Improvements In Small Steps

I went out last night in my new Imperial Navy Slicer, equipped to tackle at range and fight from a distance. The fit was borrowed from Lord's Servant and I liked the feel of the little ship as it came around and explored Dal, Siseide, and Egghelende.

I noticed some chatter in Siseide where one river Zateki was apparently just winning a 1v1 versus another pilot. I poked around and finally found him in a Tech I Amarr Arbitrator at the acceleration gate for a Minmatar Stronghold. I primed my MWD and settled into an orbit at 20 kilometers and turned on the Scorch. He launched drones but they were only tech I and I quickly melted them.

However, he also had tracking disruptors and my shots were no where near close enough to hit him at all. I tried diving into 14 kilometers but still no luck. I should have disengaged and came back in something tougher at this point, but hungry for a kill I took a chance that the younger player would be vulnerable in close.

I was horribly wrong. Neuted, pointed, I had neither the capacitor nor tank to make a break for it. Soon I was dead and my pod fleeing the scene of the crime.

I went back to Dal, picked up a Hurricane, and flew back quickly but he warped as soon as he saw the bigger fish. We traded some friendly banter in local and I went back Dal to get something more sneaky in hopes I could catch him unawares. I sat in my Arazu and took a cruise of the system but no Arbitrator was found on scan. I went into Egghelende looking for trouble and saw a cyno on gate. I teamed up with Acute Dragonis to quickly pop the cyno ship before the gate guns could get me (althought Dragonis' Kestrel was not so lucky).

After that river Zateki was in system and was at the Planet I. I snuck up and tried to catch him but he warped before my lock resolved. Ah well. Later on I observed him fighting a Rupture and I tried to land and provide a surprise attack on them both but Zateki got away from the Rupture before I came out of warp and the Rupture ran from me immediately after.

No, no good kills but one loss and one killmail is better than last week.

(All images linked from Evelopedia)

Fiction Friday: Series 4 - Part 11

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

* * * * *

"It was expensive," Blodel admitted, "but it was worth every credit and favour exchanged."

"Really?" I asked with biting incredulity. "Just to kill my battleship? You know I won't let you take my pod, and I'll replace this ship in days if not sooner."

I felt tingles in my sides as the first salvos from the fighters began to eat away in earnest at my shields. I gave the signal to Odonnelson on the bridge to begin evacuation procedures.

On the comm display the avatar of Blodel shrugged. "Us capsuleers have to get creative to resolve our conflicts, don't you think? We are, after all, immortal beings of nearly unlimited power. How do we really hurt each other in a way that matters?"  She shook her head sadly. "I mean besides lowering ourselves to the levels of thugs and mercenaries and killing each other in leaky hotel rooms."

"Creative? It seems what you have in ISK you lack in creativity," I scoffed.

She smirked and replied with a curt, "We'll see."

I checked on the evacuation of my ship. Most life boats were off, carrying 6-10 crew each. Only two life boats in engineering and one for the bridge crew remained in their berths. I muted the channel to Blodel and brought up the bridge. "Odonnelson, what's the hold up?"

"Sir, the chief engineer is rigging the shield systems to overheat, that should give you a couple more minutes."

My shields were already below 40%. "Tell him not to bother, this thing is going to shatter once the shields are gone. Get off of it, now!"

"Yes sir!"

Moments later as the shields finally collapsed and the first shots ripped through the port side of my ship, the two engineering life boats ejected followed by the larger bridge emergency craft that held all 12 of the bridge staff. My ship was empty.

I started to feel real pain as the damage increased so I mentally disconnected my pod from most external and onboard sensors. It felt weird to still be aboard and have no sensations other than a couple basic ones as my ship slowly disintegrated around me, so I turned my attention back to Blodel.

"What now, you Amarrian bitch? Gonna come back next month and waste a billion ISK again to kill another battleship? Oh, maybe destroy my Drake this time! That'll sting..." I teased.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary." The smile she had chilled my heart. What was I missing?

Suddenly a lance of energy pierced the containment walls of my power generators and a chain reaction ripped through the super structure. My pod escape mechanism kicked in and ejected me at hundreds of meters per second from the Rokh battleship. As its stabilizing jets activated my vision cleared just in time to watch the hull break into a million pieces in all directions. Damn, I still miss that ship. You never forget your first battleship.

Distracted by my loss I didn't activate the pod's emergency warp drive in time and I felt myself wrapping in the waves of disruption sub-particles. I sighed and activated my self destruct sequence. No point in giving them hope in taking me alive.

"You win this time, Blodel."

"No, we're not quite done yet, Kodachi." She turned to face another channel. "Captain, you may begin your attack on the salvation rafts."

Will Winter Save The Eagle?

The poor Caldari Eagle, the HAC that not only looks ugly as sin, but sucks donkey balls as well. (You revamp the Scorpion which wasn't half bad but don't touch the Moa? Curse you CCP!)

The rumoured early proposed changes for hybrid weapons are:

• Significantly reduced cap usage
• Increased damage modifier (rails)
• Increased tracking (blasters)
• Reduced cpu
• Reduced powergrid on medium and large turrets, as well as some smalls

Also, Caldari hybrid ships have an apparent agility buff to make them more mobile.

First, prior to these changes what is the big knock against the Eagle? Essentially, when compared to equivalent HACs like the Zealot and Muninn, its only advantage is that it can reach incredible sniping ranges that the other two cannot reach but combat in Eve rarely extends to those ranges making it not as useful. In addition, when it fights at ranges the other ships can compete at the Eagle tends to not has as much DPS or it has to gimp tank in order to use Tracking Computers to up the ammo potency to simply match the DPS of the other two. And on top of all that, its a slow Caldari boat so even a Beagle (i.e. Blaster equipped Eagle) was problematic. Not to mention requiring a fitting mod to get the best guns in either case.

So do these changes save the endangered Eagle? The answer is a resounding "maybe". 

The increase in damage modifer is very interesting as even a 10% increase is potentially enough to put it on par in terms of firepower with the Muninn at the latter's extreme range. The increased tracking and agility improvement will definitely help the Beagle but will it make it competitive with the Gallente Deimos or Vagabond? Its hard to say. A reduction in CPU and powergrid usage will be welcome in any case for not just the Eagle but all of the Caldari and Gallente hybrid boats.

Here are the setups I was using for my casual ponderings. I tried to get long range (~85 km) plus decent resistance tank.

Current Eagle

Muninn

Zealot

Suggestions for better fits are welcome, but please note I did not put a whole lot of time into them. :)

Information Overload

If you read this blog, it is 99% probable that you read other blogs and are thus already aware of the "leaked" info (which I suspect is simply a deliberate part of the Counter-offensive) in which the initial stats for the pocket battleships, the list and initial stats for the new Tech II modules, and a bunch of ship stat changes.

Egads.

I'm not going to spend time analyzing the details when there are so many other bloggers with time on their hands already doing a great job with the speculation. I'll wait until I see more solid info in the form of an actual Sisi build or dev blog. For example, I highly doubt that the new Caldari Naga is going to be both a Hybrid and Missile boat with 8 hardpoints of each and bonuses to both. I suspect it is merely testing stats to see what works better and which way they want to go.

Regardless, consider this list for a moment:
- Gallente and Caldari ship tweaks
- Hybrid weapon changes
- new battlecruisers
- tech II mods for warfare links, MAPC, etc
- capital changes
- custom office changes
- and more...

There is not one area in Eve combat that will not be impacted in one way or another.

High Sec - new gank battlecruisers will be awesome for suicide ganks unless insurance is nerfed into non-existence (which I support BTW)
Low Sec - new mods and ships and stats means complete rejiggering of ship fits and tactics
Null Sec - New cap mods and stats means an overhaul to capital/subcapital warfare, not to mention the effect the "battleship damage/battlecruiser signature" ships in massed fleets will have
Wormhole space - Smaller mass new ships will bring more firepower to POS attacks and new customs offices will provide more targets and opportunities for ganking (i.e. I know these guys harvest something here because they put up a customs office)

This is, quite simply, shaping up to be the biggest change to Eve flying in space mechanics since the Speed and Missile rebalancing of a couple years back.

Brace yourself, its gonna get wild.

* * * * *
P.S. Sorry for no podcast yet, between my regular responsibilities at work and home and additional effort for my martial art training this fall, I've lacked the time / energy to get it done. Hopefully rectify that tonight or tomorrow night.

Tank Tuesday - Tier VI

VK 3601 (H)

So I finally grinded (ground?) up the experience for my Tier VI medium tank, the VK 3601 (H).  And my first impression is "OMG, you're kidding me! THIS THING IS AWESOME!"

It plays very much like the Panzer IV right now. I immediately upgraded the turret with free experience and mounted the familiar 75mm L70 on it, the same gun as on the Panzer IV and StuG III so I know what its capable of. The tank moves like the PzIV but has better armour overall and nearly double(!) the hit points.

Stat	Panzer IV	VK 3601
Health	460	850
Hull Armour (mm)	80/60/20	100/60/80
Turret Armour (mm)	120/60/60	110/80/80
Turret Traverse (d/s)	24	30

What this means that shots to the sides and rear that would cripple the Pz IV have far less effect on the VK 3601 and I can take a world abuse more before dying. No more bang bang dead matches that often occurred in the smaller medium.

I'm still working on the better tracks and two upgrades to engines, and the next tier gun: the 88mm L56 aka the short 88. It has slightly less penetration than my old favourite 75mm (132 mm to 138mm with AP ammo) but a lot more damage (220 compared to 135). Against targets in the same tier or lower (or on side/rear armour of higher tier targets) it should give me a boost in performance.

Pocket Battleships

In the aftermath of World War I Germany had limitations imposed on them by the Treaty of Versailles about how big of war ships they could produce as part of the effort to keep Germany from being a world power again (hint: didn't work out). In an effort to get around this limitation they produces smaller and lighter than normal battleships that still had impressive weaponry. These were nicknamed "Pocket Battleships" by the British.

Last week there was a dev blog published with more details on the Minmatar Tornado and the three other ships (one for each race) coming with it:

We couldn‘t just give the Minmatar a new ship and leave the other factions out (NPC military escalation doesn’t work like that), so, in the spririt of mutually assured destruction,  each of the factions have sent their best engineers and scientists to the drafting boards and will also be rolling out a new tier 3 battlecruiser.

„But isn‘t the Tornado a battleship?“
According to the original concept it was, yes. But when reviewing the armadas of existing ships we came to the conclusion that it would make much more sense to add another tier of battlecruisers instead of a fourth battleship tier, and that the accessibility of bc skills would mean more of these ships might be in the hands of younger, brasher pilots. That means more pew pew pew overall.

What sets these new battlecruisers apart from their lower tier cousins?
The most unique thing about them is that they will be able to fit battleship-sized weapons. Yes, you heard correctly... battlecruisers with oversized guns.
They will be capable of similar damage output as a battleship but obviously all that damage comes at a price.They won‘t be able to tank like a battleship, but what they lack in the tanking department the right pilot should be able to somewhat make up for  with speed and distance management. Those looking to start minmaxing fleets of TÖTALHELLDEATH will have to wait a bit for the stats.

The first thought that came to my mind is "pocket battleships". And while part of me squealed in glee a part of me, a very Bitter Old Vet part of me, had some serious questions.

1) Take a look in that dev blog at the second image. The original submitted concept art and the CCP artist rendition indicate 8 turret hardpoints, that's on one side and let's assume there is 8 more on the other side. That makes 8 guns, battleship sized guns. Will they have enough bonus to fit the largest battleship weapons, or just the smallest (e.g. Neutron blaster cannons versus Electron blaster cannons)? If they can fit the biggest weapons, is there some balance concern about a ship with the order of magnitude DPS of the tier 3 battleships and the signature and mobility of battlecruisers?

2) Tier 1 battlecruisers are already obsoleted for the most part by the tier 2 BCs. Won't this simply negate their usefulness more?

3) Do we really need more DPS?

4) Will this not make many unused battleships even more unused?

Now until we see some numbers this is all just unease. The fact remains that battleships tank better than battlecruisers and there is no indication that these ships will be super tanked like the Drake. And battleship weapons do have serious tracking concerns that gives these new ships a distinct disadvantage in same class conflict.

But I really wish CCP had used a titch more imagination. For example, they could have been tech 1 heavy exploration ships: the scanning bonuses of the Tech 1 astrometrics frigs, the marauder bonus of 100% to weapon damage, but only four cruiser sized weapon hardpoints (so they hit like 8). Utility slots for scan probe launcher, salvager, etc.

Regardless, we'll see what CCP has in mind once we see the actual stats.

Not My Best Day

Last night I logged in and found myself alone in corp (probably had something to do with this...) and I pondered what to do. Cruise in a rifter, hunt in my new experimental ship? Logistics? Then I noticed something very rare, a fleet up in fleet finder. A militia fleet, 7 pilots strong, one jump away. I decided to dive in and joined the fleet and got on their comms. They said they needed an inty so I grabbed my little Malediction and joined up with them on the Osogger gate in Amamake.

The fleet was all from a corp recently joining the militia and the composition seemed reasonable with a few battlecruisers (2 x Hurricanes, Harbinger), a Rifter, and a Griffin. And now me in my fast Malediction for quick tackle.

There was a Caldari Navy Hookbill buzzing around the fleet and my job was to try and catch it, but he stayed away. Then the FC asked one of the battlecruisers to scout out the belts.

A tingling went up in the back of my skull... but I ignored it.

Well, the battlecruiser in the top belt found a Rifter and Dramiel messing around and after some garbled comms and confusion, the order was given to warp in on our pilot, the primary was the Rifter. "OK", I thought, revving up the engines as I entered warp, "tackle time."

I landed and immediately burned at the Rifter and put the 28.8 km point on ready. Grabbed him, called point on comms, settled into orbit with rockets and web and waited for the fleet to reduce him to pieces.

Um... Ok, shields taking a beating... Rifter just entering armour... what's going on?

I look and the fleet is 90km away or more.

WTF?

The FC says on comms, "Someone should go help him."

*FURIOUS RAGE*

I hit structure as I burn away and enter warp, Rifter still alive (and probably laughing his head off). While I'm in station getting repaired the Hookbill warps in on our fleet again and I hear on comms, no word of a lie, this:

FC to our Rifter pilot: "You got tackle on that thing?"

Rifter Pilot: "Yeah, I got a web."

FC: "No point?"

Rifter: "No... should I get one?"

Needless to say the Hookbill danced away from them once more.

I rejoined the fleet at the belt. The Hookbill, emboldened by our fail so far, warped in again and was 50km from us. I asked the FC if he wanted me to try and make a tackle. At this point warning bells and sirens were going off in my head but I figured we should at least be able to kill this single frig and his Rifter wingman. The FC said "go for it" so I lit the MWD, flew at the hookbill, and slapped the point on him. Griffin is gonna ECM his ass, right? A battlecruiser will melt his face, right? I'M NOT ALONE OUT HERE, RIGHT!?!?!?!


WRONG.

I got my pod out and went back to Dal. I picked up another inty, a Caldari Raptor this time. While I was reshipping I hear that the fleet tried to warp back to gate but one of them got tackled and was being beat up by the Hookbill, Rifter, and a Dramiel. I warped to the Amamake gate and the FC tells the fleet to warp back to the belt to help the caught pilot.

At this point I should have cut my losses and left fleet but I felt some responsibility to help. I jumped the gate and warped to the belt.

And no one else did.

Well, the hostiles probably had a good laugh while they tackled me and slaughtered me, I was so incoherent with rage and amazement that they got the pod too.

* * * * *

At this point I knew I was in a fleet not experienced enough for the sharks around Amamake, so I took my leave and decided to decompress with a solo roam in one of my Rifters. I set course for Evati and took off, casually scanning for targets.

I jumped into Egmar and saw a neutral Buzzard and Huginn sitting there. I hesitated and foolishly decided to approach the Buzzard instead of burning back to gate. I totally forgot that I'm a big red flashy and they could engage me without repercussions. I blame the high blood pressure from that terribad fleet experience I just had.

Well, the Huginn tackled me and I decided to late to burn to gate. I was easily dispatched (but got my pod out) and I docked up and decided to go play tanks as I was obviously not meant to succeed tonight.

Sigh.

Insanity, Thy Name Is Ripard Teg

Google Reader has this nice functionality where for a blog you subscribe to you can see how many other Google Reader users have subscribed to it, and how many posts per week that feed has.

My average is 6.8 posts per week.

Rixx Javix, a prolific blogger, posts 10.7 times per week.

Ripard "Robot From The Future" Teg posts 15.6 times per week and boasts about how that number is going to go up.

Seriously.

The worst part is that most of his posts are high quality shit. I get about one good post a week, how the hell can he do 10-12? I want to know his method so I can sabotage it and prevent him from becoming the new blogfather. It took me years to knock off Crazy Kinux. I can't do it again.

Goddammit.

CCP Countinues the Counteroffensive

First there was this image "leaked" on twitter and facebook:

Tornado Warning

That, folks, is the winning entry from CCP's "Design a Spaceship" contest last year, you can find the excellent submission here. Go, read, I'll wait. Back? Ok, now the story was that the winning submission would be added to the game but there has been nothing since then. (Remember when some deluded people thought that the Christmas gift would be this ship? Heh.) Now, as part of the counter offensive to win back Eve players' love, its finally coming to light, hopefully as part of a suite of four new ships, one for each faction.

But wait! There's more!

I posted briefly about the Player Owned Custom Offices dev blog yesterday which everyone agrees came out of the blue and has been generally well received as an exciting and potentially game changing expansion. Yes, EXPANSION. A huge step forward for planetary interaction gameplay itself, and game dynamics in general. (Plus it removes that immersion breaking detail of CONCORD custom offices on every planet in all of wormhole space.)

Whether or not you think that overall this change is going to be good, at least it is change and iteration on existing content. More of this please.

I doubt there are very many more surprises waiting for us, but that's okay because its time for CCP to start detailing the other items in their winter expansion list such as how they plan to address hybrid weapons, assault ships, faction warfare, etc. The shock part of the campaign should be over; now its time for the awe.

But most interesting to note here is the change that CCP's counteroffensive has managed to accomplish. Although, as Mittens pointed out during his CSM campaign, bloggers and podcasters make up a very small fraction of the eve playerbase, they are representative of the mood and opinions of that group. A month ago all the talk was about how Eve was languishing and CCP was in trouble; now the focus has shifted back to the game and its development and the mood of the bloggers/podcasters has noticeably improved. A striking example was the last two Fly Reckless episodes, the first recorded at the beginning of Sept and so depressing that I was cutting myself half way through, and the second recorded after the Hilmar mea culpa and full of much more enthusiasm and interest.

The real question now is if CCP can continue to keep it up and deliver this winter AND next spring/summer. We're watching, Hilmar.

With Electronic Eyes...

Quick Notes About Player Owned Custom Offices

1) Trying to get post out before Ripard Teg.

2) Ninja PI production in wormholes / shallow null sec / low sec will be a lot harder if not impossible (i.e. where you don't own the infrastructure).

3) As such, expect rise in PI product costs which in turn will impact running control towers.

4) This is totally an effort to make farms and fields for alliances to build and hostile alliances to use small gangs to attack. Also, further development opportunities in low sec and wormholes.

5) Think about it: entities will be able to effectively cut off significant access to planets by building the customs office and denying access to everyone else. Yeah, you can still launch packets into orbit but the volume of that launching mechanic is tiny compared to customs offices. EGADS!

6) Prepare for a new set of conflicts erupting in low sec and null sec over access to particular planets such as plasma and lava planets.

7) Boost to faction warfare by making the BPCs available from their loyalty point store at half price compared to CONCORD store?

Overall, I'm pleased.

Tank Tuesday: Pew Pew Pew

Missed Tank Tuesday last week because of Turkey. Yum.

Anyways, its been two weeks. Where were we then?

The troubles with the medium tank Panzer IV have abated to the point where I don't feel useless playing it but I still have some of trouble getting good performance out of it. Part of the issue is I still don't have the best gun for it yet (that slow experience issue) so while I can shoot fast and accurately as a stay-back-and-snipe tank, my damage and penetration is bad. However, I'm close to unlocking the best sniping gun and then we'll see if things get better.

Well, I did unlock the big 75mm L70 gun and let me tell you, what a difference. Add in some experience from practice and I definitely feel like I've got my feet under me. But does the record show any improvement?

Changes over two weeks

My StuG fell a titch to 50.75% winning percentage (from 51.3), my Pz38nA also fell a bit to 55.56% (from 56.4), but my Pz IV climbed to 47.17% (from 36.3) over two weeks. The winning percentage for the two week period is 58.8 which I'm very happy with when you factor in all the random factors for teammates, match making, and map preferences.

My Pz IV really feels like a more mobile tank destroyer as my main gun has great accuracy and decent punching power (it is, coincidentally, the same gun the StuG mounts) so I tend to use it as such, hanging back and shooting from a distance and only advancing when an enemy flank is broken or one of our flanks needs reinforcements.

I like it so much that I'm eyeing up the next tier VI medium tanks, a choice between the VK3001(P) and the VB3601(H). The 3001 is a lighter tank than the 3601, and the latter leads to a lot more choices including higher tier medium tanks and the fearsome King Tiger.

Jagdpanther

Jagdpanzer IV

In other news, I've unlocked the tier IV tank destroyer Jagdpanzer and I've been saving up the credits to buy it (missing premium now), but I find my enthusiasm for getting it tempered by the fact that its best gun has less penetration than the gun my StuG mounts (but more damage) and that even the wiki says "... it is widely considered the worst tier 6 TD." Being a higher tier than the StuG means more battles with higher tiered foes and already the StuG has trouble with big Tier VII and VIII heavies. I'm thinking of pouring my energy into the medium tanks that at have the same guns at these tiers and at least more mobility. On the other hand, the other side of the Jagdpanzer is the Jagdpanther which has the big guns you would expect a tank destroyer to sport.

Decisions, decisions.

Rifters At Dawn

Last night I logged in and divided my time between looking for fights and getting some logistics done. Earlier in the week I had snuck an Orca into low sec in Pelille to pick up a couple more ships (including Hurricane #5) and a ton of modules and ammo I had left behind. Last night I got the Orca into low sec near my base in Dal and now I can move them over to base using a sneaky blockade runner.

While I was waiting for my alt, I was cruising around in my Vagabond looking for trouble. In Egghelende I was waved in local by religiosa, a member of the Yarr Collective alliance and someone who I dueled in the recent past (lost a Hurricane to his Drake, ECM drones were very on target). He asked for another 1v1 and I declined as I didn't want my poor Vaga to end up like my Hurricane. He then offered to go in Rifters to avoid any drones and I had just purchased but not set up a Rifter a little while ago, so I said yes, if you give me a couple minutes to go get it.

Then a member of his alliance piped up, "You can have my pre-fit Rifter." Hell, sounds good. I docked up, got traded the frigate, and undocked and went to a safe spot to wait for my foe. He arrived at 50 km from me, we approached each other and got into the death spiral of mutual close orbits as autocannons ripped off shields and hunks of armour.

Seeing my opponent was not trying to keep range, I focused on cap and overheating management, trying to keep my small armour repairer running while getting some extra DPS out of the guns and an extra HP boost out of the repper. Finally, just as my cap finally exhausted and my armour level hit 10%, he exploded.

I docked back up, repaired the damage, traded the ship back to religiosa's mate, and flew off with a small smile on my face.

Image Courtesy of Evelopedia.

Fiction Friday - Series 4 : Part 10

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

* * * * *

"Warping..."

Kla's voice caused a wave of relief. Reinforcements on the way. I pinged the directional scanner and saw the Hurricane and Luccul's Drake appear, followed moments later by their icons appearing on the overview as the warp bubble dispersed and they slowed to sub-light speeds. They were only 10 kilometers behind me and their ships started to turn to approach and lock the hostile Pilgrim.

Then something else appeared on the overview. My skin crawled as I read the words "cynosaural field".

"But that's not possible!" Kla'strit shouted in disbelief. "We're in high sec!"

Next my nerves connected to the sub space field detectors picked up the massive quantum energy flux as space-time ripped apart and a massive form punched its way from light years distant. As sensor recalibrated and camera drones came back on line, I found myself in the shadow of an Amarrian Archon carrier, gold hull gleaming menacingly in the red sun of Teonusude.

"Holy shit, that's huge!" whispered Luccul in awe of the capital ship. It was a magnificent sight. In the State navy I had flown escort for carriers and dreadnoughts in exercises and the occasional operation, and in space with no clues as to perspective and scale it was easy to not realize just how large they were when you were flying 30-50 kilometers from them. But this carrier was right on top of us and I could see the occasional new armour panel or scratches from space debris on its hull that seemed to go on forever.


"Ok, we can do this!" Kla'strit exclaimed as he tried to adjust to the new situation. "Luccul, follow my lead. We'll target any drones or fighters it launches and just try and keep it busy until the Minmatar show up. They have to show up. This is their space. That's an Amarr ship. They will show up." While he was talking I looked up the pilot of the ship and realized the motive of what was going on. Chrystina Elira Blodel, my uninvited guest from this morning. I also realized this was not some random poorly planned assault.

"Kla, Luccul, get out of here."

"Kirith, we can hold them off and keep you alive until the Republic ships get here."

"No Kla, you can't," I responded. "Its that woman I told you about before we came out here. She's after me and she's probably got it all planned out. Bribes, favours, sabotage, it doesn't matter. Help won't arrive in time."

"We can kill the Pilgrim! I'll get Seven and Min out here, get Nhi'Khuna to get to her ship..."

My ship informed me I was being targeted. "Listen to me! That carrier has remote reps to keep that Pilgrim alive, and probably a heavy neut or two. And definitely many waves of drones. Heavy, mediums, lights... we will get worn down no matter how well you knock them off. Get out of here now!"

Seconds passed. I hoped he had not allowed himself or Luccul to get warp disrupted while arguing with me. Then he said in a despondent voice, "Activated wing warp," and the two allied ships warped off leaving me alone with my pursuer.

My neocom beeped as a open comms request came from the carrier. At the same time a wave of ten fighters departed from the hull of the Archon and began their attack run on me. I accepted the request and asked, "How did you manage to get the cyno jammer offline?"

Supercarrier Nerf: Overall, Not Enough

In the dev blog Capital Ship Balancing CCP Tallest outlines his proposed changes for capital ships in the upcoming winter expansion:

In conclusion, here is a full list of the changes we're making.

Supercarriers

• Drone bay can only hold fighters and fighter bombers.
• Reduce Shield, Armor and Hull hitpoints on all Supercarriers by 20%.
• Reduce drone capacity.
  • Aeon, Revenant and Wyvern: 125000 (25 total Fighters + Fighter Bombers)
  • Hel and Nyx: 150000 (30 total Fighters + Fighter Bombers)
• Remote ECM Burst: Does not affect ships that are immune to electronic warfare (Supercarriers, Titans, Triaged Carriers and Sieged Dreads)

Fighters

• Increase signature resolution to 400

Dreadnoughts

• Remove drone bay from all dreadnoughts.
• Siege Module I: Boost damage bonus from 625% to 700% to compensate for loss of drones.
• Siege Module I: Duration time reduced to 5 minutes. Fuel cost -50%.
• Moros: Remove drone bonus.
• Moros: New bonus: 5% bonus to Capital Hybrid Turret rate of fire per level.

Titans

• Remove drone bay from all titans.
• Reduce Shield, Armor and Hull hitpoints by 20%.
• Superweapon: Cannot shoot sub-capital ships.

Logoff timer

•  After a player logs out, there is a check for player aggression every 15 minutes. If you have been aggressed, the timer extends for 15 minutes; if you have not been aggressed, you disappear as before. Note: this is only for player aggression and will not change what happens when you log off during fights against NPCs.

 These changes, especially in respect to the super capitals are a good start... but not enough.

For supercarriers, the 20% cut to all hitpoints is a good start but the issue with Slave implants helping armour ships is not addressed. And they will still have tens of millions of effective hit points meaning that the only way to kill the supercap fleet you have tackled is to bring in your own supercap fleet.

Allow me to reiterate: the only effective way to wipe out a supercap fleet is STILL another supercap fleet. While the effectiveness of that supercap fleet has been reduced vis a vis subcaps, and while the danger to that fleet is increased vis a vis the removal of 15 minute logoffski, and while individual supercaps caught by subcaps are more vulnerable due to hit point decrease, they are still for all intents and purposes invulnerable to subcaps when facing them with similar order of magnitude numbers. That is to say, 30 supercarriers are not at much risk from 150 subcaps even with the changes; they can be held in place until the 30 hostile supercarriers arrive, but otherwise they are still relatively safe.

So, what would I do?

Well, the boosts to dreadnoughts are interesting but I still think they are not enough as the firepower of 30 supercarriers will decimate any dreadnought fleet in short order. And you don't want to nerf super carriers into obsolescence again by reducing their hitpoints too much (although disabling slave implants effects on capital ships is called for). Ultimately I still think a new sub capital ship with an anti-super-capital weapon is the most balanced solution, introducing a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock dynamic to the equation.

All that being said, these changes outlined above are a good first step to evening the playing field for null sec alliances (but is it too late?... ).

(Not Your) New Captain's Quarters

So the remaining captain's quarters are finally out on singularity server and the reviews in terms of asethetics have been mostly positive. However a few people have expressed consternation on twitter (and maybe even a blog post, I can't recall) that the type of quarters you get when docking is tied to the station type you docked in (i.e. Amarr station == Amarr quarters) instead of your character type (i.e. Minmatar character <> Minmatar quarters).

Some people have argued it would be nice if you could choose so that it was always the one you liked, a first baby step to personalization.

Well, stop being silly. They are not your character's quarters.

Only 300 ISK per night for non-capsuleers

They are special "Captain's Quarters Suites" every station added to the capsuleer docking levels to accomodate the Mark IV capsule's ability to allow for self-decanting at minimal facilities, such as the balconies we see. The suites are provided as a convenience to capsuleers in the hope they will lounge while their ships and cargoes are taken care of and perhaps spend a few spare ISK on the latest Gallentean holo, a special meal from a restaurant, or perhaps even visit the promenade to partake in some gambling or other services.

That is why the type is not picked by you or customizable. Every time you leave the suite is cleaned and set back to standard setup for the next capsuleer. Hell, you don't even get the same one every time you dock at the same station.

Huge Back Yard!

Eventually CCP will give us our true quarters, apartments for rent on stations whose look and feel we can customize to your liking (save up your Aurum folks!). For now you are stuck with the generic suites.

EON #25 Is Out

Issue #025 - Published 7th October 2011

SHATTERED HORIZONS
Dominion was the last time the foundations of null-sec were reformed and, while intentions were good, two years on things haven't turned out quite as hoped. Now CCP is preparing to set things right again, only this time with long-term vision that could impact not just 0.0 space, but every part of EVE Online. Massively.com <http://Massively.com/> 's Brendan Drain explores the potential for EVE's long-term future and sees reason to be quietly optimistic.

EVE'S GREATEST SCAMS - PART 1
If you weren't tempted into EVE by the boasts of an impending expansion, it may have been due to the exploits of the players - those that have stolen and scammed their way to become New Eden's most notorious characters. From Nightfreeze to Cally and from Remedial to Istvaan Shogaatsu, we look at the 10 biggest thefts and most notorious scams that dominated EVE's early years.

NOBLE INTENTIONS
The Noble Exchange has probably been the most contentious addition to EVE since the game first went live, providing a means for characters to dress themselves up in specialist virtual clothing at a premium non-game-breaking price. We fired off a load of questions to CCP to see how business has been going and ask what's in store for the next iteration of NeX as a new expansion nears.

UNDERSTANDING INCURSIONS
Six months on since they were introduced to New Eden, we evaluate and explore EVE's most recent gameplay addition, with a guide to joining and emerging victorious against the Sansha hordes. Also in our expanded 15-page Knowledge Base Guide section we dig behind the back story to bring you the definitive history of CONCORD.

PLUS
In Crowd with CCP Zulu & CCP Tallest
0utbreak, Vuk Lau and Colossus Technologies profiled
The latest CSM and 0.0 Report
The CrazyKinux Story
All you need to know about hiring mercenaries
Alliance Tournament Testflight
The Rise & Fall of ATLAS
Apocalypse under the spotlight
Who's top of the BattleClinic Rankings?

Fiction Friday - Series 4 : Part 9

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

* * * * *

I hurriedly rechecked the displays and warp cord readouts and confirmed that my on board computer was telling the truth. I was warp scrambled. More indicators turned red as the recon ship activated energy neutralizer beams on my engineering core and drones flew out of its underbelly to start attacking my defenses.

I furiously activated on board comms to my XO. "Odonnelson! Contact the CONCORD office of this shitty little system and find out what is taking them so long!"

"I already have, sir," she replied, completely unruffled by my emotion or the attack. "They have stated that everything in system is under operational norms."

"We're being attacked by a hostile capsuleer and we're not at war with them. How is that normal?"

"They seem to think we are at war with them, sir."

"Tell them to recheck their database!"

"Yes sir, I have. They say it will be a few minutes..."

I swore again. "We may not have a few minutes. Check info that pilot's corp and cross reference with capsuleers reported on the local registry, we need to find out if he's got friends incoming." I disconnected without waiting for a reply, I knew I could count on my crew.

I opened the channel to Kla'strit and Luccul. "I'm warp scrammed, being neuted, and attacked by drones."

"He got kill rights or something on you?" Kla'strit inquired.

"Negative, Kla. I'm clean."

"Then why the hell is he not getting CONCORDed?"

"CONCORD office is saying we're at war with them."

"What the hell?!" He went silent for a minute, I watched my shield and energy levels slowly descend. I decided to launch my drones to try and kill his but he quickly responded with his own and I knew that was a battle I could not win with his larger drone bay.

"Ok, something weird is going on here," Kla'strit finally said. "Our corp interface is not responding. I can't tell if we are really at war or not. I've got no notifications in my inbox but I can't confirm it..."

I cut into his musings. "Its going to be a moot point if I blow up."

"Right! I'll dock up and get my Hurricane, hold tight." My shields were at 45%. "Ok, but hurry," I replied.

My bridge comm beeped and I connected back to my XO. "CONCORD is not coming, no other members of ... " - she paused as she looked at his comm - " ... Excelsior Rex Limited in local."

I felt my tight muscles loosen a bit. A single pilgrim might have been able to take me alone down eventually, but not with a Drake and Hurricane backing me up. We were going to get out of this it looked like.

A chime sounded as shields hit 35%.

"Come on, Kla. I'm dying here."

Fear the Ocular Implant OF DOOM!

MUHAHAHAHAHA!

Blog Banter 29 - Immersion

"EVE Online is renowned for its depth. Its backstory, gameplay and social aspects are all qualities that draw players in. What does immersion in EVE Online mean to you?"

There are two types of immersion.

The first type is the typical environment immersion where you lose yourself in the character and environment they are in, whether it is playing a video game or watching a movie. For a role playing game, immersion equates to living in the world as your character, thinking and reacting as they would in the given scenarios. This can as simple as in your imagination in a standard pen and paper RPG or as elaborate as dressing up and acting out the adventure in LARPing activities.

But Eve is different. The vast majority do not roleplay and do not become invested in their character's feelings and responses to the in game environment, yet Eve is often described as one of the most immersive games out there.

Why?

Because, as I've stated before, Eve is not a game. Its a simulation.

This fact has the two-fold effect of reducing the need (hell, even the ability) to role play while simultaneously increasing the immersion. Why? Because the simulation is so complex, so encompassing, and so "real" that is is easier to get pulled in to a very large degree.

In a normal game, an immersion breaking event is a needless ad during your dungeon adventure to buy more gold with your credit card. In Eve, immersion breaking event is when your significant other calls down the stairs to get off the ****ing computer and come spend time with your family.

Quite simply, Eve is Real.
* * * * *
Get more info on this blog banter at Freebooted.

Selling PvP Alt

Due to many reasons, I'm selling my minmatar pvp alt with his 58 mil skillpoints, Kla'strit.

You can see the auction here.

- 58,045,957 points
- -4.07 sec status
- no kill rights
- was not used in scamming or corp theft
- neural remap available
- positive wallet balance
- amarr shuttle is the only asset.
- high Minmatar Republic Fleet standings, able to run level 4 missions (possibly level 5, I can’t recall)

Highlight skills:
Minmatar Battleship V
Minmatar Cruiser V
Command Ships V
HAC V
Tech 2 Large, Medium Projectiles
High level leadership skills
Covert Ops V and Cyno V for covert cynos

Preparing for CCP's Counteroffensive - Followup

From today's CCP Zulu's (I miss "Zulupark"!) dev blog on the winter expansion:

EVE Online´s Winter 2011 expansion will be themed around improvements to warfare and PVP. We will be talking more specifically about each of the features and items in the coming weeks but, for now, here‘s an overview of what functionality, systems and gameplay we‘re going to improve and add to.

Hybrid weapons balancing
Factional warfare
Assault ships
Capital ship balancing
New T2 modules
Starbase logistics management
New EWAR-Drones
T2 Rigs manufacturing
Ship spinning
New font
More captains quarters
Time dilation

I've bolded the things I were not aware of and were not mention in Jester's post. While not one big feauter, I think those 7 new things (of which I assume at least 4 will make it in the expansion) count as a point for me being right. :)

Couple this with Himlar's apologetic dev blog released at the same time and I feel a certain degree of optimism for the future. Now if only I didn't such at solo low sec PvP...

Preparing for the CCP Counteroffensive

I've been mulling this post for a couple weeks and today I'm going to get it out because I think a big dev blog from CCP is coming today, according to rumours on twitter.

Jester over at Jester's Trek (aka Ripard Teg) posted a discussion over the future of Establishments and how he feels they are not coming out this winter.

The winter expansion is not going to include Establishments.  Whatever idea CCP had for this feature isn't even close to ready.  They tried, and failed, to put something together that EVE's players couldn't break in 30 seconds flat.  When the Establishments team tests four or five toons walking around together in one room, their test machines catch fire.  It isn't ready, it isn't going to be ready, and CCP is in panic mode.

That's why we haven't seen so much as concept art for what the Establishments will look like this year.  That's why they're suddenly so open to a 180 degree change in direction.

The winter expansion will include the three remaining racial CQs, whatever mini-features we've been seeing that CCP can scrape together in time for late December (new cynos, time dilation, super cap nerfs, ship spinning, logi warp speed, new font, Dram nerf, a few other rebalances hastily thrown together), and that's... pretty much it.  This expansion won't even get a name, other than an Incarna version number.

I don't necessarily agree with all his points in his post, but overall I agree that the third paragraph I quoted encompasses the majority of the winter expansion's features, and I don't think Establishments are going to be included either.

Where Jester and I differ in opinion in a significant manner is that I think there will be one (or maybe two depending on resource allocation) more major feature in this expansion and I think it will get a new name because CCP wants to move past the Summer of Incarna Rage.

The reason I think there will be at least one more major feature is that there is about 2-3 sprints of development left between now and a mid December release. A focused multi-team effort could produce something in that time with enough motivation and overtime. They know they don't need something the scale of wormholes or tech III ships, but even something as simple as producing the contest winning ships from last winter would be considered a huge win (and that's sad in a way).

CCP knows they need to turn around the malaise in the community that is impacting the long term players who hold Eve together. New fonts, cyno effects, time dilation, and ship balancing are not the answer; they are merely things CCP should have been doing all along.

So prepare for the counteroffensive. We've seen their opening shots this past couple week in the dev blogs, maybe today we see the major push of their campaign.

Tank Tuesday: The Grind

StuG III

Well, its been two weeks since my last World of Tanks update and things are going well, albeit slowly. I'm still chugging along without a premium account so I'm getting half the experience and credits that such an upgrade would provide. Up until tier V that did not seem a problem, but getting to tier VI has been a long slog and I just unlocked the tier IV tank destroyer last night but opted not to buy it as I want to train my crew in my StuG III more and it can be done faster in an Elite vehicle (i.e. all upgrade paths unlocked for it).

Pz IV

The troubles with the medium tank Panzer IV have abated to the point where I don't feel useless playing it but I still have some of trouble getting good performance out of it. Part of the issue is I still don't have the best gun for it yet (that slow experience issue) so while I can shoot fast and accurately as a stay-back-and-snipe tank, my damage and penetration is bad. However, I'm close to unlocking the best sniping gun and then we'll see if things get better.

Pz 38nA

I'm still having an absolute blast jumping into my light tank, the tier IV Panzer 38nA. Some of my best matches lately are coming from this tank, even when I'm the lowest tier by four or five levels. My strategy is to hold back at the start until I see where the enemy deployment is concentrated, and then blow by them in a hole in their lines to attack the rear areas, sometimes moving laterally on the map to confuse potential attackers. Then I move in and light up their artillery and try to take them out.

Taking a look at my stats in terms of wins/losses, you can see that I have a 51.3% winning percentage in my main tank, the StuG, which matches close to what I got in the Hetzer and Marder. My light tank shennanigans have got my up to 56.4% in that tank, but my Panzer IV frustrations keep me low at 36.3%. Ouch. Considering there is a lot of external factors to consider (random teams on random maps) you can figure that my percentage in the Pz IV are indicative of not helping my team very much so far. Hopefully a bigger gun will help.

Consolidating

When I moved into Kadavr Black Guard, I took one carrier load of ships and went to work. I didn't want to waste a lot of time making a lot of trips when I could be PvPing.

Well, over the past weeks I used down time to move a bunch more ships into the area. First I got some Minmatar ships from my alt Kla'strit since he was not using them and put them into a couple freighter packages from Placid to metropolis. Included in it was a Hurricane, Sleipnir, Vagabond, a couple Claw interceptors, a Wolf assault frigate, and a Cheetah covert ops.

Next, I jump cloned to my spare Chimera carrier chilling in Teshkat after m3 corp's last pull out of Providence and found a slew of ships from that venture including an Ishtar, Dramiel, Crow, and a Manticore.

This helps to bring my stable of available ships up nicely and only one more load of ships from Pelille which I will get this week, including doomed Hurricane #5 of the Hurricane project.

Let's review what happened to the other 4:

#1 - Died to NPC police after I mistakenly jumped into high sec.
#2 - Died to enemy gang after I engaged bait Hurricane at a gate.
#3 - Killed Hookbill one week, but next week died to enemy fleet after engaging a Firetail that attacked first.
#4 - Lost in arranged 1v1 versus Drake.

Hopefully #5 has better luck! And I have a bonus Hurricane to go too.