Some links...

Two links that have been shown on the eve launcher are worth having a look at.

This new player faq was well needed:
http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/communityassets/pdf/EVE-Online-New-Pilot-FAQ.pdf

And a rookie to Eve had been posting about his starting experiences in eve...
CCP linked them as part of a dev blog.
It may not be the first vid blog to do so but I think this one is good and I can see the new player experience afresh from the perspective of a seasoned game player. 

I found myself calling "no, no click here" hehe etc. It's good to be reminded of the starting experiences, it's been a while since I've done that and last time I skipped a lot of content.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsvxVxcp9UQ&list=PLXRI50zcGfPAPLDbn3jnvS4mphUvo0QyD

Some more time to rant and waffle...

No real point to this post... just a rant and waffle.... (waffle, vague speech or writing)

With a game that's been on the go for just over 10 years, and one that is so player driven I am surprised that there is not more out of date information littering the net. 

I hate seeing posts about Eve when done by players in a very skewed arrogant way, that are along the lines of this quote:  

 "A solo player can run the sites and earn some seed money, PI earns 5-10B/month, especially for the direct-highsec systems. So these systems are ideal for someone who is new to WH space to learn the ropes."


That's a line from Greedy Goblin's latest post about his current existence checking out life as a wormhole resident. Granted he has a few accounts and a load of pilots trained on them. As he says "With 12 trained pilots (only 4 accounts)".   Only..... ONLY 4 accounts... yea that is some skewed perspective compared to the normal Eve gamer. What's normal in Eve!! I have 2 accounts and even if I was playing 24/7, 7 days a week I don't think I would have enough isk scheme's to buy plex for them, never mind make Billions from PI.


These types of bloggers assume that players earn massive amounts of isk in game. There is an undertone of snobbery that smells like players can make that kind of money if they really tried. As if everyone's brain was wired the same way. So whatever perspective he ends up doing a conclusion on his WH venture I'll be taking a 12 Kilometer backstep before reading it. But I'll still read it.


I guess my gripe is that the top 1% that can make the game twist to their financial tunes, in a big way and they do a lot of blogging.
It just bugs me. That's just me, probably because people like that get to be heard first and influence more. Both in a good and bad way. 

Gevlon our greedy goblin for instance, his last venture was to go gank miners on some minor pretence that they were not fitted correctly, and he blew up a LOT, Billions a month. So really his only claim to fame is that he has a massive spreadsheet brain to farm isk on the markets and then use it for whatever pigeon brained idea he thinks is important at the time.

I just realise that in ranting on I've singled out Gevlon, this is really not a personal attack on him. He just happened to be the last post I read before the pot boiled over on what has been simmering in my thoughts for a while. 
Now I have a blog and I can rant online.

Imagine I had a shiz load of isk like him and I decided to mess with his shiz in game. Neither fair nor warranted and I wouldnt' want it happening to me. But its the game and can be done, it doesn't mean its right.

There is a lot of that in this game... boiled down its the same as having power and can step on someone cause its easy. 

A person with a voice online, a load of isk in game can do a lot of bad, I've never really seen people do good. Sindel is probably the only one I know of that has done good with her Angel Project.  But even she was abused.

I'm not talking about people donating plex for good, good and bad, I'm talking about in game as players. It's a fine line. A lot of people say they dont' role play and when they play Eve they play as themselves, but that's not 100% true, everyone is escaping to a universe far way, this one just lets you be brutal without the RL consequences.


I think I've done enough waffle for today...
My current games are Splintercell Blacklist, Xcom Enemy Within.  WoW and Eve of course.
I may get one more post in before the real Chimbo season starts.

Faffing about with Eve.

With my recent dental problems I've not been in the mood to do a lot over the last week. So not a lot was done in gaming, never mind posting stuff up here…but I still got to faff about with Eve.

My main finished off a few level 4 SOE missions to get enough LP to buy the SOE frig BPC – and built it. I did enjoy having both my mains in command ships blasting npc's like the proverbial knife through butter. I got a chance to check out the new remote tractor unit while doing so and its a great help. 
That's one ship built for both mains and my "better" alt. It's nice to build something special like that, not sure why I never really did it before.

I had cast an eye on the cruiser BPO's, at the time the cost of buying the BPC and materials was cheaper than buying the finished cruiser. This peaked my interest as I could invest in a few BPC's add in the minerals, produce the ships and sell on contract or market for a profit. 

The only reason I have not done so was due to the small margins on big investments. There is such heavy market undercutting and the time sensitive nature means pressure to sell quickly. Was a nice idea better left to the bigger market moguls.

In messing with fits I had my main alt in a Level 4 mission hub, a Raven with ammo and a remote tractor unit in the cargo and a flight of salvage drones as well as the full flight of 5 medium drones for combat. Solo level 4's with that arrangement would have seen me never getting a second account! 

I took my lil Minmatar alt out for a spin in a cov-ops frig to see if I could do any of the data and relic sites. Just as I was about to log off I read online that the sites were mainly spawning in COSMOS constellations. 

The penny had dropped! So I set course and within 2 jumps there I had scanned down a data site.

The systems are all around the 5.0 security statues. Safe enough as long as you are not silly.
I got to do a few data and relic sites and despite some can's blowing up, the lil mini game is addictive if not overly lucrative… 
I had aimed to skip data sites and do relic sites as the community blogs were saying data sites are just not worth it, that relic sites are the most profitable. Overall I've found the opposite way has been true for me so far. Well to clarify both versions of the sites were not giving me any great loot. But I did them all as I needed the practice. Of the sites I did, only one item was good, a circuit from a data site that was worth 2.4 Mill all the rest was rubbish.
The loot explosion is annoying and  the randomness of what you get in no way bears any resemblance to the cargo scanned loot you see. 
The mini game is a lil random and you really get about two chances at it before the “can” explodes. If you don't get to pickup the wrench or "data cache" in the game you may have an "unsuccessful" attempt.
Interesting lil venture but I won’t be making a living out of it. 

Spending the time in null is a much more steady stream of income. If reds are around and I can't do things in null at last I now have another lil diversion.

Because....

It's been in my head since I posted the last one....

Good weekend... Bad Monday...

Yesterday saw me going to the dentist… half day from work….. things went downhill fast and ended up having a surgical extraction, with some minor bone loss on the jaw, needless to say the pain and swelling is huge. But the tablets are helping, even if it is making me somewhat sleepy, have to go back next Monday to get the stitches out. Charming! So work today is an effort.

Last weekend saw the usual on eve – character skill checks. 

Last Friday night saw my main alt do a few level 4's with a m8 for SOE LP's. He was on an alt as well so I didnt' get to see his main in his new shiny Paladin... next time!!

My Null sec alt had reds in every system throughout the weekend, but I was surprised to see some people went about their business as normal, undocking haulers. Silly people imho.  

When things were clear I did a good bit of ratting over the weekend, good PI processing as well but no mining. I also got to move and sell off some stuff from the null haul, so much so that the alt has well covered the cost of ships and gear moved out to null. From here its all profit! ;)

______

Over the weekend I also got a chance to play more Xcom-Enemy Within. Am glad its proving to be a better game than the original. I am taking my time with it, trying to get as much research done and to produce a good base. I've not gone back to my old ways of replaying when I loose a soldier. I'm looking to create a good few soldiers that I can use and equip them all well.

Not that I fly them....

But something interesting about carriers.

Posted here:http://targetcaller.blogspot.ie/2013/12/mobile-depots-carriers-and-you.html

From a quote on Jesters blog.

The quote being:

“Entertainingly, the Thanny dropped a mobile depot, refit warp core stabs, and warped away from the Nyx's tackle!”

I have to agree that it sounds like a brilliant maneuver.

It was part of this story: http://evenews24.com/2013/11/26/solar-fleet-nyx-down/

Great reviewer.

I only started watching the "angry" review series when I saw one detailing Guild Wars 2.
With a sale on steam I saw that Rome Total War 2 was 50% off, so I decided to see if they fixed any of the problems since if came out. This review stopped me buying it, but is a hilarious 44 minutes that is well worth watching.
My favourite part is the ship glitch that makes it look like a sandworm from Dune, the Dune music as it drifts through the sand is a classic moment.

Eve Online - Review by Gamespot.com

A nice honest and up to date review:
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/eve-online-review/1900-6415576/

The shakes....

Over on http://www.ninveah.com/2013/12/blog-banter-51-shakes.html a good post had gotten a few bloggers to comment about the subject of 'the shakes' that players get when engaged in pvp.

A great post about their own experience is http://evehermit.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/bb-51-avoidance/

I've felt my heart pounding and I've done the irrational reactions when being engaged.
Calm and logical thought goes out the window for me especially when I was first starting to get targeted.
For me it started in hi-sec being targeted/scanned when flying cargo ships.
Then when trying to get into activities that included low-sec space ( mainly cosmos missions ).
But it wasnt' until I entered Null for the first time that it became such a common occurrence that I really got used to it. I got used to expecting incoming fire/neuts/webs/scrams etc. I learned to predict things I'd run into, and in doing so how better to defend against them. I'm not saying that I don't get a tingle of excitement or an increase in heart rate, I do. But it isn't incapacitating to my gameplay anymore.


A few posts I did when trying to get my lil amarrian alt into null to get jump clones "the easy" way are the best example of how my experience has varied my gameplay in comparison to my earlier eve days.
Before, I would have been docked for hours trying to mull over the should I or shouldn't I consequences before an undock and go, if it even happened at all. Now with that alt I just undocked went and did it, got blown up twice then went back for more and got blown up, got what I wanted and got blown up again. Granted I lost 53 mill in implants for not thinking it through enough but they are replicable.
So better to have gone and done it even with 4 explosions (two ships and two pods), than to have sat in station mulling over the repercussions and what if's.

The key to loosing the shakes is to get rid of the risk, not the risk you are going into but the risk of loosing something you have, lessen the value of what you are invested in flying with. Expect the worst.
Fit that tank on your hauler and loose the low cargo extender and fit a warp stabiliser instead. If you expect to loose it you'll be surprised to live and dock, then get to do it again.

another example is with hauling loot out of null, this for me would have had my heart in my throat, but now I'm reading intel and judging the best time to move, in a well fitted ship, with the support of an alt, its a risk but at least its a minimised risk.

The old saying of "Never fly something (or with something in the cargo) you can't afford to lose" is as true today as it was years ago.

A lot of people talk about this trailer and mock it. I really like it as it gives a true reflection of what happens in game, from a players perspective and is a lot truer than the other trailers, good as most are.


This is another great post that is also linked to the theme of how connected people are to Eve, worth a read.
http://vonkeigai.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-fundaments-of-eves-design.html

Eve Text Adventure

Only came back across this link recently, worth a look for shiz and giggles.

When Incarna was released the disappointment and reactions of people were obvious, but this link is the best way to relive that time :   Incarna: The Text Adventure


I also recall a funny video that included a voice over from a Russian Call of Duty character.... gonna have to try and find that .....

A few bits.... Boosters and Ships.

Came across a post on reddit's eve section where a player was asking about drone boats still being an acceptable missioning ship.
People in reply give some good info. The main ship in question is the Dominix. I've not used a Domi in a while but I think I'll have to dust mine off ( on my main ) and give it a refit.
The parts that sounded good were these:


Run remote armour reps on your drones
Use a target painter 

Use Garde II's drones 
Fit a MJD to maintain distance 

I'll need to test things like the range of reppers and target painter, see what drones are usable and a reason to test a micro jump drive... never used one before.

There was also this post about using boosters.  I've never used them as the drawbacks are not worth it. But I did do a good bit of research about it a while ago when looking into production for my own POS. I found that the Synth version was legal and had not drawbacks, but only gave a 4% boost in its stat, that 4% is better than nothing. But he cost may not outweigh the benefit. It is a per player thing. The graphic from the post is really good and lists all the info you need. Gonna repost that pic here not to infringe on copyright (credit is listed on the pic already) but to share the information.

Jester has a good post about the Crow (Caldari Interceptor), like the ship, had one because I could fly it but never used it in anger lol, this fit may tempt me.

The new Sisters of Eve Battleship was revealed, although there are some jokes about that compair it to a blender, I think it does look good. And I'm very interested in the "rescue shuttle" bay.