Gate flash. Kamela, lowsec space and definitely front lines. Silence. Local comm net indicated an even mix of Amarr and Minmatar capsuleers, but oddly none at the entrance gate to secure Amarr space – a natural killing ground most days.

Let’s go hunting, screw waiting to find a fleet to join up with.

10 minutes. Nothing aside from a friendly waggle of an allied Megathron-class battleship as it warped off the 24th’s station in system. Let’s take this a step deeper – warp right on the gate to Kourmonen, a major staging ground for rebel fleets. I was sure to find a fight there.

The flashing red radar signature that greeted as my warp bubble collapsed was the reward for my effort. A Thrasher-class destroyer – an excellent frigate killer but by itself no match for my cruiser. So of course, it wasn’t by itself. Two more Thrashers warped in from deep space to join the fray. All worked for something (someone?) named Huang Yinglong. Whatever – their autocannons ranging on my hull, followed quickly by EMP rounds ripping into my shields, proved their loyalties.

I stumbled back across that for some reason this morning, and discovered to my dismay that it’s the only in-character fiction post I’ve written.

Such grand plans. Such lack of follow through.

My goal then is simple – I don’t have much time to play EVE right now, but I am looking for outlets to flex my writing skills and see what happens. This blog is one spot for that, on a subject I know pretty well. I even have a moderately disjointed tale with a twisted cast of characters in mind (“The Taru Chronicles”).

We’ll see what comes of it.

That thing is Civilization-esque in its ability to suck you in. Maybe I need to pick up console gaming, with 5 minute games of instant-gratification, vs multi-day/week/year commitments.

Anyway, that explains my relative silence. Fly safe.

Awesome! Except I had no clue whatsoever where to find datacenters (I’ve only been playing for 3 years…meh). So early this morning, before RL took over, I fired up Google and came across this incredibly helpful entry on EVE-Wiki:

Data centers are deadspace locations found at beacons in high-security ‘empire’ space. There are twelve data centers total, which is three data centers per major empire faction (Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente), however Amarr split theirs with the Ammatar (and hence have more agents total). Each is a single location with two or more agents each (the agents are located on interactable ships). Each Data Center focuses on one of the major npc pirate factions; Caldari collect Guristas, Gallente collect Serpentis, Minmatar collect Angel, Amarr collect Sansha and Ammatar collect Blood (their agents are however somewhat mixed).

The above is followed by a ton of data on each faction’s datacenters, locations, missions, agents, and so on. Pure awesome.

20 minutes, a quick trip to the Ferira system, and a few million ISK in tag purchases later, my Amarr faction standings went from 6.47 to 6.81, and off to the Epic Arc I go.

Thanks again Kirith (and I love the blog).

My main mission NPC corp is Amarr’s Ministry of War – the nice Level 4 Quality 20 kill mission agent in Taru is basically my best friend. So I’ve been grinding away with him, hoping for some helpful storyline missions that will bump my standing up just a few tenths of a point and get over that hump to 6.8. Grind grind grind, and finally a storyline mission from “my guy” with Tash-Murkon Family.

A courier mission. Which, yes, nets me a 27 million ISK implant, so that’s nice. But it boosts my faction standings all of 0.02. At that rate I’ll need another 9 storyline missions, and at, what 15 regular missions in between each, I’ll be grinding for YEARS.

Can I please get a storyline kill mission? Or does anyone know of a MoW level 3 or 4 agent has a better associated storyline agent?

Been a while since I posted anything of substance, but with work and side projects EVE play time has been hard to come by. So much going on – new epic mission arches, new rigs, DUST 514, etc – but I’ll keep things a bit closer to home and talk about mission running.

Limited playtime means Furious hasn’t undocked to fight Minmatar capsuleer fleets in some time, but it does mean a renewed focus on building some ISKies in the service of the Amarr Ministry of War.

Daniella is my primary mission runner – she’s about maxed out on relevant skills and can fly level 4′s for corps across both Amarr and Caldari space. While she once was a classic, plain vanilla Raven pilot, she now exclusively flies her Nighthawk deep in secure Amarr space. I’ve expressed my love for the Nighthawk here before: not only is it beautiful, but its passive shield tank is awe-inspiring. A classic “warp in and forget” kind of tank, except in very rare missions.

However I wanted to speed up my missioning due to my limited playtime, get Furious back in the mix with his Amarr ships, and just play around with a two ship setup. Following my missioning mantra of 1) little to no faction ships or gear and 2) no marauders (too pricy to lose, in both cases), I set him up with an Abaddon armed with a decent tank, 8 mega pulse lasers, and pathetically small cap (5 minutes). Enough cap, though, to melt just about anything in a level 4 mission in short order.

My basic kill mission goes like this:
Daniella in the Nighthawk takes care of most of the aggro, leaving Furious’ Abaddon to function mainly as a massive golden blowtorch and no worry about his LAR2 eating up all his cap. Warp the Nighthawk in, piss off a few bad guys, draw all the DPS *and* all the tracking disruptors (against my heavy missiles…mwuhahaha), then warp the Abaddon in.

Daniella focuses on the small ships, working her way up to battlecruisers, while Furious starts in on the battleships. They meet somewhere in the middle. When the DPS is manageable and just a couple ships remain, Daniella warps home to grab my new favorite ship: the Salvage-Cane (Hurricane fit for mission looting).

Until this week, I was using a run of the mill Cormorant for mission loot and salvage cleanup. Never again, my Cormorant is permanently parked. The Salvage-Cane has the same highs (4x each of tractor beams and salvagers), but can fit both a MWD and Afterburner (for max flexibility running around while tractoring wrecks) and can hold over 2,000m3 of cargo, compared to the Cormorant’s 400m3 (or so). Brilliant, I love this thing.

Plus, the Hurricane is one of the best looking ships in the game IMO. It, along with the Abaddon, just looks like I always hoped combat spaceships would look. So even while just salvaging, it’s a hoot to fly around in.

The combo works out pretty well. I just tested it all out on a Sansha Blockade mission, with loads of DPS and gobs of ships, and with some window toggling it went incredibly fast.

More to share later on, as I consider taking the little gang out on the Amarr epic mission arch, hopefully posted about here in less rambling prose. Meantime, fly safe!

*Screen cap by CrazyKinux over on Flickr.

The new Chronicle gives a tiny taste of surface combat, with this awesome image of armor-clad infantry disembarking from dropships, but aside from decent play in the Empyrean Age fiction there’s not much room for it in the EVE universe. Certainly not in the game as it stands now.

You can dominate any planet with orbital bombardment, just like in reality you can (mostly) dominate any country via air and sea control, but it’s still an age old truth that to actually control ground you must hold it. And it takes troops, specifically some flavor of infantry, to do it. It would be fascinating to see the CCP team explore control of planetary surfaces more directly within the framework of the game – or perhaps as some sort of small FPS/strategy brand extension if it’s not workable within MMO mechanics.

Really though, I just want to see what that Caldari infantry could go in a fight.

However, looking at how often I’m seeing Harbinger’s show up on the Amarr Militia Killboard (on both sides of the killmails), I’m getting inspired to get back to specializing in the class and hope I can afford them. Command ships, due to cost, I’ll save for PVE, which leaves me with the Harbinger on my main and the Hurricane on my alt for small gang and some solo PVP in lowsec.

Let’s start with the Harbinger.

There seem to be really only two base loadouts for the ship: the Focused Medium Pulse (FMP) + 1600mm Plate (example), and the Heavy Pulse (HP) + 800mm Plate (example).

HIGH SLOTS:
In both cases you load out the highs with the laser of your choice, Tech 2 preferrably, and fit Scorch M and Amarr Navy Multifrequency M crystals to cover most ranges. If you have an extra high slot and room to fit anything, popular choices tend to be medium NOS’ or Neutralizers. Tight fit though depending on the lows and mids.

LOW SLOTS:
A bit more room for variation here, but not much. For small gang action, and keeping with the current trend in PVP thinking to focus on a heavy armor hit point buffer vs. any kind of self-repair capability, don’t fit a Medium Armor Repairer (MAR). Fit an armor plate (800mm for the HP variation, 1600mm for the FMP), a couple resist modules (EANM or plain old Adaptive Nano Plating II), a Damage Control, and 2-3 damage modules such as Tracking Enhancers (especially if you’re expecting small ship opposition) and Heat Sinks. 3x Heat Sinks gives you a hell of a gank boat, but the tracking mod could be nice for the small ships.

MID SLOTS:
This is where people get creative. You can toss on the “holy trinity” of PVP mid-slot modules: Scrambler/Disruptor, Stasis Webifier, and Cap Injector, with room for an afterburner or microwarpdrive, which is my preferred fit as something of a traditionalist. However, especially in Factional Warfare, you’re likely to see a heavy dose of fast small frigate-sized ships buzzing around. I plan to just rely on my Web and a drone bay full of Warrior II light and fast drones to take care of the gnats. However if I know I’ll be in a gang, I might drop the Disruptor and try out something else.

Here are some of the variations I’ve seen pop up on killboards of late:

Disrupt/Scrambler Combo Fit
Fit both a longer range 1-point Warp Disruptor (snag your prey) and a short range 2-point Scrambler (snag + kill MWD’s to slow down small ships). Swap out the Cap Injector to make it fit. In light of recent gameplay changes which enable the 2-pt Scrams to disable MWD’s, this can be a very nice setup to deal with small ships at close ranges. Leaves you running tight on cap though, which scares me in PVP.

Target Painter Fit
Drop the Web, propulsion mod, or Injector and add a Target Painter. Sometimes pair with the dual Disruptor/Scrambler fit on a FMP setup (better tracking) for the ultimate frigate-killing BC. I never thought of Painters outside of using them on missile boats, but the signature radius bonus does appear to help with any weapon, so why not try this I guess? Interesting idea, I may give it a whirl.

Tracking Disruptor Fit
Drop the mod of your choice to fit a TD. Best if you know you’re going up against BC’s and BS’s.

My personal choice to start with will likely be the Heavy Pulse/800mm Plate basic loadout to better deal with cruisers and larger ships, 2x Heat Sinks and 1x Tracking Enhancer (small ship counter), and a mid slot setup of AB or MWD (still playing with the fitting), Web, Cap Injector, and try out the Target Painter idea for a while. Again, a drone bay full of Warrior II’s or a split of Warriors and light ECM drones. With the TP fit, I’ll let other ships in gang do the tackling in exchange for being able to deal out more damage against a wider range of ship classes. I may get smoked a lot, but should be fun seeing what happens.

What do you think? Any better suggestions for good Harbinger fits, or philosophies on the mid slot loadout?

As my main, Furious, had never left his solo corp in the Amarr Militia, I had a ready supply of random PVP awaiting right from login. I have to say, factional warfare is more fun now than when I first tried it out last year, and with the coming addition of more and more ex-0.0 PVP heavy corps, and general tower-grind fatigue, I think we’ll see more good fights with better ships on a daily basis across the Bleak Lands.

Until this week, my last PVP kill was a YEAR ago, so to say I am a bit rusty is a raging understatement. Nevertheless, I had a ready supply of far too expensively fit ships and a general need for destruction, so I undocked from my adopted home station in Huola, fired up Militia chat, and looked for someone to shoot at me.

To my delight, I didn’t have to wait long. In a quick 40 minutes in space, I got in on 5 kills – and lost my cherished Dark Wing Duck 1 (a Vengeance). The beauty of the night was getting in the final blow against the guy who held the same killmail position on my own loss, just a short while later. It also gave me a chance to stretch the legs of my Sacrilege heavy assault cruiser. Brutally expensive to replace, but hell, since I own it already it’s a sunk cost. May as well go use it.

The second night was less successful. Lost an Arbitrator, not more than 10 minutes after I bought it, to a gate blob, helped kill a pirate Maller, then promptly lost a Crusader to my own stupidity while trying to escape a gate camp.

Furious’ compadre, Daniella, also back in action earning some passive ISK income after a long break, cashed out a quick 300 million ISK worth of datacores to refill Furious’ coffers.

All in all, a fun way to jump back into EVE for a couple nights. Next up, starting to use (and no doubt lose) my favorite ship of all time, the Harbinger. Two are already fitted out and waiting.

The war, if one can be called that, operates with specific battlefield areas. The prize being a change in sovereignity on a map and nothing more. It is almost like ritual warfare.

…

In contrast, the Gallente are not as interested in map changes and I know many a Gallente pilot, for example, in Oulletta (which ‘fell’ to the Caldari Fascists) happily living and shopping and flying in what is now classed as hostile space. There is no discernible change in environment. Not even the service charges of stations change to reflect the will of the fascist provosts.

Votrian’s post in in character, but translating that out to the broader EVE world of factional warfare, he raises a point that’s been nagging me since FW first launched: where’s the consequence?

FW was created by CCP for a variety of reasons – make lowsec matter and get pilots populating the systems again, provide an easy entrance point into PVP for newer players and longitme carebears alike, and so on.

To that end, it seems a moderate if debatable success. Despite the standard trash talk from longtime 0.0 inhabitants, the fights I’ve been in during a couple stints with the Amarr militia have been a blast – frigate and cruiser fights galore, minimal gate camping, short trips to where the combat is, and much less prep time than the mega fleet fights dreamed of out in nulsec space.

But it’s Votrian’s point about the lack of any practical impact on the change in Sov in lowsec systems that I think highlights the problem with FW: there are no consequences beyond bragging rights. When a system is “captured” nothing happens to the stations or their services. You can still dock/undock as you did before, regardless of faction alignment. The gaining faction gets zero enhanced benefit from those stations, and the losing faction likewise takes zero real hit in access, service or market prices, etc.

Contrast that to 0.0, where change in Sov in a station system has a massive impact on everyone involved – station services and market access can be denied, docking and clone rights revoked, and so on. The gaining corp or alliance now has a safe dock up, a revenue generator, a fitting station, a local market, manufacturing and research slots, etc. The losing group not only loses all that, but risks having large quantities of valuable stuff stuck in the station, perhaps for good (I know I have some interceptors and T2 lasers I’ll likely never see or sell again, which hurts).

Because that doesn’t apply in FW, you can see what impact that has on how the players in the various militias behave. Reread Votrian’s quote above – the Gallente FW players for the most part don’t care about the territorial war aspect of FW, they’re just in it to kill some ships. Who “owns” the system they do it in is largely irrelevant, just bragging rights that aren’t worth much anyway.

If you started denying station services, market access, cloning and docking rights to the Gallente (or at least increasing the fees prohibitively), I bet they’d care again and EVE would see a renewed interest in the shifting borders of lowsec.