BB36: Real Quick

Welcome to the thirty-sixth edition of the EVE Blog Banter, the community discussion that brings the collective minds of the EVE blogosphere together to chew the cud, exchange opinions or troll the world.

"With the Inferno expansion upon us, new seeds have been planted in the ongoing evolution of EVE Online. With every expansion comes new trials and challenges, game-changing mechanics and fresh ideas. After nine years and seventeen expansions, EVE has grown far more than most other MMOGs can hope for. Which expansions have brought the highs and lows, which have been the best and the worst for EVE Online?"
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If you did not pick Apocrypha as the best Eve expansion, you are so off base you are not even wrong. In the same vein, everyone has to agree that Incarna was the worst in terms of implementation and real content delivered.

Thoughts About Drone Mods

One of the most exciting new modules to come with Inferno is the Drone Damage Amplifier, the tech 1 version BPO which has been seeded on the market and the tech II version available through invention.

Drone Damage Amplifier I : Low slot, 1 PG/27 CPU, 15% increase to drone damage(1)
Drone Damage Amplifier II: Low slot, 1 PG/32 CPU, 19% increase to drone damage(1)


There are a lot of possibilities for this module to expand a number of drone carrying ships. The fitting requirements are not to severe (in fact, fall in line with other damage modules) meaning they have a place on all sizes of ships.

Take for example a Gallente heavy assault cruiser Ishtar. With five Ogre IIs and no other weapons it boasts an estimated ideal DPS of 475 points/second. Adding one tech I Drone Damage Amplifier (aka DDA) brings it up to 546; two equals 618, three gives 671, an increase of about 41%. In other words, you can increase the drone damage output to almost 1.5 Ishtars. Invent three tech II mods and you start to approach battleship damage levels around 730 DPS.

Of course, the effect is less impressive on medium and light drones, but the possibilities are still very interesting for having drone damage constitute a real alternative to traditional weapon systems rather than a simple backup to them.

I'm hoping that the developers continue to explore new drone modules and I have some suggestions for them to consider.

Drone Communication Processor - High slot module; small, medium, and large versions. The small version fits on frigate sized ships and adds 5 mb to drone bandwidth; the medium is for cruisers and adds 10 mb to bandwidth; and large has battleship fitting requirements and adds 25 mb to bandwidth.

This module allows for ships to increase the number of drones they can field (to a maximum of 5 of course) or increase the size of drones they can launch. This would allow non-drone specialized ships the possibility of becoming drone ships at the cost of high slots and weapon fitting.

Drone Bay Expander - Mid slot Module; small, medium and large versions. Small adds 5m3 to drone bay, medium adds 10m3 to drone bay, large adds 25m3 to drone bay. Fitting requirements scaled to frigate/cruiser/battleship respectively. Used in isolation, this gives a ship space to add drones to their selection without increasing flight and/or drone size. Used in conjunction with the Drone Communication Processor and Drone Damage Amp, you could turn a ship from an occasional drone user to a full fledged drone carrier. For example, a Rokh with 5 heavy drones (but only 5 turrets with no damage mods and a compromised tank).

They would not radically change the ship setup landscape but they would allow for some experimentation and surprises on the battlefield.

1 - You can fit multiple modules but the effect is stacking nerfed like regular damage modules.

Review: Templar One Eve Novel

When I finished the Empyrean Age novel at the beginning of the month, I immediately picked up the sequel EVE: Templar One, also by Tony Gonzales, and started to read it. Short review: started slow but ended strong and I felt it was worth my time and money. Longer review to follow.


WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

The Good

I felt that overall the character interactions were stronger in this book than they were in the previous novel. The Gable-Mack-Jonas relationship and arc as they struggled to find Vince and get him off the planet of Pike's Landing was very well written and deserved to be the central story of the novel. I liked the side-story about how CONCORD officials were taking steps to get better intelligence and would have loved to know more about the THANTOS operative and operations. I also found the interaction of dead-Jovian AI drone and the doomed Amarrian scientist great and full of backstory about Sleepers and Jove.

But the best part of the novel, and where it surpasses Empyrean Age by far, was the combat on the ground and in space. There was more of it and far more detailed and engaging.

The Bad

One thing is for sure, Templar One starts slow and disjointed. It jumps around a lot and each section felt like it either assumed the reader knew what was going on and it was playing hide-and-seek with the info to tantalize the reader but left me feeling cold on the subject. I didn't stop feeling frustrated by the jumping around until about the two-thirds or halfway points. Its also worth noting that the book is very slow until that point too.

While I like the continuity of having many characters from the first novel present in the second novel, I really think the author could have saved a lot of ink by just leaving Korvin Lears out of it and had his roles dropped or done by some nameless character. My impression was that the author really liked this Gallente pod pilot and wanted him involved, even if tangentially. I would have preferred more time spent on other characters/storylines instead.

I did not like the character of Mordu himself. While I understand there are eccentric leaders in real life and it should not be any different in New Eden, I really felt that Mordu was over the top in terms of eccentric to the point of parody. 

One last thing; it felt like the author was far more restricted in what he could do in terms of plot events in order to write this book compared to Empyrean Age. Whether its because he had less resources available to him for world shaping (e.g. setting up Caldari State titan in orbit of a planet in Gallente space) or the outcome was more restrictive (i.e. instead of "everyone at war", it was a specific technology has to be shared amoungst the four empires equally), the end result is that the plot felt a bit more constrained and directed, especially in the early going of the novel. The end battles more than made up for that though.

Summary

This is a good book, either as a sequel of Empryean Age or stand alone novel. I would recommend it to any Eve player, but I would have a hard time suggesting it to a non-Eve player unless they read and enjoyed Empyrean Age.

Still Alive

A perfect storm of real life has laid me low for a couple weeks: training at work, flu working through family, and getting ready for my first trip to Mexico next week.

I have a lot of things to say about Inferno when i get back from the Mayan Riviera.

Fly safe!

Strategic Cruisers Are A Failure

Now you might read the title of this post and think to yourself, "Mr Kodachi, you are on crack." After all, Strategic Cruisers are everywhere in New Eden. Running sanctums alone in null sec, fleets of missile spewing doom, cloaky scouts that can ignore warp bubbles, probing hunters, running missions in high sec, fleet boosters, fighting Sleepers in wormholes, active tanking, passive tanking, etc. Despite the hefty price tag and losing skill points when losing the ship, they are a very popular ship class.

But the concept itself failed.

Let's go back to late 2009 to read the dev blog introducing Strategic Cruisers to the players of Eve:

Strategic Cruisers
The elation of happening upon a unique fit, some fresh and clever setup, has always been a very appealing aspect of EVE. One of our primary goals for the Tech 3 ships was to bring this customization to a whole new level. The new ships are a fundamental departure from the tried and tested, offering such unparalleled customization that discussing them on the same terms as previous ships belies their true extent - we're talking full-fledged, independent systems within the system. A little bit scary, really. They are called Strategic Cruisers, where "strategic" refers to the internal scalability and dynamic nature of the setup options- not a battlefield role like coordinators or command ships. Of course, they can align beautifully with virtually any fleet on any mission, but just as well prowl as lone wolves.
[...]
Subsystems not only change the ship's attributes, slot layout and bonuses, but the geometrical shape and appearance as well. As stated, each vessel consists of 5 subsystems and a hull. Once the ship has been assembled, players are free to switch out the subsystems completely at will, given they are docked at a station.  

Emphasis mine. The concept is simple: you can pick what role / bonuses / slot layout your ship has AND you can change it whenever you want. The first part is part of the reason the ships are so ubiquitous but the second part has pretty much failed miserably. Most of the time, you use a tool like EFT or Pyfa to determine what setup you want for your Strat Cruiser including the 5 subsystems you want, and then you buy that setup, put it together, and most likely never change it again.

If you want a Strategic Cruiser for a different role, e.g. a probing cloaky ship instead or your sanctum running missile spammer, you are more likely to simply buy an entire second ship rather than just the mods to switch your current ship. My hanger, for example, has three Strategic cruisers in it: one for PvE, one for cloaky probing, and one for pure gank PvP.

What is the reason for the failure of the ship class to live up to its potential? There are several:

1) Rigs. When you put three rigs on a ship, they are usually to compliment its main role or main method of tanking (or sometimes both). However, changing the subsystems of a strat cruiser can vastly change its role and/or optimal tanking method, most likely making the installed rigs sub-optimal or useless. Since you can't just remove rigs, only destroy them, it makes players committed to a single setup once the rigs are installed.

2) In Game, Setting Up Ships is Tedious. While some big improvements to fitting a ship in game have been made over the years, the fact of the matter is that it is downright tedious and intensive to explore ship setups and tweak it to how you want. There is no easy way to compare stats of two ship setups, removed mods are assembled so don't stack and litter up your hanger, your hanger modules are not in a nice tree to browse like they are in the market, and unless your hanger is well stocked or you are in a market hub sometimes you just don't have the modules or charges you need for a quick setup change.While out of game tools help a lot with some of these deficiencies, the fact of the matter is that its easier to setup a new ship with brand new purchased items than it is to swap out subsystems and modules of an existing setup unless you don't want to use that setup ever again.

3) Too Limited. Many of the scenarios where having the ability to change the capabilities of your current ship on the fly would be useful are the same scenarios where you do not have the ability of swapping subsystems and modules: deep in enemy space, wormholes, during a long roam, etc, any time you are far from your home base. Even if you have the subsystems and modules available, since you have to be docked at a station you still can't use a POS hanger or capital ship maintenance bay to to the switch anyways. So no jumping from Sleeper-farming PvE ship to hostile-fighting PvP ship in wormholes and no switching from forward-scouting recon ship to damage-dealing tackle ship during an offensive in null sec.

* * * * *

So what is the answer to make Strategic Cruisers live up to their full potential? Easy; address these three problems in some manner and you will go a long ways to getting there. Introduce a method for removing rigs (i.e. only in station and for a cost), introduce more ship-building-theory tools and module hanger organization tools into the game client, and allow swapping of subsystems outside of station environments.

What's in my hanger?

Your MOM is in my hanger!

Its a meme that's going around so here is my current hanger contents minus a couple ships in cold storage in the belly of the Wyvern.

Assembled ship counts:
- 13 frigates
- 5 Destroyers
- 10 Cruisers
- 8 Battlecruisers
- 1 Battleship
- 2 Carriers

Ship Focus : Enyo Assault Frigate

Last night I was roaming for a bit in an Enyo and I thought I would talk about it here to try and break up some writer's block I'm fighting with.

The Enyo is, for all intents and purposes, the epitome of a blaster ship. Four turret hard points and plenty of small hybrid bonuses and a smaller MWD bloom:

Gallente Frigate Skill Bonus:  
10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret Damage per level
Assault Ships Skill Bonus: 
10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret Optimal Range per level
7.5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret Tracking Speed per level
Role bonus:
50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

There are several approaches to fitting up an Enyo but really my favourite is the run & gun approach, with as much firepower to overwhelm a target before the minimal defenses give out.

This ship with no implants or boosters has around 350 DPS and that can be increased if you remember to launch the light drone. Speed approaches 2300 m/s and with low grade snakes, you can push it over 2600 m/s. Get in fast, web and scram, fire until either he drops or you do.

Obviously not ideal for facing too many opponents at once, or faster targets that can keep you out of your optimal range of under 2 klicks, but its really an orbit and forget type setup that is hard to use wrong.

Review: Empyrean Age Eve Novel

When the novel Empyrean Age was released I was skeptical of it being a good read because I rarely have seen a game-based novel or comic seem like anything except a blatant marketing/money grab. A few of the reviews I heard for the novel went along with that bias and I ended up not reading it then.

When Burning Life came out, I decided to try that one instead and was not super impressed. In contrast, over time the reviews and memories of people who read the Empyrean Age novel have been generally positive and a lot of people were excited for Templar One, written by the same author as Empyrean Age. So I decided to read the first book and give it a try.

 

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

The Good

I was impressed with the writing style. It was easy to read, the imagery was decent without being overwhelming. The characters were believable for the most part, with realistic motivations and personalities. There were four story arcs, one focusing on people from each of the major empires, and I found myself wishing that the novel had been two or four novels so that each story could have been given more room to cover more of the events and characters. That is always a good sign.

Even though the book felt like a marketing tool (as in, "here is EVE and this is what the major factions are about") I liked the fact that the book moved the plot of the major empires forward. For example, Jamyl Sarum was empress by the end, the Minmatar retrieved some of the Starkmanir tribe from slavery, the Caldari had a revolution for all intents and purposes, and the Gallente had been invaded and Caldari Prime occupied by the Caldari. Of course, the book was only able to move the plat forward because the expansion of the same name moved the game storyline forward, but its appreciated nonetheless.

The ground combat scenes, both in one on one violence and in military clashes, was excellent. I really wanted more of the Minmatar/Amarr and Gallente/Caldari ground battles. This alone makes me look forward to Templar One.


The Bad

For a book about a game about spaceships, there was not a large amount of space combat and what's there is not stellar. That left me a little disappointed but on the other hand, I know how hard it is to write good space combat.

Some character actions and reactions are unbelievable. For example, President Fourtain allowing the Caldari to blackmail him into letting them occupy Caldari Prime and hold millions of Gallenteans hostage, while the Caldari fleet goes back to Caldari space? Yeah, I don't buy that at all. There is a reason governments don't negotiate with terrorists; its because if it works once they will keep using it to get more.

On the unbelievable track, the character called The Broker seemed like one big Deus ex machina in order to force the story of the Caldari and Gallente into the direction the writer wanted. It seemed like he had no limitations but yet was killed off at the end by an incurable disease. How convenient!

Speaking of the Caldari, I don't care what universe you live in, no human society is going to take their entire military force for an invasion of an enemy with superior military might, and in the process leave their home systems with all their civilians completely unprotected. That is beyond the pale.

A lesser transgression of credulity was the Amarr / Minmatar conflict. I find it hard to believe that the massive Amarr empire was under anything more than annoyance level threat from the secretly built Elder led invasion. "Three Titan-led battlegroups" seems insignificant in our view as capsuleers facing entire fleets of nothing but Titans, but I was willing to let that pass as the difference between game realities and canon realities. But the thought that the Amarr could not match and surpass that force with ease and required Jamyl's super-weapon equipped battleship to save the day at Sarum Prime strained my credulity as well. I'm willing to let it pass because it set up some good storytelling and I can paper it over with thoughts that perhaps the Imperial Navy was corrupt or too slow to respond fast enough in high enough numbers.

Summary

Overall I enjoyed it and I'm starting Templar One. I don't think its a book I'll read again but it definitely ranks higher than Burning Life in my eyes and its one I don't mind recommending to people looking for a decent little sci-fi novel or introduction to Eve Online.

Jita Inferno - I Was There

I wanted to participate in the biggest event of 2012 so far but with Kirith's extremely low sec status and a birthday party to prepare for / host / clean up after, I knew I didn't have a lot of time to do much. So I decided to give the gankers a present and sent Korannon up to Jita the week before to buy a nice juicy hauler and throw some amusing cargo into it that would make for a funny killmail.

Originally I was going to buy a freighter, but then I looked at the prices. Yikes! How about an Orca... hmmm, still pretty expensive. So I settled on a new Bustard transport ship and bought some eccentric items for its cargo. Exotic dancers, spiced wines, some drugs, some antibotics, everything you need for a wild party.

Then I undocked.

And waited. And waited some more.

OH someone is targeting me! And then stopped.

Alright, maybe its not in full swing, I thought, it is only Friday evening. I tried again Saturday morning; same result. I tried again Saturday afternoon. No luck. Apparently its not "Burn Jita", its "Burn things in Jita worth our time and money" which I can kind of understand from a financial point of view but make me not as happy as pure anarchy and destruction would have.

So for the fourth try I decided to sweeten the pot of my untanked ship and bought a couple Succubus frigates to throw in the hold to make it more appetizing to the number crunching suicide gankers out there.

That worked! I was scanned and locked by multiple Thrashers and the rounds smashed into my ship with abandon. Soon I was a wreck and I docked up satisfied that I was part of the event.

I wonder who got the Succubus?