GRUDGE MATCH

Seismic Stan of the infamous and horrible Freebooted blog has had the audacity - the SHEER audacity! - to disparage me time and time again! And I hate audacity!

The absolute last straw came on twitter when he made fun of my Canadian accent (taking the best parts of British and American for a century, yo!) on twitter:

Cheeky Bastard!

Outrageous! After I took a couple days to cool down, I challenged this coarse ruffian to a duel!

OH SNAP!

Terrified by my notable PvP prowress but backed into a corner by his twisted sense of honour, he was forced to acknowledge my wrath.

Hard to drink tea when your hands are shaking!

This Sunday, you will see what happens when you poke the Canadian Moose!

Wait! That's the wrong file!

Tank Tuesday - Big Momma

Tiger!

 

Last week I got access to the Tier 7 Heavy Tank, the infamous PzKpfw VI Tiger. Unfortunately I lacked the free experience to immediately get the better turret and the long 88mm gun, so I barreled around in a handful of matches with the short 88 and had a surprising amount of fun. In no time I was able to upgrade to the long 88 and I've been very pleased ever since.

Essentially, the Tiger operates a lot like the VK3601H, and indeed their armour values are almost identical. However, what was good armour for the Tier 6 medium is terrible for the Tier 7 heavy and as such, the Tiger requires a more cautious and long range play style. To counteract this low armour, it has a phenomenal amount of hitpoints compared to the VK3601 (850 to 1350) which provides a bit of opportunity to take a hit or three and still keep fighting.

The long 88 is nice too. It finally upgrades my armour penetration to something that can penetrate Tier 6 medium armour with consistency, something the short 88 has a lot of trouble with.

The end result has been 18 wins over 28 matches, a really good win percentage. I still have trouble with tier 8 and 9 tanks but I'm learning my strengths and weaknesses and so far its fun.

However, I feel I'm peaking in World of Tanks. Although I'm looking forward to the two new maps and graphical updates in the next patch, I really feel my enthusiasm for the game is going down. The "newness" of the game has worn off and the upper tiers really feel the same as the lower tiers. In essence, being a tier 4 tank fighting against tier 6 tanks requires the same tactics as a tier 7 versus tier 9. Maybe some newness will return when I get a really brawling tank (Hello King Tiger!) but for now, I feel like I'm in the same tank as I was the last two tiers.

Ah well, time will tell.

Speedy Little Daemon

My success last week with getting some fights continued into this week much to my pleasant surprise.

I logged in and found Acute Dragonis and Adex III messing around a couple jumps away in a Vengeance and Caldari Navy Hookbill respectively. I debated around what ship to grab in my head and finally settled on giving the Dramiel another flight before Crucible came and dialed it back.

I got to Bosboger and while the other two were getting settled from a previous engagement, I checked out the active faction warfare sites in the system and found a Rifter trying to run one. It was no match. he convoed me afterwards and asked what he could have done better, and I told him basically that your average Rifter was ill-prepared to take on a Dramiel and his best bet is to be spamming the warp button before the Dram is even out of warp.

We moved on after my GCC counted down (not making the same mistake as last week) and ended up in Vard where some tempting targets were to be found. A Thorax and Sentinel were on scan and we warped around trying to find them. At a belt me and Adex spotted the Sentinel and I moved in to tackle him. I got my scrambler on him but BAMM! My cap was drained! I struggled to keep activating the scram and ordered my drones on him as I figured I was tracking disrupted.

Then the Thorax showed up. Uh oh, Adex is reporting on comms that he's still too far out. Am I doomed!? I mean, a Thorax with scram and web and drones could ruin me with the Sentinel draining my cap. But no, the Thorax, realizing his buddy in the Sentinel is doomed and concerned he can't take on two of us, warps off and I finish off the Sentinel with nary a scratch. The electronic warship pilot is careless (or furious) and I catch and dispatch his pod too. Sorry to my fleet mates for not holding the pod for you guys to get on the mail, I was shaking from adrenaline and never thought about it.

Extremely pleased with the night now, we continue to scour Vard for targets and play cat and mouse with a Merlin and Caracal, almost catching the cruiser a couple of times. We realize we are overstaying our welcome but we got greedy and when a Stabber Fleet Issue landed on the complex gate we were guarding, we went all in to try and kill it. That's when the rest of the Minmatar Militia Fleet came in. I got my pod out and we exchanged good fights with them, finding out we almost got that faction Stabber. I wish I had remembered to overheat my guns.

Oh well, I may have lost the ISK war tonight but I had fun and got some fights. All in all, what more can you ask for?

* * * * *
Images linked from Evelopedia.

Fiction Friday - Interlude - Darth Skorpius Fiction

This piece of fiction is written for Darth Skorpius' 'Write My Bio' contest as presented by The Phoenix Diaries.

* * * * *

He sauntered into the dilapidated establishment and over to the bar. The barkeep had kept the surface of the bar clean (if you could call it that) with a cloth that once was white but patrons avoided touching anywhere but the top surface out of habit.

“Beer,” Darth Skorpius commanded. The barkeep grabbed a glass and went to fill it from the tap but Skorpius warned with “Uh uh,” and the barkeep scowled but moved over to a smaller obscured tap and filled the glass with undiluted lager. He turned put the filled glass on the counter and Skorpius dropped a credit chit in exchange.

Grabbing the beer, he moved away from the bar to a table far from the unused dance floor. The lights were only partially working in this part of the bar so it was gloomy and the people sitting around there were half-seen shadows hulking over their drinks, and in one case, sleeping a drink (or five) off.

He sat down alone at a table and took the scene in. It was midday on the station, so only a handful of unemployed sad-sacks were around. Some mournful music meant for dancing bleated out of a decade-old player on the other side of the bar and he was grateful it could not muster the volume to bother him. He sat back and waited.

About ten minutes later a man walked in, obviously Amarrian by his shaved pate and black and grey robes that marked him as a noble from the Khanid region. Darth Skorpius raised a hand and the skinny man bobbed his head and rushed over as fast as a noble deemed proper. He offered a hand to shake as he sat down but Skorpius took a sip of his drink instead.

“Er, yes, good to meet you,” he stammered as he sat down. “Do you prefer ‘Darth’ or ‘Skorpius’?”

“I’d prefer it if we didn’t use names in here,” Skorpius answered coolly. “Do you have it?”

“Oh, the datacore? Yes, yes, right here,” the Amarrian said as he opened a pouch at his side and took out a silver rectangular box. The other man snaked his hand out and grabbed it, hissing, “Not so obvious!”

“Oh! Sorry, so sorry, you see, I never have done this type of thing before, I am really a good person, if I wasn’t desperate for money I would never dream of doing this...”

“Fine fine, just shut up,” Skorpius said to stem the panicked blabbering.

“Sorry, I’m just so nervous!” The Amarrian wrung his hands, but then a gleam entered his eyes and the flustered nobleman act dropped for a second. “Do you have my money?” he asked in an unfamiliar voice.

“Yeah, right here-”

“THERE HE IS! GET HIM!” A woman in a security uniform and a drawn pistol stood in the door of the Establishment pointing at Darth Skorpius’ table, and two huge burly Civire weilding shock staves barreled towards them. Skorpius and the Amarrian bolted out of their chairs at the same time and as Skorpius bolted to the rear of the bar toward the kitchen and the service door the Amarrian grabbed him. Despite being skin and bones the man’s grip was fierce and filled with desperation. “I NEED THAT MONEY!” he yelled.

Skorpius straight armed him with all his might backwards and the nobleman tripped over his own knocked over chair right into the closest of the two guards. Skorpius ran and grabbed a large mug from a startled patron’s table as he passed, whipping it with perfect aim at the other large guard as he rounded a table, striking him in the head. That gave Skorpius enough space to get around the end of the bar and make it to the door well ahead of the bigger and slower man. As he passed through the door a shot rang out and splintered plastic from the bullet hitting the wall showered his jacket but he was otherwise unharmed.

As he ran through the kitchen he could hear the Amarrian begin to wail.

EON Sale Annoucement

Our friends at EON have a Massive 50% off Blowout Sale to celebrate Thanksgiving & Black Friday

They've cut the price of EVERYTHING!

So you can buy an EON subscription at HALF PRICE, an EVE Survival Pack at HALF PRICE or a full Poster Bundle at HALF PRICE. You can even buy the complete collection of every copy of EON ever produced for HALF PRICE (they were already at half price for the bundle deal, so that makes
them all a gargantuan 75% off if you buy the Complete Collection).

Yep, that's right - everything from EON is half price. They've never done a deal this good before...

You must apply Coupon Code EONBF50 at checkout to get the discount. Oh, and the deal won't last long apparently, so you'd best be quick if you want to bag a bargain.

Click here to go straight to the store.

Screendump Thursday

As usual, click for full resolution image.

Capital Power!

Kirith's favourite watering hole.

Close up of autocannons on the dorsal of a Dramiel.

Half an hour after BMTHOKK2, the wreck field.

Pure Sexy.

SPAI!

Naga on SiSi prior to textures and skins.

Korannon's new Rhea.

Very close!

Victory! ... and a trail of smoke.

Close up after victory just before I warped to station with GCC. I'll miss you Snarky#5!

Proteus Is A Go

I haven't blathered about skills in a while, so let's go down that path today.

A while back I got a hankering for a good solid blaster fit Proteus, which sucked because I only had Caldari strategic cruisers trained up. So I bit the proverbially bullet and trained up the Gallente strategic cruisers skills. That took a few weeks to train from scratch and just finished on the weekend. Since then I've been cleaning up some level four skills like Capital Ships and Marauders that I meant to finish but never got around to.

However, I'm a bit stuck on what to train next. I already have all of the race's tech II cruisers and tech II large weapons trained for the new battlecruisers, and there are no other new shinies I need training for in Crucible. Well, that's not true. I'm sure some of the new T2 mods will require me finishing off some level Vs so I might have to investigate that. For now, I'm going to slot in some Gunnery level V skills to increase my performance there.

Korannon is in the process of finishing off jump freighter training and still needs a couple levels in jump calibration and jump fuel conservation to make use of the ship cheaper.

And my Wyvern alt, Selia, is still slogging through Fighters V to get that Fighter Bomber skill, especially now since all the Wyvern will be able to use is fighters and fighter-bombers.

Crisis of Faith

Prior to logging in last night, I was seriously beginning to doubt I was going to make it as a low sec PvPer.

The biggest hurdle was my lack of time in-game to adequately practice and find opportunities, combined with a time of the week when the corp was quiet. Adding to my handicaps was the lack of even the militia to fall back on now since we left it two weeks ago. With no real kill since a duel on Oct 17th and a number of dispiriting losses, I was really starting to re-evaluate my profession choice.

Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into with the Kadavr Black Guard and the corp has held up its end of the recruitment agreement. When I fly with the other guys I know I'm flying with the best that know all the ins and out of low sec PvP. But when I'm alone, I flounder. Trouble finding fights and winning them.

Was I destined to go back and be a small cog in a null sec alliance? Or go into exploration and admit my failure of solo PvP?

I logged in last night and spent 30 minutes moving the Wyvern from Placid to closer to home with an eye towards cleaning out the drone bay for the upcoming expansion next week. Once that was done, I was determined on giving this low sec deal ONE MORE TRY.

My weapon of choice was a Rifter. Last week I tried roaming in a Thorax but got caught by an enemy fleet camping both sides of a gate with fast lockers, and despite crashing the gate twice, I could not escape. A Rifter would give me more freedom to evade while perhaps luring other small time roamers into fights. Because more than anything, I want good fights.

Quickly one system over in Siseide  I found an Incursus floating around. I waited at the Auga gate to see if I could determine where he was headed when he landed on my gate! I was red-flashy and he was not, so I approached and locked to see if he would fire first and allow me to engage.

He jumped instead, so I followed. On the other side I watched him warp off... to the sun! I quickly followed and landed near him but he sped off with his MWD and my afterburner could not cut the range.

He posted in local that he would not fight an afterburner Rifter as he knew he would die. I understood and told him, "np, you gotta pick your fights". I moved on.

In Amamake, I buzzed by the belt and checked out a wreck, but nothing on scan. I was about to move on when I see in local, "t1 frig 1v1?" and I respond "sure". I'm always up for a duel. The pilot, Finkov, and I fleet up and he moved to a safe spot. He says he's in a Merlin and I think to myself, "Uh oh". Yeah, Rifters are great Tech 1 frigs and very powerful and versatile, but the other tier III tech 1 frigs of the other races have some power in them that a veteran can make use of. I knew I was either in for a cake-walk (Heretic Army pilot? Not likely) or a tough slugfest. The latter was the case.

I warped in and we got to it. I was managing my cap between the repper and the web, overheating on and off, trying to keep alive while his shields and my armour were stripped away. Then I ran out of cap and could not get that last cycle from the repper in time as I exploded. Finkov confirmed he was probably one or two salvos from death as well, and he complimented my on my fit and told me I would try out for Heretic Army.

We parted ways and I went back to Dal and picked up another Rifter and went back to Amamake. At the top belt I was gauging my chances against a Caldari Navy Hookbill that was 400 km away when a Rifter warped in between us. I did some rough eyeballing of angles and warped off to try and warp back on top of the new target, hoping the Hookbill would not interfere in time, when the Rifter pilot, alconetus, convos me and asked for a 1v1. Well, hell yes!

We fleet up and I meet him in his safe. Here we go again. Once more into the tight orbit dance of death. Fortunately for me he's an autocannon fit as well and I don't need to worry about him fighting at range. I again turn to managing my repper and overheating mods to try and and survive. His armour seems to be going down so slowly! Gah, I'm fighting at 5% armour, overheat the repper MOAR! Dammit, structure damage.... smoke.... I'm going down!

My weapons deactivate and for a second I thought I was dead and my client was just taking a moment to smugly draw my pod on the screen. But then I realize my opponent is in his pod beside the wreck and I have somehow won with 20% structure left and mods damage from overheating to the point of almost breaking. His fit shows a different philosophy of a 400mm buffer tank and no repper to manage, but that simply gave me more capacitor to steal from him to keep mine going.

I was very happy to get a good fight and kill this time, along with the good fight against Finkov, that all my moping has been forgotten and low sec shines for me again. I'm in such a good mood that I take a bunch of pictures of the burning Rifter I am flying, chat in the channels about my win, and warp to station to dock and repair...

... Where the station guns shoot me to death.

Right, GCC counter. I guess I need more practice at this low sec thing. Whatever, I got more Rifters where those two came from. ツ

 * * * * *
Images linked from Evelopedia.

Swamped

Sorry, no fiction friday this week or real post today. Swamped at work with interesting stuff to do.

However, extremely pleased that Torps have been dropped from Naga. Crucible excitement is a go!

Winter Is Here, Now What About Summer?

On November 29th (two weeks earlier than I predicted but still on a Tuesday... expansions are always on a Tuesday...) Crucible will be delivered and a new age of graphical and functional improvements will be available to the pilots of New Eden. New ships, new customs offices, new nebulae, new engine trails... and add to that the modifications to super capitals, hybrids, Gallente and Caldari ships... it definitely has been a dream come true for many pilots.

But, as has been pointed out in other place, Crucible is all about making existing for former players happy to shore up the eroding subscriber base and expertise bleed. Its not going to attract new customers very much by itself (although a happy playerbase is a a good draw in of itself).

So its time to start thinking about the Summer expansion. Release planning as they call it in SCRUM circles. What are the stories/epic stories going to be? Here are my suggestions as a stakeholder in the decision process.

1) Establishments

CCP has invested a lot of time and effort into Incarna and I think its important to acknowledge that the concept is valid in that avatars in sci-fi environments will attract certain types of players, and that the avatars and captain's quarters that they have created look amazing (overheating graphics card notwithstanding). CCP may have failed in the roll out and communication and priority setting, but that is in the past and we need to keep this moving forward.

A first basic step would be a story to allow players to visit each other quarters, or perhaps even multiple visitors. It would be cool if there was some sort of minigame they could play on the screen together in the quarters, just hanging out on the couch. Even this limited gameplay would be a huge step from avatars just chillin' alone in the quarters.

The next step is actually leaving quarters and meeting in establishments, but I don't know how feasible that is with CCP current development of incarna assets and we don't want the whole expansion to be about incarna as that is what lead to the summer of rage in the first place. But if two teams over the release can get a basic establishment that allowed up to 6 players to chill in a bar and perhaps play poker, I would call that a huge win. Heck, even playing pong with a mate in my quarters is a win here, CCP. Aim low and surpass expectations (because doing the opposite has not worked out, you know what I mean?).

2) Expand the NeX store

I like vanity items, and I'm disappointed in the NeX store in two regards: not enough selection and prices too high. The latter can be forgiven if CCP is trying to create a luxury market to keep items moderately rare, but the former needs to be addressed at least by four fold.
- more clothes
- more tattoos
- more implants

And not only incarna avatar stuff. Where are my special paint job BPCs for my ships? Where are my customized furniture options for the quarters?

I think its important that forward momentum on the items in the NeX store continue as long as the items in no way give a PvP advantage.

3) New Ships

They don't necessarily have to be brand new hulls like the pocket battleships, but nothing excites the playerbase more or has the potential to change up the optimals in PvP more than new ships. I suggest (as per my ideas post) Tech II versions of the tier II battlecruisers, but even tech II versions of the new tier III battlecruisers (Heavy Stealth Bombers!) or tech II versions of the tier III battleships (Flagships!) would be awesome and interesting. Or perhaps Tech II carriers...?

4) Dominion Redux

Ultimately, the Dominion expansion was not a shining success. Sov warfare went from POS bashing to structure bashing, and the improvements through IHUBs remain lackluster at best. Population per system overall may have actually decreased since the anomaly nerf.

While player owned customs offices goes a good way to providing more terrain for player modification in the null sec battle theatre, there needs to be more. Perhaps more player structures in the scale of the customs offices that perform industrial / logistical roles; for example, a player owned storage hanger that acts like a hanger array at a POS, and a player owned ship maintenance array for making in space modifications and storing a couple ships. Risk versus reward where reward is convenience and the risk is it getting blown up.

In addition, I think its time to make sovereignty of a system and its outpost (if any) dependent on actually living there and not on the number of structures your alliance has anchored. Making reinforcement timers for structures smaller, with fewer hitpoints, would encourage hostile alliances to send smaller fleets while at the same time encouraging alliances to rally to defence of those systems since they can be lost more easily. Also, make IHUBs and their installed improvements capture-able like outposts.

5) Open Up Jove Space

Its time to break that pinata and open it up to a land rush. Story: Jove are gone, leaving behind their empty station husks and a few broken relics. Sansha and/or Sleepers can be the rats of the regions, the Jove technology pretty much lost, many stations gone. Lots of storyline applications here, as well as justifications for some of the other major features.

* * * * *
Those are my suggestions, leave in the comments your ideas for major features for the summer expansion.

Tank Tuesday: Bright Spot

Jagdpz IV

So late last week I finally saved up enough credits to dump my StuG III tank destroyer (which I had become bored with due to how fragile and low-punching-power compared to the VK3601 it seemed) and purchased the next tier up tank destroyer, the Jagdpanzer IV.

At first I was vastly disappointed. The stock model could not fit two out of three of my modifications (cammo netting and vents) and I couldn't even upgrade to the long 75mm gun which the StuG mounted. I needed to grind 4000 experience in a tier VI tank practically helpless against tier VI mediums. I was not impressed. However, the matchmaker realized I was gimped and placed me in matches against a lot of tier IV and V tanks and soon I was upgrading the suspension and getting back to the StuG firepower. A few matches later and I mounted the PaK version of the short 88mm with the same beloved damage and penetration as the one on my VK3601 but with 25% faster firing time. Yeeha.

VK3601(H)

I have to say I appreciated the thicker armour and more hitpoints over the StuG now as well as the bigger bang, but the VK is still my preferred tank.


Speaking of ol' reliable, I have all the equipment unlocked for the beast including the bigger engine, so now I'm grinding the experience and credits for the next tank in the line, the infamous PzKpfw VI Tiger.

Tiger

It will be my first heavy tank, but despite being a heavy its armour is not much better than the VK3601. It does, however, have a lot more hitpoints and can get the fearsome long 88, a weapon with 203 penetration compared to 132 for the short 88, and slightly better accuracy (but slightly slower rate of fire). I can't wait!

Blog Banter: Crucible

"With the Winter expansion possibly being named 'Crucible', it certainly is a melting pot of refinements and tweaks aimed at making the EVE experience smoother and more wholesome. If the developers suddenly found themselves some spare resources and approached you for an additional feature to include before release, what single concept would you pitch them and how would you implement it?

For bonus points, the one thing lacking from this 'patchwork' of iterations is a cohesive storyline to package 'The Crucible' together. How could this expansion be marketed to potential new customers?"

* * * * *

First off, I want to make one distinction to Seismic Stan's blog banter intro above.

cru·ci·ble/ˈkro͞osəbəl/

Noun:

A ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. A place or occasion of severe test or trial: "the crucible of combat".

There is no doubt in my mind that the second definition is the more appropriate. This expansion is CCP's test and we, the players, are the testers asking the crucial question: can CCP deliver content to make our heads spin? The indications so far are favourable but the exam is not until December.

Anyway, on with the question. My dream question. Given the power to pitch a feature to devs what would I pick? I have SO MANY ideas! To pick one is hard, especially without any idea how many story points my ideas are worth and how many points the team can take on (can you tell I work in a SCRUM workplace?). So I'm going to cheat and propose three ideas, yes THREE! Take that Stan! One for what I consider a small feature, one for medium feature, and one for a big feature.

Small Feature: Transporting Assembled Ships

Right now if I have a rigged battleship there are three ways to transport it. One, get in and fly it there. Two, put in a capital ship maintenance array and have it jump it there. Or three, courier it to a freighter pilot who then carries it in a freighter to the destination.

The third is the one I like to focus on here. Right now, in order to move a battleship in this method you need two characters, one to do the moving and one to setup the courier contract as you cannot setup the contract yourself. This is asinine. I should be able to wrap a ship for transport myself without requiring the overhead of a second character and contract.

Simply add an option to "Prepare for Transport" an assembled ship (or really anything!) and it will get contained in a package that can be loaded into a freighter, no contract or second char required. Same rules as preparing a courier contract but with less hassle.

Medium Feature : Improvements to Directional Scanner

Anyone who has ever done any PvP knows how to use the directional scanner, but have you ever stopped and thought that it was weird that it had effectively no graphical component to it? You aim using your camera drones and then read off a chart of hits. Then you wiggle back and forth to see what falls on or off the chart as you rescan... but is that hit on the right side or left? How big is a 30 degree cone, does that include the sun? What is 250,000,000 km in AU? What is 4.7 AU in km?

Quite simply, the directional scanner is a piece of shit. Compared to the awesomeness that is the probing functionality, then I consider it an ugly piece of shit.

So here is my proposal: at the very least, allow the user to click a check box to show the current directional scan area on the screen so people can stop guessing. Change the range box from a text box of kilometers to a slider control that changes from km to AU just like the overview does as ranges change.

Then, on the solar system map, show the scan area much like a scan probe. When I'm scanning 90 degrees to 10 au, show that cone on the map so I can quickly assess what celestials are in it. Allow me to click and drag the cone around or even change its range or shape. This would make it feel more like a scifi tool and less like a WWII era submarine sonar.

Large Feature: Deep Space Exploration Ships

My last idea is to add to the inventory of ships. A lot of people do exploration in all parts of space for fun and profit, yet the serious explorers often do it with two ships or two characters: one for the expert probing ship with a cloak, and a second combat ship to come in and do the fighting against the NPCs. Sometimes there can even be a third ship for the hacking, salvaging, or archeology.

So I propose we take the tier II battlecruisers (Drake, Myrmidon, Hurricane, Harbinger) and create tech II versions. They would have stats similar to Command Ships but their bonuses would be:

100% damage to weapons (but only four hardpoints, i.e. like a Marauder class ship)
-99% reduction to CPU usage of Scan Probe Launchers
10% increase to scan probe strength per level of Deep Space Exploration Ship skill
10% increase to range of Analyzer, Code Breaker, and Salvager modules per level of Deep Space Exploration Ship Skill
+ Corresponding damage bonus as per their tech I variant

For slot layout, each of them should have seven high slots: four for weapons, one for scan probe launcher, one for salvager, and one for Improved Cloaking Device (because nobody wants to scan in dangerous space with a cloak on). They should have enough mid slot to fit a code breaker and analyzer module (along with a shield tank for the Drake variant and possibly Hurricane variant).

To keep these ships from being PvP gods, you can always gimp their sensor strength like you did to Marauders.

Note: you could argue that a pretty good all-in-one exploration ship can be made out of a strategic cruiser, but you can't get all the functionality I am envisioning without really gimping offensive or defensive capabilities.

Time For the Crystal Ball

The Crucible expansion has a lot of content in it. There are small changes and large changes, and both kinds can have small impacts or large impacts. Accurately determining the fallout of all of these at once is nearly impossible, but some guesses can be made by people with a long view of the game and the desire to increase blog post counts.

Instead of talking about how each change will impact the game separately, I will try and look at how each area of the game will be impacted at least in one regard, if not a couple. 

High Sec

With the proposed changes that no insurance will be paid out for death by CONCORD and that autopilot will actually dock you in your destination station, one can see that suicide ganking is the direct target of these initiatives. On the other hand, a large majority of ganks occurred by people who didn't really depend on the insurance money to be profitable and the ganks typically took place against traveling targets near the trade hubs and routes. While this might mean that suiciders are more selective and make greater use of ship scanners, I doubt we will see a large drop in the number of suicide ganks. In fact, the introduction of the new pocket battleship battlecruisers may mean an increase in ganks as the perpetrators can use cheaper hulls with battleship weapon alpha strikes.

Also, I predict an increase in suicide ganking of autopiloting pods due to the inclusion of implants on kill mails in order for some to try and increase kill board efficiency.

Low Sec

The player owned customs offices could introduce some intriguing game play in low sec. Currently a number of players harvest resources of low sec planets on the sly, slipping in with blockade runners to pick up there goods and moving them to other planets or to be used elsewhere. With the public offices gone players will be forced to either abandon their networks or try to deploy their own offices... that can be attacked and destroyed. Most will be unwilling to accept that risk (realizing that they would be unable to protect their assets) so I expect low sec planetary interaction to shrink and stagnate in the short term. Longer term we might see alliances step in with the wherewithal to setup and defend the more rare low sec planets with private customs offices (or perhaps public with fees to generate income).

The new battlecruisers will not have a huge impact in the fighting seen in low sec since a lot of low sec fighting involves smaller hull sizes where the battleship caliber weapons will not be needed. The changes to hybrid weapons and hybrid ships, however, could have a large impact. Expect the Dramiel to fall out of favour as ships like the Daredevil come to the fore, as well as Gallente blaster ships in general.

Also, with destroyers getting a buff (rate of fire penalty gone, more hit points, lower sig, more cap) you will definitely see more destroyers in all fields of battle, but especially low sec areas where hostile frigates can be found more often, especially in area of faction warfare.

Null Sec

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the new year will see a lot of alliances lose their space and warfare to burn across all areas of low sec. Alliances that once were able to leverage large super capital fleets to force their enemies to step down will find that their super carriers are vulnerable to fleets of the new pocket battleships (i.e. fighter bombers cannot hit them while they do battleship damage for a cheap price) while titan doomsdays will not clear away the enemy logi and leadership vessels. In addition, the new aggression rules upon logging out means that that risk of using your multi-tens-of-billions ships is a lot higher. As an upshot of this, along with the improvements to Dreadnoughts and addition of tech II capital mods, expect to see a lot more Dreadnought and Carrier fleets as the backbone of sov warfare.

But wait! There's more...

Alliances in null sec will make a concentrated effort to erect custom offices in their territory to keep the POS fuel products rolling in as POS fuel prices increase due to small operation and ninja PI industrialists close up shop in low sec and null sec. These structures will be favourite targets to attack for smaller hostile fleets as they will lack any automated protection and they might stir the locals to form a defense fleet, thus getting a "gud fite". Even if that fails, there is a chance for a fight when the reinforcement timer comes out. So expect a lot more action around customs offices in null sec.

But WAIT! THERE IS STILL MORE!

Perhaps the biggest change of Crucible to impact null sec will be time dilation which promises more even footing in the lag battlespace for both sides of a fight. This in turn will encourage more people to come out for big fights as they feel they stand a chance of actually doing and seeing something, even at a snail's pace. Therefore I think we'll see the first 4000 pilot battle in a single system in early 2012.

Wormhole Space

The new battlecruisers will play a fairly big part in Crucible's impact on wormhole space. Since they sport battleship firepower on a battlecruiser hull, it will offer more options for attacking enemy structures through smaller wormholes or wormholes with mass restrictions. Adding into that equation the fact that customs offices will be owned most likely by the wormhole system inhabitants, it gives another vector to attack neighbours. Therefore I predict more structure shooting and corporate evictions in class 1 and 2 wormholes.

Also, wormholers will be deliriously  happy over corporate bookmarks.

* * * * *

That is my main predictions for life in New Eden post-Crucible. If you have your own crystal ball readings, please post them in the comments!

Tracking versus Transversal, Signature Resolution versus Signature Radius

In my post last week commenter Suleiman Shouaa pointed out that I was pretty much ignoring the relationship between signature size and ability to hit:

So you're saying that a Megathron cannot track another Battleship MWDing at 15km? Wow, that's a pretty impressive amount of misinformation coming out of a single sentence....

Yes, mea culpa. I did completely ignore that MWD increases the size of the target's signature and this not only makes it easier to target quickly, it also helps negate the advantages that moving fast transversally has against tracking.

My error lies in that I think of the two separately but the formula to determine hits has them combined in the equation. From Evelopedia:

The way I was thinking is that the tracking versus transversal part merely determines if your guns can move fast enough to aim at the target; then assuming you can aim at the target, then the resolution versus radius to determine the dispersion of the shot versus the size of the target area profile.

But its not a two part process, its a one step calculation and turning on a MWD may increase transversal speed but it also increases the radius. So the question is, how much effect does the two changes have?

(Side Note: I use "transversal" velocity but the correct value to use in the calculations is "Angular" velocity which measures apparent movement of something in radians per second.)

So let's go back to our Megathron versus Maelstrom example, using current blaster values. Let's also assume that we are using Caldari Navy ammo in Neutron Blaster Cannon IIs, and that the Maelstrom is at optimal so the second part of the equation is zero. The stock Maelstrom (skills all level V) moves at a top speed of 118 m/s and a sig radius of 460 meters; with the MWD on it moves at 835 m/s and a radius of 2760 meters. The blaster on the Megathron has a tracking of 0.07442 radians/sec and a signature resolution of 400 meters.

So what's the angular velocity of the Maelstrom? Well, assuming the ship remains at optimal range, the a single radian is 4500 meters (i.e. optimal range of the blaster) and thus the angular velocity is 0.02622 rad/second at normal top speed and 0.6133 rad/second at MWD speed. EDIT See below.

So chance to hit Maelstrom without MWD on = 0.5 ^ (( (0.02622/0.07442) x (400/460) )^2 )
= 0.5 ^ ( (0.3523 x 0.8696) ^ 2)
= 0.5 ^ (0.3064 ^ 2)
= 0.5 ^ 0.0939
= 0.9370


And chance to hit once that Maelstrom punches the MWD button?
0.5 ^ ( ((0.6133/0.07442) x (400/2760)) ^ 2)
= 0.5 ^ ( (8.2411 x 0.1449) ^2)
= 0.5 ^ (1.1941^2)
= 0.5 ^ 1.4259
= 0.4529


So at optimal range, the chance to hit of the Megatron towards the Maelstrom with MWD on is halved. But Suleiman's complaint was that I was implying that at 15 km the Megathron could not hit the Maelstrom (and to be fair, that is what I intended to imply) so let's see what the math says.

EDIT:
As Luccul pointed out below, I got the angular velocity wrong with MWD on. Looks like I used the sig radius as the velocity, sigh. The actual angular velocity is 0.1856 to give us:

And chance to hit once that Maelstrom punches the MWD button?
0.5 ^ ( ((0.1856/0.07442) x (400/2760)) ^ 2)
= 0.5 ^ ( (2.4940x 0.1449) ^2)
= 0.5 ^ (0.3614^2)
= 0.5 ^0.1306
= 0.9135

So, as everyone keeps pointing out to me, the 500% increase in speed is cancelled out by the 500% increase in signature. Gah.
:END EDIT


At 15000 meters the angular velocity of the Maelstrom is 0.00787 r/s normally and 0.05567 r/s with MWD. We need to take the second part of the equation into play now so fall off range is 13000 meters.

No MWD at 15km:
0.5 ^ ((( (0.00787 / 0.07442) x (400/460) ) ^2 + ((15000 - 4500) / 13000 )^2)
= 0.5 ^ ( (0.1058 x 0.8696 )^2 + ( 0.8077)^2   )
= 0.5 ^ ( 0.00846 + 0.6524 )
= 0.6325

And MWD at 15 km:
0.5 ^ ((( ( 0.05567 / 0.07442) x (400/2760 ) ) ^2 + ((15000 - 4500) / 13000 )^2)
= 0.5 ^ ( (0.7481 x 0.1449 )^2 + ( 0.8077)^2   )
= 0.5 ^ ( 0.01175 + 0.6524 )
= 0.6311

So assuming my math is correct (and I'm running out of time to check my calculations so someone please comment if I'm wrong), the extra velocity at 15 km is negated by the ballooning size of the signature. In close ranges (i.e. optimal), the MWD speed makes a significant difference.

Now the question is, how much does that 20% extra tracking actually help blasters?

A big thanks to Suleiman Shouaa for pointing out my glaring mistake.

Tank Tuesday: Bringer of Death

VK3601(H)

There have been a few times in the past two months of playing where I would almost earn the "Top Gun" achievement in a match, only to come up short with only 5 kills:

Top Gun - Destroy more enemy vehicles than any other player in your team during the battle (at least 6).
If two or more players have destroyed equal amount vehicles, the achievement is granted to the player who has earned more XP for the battle, including additional XP provided to Premium account users. If the amount of XP is equal as well, the achievement is not granted.

Erlenburg

Finally late last week I was in a match on the Erlenburg map and it did not promise to be anything spectactular. I was a tier 6 tank with a couple tier 8 and 7 heavies and a few tier 6 and 5 mediums with a couple artillery per side.

As the match started I was in the southwest corner and led the advance up the west road to the northwest part of the map. A Type 59 tier 8 medium and a couple other tanks were close behind. Then as I turned around the corner of the hill an enemy StuG III tank destroyer faced me. We exchanged blows as I pulled back and spotted a PzIV medium supporting him. I took some damage but firepower from me and the friendlies approaching behind killed the two eager enemy tank, with me getting both killing blows.

I let the big Type 59 lead from here, and as I came around the hill to the middle of the north I spotted it trading fire with a couple tanks near the river. I contributed fire and once more got both killing blows. I advanced over the north bridge while the Type 59 ally moved south to deal with the enemy heavy tanks dueling with our heavies in the centre over the objectives. I spotted one artillery (one shot!) and then the next as I come into the northeast (one shot again!). The enemy was clearly beaten with only a couple tanks left, and I moved south onto the east ridge to try and take some high explosive long shots at the last remaining enemy heavies. Target, aim... fire! And the last few percent ticked off.

Top Gun

Victory for our side and, finally, top gun for me with 7 kills.

Fiction Friday - Series 4 : Part 12

"Captain, you may begin your attack run on the salvation rafts."

I woke up in a world of blue goo. I fought the panic of being unable to breath and waited for what seemed like forever for the decanting process to begin. With a clunk and a swoosh I slipped onto the basin beneath the clone vat and coughed up a lungful of the nutrient bath.

"Sir? This is Odonnelson. I'm getting reports from other life boats... there is something wrong..."

Two burly techs come over and help me to get to the showers. My new muscles are not responding right yet and the lights are still too bright for my unadjusted eyes. They roughly deposit me in a seat and turn on a warm shower that helps bring my body temperature up as well as clean me off. Eventually my body stops shivering.

"...seven craft destroyed... I've ordered the rest to make their way to the wreck, maybe the fighters will miss them in the debris... too far away though... I fear they won't make it...no CONCORD channel access in these things..."

I leave the stall and find myself in a small change room with a cloning facility disposable overall, nothing fancy. I put it on and sit down on the seat. A commode is also here, built into the wall. I throw up into it.


"...they are not stopping... sensors indicate we are being locked... sir, it has been an honour serving with y-"

My head is pounding even more than usual. Somehow I find the strength to stand up and leave the change room. The facility doctor gives me a 30 second check up before signing me out and letting me leave.

"If you know what's best for you, Mr Kodachi, you will accept this punishment I have placed upon you and let it end here."

As I make my way back to my quarters on the station, my agony slowly turns to ice cold rage.

Victory!!

I wrote a short piece of fiction for the Star Fleet Comms podcast contest called "Inspired by the Images of Eve". That piece was called "The Rifter" and I'm very happy to report that it was the winner of the contest after judging by Max Torps, Noise, and Penelope Starr.

There were 87 entries including mine and the quality and variety were both very high, so I'm tickled pink at being selected for first place.

I remember trying to write my piece. I looked at the image and was more struck by the structure on the asteroid in the background rather than the ship itself. I'm often drawn to the NPC structures and wondering about who built them, why, who lives there, what do they do, how do they die... etc. So my story popped fully formed in my mind about how this small colony finds a delerict Rifter and decide to try and refurbish it for a colony intra-system transport ship.

However, I quickly realized that I was going to use too many work for world-building and describing why such a change would mean a vast improvement in their quality of life (e.g. not being beholden to transport businesses that charge high rates to bring supplies and take their ore). So I switched the outline to simply salvaging it as everyone understands that concept without much explanation.

Then as I started outlining the story I realized I could not be a verbose in describing scenes and explaining back story as I usually do for my Fiction Friday stories, so I started trimming and condensing, using very specific scenes and events and dialogue to set the scene. It was very hard.

After I finished the first draft I was still 500 words over. Out came the axe again, cutting scenes that involved describing how the salvage sales would improve the life of the miners, and a scene that dealt with the aftermath of the capsuleer's attack on the colony, and finally cutting out a scene where Jorge and his son bond over planning the dismantling of the ship. And I was still 20 words over! One more sentence sacrificed to the altar of word count constraints.

In the end, I felt what I was left with was the bare minimum in terms of telling the story on the points I wanted. But I almost re-wrote it anyways.

The problem was little Tess. I debated if it was too heavy handed to have her as a character. I used her in the beginning to establish that the colony had at least one full family, that the adults were good human beings with close bonds, etc. And then in the end I used her to underscore the inhumanity of the capsuleer. But I worried that it was too obvious, too inhumane, and that the readers would rebel against the end of the story. I ended up going with it, and it looks like it worked since I won, but I think it was a close thing to balance. I like to try and avoid black and white morality stories but sometimes they can work.

Anyway, thanks to the Starfleet Comms crew for the contest and picking my entry and the winner. It is a great honour and really made my week.

Thoughts On Hybrid Changes II - Blaster Battleships

One thing that was brought up in response to my post yesterday about the sniper HACs is that ships should not all be equal in every role for every faction, and in that regard I agree. The goal should not be parity but be competitiveness. The problem currently as it stands is that rail ships are never a realistic option in sniping configurations due to the problems of high fitting reqs, anemic damage, low alpha, etc and if these are addressed in a reasonable fashion than maybe Gallente/Caldarthei the hybitrd ships can be considered in some roles where their advantages can be useful.

Anyway, on to battleships.

There are four tech I battleships with bonuses for hybrid weapons but the Dominix has never been considered a solely hybrid platform due to its drone capabilities, so we're going to ignore it today. Instead we'll concentrate on the tier 2 Megathron and tier 3 Hyperion and Rokh battleships.u

Current State

First we are going to assume a standard role and similar setup of best tech II blasters (Neutron Blaster Cannon IIs) and three tech II damage mods. We will not discount drones in our analysis but they will not be included in the DPS numbers. We will not compare tanking in this exercise as our purpose is more to measure the effects of the proposed changes. For comparision purposes, the Amarr will put forth a similar pulse Abaddon and the Minmatar will present an autocannon Maelstrom .the

Ship with faction ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 10 km)
Megathron	4.5	13	935	4054	0.07442	335	1,302	744
Hyperion	4.5	13	1322	4633	0.05412	244	947	541
Rokh	6.8	13	1013	3707	0.05412	368	1,072	541
Abaddon	15	10	916	3971	0.04219	633	1,055	422
Maelstrom	3	24	878	2854	0.054	162	1,458	540
Ship with Tech II ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 20 km)
Megathron	11	16	745	3231	0.05582	614	1,507	1,116
Hyperion	11	cy by	1105	3693	0.04059	446	1,096	812
Rokh	17	16	840	2954	0.04059	690	1,339	812
Abaddon	45	10	730	3165	0.03164	1,424	1,740	633
Maelstrom	6	36	700	2275	0.0405	243	1,701	810

So, what do those numbers mean? Well, the tracking is the big thing with blasters and the reason why is this: at optimal range with highest damage ammo a battleship sized target with just an afterburner or a MWD with one regular web will move too fast in transversal speed for your weapons to hit it. At optimal plus falloff you have better tracking transversal but fighting in falloff means your hits are missing 50% of the time anyways.

The Abaddon with its big optimal range with Imperial Multifrequency means its lower tracking number is not as much as a problem unless the enemy closes range, while the Maelstrom's big falloff range alleviates some pain (not to mention its ability to switch damage types and not use capacitor).

When we looks at Tech II ranged ammo, the situation is slightly better due to the boost in optimal range, but you still need a web or two to bring target's speed down in order to be able to track them. For an example, a Maelstrom with a Tech II MWD moves 835 meters/sec so that at 20 km the Rokh and Hyperion will have trouble tracking it (as well as fighting in falloff).

So what do the numbers look like with a 20% boost to tracking? Well, assuming my math is correct we get the following numbers:

Ship with faction ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 10 km)
Megathron	4.5	13	935	4054	0.089304	402	1,563	893
Hyperion	4.5	13	1322	4633	0.064944	292	1,137	649
Rokh	6.8	13	1013	3707	0.064944	442	1,286	649
Abaddon	15	10	916	3971	0.04219	633	1,055	422
Maelstrom	3	24	878	2854	0.054	162	1,458	540
Ship with Tech II ammo	Range	Falloff	DPS	Alpha	Tracking (radians/sec)	Tracking (m/s at optimal)	Tracking (m/s at optimal+falloff)	Tracking (m/s at 20 km)
Megathron	11	16	745	3231	0.066984	737	1,809	1,340
Hyperion	11	16	1105	3693	0.048708	536	1,315	974
Rokh	17	16	840	2954	0.048708	828	1,607	974
Abaddon	45	10	730	3165	0.03164	1,424	1,740	633
Maelstrom	6	36	700	2275	0.0405	243	1,701	810

What the impact looks to be is that the blaster battleships, especially the Megathron, will have a better chance at tracking other battleships, but will probably still need webs on target bring its transversal speed down to the large blaster cannons ability to track. So now the question is how much impact the agility and base speed improvement will have on the three vessels and if that will allow the short ranged blaster ships to get in range more easily.

Thoughts On Hybrid Changes

So we have the official first word on the Hybrid weapon and ship changes coming in December. I'll try and give the short version here.

- Less CPU usage (varies on weapon size)
- less powergrid usuage (12%)
- less capacitor use (30%)
- blasters get trackingboost (20%)
- railguns get damage boost (10%)
- many Gallente (and some Caldari hybrid boats) get speed and agility boosts

So what does it mean?

The reaction has ranged from people saying its too much to other saying its not enough, and everything in between. That's usually a good sign, but with such broad sweeping changes it is very hard to evaluate without some hard numbers that comes from actually flying the ships and getting into fights.

But we can make some general conclusions from the available information and proposed changes.

Let's look at the Eagle, a ship I have a fondness for despite never actually using one in forever due to the suckiness that hybrid weapons have presented. One of the biggest problems with the ship was lack of powergrid to fit the best railguns. With my skills the Eagle has 1093.75 MW available and fitting five 250mm Railguin IIs take 1062 MW (212 MW each). That leaves a paltry ~30 MW to fit a propulsion mod, tank, and anything else on the ship. In comparison a Muninn with five 720mm Howitser Artillery II weapons still has over 200 MW to play with.

If we apply the 12% power grid savings to our Eagle we find that this gives us around 160 MW on the Eagle to play with after the weapons are installed, enough to open up some options while still making a pilot consider the smaller 200mm Railgun IIs.

But what about the damage? Well, assuming both ships are trying to snipe out to 90 km and we've given each ships three tech II damage mods and one Tracking Computer II with the optimal range script. The Muninn, using tech II Tremor ammo has an optimal of 87 km with 27 km falloff and an estimate DPS of 211 using the latest version of Eve Fitting Tool. The Eagle doesn't need tech II ammo to reach that far so it uses Caldari Navy Lead ammo to get 87 km with 19 km falloff and a current estimated DPS of 189. The 10% damage boost for railguns gives us about 208 DPS, quite inline with the Muninn so that number at least seems accurate.

For comparison purposes, similar setups on a Zealot give 254 DPS and on a Diemos give 225 DPS (including boost and using Spike ammo), however the latter requires two tracking computers to get to 84 km optimal range.

Of course, these are just EFT numbers and a lot of other factors such as alpha, cap use, ship speed, ship tank, etc come into play. But at least the initial changes are steps in the right direction.

Personally I think that until on grid probing and warping are nerfed the range bonuses of the Eagle and similar Caldari ships are going to be a disadvantage, but I'll take whatever boosts I can get for my old favourites. IN a future post I'll take a look at what the blaster changes do for the big blaster battleships, the Megathron, Rokh, and Hyperion.