Loaded Barrels

Nothing to see here (any more)

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 20:29:00 +0000

Oh, hey there.

In case you hadn't realized, this place is long gone. Sorry about that.

I am however doing a thing over on www.bitter.vet, where my ramblings have found a new home. You should check it out.

You can also get in touch on Twitter: @bitterdotvet

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

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — 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

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

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — 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.

3rd Quarter Economic Newsletter is out

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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 (the bitter.vet) — 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.

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

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — 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.

Macro Banning now Serious Business

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Graph by CCP

In the new devblog, CCP Grimmi presents the strategy used to rid the New Eden cluster of its most annoying problem - macros and characters responsible for RMT (real money trades).

Codenamed "Unholy Rage", the offensive against macro runners started on June 22nd. Prior to this, in March 2009 around 3000 RMT-related accounts were banned, and during the downtime on June 22nd roughly 6200 more accounts were tempbanned, and then perma-banned when the temp ban expired and they seemed to return to their old ways as if nothing had happened.

I've written about the effects of this mass banning on the market as they unfolded here and here.

Other changes were a clear reduction of the server load on certain nodes corresponding to the systems frequented by isk-generating characters and, of special interest to miners, an asteroid abundance in empire belts the likes of which haven't been seen in years.

The market seems to be relatively stable; the number of transactions dropped a little (10%) post-ban, but soon recovered. Prices did rise on key products macros used to generate, such as implants and ice products. Also, with no more macro accounts, PLEX prices should continue on a descending trend.

RMT won't go away, but at least with many of the macros gone playing conditions will be improved for many real subscribers (while RMT customers will be forced to become functional members of the New Eden economy)

Wormhole Adventures of the Bloody Red Phobos

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:24:00 +0000

So, finally something interesting happened today, but before telling you about it I'll have to give mad props to fellow pod pilot and corpmate "Andreiv", gifted Buzzard pilot who provided warp-ins on all occasions mentioned below, thus missing out on getting on the actual killmails. Thanks, Andrei.

After downtime today I was chilling in drydock, spinning my camera drone around my Helios, pondering whether to go scanning or not (Andrei being a lucky bastard netted 2 medium c-type boosters in as many days)... while I was spinning and spinning and spinning, corp chat blinks. It's Andrei, and he has news. Turns out he's in a class 2 wormhole, and there's 3 ships with him: a Hurricane, a Thrasher and a Probe.

"What are the pilots' names, can you tell?" ask I, to which he replies "Oh, there are no pilots... can you fly those things?". Imagine my disappointment, I can't fly the 'Cane, being gallente/amarr specialised and neither can my colleague... tsk tsk... we'll have to blow it up and see what falls out... "Hold your ground at the wormhole entrance in K-space," I say while jumping into a Deimos, "I'm coming over".

Some gate jumps later I find myself at the wormhole entrance in Otitoh, The Forge region. We both jump through and gang warp to the ships. I start shooting up the Hurricane, which goes down like a bag of rocks, then turn to the Thrasher, which by the name seemed salvage fitted. Then it dawns on me I did have Minmatar Frigate trained, which meant I could fly the thrasher and the Probe frigate next to it. I climb into the Thrasher to jetisson any sleeper loot, but I'm disappointed to only find some Reinforced Metal Scraps. So I climb back into the Deimos and shoot the damn thing to pieces. This of course meant that I didn't get a killmail for it, since it became my ship when I climbed aboard, but hilariously I got an insurance payout:

Your friendly insurance company has transferred 300,000.00 ISK into your account for the recent loss of your ship. This payout is the default payout for an uninsured ship. If you are interested in better insurance then please visit a station with an Insurance Service for further details.

I blew the Probe out of the water just as the owner, Jopie Adam, was appearing on directional scan in his Capsule. What a time to appear... :P

We thought that was the end of that, went home, put the loot away and so forth. Andrei had to take his son to the park, so he logged, and so did I after a bit.

As I came back on tonight Andrei greeted me with more news - in the meantime the corporation Jopie Adam belonged to, one "Nuclear Fabritronics" had anchored a medium Caldari POS in the wormhole, together with some assorted hangars, making it look like they were moving in. "Great", I say, "... not much we can do about it by ourselves".

Then something interesting happened: while decloaked to launch some probes, Andrei's buzzard appeared on their directional scan. Promptly, a message appeared in local:

[18:55:10] andreiv > Dreakco Marilius > Buzzard Pilot- Suggest you leave or you will be scanned down and destroyed

"This is rude", I say. "Yeah, especially since the three of them are huddled up at POS in an Iteron, a Hulk and... a simple Capsule. Hey, maybe they'll start mining, there's a gravimetric sig I scanned down here" said Andrei. "Yup, the Hulk just warped into the gravi site".

"Hang on, I'll get a surprise lined up for them." I said and went to get the brand new Phobos I had gotten some time ago but which I hadn't had time to use yet.
"... if they're so pissy about people coming and going through the system, we'll see if we can't ransom them". I hoped by the time I got there all three would be hugging a can in the belt, sitting ducks just waiting to be bubbled and shot down.

While I was on the way a Heron pilot stumbled into the system. Promptly he was hailed in local the same way as Andrei was:

[19:23:55] andreiv > Dreakco Marilius > Heron Pilot- Suggest you leave before you get shot Down and Destroyed

OK... those guys seriously needed to be taken down a peg or two.

"Hang on, Hulk is warping to POS. He's coming back, and there's a Retriever with him. It's Jopie Adam, the guy whose ships we blew up... but the two are 60km apart". Judging by the time it took the hulk to fill up and warp to POS I figured it was probably cargo rigged. "Okay, we'll go for the Hulk. I'm almost there. Get to about 5km of the hulk and I'll warp to you. As soon as I say GO, you jump out to avoid getting caught uncloaked by my bubble. Ready.... GO". I yelled GO as I was in warp towards Andrei. The nimble Buzzard aligned and warped before I arrived.

I came out of warp 8km away from the hulk. Bubble up - he's not going anywhere. I locked him and started pounding with my Heavy Ion II's. The Retriever got out. Sensor Booster was on, expecting his drones... but there were none. And his shield went down extremely fast because it turned out he hadn't fitted a shield booster. A couple salvos more for his armor and hull and he's history. His pod was caught in the HIC bubble and web and I was going to offer a ransom... 30mil should be OK, considering the price hike of implants... but before I could finish typing my business proposal in local, I was made a counter-offer in a language I didn't understand, but which didn't sound too friendly:

[19:49:41] Dreakco Marilius > Ja jy dink jy is slim, POES

So without any more haggling, Dreakula, the Hulk pilot won a free trip to the cloning vats, all expenses paid. I also blew up the hulk wreck since my cargo was still full with cap charges and ammo, neither of which I wanted to jetisson to make room for a couple of strip miners and assorted junk.

[19:50:05] Brutus Septimius > that's for being rude to passers-by
[19:50:15] Dreakco Marilius > Bite me :P
[19:50:35] Dreakco Marilius > Being rude to passers by that come in here and lock me will get shot at
[19:50:42] EVE System > Channel changed to Otitoh Local Channel

I have no idea what Dreakco's last line meants exactly, but given the fact he spent all the time in an Iteron inside the POS shields doesn't make me take his threats too seriously...

After we were back in K-space, I ran that first line through Google translator with "detect language" as a "from" selection. It came out: "Yes JY JY Dink is smart, Cat", which I interpreted as "yeah you think you're smart, pussy?"... is that Dutch, or am I mistaken?

Tsk tsk... W-space takes its toll on people, makes them irrascible and not quite rational. Mining Plagioclase in unsecured space while yelling at passers-by to leave or be destroyed by a Hulk, Iteron and Retriever doesn't shed too good a light on you.

Again, thank you, Nuclear Fabritronics for chasing our boredom away :)
Killing a few pilotless ships and a Hulk isn't something to brag about, but given the circumstances it needed to be done. I'm sure any other pilots would have done the same.

Fly safe.

Sniper HAC's - the Ishtar

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:42:00 +0000

So when Manasi was wondering about sniper HAC's today, the ships he mentioned were the Zealot, Muninn and Eagle. All capable ships for their respective races (some more than others *cough*Eagle*cough*); but that doesn't matter for Gallente people wanting to tag along on sniper HAC roams.

The two options available to Gallente pilots - the Ishtar and the Deimos have their strengths, but also drawbacks. I'm still trying to figure out how to make good use of the Deimos' rig slots, but I fear that'll take some reworking of the whole concept I've come up with so far. So, without further ado, this is what I've come up with for the Ishtar:

[Ishtar, sentry sniper]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II, offline
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Adaptive Nano Plating II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range
Passive Targeter II or a second Sensor Booster II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I

Drone Link Augmentor I
Drone Link Augmentor I
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Sentry Damage Augmentor I
Sentry Damage Augmentor I

Warden II x5
Bouncer II x5

First off, let's see the numbers - with reasonable skills (which for the serious Ishtar pilot means Drone Interfacing V):

> DPS: with Wardens 400; with Bouncers 450+ => V. Good
> Alpha: with Wardens 1600-ish; with bouncers 1800/1900-ish (4 second duration * calculated DPS)
> Range: with Wardens 105km [30 falloff]; with Bouncers 84km [42 falloff] => Good
> Speed: 1300-1350(ish) => OK (considering we bring a 1600 plate)
> Tank: 37K ehp buffer; small repper to fix yourself up if you've managed to escape in less than great condition => V. Good (considering the average Zealot falls to shreds after taking around 20K damage)
> Tracking: 0.016 rad/s, which is better than what the Zealot using Aurora ammo can hope for

The numbers look good on paper, but in the field it's different. When the FC starts calling primaries, you launch drones, lock and start shooting - which is all dandy if you've set up hotkeys for drone actions such as attack and scoop to cargo. The funny part comes when this isn't from a stationary position. Sentry drones are dead in the water, so if the FC tells you to align to someplace and maintain speed while shooting, you've next to no way of getting those expensive T2 sentries back (except warping back alone, which isn't something you'll want to do, as it usually means you getting one-volleyed, doomsdayed or killed in some other hilarious way by the enemy fleet).

So for all it's worth, here's the pros and cons of the sentry sniper:

+ Great DPS, insane Alpha strike - no other sniper setup can go over 400dps, and it gives the Muninn a run for its money in the Alpha strike department. Actually, if the figures are correct, it's Alpha is better than Manasi's Muninn's.
+ Damage type can be changed to suit needs
+ Great EHP buffer compared to competitors
+ Drones keep firing when you're jammed... they have funny ways of selecting the next target after the current SOB under fire snuffs it, and I can 100% guarantee they won't pick the same as your FC (and almost 100% sure they'll split fire on 2 or 3 targets)
+ Your speed doesn't count diddly for tracking. Sitting duck or pedal to the metal - it's all the same.
+ Due to the space left in the drone bay (75m3 with Heavy Assault Ships IV, 125m3 with Heavy Assault Ships IV), you have room for several more flights of smaller drones. 1/2 flights of meds and 1 flight of lights, or 1 flight of meds and 3/5 flights of lights... you can pretty much bring whatever you damn well please. Warriors to fend off ceptors, repair drones to help your gang between fights... the list can go on. Or you can simply bring more sentries...
+ Look Ma, no ammo... free cargo room FTW

- You can easily "misplace" drones if you're not careful
- Your source of DPS can be destroyed, aside from being prone to misplacement
- No gun overloading for you; actually aside from the obvious (MWD), overloading is pretty useless on this ship (although with that damage output... who the fuck needs to?)
- Have I mentioned the fact that you will lose your drones? (hint: Gallente custom is to name each one... you'll stop doing that after about 2 sorties)

So in conclusion, while it is true that without being used to flying it you will most likely die, the Ishtar, with it's minuses compensated by its very attractive pluses is a very powerful tool in the right hands (and with a bit of luck you might not have to buy new drones). It certainly requires finesse, a steady hand and if at all possible a lag-free environment. If you prefer the "I roll my face on the keyboard and stuff dies" approach, FOTM Zealot is your ship.

Stay tuned for a post about the Deimos, although I fear it might be beyond help as a sniper.

Bubbly Bubbles

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Finally, it's here... my Phobos heavy interdictor :)

Now all I have to do is find an excuse to use it. Took it by my lonesome self into a couple of wormholes the other night, but the owners seemed to be offline :(

Rigged For Her Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:37:00 +0000

There's been an announcement that the upcoming mini-expansion is to include changes to Ship Modifications, the so-called "rigs".

So in the near future we can expect 3 classes of rigs, for the 3 (sub-capital) ship sizes: small for frigs and destroyers, medium for cruiser and battle cruiser hulls and large for battleship hulls.

The main change will be price, by what I feel is an enormous factor of 5. This means that using current prices for salvage, a medium rig would cost 1/5 of the price for a large rig, and in turn a small rig - 1/5 of the medium rig price. For example, a Trimark Armor Pump I costs around ~~15 million~~ 20 million, so the medium and small variants should be at 4 million and 800K respectively.

What this means is that some ship classes will be getting a boost - especially T1 battle cruisers: one typically costs 20 - 40 million, and for PVP they are often used unrigged. Being able to equip them with 3 rigs for under or around 10 million (usually 20-40% of the hull value) is simply fabulous compared to the 45-50 million it would cost in the current system (over 100% of the hull price).

Another class of ships that would greatly benefit from the rig changes would be assault ships. Imagine for example a Trimark rigged Ishkur, with Warrior II drones hunting interceptors. The additional cost would be pretty small, a few million at most, but survivability would be greatly improved.

One possible disadvantage however is the fact that the increase in rig usage, combined with the alleged ability to transform T1 salvage into T2 salvage, might cause a significant increase in the salvage materials' prices - and as such a significant increase in the prices for battleship-sized rigs, compared to what we are used to currently.

There is an ongoing discussion on this topic on the Features and Ideas Forum

Meta 3 and 4 item prices soar as the farmer CNR armada remains grounded

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:02:00 +0000

Again with the macro farmers!

The past week has seen a strong increase in the prices of "best named" (a.k.a. Meta 4) and Meta 3 items. The reason? Oh, let's just say the armada of stereotypical CNR's and Golems running missions non stop has been nerfed a notch by CCP.

But how much of this price increase is natural market reaction and how much is artificially induced by market manipulators? This is indeed a great opportunity for anyone with a fat wallet and some patience to obtain an even fatter wallet.

Take for instance the best named 10MN Microwarp Drive, the "y-t8": it is generally used on cruiser and battlecruiser (and their T2 versions) sized ships for the following reasons:

Less fitting requirements which may just be enough to "fit"
Less cap usage than T2
Comparable to T2 performance-wise

Six months ago, one of these babies cost around 3-3.5mil; yesterday in Jita the going price for one was 14mil. In other systems of The Forge and the surrounding regions you could still find some for 8-10mil, which means a certain degree of market manipulation is underway.

How much exactly is difficult to pinpoint, given the "lag" with wich prices elsewhere allign to Jita prices; but given the previous trend, I'd say anywhere up to about 30%.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as usually this kind of manipulation implies a price spike for a few days, but afterwards, depending on the daily demand, supply and quantity left on the market, the price stabilizes, sometimes lower than before the spike.

I'm anxious to see how the price increases are going to affect PVP... watch the killboards :)

Important Market Shifts in Response to CCP Actions

noreply@blogger.com (the bitter.vet) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:39:00 +0000

As of late, due to several actions/changes performed by CCP, a few sectors of the in-game market have suffered some significant changes:

- In response to CCP announcing different sized rigs, the prices on salvage have taken a hike (20-25% in some cases)

- As a result of rumors that CCP started taking action against isk farmers by banning accounts (and also because China recently outlawed virtual currency to real money trades), prices on isotopes and other ice-related fuels for starbases has also increased by some 20-25% at the time of this writing (The Forge regional market). So far mineral prices remain largely unaffected.

- PLEX prices are coming down again from an all-time high caused by market speculation (and CCP offering the option to pay for Fanfest tickets with PLEXes)

Also, the number of Isk spammers in public chat channels has decreased drastically, which can only be a good thing, hehe.

In other news, I've been playing the T2 market a little (well, a little more actually). It's nice to put your cash to use - granted, the 0.01 undercut wars are killing me, but the return is awesome; when I'm bored I simply go do something else.

That's it for now,
See you in space.