Loaded Barrels

Five Thousand Stars, Devil Knows How Many Planets

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:00:00 +0000

...and once again, it's the capsuleers who have to do all the cat herding. It will be interesting, that's a given. Low barrier of entry, thus everyone and their slaver hound will be getting their piece of the pie (no cake though, not yet). Thus the question arises: what's it all for?

CCP has kept a tight lid on what players can manufacture on their planet colonies, and thus far there have been speculations: "Meta 1-4 items", some said. "Existing minerals and ice, oh noes, mining will die", I've seen others say. None of those, it seems; it'll be something else. What is the only market section (other than blueprints and skillbooks) that players have no hold over? NPC goods. Robotics, Construction Blocks, Miniature Electronics, Coolant, Small Arms (Dust 514 anyone) and many, many more. Some are used for fuel, some are used in manufacturing, some are needed when building a new Outpost. And some are needed for everything.

All of these are being sold at NPC stations across New Eden, at a rather constant price and in limitless supply. There are even capsuleers who, for a cut of their own, move vast quantities of these goods with freighters to stations that don't sell a particular item, but where a demand has been uncovered.

Well, no more of this. The New Eden market is supposed to be free, the ISK must flow. Just as they did with minerals in the early day of the cluster, CCP wants now to turn off some of the last artificial bracing that holds in place market prices. T2 items (for instance guns) need Robotics to be built... it is also a POS fuel, the cost of which gets (or rather SHOULD be) calculated into all products manufactured, mined, refined or stored at that POS. It is a small percentage of the total price in the above two situations, but a component nonetheless.

The impact, I imagine, will vary across New Eden, depending on where exactly one is playing - Empire, 0.0, or W-Space.

In Highsec Empire, with its vast abundance of players and relative security, with CONCORD protection, I imagine the competition to be fierce. CCP wants to give more and more new players a reason to play, and play they shall. It is uncertain if CCP intends to spread the planetary resources evenly across all security statuses, or even across all empires, but for all we know, the lower you go, the bigger the rewards. Empire planetary overlords will probably be newer capsuleers with their industrial ships looking to earn a living in stiff competition with others.

Lowsec will be the next step. As it stands now, lowsec has the smallest population density in New Eden, and rightly so, since there's no real financial incentives to pick living there instead of Highsec. It is the land of outlaws and of independent reaction tower operators. Of course, if CCP decides to significantly improve the quality of planets there relative to empire, more so than they did with ore, it will become bristling with more daring covert-op blockade runner pilots who have established their settlements transporting those spoils back to highsec, bringing them to the markets. The planets' richness will also improve the income of current residents, lawless or not, and it will be interesting to see the conflicts they will fuel.

Unsecured (0.0) space, as before, will most likely get the best of the resources assigned to it. For years now, 0.0 players have complained about having to run logistics chains all the way to Empire in order to supply themselves with the NPC goods needed to run Sovereignty holding towers. With Dominion, the number of necessary towers has gone down, and the cost of running them has been rerouted to Sovereignty bills. Tyrannis will bring them the opportunity to cut NPC goods logistics down to nothing, should they be willing to invest time into manufacturing their own. Using the appropriate tower type for the region they are in, an alliance will be able to fully "live off the land" in terms of POS infrastructure. Aside from no longer having to import NPC goods, 0.0 dwellers will find themselves able to export a lot of the "good stuff" only they have access to in large quantities, but as with all profitable activities, for a player to keep at it, it will have to be more profitable than other activities within said player's skill set, that are less tedious.

W-Space planets, it seems, will also have the ability to support colonies; thus giving the dwellers there some resources that don't come from Anomalies or Signatures. New Wormhole life scenario: pack a bunch of command centers in your covert-ops cloaking blockade runner (with 2 high slots, one cloak, one scanner), find a nice cozy C6, drop your colonies, wait, collect goods, return home, repeat. Of course, whether or not the above scenario is feasible again depends on how much profit one can squeeze out of each cubic meter transported back.

The fact that there will be no more unlimited supply at near-fixed price means that players interested in becoming planetary overlords will evaluate the time invested relative to the rewards reaped, and adjust their production accordingly. This will send ripples through the market, with prices rising and falling sharply at first, as it has been in the past when CCP decides to remove an isk sink. However, this also means that organized players who know the mechanics and the market, and who also have time to spare, will stand to make their fortune out of this.

Dear CCP: We're sorry, we broke your server

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:56:00 +0000

Last night's objective: Round 2 in D-G, Providence.
ID: Brutus Septimius, [WEDIE]
Shiptype: Megathron

Titan bridge into system, all ship sections green. Pilots in local: 350.
Local starts climbing as both more allies and enemies bridge in. Soon, local hits 1100. Node was reinforced, looks like it will hold... at least for a while.

The battleship fleet goes to work, de-fanging the enemy staging POS. Stellar job from the FSI Logistics wing, few losses. Job done, we go back to our own POS.

-Break-

"Enemy fleet spotted", we hear in comms, "all battleships align Planet II. Warp in at 10 to 30, watch your spacing".

The fun starts. My ship exits warp, targets are called. I start shooting the first target, a Harbinger. Harbinger down, my guns are still pumping rounds into the void, despite my attempts to shut them off. I attempt to warp off to the safety of the staging POS, unable to shoot anything else. Targets are still being called. After about a minute of mashing the warp command, my Battleship finally enters warp.

For 20 minutes I attempt to unload my 7 425mm Railgun II's and reload them, one by one. Finally, Spike L long-range ammunition is loaded. "Load short range ammo, we're going in balls deep" I hear over the comms. "How nice", I say to myself. Unload, switch ammo, reload - another 5 minutes.

In the meantime, part of the fleet warped in; targets started being called. The real slaughter starts, as more and more pilots on each side either desynchronize, disconnect or simply cannot control their modules.

I finally manage to load short range ammo and warp in the middle of the clashing fleets. I manage to lock two targets and to fire one salvo before my connection breaks up.

Login. Character selection. Black screen, entering game. 20 minutes pass. I retry the login. On voice comms I hear we're winning. Another 15 minutes or so of black screen. Third time's a charm. I notice my wallet went up by 105 Million ISK at character login.

Wohoo, I'm dead. Login worked, my pod is just sitting there in space, near the remains of my former Battleship. Some 3 Interceptor pilots on the field, 2 of them notice me and start burning towards me. Too late, I'm already in warp.

Safely inside the POS shield, I assess the situation. Apparently my loss mail didn't generate. It had happened once before... this is getting annoying, because no straight records can be kept this way on who's winning and who's losing. Still, from the killmails that did generate, looks like our side (U'K, -A- and Stainwagon) won, not only because we achieved the objective, but from the k:d ratio as well.

All kills/losses registered, courtesy of Wollari's Dotlan.net

The Goonswarm bomber squads were once again quite effective against our Battleships and heavy support. Congratulations to them on a job well done.

Thus was the night in D-G. We then returned to our home systems to repair, resupply, rearm (and most importantly re-ship).

More carnage to come, this is just the beginning.

PS: CCP, We're sorry, we broke your server. Please buy better ones. Also, Ga'Len would like to ask you a question

Tonight in D-G

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:12:00 +0000

The Providence holders thought they can threaten our and AAA's supply routes by taking SV5 and the vicinity. Well, not only are we fighting to get those systems back, we are now moving to counter-attack.

Today in D-G we reinforced everything there was to reinforce: jump bridges, infrastructure hub, station (services dead) etc. U'K, AAA and Sys-K vs. Providence Holders and their new friends, the Goons.

Unfortunately, Providence holders brought BC's and bombers mostly. Results were not in their favor.

Hurry to D-G, we left plenty of fires to put out. *Packs ammo, moves within titan bridge range of Providence*

I have been a lazy bastard

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:08:00 +0000

As my shameless X-mas break (from posting, not from Eve, mind you) nears the 2 month notch, I finally decide enough is enough. Time for epic tales of cloaky deeds.

So, this afternoon a blinking alliance mail folder announces one of the Ushra'Khan's favorite activities: Black Ops hotdrop on provi, lead by Lord Makk.

Operation "Surprise Buttsecks" gets under way; fleet presence quickly rises to 26, all Force Recons and Bombers and it becomes apparent we're going to need a fuel hauler. Rushing to the staging area from across the region, yours truly in "Duracell Bunny", my lucky Prowler-class Blockade Runner. Upon entering the system, some spatial anomalies (read: Epic lag, thank you CCP) cause my ship to stop responding to commands for about 5 minutes, but after a quick reboot of my ship's computer (when in doubt, relog) everything returned to normal.

One of Makk's acolytes was already roaming Providence in search of a suitable target for our little party. Oh, would you look at that... a carrier running anomalies solo in 3GXF-U. "Fleet, WAKE UP!", we hear in comms "Portal up, jump-jump-jump". The bombers and recons jump in ahead; the carrier is tackled and by the time I jump onto the field already into armor. 3 minutes later, it turns to slag at the business end of our siege launchers. Poor Nidhoggur pilot managed to kill one Warrior II for the loss of his carrier.

Target raped, pillaged and the wreck burned, leaving no traces, we recloak and lay low. As we were ready to move back home, we get word of a mining op going on in Aegis Militia space. I and Makk do a frantical refueling run, hoping to catch the mining fleet with their pants down before word of the carrier gank spreads around.

Upon our return, Makk bridges the recons and bombers to I-MGAB, where they eat 2 orcas, a hulk and a Dominix alive. A silly prophecy undocks and is quickly pointed and also murdered. But that's not the end of it. From Shintaht we get a report that yet ANOTHER mining op is ongoing. Targets look promising: Orca, Chimera, 6x Hulk. Quickly they are probed down in one of the 3 hidden belts in the system. Standard maneuver, we jump in, I get the hauler safe while the fleet kills the Orca and multiple hulks and then sets to work on the Chimera. With its powerful burst tank, the carrier is able to hold off our efforts initially, but eventually starts dropping. Sadly, by the time the Chimera is at about 70% shield, the Providence defense gang reaches the system. Slightly outnumbered and with enemy light support on the field (which can tear bombers a new one), we once more lay low, this time without killing the carrier.

After another refueling stop, and with about 80 reds around, we proceed to jump back to safety, standard protocol, first bombers/recons then hauler and Black Ops. Just as we reach home, we get word of another target - this time an offline Sylph POS, with mods to shoot. Another refuel and Makk jumps the fleet into upper Catch again, to put those mods out of their misery.

This was a one-way jump for the fleet, the BO + hauler didn't jump in to bring them back, mostly because we were kinda out of fuel reserves. The fleet later returned straight home by taking a convenient Wormhole.

Epic Op, epic learning experience. Although I did not manage to get on any of the kills, there are more important things than killmails.

Op results - epic win.

Kills: Niddhogur, 3x Orca, 1x Domi, 1x Prophecy, 5x Hulk
Losses: 1 bomber, 1 Rapier.

P.S. - Friendly word to CVA & Friends, our cloaky overlord, Lord Makk has stated the following: "We shall keep doing this until there isn't an ounce of Nitrogen Isotopes left in Catch". And then I have a feeling we'll switch to Helium (be eco-friendly, use easily accessible, regenerable fuels).

CCP: "Bad capsuleer! No supercarrier for you!"

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:05:00 +0000

Once again a CCP Dev Blog about changes to capital ships has been posted.
TL;DR for Mothership pilots - you get to keep them in their current state for a while longer:

NO CHANGES WILL BE MADE TO MOTHERSHIPS IN DOMINION. Since they are part of the original rebalancing effort, the DEPLOYMENT OF FIGHTER BOMBERS WILL ALSO BE POSTPONED.

Yes, this means also no fighter-bombers yet.After weeks of testing on Singularity (and players coming to terms with the changes), this happens. An interesting point gets raised by Mookuh in the discussion thread:

If motherships won't get changed for Dominion, will their HP also not be boosted? Meaning 2 Titans can insta-DD a mothership?

To be honest, all in all it's a pretty wild decision from CCP to scrap the MS changes - a few days ago there was talk of allowing Supercarriers to dock, and now if a Mothership is on the field (for some inscrutable reason) it can get blown up by 2 titans doing a drive-by... good show, old chap :(

There's also a lot of details (and graphs) regarding how XL turrets will be changed in terms of range, dps, tracking etc.

XL blasters get a massive boost to optimal range (yay Moros)
XL Railguns are slated to have the longest optimal range of all, with falloff on par with XL Beam Lasers, but for extreme ranges XL artillery performs best.
The difference in DPS between variations of the XL Turrets has been reduced. XL Beams deal the most damage (not by much), but have shorter optimal than rails
The siege module tracking penalty will be reduced to -50%, out of siege tracking still gets nerfed.

Dev blog post
Discussion thread - now with more rage that MS changes are scrapped.

Goons v. Ushra'Khan

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:47:00 +0000

2009.11.16 03:10
GoonSwarm has declared war on Ushra'Khan. Within 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

Fun times in and around the Agil system. Bring it :)

3rd Quarter Economic Newsletter is out

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Looks like CCP Dr.EyoG and his crew finally managed to process all the market data and have published the Economic Newsletter for Q3 2009.

A few interesting bits from the newsletter:

The most flown vessel is now, ironically, the Hulk (Raven dropped from 1st to 6th place compared to Q2)
Q2->Q3 the number of Dreads flown has dropped by about a third (I'm surprised the number for Q2 was only 1200, given the fact that there are about 250 titans in-game), and the number of T3 cruisers has more than tripled;

All in all, a very interesting read. Click to view/download

Oh look, an Interesting fix for the upcoming Dominion fiasco

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:22:00 +0000

I think this weekend I read about 100 forum pages arguing that the way CCP wants to get more people to 0.0... well, to put it bluntly, sucks balls.

The problem

Players feel all the Upkeep mumbo-jumbo isn't going to persuade Empire folk to move to 0.0 simply because in order for 0.0 to be attractive the rewards need to be greater, not equal, but GREATER than what Highsec (and Lowsec) have to offer. Small corporations/alliances will not want to move in a high-risk area which requires effort and isk only to make a bit more cash than in a safe area.

A solution?

On Scrapheap Challenge there's a post by a Mr. Joshua Foiritain of the "Coreli Corporation":

I'm sort of confused as to why dominion would change anything, sure the new upkeep and sov system would reduce the number of colored dots on the map but at the end of the day keeping the small alliances out of your space only really requires you to throw power around...

The system upgrade stuff wont allow alliances to scale down their space at all so rather then covering their entire region with POSes and sov they re gonna claim sov on the outpost systems but still keep on using the systems without sov for ratting, moongold and plexing, which pretty much requires them to rape anyone that tries to move in.

Of course, maybe theyre only adding the basic system and well see stuff actually worth using in future patches...

On the other hand, the fix for this entire problem is easy; Allow people who are docked in outposts with the proper system upgrades to talk to their normal agents. IE: People in Delve can talk to their Caldari navy agents and get missions in delve;
- this allows 0.0 people to move back to their alliance space
- the only limit on players making money per system is lag
- alliances have more people in their space to help defend stuff
- the enemy has more targets to try and kill
- plus theres a small motivation for empire people to move to 0.0 as they can still use their normal agents and theyd get a shitton more LP in -1 0.0 systems then they do in empire.
- also since the people who dont want to go to empire can then run missions in 0.0 corps would make more on corp taxes.

What he is proposing is allowing players to communicate remotely with the agents they already have (highsec, lowsec...0.0 agents, doesn't matter). CCP said adding the ability to hire agents in upgraded systems is not feasible - the code is to complicated and there would be database issues. Well then, how about simply using the agents we already have?

Expanding on the above idea

Here's the way I'd do it, utilizing many of the existing features:

A small alliance holds a bunch of solar systems and an outpost in one of them. In the system where the outpost is located, in addition to having the possibility to upgrade their territory with the current options, a new one would be made available - call it a "Long Range Secure Communications Facility" or whatever. This upgrade would cost cash to be maintained online, just like the rest and corporations would be able to tax bounty income

When this is deployed, a new Station Service is added to the outpost in the system, allowing access for each player to his/her own agents, wherever they may be located in the cluster.Players would be able to get missions from that agent's mission pool in the surrounding systems.

A few points I'd implement to insure the proposal is fair:

Scale mission rewards (LP and monetary reward) according to the True Security of the system, clearly over the levels the agent would offer in Empire, if it's an Empire agent. This would counterbalance the added risk of running missions in 0.0
In order to claim rewards for LP, players still need to visit a station belonging to the NPC corp the LP is from, wherever that station may be (if you run missions from your alliance's turf in Deklein for the Sanshas' True Power corporation in Stain, you'll need to take a trip to Stain to get that Nightmare BPC).
Limit the number of missions a player can get in a set time-frame from each station featuring this upgrade that he has access to. This will discourage alliances to simply hold one system, lock it down tight, upgrade it and use it to print isk from missions, ignoring the other types of PVE the space has to offer. If their pilots want to run more missions, they'll have an incentive to expand their alliance's territory, which will mean bloodshed and more bills to pay. Limitations should not be so severe that they cause frustrations, but should nevertheless exist.
Make it so that in order to get work from an agent remotely you need higher standings than you normally would when contacting him in person (i.e. to remotely contact your L4 Q0 agent, you'll need, for instance, a standing of 7 instead of 6)

How it all fits within the game's story

Ah, good question. Well, I would imagine all the NPC corporations in Eve would have interests even in the farthest reaches of space - Empire NPC corps would attempt to root out the evil at its source, or even to duke it out with the opposing Empire faction and prevent them from achieving their own goals pertaining to that piece of 0.0

Thus, it makes perfect sense to tap into the local capsuleer pool (oh, wait, that's us) and pay them handsomely for taking care of their dirty laundry, even better than in Empire, since they certainly recognize that there are many added dangers in 0.0.

Why this can successfuly attract Empire dwellers to 0.0 and make life more interesting for all involved

Empire dwellers, more specifically mission runners are given the option of doing something they are very familiar with, with increased risk compensated by much greater rewards. This will insure a smoother adaptation to the harsher life in 0.0 (losing ships, not having the right equipment at hand and making due etc)

In time, even the most hardcore mission runners will come to embrace the other possibilities their new space offers, will learn to *gasp* defend themselves (and to recognize when it's time to run away). They will also learn to fight back against invaders and to become invaders themselves.

A number of people asked in the Dev blog discussion thread what reason alliances would have to squabble over territory when the income from R64 moons is getting nerfed. Well - this might be it. Outposts in 0.0 systems with stations will offer great rewards for the controlling alliance's players. Since CCP said they won't abandon the Truesec system, this fits perfectly. Also, as this upgrade would be conditioned by having an Outpost in the system, I think it will provide incentives to drop additional ones.

Making cash for cool stuff while slapping the enemy who is trying to do the same, what more do you need from Eve?

If you've managed to read this far, you certainly must have formed an opinion about this proposal and are invited to express it in a comment below - I'd like to hear about it.

Major tears and tomes of whineage

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:57:00 +0000

So, CCP released a new Dev Blog detailing how much exactly the new Sov system is going to bite into alliance budgets. Judging by the cries of outrage in the discussion threadnaught of 50+ pages, I'd say the bill would be pretty steep.

At the moment U'K holds about 2 constellations worth of space and according to calculations (with the new prices for upgrades, which are lower than the ones announced in the dev blog), for 16 upgraded systems the bill will run at about 5-6 billion isk per month. Is it a lot? Is it too little? All I can say is, it'll be interesting to see what happens on December 1st.

EVE clone with a hint of MechWarrior on the horizon

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:07:00 +0000

In the world of gaming (and not only) you know you're doing something right when others start copying your concepts.

There are tons of more or less successful Command and Conquer clones, tons of WoW clones (even if I have a deep dislike of everything WoW represents, I have to give Blizzard credit for giving the people what they want)

Now there's a game on the horizon that so closely resembles EVE game design that my only reaction when I saw it was "Damn...". The name of the game is...

Perpetuum Online (website)

The creators are a Hungarian company called Avatar Creations. The theme of the game - piloting mechanized vehicles (Mechs) in a sandbox environment very much like EVE.

At the time of this writing, it is in closed Beta, with release scheduled for 2010.

The Basics of the Game

The player is an Agent of one of the three Megacorporations of Earth (reunited in what is called the Syndicate) some 200 years in the future. The plot takes players through an artificial wormhole (sound familiar?) to planet Nia, a life-supporting world some 87000 lightyears from Earth.

Each Megacorp has its own agenda for the exploration and exploitation of Nia... and then there's the locals. Split into 3 factions, the locals are to be NPC's as far as I can tell.

Mechs and Combat

Here it all gets very, VERY familiar. The Mechs in Perpetuum have attributes quite similar to ships in Eve. Here's a short list of attributes in EVE, and their counterparts in Perpetuum:

Maximum targets (same meaning in both)
Targetting range (same meaning in both)
Sensor strength (same meaning in both)
Capacitor (EVE) = Accumulator (Perpetuum)
Signature size (EVE) = Surface hit radius (Perpetuum)
CPU and Powergrid = CPU and Reactor Performance

Weapon classes are the same as in EVE - Firearms (Projectile weapons in EVE), Magnetic weapons (Hybrids in EVE), Lasers and Missiles. Hit and miss are determined by the target's speed, by your guns' tracking and by the target's surface hit radius.

One thing however is different in Perpetuum, and that's WASD control of your craft. EVE doesn't have it, possibly because it creates very high server loads. Since Perpetuum promises to be a single sharded universe just like EVE, we'll see how the developers handle that.

By the looks of it, well-versed EVE players should have no problems adapting to Perpetuum. Simply jump in, fit a mech and it's business as usual.

Here's a trailer I managed to find, featuring what the game would look like:

Decent graphics, given the fact that this trailer is from February, and since then the GFX engine has received an update, they say.

Industry, Manufacturing and Commerce

Again, this part will look pretty familiar to the knowledgeable EVE industrialist. Gathering resources is done in more-or-less specialized mechs, manufacturing requires a factory slot, blueprint (called patent, off which manufacturing licenses are obtained) and a set quantity of minerals.

The market however will probably be more limited than in Eve. One will not (atleast for now) be able to sell items for prices differing by more than 25% from the average price. This is a severe limitation, but I hope it gets revisited.

So... what's different?

Well, as I said before from what I've noticed, this game will have WASD controls, the lack of which seems to be extremely frustrating for newer players of EVE which come from other MMO's.

The designers also promise destructible environments. There's even a video of that:

There is a Game Guide on the website, a work in progress by the looks of it, but it can certainly allow you to form a better view of what this game is about.

Summing up

At first glance, Perpetuum looks promising. Probably not so much to the hardened, bitter EVE veteran (myself included, but hey, I'll try everything once... I might like it) for which Eve is like a religion, but it certainly will look attractive to the people for whom EVE was a bit much. On the other hand, to be fair, EVE was a much simpler game at its beginnings... It is only fair to assume that Perpetuum could evolve into a game of comparative complexity, given enough tim

I for one would be quite pleased if Perpetuum would also adopt the cold, dark "shoot you in the face if you make a wrong turn" atmosphere we are so used to in Eve.

I signed up for beta testing whenever it comes out of closed beta (which should be "Soon", heheh...), so when/if I manage to get my mitts on Perpetuum I'll certainly give it a thorough look and report what I found.

JINX.COM Releases Brand New EVE Online T-shirt Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:46:00 +0000

Yep, just saw the new EVE shirts today while browsing to see what's new on Jinx (and afterwards also noticed the news item about this).

Jinx has released 4 EVE t-shirts, featuring each race's Tier 2 battlecruiser (Harbinger, Hurricane, Myrmidon and Drake) in sizes S to 3XL (Minmatar gets 4XL too... wonder what that's all about) for guys and S - 2XL for gals - and they're awesome! I would want to own several of each, but will have to settle for the Minmatar one for starters (Alliance leaders would have my head if I got the Amarr one first, heheh)

Here are the other three as well. Enjoy:

Image source: Jinx.com

Supercarrier pilots rejoice!

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:02:00 +0000

In a presentation done about the Dominion expansion (linky - check at 13:00) by CCP Torfi at Fanfest there's a little nugget of information specifically interesting for would-be Supercarrier pilots. In a list of possible solar system upgrades after the change in Sov mechanics, one item reads as follows: "Supercarrier Docking Facilities - Perhaps... allow players to dock in player built outposts" (pic below, last item on the list):

Click For Larger Pic

It would seem my greatest Supercarrier-related wish (expressed in this article at their announcement) has a chance to materialize:

"One thing I would like to see given to Supercarriers though is the ability to dock. Yes, regular carriers can dock, and now that they had their Cloning Vat removed,. their bigger cousins should be able to do this as well. Not having a character stuck at all times in what seems to be a very expensive coffin with big bad drones would make a big difference towards making the ship class more popular and seen more often on the battlefield - otherwise people are simply going to do what they've been doing until now - BRING MORE DREADS"

Other System Upgrades include better rats, better ores, better exploration content, system cyno jammer, cyno generator, the ability to anchor starbases and many more... do watch the presentation, it's quite interesting.

Epic Win! Please excuse me, I need to go rethink my skill queue :)

New Stargate series premiere - Stargate Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:59:00 +0000

[Warning, here may lie spoilers]

So I finally got round to watching the first (two-part) episode last night. A preview:

The tone seems to be rather gloomy, much more so than the other two series in the franchise, with a pinch of BSG thrown in. The main plot catalyst is the Icarus Project, something the SGC has set up in order to determine the use of a 9 chevron stargate they found on a planet with an unstable, radioactive core. Turns out its destination is an ancient ship "billions of light-years away", on which a rag-tag group of SGC personnel and civillians get stuck. Now they have to find a way to get back home, which might be hard, since the ship runs on autopilot and they have no way of dialling out from it on such a distance either.

This all reaked of Star Trek Voyager to me at first, but after watching it I concluded I will enjoy this show a good deal. The screenwriters seem to have taken a good long look at BSG and have concocted a complex system of interactions between the characters - personal agendas, prejudice, fear, the will to sacrifice others in order to survive - these are all elements that convinced me to put Stargate: Universe in my "To watch" pile, at the top.

Raised fist and all that...

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:34:00 +0000

So the wanderlust finally caught up with me, after many months of being lazy in empire. Brutus finally cracked and went back to 0.0 - mind you, his little cousin Max had been scouting the path ahead for about a few weeks.

The corp I joined is [WEDIE] - The Littlest Hobos, part of the Ushra'Khan Alliance. To be honest, one couldn't have hoped for a better bunch of guys to fly around punching holes in stuff.

The leadership has the right attitude and that really pays off. No forced ops, no taxes, no "be there or we'll slap you" crap. And of course, there's the corp's neverending source of everything bad and at the same time hilarious - Butter Dog.

I'm not one to favor role playing, but that's optional here... heck, everything is pretty much optional here, but some things are too much fun to miss.

So far, the preferred pastimes in corp are:

Ripping on Provibloc and shooting their toys, then cloaking, decloaking and shooting more of their toys
Ripping on Redpaw Israel in alliance chat
Reading Butter's latest CAOD drivel
Reading other CAOD drivel
Shooting more of provi's toys
RP'ing hobos squatting in provibloc's space
etc.

These past few days I've been busy bringing down some instruments of destruction and haven't had time to X up for much, just a bit of pos bashing in Curse, which actually took longer to get to than actually shoot. Too bad nobody came to defend it...

API will be turned off again...

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:35:00 +0000

...starting in a couple of hours, in case you missed the news. This means all 3rd party tools such as EveMon will cease to function for this period - starting at 14:00 today, until after downtime on the 21st (Monday).

Perhaps this has something to do with the server database migration to MS SQL 2008 scheduled for Tuesday, the 22nd (also accompanied by extended downtime starting at 8:00).

Fly safe.

New Planet GFX - Just Brilliant

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:13:00 +0000

The new planet graphics have been put on Singularity, the test server. And they look simply gorgeous. Here's a short clip by Flamewave:

Now the planets will look better than the rest of the game X)

Motherships - now with more teeth and less guts

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:36:00 +0000

There are significant changes coming to the Sovereignty mechanics in Eve-Online, and at the same time a lot of changes to capital ships. Dreads will no longer be the be-all, end-all in almost all types of conflict, Titans will no longer be able to wipe out entire fleets at the push of a button and carriers will remain largely unchanged in their logistics role. No doubt the removal of the Titan's AOE (area of effect) weapon is the most important change in fleet warfare since Titans were introduced, however the focus of this article are the changes that are expected to Motherships.

Up until now, Motherships were rarely put in harm's way intentionally.Used more as a personal hangar ornament (ironic, because they can't dock), and in limited logistics roles (clone vat bay etc.), they are to undergo a major re-purposing process, becoming Supercarriers in the process.

Things that are expected to be taken away:

The ability to fit Triage modules
The ability to fit Clone Vat bays (leaving the Titan and Rorqual the only two ships who can fill this role)
The ability to fit Warfare Links

Gallente Fighter-Bomber - close-up

Things given in exchange:

Hitpoint boost - how much remains to be seen
Fighter-bombers, special attack craft similar to Fighters that will be used to kill other capital ships
Specialized Fighter Bay (on both Supercarriers and Carriers) so the pilot can better organize his strike craft. CCP Abathur: "The server does not like it when Supercarriers have 1500 spare Hobgoblin II's in their drone bays and making the server happy is always a good thing."
Slightly reduced price tag, since the Supercarriers won't require Capital Clone Vat Bay components.

What should still remain from the old Motherships' abilities is fitting Remote ECM Burst modules - which can be especially cool when one side has multiple Motherships/Supercarriers on the field and can possibly perma-jam the enemy support fleet.

One thing I would like to see given to Supercarriers though is the ability to dock. Yes, regular carriers can dock, and now that they had their Cloning Vat removed,. their bigger cousins should be able to do this as well. Not having a character stuck at all times in what seems to be a very expensive coffin with big bad drones would make a big difference towards making the ship class more popular and seen more often on the battlefield - otherwise people are simply going to do what they've been doing until now - BRING MORE DREADS.

Sovereignty changes - TL;DR version

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Today a new Dev Blog by CCP Abathur sheds some light into the upcoming changes to Sovereignty mechanics expected to come into effect with this winter's expansion (Dominion).

I highly recommend reading this blog, but for the "TL:DR Crowd", here's some details in short:

No more Sov levels, you'll either have sov over the system or not
Sov will no longer be tied to starbases (we knew that much already)
Fuel costs for Sov-upholding towers will be swapped with costs (not necessarily financial) for running Stargates
CCP will let capsuleers do "some really cool stuff" in order to increase revenue from their held space - "Through the investment of time, money and effort at all levels, an alliance will be able to directly affect the value of and develop the space they hold."
Shooting stuff will still be an essential part of gaining (and defending) Sovereignty
A new interface, called "Sovereignty Dashboard" will allow players, according to their position in the alliance, to see real-time information on what's happening in any part of your alliance's controlled territories.
For a future expansion CCP envisions the introduction of treaties - formal contracts between alliances. These may include such features as "renting" of space, formal military treaties and so on.

These changes will not spell the end of gigantic power blocs in Eve Online, but a major shakedown is certainly on the horizon. Those entities with too rigid a structure, those who don't deserve their space, or those unable to adapt to the changes will find themselves removed, remaining only as a footnote in the EVE cluster's history, only to be replaced by new, more flexible entities.

Thoughts on Changes to Faction Battleships

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:53:00 +0000

The winter expansion, called Dominion will bring about new releases and changes to faction ships.

In this article I will focus on the Battleships, since CCP has finally decided to release Tier I battleships in Navy versions. Also, quite a few changes are to be made to the Tier 2 (Navy versions of the Megathron, Apocalypse, Tempest and Raven).

You can read the improvements to navy versions compared to the vanilla versions in the forum thread linked above - basically all navy Battleships will recieve +10% CPU and PG, +25% racial sensor strength and will lose some calibration compared to the T1 versions. All Tier 1 Navy Battleships get +50% hitpoints on Hull, Armor and Shield, making them pretty hard nuggets.

It is worth mentioning that the Tier 1 Navy Battleships will only be available for purchase from their respective Militia's LP store, with a price tag of 150'000 loyalty points. I expect the tier 1 versions to be rather expensive at first, given the scarcity of Militia LP, but they should go down as more people sign up in search of wealth and nice toys.

The Navy ships of particular interest to me are the Armageddon, Dominix and the Megathron (of which I used to own one for running missions, but which I sold because of its inability to fit T2 railguns without faction mods to spare on CPU)

Now then, on paper the Armageddon looks like a real monster. The slot layout will be 8/4/8, with 7 turret slots. It receives an extra mid slot compared to the standard version, which is CRUCIAL, since it can now fit much better for PVP (Has room for MWD, Cap Booster, web/sensor booster, warp disruptor/scrambler), and also for PVE (one extra cap recharger or AB or whatever). It also gets 50m3 additional drone bay space (which can mean 1 full set of sentries and also other drones; yay for rape-grade DPS).

The new Dominix receives 1 additional mid slot, making the slot layout 6/6/7, adding even more
versatility to what can be considered the Swiss Army Knife of battleships. It also gets a small capacitor boost (+5%) and +25m3 drone bay space, bringing the bay on par with the one on the Sin. All in all it will be more resilient, more versatile (can fit more ewar, more tackle, more drone mods like the omnidirectional tracking link and so on). I sure hope they'll make the paint job Jet Black, like the one on the Navy Megathron.

Finally the Megathron Navy issue will get +5% agility and speed when compared to the current version, +50m3 drone bay capacity and with the PG/CPU boost it'll be good to fit my full T2 setup, including the guns.

Time to start the count-down until Dominion gets released... I can't wait.

Guristas Exploration Boat - The Ishkur

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:01:00 +0000

So these past few days I've been passing time exploring in Caldari highsec and lowsec. I use a few ships to do this - a Helios to scan and do radar sites with no rats in them, Deimos for the combat sites that allow (and need) cruiser hulls and an armor-tanked ishkur for smaller plexes that don't.

In the past I used to run the Deimos with 2 scan rigs and a core probe launcher to do it all, but I found it rather slow to use full-time and also without the covops cloak taking it into lowsec and sitting in a safespot while looking for plexes I run the risk of getting caught with a PVE fit.

So, seing that the Ishkur also has a utility high slot, I thought of adapting it to the role, creating a high-dps, high-tank scan capable Assault Frigate. After tinkering in EFT, looking for the right price/performance ratio, I came up with a shield boosted fit:

[Ishkur, Gistii Booster, Neutrons, C-Type AB, Scan]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Flux I
Damage Control II

Gistii B-Type Small Shield Booster
Pithum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier
Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner

Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe I

Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Hobgoblin II x10

[Note to self: get the latest EFT, with sized rigs, on personal laptop as well]

Stats:

225 dps tank vs. Guristas (85% kin, 15% therm split common in exploration)
230 dps output using Null S (for extra range) and Hobgoblin II's; 265 with Federation Antimatter (but then only 1.7 km optimal). Only use Void on static installations you need to destroy.
943-ish m/s speed, thanks to the Coreli C-Type AB
39 Sig Radius

Yes, it's shield tanked, but this allows me to fit a damage mod (rig slots are needed for scan rigs), and is also cheaper than the armor tank solution of equivalent strength. My shield skills are sub-par compared to armor, but I still get the job done OK.

I've been flying it for a few hours now and I can honestly say, for Guristas it's golden. Radars - did 2, no problem, even the one with battleships (yay for small sig radius); breaks combat sites like nobody's business (Now if I could only find a 4/10 or similar to check out)... I did break a sweat in a Guristas Watch site because I mismanaged the triggers and because (I think) of the high number of gun ships present.

All in all it performs admirably, the 2 scan rigs and Sisters equipment allow for pretty damn fast scan times (almost as fast as covops, and although you might need an extra scan or two, it's definitely faster than going back and forth to swap ships).

I like the fact that it's fast and maneuvrable (and awe-inspiring) - I managed to snatch a Radar site from a small gang made up of a Drake, Buzzard and a Tristan. They warped out in a hurry when they saw me coming and didn't loot the site. By the time the Buzzard returned (and decloaked in the gas cloud cause he warped in too close), I had already looted all the cans and had just punched the warp engines.

For radar/arcsal sites I bring codebreaker/analyzer/salvager with me and dock to swap the C-type resistance amplifier or the probe launcher for the required mod.

The whole fit costs about 150mil - reasonable enough to be feasible (sisters launcher and probes I got on LP but are typically worth about 65mil, shield booster was 35mil, ship was 26mil, AB was 10mil, assorted bits and pieces a few more millions), and it also has the capability to flee should things get rough in lowsec, which will happen given the fact that it has no cloak.

Comments are welcome, as always.

In other news, I've been accepted as a member on the Eve Blog Roll (a collection containing various Eve Online related blogs ). Thanks, CrazyKinux, and congratulations to all other newly added participants.

Back in action

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:50:00 +0000

Well, I'm finally back home and ready to start working / playing Eve as usual (not necessarily in that order). Many thanks for the evemails wishing me a speedy return from my hospital stay.

"Do Black Ops Battleships Need a Covert Ops Cloak?" - My View

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:09:00 +0000

Kirith Kodachi, the writer for Ninveah.com wrote an article listing pros and cons on whether or not the ability to fit a covert-ops cloak would be necessary to make the Black Ops battleships more viable on the battlefields of New Eden - click to read it. I initially wanted to post my thoughts on the matter as a comment, but it soon appeared it would make for a rather lengthy one, so instead I turned it into a post.

Before I start - I am not a black ops pilot, so my point of view might not be considered very accurate. However I do know several black ops pilots, and have heard plenty about how they operate their ships at the moment.

The ships and their bonuses

Amarr - Redeemer

Battleship skills bonuses: 10% reduction in gun cap usage; 5% bonus to ROF
Marauder skill bonuses: 7.5% bonus to tracking

Minmatar - Panther

Battleship skills bonuses: 10% bonus to gun damage; 5% bonus to ROF
Marauder skill bonuses: 5% bonus to ship speed

Gallente - Sin

Battleship skills bonuses: 5% bonus to gun damage; 10% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints
Marauder skill bonuses: 5% bonus to ship agility

Caldari - Widow
Battleship skills bonuses: 10% bonus to CM/Torpedo speed; 5% bonus to ROF
Marauder skill bonuses: 30% ecm strength

Also, all ships have a 125% multiplier per black ops level to cloaked velocity. All ships except the Widow can field 5 heavy or sentry drones, with the Panther and Sin having sufficient carrying capacity to bring other types as well.

The Panther and Redeemer stand out as the heavy hitters among the lot, being able to put out around (or over) 600 dps at ranges of up to 40km. This with reasonable armor buffer and serious (2x reppers can be fitted on each) remote repair capabilities. The Panther is faster, while the Redeemer is better tanked and does better in close quarters with that tracking bonus. It does however somewhat suffer from CPU starvation.

Recent changes to Black Ops Battleships

In the latest patch, all black ops received a 1km3 fuel bay, so they might cope better in their assigned role of bridging other ships (bombers, covops, force recons, blockade runners) on short range jumps. In my opinion, this was a necessary fix (this feature was released pre-nerfed, as far as I know) and it does in no way represent a "boost" towards the combat capabilities of the ship itself.

The general view on the subject is pretty much the one illustrated in the caption below:

"Hello, I am the Panther; I'll be your Rapist tonight...Sorry, fresh out of lube.
By the way, when we're done, do you mind signing this petition to give me and my friends better tools to rape and pillage?"

This is mainly because few people have troubled themselves to train for this ship class and for many they represent fear-inspiring mythical creatures. So, is that the case or not? Well, let's see...

Arguments For the Covert ops Cloak

First off, it would be SERIOUSLY cool. But that's not an argument. just the inner child wanting it all.

Kirith does a good writeup on this; but in addition to what he said, I have more arguments.
First off, starting at the price tag: For nearly 800 Million, this ship can bridge some ship categories, jump itself and perform, in most if not in all aspects, worse than its T1 counterparts (which cost less than 1/10th of the price) in a combat situation.

Given the price, we won't see them using sniper fits with cardboard plating to tear down any type of orbital installation or capital ship as a comment in Kirith's post suggests - dreadnaughts can do the same job for far less cash output. And they are insurable.

Giving Black Ops covert cloaking capabilities is also an anti-blob measure. They should be able to follow blobs around and pick off stragglers on the way, while they themselves have a chance of surviving when they meet face to face with the blob fleet.

Arguments Against the Covert Ops Cloak

This is a classic case of CCP offering a finger and the players grabbing the whole hand. At first, Covert Ops Cloaks were reserved for Covert Ops Frigates and Force Recons; not long ago Stealth Bombers and Blockade runners joined the club. And now Black Ops Battleships? How about HAC's with the ability to warp cloaked? or Interceptors?

While it is true that Black Ops don't have quite the same potential for destruction as their T1 counterparts, they can very well pick their engagements and get out extremely fast if things look bad. Short-range hotdrops will be the order of the day, with Black Ops being able to go wherever they damn well please, since now covert cyno fields can be lit in cyno-jammed systems too. They can also send an avant-garde of bombers and heavy tacklers/ewar platforms (force recons) to soften up targets.

Granted, they won't be useful for influencing sovereignty, but they will be too efficient a weapon of terror used for interdiction tactics, logistics disruption and enemy demoralization. A relatively small group can fully cripple an entire alliance this way.

As to the fact that it will be a blob deterrent - quite the contrary. We'll simply see different blobs - blobs that can warp cloaked and go wherever they please, as long as fuel is on hand.

Rebuttal

Although these ships can now go almost everywhere via jump drives, the logistics are not that easy when pondering long-range incursions into enemy space. Fuel resupply can be done via blockade runner, but it's tedious and requires one if not several pilots who would otherwise fly a combat vessel to fly a fuel tank.

And you won't see large blobs of this type of ship - as already mentioned, they are quite expensive to lose to accidental decloaking caused by a gangmember. Marauders are also just a bit more expensive, and in spite of their drawbacks they make formidable war machines. Do you see blobs of them roaming around?

As for the claim that they will be used as a "third man in" (from Kirith's blog post) - this can already be done, for instance by gate campers. Take an average lowsec system with a gatecamp. A camp-busting force of similar size warps in and engages. Suddenly a few black ops aligned with the campers decloak and unleash their guns, ewar and tackle upon the camp busters without any delay, since they have no recalibration period. Having covert ops cloaks on black ops battleships would allow the camp busters to theoretically bring their own surprise to the battlefield, thus balancing it out.

Counter Rebuttal

Adding a covert ops cloak would allow Black Ops to function in full safety in roles it was not meant to in the first place - like NPC ratting and mission running in unsecured space. Although less efficient than a marauder, the increase in safety would make them worth using in such roles.

Also, adding the covert-ops cloak together with a de-cloak targeting delay wouldn't be any better - actually it would be quite useless. The pilot would still be able to use the cloak to warp away safely from a hairy situation, and when entering the battlefield, they would simply decloak mid-warp and be ready to fire when they arrive.

To sum it up...

There are many justified concerns that the Black Ops would be overpowered if given Covert Ops cloak capabilities, but at the same time there are also quite a few justified arguments in favor of this move.

All in all, I think putting this on the test server and getting players involved in testing different scenarios would clarify this issue once and for all, determining possible adjustments to compensate so that the added capabilities don't turn this ship class into a do-all monster.

Mid-week update

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:55:00 +0000

So I'm still not done with my little hospital visit, but all in all things seem to be OK. Need to cut down on soda though.

In the meantime I've been doing all kinds of stuff that doesn't require me to pay too much attention to the game, like manufacturing. T2 production is on hold, mainly because I'm sick of it, but I've been buying a lot of the new rig blueprints, which are incredibly cheap - and the manufacturing of which rakes in good cash, for now. As I expected, a lot of people started putting rigs on their T1 boats (especially cruisers and BC's), and a large portion of rigs sold migrated from large rigs to medium rigs.

The first T2 medium rigs have started to appear on the market; so far demand has been pretty reduced. I think that the most sold T2 rigs will remain large ones, because even for lower prices it isn't worth investing so much in a HAC or recon, let alone BC's or t1 cruisers... Command Ships might generate some demand. When rigs cost more than your ship, think hard if it's really worth it. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Routine medical checkup; Burn Eden titan dies.

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:13:00 +0000

Next week I'll be going to check myself into hospital for some routine medical checkups. I'll have my laptop with me, internet access too, but I didn't plan on writing much until I get back home.

Unless something interesting happens, like tonight, when Stainwagon (Sys-K, Coven, Legiunea Romana, The Klingons) killed one of Burn Eden's Erebus titans in 6QBH-S, Stain. Assorted caps from Br1ck Squad also died. Congrats, guys.

MUSIC !!!1!

noreply@blogger.com (Brutus Septimius) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:50:00 +0000

I somehow missed this dev blog by CCP Baldur, the Audio Director.

Although it doesn't say much (short account of what they improved recently blah blah), what it does say is this:

We'll be adding some nice things to the audio experience in the near future, such as fully controllable/selectable warning sounds on shield, armor, and hull damage. We also plan to introduce interactive music with missions, a new jukebox (mp3) where players can choose any music they want from their hard drive. We'll also look at allowing people more control over individual sounds such as the inside station sound.

Ok, so let's disect it a bit. Customisable sounds playing when damage starts hitting hull, armor, shields... sure, why not, can't hurt. Actually they can be quite useful, provided you don't get one-vollied by a fleet of snipers.

Next CCP Baldursaid something about new jukebox to play your own music on... SERIOUSLY? This has been on my Eve Online wishlist since... forever. No more alt-tabbing to alter the playlist in Winamp while playing Eve with music off, you say? This better not suck, hehe!...

Finally, allowing people more control over individual sounds inside stations... OK, I'm not sure what they mean by this, but I guess they "will be sharing some more audio related info here in the weeks and months to come".