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

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

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

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. 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. This is very rarely the case when the target's speed, size, etc are added to the equation.

However, 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.

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. It's all to do with the 'explosion velocity' of the missiles, and T1's and Faction are much better than T2's. However, this does mean that the battleships do take longer to fall. 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

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

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...

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!

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.