Drifting

Crews in our EvE Vessels?

2011-10-14T13:44:00.001+01:00

I came across an advert from an EON edition that noted crews for our ships. I have not signed up to EON (something I may well change very soon, I'll add) so I don't know the in's-and-out's of this idea. But I thought it would be fun to throw in my own spin.

First of all is the morale implication. It is a solid fact (stand-fast station-spinners) that we will lose our ships at some point through PvP, NPC or Concord. If EvE was real, I for one would not sign up to be an engineer to a Capsuleer's ship. Not unless I had a death wish. Although this is really nonsense, would it not be a nice touch to have miniature escape pods blasting away from the ship as it explodes and have your crew awaiting your arrival at whichever station you dock at? To combat lag, perhaps this visual mechanic could be included in the graphics sequence of a ship popping. Titans may be an issue with the amount of escape capsules accelerating away, granted. Or maybe an un-lockable (or not - yarr!) escape shuttle will remain following the explosion, which will then warp your crew away to safety. Perhaps the easiest away around this is to use expendable droids as a crew, which could be recovered through salvage if you really wanted them back.

The reason I am imposing some sort of 'crew recovery' system is because some depth could be implemented in the development of a crew. Crewman could have their own skills (AI controlled) that increase through time and/or experience as we progress through missions/PvP/etc. much like our standings with agents. So as we 'develop' our crews through game-play, they increase their effectiveness on our ships. Perhaps even crew specialised to certain player styles, such as pirate crews and explorer crews. But with every ship lost, a certain percentage of crew will not survive and/or have their bonuses reduced - much like our fitted modules.

Crewman could be bought/hired through a special recruitment hub through the market. The more you spend, the higher their rank and, therefore, the better their ability. Skills for our characters could be bought to increase our crews standing effectiveness as well as ones to accelerate their training time. I simple promotional system could exist with billeted slots, so that your ship isn't run completely by experienced Commanders. But such mechanics could lead to a complicated system that people quickly get fed up with.

However, a system like this is very much in use at the moment - Hard-wire implants. Bonuses to weapons, defences, navigation, etc, are already available, so to introduce a system that I have just described would only mean duplicating something that already exists in the game (apart from the increased bonuses through time). Plus, do people want to have something extra to manage with their ships when all they want to do is fly and fight? Probably not.

I'll say that a lot of thought would have to go into something like this, as it will need to be well-balanced. I'm sure players don't want to go through the potential painful motions of training and losing crew to make it a fair fight against their opponents. So maybe limit ships crews to Empire or even just High-Sec?

Who know's. It is definitely something that will make us more attached to our ships, but it will need to be simple enough not to effect game play as it currently stands.

I very much welcome your thoughts on this!

Blog Banter 29: Immersing Oneself in EvE

2011-10-10T18:34:00.001+01:00

I have to start by admitting that the storyline behind EvE is something that I am not completely familiar with. So that level of immersion is somewhat alien to me. For a long time I've been playing the game as a game, and not paying attention to the backstory. I have annoyed myself by doing this, really, as it does bottom out the whole experience at a shallow depth. After getting involved in the EvE community over these last couple of years, playing and talking in-character, as many pilots do, has become very appealing to me. One reason is to sculpt a model of, if we're honest, an aspect of our personality that we perhaps could not exploit in real-life. EvE gives us the opportunity to focus this aspect on our character and develop him/her into a fantasy portrait of ourselves in a place with very little consequence. To some, this may seem a bit geeky or even strange. But to others, myself included now, it can be a lot of fun.

Although I was aware that some pilots played in-character in and out of game, I was reluctant to try it myself. Mainly because I had been flying with my Corp members for a couple of years, and to suddenly switch from being me into someone I thought Akinesis should be seems a bit ridiculous. However, the clincher for me trying to 'act' was following a War-Dec on our Corp a while ago. The WT's we were fighting were tough, and many times we would engage in conversation with our enemy characters (be it smack talk, etc). But at the end of the war we discovered that these characters were all played by one individual, who turned out to be a rather top bloke. This showed me a side of EvE that I hadn't come across before, and it seemed a lot of fun. So, shortly after, I started a new account so I could trial this experience. So far I have, and continue, to trick a lot of people. And it proves to be a lot of fun to see the reactions and behaviors of others in response to this false identity I have created. Whether this is shallow, pointless, or whatever people might think, it is a break from the norm (albeit innocent deception at the moment). Although not a back-story character, I have created a personality that I believe suits the character, which I continue to develop.

RocWeiler has delved deep into his character and kept the backstory of his Minmatar origins very close. He has designed an upbringing with which Roc's personality responds from and I enjoy reading his stories. This has very much inspired me to do something similiar to Akinesis and Chrieghten. Although I am too far gone with these characters to employ this into the Corp (therefore, the game), I frequently mull over the thought of starting a series of mini-stories in my Blog to explore them. I would enjoy such a venture, but if I do it I want to get it right. This involves learning the history of Caldari and the other races to a good depth to ensure my characters slot in accuratly. I am looking forward to designing a history for them and how they met, etc, but it will involve time which I need to spend playing the game at the moment due to some drastic changes happening in the Corp. However, it won't be long before I begin putting some life into these guys.

So immersion in EvE can come on many levels, and all seem very interesting. It allows you to play the same game in many different ways, and can even make you challenge yourself without even realising it. A couple of times I've had to be careful not to 'break out of character' by saying something that I don't believe my in-character Alt would say. Adopting phrases and tones that are fitting are tricky as these are often things I would say normally. Placing a limit on sharing information is also something I have found hard to do, as a lot of the members of the Corp my Alt is in are quite junior to me. Several times I have watched them make mistakes that I could have perhaps prevented, or listened to them spit-ball ideas that I myself know would or wouldn't have worked. In a way I feel cruel to sit back and let them waste ISK or ships on things I could have helped them on, but to do so would break my cover and ruin the very experience I am very much enjoying. At the end of the day, they don't know any different and I am having a good time putting myself through the challenge of ensuring that it stays that way.

Although I'm only just getting into the deeper immersion side of EvE, I'm enjoying what I'm experiencing.

Gaining Sec-Status in Eve

2011-09-28T20:33:00.002+01:00

A fellow pilot asked me if I had the time to regain the sec-status of his PvP toon for a generous reward. He had real-life commitments happening and didn't have any spare time. I agreed and, after a few pointers on the best way to do this, I got to work.

Had I known the level of time required, perhaps I would have declined the favour.

OK, so the best way to increase standing for a character at the back end of -10 is relatively simple. Ratting. A speed-tanking Manticore was the ship of choice and I headed to a 0.1 system where the NPC Battleships live. Taking out NPC BS's is the way to do it, as these have a significant standing increase over any other NPC pirate ship out there. At first, I picked a solar system and began 'grooming' the belts. If you warp into an asteroid belt and a spawn containing a Battleship arrives, just kill the BS and leave his buddies alone. After about 20 minutes, the BS will reappear. If you warp to a belt and there is no BS present, kill the entire spawn and hope that the next group will contain the precious BS. If it doesn't, wipe out that spawn and repeat until you get the BS.

You can do this until all the belts with spawns (note that only a certain percentage of the belts will ever get spawns at all) and then you can just warp from belt-to-belt wiping out the BS's. This is a great way to earn ISK but, as I found out later on, not the best way to gain sec-status. It wasn't until I posted my frustration on Twitter that @DavidKMagnus pointed out to me that you will only ever get ONE sec-status increase PER SYSTEM every 15 minutes. This means that whatever ship you kill first in the belt will be your status increase for that 15 minutes window. From my experience, a BS will give you up to a 0.2 sec-status increase while a frigate might only give you 0.02. So if you spend the best part of the day in one system and happen to kill a Frigate as each 15-minute timer runs out, it will be a while before you see any credible gain. For the few days previous to the welcomed advice, I wondered why my sec status increase was going up so slowly after killing many 0.17 - 0.2 BS's. This fifteen-minute timer was the reason. But this timer only exists within the system, and jumping to a new system will start it's own seperate timer.

So the best method involves the need to travel from system-to-sytem killing just a single BS before proceeding through the next gate. I was lucky enough to find a loop of 0.1 systems not far from where I was operating at the time. I jumped to the first system of the loop and warped to asteroid belts until I found one with a BS, made a note of the belt and system and then proceeded to the next. I did this until I arrived back at the start of the loop. Then I put the Manti to work, killing the BS in the noted belt before jumping through to the next. Then the next, then the next. By the time I got back around to the beginning, the 15 minute system and 20 minute spawn timers were just about reset and so I went around again. And again. And again. I did this until the sec status was where it needed to be. Using this method, the status rocketed up in comparison to my original technique.

By the end, I was a zombie and fed up of NPC rats. It has deterred me from ever getting my sec-status below -1.99 on any of my toons (unless I drastically changed my game-style and joined the yarr-folk). And spending so much time permanently in Low-Sec made me value HS so much more from the simple reasons of aquiring equipment and ammo. This is a lot more challenging in LS for many reasons - gate camps and the sheer sparsness of sell-orders in Low-Sec (in the area I was operating in, anyway!). If I moved permanently out there, a jump-freighter would be a must me-thinks.

So there it is - a quick run-down of how to regain your sec-status. If you ever need to do it, make sure you have a good supply of coffee, though!

Chimera Inbound

2011-09-19T15:11:00.002+01:00

Now that my Alt is a logistics guru in both RR and hauling, I started to think of what area I wanted to pursue next. The only goals that I hadn't reached were full salvaging skills and a jump freighter. Although these aren't far off, the Level-5 skills needed are a bit painful to wade through. So I decided to set him down the path of a Vulture, and the Hybrid-weapon skills started to trickle through. But with so many drone skills to his name as well as maxed armour skills it seemed a waste to abandon Gallente ships and switch to Caldari. And an armour-repped Gallente Command ship sporting shield command-modules seemed a bit ridiculous.

So where should I go? Recently, while having a smoke to dwindle on the matter, I flicked through the iClone App. I went into 'Capital Ships' to see how far off I was from a jump freighter. I thought it might be worth finishing off that job. Capital ships was an area I hadn't really looked in before because my Corp operates mainly in High-Sec. So, for a giggle, I looked under Dreadnaught and was surprised to see that Chrieghten really was not far off from flying one. After training Battleship and Advanced Spaceship Commmand to Level-5, he would pretty much be there. This was quite exciting. But was it worth it? Not really. It might have some use in our Low-Sec and Wormhole holdings, but not to any great effect. Plus I would still be faced with the same issues if I were to train the Vulture. Well, more in fact, as I would have to train up missiles. Then I thought about turning the Dreadnaught into an RR ship the same way I did the Domi. But this just looked too extreme to pursue and I quickly abondoned the idea. While I was in that menu, however, I thought I'd just have a peek at Carriers.

I would be lying if I said a smile didn't spread across my face. I'm ashamed to say that I had no idea, but as I don't have anything to do with Carriers at the moment how would I have known? So, the Carriers have repping and drone (or fighter at this level) bonuses. It was sold to me. As my Corp is mainly a shield fleet (and I'd prefer to have a capacitor rep, too), I will be going for the Chimera. This means that I will still have to train shields, too (not complaining though, as these are nearly finished thanks to the need through Chrieghten flying a Basilisk). There are still some long Level-5's to go through, but this will be worth it.

However, moving to a Chimera doesn't come without it's problems. I plan to mainly attack Wormholes with it, but while in Empire it will be living in Low-Sec. And to make the most of this ship I will need to spend a fair amount of time using it in Low-Sec, which will bring potential logistical issues that is best solved with a jump freighter. Also, I still really want him to have maxed salvaging skills as I am involved in a lot of rig production. Right now, though, I'm just too damn keen to get him into a Chimera. Especially as other Corp members are starting to step into the Capital ships.

How do I combat this issue? Get some patience? After failing to find patience, I started another Alt. Although I wasn't in any way upset to do this, I did have to creep around my other half and inform her that my bank account will be shy of a little more money every month (although, I think she's more concerned that I might be spending even more time on the game). But once again, this did present problems (well, patience again) as I would be waiting for a while to get more damn skills under the belt.

But then my CEO typed in chat that he was selling one of his Alts. It was very much perfect timing. I was familiar with this toon, and he was a logistics alt in both senses just like Chrieghten. But he was pure logistical, instead of dwindling in other areas such as drones and weapons. And there was the added bonus of maxed PI skills. So I expressed my interest and after a couple of days of bartering and the usual 'ums' and 'ahhs' we agreed on a deal. This came with an additional bonus that if I got one of his pirate alts to a sec-status that would allow High-Sec access, he would throw a Providence in. I agreed (ignorant to the work involved in regaining sec-status, but more on that another time), and this weekend I claimed my new Alt and the freighter. There are some skills to train up still, but they are pretty much picking up where Chrieghten left off. And I also now have the benefit of two maxed RR toons. The only downside is that my new alt cannot fly an Orca, which is a ship I use quite frequently. So I am planning to get those skills underway before I move onto the Ark. But first, he will become a Level-5 salvager.

At the moment I'm very happy. And by Christmas I should own three very specialised characters.

Here's hoping for a fun and profitable future just around the corner!

Blog Banter: The Future of EVE Online, CCP and CSM

2011-09-13T13:51:00.000+01:00

In recent months, the relationship between CCP and it's customers has been the subject of some controversy. The player-elected Council of Stellar Management has played a key role in these events, but not for the first time they are finding CCP difficult to deal with. What effect will CCP's recent strategies have on the future of EVE Online and it's player-base? What part can and should the CSM play in shaping that future? How best can EVE Online's continued health and growth be assured?

Firstly, I would like to say well-done to Seismic Stan for taking the reins of the Blog Banter in the Post-CK time we are now in.

This topic is quite convenient as I wanted to make a post in this area. After stepping away from EvE for a few months, it was quite a surprise to find the state of the player base on my return. The only info that I really got about Incarna when it was first released were a few texts back and forth between myself and my CEO. At the time, I didn't have internet so I couldn't get onto the game even if I had wanted to. And his thoughts of the expansion did not exactly make me want to rush to re-establish connection. When I returned to the game and the community outside of it, I gotta say that I wasn't totally surprised to see the reaction. But I would never have thought that the scale of the reaction would be as large as it is.

Incarna has been a promise of CCP's for a long time now, eagerly awaited by some and feared by many. A lot of the arguments is that EvE is a game of internet spaceships, and if we are suddenly allowed to get out of our ships and start walking around, it will lose a lot of that title. People have been worried that other players will just spend there time in stations, wandering around content enough with the game to never set foot in a spaceship. This, however, does hold truth in the game as it stands (referring to station-spinning alts), but if players are drawn into the station a lot more, there are less targets to shoot out in space. And I agree with this to an extent. But this list goes on-and-on, as is evident in past Banters and many, many other Blog posts.

When I was reconnected, downloaded and logged on for the first time in the Incarna expansion, I was a little wow'd. The graphics are good and it's a fantastic sight seeing your ship floating behind you. It puts a sense of scale to things and you start to realise how big these fantastic ships are. But more than that, it is great to actually see my characters alive. No longer are they 2-D passport-sized images on our screens. They move, walk, blink, scratch... everything. And (for me) one of the best features is that we can now alter the appearance of them as much as we like, which is an excellent feature. In addition, the new agent-finder and the revised mission categories and standing-requirements makes me really have to tip my hat to CCP.

However (and there is always a however!), like a lot of other players I have more than one Alt that I like to run at the same time. I've lost count how many times I've read about this, but, yes, my graphics card also goes absolutely nuts. If I am running three accounts at the same time funny things start to happen to my characters and their surroundings. My laptop won't load the environment at all and just crashes to desktop (and both my PC and Laptop are new this year!) and I have just had to replace and upgrade the GC in my laptop after the original went up in a puff of smoke. Because of this over-demand on our precious GC's, I have turned my station environment off and have no intention of turning it back on. Which is a damn shame, really. But why, for f***'s sake, couldn't we have the good old station spinning instead of that useless 2-D backdrop of our CQ's when we turn 'Load Station Environment' off?! I have read that they are bringing a form of spinning back and, for me, that release cannot come quickly enough!

Apparel. Well, what do I say about that? As it stands, I have no intention of using it. Even the 1000AUR we received is still sat untouched in my accounts. The prices of items, I think, is ridiculous. And I am by no means alone. Will I ever use it? Hmmm, hard to say. It depends what else they bring out and whether items become reasonable. The other thing at the moment is that no one else can really see what our characters are wearing, so it seems pretty pointless at the moment even if there were some desirable items up for grabs. The head-wear is a little different - people can see that, if they are willing to spend that ridiculous amount of money on them. Personally, I won't be converting Plex's to buy anything. No way.

The other side is the possibility that this Micro-Transaction step of CCP will eventually lead into Golden Ammo. In the interviews it was stated my CCP (backed up by CSM members) that 'there are no plans' to do this. But 'there are no plans' is not 'we will never do this'. It bothers me to think that it may lead down this path, but, to be honest, I'm not going to worry a great deal until the day it happens (if it ever does).

Because I have missed out on a lot these last few months, I don't want to get too deep into the future of EvE Online. My knowledge, at the moment, is rather limited and I don't want to risk waffling about things that I don't quite understand. But from what I have gathered so far is that these new features are nothing but a test-bed for CCP's future games. This saddens me as much as it enrages me. What I fear is CCP losing sight and possibly interest in EvE and pouring their resources into the potentially bigger market of FPS's. A lot of EvE, as we all know, is broken and/or needs a good overhaul. Faction Warefare is something that seems to have been largely forgotten about. Low-Sec is still not receiving the attention that it needs. But this is nothing new. And these MT's and their recent Plex package are signs that they are struggling. If I'm honest, I would prefer it to be greed rather than desperation, as the leaked information suggests. However, business is business, and I can't argue with that.

Yes, it does seem to me that CCP are losing touch a little with their player-base. And the difficulties CSM have been having don't exactly fill us with confidence, either. The game at the moment does feel like a test-bed for their other ventures after Incarna gave us nothing but burnt-out graphics cards.

So, as beautiful as Incarna looks inside the station, I don't like the noises it makes my computer make or the loading times. Honestly, I can't wait for the return of station-spinning.

Research and Invention in EvE - Donning the White Lab-Coat

2011-09-09T12:38:00.004+01:00

From the moment that I was aware of Research in EvE it had always been a form of magic to me. I didn't really know what you could do with Blue Prints other than make stuff from them. When buying Blue Print Copies I noticed that ME and PE efficiencies were different on occasions, but this, again, meant nothing to me. My former CEO was very much into the whole Science and Industry scene, and we used to have a High-Sec POS that offered research labs. But ask me what these were used for and I would have simply shrugged.

Following our recent Corp move, we landed close to a very appealing Low-Sec area. One of the other directors set up his own POS purely for personal research labs. The CEO also then decided to place a Corp POS in the system to use as a PvP platform. As a director also, I was selected to construct and run the new tower. With our new tower being a PvP base, you can imagine that our structure needs consisted of nothing more than a Hangar and Ship Maintenance Arrary and the usual defences. Being the manager of this POS, I decided that I would allow myself some perks. So I pinned down the other director and asked him to explain the whole research idea to me. I was carrying the intention of using the spare CPU and Powergrid in our PvP POS to set up some labs of my own. After digesting the basics of research, I hauled in two labs (one for my main and one for my alt) and blew the dust off of my blueprints.

I sucked up some information through a conversation in Twitter, too. I had been informed a while ago that researching Blueprints was a good passive income. Being a sucker for free ISK (!) I was keen to get my prints going. But in the Twitter conversation, I was informed that this venture was far from passive. Well, I've already learned that it is as much as it isn't, depending on what is done.

Although I know that I am only scratching the surface of research at the moment, I can safely state that Material Efficiency (ME) and Production Efficiency (PE) as well as Blueprint Copying can be turned into a passive income. They can either follow on from eachother, or be used individually to generate ISK. But it also greatly depends on the Blueprints used, which I will clear up shortly.

So, how is this done?

There are three basic ways to start researching Blueprints. NPC stations, POS with NPC station in system, and a stand-alone POS. I would say that the most undesirable way to research BPO is in an NPC station, mainly because the research slots are nearly always full. But this also means that you will have to queue your BP's behind someone elses, and this can leave you waitng days or even weeks before you prints even get a look-in. Although, this is by far the safest option and if you have time on your side then consider this method. There is a search feature that can be used to find any free slots, but as this is not the option I choose to use I haven't looked into that. Plus, with this method, there are no POS-running costs.

A POS with an NPC station in the system is, in my view, the most desireable option. What this gives you is the ability to keep and run your BP's remotely from the NPC station without having to travel or store any prints at the POS. The benefits of this is that if your POS comes under attack and is destroyed, you have not lost potentially billions of ISK worth of BP's.

The other option is to set-up a POS in a system without an NPC station. What this means is that jobs have to be started from your POS, and BP's and materials will need to be stored in your labs. Perhaps not such a problem in High-Sec, but in Low-Sec hungry pirates with enough fire-power may want to get their hands on any valuable prints kept at your POS.

OK, if you've got your research method set-up and BPO's ready to begin researching, what can you do with them?

Well, I have gone with the three most basic options at the moment. I'll start with perhaps the most simplest, which is Copying. But you need to have a BPO worth copying in the first place. For instance, copying a Drake Blueprint Original (BPO) will produce Drake Blueprint Copies (BPC). These copies can then be sold on the market, and the income generated can be worth while. Initially, a Drake BPO will set you back around 400mil, and the copies can be sold for, say, 500,000ISK a time. After a while (and through mass-production of these prints) this will return profit providing they are continually pumped out. However, copying a 10mn Afterburner I will not be worth while (unless it's for invention, but I will cover this later) because the BPO original is so cheap to buy in the first place.

Ships will take a while to copy, and a basic lab only offers one copy slot. So although the process is slow, it is passive in that you can set the print for several copies and/or runs (copies being how many individual BP's are produced and runs are the amount of times someone can manufacture the product from each print), and leave it to work itself for the best part of a month. Once the job is ready, simply deliver the prints to your hangar and cart them off to a trade hub and sell them. This process can constantly be repeated and requires very little interaction.

To churn a bit more ISK out of each print, we can research ME and PE. ME will reduce the amount of materials required to manufacture the item, and PE will reduce the amount of time the job takes to complete. Although the saving may seem tiny in small production lines, the difference will be greatly felt when manufacturing 1000's of unit of the item. But on a Drake blueprint, I would say the ME factor is more important. Although ME can take a while to research, a standard Drake blueprint will have a material wastage factor of 10% (ME level 0), where an ME level 20 will only have a material wastage factor of around, say, 0.5%. So using the ME20 blueprint will straight away have a desirable saving on a single production run and allow you to sell the BPC for more than an ME0 BPC.

The final area I will cover is Invention. This is a great little tool that allows you to produce T2 items. I have selected to invent Scourge Fury Heavy Missiles, as these are a popular consumable. To start invention, you will need a BPO of the T1 component - in this case, a Scourge Heavy Missile. This needs to be taken to the lab and copied (ideally several times), and only one run is required of each BPC. It is worth pointing out here that the ME and PE of the BPO has no effect in invention. Datacores are required to start the invention. These can be purchased or you can acquire them for free using R&D agents, and note that these are consumed whether your invention was successful or not. Providing you have the skills (pre-requisitions for invention are shown by selecting the BPO 'Bill of Materials' and selecting the invention tab - it will show you the skills needed as well as the data cores and other items required) you can start invention.

Invention only takes a short amount of time to complete (37 minutes for me to invent a T2 missile print), so there is not long to wait. There is a percentage of chance of successfully producing a T2 blueprint, which can be increased by using Encryptors (expensive and not worth it on small, cheap items) and/or T1 variants of the item you are trying to produce. I use Caldari Navy ammo as my 'helper' product to increase my chance of a successful T2 print. Unless Encryptors are used, you will only ever produce a single-run T2 BPC. Encryptors do various things from increasing the chance of a successful outcome, increase the number of runs available from each print (up to 10), and give the print a higher ME rating. But these vary from 3.5mil to 50mil, so unless you can get them from areas such as Radar sites for free, then I don't think it's worth it for the smaller Inventions. As a rough average, I am successful 2/3 of the time and have a hangar full of T2 Scourge Fury prints. These can then be sold or used for your own production.

The other are is reverse engineering, which is used when you have acquired sleeper artefacts. However, I have not started down this path yet, so I have no knowledge to share on that topic.

So, if copying and ME/PE is the focus, researching can be a nice passive income. For T2 Invention, this requires quite a bit of attention if you are wanting to churn out the prints at a fast rate.

I hope this is of use to someone!

Faction Launchers Vs Tech-2 Launchers

2011-08-31T17:03:00.018+01:00

Please note the edit at the bottom of the page

For a fair while I've been scratching my head over missile launchers.

I had a look at Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launchers on EFT, but no matter what I tried I could not get the DPS figures of my Nighthawk to read anywhere near the damaged caused by Tech-II heavy launchers with Tech-II ammo.

So why are people choosing the expensive Navy varient when the Tech-II 's are delivering far more damage?

With no obvious reason standing up and punching me in the face, I put it down that folks just couldn't wait to train for Tech-II launchers. Which is mad. However, a very recent conversation brought to light an interesting fact. EFT is a wonderful and extremely useful tool. However, it does run into a few problems when it comes to accurate DPS readings. For one minute I am not going to state the EFT is flawed, but there is an issue due to the fact that the program cannot take into account a few factors. The juciy DPS figures that are displayed are based on a perfect shot. We all know that this is very rarely the case when the target's speed, size, etc are added to the equation.

However, taking into account the last part of the previous paragraph, the individuals I had engaged in this conversation were adament that Caldari Navy HML's loaded with Tech-I ammo would do a better job than the Tech-II HML loaded with Tech-II ammo. True, the CN HML's have a faster firing rate, but the Tech-I heavy missiles are noticeably inferior to the Tech-II's. I can't even squeeze anywhere near as much DPS when I fit the Caldari Navy ammo to the Faction launchers. Although, I am very aware that DPS figures can mean nothing depending on the target you are firing at!

I'm very sure that the Caldari-Navy HML's are better, otherwise they wouldn't be so pricey. I've looked over the attributes in the missile info and I still can't see the benefit of the slightly faster firing rate over better missile damage. Although I've not done any deep research through the web, the searches I did were not as fruitful as I hoped.

Any pointers in the right direction will be greatly appreciated.

Edit:
I've had some comments come through both on here and in Twitter. The points made about the explosive radius were absolutely correct. Although I've only managed to test the new fit out in only one mission, I could instantly see the differences.

What I have found is that Battlecruisers and below pop A LOT faster with the Faction launchers and T1 ammo. However, the battleships do take longer to fall. But then the Nighthawk is not an anti-battleship vessel so this can be forgiven. I'm training my Alt to be anti-battleship so this will not be an issue for long. Overall, I'm more pleased with the set-up, especially as T1 ammo is much cheaper and easier to make. Now I can just sell the T2 ammo that I produce.

Verdict:

Addtional: I have been corrected with credit to @Khanhrhh. EFT can show the applied DPS through the DPS graph. Apologies for my naivety!

The Cost of Impatience

2011-08-27T21:16:00.000+01:00

So, why is my Alt looking a little sheepish. Does the lack of a ship behind him give away a hint?

OK, so I am behind the actions of my Alt - it's not his fault. Although this is not something that most people will admit, but I have had a bad run this week when it comes to losing ships. I know that everyone loses ships, but usually not in this sense.

Originally when I started my Alt I had him planned as a logistics character. I trained him up to fly a Crane and an Orca as quickly as I could. Once that was achieved I turn towards the Charon. Along the way I discovered Remote-Repping, so I then trained him down the path of a Basilisk as well as a Navy Dominix with good drone and almost elite armour-tanking skills.

With that all now conquered, what next?

Well, my Alt has absolutely no weapons skills (save the basic gunnery and missile skills he started with), and I thought this was a little embarrassing for the guy. So I turned him towards the field of pew-pew. As he pilots the Navy Domi and with other future plans of him becoming a Vulture pilot for the Command Link bonuses, I set him down the path of Hybrids. And after some mild training, I built him a Brutix and off he went.

I was impressed with the Brutix. It can tank well but the DPS was quite lousy with his current skills (even with the ships' Hybrid bonuses). The Hammerhead II drones were more-or-less his primary weapon. But it wasn't long before he fell victim to warp-scramblers and Battleships in a drone mission. A lot of the problem I have is that my main can tank any mission in his Nighthawk, so I no longer have to be careful about gunning down trigger-ships that call in more aggro. My Alt, I must remember, needs to be careful of this.

So I went back to EFT to see if I could improve the tank, but there wasn't a great deal I could do without buying Tech-II rigs or faction gear. I wasn't prepared to do that. Then I had a look at the Myrmidon. I could get a much better tank and be able to utilise it's Drone-bonuses well. So I went to my nearest trade-hub and started assembling.

In missions, the Myrmidon was able to tank a lot better. The Hybrid rails I had fitted were next to useless, but the drones were able to bring down most ships with ease. However, this ship quickly befell to the same fate as the Brutix. Scrammed and overwhelmed, she, too, popped.

I wouldn't say that my Alt is not ready to take on missions, it's just I need to concentrate more and remember that his tanking ability does not compare to Akinesis. I would return him to the Navy Domi, but Akinesis very rarely needs repping now, so it would be just a hulk of dead-metal floating next to him. To that end, I sat him a Noctis and let him go nuts on the wrecks.

However, the Brutix and Myrmidon are not the issue here. Although no one likes to lose a ship, I am relatively happy to look upon those losses as a learning curve. My real issue lies with the Noctis I lost. Or three of them to be precise.

Losing a Noctis in a mission could be put down to bad luck. How often does someone lose a Noctis in a mission? Losing two is being a bit ridiculous, as you should really have learnt any mistakes after the first one. But losing three is nothing other than stupidity. Or being impatient in my case.

At the moment I am grinding Level-4 missions to gain good standing with Research & Development agents, as I've started Tech-II production through invention at labs in our new Low-Sec POS. So acquiring free Data-Cores is a handy asset in this venture.

So to speed missions up to get faster standing (I'm not really looking to blitz here), I get Akinesis to take all the aggro prior to sending in my Alt with his Noctis before the room is even cleared. Except, in three cases, what I thought was the last wave of targets warping into the mission, in fact, wasn't. And a Noctis doesn't take very long to pop when they are at the mercy of several Battleships and Cruisers.

So my impatience has cost me a lot of precious ISK (and ISK is very precious at the moment). I am very sure that there are not many people out there who can say they are on their fourth Noctis in the space of a week. It certainly isn't anything to be proud of. I certainly will not be warping my Alt into a mission anymore until all the targets are dead wrecks.

Shame on me for only learning that the third time around.

Returning to EvE

2011-08-19T14:14:00.002+01:00

Well, I said I would be back around August/September time, and here I am!

It's been a strange time in real life. I passed my course and have now moved back to a real working environment. Although I'm not out of the woods yet with exams, at least now I am out of the classroom and back in the hangar. I'm also enjoying three weeks off, and EvE has been back in full swing for me.

OK, so referring back to my last post I am pretty much over what happened. The new CEO of my Corp called me and persuaded me not to sell my characters and to give everything a bit of time. The offending toons' were banished from Corp after the key members wanted to stick by me (which I will be eternally grateful!). And I am also back with my ex-girlfriend. After everything that happened (the pressures of real-life as well as the personal events in EvE), an interesting twist emerged. The strain that I was put under revealed a medical condition that I have been carrying for over twenty years. I had my suspicions that something might be wrong with me, but never got it checked out. I had to go to the doctors in the end, and the results were interesting. So I am now on medication and will start receiving treatment next month. It's funny how things work out. Had I not had the pressures of my course, the break-up with my girlfriend and the real-life/EvE entanglement I would still be living in an ill state. But after starting the medication I feel absolutely great, and can't believe that I had been living in the state I was for so long.

Anyway... EvE!

OK, so I'm still holding the title of director, although I'm only just getting back into the game. Through my absence, a new CEO was appointed after the original left due to real-life commitments. The Corp moved to a new system where they could focus more on industry and we have settled in a nice little system. Low-Sec is not far away and we have already established PI and POS there, with plans under-way to set up another. The Wormhole POS has been taken down due to lack of use, although affiliates are still residing in there presenting an 'ownership' presence. So it's good to see that the Corp still has direction.

However, there have been many people leave. If memory serves, we had numbers in the high-eighties when I took a break. Now we have just over 50. But it's not surprising. Corp activity is very quiet at the moment. Most people (myself included) are focused on our own things as we set up our new home. We're mostly trying to get established individually instead of as a Corp. I'm happy with this as it gives me a chance to slide back into the game at my own pace. Things will pick up again, though, guaranteed.

As for my characters, I'm very glad I didn't give them away. One thing I made sure of was that I kept on top of their skills. Akinesis now sports over 43-million SP and has an almost fully faction-fitted Nighthawk, which is a very nice piece of kit! Chrieghten has nearly 18-million SP and can fly a Basilisk with all associated logistical skills up to Level-5. I've also decided to treat him to a Brutix and am currently training him to use Tech-2 Hybrids. I thought it only fair to give him the option to move away from RR, salvaging and hauling from time-to-time and actually get involved with some pew-pew. I figured having nearly 18-million SP and not being able to fire any sort of weapon other than a Tech-1 standard missile launcher at Level-2 was a little embarrassing for the guy!

Finally, my in-game activities. Well, before I moved the 17-jumps to our new home I thought I would have a clear out. During my absence, I still needed to buy skill-books and plex, so my ISK funds were almost exhausted. I collected all the ships and equipment that I don't really use and sold up, which brought in a nice lump of ISK. I then packed up the Orca with what little I had left and headed to the new system. The biggest pain was having to grind out Level-3's again to get to the Level-4 agent. But now I'm established and bringing in ISK hand-over-foot. I have PI set up on both accounts and I'm even starting Tech-2 production. So it's all been quite busy. In just over a week I have brought my funds up from around 300mil to 1.7bil, which is a nice little number. Although, after buying myself a motorbike and paying it off over three months has left me a bit short on dosh, so I will have to dent that amount with Plex over the next few days and hold off pimping my Nighthawk out further. Damn!

Well, it's good to be doing this again. I have a lot more time and energy to put back into this Blog than before, so I hope I'm able to regain my audience.

Take care!

Akinesis

Blog Going Off-Line...

2011-05-31T13:27:00.001+01:00

Recently, a surprising and extremely unwelcomed event occurred where real-life became entangled in EvE on a very personal level. This has left me more than a little distraught. So much so that I have no interest in logging at the moment and I have decided to step back from the game for a while. Therefore, Blog entries will cease.

I plan to restart in August/September once this course is finally over. Hopefully by then I will be in a position where I no longer care what has happened.

All I will say is: karma is a wonderful thing.

Yes, I'm a Liar!

2011-04-21T13:00:00.001+01:00

Ok, so maybe real life hasn't permitted me to get back into EvE as I stated in my previous post. But I will spare you the details. To combat my situation, I'll make bite-sized posts for the meantime. This will probably run until August, which is when I finish this damned course.

When I left our Wormhole a few months back, I had the intention of running Epic Arcs. This didn't happen due to High-Sec War, and I spent many, many hours and lots and lots of ISK fighting the war-targets. Totally drained, I left Lubel to join a Corp that is now run by an old friend who kindly offered me temporary refuge.

This worked out great. I moved away from Ichoriya's continually-nerfed Navy agents and set myself up in a good spot where Spacelane offered better missions. A couple of fellow pilots had relocated there a while back and were making good ISK. So I, jumped on that band-wagon and ran missions without the fear of war. It was like a cool wind blowing in my face on a hot day. I had to grind out Level-3 missions to get my standings up, but the time spent has been worth it. Once my wallet was healthy again, I took the Nighthawk for a Faction-fit upgrade and headed out to start what I originally came back to Empire for - Epic Arcs.

I blew the dust off the Orca and loaded her up with my Nighthawk, a couple of Cormorants and all my equipment. My Alt readied his Navy Domi and we headed out to the Epic-Arc system. I unpacked and warped the 'Hawk to the beacon.

Disaster.

Now, I really should have researched this better. It turns out that the Epic Arc's for the Caldari are done through the Expert Distribution Corporation. I have no standings with these guys. Brilliant.

I made the mistake of assuming that the Epic Arcs were held by the Caldari state. Wrong.

So I am finding myself grinding out Level-3 missions in my over-tanked Nighthawk once again to big up my standings. Apart from being faced with empty dead-end Wormholes, there is nothing more tedious than running L3 after L3 missions.

Still, I live and learn the hard way. As always.

Justifying an Unannounced Hiatus

2011-03-18T14:47:00.002Z

When I look at the date I last made a post I can't help but curl up into the foetal position and make noises likened only to a dying animal. Especially as it was merely days after an e-mail came through announcing to me that my Blog was going to be added to a very renowned site. No doubt I have now put a crimp on my hard work, and I know it will be an up-hill struggle to return this site to where it would have been had I not dropped off the face of the planet.

So why have a urinated on my own fire?

As usual, real life is to blame. Well, what else could it be? But there is good and bad news to all of this. I have always started with the bad news, so I can end with a high.

Firstly, my girlfriend and I broke up. She called the shot not long before I made my last Blog entry. I'm not going to break out the violins, but it took a while getting use to being on my own again. I'm sure folks can appreciate that writing hasn't been my priority of late. We're still friends, which is something I've not done following a break-up. But she now plays EvE more than ever and we are both still in the same Corp. So far, it's working out Ok. So far.

Second reason is work. I'm approaching the final phase of this course and things are starting to step up a gear. Come May, I will be starting the hardest exams I will ever do in my current career. So I have had much less time on EvE.

And the final reason is High-Sec war. With any little time I get to play EvE, I have been trying my best to manage and fight against War-Targets. A few months ago I left our Wormhole to come and do some Epic-Arc missions and develop Chreighten, my Alt. During my preparation, I decided it would be a good idea to open our Corp to recruiting. I took on many, many good pilots. At the same time, however, I unknowingly recruited some spies for a few griefer Corps. Since then, we have been enduring back-to-back High-Sec warfare. We are currently on our forth War-Dec.

And High-Sec warfare sucks. Big time. At first it was interesting as we were learning quite a bit about PvP. But now, it is really taking it's toll. I can sum-up High-Sec warfare as the following:

- It's a game of Cat-and-Mouse, station-spinning, station hugging and gate camping.

I will make a separate post talking about High-Sec Warfare, so enough said on that for the moment. But to cut to the chase, I put so much time and effort into the first two War-Decs that I pretty much ran myself empty. I was getting 4-5 hours sleep a night due to time-zone differences. I had an over-riding guilt due to the wars being a result of my slack approach to recruiting. So I ended up trying to get myself involved with every fight and also compensate my Corp-mates with ISK when they suffered losses. I, too, lost damn expensive ships through fighting and trying to save some of our new members when they got jumped. Whenever I could I chewed through mission after mission to claw back lost ISK.

Needless to say, the Wars took their toll. By the end of the second war I had churned out 2.5billion ISK, and other than learning a thing or two about High-Sec Warfare I had gained nothing.

When the third War-Dec landed, I had to step down as Vice-CEO and slip into the shadows. I was done. I had literally fallen ill due to life circumstances and even took up smoking again. I was depressed over the break-up, having to move out of my house and into 'student' accommodation full-time, the escalating pressure of work and through the hours I was putting into EvE. Yes, I was upset over Internet-Spaceships. I play EvE because it's an escape from the strains I'm currently facing in the real world. So when EvE slips into the stool bucket, it doesn't leave me with a lot to be happy about during the week. If I could no longer enjoy EvE I had to put it aside.

Socialising during the week isn't all that easy with my work colleagues (mostly due to our older age-group and the fact that most of them are hard-up due to family life), hence the amount of time I can put in to the game on weekdays. But being a social and creative creature I managed to inspire them to get out and do a few things so I wouldn't be sat moping in my room. Albeit the activities were mostly drinking, but the occasions have been good. At weekends, I have been driving back to my old haunt and have had some blinding times with my old friends. And when I've found myself on my own I have been picking up my guitar instead of logging on.

Now I am pretty much reset and starting to enjoy single life.

So, I log on to find a fourth War-Dec is under-way. All of my Corp have had enough of High-Sec war and moved into our Wormhole. Those that are left are certainly gearing up to head out into the 'Hole. For myself, I still have not achieved what I originally set out to do when I left Unkown-Space. I'm not ready to return to the there yet, so I'm Corp hopping for a short while to avoid the war. After-all, I will probably be the only one left in Empire by the end of this weekend and I don't fancy my chances against an entire Russian Corp.

But where's this good news? Well, other than starting to get back on top of life I also treated myself to a new computer. Due to the nature of my job, I am on a pretty good salary. And now that I am no longer paying out for a house it means that nearly all my money is my own so I can afford lots of nice things. I spent a lot of time researching what computer to get, and after doubling my original budget I landed myself a rather special machine. Recently, I mentioned that I could just about run two clients on one screen as long as the graphics are turned right down. Now when I do the same, I can run both windows with max graphics and not witness a slight glitch. I will be picking myself up a second monitor soon so I can run duals, which will truly optimise my EvE experience! I even donated my ever-faithful old computer to the Ex so she can experience decent gaming with Internet-Spaceships.

So, apologies for my unannounced absence. But I'm back now!

And if you read this CK, I hope I haven't let you down too much.

Tasting Rage

2011-02-21T19:16:00.005Z

I've never 'Rage- Logged' until the other day. I don't feel good about it because, to me, it seems like a childish thing to do.

Here was my situation:

We often run Level 5 missions now as a Corp. Ironically, every time I have taken part the Fleet has encountered problems causing us to slam on the brakes and do a U-turn. For all the times I haven't been there, the next day my in-box is flooded with e-mails stating how successful the Op was and I get nice big ISK figure shoved in my face. But irony is not the issue here.

On this particular occasion we encountered our old (and now rival) alliance. This was a particular small fleet and it turned out they were quite happy to ignore us and carry on with their own missions. The FC of our Op was not so convinced and called for a combat scanner. With none present I was selected to go and re-fit my Drake in the next system to start scanning down the opposing mission runners. I complied, got back into system and fitted my Drake with the Expanded Launcher. To free-up the CPU I had to remove my missile-launchers, leaving my Drake defenceless. Plus, I didn't have the time to go and pick up a cloak. Nevertheless, I began scanning.

By this time, their mission-running ships had docked and their salvaging ships were hard at work. When the salvager's returned, our old Alliance buddies suddenly un-docked in PvP ships and left system. Our combat probes most likely gave an indication that we were actively looking for a fight. Our scout was sat on the stargate in the exit-system and announced they had scattered in different directions. Concluding that they were probably checking for back-up on our part, the FC decided that they would probably return as a larger fleet and called it a day.

Then I got disconnected.

This was not uncommon for me as my Wireless Adaptor hasn't proved to be my best purchase. However, when I logged back on and my ship returned to my safe-spot I found myself landing on top of a small group of roaming pirates who had been in local but never seemed to be any threat. Great. They had obviously scanned me down and started warping to me as I was DC'd. Unsure of how I had managed to miss their combat scanners on D-Scan, I started to ask for a re-fleet in Corp chat. Our ships greatly out-matched theirs and it would have been a sure win. Everyone, however, seemed content on ignoring my 'x' in chat.

To my dismay, the Fleet had already started to disband and trickle out of the system. When I came under fire my 'x' quickly turned into 'xxx'. But my Corp mates who were actually watching chat didn't even know what that meant and started repeating what I had put as if it was a joke. I tried the audio, but everyone was audio'd up in the Fleet channel (I now suddenly see the advantage of Vent or TeamSpeak!). My Alt was still logged into Fleet, but my message was also ignored there.

It took a while, but my Drake eventually popped and I warped my pod back to station.

Here was the convo in my Corp:

Akinesis > x me
Akinesis > xxxxx
Pilot 3 > x
Pilot 1 > XxXx
Pilot 4 > allright well dinner time
Pilot 4 > I'll be back in a bit
Pilot 2 > pvp roam is over
Akinesis > No it wasn't I just lost my f***ing Drake
Pilot 5 > what?
Pilot 2 > what
Pilot 2 > how
Akinesis > Jumped. Why wasn't I fleeted???!
Akinesis > Could do f*** all
Pilot 2 > by alliance?
Akinesis > No, by the others in local
Pilot 2 > u got kicked
Pilot 2 > oh
Akinesis > Yeah, and twice I asked for a fleet
Pilot 2 > sh*t sry man
Akinesis > F*** it

At this point I logged.

I was annoyed that I had been left forgotten in a defenceless Drake while everyone else packed up and left. I think it was bad form. Maybe I have perhaps over-reacted to the situation, and I certainly don't want readers to think I'm bad-mouthing my Corp in this post. I'm just venting. But incidents like this shouldn't happen any more, not with the experienced players that were involved in this operation.

Never mind. I pride myself at not getting angry at internet spaceships and here I am ranting.

Just another lesson learned the hard way for Akinesis.

* Cue sad violin music

The Alternative Character

2011-02-16T19:53:00.005Z

For the majority of my time in EvE I have been running with one Jack-of-all-Trades character. I knew a lot of people had Alts, but never really saw the need myself.

However, before moving into the Wormhole I was one of the few responsible (and able) to resupply the Low-Sec POS using my Crane. When I moved into the 'Hole, there wouldn't really be anyone left to undertake the task back in Empire-Space.

So, I decided to bite the bullet and start training up an Alt. Chrieghten was born (for those who appreciate the good old British humour, Chreighten is in honour of the one and only 'Kryten' from Red Dwarf. Also, the name is very apt, as Kryten is the service droid).

Chrieghten is my Industry and Logistics Alt so that Akinesis can now solely concentrate on weapons and shields. So, to start off with, I trained him up to mine and haul as I was producing my own ships and modules to take into the 'Hole. Once he was able to fly a Hulk, I moved him straight onto the Crane and then the Orca. However, just as I was about to set him down the path of a Charon, I had a change of heart and started him on Logistics early.

I had recently witnessed a logistical Dominix in operation for the first time. Obviously I knew about Remote-Repping (RR) ships, but I had never really had much to do with them. I know this is quite odd, being that I am a 2007 player, but it is just one of those things that I have managed to inadvertently avoid.

Now at 8mil skill-points, Chrieghten is able to fly a Dominix fitted with mainly Tech-II equipment. This means I am able to fit my Nighthawk purely for DPS and use my Alt to rep the 'Hawks shields. Using this method allows me to steam-roll Level 4's even faster. Fleet-Ops can be a bit of a nightmare now as pilots bring pure DPS platforms and rely on the Logi's for defence, so I find myself juggling the RR between three or four ships and trying to manage the Nighthawk on the other screen at the same time. But it certainly makes everything more interesting.

I will train Chrieghten up to a Basilisk before I move him back to Industry. RR is so handy to have around that I want to make full use of the trade. As mentioned, he uses a Dominix (because of it's drone-bay and it's ability to tank damage if it gets aggro'd), and he also has an Osprey for a cheaper option (as well as the range bonuses being very handy on occasion).

Originally, I was running two windows on one monitor. This was fine as long as I had the graphics turned right down, but now I run my Alt on a laptop and leave the main with the desktop PC. This way I can enjoy full graphics on a large screen.

A shot when I was running two window's on one screen. Chrieghten's Domi often tries to eat the Nighthawk:

But having the two characters on separate machines means I can now run the graphics the way they are meant:

As I often run in Low-Sec, another valuable perk is being able to use Chrieghten to scout the systems ahead. This stops me (and others, if I'm in a fleet) running into a gate camp and saving, potentially, hundreds of millions in ship and component losses (and maybe some implants!). Although I have not finished setting it up yet, running PI alone on two accounts racks up a wad of extra ISK. It can also be fun to play in-character with two separate toons.

I can only liken the Alt situation to driving a car - you never need one all the time you never had one, but as soon as you have one you can never be without it. Now, I always run the two characters side-by-side and often have to fight the urge to start up a third Alt.

My only regret about having an Alt in EvE is that I didn't start one sooner.

EvE Online - Game or Hobby?

2011-02-15T14:14:00.003Z

For a long time I was a casual player. I use to treat EvE as a game. I would log on, swap a few skills, run a few missions with the Corp and maybe do some mining. But after 2-4 hours I would log off and go and do something else in the real world, perhaps not returning to my computer screen for a couple of days.

But then work moved me away from my friends and I found myself with empty evenings during the week. Not content with just sitting and watching DVD's, I started to explore in greater depth what EvE has to offer. So I got a lot more involved with the Corp. I wasn't just turning up to more fleet operations, but suggesting and exploring ideas to expand and move our Corporation forward. I started learning about the mechanics of running a Corp and managing POS's. My involvement continued to escalate as time progressed. Now, in game, I am the Vice-CEO of our Corporation.

Some time ago now, through the wonders of my iPod Touch, I began to take an interest in the Blogs as well as listening to Podcasts. I was learning about areas of EvE that I had not yet explored or even knew about, and my interest and curiosity in the game grew. In one of the Blogs I also read that EvE has the most active gaming-community the World has to offer and I found myself wanting to get involved. I now dedicate time to writing Blogs and I am also a member of the Tweetfleet where I can keep up with other pilots in a real-time fashion. EvE (in and out of game) is so large I find it hard to get bored.

So, I have made it more than 'just a game'. I write to an audience about life in New Eden. I have 'worked' to the position of co-manager of a successful Corporation of which I have an active part in recruiting and expanding as well as the organisation and activities of the members within. I have brought myself to a position where if I were to leave the Corporation I would change the game for many people on some level. As well as all this I have a selection of internet space-ships with changeable armament and equipment to suit a myriad of situations - situations that are both in and out of my control. And I can use the spaceships in any way I choose because EvE is a sandbox game. There are no restrictions on how I can play.

It's not just a case of completing missions any more to get a bigger, better space-ships. I've realised the more one puts into this game the more one gets out, and I actively 'work' at EvE to get the most enjoyment out of it. It's not a game to me now, it's a hobby.

And the best thing? There is no end to any of this.

The Mighty Nighthawk

2011-02-07T20:03:00.000Z

If you're reading this then might have noticed the screen shot of a Nighthawk I use for my Blog header. Yes, I actually own one - it's not just there to look good.

For the past few months I have been dwelling in our C2 Wormhole. Even with the constant changing tides of luck that comes with living in a 'Hole, it has been by far my most profitable venture in EvE yet. To make money, I mainly run Sleeper, Magnetic and Radar sites and reap the rewards from the salvage gained from the wrecks. So, one way to make money faster is to have a higher DPS ship that can eat targets quicker.

Having heard a lot of great things about the Nighthawk, I figured I would pick one up. I didn't need to train up many skills to qualify, and I was soon fitting one out in our POS.

I decided on a totally passive fit. I knew how susceptible Nighthawks are to nueting, so I decided this was the safest option. It was a PvE mission-running fit that also had good enough resists and defence to tank small-time gankers. It was a novelty for a while. But after one of my Corp mates showed me a good PvP Drake set-up, I went back to the trusty Battlecruiser. This Drake had higher resists (albeit with active hardners) than my Nighthawk with more DPS and was still good enough to be used in Sleeper sites. So I started using this and the Nighthawk got mothballed in the POS hangar.

Yes, I could have easily changed the fit to the Nighthawk to make it far more superior. But I can buy eight Drakes for every one Nighthawk. Drakes are expendable. Losing Nighthawk's would damage my wallet. Also, a 'Hawk is going to go one of two ways in a Wormhole. It might deter would-be-attackers if they were running around in small groups, but larger roaming pilots would most likely jump at the chance to take a N'Hawk down.

So back to the Drakes it was.

Inevitably, and all Womhole dwellers may side with me here, I needed a break from our 'Hole. So I've come back to Empire with two Orca's full of my ships and modules. The first thing I did was jump in my Scorpion Navy Issue (the Navy Scorp is a missile boat, not an ECM platform as some people seem to think) and started running Level-4 missions again. The Nighthawk sat in my hangar for a few days, as I thought it would be useless in Empire. That changed the day I decided to give it a try to see how well it would handle the Level-4's.

Wow. This thing devours L4's.

Now that I don't need to protect it from gankers quite so much I was able to fit a much heavier DPS load-out. The Nighthawk gets bonuses to heavy missiles - and they make such a difference. With my SNI I had to rely on my light and medium drones to handle frigates/destroyers and cruisers/battlecruisers respectively while the Scorp chewed up the Battleships with cruise missiles. With the Nighthawk, the heavy-missiles are good enough to handle all ship classes effectively. I can easily say that I get through missions twice as fast now.

I believe there are arguments as to which is better - a CNR or a Nighthawk. But relating to one of my previous posts I would happily take the Nighthawk any day. A lot of the guys from my Corp who I run missions with use Tengu's, and the DPS seems to compare well with the T3 ships. Where the Nighthawk does fail, though, is it's speed compared to the T3's. To help, I have fitted an After-Burner which allows me to keep up at a moderate pace. However, the NH makes up for this downfall if she gets webbed. I have no worries - the tank, coupled with the insane resists, is enormous. Webbing, for most Tengu's, is game over. As always, swings and round-a-bouts.

The final note I will make about Nighthawk is the active vs passive fits. As my ship will mostly be used in PvE, I have gone for the passive fit with active hardners. However, this fit does not stand too well in PvP. At the moment my Corp is bogged down with a War-Dec, and I lost one Nighthawk (through nothing more than shear ignorance and ill-placed overconfidence on my part). With the passive fit (I used passive amps so I was nuet-proof) she still took a while to bring down, but I was on my own and very well jammed, webbed and scrammed so her fate was sealed from the moment I was locked. There is a good PvP fit that I would like to try, although I don't really see the sense in risking all that ISK when Drakes can do the same job (albeit, a little slower).

So, I have now sold the SNI and will be using Nighthawk's for a very long time. But I will keep her out of PvP if I can!

Damn! I was so close....

2011-01-27T13:52:00.002Z

My kill-board isn't looking very good at the moment. I can't help but feel that a lot of players might be judging me on my combat skills. If you were to view it, you would see a myriad of vessels that I have lost since my time in New Eden. It's true that a good majority of these have been popped since I have been dwelling in the Wormhole and, considering that I often run solo due to time-zone differences between myself and the majority of my Corp, perhaps this can be forgiven to some extent. However, due to the amount of losses I have incurred I feel that it's about time I got some revenge.

To that end, whenever I get the opportunity to deny someone else their ship, I will grasp the moment. However, I have set myself some moral rules. If I really wanted to, I could have chalked up a few kills. But these are simply Industrial targets that I have found in neighbouring Wormholes. To me, taking out a Covetor isn't fun. It's too easy, and (personally) seems a cowardly act for a first kill. I want to take out a ship in a 'fair' fight.

Not too long ago, I made a post where I engaged a Hurricane. I lost, but only due to his buddy warping in to save his skin. I also shared an engagement with a bomber, but he chickened out. Then, the other day, our neighbouring C2 blessed us with a Russian Corp. Having shared a Wormhole exit with some Russians before, I knew we were in for a bit of action.

Their C2 harboured many sites, so we got to work with our probes. My CEO and I orbited our Wormhole in scan ships and a third Corp-member jumped through in a Drake to help out. As the Drake jumped a Manticore de-cloaked and that familiar bomb-marker in the Overview came speeding towards us. It detonated, taking both mine and my CEO's shields out. We were cloaked, though, so the bomber was unaware of our presence. The Drake, being a Drake, shook the damage off. I told the Drake pilot to warp away and cloak while I stayed in my Covert-Ops Buzzard to monitor the site.

Time passed as the CEO continued to scan down the sites. With no sign of any attempt to set up a warp-bubble around our 'Hole, I told the Drake pilot to 'warp-to-zero' and jump back through into our system. The pilot complied and I followed. I warped to our POS where I picked up my Manticore before heading back to the Russian's system. Bombing is perhaps another form of cowardly fighting, but I was more than happy to play the game.

I orbited our Womrhole on the Russian's side and waited.

And waited.

I knew the Russian bomber was still there. Having previously scanned and observed their POS, I warped my Manti from the 'Hole to their station, and then warped back to the Wormhole at 60km. Maybe, just maybe, the bomber was sat at 30km from to our Wormhole in-line with his own POS. The logic was plausible. I aligned, de-cloaked and fired a bomb.

Nothing. Damn.

I re-cloaked and continued to orbit the Wormhole at 32km. My CEO announced that he had scanned the system and was heading back home to get his Ferox. I saw his Heron warp in and jump through. Minutes later he re-appeared in his battle-cruiser. Surely enough, the Russian bomber de-cloaked and fired off another bomb. And he was only 33km away from me. It couldn't be more perfect!

I approached him and gave an extra couple of seconds to make sure that I was aligned fully. I deactivated the cloak and launched a bomb. I saw from the corner of the screen that the Ferox was in warp before the Russian's charge detonated. I held my breath as my own bomb was right in-line for the Russian, counting down the seconds in my head.

It must have been half a second before the bomb arrived that the target warped off, leaving the explosive to harmlessly detonate in empty space.

I spat abuse at my monitor for a while following that episode. 'Gutted' simply doesn't cover how I felt. Once again, I fail at a bomber-on-bomber fight. Had I remembered the 15km radius the bombs have and not wasted so much time aligning I would have got the other Manticore for sure. I then noticed a non-friendly Fleet Command ship appear on my overview. I cloaked, jumped and logged, too annoyed with myself to carry on.

For about two days after I still wailed out a random blurts of frustration.

Looking on the bright side, I have gained more valuable experience.

My Manti will taste blood one day!

The New Akinesis

2011-01-20T21:51:00.004Z

I have had a lot of fun in the character creator. I regard myself as one of the lucky one's who got their character(s) right first time. Not only that, but my computer didn't have a problem running the program.

Here is the new Akinesis:

My partner, like a lot of people, did have problems running the program on her laptop. She can run it as long as the graphics are turned down to low, but the in-game results can be very different than what has actually been created in the character program:

Above is a comparison of the high graphics vs the low graphics option. If I created Akinesis with the low settings selected, I would have built the image on the right. But in-game he would appear as the guy on the left. As you can see, they are very different. I have told my girlfriend to wait until this weekend, where I will bring my PC home so she can do it properly.

I originally intended to keep the look of my new toon as close as I could to the original. I did this with little success, although some similarities remain. Regardless, I'm not disappointed at all with the final product. I even decided he looked better with a beard - so I added one:

As my main character is a Jack-of-all-Trades, I wanted to give him an appearance that suggested this. And I think I've done a reasonable job.

I also designed my Alt, Chrieghten, with his background in mind. Originally my Alt looked around the same age as my main. However, the new version looks significantly younger. I did this to reflect the skill-points Chrieghten has in comparison to Akinesis. I figured that my fresh-faced Alt should look younger. And due to the nature of his roles (Science, Industry and Logistics) and with his education-tree branching from Science, I wanted to add that look of a proud and educated individual. Keeping some form of goatee adds that hint of rebel that steers him away from the geeky science-buff that his schooling and tidy appearance might suggest.

When I brought the characters together in an image, I found I had zoomed into Chreighten slightly more. This makes him appear taller than Akinesis. I quite like this idea, as it contributes to that touch of 'realism'. So here is the two pilots standing together for the first time:

For anyone that might not know, CCP are going to allow players to have another shot to recreate their characters during this months 'grace' period. This is due to the very high volume of pilots who petitioned about not understanding the character creator fully and have ended up unhappy with their final designs. I don't think I need to tinker with my toons as I am content with the outcome. Although, (I know it's only for the moment) it does seem a shame that we have created our full-bodied and 'alive' characters only to have them reverted back to a 2D passport-photo.

I'm hoping that once Incarna is here we will be able to change the clothes and hair whenever we fancy. Perhaps even introduce an ageing mechanic. But I'm very happy with the work CCP have done here. It certainly makes me feel a lot more attached to my characters. With the level of realism we now have with our alter-ego's, it almost makes the space-ships seem cartoon-ey now.

Here's hoping that Incarna is just around the corner.

Edit: there is clearly some fun to be had with the Character Editor: http://yfrog.com/h47lenp

Good-bye Pod. Hello Clone!

2011-01-14T14:16:00.001Z

I have been podded for the first time.

Should I be proud that I have managed to avoid being podded for nearly fours years, or does it just switch on the big 'Carebear' neon light?

Regardless, I'm pleased with the way I went down: fighting.

Our C2 static for the day was very active. There were six POS's, and most of them were full of nothing but industry structures. Their 'home' POS contained an active Tengu and Loki. I sat and watched them for a while, but with all the industry that was going on (I've never seen so many Silo's on D-Scan!) I decided they were too busy to worry about a couple of ships passing through. Their system had a few shiny signatures and anomalies, but it would be suicide to harvest from an active 'Hole. I went ahead and scanned the sigs and found a C1 branching off. It was also active. By this point I'd had enough of scanning, so went on to other things.

My CEO opened up comms with the inhabitant of the C1. They were new to Wormholes, but friendly. He ended up harvesting the Ladar sites there while I took advantage of our static Low-Sec's proximity to Jita. He harvested the clouds into cans and went back in his Badger to collect them. On his return he got jumped by the inhabitants of the middle 'Hole. He managed to warp away, but they had put up a warp-bubble on their side of the Wormhole. He stayed cloaked in the C1 while I charged across in my bomber. There was a Hurricane sat next to the 'Hole for the C1. I got in range (which took me into the bubble) and fired a bomb. His shields dropped and he began targeting me before I could re-cloak. My first priority was to get out of the bubble, so I tried to turn. However, he quickly gained ground and webbed and nueted me. I opened fire with my torpedo's, but with no cap I couldn't use my target-painters or sensors-damps. My speed was also reduced to about 140m/s. However, even through all this, his turrets couldn't track me. I was getting hit for very little damage while my trusty torps stripped his armour.

I was going to win!

With my heart pounding in my chest I abandoned the idea of getting out of the bubble and started to orbit the Hurricane. I was like a puppy around a new toy as I watched his armour-bar turn more and more red. Then a Drake warped in. My hopes were sucked dry from me as his Corp-mate targeted me. Knowing it was going to be over very soon, I started towards the Drake. By now, my bomb launcher was ready to go again, so I hoped to fire one at the Battlecruiser in my dying breath. It didn't happen. My Manticore popped and I was a pod floating in space. I selected a planet and spammed the warp-button. Nothing. I was still in the bubble.

Damn.

After a few alarm's sounded I was back in Ichoriya. I checked my Combat-Log and opened up a conversation:

Hamlox Helmholtz: Howdy
Akinesis: gf, man
Hamlox Helmholtz: Thanks, man. You were wailing on me in that Manticore!
Akinesis: Yup :D
Akinesis: I thought I had a chance, but then the Drake showed up and it was all over =P
Hamlox Helmholtz: I was a bit surprised... all of the sudden it turned into "Oh, S***!"
Hamlox Helmholtz: Yeah... my damned guns couldn't hit you.
Akinesis: I should have got out the bubble to save my pod, but I was too determined XD
Akinesis: =)
Hamlox Helmholtz: Bloodthirsty, yeah!
Hamlox Helmholtz: Good fight to you, see you around!

I'd made a lot of mistakes (as is expected from being so green at PvP), but I had great fun. I learned a lot from that short experience, and I'm glad the guy thought I was a good challenge. But the biggest disappointment was my CEO got disconnected while this went on, making my distraction useless. Still, I feel I gained a lot more than I lost.

After I stroked my mission-running Scorpion Navy Issue a few times in Ichoriya, I set destination to Jita and un-docked. I rebuilt my Manti, plugged in new implants and then went back to the 'Hole 200million ISK lighter.

In a way, I'm glad I got podded. The hard-wire implants I had before were fitted a long time ago when I was still a noob. I can't even remember what I had, but I most likely had ones that weren't really aiding my character. And I had never thought of going back and upgrading them. After a small bit of research, I bought ones that actually give me bonuses relative to my play-style.

My losses also furthered this very morning. I had some reading-up to do for my course, so I took the Covetor into a Grav site to suck up some ABC ores. I always keep a watchful eye on D-Scan, but as I was reading I was pretty much AFK. At one point I saw some Core-probes pop up, so I got my Buzzard and did a combat scan. With no probes popping up, I made the decision that this WH was no use to the probing pilot (we keep our system very dry). So I pulled my Covetor back out and went back to mining. I even turned my speakers down so the strip-miners wouldn't bother me (!). The rest you can guess. It's times like this that I'm thankful I left the Hulk in Empire.

RIP Covvy!

The 24th EVE Blog Banter (January 2011 Edition) - Topic: EVE and Real Life

2011-01-13T18:54:00.006Z

Welcome to the twenty-fourth 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Banter topic comes to us from the ever helpful Eelis Kiy, capsuleer behind the "Where the frack is my ship" blog. She asks: How does your real life personality compare to who you are as a character in EVE? Does a good leader of people in the real world make a good leader of pilots in game? Or vice-versa? Do your real-life skills help you with the roles you fulfill in your corporation or alliance? Or do you behave completely differently? Does the anonymity of the Internet allow you to thrive on the tears of others in New Eden whilst you work as a good Samaritan away from your keyboard? Or are you as mean outside of your pod as you are inside it? Have experiences in EVE Online affected your behavior, skills or attitudes outside of the game?

---

I will openly admit that I dislike people abusing the anonymity which the internet offers. It is an almost flawless tool that allows griefers and trolls to do what they do. Inside the game, I fully expect it, no question. The EvE Forums, however, wind me up no end. It shouldn't, but it does - even though I do force myself to remember that griefing is a part of EvE outside of the game as much as it is inside of the game. And their are even griefers who I do respect.

So, with that in mind, it would be hypocritical to say that I do not hide behind anonymity. Well, actually, I do. But I do not use it to troll. I've just chosen to make it about Akinesis, not about myself. I refer to what Akinesis is doing, what he has done or his plans. I treat it as a get-away from the real me. I have revealed some information in a few posts (in Function Vs Aesthetics I start off talking a bit about my profession and Persistence Prevails is about my partner) but I do hold back as many details as I can without jeopardising the topic I'm trying to address. In this post, however, I will be breaking that rule in order to discuss the topic.

It should now go without saying that I do not grief. I'm not out to try and annoy people or ruin their game. That is without question a direct reflection of my own personality - I can't hide from that after what I've said so far. I don't get high off of tears. In real life I will more than often try and practice diplomacy towards any situation. Even people I don't particularly like rarely experience a negative approach from myself. I also don't enjoy making people feel like an idiot and like to help out if I can, and all this reflects on Akinesis.

I've also mentioned before that Akinesis is a jack-of-all-trades. If you ever met any of my real-life friends or family I'm sure they will tell I am the same. And, just like Akinesis, I do not particularly excel at those talents. I can do many things to a good standard but I will never be an A+ student at a particular task. Likewise, Akinesis can do just about anything in EvE, but only to a moderate standard due to the broad range of his skills. Giving too many chances is also a trait of mine (perhaps an unwelcome one that I should shake off!) which I mention in the 22nd Blog Banter, and this is also repeated in-game.

At this point it is almost blatant that Akinesis is a digital representation of my true self. That now begs a new question - why am I playing myself in a game? Surely that's boring? The fun thing do is to play as an alter-ego, right?

Moving on.

My profession in real-life is engineering. Aviation Engineering to be exact (more leaking!). Now, while these skills don't transfer to the game directly, it might explain my fussiness on the design of the ships and my desire to research and build them.

One of my personal traits, however, is creativity. Before EvE I channelled my creativity trait through both illustration and a novel that I never quite finished. I developed those skills enough that I almost got a part-time job drawing for a gaming magazine and my novel (according to a few professional people who proof-read samples) was on to a winner. It might sound foolish to have abandoned those projects, but it was hard to balance such commitments with the career that I have. EvE, however, slots in my free time nicely and accommodates creativity very well, so I'm not losing out completely. My enjoyment of writing is satisfied through this Blog (don't judge this Blog on my novel - it's written in a very different style and I don't write often enough to get back 'on form' - I had to get that in!) and one could argue that creativity is required to expand and further a Corp. My illustration is put to use through my job to a certain extent, but even that could be channeled through this Blog if I wanted.

As for gaining skills from the game, perhaps my own multi-tasking skills have increased slightly with Akinesis living in a Wormhole! But, in truth, if I have gained any skills from playing EvE, I probably don't even realise I have them. Trading in the EvE Market I'm sure holds many useful similarities to the real world.

At the very least I'm optimistic that I would be able to do something fantastic with a large rock, a near-by container and a pick-axe. Thank you, EvE.

Other Blog-Banter Responses:

EVEOGANDA - Real Life & EVE
A Mule in EVE - RL + EVE =
Confessions of a Closet Carebear - EVE and Real Life
The Hydrostatic Capsule - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Alt
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Reflections
A Scientist's Life in EVE - The Other Side of the Screen
The Durzo Chronicles - Who is More Real??
A Lush in Space - Worlds Collide
Captain Serenity - Personalities
Diary of a Space Jockey - I Am Me
Freebooted - You Talking To Me?
EVE A to Z - EVE and Real Life

Carebear Tears and Pirate Blubbing

2011-01-08T17:14:00.002Z

I use to fear pirates in EvE. I didn't like the idea of getting my hard-earned ship blown up for no reason. Before I revamped my Blog I had a post where I whined about this. But over the last year I have put the game in a different perspective as well as accepting a few truths.

Firstly, I have rememberd that it's a game. It's nothing but a load of electrons whizzing through logic-gates and circuitry to end up as organised light on the very monitor I am looking at. Secondly, EvE is a sandbox game with land-mines, as CrazyKinux aptly puts it. Pirates, Carebears, Mercenaries - everyone will lose ships and/or their pods throughout their time in New Eden. It is a fact, and there is nothing you can do about it (unless you're a market trader in Jita who stays docked up in a station, of course). I have lost a few ships to gate camps now, but when it happens I certainly don't produce tears. I simply applaud the attacker for his success and shuffle off in my Pod.

Because EvE is a sandbox game, we all have to accept that there will be a very broad range of players. We play EvE because we like what we do in the game, and people want to do different things. Some want to roam and destroy other players' ships. Some like the idea of building and selling. Some people like the satisfaction of market trading, so they will do it. But I often see person A slating person B for their game-play style in EvE. Well, person B is paying for their account - so they have a right to play the game in whatever way that satisfies them. Who is person A to judge person B on how they should play?

Many a time we have all seen Carebears sobbing about getting ganked - especially noobs. I won't deny that I have done it. It's funny to the other side. And it is. A lot of PvPer's thrive on the tears of the victim. But I saw one particular EvE-Forum post where a pirate was blubbing about finding it hard to gank Carebears. I found this a little ironic. PvPer's producing tears? He was annoyed that Carebears often got away and the game mechanics made it too easy. I read this post with interest (and amusement) to see the mixed responses that followed. But what a lot of these people seem to forget (and perhaps this is more towards the younger crowd who might be use to other 'easy-to-kill' games) is that not all folk want to fight. PvP isn't enjoyable to everyone. This guy seemed to be surprised at that. But then the impression I got from him is that his method of PvP was through gate-camps.

Carebears will have means of getting away, whether through a good ship set-up and/or shear pilot skill. If they are going to haul through Low-Sec, then of course they are going to take measures to protect their cargo (I'd hope so, anyway). Yesterday my CEO managed to escape a gate-camp in his Badger armed with nothing but a cloak and myself as scout. After some time passed with them unsuccessfully trying to de-cloak us I managed to lure them back through to the other side of the gate, leaving my CEO to happily warp off with his cargo-hold crammed full of Wormhole goodies. In fact, my CEO managed to get past them a few times and even started smack-talking them about their constant failure.

If the chap in the Forum really wanted PvP, then perhaps he should go roaming Low or Null-Sec instead of camping for Carebears. If someone is that desperate to PvP then surely it would be better to look for someone else who is also wanting to PvP? To me, roaming sounds more fun than trying to pick on people who are actively avoiding it (unless you're after the tears). Plus, there will be more of a 'fair-fight' challenge involved if the other party has a vessel rigged for fighting. r7av7en7 makes a good post about roaming, and it has got me inspired to try it out for myself next week. Unless the gate campers have a very good set-up at an active gate, then (personally!) I don't see the appeal of the gate-camping evolution. But I cannot comment too much because, even though I am now delving into PvP, I am by no means experienced. All I can really do is imagine the methods I might prefer.

In a Wormhole, PvP is a constant threat - especially as there is no active local. But it's not as frequent as I first thought. And when opportunity does arise for a 'fair-fight', I have found it hard to engage in PvP. I now know how frustrating it can be when the other side won't play. I was salvaging a Sleeper site in my Noctis when Combat-Scanners appeared on the D-Scan along with a Nemesis. I warped out leaving a few wrecks behind. Some time later I went back again in my more expendable Catalyst. I was expecting the Nemesis to be cloaked around the field somewhere. I warped in and aligned to the star while targeting the wrecks. As I dragged them in the Nemesis de-cloaked. He began locking me as I warped out. From that, I knew he wasn't fitted with bombs.

I returned as quickly as I could in my Manticore and dropped 2 bombs on the two groups of wrecks, hoping to pop the Nemesis. That failed, but I at least denied him all the wrecks. I de-cloaked and hoped the Nemesis would engage. I knew he was still there because he wasn't back at his Control Tower. I waited a while, but he would not bite. I warped off to a planet, and then warped under cloak to his Control Tower just in time to see him warp back in. Not only do I suspect he did not have bombs, but I don't think he even had Covert-Ops cloak. I felt deflated that he had not risen to the challenge once I presented something with teeth.

The irony is that I could have popped his Hulk earlier on. While I was scouting the 'Hole out much earlier, I had his Tower surrounded with Combat Probes and I was cloaked and watching him, yet he still warped off to a Grav-Site. Had I known he was going to chicken out later on I wouldn't have shown sympathy on his Hulk. Hindsight...

But, like I've repeated so many time before, this is EvE!

The 23rd EVE Blog Banter (December 2010 Edition) - Topic: Incarna

2010-12-22T13:23:00.011Z

Welcome to the twenty-third 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With Incursion giving us glimpses of what Incarna will have to offer (the the Character Creator), this month's topic, by @Minerpewpew, comes just at the right time. He asks "What are your thoughts on how Incarna will effect the current EVE Online social dynamic?" I'd like to see this questioning go a bit further. How will this affect EVE's player base? Who will Incarna attract? New players to the genre? Seduce old players back into the game? Will we see new players come in that will never leave their station? Please explore to the best of your abilities!

There is always talk of Incarna in the Forums, which are littered with the bleats of 'CCP will ruin internet spaceships if they implement this!'. People will always battle change as it comes there way. And once it is here, they will continue to complain until the next change looms over them and only then will their focus shift. CCP, however, need to move forward. They're long-term goal is to amalgamate DUST 514 and New Eden, and (character-wise) Incarna will allow us to better connect with our toons in the game by bringing them to life. I applaud this notion - DUST or no DUST.

However, I recognise that this change is genuinely not important to everyone. For some people, flying space-ships is what makes them kick off their pants. So, from certain stand-points, the expansion is pointless even if they do play in-character. Others that have several accounts might be distanced from the idea of navigating several toons around a station, which could be a pain. Players (like myself) who do have a focused toon are offered a better connection with our space-fairing alter-ego. Being able to have a much more 'alive' character who can wander stations and interact with other pilots physically (as far as sprites go) will improve the experience a great deal more. So this is one of the best steps CCP can take for role-players.

As long as pilots can still function as if the expansion wasn't there, I can't see it being a problem in any respect. And by that I mean trading, selecting missions, creating contracts, etc. If pilots had to 'physically' leave their pod, wander off into the station and track down a seedy figure in a bar to acquire 'Damsel in Distress' everytime, then I can see a lot of subscriptions getting cancelled. However, I am confident in saying that CCP will not do this. Although, it would be nice to have the option to. It would also be nice if agents, etc, would actually talk. I'm sure this would be a short-lived novelty as people would get sick of hearing the same voices say the same things over and over again but, as before, it would be nice to have the option.

So what else would I like to see? How about in-station first-person missions? Why not have the option to 'Stop the Thief' before he even gets away with those stolen reports? And if you don't manage to chase him down through the crowds of fellow pilots before he gets to his ship, then you just have to hop into your Battlecruiser and take him out the old-fashioned way. If the in-station missions were broad enough, then that alone could attract a whole new world of subscribers. Sure, it may drag some pilots out of their ships and reduce the number of folks in space for a while, but that would undoubtedly be off-set by the new first-person subscribers giving 'life in a space-ship' a whirl. The levels of 1-5 will still remain, security status will continue to rise or fall as in 'normal' missions and skills would still be trained (Hand-to-Hand Combat Level-5, anyone?).

So, I guess I'm saying that the mission mechanics in a station would be the same as in space (even 'fleeting up' with other players), but it would be so visually different that it could work. And don't forget with first-person missions - it wouldn't be a case of standing in the middle of the room and tanking the weapon fire, tactics and cover would need to be used here.

In-station missions could also lead into the manufacturing and inter-system trade of skills, medical supplies, drugs, fire-arms and ammunitions being sold in player-owned 'shops'. Yet another commodity to introduce which will please traders, manufacturers, researchers and pew-pewers all in one hit. And while you're waiting for your flame-thrower and it's ammo to be delivered why not stand at a real-time view port overlooking the docking-tunnel of Jita. We could witness the constant flow of ships along with the flashes of turret fire as pirates bring down juicy freighters. All this would surely make activity in station rich and interesting.

Bounty hunters can still attempt to gun down those wanted pirates on foot. It wouldn't be EvE if pilots couldn't shoot or brawl or 'stealth-attack' other pilots - in or out of ships. How about thieves stealing that prized laser-pistol from your very own utility belt? How about 'awareness' skills to reduce the risk of someone successfully depriving you of your treasures? A personal drone hovering over you emitting a protective shield? And, or course, CONCORD would still be present as security guards. NPC characters could offer a lot, too - whether just as background to 'fill' the stations or talking to them to find bonus missions, story-lines, secret locations, black-market sellers, bonus items/ships or even just juicy targets to thieve or gun-down and loot before CONCORD realise what you've done. As always, putting richer rewards in (or rewards that are only exclusive to) Low-Sec might draw more people out there.

But regardless of what it will offer, Incarna won't please everyone. What expansion does? In fact, forget the game for a minute and lets look at real life. What single decision pleases everyone when it is addressed to a large group of people? I'm talking about realistic decisions here. But thinking about it I'm sure even Empire gankers will have a great time popping macro-runners while the 'active' player-base swarms to stations to try out all the shiny new things on the release. So the players that are worried about people dwelling or hiding in stations, don' be just yet - give it a chance. And even if players do take to 'hiding in stations' then so what? After all, this game is for EVERYONE and if there are players who like to immerse themselves into a station-dwelling story rather than being potential pew-pew fodder then let them. However, I trust that griefers will always find a way to break through if such barriers were put up. After all, no-one is safe in EvE, right?

In one of the previous blog-banters CK put forward the question asking why there is a lack of female players in EvE, and (from what I read) it was largely down to the inability to customise ones appearance. MOST women like to decorate their appearance (well, that's no secret) and EvE's lack of this function deterred them from signing up. It will be a good test to see if Incarna does increase the female player-base. And for people who perhaps left EvE due to the void created by the lack of a 'physical character' and story-line to role-play with might now return.

And with regards to it's release, yes CCP probably announced the expansion far too early as we've been waiting a long time for it, but if they get it right and release it bug free then I'm happy to wait for a long time yet. I can enjoy the game as it currently is, and any expansion is nothing more than a bonus.

Wormhole Work-Up No.3

2010-12-16T23:10:00.001Z

This will be the final post about my move into Wormhole Space.

I'm not sure what it is, but I seem to be playing EvE a lot less than when I was living out of the Wormhole. I think this is a combination of things. Firstly, work and life seems to have stepped up a gear with the build-up for Christmas. The other reason is 'things to do' in the Wormhole. Or lack of, as it were. I knew before I started that there would be periods where our 'Hole or the adjacent C2 would not offer us any sites (whether through no spawns or an uncomfortably active neighbouring C2). And when an uninhabited C2 rich in sleepers sites does spawn, sods-law always steps in and finds a reason for me not to be able get on-line.

I often find myself trying to collapse C2's with my Orca in the hope to find a better system. But more than often the 'Hole's mass allowance is over-the-odds and remains active in a critical condition. No way am I taking any ship through for another jump. My Corp mates are 5-7hrs behind me and with no other players about times can get pretty lonely. In times like these there's nothing else to do but solo mine. Which sucks (not as much as High-Sec mining though, as nearly all types of Ore dwell out here!).

So I have two options; move out of the Wormhole and back into Empire space (I can't wait to get back into my SNI!). Or leave my Corp and join/form a time-zone friendly one in another 'Hole.

Well, I'm not going to do either of these. I like my Corp, as I often mention. Clearing five Sleeper-sites brought me 110mil and my CEO managed to cash in over 600mil just in three days of solo-running the 'Hole. Plus my CEO has started making reactions from the abundance of gas and ore that thrive in these systems. So the rewards (when they happen) make it addictive. But even the most basic Sleeper-sites bring in the big ISK - especially the Battleship salvage:

Living in a POS is also a little more of a pain than an NPC station. Things can't be repackaged and you don't really have your 'own space' like normal stations offer. When ships are launched their shields and caps take a hit, so there's a delay in warping off (depending what it is you're doing!) while you wait for everything to recharge.

But my closing topic for this wishy-washy trio of Wormhole posts will be the ships. I now have a nice collection:

PvE Sites: Drake, Noctis, Covetor, Caracal (Gas-Harvester)
Defence: Drake (PvP), Drake (Cap-Drainer), Crow, Merlin (Back-up Tackler), Manticore and Flycatcher
Logistics: Buzzard, Heron x2 (Back-ups), Orca, Crane (Covert-Ops), Badger II (Rigged), Badger II (spares), Osprey x2 (Shield Reppers) and Shuttles

I can never have every situation covered, but I think I have managed to put together a collection that can deal with a broad spectrum of modest situations in a C2. I'm thinking of bringing in a Heavy Interdictor and a Command ship, too. But on the PvP front I haven't come across a threat (so far!) that warrants such ships. Our Wormhole has two statics; the C2 which I mentioned as well as a Low-Sec. So traffic really is minimal. In fact, to date, we have only been bothered by the C2 - the Low-Sec gives us almost no traffic.

In my first post I commented about using a Spider-Tank set-up for Drakes. This really is not necessary in a C2. I also mentioned about using a Drake for shield repping. I quickly learned this was also pointless, as my shields have never dropped below 50% on solo runs. My main reason for having Logistical ships was to boost the Tower's shields during set-up and if it ever came under attack. To rep a tower, you need to be outside of the Force-Field (about 18km). Fitted to a Drake, the repping range is about 8km, which is no good. The range-bonuses of the logistical ships (Osprey, in my case) are needed to rep a POS.

Bringing in a Noctis was interesting to say the last, considering our Empire static is Low-Sec. I was determined to have one, so I scanned down our Low-Sec exit and got to work. I scouted the 4 jumps from the Low-Sec exit to Hi-Sec a fair few times to monitor activity. The quietest system was the one with our Wormhole exit, the other two held very light traffic while the final was quite heavy but everyone seemed to be dwelling in stations. So I kitted out the Noctis with fast-align rigs and Inert-Stabs and made a run for it. It was smooth up until I made the jump into the system harbouring my Wormhole entrance. A couple of pilots had decided to camp with two Battlecruisers.

Now, during my moving into the Wormhole, I managed to lose two rigged Drakes to a (very impressive!) gate camp. Even though my ships were fitted with cloaks, they were still able to locate my position, de-cloak and pop me. With this in mind I was apprehensive to move the Noctis off the gate and activate cloak. Inevitably, I had no choice but to do this anyway. I doubt I would have managed to warp away before a lock. I checked the info of both pilots and they were only months old. So I hoped for the best when I moved off and cloaked. Well, they didn't budge. Either they didn't see me or were after a juicier target. To be honest, I expected them to run down a Noctis because it probably would have been one of the first ever 'Garbage-Truck' kills. But I made it to the Wormhole safe, and the Noctis almost makes salvaging a pleasure!

Although it has been hard work and costly, the move has been (for my Corp mates, anyway) very profitable already. I shall start to knuckle down and really kick the ISK out of the 'Hole over the coming weeks.

But, if there is one piece of advice I can give about living in Wormholes, it's this - a Buzzard with Sisters Probes and Launcher coupled with good scanning skills is priceless.

I will continue to post as normal from now.

Wormhole Work-Up No.2

2010-12-02T12:30:00.004Z

Wow - that was hard work. And it's still on-going. Even now I'm not fully settled.

Perhaps I put in a lot more effort than was really needed. I do have a lot of ships and equipment stashed in the POS, and my total investment to date has been the best part of 500mil. In fact, between four of us we have nearly filled both the Corp and Ship Hangars. I'm hoping the line from Edna in the Incredibles 'Luck favours the prepared, darling' will ring true.

Initially, the move into the Wormhole was slow going. We are residing in a C2, which has a Low-Sec and C2 static. The Low-Sec entrance on that day was 2 jumps from High-Sec, and we managed to get the Tower along with other structures and some fuel into the 'Hole using my Orca. I hate taking my Orca through Low-Sec, but it survived on this occasion. So, we began setting up with the basics. I left the 'Hole that night, while my CEO stayed to babysit the tower.

A couple of days later another exit appeared 6 jumps out of Jita in a Low-Sec system adjacent to a High-Sec. This was good news, and we managed to get four Orca-loads of fuel, some ships and most of our equipment through successfully. A couple of days after that the seemingly impossible happened - our adjacent C2 had a High-Sec exit to our home system! Much cheering followed.

I was still in the middle of acquiring and building equipment, but I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass. None of us did. We got a second Orca involved from an allied Corp and dragged in everything we could. A forth Corp member also jumped in and made the move. He brought a Charon full of more fuels and equipment which we then shipped through the whole with two Orca's (the Charon's mass was too big for the 'Hole). The Tower was also upgraded from a Medium to a Large, which was a big bonus.

We had a close call at one point. The second Orca, which was being piloted by an allied Corp member, nearly lost the ship to our own Tower. On his first arrival at the POS he was halted at the Force-Field to find that the Tower saw him as hostile. The POS then proceeded to target, scram, web and fire upon the Orca. Oops! I was frantically off-lining the gun batteries as the ship's armour was being stripped from it's hull. Luckily, there were only three batteries active, and the cycle-time is quick, so the Orca lived to see another day. I'll never forget to adjust the Tower defence settings again.

By the time the 'Hole lost stability it was 2am for me, and the alarm clock was due to go off in four hours for work. There was still some fuel to bring through, which would take a well-rigged Badger II four or five trips. We made a start but the 'Hole collapsed as the pilot before me made the jump, leaving me stranded in High-Sec. I couldn't be annoyed - we had achieved a great deal. A few days later one opened up 17 jumps away, so I took a shuttle and headed over.

I'm now living in the 'Hole full time. But this week I have still been hauling in the remainder of the fuel. Why does Strontium have to take up so much cargo space? Bringing Planetary Structures also got thown amongst the Crane trips at the start of this week. Yesterday I began setting up my PI, which I still have not finished. I'm being a bit more precise in the set-up this time around as Large Towers are hungry for parts. Once that's done (tonight) I should be able to finally start enjoying the riches that Wormholes have to offer.

Wormhole Work-Up No.1

2010-11-17T23:10:00.001Z

Well, the work-up has very much been under way. I've even gone back to mining!

I've been continuing my research into Wormholes. I already follow a few Blogs, but I've pulled off some pretty neat tips from the internet, too.

I've decided that Drakes will be my main ship-type. Mainly because a battlecruiser is the largest ship that can squeeze into most C1-C3 'Holes. But they are also relatively cheap and, therefore, expendable. I already own two; one is PvE (High-Sec missions and Wormhole Ops) while the other is PvP (residing at my Low-Sec POS). I have built another five so far, and I plan to construct a few more.

One Drake I had to surrender to my better-half (she can't afford to buy one yet -or so she tells me). Apart from our High-Sec exit collapsing behind us, we raked in some nice ISK on our Wormhole Op last week. But the Caracal fit I constructed for her to use on the Op (which could perma-run a Medium Shield Booster and had good resists) did not last more than thirty seconds against Sleepers. She escaped with only a small amount of her hull intact. So, when we returned to High-Sec she trained for a Drake. That's completed, and even though it's a T1 fit the ship still managed to tank one of my L4 missions very well. I really have to tip my hat to the Drakes.

I will carry some spare Drakes as well as other ships, but the roles I have planned for the battlercruiser's are: a solo Sleeper-site runner, PvP defence, a salvage boat and a Spider-Tank for Corp Sleeper-Ops.

I really like the idea of having a group of Spider-Tanked Drakes. But it's damn hard to fit one up that can perma-run a Medium Shield Transfer while retaining an effective DPS and some defences. So we'll see on that.

I haven't ever built a logistical ship before, but I've read they are key in building up and retaining POS shields. So, I kitted out two Ospreys - one that can perma-run 3x Medium Shield Transfers (reasonably cheap), but the other I went to town on and plumbed in 2x Large ST's that can also perma-run. The latter I had to fit some faction componants to get it cap stable, but it's quite impressive. What I will invesitgate next is whether a logistic-fit Drake would be more effective. Straight away, it doesn't have the range-bonuses of the Osprey (which repairs from a little over 50km), but I don't know how vital that might be in a Wormhole.

Other ships I plan to take through are a Buzzard and two back-up Herons, as many Badger II's as I can make in the time, my Crane, a few tackle-Frigates and maybe my Manticore, and either my Hulk or a Covetor. Ideally, I'd like to buy a FlyCatcher, but there just isn't enough time to train for one with all the other skills I'd like to progress.

In summarry, here is my ship-plan:

PvE: Solo Drake / Spider-Tank Drake
PvP: Drake / Tackle-Merlin / Manticore
Covert-Ops: Manticore / Buzzard
Scanning: Buzzard / Heron
Mining: Covetor or Hulk
Salvage: Drake
Logistical: Osprey or Drake
Hauling: Badger II / Crane

I'd love to take my Orca, but I don't know if there are any C1-C3 'Holes that allow such a ship? Otherwise, are their any current Wormhole-dwellers who care to share advice on ships? Have I got it covered?

Expanding our Horizons Further

2010-11-10T12:38:00.019Z

This post almost heeds as a warning that I may be a bit quiet on the posting front for the next two or three weeks.

Although we now have a POS in Low-Sec I still spend a lot of time in High-Sec. It's easier to make ISK there. However, I do pop in to the POS almost every day. I have PI out there and I also like to run scan sites. But the system we picked to harbour our POS is in the middle of a Militia war-zone. The advantage is that traffic is particularly quiet, but it is apparent that CCP has not seen it viable to implement decent rats or scan-sites. So there is not a great deal to do other than PvP, and anyone who follow's this Blog know's how much I suck at PvP. Although the moon-mining makes the Low-Sec POS worth it, flying out there doesn't seem to hold any major rewards for anyone not in a Militia. I still intend to learn PvP out there, but something else now has my attention.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was keen to run Wormhole Sleeper-sites again. At the end of last week I sent out a post to the Corp stating that I would be making it a reality from this week. This ended up sparking another twist in our Corporations' direction. After talking to the CEO about WH Space, the simple Ops I wanted to run progressed towards setting up a small POS camp. This way we could stay in a 'Hole for a few days. Then, some old Corp and Alliance friends got involved and we have banded together. Now it looks like we're actually moving into a Wormhole. It won't be permanent (they apparently weren't intended for an indefinite base anyway), but we are likely to be away for a couple of months. My CEO has expressed an interest in T3 building, so who knows - it could be even longer.

The work-up is very time consuming. Wormholes demand special attention to a few skills, like scanning. It can't be said enough - good scanning skills are vital in Wormhole Space. So I have stepped my scanning-skills up a gear. I have just trained, bought and kitted out a Buzzard with Cov-Ops and Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher with matching Sisters Probes - that was one way to spend 100mil. Luckily, I already have Transport ships trained and my Crane is already on stand-by. But it will soon be joined by it's bigger brother again, the Bustard. Then there are the other ships, both Sleeper-running and PvP for defence. I intend to mostly use Drake's and Rokh's (WH Class permitting). I am undecided at the moment whether to use a Hulk/Covetor or a Rokh for mining.

We intend to start in a C2, just to test the water. If it is C2 then there is talk of us bringing in Ship Assembly Array's so we can build our Battleships and maybe even an Orca. We want to start in a lower-class because we might not like living in Wormhole Space. A lower-class 'Hole needs (to a certain extent) less setting up, which means less taking down. We're aware that they can give you almost no scan-sites for days. Plus, we are ultimately in it for the ISK and if we keep getting jumped by POS-killers then there is no point in us being there. But the ISK-Loss ratio looks favourable.

There are actually very few of us embarking on this new adventure as we leave the majority of the Corp behind. In fact, the few former-Corp members and old Alliance members who are joining us out-number the folks coming from our Corp. Tonight I am running Wormhole Sleeper-sites to take a few of the newer (and some seasoned) players through to see if they like it. Hopefully they will, and therefore will join us. The more the merrier, right?

Anyway, I will post our progress into Wormhole Space, but the next couple of weeks will just be preparation work.

Function Vs Aesthetics

2010-11-02T20:49:00.011Z

I have a thing for symmetry and neatness. I always have, I always will. When I built Lego as a kid anything I constructed not only had to be perfectly regular, but also well defined. If it didn't look right, I broke it apart and started again. The same goes for anything I design today, with everything being well-proportioned and refined with the 'less is more' motif attached. By profession I'm an engineer, and a lot of engineers will know that more than often things just can't be completely symmetrical. So I have managed to (mostly) accept that as long as things are at least 'neat and tidy' then I will pass them. But I think the quality of my work swings more towards a level of 'OCD' than 'pride'.

My girlfriend might be thinking at this point why do I not adopt this attitude with house cleaning? I just don't. My house seems to emanate a symmetry-and-tidiness dampening field that affects only me. I can't explain it, so don't make me try.

When it comes to flying ships in EvE, it goes without saying that I will always opt for symmetrical designs. I almost have to. If I ever turned up to a mission-blitz with my Corp in a Moa, it would be like arriving at work wearing yesterdays underwear and a very ill-fitting suit. I would feel dirty and ridiculous.

Being an engineer, I have even found myself mulling over some of the irregular ship designs and decided they clash with physics. Many of the vessels should not be able to fly in a straight line, unless they have a component of ridiculous mass hidden in the hull on one side of the vessel. Some of them just seem to have either too many rocket motors or oversized exhaust nozzles bias to one side.

But who cares? It's a game, and what's more it's science-fiction. Anything is possible in science fiction. But everyone has their quirks, right? Some people worry about CCP nerfing ships, I worry about CCP not positioning the engines correctly about the vessel's centre-of-gravity. It takes all sorts. And who am I to question the design teams' work, anyway? I'm not trying to take anything away from the folks over there - it's better than what I could have ever done. And as space-ship designs go, they can be as ogre-looking as the designer likes - no atmosphere, no stream-lining required!

So enough about my peculiar mental characteristics.

Being a CareBear, much of my income has come from running missions. So, in light of everything I have just said, you can probably guess my Caldari ship-choice as I've progress through the levels.

L1 - Merlin

L2 - Caracal/Hawk

L3 - Drake

L4 - Drake/Rokh

For those who know their ships well enough, all of the above are missile-platforms (apart from the Rokh which is a hybrid. Yes, the Merlin is, too, but at that stage of the game it doesn't really count). Apart from the Rokh, I'm sure that most Caldari pilots will have followed a similar pattern up until the Drake. After the Drake, however, many would have jumped into the Raven. Me being me, I opted for a Rokh due to the Raven's very irregular design. But (as just mentioned) the Rokh is a hybrid ship, and nearly all my weapon skills are in missiles. So I had to spend a month or two learning gunnery skills just so I could fly the Rokh effectively. Is that being ridiculous? Probably. But then I will play in a way that makes me happy, as I'm the one paying for my account.

I managed to get the Rokh in a set-up where I could perma-run an X-Large shield-booster and chuck out 515 DPS. I was running all Level-4's no problem, providing a few sensible tactics were employed in some of the more demanding missions. It was working out superbly until I made the fatal error of leaving my drones in aggressive-mode on one particular run. My overview was suddenly filled top to bottom with blinking reds. The Rokh's shields quickly fizzled down and I began to align to warp out. I recovered my drones and casually clicked the 'warp-to' icon.

Nothing.

I started spamming the icon. Still, nothing. Then I realised. I had been warp-scrammed by three or four Frigates.

A lot of swear words exploded out of my mouth. There was no way I could deploy drones and kill the Frigates with the rate my armour was being chewed up. It was a horrible feeling as my Rokh popped. My cockiness and over-confidence had got the better of me. Not only that, but I now carry the shame of losing a Battleship to an NPC mission. D'Oh!

So, back to the Drake. But I didn't mind returning to that ship. Sure, it was taking me far longer to complete missions, but it is such a good ship. I also think its one of the best looking hulls in the game.

While I rebuilt my funds, I started thinking about a new mission-running vessel. I thought long and hard as I compared my missiles skills to gunnery. Missiles were winning by an obscene amount, so it made sense to go back to them. The Raven only has 3 DPS more than the Rokh with my skills, and the shields are 10,000hp inferior. But the Caldari Navy Raven is a different matter. It comes in at 586 DPS with shields 10,000hp superior than the Rokh (it's worth noting here that I always fit out my mission ships to run cap stable, hence the low DPS figures compared to what could actually be squeezed out. And, no, I don't like pulsing the SB!). I took a deep breath and (finally) decided that it was more important to have function over aesthetics.

But then a Corp mate suggested the Rattlesnake. I didn't even know what that was at the time, but now I know it's a variant of the Scorpion. The Scorpion is a ship I had always over-looked, and not just because it was once an irregular design. I knew it was geared for ECM, and I have no place in ECM warfare, so I never considered it for anything. I was almost embarrassed when I suddenly learned only recently that there are a total of four Scorpion hulls.

After some extensive research through forums, I decided on the Scorpion Navy Issue. Although the Rattlesnake seems like the T1-variant Daddy, I do not like the idea of relying on drones for DPS (for those that do not know, the Rattlesnake is a passive-fit drone-ship with an amalgamation of Caldari and Gallante technology). The SNI variant, however, drops it's ECM role to become a missile-platform.

But the biggest bonus for me is the design. I absolutely love the look of the new(ish) Scorpion hull, and anyone else I've spoken to has also given it a big thumbs-up.

At 542 DPS, it's lagging the CNR's 586 (remember I always fit cap-stable for perma-running an XL-SB). But the SNI's shield is 5,000hp superior. To me, that's an offensive-to-defensive trade I can live with. Plus, the SNI come's in at around 400mil ISK, 200mil cheaper than the CNR. I've only ran a few missions so far, and none have really been testing. But in some cases I haven't even needed to turn the shield-booster on, so it looks promising.

And the best part of all this? I have a missile-platform with a symmetrical hull! Well, in truth, the bridge is slightly offset on the Scorpion. And even the Rokh has an additional structure half-way down on it's starboard side. But, really, I'm not that pedantic!

However, sooner or later I'm sure the day will come where I will have to put aside my petty quirk and step into a Golem.

Blog Banter #22: Corporation Loyalty - Brothers and Sisters till the end?

2010-10-26T17:08:00.003+01:00

Welcome to the twenty-second 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic is brought to us by L'Dene Bean of Nitpickin's who asks: Why, and how did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization "recruits" you. The shorter version: Who holds your Unshakable Fealty and why?

By nature I am a loyal person, so it is almost natural for me to stick to a Corp even when it is wasting my time. I'm a sucker for giving too many chances. If anyone were to look at my profile they would see that in three-and-a-half years I have only seen four Corporations. And even then, two of those Corps are a merger so in reality I've only been part of three. And of those three my first was disbanded, the second I left and the third I'm currently still serving.

I enjoy being part of something. And even more than that, I enjoy being significant in that part. My second Corp I won't really count, as there was very little involvement from me (not by choice, I hasten to add!). More on that later.

My first Corporation found me, I never went looking. I was too afraid of Corporations at the time. It seemed a bit daunting to interact with other real-life players. EvE was my first (and only) MMO. Even though the game is about player-vs-player interaction, I still found it a little odd 'talking' to a funny looking spaceship on my monitor. It seemed a bit silly at the time. And I also thought I had nothing to offer a Corp while I was still a Newb. We all know that's not the case with many Corps, but back then I didn't know any better. So it's a good job I was approached, otherwise I would have eventually got sick of mining solo in my Badger and quit the game years ago.

I had a great time in my first Corp. Sure, it may have been only geared around mining, but a lot of the enjoyment was probably due to my learning curve increasing extensively. That, and the fact that the Corp and it's members were brand new. It was interesting to see the Corp flourish from a seed. And it was nice to know that almost everyone else was in the same Newb boat as myself. I was loyal without question, and this didn't go unnoticed. The CEO was starting to give me certain rights, and even a title. I was also well-rewarded, which made my loyalty stick even further. I don't remember ever thinking about leaving to find another Corp.

Then real life got in the way, and I disappeared for about 18 months.

When I got back the Corp had disbanded, much to my dismay. Even though I was playing again, I wasn't able to dedicate enough time to be effective to another Corp. So I ran solo for quit a while. But it wasn't long before the feeling of isolation set in. My game-time had picked up, so I scanned the recruitment channel looking for a new Corp.

I found one that seemed to offer everything I was looking for, so I applied and joined. There were only 5 of us in total, as it was just starting out. I liked the idea of this because, like my first Corp, it was nice to be part of something where I could have an effect on it's moulding. But it wasn't long before the two CEO's wandered into a Wormhole and never returned. The other guy was a different time zone to me so we hardly ever saw each other while the fourth was an AFK-King. So, I was back on my own running missions and mining but paying Corp tax on everything I did. Needless to say, I was getting frustrated. Not much loyalty there, although it did take me a while to hit that quit button as I kept piling on those chances. At the very least I do owe thanks because it led me to my current Corp.

My home at the time was Umokka, and one particular day I went scanning. I found a hidden asteroid field and took my Hulk for a spin. I was soon joined by other miners. While my strip-miners did what they do best, I decided to revisit the recruitment channel. I watched it for a while, but nothing matched my wants. I decided to try posting a message in the local chat about recruitment. Umokka always had between 150-300 pilots occupying the system at any time, so it didn't take long for someone to come through. It was Ron (who is now the CEO for my Corp) who spoke up first. And it turned out that he was floating right next to me in the asteroid field. In fact, a lot of the Corp were there mining alongside my Hulk. So, we got talking and I decided to give it a shot.

I'm still in that Corp. And I don't feel that I will leave for a long time. However, current times are very testing, and there is not a better point in time that this Blog Banter question could have come about. I'm not afraid to say that our Corp is experiencing a bit of a slump at the moment and Lucrosum Bellas is no where near as mighty as it once was. A lot of the 'original' players have left to move on to other things while a few have taken long-term breaks for various reasons.

The reasons for the current Corp 'recession' are too long to annotate well into this post without. But a recent move followed by some Alliance squabbles and Corp snitches/thieves has left our remaining members a bit spread out and lost. Our once tightly-knitted and active LUBEL has become an untangled ravel of (mostly) solo runners. Because of this, good members are dropping out.

However, I am in a good position to turn this situation around. I will soon be asking my CEO to give me 'Recruitment Rights' so I can rebuild our numbers. Before I do that, I want to get myself much better established - an operation that has already taken me many weeks so far. I'm aiming to be in position where I can offer PvP and Wormhole Ops as well as mission-running and mining. I'm half way to this goal.

But even through these tough times I am not thinking of leaving. Perhaps I'm being too sentimental to the 'good-old-days' I had in the beginning. But the pilots who remain are excellent quality, and I know we can return to the 'Elite (CareBear!) player Corp' we once had. I am so sure of myself that I've turned down a few invitations recently from other Corps who can give me a great deal more than what LUBEL could ever offer. Enough said.

I think it's safe to say that if I ever thought about leaving my Corporation, it would be to form one of my own.

Macro-Miners in EvE

2010-10-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

Is this a taboo subject?

I think it is, as any talk of it seems mostly under the radar. But I was reading a post in the EvE Forums that addressed this, and I wanted to discuss it.

However, before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that I condemn anyone who uses mining-bots to harvest ISK to sell for real money. I have no hesitation clicking on that 'Report ISK Spammer' option. In fact, I reported someone yesterday. But I'm not talking about them. The folks I'm referring to are those who treat it as an aid, much like most of us use EFT or EVEMON.

A lot of the pilots I fly with are married with kids. Others are students who do a lot of studying. Or some (like me) are just tied up in a busy life-style. I hear it a lot when we plan something like a Corp mission-blitz; 'Sorry guys, but I gotta take the dog for a walk and then put the kids to bed.' They log and miss out on ISK. That's fine - after all, EvE's a game and real life is, well, real life.

However, ISK is needed to play EvE, and flying advanced ships is more fun than scurrying around in noob vessels. But the more advanced the ship the more expensive it is, and if you can't generate ISK to buy these it could be off-putting. A character may have 30million skill points, but actual gaming time means the pilot may never afford anything larger than a cruiser. What should the player do? Continue in a state of slow or non-advancement? Or just give up if enough time cannot be dedicated to the game? The latter would take money away from CCP, which is not ideal.

To that end, is a mining-bot an answer for these people? Is it wrong if used in a way where the player is sat at a computer studying while the mining-bot takes control, leaving the persons' learning uninterrupted but still physically at the computer? Or while a father watches a DVD with his kids leaving his Retriever to nibble away at asteroids - should a macro-miner not be allowed here?

I don't know if it should be or not. It can easily be argued that EvE is a game, and games are meant to be played. But should it even matter that a small amount of people use this tool to provide that extra income to enhance their otherwise feeble game-time? Granted, there will always be the select few who totally abuse the application and run it 24/7. But these people are everywhere in life.

It has never crossed my mind to use one myself. These days I barely touch mining. My Hulk is currently buried under a mountain of dust, and I'm not planning to bring her out any time soon. Besides, macro-mining (apparently) will bring in around 6million ISK an hour if done with a well-rigged Hulk. Well, that's not even pocket money to me so I wouldn't consider using one. But to the 'one-hour a week' players, ten-hours of mining spread over the week would make a healthy difference.

But remember this - macro-mining benefits people other than the direct user. Hulkageddon victims (in and out of tournament) are more than often macro-miners. So would it have even come about without the fields of juicy automated Hulks? Even Carebears benefit. For players involved in production there is a greater supply of minerals due to these macro-mining folk. And the more ships and components built the more fierce the market, which means cheaper prices for everyone.

So at the very least we might agree that there are some pro's coming from the macro-miners. But I would only be lenient to those who wouldn't abuse the program. And CCP? Well, at the end of the day, macro-miners are still paying customers, so I'm not sure that they would look to ban them unless they were ISK harvesting to sell for RL cash. I think it is just frowned upon.

I would safely bet a reasonable amount of money that macro-mining will never be made legal in the game, but could CCP perhaps provide an alternative for 'mild' macro-miners by introducing a similar in-game feature? The notion behind PLEx was to provide an answer to Cash-for-ISK, right? Could something be done about Macro programs?

How about a mining set-up similar to the current PI model? Special mining-drone colonies could be introduced. Asteroid fields too dangerous for humans, for whatever reason (in other words, inaccessible), could be implemented. The ore is delivered to a holding station (like a Customs Office) and the drones need to be reset after a certain amount of time in the same way extractors do in PI. The amount mined would need to be greatly inferior than actual player-mining, but enough to make it worth while for the 'mild' macro-miner to switch to the in-game method. Perhaps even the compressed minerals found in Rogue-Drone salvage could be the unrefined material found in these belts?

The example is nothing more than a spit-ball, but does anyone think an alternate method is possible?

I am very interested to here peoples opinions on this topic, so please share your views.

How NOT to run Planet Interaction

2010-10-14T20:00:00.001+01:00

I had such a revelation with my PI that I wanted to share it right away, even though I am probably about to make myself look dim-witted.

My CEO was already involved with it and I asked him if it was worth while. From what he told me it seemed the profit was reasonable, so I trained the skills. He also sent me an e-mail with a run-down of what to do. I then set to work. I decided I would use the PI to construct fuels for our POS. I picked five suitable worlds and built my colonies. I was succeeding in my task, but production was slower than I first thought. I ran this for many weeks.

However, recently we set up another POS in Low-Sec. So, a couple of days ago I abandoned the colonies, replenished my Crane's cargo hold with fresh Command Centres and rebuilt my PI in the new system.

I paid more attention to what I was doing this time, and I noticed that a cluster of four Extractors were excavating around 2,300 units per cycle each. Collectively, that's 9,200 unit per 30 minute cycle (give or take a few units due to the slight variations in mining quantities between each Extractor).

Now, in the instructions that my CEO had mailed me, he said to watch the input levels to Processors. He also told me that the Launch-Pad would hold all my excess materials. In the previous system, I never saw any excess on my Launch-Pad so I thought the Extractor-to-Processor ratio I used was right.

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and WRONG!

It takes a Basic Processor Factory thirty-minutes to convert 3000 units of Noble Metals into 40 units of Precious Metals. But I would like to emphasise '3000 units' again. Remember I said I had four extractors kicking out 9,200 units per hour? So, if the Processor will only accept 3000 units every thirty-minutes, where do the remaining 6,200 go?

I'll tell you - thin air.

The Factories will happily accept the 3000 units they need, plus queue up an additional 3000 units as long as there isn't any already waiting. Any excess 'poofs' into thin air. And this has a knock-on effect to any processors thereafter. The thing is - this doesn't have to happen, but I had been running my PI like this for weeks.

The way I 'routed' (not linked) my PI buildings was:
Extractor -> Basic Factory -> Advanced Factory -> Launchpad

It seemed logical. But it's not, if you think about it carefully. Imagine all the lorries queued up outside my Basic Factory waiting to empty 9,000 units of Noble Metal into the Processor. The problem is they can't. The Processor and it's limited storage are already full and there is nowhere else to store the excess. Well, they're not going to hang around outside a factory for days on end waiting for there turn, so they drive off home and sell my metal on the black-market for their own gains. And I don't blame them.

In my new set-up, EVERYTHING is routed through the Launchpad. That's the trick. If the building churns something out, it goes straight to the Launchpad. Then, if a factory needs a material input it can take what it needs from there instead of being directly linked to a supply structure(s), which could be trying to feed it material when it's already full. This is what my CEO was trying to tell me, but at the time I assumed that any excess would automatically be taken to the pad. The correct way is to route Extractors and Processors to the Launchpad first, and then route the relevant materials stored on the Launchpad back to the PI structures that need them.

Storing surplus stock also allows me to monitor materials that are either excessively piling up or depleting too quickly. I can then balance out the levels by either adding or removing Extractors. This can also free up both CPU and power in my Command Centre, allowing me to run additional Factories. And more Factories means more profit.

Now that (I think) I have set up my PI correctly, I am much more involved with it in a good way. I have spent many, many hours trying to configure it right and I am still tweaking days later. I actually find it fun. I estimate it will take at least a week to get all my Extractors-to-Processors balanced efficiently. This is because I have to monitor mineral piles after making any changes. Or I could use Maths, but I hate Maths.

In only 48 hours I have already produced 24% of what I made in the 3 weeks of running my old set-up. And I expect this increase to triple once the PI is finally balanced. I hope to keep on top of stock so I don't have to start building silo's, too.

So, remember to route everything through the damn Launchpad, not just link it.

Having My Work Cut Out...

2010-10-12T14:58:00.008+01:00

So, the re-design of my Blog took a lot longer than I originally stated. There's no getting away from the trend-pattern of my promises - I say my posts will be published by a certain date, but it's weeks after said date that I finally spit them out.

Am I lazy? Not entirely.

Busy? Very.

In EvE I am, anyway.

If I had published a post for every event that has happened to me in EvE over the last few weeks, I'd be in the hundreds. So I won't do that. Instead, enjoy a 'quick' run-down:

- My Corp joined an Alliance
- We move system to be with the main hub of the Alliance
- Corp gets involved with the variety of Alliance activities
- I start running Wormhole sleeper-sites with Alliance members - great fun
- Alliance gets War-Decced
- Forces gather ready for battle. I spend tens of millions stocking up on throw-away Frigates, Cruisers and Battlecruisers with PvP fits. I am determined to learn PvP
- War starts
- I manage to miss out on all battles due to time-zone clashes while all my battle-ready ships gather dust
- Battles are fruitless on our part due to our superior opponents, but apparently fun
- Some Corps leave Alliance to avoid the War
- We learn of traitors in our Corp
- My Corp CEO falls out with Alliance CEO over leadership in regards to fleet organisation (out of something-like 250 Alliance members, only 15 show up for battle)
- Arguments escalate between our Corp and Alliance members
- Our Corp leaves Alliance, and War is over for us
- I'm left with mothballed PvP ships
- D'Oh!
- Back to mission running and mining
- I buy an Orca to help with mining-ops
- I suddenly find myself never doing mining-ops
- I start up Planetary Interactions to help fuel our High-Sec POS
- My CEO and I discuss putting up another POS, this time in Low-Sec
- Low-Sec POS investigated
- Low-Sec POS materials gathered
- I discover the ultimate fit for my mission-Rokh with perma-run active shield-tank and awesome DPS. I am totally unstoppable in Level-4 missions
- I lose my Rokh in a Level-4 mission
- WtF!!?
- Back to the faithful Drake while I save for a CNR
- I learn how to set up and run a POS
- Low-Sec POS set-up with Moon-Mining capabilities
- I am promoted to 'Chief of Logistics' in our Corp to handle Low-Sec POS logistical requirements
- I take a moment to feel proud that my efforts toward my Corp are being so generously rewarded
- I start to explore Low-Sec
- I also start a Corp T1-Frigate Tournement Ladder for fun
- I find myself at the bottom of said Tournement Ladder
- I concede that I will probably always suck at PvP

And that's pretty much where I'm at. It really is the bones of my recent activities, and I would like to discuss some of the above in greater depth for future posts. I particularly enjoyed running Wormhole-ops.

The main high-light for me is Low-Sec. I am really excited to be there. No, it's not 0.0, but it's providing me more variety in my game-play. Although, there doesn't seem to be a great deal to do other than ratting and running scan-sites. Perhaps I am already seeing the problems that Mynxee is addressing at the moment. But while it's new to me, the general day-to-day events are a lot more interesting. I will remain operating in High-Sec mostly, but it's nice to be doing something different.

When out there, I'm starting to learn how to use the 'Local' channel and D-Scan effectively. I can't help but get nervous when Yarr-folk pass through the system. I'll admit that I'm a coward who runs back to the POS when a -9.8 rated pilot lingers in the system a little longer than I feel comfortable with. And I am aware that I will need to lose many ships before I start to get anywhere near good at PvP, but I am still getting myself established out there. I am in no rush.

Hopefully I will soon be losing to Low-Sec no more!

And it's also nice to be Blogging again.

Optimising your PC...

2010-10-12T12:22:00.002+01:00

When my computer went kaput, I began a trek of learning about the internal workings of a PC to solve my problems. I signed up to www.techsupportforum.com and this was where most of my knowledge came from - the guys and gals were fantastic.

Anyway, there was one particular post that caught my eye. I read it and carried out the procedures to both my PC (XP) and my girlfriends laptop (VISTA).

Wow. What a difference.

Now, perhaps I am teaching a lot of folk to suck eggs. But I would like to share this with the IT-ignorant people like myself. So, for those of you who know how to turn off those hidden background programs as well as disabling unwanted applications at start-up, you can stop reading here.

For those still following, click on the link to this post:

www.techsupportforum.com/gaming-forum/pc-gaming-support/349169-optimising-your-system-games.html

I hope that Sven2157 doesn't mind me sharing this, but it made such a difference to both of my computers that I am keen to pass this information across to others. Although, I take no responsibility for anyone who manages to mess up their computer (covering my behind here!).

So, if you are confident enough to follow those steps, you will see a big difference in computer performance, especially at start up!

Well, I did anyway.

Enjoy!

Blog Banter #21: Low-Sec - The Forgotten part of EVE Online

2010-09-29T19:44:00.028+01:00

Welcome to the twenty-first 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic comes to us from @ZoneGhost who a few month ago asked: "Is Low Sec the forgotten part of EVE Online?" Is it? I'd like us to explore this even further. Is Low Sec being treated differently by CCP Games than Null Sec (Zero-Zero) or Empire space is? Can one successfully make a living in these unsecured systems where neither Alliance nor Concord roam to enforce their laws? What's needed? Or is everything fine as it is?

---

This is rather unfortunate timing for me.

At the moment I have very little to do with Low-Sec. My ventures out there are nothing more than my PI set-ups and the occasional mission. I don't deem my experiences-to-date worthy enough to offer a solid opinion. If I tried, I would just ramble rubbish and people will frown at me. So I will leave my personal opinions aside and just share what I know from others.

The Blogs that I follow often mention a sense of abandonment to Low-Sec. Mynxee is the latest to cover this matter in her most recent Blog posts. Moreover, she's attempting to change a few things with the help of others. Good on you, Mynxee.

From what I understand, nearly all pilots operate in High-Sec, Null-Sec and Wormhole. So, if this is where players mainly dwell, developing Low-Sec will not be on top of CCP's agenda. I am, however, inclined to think it's all a spiralling catch-22 situation; people avoid Low-Sec because CCP don't put anything there, but CCP don't put anything there because people avoid Low-Sec. Even in my short travels in this region of space, I have been surprised at how quiet it is.

The reason the timing of this topic is unfortunate is because I'm in the beginning process of a move into Low-Sec. Had this Blog-Banter been issued next month, I would have some interesting points to contribute to this post. Ron (the Corp CEO) and myself were discussing POS's only the other day. It was one of those conversations that started off as idle chat and quickly bloated into big ideas. To cut the boring details, we decided to put up a POS in Low-Sec. It will be geared around moon mining, with facilities to accommodate the occasional Low-Sec Mining-Op. At the time of writing this we are still in the probing-phase of the operation, so I don't have much to report (other than Ron lost his Heron to someone's POS defences - Haha!). But I am very excited to be making a move to Low-Sec.

However, at the moment I am looking to use Low-Sec as an additional income. I will remain based in High-Sec for the most part. I can't see our Corp making a permanent move out there. Not yet, anyway. Without actually operating in Low-Sec I don't know if it's even profitable enough to make a permanent move. We'll see. For the nature of our operations (CareBear-ey stuff) it would probably benefit us if Low-Sec did remain quiet - but that is purely for selfish reasons, and I don't want to be a bad sport.

Apologies for my naivety on this subject, especially with it being my first Blog-Banter post. But hopefully in the up-coming weeks I will be forming a very strong opinion on Low-Sec life.

Akinesis

CK's links:

Crazykinux's Musing: http://www.crazykinux.com
EVE Blog Pack: http://tinyurl.com/eveblogpack
EVE Blog Banter: http://tinyurl.com/evebanters

Reconstruction Complete...

2010-09-11T00:24:00.005+01:00

Final update:

Well, all my original Blog-posts have now been edited and resubmitted. It's taken so long due to events in EvE, which are taking up a lot of my time at the moment (War-Dec's, Alliance struggles, etc). I hope they are easier reading.

Anyway, postings will now continue as normal.

Losing to Low-Sec...

2010-09-08T12:08:00.036+01:00

Blog # 4

I don't wander into low-sec that often. Mainly, because I haven't had that much luck out there. I mentioned my first experience in a previous Blog-post with the Caracal, but my greatest loss in low-sec to date was with my Bustard.

The ship was full of high-value cargo, which I was trading between Hi and Low-Sec. I had been running a 0.4 gate without trouble, although I was fully aware of the risks of taking a sluggish ship through such a system.

On one of the jumps a ship was camping the other side (can't remember what it was). The Bustard's mighty tank held up and I was actually shredding his defences with smart-bombs. When the guy realised what was happening he apparently called in his chums to assist when the gate was suddenly alive with movement. I was going to lose my ship and the haul after all. Fine. I had made an awesome profit already (perhaps not enough to cover the cost of the Bustard, though), and this is EvE. And a lot of crap happens in EvE. The Bustard eventually popped and my pod screamed back to High-Sec.

After that incident I changed my tactics. I abandoned the idea of a Bustard and now do all my low-sec trading in a Crane, fitted with Covert-Ops cloak. And it's a fine ship. Next to my Rokh it is easily my most-used vessel. Although the cargo hold really does stand in the shade of the Bustard's, the cloak and fast-align means I no longer get blown-up (well, until I meet a well-organised gate-camp). I now venture deep into Low-Sec systems and I can make just as much per-hour from Low-Sec trading as I can from a decent level-4 mission. Except, it really isn't as fun. Apart from when I'm jabbing the air with the double V-signs at gate-campers as I slip past them - that's tremendous fun.

I know CCP are trying to get folks out into low-sec because I am suddenly getting more and more missions in 0.4. The problem is, ships fitted for PvE aren't very clever against PvP-fitted vessels. So even though I use a Drake for Low-Sec, I'm very aware of the danger that puts me in. To help my situation, I buddy-up with a Corp mate. They watch the jump gates and keep a vivid eye on the directional scanner for me so I can concentrate on the task.

As with a lot of people I am planning to move to null-sec eventually. But at the moment I'm more than content with where I am and what I'm doing. However, I've been following Star Defender and his posts on EVE Online Wormholes. He's been having a great time in Wormhole space, made a move to Null-Sec and now the game has totally transformed for him. It seems that the move has increased his EvE enjoyment ten-fold. After one particular post 'LightTraveler grows fangs', I feel that I'm missing out on what EvE is really about by dwelling in High-Sec.

'r7av7en7' has literally just made the jump out there, too - so I will be following his Blog, 'The Less than Dramatic Journey of a Tech Geek', very intently. I already like the sound of the bounties awarded by ratting! So maybe I will do it sooner rather than later.

However, it seems a lot more dedication to your Corp and Alliance is required when operating out there. At the moment, I cannot give enough time to the game. That is probably the biggest reason why I'm not making the move just yet. In High-Sec, casual playing is very achievable.

So for now, I will carry on CareBear-ing.

Persistence Prevails!

2010-09-02T19:52:00.048+01:00

Blog # 3

My life has taken a bizarre turn of events over the last week.

My girlfriend hates EvE. I mean, she really hates it. A lot of the reason why I don't play as often is because of her hatred for the game I have come to love. She says it steals away the little time we have together. Apparently, shelves fall off the wall and doors hang loose from their hinges as I let the house decay because I'm fixed onto the computer screen. It means the pet house-rabbit gets lonely when she's working shifts because I'm pew-pewing instead of giving the 'I'll-crap-next-to-the-litter-tray-instead-of-in-it' bunny the attention the little critter apparently needs.

In actual fact, we have loads of time together, the shelves and doors are fine, and the rabbit loves it when I play because he will sit on the sofa next to me for hours and not demand any attention.

Here is the little guy watching me play EvE back when he was a wee-pup. See, he's fine.

The amount of arguments that we have had because of EvE are countless. It's easily in the top five things that we argue about. So, one day I ask her; 'why not give the game a go yourself?' Next, I was ducking and diving from any projectile she could find to throw at me - including the rabbit, who had casually hopped into the lounge to see what the noise was about.

She didn't really throw the rabbit.

This went on for a long time. Whenever I suggested that she should try the game I ended up having to do a super-man out the window to escape any projectiles. I wasn't allowed to talk about EvE, let alone play the game. But, I persisted. Quite often she would laugh at me when I said EVE had a real-life likeness to a few things, such as the market. I tried to explain that people even practice business in the game to get the basics weighed off for reality. But apparently, I was talking rubbish when a hairbrush clonked me in the side of the head.

But then a funny thing happened. I logged in to check my mails and she happened to be with me. One of the e-mails read that our stand-in CEO was leaving the Corp. Now, this guy made the game for me in many ways. He was the strongest link chaining me to my Corp. I was gutted. At first my lass laughed at me when she saw how down about this guy leaving. Normally, I'd blank her, but for the first time I returned fire. I was ready to rip off my right-arm just so that I would have something to throw at her. Of course, I'm not forgetting that this is internet spaceships, but when you have done so much with a Corp-mate it's like losing a good pal. Sure, people come and go in Corp's, but this was a little out of the blue. So I think shock was the biggest part in my reaction. Anyway, she left the room for a long time after that.

Later, she creeped back and offered to have a go at EvE. I didn't take her seriously at first, but sure enough she made a character on my account and went through a few tutorials. I let her train a few skills to get her through the basic stuff, but then she really started to get into it. I would't let her take any more time out of my main characters training, so she went ahead and opened her own account.

And now?

I get into trouble for not playing EvE. She loves it. In fact, I'm forever getting phone calls and texts when I'm at work asking for advice. Last night she was playing until well after midnight, keeping me up until gone 11pm until she 'didn't need me any more' and I could finally get to sleep. I'm really pleased she's giving it a go. Plus, it means that we have another true female pilot among the EvE community. She's been playing a couple of weeks now and she shows no sign of backing down. I keep reminding her that she's only scratching the surface of the game, and she gets excited at that. She still goes all shy when someone opens a convo up and tries to recruit her, and she's a long way off from team-speak, but already she wants to join a Corp. I tell her to get use to the basics and make sure she sticks with the game first, but the signs are very promising. I've taken her onto some Level-4 missions, and she goes crazy over the loot in her little Bantam. It's all very quaint.

Below is a picture of her doing a Worlds Collide mission while we were driving to my cousins. She has the scarf-thing over her head because of sun-glare on the screen. I don't even make that much of an effort to log on.

So, to the lads (and lasses) who have partners that detest EVE - be persistent to get them to try it. I remember a Blog-Banter from CrazyKinux not so long a go that put forward the question of why many women don't play EVE, and now I think it's just because many of them simply haven't given it a go. Probably due to first impressions in that EVE looks quite 'boy-ish'. But what do I know? To me, the woman's mind is as much of a mystery as the phantom sock-snatcher every time I do a clothes wash.

Akinesis

Sound Advice...

2010-09-02T12:15:00.051+01:00

Blog # 2

The way I look at it there are two different ways to develop a Character in EvE: by 'progressing fast' or by 'progressing well'. To begin with, I chose the fast route.

What I mean by 'progressing fast' is training the minimum skills required to use ships and bigger components, without learning other skills to help use them effectively. In other words, pilots may applaud themselves by flying battlecruisers after only a short time of play, but it doesn't mean that they can fly them well.

When I started out in my first Corporation I wanted to fly the big ships, not little frigates. So I trained only the skills that would advance my Character onto larger vessels. I remember celebrating as I picked up a Caracal for the first time. I felt unstoppable. So much so, that I decided to go and explore Low-Sec. I was somehow under the delusion that a T1-fitted Caracal would be able to handle itself. Needless to say, my ship popped. Two Drakes were gate-camped the other side, demolishing anything that jumped through. I could do nothing as my new ship got stripped of it's shields, armour and structure in seconds. The moment I was a pod, I warped off to an asteroid field.

However, my pod wasn't alone. A Crow had followed me. Straight away, I was scrambled and webbed. But what happened next was completely unexpected. A chat box sprung up and the Crow pilot asked what I was doing in a Caracal for the age of my character. I had no real answer, other than I thought it looked awesome. But the advice I was given has stuck with me ever since, and I'm still following it to this day.

It is as follows:

"Frigates are very good ships, and there is no need to advance from them until late in the 'beginning part' of the game. They can run Level 1 and 2 missions, and are ideal ships for training PvP combat. During this 'work-up' time of learning the basics of EvE in frigates, base supporting skills should be trained."

And that is the main emphasis of this post - train up supporting skills.

I am sure that most experienced pilots out there would agree with me on this. And it doesn't matter if your character is jack-of-all-trades or role-typed. Relevant key supporting skills trained up to level 4 and 5 are of significant benefit. What was the point in me flying a Caracal when I barely had the other skills to operate it's weapons and shields effectively? It was like trying to drive a lorry on a moped licence. After the encounter I returned to Kino and re-planned my approach to EvE. I went back to a Merlin and bought skills that made the weapons fire faster, gave projectiles more damage, allowed ships to manoeuvre quicker, make the shields and capacitor recharge faster, freed up more CPU and power-grid, etc, etc. Once my supporting skills were at a satisfactory level, I concentrated on turning my T1 components to T2. In the end, I didn't even bother with Destroyers or Cruisers and went from a Merlin to a Drake.

After eight months, I've just finished. Now when I flick through my index, everything is at level 4 or 5, save a handful where a level-up wouldn't really benefit me. Even if they offer only a 2% boost at each level, I can honestly say I see the benefits. The rewards of this are worth the long time of seemingly non-progression. This is what I mean by 'progressing well'.

I will share an example that only happened the other day. One of our new Corp members convo'd me after becoming extremely fed up of not being able to tank Level-2 missions. I asked if any supporting skills had been trained, and they hadn't. I reeled off a list of key shield-improvement skills, which the pilot then bought and trained to at least level-three. And now Level-2 missions are no longer a problem.

My advice to rookie pilots is simple - make sure that you are fully walking before you can run. I'm not saying that one should spend three-quarters of a year training all these up in one go, but at least get the basics done. This is just my experience.

So, to the Crow pilot wherever he/she may be - thank you!

Blogging Begins...

2010-08-11T19:50:00.010+01:00

Blog # 1

EvE offers a great community. Any half-awake pod-pilot knows this. Apparently, CCP can quite happily boast that it has the most active gaming community there is against any other MMO. So, this is good news for any new EvE Bloggers like myself. The first time the community really caught my attention was when I saw the Blog-Pack on my iPod after downloading the Capsuleer App. I enjoyed what I read so I started following a few. I was getting a taste of aspects of the game that I had not yet explored, as well as learning a few new things along the way. A little later I found Podcasts, such as The Drone Bay, and my attention to the EvE community leapt forward further. It was fun, and I decided I wanted to get involved. I enjoy writing, so Blogging is the ideal route to take. In real life, however, I am the type of individual who is a 'thinker' more than a 'doo-er''.

Not so long ago my graphics card packed up. I was on EvE when the screen started to jump. It seemed like lag, so I continued in blissful ignorance until the computer completely froze. On reboot the loading screen was stained with an array of vertical lines. A virus was the first problem that sprung to mind. But to spare the problem-eliminating details that ensued, it turned out the card failed due to my neglect of basic computer housekeeping. When I removed the side-cover of the tower I found the internals caked in dust. It had built up in the heat-sinks and starved the processor of cool air. I acquired a new one and rebooted the computer for good measure. A lot of reinstalling inevitably followed and I quickly grew tired of blue loading bars, so I decided that I would start that EvE Blog that I had been dwindling on for so long. And here it is.

So, back to topic. Well, Akinesis is my Toon and I'm a 2007 player. However, I am probably more of a 2009 player in terms of experience and game-time. My skill points reflect this. At the time of writing my Toon currently harbours only 26mil. Thanks to real-life commitments, I took a year and a half out. But I always knew I would be coming back to EvE. In fact, it's the only game that I play now. EvE encompasses everything I want out of a game. Simple. There is a clear and steady progression coupled with achievement that one can build upon without a 'Final Boss' to end everything one has created. For me, not having an end is one of the games' biggest attractions. I'm not even going to mention the shear diversity EvE offers; it speaks for itself.

As for my play-style, I don't think I should leave it any later to announce that I am a Carebear. This is probably due to my 'upbringing' rather than intial choice. I found my legs in EvE with a Mining-Corp that trained newbs. I am well-aware that many Low/Null-Sec and Wormhole pilots are not interested in reading what a Carebear gets up to in-game. My activities are dull to these folk, so why should they read my posts? Well, I can assure you that I'm not basing this Blog entirely on my Carebear-ing activites. I'm planning on writing about the bigger picture in EvE, not how well my strip-miners are performing. I aim to discuss 'topics' rather than day-to-day events, unless something significant happens. So even though many are shaking their heads at my play-style, I hope my angle of writing will be intersting. Rest assured, however, that I am now flying more and more into Low-Sec due to my Alliance. So hopefully my material will start to relate to a wider margin of players.

I know that I cannot please everybody with this Blog, and I'm certainly not even going to try. All I can say is that I am writing this for myself, and it's a bonus even if I gain one follower.

I hope you enjoy o/