Break Vol

Open Letter to "Wu1f"

2011-03-22T01:42:00.003Z

First off, I need to say that "Wu1f" is so far beyond lame. It actually pains me to think that someone raised such a person with so little creativity that "Wu1f" was the best they could come up with.

I can only hope that he purchased the character and it pains him every time he has to log in.

As I wind down Odinsdagrting, I am calling for votes to unlock the BPOs so I can sell them and pay the investors. I've gotten a couple of eve-mails from "Wu1f" asking me to stop spamming him. I can't respond, since he has blocked me. If anyone knows "Wu1f", then please pass this on to him:

Mr. Wolf,

Take this as a courtesy and a lesson on how to play Eve.

You, or the corporation that you control, owns one or more voting shares of stock in Odinsdagrting [ODNDT]. As a result, you will receive notification everytime there is a call for a share holder vote.

If you do not wish to vote, you do not have to. If you do not wish to own the stock, feel free to sell it. It is currently traded on the Block Ships and Ammunitions Corporate Stock Exchange (http://www.bsacse.amxg4.com/stocks/index.php).

Vol Jbolaz, CEO
Odinsdagrting

--------------------------------
Spam
From: Wu1f
Sent: 2011.03.15 17:41
To: Vol Jbolaz,

seriously man stop spamming me.
i have nothing to do with your corp or your alliance so stop sending me these messages i really dont give a shit about these things you want to unlock

New Player Resources: Mining

2010-11-04T11:15:00.005Z

I am not a miner. In all honesty, the only way I can stand to shoot at rocks is if someone might shoot back. While I do, rarely, join a mining op in high sec, I'm not even remotely interested in mining unless we are at least in low sec. Mining in null sec is finally getting to some fun.

In other words, a mining op is no fun if it doesn't require a security detail.

That being said, I've had a few, "I want to be a miner," applications from newly licensed capsuleers to my mostly non-mining corp. I don't mind. They can mine by themselves, or join me for mining ops in low sec.

Still, I feel the need to collect what knowledge I can here.

As a new capsuleer, don't waste your time. Seriously. You have the ability to mine, but you completely suck at it. Go find an agent and run missions.

I'm not saying don't go into mining, I'm saying you should lay some ground work. If you want to be an uberminer, you will eventually need to learn the skills that will make you an uberrefiner. That is something you can get started on from day one.

When cutting rocks, you get raw ore. That ore gets hauled to a station or outpost and refined into minerals that can be used in manufacturing. The minerals are the goal of mining. The refining process has quite a bit of loss in it.

When a new capsuleer refines a bit of ore, they only get back half of the minerals in that ore. There are skills that will boost the refine efficiency. Those same skills will make you better at mining.

To use a Tech 2 mining crystal, one has to have Refining V, Refinery Efficiency V, and the ore specific processing skill to IV. All of those skills will lower the amount of waste when refining ore.

That still doesn't explain why I recommend run missions.

In addition to ore lost to inefficiency, the station takes a cut. The higher your standings with the corporation that owns the station, the lower the cut. To get perfect refine, one needs more than perfect skills. They need a standing high enough to reduce the refining tax to zero.

My advice to new miners is be a mission runner first.

As to the actual practice of mining, there are a few good resources out there on how to cut rocks. A good place to start, aside from Google, is Evelopedia. The Evewiki has a pretty exhaustive article, too.

Starting a Podcast

2010-11-04T01:37:00.004Z

I know, it is weird. It is probably a very bad idea, but I'm doing it.

I am starting yet another Eve-related podcast.

In all fairness, this podcast will have a very small focus. I will try to publish it every week, but I only expect it to be between five and eight minutes long. My goals are simple.

Publish a market report, not unlike PRI's Marketplace, or the Eve Morning Report.

Expand to not only cover minerals and ice products, but PI products and any active stock exchanges.

Report only weekly changes, since daily isn't of too much use to me. And report on trends over time, too.

Report only the numbers that have actually moved in the last week. No need to bore everyone with numbers that only changed .27%.

Get the show syndicated. While I don't mind producing and publishing it weekly on my own, I really feel it would fit nicely in someone else's show. They can edit it in.

Get another host. One of the reasons the Eve Morning Report died is because it was just one guy. While I don't see two people doing this at once, I do see me and one or more people taking turns, so we can make sure someone can do it every week. And the format is simple enough.

I'm doing this to support my main business, to fill a void, and because it may be kind of fun. We'll see how it goes. I won't be doing big shows with interviews and in-depth news and such. I am not an economist. I am not a business major or anything. I don't really know how the deep details of the economy work. This is all a wonderful fun hobby for me. Just like making a publicly-traded corporation work. This is a big escape from reality.

If I can get it to work, I'll hopefully have the first full episode ready for download this weekend. I've already passed a demo out to a few others. If you are interested, let me know.

Establishing Trust

2010-07-27T00:34:00.003+01:00

Being a Capsuleer means one is forced to live by different rules. Capsuleers are, first and foremost, immortal. Punishments for crimes are severely limited in their effectiveness. Capsuleers also have much more mobility than humans have ever had in the past. Not only do they have access to faster-than-light ships and access to instant point-to-point jump gates at much higher rates than non-capsuleers, but they have access to jump clones. Capsuleers can literally move from one end of known space to the other at the speed it takes him to step into the medical facility.

All of this gives Capsuleers a level of untouchableness. They can exist above laws. However, this is not the end of it. Every Capsuleer may be tied to any number of capsuleers at a level that can not be tracked anywhere in New Eden outside of the super secret internal workings of the medical facilities. This means that any Capsuleer could potentially be willing to sacrifice himself to biomass reclamation, because he knows his mind can live on in a new Capsuleer. The only thing lost is the skill training, agent standing, and the scarlet letter of the crime they are seeking to absolve themselves of.

This makes Capsuleers paranoid.

This makes Capsuleers who are CEOs even more paranoid.

I live by a, "Don't trust me, and I won't trust you" motto. It is really is manifested in more of a trust, but verify manner.

When I was with Sturmgrenadier I rose to the position of Director of Industrial Logistics. I was in charge of all of the internal corporate manufacturing, mining, and POSes. The latter two had very dedicated assistant directors. This let me focus on the former. SG offered, for free to all regular members, all T1 frigates, cruisers, ammunition, and modules. We had battlecruisers, barges, industrials, and, occasionally, battleships, to loan to members. We had three offices that had to be stocked, and POS hangars.

We had thefts. The mechanics available to capsuleer corporations and station hangars is simply inadequate. We could not prevent the thefts without making everything entirely too cumbersome to maintain. The best we could do was set up firewalls. If someone did steal, audit trails made it obvious who stole. The limited amounts available at any time limited what could be stolen. This put more work on my team, but it was a balance. If anyone were to steal, they would have to do it on the way out, and they couldn't get but so much.

After leaving SG, I started a couple independent ventures. Odinsdagrting [ODNDT] is my most recent one, but I'll speak more on that in a moment.

One of them was Prydwen Technology Group [PRYD]. Even after leaving SG the corp, I was still in the syndicate, and still had close ties with them and their alliance, Fountain Alliance [FA]. I offered a limited stock purchase to SG and FA members, and paid modest dividends. I also offered small, unsecured loans to SG and FA members. This was all a bit risky, thus I limited it to people that I thought I could trust. In the end, I had no loans default.

But in the end, I burned out. I had one outstanding loan, and before anyone could ask for another, I paid off that loan from my own wallet and closed up shop. I liquidated the company, selling off all of the BPOs the corp had (manufacturing was one of the revenue streams). I then paid out the entire corp wallet as dividends. Because the corp was now worth more than it was when it started, those that bought stock now received their initial money back, plus some, on top of the dividends they had been receiving.

There was nothing that made me do that, though. I did that because I thought it was the right thing to do. There is no mechanic to enforce that. I had to ask people to trust me, and I don't like doing that.

There is also the matter of, what if I couldn't liquidate and repay? What if, instead of a burn out, it was 'hit by a bus'? I thought I had a solution for that with my latest venture, Odinsdagrting. I had a friend that I got into a capsule. I see him every week, and I've known him for years. I know I can trust him as a partner in a corp. If I get hit by a bus, then he can try to continue alone, or he can pull the plug and pay everyone back.

He is leaving the capsule, though. It just isn't for him. That is fair. It isn't for most people.

I have instructions for him, though. If I'm hit by a bus, it is my hope that he'll get into the capsule long enough to melt the company down and divide the capital up among the owners, the stock holders.

The Billion ISK Primae

2010-07-10T13:47:00.002+01:00

This is a tale of how I am covered in epic fail.

I was puttering around The Forge, buying BPOs, scouting out offices. One the side, I was looking for Covetor BPCs. The Alliance was just coming out of its latest war, so I was looking at local.

Already, I'm doing several things I don't normally do.

Someone in local posted a link to a Primae auction. I was curious as to how much these worthless little things were going for. The auction had just started, and was starting at 1,000,000.00 ISK.

I didn't expect it to stay at 1 Million ISK. I expect it to get between 10 and 20 Million. I didn't have any interest in a Primae, and wasn't going to bid. But I figured, sure, I'll be the first bidder. I'll get the little auction rolling. And when I get outbid, I really won't care.

The next day, I'm not in New Eden. I'm at my office, most everyone is gone. I'm just trudging through some annoying work. I start to think about the Primae, just in general terms. Then I think... wait... did that auction say 1 Million or 1 Billion?

In a panic, I pull out my iPhone and fire up Capsuleer and refresh. My wallet drops by 1 Billion ISK.

Somehow I had missed it. Somehow I had missed that there was already a bid on that auction of 1 Billion. I was not bidding 1 Thousand over a 1 Million ISK bid, I was bidding 1 Million over a 1 Billion ISK bid. All of this for something that I didn't want, and didn't expect to win. Just because I was poking around in Contracts while warping from gate to gate in The Forge.

And to add insult to injury, I had built up that money as commissions and dividends since September. This month, Odinsdagrting was planning on having a public stock offering. That 1 Billion ISK, in fact, nearly all of the ISK I had, was going into that investment.

Now, not only did I lose 1 Billion of my ISK, the vast majority of my ISK, but Odinsdagrting loses out on that Billion ISK. And since the number of shares offered will be limited to the number of shares I can buy (since I want to maintain control), the corporation loses out on the potential for 2 Billion ISK (mind you, I doubt there are that many interested investors).

It is safe to say that my emorage meter spiked. But, whatever, I've demonstrated before that I'm a loser. There is, however, some adolescent griefer that just creamed his shorts.

I can now completely identify with his girlfriends: It's a regrettable hassle and not nearly as satisfying for me.

Lessons Learned

I should've taken all of that money and dumped it into the wallet of a character that I don't use. The corporation has several wallets, so I can spread its money around. The wallets act like firewalls, to keep stupid mistakes like this, or corp thefts, from doing but so much damage.

As an example: on the same day, I accidentally bought 23 copies of a 675,000.00 BPO when I only meant to buy 2. The three is next to the Enter. Fortunately, they were small, and they really are worth 675 Thousand, so I can recover.

Lessons Learned Planetside

2010-06-10T03:00:00.003+01:00

With the build-up to Planetary Interaction, I thought I was not going to like it. I went in upset that it couldn't be a corp thing. One can anchor for the corp. One can buy, sell, and contract for the corp. Why can't we run planets for the corp?

I was afraid that it would be hard for the corp to formalize Planetary Interaction. But, I think I've found a way.

I also thought I would hate Planetary Interaction because of how much babysitting it might require. I was pleased to find that colonies can be not only maintained but completely rebuilt from regions away. Storage is so plentiful that I don't need to fly out to low sec and pick up my wares every third day. I can wait a week, or even two.

Not only all that, but I'm liking the way one builds colonies. It is a little bit of a click-fest, but it is interesting. I kind of would like some sort of way to tune ships like this.

On the initial release day, I set up four colonies. I rebuilt two of them.

There are a few things that I learned that wasn't obvious to me before I got involved. I watched StevieSG's YouTube tutorial. I should've done more research before hand, but I didn't.

Some of the things I've learned:

Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.

I have seen as many as eight installations on one planet. 'Course, I may have counted one more than once. But they don't show up readily. I turn on a scan, then slide the heat map so the whole planet is white. When I find a little spot, I look around for the command center. When I click on it, the entire network and all the buildings show up. They weren't there before.

Storage is important. Don't over do it.

While I can build a storage facility, the spaceport alone holds as much as two storage facilities. Since I can edit my colony from regions away (that's right, regions away you can rebuild the entire thing), I wait to build extra storage. No need to build it if I don't need it.

Plan. Plan. Plan.

There are several levels on which I plan. One is just deciding what I want to create as an end products. Some of the P3/P4 items I use in my T2 production. Some of them I want to build some items that are built completely from planetary products.

I have to decide which items to source from which planets, which items I want to haul to another planet for a more reactions, and so on.

Another thing to plan is how the buildings are to be laid out. This is very important for each individual colony. Laying the paths out wrong can cost another extractor or two.

Links can be upgraded, and messed with.

I didn't know this to begin with. As I was routing products, I exceeded the capacity on a link. When I clicked on that link, I found that they can be upgraded. That helps a lot.

When routing a good, the route will always take the fewest number of links. Even if there are two links to the destination, the product wont' route if one link is over capacity. While it can be upgraded, sometimes it is worthwhile to build the longer links first. Route as many goods as that set of links will hold. Then build the shorter links. Then route the rest of the goods.

Examples

This is the part when I want to introduce pictures.

This is a crazy web of links. There is no real need for links set up like this. And links consume resources.

This one does have the web, but there are links that aren't needed. There is no need to link everything to the hub. Link buildings to the building closest to them. Goods can be routed through other buildings.

The extractors here don't need a link to every destination. Items can be routed through other buildings.

This is an example of one of the ones that I rebuilt. There are a few things that I'd like to change, but here you see how linking and routing can be done to save powergrid and CPU.

Here though, I could drop the storage facility. I could also have brought everything closer to the CC to use it as a route point.

Also, having the facilities outside of the storage means that the link between the facility and the storage gets used three times. It causes congestion.

Widescreen Isn't Just Letterboxing!

2010-05-30T01:43:00.003+01:00

When Tyrannis was released, I immediately noticed something was wrong with my HUD. I couldn't put my finger on it.

Then I was directed to the a forum thread: So why did "widescreen" go the way of "medium shader" again?

That was it. Parts of my HUD had, at one point, been in the letterboxes. Now, the widescreen feature has been removed.

CCP Eris Discordia offer the excuse that adapting changes to work with the feature was too much of a burden.

Several in the thread have pointed out that the unintended advantages the letterboxes gave to the visually impaired were being exploited by macroers.

Yes, I am upset to see the widescreen go. I am more upset, however, to see the number of idiots in the thread that didn't realize that the widescreen mode actually let you have a wider field of view. You could see more. It wasn't just letterboxes laid overtop of the display to crop it and create a widescreen effect. The field of view was actually increased. For that to fit on the screen, it had to be letterboxed.

So the non-widescreen option is actually a cropping of the widescreen option.

The same is true for movies. The letterboxes aren't just for dramatic effect. Movie theater screens aren't merely bigger. They have a different aspect ratio for a reason. Humans have a much better side-to-side peripheral vision than they do up-down.

I could rant on and on, but the internet is full of articles that have already covered this. I invite everyone to check with Google and read for themselves why widescreen actually shows more. Another great place to start is Wikipedia's article on apect ratio.

Helping Others... Or Not

2010-05-23T03:08:00.002+01:00

Odinsdagrting is recruiting. As a result, I've been visiting the official forums. After harassing more than a few threads in the recruitment forum, I wandered over to the Science and Industry forum.

There are an expected number of threads where new and aspiring industrialists ask questions. There is an eagerness to answer them. I think that is true for most forums: the desire to be the person with the right answer.

There are an expected number of threads where people are crying foul over some actual or perceived problem. Some of these are real problems, some aren't. Some are likely just trolls.

The posts that really surprise me, or more to the point, upset me, are the ones were people are intentionally misleading others. The post look genuine. I read them, and my first thought is that they must have the math wrong.

Then I wonder if I am doing the math wrong.

I double check my math, and re-read the post. The tone makes me think that this person is intentionally saying it ever so slightly wrong in the hopes to lead others astray.

In the realm of PvP, everyone seems open to share their tactics, their fits, their little tricks and advice. Part of it is because some of these things are hard to hide. Part of it is likely because sharing tricks is just as much of a victory as actually employing them. It strokes the e-peen.

I'm sure part of it is also because knowing the tricks of another warrior is not always enough of an edge to beat them. Market PvP doesn't have anything more than tricks. Twitch, nerves, gangmates, blobs, camps; these things don't affect market PvP.

The misleading forum posts are probably a valid tactic in market PvP, but they feel very underhanded to me, deceitful. They are a tactic that doesn't distinguish between intended targets and innocent bystanders.

Then again, there may not be innocents in market PvP.

Eager for Action

2010-05-15T02:41:00.002+01:00

I've been busy keeping Odinsdagrting going. Money hasn't been bad, and the corp is now twice as big as it was when I formed it. But, I want some action.

I have a problem that I imagine most others don't have. I don't have an industrial alt. It is just me. I can build and sell an Oneiros, and I can fit and field a Scimitar. Regrettably, I only get to build the ships as of late.

I've made an offer to haul ships in my Mastodon out to low security space, just so I had something slightly dangerous to do. I'm looking forward to Planetary Exploration because I want to go into low security space and set up some planetary operations there.

I did finally break down and buy my Loki. I dubbed her Hellcat and flew her back home. I still haven't settled on a fitting, yet, but with the interdiction nullifier and the covert ops configuration, I feel pretty confident running around null sec. I just don't know if there is much of a reason for me to do that, yet.

I'm not going to do anything crazy right now and risk the Loki, but I don't mind risking Mastodons and Prowlers. Maybe I'll take a barge into low sec and see if anyone jumps me.

Out of the Pod

2010-03-30T03:31:00.002+01:00

I will be going on vacation next week. If anyone cares, this will delay the Odinsdagrting monthly report and dividends.

If anyone really cares, I'll be in Florida. I will be trying to watch Discovery launch for STS-131. I can't really say as I'm all that glamorous to meet, and I will have the family with me, but... if there is any sort of ad hoc Eve Meetup, let me know.

A Day in the Life...

2010-01-23T14:40:00.002Z

I've been so very busy lately. I have a project entering the final stretch at my planetside employer, so I am busy working on documentation and training material and trying to get the last few bugs worked out of the system.

My work week is measured Monday to Monday. Today on Saturday, I have logged 58 hours for this week. Being salaried, I don't get paid any over time. All of that, and I haven't even gotten around to do the work I wanted to get done this week. My mother-in-law has the children this weekend, so I am hoping to work on some more documentation.

All my time spent there, however, means I have less time to work on getting Odinsdagrting to the point where it runs... more without me. To get to the point where I can work less, I have to work more. I need more hands, I need more time to get some logistics sorted and running smoothly, and I need time to make that happen.

Prior to this week, I did try to record my time off world, either in station or in a capsule. In five days that I was able to keep track, I snuck in nearly 21 hours. Mind you, a lot of that time was while I was also working on stuff for my planetside job, so I was having to multitask.

All of that time was spent hauling raw materials to the factory, hauling produced goods to market, tending market orders, tending build jobs, tending invention jobs, monitoring the corp wallets (to see who has sold what so I can track profit from sales and commissions), and tending the massive Google Docs spreadsheet used to run it all.

My Eve life sounds terribly, terribly boring.

Yes, I do want to get into some real, organized operations that run the risk of armed combat. But I find that I do enjoy pushing bits around, squeezing out more profit, and growing the corp. As boring as it sounds, as boring as it looks, as boring as it probably is, I wouldn't give it up.

Blog Banter #14

2010-01-12T02:52:00.004Z

Welcome to the fourteenth 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 out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

My answer has to come in three parts: The Possible, The Hopeful, and The Wildest Dream.

The Possible

My primary focus is my corp, Odinsdagrting. I would like for it to remain open this entire year. I would like for it to grow not only value, but in membership. I'd love to have at least four main inventors and builders with people responsible for selling and procurement. I'm not against a mining division, worm hole activities, and high sec POSes. I also want to push into low sec and, along with United Trade Syndicate, build markets.

I've tried running my own little corps, and I've been in a senior position in other people's big corps. I'd like to try running my own big corp.

The Hopeful

I've often tried to find a ship that would define me. I don't have to be in it all the time, but it would be the ship I'd use most of the time. The ship that I'd specialize in. The ship that I could be known for.

Most of the time, I'm in my Mastodon, Holtby, or my Prowler, Bisycmaplinis.

I do really like the Jaguar. I would've liked it even more if the AF speed boost had been included in Dominion. I can't see the Jaguar being a ship that could be used in enough situations to be a signature ship, though.

My past performance would indicate an affinity for the Blackbird. I do like it. It would make sense to make the Falcon a more permanent choice, but it is slow.

And Caldari.

I love the Typhoon and the Bellicose (mini-Phoon), and should look into the navy variants.

However, I think fate sealed it during the Hellcats Party. I was there for less than five minutes, and then was wifed. My name was drawn for the Loki, and I wasn't there.

Not only is it Minmatar, and badass, and works great in a group or solo, but it is very versatile and could be a ship one uses most of the time. Thanks to some gifts after the party, I am on my way. Once my corp is more stable, I'll likely save up enough and get myself into a Loki. I've never flown anything more expensive than a Tempest.

The Wildest Dream

I have an idea for a meta-game website. Something like Eve-Metrics or Eve Online Hold'em. I think it would be wildly successful.

I also think the Bellicose is a fun ship, so clearly my opinion doesn't mean much.

My wildest dream for this year is to talk some others into my idea, finding crazy amounts of free time, and coding up a web site that would add one of those real-world industries to a game that clearly wasn't built for it. I have an idea like EBank, just built with better safeguards.

p.s. A list of participants. I have to admit to not having had time to read all of these. I feel linking to content that I haven't looked at, but it has taken me so long to have the time to post this list that I feel I should post the entire list:

CrazyKinux's Musing - A beginning is a very delicate time...
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - Words, words, words…
My God It's Full of Stars - What Now?
The Elitist - Plans for 112yc
Into the unknown with gun and camera - Show me the money
Ecliptic Rift - Enabling the future
Inanity and Doom - New Year's Resolutions, New Eden Style
Break Vol - Blog Banter #14
Guns Ablaze - What Now?
Adventures in Mission Running - The Way Forward
Diary of a Pod Pilot - Things I want to do
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - The Year That Will Be
Roc's Ramblings - WordPress ate my blog
Vive Virtual - Frontier Living
A Mule in EVE - Next on the chopping block
Prano's Journey - I Peer Into My Crystal Pod...
Life in Low Sec - Expanding the Franchise
The Light of Stars - Testing the claims of CCP
A Memoir From Space - A New Direction
The Chronofile - Blog Banter 2010
FlashFresh - What now for Flash?
EVE Opportunist - Fyreite in 112
Mike Azariah - Jiorj
Yarrbear Tales - Year in Review
The Independant Analyst - The Year Ahead
The Travels of Black Claw - Where ma I going?
Warp Scrammed - What to do this year
Sered's Lives - Searching for directions in 2010
Finders & Keepers - New Tears, Same Great Taste
The Captain's Log - To Dream of the Future
The Lathspell of Mithrandir - Resolutions
The Midnight Sun - EVE Blog Banter #14
EVE What? - New Heights to be Reached
The EVE Chronicles - New Year – New Blog – What a way to start the Year!

[ Delicious Tags: eveblogbanter14 ]

New Player Resources: Corp Roles

2009-11-12T16:18:00.000Z

Odinsdagrting has been running over a month now. It is just me and my three newbie friends. So far, I've been doing most of the work. It isn't a complaint. My work so far has been an investment. This post, however, is born from an email to my corpmates. I figured this was worth sharing.

Hauling

This can be a corp role onto itself. There are, however, many other roles that can use these same skills.

In this case, though, there are two focuses for one's skills. One I call a container ship, and one is the tramp freighter.

When hauling large amounts of cheap materials, such as minerals and ore, one wants an n-tier industrial, such as the Mammoth or Badger Mk II in the role of a container ship. When fitting these ships, they should be fitted to maximize cargo room. Every low slot should be a cargo expander. Every rig slot should be a cargo expander. The idea is, the ship should carry as many giant containers as possible.

The tramp freighter is for when one is hauling small, more expensive goods, such as salvage, advanced components, or manufactured goods. The tramp freighter needs to be fitted with the intention of reducing time-to-warp. It doesn't need to carry more than one giant container. It needs to slip into warp as quickly as possible. For this reason, it should have initial stabilizers and nano-fibers fit. It may also want to fit warp core stabilizers.

In either of these cases, the ship should have as large and strong a buffer shield tank as possible. High sec, suicide piracy is a very real possibility. These pirates will easily be able to over come any active boosting. A large buffer won't save your ship, but it may keep it intact long enough to get into warp, into the station, through the gate, or until CONCORD arrives.

To see the skills needed for this, just play with ship fittings in EFT or look at ships and modules in EveMon.

Corporate Sales

This is a role that often requires the tramp freighter to quickly carry manufactured goods to the market hubs.

This role also requires the Trade skill. Depending on the volume, this role may also require the Retail and Wholesale skills. It is worth noting that Retail only requires Trade II.

Helpful for this role is also Accounting and Broker Relations. Both of these will reduce costs and save money.

Another skill that would be handy is Daytrading. This skill allows for the remote modification of orders. The Marketing skill will allow one to post remote sell orders, but in most cases, one is delivering the goods to the station and can place the initial order then. Being able to remotely participate in the penny wars is very helpful.

Procurement

Depending on what materials are being procured, this job may require either the container ship or the tramp freighter.

It doesn't require any skills to buy off of existing sell orders. The buyer doesn't pay a tax or broker's fee.

However, it is sometimes cheaper and easier to just place buy orders. In these cases, one will again need to get into the Trade-Retail-Wholesale tree. The Procurement skill replaces the Marketing skill, and is much more handy.

Research Assistant

One of the bottlenecks in Tech 2 production is the limited number of research slots one has available. Some jobs can take days, further slowing the entire process down. It is helpful to have more hands helping with this.

One of the simplest research jobs is copying blueprints. To install a copy job, one simply needs Laboratory Operation which requires Science III.

There are skills, such as Science, that will speed up these jobs. Metallurgy will speed up Material Level research jobs (very useful) and Research will speed up Time Efficiency research jobs (not as useful). However, these types of research jobs only ever need to be done once. Copy jobs have to be done nearly constantly.

Another useful skill is Scientific Networking. This will allow the remote installation of research jobs.

Inventor

To build Tech 2 products (without one of the old Tech 2 blueprint originals) one must invent. The skills required to run an invention job on any given blueprint are listed on the blueprint itself. In this case, it is just a matter of looking into which blueprints you'll want to or be expected to handle.

It is worth noting that the skills to run an invention job are the same skills needed to have a research project with an R&D agent once on has Research Project Management and access to an appropriate R&D agent. The datacores purchased from R&D agents are the same ones needed in the invention process.

Manufacturing

To actually install a standard production job merely requires Industry. There are, however, items that require more skills than this to be built. Those skills, just as the ones for invention, are listed on the blueprint.

For My Fans

2009-11-05T02:04:00.005Z

It seems I have put more than blogger in a tail spin. It seems the kind of moment that makes one want to coin a new phrase: Yarrbear Whines.

Mind you, I don't like the name calling. I am not a carebear, and it is illogical to suggest that I am simply because I am not a pirate. I am just a PvPer who really enjoys the industry side and doesn't currently have a chance for PvP.

There are those that toss around carebear in a purely derogatory fashion. There are those that think that carebears are substandard players, that have no business playing Eve, and should be removed from the game. These are likely what I would want to call Yarrbears; players that like to call themselves pirates, but who are actually griefers. They give real pirates a bad name. These same Yarry types are likely the ones that cry foul when someone uses warp core stabilizers or when their win button of choice gets nerfed.

Whatever, HTFU, and all that good jazz.

Contrary to public misinterpretation, I have no desire for PvP-free zones. I have no desire to change the engine to make PvP impossible. And yes, I am distancing myself from some comments I've made, but that is because they didn't come across as I intended. I am sorry for that.

I do, however, want to make piracy harder across the board, so that only real pirates will do it. And trust me, I can find some real pirates. They have some fantastic operations going on. It is quite tempting, actually, to become a pirate. But at the end of the day, I like to have something a little bigger to show for it. Besides, low sec warfare is nothing compared to null sec warfare. One day, I'll get back to 0.0.

Why do I want to tweak PvP? I propose an experiment for anyone with the free time to do it (read: not me, since I have no free time).

Build a high sec suicide ship of your choice. If I were doing it, I'd build a battlecruiser. Insure it with the best insurance you can. The reason I say build it yourself is, the Gold and Platinum insurance cover more than the cost to build a battlecruiser. If you have a really good BPO and get your materials cheap enough, even the silver will cover the cost. The battlecruiser now costs the difference between the insurance premium and the return on the insurance. Put on the cheapest high-damage, suicide fit that you can and find your hub of choice, or your 0.5-system-with-good-traffic of choice. I hypothesize that one could nearly strike at random and at least break even. I hypothesize that if one were to sack a good sample rate of suicide ships in this manner, one would find that they aren't losing nearly as much money as one would fear, if in deed they were to lose money at all.

To me, that is what is broken. One should have to think about it. One should have to lay in wait and strike targets carefully, with some thought, and with some great risk. Otherwise, the only ones taking a risk are the haulers. Again, it isn't my goal to make the game easier for non-PvPers, for carebears if you like, but to make the game equally hard for PvPers and non-PvPers alike.

In all of the discussion, someone suggested a rugby match analogy. Analogies are prone for failure, but I'll expand it bit more just for fun. The flaw in the original analogy, to my thinking, is that the pitch is not high sec. The pitch is low sec. Waiting in line at the concession stand is 1.0. One should be able to wait in line at the concession stand without fear of mugging.

Mind you, if one waits in that line with money hanging out of his pockets and more bling than Cadillac pitch at a hip-hop concert, then he should constantly live in fear of mugging. I won't feel bad if he is exploded in line.

But again, see my experiment above. I think one could probably not go broke just popping random people that roll into or out of Jita.

I will admit, I don't know why I really harp on this. I have never been the victim of random violence. So I can't say for sure that it is a rampant problem. It is entirely possible that my hypothesis is wrong. It is also possible that my hypothesis is right, but that it is actually much too boring for anyone to do.

At last, I'd like to close the ninja salvage discussion.

Unlike everyone who responded to me, I have actually found a legitimate reason why salvage is "easy" (doesn't provoke PvP) and looting isn't. By allowing anyone to salvage, there is the possibility that more salvage makes it to market and controls the price of salvage and thus the products built from salvage. I imagine there is a bit more price control in that the ninja salvagers don't have the same bills to pay that the mission runners do, and thus they may be willing to sell for less.

That does make sense. But I think it is the wrong approach to fixing the problem. First off, I don't see why salvage and looting are different. They are the same action. They are both made possible by the same series of actions. Yes, I could understand the idea that both looting and salvaging should be "easy" actions. After all, why should a wreck by owned by anyone?

But, being a gamer, and not merely someone that plays games, I am interested in the mechanics and dynamics and balance behind it. I think provoking PvP gives more opportunities for player interaction. I think it simply makes more sense from a game point of view that one would want to make the harsh game of Eve harsh, not just a free ride for the ninja salvagers.

To make sure that wrecks don't go unsalvaged (after all, there are mission runners, I'm sure, that can't be bothered, are too full, or don't think it is worth their time) I think ownership of a wreck should have a timer. After 30 or 60 minutes, the wreck goes from being yellow to white, and anyone can loot and salvage without provoking PvP.

I think that would be a good compromise to insure that salvage makes it to market and that the game is hard for all parties involved.

Again, I think all spawns should be sleeper-smart, and I think spawns should be balanced such that PvE fittings are much closer to PvP fittings.

Mind you, I don't run kill missions, so I don't have a personal problem with ninja salvagers. I'm not sure why I care to fix it.

Then again, perhaps an objective third party is what is always needed.

Next week, I promise, I'll talk about market PvP (unless we get into low-sec and something interesting happens).

Cold, Harsh Mistress

2009-10-29T01:09:00.005Z

I made the mistake of getting into a conversation in the Eve Bloggers channel. Lesson learned. That wasn't too much better than the forums. It seems I cried many a carebear tear because I disagreed with everyone. It seems that simply the desire to have a balance between pew and non-pew means you are a crybaby. Clearly, I don't get it. And now I have lost respect for some.

To highlight the discussion:

Criminally tagged capsuleers can enter a high security system in only their capsule, and the local authorities will ignore them. They can board a ship in space, like one pulled from the ship maintenance bay of an Orca. The discussion started on what part of that needed to be nerfed.

Someone related that there was calls in the forums to have the Orca nerfed. I don't think it makes sense to nerf the Orca just because it can be used for piracy. You don't hurt the pirates, you just hurt the miners. I don't mind if pirates smuggle ships of war into high sec. But common sense to me says that if they approach a gate or a station, then the standard faction spawn should appear.

I don't know how that works, but apparently I'm too much of a carebear, using common sense and all. Clearly, the authorities are blind, and they can only attack you if somehow you enter through a gate or undock. Pointing this out, apparently, is an act of carebear crying.

Another part of the conversation spawned from ninja salvagers. Personally, I don't think it makes sense. You now have a zero-risk occupation. The ninja salvager should risk something. I don't see why the loot in the wreck should be protected, but not the wreck itself. The easiest answer is, salvage or loot, you go flashy.

Again, this is me crying great carebear tears, using common sense and all. What I truly don't understand, are some of the defenses used to protect these behaviors.

"CCP has been very clear about this topic."

CCP has also made mistakes in the past. A lot of them. Big ones. CCP is not infallible. To use the defense that it is structured that way, intended that way, legal that way, is very scary, in New Eden and out. Something is just, balanced, and fair based on its own merits, not because the game designer says so.

I like that Eve is dangerous and you are never completely safe.

Yet, the same people who say this, also think that ninja salvagers should keep their risk-free lifestyle. I'm sorry, but I have to think that the people using this defense really mean, "I like that Eve is dangerous for the mission runners." To my way of thinking, it should be dangerous for everyone equally. There shouldn't be a no-risk occupation that is built around harvesting the spoils of others.

Again, I don't think that ninja salvaging is wrong. I don't think it should be stopped. I just think it shouldn't be risk-free, particularly since it does directly involve another capsuleer who has extremely limited means of recourse. And is anyone complaining about ninja looting? They should be the same.

New Eden should be dangerous, but it shouldn't be the responsibility of griefers to bring the danger. There are very common sense solutions that would make piracy dangerous such that only smart pirates will actually do it.

Transferable kill rights. How often does anyone actually have the ability to claim a kill right? It isn't a deterrent by any measure. Again, I don't want to end piracy, just make sure there are pressures acting against it so there is balance and people have to work to succeed.

Looters are flashy. Today, the suicide pirate falls onto your kill rights board, but the hauler next too him does not. Why?

When CONCORD is involved, there is no insurance payout. Immediately I'm sure there are those that will think I'm trying to break the back of high sec piracy and end it. I am not. One can make more than enough money in suicide piracy to pay for well fitted suicide ships. What I seek to end are the silly upside down attacks. Suicide attacks involving a battleship? Against a barge? Barges can't hold much. They don't have many slots and aren't likely to drop but so much. The only way this is profitable is because the battleship is nearly free. I am not a pirate, and even I can find targets that will not only pay for the ship involved, but will pay for ten more so one can continue suicide attacks even when droppings are slim. Again, it all goes back to life should be hard for everyone.

In the course of full disclosure, I am not a mission runner by trade. I run some missions for standings, and as a result, I run courier missions because they are quicker. I rarely run kill missions. I've never had anyone bother me in a mission. I've never had anyone flip a can while mining (even when I'm bored and leave bait cans). I also would not consider myself a carebear. I currently have limited access to PvP, but there are reasons for that, and eventually I'll have the chance to either return to the militia or return to 0.0. And yes, I've been in 0.0 wars, before there were cynos, before there were dreads and titans and doomsdays. And yes, that is tougher (and more fun) than anything in low sec.

p.s. It seems that this has been dragged out into the Tweeterverse and into other blogs. That is fair, and to be expected, I guess. But I have to admit that I'm really bothered that others have made this so personal and can't seem to make a comment without following it up with how I am a carebear crybaby or that I am simply and completely wrong.

I also am disturbed by the mindset of some that those that do not engage in PvP are inferior. That really bothers me. I love this game. I love to play it my way. I don't get missioning. That doesn't mean missioners are less of a player, aren't as good as me. I enjoy 0.0 wars, and I think they are much harder than FW or any low sec combat. That doesn't mean I think FW or low sec pirates are inferior to 0.0 warriors. I completely don't understand how anyone could enjoy scamming others (seriously, dude, where is the fun in that? "Your shoe's untied. Made you look." was only funny once.). That doesn't mean I should consider them inferior.

Okay, in all honesty, I would never knowingly hire a scammer into my corp.

I am not upset or worked up by this, but I do feel there has been more personal attacks against me than appropriate. And as a result, I feel I've lost some respect for capsuleers that I was really eager to work more closely with.

There is also some confusion, I feel, over just how anti-PvP I may seem. I am not anti-PvP. I do not think the game mechanics should be changed to the point where there is no PvP, or PvP-free zones. But I do think that New Eden needs to be harder for those that instigate unprovoked attacks. I do not think they are wrong, I just think they have it too easy.

p.p.s I meant to mention this earlier: all spawns should be like Sleeper spawns. I don't like kill missions cause they are just one big rinse/repeat. The only way the mission can defeat you is through sheer numbers. It should work smarter, not harder. Making the spawns smarter will not only give the missioners a challenge, but make things more interesting for the ninjas.

Blog Banter 13

2009-10-28T01:02:00.004Z

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

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

I've read a couple other banter posts, and so far, I feel everyone has the same general response to this. We aren't simply proposing new stories, but whole new ways to do missions. I have two, and I'm sure my two are echoed by one or more other banters.

Player Created Missions

I think this is really a no brainer. Players can create contracts, but they are rife with problems. One of the contracts that I'd like see made into a mission is the courier contract. I'm sure mining missions would be easy to do, too.

I would want this to be structured and anonymous, to a degree. The mission runner doesn't know the name of any capsuleer that put out the mission, and the mission requester doesn't know who is running the mission, or that it is even being run, until it is complete. I would not want capsuleers to be able to randomly create missions, though. I would want it to be a grantable role in a corporation. The corporation would have to hire mission agents (like renting an office) and missions would be posted on behalf of the corporation through the agents.

When one completes a mission, there is a standings increase toward a capsuleer corporation. Corporations at war, or in alliances that are at odds, can negatively impact standings.

Basically, I want to recreate the existing mission system, but have the whole thing fueled by the capsuleers.

Opposing Missions

Ms. Minme Tar accepts a mission. The mission is to defend a mining operation that is under attack. There are a few waves of hostiles that descend on the mining operation. Once the miners are done though, the mission is over, and Ms. Tar can return to her agent.

Meanwhile, Mr. A. Mar accepts a mission. His mission is to clear hostiles away from a gate and allow friendly warships to move through to complete their own mission. Eventually, one of those waves will return and report that the mission was a success or a loss. It depends on how quickly he can get reinforcements through the gate.

The careful observer will notice that these two capsuleers are increasing the difficulty of each other's mission. The faster Mr. Mar gets the gate clear, the faster waves descend on Ms. Tar.

I see too much abuse if capsuleers were to directly encounter each other in a mission, so I suggest a system where the mission they are in affects another mission in progress. Mind you, there may be times when the missions have to be time shifted. So, the activities of one mission are recorded and played back for an opposing mission some hours later.

This could be made as complex as one likes. Perhaps there was a mining mission first. The miner's performance dictates how long Ms. Tar must defend the operation.

Participants

Blog Banter #13: Missions with player adversaries by Escoce

EVE Blog Banter #13: Fatal Rabbit by Hallan Turrek

EVE Blog Banter #13: Your mission, should you decide to accept it... by CrazyKinux

EVE Blog Banter #13 - A question of impact. by James

[OOC] Blog Banter #13: Distressing the Damsel by Myrhial Arkenath

Yes. Yes, I am that loser.

2009-10-25T02:02:00.002Z

For those of you who didn't keep up, today was The Party. I mentioned it to my wife, and twice yesterday, but didn't receive positive traction. She gives me such grief for the Wednesdays I spend with "the guys", so I didn't press it too much. In all honesty, she is better than the wives of many of my other friends in that regard.

I did attend the party briefly. The three year-old was still napping, the six-year old was playing quietly, I was doing some corp bookwork and the party started. I signed up for the door prizes, and turned on Voice and started to tune into SI Radio.

I was in the party for three minutes, when the three-year old woke up. I scurried to get to her to tell her to be quiet so she didn't wake her mother.

I logged out of the party. At this point, I could rant how I did nothing. I let my wife sleep longer, I cleaned the kitchen and did laundry and let the kids play by themselves. I could rant how I could've just as easily been at the party.

And I was looking forward to the party. I was looking forward to the social aspect, but I was also looking forward to going out to Evati and losing some Rifters. I've been doing too much carebearing recently, and would enjoy just some fun, no-stress pew pew.

Then came the tweet.

Pastor_Phelps @vol_jbolaz You won the Loki in Hellcats party. Type x in Hellcats Pub in the next 5 min to claim it.

The tweet was already forty minutes old, so even if it weren't a joke, I was too late for it to matter.

I had a laugh, thinking that Pastor was picking on me. Sage seconded Pastor's comment. Again, I can only think this is a joke.

The party ends as the kids go up for baths and bedtime. I go through that routine, getting more indications that it really isn't a joke. When I finally log in, I learn that I indeed was chosen for the Loki.

Sage pastes the announcement from Mynxee into the Eve-Bloggers channel. She had called my name for the Loki. It was me! I had won!

Yes... yes, I am that loser.

And I had to log out. I had to decompress for a moment.

I got lots of sympathies, and I do appreciate it. It makes me feel nice. It really does, and I do thank everyone for that.

Luminus Aardokay has offered to make a signature gratis. I do appreciate that. I think given the circumstances, it should have a Loki in it. I've been wanting to get everything running smoothly with the corp so I can get to a point to start advertising. So, I'll probably ask to get something with Odinsdagrting instead of my name.

I'll seriously consider getting a t-shirt that reads, "Yes. Yes, I am that loser."

The evening wasn't a complete waste. In addition to the sig offer from Luminus, I finally made my way to Evati in Adventurer. I got a couple of the left over party Rifters and lost them, one even to Mynxee herself. I finally undocked Adventurer and decided to have a second round with Mynxee.

The first 1 on 1, I only got Mynxee into half armor before her like fitted Rifter destroyed mine. My second 1 on 1, with me0de, went a little better. I managed my range better, and overheated sooner. I got him into structure, but again, capped out and lost my second party Rifter.

The third 1 on 1, with Adventurer went very well. I did like the results, but Mynxee and I both agreed that it was a much better fit than the party Rifters. For starters, it used an afterburner instead of a microwarpdrive.

Not that it mattered in the end. I don't recall how badly damaged Mynxee was, but she destroyed Adventurer.

As a final note. I have posted the fittings and killmails to Battleclinic. But I don't like their killboard. I haven't found them again to get the links. I'll do that in the next day or so for anyone interested and update this post.

Adventurer was one of my Rifters from the militia. She had seen combat and had been on four killmails. Feel bad losing it, but I do like that it was lost to someone like Mynxee.

Dueling

2009-10-17T19:48:00.002+01:00

First off, I need to help promote The Epic Celebrity Death Match. It will be a two-on-two featuring Nashh Kadavr and Mynxee against Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm of Planet Risk.

Teadaze has put up a teaser. The match has already taken place, but it will be one of the main events at the upcoming Hellcats Party.

I know no one will miss me, but I would like to be there. I would even fly into Evati just for the party. But alas, I won't be there.

Now, announcing all of that isn't really the reason behind this blog. I've just been working on this blog for a little while now, and I figure all of this is a nice lead into my thoughts on dueling.

I've been following Nashh's Celebrity Death Matches, and I've been poking at the idea of joining Eve Arena (since I don't have a chance for PvP at the moment), but I do have a slight complaint about both of these. This complaint extends really to all arranged 1-on-1 matches, and is the biggest reason I've never bothered going to Evati and challenging anyone in the Hellcats Pub channel to a duel.

It always seems that the duels have to have some rules laid out before hand. The two most common are no warping away and no ECM. I do understand why people ask for such restrictions, but to me, they are artificial ways of nerfing aspect that don't seem to need a nerf through out the rest of New Eden. They also remove abilities or cripple ships that usually shine, and they remove, to me, the biggest part of any engagement, the part that requires the most skill.

Take for example the Rifter and the Punisher. I've seen enough evidence that on paper, I would argue that a Punisher is tougher, stronger, and more deadly than a Rifter. Recently, there was even a duel between Sage and Spectre to stress this point.

However, I would always opt to pilot the Rifter. The reason being is simple, the Rifter has more speed. The Rifter has the option to disengage. The Punisher doesn't. Once these two ships commit to a fight with each other, the Punisher has to stick it out to the end.

The Punisher pilot has to hope that all the work he did before the engagement can carry him through the engagement. After all, as long as the two pilots do their jobs nearly equally, the deciding factors are the ship fittings and the influencing skills (and implants/boosters) of the pilots. It doesn't matter how good a pilot one is, if they don't have the skills to mount a better fit, or have a ship that isn't adequately fit for the circumstances, chances of surviving are dramatically lowered.

I'm not saying the Punisher is a bad ship, but the Rifter is chosen by low sec capsuleers much more often for a very good reason: The Rifter can evade that which it can not destroy outright.

The no warping away rule puts a Rifter in an artificial position. Now, knowing that, I would opt for a Punisher in a frigate duel. The idea there is bring the right tool for the job. But I think the duel would promote a tool that wouldn't have quite the same real world application.

I think Nashh's range-tanking Kestrel is a good idea of this, too. If the Kestrel wants to stay at range, then he runs the risk of his adversary warping away, only to return at a more advantageous range.

The no ECM rule is similar, but in the opposite direction. It might imply that certain ships are less successful in the real world.

The other thing these rules do is avoid the biggest part of the engagement. Selecting a target, electing where to engage, and sometimes chasing or letting them chase are all part of the tactics that happen before an engagement. These will often play a bigger role in fleet versus fleet engagements, where sometimes your goal is too pick off stragglers and use herding techniques to cut the other fleet into manageable portions, but it has its place in one-on-one engagements.

I've not had much time soloing. That was the point behind my A-Riftering project, but what I have learned, or what I think I've learned is, two things: The outcome is decided before the ships open fire, and don't panic.

I still panic, so I'm no good at these things, yet, but everything that goes into training skills, fitting ships, and choosing when and where to attack affect the outcome of the attack more so than what one does during the engagement.

The question is, how does one fix the dueling problem (assuming they recognize a dueling problem)? I don't have a good answer. I have some ideas, but I think they are are lacking.

Simply requiring combatants to bring tackle gear isn't enough. Even with the appropriate webifiers and warp disruptors, the Rifter could still outpace and eventually evade the Punisher.

One idea is simply don't duel. Instead, people who agree to a duel should simply agree that they will make an effort to hunt each other. Who ever gets the first kill, or gets the most kills in a certain time period, wins the duel. This isn't as dramatic. It is long and drawn out. This type of duel would also require some war declarations or be limited to low/null sec. Also, good capsuleers are not alone. They have friends. This style of duel would require some weird workings with friends. This duel wouldn't need any restrictions, though.

An idea that I like better is to simply broaden the borders of the duel. Instead of limiting the duel to one scanner grid, limit it to one planetary system or one solar system. Combatants may warp between the moons and asteroid belts of a given planet, or within a given system. This would require that the combatants don't use safe spots or cloaks.

A last idea is to set a third target where the combatants play a game of assault. One capsuleer would have to defend a hauler or can or structure while the other would be tasked to destroy it. Either one could warp away, but they would be forced to return if they wanted to be successful. This would require multiple rounds since the defender should have a slight advantage. This would require some set up since the target would have to be made ready. This idea could be adapted to be one camps a gate/system that the other must pass through.

Responses

2009-10-07T02:06:00.002+01:00

I had a problem posting a response to my own blog in follow-up to responses that others posted. Instead of fixing that problem, I'm just going to respond here. If you, too, had problems posting a response, just send me a mail.

Wait... I had three responses, and only two people read this, so... nevermind.

The first response was from Helicity:

Making money from piracy is much harder than you think, this is mainly due to the low droprate on player modules.

No, making money from piracy is as hard as I think. The problem is, there is no pain for those that don't make money. They just get their money from somewhere else and wreak havoc yarring. A pirate doesn't have to make money as a pirate to be effective at taking money from others.

I'd also like to see upkeep on ships. It costs nothing for a blob of battleships to undock and camp a gate. If no one shows up, nothing is lost save some time. Some form of upkeep would help cut down on blobbing gate camps through out New Eden, not just in low sec.

I'd like to make piracy just hard enough that only those that are smart enough to figure out how to make money actually do it.

Mind you, I would like all aspects of the game to be that way, its just I don't think we have too many industrialists that continue manufacturing when losing money, or too many mission runners that can't keep themselves in ships, and so on. I think piracy and faction warfare are money-sink occupations, and I wish they were both fixed.

Mynxee followed with a few points. The first:

...don't be misled--piracy is an extremely difficult profession. Its biggest reward is the fun it offers

That fun is probably what drags in the griefers. I don't mind piracy, I just think that there are more griefers hiding behind the defense of "piracy is legitimate, you whiny carebear" then there are actual pirates. Again, I think the Hellcats and The Bastards Alliance have done a lot, at least in Republic space, to demonstrate that piracy can be profitable if you work at it.

Again, the fun is the only draw for FW. That may change with Dominion, but I still see FW as a money sink for most of the participants. I do think that should be addressed.

Mynxee's second point was,

"No alts" would be a losing proposition for CCP.

Yes, which is why it would never be considered. Still, I think it would dramatically improve the game.

She went on to say,

But were such a thing implemented, it wouldn't only affect pirates--it would affect solo players, 0.0 alliances, high sec mission runners, etc. Alts are as necessary as having multiple ships in your hanger for a good many players with widely varying play styles once they reach a certain level of experience in the game.

She was seconded by Selina:

As a 0.0 dweller, and not a pirate, I have to agree with Mynxee. I heavily rely upon my alts for moving goods in haulers through empire to the logistics point for our jump freighters. Soon I'll need them to move built goods through Empire so that I can keep my main industrialist at his work station. Think of it, as many call it in blogs, "associates" that work for you.

I have to disagree, ladies.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit to actually using one of my "associates", Ven Tamnej. I also have to admit to having a Power of Two account at one point, Vris Jungos.

Vris was a covert ops pilot who would run escort for me in Aridia and Fountain. It was a wonderful boon and made life much easier. Vris was sold after the six months.

Ven maintains a position as an occasional CEO alt and market tender. He can also run five copy jobs.

Still, I have to disagree. Yes, alts are nice, and they help, but they undermine one of the core tenets that CCP is trying to promote: players working with players. Why should I be allowed to run an operation from beginning to end completely by myself? Why not share that? Why not spread the wealth and build the teamwork and build the communities?

I've recently formed Odinsdagrting with a few close friends. They are still fresh out of the academy, so it is just me as the engine for this corporation. As a single personality, I'm still shocked at how much I can produce. My bottlenecks right now are the free time to stay on top of my jobs, and the money to buy the materials to actually build stuff. I can turn over battleships worth of materials in just a couple days, and I'm not really dealing in high-end stuff. So, with alts, wow!

Yes, alts are great, but they can make formidable operations out of a single player. Just as CCP wants to bust up the power blocs that are 0.0 alliances, I would like to see the high-sec production individuals forced to rely on others more. I'd like to the see the profession opened up more.

Really, I don't ever want any part of Eve to feel full or hard to get into. I want everything to always feel like the wild west. Lots of opportunities for those brave enough to dive in, regardless of the profession they chose.

I do realize, though, that a lot has to happen before this can happen.

A last point from Mynxee was,

I'd like to see the bounty system overhauled and made more interesting and into a true profession. There have been some good threads in the Assembly Hall forum with interesting proposals on this topic.

I have to admit to not being active in the forums. There are entirely too many trolls and short-fused flamers. I should at least give the CSM forums a look though. I don't think I could ever consider running for a seat, but I would like to be more involved in things. Perhaps if there were political parties I could help be an organizer.

A few last notes, so you can stop reading now if you are bored:

I don't comment on other blogs nearly as often as I should. I do appreciate comments. They let me know that at least someone is reading. And I have no delusions that I am always correct, so feel free to disagree.

In that vein, a gold star to Mynxee for being the biggest supporter of this blog. Thank you, I do appreciate it. Just goes to show that some pirates are nice people.

Or some nice people are pirates.

Helicity's Quiz

2009-10-02T04:10:00.004+01:00

I want to make clear that I do not think piracy should be driven from New Eden completely. I want to make clear that I do not hate all pirates. I also want to clear up the confusion that I am not a pirate. Yes, I do frequent the Hellcats Pub channel, but I am not a pirate.

My response to Helicity's quiz can be summed up as, "When piracy is hard, only pirates will do it."

My complaint with piracy is that it is too easy. And by that I mean, pirates don't have to rely on piracy as their income. I would wager that most pirates don't make money at it. Most pirates likely have a side business, possibly through an alt, or a steady supply of PLEX.

That isn't to say that all pirates fail to make money. I think The Bastards Alliance demonstrates that one can make quite a healthy living off of loot and ransoms. My run in with Teff nogero has taught me that one can make a healthy living off of suicide piracy.

I will admit that I don't have the ability to survey piracy in New Eden. I doubt anyone does. I can't say for certainty how widespread these situations are. That aside, I am still going to give these examples as the basis for my complaints because no one can get better data.

As to solutions, my first answer, and I'm sure the biggest game changer, is to remove all alts. Not just second accounts, but remove the two alts on any single account. I know this would never happen, but it would do a lot to cut out those pirates that are really just griefers. It would cut out those pirates that can't make money at it.

Consider for example the high-sec suicide pirate. He has an alt in a hauler, waiting to loot the wrecks, the victim's and the suicide ship. That venture becomes less profitable when there are really two mouths to feed and not just the two alts of the one mouth.

Consider for example the low-sec pirate. These pirates tend to be proud of their -10 security rating. This security rating is a badge of honor, not the hindrance that CONCORD intended. Without high-sec alts to make beer runs, these pirates would have to pay a premium to get their goods, either through low-sec traders, or though high-sec supply contracts.

On a side note, I would be more than happy to help fill the new market needs that emerge from this stripping of alts.

That isn't to say these ventures wouldn't still be profitable. And that isn't to say that I think these ideas are wretchedly horrible and should be banned. It just shouldn't be so easy and so prevalent. Pirates should have to work for their ISKies just like the rest of us.

Another solution that I want to propose is selling kill rights. There is a bounty system in place today, but several pirates just have themselves offed by a corp mate with the bounty gets high enough to cover the clone. They pocket the rest. The bounty system doesn't create the encouragement to have bounty hunters.

In high-sec, suicide pirates should be more susceptible to kill rights. Currently, members of the victims corp may respond for a period, but this means that the corp has to have PvPers. This may be the same corp that hires mercenaries during a war. Can they hire mercenaries for kill rights? Again, there is no market for bounty hunters.

I don't see this being as big a deal in low-sec. The only time the kill rights will really matter is on the gates and stations where there are guns to respond to illegal aggression. Still, it may give an incentive for more people to move to low-sec if they can be hired as bounty hunters.

A third solution that I would like to offer is to change the way security standings are calculated. Low-sec pirates are proud of their -10, and I do applaud them for that. If they were willing to be brave enough to do that in a world with no alts, I would have much respect for them.

High-sec pirates will yarr for a bit, then trundle off to grind back their security status so they can yarr again. The security status doesn't become an accurate indicator of the intentions of a pirate. CONCORD suddenly considers him not so bad because he busted up some lowly Angel's?

I would like to see positive security status either awarded painfully slowly, or awarded only for dispatching someone with a equally low or lower security status. In other words, pirate with a -6 has to defeat the pirate with -6 or lower to raise his own. I would hope this would promote some pirate-on-pirate violence.

I might only give them a reason to have rookie frigate evenings where they all reach around and raise their security status together.

My last solution is simply to open up a capsuleer's interaction with the environment. Why is System X only a .5? Why can't a corporation invest in or work with CONCORD to raise it (and why can't pirates work to lower it)? This idea starts down a rabbit hole of possibilities that tie into New Eden as a platform spanning beyond what capsuleers do in Eve. And I'll leave that and SimStation and other ideas for a future post.

EVE Blog Banter #12

2009-09-30T03:30:00.004+01:00

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

This month's banter comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

I am really excited by the New-Eden-as-a-platform idea. I like the idea of this being a single common milieu with different outlets and layers. This could be a genre unto itself, much like Star Wars. Unlike Star Wars, this would not be the vision of one man with tellings and retellings in different genres, this would be a community driven blossoming of the vision from CPP. The instances in each genre wouldn't be tellings and retellings, but artifacts in their own right. They can stand alone, but they are still part of a larger whole. Instead of the top-down approach of a story moving into different media, this could see the different media interacting, affecting one another, and creating a world beyond simply "virtual."

I see chances for everything from passive media such as novels and movies and cartoon shows, to interactive media such as Eve, Dust 514, and games yet to be built. I even see New Eden themed open ended MMOs similar to Second Life.

I own an iPhone. I have Capsuleer, and I do appreciate it. I think it is logical to expect that as Cosmos comes out, and as Eve is expanded, applications like Capsuleer will gain more and more functionality. I eventually see it possible to not only monitor wallet and skill queue, but to execute market orders and edit the skill queue.

This is minor. This is merely progression.

What I see as the revolutionary apocalypse is in introducing completely stand-alone, multi-player games based in New Eden. Even if the games themselves are particularly new ideas, the idea of weaving them into this community will be wonderful.

Take Mafia Wars as an example, or as we called it way back before the intertubes, Assassin. I could see building a New Eden game around the old idea of assassin on GPS-capable mobile devices. I could see players joining one of the four factions, and their experiences tying into the greater New Eden world, perhaps not too dissimilar from how Dust 514 will affect Eve Online and vice versa.

Something that I've always wanted is for missions to be PC generated. This would not have to be a game limited to mobile devices, but since it would be small enough, it could work. What if users could play an agent. To them, they generate tasks that need to be done. They don't realize that actual players in a completely different game are executing those tasks. It would feel a little Ender's Game to me to a degree.

As always, Kinux has a full list of all Banters that report in. Banters that I've read include:

Blog Banter 12: EVE Everywhere from Ecliptic Rift by Casiella Truza

“WOW, look at that ‘micro-Dust’…” from The Wandering Druid of Tranquility by Ga'len

EVE Blog Banter #12: Tying the dots and locking me in! from CrazyKinux's Musing by CrazyKinux

EVE Blog Banter #12 I-pod Capsuleer from Nashh Kadavr's EVE Blog by Nashh Kadavr

EVE Blog Banter #12: Wormholes On the Go from Life in Low Sec by Mynxee

Blog Banter #12: Dynamic System Security from Escoce - Eve Trader by Escoce

EVE Blog Banter #12 - We're halfway there. from Inanity and Doom by James

New Player Resources: Missioneers

2009-09-29T03:27:00.003+01:00

I am really not a mission runner. I have run missions in the past. After all, I needed access to some very selective agents for research projects. Now that I am representing Odinsdagrting, I need to run some more missions. As do my corpmates.

The best place to start with missions is with the Evelopedia. That may feel like a lot, but it is merely information to help make your job easier. Very little of it is actually required for anyone that wants to accept a mission and begin.

To begin, one just needs to find an agent. The easiest way is to find an appealing corporation and look at that corporation's information (the little blue "i"). For corporations with agents, there is an agents tab. It will list the agents under the divisions for which they work. The division affects the frequency of the mission types offered. This interface will also group agents that are available and ones that are not.

Looking at the information of each individual agent (right-click and Show Info) will show the required standings.

Another easy way to find agents is with the Eve-Online Agent Finder.

There are some mission survival guides to help when determining if a mission will be too much to handle. Once in a mission, there is the HelpMyMission channel run by BorisHotch. The HMM channel has its own website, but there are also resources at HelpMyMission.com and Song Li's Missions Collide. I am not a missioner, but I have enjoyed the Missions Collide podcast.

Some tips that can not be stressed enough:

Keep checking on current standings and the required standings. Don't keep running missions for that same ol' agent, when there is a better quality or higher level agent eager with work. Don't turn down those storyline missions.

The destroyer and battlecruiser were made for kill missions. They have enough high slots to mount weapons and salvagers. And few things are sexier than the Cyclone and Cyclonette. Though, I will admit, I do enough the Hurricane and Drake.

Kill missions may be fun, and may pay well, and do have lot and salvage, but courier missions can be completed faster. If you are only interested in standing, then don't be ashamed of getting a tramp freighter knocking out those carebear-ish courier missions.

There are several Social skills which affect standings and one's ability to negotiate better payment. There are also a series of agent type-specific Connections skills that may be hard to come by. Unlike most skills available from universities, these are largely only available from loyalty point stores.

Loyalty points can, eventually, be redeemed for faction gear, including faction ships. Try to stay with one corporation for as long as possible.

For those who are serious mission runners, they may want to consider COSMOS agents or Epic Mission Arcs.

Odinsdagrting

2009-09-28T22:19:00.003+01:00

It is official, I have gone nearly completely carebear.

Well, completely carebear.

Well, I still make runs into low-sec to get BPCs, but I do it in a Cheetah, so... yeah, carebear.

I had mentioned before that I've been trying to get some friends into capsules. I managed to get three (though only one actually used the 21-day key). To make their transition into capsuleering pleasant, I've formed a company around my T2 production. They are going to invest time and capital so we can expand this and share the profits.

I present, Odinsdagrting [ODNDT]. It doesn't have a web site, yet.

We are still establishing our offices, and we may even move our headquarters as things get settled. Our immediate goals are to improve our Republic standings and our standings with a few choice corporations. This will require me getting more into mission running than I have in the past.

We hope to have two stock issuances. One will be to ourselves as a mechanism to pay our profits. Once we get things very well established and we are ready for more capital, we will have a public stock offering. We will sell no more than 49% of the company. To make that as smooth as possible, I am looking at ways to make our operations more transparent. I'm even looking at sites such as Buxfer or Budget Pulse. If anyone has any other recommendations for ways to keep our books open, I welcome them.

Just before the public IPO, I'm likely to open recruitment to Minmatar auditors if anyone would like a chance to inspect the books and corporate hangars more closely.

I'd also like to look into building markets. It is an idea that Casiella Truza has mentioned. I'm interested to see how well she does. I'm even interested in helping.

Long-term, we hope to either move into wormhole exploration or join a larger alliance. I personally will miss combat and wouldn't mind if this moves us to 0.0.

New Player Resources: Navigation

2009-09-20T23:37:00.001+01:00

New Eden is a big place. Many potential capsuleers are discouraged by the stories of traveling through several systems, gate to gate to gate, taking hours to reach a destination. The stories sometimes include having to return, or being attacked before nearly reaching the destination and finding themselves back in a clone vat.

While travel is an issue that figures heavily into the lives of capsuleers, it doesn't need to be one that dominants our lives.

All capsuleers should know their surrounds, understand the CONCORD security ratings and the dangers that can face them when they leave the station.

The Evelopedia and Grismar's Eve Wiki both have good articles on security status.

It is important to point out that even with the protection of CONCORD, there are those that would be willing to lose their own ship for the chance to destroy someone elses. These suicide pirates usually have a friend waiting nearby in a hauler to loot the spoils.

Maps of New Eden can be invaluable. I personally have either a hardcopy of the Ombey maps or the DotLan maps open.

Something else that helps is technique of making safespots. Safespots are bookmarks away from any celestial object. They are harder for pursuers to find, often buying enough time to buy an escape. Warping back and forth between a series of good safespots can sometimes keep you completely safe from harm. Grismar's Eve Wiki has a good article on Advanced Bookmarking.

The Business of My Blog

2009-09-17T03:28:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure how I've gotten into this, but I have a queue of "New Player Resources" that I am planning on writing. I feel as though I am neglecting my blog, for anyone who may actually be reading it.

I want to break for a moment and give some highlights of things I'm planning and where I am.

First, I'd like to give a mention for Amon Tor, Tuxtoo, and Marten Scholen.

Amon is a former SGer who has made his way down to Metropolis. Tuxtoo and Marten are the newbies that I've been able to talk into getting into pods. We'll see if they like it.

As to my plans: I have several more New Player Resources kicking in my head that I'm looking forward to putting down. I'm not sure how I wound up in this role of tour guide to education, but I've gotten good feedback. I'm also having to explain some things to Tuxtoo and Marten, so I feel it is relevant.

Mynxee started a conversation in Hellcats Pub about having a new commute that was giving her less time to read blogs, and more time to listen to podcasts. The problem is, there are so many blogs and so few podcasts. There was a "blogs-on-tape" idea.

Song Li, of Missions Collide may run with this. I think she is going to take it in a slightly different direction, but I am looking forward to it.

And, it gives me an idea to reprise my New Player Resources in an audio format. I'd be more than happy to simply record them and let someone else edit them down and produce them in their own show. If only I weren't born in The South. I may have a face for radio, but I clearly don't have the pipes.

I do wish to continue my Riftering project. I haven't had time for PvP lately, and what time I have had, I've spent in FW fleets manning the Blackbirds.

I also want to revisit my run in with the nogero cartel, and through that expand on some conversations that I've had recently, mostly in Hellcats Pub.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to try and pad my wallet in Metropolis with some Gallente T2 production. I've gotten my first T2 rig BPCs. I'm not sure how well these will sell since the components are still hard to come by. I suspect the prices will fall as the increased drop rates trickle through the market.

All the same, I have the ability to build, among other things, Medium Drone Mining Augmentor IIs. They are much more expensive to produce then I imagined they would be. I think they are very handy, and I'm sure there is a market, but we'll have to see how that balances out.

New Player Resources: Tools

2009-09-12T04:14:00.003+01:00

I'm sure most everyone has seen the learning curve graph that illustrates just how hard being a capsuleer is. Thankfully, there are a few tools to help make our lives easier.

EveMon

EveMon is a tool that helps with skill planning. It lets users build multiple training queues for multiple characters. It lets users build skill queues not only from a directory of skills, but from certificates and a directory of ships and modules. Users can easily add all skills required for that shiny ship.

EveMon also offers suggestions on training skills to shorten training time, and will recalculate attributes. It also lets users play around with the effects of implants.

Eve Fitting Tool

Eve Fitting Tool (EFT) is a ship fitting tool. It will let users play around with ship fittings. It easily imports and exports to and from the game, BattleClinic, and the clipboard. It will also import character skills via the API and indicate which fittings are possible and display the stats of the fitting with the current skills. Users can even change skills to see the effects of a little more training.

Capsuleer

Capsuleer is an iPhone application that shows the current status of the servers and characters. It is very useful of keeping track of when the skill queue will end or keeping tabs on the wallet.

It even has a built in blog reader, though I have to admit to just using Google Reader through Safari. Capsuleer will let users opt out of blogs included in the pack, but it won't let users add non-pack blogs.

If anyone wants to suggest more general-use Eve tools, please do so in the comments.

There are some use-specific tools that I'll list later, such as mining and POS calculators and invention aides.

New Player Resources: Picking A Race

2009-09-05T23:36:00.000+01:00

As I've mentioned, I have a co-worker currently testing out the capsule lifestyle. I have an old college roommate that I'm trying to talk into a capsule. I started gathering new player resources, but I want to take a step back and explain the races of New Eden and how they differ from the experiences that most players may have from other games.

Before I do that, I want to mention Eve University. It is a player-run corporation that works to train new capsuleers. I don't really have any experience with Eve U, and I understand they are under war declarations a lot, but I like the idea. I think they are worth looking into.

In order to explain the differences in the races, I feel that I need to explain two mechanics: standings, and tanking.

Standings with an NPC corporation affect which of those corporation's agents will be available for missions. Standings with an NPC faction are entry requirements into Faction Warfare, or in setting up a player owned station (POS) in faction space.

Doing missions for an agent increases standings with that agent, and through that agent, the corporation for which that agent works, and through that corporation the faction with which that corporation is aligned. There are some missions which will lower standings with an opposed corporation or faction. Standings damaged in this way can be mended.

All ships have shields, armor, and structure. They must be defeated, in that order, in order to destroy a ship. Some pilots will opt to shield tank, meaning they are putting resources into their shields and not their armor. Some will armor tank. I've only ever seen proof-of-concept fits to structure tank. I don't know of any case where it has actually been done.

Once a shield tank is broken, the neglected armor usually falls quickly. For armor tankers, the shield is usually just a soft shell easily peeled away. Measures to extend shields make a ship's signature larger, making it easier to hit. Measures to increase armor make a ship heavier and slower to turn and accelerate.

There are options to speed tank or rely on range or electronic warfare, where a pilot ignores shields and armor. They are valid, but more complicated.

Having explained all of that, I now want to explain the four races of Eve.

Picking a race does not commit anyone to anything. It does give a slight head start with standings and frigate skills for a particular race. Standings, though, can be easily changed, and changed back, just by running agent missions. As to frigate skills, many capsuleers can fly more than one race's ships. I personally can fly nearly as many Caldari ships as Minmatar, and I can fly Amarr frigates and Gallente cruisers.

During character creation, and in the Evelopedia, there is some backstory on each of the four races, and even the blood lines and such. Again, this doesn't bind you to anything if you don't want it to.

The Caldari are probably the most popular race. If not, their ships certainly are, and with good reason. They are very simple and straight-forward, and in some cases, define the role in which they fill.

Caldari ships are shield tankers as a rule (which can be broken). There are Caldari ships that are gun boats, purposed to carry the devastating, if short-ranged, hybrid rails. There are Caldari ships that are missile boats, and these ships are the best missile boats in New Eden. Included among these is the single most common battleship, the Raven. It is nearly twice as common as any other battleship. Even I have to admit that the Raven is excellent for running missions and fighting NPCs.

Caldari ships also include the best mining cruiser and the best sensor jamming ships. The Blackbird is the butt of many jokes for being such a fleet spoiler. I tend to fly a Blackbird, and have many more killmail appearances in one than any other ship. Most pilots, myself included, don't like it. It is slow, ugly, and not particularly lethal on its own. It is very much so not glamorous.

Clearly, I've never been one to be confused with glamorous.

But the Blackbird must be doing something right. It will often be called as a primary target in a fleet battle.

The Gallente share the use of the hybrid rails with the Caldari. The Gallente, however, tend to be armor tankers. There are a number of Gallente ships that could shield tank just as easily, even if that was not truly their original intention.

Gallente are famed for employing drones. More Gallente ships are capable of carrying more drones and have better bonuses to their drones.

Gallente also lay claim to having the best industrial and transport ships, though they just do barely outclass the Minmatar ships.

The Amarr have nothing in common with the Caldari or Gallente. They are armor tankers as a rule, and rarely, if ever, use missiles or drones. Amarr ships rely on lasers. Lasers have a lot of flexibility and very commanding ranges. Lasers, however, are very hungry weapons, making an Amarr ship very vulnerable to power draining attacks.

While the numbers from the quarterly reports don't always bear this out, I swear that the Amarr battleships are New Edener's second most favorite. They do look very imposing on a battlefield.

It is probably worth noting that one of the scariest frigates outside of Jovian space, is an Amarr Punisher fitted with Minmatar autocannons.

That's right, there are no rules saying one can't mix races. There are restrictions though. If a ship doesn't have a turret hardpoint, then it can't be fitted with a turret. If it doesn't have a drone bay, then it can't carry drones.

The last race is probably the most complicated, and my favorite, the Minmatar. Minmatar ships are constantly derided as being flying scrapheaps, held together with duct tape and good intentions. They clearly do lack the grace and elegance of the Gallente or Amarr, but at least they tend to be more symmetrical than the Caldari.

Minmatar ships are difficult because they are sometimes a split platform. They have turret and missile hardpoints in near equal numbers with a small drone bay. To effectively fly some of them, one has to have twice or three times as many skills as one would need for a comparable ship from another race.

Minmatar ships also don't follow a rule as far as tanking. Some are shield tankers, some are armor tankers. It would be hard to make through life as a Minmatar pilot without learning skills for both.

Why does anyone fly Minmatar? They are often faster than other ships. And the Minmatar projectile turrets tend to have better range and don't rely on energy to drive them at all. The Minmatar Tempest battleship had the nickname SniPest for being the best sniping battleship for the longest time, and New Eden's frigate of choice is the Minmatar Rifter. Aside from looking very bad-ass, it is very lethal and faster than anything it can't kill outright, giving it the option to disengage (usually).

Again, the selection of a race doesn't tie anyone to anything. It is just as easy to start learning the ships of a second race after gaining some familiarity with New Eden. For new capsuleers that are having a hard time deciding, I would usually recommend the Caldari.

The Caldari have adequate mission running frigates and cruisers, and ships that can be used in a fleet with few skill points. The main reason I would recommend Caldari is the Osprey. It is the best mining cruiser, and tends to be the reason a lot of pilots ever learn Caldari, particularly pilots around before the introduction of ORE's mining barges.

For those that don't ever want to shoot a rock with lasers, the Caldari have a whole line of ships that make great mission runners (Kestrel, Caracal, Drake) that should hold one over until settling on a career or finding a niche.

A Tale of Pew Pew in Three Parts

2009-09-05T01:36:00.003+01:00

Part I: Agincourt

The market has been treating me well. Sales of the new rigs have been swift, and profit margins have been very comfortable. My wallet is growing nicely.

I had some business with my research agents in Sinq Liason and beyond. Last night, I took my Wreathe industrial, Agincourt. Once I was done, I decided to check the local market for salvage material. I've been building Gallente equipment, so it shouldn't surprise me that the salvage that I need is cheaper in Sinq Liason. I picked up about 110 million ISK in salvage and started heading back to Metropolis.

I was autopiloting while working on a blog post (that hasn't been finished, yet). I was peeking at local, keeping an eye out for any Amarr militia. I was pulled from my typing by the distinct sound of blasters. I looked up to see half my shields were gone. It wasn't firing around me, it was someone firing at me!

I was over nine kilometers from the gate and a Brutix in Aufay, a 0.5 system, had just removed half my shields in one volley. I had no options, I had to hope CONCORD would show up, or I'd make it to the gate.

Again and again the blasters fired. Quickly, Agincourt was destroyed. Instinctively, I warped my pod away. As I was warping away, I saw a Hoarder turn flashy. I can only assume he was looting what was left of my wreck.

I warped back to find my wreck. I didn't see another wreck. It is possible I missed it. It is possible that Teff nogero warped away. Perhaps CONCORD got him elsewhere, but I have to imagine that he was planning to get away since he was using a Brutix fitted with large weapons.

I lost my entire cargo. Fortunately, my cargo was destroyed and little was left to loot.

Part II: Assailer

I had the day off, and spent it on the frontier. I arrived in one of my Aggressor-class Rifters, Assailer. We were in a fleet of about fifteen, playing cat-and-mouse with an Amarr fleet. I found myself in a scout role.

I was poking around Dal. There were just a few war targets. I warped back to the Auga gate, ready to leave. As I approached the gate, it activated. There was another war target in local. I waited, zero-bubble on the gate, for the hostile to drop cloak.

It was an Incursus. It was very likely the same Incursus we had seen poking around as a scout for the other fleet. I was very tempted to engage him. I notified the fleet. The Incursus took a hostile posture. He turned toward me and locked me.

I probably shouldn't've, but I decided to obliged. I triggered my targeting computer and selected approach.

Afterburners on. Proceed to tight orbit.

As soon as my lock was established, i quickly toggled everything. His drones were out, his rails were responding. I was determined that this Incursus would be destroyed.

I panicked a little. As soon as my shields started depleting, I triggered my armor repairer. I'm so used to being in a shield-tanked ship.

I toggled my repper back off, and was pleased at how quickly his shields and now armor were melting. At this rate, my Rifter was sure to outlast this lone Incursus.

Now, however, we wasn't alone.

An Amarr militia Malediction answered his call and joined in the fight. I soon found myself taking fire from both. I was now chanting, "Hold together. Just hold together."

My armor repairer was losing against the rising tide of hostile fire, but I had now removed the last of the armor from the Incursus. I was still panicking. Instead of toggling the overheat on my autocannons, I just toggled the whole high rack.

The Incursus was flaming, barely holding together, but they were now eating into my hull. I picked a distant object, ready to make an escape in my pod.

My capacitor ran dry, my afterburner, my damage control, my armor repairer, they all fell silent. And I lost my lock on the Incursus.

Clearly, my Rifter had been destroyed. I spammed the warp button. My capacitor was empty. The Malediction still had me pointed. I wasn't escaping. I was spamming the align and warp buttons.

It was in this moment of panic that I realized, my Rifter was still holding itself together. I had lost my lock on the Incursus because it was destroyed. It was just the Malediction and me.

I knew I couldn't take him. I had no capacitor, my hull was dropping from his ranged attacks, and one of my autocannons had taken so much damage that I'm surprised it hadn't exploded.

I got some capacitor back. I don't remember which module I triggered. The afterburner to get away, the armor repper to hold things together. I don't remember, but when I was finally far enough away to warp, my Rifter was near 60% hull.

I had my second solo kill. I had survived what turned out to be a one-versus-two.

I was shaking. I was racing. I didn't have the capacitor to reach the celestial that I had picked. I bookmarked my location and waited a moment. I picked another and object and warped, letting the armor repairer slowly plate the burning ship.

I had to go out through Auga to meet the fleet. I knew the Malediction would be waiting.

I finally warped to the Auga gate to find the Malediction, a Wolf, and I forget what else. They chased me.

They chased me into a Heretic camp.

I jumped through, and they stopped chasing. I found a station and eagerly authorized the 31,000 ISK to the station master without looking at the bill for the repairs. I wanted Assailer back together and ready to undock.

Part III: Zunvi'as

Our fleet restructured itself a few times, and I eventually found myself in a Blackbird, Zunvi'as. We were still sparring with the Amarr fleet, but a band of Heretics had decided to spoil things a bit.

One of our pilots was caught at a safe spot by the Heretics. Our fleet doubled-back to assist him, but I found myself closer than the rest of the fleet. I thought I would warp in just long enough to break the lock on the pirate that had my militia mate pointed, and we could both flee.

Regrettably, as I was in warp, his ship was destroyed. As my bubble collapsed, I found myself 30 kilometers from the Heretic band as they attempted to lock his pod.

Immediately a Heretic Malediction broke off and heading for me. I locked him as I aligned to warp away. I took the preemptive measure of jamming him to keep him from getting a point on me.

In doing so, I got my first Global Criminal Countdown.

Regrettably, I had chosen a stargate as my destination. The gate guns tore into my Blackbird before I could warp away.

The fleet arrived and disbanded the Heretics, dispatching a three of their ships and a pod. We regrouped and waited for our timers to countdown.

I had no armor and barely two-thirds of my hull. My ship was on fire, as we waited together.

Another engagement called, and those without timers warped away and jumped out of system. It was then that the Heretics returned and found me in a safespot.

They easily destroyed Zunvi'as.

My first GCC cost me one Blackbird.

Blanter #11

2009-09-04T01:53:00.004+01:00

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

This month’s banter comes to us from Joe Brusati a long time reader of CrazyKinux’s Musing, who asks the following: CCP states that T3 Strategic Cruisers are just the start for the T3 line-up. In future Eve expansions what would you like to see as the next T3 ship type. Please be specific on details about what role this ship would play, cost of manufacturing, and the different modules that would be available for it, and of course you must give your T3 ship a name!

I have to say that I still feel like there is a big neon sign that I just don't see. I don't ever know what the topic is until I see it show up in someone's blanter. Invariably, others are posting before Kinux, so they aren't getting it from him. How do they know what the topic is and who submitted it?

Regardless, I enjoy participating, even if I always feel late.

As to T3 ships, I say start at the beginning: Frigates. Though, I have to say, I am very interested in the T3 possibilities for industrials.

I do have some concerns for a T3 frigate, so I can understand why the T3 cruisers were introduced first. One concern would be where would the T3 frigate fit into the line-up and how much would it cost. A T3 cruiser costs notably more than a navy battleship. I haven't had any time in or against a T3 cruiser, but looking at the stats, I imagine a T3 cruiser could handle a 1-on-1 against a battleship, possibly even a faction one. The T3 cruiser costs less than the Marauders, so I have to imagine they would have their hands full in trying to take one down.

Given this, I'd expect the T3 frigates to cost 50-100M ISK, and for them to be able to easily take out a T1 cruiser. I can't say as I'm excited about that idea.

I wouldn't want T3 frigates to be cruiser killers. I wouldn't want them to be very expensive small ships that disrupt the balance of things.

What I'd want is for them to introduce customizations. I like that you can change the hull of the T3 cruisers, and then fit rigs and modules. The variations are immense. I think T3 frigates would keep us from seeing the same Rifters, Punishers, Jaguars, Enyos, Tristans, Claws, and Crows (and a few others).

As to naming the ships, I'm sorry, I don't have any names to offer. I see where each race has a naming genre, but they have no rhyme or reason within that genre. For example, the Slasher gave way to the Stiletto, which made sense. The Claw doesn't make as much. The Rifter gave way to the Jaguar and Wolf, which doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes even less sense when you see that the Caldari have a Caracal and Scorpion.

As to the modules, I think the frigates should have less options than the cruisers. Currently, the T3 cruisers have five module clusters with four options each. I think the frigates should possibly have only four with three or four options each.

I really do want the ships to be able to fill a great many roles though. Each frigate should have an option for configuring defenses, an option for configuring high slot configuration, an option for configuring power grid/CPU/capacitor, and an option for configuring support activities such as electronic warfare. It really is kind of generic.

Other Blanter's that I've read:

Ecliptic Rift by Casiella Truza

Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE by Kyle Langdon

Yarrbear Tales by 00sage00.

And Kinux's aggregate of the participants.

New Player Resources

2009-09-02T02:38:00.003+01:00

I have an old college roommate that I'm trying to get into a capsule. I have a coworker who is trying on a capsule for the two-week trial. I am finding myself having to explain a lot. I don't mind this at all, but I figured I'd post it here for future reference, and thus I have a new series.

There are lots of references and guides and toots for new capsuleers. I really shouldn't have to explain everything, as long as I can find those resources and present them here.

The most logical place to start is with CCP. They have offered Evelopedia. It has a new player section with some write-ups on basics that should be excellent for all new capusleers.

A place with a lot of ambition, but not a lot of content, yet, is Tweveit. I do hope they succeed, so my recommendation here is really as a matter of future hopes.

One more resource that I want to recommend tonight is Eve-Agents.com's Agent Finder. This recommendation leads into the first topic that I want to expand on.

I personally don't want to be a mission runner. I bore easily with PvE. I don't mind a nice 10/10 plex run as a way to make some bank, but as a rule, I have no desire to run kill missions for level 4 agents. But I have run missions to get my standings up for various reasons, and I have to admit that for new players, missions offer a comfortable way to turn a coin without having to resort to what may be boring rock cutting.

Each agent has a level and a quality rating. The higher the level, the harder the missions the agent will assign, but the more the payment. The higher the quality, the more the agent will pay. Agents range in level from 1 to 5, and in quality from -20 to +20. A combination of level and quality also affect the required standing one must have with the corporation for which the agent works before the agent will offer jobs.

Each mission completed, not only has some reward, but will also increase one's standings with that agent and with that agent's corporation. The more missions, the more one will grind out a rather high standing. To see one's standing with a particular corporation, look at Standings on the Character Sheet. There is a Liked By and Disliked By tab.

One can also see the required standings to work with any particular agent. To see the standings requirements on any particular agent, look at the info on the agent. Under the Agent Info tab, there should be a Compatibility attribute if that agent is not already available.

There are two more things that I'd like to point out to new mission runners.

I was only running missions to grind out standing. I wasn't interested in the reward. I found that courier missions were faster to complete, so I could get more of them done. The Evelopedia has a resource on the different types of missions offered by different agent types.

Every so often, one will get an offer from a storyline agent. They are great boosts to standing, so try hard to complete those missions.

The last thing to point out is that completing a mission may raise standings with the corporation offering the mission, and the faction with which the corporation is associated. It may also lower standing with factions opposed to that faction. Running missions for a Minmatar corporation in which one kills Angel pirates will lower one's standing with the Angel Cartel. Running missions for Serpentis will lower one's standing with the Gallente Navy.

Standings can be mended over time, but I think it is worth noting if one was counting on their previously acquired good standings.

PLEX Exchange

2009-08-28T03:11:00.002+01:00

I've promised myself that I wouldn't ever trade in PLEX. It just isn't me. It feels like a silly shortcut. In doing the laundry, and keeping the extra bills from road trips over the summer (I don't carry cash on a regular basis), I've put away enough cash for four PLEX.

It is very tempting to just spend that money, which doesn't have any other plans, and was all but written off anyway, and buy those four PLEX. And I don't actually have to spend the ISK from those PLEX on anything. I can just live off of the profit from that money.

If there were a way to convert ISK back, then I would very likely do it. After all, what would I lose. The initial capital for the four PLEX would be returned eventually, and in the meantime, could finance my capsule activities.

I also have a friend that I'm trying to talk into getting in a pod. He is very tempted, if he could pay for his pod time purely with ISK he generates. With some initial capital, I think he could.

But since there is no way to get that capital back, he likely won't.

One reason why I don't like PLEX though, is that it cheapens ISK. It flushes lots of capsuleers with entirely too much ISK, and they pay silly prices for things. If there were a channel to remove ISK from the market, I think it might help to keep prices reasonable.

Applying to Corporations

2009-08-19T00:57:00.002+01:00

I've finally done it.

I mentioned a while back that I needed to join a corp. Now that I've gotten my T2 production infrastructure in place, and I'm happily churning along with Project A-Riftering, I decided I'd start approaching some corporations.

I started with an application to Dark-Rising, even though I would have to say that is not the coolest of corp names.

I have a concern though, that in trying to help a high- or low-sec corp, I'm going to cut my own source of funding. Not sure how they would address that. When living in 0.0, I didn't mind dedicating all of my research and manufacturing slots to the corp since there were plenty of ways to make money. 0.0 is just crazy rich like that. We'll see how things shake out here.

Aside from 0.0 and piracy, if anyone has any industrial, PvP (Minmatar militia, perhaps) corps they want to recommend, I'd enjoy entertaining them.

Goods for Sale

2009-08-17T16:20:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure why I hadn't done this before. I admit, this is a little tacky, but it pays the bills.

Introducing Vol's Price List!!!

Yeah, I'm not very good at marketing.

I am working on lowering the cost of the Oneiros and bringing the Arazu and Lachesis to market. I also have Gallente Tech 2 frigates in the pipe.

I also have BPCs sitting around for more Tech 1 cruisers (Rupture, Caracal, Thorax, Osprey). If, for some reason, anyone is actually interested, I'll look them over and add quotes to the price list.

Some things to keep in mind:

All prices are subject to change as market influences dictate.

I am a solo operation. I have no POS and no employees. I can not insure stock or timeliness of an order, but I will try.

All orders are available for pick up in Elgoi, Rens, or Hek. They can be delivered anywhere within contiguous, CONCORD patrolled space for a small fee.

Small orders are pay on delivery. Larger orders may require a deposit.

If you do want to pay in advance, that may speed up your order. Gratuities welcome.

Gate Guns Hurt

2009-08-12T03:49:00.002+01:00

I went on a solo roam again in Aggressor. It was pretty quiet, until I happened into a system with a lone neutral. She wasn't just any neutral, she belonged to the Caldari Praetorian [C.P.G]. That was a neutral corporation that I didn't mind engaging.

I warped around the system. I scanned. I docked at each of the two stations. I found nothing.

Either she was constantly moving just in the right rhythm to avoid me, she was in a safe spot so far from anything that my directional scanner wouldn't find her, or she was in a cloaked ship.

It didn't matter, she left system just in time for seven Amarr militia to enter. Clearly, she alerted them.

I say that because I left quickly, and there she was. They came quickly. They followed me for two jumps.

I also say that because of our second encounter. I was roaming again quietly, and there was a report of another single target in a system that was on my way. It was just a jump from the fleet that chased me before, but perhaps they wouldn't be around.

Bad intelligence kills.

I was on the gate to enter the system with the report, and the Praetorian enters the system from that gate. I assume at this point that she is alone, since the militia intelligence wasn't that old. She is in a Buzzard, which explains why I never found her.

I was so excited to have found her and found her in a ship that I was willing to engage that I did.

The first volley from the gate guns removed my shields and half my armor. The gate began flashing, too. That fleet from earlier, a fleet of Amarr militia who could engage me on the gate, was entering the system.

Once Aggressor was destroyed, I warped away in my pod.

That was, simply put, incredibly stupid on my part.

Eleven more to go.

A-Riftering: First Kill

2009-08-09T05:38:00.004+01:00

My objective is to roam around in low-sec and find one-on-one engagements in which to lose my collection of purpose-built Rifters. In doing so, I hoped to learn more about PvP, to improve my chops, and through the rush, take the edge off of the panic that usually gets me killed.

I have no desire to be a pirate, so I don't care to wreak havoc on innocents. I am a member of the Minmatar militia, so I have valid war targets. I am also navigating in areas that have a very high density of pirates. I won't feel guilty engaging them. Both of these populations, however, are expecting a fight, and often looking for one themselves. This won't discourage me from engaging in these fights, but it does dramatically reduce my chances of winning.

Winning isn't really the point, which is why I have 12 frigates, not 12 recon cruisers.

I've decided that I will freely engage Amarr sympathizers or patriots. It may, at times, be hard to identify this population, but it does broaden my chances of finding an engagement.

This evening was my second evening on a solo roam. The first evening was without incident. This evening was going pretty much the same way. In most systems, I found no valid targets. In some systems, I would find a valid target, usually a pirate, but it was never a single target. Engaging one would likely get the other two on me quickly.

There were just a few times when I had a valid target in a system where I didn't expect hostile backup. I would dance around the system, intently studying the directional scanner. In these cases, the target would invariably be in something that would clearly out-class me. When I would finally see the target, I would make my way out of the system.

My second evening patrolling at the helm of Aggressor was nearing its end, and I was making my way back to my cache of Rifters when I entered a Sosan. There was only one other capsuleer in Local, Deaganu. I quickly hit the scanner and pulled up his info.

He didn't have any tell-tale signs of being a pirate, and he was not a member of the Amarr or Caldari militias. He was a member of Shadowheart Xtrem Industries [SHXI]. I pulled up their info, and immediately a smile bolted across my face.

SHXI openly defended the Sarum family. I quickly did a search to confirm, as I fired up the engines and warped to a planet. As my gate cloak dropped, I saw the confirmation that I needed:

The Sarum family has always been the most belligerent of the royal families, always willing to take up arms whenever required. The family has vested interest in the Amarr military and the armaments industry. They are the only royal family that wants to revive the Reclaiming efforts of old.

I knew I had a valid target, but I had no idea if he would be out and about in a system with stations, or if he would even be in a ship small enough for me to consider engaging.

I kept on top of the directional scanner. I moved from planet to planet until I found him. He hadn't renamed his ship!

He Was in a Rifter!

The directional scanner isn't immediately accurate, but I was getting better at it. If nothing else came out of these roams, my directional scanning abilities were getting better.

I moved quicker, from point to point until I narrowed him down to one belt. I felt like this was taking so long, though, that surely, he would move. Surely, he would get nervous and bolt. Unless, he was looking for a fight, too.

That prospect made me all the more eager. In the end, I figured he just didn't care. I don't appear to be to terribly a menacing person.

I had my destination, though. I warped into the belt, and there he was, in his Rifter. Sansha wrecks were littered around him. He was ratting in a Rifter!

He was 30 Km away. He was too far for me to hold onto. He could've run. I approached him, turning on the afterburner, debating overheating it just to get to him faster. I hoped he wouldn't run.

He was in the heart of the asteroids, and I had to manually navigate around one. It was beautiful when I did.

Aggressor roared around the asteroid in its lazy roll. I could feel the rocks move, as if they knew there was danger. If only they could warn him. As he came out of eclipse, he was about 10 Km away, and he didn't appear to be running. He didn't appear to be paying me any attention at all.

I swept the bow to port, watching it roll as the ship lined up on him. I initiated the lock, and as soon as he was within the range of my point, I opened with everything I had.

He quickly locked me back. I almost wonder if it was an autolock since he didn't seem to care about me until then. Half his shields were gone before he opened fire, and I was tight within my orbit.

I can't say as I learned much from this engagement itself. As he fell to half armor, my shields fell. I toggled my armor repper once before overheating my turrets. It didn't matter.

His ship exploded before I moved through the whole rack.

I was shaking. Not only had I initiated my first solo engagement, I won it.

The victory does seem a little hollow, though. The outcome was decided before I even engaged him. His ship was poorly fit and is 125mm Scouts were no match for my second-generation 200mm ACs. My ship could've won this without me.

Deaganu should've been more aware of his surroundings. Even though I don't have the security rating or employment history that would make one think I would start an unprovoked attack, I am a member of the Tribal Liberation Force. He should've sought me out. Any guilt that I might feel from such a hollow victory, though, passes when I think of this.

The engagement was very short, though. That is one of the reasons why I don't feel I've ever learned much from the years of gang-warfare I've been in. I've never been in a pitched battle. Either no one fired at me, and I just followed orders and fired on primaries and secondaries as they were called, or the other fleet has called me primary and my ship has been destroyed before I can respond, before I can panic.

A-Riftering: The Beginning

2009-08-01T04:43:00.002+01:00

I did it. I dropped a bit more money then I expected purchasing 12 Rifters and the modules. I have them near the frontier, and as I have time, I'll take them out and try to find some small PvP engagement in which to lose them.

I also have a Breacher that someone left adrift outside a station. I'm actually kind of surprised by the damage output, but it isn't notably fast or strong. I'm sure it will be fun.

I have a question on which type of ammo to carry. My loadouts just have Republic Nuclear S and Gremlin rockets by default, but I haven't actually purchased ammunition, yet. Any advice would be helpful. I'm wondering if it is worth taking different types and reloading the weapons before warping to the target.

My fleet Blackbirds only carry Widowmakers. I expect to see more Amarr ships than not, and I expect them to be armor tanked. ('Course, I could be completely remembering their poorest resist or the damage type that Widowmakers do). Besdies, I realize the Blackbird really isn't in theater to do damage.

Aggressor

I've developed two different loadouts for my Rifter project. This one is a very standard AC loadout for close-quarters engagements. I have six of these, and will start with these. I expect to do what every Rifter pilot does, orbit at 500m and hope I can eat through their tank before they eat through mine.

The challenges will be just finding targets and avoiding those that clearly outclass me. Once I'm engaged, there is really only two things for me to worry about, pulsing the repper and toggling the overheat.

Ranger

This loadout is much more my style. It avoids close-quarters, opting to use speed and tackle modules to dictate a range that should be outside of that of most other frigates. This doesn't sacrifice any defenses over the Aggressor-class loadout, but it does deal less damage.

I'll start on these six after the other six have been lost. By that time, I may actually decide to drop the repper in favor of a MWD. Besides which, I don't actually have Rocket Specialization, so I'll train that.

The challenges here will include keeping my range. Simply electing to orbit the target could be bad.

Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

2009-07-31T02:44:00.003+01:00

I'm sure everyone has seen the Butterfly Effect video, but I wanted to post about it just in case there was some straggler out there that hadn't (perhaps a non-capsuleer friend that is reading my blog?).

I like it. The video lagged a little for me at the end, so one can only imagine how bad I lag in actual fleet battles.

A-Riftering I Should Go

2009-07-30T12:53:00.002+01:00

My T2 sales are going nicely, and I've moved back above 200M in cash and product. I had a thought today that when time and motivation line up again, I should try to get in some solo PvP just to try and build up my ability to actually fight. I lost my Mammoth to a Drake yesterday while AFK mining in Elgoi. I have a Cyclone in my hangar. True, it is missing a few modules for a nice AC/HAM PvP fit, but that isn't what kept it docked. Even if fitted and ready to go, I just don't have the PvP skills to track down and take out another battlecruiser. It would be crazy silly to even attempt it. I should just slam a bunch of plate on a Rupture, sit on the gate, and try to scram and web him for the regular Minmatar military to deal with him.

My thought today was, why not build or buy half a dozen Rifters, and get them and fittings down to the frontier (to add to my stack of fleet ready Blackbirds). I can run off and lose them with wild abandon.

The problem is, against whom? Yes, Rifters are wonderful little ships, and arguably the best frigate in known space. I can see why pirates love them. I can see why they contribute to fleets. How am I going to use them?

In a solo setting, I expect one needs a lot of patience. I expect pirates sit around doing a lot of waiting, much like PvP fleets in 0.0. A solo PvPer needs to wait for a good target. Pirates have more to choose from than me since I don't care to engage innocents, no matter how dumb they may be (e.g. Churches' Victim). Since I'll have fewer targets to choose from than pirates, I'll have to wait that much longer, but it gets worse.

Pirates tell the wonderful stories of taking down larger ships. Nevermind, those larger ships are usually poorly fitted for the engagement. I know my 40M SP are more than enough for me to fit a Rifter that could take down, or at least survive, an engagement against a mission running battlecruiser or battleship. The problem is, I won't be against mission runners. My target pool will be either pirates looking to see if I'm easy pickings, or Amarr militia. Both of these groups will be fitted for a fight, and if they are alone, they are more than likely, fitted for a solo fight.

If I do go soloing in a Rifter, or anything for that matter, I'm going to be soloing in the deep end.

I'm not sure I'd really learn much having my ship and pod destroyed before I can even pose a threat.

Mayor of Tortuga

2009-07-29T01:09:00.002+01:00

Mynxee was musing about using wormhole space as a base of operations for pirates. Reading her post, I would have to say she makes a good argument that it may be impractical and more of a problem. It may be fun for hunting, but without the logistics to support the campaign, then it is too much of a hassle. And I just don't see piracy as being profitable enough in and of itself to pay for a POS and the logistics contract to keep it operational and staffed. For that manner, I would wager that a sizable number, if not a majority, of pirates don't make enough pirating to pay for piracy. I imagine they need to deal in GTCs or run missions for their agents to actually purchase ships and fit them.

I do see wormhole space as being something very profitable for large corporation and alliances. They would have logistical problems, too, when the wormholes only opened in hostile space. I'm not exactly sure how that works. On the whole, I'm not sure how beneficial it is to have an unpredictable base for combat operations, so I imagine large corporations and alliances would only use it for industrial purposes.

But I don't want to completely discount the idea of Pirates in Wormhole Space. I think it could work wonderfully well. I think a wormhole space system could be set aside as a pirate heaven: a New Eden Tortuga. A place where pirates could buy and sell, a place where they could explore new grounds, a roaming convention, a constant party in the space beyond space. Bookmarks to the current entrances could be passed around the pirate community. Pirates could come in to lay low and meet each other, safely away from non-pirate bounty hunters (are they really a threat), or large corps on anti-piracy campaigns.

The big benefit would simply be community. A place where pirates could go to network, to find back up or pick-up fleets. I really don't know how well the pirating community gets along. Is there any honor among thieves?

I don't think I could ever be a pirate. I have an underdeveloped sense of schadenfreude. But I have to admit, the idea of trying to organize a New Eden Tortuga, that sounds like fun. Trying to keep it stocked, trying to arrange to have loot moved to market, trying to get pirates to get along well enough to not bust the whole joint up, all sounds like fun in a perverse way.

Yes, I do engage in activities in New Eden that I would find entirely too painfully boring planetside.

Ratings Agency

2009-07-18T03:40:00.004+01:00

I've been too busy lately to do much of anything. Too busy, too sick, too tired. I've not been in a voluntary armed engagement since 20 June. Most of the time that sees me in a capsule sees me multitasking while cutting Veldspar in a Mammoth with a Modulated Deep Core Mining Laser II and a T2 crystal or making market or BPC runs. I will say that sales are going well. If I thought about it, I'd look into picking up some more T1 BPOs.

Thankfully, I do like being an industrialist. It is in times like these that I have ideas.

Way back when, I ran a small investment firm: Prydwen Investments [PRYD]. It had just over 2B ISK. A good portion of the capital came from my own pocket, but I had a single issuing of stock. Stock was offered mainly to other members of Sturmgrenadier [SGHQ]. I didn't feel I could generate a way for the general population to trust me, so I only asked for investors from SG, people that I trusted, and people that I hope trusted me.

The idea was to make a profit on everyone's money and pay monthly dividends equal to half the profits. The main focus of my business was in making small loans to SG and Fountain Alliance pilots. I didn't mind making unsecured loans up to 300M ISK to this population. If they defaulted, I could complain to their corps and very likely have them kicked out. What I had was a small bank where I knew the clients and they knew me. They didn't fear me running away with their money, and I didn't fear them running away with the money that I'd been trusted to keep.

There is something to say for this small loan market. In 0.0, everyone should have one well-fitted battleship that they keep out of harms way. A battleship they can use to collect bounties on local small-time pirates or to run into high-end 10/10 complexes. This is how individuals can make money in 0.0 to pay for their warships.

It is sometimes hard to afford that first battleship, or to afford a replacement if something happens. It is also hard to offer collateral. In times like these, having a place to get a small loan based on trust can help.

The loans had a small weekly interest rate that didn't seem to bother anyone. I hope that is due in part to the fact that they knew the money was staying in the Alliance and going to the accounts of fellow Alliance members.

In addition to loans, I purchased some battlecruiser BPOs, and built and sold battlecruisers in Oursulaert and Jita. Battlecruisers (and the BPOs) don't tie up too much money in investment, sell rather well, and had a comfortable profit margin of 10-20%. I also purchased other BPOs and used my access to empty research queues in Serpentis Prime to research and resell these BPOs.

Life got too busy for me to stay with SG. I kept this investment company running for a little while, but finally I shut it down and stayed planetside for nearly a year. When I shut down the company, I sold all of its assets and paid out all of the cash in dividends to all of the shareholders. I don't remember how much of a return initial investors received, but I was actually surprised that it had been as profitable as it was.

I would love to start something like this again, but I'm not currently in a community where there is a lot of trust. The only community I'm in right now is the Minmatar militia, and I've not really been heavily involved in that or established a name for myself. There are a few other pilots that I've seen often enough and could trust, but I don't see any reason for them to trust me.

The massive scam that was EBANK sets such a tone in New Eden, that I'm not sure anyone would really want to trust anyone else.

This leads to my idea. Banks and investment firms need companies that conduct audits and evaluations and assign credit scores and ratings. New Eden needs a firm similar to Morningstar. Such a firm may actually exist in New Eden, but I haven't come across it. Mind you, I'm just getting back into the scene, and really haven't even bothered getting back into the forums. I'll probably do that over the next few weeks and report what I find.

There are some points to my idea that I roll over in my head though:

The crediting or rating agency would need access. If a company wanted a rating, it would have to allow an auditor admintance to the company. It would have to make sure that all transactions were in the corporate wallet, and that all assets were locked in visible corporate hangars. I don't really see this as a problem on the part of the company seeking the rating. They have to expect this level of investigation. The problem I see here is the rating agency running low on the man power to keep an eye on companies. Really, I see the number of companies that can be rated being less than two times the number of members of the rating company.

There really needs to be at least two reputable rating companies. The point behind all of this is to cut down on the possibility of scamming someone. It is harder to bribe two auditors from two separate companies.

I would expect the company seeking the rating to be the one paying the bill. This presents a conflict of interest, but it is one that all financial markets struggle to address.

I personally don't mind making myself more available. I am willing to post my cell phone number here in my blog if I thought it wouldn't generate more than one prank call. I won't tell anyone where I live, other than to say Durham, North Carolina, USA, but I will say that I am willing to meet anyone for lunch. I am willing to do interviews with whomever over the phone or in person if it would help to establish trust with someone considering trusting me with their money. I want to make myself available to anyone in New Eden that wants to vet me before trusting me, but I don't want to expose myself to pranksters and ne'er-do-wells that would cause me to change my very lovely phone number of have to get my car/house repainted. Rating agencies could be proxies for the general New Eden public. The heads of companies seeking a rating could give their private information to a rating agency instead of the general public. The rating agency could use that information to establish a personal relationship to establish trust. If the crooked rating seeker ever steals the money and runs, the rating agency could, pursuant to the contract, publish the personal information as a form of punishment.

Another form of punishment brought to my attention today is escrows. If the head of the investment firm wants to put 100 USD into something like a Paypal escrow account, then surely he can be trusted not to run off with 3B ISK.

The real problem isn't with making loans. Those really can be made with collateral. The problem is in investing a company, which is what anyone does when depositing money in a bank. The bank can't give everyone collateral. It has to run on trust. A rating company would simply be a third party looking to make sure the bank is as trustworthy as possible.

EVE Blog Banter #9

2009-07-08T03:00:00.003+01:00

I want to recommend everyone heading over to CK's to read the latest blanter posts. There was a competition this month. I wanted to participate, but I couldn't find it in me. Everything that I'd want to remove was really just a different way of saying I wanted to add something else (no NPC pirate factions cause those are voids that could be filled by PC pirate factions), or were ideas so outlandish that they couldn't possibly ever be implemented (you may log off, but your character never leaves and executes some scripted orders, even if they are "watch that research slot").

Besides, I've been busy lately, and have found it hard to get time to really focus on writing.

Between being busy and suffering more than my fair share of lag, I've gotten my T2 manufacturing operation running smoothly. Regrettably, I keep loosing money on other things, so I haven't been able to invest in any new BPOs. And the production I've got going, while making some money, is taking all of my research slots. I do seriously want to join a corporation, but I feel silly since I don't have but so much to offer.

But, I have a friend that will be selling his carrier and spending some time planetside. He may lend me some capital. Having money makes it easier to make money.

Hopefully I'll be more focused after this weekend and this blog will be worth reading.

Itches

2009-06-24T03:00:00.002+01:00

I lost a pod last week while piloting a [-DARK] supplied Scorpion. Of all the poddings I've suffered, that one was probably the most painless. My wetware had been acting up for nearly a week, and during that engagement, it was practically offline. I saw flashes of the Scorpion being attacked, but nothing else registered, save the station walls.

All I can blame it on is the rain.

Maybe I should get a hat. It had been raining here for nearly a week solid. My yard didn't really dry up until yesterday.

This clone has a real annoying itch. It is on the back of my left pinky, between the nail and the first knuckle. What is that, the posterior of the fifth distal phalanges?

What ever it is, it is driving me a little batty. Makes me want to rush out and get podded again just so I can shake this itch.

I Once Was in a Tournament

2009-06-23T03:09:00.003+01:00

I had left SG, and was living in The Forge. I hadn't been there long, and was trying to find my place. There was a monthly 1v1, all tech-1 cruiser tournament held in a low-sec system nearby. It hadn't been running long and didn't have many entrants. I have never been an ace combat pilot, and have always preffered EW, fire support, or logistics roles in combat over being a ship-of-the-line. I figured this would be a controlled environment where I could get a little better.

The rules were simply that every capsuleer provided a cruiser that did not have any advanced, tech 2 fittings. There would be a jet can marking the center of the field, and we were not to stray more than a number of kilometers from that. Withdrawing from the fight was surrendering. Ships would likely be lost, but pods were off limits.

I expected there to be a great many Thoraxes. I, however, can not pilot Gallente cruisers, nor do I have any training in hybrid railguns. I turned to the Minmatar variant on the Gallente Thorax, the Stabber.

The Stabber is clearly built from Thorax plans. The hulls have nearly the same silhouette. The Stabber is just Minmatar, and with that it is faster than a Thorax. Minmatar projectiles have a better range than Gallente turrets, too. These two advantages determined my strategy.

Thorax's are fast, and use their speed to get close to their prey. They are devastating lethal at close range, and they can deploy drones to quickly augment their offensive capabilities. Thorax's rely on aggression, and that aggression easily conceals any weakness.

Since this tournament set the field, there was no need for warp disruption. That freed up a mid-slot in everyone's fitting. I decided that I was going to use my superior speed to set the range, and I was going to remain outside of his lethal range, and outside of the range of statis webifiers. This gave me another free mid-slot. I fit my ship as though I was going to fight a Thorax, so everything was measured in that regard. The Hypothetical Thorax pilot likely would equip a webifier, so this gave me a mid-slot over him.

I fit my ship so it would be as fast as possible, with the best range I could get out of the full compliment of named autocannons. My defenses suffered, but there was no amount of tank that I could put on a Stabber that could withstand a Thorax at close range.

I knew this was a risk. What if my opponent wasn't in a Thorax? I considered the likely alternatives, the Vexor, the Caracal, and the Rupture (did the Amarrs even make a cruiser?). The Vexor and the Rupture would both present the same challenge. They would have better range than the Thorax, but they would both be slower. I would be able to set the range, and could either close to try and outpace their turrets or move further away in the hopes of out-ranging them.

The Caracal presented a real problem. The Caracal didn't care about my range, and the Caracal could fit an impressive tank. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle things if I encountered a Caracal.

All of that was moot. My first opponent was a Thorax.

We began nearly 20 Km apart. My target range was outside of 9 Km. As the duel began, he lit up his MWD and burned straight for me (this was before warp scramblers would disrupt a MWD). I fired up my own, swung my bow to port, and cut an oblique. In my head was Sabre Dance. As our range fell below 12 Km, I turned on the ACs.

He continued to try and approach me, and I continued to move in obliques around him, careful to keep my orbits outside of 9 Kms, and always trying to move our dance toward the "center of the ring". The fight continued for many many minutes. All the while, my ACs were constantly hissing shot at him, his rails silent. I had no idea if this tactic would work. I was expecting it to be a smashing success or a smashing failure. Instead, it was a smashing stalemate.

I was doing measurable damage, but it wasn't enough to over-come is active defenses. There was a time-limit imposed by the rules on our fight. If we exceeded that, the organizer would call our fight and determine a winner. I was afraid I'd lose a judge's decision. From the outside, it appeared as though I was avoiding a fight by constantly staying away from him. I felt I needed to do something to avoid going to a judge's decision.

I risked moving closer. I didn't want to get within webifier range, but I wanted to get a little closer so my own turrets would land their shots more often. I lurched closer. He took that moment, and lurched closer too. I quickly found myself too close.

His webifier found me, and trapped me. I had now lost my speed advantage, and he quickly fell on me. My ACs were constantly fighting back, but the weren't enough to destroy him before his rails tore my ship to pieces.

I was now floating in my pod in a sea of the debris that once was a nearly successful Stabber.

After the fight he told me that he was down to his last few cap boosters. He didn't think he'd be able to hold out for too much longer.

If only I had.

I Need a Corp

2009-06-13T15:47:00.004+01:00

It is official, I need a corp.

I'm enjoying my time in the militia, but militia pick-up fleets are, more times than not, not very well organized. There is entirely too much chatter, not nearly enough discipline, and scores of capsuleers just looking to get in on another killmail.

The problem is, I'm trying to fit capsuleering back into my life. I don't have a dedicated schedule, yet.

I'm debating returning to SG, but I'm still not sold. Last I heard they were a pet corp for the alliance-formerly-known-as BoB. I don't know if I want to get caught up in that. Though, being a retired Rear Admiral, I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to get back into a commission.

Part of the debate with returning to SG, as with any corporation, also centers around returning to 0.0 or remaining in the war against the Amarr. Life beyond the empires is rough. The fighting in the militia pales next to the wars I've been in while in 0.0.

Life beyond the empires is also wildly rich. It is easy for capsuleers to make money, lots of money. The question then is, what to do with that money.

I have no great desire to fly truly expensive ships. I don't care for a carrier. I don't care for any capital ship. I don't even really care for a marauder. The only expensive ships that have ever caught my attention have been the newest line of strategic cruisers. To add to the temptation, I have all the prerequisites for the Loki and Tengu, save the actual ship and subsystem skills themselves.

I do enjoy the logistics. I do enjoy that side of the business just as much as the combat. I know I'll never be an ace combat capsuleer, but I think I could apply myself and be a very competitive industrialist.

I guess I should work on a cover letter and a résumé.

Epic Fail

2009-06-06T14:01:00.004+01:00

I was going to mention how I lost not one, but two Blackbirds in the same melee. I was going to mention how the first was the fleet commander's fault, and how the second was my own for continuing to follow him. I was going to mention how I wanted to look for a corp, since the pick-up militia fleets were really starting to get old.

I was going to mention how I hate to hear pirates whine about piracy being too hard. It was going to sum it up with something cliché like, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." I was going to mention that low sec is a transition to null sec, but that pirates just don't ever seem to move on and I was going to muse as to why that was.

But then I had a failure of epic proportions.

I was busy last night having to do work for others. It was work I could do remotely, so I decided to do it while in my capsule. I had a large batch of advanced large hybrid weapons to take to market, and I considered looking for cheap Jaguars and possibly a Kitsune and a Hound.

I loaded up Lorxun. Lor is a Mastodon. Lor is an artistic rendition of cumbersome, if you consider Thukker brutalism to be art. When rigged and fit, she could hold nine giant secure containers and three larges. She had served very well in Aridia, Outer Ring, and through out the empires.

The ship and rigs alone cost me just over 120,000,000 kredits. Since I had sold off my disused Tempest, she was by far the most expensive ship I had.

The killboards estimate her total value, with cargo, between 188M and 230M.

Mastodon on the killboard: Fail.

I left Elgoi and stopped in Rens, Hek, and finally Oursuleart. I sold 40M in goods outright, and posted another 118M in sell orders.

Having a few things left over, and deciding to wait on picking up any new ships, I set a corse for Elgoi. I looked at my list of assets and decided there was a system just five jumps away with old junk that I could clean out in this trip and probably use in the future to bargain with an agent.

I thought the system was Gallente, and I added the way point, moving it up the autopilot list ahead of Elgoi. I undocked, warped to my first gate, and engaged the autopilot.

I went back to work, letting the autopilot drive Lor through Gallente and Matari high security space.

"Autopilot approaching stargate," Aura would announce in the background. I'd reach up and toggle the afterburner if I was paying enough attention.

"Autopilot jumping." There was the sound of the gate activating, the bubble forming, and the ship being pushed out of space.

"Autopilot warping to stargate." There was the sound of engines roaring, the ship shaking as it fought Einstein and cross the light-barrier. Relatively.

"Autopilot approaching stargate." I wasn't as focused on my work at this point since I was waiting for a command I'd issued to their systems to finish and give me a result. I looked up, knowing that Aura announces her intentions just before they are reality. If I attempt to toggle on the afterburners too soon, they won't come on, and I'll have no audible indication that they didn't engage.

I see the console finally indicate that it is out of warp and the sub-light engines begin to glow. I toggle the afterburners with a quick keystroke.

The icon begins to pulse green on my display. I notice an aggression timer.

Who did I agress?

I notice a flashy red box.

I was being attacked! And in high security space!

I scrambled for the controls. My shields were barely scratched, and I was moving at speed to the gate. I didn't panic in the confidence that CONCORD would be here soon.

I brought the display's focus on the aggressor. It was the Caldari Navy. "No, no, no, no, no!"

That extra waypoint was actually in Caldari space, not Gallente. There would be no CONCORD intervention. The Mastodon was too big and slow. She could never close 13 Km before being torn apart. There was nothing ahead of me. I selected another gate and gave the order to warp-to-zero. I watched as Lor began to turn. The bow pitched up and yawed to port. Lor pulled hard, but the movement, even when not under the tension of a dramatic moment, played out in slow motion. It was as if watching a large mythical beast rise up on point and try to pirouette in the thick gel of a neutrally buoyant clone vat.

The gate guns came on line, and it was too late. The shields were stripped away quickly. There is no armor. The hull is just there to keep the cargo together. Next came the explosion.

Mastodon lost to Caldari Navy: Epic Fail.

The Mistakes of Learning

2009-06-03T02:06:00.004+01:00

My spirits are a bit broken in that I've lost two ships in the last day. The first was a Jaguar, Jestyl II. The second was a Blackbird, Weird Sisters. It isn't their loss that bothers me. Jes had seen action in Outer Ring and in The Bleak Lands. She served well, and was a great joy to pilot. I do look forward to fitting another Jaguar. This was Sisters' first sortie, but she was lost in combat after assisting in the destruction of two Typhoon class battleships. I did calmly try to evade the hostile reinforcements, but Blackbirds are slow. I think she did well.

My low spirits come form the mistakes I made around the loss of these two ships.

After panicking and losing Dakyxa'is, I am really trying to focus on combat, and really wanting to put myself at more risk for the sake of getting better. Monday morning, there was a large Dark Rising operation against Heretics that occupied most of the militia, so I took it on myself to go on a solo roam.

I took Jes, figuring a Jaguar was fast and strong enough to engage most light targets in one-on-one. It was uneventful. I did have a chance to engage a Punisher, but I hesitated, and he got away.

Tuesday morning, was when things went poorly.

Amamake is generally a dangerous system. Recently however, I had become relaxed in Amamake. There were hostiles, but they were usually kept off the gates by friendly traffic. The Heretics kept to the Osuggur gate (when not defending against Dark Rising), and the Amarr militia had been focusing on Auga and Dal.

I was crossing Amamake with the intent of entering Vard and beginning a solo roam. I asked about a fleet and received an invitation. The fleet was in Dal, so I doubled back to the Dal gate.

As a reminder to me that I really shouldn't be flying around Amamake alone like that, there are three Amarrian Thrashers waiting for me on the gate.

At least they respect the hardware.

We are all on the gate, and I know I can't turn around and run. Without thinking, I signal the jump.

They gleefully jump with me.

It doesn't take them long to cut Jestyl II to shreds. My wetware is slow. Their targetting computers are fast.

I never even see the pod.

The list of mistakes here is long.

I should've given them a chance to fire at me first. I know they wouldn't've. That would've given me a chance to jump while they waited on the thirty-second cool off. If I sat there, I know they would've sent one Thrasher through. At that point, I can't get away.

Jumping through wasn't a horrible mistake, but I should've waited, so see if it was even necessary. Give them a chance to make a mistake.

Once we were all on the other side of the gate, I was resolved to the defeat. I didn't think I could get away. What bothers me is, I didn't even try. I don't know how they were fitted, but I had an afterburner that I could overheat. I could've tried to run outside of their warp disruption range and gotten away.

I wouldn't've made it, but it would've been good practice.

Once I calmed down (bought a new clone) and got into another ship, I rejoined the fleet. It was a militia fleet. They aren't very organized.

We were sitting on a gate, when suddenly the FC ordered us to jump through, warp to a belt, and engage pirates that are already tackled.

I don't really care enough about pirates to bother with them. I'd rather focus on the Amarr militia. The mistake here was simple. After the last targeting patch I received, I didn't reset my overview. One of the pirates I engaged was a friendly.

Weird Sisters did a good job of locking up two Typhoons (1, 2), and a friendly Rapier. The Rapier even shows up in the mail declaring the loss of Sisters.

My apologizes to Mr. Od.

I Panicked

2009-05-31T02:09:00.007+01:00

I began the evening by heading out into the frontier in a newly fitted Rifter, Gatlabon. I form up in a fleet with Hatche. It is a small fleet, with Chebri in a Falcon, so I don't bother fetching a Blackbird.

Hatche asks for three scouts. Chebri volunteers since she can do it cloaky. I volunteer my Hound, Dakyxa'is, which is, as far as I know, one jump away. It turned out that she was not in my cache, and was another handful of jumps away. Instead I slip into my Claw, Laxsfanis. I feel pretty fearless moving around in Laxs since she nearly enters warp backwards. The only thing that can stop her is a bubble, and thankfully the systems we are in all have effective dampers in place against that sort of thing.

Our small fleet moves around a little, not finding much in the way of war targets. I've been assigned to Kamela at the moment. That makes me the first scout to see the nearly 30 ship Amarr fleet heading toward Auga. We hunker down. We are two small, and in much lighter ships. We need to get more militia members involved.

"Vol, would you go to Lamaa and relieve the scout there."

I had been warping from gate to gate, keeping an eye on things in Kamela. There were five Amarr, three of which were docked. I warp to the Kamela gate, just in time for that command to be belayed.

In hindsight, this would be where I made my first mistake. I sat on the gate, not moving, waiting for things to be sorted. I know I'm not in a lot of danger, but I still shouldn't've just sat there. An Amarr warps to the gate in his own Claw.

Nice to see that the slaver admires our hardware.

This would be my second mistake. I should've already been prepared for things like this and decided on my course of action. I hesitated. I waited a moment, debating if I should actually engage him. I then debated if I should warp away. This was enough time for him to lock me and nearly strip my shields.

I jumped.

Again, I knew I wasn't in much danger. But I should've thought all of that through in anticipation of a hostile dropping on the gate. I knew he would want to jump through a follow me into Lamaa, so I immediately burned back for the gate. I knew on the other side that the gate was going to force him to wait a thirty second cool-off due to his aggression. That was enough time for me to get within activation range of the gate back into Kamela.

As soon as I saw the gate activate, I signalled my intent. The bubble formed and the gate scooped me up. I knew he would be fighting mad having missed me.

I know that not engaging him was the right decision. I was a scout and needed to focus on that. I was too far to rely on any aide from the fleet, and I knew he had at least one militia mate loose in the system, and another three docked up. I also haven't soloed (which I think that I should), and I don't have any delusions that my Claw is well fitted for a solo fight.

I resumed my patrol inside Kamela. A few moments later, I was ordered to regroup with the fleet in Dal. As I was leaving Kamela, I crossed that same Claw pilot again. He gave chase, once shouting "Coward" in local.

The large Amarr fleet had split between Auga and Dal. They had several militia mates camped in stations, and for the most part owned the field of battle. I and a few others scouted around, but it was clear there was nothing we could do until something changed. We needed a moment.

Until that moment arrived, I decided to fetch up Dakyxa'is. I signaled to the fleet my intentions and went as fast as I could to get the Hound. As I was returning though, our moment came.

Hatche was quickly getting the fleet to rally. The hostiles in Dal were gathered outside of a station, too far to dock. It was decided that we had enough in numbers to deal enough damage to the fleet, if not rout it outright. And if the Amarrians in Auga moved to assist those in Dal, that would free up our pinned-down compatriots to assist as well.

I was two jumps out when the order was given to all ships to warp. The comms were now abuzz as targets were called, reppers were requested, jamming was declared.

I warped through Amamake under cloak and then fearlessly jumped into Dal, knowing the gate would be clear. I didn't even bother engaging the cloak as I warped to the embroiled battle. I quickly locked up the primary and secondary targets and let loose the torpedoes. I surveyed the battlefield and felt comfortable in my position nearly fifty kilometers from the action. The only hostile ship that I didn't have a lot of knowledge of was the Pilgrim.

That was another mistake. I knew it was an Amarr advanced cruiser. I assumed it was a Recon cruiser, but I couldn't tell you what it could do. So when it decided to lock me, I didn't warp away as fast as I should've. I selected a celestial object in my path and was ready. With what felt like two volleys, the Pilgrim had peeled off more than half of my shields. That was more than enough, I signaled the warp drive.

I am an older capsuleer. I'm only 34, but I am sure that most capsuleers are younger than me. I'm also sure that most capsuleers have newer, faster systems, with wonderful graphics drivers. My wetwear is more than a bit dated, barely rated as being capable of manning a capsule. As a result, I keep my camera drone in a very very wide orbit. The battle to my optics is just a distant collection of purple and red dots. I focus on the overview.

I don't know if the overview was just slow to update, or if the Pilgrim really had my warp drive locked down at nearly fifty kilometers, but I was not going into warp.

I spammed the command.

I panicked.

I wasn't going to warp. My shields were gone and the armor was melting.

Some brilliant person somewhere decided when programming these onboard computers that if the warp drive wasn't able to engage, the engines should simply cut out. After all, why get to speed if you can't get to warp.

Move, damn you!

I was spamming the align and the warp command. I wanted the ship to at least maintain speed if she wouldn't go to warp.

At this point, though, I knew Dakyxa'is was lost. But I still panicked.

I don't know if someone was trying to save me. I saw the shields and armor return. Was that a friendly, or was my wetware just mixing signals? Was I already floating in my pod, my ship an explosion around me? I wasn't focused on the overview, I was trying to enter warp, but at this point, I did know for sure that the Pilgrim was on top of me, with a flight of drones ripping at my ship.

The primary that I had engaged had long since gone down. I hadn't bothered to re-task my weapons. I could've helped with the secondary, or attempted to warn off the Pilgrim with a few volleys of torpedoes. But I did nothing, focusing purely on warping away.

Finally, after what seemed like a painful eternity, the message came that I had lost control of the ship. I waited calmly now for the explosion and the jump as my inputs were disconnected from the ship and my camera drone focused on the pod.

And now, I warped away.

Places I've Been

2009-05-29T03:05:00.004+01:00

After reading a post in Life in Low Sec, I was compelled to add this.

First, I should point out some errors in this map. I began my capsuleering in Placid. That does not appear to be represented here. From Placid, I moved to Delve, then to Fountain, then to Aridia, and then to Outer Ring. Again, there doesn't seem to be any indication of my time in Outer Ring.

Today I live in Metropolis and frequent Heimatar and The Bleak Lands.

EVE Blog Banter #8

2009-05-28T19:54:00.001+01:00

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

This month's topic comes from Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks:

What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums.

There are many things that I'd like to change, but most of them would require a fundamental reset of the entire universe, and could never be implemented. One of these un-implementable ideas is still so wonderful, that I have to mention it.

I would love for everything consumed by capsuleers to be built by capsuleers. For the most part, that is true today, but I want to take it a step further.

For example, capsuleers can get the BPO for the 150mm Light AutoCannon I. They can build that item. They can also do invention to build 150mm Light AutoCannon IIs.

They can't build 150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I. I would like it if one could pick the attribute they wanted to research, in this case Rate of Fire and Range. Then they could come up with the BPCs for the Light Carbine and others. They could research more attributes. The higher the meta level, the harder it is to research, the more time it takes.

All of these items that are currently dropped by NPCs could have been built by PCs. The second part of my proposal would be that the NPC factions would place buy orders roughly based on the number of ships they lose. The more Angel Cartel that are splashed, the more orders they place for the items they drop.

Since I really don't see this as being possible, I'll just settle for the ability to have containers in the hold of a ship smartly loaded and unloaded.

Other Blanters that I've read:

CrazyKinux has a more complete listing.

Eve Blogroll

2009-05-26T12:08:00.001+01:00

I made the Eve Blogroll.

Now, if I can just get the settings right on this thing so it emails me when someone posts a comment....

I am not a Pirate

2009-05-25T02:32:00.002+01:00

I am not a pirate. I don't do piratey things. And I've never been to Boston in the fall.

Unlike espionage, no one has accused me of being a pirate. It is merely something that I think on from time to time.

I've been active in the militia for just over a month. I've been on at least half a dozen sorties, in three different ships. I've participated in the destruction of 21 ships. The thing that strikes me is, I've not lost a ship, yet.

That tells me two things: Wars in 0.0 are much harder than militia activity; and I don't solo. And that is the point. I've always been in fleets. In the militia, the fleets very quickly fill two squads. I've always been in a you-will-be-called-primary Blackbird with at least a dozen other ships around me.

That gets me to piracy. I can't think of a reason to solo, unless I wanted to be a pirate. And I don't want to be a pirate!

My view of piracy is incomplete, and I mean no offense to pirates. Some of them are actually very nice people. But my view of the pirate life is that they prey on the weak. They don't defend. They don't seek profit. They don't have an objective beyond explicitly or implicitly ruining someone's day.

I just don't get that. If a capsuleer thinks he is so big and badass, shouldn't he stake a claim in 0.0 and defend it and make his mark? I'm probably very wrong, but it just feels like pirates enjoy being king of the hill, as long as it is a little hill.

I know that not everyone that solos is a pirate. There are capsuleers in the militia that solo. I recently refitted my Jaguar, and I can so see the potential for that ship to be a great solo platform. I see that same potential in the Wolf, the Rifter, the Stabber, the Vagabond, and plenty others. But I'm not in it for the kills.

I want to move the map. This is a misgiving I have with the militia fleets. They blob up and pick off stragglers and do little to really inhibit the Amarr's ability to make war. They also don't concern themselves with turning over 'plexes and pushing the border.

I could solo in militia, but I feel I could do more in a fleet. I feel we could do more than I could.

Lastly, I do want to point out that bounty hunting would be a fair solo activity. That activity, however, would likely require a lot more time than I feel I have.

I am not a Spy

2009-05-24T05:43:00.006+01:00

I am not a spy.

Saying that however, wouldn't accomplish anything, so I don't.

This evening, in the militia channel, is the second time I've been accused of being an Amarr spy. I don't take it seriously, and I hope that they don't mean it seriously, but I would rather they not say it unless they truly mean it. Aside from just bumming me out slightly, I'm afraid someone might take it seriously.

I did get into a fleet under Bahamut420. I began the evening in my newly refitted Jaguar, Jestyl II. This was her first action since the Outer Ring, and she did wonderfully.

The fleet changed ships and I returned to Ctino Cipni. We traveled to Old Man Star to engage some Caldari. Not only did CC do well, but she even laid a final blow.

The Music of New Eden

2009-05-23T19:55:00.004+01:00

There are two capsuleer promos that feature some Junkie XL tracks. I really like the celestial quality of the vocals and the trance edge to the house music. I really want to find some more of that music that really echoes New Eden.

I've been playing around with a Pandora station, but it has been hard, so far, to tune Pandora onto the genes that I want to promote.

I Don't Mean to Be an Ass

2009-05-18T04:17:00.003+01:00

I got my start as a capsuleer with Sturmgrenadier, before they joined Fountain Alliance. SG is a very disciplined organization, in New Eden and beyond. Discipline is a very dramatic force multiplier.

I am still trying to fit capsuleering back into my schedule, and still not sure if I want to get back into a serious corporation, yet. I have, in the meantime, enrolled in the Minmatar Militia, and that makes me want to hang out my "Looking for Corp" shingle.

Sometime after midnight on Saturday, I slip into my Hound to make my way out into the contested space. I ask about fleets, and Captain Vaguy is asking for frigate class ships. I assume for some harrying. I'm interested, since it means I will take out my Claw, Laxsfanis, instead of the Blackbird, Ctino Cipni.

We dock up in Dal, waiting as Vaguy has a lead on something. There is a 25+ fleet of Amarrian camping the gates around Auga and Amamake, of which we all are a little weary (Some intel suggested 45 ships). They outnumber us, and they are carrying more weight. We all trust that Vaguy will come up with some way that we can maybe annoy them and pick of a straggler or three.

The orders, instead, come to make best speed to a system nine jumps away. No more information is given. The militia isn't the most secure of places, so I don't question the silence. I've flown with Vaguy a few times now, so I don't suspect this to be a trap.

Our near two squads of small, fast ships rendevous with nearly a dozen battleships. We are going to escort them back to Dal. The battleships, under the command of THEDON1, will wait one or two jumps away, as we bait their trap.

Vaguy decided that he shouldn't be the fleet commander. This made sense, and so Don was going to be the overall fleet commander. But he didn't take the reigns as it were, so Vaguy really ran the show.

The move back toward Dal was very disorganzed at best. We ran across a few war targets. I missed the encounters (silly me, following orders and all), but I'm sure it was more than enough to alert the gate camps that we were coming. No surprise, they weren't there.

We were not only a loud, lumbering, easy-to-avoid fleet-o-doom, we were horrible unorganized. The voice chatter was incredible. I really got annoyed. Even with a mic, I very rarely have a reason to speak. But I did, and I am sure I came across as a complete ass. I openly talked back to command, mocked them a bit, and told them how to do their job. That would've been disciplined in SG.

The thing that really got to me was an engagement against some pirates after it was clear we weren't going to get to engage the Amarr.

Vaguy had the fleet wait just outside of Amamake, while he went in in a battleship with two frigates. The plan was simple, Vaguy was going to be the bait. The pirates were going to launch a few battleships of their own to take down Vaguy, we were going to jump in and ruin that.

Vaguy got excited when the patrol he ran across included a Bhaalgorn. He immediately gave the order and we all entered and warped to engage. The two frigates with him worked to keep the Bhaalgorn tackled. But present with the Bhaalgorn was a Falcon. The Falcon did his job and allowed the Bhaalgorn to escape.

The Bhaalgorn had already warped away by the time I had arrived. The Falcon did his job so well, he didn't even bother trying to warp out himself until it was too late.

That encounter didn't bother me. What bothered me was one of Don's crew telling us tacklers that we "fucking suck". The Bhaalgorn was gone before there were enough tacklers to overwhelm the Falcon. We did our job just fine.

I think perhaps Vaguy should've destroyed the Falcon before he called for the fleet (if he could do that before the rest of the pirates arrived), or just live with the fact that the Bhaalgorn wasn't going to be taken. I think perhaps that the harrier squads shouldn't've gone to escort the battleships. I think we should've, perhaps, played the role of the fox to the Amarrian hounds until the battleships arrived on their own. We could've baited the trap before it was set. That would've avoided give the Amarr quiet moments to cool down and get bored.

This is militia though, so I really know I shouldn't stress over simple, one-step tactics and noisy, unfocused fleets. At least Laxsfanis saw some action. The pirates were even willing to undock and fight next to the station, and were even stupid enough to forget to dock back up, so she got part of a second killmail.

Comms in the Militia

2009-05-15T04:04:00.006+01:00

I'm something of a detail oriented person. I tend to like ordered systems. They help to focus things. Being focused keeps one alive longer.

Not that death is much more than an uncomfortable hassle.

I join a militia fleet, and leave high sec in my Hound, making my way toward my cache of warships in the contested region. I ask calmly on the fleet chat if there is a preference as to which ship I should bring to rally with the fleet. It doesn't seem to matter which ships I have fitted and ready to go. As soon as I mention the Blackbird, that gets the votes. I don't even have to mention that it is tech 2 fitted.

I slip the Hound into her berth and have my pod mated with the Blackbird on hand, Ctino Cipni. I have another fitted Blackbird, Prospero, waiting to step up when this one is lost.

I have four more Blackbirds waiting to be assembled in Elgoi.

Once I join up with the fleet, I remind myself again that Blackbirds are slow (and ugly). They are, after all, Caldari.

There is a fleet commander, but he hasn't really focused the fleet, yet. There are twenty-four capsuleers spread over five systems. The comm chatter is lively.

Lively is a polite way of saying there are several capsuleers who are inebriated. I long for my old corp in 0.0.

These are fun guys. Some of these capsuleers are real stand-up and will go out of their way to help. They look out for the fleet, and they, for the most part, focus on the war at hand.

But the chatter does get so bad that at times that the orders are not clear. When one fleet commander leaves, the next doesn't always assert his authority, so there is a period of anarchy.

In my head, I just recall the disciplined comms of my old corp, "Break Vol."

"Go, Vol."

The Return to Capsuleering

2009-05-15T01:48:00.000+01:00

I've been back in a capsule now for a couple months, after being out for nearly a year. I cleaned up most of my junk and settled into Tuuriainas. I ran some missions for Core Complexions and picked up a third research agent and played around with producing some tech 2 BPCs.

Then, I was eager to get back into a warship.

I have been in 0.0. I have been in a war with and against some big alliances. I've lived in Delve, in Fountain, in Outer Ring. And I've lived in some low sec regions, such as Aridia.

I don't want to dive right in to that. I'm trying to fit capsuleering back into my schedule. So, I have moved to Elgoi, and I am experimenting some more with tech 2 production and with Faction Warfare.

We'll see how this turns out.