a merry life and a short one

Things I Am and Could Have Been

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:17:00 +0000

Congratulations on the mess you made of things

I'm trying to reconstruct the air and all that brings

And oxidation is the compromise you own

But this is beginning to feel like the dog wants her bones, say

Tv On the Radio - DLZ

It's over.

So I got to spend a month in charge of an alliance. After losing a fairly large corp, while the DRF closed in, I took over the reins from an alliance leader who needed a break.

I'm a PvPer. I'm a PvEer. I do it all in this game. I don't like the neat stratification that everyone wants everyone else to be a part of. If you're on my side of the wars, you're on my side. I don't care if you're a carebear or the most hardened PvPer out there. There are no people that are less than me, just people who need to be educated and people who don't.

Still it was a change to go from the voice of reason and experience to the guy they have to listen to. To be sensitive to the amount of respect I get publicly... because I usually don't care. An alliance leader getting dissed is a big deal... because if it's not made into one... the level of respect for that leader goes down a lot. You gotta handle it carefully.

With help from subordinates(and a healthy dose of delegation) I got a moon mining/reaction operation underway providing the alliance with a few billion a month in income... our own set of renters were also paying us for the use of our space. I got a program going that provided pilots with PvP capable ships pre-built and ready to go. I got a mineral buy-sell program working for our miners. I improved our previously dismal participation in CTAs. There was a lot of contribution from the alliance members.

Of course, the time came for us to make a decision on staying or going. I made the decision to get out of Tenerifis. Since two weeks ago when I called that, the DRF has pushed all the way to our front door. They haven't started hitting our space, but then again... it's not really our space anymore anyway.

I've left the alliance, another of the larger corps has left as well. Split Infinity is down to 127 members. Half of that is almost certainly alts. The alliance hasn't completely failed, but it's coming close.

I had a lot of fun in there, and am only a little bit annoyed that my first foray into alliance leadership had to come at such a bad time for the alliance, but sometimes that's how it goes.

I got a little taste of a completely different gaming experience.

I think I like it.

Raise What's Left Of The Flag

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:08:00 +0000

The madness that you feel will soon subside
So in a word don't shed a tear
I'll be here when it all gets weird
If I ever leave this world alive

Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive

PvP in low sec can be a lot of fun if you do it right. With that in mind I loaded up a T1 frigate and headed through low-sec with a small gang of alliance mates in their own frigates.

After passing through Rancer and Criliere without incident, I headed down to Metropolis. I'd tried to get someone to come and meet my gang earlier in the day, but no one was available on such short notice, so I passed by Evati without meeting any Bastards, and through Gusandall without meeting anyone from Mean Corp. I took the gang through one of the 2/10's in the area, just to show them that making money in low-sec is pretty easy. After that, we headed Amamake way.

That was a bit more fun... a little bit down the pipe, in Orfrold, we found a Hurricane in a belt. It took us a while, but he died, and we looted the field just as an anti-pirate gang came rolling through. After taking the time to wait out our GCC, we headed out again. Just as we went through the gate into Klogori, the Hurricane pilot was waiting on us in Dramiel. I knew that with gateguns on his side, he could conceivably take out our whole fleet, so I gave the order to warp away. As we began to warp away, he tackled one of our pilots... one he'd apparently shot first in the last system.

Gate guns go hot, and his Dramiel goes flashy. I stop myself, call a stop on comms, and target the Dram. Unfortunately due to the delay, the only pilots who didn't warp were myself and the one the Dram had tackled.

The other pilot in my fleet had the good sense to point his opponent as well, and I put my autocannons on from 20k away in an epic piece of killmail whorage.

After that we settled down and kept burning to Amamake. Once we got there, I told the rest of my pilots to blitz into the remaining belts. I warped into belt 3-1 for what I assumed was a quick death. An Ares and Caracal were waiting on me.

The Ares instalocked me and the Caracal began to shower me with missiles. I called my mates in, who quickly tried to swarm the Ares. Apparently he was a bit better of a pilot than I thought, cause he kept point on me most of the fight and avoided the rest of my fleet. After a certain amount of time a Mach and a Daredevil came in to join the fray.

At this point it was a Mach, a Dram, a Daredevil, and a Caracal against 2 Rifters, 2 Crucifiers and 1 Punisher. The Mach took a few potshots at me but failed to hit, while the Daredevil tried to close in. Very quickly one of my fleetmates scrammed and webbed the Daredevil, about 50k away from where I was. I gave up on getting out alive myself, and ordered everyone else to swarm the Daredevil. Just as I did the Mach switched targets and managed to one shot one of my gangmates.

The Ares and Caracal kept working on me, just as a mistake of mine caught up to me.

I'd overloaded my AB for too long, and it shut down. I almost caught it in time but no dice. If I had, I might've been able to shake the Ares long enough to get away(as I'd done a few times already, without actually warping out). But without the AB, he kept a nice normal circle going and the Caracal whittled me down. This whole time of course, the rest of my gang is finishing off the daredevil. Around this time, another one of my gang got oneshotted by the Mach.

Right around the time I popped, the Daredevil died, and almost immediately another gangmate got oneshotted.

I gave the order for all surviving fleet members to warp out, get to safes and then get out through the Osoggur gate and into high sec.

The final battle was ill concieved, but with the roam over, I wanted to go out with a bang. Luckily we killed the Daredevil, which more than made up for the loss of the t1 frigates. Plus we had some fun, which was the whole point of the outing.

Sometimes the inherent problem with piracy and low-sec seems so apparent. I love to visit, but I don't want to live there. But if I make enough visits... I HAVE to live there.

Anyone else feel that way sometimes?

I've Said Too Much

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:35:00 +0000

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight, I'm

Losing my religion

R.E.M. - Losing My Religion

So the battle for HED-GP was kind of a downer. The DRF brought an overwhelming supercap blob, and we decided not to engage at all. I did however, get some neat pictures of our fleet in transit.

After I got back home, downing a Interdictor along the way, I snapped a picture of my new Chimera. It's so pretty.

Voices From The Void: Episode 16

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:13:00 +0000

Voices From The Void and You. In perfect Harmony.

Voices From The Void: Episode 15

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Don't forget to check out Voices From the Void Episode 15!

Voices From The Void: Episode 14

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:56:00 +0000

Don't forget to check out this week's episode.

Or our session with White Tree of the CSM!

It's not like I was pretending to be nice...

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:58:00 +0000

The man said, "Why do you think you here?"
I said, "I got no idea"

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

So, I've been recruiting into my corporation. Things have been going well so far, a bit slow but that's expected. I did however, just kick out one member of my corporation for breaking the one corp rule we have. That rule is "don't be stupid,".

Now, I'm willing to accept some losses. This is not an elite PvP corp. However, when I talk to a member about his poor piloting, or poor fitting, he can be either apologetic, defiant, or ambivalent. Only one of those options will make me willing to overlook a stupid loss or a terrible fit. If I'm talking to them about a loss, they better listen, and I'd better KNOW they're listening.

So when this guy lost a Noctis worth a billion isk in high sec, I chatted with him about it. Nothing too mean, just offered him a fit to use in the future that would make a gank like that expensive and hard to pull off in a limited time frame. Then we discussed his terrible Devoter fit.

He was not receptive enough to the advice I offered, so I handled it the best way I know how. I waited for him to dock his ratting Archon and I kicked him out of the corp. I took his access away in a variety of places and waited for the inevitable convo. When it came, I accepted it.

Hallan Turrek > Get a cyno set up and get the fuck out.
Hallan Turrek > Have a nice day.
Sanctus Angelus > wtf?

And that was that, I closed the convo. He wasn't done yet though. Local lit up almost immediately.

Sanctus Angelus > yo you could have let me jump out at least
Sanctus Angelus > ?
Hallan Turrek > Eh, if you set up a cyno now, you'll probably get out in one piece.
Sanctus Angelus > if your were gonna kick me you could at least let me get my shit out
Hallan Turrek > Hey. You read the rules.
Hallan Turrek > I wasn't kidding.
Sanctus Angelus > what did i break?
Hallan Turrek > "don't be stupid"
Hallan Turrek > So really just the one rule I have.
Sanctus Angelus > how was i stupid then?
Sanctus Angelus > for being ganked in high sec?
Hallan Turrek > Ahh, see you're wasting precious time. Right now no one in here will gank you if you undock. You should get on that, get a cloak and wait till you get that cyno going.
Sanctus Angelus > way to be an asshole

Indeed.

Voices From The Void: Episode 13

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:48:00 +0000

Voices From The Void is a podcast. As much fun as it was doing ENN, I found that there was often much more to talk about than I could fit in a video that was less than 10 minutes long.

After I met the always awesome Arydanika, we decided to start a podcast of our own. We’ve been going strong a while now, and if you’d like to get updated on current events (and perhaps get a laugh every once in a while), download the podcast… or visit the youtube channel. It’s always less than an hour, by design(and not, say anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours like other podcasts). Enjoy the show and remember to listen to the voices. The musical parody is only available on the site itself, not on youtube.

Listen on iTunes.

Listen on our site.

Listen on youtube:

Check out the shownotes!

Voices From The Void: Episode 12

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 06:02:00 +0000

Back to Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 18:58:00 +0000

Nobody said it was easy

It’s such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be this hard

Aww take me back to the start

Coldplay - The Scientist

So, I was surfing the forums and noticed quite a few topics on suicide gankers in C&P. One of those things I've only done a little of in my past. Most people that have followed this blog for long periods of time know that there are few things I won't try at least once. So I loaded up EFT and put together a fit that I figured could take out a Hulk in one shot.

[Tempest, All In]
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I
Ballistic Control System I

Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution
Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution
Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution
Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution
Warp Disruptor I

1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
1400mm Carbine Howitzer I, Republic Fleet EMP L
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile

It's one thing to have a fit that can theoretically do the job, quite another to do it. The first attempt was a failure. I fired before my speed lowered(as I came out of warp), and was far to close to the ship I was aiming for. As a result, I did no damage and was destroyed.

I waited out my timer and started again. This time I approached my target, who was sitting still. With 0 transversal, the Hulk popped in one go. The added bonus was that it was the same Hulk I'd shot at before. In full view of Concord that were still in the belt.

So, to ensure that wasn't just a fluke, I tried again. Same result, another dead hulk.

This was sorta fun, so I decided to do it once more before clone jumping back down to null-sec. The net loss on each gank is about 25 million(after insurance). But if you have an alt available to salvage/loot, that's lessened somewhat. The real trick is checking the ships beforehand to see if they have valuable loot. Hitting the right ship can generate a tidy profit.

I decided to pick on pilots that were probably bots. Given that my first target was still there when I got back after a 15 minute wait, I'm pretty sure I nailed that one. All that said, I believe the fit I'm using is using to many modules. The missile launcher/sensor boosters are really not needed, but they're relatively cheap, so I'm not too worried about it.

Still, a fun excercise.

Voices From The Void: Episode 11

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 02:11:00 +0000

Voices From The Void is a podcast. As much fun as it was doing ENN, I found that there was often much more to talk about than I could fit in a video that was less than 10 minutes long.

After I met the always awesome Arydanika, we decided to start a podcast of our own. We've been going strong a while now, and if you'd like to get updated on current events(and perhaps get a laugh every once in a while), download the podcast... or visit the youtube channel. It's always less than an hour, by design(and not, say anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours like other podcasts). Enjoy the show and remember to listen to the voices.

Listen on iTunes.

Listen on our site.

Listen on youtube:

Check out the Show Notes

The Rifter Renaissance

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:49:00 +0000

Came the last night of sadness

And it was clear she couldn't go on

Then the door was open and the wind appeared

The candles blew and then disappeared

The curtains flew and then he appeared

(Saying, "Don't be afraid")

Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

Ok, so I've been a bit deficient in PvP in these last few months. Maybe even up to a half a year. Not much point in it, no profit in it. No fun in it.

I started to wonder why I wasn't going out to PvP at all, and I realized it was a base fear of losing my ship to lag. As CCP has improved their game, they've curtailed my gaming experience more and more. But fuck it, I want to go shoot something.

I put a Rifter together a while back for my pirate alt, and never used it(the ship or the alt). So I hopped into the ship on Hallan, and set out for the horizon. Alone.

At first I was snaking my way through Tenerifis, then Detorid. I found nothing to shoot and made it out to Insmother. Deeper into DRF space. I spotted what was likely some juicy targets in KD-KPR, and forged ahead.

No one saw me all the way there, so I was able to jump into system without them being warned. Sadly, due to my own mistake(I hit the button too fast) the system scanner refused to work for me. I decided to try my luck at a belt and picked one at random.

I landed on a ratting Drake, and being that I was in a flimsy rifter I pointed him.

After he recovered from the sheer manliness of that move, he launched drones and started hitting me. Sadly the Rifter was MWD fitted, and while I'd already turned it off, the missiles still hurt. So after shooting down a Warrior I for spite, I warped myself out.

After a short rest, I shotgunned another system, landing on a Haven just as it's occupant warped away. After that I decided that Etherium Reach might hold more promise, and after cutting through The Spire, headed straight for LXQ2. Hopefully something there could kill me.

Of course I arrived on the gate to low sec without incident.

Going through was even more boring, and I started to imagine that all of EVE was conspiring to ruin my roam.

So after burning to Akkio, I was about to head into high sec. But then I spied an Ibis, 400 kilometers from the gate. I overshot the pod, as the Ibis died far quicker than I imagined... and missed it as he warped himself away.

It was no one else's fault but my own. Sloppy flying by a rusty pilot. At least it was just an Ibis this time.

So now I had a GCC to wait out, which gave me time to notice how close I was to Evati. I couldn't pass that close to my old home with the Bastards and not stop by, so after a wait, I headed out.

Sadly the system was dead, so I decided to check out the 2/10 that Kane Rizzel patrols regularly in Gusandall. The entry key had already been taken, so I docked up, quite despondent.

Then with a puff of inspiration, I decided to visit the system where I got my very first piratey kill. Sure enough, there was someone in the system. I warped myself to one of the belts near the center after a scan confirmed he wasn't near the gate. The first belt I landed in was a bust, but I quickly narrowed him down with a directional scan.

I landed 30 kilometers away from him. I moved to close immediately He was still fighting an Angel Defacer, it popped just as my scram landed, and our dance started. His web took hold of my ship, and my guns began to burn through his shields. In mere moments my own shields had disappeared, and I started taking armor damage. I kicked my repper and nos on and watched as the last of his shields evaporated.

Almost as quickly, his armor and then his hull were gone. I did not repeat my previous mistake, and snagged the pod this time. After a closer look at his fit, I realized he'd shield tanked it. An odd choice, but his to make. I scooped the loot, waited out my timer, and docked up in Emogranlan.

Maybe not as much action as I was expecting, but a clean kill comes so rarely to me these days. I'm happy with that.

The Noble Exchange/Red Light District

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:30:00 +0000

That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don't like it, leave.

Blake - Glengarry Glen Ross

A while back I showed you a picture of the currency exchange that demonstrated money spent, and then consumed by the CCP monster. It turns out that I was a little off. I've had a chance to take a look at the new noble exchange store, and I've changed my mind considerably. So here's a new image that helps demonstrate the currency cycle in EVE just a little bit more effectively.

So who's ready to start buying clothes for their avatar ingame that have similar costs to the same clothes in real life?

Lets compare a men's dress shirt in eve to the same dress shirt elsewhere. Quoting from Riverini's post on EN24:

- Men’s ‘Sterling’ Dress Shirt – 3.6k AUR -> 0.97 PLEX -> $16.97 -> 388 Mil ISK

17 bucks for a dress shirt for your Avatar. Neat. How much would a dress shirt actually cost me down the street? 11 bucks at Walmart. I would link it but that seems like free advertising for them, and I'm not cool with that.

When ingame items of similar use for your goddamned Avatar cost you more than the actual item in real life... something's fucking wrong there.

Who wants to go out and buy a 62 dollar monacle? If this accurately reflects the costs of developing this stuff, everyone who said CCP was wasting our time with it is absolutely correct.

So why in the world would CCP premier their items with such high costs? I can only assume the idea is to start with impossibly expensive items, get a few suckers at that price, and then lower the prices later(but not down to a reasonable price, just reasonable in comparison). It makes good economic sense for them to do that, but this is blatently screwing the playerbase.

I've read and re-read the original dev Blog by CCP Zulu, and you know what? I want to know who was lying to these people. I've yet to meet anyone who wanted this. A random "hey it might be cool if one day," here and there sure. But not "OH MAN I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL I CAN DRESS UP MY CHARACTER IN SPECIAL CLOTHING".

Since they've announced, there are plenty of folks that say "It's not so bad," and "It might be cool" but not anyone who thought "GOD DAMN IT I WANT A CUSTOM SKIRT ON MY FEMALE AVATAR,". If they think the average eve player wants more clothing on their characters, they do not know their player base as well as they think they do.

I'm often one of the ones who'll come out and say that things are not as bad as the doomsayers and bitter vets say it is. CCP, you make my job harder when you come out with a 62 dollar monocle. This is like that last slice of pizza: you might not want it, but it's there, so you kinda want to try it. I thought to myself, "Fine, I'll convert one plex and buy an outfit, I like the game enough, and RP enough, and want to try this new content out enough to do that,".

I'd ask CCP what the point of this was? Is it money? Fuck you. I already pay for this game, and I was more than willing to drop just a little bit more on your "Princess Barbie Playhouse" bullshit. Emphasis on "a little bit". Not a quarter of my goddamned paycheck you giant assholes.

Since I can't really throw the finger up to this giant pile of horse shit, I'll do the next best thing. Turn it off. I'll also show you how. Uncheck the box that says "load station environment".

Congratulations.

You're now playing a game about internet spaceships again. Yaaay.

Voices From The Void: Episode 9

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:05:00 +0000

Voices From The Void is a podcast. As much fun as it was doing ENN, I found that there was often much more to talk about than I could fit in a video that was less than 10 minutes long.

After I met the always awesome Arydanika, we decided to start a podcast of our own. We've been going strong a while now, and if you'd like to get updated on current events(and perhaps get a laugh every once in a while), download the podcast... or visit the youtube channel. It's always less than an hour, by design(and not, say anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours like other podcasts). Enjoy the show and remember to listen to the voices.

Listen on iTunes.

Listen on our site.

Listen on youtube:

Check out the Show Notes(Coming Soon)!

Guide: Reaction POSs

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:42:00 +0000

You don't stand a chance
against my prayers
You don't stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again
Robbie Robertson - Ghost Dance

I intend to make this a basic guide to taking moons, and turning it into profit using complex reactions. I intend to take you from start to finish in making Sylramic Fibers. Lets get started.

First of all, I've done the hardest part for you. I've picked out something for you to produce. If you didn't know yet, you'd want to do the research yourself into moon products. I use this tool to tell me what I can make with the resources available to me: Reaction Materials Info Page. One of the most important factors to your profitability is what you can get for free. That means asking yourself "which moon resources, no matter how cheap, can I get a hold of?" Once you know that, you'll be further on the way to deciding what to produce.

If we look at that page, we can see that Sylramic Fibers are made from Ceramic Powder and Hexite. If you click to look at the full bill of Materials, you can see that Ceramic Powder is made from Silicates and Evaporate deposits, while Hexite is made from Platinum and Chromium.

The thing about POS's, is that you want to keep the raw number of POS's to a minimum. A large POS is the standard for fuel counts. Mediums take half the fuel of a large, and smalls take a quarter of a large's fuel.

So why does it matter if I use 4 smalls or one large? Lets look at the numbers for a Caldari Large, Medium, and Small Tower. These numbers will assume your alliance has sovereignty on the system in question(Which reduces the fuel costs).

Caldari Large Tower(1 Hour of Fuel):
Coolant: 6
Mechanical Parts: 4
Oxygen: 19
Robotics: 1
Enr. Uranium: 3
Nit. Isotopes: 338

Caldari Medium Tower(1 Hour of Fuel):
Coolant: 3
Mechanical Parts: 3
Oxygen: 10
Robotics: 1
Enr. Uranium: 2
Nit. Isotopes: 169

Caldari Small Tower(1 hour of Fuel:
Coolant: 2
Mechanical Parts: 2
Oxygen: 6
Robotics: 1
Enr. Uranium: 1
Nit. Isotopes: 85

Pay special attention to the Robotics, Enriched Uranium, and Coolant numbers. Oh, and use this tool to plan out your POS setups.

You'll notice that the numbers don't scale down the way you'd expect. That's because EVE is pretty unforgiving in rounding. That and the fact that you can't use less than 1 robotics an hour. 4 Smalls actually cost a significant bit more than 1 large(Since, besides Isotopes, Robotics is the single largest cost associated with fueling), while the capacity of the POS's in CPU and Powergrid aren't increased at all. You can do as much on 1 large as you can do on 4 smalls, but pay less to do it.

There are a number of applications for smaller towers in EVE, but for complex reactions, it's almost all Large Caldari POS's.

So now you've decided on the POS to use. You'll generally want to run POS pairs for less complicated complex reactions. Sylramic Fibers is one of those, so we'll talk about why a POS Pair is a better choice than just one POS.

You produce 2X the profit. If you want to just do a complex reaction from entirely bought simple reactants, a single POS is fine. You'll make more money, and find it much easier to use available resources though, if you do the simple reactions as well. I'm going to provide you with an image, that should help somewhat in explaining this.

It's pretty complicated, but the information is all there. So each POS needs at minimum 3 Silos, 1 Complex Reactor, 1 Simple Reactor, and a choice between 1-2 Moon Harvesting Arrays and 1-2 Silos. If you're really very lucky, you'll get two moons in the same system with all of the resources you need. Otherwise you'll be stuck with the setup as displayed in the image. This is usually still profitable(check your numbers) but not always. So be careful.

So I'll explain the setup in words alongside the picture.

POS 1:
Mine or Transport in Evaporate Deposits and Silicates
Using a Simple Reactor, turn Evaporate Deposits and Silicates into Ceramic Powder. This will produce 200 units per hour, and consume 100 of each of the reactants.

POS 2:
Mine or Transport in Platinum and Chromium
Using a Simple Reactor, turn Platinum and Chromium into Hexite. This will produce 200 units per hour, and consume 100 of each of the reactants.

POS 1 and 2:
Transport 17k Ceramic Powder from the First POS to the Second POS, which is producing Hexite instead.
Put the Ceramic Powder into a Silo.

POS 2 and 1:
Transport 17k Hexite from the second POS to the first POS, which is producing Ceramic Powder instead.
Put the Hexite into a Silo.

Both POS:
Using Complex Reactor, turn Hexite and Ceramic Powder into Sylramic Fibers.

After a week, come back, pull out all the Sylramic Fibers and transport the stuff across POS's again.

After a month, what you have should pay for the POS fuel for the next month, with some profit besides. Here's a link to the POS setup(Note, you will need two of these). And yes, you've got 500 CPU free. Enjoy putting up a lab on one, and a few production facilities on the other if you'd like.

Here's a link to a spreadsheet with current prices(As of this post).

There are many other methods and ways to do this. There is no one way to handle it. You'll have to figure out what works best for you. This should get you started though, so enjoy.

CCP, You So Crazy!

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:02:00 +0000

Great news, everyone! You'll be delivering a package to Chapek 9, a world where humans are killed on sight.
Professor Farnsworth - Futurama

So uh. Yeah. Lets quote CCP's latest thingymahbob.

CCP Atlas has some great news for 3rd party developers in his latest dev blog. Read all about the new business license and monetizing 3rd party apps here.

I do not like where this is going.

So if you follow the link, you'll find a dev blog update. This dev blog update is uh... not great news. It's not great news for me, not for you, and not for anyone else except a few application developers. So I have a fansite agreement with CCP for my blog. As it stands right now, I can post anything I damn well please. If people donate isk to me, that's great. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. On top of that, I run my own podcast. My Co-Host actually put quite a lot of work, time, and some money into getting that running as well.

Now I've taken care that through all of my interactions with advertisers, I've not taken a single cent of actual money. If people want to support it through isk, I provide advertising for them to do so.

None of that matters. Despite some backpedaling today that seems to say "Oh well this is a rough draft and nothing is set in stone yet", the draft we've been presented indicates that my podcast site will need to pay 99 dollars a year to keep running.

Essentially, I have to pay CCP to do free work for CCP. Now, I'm not as worried about myself. What I do worry about, and what you should worry about, is everyone else.

Here's a quick list of stuff I can think of, off the top of my head, that will need to pay CCP 100 bucks a year to keep operating.

EveNews24
Dotlan
Eve Fitting Tool
EveMon
EveHQ
Battleclinic

That's a short list. I have a whole bookmarks folder devoted to Eve websites. Oh, and CCP's definition is so vague that it's possible that transactions that take place entirely inside eve will also fall under this type of license. Yes, mercenary corps will have to pay CCP 99 dollars to provide their services to others ingame. I'm sure that's not what CCP had in mind, but it's what they said.

CCP won an award a while back for best community. Part of the reason for this is the easy availability of material, and the low barrier of entry. Got a website and and idea? You can contribute to the community.

In the guise of finally allowing third party apps to make a profit, CCP is trying to monetize the greatest resource they have, and one of the only reasons to keep playing their game: the community. They're not even going to make that much money off it either.

They're killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, and no matter how much they go digging... honestly it's not pretty in there.

Voices From The Void: Interview of CCP Sunset and Soundwave

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:21:00 +0000

CCP Sunset & CCP Soundwave pause from the glorious afterglow of the first week of televised Alliance Tournament IX group rounds for an interview. Along with some engaging conversation about ATIX we also delve into The Mystery of CCP Sunset, Incarna, DUST514 and this winter's upcoming expansion.

The Podcast Page.

The Youtube Channel.

Voices From The Void: Episode 8

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:40:00 +0000

BAM!

Check it out!

Introducing The Outlaws.

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:58:00 +0000

So it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut

So, I've been holding off on posting this week until I got some stuff out of the way, but it's all done now and I can safely say that The Outlaws. is open for recruitment.

Please visit the forums and put in your application!

Voices From The Void: Episode 7

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:53:00 +0000

Bam!

Check it out!

Latin For Gold

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:53:00 +0000

"Well, do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back
And I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or something'?"
"Or somebody important or somethin'?"
Jay-Z - 99 Problems

If you buy a Plex ingame, CCP doesn't make much money off you. Essentially you're paying 2.50 extra for your subscription. It's something, but nothing impressive. A while back someone told me that we should all just buy plex ingame one month to protest CCP. I had to explain to them that would actually make CCP MORE money since it costs slightly more for 30 days of plex than 30 days of subscription. Even if you're not paying CCP anything, someone is providing the Plex.

Let's take a step back a year or so. Plex used to be tied to the station it was generated in, you couldn't move it. For a long time this was the status quo, then some guy(we'll call him Jeff) came into the room while people were talking about plexes.

They talked about some random shit for a while, then Jeff asked what the obvious question: "Wait, they can't be moved? Why?"

And the apparently obvious answer was "Oh, so they can't be destroyed,"

Then Jeff crinkled his forehead and said something that made everyone else in the room feel pretty stupid, "Why not? They've already paid us for them,"

So a patch later, they were mobile. And some idiot loses thousands of dollars of them in a Kestrel. What does this have to do with today? Lets take a look at Aurum.

This is a new way to destroy plexes, and to actually get something from them. So it goes without saying that this is probably a positive for people that don't like Incarna to start with. It mean the subscription costs won't be going towards these projects. This is a way for CCP to make money to go towards Incarna related development, plain and simple.

So if it's plain and simple, why am I rambling on about it? The issue I have with this is the way they're presenting it to me. Lets just say that Jeff may've had some input on these things.

Lets take a look at this and this.

Now there is some serious nerd rage going on about the flimsy ingame reasoning. I'm not going to address that, because those people are missing the point. The reason CCP has to shoehorn in a flimsy ingame reason for it is because this will make them more money.

Aurum will be essentially plex, and it has a real money cost. If you lose it ingame, you are putting more money into CCP's pocket.

I guess I shouldn't expect CCP to admit "We're doing it because we want more money," but we all know it.

Voices From The Void: Episode 6

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Mon, 30 May 2011 16:47:00 +0000

Check it out!

News Update

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:52:00 +0000

If you're reading this, it's an article that I've posted on Eve News 24, which is back up for now.

I want to say, first and foremost, this is not some sort of “We’re back and this time for good” kind of thing. The news is back on. Let stick with that for now.

Been a fun last month and a half for all you news addicts out there. For those of you in the know, a few major news happenings have gone unreported, and I’d like to catch you up.

Drone Alliance Stopped at Tribute’s Door

Lets talk about the Drone Alliance Invasion first. Anyone who has the ability to load up dotlan(or the ingame map for that matter) has realized that the regions of Geminate and Vale of the Silent have fell to the Drone Alliance forces. R.A.G.E is down to about a thousand people, from a high of four thousand only a month ago. The alliance is dying quite quickly, but the only question left is if they’ll go all the way to disbanding. I think not, but it’s too early to tell.

Majesta is, as of this article still holding strong(they’ve only lost a third of their players so far), and I get the feeling they’ll be deploying elsewhere as an additional feint sometime soon. Basing out of Curse, they could do some real damage to the Drone Russian Federation heartland, and while the Charlie Foxtrot is hitting Cobalt Edge periodically, it could cause the Drone Alliance to start prioritizing defenses. This also assumes Against All Authorities is going to stop in Detorid, and if they face absolutely no resistance there, they have no reason to stop.

As for the Tribute battles, the stalemate has commenced. While the Drone Alliance has had some serious successes in the individual battles, they’ve lost or refused to engage during the important ones. No stations have been successfully won by the Drone Alliance. This is in large part due to the interference of the CF coalition from the west. Now that they’ve stalled their forward momentum, the DA is turning inward and consolidating their new acquisitions.

RaidenDOT, Red Alliance, and Solar seem to’ve split up Geminate already. The systems have settled down. Pandemic Legion doesn’t appear to be gaining any permanent space in this conflict. Any systems they’ve taken have been given over to the other players. Looks like they’re only in it for the money and the killmails, as only PL would be. Even NCDOT looks to be gaining some space in Vale of the Silent, which looks to be split mostly between White Noise and RaidenDOT.

The Effects of the War In the North

Now these movements all mean a number of other things in regard to the actors involved. NCDOT has mostly abandoned Providence, which sees a resurgent CVA taking space once more. White Noise has abandoned it’s Tenerifis holdings and is putting up at best a token defense of it’s core Detorid space. They’ve gone all in on Vale, and if the tide turns, they’ll be without space quite quickly. Taking it back will require all their force, since they’d be facing a combined AAA/Stainwagon force, which they could conceivably beat back, but not very quickly.

As White Noise loses it’s space in the south, the allies of AAA find themselves gaining more than just a foothold, with whole constellations being doled out. Formerly minor powers are quickly establishing themselves as mid-majors in the bid to be noticed when more space gets handed out. There’s movement, but without the resistance of WN or the greater DRF, it’s mostly peaceful.

The NCDOT/Evoke feint in Pure Blind, has been successfully beaten. At no point was it more than a distraction, but if you lived in Vale or Geminate under the NC, it was a successful one. NCDOT has been participating fully in the DRF invasion lately.

RED.OverLord has an Executor Corp Now!

RED.OverLord has finally set a new executor corp as well, after the previous one was completely banned from the game in the wake of the Big Bas scandal. This is pretty good news for anyone who’s been wanting standings set during the Tenerifis and Detorid war.

Everything Else

So that’s where we stand now, if you live in Delve and Querious, I apologize, but the only accurate descriptor for your conflicts are “shitty little wars”. When that heats up, or some of the more major players get involved, fine. But for now, we’ll let that go.

So now you’re up to date, and you’ll have some context for the next news story to come across your desk in the next few days. If you’ve got a tidbit of information(Battle Reports, Other kinds of news) you want to share, message me ingame at Hallan Turrek, and I’ll run with it.

Voices From The Void: Episode 5

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:19:00 +0000

I'd like to direct you to the latest podcast, and the parody song contained within. Enjoys.

Oh, and read my post on this page(it's about three or four posts down), I'm a fucking prophet. 2 1/2 months ago and I had this whole war pegged. Also, Majesta Forum dump. Love those guys, but seriously Trina screwed 'em hard and good.

What is this, I don't even

noreply@blogger.com (Hallan Turrek) — Thu, 19 May 2011 19:25:00 +0000

There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind
Just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there is no hiding place against the kingdoms throne
The Impressions - People Get Ready

So. This new little things patch is another nerf to 0.0 life. I'm not calling it a good or a bad thing, but I am pointing it out.

Now you might be asking... "What are you talking about Hallan, heck, now we can find anomolies in 10 seconds and from anywhere in the solar system!". Guess who else can find them? The red that just jumped his interceptor into system. This, coupled with the true sec nerf has really hit the anomaly runners hard. As if it wasn't bad enough to only have one Sanctum in certain systems, now if you're trying to run it, you'll be tackled in 30 seconds when a red enters system.

Don't forget the true sec nerf either, this is coming very shortly after most of Null-Sec became terrible for running anomalies.

I like this all of this to a point(for entirely selfish reasons). I gave up running anomolies a long time ago, because they were too easy to find. Now they're even easier... and I know the profit margins haven't gone up. Now if you're lost among the Hubs or whatever, you'll probably have time enough to get away. If you're planning on running Sanctums, you're in more danger than if you were in an asteroid belt. Havens are about equally as dangerous as belts. Only they take much longer to finish off.

So now you have to pay attention, there is no other option. This is good and bad, as that's how it's sorta supposed to be. If you don't pay attention to local, you deserve to get killed. This also kills any safety Carriers had. They better be fucking aligned and paying goddamned attention, or they will get tackled and die. End of story.

So is this good or bad? It's neutral. People will still do the stupid stuff, and they'll still die. Now they'll die more often, and hopefully it'll only be my enemies and neutrals, and not my blues.

But how often does that work out?

The other half of the spectrum is the boost to mission runners. The reduction of agent types to just 3, with combat, mining, and courier... that removes some of the more serious barriers to entry in missioning. You want to mine? You can mine. You want to run couriers? Go ahead.

You want endless combat missions? Go for it.

If that wasn't enough, there's no difference between agents of similar level. If you could run any level 4's before, you can run all of them now. And you get paid like you're running for Quality 20.

CCP's been listening to the "it's too easy in 0.0" arguments. Made by the same people who run level 4 missions all day long under the protection of Concord.

0.0 just got punked by a bunch of carebears.

Other important changes include the blueprint copy changes(you can tell them apart now! Amazing! Even the devblog wonders why they weren't always like this). Oh, and simplier social skills. Awesome.

The one thing in this patch that was certifiably awesome(having bookmarks on the overview), got pushed back to the next patch.