Line of Fire

When I started in EVE one of the biggest disappointments was that asteroids did not block line of sight to targets, nor block weapon fire either. I found it immersion breaking; it was nonsensical that lasers and missiles would fly straight through a mass of rock with ease.

Before I played EVE I was in love with Star Trek: Starfleet Command and in that game the objects in space meant something. Get too close to an asteroid and *BOOM* you crashed. Go through a small asteroid debris field and see your shields deplete. Lose an opponent's lock on you by skirting behind a space station. It allowed a certain degree of tactical consideration and environment awareness in the heat of battle.

And then in EVE?

*BOUNCE*

The only thing that structures and asteroids changed was the path of your flight, and even then you simply bounced off them. Sure, sometimes you could get caught up on the asteroid field and lose valuable velocity and transversal, but that's about it. I understand that CCP needs to make concessions to multi-player environments and processing limitations and gameplay accessibility, but it still sucks.

Over time I got used to it and adapted as we all have who have stuck around in this game. But I still lament the sameness of space. The new nebulae went a long way to breaking that monotony but it is still unfortunate that environmental effects are limited to one space mission where waves of a gas cloud damage your ship, deadspace pockets that limit warping abilities (and used to disable Microwarp Drives), and a few systems in wormhole space.

The ones in wormhole space interest me the most. I like the idea of all the common and well known rules of PvP combat being turned on its ear due to the system you just jumped into. It adds some spice to otherwise well known rules of engagement. I wish every region had one or two similar systems where things were just not quite the same. Something to give fleets a decision point: do we try and fight here where everyone's X module won't work, or next door? Does that hinder us more or less than our opponent? I like decisions, it makes life more interesting in game.

And yeah, I still wish asteroids blocked line of fire.

Blog Banter #59 - Terrain

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 59th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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This month's version comes from commenter Zappity who asks:

Probably been done before... What about local force projection (as opposed to the longer distance force projection that is often talked about)? I think of 'terrain' in EVE to be how systems are mapped together by gates. Strong tactics which exploit terrain have historically been extremely important in deciding battle outcomes. How does this apply in EVE in the presence of cynos?

Related to this, you have the option to explore the topic of wormhole systems with effects (Black Holes, Cataclymismic variablestar, etc) and if similar environmental effects on certain grids/deadspace or system wide should be explored for known space?

Get writing!

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Participants:
Evoganda - Hiding in Plain Sight
Sand, Cider and Spaceships - I'm Behind the Grassy Knoll
Zappity's Adventures - Terrain
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Line of Fire
Stabbed Up - A fleet commander's guide to bookmarks
Morphisat's Blog - Terrain

Post Great Jump Nerf 2014 Blog Post:

Dog's Breath - Force Projection and Terrain
Warp Drive Active - Terrain

Apropos of Nothing, Here is a Lego Star Destroyer with My Kids

Bonus question: can you determine which two are the 6 year old twins and which one is the four year old "little" brother?

ISBoxer is Botting

In the latest Derping Through War podcast, episode 11, the hosts get to debating if using ISBoxer, a program that allows your mouse and key commands to be replicated to multiple application, is acceptable in EVE Online or not. Currently CCP has allowed this application to fall under the list of acceptable utility applications to use, like macro keys on fancier keyboards and mice.

Well, CCP is wrong. Using ISBoxer is still botting and CCP should disallow its usage.

Botting

First off, let's look at the reason that ISBoxer is currently allowed while normal botting is not.

I am a bot.

A "bot" is a pilot in EVE who is operated by a third party program operating via a script that the program follows. This is primarily seen in tasks that don't require a lot of decision making like belt ratting or mining, although some bot behaviour can be very nuanced.

CCP has been waging a war on banning accounts that use botting and any associated accounts as the activity has several deleterious effects on the game world. For one, because they can sustain operations much longer and more consistently than a human can, they can generate more resources/wealth and this impacts the economy in the long term with widespread bot use. Secondly, it creates the imbalance where pilots/organizations that utilize botting have an advantage over competitors forcing players to operate at a disadvantage or join botting themselves. Thirdly, since botting is used to amass in game wealth quickly and efficiently with the fewest humans involved, it is a common tool of Real Money Traders who can be shady and dangerous to their customers.

So CCP has rightly declared botting an exploit and bannable offence.

ISBoxer

ISBoxer, on the other hand is not considered and exploit mainly because (1) is it human-directed therefore does not have a bot's ability to operate consistently and for long periods of time, and (2) is currently not a main tool of wealth generation so is not noticeably affecting the economy or being used by RMTers.

One example of the use of ISBoxer is a single man mining fleet where the human uses the program to order multiple mining ships to mine the asteroids. Another example is the one given in the DtW podcast where a single human operated a small fleet of ships for PvP purposes. In these cases the operated ships have to be virtually the same and the client layout of each account needs to be near exact with the same overview settings and everything, but once setup you basically operate any number of ships your computer can handle clients for as if they were just one.

Its not widespread yet but I think it will be over time as pilots move to min-max their experience as the majority almost always do in order to be competitive. Why have a fleet of 5 guys when everyone can ISBox 3 accounts easily and have 15 ships? Why mine by myself in one ship if I can increase my profit by mining in 5? And CCP says its ok.

Isn't ISBoxer just like Multi-Boxing?

Not Me.

No, its not. Multi-boxing, i.e. having multiple clients open at the same time and doing things in each of them, is different because as a human you can only really pay full attention to one at a time. I cannot give an order at exactly the same time to both clients, I need to switch back and forth and while working on one, the other is unattended and essentially vulnerable to mistakes.

One could argue that an improperly setup interface for ISBoxer can lead to mistakes as well but that is more of a mechanical setup issue and not a human mental error issue. Once perfectly setup, multi-boxing can still allow for human error, ISBoxer cannot. The number of times I've heard someone on comms say "just wait, I need to move my other ship" or "dammit, I missed warp because I was on the other client" from multi boxing players is very high. Multi-boxing is human-intensive, ISBoxing is not.

In essence, ISBoxer is just a bot that doesn't have a preset script to follow, but rather follows you.

-THIS UNIT IS WATCHING MASTER-

This is why I think CCP is wrong on this issue and should change their stance. A bot is a bot is a bot. It shouldn't matter if the bot is independent or dependent on the player for their instructions, it still allows a single human to sustain larger operations over long periods of time with fewer mistakes than a human without using ISBoxer would be able to. It doesn't matter that it does not affect the economy or is not a tool of the Real Money Traders. Its a bot, and CCP should make it an exploit.

Guest Post: Your Hypothesis Is Not Correct

Originally a comment by Axloth Okiah on my Hypothesis on Wormholes post.

As a "professional wormholer" pretty much on top of the whole foodchain (ie. diplo and leadership of one of top alliances), please allow me to correct some of your inaccurate assumptions.

The biggest one is that there is some preferential space one needs to "break ïnto" in order live in wspace. Your text suggests that we somehow block off entry to these systems - in a similar manner to sov-holding alliances in null which prevent newcomers from taking root. By this you probably mean C5 and C6 systems where capital escalations are possible.

But in reality, there are dozens of free and unoccupied systems like this and even bigger number of semi-inactive and poorly defended ones. The infamous "fortress systems" with 10+ POSes and tons of capitals are at most 10% of the total. In this respect, situation got even better for "newcomers" with Hyperion and number of good systems went up because of the wh-effects and C4 static rebalance (Black Holes for example used to be basically uninhabitable, now they are actually good and desirable).

There is simply no way and, perhaps more importantly, no incentive for us to prevent others from settling in. There isnt any competition for resources going on because escalations are same everywhere and most of publicized evicitons happen because of grudges and enmity. Coming into wspace is in practice extremely easy. What is hard is actually living here longterm which is a result of shit POS design and shit corp role management that make growing, recruitment and ship security a total nightmare. Start-up groups often dwindle and die because they cannot sustain any growth as result of pressure from the environment and game itself, not because of other wormholers trying to remove them.

The income is not that stellar either. Prices of salvage have been dropping for a long time, which unfortunately disproptionately affects lower-class wormholers. On top of that, all of the income must be divided among the membership, so bigger groups earn less. While 3-men farming groups earn a ton of isk, average membership of professional wormholers earn less then hisec incursioners while facing significantly higher risk (regardless of Hyperion release).

In the end, the current slumber is nothing new and is a result of overall eve slowdown and less players logging in - it will hopefully pick as the summer ended. Similar concerns about wspace dying and groups being too big, evil and entrenched crop up every couple months, regardless of whats really going on. But its been the same and roughly cyclical in nature for several years now as strong alliances form and then disintegrate into smaller ones.

So... I think your hypothesis is not correct and hopefully I managed to explain why ;)

Hypothesis On Wormholes

I've been listening to the excellent Down the Pipe podcast ever since it started in November 2012 so it provides an excellent perspective on the state of Wormhole space from pilots living there for the past two years.

Things have changed, and I don't mean just recently. There has been a malaise sneaking into wormholes for the past year and the recent changes in Hyperion release have exacerbated the issue into stark contrast from two years ago.

From an outsider's perspective of both wormhole space and null sec space, I'm going to put forth a hypothesis that I've been thinking on for a week or so that might be completely wrong... or might not. Here we go.

Hypothesis: What is happening in wormhole space right now is a microcosm version in both scale and time of what has been occurring in null sec for years, and can be predictive of what is coming in the next year in null sec.

Now to support my position.

About two years ago wormholes appearing to be booming with large corps and alliances battling it out constantly for resources (i.e. good systems and the sites in them) or for fun and profit. Then about a year ago I noticed a change in the winds that perhaps might have been there for a while but was definitely becoming apparent through blog posts and podcasts like Down the Pipe. Wormhole space was becoming less vibrant and started to, dare I say it, stagnate. The entrenched forces in the C5 and C6 class wormholes became larger and richer and the barrier to entry to these lucrative systems became higher.

Let's be clear, wormholes with their different rules and systems with special effects and no local or stations already have a large barrier to entry for the common pilot, add on to that large numbers of professional wormhole pilots guarding the entrance way to the best space with fleets of capitals and T3s and hundreds of pilots at the disposal, and new groups are dissuaded from attempting to break in.

This creates a cycle wherein to access the riches available to these powerful entities a pilot or group of pilots must join the existing organization. These powerful and growing alliances start to strangle out smaller groups that cannot compete financially and the overall population begins to drop and activity starts to dwindle.

Then along comes CCP with changes.

Before we can talk about the effect of these changes, let's talk about the paradigm of wormhole space which is that the risk is a lot greater (i.e. no stations, dangerous rats, no local to warm you of other pilots, no easy entry and exit, etc) but is compensated by high rewards. This dynamic was fine early on in the wormhole timeline since Apocrypha but over time the rewards remaining mostly constant while the risk decreased as pilot proficiency for the ins and outs of the region improved. Eventually groups mastered wormhole space and became experts at controlling the holes into and out of their systems to the point where sites could be run in rather extreme  safety by the professional wormholers for the same rewards. And let's be clear, these are some of the best rewards in all of New Eden at the end of the day. Listen to Down The Pipe episode 39 and sit agog when they talk about what ships they use to run their PvE content.

So, back to CCP's changes. Its obvious that the thrust of the changes were to decrease some of the control the of holes that the professionals had acquired in order to break down some of the walls that the professionals had erected around themselves. As wormholers themselves will state, the risk was subsequently increased as it was harder to close holes, and harder to close them safely, AND there are more of them, while the rewards had not changed at all. The fact that compared to most of all other space the rewards in the best wormholes are still miles above is lost on these professionals who only see their comfortable and known situation being disrupted. I don't blame them too much as any of us would balk at similar types of changes in our preferred area of space. Personally, I don't think CCP communicated the intent behind the changes well enough.

Regardless, the impact of those changes will require months to play out. Will there be an exodus of players from wormhole space as the changes to higher risk and less hole control and stagnation caused by the invested professional organizations drive them away? Or will these changes plus future changes trigger a wormhole renaissance where new players/returning players adjust to the new tactics and rules? We should know over the next year.

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In null we are at the part prior halfway in the changes to space phase. On the horizon is the promised sovereignty mechanics changes and the "new space / building stargates" promise. Once these changes are done, null sec will face the same question that faces wormhole space right now: Is it the beginning of a new age, or the final long decline of the old one?

Seven to Go

So eight years in EVE this month and I'm approaching another milestone: only 7 more killmails until I hit 1000 on zKillboard.

I know that is not a lot compared to a lot of old veteran PvPers like the awesome Rixx Javix but I'm happy with it nonetheless given my extreme time constraints per week. I took a moment to graph out the kills into a little chart (sorry it runs right to left, I'm too lazy to switch it around).

I highlighted a few milestones. You can see the first two Bring Me the Head of Kirith Kodachi live events in 2010 quite easily, and you can see why I fondly recall my time in Paxton Federation in the original ProviBloc back in 2009, but the most striking change in the chart starts when I joined the Gallente Militia in June of 2012. Even in a small insignificant corporation practically by myself, with the same limited playing time, my PvP activity started to climb dramatically.

This is why I sing the praises of faction warfare and Aideron Robotics; it has allowed me to turn a limited weekly game time budget into a modestly successful PvP and Fleet Commander life.

This Sunday, time to get 7 more.

Gamification

On a recent Declarations of War podcast (sorry, can't remember which one) Faction Warfare was discussed and the issue of null sec sov mechanics was tangentially mentioned. Using a version of FW mechanics for capturing systems was dismissed as "too gamey" to work in null sec.

While I can see what they are driving at as the mechanics in FW have elements that are obviously designed for a space PvP game and not based in any sort of reality whatsoever (i.e. "orbit this beacon for 20 minutes, do that a hundred times in the system, and then shoot this McGuffin, and we win the system!"), I take minor issue that any part of the existing null sec warfare mechanics, or for that issue any future mechanics, have any less claim to fame in terms of being not "gamey".

Think about current mechanics as modeled by this flowchart from TheMittani.com:

How is this model any less of a game mechanic as opposed to reality? To call FW mechanics as more gamey than the null sec sov mechanics is a pot calling the kettle black. Both systems are artifices of EVE being a game looking for balance between attack and defense in terms of system control.

Consider what a real war set in EVE's universe would be like...

"We want that system."

"OK, we'll blockade the gates with the fleet and negotiate the station's surrender."

"They refuse to surrender the station sir."

"Well, we can't wait for months for them to run out of food, so prepare the boarding ships, we'll send in the marines."

"Why not assault the station with our capital ships, sir"

"Are you mad? We want the station intact, not in pieces!"

End of an Era

This post is non-Eve related so move on if you don't care.

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Yesterday, I sold the last of my warhammer 40K models.

I started selling them this summer and I have made back about $1800 on thousands of dollars worth of models collected over 25 years of my life. I've sold my Eldar, my Epic Chaos, my Battlefleet Gothic Chaos, and finally the last of my 40K Chaos. I poured thousands of hours into playing and painting and modeling and its all gone. My terrain for hosting games, my posters I saved for years for the warhammer room I will never have, future modelling projects that will never be, everything(1).

Even though its been six and half years since I last played a game or even had the models out of the crawlspace, the waves of nostalgia tore through me with each sale. Each item handed over for soulless cash, each package dropped in the mail for electrons on Paypal.

Its the end of an era in my life.

1 - Well, almost everything, I kept two models to keep me company on my desk at work.

Aideron Open Fleet This Sunday

Aideron Robotics is having an open fleet this Sunday with Yours Truly as Fleet Commander where anyone curious about Aideron or Faction Warfare or even PvP in low sec can join us.

We'll be flying an armour doctrine and have ships available for your purchase, including super cheap Atrons we can give away (limited quantities). Please feel free to join us in any ship you want, just be prepared to lose it!

Rally point is Fliet FDU station in Essence and fleet assembles at 0015 EVE Time. Hope to see you there!

8 Years

On October 3rd 2006 I had a post that included my first ramblings about EVE:

3) EvE. I admit it, I'm right damn hooked. So hooked that this blog is now going to see some EvE blogging along with the warhammer stuff. Its my gaming blog after all, its just been that warhammer was my main fix.

Sigh. I decided to start posting my EvE ramblings here because I noticed today that on a corp forum board I am part of I amassed 48 posts in less than a month, putting me in fourth place of the most posts. First has only 99 and he's been on since June 16th. I am sick, sick, sick.

I started EvE after many weeks of waffling and browsing the web for info on it. What finally convinced me to join was the method of increasing your "level" by learning skill points. Basically, you set a skill to train and it takes a set amount of time based on your attributes and the skill in question. This training even occurs when you are offline so I can get a more powerful character without playing constantly. The lower time commitment required to get into the game sold me and I love it.

I started on Sept 9 and followed the tutorial over a couple sessions. It took about 2 hours to complete everything the tutorial had to show but it was so worth it. By the time the tutorial was finished I was comfortable enough to set out on my own. Being a Caldari pilot my first non-newb ship was a Heron which I later realized was a mistake. The Heron is more for electronic warfare and not straight up fighting, but I didn't know that. I died after a few missions in it. I upgraded to a Merlin frigate which is much better suited to fighting and I had some success in it. After about 10 days, I was ready to join some friends like Adam out in the low security (low sec) space, home of pirates and outlaws. Woot.

Adam flew out to meet me on the edge of high sec space and I packed up my meager belonging and entered the unknown. Many jumps later, I was secure in the headquarters of the Interstellar Privateers of Res Communis, aka IPoRC. The gents there helped me outfit my Merlin for real combat and my training began.

Over the next week I developed my skills and ratted ("to rat" means to hunt NPC pirates) while building up the skills to fly a cruiser. Meanwhile our corporation (aka a clan) got involved into a war and moved our headquarters into the warzone. This past Sunday night was the last convoy that got my stuff safely installed in the new HQ in Murethand system. After that I took off to our second base in a system called 9GYL so I could build up some capital by ratting in my brand new Caracal cruiser, outfitted with Heavy Missiles and an awesome shield.

That's where I am now and its going well. This morning I was on for 30 minutes and got to kill some rats (NPC Pirates) with two allies from other corps and earned about 2 million ISK (ISK = EvE money). Nice! I was able to pay off my debt to the corp for the two Caracals they provided me with.

Eight years ago today, Sept 9, 2006, I started EVE Online. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Frog, the Squid, and the NullBear

Last night's fleet proved that the best enemies can make for good friends.

The Sunday night fleet was growing and rumours of juicy hostile fleets prompted us to ship into Rogue Squadron (TM) cruisers: Vexors, Vexor Navy Issues, and a few Ishtars backed by a squad of Exequror logistics. W set out looking for trouble.

At first, the only trouble we found was that all the target fleets we started to move towards disappeared quickly. But then, while chilling on the Eha gate in Oicx awaiting reports from scouts on a hostile cruiser fleet in Mochlimaud, we got surprised by said fleet jumping into us. And it was bigger than we were.

We scrambled our warp out and lost a Vexor Navy Issue that got tangled on the gate and an Exequror got probed down in a safe in the confusion. We finally got a dingo scan on the Circle of Two and friends fleet and determined that their 24 Arty Ruptures and 7 Scythes with 2 Scimitar logistics, accompanied by a number of miscellaneous cruisers and a couple battlecruisers, led by a Claymore command ship, was too much for our 13 Vexor based hulls and 7 tech 1 logi.

So some cat and mouse occurred while we tried to drum up some numbers and a plan to take on this larger force. Eventually we brought our DPS cruisers up to 16 (later 15 as one pilot fell asleep and got caught separated from the fleet) and supported by 9 Exequrors and proceed to setup inside a Medium plex. The enemy fleet setup outside the plex but refused to come into us.

I can see why: Although they had the numerical advantage, we had high ground inside the plex forcing them to warp directly into our guns which was against the best interests of their fleet comp which prefers to fight at an arm's length with artillery's high alpha strike. We were hesitant to leave the plex and allow them to warp at range to us where our DPS would be hampered. We were at an impasse.

Around this posturing our old enemies in Templis CALSF were haunting many systems away in Fliet and were poking us in our public channel for a fight. We chatted them up and negotiated a temp blue agreement if they came help us in this fight, figuring that 10-12 more cruisers on our side could be the buffer we needed to get to the Ruptures outside the plex and win the fight.

Unfortunately, just as we were all in position to launch the attack the Co2 fleet scouts detected the Caldari, put two and two together, and wisely decided to avoid that two pronged attack. We caught the hostile Lachesis pilot of the Co2 fleet and killed it in retribution for our three cruiser losses, and that kill plus the pod balanced the scales somewhat for us.

We bid adieu to the Templis guys that came to assist us and it was late so I logged of.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Meet the Small Tranverse Bulkhead I rig:

This little rig, relatively new in the scheme of things, is starting a little revolution in the fleet operations of Aideron Robotics. When used on a ship with proper hull tanking in mind, its proving to be effective at providing sufficient Effective Hit Points and resistances from the Damage Control II mod, while allowing the ship to be fast and agile. Its a good third option to Armour Tanking and Shield Tanking paradigms and something I've argued for in the past.

We are currently experimenting with a hull tanking doctrine on small frigates and destroyers and I'm hearing a lot of praise for it. I'd love for hull tanking to take a more prominent role in PvP as a viable doctrine so we're going to explore this to its fullest.

Remuneration

Consider, if you will, the entire EVE Online universe. Not just the game, but rather the game and the metagame that extends beyond it and spills out in great gobs on the internet. Alliance and corp forums, fitting tools, mapping tools, industry calculators, guides, wikis, blogs, podcasts, news sites, artwork, fiction, gaming sites... If you step back far enough the actual game seems like only half of the game's universe!

Some of these external metagame things are small, like this here blog, and others are huge undertakings with many moving parts and functions like Dotlan EveMaps. Some are the results of individual effort and others are the results of many hands sharing the load and responsibilities as suits their strengths. The larger enterprises even end up developing their own corporate power structures with bosses at the top and "employees" at the bottom.

The width and breadth of the metagame is astounding.

Imagine, just for a second, if EVE did not exist outside the game world. No EVE University wiki; no Dotlan maps, no killboards, no EveNews24.com, no Hydrostatic podcast, no Rixx Javix artwork, no Mumble servers, no Jabber channels, no corporate forums... imagine everything had to be done in the game. Not a pretty site, is it? Imagine setting up a fleet op with a certain doctrine using only the in game calendar and fitting tool and then running the op on EVE Voice and the in-game map. Not a pretty sight, is it?

The fact of the matter is that thousands, if not tens of thousands of person hours per year have been put into this metagame universe and its almost all been done for free. And its been going on for about 10 years.

Well, not quite for free. Operators of out of game sites that qualify as Fansites can get their account paid for by CCP as a promotional gift. For example, my main account with Kirith Kodachi has been paid for by CCP for the past 3 years for running this blog. I don't get a second free account for the podcast I run and I pay for my other two accounts normally. I don't know exactly how this works for sites with more than one operator, like a podcast or a news site, but its safe to assume that all the major contributors to qualifying sites get a free promotional account.

Does this cover the cost of the effort and expenses of running such a site? Except for the most simplest blogs, probably not. Between my blog and podcast, I have yearly fees for the domain and storage space that are covered by the free account, but that does not cover the time the creative effort takes to write and record podcasts. That's OK, its a hobby and its a price I'm willing to absorb as a cost of getting the creative juices flowing.

But consider the effort some of the larger sites require. Not only webserver costs, but admin maintenance, development costs, storage costs, security, and creative effort. Some of these projects require many hours of planning and implementation to get off the ground and run effectively. A single $150 account per year is a drop in the bucket in comparison.

The point is that its not surprising that a large complex site with multiple people involved sought to turn the project into a money-making venture. I don't know if it started off with that goal or it was considered an objective later on after it possibly became a time-sucking second job, but somewhere along the line someone probably said "I work harder on this than I do my real job, I wish I got paid for it!"

I'm not excusing any rule breaking that occurred, nor am I trying to whitewash anyone's motives. I am not privy to what really what on behind the scenes with any of the involved parties. What I am saying is that I don't find it surprising that a major project tried to get some remuneration for their effort that was consistent with the effort.

I know some sites try to get some return from their effort by selling merchandise like Eveoganda does. Of course, you have to be careful not to run afoul of CCP's legal department in the process.

At the end of the day I think major undertakings should have a method to help pay for the costs beyond the free account, and I think it should be done in cooperation with CCP instead of running around them. I don't believe RMT is the answer by any stretch of the imagination as I believe RMT ruins the gameplay for everyone. These out of game services need an out of game solution and I think it behooves CCP to think hard about it as it the benefit to the game these sites brings is immeasurable.

Blog Banter #58 - Money

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 57th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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"SHOW ME THE MONEY!" - Jerry Maguire

The SOMERBlink fiasco from last summer and then again this summer (link: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=367505), resulting in the service's ultimate shutdown has opened the floor to the discussion or monetization of services once again.

Do you think CCP was right in its reaction? Was SOMERBlink justified in trying to monetize its service via plex sales kickbacks? Was it true RMT or grey area RMT?

More generally, where is the line to be drawn when a service attempts to monetize in order to offset costs and/or make a profit? Is asking for donations in Real Life cash too far (I realize CCP considers it unacceptable right now)? Selling non-EVE trademarked goods acceptable? Asking for money to pay for efforts in setting up EVE meetups? Should these all be scrutinized?

And should you want to dig deeper, should players be allowed to reverse redeem plex for cash? Does this already not exist in programs like Plex for fanfest packages or video cards? Is it right?

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Participants:
Sand, Cider and Spaceships - Show Me the rMONEYt
Rinn's Rants - Money
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Remuneration
Pilgrim in Exile - The Root of All Kinds of Evil
Pod Pilot's Perspective - Universal Greed 
Deep in EVE - EVE and RMT

Stargates

I've been thinking a lot about stargates recently. CCP's famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) image implies that at some point we will be able to build stargates.

With Crius the first arrow in that diagram has been mostly dealt with so we are getting closer.

However, I'm plagued with question less about the "Stargate construction & control" which will be years out still and we need to see how the other 3 sections pan out, but rather asking questions about why we are where we are now. In other words, why can players build (and destroy) stargates now?

I know the simple answer: because such a feature has not been implemented in game yet. And I know the more philosophical answer: because that much control to players could lead to unbalanced power equations and stale min-maxed game play (e.g. imagine every staging system was a dead end system with a single perma-camped and bubbled gate).

But what's the lore reason? I mean, its obvious that player alliances in null space are a power comparable to the major empires, they have basically urbanized most of null sec with outposts, jump bridge networks, cynosaural beacons and jammers. Yet slightly larger construction efforts like true station building and stargates have remained out of reach. Why?

The best possible answer I've come up with is that its more beneficial to the null sec alliances to NOT build such structures. Specifically, the protections all capsuleers enjoy due to the CONCORD agreements the empires signed have large benefits (such as freedom of movement between empires, freedom to dock anywhere, protection from asset seizures, not extradition to planetary governments, etc) that outweigh losing them for stations and new stargates (or destroying existing ones).

Although many null sec players live almost exclusively in null sec, their associated alt characters and business ventures rely heavily on empire resources and markets. Imagine what would happen to a null sec alliance if it was completely cut off from Jita's markets all of a sudden. So that seems like the most likely culprit.

Another possibility is that there is no other known places to build stargates, i.e. the current possible stargate network covers all possible locations. This seems unlikely and is easily contradicted by stargate connection changes in past expansions.

A third possibility is that the technology is tightly controlled by the empires. Again, seems very unlikely since null sec alliances have the jump drive tech and stargates use the same basic principles just  on a larger scale.

Perhaps the problem is simply cost. Maybe stations and stargates are so expensive to build that its out of reach for null sec alliance wallets. *Looks at massive titan fleet* Yeah, I don't think so. Unless the problem is not cost but rarity, perhaps both stations and stargates require some ultra rare material in their construction and thus this rarity limits their propagation.

Any thoughts?

Project Vulcan - Rolling out the Archons

So time for a little update for little Archon building adventure.

I've built 17 Archons, sold 16 of them for an average profit of 300 million ISK. My next Archon sale should put me over 5 billion ISK profit before blueprint expenditures. I'm producing an Archon every 6 days so my average per month profit is about 1.5 billion.

I was going to use the capital I've made to expand into another line of capitals but my old Orca partner came back to the game and I have to return to him 11 BPOs, 6 of which I was using in my Archon line. I replaced 5 of them with my reserves and I plan to replace the last one soon. Then I can build up towards my next capital production line.

The station costs introduced in Crius have not impacted me significantly; basically I'm seeing a loss of about 2% profit per sale. However the increased mineral requirements have made logistics slightly more difficult and have me investigating mineral compression benefits.

Gallente Militia Hold Entire Warzone For the Second Time

Last night the final Caldari occupied system in the Caldari-Gallente low sec warzone fell to GalMil forces, leading to the second time the warzone has been controlled entirely by the Gallente.

From DotLAN maps.

For the record, the warzone once in the past was completely dominated by the Caldari.

Still Learning

With the Gallente Militia working together to take the entire warzone, I logged in last night to run my weekly fleet and found only nearby Heydieles and Ladistier systems the last holdouts. I organized the fleet starting with Algos destroyers supported by Navitas logistic frigates, and we headed out. There were many engagements but I'm going to cover the big fights.

#1 - UHurt fleet in Assault Frigates

We were in Heydieles and checking things out in Old Man Star when a scout reported fighting by other GalMil pilots in the large complex in Heydieless against Assault Frigates, apparently part of a UHURT fleet run by famous streamer SirSqueebles. I turned the fleet around and we warped to the plex only to find a metric crap-tonne of hostiles. In the ensuing fracas our fleet was overwhelmed and while we took down two Enyos, we lost 11 Algoses and a number of Navitas and Atrons.

Lesson Learned: Get a proper scout report before jumping into a fight.

#2 - Eve University Fleet in Cruisers

We reshipped into Algos and Exequorors and tried to engage that assault frigate once more but they had moved on. We had several near engagements with various other entities but then an Eve Uni fleet was spotted with a decent number of cruisers and logistic support of their own, so we upshipped to Vexors really quick and moved to engage them. With our allies in system piling on we completely smashed the fleet, killing 14 cruisers of the enemy while only losing an interceptor of our own (to the villianous Kelon Darklight none the less!). It was a perfect execution of our Rogue Squadron doctrine and the power of a practiced fleet execution. Props to Eve Uni for taking the fight in a system full of blood thirsty GalMil pilots.

#3 - Soul Takers in Battleships, Battlecruisers, and Cruisers

So things quieted down after Eve Uni was sent packing and we were back on the Old Man Star gate in Heydieles considering our next move. We were going to check out a Ghost site in Old Man Star so we jumped through .... only to have a Soul Taker gang land forty klicks away. Soul Takers, for the unawares, are the local serious pirate group that live in Old Man Star and though they have low numbers compared to other groups they compensate with blingy ships and excellent tactics.

This time was no exception as their fleet included Tech II cruiser logistics, about 4 or 5 battleships, 3 battlecruisers, and a number of other ships. After getting my bearing and letting our allies know there was a fight  happening, we engaged and focused our firepower on their first Guardian in an effort to remove their logistics. Then the smartbombs started and our drones, our main DPS, started to whither and die.

Sadly, I froze like a deer in headlights.

I've had lots of practice in small gangs and small fleets, but battleships with smartbombs? I didn't know what to do and the current action of banging on the Guardian was not working. Fortunately, Marcel was in fleet and overseeing the adventure and realized something needed to be done. He took over and gave the order to recall drones and start bumping the battleships away from the logi. Relieved that someone knew what to do I watched as the plan worked and we were able to send our remaining drones on the Guardian with the battleships out of the way and finally worked out a victory. We lost 2 Vexors, 2 Algoses, and 5 frigates (and an obscene number of pods) but we killed 2 battleships, 1 battlecruiser, and 2 Tech II Guardians and held the field.

Lesson learned: bump smartbombing battleships out of the way of the targets we want our drones to kill.

#4 - Templis CALSF in Cruisers

We went back to Fliet and repaired damage and reshipped as needed. There were reports of a rare Caldari militia fleet in system so we went back in and played cat and mouse with them for a bit. Finally we were at the Abune gate waiting for our scouts to find them when they landed about 80 kilometers from us, a Caracal fleet with logistics support from Scythes and some Moas.

Now we've engaged similar fleets before with our Rogue squadron cruiser doctrine and came away clean so I got a little overconfident and had the fleet charge at the enemy to get some tackle. I watched the kilometers flip by and I aimed at a juicy Moa, got the scram and ... "Kirith, you are out of range of our reps!"

Ah shit.

In my bloodlust, I forgot that our logistics could be outrun and put myself into a sticky situation that ended with my Ishtar exploding. I had Marcel take over the fleet while I ran back to Fliet and reshipped to a Vexor. I made it back with the fight still in progress. We lost 8 cruisers (7 Vexors and my Ishtar), 3 Algos, and 4 frigates and in return we killed 16 cruisers including a Cerberus. Good fight and props to Templis for bringing it.

Lesson Learned: Don't outrun your own logistics. Curb the bloodlust.

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After that we tried to get into a fight with a Black Legion fleet with Augoror Navy Issues and logsitics, but they were hesitant to engage our larger fleet and lost an Onerios while trying to evade us.

Despite getting in on a lot of kills for one night, it was not my best outing as a Fleet Commander. I'm getting better, but still need work in some areas.

Post Script:

Later that evening Heydieles fell to the GalMil forces. For the Federation!

Scouting

Scouting used to be one of my favourite activities in fleets prior to my goal to become a competent Fleet Commander and I thought I was decent enough at it after learning from many fleets in null and low sec over the years. But since moving to the FC role I've come to appreciate the differences between a good scout, a bad scout, and an excellent scout.

This post is intended to be a guide of what I want in a scout when I'm leading a fleet.

Movement

While the fleet is roaming or moving to a specific destination, scouts are often asked to fly ahead of the fleet to find targets to fight or hostiles to avoid. This is often referred as being the "plus one" as in being one jump ahead of the fleet. As a general rule of thumb, try stay ahead of the fleet enough so that they have warning time to evade a heavier force while at the same time trying to avoid getting so far out ahead of the fleet that there is room for something to get in between you and the fleet, i.e. being +2 or 3 jumps out. Preferably, my scout should be on the out gate and see the main fleet jumping in via local chat before he jumps into the next system; that keeps a chain of eyes on the systems between scout and fleet while giving the fleet a whole gate to gate warp range to react appropriately.

When in a system I don't need constant updates on where you are warping to if you are looking to scan a plex or a gate. But if you are going to check out a system not on the current route please let me know.

Jump In

When first entering a system, I like a concise report from the scout focusing on the closest things first and working outwards.
1) What's on grid?
2) Who's in Local chat? War targets, pirates, suspects, neutrals, friendlies broken down.
3) What's of interest on long scan?
And  if you can get a scan from where you are to some plexes or gates in the system, warp to a point where you can scan them and report from there.

And for faction warfare systems:
4) Number of open plexes, and if in scan range, what's in them.

Remember, you can hold cloak while doing all three of those things so if you jump into a hostile or neutral fleet, hold cloak and get those scans and numbers. The goal is to give the FC a complete picture as possible, as if they were there with you, so that they can make a decision about how to proceed properly. Incomplete information can lead to bad situations.

Handy Hint: Don't be afraid to drag characters from local chat into fleet chat (I keep them side by side for this reason) so that the FC can see who it is in that ship you just found, especially corp and alliance. Very useful for "neutrals".

Handy Hint: If there is a hostile on grid with you, check local for his corp/alliance mates. Sometimes neutrals are neutrals, sometimes they are backup for the bait.

The Hunt

When trying to find a target ship or fleet in a system, you need to give lots of information so the FC can keep up on the situation. A running commentary is not out of place; "Warping to XYZ gate," "see three Ishtars on scan towards sun," "trying the ABC gate now," "I got a war target in a Moa on the ABC gate at zero, nothing on scan, and he's burning towards me."; these are examples of a good scout report. The FC knows that there is three Ishtars in space somewhere and that the Moa might be bait, but that the Ishtars are not nearby.

When you get on grid with the enemy, remember that your role is Scout first, tackle second. Try to stay alive so you can continue to be the eyes for the fleet. Don't go in and get a tackle and then scream on comms for help, it will arrive too late most of the time. Coordinate with the FC and they can be ready or even send in a backup to help you out. Most foes won't bolt at the sign of one extra in local if they are geared to fight, but a second point to allow you to run is often all that's needed to allow the fleet to get there.

Report ranges and directions. If you have a potential fight at a plex, let the FC know how many AU it is from the gate to the system where the fleet is. If a target is on grid with you, number of kilometers and direction towards a celestial can make for a possible bounce and drop on the target for tackle.

Once engaged in a fight, remember your goal is to stay alive. If the target gets away because you need to burn off, that's OK. There will be more fights, but you might be the last good scout.

Also, sometimes the FC will ask you to do something that puts you at risk, like jumping into a gate camp or trailing closely behind an enemy fleet. Although your goal is to stay alive, the reason we use scouts is because its less costly to lose a scout than it is to whelp the fleet. If you die while scouting, make sure you let the FC know and go reship.

Handy Hint: Watch out for squirrel chasing. A small gang of 5-7 frigates might like to chase every war target and pirate ship they see, but a larger heavier fleet is looking for a bigger fight. Try to focus and make sure you and the FC agree before chasing after every possible target.

Communication

Sometimes a fleet will require multiple scouts, especially when searching multiple systems for a target ship/fleet. When this happens you need to continue giving clear and concise reports but also including the system name and your name, i.e. report in third person. For example,
"Kirith jumping into Deven, three in local, two war targets and one pie, names linked in fleet chat. Nothing on scan, two plexes, a small and a novice, out of scan range."

Later on, if you find a target, you need to reiterate who and where you are. As a bad example:

"I have a moa jumping through, following!"

Even though the scout might have said "warping to Suj gate in Nagamenmen" a few seconds ago, the context might have been lost by the time the FC got the recent message. Instead:

"Kirith, in Nagamenmem, on the Sujarento gate with war target Moa who is jumping through to Suj. Following..."

Now the FC knows the context and location and can respond appropriately, whether its calling you back or sending reinforcements.

Handy Hint: If you need to get the attention of the FC and quiet everyone else, say "BREAK BREAK!" followed by your intel.

Tools of the Trade

There are a number of ships that can be used for scouting with their strengths and weaknesses.

Tech 1 Attack Frigates - Fast and cheap, these are common scouts in low sec as they are hard to catch at gates and cheap to replace and easy for new pilots to get into. Very fragile.

Tech 1 Disruption Frigates - The Maulus or Griffin especially use their e-war capabilities as their tank and tackle unsuspecting enemies for the fleet. Advanced tactics, don't try this at home ;)

Tech 2 Interceptors - Fast with better bonuses to tank, damage, and tackling, as well as that handy immune to bubbles thing for travelling in low sec. Still fragile and expensive.

Tech 2 Covert Ops / Stealth Bombers - Fast, agile, and can warp cloaked! Very handy for spying on the enemy fleet without them knowing you are there, so can get good warp ins for surprise tackle. On the downside they are super fragile once uncloaked and don't have bonuses for pointing things. Also, expensive in comparison to Tech 1 frigates as well.

Tech 2 Recon Cruiser - Warped while cloaked like the Covert Ops frigates but far more dangerous and tanky. Plus, the Gallente recons have bonuses to warp disruptor and scrambler ranges for the extra surprise tackles! However, super expensive compared to frigates and their durability becomes moot if you get stomped on by a fleet of enemy ships (even a handful of good Tech 1 frigates can ruin you).

Bait Scout - Dual role ships in which the scout is also the bait! Accomplished by heavily tanked cruisers or bigger, they scout just like normal but instead of tackling the enemy directly they let the enemy tackle them. Then throw a point and web on the most expensive things you can reach and call in the cavalry. Slower than other scouts and no defense for when you get in over your head. And more expensive than frigates.

Anything - Basically any ship can act as a scout as long as its expendable and the pilot knows how to report good intel.

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Leave comments for your hints and tricks for scouts.