BB 73 - EVE Civilizations

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 73rd edition! For more details about what the blog banters are please visit the Blog Banter page.

Blog Banter 73 - The Other Eve Game?
So soon(tm) we will have Eve Online, Valkyrie, Gunjack and the as yet untitled FPS to replace DUST514/Project Legion. Are we missing anything else? Are then any other games CCP should be looking into? Colony building simulators in the style of Sim City or Rimworld. Should it be on a grander scale link Civilisation or Stronghold Kingdoms. How about RTS games ala Command and Conquer. Survival games such as Rust? Planet based combat like World of Tanks? Would you like to see other game types expanding the Eve Universe or should CCP stick to what it knows?

* * * * * 

Have you ever player one of the Civilizations game, or really any 4X game, on a harder setting where you just can't take every other civilization on singlehandedly, and you get into that position where you have to try and keep some happy while you deal with the others?

And you ever get into the situation where everyone decides they hate you and you end up at war with everyone anyway? Sound familiar?

Oh Dear God!

But everyone is going to think of that, right?

Another old awesome game is called Sword of the Samurai made by Microprose way back in 1989.

This was an interesting combination of strategy and role playing where you are a Samurai lord and you must work your way up the feudal ladder to become Shogun of Japan. This game had many different modes as you played; armies on maps, sword fight minigame, overhead ninja game, province management, it was a deep and fascinating game for its time.

I think an EVE version of this game could be amazing. Not pure roleplaying but mission based roleplay / strategy of a Capsuleer rising through the ranks to become corporation CEO, then Alliance Executor, then Coalition Leader. The goal of the game would be to secure several regions in null sec (i.e. Shogun). It could have a large fleet battle where you pit your doctrines against the enemy's, a single ship mode where you fight off a sudden attack, station infiltration minigame, diplomacy mini game as you try to make allies, resource management as you build your empire of fleets and stations, etc.

I would play the shit out of that game as a simpler fantasy roleplay counterpoint to EVE's actual simulation gameplay. 

Huh, a roleplay game about a real-play game. I'm all in.

Trying Out Carrier On Sisi

I logged into Singularity the other day and played around with the new fighter mechanics. Here are some screenshots and my initial thoughts. Click for fullsized screenshots.

I docked at an Astrahaus citadel and when I undocked the model was gone but all the lights were still there!

The tether which I assume gives some protection while near the Citadel. You can see the effect on the ship and the icon in the buffs bar.

Why yes, that is a permanent Quafe SKIN for my Thanatos.

An example of the three types of fighters that carriers can use: anti-fighter attack craft, general purpose attack craft, and Ewar craft.

The new fighter control panel can be undocked from the modules and placed wherever you want, like on the other side of the HUD.

I found it was fine for my testing combined with modules and you switch back and forth using the small button on the lower left. You can give orders via the three buttons which can apply to all squadrons or only some of them depending on what ones are selected via clicking on their icon.

All three types attacking Mordu's Legion battleships.

There is lots of room in the fighter hanger so I was able to quickly swap out the anti-fighters and Ewar fighters for more attack fighters. Their biggest damage comes from the rocket assault.

See the curved position lines for the objects in space on the tactical overlay? Very unique method for dealing with positions and ranges in 3D space and makes it easy to see the range to things. The numbers on the fighters in space correspond to their spot on the HUD.

Blood In The Water

Taking a moment to step back from the recent shenanigans that has been the EVE Meta in regards to the Money Badger Coalition attacking the Goon-led Imperium coalition, let's talk about how we got here and what the future holds.

Image from Crrossing Zebras Article, no author given.

When the original Northern Coalition existed I was an unimportant line member signing up for fleets when I could and fighting the prolonged supposedly pre-emptive war with the Drone Region Russians over territory Geminate region. A stalemate in one sense where neither side could make headway against the other due to time zone dominances and sheer numbers. The dynamic dramatically changed when the Drone Russians purportedly hired Pandemic Legion to be the steel tip of the spear to bolster North American time zone efforts around the same time that the war weary Northern Coalition suffered a population decline with changes to values of anomalies throughout low  null sec.

The end result is that the coalition fell apart like a house of cards and fell into the dust bin of EVE history.

The parallels today are striking. 

Also from Crossing Zebras article.

The Imperium occupies similar space as the old NC and launched a supposedly pre-emptive war with largely low sec based entities which turned into a slog in low sec before more recent setbacks has seen the fighting return to null sec and the Imperium suffer territorial losses and allied defections. Are they doomed like the old NC to crumble under the pressure?

Its important to note that the Drone Russians was a cohesive coalition while the Money Badger Coalition is a rough group of alliances and corporations that basically are united in their disdain for Goons and their arrogant actions of late. Not that people needed a reason to hate Goonswarm before, but the last few months have seen an uptick in the rhetoric from the Imperium leadership designed to fan the flames. From the "Viceroy" program to Sion Kumitomo's ranting, its almost as if they are trying to build an Us Versus Them narrative beyond the usual Grr-Goons sentiments.

Something I found very striking in the article about the Imerpium's loss at 2DWM-2 system in Vale of the Silent on March 23rd:

Voltron deployed two large strike teams that made their way to assault the tower. The first team, Northern Coalition./The-Culture/friends armor T3 fleet FCd by Ajax33, combined with a TEST bomber fleet led by former Imperium FC Vily. The second strike team, a Pandemic Legion/Psychotic Tendencies/friends Rattlesnake fleet, was commanded by KillahBee, and combined with a Pandemic Horde armor ECM Scorpion fleet. Assorted allies came in other fleets and doctrines to round out the Voltron coalition. Waiting for their call, PL's supercapital fleet. A total of 1,150 pilots made their way deep into Imperium territory.
Imperial forces were expecting this fight and pinged most of the day. This was a priority defense. Hundreds pour into fleets, consisting of a Machariel fleet led by Asher Elias, a Circle-Of-Two Machariel fleet, and a Fidelas Constans/RAZOR Alliance/The Bastion Cerberus fleet. Their numbers were only half that of Voltron's, reaching 660. The Imperium usually outnumbers opponents, but this time they were facing more than 20 alliances.

 (Emphasis mine)
The Imperium almost always boasted a dominance in numbers, yet they were outnumbered 2:1 in a fight they "pinged most of the day" for. This is a serious problem for an alliance and coalition that always claimed they were "terrible at this game". While I don't buy into that, I think that Goons have plenty of good pilots, there is a concern that they have suffered a brain drain of experienced FCs and pilots due to having far too many blues and not enough excitement, or by alienating them from leadership due to not matching the group-think. (Echo chamber alert!) Also, without an existential threat many line goons could have stopped logging in or even starting their jabber clients. Goons *might* be a hollow rotten castle.

Strong emphasis on "might".

In the past, one has not been wise to bet against Goonswarm even when the chips are down. Perhaps this gambit of "defend the motherland from the barbarian hordes" will swell the Imperium fleets once more. Or perhaps the boy who cried wolf one too many times finds out what its like to be eaten by a pack of wolves.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada (Beta) - Review

So let's talk about Battlefleet Gothic Armada which is currently in Beta.

Way back Before Kids I played the table top Battlefleet Gothic and had a sizable Chaos fleet (whose battleship was the namesake for this very blog) and I loved the game. When I heard a computer game of Battlefleet Gothic was being created and was on pre-order on Steam at a discount, I whipped out my wallet so fast that three co-workers were hospitalized.

The Beta started last week and I downloaded the game and gave it a try.

I expected a game like World of Warships where you controlled a single ship in a fleet with other players against another fleet of opposing players. Instead what discovered was that you play an admiral of a fleet that grows from 1 cruiser and some escorts to larger and large proportions via progression of both you (the admiral) and the fleet with new ships and improving ships with upgrades and improved crew stats.

It seems the developers tried to make a port of the table top game into a Real Time Strategy like game, and after I threw off my shock I was able to get into the game and start learning it. Currently they are supporting Imperial and Chaos fleets, with Orks and Eldar being worked on for release.

It has three modes: A single player story/campaign mode which the Beta only allows you to start and do two missions of; a Solo Skirmirsh mode where you level an admiral and ships via random games against the computer player, and a Multiplayer mode that is the same as Solo Skirmish mode except your opponents are other players over the internet.

In solo skirmish your opponent is always the same level with same quality ships available but in multiplayer sometimes you are matched up with a higher level player and it tries to balance this by giving the lower level player more points to pick ships from his fleet with, the number of points based on how many levels higher the opponent is.

When I started I did the two missions of the campaign and then dove right into multiplayer thinking I would fumble around with other newbies while learning but found out that is a bad idea. One reason is because you can be matched up with more experienced players you quickly get out manuevured and killed. The other reason is that the game wants you to consider warping ships out instead of fighting until they are dead so you get a penalty for heavily crippled or destroyed ships, not having them available for 1 or 2 next battles and the crew not getting experience when it does come back; this can lead to a spiral of futility if your core of your fleet gets sidelined and you are forced to use your less leveled ships in ever bigger battles. Oh yeah, you level quickly even if losing so you quickly find yourself facing very experienced players with well constructed fleet doctrines while you are still fumbling around with what ability means what.

After trying twice (i.e. creating an admiral, deleting him, and creating another one) I went over the Solo Skirmish mode and worked up that admiral allowing me to get the hang of the mechanics a lot more and now am trying a third admiral with a better understanding and plan. Wish me luck.

OVERALL: I don't know how deep this game will go as the tech trees such as they are can be run through quickly (unlike World of Warships) and there will be constant balancing issues to address just like the board game, but I'm having fun right now and I'm looking forward to trying out the campaign mode and Eldar fleets.

Astrahaus Sticker Shock

In hindsight I probably should have started buying all the materials to build an Astrahaus citadel back when the dev blog was released but my laziness meant I left it until recently. And boy, was I in for a surprise.

Going back to that cornerstone dev blog, Building Your Citadel, One Block At A Time there are some estimates about how much the citadels will cost:

With all of this in mind, we came up to the following:
- Medium Structure hulls will cost around 350-700m ISK in materials to build.
- Large Structure hulls will cost around 3-7b ISK in materials to build.
- X-Large Structure hulls will cost around 30-70b+ ISK in materials to build.

More details can be found here:

Click for full size

Now, what we don't know is if those estimates were with researched blueprints or not which could make a significant difference but I'm assuming that they would give the base material costs in this blog instead of optimal costs. What I do know is that prices at the time this dev blog went live had Astrahaus Citadel hulls (i.e. Medium Citadels) costing roughly in the 600 million ISK range for materials.

Based on those quantities in the dev blog I went out and bought the materials required for approximately three medium citadels and when I plug the prices into my spreadsheet I find a bit of a shock. Per citadel I spent just over 1.2 billion ISK for materials. The price for raw materials for a medium Astrahaus citadel doubled as market speculation and demand for stockpiles outstripped supply, not only in the Planetary Interaction market as Foo's Musings noted recently:

Normally P1 ranges from 80 - 700 isk per unit.  Today Bacteria (normally 60-80 isk/unit is sitting at 380 isk).  Proteins are up to 1100 isk/unit.
P2 normally ranges from 4k isk/unit to 11k isk/unit.  today ... Polyaramids are up to 20k isk/unit.  (Water Cooled CPU are still aweful)
P3 likewise is now up to 160k isk/unit for High-tech transmitters.
P4, with integrity response drones is up to 3M ISK/unit .  Well above the normal 1.3M ISK/unit.

But also with ice product rising prices as well. The dev blog estimated Strontium Clathrates at 416 ISK per unit but current prices in Amarr and Jita have them hovering around 4000 ISK per unit. The materials for Structure Fuel Blocks account for nearly half the price of the Citadel by the way.

So lets say that blueprint research can drive down the number of parts required for the structures to build the citadel, we're still looking at close to a billion ISK for materials for a Medium, which tells me that the market price could range from 1.5 to 2 billion ISK AFTER the initial rush to buy the first ones on the market, with a long term outlook of coming down to ~1 billion after material prices settle assuming demand does not outstrip supply as new producers of PI and Ice materials exploit the margins and increase supply.

The upshot of all of this is someone thinking from the dev blog that they could set up a Medium Astrahaus somewhere fully loaded for less than a billion ISK is sadly mistaken.

Could Do No Wrong

"It was a night we could do no wrong, and lord knows we tried." - Me, last night

I decided last night's fleet would be "Insurance Fraud Fleet", i.e. grab something shiny in your hanger and head out with everyone else and see what we could turn up. In other words, its an excuse to use my beloved brawling Sleipnir:

Its a fun ship, relatively nimble for a battlecruiser and deals a wallop of a punch in close while still able to tank decently for a minute. So I was riding along in it with a Drake, 2 Hecates, Caracal, Enyo, Maulus, Comet, Ares, Algos, Maulus Navy Issue, and a Tormentor. Eclectic to be sure.

It was near the end of the fleet where we found some small ganks and we were heading slowly towards home, debating if we would go and try to fight a Vexor-Osprey Caldari fleet we saw earlier in Tama. We jumped into Abune and were starting to warp to the Heydieles gate when someone says "hey, an Orthrus just jumped into you guys".

I call for cancel warp and we move to put a point on this sudden target. We snag him and start pouring firepower into the ship. He almost got away but our firepower was on point and he exploded. While we're fighting him a Hurricane jumps in and starts into us. We turn our firepower on him as he tackles me (having terrible security status, I was not surprised). Then a Keres uncloaks, and an Apocalypse battleship, and a Republic Fleet Typhoon.

Now I'm crapping my pants. My shield booster is running low on charges and I'm caught by the Keres and Hurricane. Suddenly my capacitor is empty and I'm feeling the panic coming.

Fortunately, my smaller ships in our fleet drive off the Keres and the Hurricane explodes. I am free of points so I order fleet to warp off because I don't know what else might jump in at this moment to surprise us and my Sleipnir is venting atmosphere and I'm not sure we have the firepower once I'm dead to break the battleships fast enough.

While we warp to the Heydieles gate and jump, I get the intel that there are no more hostiles sneaking in Oinasiken so we just have a Keres, Apoc, and Fleet Typhoon as opponents. I order re-approach and determine that I would try to split the enemy fleet if they engaged again. Sure enough, they jump through on our tail and open fire again. I get my fleet to jump through and my Drake pilot says "um, Kirith? I don't have a MWD on this thing". Uh oh, he's still slowboating back to gate and taking tons of damage. He barely makes it and I get organized on the other side again.

They jump back through into Abune and this time we go right for the Apocalype which shows up 10 km from me. It goes down fast but once again I'm feeling pressure as I never got to reload my Ancillary shield booster with charges and I was taking sentry gun fire as it was below -5. I warp to the sun as my shield gives out, land, and warp back as the Keres lands near me. Whew!

Then my Drake pilot, who warped to the sun after me, calls out, "I'm caught by the Keres and the Typhoon is here!" I rally the fleet and we charge to the sun. My fast ships kill the Keres finally while I tackled and pour fire into the Typhoon. All alone without hope for rescue he explodes shortly thereafter, revealing an impressive 1 billion ISK fit.

So our losses in the fighting totalled 1 Hecate, 1 Maulus, and 1 Tormentor (which was alpha'd by sentry guns) in exchange for an Orthrus, Hurricane, Keres, Apocalypse, and blingy Typhoon Fleet Issue. A good night indeed.

Blogging and Me

I've noticed a downtrend in my blogging even though my time in EVE is still about the same as it was previously. I'm still getting out in space and PvPing, building capitals, and now planning on building Astrahaus citadels. But my fervor for writing here has suffered lately.

Part of it is that the game has changed so much from when I was top of things that I no longer feel much like an expert in anything anymore. I barely recognize some of the null sec entities fighting over... whatever it is these days. And locally the war with Caldari Militia has died down to barely-there status. No pushes, no resistances to speak of.

So basically the only thing I feel qualified and invested in to speak of lately has been my small industrial business which is gearing up for citadel product but that is still over a month away.

So I'm going to briefly talk about other games I've been playing that require less time to sit down and enjoy than a good PvP session of EVE Online does.

World of Warships and Tanks

Two of my sons love World of Tanks and to a lesser extend World of Warships. The longevity of the former for our family is a simple truth: it doesn't change much in execution even as new tanks and functionality are added constantly. The basic premise of get-in-tank-and-drive is the same now as it was back in 2011 and still just as fun although not as deep as EVE's PvP.

I prefer the slower pace and big ships of World of Warships but don't mind getting in a division with my son when time permits.

Dominions 4

Been playing multiplayer with friends from work and single player at home. Very different game obviously but has the advantage of loading fast and letting me play a few turns in a few minutes, unlike something similar like CivV which takes all the same time to load.

This game is scratching an itch but no plans to delve into further than that.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada (BETA)

I used to play Battlefleet Gothic on the tabletop back in the day before kids destroyed my free time so when I saw that a PC game was coming out I knew I had to sample that stuff. I was expecting an experience like World of Warships in space but I was mistaken, its incredibly just like the table top game where online play against other players is 1v1 with each having multiple ships in a fleet.

We'll have to see if this game is good enough for a long term investment but I'm enjoying it a lot right now.

Citadels Are Coming

The date has been set. For better or worse, Citadels are coming on April 27, 2016. Are you ready?

Mixing It Up

While blogging may have suffered due to life and work, I'm still getting in game for activities such as my industrial projects and my PvP fix with stalwart corporation Aideron Robotics.

In the past when we were facing off with multiple strong Caldari Militia fleets every night, I tended to stick to the script so to speak with our core Rogue Squadron doctrine ships. They are not flashy but the consistency of using the doctrine week in and week out built a solid foundation of expectations and actions that pilots in each of the roles could depend on intimately. Our Algos fleet was in particular feared by many and only engaged at their peril or with significant numbers or hull size advantage.

The downside of having the same fleet so often is that the enemy works to counter it with the best possible options. Caracals with Rapid Light Missile Launchers, having good mobility and an amazing alpha, range, and RoF weapon barrage became a common foil for us.

But something happened while we were tinkering with ways to counter this counter. Summer hit and took a toll on our participation and when we got back to regular flying again it seemed that our main antagonists in Caldari Militia were a lot less active at the time our fleets were out. That was not necessarily a bad thing because it gave us some room to try out new things and get a feel for some different fleet types.

We tried some Black Ops fleets which were exciting when we found targets. We played with Command Destroyers in a few fleets (still my favourite new ship), last week was a Speed Force frigate fleet wherein I tried out a Garmur for the first time (can confirm, lots of fun), and this week we broke out our Dingo fleet and roamed around in that.

The Dingo is your standard afterburner fit Rail Thorax, supported by Exequror logistics and tackle frigates. The goal of the fleet is to skirmish instead of brawl, to fight at a range and mitigate incoming damage via low signatures and reps. Its a trickier fleet to manage as opposed to the Vexor brawling fleet but has the advantage of long range with Spike ammo and an easier time disengaging should the need arise.

Unfortunately last night we didn't run into a fleet willing to stand and fight and let me test the theory against practice but we still secured some nice kills here and there, and a good time was had.

Life in the Way

This week has been crap for me due to a funeral, broken washing machine, a birthday for my youngest son (KK The Destroyer is 6 now) and general insanity at work. Hence blogging and podcast has suffered.

Next week I hope to get back to regular schedule.

Project Vulcan - Set Course For Astrahaus

Last week I ruminated about Citadels and if I was going to invest in them and after comments on my post and talking to people both in and out of corp I've decided to make a go of it for nothing else than to say I tried.

I started laying down the plans of what needed to be accomplished prior to the Citadel expansion even going live in order to be able to build Medium Citadels, aka Astrahauses.

- I need access to Structure blueprints, either copies or originals, in order to start building the structure components.

- I need the Structure Construction (currently Outpost Construction) skill on my building alt which requires Anchoring skill at level V of all things. If the expansion comes faster than expected, or the skill needs to be at  a high level, I might have to invest in a skill injector or two.

- I need to stockpile some planetary interaction materials and minerals

And some things I need to find out:

- Confirm I can build Astrahauses in high sec stations
- Find out when exactly the expansion is scheduled for release

I plan to build three out of the gate and see how the process flows and if it is worth integrating into my build projects full time.

The End of An EVE Era

Its hard, when living through changes, to realize that you are passing from one phase of existence to another. Its usually only later you can look back and see the sea change that picked up you and everyone else and moved you in a new direction.

Everyone can agree that EVE entered a new age with the planning and release of the Crucible expansion back in late 2011, CCP's step back from the Incarna cliff and the jagged spires below. The game switched from one of CCP's hubris and daring while the playerbase looked on in increasing frustration to a period of reconciliation and renewal of commitment to the space gameplay instead of the pie in the sky avatar gameplay.

Everyone know that "Big Change" is coming to the game. We are in a period of massive upheaval in terms of game mechanics and ship balance and re-imagining. An era is closing and a new one is beginning, and I say that today's patch is the demarcation point at which the new era begins. Not skill extraction and injection, although that was definitely a major part of the recent sea change, nor Citadels and rebalanced capitals which will mark the beginning of the next era of EVE's history.

No, I pick tomorrow's update as the end of the old Crucible-born era because the Damage Control is becoming passive.

I know, it seems silly and trival, right? Its a small change but a massive departure from the past, a relic from an age when they could not limit modules to one per ship but could limit number of modules of the same type that could be activated. Left alone under the mantra of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", its become a ubiquitous modules that most ship fits require and the cause of every fleet commander to remind multiple time a fleet "don't forget to turn on your damage control".

But now, it will be passive like it was meant to be. Furthermore, it will not be so required as some of its hull resistance benefit is passing directly to the ships. I'm going to have to go over almost every ship fit I have to see how this and the rest of the massive module tiercide impacts them. The end of an era indeed.

So let's take a moment to toast the suitcase: It was always there when we needed it, saving the last sliver of hull for the hope of survival and winning.

Cheers!

EVE Expansion Dates

Saving this for future reference:

title	description	date
Operation Frostline		2015-12-08
Parallax		2015-11-03
Vanguard		2015-09-29
Galatea		2015-08-25
Aegis		2015-07-07
Carnyx		2015-06-02
Mosaic		2015-04-28
Scylla		2015-03-24
Tiamat		2015-02-17
Proteus	Proteus	2015-01-13
Rhea		2014-12-09
This is EVE	Release of the This is EVE trailer.	2014-11-21
Phoebe		2014-11-04
Oceanus		2014-09-30
Hyperion	Hyperion Release	2014-08-26
Crius	Crius expansion (also known as industry expansion)	2014-07-22
Kronos		2014-06-03
Rubicon 1.4		2014-04-28
Battle of Asakai		2013-01-27
Battle of B-R5RB	Largest battle to date.  Major media coverage.	2014-01-27
Rubicon 1.0		2013-11-19
Odyssey 1.0		2013-06-04
DUST 514 out of beta		2013-05-14
DUST 514 open beta on TQ	The gates are open	2013-01-22
Retribution 1.0		2012-12-04
Inferno 1.0		2012-05-22
Escalation		2012-04-24
Crucible		2011-11-29
Incarna		2011-06-21
Incursion		2010-11-30
Tyrannis		2010-05-26
Dominion		2009-12-01
Apocrypha		2009-03-10
Quantum Rise		2008-11-11
Empyrean Age		2008-06-10
Trinity		2007-12-05
Revelations II		2007-06-19
Revelations		2006-11-28
Red Moon Rising		2005-12-16
Cold War		2005-07-05
Exodus		2004-11-24
Castor		2003-12-17
Release		2003-05-06

Project Vulcan - Citadels and Competition

I've been pondering Citadels a lot lately in regards to how to fit them into my small time industrial operation, or even if I should. Here's my train of thought.

A lot of people are going to purchase Medium Citadel BPOs on day one and start building them. That will drive prices for the components required to build them, while the excessive competition to build them will saturate the market and drive prices down, quickly eating up profit margins. And then assuming I can get about 15% profit on each unit (~100 million ISK let's say), I'm looking at having to sell about 60 of them to start to get a return on the investment into the BPO. And that's assuming I can get good prices on the structure components I need, or look into getting the eight Structure component BPOs I need, either unresearched at ~200 mil each or researched at around 350-400 mil each (if I'm lucky). In other words, it feels like a large investment for possibly small returns.

The other alternative is to simply buy the Medium Citadel BPO and put it into research for the next year to make copies of later on once its at ME10. I'd still be tying up ~6 billion ISK for a year but the returns on the copies are certain and I can resell at a profit if desired. Plus it gives me time to allow the market to settle and evaluate at that time if building Citadels is profitable enough.

But wait! There's more!

I've been alternating building Archons and Moros, but the new Force Auxiliaries are coming and with them will be new BPOs to consider buying. I figure I'll need to get at least the Amarr version, the Apostle, and I'll probably consider buying two so that I can stuff one into the year+ researching time to get it up to snuff.

Here's the Archon BPO that just finished researching from ME9 to ME10. Check the install date versus the end date; almost 10 months, and that does not include the time to get from ME0 to ME9.

TL;DR: I'm definitely adding a couple FAX BPOs to my library, still on the fence about the Medium Citadel BPO plan.

Attempted Kidknapping

In Sunday's fleet I was once again in my Magus Command Destroyer and we were getting ready to engage an enemy fleet in our home system of Fliet. The enemy was in system and we were about to undock when one of our scouts reported "I've found the hostile link character, a Claymore [Tech II Minmatar Command Ship] on the Actee gate." The Fleet Commander asked for someone to try and use the Jump Field Generator to try and steal it off gate and kill it.

I volunteered.

I hopped into my Magus named "The Transporter" and as our fleets engaged I moved in on that Claymore and actived my jump drive.

WHOOSH! Success! My target and I were 100 km off gate! I locked him and activated my scram but either I spazzed out of range (sentry gun fire had me rattled) or he was stabbed, as he warped off. Nevertheless, the move was successful in disrupting their links at least for a few seconds and giving our side a minor advantage.

As that engagement ran down a Shadow Cartel fleet showed up with Guardian logi support. As we engaged I worked on getting a warp in on their logi, and ended up only 15 kilometers off. I moved in and again activated the jumper but this time while I appeared 100 km off, the guardians stayed put, an example of self-scramming defense.

Oh well, two attempts at kidknapping and one actually almost worked.

Optimal Range

EVE circa 2006

One day long ago some developer deep in the bowels of Fortress CCP decided that the minimum distance an object could be that one could choose to warp to was 150 km, the reasoning of which has been lost to the sands of time. (Note: Minimum warp distance is 50km as you can choose to warp to 100km to an object 150 km away.)

We don't know the exact reasoning for this selection but we do know the outcome. When I started back in 2006 Sniping Battleships, especially Megathrons, dominated a lot of the large fleet warfare because their optimal range was in the sweet spot of ~160 km: close enough to do considerable damage but far away enough to make getting tackled or bubbled difficult. Remember, this was the age of Next-To-Impossible probing so unless you had things in the right position to begin with, or the enemy was unlucky/bad, catching the sniping battleship fleet was a challenge. The big tanks (especially in the age of Arear of Effect titan doomsdays) and long range damage projection were more useful than the low mobility.

Things changed.

Probing mechanics changes which made probing out an enemy fleet on grid within seconds instead of minutes a reality, so suddenly a sniping fleet stood the risk of getting bubbles within 10 seconds, forcing them to move close under that magic 150 km number in order to prevent the on grid warp of enemy interceptors and interdictors. They also had to avoid getting too close to prevent a fast tackle from crossing the distance quickly, but at the same time had to avoid getting too close to 150 km or else the threat of the enemy burning away and warping back became a possibility.

While the low mobility of battleships was starting to hurt, the advantage of the big tank to survive an AoE doomsday or two evaporated as the weapons were changed to single target lances instead of grid sized smart bombs. The meta quickly adapted to advanced cruisers and cheaper battlecruisers and sniper battleship fleets became a footnote in history for the most part.

Fast forward years to now and once again the game is radically changing.

Grid sizes have grown by an order of magnitude, micro jump drives and jump field generators are changing the mobility of the fleet around the grid, Citadels and new capital designs promise to expand the combat area across hundreds of kilometers.

That 150 km range used to represent "pretty far away" in old EVE, a universal constant that allowed the stitching together of the extremes of the grid of the day. Now its barely a hop skip and jump of the grid now. The question has been raised on twitter and in the CSM if the distance still makes sense or if the developers should look into making it larger.

I think there are some definite advantages to increasing the distance to 250 km or farther. I realize that it could lead to an increase in a sniping meta but at the same time I think it increases the utility of micro jump drives and the larger ships that use them, as well as carving out a larger space for the new carriers to operate not with impunity but rather with some room to operate and make use of those new weapons and abilities.

CCP, its time to try out larger minimum warp to distances. Perhaps expanding it can create a niche for the old battleship to shine again.