle.
 
Amarr
- Right now lasers have the best combination of damage, range, and tracking.

- Amarr ships can field massive buffer armour tanks. In fact, their Supercarrier can tank like a Titan.

- Their command ships and Strategic Cruiser with warfare link abilities are very useful in certain types of fleets as they increase armour defenses.

Minmatar
- Their command ships and Strategic Cruiser with warfare link abilities are very useful in certain types of fleets as they add agility and reduce signatures.

- Projectile weapons allow the pilot to choose damage type as well as range/damage trade off.

- Their ships are typically the fastest and most agile per class.

Gallente
- Certain drone based ships allow selection of damage type and target type if their drone bays are big enough (Dominix, Ishtar, etc)

- Certain blaster based ships have the highest potential damage in their class when taking drone bays into account (Megathron, Proteus, Astarte, Ishkur, etc)

* * * * *
Alright readers, give it to me. What are your reasons for flying the various factions?

Ten Reasons to NOT be Caldari

Ten Ton Hammer had a post cheering Caldari in Eve. Allow me to rebut.

10. Shields Rule
- Yeah they're great... until you realize you have no mid slots left for tackle... until you realize your signature is the size of a small moon and thus easy to target and hit.

9. Missiles Rock
- Try fighting at any reasonable distance and waiting impatiently for your missiles to get to the target. Watch in horror as a speed tanking inty laughs as he closes in on you. Gasp in horror as you realize your cross training options are limited to a small smattering of Amarr and Minmatar and to be a real veteran you have to train gunnery skills from the start anyways.

8. Electronic Warfare Specialists
- Yeah ECM is cool compared to the others... except for that pesky habit of being targeted first all the time. And the ships having piss poor tanks as a result of slamming as much ECM as possible. Gimped for success!

7. Available Equipment
- What are you, poor? Everyone gets stuff in a hub or accepts the markups in the outlying regions. I've never said, "Damn, that Gallente ship is tooooo expensive here in 0.0!"

6. Caldari Are Popular
- Yes, space filled to the brim is great! Except for the lag, competition, ninja mission salvagers, can flippers, scam artists, and drained resources.

5. Well designed ships
- There are plenty, PLENTY, of shit designed Caldari ships. This point is just perception bias. Raptor, Hawk, Vulture, Eagle, Cerberus, Widow, Kitsune, Nighthawk, Ferox, Cormorant, Moa.... to name a few. I'm not saying these ships are broken, but they are far from Well Designed. The other races are at least as well designed.

6. A Good Path Of Progression For Hybrid Turret Users
-That's their numbering, not mine. Copy paste for the win folks. Yes, there is A path of progression, but with the Raptor, Vulture, Ferox, Moa all being less than ideal AND the lack of new hybrid platforms from CCP I can only say expect to be in a dead end in Caldari Hybrids pretty fast and training Gallente instead. That reminds me, Merlin poorly designed as well. Look at more than just ship bonuses, dude; try slot layout.

5. A Good Path Of Progression For Missile Users
- Ok, I'll give one to you. If you are a missile fanatic, Caldari is the race for you. Of course, you'll be marginalized in null sec fleet combat but whatever works for you.

4. Best Overall Fleet Ship - Drake
- The Drake may be the FOTM right now, but your list is going to look really stupid if (when) CCP changes things and the Drake falls out of favour. Not to mention tactics are being developed right now that might make the Drake fleets a weapon in the alliance arsenal and not the only choice. After all, the people that said train Minmatar for the Vagabond, Gallente for the nos-Domi, and Amarr for the pulse Zealot don't look so smart right now, eh?

3. Bustling Faction Warfare
- If Caldari are busy, then Gallente is busy too. And I'm pretty sure Minmatar and Amarr conflict is as busy. This seems... subjective at best.

2. The Most Well-Rounded Stealth Bomber
- Hmmm... his arguments sound valid I guess, but the advantage the Manitcore has over the others is so slight on the scale of ship effectiveness per role, that I'd be embarassed to include it in a list like this. He's reaching, and he doesn't have to with a list of 11 items due to "can't count" syndrome.

1. Caldari Are Damn Cool
Subjective again, as none of the empires has a particularly unique theme in sci fi tropes.

* * * * *
Don't get me wrong: I'm originally specced Caldari Hybrids and I think overall the faction they are OK, but there are times I wish I had started out with Gallente or Minmatar.

Payday

I got paid for work this week and immediately went shopping for skill books.

My empire hauling alt needed to upgrade his capabilities from a plain Badger Mk II so he's been training towards a freighter which requires a few skills such as Advanced Spaceship Command and Caldari Freighter. He's currently working on Caldari Industrial V which should take him a few weeks.

My Wyvern parking alt was frequently pissing me off by turning off all the modules she didn't have skills for so I made a plan to upgrade her to a more useful carrier co-pilot, with the idea that in some ops she can accompany me in a Chimera and provide cap and shield transfer during traveling. Since she trained straight for sitting in the supercarrier, she needs a lot of basic skills that a noob would normally be training.

And Kirith? He's still working on Gallente Cruiser V to open up those armour tanking cruisers and he'll be following that with Logistics V to finally get Triage mode for the Chimera. I also bought Citadel Cruise Missiles skill that I injected last night and will train to level 1 of soon so I can at least use a Phoenix with those weapons, just in case.

All told my expenditures on skills was around 150-200 million. I still have lots to buy some new ships, I'm just having trouble deciding what to buy. A Falcon... or an Arazu? Deimos or Ishtar? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Better

Last night I logged in and found a fleet reinforcing a POS. The FC had a request for more Dictors and Hictors and I broke out my new Onyx and sent it into the attack.

Once the POS was successfully reinforced, the main fleet stood down for a while and a smaller standing fleet formed to wait until a POS was coming out of reinforce. I joined the standing fleet and was chatting up channels when word came to us that a friendly Guardian logitistics warped to the wrong POS in a close by system and was scrammed and webbed by the tower with one gun firing. He was not in danger from dying to the gun, but couldn't run. We mobilized the small fleet we had and went to help. Soon the Guardian pilot was free and modules on the POS were being incapacitated. We decided to reinforce the POS itself as it was only a medium; it took a while with our small fleet but it finished before the next POS was ready and the main fleet reformed.

The reformed main fleet went out and finished off the enemy POS and the POS modules found at it. Then we saw the Territorial Claim Unit was vulnerable to our now onlined SBUs and we killed it too. The fleet went on to kill another POS but I called it a night. Looks like five killmails for me all told, not the most exciting night but always good to contribute.

Good luck to my corp and alliance mates in the big showdown today.

Bring the Overview Into 2011

There is one thing that bugs me about the overview. We have 7 classes of ship sizes (frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, battleship, capital, and supercapital) and 3 sizes of icons to fit them all into such that Titans use the same icon as battleships.

(Please excuse my sad MS Paint skills.) The overview has more ability than that and we should encourage, nay DEMAND, that CCP address this deficit. ;-)

In order to be constructive, I have a proposal for new icon classifications.

As you can see, I propose using triangles to mix with the squares for sub capitals, and pentagons for capital and super capitals. For NPCs, perhaps something more subtle.

This small change will allow pilots to quickly pick out the various ship classes faster at a glance rather than having to add the ship type column and scan through it all the time.

Melancholy

Last week Director Grey did some killboard stats crunching (apparently he gets the Eve withdrawal shakes at work too) and posted up the Avg Kills per Month for all members. I was 14th for being longest in corp, 37th for all time number of kills, and a dismal 55th for avg kills per month. In a corp of around 80, including about 20 alts.

How depressing.

It's not that I'm hiding in high sec or running complexes whilst others fight, nor is it that I die in a fire a lot (my kill to death ratio is decent). When I'm online I join fleets and go to the fight, wherever it may be (that's how I end up in Cloud Ring or Fountain at the end of the night).

No, the issue is that I just don't log in as often as my compatriots who are all ranking above me. I know if I could log in more often I could improve that metric.

October has been particularly unpleasant. Two of my Eve sessions I found a fleet and went out looking for fights and both came up empty for me, the first where the Black Ops pilot made a mistake and jumped to a hot drop instead of opening the jump bridge, and the second where our fleet flew to Fountain and found no one wanting a fight.

Then this war with the Droneland Russians comes around and this past weekend the forum is filled with reports of constant fighting and glorious amounts of killmails and I can't participate again. It kills me and I feel like I'm letting my corporation and friends down. I seriously hope that when I log in tonight there is still some fleets to join or I'm going to be pissed.

Now, don't get me wrong. No one in m3 Corp has come to me and told me to shape up or ship out. They understand my real life situation and know that not only do I try hard, I also bring some positive publicity and recognition to the corp and drive interested recruits to the website. My opinion is valued and had I been part of any other organization I would have slinked (slunk?) away to leave the more successful PvPers to their business and stop dragging down the averages.

Is there any hope on the horizon for more gaming time? Not in the foreseeable future; we can get all the kids in bed by 8:30 but almost every night has another hour of cleanup tied to it to get everything ready for the next day, and with early mornings seven days a week its hard to justify staying up late too often. I'm an old man, I need my beauty sleep dammit! Maybe in a couple years...


Alright, enough feeling sorry for myself. We're at war. The enemy is next door. And I'm logging in tonight. That's right Vodka Boys, buckle up: Uncle Kirith is coming.

Fiction Friday - Series 3: Chapter 6

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

* * * * *

Like all establishments on the Capsuleer decks of the station, The Dead-End Gate was upscale with expensive drinks, incredibly beautiful staff, perfect lighting, comfortable seats, avant-garde  artwork on the walls, and high end entertainment booths at the back wall with options for gambling, holoreels, news feeds, whatever. A respectable joint; if you wanted company of the sexual nature there were official brothels down the promenade or you could go down to the civilian decks and try your luck in the darker and seedier bars there.

This bar was not the only one on this level but it was the quietest of the three. Basil's Den was for a young crowd that liked loud dance music and strobing lights while the third, The Warp Tunnel, was attached to the brothel and had a rougher crowd of capsuleer's and their guests. I checked in their once for signs of Rusack since I knew he dealt with pod pilots sometimes but  there was no sign of him then.

Like any young man, I liked Basil's Den and spent a few nights there, meeting some fine ladies (both pod pilot and not) and having a good time, but right now I wanted a good drink and a snack and the Dead-End Gate had great wings and fries.

As I walked in I saw it was a small crowd which was not unexpected due to station time being the early morning. There was JimmyT at the bar itself with two floozies from the civilian decks he hired for his escorts; while the ladies at the brothel on this deck were much finer they were also a lot more expensive. Most pod pilots could easily afford the high class company but JimmyT was a notorious gambler and a terrible miner. In the back booths there was Scopious12 either watching a sporting event or gambling, I couldn't tell which. He was a good guy also working for Golyn and I helped him one time when some pirates setting up a human traffic waypoint platform were too well armed for his Ibis.

Sitting at one of the tables near the right wall was Gerry Dall, a capsuleer who sought her fortunes in (legal) commodities trading and had a nice Kestrel she took me on a tour of last week and was talking about buying a big Badger class ship. She was talking to someone I didn't recognize, an Amarrian woman by looks of the clothes in the dim light, and Gerry was shaking her head. I watched with mild interest as I walked over to the bar on the left side of the place to put my order in. "Who's Gerry talking to?" I asked the bartender, a heavy set but well dressed man I knew only by the nickname "Boss".

"Some recruiter for a pod pilot corp," he said dismissively. "Asked me if she could talk to some pod pilots in here and I told her as long as she buys a drink." He chuckled at his little joke. I put my order in and sat at a stool at the bar, watching the holo over Boss's balding head while trying to surreptitiously watch Gerry and the recruiter. I was curious as I knew very little about capsuleer run corporations besides what the rumour mills said. Gerry was still looking unsatisfied, then she stood up, shook the hand of the recruiter while shaking her head one last time, and then she left pausing only to wave to me and Boss at the bar.

The recruiter took up a datapad, made some notes, and then looked around her. She saw me at the bar and I looked at her pad again. I tried to look like I was casually looking around but I suspect I just looked stupid. I glanced back to see if she noticed my interest and we locked eyes again. She gave me a "come here" look that was all authority and no sexual overtones; there was no question of not obeying her as it was obvious she was used to command. I told Boss to hold my meal for a bit and tried to casually saunter over to the recruiter's table.

"Hi, Kirith Kodachi, right?" she said with a smile as I approached, using my pod pilot name.

"That's right," I replied, taking the seat she offered. "And you are...?"

"My name is Nhi'Khunna and I want to talk to you about your future."

"Oh really?" I leaned back in my chair and tried to look nonchalant. "And what does my future hold?"

"It depends on what you want." She waved a hand around to indicate the bar and station. "You have it pretty good right now, right? ISK coming in, comfortable place to relax and make friends, adventure in your day job as you never know what " - she checked her pad quickly - " agent Golyn is going to have for you to do, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sounds about right."

"And it doesn't bother you that your comfortable life here is built upon lies and corruption and the backs of thousands of suffering poor people?" she said with a bit of venom.

Tales of a Planetary Overlord

Life in the wormhole continues to be quiet and productive, my five to ten minutes of effort in the morning netting me a good amount of ISK.

The routine is pretty set now. Every morning before downtime I reset the extractors on the Lava, Plasma, Ice,  and Gas Giant planets. Every third morning I then drop by the lava and plasma customs office to pick up the loads of toxic metals, precious metals, chiral structures, and reactive metals and drop them off at the Temperate planet that is my manufacturing base, picking up any robotics, mechanical parts, and enriched uranium there.

Also, once a week I drop by the gas giant and ice planet for the oxygen and coolant. And then every two weeks I look for the high sec exit and drop all the items in the Orca off at a high sec station, contracting to my empire alt for distribution to the hubs.

I'm am thinking of concentrating efforts into simply Robotics however. Since I'm not actually fueling any towers the Oxygen and Coolant production lines are merely distractions and I think a better approach would be to focus on one end product in high demand. Debate continues in my head; I might wait until Incursions before doing any major revamps.

Inspirational Posters

Awesome corpmate Xenon is slacking at work again!

 

And for the Caldari lovers:

Ignorance Is Bliss

I love Eve podcasts, I really do. Hell, I started one myself I like them so much!

But what is it about Eve podcasters being so crucially ignorant about upcoming releases? I must be in a minority because I hunt down all information about upcoming expansions religiously, track the changes reported on Sisi, and generally make sure I know what to expect come the day it arrives.

I'm listening to the 2.5 hour Fly Reckless episode with guest Jade and Jayne from Lost In Eve (two of the top podcasts for Eve out there right now) and several times I just have to shake my head at the collective ignorance of Incursions and Incarna. A couple off the top of my head:

- No, you do not have to exit your ship to access station services when Incarna comes out. Walking in stations is always an option but not mandatory.
- The Sansha ships for Incursions will deal all damage types, EM and Therm from lasers as per now, and new Kinetic/Explosive missiles. This will prevent players from resist tanking like they do with normal rats in missions/ratting.
- The incursions will be happening in high sec, low sec, null sec. Not just low sec. Yes, pirates will be a problem in low sec but people serious about doing this content will figure out how to deal with it.

I guess part of the problem is that instead of playing Eve I can only read about it, so I know more but have less hands on experience. To be honest, I'd rather have the opposite problem.

(NOTE: upon re-reading my post, it occurs to me that the words "ignorant" and "ignorance" could be construed as intending to be insulting in today's modern vernacular. Rest assured that is not my intention and I use the words as per their definition of "not knowing about", instead of the common "you idiot, you don't even know you don't know!")

(NOTE #2: if you are not listening to Fly Reckless, Lost In Eve, or Not A Lot Of News Newshour Eve podcasts, you are missing out!)

State of the Blog

I usedto do monthly summaries of traffic numbers and search hits but stopped because it felt a little too much like navel gazing and took too much effort. I like to bang out many posts in 15 minutes or less. But I was talking with Andrew about his old Wow site still getting lots of hits and it prompted me to check my numbers and do a little post.

Here is the traffic history of the blog since I started tracking back in July 2008. I'm not sure what happened in the beginning of 2009 to cause readership to upswing so much... was that when I was posting about the new probing mechanics on Sisi a lot with screenshots? The spike in June of this year was from Massively.com linking to me about Project Athena. But since then readership as dropped a little bit. Or rather, visits have dropped; since I can't track readers through Capsuleer or of the feed except Google Reader subscribers, I don't know how many readers I have in total.

Speaking of Google Reader subscribers, its at 604 which is pretty good. In comparison, Crazy Kinux's Musings has 965 subscribers, Roc's Ramblings 347, and Mynxee's Life in Lowsec has 1030.

But for all intents and purposes, I feel like I've plateaued with the blog readership and I'd probably need to play a lot more to have crazy Eve adventures to post about in order to gain more readership. Do I need more readers? Any current readers have requests for more of certain post types? LMK.

It will be interesting to see if the podcast has any affect on readership numbers going forward.

Fall of the Sniper BS

For years the ship of the line in null sec was the Tech II fitted sniper battleship. This usually meant Megathrons, Apocalypses, and Tempests, and many null alliances were fine with Rokhs, Scoprions (back when ECM could be snipe range), and Maelstroms. Even just last spring in Paxton I had multiple battleships ready to go in the hanger for the fleets.

And slowly, it began to change. I first remember Pandemic Legion coming out with Armour HAC gangs supported by Guardian logistics, and the Paxton/CVA Panic Zealot fleets with a similar concept. I even remember a Goon fleet coming through in a Drake blob which we handily defeated with our battleship fleet.

Nowadays there are three fleets that a null sec alliance fields on a regular basis:

AHACs - armour based heavy assault cruisers, backed by considerable Guardian logistics, may include some tackle and recons. Typically fit with after burner and accompanied by command ships with sig reducing command links, the goal is to be as hard to target and hit as possible and to repair as quickly as possible if shot at. May also include remote ECCM to keep logistics from getting jammed.

Drake Army - Heavy Missile Drakes, lots of em, with Basilisk and Scimitar logistics support, shield command links. The goal is to be a tidal wave of bricks with great range (about 70 km IIRC) and decent damage.

Supercap Blob - The main weapon of choice for taking out starbases, sov structures, and disabling station services. Often accompanied by regular capitals, the core is the Supercarriers and Titans. Often the only counter for a decent sized fleet of these ships is another supercap blob, and these blobs can be dangerous to smaller sub-cap fleets due to the vast array of drones available to the carriers and supercarriers.

While there is still the occasional call for sniper battleships, it is about the frequency one hears calls for bomber fleets, assault frig gangs, and remote-rep battleship fleets.

Why has the sniper BS fleet suffered this fall from grace?

1) Probing Mechanics - quite simply, it is very easy for a prober to get a warp in on a battleship fleet in under 10 seconds, allowing bubbles to be deployed on the battleships and tackle to jump all over them followed by short range DPS ships like AHACs and Drakes. At those ranges the battleships can't track really well and they quickly get shredded.

2) Cost - A sniper battleship costs as much or more than an AHAC, and far more than a Drake.

3) Training - Tech II weapons are a huge hurdle to train for many pilots. Ironically, Cruiser V and medium weapons probably feels like intensive but is about the same time, however is useful for so many other ship types while Tech II battleship weapons are good on... battleships. Maybe Marauders someday. Drakes are incredibly easy to skill up for to a decent level.

4) Mobility - Cruisers and Battlecruisers align faster, use less jump bridge fuel, and have higher speeds. Every second can count.

5) More survivable - surprisingly, due to lower sig radius and not having to expend many slots for range boosting, AHACs and Drakes have equivalent or superior tanks to a fleet of sniper battleships.

6) Logistics - I mean in the actual movement of items and not the repair ship. Its easier to transport cruiser and battlecruiser hulls to the front lines than it is to move battleships. It may not mean much, but its something.


Does this mean that the sniper Battleship is going the way of the dinosaur? Perhaps. There are still use cases for a good battleship gang and FCs will try to counter enemy fleets with ideas and concepts that may include them, but for now the Sniper battleship will always be a second consideration to a good Armour HAC and Drake in my hanger.

Providence In Flames And Other Stuff

So, Noir Mercenary Group has had enough of Providence petty politics and is pulling out, leaving its territory to CVA in the process. With Damu'Khonde already pulling out, Triple-A out of the equation, and no superpower looking to invade and enforce order, Providence has devolved into a certain kind of chaos.

Its fascinating to watch from the sidelines, and I'm willing to be a lot of people are having fun in there with lots of potential PvP close by. I wish there were more regions like this where small empires could coexist in hostile harmony. Maybe someday I'll go back there and fly around looking for trouble, checking out the old haunts.

* * * * *
The Ancient Gaming Noob's Eve screenshot contest finished and I won the Ringed Planet category with this image of a Rifter taking off in warp.

Some excellent shots in there, I encourage you to go see them.

* * * * *

New dev blog today talking about how rockets are getting a boost (good), Hawk is getting better bonus (so its actually more DPS than Kestrel finally?), Tech II short range ammo getting balanced (better than faction ammo finally), faction ships available on market (YAY), and fighter bombers on super carriers getting changed from using real missiles (holy lag Batman!) to "fake missiles" which are really just turret weapons now. The upshot of this change is that they " have been more stringent on bombers being more focused on being a threat to capital ships rather than melting regular sub-capital ship classes [and]will be much less effective against sub-capital class ships now and in this scenario you should switch to using fighters". As long as the DPS against structures and cap ships remains consistent then I am perfectly fine with this change. I have more than enough drone bay space for lots of other drones for smaller targets.

* * * * * *
Other screenshots I submitted to the contest:

Fiction Friday - Series 3: Chapter 5

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

* * * * *

The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind of changes. After that first mission I took my ship to a private hanger I rented with my new found wealth and hired a team of mechanics technicians that would report to me as opposed to some corporation. I then had to fork over a good chunk of the ISK to repair the damage and upgrade some of the systems on the old Ibis to what my military training deemed close to acceptable.

I moved out the public hotel and rented the cheapest apartment I could find on the private capsuleer-only decks. They were rented by the day, week, month, or year and I settled on a week as that was all I felt I could afford at the moment. part of me felt it was a frivolous expense as I didn't have any idea if the next assignment from agent Golyn would be as successful and lucrative, but it gave me access to the facilities and established limited to capsuleers only on the station.

I put a few thousand away in a new Pend Insurance banking account and used the remaining chunk to buy what pod pilots called a 'skillbook'. In reality it was a NRIIS, Neural Remapping Interface Instruction Set, which seemed like a reasonable name to me ("I'd like an n-ris please.") but the original company that developed them called the skill books and the name stuck even if the company didn't. The NRIIS connects to the pod computer and uses the pod's interface to gently remap sections of your brain, effectively training it in a new skillset with information as if you learned it by yourself. It was faster and more efficient than actual real life training, but slower than having a hardwiring plugged into your head. The downside of hardwirings, as I can attest from my ejection from the Navy, is that you lose the skill when the hardwiring implant is lost. Skills from skillbooks lasted as long as you did.

The skillbook I purchased was about hybrid weaponry, harking back to my specialty in the Navy. I wanted to learn how to use proper railguns again as the civilian models were so simplistic as to be near useless.

A couple days later the Last Chance was back in working condition with its upgrades installed and I returned to the agent's office for another assignment. Over the next two weeks I completed a variety of missions, some involving simple jobs like couriering some files to an associate a few jumps over, sneaking a case of Amarrian spiced wine through customs (civilian ships are searched by station staff, capsuleers are not), defeating some more rouge drones at mining colonies, driving off 'pirates' (really just desperate vagabonds waving the Guristas flag in ships that were unsafe to fly), scouting deep space areas, delivering parts to outposts, ... the list goes on. The money I made was insane and soon I was buying skillbooks on topics as diverse as shield operation and engineering upgrades to micro warp drive maintenance and repair and Caldari starship designs.

The last one was most important. I finally came to a mission that was more than the good old Last Chance could handle. There was a mining habitat that was stuck in the crossfire of a gang of Guristas and some roaming Serpentis ships and Lisa wanted me to run in and get a load of the miners out before they ended up as collateral damage. Unfortunately, neither the local nor invading pirates saw fit to let me pass peacefully and on my third try to sneak past a Guristas frigate on patrol picked me up on scan and attacked me while I was trying to navigate unseen through a depleted asteroid field. The Ibis tried to put up a good defence but I was stuck near an asteroid and my warp engine could handle the gravity wave fluctuations to make the jump to warp. I ejected and used the small emergency warp drive in the pod to get to safety.

I sulked back at station a bit, then went shopping for a real combat ship. The first one I looked at was a Heron, which compared to the Ibis class, looked like a beast and was reasonably priced. But my main mechanic suggested I get a Kestrel as it was a well known quantity in terms of performance. I wasn't a fan of missiles though, so I swallowed the price of a brand new Merlin frigate with four railgun mountings and two missile launcher bays. I had nearly 750,000 ISK in the bank and I was loathe to spend too much on a ship, especially one that with systems installed was going to cost a shade over 500,000.

It was worth it. With the 125mm Kaalakiota railguns, Lai Dai light missile launchers, standard issue afterburners, X-3500 Shield Boosters, and a Caldari Provisions shield reinforcement matrix, I tore into the Guristas ships like a scythe through wheat. When my shields looked to be close to breaking I would turn and speed away with missiles and rails firing behind me; once recovered enough I would turn back and rain antimatter death upon them. It was easy to rescue the miners after the pirates were all dead or fleeing.

That night I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I walked into my bar of choice on the capsuleer pavilion, a little joint called The Dead-End Gate.

Tribune is Back!

After some real life distractions, Eve Tribune is back with a loaded issue including an article I wrote in August about the week of dev blogs.

Enjoy!

This and That

At last Monday's Titan kill in Etherium Reach the FC was constantly calling for more interdictors, both heavy and light. As I can't fly light interdictors (I know, for shame!) and I didn't have my usual Onyx in my hanger, I was forced to simply be support DPS in a Drake.

I used to always have an Onyx in my hanger as its one of my favourite ships to fly. In fact, on my killboard for ships and weapons used the Onyx ranks near the top. I sold my last one when I liquidated assets to afford the Wyvern and never bothered to replace it with a new one as my wallet recovered.

Well, this morning I decided to rectify that and purchased a new Onyx with massive shield buffer at the closest market hub. I don't think I'll need it as much as I used to use it in Providence but its good to have on hand for supercapital tackling duty when the opportunity arises.

* * * * *

From scrapheap challenge forums, the latest SISI build has the Sansha fighter bomber with textures:

Sexy!

* * * * *
Had a little op with a Black Ops fleet on Tuesday, trying to counter-hot drop a hostile bomber fleet with black ops ship. We baited them and opened the cyno but the black ops pilot accidentally clicked "Jump to beacon" instead of opening a jump portal. Whoops! A moment of silence for the bait ship pilot and cyno pilot and misclicking black ops pilot who died.

* * * * *
I've decided that Korneilia does not need 6 colonies to manage after all as 5 with Elite should be fine for my purposes. Rather I'm going to get Korannon to start a real training regimen for Transport ships, Freighter, and associated tanking / navigation skills.

What prompted this was last week I had a full Orca in the wormhole and scanned down the high sec exit, scooted out to drop the stuff in a station, scooted back to w-space, and contracted the items to Korannon for moving to a hub for selling. Korannon accepts contract, plots a course, notices it goes through low sec, checks autopilot settings, sees "safer" is still clicked, and I realize I dropped the items in a high sec pocket.

Korannon lacks the skills to safely move through low sec so its time to upgrade his capabilities.

Capitals Online

Over at Eveoganda blog Rixx Javix has posted a two part about capitals and Titans in particular:

http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/2010/10/g ... itans.html
http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/2010/10/g ... art-2.html

Part of the second post:

Carriers Vs. Titans
As I said in the last post I strongly believe the Capital class of starships is grossly unbalanced right now. The Super Carrier/Carrier class, the Jump Frieghter, the Titan have each in their own way added to this unbalance. I picked on the Titan for very simple reasons. First of all it is the biggest. While I'm sure an individual somewhere has built their own Titan for some reason or another, they are almost exclusively the result of Alliances or large Corporations. This is what I meant by the "less like a sandbox and more like a corporate boardroom" comment, anytime the individual is removed from the equation it's bad news for the player base in my opinion. Me being an individual and all.

James at Inanity and Doom also chimes in:
http://kantlavar.blogspot.com/2010/10/i ... etter.html

Capital ships, supercapitals, and titans shouldn't be commonplace on the battlefield. There should be major time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears to even build one, let alone deploy one. Destruction of one of these ships should hurt, not be a common thing. Make them threats on the field, not targets.

Therefore I say, CCP, jack up the requirements. Make those skills take longer. Make it cost much more to build the damn things. Make them own the goddamn battlefield in response. But you shouldn't see hundreds of capitals and supercapitals fielded at a time by just one alliance.

I posted comments at both posts, disagreeing with Rixx that Titan jump bridges were a main cause for the demise of sniper battleship fleets (removal of the area effect doomsday that required tanking was far more crucial, combined with the new scanning mechanics that makes warping in on enemy fleets 150+ km away easy, the nerfing of ECM range, and the subsequent enabling of sig tanking afterburner HACs), and I disagreed with James that increasing skill training times would make any difference since once you have the skills, you have them forever after.

I do however agree that something is out of balance. Power in null sec is determined by supercaps now, with dreads and carriers as support and subcaps as mere filler and specialized support (i.e. scouts, tacklers). Being an owner of a supercarrier I'm nervous of any talk to change the ships or their cost or skill requirements as I don't feel the ships themselves are to blame but rather the environment they exist in.

There are several reasons for the proliferation of supercaps as ships of the line.

1) The bigger you are, the more affordable they are. Its a feedback loop that once started can only be stopped by another supercap power. As an alliance grows, it takes space which includes moons with valuable moon mining. This feeds a lot of ISK into the alliance wallet, which can be invested in supercap production, which allows supercaps to be produced and sold to members at discount prices, which allows the alliance to become stronger and grow and acquire more space... with more resources to exploit.

Fundamentally: moon mining with little effort is too profitable for alliances.

AND

There is no penalty to holding moons without sovereignty. (Does sov costs still escalate with empire size or did that not get implemented?)

2) Supercaps are easy to make. Sure, there is a lot of upfront setup such as securing the blueprints or BPCs for the capital ship components and ship itself, and anchoring a POS with proper assembly arrays, but once all that is in place you need basic minerals. Sure, a lot of them but still simple basic minerals from mining asteroids or melting down items. This means that procuring raw materials is relatively easy whether you rely on alliance members to mine or you buy them cheaply in bulk from miners in high sec.

Consider the much more involved processes in Tech II and Tech III production. Now imagine that extrapolated to supercaps. It doesn't need to increase the material cost but simply making it more difficult to make the ships would definitely cut down on their number and usuage.

3) Capitals are more tactically flexible. Despite being unable to use stargates, capitals have more flexibility to travel across the universe using cynos and a negligible fuel cost. This gives them far greater tactical utility than a fleet of one hundred battleships would have, even if they used a titan jump bridge whose fuel costs are considerable for so many ships.

4) There is no effective counter-measure to supercaps other than other supercaps. While it is possible to destroy a Titan or supercarrier with only sub-cap ships, you need effectively a perfect storm of conditions to do so: a tackled ship, a few hundred of your allies, hope your opponent does have a hundred or so of their sub-cap ships, and enough DPS to kill the ship in 15 minutes if he logs off. On the other hand, a small handful of supercaps can hotdrop a tackled titan and kill it in a few minutes.

But beyond that, a fleet of enemy supercaps can't be stopped by anything outside of a fleet of your own supercaps. Or a hell of a lot of regular capitals or metric shitton of well coordinated sub-caps, neither option which is very feasible for your average every day operation. Thus "supercap blobs" are well nigh un-counterable, and POS defenses are inadequate to deter these fleets.

Fundamentally, you need supercaps to deal with enemy supercaps.

* * * * *

So what can be done beyond drastic measures like removing capitals or re-architecturing the game? I believe there must be several small changes in order to rebalance the game.

1) Moon mining must be less profitable combined with moon material alchemy must be less useless. Make moon materials have more sources for an even distribution of profit rather than wars over Technitium moons or Promethium moons or whatever the bottleneck in moon materials is today.

2) Make supercaps harder to make. Not more expensive, just more involved. Perhaps supercaps need to be Tech II items requiring fewer minerals but more moon materials. Or perhaps Planetary interaction materials/components are required in the capital ship component blueprints.

3) Lower jump range and/or increase fuel cost for supercaps. In essence, make deploying supercaps more difficult and more costly so there is more of a risk/reward assessment required.

4) Introduce POS modules with anti-capital weaponry. A doomsday sentry gun for example, or a superjammer capable of locking down supercaps. A warp disruption generator like a Hictor has to hold them in place. These modules would be ineffective against battleship fleets but force capitals and supercaps to think twice before engaging.

Implementing some or all of these changes would not alter the fundamental fabric of Eve but it would perhaps balance the scales of power somewhat and make fleet commanders think about whether a supercarrier fleet is called for or not.

Sometimes You Get Lucky

Due to Thanksgiving weekend my gaming night got moved to Tuesday evening so I have nothing exciting to report... except helping to destroy two carriers and a titan. Allow me to explain.

My wife forgot to start the dryer. Distracted by the kids going to bed, she put the wet clothes in the dryer but forgot to start it. We had more wet clothes in the washer so when I discovered the still damp clothes in the dryer I volunteered to stay up waiting for them to finish.

While I was waiting, I logged into Eve to finish a run to Jita for some skillbooks and to outfit a Manticore when alliance comms lit up like a Christmas Tree. Fleet invite being spammed was called "Supers Tackled". Now I was in high sec, not a lot of time on my hands, tired as it was past my bedtime, and reluctant to commit the Wyvern to a slapped together op. The location was listed as in Etherium Reach and I saw it was 19 jumps from one of our station systems, but then a corp mate told me to use a different system as jump off point from our jump bridge network and I saw it was only 8 jumps. And then I found out no caps could be used as it was a cyno jammed system, so the request was out for Drakes or whatever could fly (preferably hictors and dictors but I don't have any of those... need to build an Onyx again).

So I docked somewhere in High sec and clone jumped to my base in Vale, grabbed a Drake, and burned to the system. I arrived and it was quite the sight, seeing two enemy titans and four enemy supercarriers trapped by bubbles and being fired upon by a slowly growning horde of battlecruisers and battleships. I followed the FC's instructions, targets alternating between the Avatar, a Nyx, and the fighters that would sometimes boil forth in an effort to escape the trap. Enemy ships would sometimes warp in to try and save the tackled capitals but they went down quickly as we responded.

Eventually as our numbers began swelling the enemy logged off the supercaps in an effort to save them but it failed for the Avatar titan as the rumour has it he logged while his guns were still firing at the POS that drew these ships out in the first place. I got in on an Archon and Niddhoggur killmails but the Avatar titan I got cut off at the 300 pilot limit as did a few other people. Oh well, can't complain overall as its not everyday you help contribute to capital killmails.

Fiction Friday - Series 3: Chapter 4

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

* * * * *


The Last Chance rocked violently to the port side and I swore. The haywire drone that had trained its lasers on me thinking I was an asteroid swooped by on the starboard and began a slow turn to come back for another go. I drove the Ibis down and tried to come up under him in a blind spot this model supposedly had but the Ibis frigate moved like a crippled fat cow. I swore again.


About 4000 meters back three more mining drones were giving chase, firing their mining lasers in my general direction but not used to dealing with a moving target. My railguns lashed out at the drone I was chasing and one beam scored a hit, lancing through a non-armoured casing and through the electronics and battery inside. Dead, its momentum carried it on into the black.


I focused my attention on the remaining three, but they had closed the distance and their lasers started to strike true. The shield's matrix on my ship began to lose coherence and stability in several spots and I tried to open up some distance to allow the ship's AI time to reboot emitter diodes back into proper frequencies. It didn't work; the Ibis was too slow and the drones kept pace. My railgun energy banks finally cycled and let lose another salvo at one of the drones. A glancing blow staggered my target and ripped off an appendage, but after a few seconds it resumed its chase.


I would have killed for a Merlin right about then.


My shields were estimated at 45% and I activated the shield booster which injected energy into hard reboots of many shield emitter diodes at once. This allowed the shield coherence to be re-established faster, but it took a lot of energy. The shield indicator on my HUD climbed... and then dropped as the three drones continued their assault.


I had kept moving in a straight line and the drones slowly fell in behind me as they gave chase. This dropped the transversal velocity and I lashed out once more with my rails, this time making no mistake and destroying one of the drones completely. My shields were still dropping and my energy levels were too low for more boosting. One of the drone's lasers penetrated the shields entirely and a host of warning lights went off as heat began to rise in the engineering compartment.

I targeted the offending drone and silently urged my railguns to recharge. Yellow warning lights started to give way to red error lights when they finally fired and blew my attacker up. Only one to go.

The remaining drone change tactics all of a sudden and switched from lasering the bulk of my ship to firing at the spot where my pod was contained. That just pissed me off. I tried to turn my ship away from the mining laser but navigation control was disrupted and the archaic AI was still rerouting command subroutines. To make matters worse, the railgun energy store was recharging far slower than normal.

The shields gave and the armour plating on my ship began to melt again. Desperate, I ordered a full stop, firing manuvuring jets directly ahead, and the thick gas of the cluster's nebula acted like a wind brake. The drone flew by and the mining laser skipped off the spot it was targeting. He quickly started coming about but the railguns on my damage ship were finally recharged. I held off firing until he was finished his turn and coming straight at me. Then, I fired and both charges split his chassis and a small explosion indicated the breach of its local power plant.

I mentally sighed in relief and let the AI continue its ad hoc repairs.

* * * * *


"Ah, you must be Kirith Kodachi! My name is Lisa Golyn, please come in."

Lisa sat behind a large desk with a top of looked like real wood. The entire office was opulent, with a view into the main station promenade and exotic fish tanks with subdued lighting. My father would have been right at home here. I felt dirty and unworthy in my rumpled clothes and the faint whiff of pod goo on my skin. I wish I had showered longer now. I mumbled hello and tried to regain my composure as I settled in the soft chair.

"I like to meet my associates in person once they start working with me. Intermediaries are fine for initial contact and routine reports, but first impressions should be in person, don't you agree?" I barely got yes out before she continued. "I see by the report that you took care of those drones at the mining colony for us. No trouble, I hope?"

"Well, the briefing said two but there was four and one of them was strangely more aggressive. It seemed like he was gunning for me rather than mistaking me for an asteroid," I said.

She waved a hand dismissively in the air, "Intelligence reports, what can you do? Good work though." She took a chit off her desk and leaned forward to hand it to me. I swear she was making her cleavage burst out like that on purpose. I took the credit and glanced at it. Then I did a double take.

"ISK?" I said incredulously. "Fifteen thousand ISK?"

Lisa leaned back and gave a loud guffaw. I think she was on something. "Of course, Kirith! We're not paying our capsuleers in State creds! We would never get anyone to work for us."

I was shocked into silence. I hesitantly pressed my thumbprint to the reader and the money transferfed effortlessly despite being a small fortune. "Wouldn't mercenaries have been cheaper?"

"Not really. They need more ships and men, thus have more expenses and contracts, and it takes days for them to get ready. And the colony was costing its owners a lot of money for every day wasted." She took a long drink of some purple liquid and I noticed she did not offer me any. "Trust me, you capsuleers are a lot cheaper in the long run. And more efficient." Almost to herself she added, "Sometimes too efficient."

My head beginning to churn with the possibilities the money meant, I thanked her and stood up to go. She shook my hand and added as I walked away, "Don't stay away too long, dear. Talk to Joril at the desk, he has some more tasks that need someone of your qualifications to take care of."

With ISK in my eyes I replied, "Don't worry, I'll be back."

Screeshot Thursday

 There are something like 37 screenshot thumbnails (click to get large image, some 1900x1200). Enjoy!

* * * * *

This is the wormhole my alt is living in, a Catcylsimic Variable star. The actual system sun is off screen at this point too.

Fleet moving into position, recharging capacitors after a jump in.

Attacking a station in Geminate, incapacitating services.

My Wyvern aside a Erebus titan. You can see the shadow from my prow on the Erebus' hull.

Kill that station!

Below the rings of some forgotten planet as we prepare to attack the system's I-Hub.

Explosions on the I-Hub.

Look out for the crossfire!

Another station attack in Geminate. Caldari Leviathan in the top centre.

Close up of Wyvern with Revelation dreadnought in the background.

Another system, another I-Hub to reinforce.

Wingmates.

Orca approaching the wormhole.

Tengu target painting my next victim...

... and the victim responding with a missile.

Another cap recharge before going into the fight in Cloud Ring.

At a midpoint, approaching a friendly POS.

Reinforcing a POS in Cloud Ring.

Dreadnoughts firing on tower while fighters and bombers attack the jump bridge module and sentry guns.

"All firepower on the super star destroyer!"

Close up of the Minmatar fighter bomber in flight.

A second POS that same night. Again, the jump bridge was primary target.

I like the composition of this shot, the different light sources and textures.

Fleet align planet 6! Cap up those supercaps first!

I like this shot too.

Me and three corpies from m3 at a complex escalation, attacking a Guristas outpost and its defending waves of ships. Watch in this sequence as a little blue dot representing the citadel torp from the outpost itself hits my Tengu. This wave was firing at the Megathron but I was still aggro'd to the outpost.

Here it comes... I'm barely visible on the left but you will see me soon.

Closer....

Brace for impact!

Detonation! There I am.

CRACK-BOOM!

The aftershock travels away from the epicentre. My sheilds took all of 95 points of damage. Let's hear it for small signature radius, high resistances, and using dreadnought class weapons on cruiser sized targets.

Worm Versus Ishkur

I won a faction frigate in a corp contest / lottery and I picked the Worm as my ship of choice because I love the Merlin hull and have both Caldari Frigate and Gallente Frigate to V.

As I set out to decide how to fit the ship, it quickly became apparent that this is like a Ishkur as they both have the same drone bay size (50m3) and bandwidth (25 mB). As the fitting progressed, it became apparent that while sharing some characteristics, they are very different.

Here is my standard Ishkur setup.

Nice amount of DPS from the blasters and drones, decent ability to tank.

Here is a corresponding Worm setup I investigated.

Here the ship has a lot less DPS (weird they gave it two launcher hardpoints but no damage bonus) but is considerably faster and more agile with a solid buffer tank and lots of cap to run it. Yeah, I added some faction mods to play around too.

I also played around with a shield boosting version like what is found in some Harpies and Hawks. It has a nice active tank but is very cap intensive even with the cap booster there.

Finally I played with a pure tanking ship with no electronic warfare whatsoever.

It gets a nice solid resistance buffer but it cap vulnerable for the hardeners and of course will not keep the enemy from running away.

Comments, thoughts?