EVE online questions [Archive] - Straight Dope Message Board

Jolly Roger

02-11-2009, 07:39 PM

mswas

02-11-2009, 07:59 PM

My curiousity was piqued by this thread about a heist in EVE online. I know practically nothing about the game, so I'd like to ask some questions. I'm all for trying new games out. I enjoy WoW ands CoX but from what I understand EVE is very very different. I might give it a try to see if I like it. Anyway, my questions:

[LIST=1]
Are there characters in EVE? No one mentions "their Character" when I see a thread about it, so I don't think there is.

Yes, there are. Generally they are referred to as 'toon'.

What is the general concept in the game? In other MMORPGS its pretty basic. Fight battles, win loot, get your character to a high level. If theres PvP go out and beat on other players.

All that is there too, but it follows more of a GURPS/White Wolf model than a Dungeons and Dragons model. IE, you don't level up, you incrementally over time improve attributes and skills.

There is all of what you described and more. There is PVP, there is PVE, and there is a whole sophisticated structure of market/industrial/logistics functions that allow for a wider career path than any other MMO allows for.

EVE seems to revolve around ships....are there space battles? Aliens?

No Aliens, just different races of humans that are somewhat alien to one another but still recognizably human. Yes, there are space battles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-HeZOM6CWM&feature=PlayList&p=7356E100709B4C20&index=0&playnext=1).

What is the play experience like? Since I don't understand the game, I can't really guess. For instance in WoW or CoX I have certain friends ingame I look forward to seeing from time to time. I usually have a goal of finishing this mission or that mission, or at least getting a cool new loot thing. In WoW I particular enjoy auctioning things and hope to get my characters crafting to a high level.
How much does EVE cost subscription wise?

There is all of that, it's just more complex. Instead of just trying to complete a quest to get an item, you might organize a mining fleet with battleship and cruiser support to go to lo-security space to mine a rare ore you need to build the battleship whose blueprint you acquired from the Federation Navy or Republic Fleet by doing jobs for them.

I'll have to look more at the website. It looks like it is available for download, but that usually involves a long period of time, so it may not be for a few days before I can devote that much PC time to doing it. Thank you in advance for any answers.

It's about 800 megs. The subscription fee is roughly $ 15 a month, and two weeks for the trial are free.

One more question: Are there guilds/teams/corporations one can join in EVE?

Yes, the corporation system is highly complex. The heist you were reading about was all about corporate espionage and was based around shareholder ownership of the corporation.

DeadlyAccurate

02-11-2009, 08:05 PM

Here are my impressions based on a whopping 4 days of play. If I'm wrong about something, I hope someone will come along and correct me.

Are there characters in EVE? No one mentions "their Character" when I see a thread about it, so I don't think there is.

Yes, though not the way you're used to thinking of them. They don't get out and walk around. All you see of others' characters are their ships and a static image of them. Your character is what gains skills.

What is the general concept in the game? In other MMORPGS its pretty basic. Fight battles, win loot, get your character to a high level. If theres PvP go out and beat on other players.

It's pretty open-ended, from what I've been able to tell. You can choose to run missions (quests), do PvP, make money, explore, etc.

EVE seems to revolve around ships....are there space battles? Aliens?

Definitely space battles. Don't know about aliens. It's ship-to-ship combat, though you don't have to worry about things like steering (which is good, because I get terrible vertigo in games like Wing Commander).

What is the play experience like? Since I don't understand the game, I can't really guess. For instance in WoW or CoX I have certain friends ingame I look forward to seeing from time to time. I usually have a goal of finishing this mission or that mission, or at least getting a cool new loot thing. In WoW I particular enjoy auctioning things and hope to get my characters crafting to a high level.

It's definitely a slower gaming experience overall compared to WoW (or LOTRO, my two main MMO experiences). It's extremely complex in that there are about a bajillion skills you could learn, things you can craft, ships you can buy and outfit, and so on. If you love playing the auction house, you'll probably love the market. I love crafting, so I've been really enjoying buying blueprints and making things. I've done a lot of mining, a bit of fighting, some missions that include everything from crafting, fighting, courier, and trading. My husband and I spent the last hour or so mining. He mined, I orbited the area watching for enemies (and potential PC thieves), then I, with my larger cargo capacity, would take his ore back to a local station to refine.

How much does EVE cost subscription wise?

I think it's $15/month, but I haven't actually enabled an account yet to be sure.

I'll have to look more at the website. It looks like it is available for download, but that usually involves a long period of time, so it may not be for a few days before I can devote that much PC time to doing it. Thank you in advance for any answers.

I think it took me less than 2 hours to download the high graphics version.

One more question: Are there guilds/teams/corporations one can join in EVE?
I know there are a couple of Doper corporations. I haven't joined one yet, but I plan to check into it before my trial is over.

So far, I'm liking the game a lot. It's like nothing I've played before. I've been reading players guides and wikis in my free time to learn all I can. I still intend to give it my full two weeks before I make a decision.

bump

02-11-2009, 08:14 PM

EVE Online's big hook is that it's a truly massive universe- since there's only two servers, there's usually tens of thousands of players at any given time (I seem to remember about 50k being usual).

Yes, there's a lot of space battles, if you choose to go that route. Or, you can take an asteroid miner/ industrialist approach and hardly fight if you want.

There are corporations you can join, you can create your own, etc... pretty much unlimited.

I played for about 4 months- the problem that I kept running into was that there was very, very little in the way of game parity- if you've played for 6 months, you're pretty well going to hand someone whose played for 4 months their ass, all else being equal.

I couldn't help but feel ripped off because while I could generally fight way above my weight class against NPC rats, the few players I ran into generally would hand me my ass every time.

I got tired of getting a ship fitted out well, going into low-sec space, and eventually getting my ship destroyed, and then having to start over. My buddies were newbies as well, so we didn't have any real contacts or resources to draw on, so we were stuck. We all ended up quitting at about the same time, because we were paying $15 per month to spin our wheels.

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 08:26 PM

1. Are there characters in EVE? No one mentions "their Character" when I see a thread about it, so I don't think there is.

To be clear, your character is a square profile picture, although one that is quite customizable. You have way to move around, and the only way your body could ever get outside a ship or escape pod is if said escape pod is blown up, leaving your frozen corpse to be retrieved.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: Oh, and I have a question of my own: when I first played, they had the "Red Moon Rising" background theme, from the expansion pack (FYI, EVE expansion packs are quite expansive and also free), available, and it looked really good, but when I started playing again after a long break, it was no longer available, and all they had was a lousy grey one from the latest pack. Is it possible to access the old ones (or at least find out what the color values were to type them in manually)? Just a random and insignificant question in the scheme of things, but still.

John DiFool

02-11-2009, 08:28 PM

That's one thing that's always deterred me from spending much time in online games-the servers of most games are chock full of uber-players who know every in and out, and on top of that of course their characters are virtual demigods (tho in a few games I've been said uberplayer). I'll bet that the EO players here will suggest you join a guild or something to get some early help.

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 08:28 PM

The subscription fee is roughly $ 15 a month, and two weeks for the trial are free.

You can also play for 'free' if you pay for game time using in-game currency.

It's ship-to-ship combat, though you don't have to worry about things like steering (which is good, because I get terrible vertigo in games like Wing Commander).

Actually, like much of EVE you can make it as deep and tactical as you want. For someone starting out, the approach and orbit functions are just fine. But veterans can dogfight. (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=2_40&page=6)

EVE Online's big hook is that it's a truly massive universe- since there's only two servers, there's usually tens of thousands of players at any given time (I seem to remember about 50k being usual).

There's only one 'server'. That's where all the play for everybody in the world (but the Chinese) occurs. There's also a test server and the Chinese server. But the test server isn't somewhere you go other than to test something. So, essentially, all the people in the free world use the same single server.

I played for about 4 months- the problem that I kept running into was that there was very, very little in the way of game parity- if you've played for 6 months, you're pretty well going to hand someone whose played for 4 months their ass, all else being equal.

Not necessarily true.

I couldn't help but feel ripped off because while I could generally fight way above my weight class against NPC rats, the few players I ran into generally would hand me my ass every time.

Well, rats are stupid, that's their job. They have virtually no AI other than simple aggro mechanics, and they generally fly in a straight line to you or away from you, while using little to no capacitor/electronic warfare. A real player, especially a real PvP'er, will be much more of a problematic opponent than any rat.

But all that means is that any new player should get used to PvP. Ideally after being able to afford throwaway frigates or if a new corp will help keep them in interceptors, or something.

I got tired of getting a ship fitted out well, going into low-sec space, and eventually getting my ship destroyed, and then having to start over.

Well, dayum, don't go into lowsec. ;)
If you've got a reasonable setup, lowsec travel should be doable. If you want to do anything there other than travel, you should bring a gang or not take out anything that you're prepared to lose.

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 08:32 PM

To be clear, your character is a square profile picture, although one that is quite customizable. You have way to move around, and the only way your body could ever get outside a ship or escape pod is if said escape pod is blown up, leaving your frozen corpse to be retrieved.

Ambulation is coming. You'll be able to see a fully rendered, full body avatar walk around a station as if it was an FPS/action game. Unfortunately, no shooting people in stations.

But yes, if you want to undock you have to be in your pod.

mswas

02-11-2009, 08:41 PM

Actually, like much of EVE you can make it as deep and tactical as you want. For someone starting out, the approach and orbit functions are just fine. But veterans can dogfight.

I am just now getting into this. I've noticed it. You can kind of pull off the strafe by hitting approach and then orbit at the right time. I am playing on a trackpad up to this point. I'll have to change my setup here shortly.

Bump I beat a 5 month old toon yesterday with a 5 day old toon.

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 08:47 PM

Ambulation is coming. You'll be able to see a fully rendered, full body avatar walk around a station as if it was an FPS/action game. Unfortunately, no shooting people in stations.

Awesome. I might just have to start playing again. By the way, what important stuff has been changed since Revelations and now, including this "Empyrean Age" thing they sent me emails about? Also, how bad is the pace of inflation, not that it matters, since I never made more than a million, anyway? And is Jita (the main trade hub, made that way entirely by emergent player action, which I think is massively cool) still as crowded and laggy as ever? I read on the homepage that they recently had 50,000 players on at the same time! (And if you're reading this and not familiar with EVE, this is all on one "server", no multiple worlds like in WoW, a benefit of it being set in space with an environment as huge as they like.)

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: And if they ever do implement actual out-of-pod killing, I'm going to start tithing to them. ;) And on the darker side, bets on how long it takes before EVE gets a prostitution industry?

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 08:53 PM

mswas:You can also choose a vector that takes you within sniping distance. A well fit Zealot should be able to destroy smaller support ships while doing 2000+ m/s at ranges of roughly 100 km.

Oh, and Vox, as for getting out of your pod and walking around: here's a video of (IIRC) beta ambulation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abMEVENz1jQ). It's not being developed for EVE specifically. It's a spillover of the fact that White Wolf purchased CCP and CCP is making the upcoming Vampire the Masquerade game with what we'll know in EVE as the ambulation engine. Essentially, as they're making the engine anyway for Vampire, they figured that it could be included in EVE fairly easily.

Although I still wish that stepping out of your pod meant FPS combat in the halls of a contested station or throwing grenades into the bar owned by a red corp.
Ah well.

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 08:58 PM

. By the way, what important stuff has been changed since Revelations and now, including this "Empyrean Age" thing they sent me emails about?

Damn. Hrm... weapon grouping, nano-nerf, skill queuing is coming, so are T3 ships. Um... definitely some stuff that I'm missing. Hrm. Blockade runners now use covert ops cloak. Eagle is a nasty super-long range anti-support sniper. Amarr ships' tracking advantage makes lasers awesome against slower targets as tracking is a factor again to a larger degree.
Nos nerf? Dunno if you were here for that. Neuts these days, Nos is next to useless. Overheating. You can overheat certain modules to make them do more damage or increase your speed or their range, or whatever.
Definitely more stuff I'm forgetting.

Also, how bad is the pace of inflation, not that it matters, since I never made more than a million, anyway?

Truth be told, no idea. There was some mention of it on the most recent quarterly economic newsletter. Don't remember what. For all I know we've got rampant deflation now.

And is Jita (the main trade hub, made that way entirely by emergent player action, which I think is massively cool) still as crowded and laggy as ever?

Ah! That's another new thing. Stackless Python was introduced, and it allows nodes to be reinforced in the server so that battles between 1000+ pilots/cap ships can be run. And Jita runs smoothly most of the time I've had the misfortune to set foot there.

mswas

02-11-2009, 09:05 PM

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 09:19 PM

FinnAgain The loss of Delve and Querious and the resulting battles that occurred have driven up the price of tritanium by about 30%. Based on what people have told me about the prices of things it seems like it's a lot more common now to deal in hundreds of millions than it was in the past, but that doesn't necessarily mean that items are more expensive than before, only that people are more able to acquire isk.

Inflation, which is mainly caused in MMOs by having an imbalance between money paid out by NPCs (plus newbie starting money, which I remember for my first character was really 1000 ISK :D) and money obliterated by costs paid to no one in particular (like refining). I think the coolest thing ever would be to actually have banks that could take a certain amount of starting capital and loan more of than they actually have it out to people for interest. Especially because then you could have bank runs and failures to make the economy even more treacherous. And in real life, you don't go work to physically save up enough money to buy a house (or a spaceship, in this case); you take out a loan from a bank. (I realize that there are loans in the game, but I don't think they let you actually grow your capital.)

You say the cost of Trit went up by 30%? What does it typically go for these days? I seem to remember it being either about 1.30 ISK or 3 ISK a unit, but I can't recall which it was. (I might be confusing the ore and the refined product.)

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: And does the phrase "Ambulation is coming" make anyone else feel like buying a dog (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Buy_A_Dog)? :p

DeadlyAccurate

02-11-2009, 09:24 PM

I've been selling tritanium for about 4.0 per unit and haven't had any problems selling it at that price. I just put some up for 4.25 before I went to exercise 90 minutes ago. I've sold about half of the 12K I put up.

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 09:26 PM

And if they wanted to be really hardcore about player-driven economics, they could only allow agent payments out of what goes into the system. (Like clone costs and such that essentially remove the currency from the game.) That, if implemented correctly, would be cool.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

DeadlyAccurate

02-11-2009, 09:58 PM

Oh, and Vox, as for getting out of your pod and walking around: here's a video of (IIRC) beta ambulation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abMEVENz1jQ). It's not being developed for EVE specifically. It's a spillover of the fact that White Wolf purchased CCP and CCP is making the upcoming Vampire the Masquerade game with what we'll know in EVE as the ambulation engine. Essentially, as they're making the engine anyway for Vampire, they figured that it could be included in EVE fairly easily.

That video is from 2007 and the sidebar mentions it's coming in 2008. It's not mentioned as coming up in the testing notes. Do you have an ETA of when it's supposed to be implemented?

Also, I noticed there was another video from 2006 showing off atmospheric flying. Was that ever implemented, or is it still going to be?

mswas

02-11-2009, 10:05 PM

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 10:07 PM

Do you have an ETA of when it's supposed to be implemented?

Nope. One of these days I'd assume.

Also, I noticed there was another video from 2006 showing off atmospheric flying. Was that ever implemented, or is it still going to be?

It's not officially in the works as far as I'm aware.

mswas

02-11-2009, 10:07 PM

Tritanium is 4.0 isk in Sinq Laison was higher a couple of days ago and much lower about a week and a half ago.

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 10:16 PM

Vox Well they have to simulate the idea of a galactic economy so your ideas wouldn't really work I don't think because the idea is that there is a whole civilian economy that the players don't really interact with. That is represented by the trade goods which are required to run a POS.

Yeah, this is just kind of a pipe dream I have. However, that trade goods thing is exactly what I'm talking about! (Assuming from your post that they're made by CCP, not players.) They could balance the price of money sinks like trade goods and all those other things with agent payouts so no net money would enter or leave long-term. Of course, this would only work with banks (unless they carefully adjusted payouts and costs to add or remove as much money as they wanted from the system), since IRL under non-government-controlled currencies that's the only way to make more money out of less money.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: Call it the ISK Gold Standard plan. ;)

mswas

02-11-2009, 10:33 PM

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 10:47 PM

Ahem... anybody interested in trying out the game and getting more than the standard 14 day trial?

I'd point to the buddy program. You get more time for a trial and your 'sponsor' gets some free play time as well. Win-win and you help another doper get some extra time in the game at no extra cost to yourself.

Anyways: the buddy program. (https://secure.eve-online.com/Marketing/Buddy/Default.aspx)
I'd suggest that if anybody reading the thread is thinking of trying the game, that they should ask an EVE doper for a referral to the buddy program. It goes without saying that I'd also love to help out, especially for free play time. ;)

Gorsnak

02-11-2009, 10:52 PM

You don't want a static amount of isk, because the amount of goods in the system is constantly increasing (via mining>refining>building). Static isk level, rising amount of goods = massive deflation. What you want is for global isk levels to approximately track global goods levels.

CCP have done a reasonably good job of managing the economy in this regards, though it should be noted that there are a few hard caps on mineral prices due to insurance payouts and NPC manufactured goods (if there are any of those left, they keep taking them out). Even so, historically mineral prices have rarely pushed up against these price limits in either direction, so it's all good.

Vox Imperatoris

02-11-2009, 11:01 PM

Well you buy BPOs and skills from CCP, that's a huge part of how currency is removed from the system. Since many of these cost in the hundreds of millions and even billions, these are likely the most sigificant method by which money is removed from the system. The POS trade goods are another example.

Yes, I forgot about those specifically. And I also wanted to point out that with this idea, it's not necessary to actually simulate a "real" civilian galactic economy: as long as the input and output are a closed loop, it's essentially irrelevant. For example, if things are doing poorly (like if a war destroyed a lot of good mining incomes or something) and relatively few people are buying these BPOs, skills, and trade goods, your agent might say, "Sorry, with these hard economic times, I can only pay you 80%." (or they could just do it behind the scenes without telling you, but that would be more fun) Conversely, payouts would go up in boom expansion times, and your agent's mood might reflect that. In this way, the "feel" of the galaxy's economy could be controlled entirely by the players, while still making them feel like part of a greater whole that doesn't run on tritanium and spaceships alone. And I think with the right parameters, most of the adjustment could be done automatically; you just wouldn't pay nice round values for stuff.

Gorsnack, it wouldn't be static; the rates of money input and money loss could be both generally defined by CCP and dynamically adjusted based on demand of NPC goods. Price values would still rise, but because new value would be created, not just new notes (if there were banks, of course).

But I'm kind of hijacking the thread with my random economic suggestions. Also, if I'm thinking about joining back up, is there a downside to just telling them to delete my old account and signing up via the buddy program to try it out again? Will I have to purchase the actual game again instead of just monthly playtime?

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

ETA: And with banks, there could be organized bank runs and corresponding asset freezes (the banks could just say: the money you invested—yeah, it belongs to us), and all sorts of other fun economic warfare. "Get out of here; we don't lend to Goons."

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 11:06 PM

is there a downside to just telling them to delete my old account and signing up via the buddy program to try it out again? Will I have to purchase the actual game again instead of just monthly playtime?

Well, they never delete your original account, I don't think.
You can just abandon it and sign up for a trial account.

And while I'd love to get a free month from you doing that, I would like to note that Apocrypha is supposed to allow you to redistribute some of your character's base attributes with a cooldown timer of a few months.

If you'd rather re-roll then, please PM me and I'll get an email out to you ;)

FinnAgain

02-11-2009, 11:41 PM

Oh, and, the shape of things to come.

Edit, on second thought, some avatars and sigs aren't work safe. Here's the link: http://scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?t=23567

AllWalker

02-12-2009, 03:01 AM

You can also play for 'free' if you pay for game time using in-game currency.

How doable is that? Is it a huge amount, one that only 20 hour day playing would make worth while, or is it reasonable? Not that $15/month is unreasonable, but I am curious.

DeadlyAccurate

02-12-2009, 08:49 AM

How doable is that? Is it a huge amount, one that only 20 hour day playing would make worth while, or is it reasonable? Not that $15/month is unreasonable, but I am curious.

I thought I read that it was 300 million ISK at the moment.

FinnAgain

02-12-2009, 11:31 AM

Roughly 300-350 mil ISK for a month, roughly 600-650 mil for two months. To put that in perspective, it's roughly one level 4 mission per day. Or, seven or eight hours of 0.0 ratting a month.

mswas

02-12-2009, 11:37 AM

Roughly 300-350 mil ISK for a month, roughly 600-650 mil for two months. To put that in perspective, it's roughly one level 4 mission per day. Or, seven or eight hours of 0.0 ratting a month.

Or if you get into industrialism and trade, you can eventually get it. I personally don't like to mix real world money and isk so I don't trade in Plexes in either direction.

FinnAgain

02-12-2009, 11:45 AM

It's all about economy from where I sit. I have a main and an alt, and to keep them both running on the cheapest plan for the year is roughly 250 dollars.
And that's about four Xbox 360 games, new. Maybe six to eight used.
On the other hand, I can keep my accounts running, continuously, with some very minor ratting/missioning and some datacore harvesting thrown in on the side. It seems silly to pay for them with money that can pay for other things in real life, when I can pay with ISK and I've already got too much of that for what I want to do in the game.

Vox Imperatoris

02-12-2009, 04:45 PM

And another question: does autopilot still refuse to warp to 0km? (I remember when you couldn't do it at all.)

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

FinnAgain

02-12-2009, 05:04 PM

Correct. Autopilot is inferior to manual piloting in that it will always warp you to 15km of your target gate. It's also a bit slower to warp, I think, since I believe it activates your warp command before you're aligned.

People who autopilot are still easy targets in 0.0 and lowsec, or, if their loot is valuable enough, Empire. But suicide ganking mechanics have changed a bit and it's relatively safe to carry small values of loot ni the3 hold of something cruiser sized and larger, and probably come to no harm even on autopilot.

mswas

02-12-2009, 05:25 PM

mswas

02-12-2009, 05:26 PM

FinnAgain

02-12-2009, 05:50 PM

Yah, but not unheard of. There are people who'll gank in Empire out of boredom before going back to 0.0 for a few months to regain their sec status. A Bestower or even an iteron V, untanked, doesn't have an un-alphable set of hit points. Just a few bored players with T1 fit Ruptures can ruin you at a gate if you're on auto. And you can keep yourself in T1 fit Ruptures all day. The only bitch is sec status, and that can be regained (and the game pays you to do it).

When it comes to transporting valuable stuff, I wouldn't transport anything valuable in something that didn't have (ideally) a covert ops cloak or (next best) was a small, hyper agile ship with a cloak, or a any ship with a massive buffer tank. Yes, the risk is small... but it's best not to be the killmail that some bored Goon is bragging about. It's just good to be in certain habits.
Like, in 0.0, being in the habit of making insta-undocks anywhere you dock, and bounce points off the orbital plane and away from common warp-in vectors for stargates, etc...

Vox Imperatoris

02-16-2009, 01:03 AM

Also, can someone explain the "current events" in the EVE backstory? Although the main backstory is pretty impenetrable as these things go, I think I have a pretty good grasp of it, e.g. with the Amarr being the vast, slow, and inefficient religious empire, the Minmattar being their former slaves, the Gallente being the American-esque democratic, individualistic, and pleasure-centered republic, and the Caldari being a military-industrial corporate state, and I've read many of the EVE Chronicles and "science articles". However, I have no idea what this big factional war is supposed to be about. Why have the Minmattar attacked the Amarr at this particular moment? Who are the Elders? Who is this new empress? Why did she choose to free the slaves? What happened to the old emperor? Why did one Amarr heir attack the Gallente? Why did the Caldari choose this particular moment to attack the Gallente? What is Luminaire? What happened to CONCORD's main station, which was supposedly destroyed? Are the actual player battles having any effect on this backstory, or is all just written by the CCP fiction people?

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 01:18 AM

Also, can someone explain the "current events" in the EVE backstory?[...] However, I have no idea what this big factional war is supposed to be about.

It's fluff designed to make Factional Warfare make sense in context. In short... it happened because it needed to happen for players to fight over low sec sovereignty.

Are the actual player battles having any effect on this backstory, or is all just written by the CCP fiction people?

It's all CCP written fluff. The players are, definitely, shifting low sec sov back and forth, but the fluff is just there to give it 'wallpaper'.

Vox Imperatoris

02-16-2009, 01:22 AM

It's fluff designed to make Factional Warfare make sense in context. In short... it happened because it needed to happen for players to fight over low sec sovereignty.

I know it's fluff, but is there a good guide out there somewhere that concisely explains the fluff?

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 01:26 AM

Not to my knowledge. To be honest, you're the first person who I've seen even mention it.

Maybe someone else can trundle along who's been paying more attention...

Oh! The Empyrean Age novel probably has some deeper reasoning for what went down.

mswas

02-16-2009, 10:18 AM

FinnAgain How do you instaundock?

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 10:47 AM

FinnAgain How do you instaundock?

An instaundock is a thing, not an action.

when you undock, you note which point on a station represents its hangar, and then you fly off while keeping that point directly astern, 180 degrees from your heading.

Ideally you’ll do this with an active MWD, and burn until you’re off the grid (you’ll be able to tell when the station is no longer on your overview). Then continue to burn on for another thousand kilometers or two. Then you bookmark that place. And, as recent changes make you undock while already moving at a significant velocity, you can now undock and warp to the insta undock point with virtually no delay. If you’re camped into a station by anything but a really fast locking ship then unless you are hit by lag or bubbles you’re probably going to get away.

It’s important that you make the bookmark off grid if possible simply because you never know what’s waiting around the station in a hostile situation. You don’t want to warp 200km only to find that you’ve landed right next to a cloaked recon or waiting intercepter. (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=4_1&page=1)

mswas

02-16-2009, 11:17 AM

ahh cool

Vox Imperatoris

02-16-2009, 11:40 AM

I'm going to make a character in a little while (I have to finish a paper first), and I'm trying to decide between a True Amarr and a Caldari Achura. The main difference, of course, is going to be Amarr ships and energy weapons versus Caldari ships and missiles—which do you think is better? I've always gone with Caldari and missiles in the past (and missiles are just plain cooler), but I'm thinking about changing it up a bit. Although I know that nothing is set in stone in this game and given enough time, you can do whatever you want, I'd rather get off to a good start. Also, how difficult would it be to totally switch over from, say, Amarr frigates with lasers to Caldari missile frigates?

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 11:45 AM

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 11:53 AM

Also, it occurs to me that I should add: many Amarr ships (the Khanid made ones) are designed to use missiles.

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 12:05 PM

Sorry for the triple post.

But it's occurred to me that you might like to check out the attributes for various races (http://www.evegeek.com/attributes.php). For instance, a possible difference of 5 points in Perception will have massive consequences in terms of training for PvP.

counsel wolf

02-16-2009, 05:51 PM

Amarr is, currently, far better than Caldari for PvP. Also, Achura are better for training up most skills due to their attribute distribution, and you can always train up Amarr stuff fairly quickly. It's not difficult at all. It'll take you a tiny bit to train Amarr Frigate up to, say, III, and small energy weapons up to wherever you want it. The real catch are the support skills (rapid fire, energy management, etc...) but I'm pretty sure that the Amarr and Caldari are roughly comparable on starting new characters. Only thing might be that Amarr will be armor spec'd and Caldari will be shield spec'd, but that's also pretty easy to change.

This is good advice. If you want to pvp roll achura and cross train into amarr ships. It's what I did (I'm a glutton for punishment and did the TII large grind twice)

Look into getting into a harbringer, with the eventual aim of piloting a Zealot perhaps. Both of these are fun ships to fly, aimed primarily at providing the dps component of small gang warfare. If you then decide to go the BS route, the Amarr BS are all solid choices and after that their caps are also excellent (although that's 2 years away for a starting character)

Also once you get decent skills you can ninja rat faction spawns in delve with a harbringer which is nice cash.

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 07:58 PM

Hell, Achura is really great for science/cov ops alts too. They're just an awesome bloodline.

Crocodiles And Boulevards

02-16-2009, 09:14 PM

I just downloaded EVE a couple of days ago. Right now, I'm flying around in my brand new Merlin!

It's pretty fun, but the lag seems odd sometimes. I don't know what's causing the hiccupping since I'm constantly running at 115FPS+.

By the way, what upgrades do I need to be making immediately? I'm working on my second 150mm railgun, but what do the veterans of EVE usually outfit their newbie ships with?

FinnAgain

02-16-2009, 09:22 PM

Merlins are okay, good buffer tanks. Rifters and, to a degree, Punishers are probably going to be your best T1 frigates for PvP though. Merlins are fine for PvE. Lag also varies. I take it you're only in Empire? If so, the best way to gague how bad lag will be is to see how many people are in local. Other things can cause lag, like lots of mission runners leaving their enemy's wrecks unsalvaged, and such.

I'm also not sure what you mean by 'upgrades'. This (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=4_2&page=1) is a fairly good guide (if I do say so myself) as to what skills you'll want ASAP and which you should eventually set your sights on. I suppose I'm more veteran than noob, but I'm not quite sure how to answer you exactly. To start with, noob ships are the free ones, like the Ibis. The Merlin is a Tech 1 frigate. And, were I going to PvP with a frigate, I'd use a "tackling" setup: microwarpdrive, warp disruptor, stasis webifier in the mids. Probably some speed and/or damage mods in the lows, and T2 guns in the highs.

Although, I'd only do that for throwaway combat ships. Something like the Taranis would be my choice for PvP if I was flying a frig.

Also, if, when you get to the end of your trial you'd like to re-roll or something, just lemme know and I can send a three week trial to you, too.

mswas

02-17-2009, 02:33 AM

FinnAgain Question about kill rights. Say I am flying with my corpies in a gang, some dude has kill rights on me and comes at me. Can my gang shoot at him in hi-sec or only me?

mswas

02-17-2009, 02:45 AM

My noob rifter fit is:

3 125mm autos, I like the meta 3s for a good price point/performance ratio. Don't wanna get ganked in a 10m rifter. 1 meta 3 Launcher. Cold-gas arcjet afterburner. Shield Booster II and a throwaway midslot that I have a ship scanner in, that'll probably be replaced by a scram now that I can use them. In my lows I've got a Nanofiber Internal Structure II, a Warp Stabilizer I and a 200mm Rolled Tungsten plate.

A lot of people don't like the dual tanking setup, but I'm digging it, it makes the tank on the rifter seem deceptive. 'Oh he's shield tanking, I break his shields and his armor will be soft.' The armor plate slows me down about as much as the nano speeds me up but I'm clocking nearly 1100 m/s so it's fine, and I can orbit at about 1400m at around 750m/s. I like the 125mm autos because of the high ROF and the good tracking speed since I orbit so close. 750m/s is a good speed to make it hard for the ship you are orbiting and other ships to hit you. I use an AB instead of a Microwarp because the microwarp gets nailed by warp scram/disrupts and I can't really circle that closely at MWD speeds anyway. Even if I am webbed by a single web I can book at about 400ms which gives me some time to get out of the range of a scram. It's not important to get away from a warp disruptor because my warp stab cancels out his disruptor. Warp Scrams have a range of 10km and a power of 2 and a Warp Disruptor varies with a range of 20-30km and a power of 1. A Warp Stabilizer protects for a power of 1. So there are very few people that I am going to engage that can keep me pinned unless they are faster than me or cap neut me or whatever.

I love my rifter it's a blast. I'm training straight to Interceptors then I'll be going for assault frigates and after that to e-war and then covert ops. This alt was designed specifically for frigates so I won't be dealing with cruisers until I have reasonably mastered several T2 frigates with T2 guns. One reason this is nice is because you have to master a lot of the core fitting skills to be able to use the T2 frigates, so when I get to cruisers I'll be pretty hardcore in a cruiser and train straight toward Heavy Assault Ships and T2 medium guns.

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 03:27 AM

FinnAgain Question about kill rights. Say I am flying with my corpies in a gang, some dude has kill rights on me and comes at me. Can my gang shoot at him in hi-sec or only me?

To be honest, I'm not sure.
I haven't flown in highsec for about two years now to do anything other than pick up and sell datacores.
It should be easy enough for you to test, though. Get a buddy to steal from your can and then shoot at him. See if his corp/gang can fire back at you.

mswas

02-17-2009, 12:27 PM

To be honest, I'm not sure.
I haven't flown in highsec for about two years now to do anything other than pick up and sell datacores.
It should be easy enough for you to test, though. Get a buddy to steal from your can and then shoot at him. See if his corp/gang can fire back at you.

I'm pretty sure the gang can kill a can flipper.

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 01:36 PM

mswas

02-17-2009, 02:29 PM

Balthisar

02-17-2009, 02:52 PM

Crocodiles And Boulevards (and other newbies), you may want to consider checking out Eve University (http://www.eve-ivy.com) as an early choice of corporation. It's a high-sec based training corporation, and virtually everyone is welcome. One of my alts is an instructor there, and my main was there for several months before moving on to a new PVP corp.

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 02:54 PM

Yeah, EVE Uni are good people. They've also got a 'graduate' division, aply named The Graduated [TGRAD], a good bunch of people who I flew with back in Fountain. Agony is also a pretty decent PvP training operation from what I've heard.

mswas

02-17-2009, 04:08 PM

Does a graduation from Eve Uni count for much in other corps?

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 04:25 PM

TGRAD, yes.
Anybody else?
Almost definitely no.

counsel wolf

02-17-2009, 05:09 PM

Does a graduation from Eve Uni count for much in other corps?

Can only give my own perspective but yes, it's worth something. Certainly far more than a stint in a mining corp for example. You should be able to listen to, understand and execute pvp fleet orders. This is the biggest issue many people have moving from starter corps to more organised pvp. Quite frequently the fleet commander will not tell you why you're doing something, he/she just expects you to do it, now. This is a huge culture shock for many people.

Oh, and just because I think it's pretty. Here's a picture of the alliance formerly known as Bob's major staging station in delve. Aka what I've just spent 8 hours looking at.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/2271/prstationce8.jpg

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 05:21 PM

That's a lot of bubbles.
Edit: but damn, you really need to alter your overview settings if it was you that took that pic. Brackets alone in a fleet fight will cause you significant module lag.

You do have a point Wolf, but any PvP outfit will give you the same benefit. EUNI isn't particularly exceptional in that respect. And it's certainly not the equal of some other corps. Given a choice, for instance, between recruiting from MDK's old talent pool and EUNI... I wouldn't even need to think hard.

And I say that with all due respect having been a member of TGRAD.

counsel wolf

02-17-2009, 05:44 PM

That's a lot of bubbles.

Most of them completely unnecessary, but it looks like a bunch of grapes now. The bubble animation was giving most of us headaches though.

Brackets alone in a fleet fight will cause you significant module lag.

I have other overview settings available (some goon found out how to export em to other characters so I have the corp approved setup), having brackets on wasn't causing me any issues so I kept em on. flicking them off takes 2 secs.

You do have a point Wolf, but any PvP outfit will give you the same benefit. EUNI isn't particularly exceptional in that respect. And it's certainly not the equal of some other corps. Given a choice, for instance, between recruiting from MDK's old talent pool and EUNI... I wouldn't even need to think hard.

And I say that with all due respect having been a member of TGRAD.

By all means, but eve uni's recruiting policy makes it an easier place to get into. The comparison I meant was between say an empire mining corp and Eve uni. not between Eve uni and other pvp outfits ( I don't know MDK at all so I'm unsure of their recruitment policy, I've spent my entire evelife in the swarm, who unsurprisingly have a fairly positive view of Eve Uni given their anti high-SP elitist stance).

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 06:10 PM

I have other overview settings available (some goon found out how to export em to other characters so I have the corp approved setup), having brackets on wasn't causing me any issues so I kept em on. flicking them off takes 2 secs.

Fair enough. My rig is old and brackets kill performance.
Oh, and, how the hell do you export settings?

( I don't know MDK at all so I'm unsure of their recruitment policy, I've spent my entire evelife in the swarm, who unsurprisingly have a fairly positive view of Eve Uni given their anti high-SP elitist stance).

MDK doesn't exist anymore I'm afraid. They were a fairly elite pirate/mercenary group lead by Xaeon (who is apparently now in TRI). A bunch of folks who could fight well above their numbers and still come out victorious. They were the first corp to create a "poor man's titan" (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=624255), earned massive numbers of killmails against SmashKill during its war with FREGE, and so on. Great, great bunch of people. I'd happily have any MDKer on my wing any day of the week.

The Batman

02-17-2009, 06:12 PM

I broke down and signed up again, WoW was just way to different than from what I remembered.

Anyway, is it me or is veldspar really rare now (in Lonetrek)? I haven't seen one rock of it in 1.0 - .7 space since I rejoined.

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 06:33 PM

Macro motherfucking miners.

counsel wolf

02-17-2009, 07:25 PM

Macro motherfucking miners.

Yeah, sucks to try and get started as a miner in empire I'd imagine with some of the belt hoovering operations I've heard tell of. If only one were able to jihad them still :( . Although frankly I dunno how anyone puts up with high sec at all.

Also check your PMs Finn.

FinnAgain

02-17-2009, 09:58 PM

Oh, speaking of macro fuckers, I recently conducted a Lincoln Douglas esque debate with one (http://www.flyreckless.com/blog/?p=179#comments).
Might be interesting for some to see how these cheaters rationalize ruining the game for other people.

Captain_C

02-17-2009, 10:46 PM

I was always a fan of macros, actually. Back in my Ultima Online days, I had a quite complex macro written that would make my character fish, move the boat occasionally, cast fireballs at any monsters that came on screen, and trigger a response whenever a gamemaster came on screen that would say "Greetings sir! How are you today?" wait for a reply, then say "Yes yes. Work on this all day I do. Have a good one!"

Kept casual observers from thinking I was macroing. For anyone who ever fished in UO, you know how integral it was to do this. At the time it would take hundreds of hours of fishing just to hit Master, let alone Grandmaster.

Not sure how macroing could be done in EVE though. Seems it would be quite complex. I somehow think it probably takes more than timing out where the mouse should click on the screen at certain triggers.

mswas

02-17-2009, 10:48 PM

Eh, finding places to mine really isn't that hard, just seek out a belt in some podunk backwater. 0.5 is the best mining anyway. I don't know about Macro mining, but Orca fleets have really done a number on belts. Spam L1 combat missions, kill all the enemies and then bring your mining ship in if it has roids. Oftentimes missions have roids the size of moons.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 02:01 AM

For anybody that's interested, the Tribune scored an interview with Haargoth that we'll be publishing this Monday. Nothing really major, but it's interesting to see inside the mind of the guy who disbanded BoB.

mswas

02-18-2009, 02:09 AM

Link it here when it happens.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 02:13 AM

Sir yes sir!

mswas

02-18-2009, 02:18 AM

I'd rather be playing Eve right now.

aruvqan

02-18-2009, 06:38 AM

Oh, 100% definitely stealing from a can gives the entire corp that the original can owner comes from, kill rights.

But, once you fire back at him, he should then have kill rights on you. It's an old pirate/griefer trick, actually: probe out a mission and fly to it in a cheap, throwaway ship and steal from the guy's can. You go red flashy to him, and chances are you'll be shot. Then you have kill rights and can come back in a bigger ship to kill him.

The test, here, would be if you can come back in a bigger ship to kill him, or if your entire corp can, as well.

Heh .... Im the mining director, andI spend my days in an orca .... a few weeks ago my gang and I were mining in bucket 19 in Altrinur. We had a guy in a newb frig mining, and I politely let him know that my gang was mining that belt and he probably would be better off in a different belt ... and he got defensice and asked if I was ordering him out of the belt ... where some random guy in the system told him that it was not ordering him out ... he then spent like 15 minutes hanging out in the belt chatting and asking innocent sounding questions about the orca and trying to get me to take some nannite paste out of his can ... then a pair of rats showed up. I killed one, he killed one ... and right after I had locked onto my wreck to pull it over to loot and salvage, he looted it and went flashy to me. He knew he did something because he said in local something like i hope you dont mind me looting your wreck. I told him I did mind and then asked him to leave the belt and stop harassing me. He had 3 other corpies somewhere in the system and it was obviously a setup to try and gank us [not us specifically, though a merc that our corp leader knows contacted him because someone wanted to pay him to wardec us and asassinate me and my orca specifically...]

What in the name of gods do they think any sensible person in a mining fleet of a billion and a half ISK is going to do, flip someone elses can and get ganked? All we had to do was ensure that we didnt touch him in response and there was nothing his fleet could do to me. Granted, I had a few newbies with us, and Bam made sure that everybody pulled back into the station [Dragon and Power both wanted to fight. That would have been disasterous] but I stayed in the belt discussing the issues in local chat. After it had been pointed out he was actually ganged up and he had corpie members in system, and in a fit of exhasperation I told him to his [virtual] face there was nothing he could do to get me to touch his wreck or one of his cans, and I had the right to kill him personally and unless I did attack him, if he and his buddies tried attacking me first COncord would kill him as it would take enough time for them to get there before he and his group could get my shields and armor down... an orca has an obscene amount of shields, armor and hull. I have had angel raiders pounding on me for 3 or 4 minutes and they have not managed to get my shields down ...

Not that I was willing to risk my orca ... but it would have been hysterical to watch concord bend them over =)

Though I have wondered about turning an orca into a q-ship .... they are apparently used to transport low faction pilots past concord without destroying the rigss in the ships...

aruvqan

02-18-2009, 06:40 AM

Yeah, sucks to try and get started as a miner in empire I'd imagine with some of the belt hoovering operations I've heard tell of. If only one were able to jihad them still :( . Although frankly I dunno how anyone puts up with high sec at all.

Also check your PMs Finn.

Hey, my mining fleet take exception to that .... :D

and if you want to play in a mining fleet, get with me in game, i use aruvqan there also=)

aruvqan

02-18-2009, 06:46 AM

I'd rather be playing Eve right now.

Logging onto EVE now =)

/me starts to sing ...

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to mine I go ....

Balthisar

02-18-2009, 07:09 AM

I've spent my entire evelife in the swarm, who unsurprisingly have a fairly positive view of Eve Uni given their anti high-SP elitist stance).
Consider that EUNI is a noobcorp, though. They're not being elitist by being anti high-SP. On the contrary, high-SP toons are certainly welcome if they'd like to be instructors. Seriously, there's a severe lack of formal instructors. Consider what you didn't know when you were completely new. Classes on anything are always welcome, and you'll have lots of eager students.

On the other hand, it's not an elite PVP corp. You'll get most of your PVP during war in blobs, although there're opportunities for covops and such. Supposedly the LSA (low-sec apprenticeship) is starting again, which should fulfill small gang PVP ambitions.

My EUNI toon is a low SP toon, and he's there to (1) teach and (2) learn how to do invention and such (also an excellent market alt). My other main left to join a new PVP training corp led by alts of some pretty famous (in the game world) pilots. It is definitely fun in a different way than the Uni! It's also fun to be on the aggro side of a wardec. :)

DeadlyAccurate

02-18-2009, 08:30 AM

I don't remember if I said it, but I activated a full subscription. Oh, and for anyone thinking of subscribing, Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/8500/) has a 21-day trial plus a $15 first month deal going on. I don't know if existing trial accounts can be converted, though. I just used a regular $20 subscription.

I created my own corporation for my husband and I, because I wanted to play around with that part of the game (hm, maybe I'll find use for that business degree after all). That's why I left your corporate chat (not that I'm planning on stealing your secrets or declaring war on you guys or anything. :))

Definitely loving the game. Last night's forced midnight stop for that hardware upgrade was the first time I stopped playing before midnight since I installed it.

counsel wolf

02-18-2009, 10:40 AM

Consider that EUNI is a noobcorp, though. They're not being elitist by being anti high-SP.

You're misreading my compound adjective. There are high SP elitists, and eve uni is anti those guys. and thus ok by me (cos I can't stand the '30m SP or don't bother talking to me' guys) :)

counsel wolf

02-18-2009, 10:55 AM

Hey, my mining fleet take exception to that .... :D

and if you want to play in a mining fleet, get with me in game, i use aruvqan there also=)

I have a mining alt for corp op when situation demands it (not often). But I just can't see how someone could put up with mining as a primary career choice in EvE. This isn't to say that you are in any way wrong to do it, just that I don't understand the attraction. EvE's a big universe though, so there's room for us all (but not for BoB, they have to get out).

counsel wolf

02-18-2009, 12:19 PM

DeadlyAccurate

02-18-2009, 12:33 PM

Balthisar

02-18-2009, 12:51 PM

I'm running some blood raider missions in Delve during my free time, first time I've ever run missions, which of the social skills that affect the bonuses i get from missions are the most effective to spend a small amount of training time on? (I have cha 3 so I'm not willing to devote a huge amount of time to it)
Negotiation provides a 5% bonus per level for pay.
If you're interested in standings bonuses, look at Social, and the various xxx Connections skills.

Gorsnak

02-18-2009, 12:54 PM

Triple posting is bad form, but I actually have a noob Q of my own.

I'm running some blood raider missions in Delve during my free time, first time I've ever run missions, which of the social skills that affect the bonuses i get from missions are the most effective to spend a small amount of training time on? (I have cha 3 so I'm not willing to devote a huge amount of time to it)

I should know this, as I am (or was, when I still played) a bit of a mission whore. But it's a long time since I trained those skills. The usual advice is to train the one that gives you a standing bonus with agents. Connections? That lets you use better agents, who give better rewards etc, and gets you to the next level of agents faster. That's the single best social skill. Trained to 4, lets you completely skip lvl 1 agents. The one that "improves rewards" - Negotiation? - isn't much use, as the cash returns from missions are all in the bounties from lvl 4 missions. Actual mission pay doesn't amount to much, and an extra 5%/lvl of not much is bugger all. The specific connections skills - military connections, etc - increase your LP payouts for agents in certain fields. These are easy training as they're rank 1 skills, but cost of the books will make them a wash if you're not going to run a lot of missions.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 01:01 PM

I can't seem to tell from the wiki, but do I need to buy a station vault in the station from which I'm currently renting an office? The wording indicates you can't put a vault in a ship, but I can't tell if that only means for use or for carrying or both.

A... vault?
There's no such thing.

You automatically have hangar rights in whatever station you dock in. I believe that once you pay for an office in a station that you also get a corp hangar in the deal. If you're talking about Secure Containers instead of "vaults", then yes you can put them in ships or anchor them in space.

DeadlyAccurate

02-18-2009, 01:04 PM

http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Station_Vault

I found several on the market, but the nearest to my office is 3 jumps away.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 01:08 PM

Yeah, it's just a type of Secure Container. It's a subset, not a separate class of items.
It's just a Secure Container that's too big to fit on your ship. You can use any type of Secure Container you want to store your stuff in.

And, just check info to see if, unassembled, it'll fit in your ship's cargo hold.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 01:15 PM

Yep, checking it out it's waaaaaaaaay too big to fit in a ship and evidently comes assembled without an option to repackage.

MJinks

02-18-2009, 01:50 PM

I'd just like to pop in to mention that I did, a long time ago, raise Fishing to 100 in UO. It was soon after T2A but long before the 8x8 'trick' was discovered. I did it without macros, the same way I did mining (also from my boat, less reds). The macro users pissed me off because they kept the price of ore artificially low. I'd like to say macro users and ebayers ruined UO but compared to now-a-days there weren't that many of them. It was EA that finally killed it by making it all item based.

Anyway...

I am enjoying my time back in EVE. ISK seems a lot easier to make now. I'm easing through level 4 missions at the moment trying to get a nice fat wallet and relearning all the things I've forgotten. The new wreck system seems to make missions much more profitable now. While it's nothing compared to some players; I must be raking in about 10mil an hour.

Also, before I quit last time I kept my account active just to train skills for a bit. I have a few nice level 5 skills that I'd completely forgotten about. Spaceship Command V, Minmatar BS/Frig/Ind V. I'm not sure what I plan to do long term, maybe rejoin 0.0 and start fighting the good fight. If I do decide to stay in Empire then I'm only 2 days away from being able to fly a Freighter, 12 from being able to fly a Hulk.

It's very nice to have a chat channel where I can talk to other dopers too, even if I don't have a lot to contribute yet, heh. It's a big ol' universe so it's always nice to have someone to talk to. If I do decide to start mining then I know exactly who to talk to ;) .

AKA: Mak'shar Karrde.

Gorsnak

02-18-2009, 01:50 PM

http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Station_Vault

I found several on the market, but the nearest to my office is 3 jumps away.

They're just for hangar organization. The vault type adds some security measures for if you were using them in a corp hangar and wanted to limit access to them. You don't need them for items in your personal hangar to be secure.

counsel wolf

02-18-2009, 01:56 PM

They're just for hangar organization. The vault type adds some security measures for if you were using them in a corp hangar and wanted to limit access to them. You don't need them for items in your personal hangar to be secure.

In fact they're a pain in the arse as items are locked by default. Turning that off will save you a headache later if you do decide to use these.

Thanks for the earlier mission skills advice Gorsnak was exactly what I needed to know

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 01:59 PM

They're just for hangar organization. The vault type adds some security measures for if you were using them in a corp hangar and wanted to limit access to them. You don't need them for items in your personal hangar to be secure.

Or even for items in a corp hangar. Just use giant secure containers and/or restrict access to the corp hangar based on roles.

DeadlyAccurate

02-18-2009, 02:13 PM

They're just for hangar organization. The vault type adds some security measures for if you were using them in a corp hangar and wanted to limit access to them. You don't need them for items in your personal hangar to be secure.

Yeah, I was thinking about using them for my corporate hangar if I decide to let others join the corp. I like using the different divisions to keep my personal assets separate, but I don't want them to be open to anyone else.

FinnAgain

02-18-2009, 02:21 PM

By the way, for those who are curious... ghost training has not, I repeat not been fully removed. My alt's subscription ran out a few days ago with 3 days, 9 hours left on Gallente Battleship V. I just resubbed her to find that it was finished.

mswas

02-18-2009, 02:23 PM

They're just for hangar organization. The vault type adds some security measures for if you were using them in a corp hangar and wanted to limit access to them. You don't need them for items in your personal hangar to be secure.

Yeah they are like the industrial version of those stacky boxes chicks love to buy at the Container store.

DeadlyAccurate Think of them as big hat boxes. ;) You don't need them unless you need to organize stuff. We use them in my corp to store minerals. We have one for each member. THey put their minerals in the can and then when the corp needs minerals the industrialist reaches into a can calculates the price for that person and pays them for their minerals. One disadvantage is you cannot interact remotely with items in cans in the station.

mswas

02-18-2009, 02:33 PM

DeadlyAccurate There is no reason not to come into our corp chat even if you don't wanna join. We're friendly like that. ;)

Balthisar

02-18-2009, 04:45 PM

MindWanderer

02-18-2009, 05:56 PM

I finally took a look at the market details for Cargo Expander IIs. A LOT cheaper than I thought. I went from 5950m3 in my Itty 2 to 7014m3, for only around 1.4mil

Then I started looking through the market for some good deals from sell order to buy order, and I stumbled upon some items with decent volume and an extreme situation the other way. Ammo with buy order offers in the 25 range and sell order offers in the 1000ish range. So I took the plunge and started my first buy orders on a couple types of faction charges.

Its a risk, but in total I only spent around a mill on the buy orders, so it won't kill me and it will be a chance to dip my toe in the deep end of the trading pool.

I was getting bored with just the hauling from system to system and I was thinking of canceling, but all the possibilities for setting up orders seem fun, so I'm planning on sticking around for a bit longer, at the very least.

I've been training Gal Industrial to level 4, but I took a break from it today to train up some trade skills a bit.

Looking at how long Industrial 5 will take, I may upgrade my ship when I reach 4.

Captain_C

02-18-2009, 07:29 PM

Hauling is one of the most boring things you can do in-game. Seriously, don't do it unless you have to.

Playing the market, however, is one of the best. If you are into that kind of thing. If you admired the Ferangi in Star Trek more than you admired the Klingons, market trading is for you.

counsel wolf

02-18-2009, 08:25 PM

I've been training Gal Industrial to level 4, but I took a break from it today to train up some trade skills a bit.

Bear in mind that it is pretty easy to start an alt on the same account with very good trade skills 'out of the box'. You can't train on 2 characters on the same account at the same time but the 800k SP you get for making an alt is probably enough. (I know trade V retail IV daytrading V is possible with exactly the right creation choices)

Lok

02-18-2009, 09:39 PM

I've been training Gal Industrial to level 4, but I took a break from it today to train up some trade skills a bit.

Looking at how long Industrial 5 will take, I may upgrade my ship when I reach 4.
If you are running Itties, level 5 is worth it. Not only does it give you a lot more room when you bet that Ittie V, it sets you up for Freighters down the road.

mswas

02-19-2009, 12:43 AM

Yeah, if you get Gallente Industrial V it's worth it for an Occator or Viator which means you can haul through lo-sec for the real cash. I have Industrial at IV and I can only get about 13,500 out of my Iteron 4. The jump to 5 is huge because the 5 has 5 low slots compared to the 4's 3 lows. It's also worth it to rig and itty V, so you can get between 40 and 50k m3 in it.

As for the trading stuff. Just because there are buy orders for faction ammo at 25 doesn't mean that anyone fills them. Very few people who get faction ammo get it to sell it for less than they paid for it. Basically a buy order like that is hoping that someone will make a horrible mistake when they are drunk. We've sold Wrath Cruise Missiles for like 64000 a pop because people made that mistake. The most we ever benefitted off of that was a sale for like 192m.

As for cargo expanders, you end up stockpiling gear like that. Power Diagnostics and Cap Rechargers too. They cost millions, but I probably have tens of millions in just those three fittings alone.

Alistair McCello

02-19-2009, 01:08 AM

Yeah, if you get Gallente Industrial V it's worth it for an Occator or Viator which means you can haul through lo-sec for the real cash. I have Industrial at IV and I can only get about 13,500 out of my Iteron 4. The jump to 5 is huge because the 5 has 5 low slots compared to the 4's 3 lows. It's also worth it to rig and itty V, so you can get between 40 and 50k m3 in it.My fully rigged Itty V can carry ~38.5k m3 (it also does not go into low sec space since it is worth somewhere around one hojillion times more than the insurance payout would be). If you plan on doing any significant amount of hauling Industrial V is certainly a good investment. As Captain_C said, hauling is really boring so anyway to reduce the amount of time you need to spend on it is a good idea. I'm only a couple of days from being able to fly a freighter (750k m3) and I believe the plan is that I will be able to use the new corps communal freighter which means no more multiple trips between systems just to haul minerals from a few nights mining.

MindWanderer

02-19-2009, 01:29 AM

Yeah, I find hauling boring, but when I find that awesome trade that requires a little hauling, that is ok by me. Yesterday I found a set of 0 jump trades that made me a quick million, and that was nice.

Unfortunately, I've had to train a lot of skills up, first mining when I tried that, and now hauling and trading. I picked Engineering for some reason when I first created Zhanid, and it has seemed like a pretty worthless pick. I have a combat alt, but if I started training him, then I have to go back and train all the learning skills again, and that was a boring period of time for me cause I wasn't gaining anything until they were all trained.

I'd like to do more trading and less hauling, but I have no idea what to put buy orders in for, to resell, or how to go about it. I guess my faction charges plan was a bust from what you've said though.

Turning off autopilot and moving that much faster has helped make hauling a bit less boring for me though. When I first started I thought you always warped in at 15k because I Was always using autopilot, so that was really boring with a slow ship.

I could do combat with Zhanid, but he's really poorly trained for it. Gal Frigate is about the only skill I have trained, and drones. Other than that I only have level one in guns trained, and some Afterburner.

MindWanderer

02-19-2009, 02:04 AM

I canceled those faction ammo buy orders and went looking for other buy orders instead. I found a level 1 internal security agent and tried to remember what kind of items I'd found and sold from salvage.

I put up a couple buy orders on stuff that seemed likely to be sold from salvage, we'll see what kind of results I get. (Cold Arc Jet AB, or something like that. I remember finding those a lot last time I played a combat char. And my second buy order was on small shield boosters)

Seems like upgrading from the Itty 2 to the 3 or 4 as soon as possible will be a good idea. I didn't know the higher versions of the Itty had more low slots, I though they just had higher base cargo. That's a pretty big improvement. I won't be able to get the Iteron IV for 3 more days, so that's probably when I'll upgrade.

FinnAgain

02-19-2009, 02:10 AM

You should pretty much always have a copy of EFT running when you're checking things out about ship types. Almost nobody can keep all that in their head.

mswas

02-19-2009, 02:18 AM

MindWanderer More trading less hauling is an oxymoron, believe me, my main is a trader. Either you are hauling or someone else is doing it for you. But SOMEONE is hauling. The trick to it is to get remote trade skills so that you can market manip while you are hauling. Most of them are not worth getting beyond level 3 because honestly you rarely need to manip a trade more than ten jumps away.

MindWanderer

02-19-2009, 09:12 AM

EFT = Eve Fit Tool?

I've heard about it, never used it.

I will check it out this afternoon, I figured it would be overkill at this point since I don't have advanced skills to improve my fitting, etc.

As to the hauling vs. trading point. I see what you mean. I guess I meant that I'm looking for the most value per jump.

I've done hauling in single player games like Starfury (privateer-like game from the makers of Space Empires) even, so the hauling in and of itself isn't bad its just that ships with big cargoholds seem to be excessively slow.

Training for MWD is in my plans soon.

Lok

02-19-2009, 10:51 AM

EFT and EVEMon are the 2 programs you really want. EFT to tell you what you want on a ship, the EVEMon to plan out how you are going to train for it. Lowballing buy orders for rare things is not a bad idea, if you can afford to tie up your capital for it. You will almost always get someone screwing up or just not caring they can get more for a 6 jump trip. But it is not really the thing to do for new players. You need the money in other places more.

Having a lot of skills trained is not necessarily a bad thing. My character has a lot of areas (http://cli.gs/6phPng) trained up, which means at this point I can do a lot of things. It took a while to get there, but I have had fun on the way. I am running a level 5 skill right now that doesn't end until Monday night, but if I play before them, I will work on my Minmatar and Amarr frigate skills. They will train fairly fast and give me more ships to fly.

Alistair McCello it really sucks losing one in highsec due to stupidity. I had shot at a can flipper from my Drake to chase him off, then went back to get my Ittie to pick up my stuff. I was waiting for the timer to tick down the last couple of minutes, and went to align my Ittie, but I hit Warp to instead of Align to. He jumped back in and crowed about getting to blow up my ship. I make my own Cargohold Optimization rigs, so I didn't have to buy them, but it meant I lost the sales I would have had. And I could only blame myself.

FinnAgain

02-23-2009, 10:34 PM

So for those who are curious, one of my staffers recently scored an exclusive interview with Haargoth. (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=4_9&page=1)

mswas

02-23-2009, 11:02 PM

So for those who are curious, one of my staffers recently scored an exclusive interview with Haargoth. (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=4_9&page=1)

Man looking at the sovereignty map it looks like y'all and Goons have really carved up KenZuko. I hear they are really on the ropes.

FinnAgain

02-23-2009, 11:32 PM

I'm bummed that I haven't been able to get any real combat time due to RL shit and having to move some assets around while dodging a few Empire war decs. Ah well.

But yeah, I'm happy that RAZOR has been kicking some ass down in Delve.
Hopefully by this weekend I'll have my Apoc in the fight. Maybe take out a few Sabres/Zealots/Curses just for laughs.

mswas

02-23-2009, 11:38 PM

Yeah that'd be cool. I am liking watching BoB fall. It's kind of fun vicariously. They do sound like a bunch of idiots. When they came out with Operation Max Damage, I was like, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.", with their pompous press release talking about how it was some sort of grand master plan they'd put together over the course of many moons. I was like, "Umm, someone should tell these guys that it's not terribly difficult to come up with the plan, "Throw thousands of ships at them til they die." Doesn't take a rocket surgeon or anything. Then that they got pwned made it even more hilarious.

FinnAgain

02-23-2009, 11:50 PM

TBH it was touch-and-go for a little while after IRON's initial victories. There was some serious bad blood in the North as IRON took to a policy of gatecamping 23/7 and generally refused to help their allies and/or send their battleship fleets outside of VFK. It was freaking ridiculous.

The Adj, one of RAZOR's best FC's left because of that, actually. After ordering us not to join any IRON gangs under any circumstances and after he kicked an IRON FC from IRON's own voice chat server for telling IRON pilots that they were not allowed to go on a roaming op we were about to launch.

If BoB had been able to keep the pressure on, they could have done some serious damage to the North as we were on the back foot for most of the start and BoB was able to choose the time and place of all the combats. It didn't help that many of our titan pilots were also evidently freakin' noobs. We DD'd more of our own fleets than BoB's in the opening weeks of the fight.

mswas

02-24-2009, 12:03 AM

Ha. A good FC is hard to find. A lot of people just have no clue what they are doing. I'm working on learning frigates real well with my PVP alt. I like being a fighter pilot ;)

counsel wolf

02-24-2009, 10:10 AM

Razor et al down from the north have been bloody awesome in Delve. I wish I was seeing more front line action but it's mostly capitals doing the heavy lifting and I've been roped into pos logistics securing systems.

As someone said on the GF forums, my only friends are little green boxes.

Gorsnak

02-24-2009, 11:44 AM

I dunno, without the POS logistics guys any successes on the battlefield are for naught. I'd say the guys onlining towers and keeping them fueled are the front line.

Lok

02-24-2009, 12:43 PM

Interesting article Finn. Especially the part where he keeps getting emails from people that think his account was hacked.

What happened to the war reports by Zarch AlDain you were running? Those were fun to read for a carebear that never leaves Empire space.

counsel wolf

02-24-2009, 01:54 PM

What happened to the war reports by Zarch AlDain you were running? Those were fun to read for a carebear that never leaves Empire space.

I can't post everything but here's a short run down on the Delve invasion so far:

History:

To understand Delve II you have to know about Delve I. In late 2007 BoB had been pushed back from the south into just Delve itself by a large super-alliance of enemies they had made through their own arrogance. Every ally of major consequence of theirs had been either eliminated or alienated.

The goons and allies managed through good fortune mostly to gain a foothold in Delve by capturing the qy6- system. Further progress into delve was blocked by Bob's 'Fortress delve' tactic. This tactic involved camping any system that could be attacked with a full cap fleet under cover of a cyno jammer (preventing enemy capitals from entering the system) supported by multiple titans to doomsday any sub capital fleet that entered the system. Such a setup basically renders the system unattackable for as long as you can maintain presence. Similar setups were probably used defensively by the northern coalition during Max. In addition to the problems for the attackers Delve is a small region and BoB has a lot of Jump bridge infrastructure that makes it easy for them to get around in. Both cyno Jammers and jump bridges require Sov level 3 to function.

In face of this tactic The super coalition experienced a gradual bleed off of numbers, leading to a successful BoB counterattack on qy6- and an end to that round of hosilities as both sides realised they would have difficulty progressing further. From this point BoB launched Max and goons went to ride bikes.

Delve II: Elect... (nah I can't do it)

The defection of haargoth set up a situation where the goons and their allies who were facing participation difficulties in a long drawn out war with some splinter factions of red alliance and all of AAA were gifted a chance to do something... spectacular.

Four regions of space were abandoned, every ally was called in, every bargaining chip cashed and all bags were packed. Delve was our home now, and we would fight for it. BoB had no Sov 3 (although they have towers claiming sov so they would eventually get it back) so they had none of the boring grind out mechanisms available to them this time around.

At first there were some epic battles, with multiple capital ship losses on each side and even the death (for the fourth time) of Shrike's Avatar class Titan.

Then BoB made two horrible mistakes.

Firstly they moved all their capital assets to one system (pr- ). Once the coalition heard of this there has never been fewer than 200 people in system making sure those assets stay there. The station gates and former bob pos locations are all bubbled and manned 23/7. Without their capital ships BoB have been unable to contest the combined allied cap fleet which has killed an estimated 1.2 Trillion isk worth of POS, mods and baby titans (most of BoBs POS are faction). This 'hellpurging' is quite unprecedented in EvE and makes for some good reading

http://killboard.goonfleet.com/ will have some of the towers, Razor, morsus mihi, pandemic legion and TCF boards will have most of the rest. On average we kill 35-50 faction towers per day.

The second BoB mistake is to think that the goons will get bored and go home. The problem is that Delve is our home, and we're not going away. It won't be safe until BoB has no sov anywhere and we have sov3 (for our own fortress delve) but we know what has to be done, and it will be done. Meanwhile BoB participation is dropping because they can't really do anything to us and sitting in pr- spinning your ship just isn't that fun.

Finally on a lighter note there were reports yesterday of BoB pos gunners shooting their own pos mods so we couldn't steal them. Much was made of this in pr- local.

FinnAgain

02-24-2009, 03:07 PM

What happened to the war reports by Zarch AlDain you were running? Those were fun to read for a carebear that never leaves Empire space.

Yeah, they were awesome. Zarch still works for the Tribune (he was recently promoted to be my Managing Editor) but he's had real-life concerns over the last few months which have kept him from compiling the Nullsec War Zones pieces. And, to be honest, as I've already got a hobby that turned into a job (being the Editor in Chief), I'm really not up for doing NSWZ's myself each week.

We're trying to get another staffer to pick up the slack, but so far, no luck.

On a similar note, the Tribune is still hiring writers. ;)

FinnAgain

02-24-2009, 03:13 PM

Oh, and:

This tactic involved camping any system that could be attacked with a full cap fleet under cover of a cyno jammer (preventing enemy capitals from entering the system) supported by multiple titans to doomsday any sub capital fleet that entered the system. Such a setup basically renders the system unattackable for as long as you can maintain presence. Similar setups were probably used defensively by the northern coalition during Max.

Actually, they definitely were and they proved to us Northern NAP Monkeys that it was eminently beatable if you didn't have morale, numbers, coverage, and most importantly cap ship pilot skills. I can't count the number of times our own titans DD'd our own fleets. Or how sick we got of trying to defend our turf while IRON forces hid behind bubled gates in VFK and only moved to switch sniper spots.

When the invasion of VFK came, morale and participation were so low that we were pretty much steamrolled and lost at least one titan IIRC.

Say what you want about Kenny, but their ability to keep NOL defended through the entire invasion of Delve speaks to an almost monomaniacal degree of drive and obsession. Whether or not it's a good thing is certainly up for debate, but I can tell you, as a pilot who X'd up for ops time and again only to find myself sitting at a sniper spot on a gate for three or four hours with no contact... it's waiting that's the killer and being able to keep X'ing up under similar conditions is a sign of amazing tenacity.

counsel wolf

02-24-2009, 04:16 PM

it's waiting that's the killer and being able to keep X'ing up under similar conditions is a sign of amazing tenacity.

I've been spending 3-4 hours a day in pr- for quite a while now.

Goon TS gets... odd during these times. The erotic slash fiction reading contest really was something to hear. I think most of our allies have taken to leaving TS.

Lok

02-24-2009, 06:00 PM

Finn, I thought it would be something like that. I hope his home life gets straightened out soon. And that you have some luck with finding writers. :D

FinnAgain

02-24-2009, 08:45 PM

Yeah, I'm close to posting an ad for new writers on Scrapheap.
I guess I feel I haven't gotten trolled enough recently, or something.

counsel wolf

02-24-2009, 09:01 PM

Yeah, I'm close to posting an ad for new writers on Scrapheap.
I guess I feel I haven't gotten trolled enough recently, or something.

Scrapheap? :shudder: I can't offer any substantive help, but for what it's worth that was a good interview and I hope you're able to carry on the work. Want me to post on GF.com about looking for a reporter?

FinnAgain

02-24-2009, 09:16 PM

Yeah... we'll probably carry on one way or another, even if it's with a reduced article load. We won' shut down and we still have a few writers who submit stuff fairly regularly.
And yeah, scrapheap is both what's best and worst about EVE.

And heck yeah, if you'd like to post on GF advertising for folks to join the Tribune, that'd be much appreciated. We pay 20 mil per page of text with a salary cap of 100 mil per article (which can be waived at my discretion), and we do allow people to submit more than one article per issue.

We're specifically looking for folks who can report on the war in Delve, and even do some forum whoring. Mr. M (the Tribune's owner) has talked about wanting someone to report on the goings on at CAOD for example an, of course, NSWZ is based on the battle reports in the General Battle Bullshit forum of scrapheap. In addition, we're always open to publishing interviews, commentary, guides, rants, and so on.

P.S. Thanks again for the offer.

Whack-a-Mole

02-25-2009, 12:32 PM

Then BoB made two horrible mistakes.

Firstly they moved all their capital assets to one system (pr- ). Once the coalition heard of this there has never been fewer than 200 people in system making sure those assets stay there. The station gates and former bob pos locations are all bubbled and manned 23/7. Without their capital ships BoB have been unable to contest the combined allied cap fleet which has killed an estimated 1.2 Trillion isk worth of POS, mods and baby titans (most of BoBs POS are faction). This 'hellpurging' is quite unprecedented in EvE and makes for some good reading

I do not understand why their fleet is pinned. Can't they just cyno out of there? Do you have two massive cap fleets in the same system just staring at each other?

Just confused...

The second BoB mistake is to think that the goons will get bored and go home. The problem is that Delve is our home, and we're not going away. It won't be safe until BoB has no sov anywhere and we have sov3 (for our own fortress delve) but we know what has to be done, and it will be done. Meanwhile BoB participation is dropping because they can't really do anything to us and sitting in pr- spinning your ship just isn't that fun.

As a general comment I really hope the mechanics of 0.0 Sov get changed. The whole POS spam thing and unassailable systems thing seems bogus to me (and I have no care for who is doing it...just stinks in general).

FinnAgain

02-25-2009, 03:43 PM

I do not understand why their fleet is pinned. Can't they just cyno out of there?

Not if they're bubbled.

Whack-a-Mole

02-25-2009, 03:49 PM

Not if they're bubbled.

Shouldn't they be shooting each other then? :D

Gorsnak

02-25-2009, 03:59 PM

Well, sure, Kenny could do a mass undock and try to break the camp. Problem is, they're probably outnumbered, they have all the tactical disadvantages (bubbled, enemies have grid loaded, at their optimal range, etc). And there are active capital fleets that can be cynoed in at a moments notice....including titans, which could bridge in additional sub-cap reinforcements. So it's understandable that they haven't undocked. But they could all clonejump out and pick up battleships etc in empire, and I really couldn't say why they haven't done that. Some likely have.

sturmhauke

02-26-2009, 02:06 AM

I picked Engineering for some reason when I first created Zhanid, and it has seemed like a pretty worthless pick.
On the contrary, Engineering is one of the most essential skills for ship fitting. Eng 5 gets you 25% more powergrid, which means you can fit more and better mods on all your ships. The other two essential fittings skills are Electronics for CPU output, and Mechanic for hull hitpoints. There are a bunch of other fitting skills that let you use various mods, reduce their fitting requirements, or improve their performance, but all of them take one of these basic three skills as a prerequisite.

The Batman

02-26-2009, 06:51 PM

Has anybody seen the new info on Apocrypha (http://www.eveonline.com/apocrypha/index.html)? No ambulation in this one but T3 and wormholes are finally in.

I'm wondering if removing schools and careers means everyone will get a respec. I hope so, at least a chance to get rid of my useless charisma points.

FinnAgain

02-26-2009, 07:00 PM

IIRC, new characters can change their skills twice in the first six months. Established characters can do so once per year only. And again, IIRC, characters can only change their initial attribute points, not those gained from Learning skills.

The Batman

02-26-2009, 07:04 PM

Still, I hope that our 'once a year' starts when apocrypha launches. When I made my main I wasn't sure what the attributes did - they had very roleplayish descriptions - so I made sure to spread out the points evenly, one per attribute. If I made a char today I would focus entirely on 2 of the four 'good' ones.

FinnAgain

02-26-2009, 07:22 PM

Yes, it probably works along the same lines as the cloneumping cooldown timer. 24 hours starts from when you clonejump, 365 days starts from when you respec.

Lok

02-26-2009, 10:53 PM

I might change mine around some. I could use my Memory up a bit. But I will keep mine fairly even across the board. I spend too much time training up in all kinds of areas to short any one attribute.

mswas

02-26-2009, 11:12 PM

Yes, it probably works along the same lines as the cloneumping cooldown timer. 24 hours starts from when you clonejump, 365 days starts from when you respec.

How do you respec? I want to respec because I got Charisma, but I also wanted to be a CEO type, and I am about to leave my first CEOship, but I still could use some of those Charisma skills. ;) I probably have to wait until 365 days. When that happens though, what can I do?

FinnAgain

02-27-2009, 12:32 AM

How do you respec?

Well, you take the specs, and you spec them again and... ;)

There were some screenshots on Scrapheap for a while but for the life of me I can't find 'em. Essentially, you can take (I think) either all or all but three of the initial points in each of your attributes and redistribute them wherever you want. I'm not sure how it'll shake out, you can check it out for yourself though if you want to load up SiSi. I have enough trouble on my ol' computer without trying to set up the second installation files, so I don't even bother. But it should be easy enough to check out (although one of my staffers did just inform me that some of the changes were taken down off of SiSi, like the T3 ships and such).

I want to respec because I got Charisma, but I also wanted to be a CEO type, and I am about to leave my first CEOship, but I still could use some of those Charisma skills. ;) I probably have to wait until 365 days. When that happens though, what can I do?

Well, if I don't misunderstand you, you should be able to respec once Apocrypha goes hot. But you won't be able to switch your skills back until 365 days pass after that point. If you max charisma, you should probably check out maxing Leadership skills, Fleet Command V plus all the specific warfare skills to V will make you an awesome fleet booster. And once you have that, learning to be an FC isn't all that far off.

mswas

02-27-2009, 11:37 AM

Yeah, right now I am working on astrometrics so that I can be useful in a fleet for W-Space. After that I might look into maxing my leadership skills, which admittedly are already pretty high.

FinnAgain

02-27-2009, 02:10 PM

Don't forget the support skills. Astrometrics V, itself, isn't worth all that much without Astrometic Pinpointing, Astrometic Triangulation and Signature Acquisition. At least, they used not to be. I haven't read up yet on how the new probing system works.

mswas

02-27-2009, 10:08 PM

Well I mean I am working on the foundation skill so I can master it later on so I'll be useful in a W-Space gang. I'm only intending on getting Astrometrics to IV in the short term and then trying to get all the support skills to three. I need to get Survey to V so I can get archaeology. I can get Astrometrics to IV and Survey to V by March 10, so I think I'm in a very good position.

As for your advice on training up leadership, I should do that sooner rather than later. I was working on my battle skills first so I wouldn't be the pussy FC out there on the field, but with as horrible as the FCs I've flown with are, it seems like something that needs to be done. So often people think that FC correlates with skill points. I don't fucking get that at all. If I had the perfect leadership then almost no one would take squad leader from me, and I wouldn't be annoyed at the FC the whole time. Everyone could be annoyed at me. ;) Maybe I'll take my alt over to Eve Uni and get the training.

It's a real hole in the game, the lack of good FCs, and it seems like if you're a good FC then everyone is going to want to fly with you.

FinnAgain

02-27-2009, 11:13 PM

My FC'ing experience is somewhat limited. I tend to talk a bit too much and I don't like the requirement to juggle all the info, but it's doable. If you want to be an FC skillpoints really don't matter. You can FC with a noob alt. What you do have to get used to is how to give orders, how to deal with your scouts and your main fleet at the same time, how to work out vectors and warpins and bubble avoidance. You'll need to print out maps and/or get a copy of EVE Strategic Maps. You'll need to know ship names at a moment's glance and be able to prioritize targets instinctively, know when to primary a ship and when to keep it around.

But all that can be learned by practice and study.

And yeah, good FC's are virtually impossible to find. A quality FC can mean all the difference between victory and defeat, and a qualify FC can devastate even vastly numerically superior force.

You might want to read some (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=2_50&page=3) of the stuff we've published (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=3_2&page=4) by one of MC's FC's.

P.S. Having flown with TGRAD, I'll admit that the EVE Uni program is a good course, but from what I've seen I think that Agony's PvP and FC courses are probably superior.

FinnAgain

02-27-2009, 11:24 PM

Oh, and, some stuff on sniping and sniping battleship gangs (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=3_4&page=4).

FinnAgain

03-10-2009, 01:59 AM

Sorry for the triple post, but it's been long enough since post 2 so that the Message Board Gods should overlook it.

Anyways: Apocrypha is deploying as I type. I hope everybody set a long-train skill, because if the server is 100% stable after coming back online exactly as scheduled, I believe that Jesus is contractually obligated to reappear and we'll usher in the messianic age.

Some of the more utilitarian features for Apocrypha include but are not limited to skill queuing (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=621) (Yes, for the first time in a great many years, having a skill flip while you're at work is no problem, at all. EVEMon is, to be honest, a good bit less useful), shorter downtime (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=632), and the ability to respec your attributes (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=618)... sorta.

Once a year, you - and everyone else - can take 14 attribute points, and re-arrange them within reason. Attributes can be set at values anywhere from 5 to 15. This means, that every year, you can take all your spare charisma points and put them into perception if you so please. Or the other way around.

And, of course, my Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rigs will now give a strength bonus rather than reducing scan time. So I think CCP can probably go try to gobble a porcupine.

In other news, Delve is the new home of the Goons, a major engagement was fought in l3- where Pandemic Legion doomsdayed the fuck out of GKC forces, an undetermined number of GKC pilots were able to remove some assets from PR- while the main AKA (Anti-Kenny Alliance) fleets were tied up in various other spots, but the breakout doesn't appear, from initial reports, to have been major. After E-ON's coverage of the Tribune a couple of issues back, Zapatero requested that we start a quarterly column on null sec wars, so I've submitted the first in that series and can hopefully pawn it off onto one of my staffers... since I'm lazy. Still, for any of you who read E-ON, here's a heads up that quarterly reports on war in 0.0 are at least planned (for all I know Zapatero will decide he doesn't like what I've written, who knows).

MJinks

03-10-2009, 08:57 AM

I have two new characters training up so I'm glad to see a skill queue implemented at long last.

It's sad to see BoB fall to metagaming (a sentiment I doubt is shared by many...) but I guess it was always going to end that way. Even despite that I expected them to put up a better fight with less mistakes. We'll see how things shake out, nothing is ever final in EVE Online...

MrBerious

03-10-2009, 09:29 AM

MJinks

03-10-2009, 10:01 AM

EVE Online tends to polarise people. I fought against Red Alliance long before the Goons started EVE. Things were nicely balanced until the Goons joined RA. Fair enough, it was probably our turn to take a battering.

Sadly all Goon progress seemed to be made via metagaming, starting with intentionally crashing nodes to bypass gate defences. That's a cheap way to end a war. They tried the same thing on BoB shortly after my alliance died, BoB adapted by keeping the fights at least 4 jumps from their station systems and keeping a capital fleet on standby. That's why it's sad (for me) to see them make so many mistakes this time.

I'm no fan of BoB but in a war between them and the Goons... Yeah, there's only one winner I want (wanted?) to see (not just because they kicked our ass, promise).

MrBerious

03-10-2009, 10:14 AM

Well Molle would be on Shrike 6 if a node hadn't happened to crash and save him. That's not even the worst of their abuses. T20, devs on MSN, POS bowling, aggro abuse then killing logged off titans, DD inside shield, hell their ASCN leaks got so bad that CCP made a rule banning further forum leaks on CAOD.

If your hate of metagaming has you rooting for Band on Developers. Let's just say I have a hard time seeing things from that perspective.

MJinks

03-10-2009, 10:37 AM

Try waking up at 4am for days in a row, weeks on end, just to sit in safespots or stare at stargates, only to have all that undone by a forced node crash. Then you might ;) . There is a reason I didn't play for 2 years after that happened, heh.

I'm taking things a lot more easy this time. I'm content to sit in carebearland for now, raising ISK. I don't think I'll join a large alliance again.

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 11:15 AM

I'm taking things a lot more easy this time. I'm content to sit in carebearland for now, raising ISK. I don't think I'll join a large alliance again.

That's precisely what I did. Going waaay back I was a Director in a 0.0 alliance and a very big one at that. It burned me out eventually and burned out my CEO and a few others. In my view it is even worse now then it was back then.

No thanks. I took a year off EVE as did my CEO. As it happened she and I both chose to return to EVE within a week of each other (purely by chance...we did not stay in contact during that year). We hooked-up and decided hi-sec hugging carebearing with a small, closely knit corp was the thing for us and I do not regret it at all.

I have never been in BoB or Goons and I frankly have a strong distaste for both. The whole metagaming thing, regardless of who is doing it, just sucks. Sovereignty needs a serious overhaul and, while it should not be easy to tackle an established Alliance, the current ability to turtle up and make it essentially impossible to oust an Alliance short of metagaming just sucks.

Of course to each their own. Some may thrill to how stuff works out there now.

YMMV

FinnAgain

03-10-2009, 11:27 AM

Oh, and... :D

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I've been in touch with the editors at E-ON and scored a little scoop for the Tribune.

For those who remember (or know), two issues ago in E-ON they ran a contest to suggest a new ship type to CCP, and the winning entry would get a Megathron model. CCP dropped the ball and didn't get in touch with E-ON for E-ON's last issue, so they didn't run anything about the contest. As it is, the new issue of E-ON will be coming out soon, but it won't have anything more than a passing mention.

The Tribune, on the other hand, has just received the raw text of all of the entries, along with the winning entry and CCP's commentary on it. We'll be publishing about it for our next issue and readers should be able to get a chance to get a first look at what is, most likely, going to be the next ship to be introduced to EVE.

Whee.

counsel wolf

03-10-2009, 02:47 PM

Try waking up at 4am for days in a row, weeks on end, just to sit in safespots or stare at stargates, only to have all that undone by a forced node crash. Then you might ;) . There is a reason I didn't play for 2 years after that happened, heh.

Yeah every crash in Eve was orchestrated by the goons, yeah right. This is typical of the delusion and post hoc rationalisation that alliances go through when they fail. The swarm has never advocated any illegal out of game activity (ask TheAdj about his mobile phone or Kugutsmann about the goonswarm forums and his contract with bob to hack them) or leveraged illicit contact with developers (ask BoB about T20 or the delve NPC space deal). The fact that one node crashed for you when it did isn't what caused your alliance to fail.

There's a reason half the 0.0 world is here in delve to pound nails into Bob's coffin along with us goons. Don't paint them as somehow the better of two choices, Goonswarm never published an article claiming to want to take over everyone elses play experience.

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 03:15 PM

There's a reason half the 0.0 world is here in delve to pound nails into Bob's coffin along with us goons. Don't paint them as somehow the better of two choices, Goonswarm never published an article claiming to want to take over everyone elses play experience.

Maybe it is just me but I expect Goons to be every bit as awful as BoB was. Once they "own" Delve they'll be the same creeps just with a different name.

In fact once the Goons arch nemesis is gone I wonder what they will turn to next in their boredom?

Lok

03-10-2009, 03:17 PM

OTOH, didn't Goonswarm make it a habit of wandering through Empire blowing up peoples Hulks, just because? Neither side is precisely angelic, in motivation or action.

counsel wolf

03-10-2009, 03:23 PM

OTOH, didn't Goonswarm make it a habit of wandering through Empire blowing up peoples Hulks, just because? Neither side is precisely angelic, in motivation or action.

Jihadswarm used in game mechanics and in game ships to do in game things. There's nothing wrong with disliking goonswarm for that. But it's a different beast to the cheating and out of game harrassment bob was engaged in. Goonswarm knows we're playing a game and it's the people who read too much into the game that we like blowing up the most.

counsel wolf

03-10-2009, 03:26 PM

Maybe it is just me but I expect Goons to be every bit as awful as BoB was. Once they "own" Delve they'll be the same creeps just with a different name.

In fact once the Goons arch nemesis is gone I wonder what they will turn to next in their boredom?

Who knows, but would you rather have an evil monolithic overlord pretending like they own everything and are better than everyone else or a bunch of crazy guys in clown cars who might blow something valuable up but won't pretend we're better than you while we do it?

Gorsnak

03-10-2009, 03:27 PM

A game? I thought internet spaceships was Serious Business.

:p

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 03:33 PM

Who knows, but would you rather have an evil monolithic overlord pretending like they own everything and are better than everyone else or a bunch of crazy guys in clown cars who might blow something valuable up but won't pretend we're better than you while we do it?

TBH organized mobsters always scared me far less than random lunatics.

Mobsters are predictable and generally leave you alone unless you decide to place yourself on their radar.

Random lunatics are, well, random. I feel I am in more danger from them.

YMMV

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 03:52 PM

Jihadswarm used in game mechanics and in game ships to do in game things.

Yes but I think that glosses over the point. By the letter of the law they were fine but not by the spirit of it (as evidenced by CCP changing mechanics). When Privateers (not Goons I know) abused the war dec system they got CCP to change the mechanics because it was clearly not intended to work like that.

Funny thing is when Goons and such howl when the mechanics get changed...because THEY abused the mechanic!

I would wager that the method of disbanding an Alliance will get changed over the whole BoB thing. It was within the game rules and will stand but is a rather over-the-top power for one person to wield. Hell...takes me 24 hours to leave a corp and yet it is appropriate to pull the plug on thousands of players with a proverbial push of a button?

So, more mechanic changes.

MJinks

03-10-2009, 04:21 PM

Yeah every crash in Eve was orchestrated by the goons, yeah right. This is typical of the delusion and post hoc rationalisation that alliances go through when they fail. The swarm has never advocated any illegal out of game activity (ask TheAdj about his mobile phone or Kugutsmann about the goonswarm forums and his contract with bob to hack them) or leveraged illicit contact with developers (ask BoB about T20 or the delve NPC space deal). The fact that one node crashed for you when it did isn't what caused your alliance to fail.I was sitting on the gate, we had scouts on the other side, I'll explain what happened and you tell me if it was intentional... We were defending the warp in gate in a dead end system, it happened to house our main shipyard. The Goons/RA were amassing on the other side. They had two fleets, one with their Battleships and one with a mass of T1 frigs and rookie ships. Their rookie/frig fleet kept jumping in in larger and larger numbers while their BS fleet just sat there. Eventually the node crashed and all the defenders got kicked out. As the defenders tried to log on; the Goon/RA BS fleet jumped in as one and took the gate, killing the defenders as they logged on. Entrenchment was our main defence (once RA had their dreads and BS in place they were bastards to dislodge), they bypassed it. Yes, I think it was intentional and we didn't have enough space to set up buffer zones like BoB did.

It's not hard to think of a blatantly illegal out of game activity the goons took part in. They used to use a modified client that would show the standings of characters on their portraits in local chat. Long before such a feature was introduced by CCP.

Look. I realise that BoB's hands are far from clean. I don't care. They were over in Delve, we were in the east, we only met when we were bored. We could have been playing separate games for all the interaction we had.

rexnervous

03-10-2009, 04:34 PM

Well Molle would be on Shrike 6 if a node hadn't happened to crash and save him. That's not even the worst of their abuses. T20, devs on MSN, POS bowling, aggro abuse then killing logged off titans, DD inside shield, hell their ASCN leaks got so bad that CCP made a rule banning further forum leaks on CAOD.

Erm, what language is this in?

I've been periodically intrigued by the thought of playing EVE, but this post just scares me :)

MJinks

03-10-2009, 04:43 PM

Erm, what language is this in?

I've been periodically intrigued by the thought of playing EVE, but this post just scares me :)Hehe, don't worry. You only need to know that the big alliances have massive egos and a lot to lose. They will try every trick in the book and push every boundary to try and get ahead. It's like real politics but with even less accountability and more propaganda. If you stay out of CAOD (Corporation, Alliance and Organization Discussions forum) then you'll be a lot happier and your doctor will thank you.

There is a lot more to EVE than massive alliance warfare.

Lok

03-10-2009, 04:43 PM

Erm, what language is this in?

I've been periodically intrigued by the thought of playing EVE, but this post just scares me :)
Don't feel bad. I have been playing it casually for 3 years now and didn't understand most of that.

Captain_C

03-10-2009, 04:46 PM

I've been playing almost a year and have no idea what he said either.

FinnAgain

03-10-2009, 05:07 PM

Erm, what language is this in?

"Well Molle [the leader of Band of Brothers, now KenZoku alliance] would be on Shrike 6 [Molle's titan alt, killed numerous times, would be on yet another titan, titan number 6] if a node hadn't happened to crash and save him [the server resources which were being used to host a battle dun crashed, and Shrike's titan was saved from going boom]. That's not even the worst of their abuses. [BoB did it, the bastards!] T20 [a dev who gave BoB free tech 2 blueprints that he cheated to get], devs on MSN [BoB didnt' have to go through the petition queue like normal players, and had developers on their MSN accounts who they could talk to for speedy resolution and/or possible preferential treatment], POS bowling [smashing super-capital ships into player owned stations in order to bump enemy ships out of the forcefield, later declared an exploit] , aggro abuse then killing logged off titans [using spies and in-game mechanics to tag a titan with a micro-smartbomb without him noticing and then probe him down and kill him while he thought he was safe], DD inside shield [totally legal game mechanics whereby if you have the POS forcefield password, you can use a super-weapon that'll breach the forcefield and fuck up shit inside of it], hell their ASCN leaks got so bad that CCP made a rule banning further forum leaks on CAOD [CAOD is the Corporation Alliance and Organization Discussion forum, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. BoB used their spies to publicly post one of their enemy (ASCN's) private forum communications on CAOD]."

This post has been Finned by the Finnist.

MJinks

03-10-2009, 05:11 PM

T20 = A game developer with an ingame character in BoB. He spawned T2 blueprints for BoB.

devs on MSN = I assume that means BoB talking to developers over MSN

POS bowling = When you warp a ship to a POS it bounces off the forcefield if you don't have the password. If you use a very big ship it also bounces out some ships from inside the shields. It was invented by AAA.

aggro abuse = I think I remember (it was after I quit)... When a titan killed someone it created wrecks belonging to the titan owner. By shooting the wrecks you keep the agro timer active allowing you to kill the titan if it logs off (ships with an agro timer don't just dissapear).

DD inside shield = Not sure...

ASCN leaks = BoB used spies to post information from the ASCN alliance forums.

Edit: Well bugger, not only beaten but beaten by much better information! At least I got in a AAA dig ;) .

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 05:19 PM

I've been playing almost a year and have no idea what he said either.

lol...

I'll try and parse it for you. These things are more interesting when they make some sense.

"Well Molle would be on Shrike 6 if a node hadn't happened to crash and save him. "

Shrike is an ALT of Sir Molle, leader of BoB. Shrike has lost more Titans than any other player. Titans are the biggest ship in the game, fantastically expensive (IIRC around 60+ billion ISK each) and take literal months to build just one. I count the losses at four Titans but I easily could have missed the fifth one. I do not pay that close of attention.

"That's not even the worst of their abuses. T20,"

T20 was (is?) a developer at CCP. It was found he spawned a few BPOs that BoB made use of. None were really spectacularly juicy BPOs but still quite the scandal when it came to light. BoB has never lived it down although it is rather old news (two years) now).

"devs on MSN,"

I heard rumors that some BoB members would regularly chat with some CCP developers via MSN chat. Supposedly this allowed them preferential treatment. I do not think CCP did anything they wouldn't have but supposedly at the least an end-run around the petition system where you may have to wait for days for an answer. Not sure if that was all true though...CCP employees do play EVE afterall so are bound to talk to someone out there.

"POS bowling,"

This was a funny glitch in the game. People would leave their spaceships parked at a POS without any pilots in them (they remain in space). The POS (Player Owned Structure) has a forcefield around it preventing an enemy from entering. Players learned that by warping in to the POS they would temporarily bypass the shield. Their ship would immediately be shoved out of the shield but as it passed by ships parked there those other ships would get bumped and fly out of the forcefield. At which point waiting pilots would steal those ships. :cool:

CCP eventually deemed it an exploit and I *think* fixed the mechanics eventually so it could not be done.

"aggro abuse then killing logged off titans,"

I am guessing this is one where BoB had a spy in some enemy corp. The spy was flying as a friendly with a Titan. Unnoticed by the Titan pilot his "friendly" buddy had targeted wrecks the Titan created in combat and "owned" thus keeping the aggression timer running. Pilot logs off and Titan stays right there and proceeds to get owned. Bit fuzzy on the details of that one though.

"DD inside shield,"

DD=Doomsday Device which a Titan uses to blast a whole grid in one go. Dunno what the scoop is with doing it in a shield though.

"hell their ASCN leaks got so bad that CCP made a rule banning further forum leaks on CAOD."

ASCN is a corp (Ascendant Frontier). No clue about why they were banned from the forums. CAOD is a part of the EVE Online forums dedicated to Alliance stuff. It is a pure hell hole of flames and other nonsense. Do not go there.

ETA: Crap...doubly beaten!

MrBerious

03-10-2009, 05:48 PM

Sorry for all the jargon, and thanks to the translators.

mswas

03-10-2009, 05:58 PM

Captain_C

03-10-2009, 06:23 PM

mswas

03-10-2009, 07:44 PM

Heh, I downloaded the patch twice and it was corrupted. 2.27 gig download.

Whack-a-Mole

03-10-2009, 09:03 PM

This patch is angrying up my blood like you would not believe. My laptop will no longer run EVE because I don't have "Shader 2.0" or some other damn thing that wasn't required 24 hours ago. Look CCP, it's my laptop! I don't need graphics on the thing. All I use it for is to sit in station and watch trade channels while I do other things about the house. Seriously, why can't I just turn the graphical interface off if you are going to increase the minimum system requirements so abruptly?! Yarr, this is so unnecessary of a change I could scream!

This is not meant to make you feel better as I'd be pissed too.

That said CCP has been advertising this change for awhile and it is not unnecessary. Well, they probably could have kept going with the original client but they had good reasons to switch (not least that supporting two models created considerably more work for them).

You can see their original blog about the switch here (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=615) and their follow-up blog last January here (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=617).

mswas

03-10-2009, 09:09 PM

The third download was also a wash. This one was done through the website. So I think it's something in their Mac client. Anyone else here running it on a Mac?

Captain_C

03-10-2009, 09:18 PM

This is not meant to make you feel better as I'd be pissed too.

That said CCP has been advertising this change for awhile and it is not unnecessary. Well, they probably could have kept going with the original client but they had good reasons to switch (not least that supporting two models created considerably more work for them).

You can see their original blog about the switch here (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=615) and their follow-up blog last January here (http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=617).

I still don't understand why there isn't an option for a station-only client. I sometimes go weeks without undocking, as most of my time I spend haggling over mineral prices in the trade channels, setting up contracts, running production orders, and shooting the breeze with my corp. If any game could benefit from integrating a web-based interface and an actual graphical client, it's EVE.

I still pine for the day I'll be able to check the market from work in a web browser. One can dream...

mswas

03-10-2009, 09:34 PM

Captain_C That would be totally useful.

Lok

03-10-2009, 09:49 PM

Nice idea. I know some people can interact using mobile phones somehow. Maybe that would work?

Whack-a-Mole

03-11-2009, 08:19 AM

Nice idea. I know some people can interact using mobile phones somehow. Maybe that would work?

The only thing I am aware of that you can do on a mobile phone is a client that let's you see your character details and current skill training status. Nothing you can do though except view it. This is done via the data API available to all players (which allows things like EVEMon to work).

MrBerious

03-11-2009, 08:24 AM

There was talk about a client for mobile phones which would let you mess with market orders and change skills but I don't know that anything came of it. Might be still on the drawing board like comet mining and planetary flight.

aruvqan

03-11-2009, 11:18 AM

actually there was a deal in everquest where you could log a chat client into different realms chats ... I would so love to get into bams spot or corp chat from my computer without being logged into the game ... and if i could do it with my moto m 9 in web surf mode, that would rock!

any chance of a ventrilo for web phoones? lol

mswas

03-11-2009, 01:33 PM

So I finally got it installed and I don't think I can play anymore either. It locks up and crashes as soon as I enter space. Since I entered space already I can't play.

counsel wolf

03-11-2009, 02:23 PM

mswas

03-11-2009, 02:25 PM

And Whack-a-Mole's feared anarchists forge ahead. I am jealous of those of yu that get to play.

Whack-a-Mole

03-11-2009, 02:47 PM

Hmm I found a POS erected in w-space, I wonder if the owner knows that the w-space system he's in has an entrance to goon space.

Ideas for what to do next on a postcard please. It looks like the guy is setting up for some serious pve (claymore, multiple dominxes, transport shops all at the pos).

Currently I'm thinking of dropping 4-5 disposable BS (torp ravens) on them while they're running a sleeper complex.

Well...those wormholes are very transitory. That connection will not last long.

Unfortunately it will be very hard to siege a POS in W-Space. Depends of course on how big the POS is, its defenses and how many battleships or Dreads you can get in.

Mostly POS out there are useful staging areas. You can refit there, maybe build ammo, store loot and so on. No moon poo out there though.

Whack-a-Mole

03-11-2009, 02:51 PM

And Whack-a-Mole's feared anarchists forge ahead. I am jealous of those of yu that get to play.

Can you post your machine's model/specs? Are you sure you support shader model 3 on your graphics card?

Also, have you tried a full delete and re-install of EVE?

If you delete it be sure to delete EVERYTHING. Not sure what might get left behind but clear it all out as best you can.

Update ALL drivers to the latest available.

Do any cleanup on your machine you can (defrag, and so on...whatever you do to a Mac).

Re-boot.

Re-install EVE.

The Batman

03-11-2009, 08:19 PM

I'm loving the new graphics. They make my comp chug a little in certain cases but all in all they are good. I miss my shiny barges though, the new gray is too dull.

mswas: I second the suggestion to re-install. If the 3 previous downloads were corrupt then the fourth one might have been too. It could be the cause of the crashes, since normally being inside the station is what people say lags the most.

Captain_C

03-11-2009, 10:05 PM

And Whack-a-Mole's feared anarchists forge ahead. I am jealous of those of yu that get to play.

If you need me to re-dock you or switch a skill or something, PM me the particulars.

Whack-a-Mole

03-12-2009, 12:44 AM

I'm loving the new graphics. They make my comp chug a little in certain cases but all in all they are good. I miss my shiny barges though, the new gray is too dull.

In the Graphics options menu increase your Shader Quality level. I noticed when playing with it that it can drastically affect the look of the ship. Of course a tradeoff between looks and speed but something you might want to check.

FinnAgain

03-13-2009, 04:46 PM

Not to be a total killmail whore... but this (http://www.eve-razor.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=154545) is why I love Zealots. This (http://www.eve-razor.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=154549) too.

mswas

03-13-2009, 05:02 PM

FinnAgain

03-13-2009, 05:16 PM

Check out the other people on the mails. I beat interceptors to the kills.
And, I should add, I did it from 100 km.

mswas

03-13-2009, 05:47 PM

Ahh I see, so it's the speed you are talking about.

I'm jonesing for a Proteus myself.

FinnAgain

03-13-2009, 05:54 PM

mswas

03-13-2009, 05:57 PM

Well I think the T3 ships are going to dominate here in a minute. The amount of bonuses you get on even the most basic ship are ridiculous. Not to mention that armor is incredibly thick with high resists on a fast ship.

FinnAgain

03-13-2009, 06:00 PM

I haven't checked 'em out in EFT to be honest, well, since there isn't a new EFT version. If they make sense I may train for them. I dunno though...

mswas

03-13-2009, 07:12 PM

I didn't see it in EFT. I just looked at all the Proteus subsystems. Each subsystem not only gives the ship more power than a T1 frig but also has bonuses that come with EACH subsystem. So not only do you get Battlecruiser armor with Heavy Assault Cruiser resists, you also get bonuses that are relative to your skill in that subsystem. So on top of the resists of a Deimos with 3200 armor, you can have +5% resists per level and a bonus to remote armor rep. Then all four other subsystems have 1 or more bonuses, and you can at times get more fitting slots than a regular cruiser, like six highs on the Proteus. So imagine 6 highs, 4 meds, 4 lows, 3200 armor, high base resists, damage bonuses, 5 light drones, 190m/s base propulsion, lower Microwarp/AB reqs, and a big capacitor.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 01:12 PM

I don't plan on flying T3 any time soon. At the very least not until the price comes down far enough that it makes sense to invest in it. And maybe not ever, as I hate losing skillpoints. Even for rank 1 skills.

I think they'll be toys for the people with 4 accounts and 50m sp to play with rather than a common pvp sight like HACs and recons have become.

I did my first wormhole PvE stuff last Saturday. The basic 'unknown' wormhole w-space (the easiest of the 3 levels of w-space) is doable with 2 ratting ships and no real preparation.

We used a cruise raven (fit a sensor booster, there are turrets you can kill from outside their dps range if you do, which is of immense use) and a harbringer to kil the smaller stuff. If I was going again I'd bring a beam apoc/abaddon and a zealot with a pve tank(EANMs + MARII). Both ships need a tank as the sleepers do tend to switch targets on a whim. Don't bring drone boats, they seem to always try to pop your drones (do bring cheap tech 1 drones to use to take the pressure off your tank in an emergency)

Took us about 3 hours to clear out the w-space of anomalies. During this time we probably made about 50m-60m each in tech 3 bits and NPC buy order fluff. That's about what we would have made ratting, without the possibility of faction spawns and with the pain of having to drag loot up to empire. I can't see myself bothering with it again.

mswas

03-16-2009, 01:18 PM

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 02:13 PM

I've been looking at the specs on a Proteus, it's pound for pound the toughest ship in the game. Well Strategic cruisers are. They are far more badass than their T2 equivalents. Sure they'll be limited for a while, but eventually I think everyone will want one. As it is we already had hundreds of Orcas rolling off the lines by this time after the release of Quantum Rise. I am not seeing T3 parts on the market at all. It'll be a while until the game is populated with them, but when they are finished melting down people's Ishtar's they will proliferate.

Unless they're immune to ECM (or falcons get a serious nerf, which is possible) they'll never be worth the money they cost. Sure you'll be able to blow up ratters and people who engage you solo (but hey, you can do that already in a vagabond), but the first small gang you meet is going to take away your expensive toys.

As to availability they take quite a wide variety of stuff to construct (some of it from deadly level wormholes) so it may be a week or so before we see one in game as people are still working out how to cope with that pve level.

FinnAgain

03-16-2009, 03:19 PM

mswas

03-16-2009, 03:19 PM

Is it true that a hi-sec POS isn't a war target in a war?

Unless they're immune to ECM (or falcons get a serious nerf, which is possible) they'll never be worth the money they cost. Sure you'll be able to blow up ratters and people who engage you solo (but hey, you can do that already in a vagabond), but the first small gang you meet is going to take away your expensive toys.

That's a silly notion. Who says I'd be flying alone? Have you looked at the tank on these things?

As to availability they take quite a wide variety of stuff to construct (some of it from deadly level wormholes) so it may be a week or so before we see one in game as people are still working out how to cope with that pve level.

Yeah.

FinnAgain

03-16-2009, 03:43 PM

Is it true that a hi-sec POS isn't a war target in a war?

False.
Unless things have recently changed.

Have you looked at the tank on these things?

Have you been in many fleet fights? Or faced 50+ roaming gangs? I'm not asking to be snarky, but until you've experienced that sort of combat, what counsel wolf is saying probably won't make sense. There's a reason, for example, that all the major alliances use buffer tanks on their fleet ships, and their support ships, rather than active tanks. And that reason is, simply, when you come under fire even the best tank in the game will not have enough time to complete many cycles and the HP's that can be repped are simply insignificant when compared against a good buffer tank.

And your tank really doesn't matter when you come under concentrated fire. Even battleships that can survive double doomsday blasts will melt in seconds flat if the enemy fleet primaries them and isn't lagged to shit. Buffer tanks add valuable seconds (and seconds are life itself in combat). Active tanks mean nothing. Hell, with ten Zealots on you, you've got something like 2500 DPS hitting you, and that's if they're at maximum range. If you're primaried by a sniper HAC gang (and especially if you're bubbled), no tank in the game will save you other than the "GTFO and warp/jump" tank.

FinnAgain

03-16-2009, 04:02 PM

Oh, and checking out the subsystems, I really don't see flying a T3 ship any time soon (and I'm almost at 50 mil SP's myself). My Zealot is already nearly as effective a sniper as the Amarr T3 ship, at a fraction of the cost, and I won't lose a single SP if someone pops my Zealot. If you've got your subsystem skill trained to V, even for a rank 1 sill, that's a hell of a lot of time lost if you get popped. Even losing a subsystem skill at IV would be a real bitch. And unless my math is really off, a T3 ship with subsystems only to III doesn't perform all that well when compared with a HAC/Recon whose pilot has those skills at V. For the price of losing a level IV rank 1 skill ,I'd much rather put half a day of training towards something I'd actually keep once I finished skill training.

Yeah, they do look like fun solo ships, but in a roam or a fleet fight I'd bet they'll be primaried, fast. As it is I wouldn't want to take them out on a solo hunting trip because I'd be nervous about jumping into bubble camps. Hell, my Rapier was almost caught by a bubble camp a few hours ago. And as counsel wolf points out, a Vaga can do the job quite well anyways (at least against anything lighter than a well tanked BS that isn't taking heavy rat fire, or a drake).

T3 seems to be a toy for those with more than enough SP's and more than enough cash.

mswas

03-16-2009, 04:54 PM

I'm not seeing them as solo ships, I am seeing them as Gang ships. But in terms of the Proteus, the tank isn't even active, it's passive, it's got 3200 armor HP native, and resists better than a Deimos/Ishtar if you're using the right subsystem. We're not talking about getting into major combat situations here, that's what the Megathron is for. I'm thinking of it for roaming around W-Space.

As for fleet engagements I've been in ones that involved 40+ ships so yes I know what it's like to watch a Raven pop in like two seconds. That being said, if fleet war was what you were thinking of using the ship for then you've got the wrong idea. Get 5 dudes in a gang with 5 Strategic cruisers, and you're going to have a seriously mean little gang.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 05:49 PM

Get 5 dudes in a gang with 5 Strategic cruisers, and you're going to have a seriously mean little gang.

I just don't see what those 5 guys could achieve in t3 cruisers that the same guys couldn't do in say a falcon 2 vagabonds and 2 zealots for a small fraction of the price and without the annoying SP loss. In fact in a fight between those 2 setups I'd put my money on the HACs and recons.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 06:05 PM

Meanwhile, for those who are curious, Kenny recently fucked the permacamp in Pr- and dropped towers in 49-, after which the AKA (Anti-Kenny-Alliance) forces organized an OP to bust Kenny forces. We failed. Numbers weren't high enough and with 1400+ people in local, we did some damage but ultimately lost close to a dozen cap ships (if not more) for roughly equal support kills on both sides.

Lag was horrible, but combat was still possible.

Razor pilots have been told that at least for the next month or two, there is to be no ratting at all and we're all supposed to be down in the combat theatre with ships that we're not afraid to lose. If we don't stop Kenny here, they'll be able to push back into Delve.

It's not quite the doom and gloom that you might paint it with:

The pr- camp lasted a month, by any metric it was an incredible success. In that month we melted 500 faction poses and took sov over most every system in Delve.

They had to call in help from a vast array of unreliable people to get the camp broken. If AAA+SE+Coven+Atlas+assorted others hadn't come to help them Kenny would still be spinning in pr-. Many of that list are pvpers of the 'good fights' variety who won't hang around for long long meatgrinder engagements.

In the midst of the fight over 49- we managed to break EXE's JB link to empire. EXE is now en route to a slow logistics death.

The timer is ticking on our sov 3s (in fact SVM ticked over today, the other station systems wil follow in the next 10 days or so). Once those kick in kenny is fighting fortress delve again, only this time they're doing it with no income and no place to base out of.

The cap losses hurt for sure, but GS pilots at least get replacements and it's likely other alliances will have similar programs. We also have the dyspro moons of delve providing money, Kenny have no income, their losses will hurt more. What is more worrying is the new physics that occurs when you cyno in a blob of cap ships (I'm sure you'll have heard the RzR crew complaning about this) but that affects both sides.

For all the fact that kenny et al 'won' the battle yesterday we still have a substantial pos majority and they managed to destroy not a single tower. Goonswarm has fought this kind of thing before, losing the fleet battles but winning the strategic war. They have to spend hours each day pounding their BS against resist heavy caldari poses covered in ECM mods, all we have to do is put stront in them and rep them up after the russians go to bed.

As for the 'no ratting at all' rubbish I'd be a little worried about that. generally we see things like compulsory ops and 100% tax rates from our enemies not our allies, if the game ceases to be fun, then someone somewhere is doing it wrong.

mswas

03-16-2009, 06:07 PM

I just don't see what those 5 guys could achieve in t3 cruisers that the same guys couldn't do in say a falcon 2 vagabonds and 2 zealots for a small fraction of the price and without the annoying SP loss. In fact in a fight between those 2 setups I'd put my money on the HACs and recons.

That just doesn't add up mathematically.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 06:18 PM

That just doesn't add up mathematically.

At this point I really have to ask how often you've come up against competent enemy Falcons.

One Falcon can easily remove 2-3 ships from effective combat from 240 km away. There's a reason I admitted in my original post that they're a likely nerf target.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 06:24 PM

Here's a tidbit that might interest people of the popcorn munching delve war spectating variety.

There's long been speculation that the AAA betrayal of goonswarm and ROL's seccession from Red Alliance were fuelled by real world cash from an 'anonymous benefactor' Evil Thug admitted that he had been payed off in a chat we managed to get a transcript of but that was just hearsay etc. Then the following post appeared on the russian eve discussion forums. Theres a post from one guy then a reply from another, the second post is the interesting one (translation courtesy of one of the goonswarm members):

While ROL keeps dumping isk on Ebay and threatens to give everyone the finger, while AAA keeps making evil plans "to kill everyone", while the goons make a home out of their new hive, and while the North is becoming more like the Northwest, the rest of Eve is cramming popcorn by the ton and awaiting the sequel to the prior blockbuster, "Quantum Wars: The Southern Shitstorm 2".

PS: this begs the question "is it really that hard to kill a titan?"

Reply:

Listen, calm down. Everyone here understands that ROL didn't sell a single isk on Ebay. Originally, I put in about 50K cash (buying isk, chars and 5 titans + a ton of masers) from your ratting me out to the GM's (RA's directors = rats, admit it). All of this got banned under the pretext of an exploit that we never used (GM's couldn't prove that I bought isk for RL cash, but I couldn't prove that the isk was legal, either). After that, I bought a ton of timecards from legitimate dealers and, at the moment, have sold more than 1 trillion isk's worth (GM's have confirmed that they know about this and decided that I'm not breaking any rules), bought another five titans, two [more? this is unclear] are still building, and I'm also financing new corps that are coming in. I'll have no problems with [continuing to fund] any of this. So let's not have any dirt thrown around, because if anyone is selling isk here, it's you, and since I know all the gray market dealers I'm going to sell you to CCP at the first opportunity - the next ban is on you.

So we now have a player who has admitted dumping $100k of real money into the current war, which is just incredible.

mswas

03-16-2009, 06:25 PM

At this point I really have to ask how often you've come up against competent enemy Falcons.

One Falcon can easily remove 2-3 ships from effective combat from 240 km away. There's a reason I admitted in my original post that they're a likely nerf target.

I see 240 IS pretty serious. I'll have to look into Proteus E-War setups to check how it rates against a falcon in that regard.

mswas

03-16-2009, 06:35 PM

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 06:46 PM

What's ROL?

A corp that splintered off the main Russian alliance (Red alliance) forming its own alliance (Red.Overlord). The politics behind it are vastly complicated and mostly impenetrable to non russians but the spark event was over goonswarm preventing ROL running a complex in goonswarm space which was worth roughly 1-2b isk per day to them.

It turns out one of the leaders of ROL had sold rights to run this complex to a tenant corp (we think for RL money and which rights were of course not his to sell) and when called out on this chose to declare eternal vengance rather than admit he was wrong. Then people with serious real money started buying up a power block to oppose us which I presented evidence for in a previous post (interestingly enough we have absolutely no reason why)

Now that we've abandoned our old holdings ROL have largely taken them over (including the complex constellation), so we'll see how long they stay interested in the delve war now that there's nothing really at stake for them in it.

counsel wolf

03-16-2009, 07:30 PM

And just to top off my attempts to turn SDMB into a goon propoganda tool (seriously though, remember I'm biased)

http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/mittani

Is a good read for anyone with even a passing interest in EvE. Columns should ideally be read in date order, I wasn't aware of the most recent column when I wrote the post from the rich guy a few posts ago, so that column covers some of the same ground, only better.

FinnAgain

03-16-2009, 09:41 PM

It's not quite the doom and gloom that you might paint it with

Well, not gloom and doom, but 49- is within jump range of 319, and having an enemy foothold in 49- is bad news. The fact is that if we want to turn this into a mopping up action, we have to stop BoB asap.

The pr- camp lasted a month, by any metric it was an incredible success. In that month we melted 500 faction poses and took sov over most every system in Delve.

Oh, undeniably. It worked very well and allowed Delve to be purged. And it was time for it to end anyways. I'd wager that the reason that so much of the NC has drifted away is that PR- brings back bad, bad memories of VFK- and those IRON cowards. Not to compare you to IRON by any extent, but the opening stages of the Max Campaign were some of the worst time I've ever spent in EVE.

In the midst of the fight over 49- we managed to break EXE's JB link to empire. EXE is now en route to a slow logistics death.

That is very good news.

As for the 'no ratting at all' rubbish I'd be a little worried about that. generally we see things like compulsory ops and 100% tax rates from our enemies not our allies, if the game ceases to be fun, then someone somewhere is doing it wrong.

RZR participation has dropped significantly, unfortunately. Largely due to PR-, I'd argue. We had roughly 50 members NPC'ing up in Tenal the night the 49- clusterfuck went down. I can understand compulsory participation and such and I really don't have a problem with it. Most established characters should have a missioning alt or something anyways, and special accommodations can always be made for those who need to earn ISK. Besides, I've never heard PvE described as fun. And we're still allowed to roam ;)

Captain_C

03-16-2009, 11:11 PM

As someone who can't play until he gets a new computer, I must encourage that you guys keep this thread going. If I can't play EVE, at least I can read about it to keep me busy. (my laptop doesn't have the right shader files since the update and my desktop's motherboard is getting flakey)

FinnAgain

03-16-2009, 11:25 PM

BTW... you caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan run EVE without the right shader, you just can't undock or use a mouse cursor. And you run at 1 FPS. But, in case you're able to switch skills or market pvP without a cursor... from a Razor alliance mate:

Did apocrypha kill your skill changing computer? Are u unable to start apocrypha on your computer at work due to it's graphics card not supporting SM 2.0?

Then you've come to the right place.

Visit http://www.transgaming.com/products/swiftshader/

Download the trial version.

Make backups of your D3D8.dll and D3D9.dll files located in your windows\system32 folder.

Extract the D3D8.dll and D3D9.dll files from the zip file you downloaded to the windows\system32 folder.

Start EVE: Apocrypha

Profit

counsel wolf

03-17-2009, 12:33 PM

RZR participation has dropped significantly, unfortunately. Largely due to PR-, I'd argue. We had roughly 50 members NPC'ing up in Tenal the night the 49- clusterfuck went down.

The current AF (assorted 'foes') gang shooting a Dickstartm in 49- numbers 30 BS, down from ~700 a few nights ago. So Razor are doing just fine participation wise, we really appreciate everyone who shows up though, especially in euro time.

FinnAgain

03-17-2009, 02:05 PM

Yeah, I'm sure that the RZR CEO's had a 'come to Jesus' talk with their members, and now participation isn't so low anymore ;) I think most folks in RZR are there because they like pewpew. And now that we're fighting again instead of gate camping, we should see a dramatic change.

Edit: wait, just read that again. The whole gang involved in combat now numbers 30, not 300? Weird... I just noticed that an op had been scheduled since I logged in last night. Ah well... keep up posted please I can't X up just yet.

FinnAgain

03-17-2009, 02:14 PM

Oh, and for those reading along: shameless propaganda. (http://propaganda.eve-razor.com/propaganda16.jpg)

counsel wolf

03-17-2009, 03:39 PM

Oh, and for those reading along: shameless propaganda. (http://propaganda.eve-razor.com/propaganda16.jpg)

Not a bad poster at all that. I'll see if I can rehost some of the better gf.com propoganda posters.

But for now, a restrospective of old goonspace, probably won't mean a lot to the non goons among us but damn if it doesn't bring bacck some memories for me:

http://www.digitalenvy.net/eve/Goonspace_-_A_Retrospective.avi (warning video, and a large one at that)

Gorsnak

03-17-2009, 05:43 PM

Oh man I love those RZR shameless propaganda posters.

FinnAgain

03-17-2009, 06:40 PM

http://www.digitalenvy.net/eve/Goonspace_-_A_Retrospective.avi (warning video, and a large one at that)

Weird... tried it with windows media player and quicktime but all I saw was a blank screen. Still heard the music though.

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 10:16 AM

I haven't checked 'em out in EFT to be honest, well, since there isn't a new EFT version. If they make sense I may train for them. I dunno though...

You can play with the subsystems here (http://www.ellatha.com/eve/T3.asp).

They do not have all five levels yet (only three) and not sure if the stats are current or from the Test server (where CCP only let us play with three levels) but at least gives you a pretty good idea.

Not so sure I like the Legion's possible setups yet but then I have not really delved into it too deeply yet.

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 10:30 AM

I did my first wormhole PvE stuff last Saturday. The basic 'unknown' wormhole w-space (the easiest of the 3 levels of w-space) is doable with 2 ratting ships and no real preparation.

We used a cruise raven (fit a sensor booster, there are turrets you can kill from outside their dps range if you do, which is of immense use) and a harbringer to kil the smaller stuff. If I was going again I'd bring a beam apoc/abaddon and a zealot with a pve tank(EANMs + MARII). Both ships need a tank as the sleepers do tend to switch targets on a whim. Don't bring drone boats, they seem to always try to pop your drones (do bring cheap tech 1 drones to use to take the pressure off your tank in an emergency)

Took us about 3 hours to clear out the w-space of anomalies. During this time we probably made about 50m-60m each in tech 3 bits and NPC buy order fluff. That's about what we would have made ratting, without the possibility of faction spawns and with the pain of having to drag loot up to empire. I can't see myself bothering with it again.

No idea how much I have made out there (not much really yet but I collect it for later use rather than sell). Don't really care. I have other income sources I am happy with.

What I did like was the absolute blast my mates and I had diving into a wormhole.

At first it was just me and two others. I found a WH which was annoyingly loaded with Grav sites filled with mostly frigates and the occasional cruiser. Nothing much to write home about really.

I was getting tired of incessant probing when by pure chance I stumbled on a Mag site. I pinned it down, warped in and hoo-boy! Three Sleeper battleships and 15 artifacts waiting to be looted!

Word went out and three more people came down to tackle it. We ended up with 2x Dominix, 1x Apoc, 1x Drake and 1x Nighthawk with most set to Remote Rep.

This was a Perimeter site so thought this would be relatively easy. Boy was I wrong! Everyone was eager and warped in...took about 10 seconds before cries of "Holy shit! These things hit hard!" started over Vent. Everyone runs away to rep back up and re-think.

This is when I try to position myself better as a warp anchor and learn I could not get closer than 50km without getting de-cloaked. In a CovOps with three enemy BS that was baaad. Got out with about 20% armor (lucky CovOps warp fast and I had armor plates on). Thinking I messed up I try again and yet again. Decloaked everytime although this time I got transversal up immediately upon decloak and ran away unharmed.

We bookmarked a structure and that worked better anyway. Multiple tries as we figured the best approach. We ALMOST had one down when one of the players dropped connection and that made it all fall apart. We were trying again, sure we would do it this time when a fourth Sleeper battleship spawned 73km away and then zooms straight at everyone at over 600 m/s! :eek: That was the end of that venture (oh yeah...someone dropped again and lost their ship).

Did I forget to mention there was a blackhole here? It doubled our speed and halved weapon ranges. :D

Great times though. We were all having a ball.

Can't wait for the next go. I WANT those juicy artifacts!

counsel wolf

03-18-2009, 11:05 AM

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 12:04 PM

Sounded like you had a great time. Was that a normal unknown, a dangerous unknown or a deadly unknown you were in? The description when you show info on the WH (on the k-space side) will tell you it leads to 'unknown parts of space' or will have either of the upgraded adjectives.

Apparantly the sleeper BS have fairly low sensor strengths so ECM supported sniper gangs (not possible in black hole conditions unfortunately) are what is normally used.

I think it was a "Dangerous" but I forget. I am basing that on it being mostly Perimeter stuff inside. I do not know but presume Frontier>Perimeter>Core track with Unknown>Dangerous Unknown>Deadly Unknown.

counsel wolf

03-18-2009, 01:21 PM

I think it was a "Dangerous" but I forget. I am basing that on it being mostly Perimeter stuff inside. I do not know but presume Frontier>Perimeter>Core track with Unknown>Dangerous Unknown>Deadly Unknown.

You're spot on with that presumption. Did you eventually clear the site and get to open the cans?

Also I just re-read your original post.. plates on a covops? An istab would be my normal choice for low slots in a cov ops (after a MAPC)

[Buzzard, exploration]
Inertia Stabilizers II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Small Capacitor Battery II
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Recon Probe Launcher I
Cynosural Field Generator I

Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

This is what I use (there are offline modules in the empty slots, noteably a cyno gen). 2.9 second align time (3.7 without the i-stab) will probably save my ass more often than a small plate. My pvp covops has to use a co-pro to fit a tackle on it (would fit with cov-ops V or EGU V without the co-pro, which I might add to my plan)

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 01:49 PM

You're spot on with that presumption. Did you eventually clear the site and get to open the cans?

Also I just re-read your original post.. plates on a covops? An istab would be my normal choice for low slots in a cov ops (after a MAPC)

Nope...we finally had their number and were working on them when that 4th battleship showed and tipped the scales too far back in their favor. Then another friend got disconnected and that was really that (and the ships popped him). Bummer but still fun.

As for the CovOps I used to do precisely what you said and when in K-Space I fit largely as you suggest.

The reasons for the plates follows:

------------------------------------------------------------
Gamelog
Listener: khalima
Session started: 2009.03.13 03:42:33
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 2009.03.13 03:43:00 ] (notify) Warping to Uncharted Planet I
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:29 ] (combat) Sirius hits you for 773 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:29 ] (combat) Sirius hits you for 446 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:34 ] (combat) Emergent Patroller hits you for 33 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:34 ] (combat) Emergent Watchman hits you for 23 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:34 ] (combat) Emergent Patroller hits you for 33 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:34 ] (combat) Emergent Watchman hits you for 19 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:34 ] (combat) Emergent Patroller hits you for 29 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:35 ] (combat) Emergent Patroller hits you for 51 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:35 ] (combat) Emergent Watchman (Oneiric Missile) hits you for 75 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:35 ] (combat) Emergent Watchman (Oneiric Missile) hits you for 37 damage
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:36 ] (notify) Ship is out of control
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:36 ] (notify) Ship is out of control
[ 2009.03.13 04:02:36 ] (notify) Ship is out of control

There is a bug in W-Space as confirmed by CCP (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1020761&page=6#173) that essentially causes you to warp-to-zero regardless of the distance you select. The way around that is to cancel warp and then warp again. Unfortunately at that time (above) I did not know that and landed smack on top of them and got decloaked. If you look at the time stamp you'll see it took me six seconds to die. By the time I realized I had been decloaked and tried to warp (which I will say I did very fast...surprised myself) it was too late. Six seconds and *boom*.

Plates would have been just enough in the above instance for me to get away. Indeed, not knowing that Sleeper locales (at least the one we were at) have a magic decloaking field the plates did save me and I only got zapped to 20% (or so) armor. Unlike normal rats Sleepers are VERY fast to lock and engage. Nearly instantly.

I am all for the faster warping but I figure the actual difference is maybe a second or so. That buffer helps out there I think.

If zooming through normal 0.0 space I would definitely go back to the i-stabs though.

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 02:09 PM

Just caught this thread on the EVE-O forums.

No idea how good the info is but just in case it disappears thought it'd be good to have somewhere else.

Enjoy!

Here it is my megathread of love on the Sleepers and W-Space. We are the first in EVE to have this info use it wisely and don't give it to people outside of allaince please.

Ok first for the rumors part about the sleeper NPC's:

Quote
Sleepers are omni tanked, exactly same to all damage types.
Sleepers do Therm/EM with their Beam (unknown ratios, presumed 50/50).
Sleepers do Kin/Exp with their missile (ie, one warhead = two damage types), and it's confirmed.
Sleepers have 40km webs. On everything.
Sleepers tend to insta-target drones and pop them. Especially frigates love to do this.
Sleepers can be jammed by ECM. All flavors of racial ECM work, and they work better than multispecs.
2 racials of any race will almost permajam any cruiser, I've only been able to try 3 on a BS, it works most of the time
Sleepers can be nossed for cap. This may reduce their rep chance.
Sleeper BS can neutralize cap from 65-75 km away
Sleepers will spawn massive reinforcement waves at the sight of a capital ship, they spawn 6 battleships for every capital that you bring in.
Sleeper missiles do 5,400 damage to capital ships, but have a large explosion radius (so you can sig tank them)
Sleeper sentries will auto aggro on anything within 150km but can hit further if attacked. They also appear to be immune to ECM.
Sleeper ships seem to stick close to the sentries and might be snipable from 150+km
Sleeper sentries have 15 sec rof
Sleeper NOS range is 40km
Dropping all your drones will distract sleepers from pointing you allowing you to possibly warp out.
Killing last frigate in wave might trigger spawn in plex, so leave one frigate alive.

There are 6 anomolies all of which have randomised atributes with 6 strengths. This means lot of variations of the 6 different anomolies.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p126/danny_the_chimp/anomolies1.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p126/danny_the_chimp/anomolies2.jpg

Now the biggie, referance sheet of Wormholes and their atributes:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p126/danny_the_chimp/a239-k329.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p126/danny_the_chimp/k346-t405.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p126/danny_the_chimp/u210-z971.jpg

SOURCE: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1027376

counsel wolf

03-18-2009, 05:49 PM

Sleepers: Some of those 'facts' certainly are not true of the basic level sleeper sites. As to the 2nd and 3rd tier I have no idea but the 1st level is soloable by a well skilled raven pilot but ideally suited for 2 ships (one BS, one something smaller but fairly durable for popping the frigates).

The cap ship thing is true although anyone who takes a cap ship into w-space deserves to lose it. (There's a post somewhere about how some Systematic Chaos guy lost his dread cos he couldn't hit the fast moving BS rats 'even after he sieged twice' which caused a lot of laughter over our way)

Cov-ops fittings: I find that many exploration sites (even in k-space) decloak me and I'm 100% used to aligning and getting out the second I come out of warp. Living as I do in a cosmos constellation (and thus used to going out exploring just after DT for whatever treasures have spawned) it's just a habit at this stage, I can get all the intel I need from my overview as I GTFO.

Side note: If anyone cares to make a few spacebucks please put up some contracts for sisters probes and launchers in amarr/khanid space. I'll certainly buy them at a reasonable markup over jita prices. I'd also like some info about running missions for the Sisters of EvE, just because I don't have an empire mission running alt and it seems like something all the cool kids are doing.

Whack-a-Mole

03-18-2009, 09:42 PM

Cov-ops fittings: I find that many exploration sites (even in k-space) decloak me and I'm 100% used to aligning and getting out the second I come out of warp. Living as I do in a cosmos constellation (and thus used to going out exploring just after DT for whatever treasures have spawned) it's just a habit at this stage, I can get all the intel I need from my overview as I GTFO.

I am not familiar with Cosmos missions which may be different but I an intimately familiar with NPC rats in all other walks of life in K-Space.

There is a world of difference between them and Sleepers. If you get decloaked in K-Space you have a few seconds to deal with it before the NPCs get on you.

Sleepers are near instant aggro and they positively fling themselves at you (frigs especially but note those miserable sentries are what tagged me while I was nice and motionless for a few seconds). When I got decloaked (as noted above) I was actually surprised I was nearly instantly aware of it and reacted with some speed in selecting a warp out. Was not fast enough (another 3-4 seconds might have done it).

Since then I make SURE I have a planet as near to in front of my line of flight (warp) selected and I hover over the warp button and spam it the instant I detect getting decloaked.

I suppose I should turn on my sound for audio cues too...just been playing without it for so long now I totally forget EVE has sound. :)

FinnAgain

03-19-2009, 01:29 AM

EVE has sound? ;)

counsel wolf

03-19-2009, 02:10 PM

>1000 people in 49-

800 of them AAA+SE+COVEN+SYS-K+EXE+every other alliance that will take russian money.

They are smacking about the goon 'naptrain'

Irony apparantly is lost upon them.

Whack-a-Mole

03-19-2009, 04:18 PM

>1000 people in 49-

800 of them AAA+SE+COVEN+SYS-K+EXE+every other alliance that will take russian money.

They are smacking about the goon 'naptrain'

Irony apparantly is lost upon them.

Err...so who is fighting whom?

Being the hi-sec hugging carebear I am I need to live vicariously through you guys. :D

FinnAgain

03-19-2009, 07:56 PM

Err...so who is fighting whom?

Roughly:

Goons, Pandemic Legion, Razor, Morsus Mihi, TCF
Vs.
Kenny, AAA, EXE and assorted smaller pets

FinnAgain

03-20-2009, 02:32 AM

Oh, and:

I'd also like some info about running missions for the Sisters of EvE, just because I don't have an empire mission running alt and it seems like something all the cool kids are doing.

It's the same as running missions for anybody else. You ideally will pick agents who give you a high percent of combat missions, and grind their missions until you want to shoot yourself in the head. Ideally, a high Social skill will make the process go faster. A high Connections skill will allow you to use higher level agents. Negotiation gives you more cash, which is kinda negligible. And if you're grinding Sisters missions for Sisters mods, you'll want to max out your LP's, so one of the diplomatic skills might make sense.

But, of course, brute force will accomplish the same thing. Just slower.

P.S. I'm feeling lazy and don't want to search through old EVE threads atm. What's your char's screen name in the game?

counsel wolf

03-20-2009, 08:37 AM

P.S. I'm feeling lazy and don't want to search through old EVE threads atm. What's your char's screen name in the game?

Kachiko Sama has the highest chance of me actually looking at the screen at any one time (but I'm perma logged in in 49- atm)

Last night in 49- was interesting. At about 23:30 eve local plummetted from 1200 to about 400, shortly thereafter we had system majority, repped all our pos mods, blew up a Kenny pos that was kited into our prime and saved 9 towers of our own that came out of re-inforced despite AAA having alarmclocked for it. 49- Sov is safe for another day and the meatgrinder continues.

The EXE jumpbridge network to empire no longer exists, I believe the same can be said for beachboys and frontal impact. They are now dependant on cynoing jump freighters through hostile sov systems for their fuel, and we all know how well that will work. The end result of this is that the amount of logistics these guys have to do has gone up massively, and we expect the strain to show, especially on the 'good fights' types in beach boys and frontal impact. EXE are a respectable organisation and will probably work out some way to manage.

Rumours have reached our ears that the drone region russians (specifically those under the command of xxDeathxx) have entered this phase of the war by attacking AAA's northern flank, nothing is yet confirmed but if true this represents a massive blow for the AoF as fighting a 2 front war is something that is nigh on impossible to maintain.

Whack-a-Mole

03-20-2009, 01:39 PM

The end result of this is that the amount of logistics these guys have to do has gone up massively, and we expect the strain to show, especially on the 'good fights' types in beach boys and frontal impact. EXE are a respectable organisation and will probably work out some way to manage.

What are "good fights" types? Trying to get it from context but coming up with a few reasonable alternatives.

Lok

03-20-2009, 02:05 PM

The kind of person that just wants a fight, win, lose or draw, as long as it was tough and fair.

counsel wolf

03-20-2009, 02:09 PM

What are "good fights" types? Trying to get it from context but coming up with a few reasonable alternatives.

It referrs to a certain mindset of 0.0 denizen and their attitude to combat.

Such people tend to rove around in gangs of fast nimble ships picking off ratters, haulers and other people to pad their killboard while studiously avoiding anything that looks like a fair fight or a strategicaly important battlefield. The classic ships are sabres and vagabonds supported by falcons.

Such people are generally the first to leave an alliance that is failing, typically because they have great killboard stats they go to another 'elite PVP' alliance where they will suffer the same fate again when they come up against people who measure success in sovereignty terms (primarily goonswarm, the old russian alliances and our friends).

Frontal impact and beachboys are like poster boys for the good fights movement. There's currently 5 of them camping c3n station with expensive ships annoying a few industrial alts going about their business. In the meantime the strategic stuff is taking place in 49-.

Goonswarm loves fighting against alliances populated by 'good fights' types because we know they'll link ratter kills in local and brag about it but will be strangely absent when the big grindfests for system sov roll around.

counsel wolf

03-20-2009, 02:14 PM

The kind of person that just wants a fight, win, lose or draw, as long as it was tough and fair.

There's a few of these around as well, and fair dues to them but the inverted commas in my original usage was an allusion to the difference between what the people I described say and what they are.

In general sov battles aren't won by fighting fair fights between equal numbers of shining knights on the field of honour but by a willingness to stack the game in your favour and sheer determination not to lose, to go back when you lose a ship and get another. It's quite an exhausting playstyle, because you don't get to choose when to fight as often as you would like but the reality is that if you try to fight fair, you will lose.

FinnAgain

03-21-2009, 09:38 PM

Awesome day today. Spent way too long in 49- shooting POS'. Sucked. Then when we were done incapping stuff, we went back to our staging area to switch out to HAC's as we heard reports of a smallish Kenny gang in/around UHKL.

Along the way, scouts reported that there were actually two red gangs that, together, were way above our numbers. We engaged anyways, and managed to pull out roughly equal kills. (http://www.eve-razor.com/killboard/?a=kill_related&kll_id=156375) Fights like this are why I love EVE.

counsel wolf

03-22-2009, 09:25 PM

We stole a Beach boys tower (although they blew up the cloaking transport ship we were stealing it with because I couldn't find a second dictor to slow them down enough on their way into the system). Essentially we traded a blackbird, a dictor and a transport ship for a large tower kill. We also heard news of Kenny mining in high sec, as well as the 49- guys doing a good job all day.

Yes, today has gone 'rather favourably' for us.

FinnAgain

03-22-2009, 10:50 PM

I keep missing all the fun in 49- .
Every time I've been there recently, it's been POS, POS, POS. Last night, right after I logged, we engaged and destroyed a small battleship gang. Figures.

P.S. For anybody interested in learning PvP, even Empire dwellers, the Tribune is going go be running a series on Agony starting this week and continuing on as their PvP courses do each month. Check it out if you're curious.

Whack-a-Mole

03-23-2009, 01:52 PM

Ok...need a ruling.

In the difficulty levels for Sleeper sites, from easiest to hardest, is it:

Perimeter > Frontier > Core

or...

Frontier > Perimeter > Core

counsel wolf

03-23-2009, 07:23 PM

Frontier > Perimeter > Core

If memory serves.

counsel wolf

03-23-2009, 07:25 PM

I don't want to post my own opinions on this yet, but I'm interested in what others think about today's events vis-a-vis kenzoku being renamed by a GM. Any thought?

FinnAgain

03-23-2009, 08:52 PM

BoB Reloaded: Whoa!

Ahem.
Off the cuff... it seems to be preferential treatment as CCP's own official policy says that players, corps and such cannot be renamed. But they don't explicitly mention alliances. IIRC, one alliance in the past was renamed but in exchange for doing that they had to pay 1 bil Isk and agree to have all their sov reset. Of course BoB (back to BoB now, just when i was getting used to them being Kenny, heh) don't really have sov except in a few systems but in keeping with precedent they should, at least, have had that sov stripped and charged. I don't think it matters much, but it sticks in my craw a bit.

Oh, and, 49- today was hilariously fucked. Our (Razor's) fleet was nearly double DD'd along with Morsus Mihi's fleet when Pandemic landed on a fight and cut loose without regard for blues. We joked about that for a while on our way back to 9CG-.