Missing the Forest for the Trees

I'm going to try and avoid most of the tempest in the teacup over the fighter changes targeting the 1% reaping rewards in their carriers and supercarriers while ratting. Instead I'm going to point out something that should be obvious but seems to be ignored in all of this.

Capital ships should not be efficient platforms for ratting. Period.

What I mean by this is that it never made sense to me how rats never escalated or disengaged when faced with a superior force. Wormhole drifters at least were made smart enough to escalate when faced with capital ships forcing wormholers to invest more capitals in risky w-space to reap the rewards offered. And the new Blood Raiders shipyards also escalate to match the force arrayed against them. But regular anom rats? Plink away at ships orders of magnitudes larger with sub-caps while ignoring fighters ripping them to shreds.

One will argue, and often do, that the investment in a capital ship demands that ratting be easy and rewarding. The risk, they posit, comes from losing the ship to other players. Which is bullshit and we all know it. Null sec space with its intel networks, immediate local, and nearby allies means that ratting carriers dying is by far the exception and not the rule. Obviously if it was a real risk fewer players would be doing it so much and so successfully.

Besides, investment should never be considered a strong balance factor because once the investment is paid, the payout and its duration over time far outstrips it. This has been true when super Dramiels with snake implants were untouchable, it was true when Svipuls were dominating, and it was true in any other case where time/ISK investment were far outweighed by the advantage gained.

If CCP is going to allow carriers and supercarriers to be used for ratting, I think they should make it as difficult as ratting in a battleship successfully. Have rats target fighters with prejudice; have deadly capital rats spawn with capital warp scrams; or have the rats run away from the carriers. Anything to make the reward scale appropriately with the risk.

And anyone complaining that the current reward from carrier ratting is matched by high sec incursion running, I'll point out another obvious fact: two wrongs don't make a right.

Making Virtual Universes Feel Real

A long time ago when I first started into EVE I wrote a piece about how hard it was to go from PvE content to PvP content. I can't find the post (you try finding things on a blog after 11 years of writing) but I remember imploring CCP to make NPC targets act more real to ease the transition for players from mission and ratting content to actually fighting other players. That is to say, making the NPCs try things like warp ins, warp outs, webs, scrams, reps, etc. In other words, make PvE more like fighting other players so that a mission runner has a clue about how to engage another player and understand that a battleship does not mean auto-win any one on one fight.

Over the years CCP has been making strides at improving the complexity of the Artificial Intelligence of various NPCs and the Blood Raiders shipyards is the latest example of that. Not only are there logistic ships that repair other NPCs, they have logic for on grid warps, focus fire, siege mode, and other player-like fleet decisions and actions. And the encounter itself has logic to help scale the NPC response to continue to give a challenge when more player ships are engaged.

Its not perfect; EVE players are notoriously good at finding optimal paths in such things, but its nice start. The Blood Raiders shipyard, NPC mining fleets, and Drifters versus Imperial Navy event last fall are all indicative of an overall effort to use NPCs to make the universe feel more alive rather than a two dimensional backdrop to the players actions. I wholeheartedly approve of such efforts as it improves immersion and enjoyment for players, and it opens up a new type of rich content.

I hope CCP continues on this path.

Filling In The Backlot

Back from vacation! Woo hoo! 

One of my habits when watching TV or movies is thinking about the production of the show. Where are they filming, how are the sets laid out, etc. I particularly like trying to find clues if they are filming on location or on a backlot. Some TV series, like Supernatural, often film on location with real places filling in for places in the story, which is a cheap way to get a realistic visual feel. Others, with bigger budgets and visions like movies will use a backlot to film on.

Some backlots are nothing more than empty wilderness and others are complete sets of buildings on a street like the above image but its all fake. I like trying to figure out if an outdoor city scene is a location or a backlot in a show by looking for clues that not all is as it seems. Is the street lacking potholes and defects? Are the lamp poles too devoid of endless flyers? Are the sidewalks even and facades unblemished? 

There is an unlived look to backlot city scenes, a pristine-ness that real cities never have or cannot maintain. They're scuffed, worn, dirty, damaged, repaired, replaced, recycled. They're real. 

I have a point, really I do. 

Playing in EVE often feels like living on a backlot would be as opposed to living in a real city. There are buildings but there's nobody home; there are actors but no people. In EVE, there are stations and empires and NPC ships, but it all feels like empty buildings and actors as opposed to thriving civilizations of people.

One of the biggest contributors to this empty feeling has been the inability of NPCs to shoot each other. Such a simple thing that one would think would be easy to have in a game but in EVE's legacy code NPC ships were restricted to only target players. Thus a cluster of solar systems with empires and pirate factions constantly at each other's throats was represented solely through lore stories and videos (like the start of faction war between the empires with the Empyrean Age downtime), the occasional scripted missions ("Oh no, a ship blew up! It must have been the enemy, we need you to get revenge!"), or even more rare live events where CCP actors get dressed up in lore characters and drive the narrative.

And that's what makes the recent events between the Drifters and the Amarr Empire so interesting. Here, for the first time, we have honest to goodness NPC on NPC action (oh my!).

Imperial ships firing on Drifters and vice versa represents a turning point in the backlot of EVE Online. It is now feasible for players to get caught up in the machinations and wars of the empires as opposed to only hearing about them tangentially. Imagine, a mission assigned to you where you are a small part of a larger fleet engaging an enemy fleet, everyone but you NPCs. Or exploration sites where Navies fight against pirate forces and players can join in on one side or the other. Incursions where the empires actually try to fight off the hostile forces.

The EVE universe still feels like a backlot, but at least it feels a little more real to me now.

Plexing Adventures

The other night when I logged on things were pretty quiet in the militia so I decided to do some plexing in a nearby system to get a feel for the rewards and efforts.

I started using a Thrasher in a Minor plex, earning 10,000 Loyalty Points (LPs) after running down the ten minute timer on the objective (aka the button). My destroyer was setup for PvP so not ideal for this type of work, but it sufficed.

Next I tried a medium plex using a Wolf assault ship (also PvP setup). The button required 15 minutes but too longer because I had to close with my targets to deal damage which took my out of range a few times, but the Tech II frigate had no troubles tanking the NPCs. That got me 17,500 LPs.

Finally I went to base and grabbed a Cerberus Heavy Assault Ship (sort of half and half PvP/PvE setup that I made up from a scramble CTA years with spare parts found in a NC station) and ran a gated Major plex in the same system. The button required 20 minutes of controlled but the long range of the HAC made it easy to kill the NPCs and stay and range. Earned 25,000 LPs.

Each of the plexes raised my standings with the Federal Defense Union by 0.63%, and moved contested state from ~15% to ~19%.

I can definitely see why minor plexes are the preferred ones: requires less risk because you are using smaller cheaper ships and opposing ships have to be limited to similar smaller ships, and if you are interrupted you lose less time if you have to flee just before completing the plex (i.e. get driven out after 19 minutes of plexing, you lose a whole Major plex but only one of two Minor plexes).

To The Unknown

Last night the corp members who were online were doing logistics and I wasn't close enough to help so I found myself with idle hands.

I was in my supercarrier clone with expensive implants from doing running around last night so I was not going to risk losing them by looking for PvP. Instead I decided to relax and do some exploration and try out the new probe manipulation tools.

I broke out my Buzzard with the Sisters Probe Launcher and got to work in a low sec system close to base. There was a lot signatures so I picked one with the lowest initial strength and got to work. Using the alt key to move the probes to the centre is brilliant, huge kudos to the developer who came up with that. I quickly resolved the signature (thanks to time in the wormhole with Korneilia for keeping me sharp) and found a wormhole. I jumped in to see what was there (perhaps foolish in my current clone) and found myself in a class 5 system with a Red Giant! System J172193 to be exact. Holy bonuses to overheating and smartbombs Batman! I did a quick scan and saw no sign of residents so I left as I wasn't looking to fight and die to class 5 Sleepers.

I picked a new signature in my low sec system and resolved it to a combat sight, Serpentis Phi-Outpost. That's more like it! I docked up and broke out the Tengu. I knew there was neutrals in local but I figured the more agile and fast Strategic Cruiser had a better chance of making a run for it than something heavier and cheaper. Besides, I'm rich.

No hostiles showed up though, and the rats suffered my wrath. Most of them were easy to dispatch Serpentis battlecruisers and smaller but the main boss at the end was a 2.5 mil ISK bounty battleship and was quite tough to break through; I switched to Scourge Fury missiles to speed the process along. I eagerly popped open the wreck to find a nice Corellum C-Type 10MN MWD which goes currently for around 120 million ISK on contracts. Sweet! That was an unexpected bonus to my little relaxation adventure.

I'll save that mod for my secret project I'm working on this summer...

Ratting Carriers Are Bad, m'kay?

A discussion started up last night in which a member questioned why the alliance and our corp has prohibition on ratting/plexing in a carrier. After all, the reasoning goes, carriers will cost roughly the same order of magnitude as a Golem or Tengu, work just as well or better, and if lost give a better insurance payout.

Win-win, right?

Well, not quite. There are several reasons why we do not like people ratting in carriers.

First off, survivability: a sub capital ship has better agility and warp speed and thus has a better chance to roaming hostiles. Secondly, the gain in ratting performance is minimal over a tech 1 battleship.

Thirdly, capital kills look worse to your allies and better to your enemies, giving a morale boost to the roamers who were just hoping to catch anything. This is more likely to bring them around again and again, making ratting harder for everyone. Plus, they can hold it up in public and point to why your corp/alliance is bad and deserves to die. No one cares if a Raven goes down, and not much is said about a caught Tengu (unless its ridiculously fitted with super expensive mods).

Lastly, and most importantly, carriers are strategic assets. Their size and jump capability makes them far more useful to your corp and alliance and coalition than any ratting ship. They are used for logistics, repair ops, capital fights, structure reinforcements, hot drops... you get the point. No fleet is ever going to call for your Golem or Tengu, but they will ask for carriers and if you lost yours last night due to stupidity in a belt, you let your corp and alliance down.

* * * * *

As part of the discussion, my live event BMTHOKK last January where I piloted a Chimera to its doom on purpose was referenced as an example as to why a pilot should be allowed to rat in a carrier. I responded that it was "the difference between streaking and getting caught with your pants down" but I want to elaborate a bit more here.

It was a carrier purchased for the purpose of destruction in the event (the Ninveah was secured in Placid already), and no hostile force can claim a morale boost for killing it. It was, in fact, great publicity for myself and my corp and generated a lot of goodwill with the larger community, well worth the billion ISK plus I invested in it.


I'm going to do it again this summer, and I'm hoping its going to be bigger and crazier than last time. If my corp or alliance told me I could not do it, I would be very surprised but would ask for a short leave of absence in order to complete it anyways. My death will not be stopped.

Rest and Relaxation

The Forever War in Geminate had some serious mood swings over the last week with the NC making some gains, but they were all wiped out with a string Drone Russion Forces showing for the last O2O timer. Thus all the timers are reset and we're back to square one.

FCON is taking a one week break from the action to recuperate and replenish so when I logged in last night I found some corp mates ISK making back in Pure Blind and I decided to join them. One quick swap with the Wyvern alt and I docked, jump cloned, and grabbed the Tengu for some haven busting. Got the sec status up to an even -7.0, booya.

In other news, I purchased a Chimera BPO a couple weeks back to help out with an m3 Corp initiative to generate a new stream of income, and then last week purchased a researched Capital Construction Parts BPO for the same thing at a steal price. Put them in for copying last night as the initiative is still spinning up.

Finally, I took the break in action as a chance to move some PvP ships for Kla'strit to the capital logistics office. A second Maelstrom, a Hurricane, a Slepnier, and a Vagabond were all put in the corp hanger for transport, giving me more options for PvP when Kirith is tied up in the supercarrier.

All in all, a good night even if it lacked any PvP action.

Perfect Maelstrom

Last night I got my Eve time and went to the computer to log in.

"Emergency Downtime"

Well crap. So I puttered around with various things like Gratuitous Space Battles (would have been Batman but it was uninstalled for space) until Eve came back and I could log in again. I found the corp was gearing up to take out a few anomalies so I jumped Kla'strit into the Maelstrom and buckled up for a test flight.

I was pleased with the 1200mm artillery range and DPS. At optimal the salvo could punch holes through the shields and into armour, battlecruisers especially melted under my weapons in seconds. The multiple flights of drones are so nice (FIX THE ROKH) and the tank was impressive enough that even when I caught most of a spawn's aggression I handled it without sweat as the X-Large Shield Booster II fixes over 1100 points per cycle on this ship with this setup. Overall, more than acceptable as a PvE ship. But.....

But.

But its not me.

Its been months but whenever I log in and fly as Kirith I feel like an impostor. I've gotten familiar with Minmatar ships and projectile weapons (ignoring the fact I had 2000 rounds of the wrong tech II ammo in my hold last night) but I miss my Caldari ships, my Gallente backups, and my railguns and missiles. I miss my carrier. I miss my name in local and my ugly mugshot.

The good news is that Kirith will be free to leave the confines of the supercarrier in a bit more than a week as the alt is nearing the end of its training. I can't wait to cruise down to Tash Murkon and shake the cobwebs out of the Ninveah.

Witty Post Title Indicating I'm Back

Yes, the vacation is over. It was busy and sometimes stressful (do we really need all that crap for a day at the zoo?!) but overall fun.

Once the vacation was over and I was back home, SWMBO and I negotiated a New Deal that allows me one Eve night a week in exchange for taking the baby one night a week so she can do whatever it is that non-gamers do with their free time, scrapbooking or emailing or photo editing or some such stuff.

Last night was my first under the new deal and I logged into to find that there was no major ops going on but there was a Home Defense fleet up to catch a dual boxing Gila-Falcon pirate. Gila, being the Guristas faction cruiser and very expensive, was the prime target and before I arrived they caught the Falcon alt and gave chase. The Gila was cloaked up in a safe spot be the time I arrived and we camped him until he logged off.

With no other PvP in sight, I returned to repairing Kla'Strit's sec status in the handy ratting Vagabond (only forgetting to recall drones before warping off once) and made good progress on that front getting up to the -4.26 range. I then moved my PvE Maelstrom to the centre of M3's ISK making area and logged into Korneilia to take care of her Coolant manufacturing lines which is slowly chugging along. Might add another planet to the empire to produce something else, we'll see if time permits.

It was late, but I took the time to record another episode of Broadcast from the Ninveah to save me trying to do it in the morning.

* * * * *

In other news, Caldari Carrier V comepleted finally and I'm currently working on the skills for Tech II sentry drones, a gaping hole in my otherwise sound drone skills. After that, not sure; maybe Tech II Gallente Crusiers which has been a dream of mine.

Korneilia is working on probing skills for wormhole probing, and the Wyvern alt is getting closer to completion every day with the end of the month looming.

Finally, let's do another check in with the carebear brigade who seem to be working better together recently.

Errr.... I'll get back to you on that.

Screenshot

I did some ratting last night with Kla'strit in the endless pursuit of a higher security status.

I upgraded from the ratting Wolf assault frig to the ratting Vagabond. While a battleship would be easier and more effective, I like the ability to run like a chicken should any neutrals or hostiles show up in local. The Wolf was OK but had trouble versus some of the bigger rats, especially if I was in a clone without a damage increasing implant. The Vagabond deals more DPS while still being small and nimble and as I tried it out last night I was very pleased.

At one point I ran across a cruiser rat called Dire Guristas Killer and I was thrilled, thinking about the juicy faction loot I was about to get. I killed it, checked the wreck, and found nothing of note. Cursing I continued on.

Then three belts later I came across a Dire Guristas frigate and I thought, "Yes! This will make up for the last one!" I killed it and again, nothing.

Frustrated I complained in corp chat:

Kla'strit > two Dire Guristas rats in differnent belts within 10 minutes of each other and no good loot :(
Mae West > dire don't drop "good loot"
Mae West > only dread
Kla'strit > Ah
Kla'strit > that explains it
Mae West > their bounty is slighty better than usual rats
Kla'strit > long time since I've been in Guristas space
Mae West > come on kirith... i expect better from a well known eve writer
Kla'strit > lol
Kla'strit > don't tell anyone! I have a rep to maintain
Mae West > only isk can squelch the lies i shall spew

Well that was embarrassing.  At least I got an awesome screenshot:

Quiet Times

So I've been logging on as Kla'strit whenever I get 5-15 minutes to rat in my isolated null sec system and improve that security status.

Usually I warp in on a belt, orbit the biggest rat (usually a battlecruiser as the space I'm in is pretty crappy and I haven't had enough time to chain up some good spawns) and I kill the frigates first and then the bigger ships. I rarely even get my shields scratched in the process.

Last night however I warped in on a spawn of battlecruiser with cruiser escorts and while orbiting the battlecruiser I bumped into a few asteroids, killing my transversal speed and allowing those cruisers to whack me. My shields were gone in an instant and I dipped into armour, but the armour repper kept up easily and I maneuvered away from the 'roids and back into a good speed.

After that spawn I ran into a double battleship spawn at the next belt. First one in this system out of my previous 10 minute log ins and I quickly went to work. No problems killing the first except how long it took (miss the ratting HAM Cerberus to be honest) and was half way through the second when the baby woke up hungry and it was my turn to feed him.

Ah well, every bit of sec improvement counts. All the way up to -4.6 now. Yeesh.

Burnt Out

I need a break, a long one.

...

What? No, not from Eve. I can't get online ever to get burned out of my game.

I'm burnt out from real life. Anyone want to spell me for a bit? Anyone? No? Sigh.

Well, I did get online for an hour on Saturday evening but it was on the laptop only. I really wanted to help out during the Corporate Mission Day where we set the corp tax to 100% and encourage people to run missions for the corp to build up the wallet for times of war. I took Kla'strit's ratting Typhoon and helped Greyhound's mission; its not a good mission boat but it does well for a second DPS ship. After the mission I was sitting outside a station and a hostile in a Rokh showed up, targeted me, and melted my shields with some nice blaster fire. Since I was A) off comms and B) in a non-PvP ship I opted for the docking tactic despite my pride. No point in throwing a good ship away.

Damn, I need some real Eve time.

Items One And Two

Item One:

In E-ON magazine #18 you will be able to read my latest Test Flight article on Black Ops Battleships.

Funny story about this one. When Zapatero tapped me to write it after issue #17 came out he requested I write about the new upcoming Supercarriers that were being tested for Dominion. The deadline for the article submission was a week before Dominion came out so it would mean a lot of test server research and changing goalposts but I readily agreed. I spent some time setting up the flow of the article and how it would be different from previous test flights since there had already been a Mothership testflight and we didn't want to tread the same ground.

However, as I was getting ready to fill out the draft the whole Not-So-Supercarrier fiasco / change in direction by CCP near the end of development meant I was basically starting from scratch and then the whole supercarrier concept got shelved for Dominion completely! Faced with an article to write for a deadline one week and a bit away, I contacted Zapatero and and offered to go to the Black Ops ships that we had considered for the E-ON #17 test flight last spring. I had some late nights writing that article but I managed and last night it was all worth it as I got paid.

Item Two:

On the couch with the laptop and wife idly chit-chatting and browsing TV, I booted up Eve and broke out Kla'Strit to work on his security status for half an hour. Moving from system to system, killing a battleship rat, moving on. Nothing strenuous.

The last system to visit has one guy in local who is a regular for that area and I warp to a belt to see some wrecks of his and a new spawn. Three battleships. One of them a True Sansha faction spawn.

Question: is it unethical to jump into a system, kill a faction spawn before someone who practically lives there gets a chance, and then jump out? 'Cause that's exactly what I did.

As I was warping to the gate to leave the following conversation happens in local chat:
XXXXX > oh that's simply unfair
Kla'strit > sorry
XXXXX > you planning on salvaging it?
Kla'strit > No go ahead
Kla'strit > the drop was nothing special
Kla'strit > a faction hardener and plating , no Nightmare bpc or anthing
Kla'strit > cheers
XXXXX > o/

As chat shows, the faction drop was nothing special. Man, I was hoping for a Nightmare BPC. Just a True Sansha Thermic Hardener and Thermic Plating, and a Large Radio crystal. Sigh. Oh well, better than a kick to the teeth.

Impressive

A month ago I talked about how I was starting to repair the security status of Kla'strit in my free time. And then a couple weeks ago I talked about the ratting ship I decided to use, the Typhoon.

Well, its been going slowly but considering the time effort I am not displeased. He started at -6.30 and is currently at -5.46. The ultimately goal is to get back to below -2.0 so that he can travel anywhere, but right now I would be happy with -3.99 so I can have him run missions for Republic Fleet out of Gulfonodi and adjacent systems in Molden Heath region. Why missions instead of ratting? Well, I could upgrade him to a full tech II fit Maelstrom in high sec missions and get more familiar with artillery and autocannons without having to constantly watch local for hostiles.

Speaking of ratting, the Typhoon has been very impressive in ratting. The five launchers and 3 artillery often provide more than enough DPS to take out a couple battleship rats and the Ogre IIs are merely icing to speed things along. The tank has been sufficient so far and cap stable enough that I don't feel opposed to running it constantly against tougher rats. What more can you ask for in null sec ratting?

Hit You Like A Typhoon

I don't like ratting in Battlecruisers. It feels too slow and too... fragile. I like to rat in big honking battleships.

I've been working on Kla'strit's security status using a cheap Cyclone setup and while it works it feels to much like work. I want a more relaxing ratting experience.

I looked over contracts in Providence for Typhoons and found one on auction starting at 50 million that included three Large Capacitor Control Circuit rigs. Rationalizing that the ship alone was worth 50 mil, I placed a bid and was quite pleased a week later when I won it.

Last night I shuttled over to 9UY where it was located and bought modules and ammo to outfit it. I went with what I know about ratting: missiles and shield tank, with lots of PDS modules for perma-running Afterburner and shield booster. The end result:

If you're thinking "Oh My GOD!" in disbelief, I don't blame you. But it should be more than capable of getting the job done. If the missiles and drones prove to be sufficient, I'll swap out the artillery for some salvagers and tractor beams but really I'm most interested in the security status improvements.

Once it was setup, I scouted myself back to Paxton space and was about to start ratting when the server had a crash. Ah well, I'm ready for tonight.

Fake EDIT: I know Amarr drones with EM damage would be better against Sanshas, but Kla'strit doesn't have any Tech II drones available to him except Gallente ones. And he cannot use Tech II large artillery or cruise missiles.

Probing Questions

The great thing about Providence is that it is a very populated region with lots of friendlies and always some pew pew somewhere nearby (quality of said action notwithstanding, although Atlas have really livened things up lately).

The bad thing about Providence is that it is a very populated region with lots of friendlies running the belts and complexes found there.

Last night I was without voice comms (couch laptop to make TV less boring) and I decided to pass the time with some exploration close to base in Providence.

In one system I found a nice Sansha complex already being run by a couple of blues.

In another system I found a wormhole leading to unknown space where there did not appear to be anyone online but a tower. I debated going in and killing some sleepers, but figured the risk of getting surprised ganked or getting stuck and having to find a long way home outweighed the possible rewards. Besides, the wormhole looked like it was ready to collapse soon.

In a third system I found two signatures and I put Derranna's elite skills to work to scan them both down at once. One was another wormhole that I ignored and the other was a Radar complex that was untouched. However I lacked the time to exploit it myself so I offered to a corp mate. By the time he arrived (like, within 5 minutes) the complex was claimed and being run by a couple of blues.

Well shit. No easy cosmic anomalies either.

Now I did stay in a very populated part of space and next time I'll have a combat pilot on hand close by to claim the complex I find, but it is a little frustrating how space is vacuumed clean so quickly with all the blues in Providence. I vainly hope Dominion or future releases gives us a chance to develop space better for ourselves. Having 8-10 constant anomalies would be nice at this point.

Thoughts On Anaomalies

While reading the Eve Tribune last night an article on the dev blog about sov changes and upgrades and costs made for an interesting read. Specifically these parts:

Pirate Magnet: adds two additional guaranteed anomalies per level to your solar system

 And:

Now, the initial thought when reading this is that CCP has just added over a billion ISK per month in upkeep costs to all of our systems, and yet these upgrades as listed are never going to add even a billion ISK per month total into the alliance coffers, let alone several billion per system! However, a number of the dev replies buried within the thread do offer at least some reason for optimism compared to the bleak outlook presented by the blog itself. If these facts had been part of the initial blog rather than buried on page 18 onwards of the thread then the reception might have been slightly less rabid. One of the two most important dev posts in that thread is the first one, found on page 18, in which CCP Soundwave says:

Anomalies are a good way of injecting single player content into a certain system. The way it's currently set up is that the site instantly re-spawns when run, meaning it's not three sites per day; it's three sites constantly. Financially, having guaranteed access to NPCs should provide a much more solid stream of income than jumping from belt to belt, hoping that rats have re-spawned. We could have added more belts to systems, but why would we want you to jump around in a growing list of belts when we can just have you jump into a single anomaly and make money?

They were not put in as "OH GOD I STRUCK GOLD" sites. You don't make 0.0 financially inhabitable for thousands by adding extra officer spawns, you do it by providing a constant flow of content that makes a good amount of money, which is what the anomalies do. The distribution of sites is made so that the higher the upgrade, the higher quality anomaly. Financially, the top tier anomalies that will be spawning are much more profitable than mining and ratting currently is, and pretty much on par with level 4s. Added to that, they have a chance of escalation.

So the upgrade gives a number of constantly re-spawning anomalies - with the level of the anomaly being guaranteed based on the development index of the system. Suddenly that sounds a lot more promising, although it will still only keep a few ratters busy at a time per system. He also clarified that these are anomalies not signatures and that you can scan them down very quickly using just the on-board scanner or a single probe.

I've run anomalies before when living in crap space in Syndicate and can verify that they can be more profitable than ratting. If we get the Pirate Magnet to level 4 or 5 and there are a constant supply of 8-10 anomalies in the system at all times, that is a lot of ratting potential, possibly equal to one or two systems of asteroid belts.

Very interesting. I can see how such an upgraded system might support 10-20 ratters easily and a constellation with a few such upgraded systems could house a large corporation.

Maybe CCP has thought this out more than some people think. Time will tell.

Mission: Tangled Webs

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us fromZargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

I have ideas, oh yes! There are a lot of different mission ideas rattling around in my skull but let's pick out one I'd like to see in Eve.

Level 4 Mission: Tangled Webs

"Hello Kirith Kodachi, I'm glad to see you survived that last mission. How was I supposed to know the Angel Cartel would send an entire battle group after that lone transport? Good thing you were there.

"Now I have a more delicate mission for you, of great importance to the Republic. 

"Retired Admiral Cosorassa of the Imperial Fleet is well known in Matari space. He led several 'unauthorized' incursion fleets in the Molden Heath and while the Empire publically punished him we know for a fact that he was lavished with praise and rewards back on Amarr. 

"I have received intelligence that he is part of a delegation from the Empire trying to ease tensions between them and the Republic. We want him dead but we can't touch him, see? It would cause an incident and perhaps plunge us into a war we don't want... right now. So that's where you come in.

"We will provide you with a Rifter that's been specially modified to broadcast a false identity of Folas the pirate to police units and the Amarr fleet (other pod pilots will pick up on your pod's relay but we don't have the expertise to mess with that and besides, they won't care). You will travel from here to Hek through high sec allowing the false identity to be detected and for Republic police ships to attempt to engage and destroy you. Don't let them, but make it look good. Once in Hek you must warp to the station where the delegation is meeting and attack Admiral Cosorassa's yacht. We'll guarantee he'll be on it by activating an alarm on the station when you show up in system.

"The Republic fleet ships guarding the delegation will engage you as they will see you as the pirate Folas so don't waste any time. Destory the Admiral's ship and get out of there as quickly as possible. DO NOT destroy the guard ships! We are not hiring you to kill Minmatar citizens!

"You, or rather Folas, will be declared KOS across the Republic and Empire as a result but you and I will be innocent of anything. The logs will show that Minmatar forces attempted to stop Folas at several points but failed; it will make us look bad and we will have to pay some reparations but war will be avoided and we will celebrate that old codger's death behind closed doors.

"Good luck Kirith Kodachi, don't let me down."

* * * * * * 

Technical description: 

 

Pilot receives Specially Modified Rifter that must be equipped. This Rifter requires any faction's frigate skills to pilot. While in Specially Modified Rifter the pilot's security standing is set to -10.0.

The pilot can take the ship anywhere and use it for anything but it is no better than regular Rifter and has a self destruct timer of 1 day. 

In Hek, the pilot will have agent bookmark to an acceleration gate that only allows Specially Modified Rifters to use. Once in the deadspace, the pilot will see several Repubic Fleet frigates and several Amarr Delegation Yachts, one of which is labeled Admiral Cosorassa's Yacht. Soon after the pilot arrives in the pocket, the Republic Fleet ships will begin to target and engage the pilot but most of them will be at long range and thus give the player some room to engage the target.

If any Republic ships are destroyed, the mission fails. 

The Admiral's Yacht will begin to move after 60 seconds and align to warp out. At 120 seconds the Yacht will warp out and the mission fails.

The other Amarr delegation Yachts will begin to move after 90 seconds and warp out at 180 seconds. Killing them causes no ill effect to the mission but will be difficult as the rest of the Republic ships get in range.

Other Blog Banters:

TBD

Two Pilot Exploration Team

I really enjoyed attempting the two complexes this past week in spite of the failure to secure much besides a few million ISK and a nice module. I don't intend to make exploration my full time job when online (PvP is where it's at!) I do intend to continue it in lieu of ratting or missions.

So if I intend to keep at it, I sure as hell better get better!

There are three approaches:

- I go in with a semi-hard ship like the Cerberus and have Derranna in a Scimitar providing remote reps, then having her swap out to a Salvager/Hacker/Analyzer ship as need be once the danger is over.

- I go in with a hard tanking vessel like a Nighthawk or battleship and have Derranna sneak in and do the can-busting when all aggro is on the tank.

- I go in with hard tanking vessel and have Derranna support in her Scimitar until baddies are gone.

I'm not convinced the first approach will be able to handle some high end complex DPS, so I think I'll start with the second method and upgrade to the third if need be.

So I need a hard tanking vessel. My first inclination is the Nighthawk because it can passive tank a shitload of DPS fairly easily. The downside is that to get the passive tank you basically have to have the DPS of a tech I cruiser. Sitting there shooting a battleship rat for 20 minutes is not exactly my idea of fun. The Nighthawk lacks powergrid for Heavy Assault missile launchers which would have helped, and I'm concerned that sacrificing passive tank for more DPS would defeat the purpose.

Still, any Nighthawk experts that have a setup that can tank high end complexes and still get over 350 DPS (without drones) let me know.

So, that means battleship (or a Tengu but I think I'll save that for when I'm filthy rich as opposed to just rich). A Rokh or a Raven can boast pretty powerful active tanks, but would depend on cap boosters in order to maintain it. I'd prefer a cap stable active tanking setup.

I decided to look at Dominix setups because the hulls are cheap and I happen to have three of them in my hanger in High sec, including one that is unrigged and unassembled. This is the setup I'm looking at:



The defence rating is based on a Sansha attack profile of EM 60%, Thermal 32%, and Kinetic 8%. I'm assuming I'm mostly going to run into Sansha rats but should I encounter something else I'll have to be ready to refit.

The setup is cap stable, does a decent amount of DPS, and has some flexibility with the multiple flights of drones. Obviously not PvP capable.

So, am I crazy? Should I bite the bullet and buy a Raven so I can go with approach 3 (battleship and Scimitar)? Or do you think the Domi will be up to the task?

Exploration Vexes Me Again

Last night I logged once more on to the laptop while watching TV on the couch with the wife.

(Man, from reading this blog you might think this is all I do! The truth is, I could care less about 90% of the TV shows but my wife likes to relax after a long day of taking care of the Carebear Brigade and TV is her hobby of choice. And she likes to have me nearby rather than being alone. After 12 years of marriage, you learn where you can win a little and where you can lose big.)

Well, I have no access to voice comms on the laptop so X-ing up to a fleet is out of the question - I refuse to PvP in a Fleet without voice comms - and I didn't feel like running solo when my attention could be diverted at any moment by the pregnant wife. Case in point, halfway through last night she had a huge craving for a Wunderbar chocolate bar and asked me to go out to the Mac's Milk to get one. Last pregnancy she had a craving for something late at night and I didn't go to get it and I have not yet heard the end of it two years later. Needless to say, bitter as I was I went out in the cold Canadian fall night and got her TWO Wunderbars, one for now and one as backup for later in case this craving becomes a long term one.

I decided to do some probing again like I did Sunday evening. I like the new probing mechanics, and with Kirith's skills being excellent now there was no reason not to. So I jumped in the Buzzard and went to work.

I only detected one signature on my initial scan and it was a low one. Eager for the challenge I broke out the Sisters Core Scan Probe Tetrahedron and went to work. It was a tough one (a good sign, means other casual probers may not have been able to resolve it) and eventually I got the 100% signal. It turned out to be a profession site called "Pristine Sansha Graveyard" or something like that and the site description informed me I would need Salvaging skills to exploit it. Which is good because Derranna left her good Cheetah covert ops with the Hacking and Archeology modules back in High Sec. (Note to self, get some of those down here.)

The site had a bunch of cans that required salvaging to open floating in some Large Collidable Objects shaped like ship wrecks. No rats to be seen but I knew that as soon as I tried to open one, bad guys would show up. They always do. I got Derranna in a ship with salavagers to warp in and try the first can and sure enough Sanshas show up, three cruisers and 5 battleships.

I sent Derranna to safety while I checked out the rats with my Cerberus. The bounties on the battleships were in the 1.2 million range suggesting these were not the cannon fodder typically found in belts. Sure enough, my shields were strong but not strong enough and slowly they went down. I reshipped Derranna to her Scimitar and brought her in to boost my shields enough to finish off the rats.

It was slow going. The Cerb does fine for belt ratting but I need more DPS and tank for these high end complexes.

(Side note: there was a silent red in system this whole time and I kept watching intel channels and directional scanner for scan probes. I still realize I was taking a risk but I can afford it monetarily if not egotistically.)

Once the spawn was done, I got Derranna back to salvaging. Again the rats came back, this time in two spawns! I decided to dock up both characters at this point (the aforementioned convenience store run). When I came back, I went in with the Cerberus again, intending to follow up with the Scimitar to shield transfer and.... the rats, cans, scenery was gone! Nothing left but the wrecks from the first spawn.

Riiiiiight.... I remember now. Complexes will despawn if they are partially done and you leave it. I apparently had successfully cracked up one can with salvagers just as I had Derranna warp out and the trigger was set. Kirith warped out and the complex packed up and went somewhere else.

BUGGER!

Well, for the best I suppose. I was running out of time. I looted and salvaged the wrecks and was slightly molified to find a best named large Tachyon beam module in one of the wrecks, worth about 8 million plus.