New Space

It's been rumoured for while and has finally been confirmed that CCP will be opening new space within New Eden for settlement.

 

This is excellent news as it gives people a new location to move to or visit along with all the surprises and goodies that will no doubt be available. As if that wasn't enough there is a lot of talk of player created star-gates allowing players to control routes allowing them to lead the expansion and not rely on CCP (read: CONCORD) opening up the space lanes.

 

 

Most people I've spoken to or have read blog/forums posts by seem to be very positive to this news. It's hard not to be, it could be quite the expansion should CCP introduce it with new features and ships however there are those people who have quite valid concerns about any new space being "open" for a few minutes until one of the larger alliances suddenly moves a large fleet in and takes over.

 

I'd urge, strongly, CCP to look at this ability as the perfect opportunity to shake things up and open the game up to new and different playing styles. Remove some of the familiar and replace it with something that requires all players to relearn how things work and to have to adapt rather than fall back to the familiar and 'safe'.

 

Any new space needs to be open for all, not just large entities that have the people and assets to defend/attack but the small corporations or one-person-bands. We need EVE to embrace these people and give them something rather than allowing the large alliances to vacuum up whatever they want with little to no resistance.

 

Moving Cargo

Most of my characters can fly freighters and those that cannot are only a few days away from being able to, should I need them to. As a result I do move a lot of cargo myself and with Low-Grade Nomad implants not as slow as it used to be.

 

That said there are times when I don't want to (read: can't be bothered), cannot or wish to mitigate risk by using a 3rd party service. In the case of the latter I use Red Frog Freight and a very happy customer am I.

 

Red Frog Freight, for when it absolutely, positively must arrive.

 

Their rules for use are simple and when I have made a mistake during the setup of the contract I've been contacted by someone very quickly with details of the mistake for me to fix. The Trip Calculator is simple and provides the whole cost of the contract you'll pay, all you have to do is fill in the Courier Contract details with what the calculator states and what collateral you want to secure the cargo.

 

They say that it may take up to 3 days for any contract to be accepted and then 1 day to complete, I've never had a contract last more than 24 hours. I find setting contracts just before I logout for a night results in my cargo being where I need by the time I wake up, that's service.

 

I use Red Frog at least six times a week, mostly moving items from my high sec staging system to Jita or vice versa. The benefit, apart from the overnight movement is I don't have to worry about the Niarja pipe (the 0.5 system between Amarr to Jita where a lot of suicide ganking occurs).

 

Setting collateral to cover any cargo I am moving (I never move more than 1 billion ISK per contract, and insure it for its actual value) will see me still benefit if it is lost but, touch wood, I've not had that happen. Nor have I had a contract stolen by someone within Red Frog. I'm lucky I guess.

 

So if you're new to EVE and want to move large amounts of cargo around and mitigate some of the risk I'd recommend giving Red Frog Freight a try.

 

CCP Fozzie is Quackers - An Update

I had not intended to do an update but I was thinking more about the hint image and I realised that maybe I was reading too much into the image and had gotten it wrong.

 

Instead of being a "parent" and "child" relationship could it be an indication of lots of small objects shooting a larger object?

 

Over the my years playing one consistent thing said is that Super Capitals and Titans are too powerful and to effectively kill one you need more of the same. As such this situation has lead to an "arms race" of alliances and corporations who can field these ships and fielding as many as they have pilots for.

 

Could the new ship or ships we'll be seeing dedicated super/titan killers? Something with a medium to light tank but very heavy firepower vs capital class ships. T3 battle cruisers can do a lot of this now but they are (usually) paper thin and can be overwhelmed by even a small sub-capital fleet.

 

It's another 'out there' possibility but we won't know until next year.



One Giant Step for EVE Online, One More Poorly Timed Feature for Everyone

With all the wailing during Walking In Station protests and CCP saying they are refocusing back on spaceships I find it very interesting that out of the blue Twitch TV integration has been announced.

 

People use it sure and there are some good streams I'm sure but surely the resources used to develop and test this new feature could have been focused on something more relevant to the players rather than the 1%* who do use the service.

 

I've seen people comment that it's something that will be great for a couple of a weeks and then it will be forgotten or ignored by everyone else. I agree, it really does to me be one of those short life features that people fawn over but will soon forget.

 

It doesn't help that the implementation that we have been given doesn't even have the basic feature-set that most external casting software provides (the most oft quoted omission is the ability to delay-cast your stream).

 

The backend changes that were rolled out in the Downtime tonight were of more use to the populous of EVE Online than the twitch.tv integration.

 

But what do I know, I'm just one voice in space and as everyone knows in space no one can hear you scream...

CCP Fozzie is Quackers

At EVE Down Under 2013 CCP Fozzie announced the name and showed the new SOE battleship (the Nestor) but he also provided a visual hint of an new ship that will be introduced in the 2014 Summer Expansion.

 

Here is the visual hint that CCP Fozzie gave during his presentation:

 

Image from www.themittani.com

Firstly, Ducks are cool so credit to CCP Fozzie for the image but it is supposed to be a clue as to what is coming in Summer 2014.

 

So lets list the possibilities based on what we see from the above image as pertains to EVE Online:

 

New Ship Transporter

 

The image could represent a new ship type that allows the moving of large numbers of assembled ships. The Ship Maintenance Hanger provides this functionality but is really limited (in terms of useful space) to ships that exist outside of high sec or cannot use jump gates.

 

Could we be seeing the introduction of a new freighter type ship that will have a large Ship Maintenance Hanger that can travel through gates. This is something that has been asked for by players before and whilst a freighter can move ships the ability for it to move assembled ships is limited (the smaller the ship the more you can carry).

 

A very specialised ship for a specific and limited purpose, I think this unlikely is what the picture alludes to.

 

New Carrier

 

The use of the ducklings and a single duck could indicate drones and existing capital ships are classed as T1 so could we be seeing a new carrier, T2 class, for each race?  It certainly would be nice, again this is something players have asked for, I think it unlikely as just more drones are just what CCP wants on their nodes and we are still in the midst of the sub-capital rebalancing.

 

Adding a new capital ship seems an outside chance, it would be nice but I believe it to be most unlikely.

 

New Transport Mechanic for Player Ships

 

Ship Maintenance Hangers require that players exit their ships but could the image be showing a new way of moving within EVE Online? This new method could allow ships with SMH to jump and move with player piloted ships and instead of using Jump Bridging players exit the 'mother ship' when they reach their destination.

 

Really, I must have been smoking something (and I don't smoke) to come up with this. This is so far left field that I'm no longer in the same country, extremely unlikely.

 

Change to Drone Mechanics

 

For a long time, should you have the right skills trained and the limitations of drone bandwidth, you could deploy a maximum of 5 active drones. Could the image be alluding to an increase in the current 5 active drones per ship limit?

 

This is another long shot, drones at the moment are server resource intensive and as we saw recently that enough ships and drones can crash a server node. I really don't think this limit will change upwards because it could both negate the Guardian-Vexor's worth and utility but also add additional strain to server nodes.

 

Where would I put my money

 

At this time, selected from my limited list of possibilities I believe that a new carrier is the obvious front runner. However, as with all supposition, this may and probably will change over time as CCP release more information and/or teasers.

 

Still a new carrier is where I'd have my money at this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increasing Industrial Capacity

Manufacturing and Research Slots

 

With maximum skills you can only have 11 Research and 11 Manufacturing slots and these can disappear very quickly especially if you move into advanced manufacturing/research (e.g. Capital ships or T3 systems/ships).

 

The limit is annoying even for T1 items, they consume research/production little time compared to other items that you're usually able to do more with them in a day. Problem is we can't be at the keyboard 23/7 and so slots are lost due to pending jobs or, in public stations, slots are lost to others.

 

Adding a couple of new skills, much like trade skills, that adds extra slots would be the best way of adding this. Making the skills time intensive and not something that can be trained in a few hours is how I'd implement it.

 

e.g.

 

Industrial Management (6x) - adds additional 2 manufacturing slots per level

Planetary Industrial Management (8x) - adds additional 5 manufacturing slots per level

 

Research Professor (6x) - adds additional 2 research slots per level

Einstein Fellow (8x) - adds additional 5 research slots per level

 

Everyone comes out of this better, industry types get more slots to do work in, production (potentially) increases as more can be made/researched and the market gains more product.

 

 

Jump Freighter Fuel Economy

Disclaimer and Note:

 

I'm sorry about the use of the pictures instead of tables within this post. I'm not au fait with HTML so didn't know how to add the tables manually as the WYSIWYG editor didn't have a table insertion function

 

All values and details were gathered from publically available sources via EVEMon, EVE Central and EVE Online Wiki. Additional information from Glevon Goblin and my own calculations.

 

You Learn Something New

 

I was reminded by a post at The Abysmal Aussie that most people know that Jump Freighters use different type of isotope as fuel but very few know that the amount of isotopes consumed per jump is not the same across each racial ship.

 

The actual isotope usage is (from what I can find) is:

 

This base consumption is per light year travelled, So a 3ly jump would use three times this value and is then modified by your skills in Jump Fuel Conservation and Jump Freighters, which means the higher you have these skills the more fuel you'll be saving which lowers the cost of each jump.

 

Fuel Usage Example

 

I've used the ICSC Jump Planner to plot the fuel usage for each Jump Freighter based on pilots with different levels of the modification skills. I wasn't able to find a system that was 1ly from another so I've used a grouping that I am familiar with and provide, what I think, is a good set of data for differing jump lengths to indicate usage:

 

You cannot have a 0,0 skilled pilot flying a jump freighter but these values are provided as they are the closest to the base consumption value and confirm that value.

 

This proves is the better your skills the more substantial your savings will be. Jumping 4.22ly with a JFC I/JF I pilot is (roughly) 3.2 times more expensive in fuel than a JFC V/JF V skilled pilot and this appears uniform over each racial jump freighter.

 

If you do lots of short jumps then you could get away with a JFC III/JF III skilled character as your pilot but really the minimum is a level IV for both skills. Training to Level V is time intensive (at least 2 months/60 days) but if you do a lot of jumps it is something you really need to invest in.

 

My Situation

 

I have two characters trained to fly Jump Freighters, with a third finishing Jump Drive Calibration V in about two weeks, and since training JFC V/JF V on one character the other hasn't done a single jump.

 

The drop in fuel usage has meant that I buy fuel once a week and still have some left over at the end of each week, the result of which is I'm slowly stockpiling through the excess. By lowering my fuel usage I've actually increased the value of what I do move.

 

I charge 200isk/m3 to move cargo now, when I started I was charging 300isk/m3 and that was spent on fuel with anything left over counted as profit. Now I'm running a consistent profit after fuel costs and this allows me to reinvest in more fuel so I always have enough on hand at my jump locations (not to mention Liquid Ozone for lighting cyno's)

 

Why Should You Care

 

You should care because of the price of isotopes and how they can be easily manipulated.

 

Average price of isotopes in Jita over a one year period (spikes indicate ice interdiction by Goons) - Graph by Glevon Goblin 

 

As we saw with the Goon Ice Interdictions over the past eighteen months the price of Nitrogen isotopes doubled overnight with a high being almost four times the original price within a couple of days. This made using the Rhea much more expensive and a risky gambit as gankers would and did go after ships carrying Nitrogen isotopes.

 

Each m3 of the Jump Freighter has a cost, jumping an empty freighter is a waste, all you're doing is burning ISK so it pays to know how much your costs are and EVE doesn't tell you in a simple manner.

Fine, but which should I buy

That's a question only you can answer, it really depends on:

• your pilot(s) skills and what they are racially specialised in. If you can fly more than one then that opens up your options but most likely you'll be fixed to one type and the earlier.
• isotope prices

If you have the ability to mine an isotope, or at least buy from a null sec source, then that may affect what you go for.

I have two Ark's because my characters are Amarrian however I also now have access to Hydrogen Isotopes in a couple of systems I jump too. As a result when my new character is trained he will be getting a Nomad. It isn't free to mine but it is certainly, with good mining skills, cheaper than buying in Jita.

"It's just pixels"

I still cringe when I see loss mails of people ganked in high sec in their officer/faction fit ships or the freighter with their worldly possessions lost because they auto piloted through the wrong system at the wrong time. Let us not forget the people who just want to play by themselves or in a small group with as little interaction with the rest of the universe.

 

These things remind us that EVE Online is a hard, unforgiving place.

 

 

I can remember each ship I've lost and story attached to it (most were lost due to mistakes I made), the effort I went to earn the money to buy the ship and fit it not to mention each skill to make the most of the ship I had to train.

 

The subject of this post is the most often quoted response when someone in EVE shows a little bit of sentimentality or is perceived to be getting too serious within the game. I've (to my disgust) used it previously, I've had it used in responses to me and I've certainly seen other people use it when arguing or discussing things with others.

 

Yes, it may just be pixels but they are MY pixels and I've invested time and effort into them, it's not your place to judge or insult me because I've spent time and money in doing something only to have it lost or done something you had no control over.

 

So you, the person judging me and telling me I'm wrong in everything I'm doing, please shut up because they are my pixels and I'll do whatever I want with them.

 

 

Distribution Missions - a waste of time?

One of my characters has a 9.9 standing with Sisters of EVE that he achieved via Security missions. However I don't like to multi-box missions (I've failed badly before at that) and as a result I don't want to run two Security missions at the same time.

 

So I decided that a Distribution mission I could do with a Security mission at the same time because of the autopilot (not into Low Sec obviously). And having a Level 4 agent means I should get good rewards.

 

How wrong I was.

 

My character has Distribution Connections V and the first mission I got asked me to move some Dolls five systems for a few hundred thousand ISK and 512 LP.

Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.

512 LP for a single Level 4 Distribution mission, I'm used to getting a couple of thousand LP for security missions and last time I did Distribution missions I know I got a couple of thousand per mission not a paltry couple of hundred.

 

Have Distribution missions changed in their rewards or have I gotten things so totally wrong. I asked in a channel with some more knowledgeable people. Their consensus was that Distribution missions pay poorly and this reward was right.

 

I checked my standings with the Agent and I'm wondering if it's the agent standings that caused this. The faction and corporation I have 9.9 standings with but the agent I had only 1.46.

 

Does anyone know if the standings between your character and an agent have an effect on the rewards you get?

Being in Battle

I make sure I've logged into TeamSpeak am in the correct channel and alter my input/output volumes so that I can be heard clearly and hear what I said clearly. When there is a break in the conversation and no intel is being given, I ask what ship type is needed and where rally point is.

 

Given this information I finish the logging in to the game. I appear in station and I open my ship hanger and select one of my Malediction's. I have four ready to fly that are equipped for the role of fast tackle.

 

I focus on my ship and it's role, I made sure that I have the right fit and ammunition. I can feel my level of concentration increasing, clearing my thoughts and increasing my heart rate.

 

I undock and alter my view from a zoom in of the ship to something further out giving me more of a 360 degree view around my ship. I warp to the rally point (a POS in system) and en-route double check my HUD.

 

On the overview I have the PvP tab selected and verify that all ship types are selected with brackets off and I move the game HUD (with all my modules) to be at the top right of my screen next to the overview with targets underneath in a vertical arrangement of two columns.

 

I'm still listening to TeamSpeak and reading the Intel channels, our quarry is being reported and cloaked ships are watching them. More people are joining fleet, shield battlecruisers are arrayed around the POS tower as I land, mixed with some Scimitar's who will provide logistics assistance.

 

The sight of our fleet causes me to feel a tightening of my chest and I filter all localised noises out. I am listening to TeamSpeak and only TeamSpeak now.

 

Fleet is ready, the quarry are two systems out and moving towards us as a group. Their fast tackle is next door to use already sniffing out the path and looking for targets, fortunately none exist they are being guided by an unseen hand towards us.

 

FC starts giving orders of how this will play out, my mouth is dry so I take a sip of my drink, we have orders to get amongst the enemy and grab any fast tackle ships attempting to burn out of the engagement area or any other ships attempting to flee.

 

I see why, we have two Sabre's arrive at the POS, we will be engaging at brawling ranges with bubbles pulling our fleet on top of theirs.

 

I can feel my heart beating faster still, combat is imminent.

 

The enemy fleet is reported to have jumped into the system next to ours, their fast tackle is on the gate to our system. I check my modules, all active modules are bound to the F1 to F8 keys for easy activation.

 

I activate my Damage Control and check the modules are at the correct keys:

 

My rockets are grouped at F1, my point at F2, second point at F3, micro warp drive at F4 and my repair module is there at F5, loaded with nanite paste and pre-overheated.

 

I can feel my heart racing now, beating faster and faster. I can hear it in my chest as I try to clam myself down by breathing slower and with large breaths.

 

"Ready to go" I reply in TeamSpeak when asked by the FC if I'm ready.

 

The order to align is given, I align and give a burst of my micro warp drive to get ahead of the fleet, our quarry have landed on the gate to our system and their fast tackle has just jumped to us.

 

"Tackle go" is the order from FC

 

I click the warp button and instantly enter warp. Four interceptors and two Sabre's enter warp.

 

My heart is as fast as it can, my mouth is dry again and it seems as if I'm watching what is happening in slow motion. 

 

"fleet warp to gate" is the next words spoken on TeamSpeak.

 

It's only a couple of AU's to the gate and we make it there just as the enemy fast tackle is decloaking, bubbles appear around me as I exit warp.

 

The enemy fleet has jumped, I am surrounded. I pick my targets and start moving.

 

Our fleet lands as theirs uncloaks. Battle commences...

 

I'm breathing as fast as I can, I can feel the tightness in my chest and I am focused, listening to orders and watching the battlefield for targets.

 

This is why I play EVE Online, I love this game.

Unexpected Loot

I've continued my L4 mission running, aside from the fact that the LP is reasonable and the items in the store are very profitable I've actually found myself enjoying them again.

No more running to EVE Survival and reading on the blitz and then following the instructions I actually warp in, drop in a Mobile Tractor Unit and start shooting. I do wish the MTU had an extra tractor beam and/or was faster to pull stuff in but what it does is fine and if I pace myself all is good.

 

This process is what I've followed and salvage and loot have been reasonable, nothing to go WOW over but I get a nice amount of T1 salvage and the modules I sort and reprocess what isn't worth reselling.

 

This all changed a couple of days ago, I got a faction mission that sent me to retrieve a Special Delivery item from some 'bad guys'. I warped in and there were no more than a dozen ships, a couple of frigates, cruisers and a battleship in the form of the 'head bad guy'.

 

I dropped the MTU and then MJD'ed out of the initial spawn area and started Bastion mode. Less than 5 minutes later I'd killed everything but the battleship of the 'head bad guy'. I focused on this with Imperial Navy Multifrequency and some Range scripts in my tracking computers. He was dead within two minutes and at 47km from me within my ship tractor beam range.

 

So I locked the wreck and pulled it in and what I saw was this:

A Dread Guristas Cloaking Device, not an officer spawn but still this one module is worth five or six standard missions in ISK (~20million). I've never had a drop like this outside of an officer spawn (I've only ever had one of those and it was a bitch) and/or faction ship in null sec.

 

The module has been added to the faction items I have and may or may not be sold at a later date. Regardless what a nice reward it was.

The One where I behave like a gibbering star struck idiot

I had a, good, shock the other night when I was in need of some locators run on people I needed to find.

 

So I entered the Locates R Us channel and requested someone to help me. It took a few minutes and I received a convo request and I was about to click to accept when I finally registered the name.

Zedrik Cayne

 

OMG... it was him.

 

The writer of the first EVE blog I started reading, the person who helped get me into EVE via his blog when I was but a newbie. Here was the character who I'd named one of my characters in honour of.

 

He was convo'ing me to help me.

 

I had spoken to him once before, I happened to be flying through the system of Amdonen when he popped up in local and I said hello.

 

I composed myself and asked for the locates I needed and thanked him for his help. I even remembered, a little slowly, that I also needed to pay him for his help and transferred the required ISK. He provided details of the location of the people I was trying to find and I did manage to compose myself and I hope not come across as either a dribbling idiot or star stuck imbecile.

 

Meeting and getting a chance to speak to Zedrik Cayne, albeit for a locator run, once more made my day.

Channelling my inner Del Boy

I was idling in chat with some friends the other day when a contract was posted that listed two Nightmare's for sale, one faction fitted the other T2 fitted, for 2.05 billion ISK. The contract was listed by someone in a nearby system who was part of an Alliance that, whilst blue, doesn't have a lot of respect from our alliance.

 

I had a look at the contract and did some checking on the values of the modules/ships and worked out that the contract was about 200 million too expensive and that the contracts might be better value selling the modules and repackaging the ships (they had only T1 Capacitor rigs).

 

With the Left Hand

 

One friend indicated that had he the ISK he would have bought the ships and after I'd finished my checking I decided to see if I could get them for a lesser price.

 

So I convo'd the contract owner and offered 1.85billion, explaining that the T2/faction modules plus the ships did not equal the value he wanted and I'd pay, right now, 1.85billion for his ships.

 

It took him a couple of minutes but he accepted my proposal and deleted the contract then recreated it with the new price. Two clicks later and I have accepted the contract, and five minutes later have a character in the station.

 

With the Right Hand

 

As I'm negotiating the purchase of these Nightmare's I checked my contacts and saw that there was another pilot online whom I recently spoke to who said they were looking for a Nightmare with fittings for sale in the area.

 

I convo'd the pilot and explained that I had two fit Nightmare's for sale in the area and would he be interested in purchasing one of them. To my surprise he said he'd like both, but only if the price was right.

 

So I linked him the fits and informed him that both could be had, with fittings, for 2.5billion. Over the next ten minutes we haggled and eventually settled on a price of 2.35billion. I'm not ashamed to say I let him believe he had me over a barrel in order to get a better price.

 

Five clicks later, contract is up and accepted by the pilot.

 

There's More

 

Total elapsed time since I started talking to the original seller and closing the sale to the new owner, 16 minutes (give or take a few seconds, I wasn't exactly timing it). '

 

16 minutes to turn a 500 million profit, not bad at all.

 

But it doesn't end there, what made this funnier is the pilot whom I bought the ships from and the pilot I then sold them two were not just in the same alliance... no they were in the same corporation.
 

MOST. ENJOYABLE. SALE. EVER.

 

 

 

 

Note

The post title is in reference to the character Del Boy from the BBC show Only Fools and Horses. Sorry I you don't know this, but if you don't I suggest you watch one of the best comedies ever from the BBC and then you'll get the reference.

 

EVE Down Under 2013

This weekend is the second EVE Down Under gathering in Sydney, Australia and I was all set to go until this past Monday. Unfortunately I'm now not in a position to go and despite protests to my wife and a fair amount of begging I have had to accept the fact I will be unable to go.

I was planning on surprising a Corp mate who is going and I'd already booked all my accommodation and transport. Not happy, Jan.

The First

Last year's event was small and very good and TheMittani.com has a good write up of the upcoming event here along with a small interview with the organiser nGR RDNx. I attended last years event and whilst I could only attend on the Saturday it was a full on day of meeting new people and trying not to be self conscious about having my character name and alliance written on my badge.

I met a lot of people (40/50 were expected but over 120 people attended) and really got a lot out of the experience, it certainly was a surprise to see Garmon and watch him on screen in a one-on-one battle. The Skype call with CCP was good too, it was great to see support from CCP (who also sent some prizes) who did a hour's chat and provided some laughs and future game information.

Bigger, Better

This year was going to be bigger, you just knew it from watching the chat in the EVE Down Under in-game channel and what was announced on the event website.

Biggest news (at least I thought) was CCP Fozzie would be attending and rumour has it that the infamous Chribba would also be there. Giveaway prizes are also quite stunning, an Utu was donated by www.eve-bet.com with SOMER Blink also donating large amounts of prizes.

The event is going to be... wait for it, Legendary!

More details can be found here at the official site.

Good luck to all attending this weekend, and to RDNx and the team, it should be a fantastic event.

Mobile Tractor Unit and NPC's

This thread over at Reddit is from a user who lost their Tengu in a mission and found their own wreck was looted by their MTU which in turn was killed by a fixed emplacement. They include a KM of the MTU loss that only shows NPC damage

 

I haven't had any situations where I've seen my Mobile Tractor Unit (MTU)being shot by NPC's but then again I have a set target elimination pattern and at the top of that list, after frigate sized ships are sentries and batteries, but it does seem that there is a chance that your MTU could be destroyed by an NPC fixed emplacement.

According to CCP in this devblog, the description of the MTU is as follows:

The Tractor Unit only takes 10 seconds to deploy, and takes up 100m3 of space when stored in cargo. Like the Depot, it can be deployed anywhere away from Gates, Stations and Starbases, which means that it can be deployed inside missions (where NPC pirates are not interested in shooting it), asteroid belts, or on the field of your big fleet battle at the Infrastructure Hub.

I have highlighted the relevant text and it does state that NPC pirates should not be shooting at MTU's. I would include [faction] sentries and [faction] batteries in this, after all they may not be ships but their names clearly indicate they are offensive/defensive emplacements of the faction.

 

So it seems we need to be a little wary with MTU's and NPC aggression, at least until CCP confirm that this is either a defect or correct behaviour (the former being the frontrunner) and then provide a fix if it is indeed is a defect then all mission runners need to make sure that they do not leave any active fixed emplacements when a MTU is active.

 

 

L4 Paladin Mission Runner - Revisited

After losing a Paladin to the Damsel I refit to add more survivability to my fit as well as increasing the DPS as much as I could without training further skills.

 

Now that Rubicon has been deployed I have had to modify my fit a little more as stasis webifiers no longer get a bonus. I have spoken to Bex a fair bit about my Paladin fit and he has shared his which I've modified to get what I now use.

 

I've used the following fit for nearly a week now and L4 missions are faster to complete than before Rubicon. DPS and tank are definitely increased when in Bastion mode and the reduction in MJD charge time really helps movement around the battlefield, if it's needed.

 

Fitting

My fit is as follows:

[Paladin, Knight]
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Bastion Module I
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II
Salvager II

Large Micro Jump Drive
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script

Corpum C-Type Energized Adaptive Membrane
Reactive Armour Hardener
Core A-Type Large Armour Repair
1600mm Steel Plate II
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

 

Pyfa reports this being 1.21 billion for the hull and another 987 million for the fittings (for a total of 2.2 billion ISK). It hasn't cost me that much, I bought the armour repair and ENAM for a lot less than the prices Pyfa is showing (335m and 197m respectively) and two of the heat sinks I actually had from my previous Paladin and were dropped when that blew up.

 

I can hear what you're thinking, THREE tracking computers in the mid-slots. Well yes, I originally was going to have a Sensor Booster with a range script but the range of the Paladin was tweaked so I now can lock to 113.5km which means I don't need further range. All my targets either spawn much closer or up to around 110km.

 

The three TC's actually double my tracking and help me to alpha cruisers at 90km with Imperial Navy Multifrequency and a few times I've changed one to a Optimal Range Script and that has helped me increase DPS at 70km to 90km on Battleships.

 

I don't use drones either, I lost so many before Rubicon that I gave up using them for all but the frigates I could web and even then would still go through 15 at least a week. Now I've changed how and what I target first and small tackle no longer poses a problem.

 

Thoughts

 

I'm almost certain the Bastion Module has made the most difference, whereas before Rubicon I was MJD'ing around to keep out of frigate range and also to having to wait for ships to come into optimum range now I don't have to.

 

Faction Multifrequency crystals have an optimum of around 65km with a falloff to 96km. I can alpha cruisers at 90km with INMF and still hit battleships for around 800/900 per salvo at that range. When they come within 70km I switch to a Optimal Range script in a Tracking Computer and the DPS rises to around 1100. No more than 7 shots per Battleship to kill it.

 

Frigates (especially fast webbers like the Spider Drone) are primaries and even as they accelerate the tracking I have allows me to kill them. Destroyers and Cruisers are next and if they do get within 20km I now have the option of MJD'ing away and maintaining the locks I have.

 

So far the Bastion Module has meant that I do more DPS but more importantly my tank has increased from 1555 hp/12s to 3110 hp/12s when it's active. More than enough even for the Damsel mission when you have aggro from the whole room. As a result I've never gotten lower than 80% armour and I typically pulse the Core A-Type repair only when I get into the low 80's.

 

Outcome

 

I'm certainly doing missions faster, before I was following the Blitz guides and hating every second. Now I warp in, drop a new Tractor Module then start shooting. As I move around I'm still killing things and the Tractor Module is moving all my wrecks to one spot so I can salvage and loot when I finish.

 

It works well and I'm making more on bounties and loot that pre-Rubicon and I'm enjoying L4 missions more than I was. Previous posts show how much of chore I felt it was, now it's not so much a chore but a challenge to complete as quickly as possible whilst killing and looting everything.

 

I'm only using one character for this and he's a high skilled Gunnery and Amarr Battleship character. I worked out since the Wednesday after Rubicon was deployed he's made just under 1.2 billion in ISK either as bounties, rewards or loot from missions (excl. LP). This isn't solid missioning, this is at most four to five hours a day ad hoc (I estimate two missions an hour at most he's doing).

When Ego's Explode

Into the fire...

I mentioned previously about some friends disagreeing but it was nothing that time and common sense wouldn't solve.

Unfortunately I was wrong and over the last few days I've seen relations collapse totally and friends declaring they are no longer friends. It's all disappointing from my point of view, I can't say who is right and who is wrong because it's not that simple. I'm stuck in the worst place, in the middle having to watch my words and actions in case someone takes something the wrong way.

... into a Profitable circumstance

Still out of this mess has come a profitable situation. I was asked by one party to help them move assets back to high sec space from Curse via my JF services. Not a problem, I'm always happy to help.

The contacts came over and I accepted them, I'm inquisitive and I looked at what was in the contracts as there was one of about 3000m3, another of 82,000m3 and the final one was a whopping 300,000m3. Turns out it was a large mix of modules, loot and repackaged ships and so I immediately realised that what was here was exactly what I usually imported for my market activities.

So I made an offer to my friend, "sell me all your contract stuff, name a price". Which he replied with "you work out and tell me" [sic]. So I broke the contracts and started working prices out. Now I'm a sucker (and I know it) when my friends are involved and made an offer very close to Jita price.

In fact I think I was only 4% off the total price he could have gotten in Jita and I transferred the ISK to him and started sorting and listing items in Curse for sale. Now being away from a trading hub I do have to be a little careful with my prices, a lot of other people sell stuff within three or four jumps of me, but I was able to make at least 10% on items I listed with ships and other speciality modules going for between 50% and 70% over Jita.

I am so glad I trained a Trading alt and had him JC to Curse. 315 slots and I used 296 listing all the stuff I just got, combined with my booster shop in another region he has utilised all his slots for nearly 4 billion in sell orders.

Greed. Is. Good.

I do feel a little guilt in profiting from my friends situation but he has, a few times, told me that greed is good. I just hope he continues playing EVE, I'll miss him if he does leave, when the time comes I will be there first to ask "Can I Haz Your Stuffs?"

Jump Clone Mistakes

I was stupid on Saturday, I jump cloned my only tower capable pilot to a clone in Curse without checking that he didn't need to empty silos. I jumped and last night realised that I still had 8 hours to go on the JC timer and tower silos that would be full in less than an hour.

 

Dammit.

 

He did need to JC to help setup a new cyno toon in Curse but I should have emptied the towers first. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I lost about 7 hours of production of sylramic fibres. A corp mate wasn't able to help so whilst I slept my income was static.

 

Fortunately the Fullerides continued being produced and I was able to login this morning with the overflow silo full and the primary silo 96% full.

 

It's not a major loss but it's one that was totally avoidable and all because I didn't follow my usual routine of emptying towers before jump cloning.

Heavy Hitting

I've had a Revelation for a while, it's been fitted and ready for use but as of yet I've had no chance to use it.

 

That changed late last week when I logged in and was convo'd by a corp mate immediately.

 

"Do you have a dread in [system]?"

 

Luckily I did have my dreadnaught in that system and it was already in space having been there from an aborted op the previous day. Turns out a corp had left the alliance but had left an unfuelled faction tower up on a moon and a Director of our corp/alliance had given the go ahead to kill it.

 

I login in the character and join fleet, it's me and two other corp mates. One in a revelation and the other in his carrier and his alts in missile fitted battleships. I checked that we could use Siege mode, we could, and I warped to the tower at about 30km.

 

 

 

I dropped out of warp and immediately sieged, it was quite nice to see the animation of this. I'd never seen it before and then I locked up the tower... 30 second lock time :\

 

That went by and I started firing at about 13% shields gone and the damage I was dealing was between 35,000 and 60,000 per salvo. Wow, this was not going to last long.

 

I chatted with my corp mates on Teamspeak and watched intel for any reds nearby, we had a couple, one a known hot dropper, two systems over but he didn't move into our area whilst we were active.

 

Six siege cycles later and the tower exploded, it was a nice explosion and even nicer to get the kill mail. I did about 33% less damage than the other dreadnaught (7.25m vs 5.5m) but I managed to get the last hit in.

 

We finished off the remaining six guns and docked up. It was a fun 25 minutes or so and I finally got to fly a dreadnaught in combat.

 

I can ticket that off my "things to do in EVE list".

Rubicon

Rubicon is deployed and I've ensured my characters had at least 2 days of skills queued "in case of problems". I didn't anticipate any, and the CCP deployment team(s) made sure that EVE was back up and running on schedule.

 

I'm optimistic about Rubicon, I've not written a post before on it because I've mainly been reading what others have said and playing on SiSi with what has been released. There are bits I like and bits I don't, overall I think the patch is going to be good and brings new things to the table.

 

Name

 

I still think the name is bad, I can't put my finger on it but I really don't like the name and it doesn't fit in with past expansion names.

 

I'm looking forward to

 

Marauders rebalance / Bastion module : I'm really looking forward to these changes, they should mean an increase in ISK/hr through being able to complete missions faster. I will miss the loss of the webifiers but the bastion module means I should be able to kill those pesky ships at close range before they get close.

 

Warp speed changes : this is going to be good, the variable rate of acceleration will bring new tactical options to roaming fleets as well as people who previously wouldn't be able to catch ships that were just a second or two faster to align/warp.

 

Deployable equipment : the new deployable are going to be interesting. The siphon is good and bad from my perspective, I'll certainly be checking towers several times a day for interlopers and I'm now increasing my defences on all towers.

 

Implants : the new Ascendancy implants, the first players can make themselves will be expensive and, initially, result in some bling pod kill mails. The extra speed increase will not be for all, my tests in a freighter show Nomads are still the better option.

 

Sisters of EVE ships : two new ships, a frigate and a cruiser. Bonuses for drones and exploration, I don't do much of the latter and have poor former. Looks like an alt will be training new skills :)

 

I'm not looking forward to

 

Warp speed changes : running through space in a blockade runner now is a little more risky, looks like I'll need to invest in Prowler's as the extra high slot could be a good for a probe launcher for systems where I'm boxed in.

 

Deployable equipment (specifically the siphon) : steal my income, I don't like this but I understand POS structures need something to remove the "free isk" they seemingly generate. Going to be interesting to see how this works in day-to-day gameplay but POS owners need to watch out more for sure.

 

High Sec POCOs : just not interested. Two tax rates, poor resources (mostly). Sure we'll see battles at them but not that interesting for me.

 

 

Relaxation

I didn't mean to but the week leading up to Rubicon's release has been taken as a little holiday from EVE for myself.

 

I haven't had any pressing deadlines or jobs to complete so I've only been using EVEMon and my Tower Management program to monitor my accounts. When I've needed to add a skill to a queue or interact with my towers I've done so but aside from that I've kept clear of EVE things and had a nice break.

 

Of course playing some PAYDAY 2 hasn't counted as a break to my wife but I only got that on Sunday so she's had about 5 days of more attention, I think she didn't notice as she certainly never stopped playing Candy Crush..

 

The break has been nice but there are tasks to perform, objectives to achieve and they won't be achieved without me doing stuff.

To market I go

It's been an expensive couple of months, excluding the Paladin loss, I've spent the majority of my income on paying back outstanding loans and buying large quantities of input materials and fuel for my towers.

 

My day-to-day balance went from just over 10 billion to 800 million in a few days, it wasn't a great morale boost seeing that but I did know that I had a couple of billion in materials to sell on hand with about another 5/6 billion available before materials ran out.

 

Well I was wrong about that, turns out I dropped nearly 9 billion of items for sale in Jita yesterday and I have only few outgoings for the next 4 weeks so I should nicely hit 15 billion before I have to buy inputs/fuel again.

 

It was once more fun to pass through known ganking systems in Domain and either see no gankers or dozens of CONCORD ships showing that they were there earlier in the day. My time zone is pretty quiet but you never know so I always make sure I never take more than a few hundred million ISK through these systems. I've used Red Frog many times but it's faster with my hauler these days thanks to the Nomad's he has.

 

I may not be making 'billions a day' as some blogs I read do but I make enough to cover my bills and build a nice excess that I funnel into long term storage or loan to 'a few' trusted people as an investment.

 

I don't spend a lot of ISK on PvP so that's a nice saving but when I do it's a few hundred million here or there so it really doesn't impact my bottom line. My only serious expense, which will be covered in a future blog post, is the supercarrier that I purchased and have been fitting out for the past four months.

 

So it's been a good, albeit quiet, weekend. How was your weekend?

 

Tower Notifications

Over the past two weeks my Inbox has been filled with notifications of towers running low on fuel. It has been frustrating not just for me but others who run towers to that some people do not seem to run a 'tight ship' and make sure that they are prepared for these situations.

 

It has gotten so much that there is now a 1 million ISK fine per message penalty should you not manage your towers, this isn't enough to cause pain but enough that its an inconvenience fee for those who have to put up with the messages.

 

It hasn't helped that there is no in-game way of tracking the towers and who owns them, at least if we knew who's they were we could point fingers or help out (if we knew they were away unexpectedly). Only we don't.

 

I've been working on a tracking program for my own use but of course this is one piece of information you cannot get from the game. All the towers are deployed for the corporation not per player so as to get the 25% fuel reduction bonus for having sovereignty. So I'm having to ask players about what towers they have and are running so I can add this metadata to my tower management interface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egos

The last week and a bit has been a little frustrating. Several people I know have been disagreeing about things and generally been doing so in a vocal manner. Fortunately nothing hugely major but it's disappointing to see friends arguing and people offering opinion on matters when they don't have all the facts and instead of contributing seem to fan the flames more.

 

It came to be that one friend made a run for CEO of the Corporation they're both in without explaining things to the other friend and it snowballed from there. Roles are removed, assets in shared hangers 'removed',  many words said and other people, outside of the corporation wade in and try to add their opinions to the mix.

 

For a few days things were strained to say the least, I spoke to both parties and acted in a very minor diplomatic capacity to try and get them to talk. Turns out I did do a little good because the next day they'd sorted their differences and were at least amicable about things and were no longer in vocal disagreement.

 

However another friend then waded in with size 50 boots and stomped all over the goodwill at the time and started telling people to (paraphrasing here) pull their heads in and they were wrong and would also be.

 

Did that really happen, we had peace it was all good...

 

 

The result was shared chat channels being left and people no longer talking or if they are it's in a strained way. Friendships made broken and looking unrepairable.

 

Egos, don't let anyone tell you they don't exist in gaming. They are everywhere and EVE has some of the largest Egos on display.

As if millions of voices suddenly cried out

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.  - Obi-Wan Kenobi; Star Wars - A New Hope

Each ship in EVE is supposed to have a crew, not just you the capsule pilot, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of additional people on board each ship overseeing the systems and helping to fly it.

 

Freebooted has covered this topic on his blog in detail and finds evidence that crews exist and don't exist based on both in-game Lore and CCP comments/posts. Have a read, it is actually quite interesting to know about.

 

Yes, get to the point

 

Anyway, it's been in my mind for a while that if ships do have crew what happens to them when a ship is destroyed. When a capsule is killed a corpse is released but you never see corpses when a ship is destroyed,

 

Does the crew all die, does a percentage of them die immediately with the rest dying in the vacuum of space or are there 'invisible saviour's' who save these people and take them back to a world to recover (it could be Sansha's Nation and this is how they get a large part of their ship crews!)

 

Regardless, there are obviously deaths and for each death you need a person to replace it, the question I have is this:

 

Does New Eden have enough of a population to support the continued destruction of ships and their replacement?

 

Remember, hundreds of ships are killed each week from small to large to capital class, potentially this means that millions of New Eden citizens die each day and have to be replaced from somewhere.

 

Crew Replenishment

Obviously it makes sense that replacements need to be of a certain age before they can serve on a ship (say 18 years of age) and be educated (to at least the New Eden level of High/Secondary School). But then do they do an apprenticeship type learn-on-the-job or do they need to be educated further to be able to serve on a ship?

Either way, you can't just pluck a average-joe-off-the-planet and have him crew your ship. If this is so then surely there must be a limit of the number of ships that there are crews for, capsule pilots are special due to the capsule but the rest of the crew is not, they are 'New Eden Humans' and as such still need to born and educated before they can serve on a ship.

 

Based on the game universe size, and the habitable planets that New Eden would not, if crews were a requirement before you undocked, have enough population to support destruction as we have it now.

 

The numbers, they don't seem to add up

 

I believe we have ships aplenty, after all they are produced in quantity everyday, but do we have enough people to become crew to continue the destruction we see on the kill boards everyday?

Logically planets have a population, they have new births everyday and not everyone wants to be a capsule pilot nor, one would expect, nor would everyone want to be on a ship. So we have a birth rate and then a percentage of that would grow up to be crew on a starship, but you have to wait at least 18 years before a person can join a ship.

Is the number of populated planets in New Eden enough to provide all the crews we need based on these variables?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damn Damsel

It was the first time I was given the mission with this agent, considering I must have done over two hundred missions and this was the first time I was a little surprised. I've saved the Damsel before and knew what needed to be done.

 

I undock and warp to the site, as I land I load Gleam L and target the structure containing the Damsel. It takes significant damage and more NPC appear, yellow then red boxing me. I align to a celestial and continue to pour fire on my target, I overheat my guns and the damage increases by a few hundred a salvo.

 

Incoming DPS has whittled by shields to 0 and I'm taking armour damage, hardener is active and the repair module is running. Twelve seconds is a long time per cycle and the damage is creeping up my armour status.

 

I prepare to warp out but the target is in deep structure and I continue to fire, I overheat the repair module and hardener. 60% armour now, nearly ready to warp.

 

What's that, my wife is calling there is a problem and I need to help her. I can't just leave so I click the MJD button to activate it, only it does not. I'm out of cap, how did that happen. 10% armour, dammit I need to warp so I click Warp and my ship turns around 180 degrees and starts to gain speed.

 

Wait, what... I was aligned to my out celestial why have I turned around 180 degrees. Never mind, need to warp so I look for an object where I'm pointing, there is nothing. The structure I was shooting at explodes!

 

90% structure, it's melting fast without that Damage Control II... too fast. 60%, 30%, 10%... I'm in my pod.

 

 

 

Bollocks.

 

That should not have happened, I should have saved her.

 

So I toddle off and sort out the reason I was being called by the wife and return and try to work out what to do. I'm a little lost, this hurts the loss is about 1.5bn and I hate to lose ships especially when I should not have lost it.

 

A few items have dropped in the loot and I'm sitting in the site in my pod ignored by all the NPC's around me. I have an alt else where who can fly a Paladin and I have enough ISK to buy a new one and fittings, off he is sent to Jita.

 

What a waste, I liked that ship... I was attached and proud of her. Damn Damsel, damn sentiment.

 

A new Paladin is purchased, given the same name as the lost vessel, and fittings are procured. I've upgraded a couple of components as well as buying some tracking computers for use when the webifiers bonuses are removed in a couple of weeks. 24 jumps from Jita to my missioning system, it's a long trip but I make it.

 

I refit my ship and reboard it, warp back into the site and grab not just my wreck and the Damsel, I manage to salvage my wreck (12 intact armour plates and a few small other T2 salvage items) and warp out in low armour. I get back to my mission base and hand in the Damsel and get my reward.

 

If the Damsel needs help again, I can't help... I'll be washing my hair.

 

Missioning - 99% complete

I'm nearly ready to stop mission running, nearly but not quite.

 

The Plan

 

I set myself a goal when I started about four weeks ago, an amount of LP I needed based on what I wanted from the LP Store. I mentioned my aim to a couple of friends and one asked me to get him a set of implants so I added that to my LP requirements and then it was time to start.

 

Security Connections V was trained and a suitable fit for my ship, a Paladin, purchased and found in storage containers.

 

A little help

 

When I started I used an alt in a Guardian to provide remote repair in a Guardian and for a couple of days I had another alt in a boosting Damnation providing help. In the end I've done 80% of my LP without boosts or assistance. Instead I've managed the sites and limited the incoming DPS combined with a faction repair module means I've only had to warp out two or three times in the several hundred missions I've done.

 

Starting out

 

I started the missioning with Mega Pulse Lasers and after two weeks of frustration at having to continually move and new waves always appearing "just" out of range of my guns I took the advice of someone and refit my ship to use Mega Beam Lasers instead and removed my damage control II in favour of an extra faction heat sink.

 

The other suggestion I received was to drop the micro warp drive and instead use a Micro Jump Drive, I did this and it was a revelation. Now damage incoming could be avoided by jumping 100km away and then sniping until they came close again at which point the MJD is recharged and I move again.

 

Refit

 

The refit immediately made a difference, I had to now remember different ranges for my crystals but this was quite simple but now I was hitting out to 108km with Aurora L an doing good damage but using Gleam L for targets under 30km I was doing ridiculous damage.

 

I rarely have had to use drones now, occasionally a frigate or spider drone gets under my guns and no matter what crystal I use they're moving too fast. Using the dual webs I have to slow the frigate down and setting drones on them solves that but if I get too many webbing or scram drones I just MJD away before taking the frigates out at range.

 

I thought I'd have to use the boosting alt with this fit but Level 4 missions haven't needed it, at times I've been down to 20% armour but a little overheating and changing primary targets to remove dps ships means I never have really been under threat. Small ships are a pain but as I mentioned above the webs and drones deal with them and even if I'm swamped the MJD is my saviour.

 

The Fit

 

This is the fit I'm using, a little expensive I know but this is a Marauder based mission running ship that deserves a little bit of expense to maximise your return.

 

[High Slots]

Mega Beam Laser II, Gleam L

Mega Beam Laser II, Gleam L

Mega Beam Laser II, Gleam L

Mega Beam Laser II, Gleam L

Large Remote Armor Repair System II

Small Tractor Beam II

Small Tractor Beam II

 

[Med Slots]

Large Micro Jump Drive

Cap Recharger II

Stasis Webifier II

Stasis Webifier II

 

[Low Slots]

True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Reactive Armor Hardener

True Sansha Large Armor Repair

1600 Reinforced Steel Plates II

Imperial Navy Heat Sink

Imperial Navy Heat Sink

Imperial Navy Heat Sink

 

[Rigs]

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

 

I keep a full set of T1 Crystals in the ship, I've found X-Ray L to be the crystal I use most at the 30km - 50km range. T2 crystals are used to take on long range targets (Aurora) or short range (Gleam) and I made sure I have at least 20 of each.

 

Drones I use 5 hammerheads or 5 hobgoblins but rarely have to use them except as mentioned above.

 

Skill Plan Approved

Capital Energy Turret V did complete and I've now added Controlled Bursts to the skill queue as I've made a decision where skills need to go, at least for the next 60 days.

Skill Training Times

Fortunately I'm spending most of my time in a clone with +5 implants in the Perception/Willpower slots so I'll be earning the maximum 2700 SP/hour for my training. As a result I've decided, as I'm pretty decently skilled in spaceship command already I'll concentrate on getting my gunnery skills to V and any specialisations to IV.

 

Starting with the support skills (Controlled Bursts, Sharpshooter, Surgical Strike and Trajectory Analysis) to V will take just over 42 days. Then I'll switch to getting all Small Guns then Medium and finally Large. I think in this incarnation of the skill plan I'll avoid further Capital Turret training but I will try to get Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration V so I can use the Tech 2 Siege Module.

 

So I have a plan, 42 days on this and then I may change things but with a Per/Will attribute setup it's either gunnery, missiles or spaceship