Lots of Changes Coming in Apocrypha 1.1

A huge boat load of changes coming soon.

ECM Nerf - As previously discussed.

Stealth Bomber Change - As previously discussed.

Black Ops Buff - Improvements to make the unused tech II battleship class a little more attractive, including the ability to jump into cyno-jammed systems.

More subsystems for the Tech III ships - includes systems to get a bonus to exploration, covert ops cloaking, infinity warp stabilizer, and much more.

Agility Changes - some things become slower at aligning to warp.

* * * * *

Also rumoured on Scrapheap Challenge forums:

Exploration improvements - to assist in scanning down things in wormholes with buckets of gravimetric sites.

Inventory Search Utility - unsure if this is personal inventory or game item database searching.

New Warp Effect - I like the current one tbh.

Fitting Screen Improvements - Like a cap stable measurement.

* * * * *
It promises to be an exciting summer!

The Sweet Smell of Apocrypha

I started the download for Apocrypha expansion before I left for work yesterday so it was all done and ready to go when I got home last night. After the house had quieted down for the evening I settled in and started to check out what CCP hath wrought.

First thing I did was play with the skill queues, setting up my characters with skills for the next 24 hours so that Derranna can finally finish High Speed Manoeuvring IV today and then start Remote Repair Drone Operation IV while I'm at work. Sheer brilliance.

Then I played with the graphics settings. Allow me to explain my conundrum.

Back when I first got my latest PC it came with a decent NVidia 7600 graphics card that ran the new premium client quiet well on my 19 inch monitor. I could even run two clients with a bit of extra lag.

Then this past Christmas I saved up my pennies and purchased a 24 inch widescreen monitor to enhance my Eve experience. But although Eve looked gorgeous in the 24 inches of screen space I found the video card chugging to keep up. My frame rate dropped such that running one client was choppier than running two clients on the smaller screen. I tried reducing graphics so that it was running bare bones and it was definitely playable, but not ideal. A new video card has gone on my wish list but with only one paycheque coming into the house its not high on the priority list.

So I decided to see how premium light would work on the current setup. I turned all the graphic settings off or to low and reboot. I have to admit that looking at ships up close in this setting looks like ass... but everything does run very smoothly. I even was able to have two clients running without noticable degradation on the active client. I didn't take any screenshots last night but I'll try to get a couple to compare for you.

With the graphic settings settled for now, and no war targets buzzing about, I decided to try out probing with Derranna. She had a Cheetah covert ops in Ordat equipped with a new Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher and a couple probing rigs, and in her head is the implant for 6% improved strength strength (if I read the patch notes correctly) so she is prepared to find stuff.

I started in Ordat and my inital probe got a hit on a Cosmic Signature. Off to work we go!

The time I spent on the test server learning the new system helped speed this up immensely. In less than 15 minutes I knew it was an Unknown type and due to Derranna's ship/module/rig/implant bonus she had it at 100% with the probes at 2AU: it a wormhole.

I warp in and saw a Buzzard sittig on the wormhole, and I check the info to see it leads to low sec space. "Okies," I said to myself, "let's check it out!" I jump and materialize in the Huola system, Bleak Lands region. I notice red flashing hostiles sitting on the gate in a Bhaalgorn faction battleship and an Onyx heavy interdictor. My Covert Ops easily evades them and I watch them for a while to see if they'll go through. But no, they sit there and camp the wormhole.

That's when I realized the Eve has irrevocably changed.

You see, living in Sukanan constellation has meant that bad guys had one way of entry through teshkat and that required going through high sec. It gave a kind of early warning system to rally the defenders and hide the women and children (most of the time).

However, now wormholes means that it is possible to circumvent the normal routes and sneak into someone's backyard without them even knowing you are nearby. Send an alt through to probe down a mission runner while the big and nasty ships are waiting on the other side of the wormhole. Or have an escape route from a chasing gang. Or a secret trade route. And so on.

I knew this intellectually a long time ago but last night it viscerally hit me: Eve has changed.

Brace yourselves.

Wait A Minute...

Friday night I logged into the test server with the intention of looking once more for the wormhole exit of the w-space system I was in. The login screen faded to black, loaded, and resolved... into the interior of a station.

What the heck?

Turns out the last patch on Friday used a new database mirror from Tranquillity so my characters were back where they were in k-space. Not a big deal I guess, since Apocrypha is only two days away anyways. The time for mucking about on the test server is over... time for the real deal.

* * * * *
In other related news, Marlenus of Ironfleet Towing and Salvage took a Caracal cruiser to w-space and tangled with some more Sleeper spawns:

What I found was a gank Caracal, left over from my faction warfare days. 5 T2 heavy missile launchers high, a large shield extender and a medium shield booster middle, and ballistic control units (T2) low. Plus a warp disruptor and some signal boosters. Nothing fancy, nothing special, nothing ridiculously expensive.

Jumped in, went back to the wormhole, jumped through. Used my on-board scanner to find a few cosmic anomalies, did the cancel-warp trick to make their names pop up on the system map. Then warped to them, in succession, at 100km to have a look.

The easiest looking one was a “Frontier Camp” with six sleeper frigates and two sentry guns. I got to work.

It took him a while, but he succeeded in taking out all three spawns at the site with just a Caracal. Impressive, and another indication of solo content in w-space. Another piece of info from his post that I missed:

After finding the wormhole, I checked its description. It promised to take me to “unknown space”, as opposed to the more dangerous “dangerous unknown” or “deadly unknown” space that are the other two options. Cool! I bookmarked it and went to see what was in my hangar for cheap.

That's useful info, help prevent someone from jumping into the toughest w-space systems when they don't want to.

Tech 3 Production

I've gone on in detail about probing and Sleeper ratting in wormhole space for Apocrypha, but I haven't talked much about Tech 3 production even though I am perhaps one of the biggest blogging carebears in this here Eve Blog-o-sphere. (Big as in "I'm a big carebear", not "I'm a big blogger".)

There is a good reason for that.

I took one look at this picture and ran away screaming.

Gas clouds, datacores, reactions, salvage, Ancient Relics, Decyprtors, Interfaces, and BPCs that all can only be found in wormhole space exploration sites and on Sleeper wrecks. Not one of those things listed will come from anywhere in k-space.

On top of the material supply issues, you have need of a new reactor to process the gas clouds (which can only be anchored in low sec, natch) and a new laboratory to do the "reserve engineering" (i.e. Tech III invention by any other name...) on the Ancient Relics. So despite the mechanics being very similar to Tech II production (i.e. reactions on moon materials and invention of Tech II BPCs) it is a completely seperate manufacturing chain. Meaning a small timer like me has little to no hope participating unless my whole corp goes into the venture.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter. Not much, but a little. While I can appreciate the reasons for not wanting to put more stress on the tech II market supply and demand vectors, I'm disappointed that the process is so damned involved.

So what I plan to do is be a supplier of low end Sleeper parts and salvage for now until I can see how the market and production/supply chain shake out, and then insert my industrial programs in the chain where I can find profit, just like I did with Tech II.

Looking For Exit

Back on the test server, I decided to investigate asteroid fields before leaving my little corner of wormhole space. They are all moved to Cosmic Signatures in w-space, gravimetric group. I had also heard that belts had weak Sleeper spawns so I wanted to see them and compare to the Cosmic Anomaly Sleepers if there were any.

I hypothesized that since asteroid belts were supposed to be low end exploration sites, they would have the higher signal strengths on initial scans. It didn't take me long to track down one gravimetric signal and warp in on it to find some 'roids but no rats.



As you can see, pretty uninspiring asteroids which leads me to be more convinced that this w-space system is in the shallow end of the pool in terms of difficulty which is not surprising since I entered it from high sec space.

I scanned down a second asteroid belt and saw much the same thing. So I decided to look for a wormhole back to known space... and that is when things got a little frustrating.

First off, there are a lot of cosmic signatures per system in w-space. See the picture below? Either 17 or 18 hits (two have duplicated signal strength leading me to believe its one site hit by only three probes).


Now we know that wormholes are in Cosmic Sig sites of group "Unknown" but you don't see the group until you get the signal strength above 25% which means you have to get pretty darn close to the hit with low range probes.

I spent the part part of half an hour or more trying to find an Unknown signal, but I think I made some mistakes in the process and ended up scanning down the same gravimetric and Ladar sites that I never bother visiting so I didn't realize I was coming back to them in the close confines of the inner system. If you actually warp in on a site it put a tag in the solar system map for future reference and a beacon I think... must double check that.

So I am literally lost in space. Kind of cool actually.

So I'll have to give it another go this weekend and learn from my mistakes, try different things, and see if I can't get an exit in less time. Hopefully I find an exit back to high sec space but right now I'll take what I can get.

Oh, I almost forgot: while I was scanning for a wormhole I was sitting in the second asteroid belt I had scanned down and what spawned on top of me? Sleepers! So they do visit the asteroid belts, good news! It was a spawn of a cruiser and three frigates so smaller than the easy Cosmic anomaly which means more soloable content. Don't know if it would escalate to a bigger spawn if wiped but definitely good news regardless.

* * * * *

Bonus Picture: one of my new Orge IIs orbiting the brave Dominix battleship Hudson.

Holding Pattern

I wanted to get Derranna and Kirith out of wormhole space last night but probing was borked in that build causing a crash to desktop for me so I'll have to do it tonight. I want to get out and go back in with the Cerberus to see how it holds up.

Back on Tranquility server, the first 3 Onyxes went into production and are due out late tonight. Then I went on a skill buying spree for Derranna as I realized she could not use any drones despite having Drones V. So with four days of training she will be able to use Light combat drones and medium armour repair drones, perfect for the 75 m3 of the exploration Orca. She's almost done her navigation skill training so I bought a bunch of basic shield skills for her next component.

Apocrypha is coming....

Sleeper Warfare

Another thirty minutes to tangle with the Sleepers, and some more thoughts and observations.

I warped in on another Fortification Frontier Stronghold and saw the expected two frigates (Emergent Defenders) and two cruisers (Awakened Defenders). As before, the frigates approached and orbited at about 7000 meters while the cruisers held off at 14-17 km. The frigs webbed me but no ships scrammed at any time.

The damage was considerable but tankable. I didn't run my LAR II and watched as my buffer depleted slowly.

Drones are a pain in the ass. I launched my flight of four remaining light drones and engaged one of the frigates. The Sleepers did switch targets to the drones but not until I had killed one of the frigates. I was too slow bringing them back in the excitement and lost another three. I then sent out medium drones and was far more careful protecting them.

As the enemy went down, I tractored the wreck to me and salvaged while engaging the next target. The second frigate may have tried to run away. I only say this because in the combat logs my Heavy Neutron Blaster IIs never hit the frigates, even when webbed, until after the first was gone and then I got a bunch of hits in a row. I suspect he was moving directly away from me and thus dropped the transversal in the process.


Click to see close up of enemy cruiser... bad angle, I know.
The cruisers were engaged with medium drones anf my blasters after I MWD in range to web them. I had to keep bringing the drones in to protect them as the cruisers would target them one at a time. After the first cruiser went down however, the medium drones were too close to hit for the last cruiser and it was a simple matter to kill it.

As soon as the last cruiser went down, four more Awakened Defender cruisers spawned and I didn't warp out until I had salvaged the last cruiser wreck. Their DPS was beating my tank but slowly with the LAR II running. I don't know if I could take them in this ship, but a better tanked ship might be able to, or a ship with better DPS to kill them faster.

Total duration of the encounter was 12 minutes and a few seconds. The rewards from the two cruisers and two frigates:

Don't forget to subtract yesterday's haul from the single cruiser.

My thoughts on using the Dominix: damn, drone management is hard especially early on when all four Sleepers target the light drones. I wonder if a remote repper would allow the drones to tank the incoming damage, but right now I'm leaning towards using a ship with a non-directly-destructible weapon system.

The 3 Heavy Neutron II blasters I had installed were getting between 143 and 313 damage combined every 6 seconds against the cruisers, with most in the 200-270 range. Against the orbiting frigates they were useless. With a tracking of 0.05412 radians per second and an average radius of 7000 meters I can track 378m/s but I didn't observe the transversal of the webbed frigs so I can only assume it was higher than that. I'll make a note to observe that directly next time.

I'm torn between trying a more dedicated blaster boat like a Megathron or Hyperion and going shield tanking missile tosser, i.e. the Raven. I think I've learned all I can from this Dominix and will look for a way back to empire to try something else.

One further note: at one point I did send out 5 Vespa-600 ECM drones but they did not acheive any locks in the minute I had them out there. Sleepers do not appear to have and particiular vulnerability to ECM that players don't have.

Dueling With the Sleepers

This morning before work I logged into the test server intent on trying my luck against the Sleepers in my half-trained Dominix (due to the test server mirror occurring before I had Tech II drones and Gallente Battleship IV).

I figured the easiest encounters would be those Cosmic Anomalies found using the On Board scanner so I warped to planet one and opened that sucker up, hit scan, and patiently waited the 30 seconds until it reported back. In the meantime I hit the map to see what I could see.

See that "Unknown" in the top left far away from the rest of known space? That's my current location. I'm way off the reservation here folks!

Also of minor note, the solar system map now includes the solar system background instead of just blackness. Looks cool, not sure of the usability during probing though.


The results came back with plenty of hits to investigate.


I tried warping to one of the Outpost Frontier Strongholds first. It had a single battleship and three sentry guns, but I didn't stick around to party with them as they were hitting me pretty hard and even with Large Armour Repper II (LAR) going my armour was quickly disappearing.


Next I tried the Fortification Frontier Stronghold and saw two frigs and two cruisers upon warp in. Sounds like a good place to start! Lock and approach, launch drones, activate defenses.


Its true that they will switch target drones but there was no instant popping and once I was on the ball I was able to call them in as need be to protect them. I used my MWD to get in range of the cruisers after the frigs were done and web them so my medium drones and blasters could work away at them. No shields but their resistances are high and they hit pretty hard for cruisers, but I had no difficulties tanking with sporadic activation of the LAR.

After killing the first cruiser, I sicked my drones on him while I salvaged and looted the first cruiser wreck.

No idea what this stuff is worth. But it looks expensive.

Once the second cruiser died a new spawn of four cruisers immediately appeared. I was out of time so I grabbed the drones and warped off to effect repairs before logging.

Summary: Definitely some soloable content here. I'm curious how far I could have gone against the Fortification site before the spawn got too powerful for me alone.

It was very exciting in comparison to normal NPCing with them being damn hard and switching to attacking drones. Balancing the cap, armour, drones, range all was very involved and I approve so far.

As for my ship choice and setup, I want a few more engagements and maybe even try some different vessels like my ratting Cerberus to see if the smaller signature radius helps alleviate damage. For sure on my Exploration Dominix I'm going to see about getting more guns on their to help the drones out, maybe even a small or medium remote armour repairer to give the drones some more survivability.

Apocrypha: Probing - Finally Wormhole Space

The latest Sisi patch came out and it finally seems that probing is working close to intended. So I logged in and worked on finally finding a wormhole and getting through to the other side.

Figure 1 - New graphics such as rotating probe grid. This Core Probe at maximum range detected four Cosmic Anomalies at 100% first try. Those types of easy exploration content will be easy to find and I approve of that mechanic.


Figure 2 - Warped to one for fun.


Figure 3 - The blue sphere for indicating a single probe hit has been changed to a redish-pink sphere. Good idea, it was easy to lose blue spheres when multiple probes were on the screen.


Figure 4 - Warping of the probes to get into position is a lot slower than previous revisions. I expect that Combat probes move faster. Most of my waiting was done when probes were warping and the wait time was measured in tens of seconds as opposed to minutes. I was using a technique where one uses 32AU ranged probes to get a red dot and then homing down to 0.25 AU probes for the final triangulation.


Figure 5 - I scanned a few systems looking for Cosmic Signatures, and when I did find one I narrowed it down to see it was an exploration site. On the upside, it took less than 10 minutes to find it. In fact, in the space of 45 minutes I scanned down this site and two wormholes in other systems.


Figure 6 - My first wormhole! Images don't convey the coolness factor of the graphics of the wormholes.


Figure 7 - The show info button allows us to see it has a name and can tell us it leads to high security space. What a letdown! I can go into safe space. PFFFT! However, in practical terms it might be an excellent way to smuggle goods into deep low sec avoiding dangerous gate camps and pirates. Notice there is no details on the mass limit and time until collapse, just general terms.


Figure 8 - Of course, I tried the wormhole out. Notice that in the original system the wormhole was red while the rest of the system was dark? And on the other side the system is red and the wormhole dark? The Wormhole shows the system colours when you look through. VERY COOL.


Figure 9 - I jumped back to low sec but forgot to take pictures so I moved to go back through the wormhole to high sec a second time and got this message. Essentially it is to prevent someone from easily collapsing a wormhole with multiple jumps. So you can only go through the wormhole the same direction once every 4 minutes or so, but you can jump back through the opposite direction right away.


Figure 10 - When jumping from high sec to low sec, you get a warning. Good for the unsuspecting noobs who stumble across one of there when learning exploration.


Figure 11 - I went looking for another wormhole in Anjedin, a very spread out system. The Core Probes at 32 AU could only cover parts of it at a time. This is where a Deep Space Probe with its 1024AU max range would come in really handy. Still, I tried with the Core probes and got lucky with a two-probe hit (i.e. the red circle).


Figure 12 - A second wormhole!


Figure 13 - "Unknown parts of space" translates to wormhole space! Get the Dominix ready, crew! We're going exploring!


Figure 14 - As soon as you pass through you know you are not in Kansas anymore. Local is in delayed mode, no asteroid belts (*sad face*) and lots of things labelled "Unknown".


Figure 15 - For now you can get the name of the solar system you are in by making a bookmark and viewing it in People & Places to see the Solar System column. Whether or not the devs remove that remains to be seen.


Next time we'll see what we can do in this new frontier.

Apocrypha: Probing Update Part II

Good news! The visual cues are back in the latest patch. Blue spheres, red circles, and the red/yellow/green dots, much to my approval. You can't currently warp to anything you scan down right now but I'm sure that bug is being fixed. :P

Now all those crusty old forum whiners crowing about going back to the good old days when probing took "skill" (and was, coincidentally, as boring as watching cows crap in a field) can go back to bitching about how Eve is being "Wow-ized" all the time just because the interface drags itself into the 1990s in terms of capabilities.

Listen old farts, you want a space game where you have to do most of the math? Knock yourselves out.

Apocrypha: Probing Update

Remember all that work I did on probing in the new system? A lot of it may be useless.

Currently on Sisi the probing mechanic (when the map is cooperating) does not give any visual cues to hits. No blue spheres, no red circles, no red or yellow or green dots.

Some pilots are celebrating this as a good thing . It makes exploration harder they say, weeds out the dumb players and makes it more worthwhile and elite to be a true explorer.

Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

I'm flying around in a god damned space ship, I expect this advanced technology is capable of showing me on the screen the stuff that it can figure out itself without me having to do it manually by moving the probes around in a game of infantile hot & cold. Yeah, I'm pissed. I liked the visual cues and I seriously hope they come back. I stopped doing exploration in the old method because it took so goddamn long with special bookmarks to get the best probing spots to find the sites. I could do it, but the hassle wasn't worth my limited time online.

Bring back the visual cues. It made probing enjoyable and not an annoying game of hide and seek.

(Less ranty opinion was posted to Game Development Forum)

News Flash: Sleeper AI

Just as I was typing that last post a Eve Dev Blog was posted about the new Sleeper NPC AI. Most of it is not a surprise to anyone following the threads and reports from the test server, but one line really jumped off the page for me:

In very basic terms: modules and weapons generate threat; as the threat goes up and down the NPCs will change targets and allocate secondary targets.

Threat? Threat? Where did I hear that term before...? Oh yeah. And here. And here. You get the idea.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Eve is implementing it because its a successful mechanic as evidenced by how many other games use it for their NPCs in order to create something more than mindlessly attacking the first person on the screen as Eve does now. I'm slightly concerned that having groups manage threat so the DPS and healers don't get aggro from the tanks might create a new "holy trinity" way of running raids into Sleeper space that is far too familiar across the MMO genre. I'm concerned because instead of making PvE more like PvP, they might just make a new form of PvE that is based on the "holy trinity" and "managing threat" mechanics and will not do anything to make players ready for real PvP.

That being said, it remains to be seen what this all shakes out as. Since Eve does not allow third party add ons, perhaps managing threat without them will prove to be too difficult, and the actual mechanics for generating threat might be very convoluted and hard for the average group to control. Perhaps it will be enough of an evolution from old mindless PvE to move players closer to being able to PvP in the same groups and ship fittings.

Regardless, time will tell.

Reports from Wormhole Space

When the dev blog on the Sleepers came out I speculated that the new NPCs might not be as tough as advertised because the devs may have been talking to the <10 href="http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1002086">Welcome from Wormhole Space

Sleeper Cruisers and Frigs Own Dominix and Abaddon

3 Sleeper Battleships Beat Mission Drake Tank

Dueling with a Carrier

Observed Behaviours

At one point someone complained that there appears to be no soloable Sleeper spawns but a dev did respond that there will be some. A lot of the encounters described above and elsewhere are against GM spawned NPCs for testing and demonstration. No telling what real average w-space spawns will be like.

I admin some discouragement in the initial reports. My playing schedule means that organizing fleets to go after hard Sleeper spawns is unlikely so solo efforts is all I will manage most of the time. If I can't manage to do anything alone in w-space, I'll be very very pissed.

Another thing to think about is currently drone boats are useless against the Sleepers; they are turning on the drones and killing them pretty damn fast apparently. I guess the exploration Dominix might not be such a hot idea after all. Maurader with half ammo usage and big cargo space is looking very nice at the moment.

Ah well, time will tell.

UPDATE:
Found that dev post about soloable content. To quote CCP Ytterbium:

"Originally by: Reven Cordelle
Was kinda hoping some W-Space encounters would be a solo affair, (for no where near as much potential isk obviously) but.. you know, as something other than L4s. "

But some are. Not all of them of course, and even the solo encounters will give you challenge, which is the point. As some players already stated it before, don't expect to face a level4 mission when going into wormhole space because Sleeper capabilities are far different from pirate factions in known space.

So I have hope.

Oh Yes!

Finally! The ability to truly hide in space and surprise people!

Apocrypha: Probing IVb

This shall be the last major post on probing in Apocrypha.

Previously:
- we looked at the new probes and launchers
- hunted down a Cosmic Anomaly
- hunted down a Cosmic Signature (with update from forums)
- and tried but failed to find a frigate

This time I will search for a ship in space and will not stop until I see it on my overview! On with the search.

Figure 1 - On board scanner makes a return. No idea if it works as I didn't find anything. Right now I'm assuming it will work just as it did before, giving 100% hits on really easy to find Cosmic Anomalies.


Figure 2 - Ordat is not big system so I could easily use one combat probe (which goes up to 64 AU) to cover the whole thing... except that only gives me a big blue sphere and I still need multiple probes covering all the space to narrow down the search area. So I go right to 6 covering probes along with 1 larger covering probe. The large 7th probe will ensure that if only one of the 6 smaller probes hits a target, it will still intersect with the 7th one and give a red ring instead of blue sphere to work with.

Astrometerics is supposedly going to determine how many probes you can control with current implementation being that Astrometerics V allows 8 probes.

Since the latest update, you move the probe scan area on the map but not the probes themselves. They warp automatically when you hit analyze to get into position, then you hit analyze again to do the scan. Here's hoping they change that to warp then analyze with one button press.

Figure 3 - Probes warping to position. The grey scanning spheres of the moving probes flash on and off which is hard to tell in a still frame.


Figure 4 - Lots of hits! Notice that in the scanning window the distance column reflects distance from my position at time of scan, and not distance from the nearest probe.


Figure 5 - Notice the selected hits in the scan window. Same strength, same distance, two red dots on the map... this is the case where its one target covered by three probes giving two points where the ranges from each probe intersect. If I were going to scan down that target I would have to make sure I get four probes covering both red points. Specifically in this case I would move a probe out of range into the area to get it to one point.


Figure 6 - I decided I would go for the highest strength hit I got, this red ring where Probe 4 and my covering Probe 7 both detected it.

How do I know which probes detected it? Well, its obviously in range of Probe 4 and the orientation of the red ring points to the second probe that detects it. Draw a line from probe 4 through the centre of the red ring and you will intersect with probe 7. Had I not had Probe 7 at 32 AU covering all the rest, that hit from Probe 4 would have been a blue sphere and required an additional step to narrow it down.

Figure 7 - I lowered the range from 16 AU (32AU for Probe 7) down to 4 AU and covered the red ring of my chosen target. I could have thrown an eighth probe in there to cover it all but forgot about it in the excitement.


Figure 8 - The result. Its another red ring from two probes, but a lot small area. Notice the signal strength went up to 12% due to the shorter ranged and high strength probes.


Figure 9 - I sent four of the probes in at 1 AU with each one covering the whole red ring. I wanted to see if I could resolve it to 100% with only four at second highest strength for Combat probes.


Figure 10 - Some interesting things here. We have a single point after the scan but its yellow meaning it is not resolved enough for a definitive warp in, only 53.27%. Also notice that the scan window now can tell us its a cruiser we are hunting whereas prior to this scan we only knew it was a ship. Somebody is probably making a database to cross reference your skills, the probe range, and the ship base signature to figure out what scan strength you will see when you get a hit so you know early on what ship class you are chasing, but that's more obsessive than I've got time for.

So what do we need to do to resolve this hit further? I heard on the forums that more than 5 probes won't help as only the 4 highest strength hits are used and if all 4 are at best strength than nothing will help. Rumour so take it for what its worth. Fortunately for me, I've got one more level of resolution to try...

Figure 11 - This is as close as Combat probes can get, 0.5 AU. Core probes can get one level closer but don't pick up ships apparently. So with four Combat probes at best strength if I can't get this resolved to 100% I'll have to look at skills, ship bonuses, rigs, and implants to increase their probing strength.


Figure 12 - A few seconds later, success! We have 100% signal strength, green dot means go, and we can see in the scan window that the type is Exequror, a Gallente Tech 1 cruiser. I can now right click the entry in the scan window and choose to warp to it. I pick 100 km as I'm nervous its at a POS or something.


Figure 13 - "Captain, we have visual. Target vessel is abandoned."


* * * * *
It took about 15 minutes from start to finish this time. I think I can shave about 5 minutes off that with practice and a few different probe placement techniques. But still about 10 minutes to get a warp in on a cruiser... that's harsh.

Perhaps even more time can be shaved if you use the directional scanner to narrow down the search area faster. That is to say, get within 15 AU of a target, cover the region around you with multiple overlapping probes to get it narrowed down to a single point as quickly as possible, and then send in the 0.5 range probes to resolve target. Downside of that is the warping from object to object time to find the target in the first place. Maybe clever placement of larger ranged probes early on could accomplish the same thing. I'll leave that theorycrafting to the readers, my work here is done.

When I was talking about this with my friend Lucius he pointed out that PvPers will like that safe spots are much harder to bust, but mission runner who tend to stay in the same spot longer will be more vulnerable. Especially if the rumour I heard about deadspace no longer causing interference to probes is true. Regardless, since it appears that if your ship is in space and in range of a probe it will be detected, probers will know you are out there. Hiding is going to be more difficult in mission deadspace.

Next in our Apocrypha testing I will be seeking out a wormhole and travelling to w-space (once its open that is) to get up and close with our new Sleeper overlords.

Apocrypha: Probing IVa

I tried probing out a ship on the weekend on the test server after installing the latest patch (sorry, no pics). It was not easy.

First I tried to probe out one target only to have it disappear on me. I was quite confused and ended up looking for another target, but later on I remember about the double image you can get with three probes on a target and only covered one of the two locations. Doh.

Anyways, I searched for another target and found one. It too slipped from me at one point but I backtracked a probe and picked it up again. I was using Combat probes as they are the ones you are supposed to use even though according to my math they have the same strength at the same range as the Core probes but can't go to 0.25 AU and 40 points of strength. This is a problem as you will see in a bit.

As I narrowed down the target to about 50% signal strength I could see in the scan window it was a frigate. With four overlapping probes I could not get it to 100%. In fact, even with 5 probes at shortest ranges I could not resolve the position of that damn frigate. At this point I logged vowing to try again later.

I wondered if using the Core probes would have got that frig. If so, I wonder what use the Combat probes are besides a slightly faster warp speed.

Also, although finding Cosmic signatures and anomalies will be much easier I think that finding enemy ships is going to be near impossible unless they are AFK and not moving. I've read a dev post that suggests this is intended so that safe spots can feel a little safer instead of people warping to and fro multiple spots. But what I really suspect is going on here is setting of the stage for a nerf to cloaked ships sitting in space for hours and being undetectable. If safe spots are considerably safer for longer, then a penalty to cloaks to make them not last indefinitely or make them probe-able somehow could be feasible from a gameplay standpoint. All pure speculation of course.

Anyways, I will attempt to probe a ship again this week. This time with pictures. ;)

UPDATE: From the game development forum thread, the devs say:

- Core probes won't be able to detect ships (and drones I assume) hence hwy combat probes are needed

- Current scan duration improving skills/rigs/implants/ship bonuses will be switched to scan strength and vice versa since the 10 second base time is here to stay.

- Current strength improving stuff is not working on Sisi... hence why finding the frigate proved difficult.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Apocrypha: Probing IIIb

Probing facts confirmed from Eve Online forum dev responses:

- Probing is no longer chance based. If there is something in range of a probe, you will detect it. Mashing "analyze" will not change your results.

- Each step of increasing the scan range of a probe halves its strength. Not sure about scan deviation.

- You can scan whilst cloaked.

- Wormholes show as Cosmic Signatures, not the easier to find Cosmic Anomalies.

Apocrypha: Probing III

Searching for a Cosmic Signature!

Last time we determined that finding a Cosmic Anomaly was fairly easy. But Cosmic Signatures are much weaker strength and usually much harder to find in the current mechanics. How does it compare in the new expansion?

I logged in last night and once I had figured out the graphic problems again, I was off to get a new Cheetah and probes before heading out into the black once more.

Figure 1 - I started with Deep Space Exploration probes because the Core Probes, while higher strength, have a maximum range of 32 AU compared to 1024 AU for the former. By setting the range to 64 AU, I was able to cover most of a system. Here we see a hit where the surface blue sphere represents the possible locations for the selected item.


Figure 2 - The minimum range of the Deep Space probes is 16 AU (or 8?) so I switched over the Core probes to cover the surface of the blue sphere and narrow down the search area.


Figure 3 - Notice that there are three Cosmic Signatures showing up now whereas before there was only two? This confused me at first before I realized it was the same signature but only covered by three probes. Since each probe only gives a range to the target, one probe gives a sphere, two probes a circle, three probes give two points representing the possible locations that all three ranges given by the probes intersect. You need four probes to eliminate on of those possibilities so I need to move the one outside of the two points in closer.


Figure 4 - Resolved to one point but only with 2.52% strength. I'm assuming that reducing the range of the probes corresponds to an increase in strength.


Figure 5 - After reducing the range to 0.5 AU and scanning I get the strength up to 22.14%. Need more resolution!


Figure 6 - Down to 0.25 AU, the shortest range the Core Probe can go. I get a hit with a strength of 92.98%. Notice how the map shows the signature as yellow now? No idea if that means anything besides "getting warmer". Obviously four probes is not enough, so I launch a fifth and move it into position.


Figure 7 -With the fifth probe in place, the scan quickly comes back with 100%, a green icon, and ability to warp to it.


Figure 8 - As I enter warp, the information box to point me in the right direction: need archaeology analyzer.


Figure 9 - The promised land!


So from start to finish it took exactly 16 minutes and I think with practice I could shave another couple minutes off there as there was a point I had to recall the probes and redeploy when I deactivated them to clear up the display to move one at a time and reactivating them had the graphics all screwy and out of place.

So far the new probing mechanic makes finding exploration content easier for me: no annoying warps and bookmarks, no mysterious signals that cannot be found, easy to narrow down. Of course, I am assuming that if a signature exists in system that the Deep Space exploration probe, even on its high ranges, will still detect it. If some complexes are missed than it might be more difficult to find the good ones. Dev blog required to fill in the details I suppose.

One more task left in this exploration expose: finding enemy ships. My gut tells me it will take longer to scan down pilots in missions and safe spots but I will have to actually test it and see.