Progression's Horizon

Times Change

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:04:00 +0000

Things change as time plods on and so I decided to keep with last post's theme of things that are shifting. Well this is more like a straight change. Session change to be exact!

CCP vowed to make session change timers shorter and so they have. The newest round of trimming has gotten it down to 10 seconds. Now that may not sound like a big deal since most of you only see it in stations and the like. But in wspace, this could mean escaping and not. When you jump through a wormhole, the other side doesn't hear that activation until you've already loaded grid. Having such a short timer now means you don't even have to give them a chance to collect their thoughts as you wait out your cloak, you can just decloak and jump back immediately.

It also means I don't want to see wormhole dwellers littering their POSes with ships. First of all, that's just lazy. I know it was a hassle before if you had ships just floating that you had to wait forever and a day to get out, get in, store, get out, get in, etc. Now you really don't have that excuse, so tidy up!

It also gives bombers less of a chance to get a kill if their enemy is on a hole storing their ship in a carrier or the like, vulnerable as a kitten in front of an angry bulldog.

Times change and we adapt. Or we die for not adapting. Your choice.
-Mem

Shifting Tides

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:05:00 +0000

For those that live in player owned null sec, the flow of politics and tactics is an expectation. One system could be owned by a different group every other week and fleet compositions are always evolving to counter the FOTM ship type.

Wormhole space is usually a different matter. Tactics can vary due to system effects, system size and what group you run into in your chain. This means you tend to have quite the closet of ships to be ready for anything. But it seems that views are changing in wspace and standardized fleets are coming into being.

This hasn't just popped out of nowhere, of course. A couple of larger wspace alliances have does this for a while now, but after recently running into an Exhale. fleet I am observing an inclination for a specific fleet comp. Proteus heavy fleets with drone swarms assisted by triage carriers and webbing/neuting utility ships. It can be scary unless you understand what these fleets can and cannot do. And when you're in the unknown, intel is king.

Take the Exhale. fleet for example. They found a way into our home system, a hole we quickly recognized and scanned down. They found it suitable to stick a HIC and a couple T3s on our side to see if they got a reaction. Our scout decided to poke around and took a look around their home. With nothing on directional scan in the entire system, there are a couple things left to check. If you know all their pilots you can see if they are all online. That can be a very hard thing to do, however, since they could be using a log on trap or just simply be offline. So that leaves another trick any decent wormholer uses. Deep safes.

A deep safe is any bookmark in space that keeps a ship off of Dscan from any point in the system. Making them can be an ordeal, but their usefulness pays off quickly. Drop a few probes and throw them out at extreme range and see if you get a ping. In this instance, we found quite a few pilots sitting out in the black. After a bit of bravado about blowing up one of our POSes they decided to instead begin crashing the link since the jig was up. They didn't even want to wait a bit longer to see if we would engage. That's a different tangent, however.

These fleets are meant for wormholes because most fights happen at knife fight range. While one must be wary of polarity timers on the wormholes, a smart fighter can keep a fight going to their advantage with the exit as a last ditch. If an enemy does not engage at the range they want, such as with snipers, they can leave at will. The Proteus is one of the strongest T3s, with a full dps fit getting 1k dps and even as a cloaky can get over 600 dps. Fielding 10 or more of these means you are facing 10k dps from their guns alone, but still keep in mind the amount of drones they also bring with them. That drone cloud can be assigned to one person, amounting to an alpha strike that is hard to counter without smartbombs. Add to that a couple of Bhaalgorns that are able to nuke capacitor out of any ship it sees and the webs of the Bhaal and any Loki's or Rapiers...well, you won't move very far and that 10k Prot dps catches up quick. It's meant to sit on a wh and chomp anything around. But who says you have to go to that wh.

But I am also a pilot that loves ECM. My love doesn't seem to be shared by most other wspace alliances. As such, countering these massive fleets is not a terrible ordeal since you can just bring the jams. One can also bring the same comp with more numbers and simply fly better. Or one could engage at enough range to make a tasty target and pull them off. Or any number of things. You decide.

What I don't like is mindset. It is another reason I love being the pilot I am, where I am. Adhocracy does not make standardized fleets, they are closer to kitchen sink fleets. It can be a boon as well as a downfall, but that all depends on how Leeroy Jenkins we are feeling on a particular day. Maybe what other groups are doing can be considered smarter or better. I don't think anything of the sort. It takes much of the thinking out of the equation, easier to get complacent. I guess that may come off as arrogant, but I hope it is understood that I care little for epeen. It's more about being creative and not just copying a simple tactic.

What do you think of this type of philosophy?
-Mem

Deadline Death

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:56:00 +0000

*tap tap* Anyone still there?

I live! I do apologize for the lack of content the last few weeks. My son was born a week and a half early, I am in the last leg of my senior year with a thesis project that decides if I get my degree and playing Eve has taken a hit as a result. While I still log in when I can, not much has been happening. I have trained up Recon V with some other useful skills, shot some people but missed the shinies, lost my ECM Tengu after a very long run of awesome ewar, and forum warrior-ed a good bit.

I have gotten used to the new neocom and flown most of the new stuff now so I will be able to give an opinion on that now. There is also some great stuff in the works, things that will make for stories full of lulz.

I am also trying to get this sorted for a new podcast. We have recorded the pilot, of which I still need to edit, get hosted, etc. So if you missed my sultry tones, fear not for there shall be more! Hopefully podfade doesn't strike again.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
-Mem

Resolving to Keep Resolutions...Resolute

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:46:00 +0000

2011 was a pretty busy year. It started with the Create-A-Starship contest debacle, PI iterations, New Eden Chronicles starting and then sadly puttering out, PL forums leaks, PLEX for Good drives, moving on with the new Clear Skies, plenty of CCP blundering around, buying my first Vindi...and then losing it to Sleepers in an embarrassing situation I may never explain, Incarna, Crucible, CCP getting scarily understanding and smart(er), hitting my year with ADHC, and so much more. That's quite a list of things that 2012 will need to live up to in its time before we all explode.

I didn't do any resolutions last year, so why not start this year off with some and see how far we get.

1. I will be working on breaking 250bil in damage done and/or having 200x more kills than deaths. As it stands now:

653 kills

40 deaths

188 billion damage done

I admit, 250 bil isn't a huge goal, but it's attainable. Especially if I keep killing Nyx's ;) Having 800 kills and keeping 40 deaths would be pretty cool. Guess I'll just have to do what I do best and ECM the masses.

2. This goal is one I thought I would never want. I want to be able to fly capitals, both dreads and carriers with good skills. I never saw them in much use, except when I was helping kill one. But now the neighborhood is bigger and thus we play with bigger toys. Gotta adapt.

3. Less specifically, there are some other ships that I want to train into and getting my overall skill set stronger is a longterm goal.

4. Getting my wallet back to being somewhat healthy. For months now I've been riding the line between flat broke and ok, but with PLEX prices getting ridiculously (stupidly I think) high that is a hard thing. PLEXing is the only way I play since RL cash is taken by school, living, and now a new marriage and baby on the way. PLEXing is an awesome feature that I love about Eve. So any market manipulation to bring it down is quite fine by me. Maybe I could replace my Vindi one day :D

5. Going hand in hand with the PLEX thing, keeping both my account and my wife's account running. I just got her back into the game after a year or more of her being AFG. Her account ran dry as she was getting into cruisers, so we have a lot of training to work on with her. It's a whole other fun when you get to share your hobby and experiences with a significant other that enjoys it too.

6. Killing more supercaps. Taking down that Nyx, and FCing it as well, left me thirsty to try it again. Who knows, maybe a Titan falls prey to us, eh?

7. Giving Progression's Horizon a facelift finally. This will probably have to happen after I somehow survive my last semester of college.

8. Another year in Eve and ADHC. Eve has become a part of my routine; a hobby, a past-time, a fallback. Any game you can keep enjoying year after year is a good one, but it's the people that really make it worthwhile. I can't play Eve without ADHC.

There's my list. How about you, now? What are some goals you want to set for the new year?

Anything's possible
-Mem

See You In the End

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:29:00 +0000

Well, it seems the year the whole world explodes is almost here. Just 12 hours and it will be a brand new year with opportunities and trials all its own.

I have ended the year pretty well by killing a Nyx a week or two ago, getting married this week, and now in preparation for my son being born in the new year I think I'll put a skill in that will end when he is born. Recon V it is!

2011 has been a great year for me in Eve. I've been in Adhocracy for over a year now and I am more and more deeply rooted in wormhole space than ever before. The corp has changed so much, even in the short time I've been a part of it and I'm proud to fly with my fellow Adhocrats.

It's also a pretty big thing for me that I have kept writing here at PH for this long. I couldn't have done it without my readers, of course. Otherwise it's just plain obvious I'm a crazy man babbling to himself and we can't have that. So I hope the year has been good to you and that the next will be even better, both in and out of Eve.

Here's to always striving for progression's horizon ;)
-Mem

Jolly Saint Nyx

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Well I said I'd tell ya, so here's the story of Jolly Ole' Saint Nyx. He's something of a folklore around wspace, since few see him and fewer beat him with a baseball bat, thinking he's a burglar.

The chains of wormholes can get very long, it all depends on the day and what type you're dealing with in the first place. You could be on the C5 superhighway one minute and popping your nose into Empire space the next. So with a rat warren of holes, most of them boring, my corpmates and I start poking the local nullsec'ers. I logged in as they were scanning down mission runners in a very full and busy system, so I joined in on the fun.

Surprisingly we kept scanning and popping them, as they just kept missioning. Guess they don't communicate much. Well, they get brave eventually and one of ours decides to sit on their station. Soon their "response fleet" undocks and...well we almost felt bad for what happened. Almost.

That soon fizzles out so I had to log. Later in the day, someone lets me know things are heating up in a different nullsec system that we found. Cool, I'll log in and see what's up but we usually don't get anything good in nullsec. They either 200 man blob or just run. Luck has been different lately, though, so who knows.

I get on and make my way to where we are staging, trying to get things sorted out. Comms seems a bit hectic so I see if we have an FC. We don't. Welp, nothing like the present so I step up. I'm not sure why but I seem to be doing that more often as of late. Must be a phase.

I start to get things ordered, see who is where and what we know already. Turns out there's a couple carriers and a support fleet sitting on the other side of the wormhole, waiting for us and one of ours is already shaking his tail feathers at them. They must have thought he was stuck since they went for him something fierce. They mostly stick to the nullsec side, but a Domi does pop in at one point to say hi. No blood drawn on either side, but they are definitely interested.

We ended up with no eyes, so I send someone in to have a looksy. He lists things off and says a bubble is up. Then the bubble gets taken down. Orly? We had our forces ready and more were being contacted via smoke signals. Yes it's space and there's smoke, deal with it.

So we jump into null and start playing Eve.

Bubble up, grab points with priority on those carriers. I look for the smallest tanked ships that will be easy to pop and get some dps off our backs. Hurricanes and Myrms get called first, while Drakes and battleships are next. They all start melting as the fleet does a fantastic job of going rabid. Nothing brings out the kids like blood to be had.

When we could pop pods we did, but in nullsec that could mean they are only a jump away. They put up a fight and their initial dps burns all life out of one of our pilgrims. But our logi decided that would be the only freebie and got to work as did I. While calling primary for the dps, I also was deciding my own ECM primaries and calling those for anybody that had also decided to bring the jams.

Lasers responded to missiles and electronic noise met energy neutralizers as we fought back a force that kept coming. They were trying to draw us off the hole as well, but I was keeping the fleet close. If they decided to cyno 200 pilots into us like I feared then I wanted me and mine out. But as the battle wore on, it was clear they weren't about to do that. It wasn't long before we drifted out and the battle raged as their support fleet only came in piece meal, nabbed by our ever-present bubble and quickly melted. FCing soon became more about the occasional small ship primary and then back to focusing on the carriers we had tackled.

But by the time we had gotten to them, the opposition had decided to drop a Nyx into the fray. Without even having to say a thing, one of our HIC pilots calls infinipoint on the poor sod. A Mom is a problem usually since we had just had a Nyx dropped on us by Bloodbound. as well. They had remote ECMed our fleet, allowing 2 of their carriers to escape while we ate the first 2. So we waited for that to happen again. And waited. And kept shooting while we waited some more.

It never came. We had been talking since the Bloodbound. encounter and it was time to see if we could put our talks into action. So we worked the carriers down, who didn't have triage. As complete ratter carriers, it wasn't as hard as it usually is to eat through their ships. But with random ships warping in on us it did take a little longer than it should have. Some of those random ships were bombers, but a couple of pilots were getting very good at catching them so I just let them and focused on the caps.

Pretty soon, all we had left was the Nyx so we started in and hoped for the best. You have to remember, Moms aren't really a threat to subcap fleets since they don't have dps to handle small targets and they really aren't much tougher than a carrier. But we were more worried he would self destruct or a giant fleet was still amassing. Especially since a frigate soon showed up and cyno'ed right in the middle of us. After having a small heart attack, it was popped without anything coming through and we went back to the Nyx.

We were biting nails as it bled structure. When you're that close to killing a supercap with only a handful of pilots, it gets tense. But oh, the pure joy when we watched that beautiful and fiery explosion light up the dark expanse of space. Comms erupted, with a bit of yelling to stop shouting...heh. First wspace corp to kill a supercap? If I'm wrong, leave a comment with a linky.

The sad part was throughout the fight I kept asking if anyone was FRAPsing. No such luck, but we were taking plenty of screenies for the momentous occasion. But as if this all wasn't enough, Shadow of xxDeathxx showed up with 2 carriers of their own. There's was a bit of "..Really?" on comms but not before points were called and they were taken down as well.

Still wary of this getting around and another fleet dropping I got some eyes out and got our haulers to work on picking up the mess that was our field of victory. I couldn't have found a better group of capsuleers to fly with if I tried.

This is all the long winded way of saying we had some fun and shot some stuff. Tactically, it was a pretty straight up fight. Jump in, start shooting til all is dead, loot. There was nothing brilliant in the way I said "hey guys, shoot this guy" or how we chased enemies around. We just kinda let them come to us.

And for all that, I have to give a big thanks to STR8NGE BREW. Mega props for not only bringing an epic fight, but not SDing when they could have. We were all high for the rest of the day on that fight and those that missed it gave us plenty of WTFs xD

The mess stretched over 200km from the hole

It seems I also somehow acquired a couple new titles :3 yea...turns out I missed a school final xD

Happy Holidays
-Mem

PS It's like 5 am so when i can I'll add more pretty pics and whatnot

Eve Online First?

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:41:00 +0000

TL;DR We fought nullsecers, killed like 5 carriers and a nyx with a 30 man fleet.

Don't believe me? Take a loook.

When I am done freaking out and doing finals and whatnot, Ill do a write up. I somehow FC'ed this one too xD

I would hazard a guess that we are the first wspace corp to kill a supercap. I could be wrong, but who else has done it with 30 guys and the entire hostile system dropping on you?

Massive props to them for not SDing everything and bringing a massive over an hour fight. Epic is an understatement.

-Mem

Sleigh Bells Ringing pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:41:00 +0000

So here we were, locked in an epic struggle for pvp domination. Autocannons ripped into our thick alloy frames as well fired salvos of missiles and lasers back in defiance. Electronic countermeasures shutdown hostile logi and dps alike, but never for long enough. Both sides were escalating their own forces, bringing capitals through unstable wormholes.

AHARM's hole went critical under the strain first. They had shoved a Chimera and Revelation through, with the Chimera providing reps that were difficult to overcome for their fleet. This meant even a small mistake on our part could cost dearly. While we were able to get their Sabre and Phantasm, we lost too many of our own. Any losses was too many in my eyes, since our fleet should have been wary of their timers and spammed the jump button if they got burned down too fast. But it is what it is. The real surprise came when their Rev decided to warp into the hole. It wasn't at range, though.

He landed at 0 and immediately jumped through, crashing a large portion of our fleet with the hostile force. I had been polaritied after trying to hero-ECM their logi and a few dps so I got crashed into the hole with the dread. So did those of us in fleet that could handle said dread.

As soon as he decloaked, he began to chatter in local.

Redo Jorias > want to buy a rev? :)
Admiral Tomahawk > How much
Redo Jorias > 1b?

He deicded to initiate self destruct.

Admiral Tomahawk > Well not if yer gonna blow it up
Memoocan > really?
Blast GoDon > bad form :(
Redo Jorias > well. i'll cancel if you want it for 1b
Faeyen > we can buy
Blast GoDon > especially after that good fight
Redo Jorias > okay, cancelled
Redo Jorias > 1b for re
Redo Jorias > stop shooting tho
Faeyen > eject
Admiral Tomahawk > Lets do 750 mil
Admiral Tomahawk > and Ill buy it
Redo Jorias > 900mil i can do
Admiral Tomahawk > Im poor I havent played in awhile
Redo Jorias > 750m and bookmarks/ship out and a deal
Admiral Tomahawk > I cant speak for the corp on letting you leave
Redo Jorias > shrug, still shooting. want it or not?
Admiral Tomahawk > For 750 yes
Redo Jorias > for 750m and ship/bookmarks

While they talked about it, the rest of us just wanted blood and were happy enough that he canceled the SD. But just in case he decided to try again, we brought heavier dps and forcefully ejected his pod from the carcass of the once mighty Revelation. I guess he didn't see his odds as good since he warped to a moon and just sat there til we came and podded him.

The other half of our fleet was busy scrambling to get out to a safe system, which took quite a bit longer. We scooped the Rev's loot and began scanning out the new chain now that the system's static had been killed.

In no time at all, we ran into our buddies from The Red Circle, Inc. and found their home system. I guess they didn't want to play because they started crashing the connection into our transiting chain with some heavy metal. Our scout was on top of things and was able to hop in and grab tackle on their Fenrir, while other stuff scurried off. He had to swat a Dram that was being a pest and then we all tumbled in for the whale of a freighter. After another run in and finding another hole that went to AHARM's home system we decided it was time to call it a night and crash our way back home.

Quite the day, I have to say. Soon, I'll be done with the semester and back home. While school and the pregnancy have kept me pretty active, I'm always happy to be able to enjoy me some Eve.

Careful out there
-Mem

Sleigh Bells Ringing

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Well it seems my last post got Bob's, god of wormholes, attention in a pretty good way. While I lost my shiny new Proteus thanks to being barely out of jump range...that seems to be a recurring theme for me...and now I am broke, there is always fun to be had. And of course, my ECM tengu is a beast that has survived a ridiculously long amount of time.

The first episode in relieving my blue balls of loss and no blood comes in the form of late night studying. I stayed up all night last night working on a project that decides if I graduate college or not. Oh how I am hating design. Anyways, I logged in to tinker around with a few things and hear that one of our corpies is trying to pin down an Archon. Apparently I missed a whole shindig of facemelt as usual.

Oddly enough, this Archon was hard to catch and evaded for about 25 minutes. I didn't really expect much, so I shipped into my shield laser Myrm. I really need to get some better dps ships into wspace. I alt tabbed out of Eve and continued to work on my project, just listening. Another corpie went in to combat probe him down, hoping to get him. Now, this is where we got a bit fuzzy.

The new combat rules of aggression are still something we are ironing out. Thankfully, as long as you keep aggressing a target they stay physically in game so you can shoot them. No more logoffski-ing caps just to get away, although they can still SD. Aaaany time now CCP. Since none of us had aggressed him in a while, he could just log off and be safe. Which he decided it was time to do just that. Our scanner got a complete hit, warped in and tackled him. It was about a 1.5au warp from where the Archon had been previously and so it is tagging him was a bit easier.

But many of those online were not in wspace, they were off killing some boring Orca or something. So the few of us that were there piled in and started up the hurt. For only a handful of us, it went rather quickly thanks to no active reps. If he had logged back in and started them up, we would have been SOL. As it was, though, we plinked away until the monstrosity tore apart into hull fragments. The pod e-warped, but a quick probe fixed that issue as well. Cheap clone, but the carrier itself was nice since it dropped a little faction.

Now for the main course. The real cherry on the cake. I've talked about encounters with AHARM before yes? Of course I have, they usually are fun stories. It used to be that we ran into them in lower class systems from time to time in all sub cap fleets. We'd tussle and have it out. Well now when we run into them, things are a bit larger. In this case, they scanned our chain down, meeting us at a hole we had camped. Sadly, my little Daredevil is not an interceptor and while I had initial point and had tried to apply dps, he quickly ran out of the bubble and went home.

They knew where we were and they knew some of what we had in our fleet. From what we saw, they were gearing up and soon had their own force on the move. It wasn't long before clash of the titans began. They had rolled up in a shield fleet, complete with a mass of Sleipnirs, Tengus, and Basi support. Two Step, part of our current CSM lineup, even showed up to say hi. I don't think they have ever used ECM in our fights, so that tends to be one of our advantages when we tangle. Naturally, I filled that role and it was quite the nail biter. Their first attack saw our forces trading blows rather equally, until I decided to call their Phantasm primary. I don't normally FC a fight, but I had stepped up and started the list.

Then things got hairy. They kept bringing in more ships and their dps was getting insane. Since we were fighting at knife range, I couldn't begin kiting as usual and those of us that our logi couldn't save right away had to jump out. That's when a situation gets complicated in wspace. You have to be aware of when you jumped and how many times, if you're polarized and how that polarity will affect your own assistance in the fight. As ECM, my primary focus is jamming and surviving. I will not jump in knowing I will be polaritied unless I am confident reps can keep me up long enough.

--I just noticed how long this is already. Post will continue in part 2--

Blueball Season

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:58:00 +0000

I am in something of a rage mood right now. I haven't lost any ships and CCP hasn't done anything to provoke it recently. It is because of my absolutely crap luck.

Like clockwork, every time I am in class or in a place I can't leave I get a notification from someone letting me know fights are about to happen or in progress in Eve. It makes me go crazy when I miss every single one, wondering what carrier or 2.2 billion scanny Tengu is being melted with glee. Or when corpies get too gun happy and melt everything before you can even land, resulting in lulcapsule KMs. (gas miner had that in his head)

Not only that, but the few chances I get to be online nowadays, which is fewer and fewer btw, I spend an hour staring at gates or holes or watching hostiles show up in force and then run away if we even show an equal number. Worse than that is the people that see our ticker and crash or POS up.

Seriously, people in wormholes at the very least need to start playing Eve and stop playing spreadsheets in space. I don't mean throwing your blingy T3 into a 30 man fleet and hoping to take them all on, but when you see a good fight take it. I just got a new Proteus...finally, since I meant to have one before my Vindi lol...and was throwing it at things almost immediately. Those pixels aren't earning interest so use 'em.

Anyways, I need to go have a lie down or keep working my brains out since it's finals week. Sorry for the rant, not my best couple of weeks.

-Mem

Carebear Stare

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:40:00 +0000

It seems CCP has finally decided to make the mining profession relevant again with their recent nerf to the drone regions. What nerf, you say? Oh just the stealth one they slid in with Crucible. There's already some great tears, primarily Russians, on the forums. I can't decide which is better, really.

The Drone Regions have been a pit of uselessness to just about everybody, except Russians with their infamous bots. They could easily farm out drone sites endlessly to build caps and supercaps or just kill the market by dumping it all. This meant that anyone that actually wanted to make a living by munching rocks was SOL. That's frustrating.

And I would know. I spent the beginning of my Eve career as a miner. I had grand plans to be the ultimate carebear that would mine and make ships to fuel my brother's pvp needs. You can see how far that got. But perhaps all that is about to change. That's not to say they can't just have their bots switch to mining. It just means they can't flood the market with minerals like they usually do and that's good all around. The whining is mainly about every other space being so good, but DR still sucking. Some space is better than others in Eve? Whodathunkit.

Suffice to say, this is something I have much respect for in regards to CCP. They've been talking about it for a while and it's about time it got implemented. What few people might actually run drone sites while at the keyboard isn't enough to call off this nerf. Just means they have to actually work for their money. The drones now come in waves so they can't just aggro everything and bring in the Noctis with no worries. More and more attention needed means I may just start having fun hunting them down when we get the right exits.

Have any carebear urges now?
-Mem

For Science! Eve Gets Better

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:28:00 +0000

It seems crucibles aren't just for the laboratory anymore. No, my friends, interweb spaceships have them and boy does that mean a thing or two. The novelette of patch notes have been out for a bit and they are a read.

So what's good about this expansion? The real question is closer to being what's not cool about it all. There's a metric tonne of information to go through and I have yet to really even run into the majority of it in game. Admittedly, a few other games have been taking my attention (looking at you BF3, Deus Ex, and Skyrim) and RL and all that. But the giant patching process went smoothly for me, not something all can say it seems, and getting in game was quite the experience. I'll just go through my impressions.

Logging in, I was immediately presented with visual anarchy. My windows were all reset, so I took the time to put them all back where I like them. I found that I can no longer pin them, an issue that annoys me greatly. I was worried all my settings were gone, but thankfully they were all where I left them.

I had one particular thing in mind that I could easily check, so I did. Holy moley, Batman. Corp Bookmarks are the sex and I will never let them go. Even with the time delay the server has the have, it's beyond amazing and useful in wormholes. Having the entire chain of bookmarks without much fuss for the entire fleet is going to alleviate so many headaches. Well...that is as long as nobody screws them up in the first place.

But a problem I had immediately was the font. I almost want the old font back, it's so hideous. As a graphic designer I play with type a lot. When your font library is as big as your music library...yeah. There simply is no way that it looks good and the way it meshes, or doesn't in this case, with the entire UI just makes it all garish. CCP, please hire someone who knows what they are doing to choose or make a font for you. Please.

The new tier 3 BCs will be quite fun toys to play around with once I get a chance. Couldn't get out to a good highsec exit while I was on, but it's for the best. Prices were a bit stupid around 200 mil or more and even though they quickly started dropping I won't touch them til they are around 60 mil ISK. I am pretty excited to try them out. It will be a bit more training to get T2 large guns in more races, but seems well worth it. Rumor has it the Naga can get around 500 dps out to 200 km. That's just nuts, I can only imagine the kind of dps these things can do with real weapons fit to them. Just don't let anyone sneeze at you or you'll lose it. And you don't want to lose that pod along with it, since everyone now gets to laugh at the way you mix +2s with +3s and the odd hardwirings you chose.

Scanning also seems a bit borked, so I have heard. There have been signatures that multiple, well skilled players could not scan down so hopefully that gets resolved quickly.

Cloaked ships don't decloak each other now. While this is cool, I would like to say "boo" as well. This should only have been implemented as it pertains to fleet members. Now I can't be cloaked, watch some idiot in a T1 frig cloak off a hole, motor over to him and surprise him with a nice warm cup of facemelt. It makes bombing runs easier, sure, but we've gotten some pretty hilarious kills with cloaky on cloaky action.

And as a PI junky, I can tell you messing with POCOs (player owned customs offices) is going to be a real kick. They have the tank of a small POS but who knows what kind of action you can get if it generates a notification as well as a killmail. Oh the possibilities for trolling and shooting are endless.

I will be finally making my way into a Proteus just in time to get in on the hybrid love. Ammo is smaller, dps is even better...hopefully. It's gonna be sweet. Too bad I still have to hump people to do it. Although I hear hail got its penalties removed entirely. *Looks at void* Thanks CCP...
I am also pretty sad I don't have my Vindi now to really enjoy it.

There's time dilation, new captains quarters, new T2 modules and so much more. Look at the notes for it all, it'll be a good bedtime put-you-to-sleep light reading.

Overall, I think this is one of the best expansions since Apocrypha. CCP did well to grab a ton of low hanging fruit that will make this game so much more fun. While there is more to be done, I think we will be chewing on this hunk for a while. I know it'll take me time to really digest it all and take advantage of all our new options. Yea, there's stuff that annoys me or I hate but it could be worse. You could have lost your boot.ini file...again.

I'll give it all a good test drive and let you know more of what I think later
-Mem

Ninja edit for the trailer

The Ladies Like It Massive

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 01:32:00 +0000

With all the insanity you hear about on the news of people macing or shooting each other just to get their greedy paws on discounted items, I thought there was one deal you'd like quite a bit. And you don't even have to leave the house!

Drumroll please:

Our friends at EON have a Massive 50% off Blowout Sale to celebrate Thanksgiving & Black Friday

They've cut the price of EVERYTHING!

So you can buy an EON subscription at HALF PRICE, an EVE Survival Pack at HALF
PRICE or a full Poster Bundle at HALF PRICE. You can even buy the
complete collection of every copy of EON ever produced for HALF PRICE
(they were already at half price for the bundle deal, so that makes
them all a gargantuan 75% off if you buy the Complete Collection).
Yep, that's right - everything from EON is half price. They've never done a deal this good before...

You must apply Coupon Code EONBF50 at checkout to get the discount. Oh, and the deal won't last long apparently, so you'd best be quick if you want to bag a bargain.

Click here to go straight to the store - http://store.eveonline.com/EON-Magazine-C7.aspx

Gobble Gobble

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:05:00 +0000

Here in the US, we are getting ready to eat inordinate amounts of food and then promptly pass out in the company of people we usually barely tolerate in the spirit of Native Americans not letting us die back in the days of yore.

It seems that CCP is getting into the holiday spirit too, with their recent excursions to meddle in capsuleer affairs. They are out for fun and explosions, a sentiment I can certainly share and respect. But sadly it is one that I cannot get in on more than likely since my break is being consumed by crazy schedules, catching up on sleep/trying to destress and sorting out things due to a big life changer.

I've been absent from writing because it has to take a back seat for a little while. I can't write anything of quality when I'm too stressed out or working on other things and don't want to put out crap just to have something recent on my page. That's not fair to my readers nor to myself, so I will write when I can and am inspired.

My absence is due to a baby. My baby boy, who will be born in the next few months. It's insane to think about still, but there it is. So trying to figure out life with a new little one for which I am responsible, still trying to finish the last bit of college, trying to find any job at all, and not going insane is taking up my time. I hope you can understand.

My computer charger also melted recently and I finally got a replacement. Missed out on a lot of spaceship fun but got in on a shiny, shiny Archon last night.

Hope you and yours are enjoying the season and hopefully I'll be back with some good posts soon.

Cheers o/
-Mem

Witty Title Here

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:02:00 +0000

It's been a bit since I last wrote, apologies. There have been many factors that go into the reasoning behind that, but I hope you'll bear with me when it happens. As much as I wish that I could have something awesome to write all the time (or ever xD) I just can't be motivated lately. Real life is smashing down yet again, Skyrim came out (squeeeeeeeee), and I've been avoiding writing because the world might be ending.

Why is it ending? Well why else would CCP be putting out a devblog every other day about things that have gone untouched for years, only to be packed into this fall and winter? It has been a slew of new ships, rebalancing, ship spinning counters, SiSi bug reporting tools, graphical upgrades, and so much more. I can't write enough to keep up with it all and I don't think you all want a post every time they do since that would get quite boring.

I have still been in game, less so in the last couple of weeks, but it has been slow. I am sad to say I lost my Vindicator in an embarrassing fashion. Over a billion ISK worth of ship gone, thanks to Sleepers, rep ranges and late nights. So....I've been working up my bank again, staying in ECM and logi roles and staying safe for the time being. The good thing was I lost it the day we had massacred 3 carriers and a support fleet. Between that and other fights, at least Olga killed more than she was worth. I've mentioned how our new neighborhood has led to more and better fights and that's the truth. If you want epic tales, come to wormhole space. It'll only get better after the winter.

My training marches on and I am finally going back to getting a Proteus. My plans have been altered for the expansion and I meant to get it before the Vindicator distracted me. But I really want to expand into projectiles since that will round out my T2 weapons into all races.

So, what have you guys been up to lately? Comment! I love hearing stories others have in Eve, it actually motivates me more than just finding my own.

I shall find something decent to write about, so keep an eye on this space.
-Mem

Back to Roots

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:11:00 +0000

News has been saturating the interwebs with CCP hyping the winter expansion. But it looks like they are actually trying to reconnect with their player base and they are making sure the players know their focus is back on FiS.

On Facebook you have pictures of the artists working hard on the new ships, while on Youtube they show a bit about the nebulas they will implement. Those are pretty neat and will certainly give a new detail to encourage immersion in Eve.

Many have called the upcoming expansion a grab at low hanging fruit, to which I say "so what?". If this is what it's like to get low hanging fruit, then I am all for it. CCP needs to regain trust and prove themselves again so they can bring subscribers back and recoup the 8% drop in sub fees. If proving themselves means making the game better for everyone then there isn't much to complain about is there? Unless you're just a bittervet that will find anything to whine about.

If CCP is pushed and motivated like this now, perhaps we can keep them moving forward and gaining momentum by encouraging their successes and critiquing areas that need improvement. If you rage and whine constantly, it just becomes noise to them. It can have its place and can be used to great effect, but don't make it the only response they get if they slip up.

Hmm...this post took a turn I didn't anticipate. I'm simply saying that while things aren't magically perfect now and CCP has already proved themselves, they are heading in the right direction and getting priorities straightened out. There has been a surge in transparency, which can only lead to good things.

In other news, we are still getting Aurum. I'm hoarding every bit so far just to see how much I rack up and what I can blow it on. Or if they allow you to transfer Aurum I'll pool all the Aurum I get and see about a profit. Then again, Mem could look pretty good in a new jacket.

Good things are in the works here at PH this winter, as well. We are working on a new home, one that I will have far more control over and one that will hopefully be a bit more sleek. I'll let you know when that gets closer and hopefully I don't lose anyone in the shuffle.

As for in game, I'm having a blast this month helping kill nearly 10 carriers and a ton of other shiny stuff like there's no tomorrow. We found a new neighborhood that has kept us busy and the bloodthirst sated. I thought I would never say this, but between that and the upcoming rebalances....I am looking at getting into capital ship. Iknorite?

More immediately, though, I recently became a logistics pilot and I am having a blast with it. For some reason, I get my biggest kicks out of support classes. Way back before I quit WoW years ago, I got into healing on my druid. Now I enjoy fight the little red bar and making sure my mates are safe under fire. While I fly plenty of dps, it's just a different perspective when you're multitasking the whole fleet with your reps and your buddy with energy transfers and drones and all that fun stuff. If I'm not flying ECM, it's usually logi now.

There's also Sleeper story line items to talk about, but that I'll have to leave for later. This is getting to be a ridiculous and rambling post.

Cheers
-Mem

Wormhole Wisdom #8

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:29:00 +0000

Trust only what your overview shows you. All else is deception.

unless it's patch day, then you may not wanna trust it either.

End Year Merriment pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:30:00 +0000

I really should just wait it seems. Goodness. More and more devblogs are coming out in a torrent of mind blowing content and proving that the Winter expansion will be the most epic since Apocrypha. Although it's hard to top wormholes, imo ;)

First up, we have an interview of the CCP CEO Hilmar. A very interesting read, the TL;DR being that they are back on track in the spaceship business.

And now get ready to change your pants.

New Tier 3 Battlecruisers with BS sized guns!

Awwwwww yeaaaaaaaaah. It seems the teaser picture that was posted on Facebook a bit ago was exactly this. The Tornado will be joined by a new ship for each race in the Winter. They are taking on the role of a true battlecruiser, all gank and little tank. Think that the Drake is a brick and not worth the time to shoot? Not anymore, since supposedly these new ships will eat through it and anything else they can hit. C1 WH POSes were never more scared than now.

So will all the fanboy glee out of the way, let's check reality and go through the usual points.

We watch what they do, not what they say
Hopefully this doesn't totally unbalance the game
Hopefully this expansion doesn't completely destroy the game patch wise
What does this mean for the market?
Without lots of target painters or bonuses to tracking, they may only be useful for a few things
CCP finally listening is good, but they need to do more than just grab the low hanging fruit. Keep on with the momentum.

If anything more...or when, really...comes out I'll just edit this post so that you don't get spammed with more. So keep an eye on this space, good things are coming.

Me? I'm gonna need to go change.

-Mem

End Year Merriment

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:11:00 +0000

These fall and winter seasons are turning out pretty interestingly with CCP. Sadly it is coupled with 120 people losing their jobs, luck to you all, but more and more content seems to be pouring out from the dev teams.

The newest one is pod killmails. Finally we get to see what is plugged into our victim's head! This is something I've wanted for ages because in wspace, it is a regular practice to pod people out. I've nabbed quite a few myself, some of which were probably worth more than the faction battleship they were piloting moments before.

The devblog is short and sweet, but I am definitely looking forward to it. Sadly I do not believe this change will be retroactive, but it simply means that I will have to pod all those people again so I can see what they use :P

With small things like this eeking out before the Winter expansion....I am really curious to know what is coming for us. All the hush-hush makes me think epicness of epic proportions of which Eve has never seen before is headed our way. And I'm really hopeful that is true. But I will keep some reservations.

Still...can't beat what's been happening lately. While I am sad people had to get fired, I think CCP might finally be moving in the right direction and realizing what they need to do and the priorities on which they need to focus. Which is not to say they shouldn't have aspirations or other places and ideas to play with non-Eve ever. Just...pace yourself.

Anyways, I'm still alive and kicking somewhat so hopefully I can get some good topics written up soon. I think I'll have one on ECM. Odd that I love it and talk about it but have never dedicated a post to it. vOv

Get pumped!
-Mem

EDIT: Leave it to me to speak too soon. Hot off the press:

"Let me give you guys a little more information on what is coming. Starting next week we will be producing a series of 'In Development' video blogs which will look at what the various teams are planning for Winter 2011. I want to stress that these videos will not contain release dates as we are aiming to provide a lot of stuff and do not want to commit to a date we cannot keep. These will include:
Engine trails - Yes, that's right we are adding engine trails to EVE and we will show the work in progress so far.
New ships - Recently we featured a shot of the Tornado, the Deviant Art contest winner, on the EVE Facebook page. We were not happy with just giving out one ship so we will be showcasing all four new ships.
New nebulae - These new background sin the EVE universe are stunningly beautiful and will add to the immersion and feeling of being in deep space.
Team BFF - This team should be Best Features Fullstop and CCP Soundwave will give an overview of what his team has in store. Capital ship balancing, balancing hybrids, assault ships bonuses and much more will be added during winter.
Customer Relations - The Lead GM's will talk about changes to how petitions are handled, more options for Stuck petitions and how we aim to deal with your issues as fast as possible. We are not just going to stop there. We will bring you more video blogs about what is in development for EVE Online."

O.O Yes. Please. So look forward to those eh?

Blog Banter 29: What's It To Ya, Mate?

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:53:00 +0000

I have failed my blog banter writing the last time or two, but I'll get back to it. CK's BBs are gone and now we have a new era led by Seismic Stan of Freebooted.

The premise is the same, so no worries there. This time around, the question is:

"EVE Online is renowned for it's depth. Its backstory, gameplay and social aspects are all qualities that draw players in. What does immersion in EVE Online mean to you?"

This is actually a bit of a timely thing too, because I've been thinking about this as of late. I think I have mentioned before, or if not then I am now, that Eve is the first game and MMO in particular that I have ever been compelled to write about. I think it's one of the very few MMOs that lend itself to more than just "How To" guides and shallower topics.

Eve is a single shard universe and as such, is able to offer much more in the way of political intrigue, player interaction, reputation persistence, and other enduring characteristics. I think the social aspect is what really keeps people here, though. When other games push players into competing for the same quest item, it tends to make them more combative and less likely to play with others. Which is ironic since these are massive multiplayer games and the whole point is to play with others. While Eve certainly does make players compete for resources, it's more direct and you can make sure another player dies for trying to take your macguffin.

But the part that has had me thinking lately is Eve's actual lore. I have played other MMOs and never cared to learn much of the lore while I played. I skipped the stories and got to collecting or killing whatever I needed to level. Eve's lore is a bit more involved, in my experience. You can always skip over the mission text you get from agents, but going through a system plagued by an Incursion is a little harder to ignore. Or for those more interested in the unknown, why is a Sleeper protecting abandoned facilities.

That last is why I am interested in the lore. There is a massive hunt for some clue that will move the story forward for the Sleeper mystery and it has quite a few people searching and theorycrafting. That is a pretty effective tool for keeping players engaged and props to Dropbear for perpetuating it. Although, I am getting a little frustrated that we supposedly haven't found the right thing yet, despite doing everything short of dancing naked on a Sleeper Enclave. Well...not that we would admit to at least.

I also find the skills training a more involved and immersing aspect since one must plan and train the necessary skills to do what they want. It requires far more patience than most MMOs and I quite enjoy being rewarded while I'm not playing.

All this is why I have stuck with a game that might have squished my brain otherwise or beaten the will out of me long ago. The internet family I found in my corp, Adhocracy Incorporated, does also make Eve worth playing. I play the way we recruit, focused more on meshing well with other players rather than focusing on player SP or what they can do for me in game.

But is there something this question has missed? Is there another aspect that you find is more immersive or is what really hooks you into Eve?
-Mem

CCP....Listens?

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:51:00 +0000

I know, I know it's a crazy concept. But it seems with the most recent devblog that such a concept is not outside the realm of possibility.

"While not everyone agrees that supercarriers are to blame for everything, there were some issues that kept popping up:
Supercapitals are too hard to kill.
Supercarriers are far too versatile.
The Titan superweapon is too powerful.
Dreadnoughts are not good enough.
Remote ECM Bursts should not work on ships immune to ewar.
Sub-capitals are useless in fleet fights."

Well yes, these points have been such for a long time. Whatcha gonna do about it?

Supercarriers
Drone bay can only hold fighters and fighter bombers.
Reduce Shield, Armor and Hull hitpoints on all Supercarriers by 20%.
Reduce drone capacity.
Aeon, Revenant and Wyvern: 125000 (25 total Fighters + Fighter Bombers)
Hel and Nyx: 150000 (30 total Fighters + Fighter Bombers)
Remote ECM Burst: Does not affect ships that are immune to electronic warfare (Supercarriers, Titans, Triaged Carriers and Sieged Dreads)

Fighters

Increase signature resolution to 400

Dreadnoughts

Remove drone bay from all dreadnoughts.
Siege Module I: Boost damage bonus from 625% to 700% to compensate for loss of drones.
Siege Module I: Duration time reduced to 5 minutes. Fuel cost -50%.
Moros: Remove drone bonus.
Moros: New bonus: 5% bonus to Capital Hybrid Turret rate of fire per level.

Titans
Remove drone bay from all titans.
Reduce Shield, Armor and Hull hitpoints by 20%.
Superweapon: Cannot shoot sub-capital ships.

Logoff timer
After a player logs out, there is a check for player aggression every 15 minutes. If you have been aggressed, the timer extends for 15 minutes; if you have not been aggressed, you disappear as before. Note: this is only for player aggression and will not change what happens when you log off during fights against NPCs.

Oh. Well. Ok....sweet. Supercarriers having less health is good I guess, only ever had them dropped on my head and laughed since they can't touch subcaps. I'm kinda sad about the no more drone bay on dreads cuz I want a Moros eventually and it's known for its ability to engage subcaps in a better capacity than other dreads. But still, the bonus to replace drones is an ROF which is neat. Siege being fast can be handy for vulnerable for less time, but will it eat more stront? I don't think so with the new boost to damage which is very nice. Titans have no more drones and now have less HP vOv Not sure I care. The fighters nerf does hurt carriers as well, so being careful not to make carriers useless against sub caps entirely is something of which they need to be mindful.

Then the last bit that had me thinking CCP has been secretly reading my posts. Log off timers. Now, instead of simply a 15 minute timer, you can extend the timer longer and longer as long as you keep aggressing the target. This means that you have all the time you need to burn down the guy that decided to try to get away by logging off and waiting. Finally, that is not a valid tactic. I am wondering how many Russians we can get that simply knee-jerk log off xD But does this only apply to caps or to all ships? Better be all, imo.

All in all, good changes that have been needed for some time. There are a few more that I would have liked to see on the list, but I shall choose to be sated for the time being. Also, don't forget that this is a devblog, not patch notes so the timeframe for these to be implemented has yet to be seen unfortunately.

Does this affect your gameplay in a significant way?
-Mem

PS. Turns out the logoff is for all ships, which is good. Also, the comments section for the post has some good kernels and plenty of tears if you want.

Winter Is Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:13:00 +0000

It's true, winter's coming. Trust Mr. Stark there, he knows what he is talking about after all.

But what I mean to reference with the mention of winter's impending arrival is, of course, more closely related to sooper srs interweb spaceships. In particular, the Winter Expansion that now has a devblog release of its own.

Before you run off to read that though, take a look at an interesting letter to the Eve public from Hilmar, if you haven't seen it already.

Did....did he just apologize? He's....soul searching? As a corpmate put it,

"Is...is that for real? I'm not reading an elaborate mirror of eveonline.com with wish-fulfillment written on it? Cannot wrap head around a CCP that self-aware."

It is a bit surreal coming from the company that seems to permanently have its head buried in its own nether regions. What is this, renewed hope I feel budding warm in my chest? It springs eternal after all.

But now we move on to the good stuff. Or at least the stuff that has me really excited, but is probably just me putting off my justifications for fail execution and the need for a billion patches. Still. Hope.

Linky to devblog

"We hinted that we’re up to something big. Following Hilmars letter to the community it’s time to unveil the first step of actions we’re taking. As we said we are planning something unparalleled. A significant part of that plan is the immediate refocusing of all the EVE development teams on EVE’s core gameplay: spaceships.

More programmers, more testers, more designers and more artists than ever working on bringing you meaningful and engaging improvements and additions to EVE.

Before we can elaborate on long term effect we will need further internal planning to take place and we will keep you updated on that progress. However the short term effect of this refocus will be evident immediately in dev-blogs coming out in the next days and weeks and in actual changes hitting our test servers. Right now we're going to give you a high level sneak peek of the winter 2011 expansion. The specific deployment date has not been set in stone but it will be on Tranquility well before Christmas.

EVE Online´s Winter 2011 expansion will be themed around improvements to warfare and PVP. We will be talking more specifically about each of the features and items in the coming weeks but, for now, here‘s an overview of what functionality, systems and gameplay we‘re going to improve and add to.

Hybrid weapons balancing

Factional warfare

Assault ships

Capital ship balancing

New T2 modules

Starbase logistics management

New EWAR-Drones

T2 Rigs manufacturing

Ship spinning

New font

More captains quarters

Time dilation

I want to make it clear that this is not a final list. As we go through design and implementation phases some things may require more work than initially expected and others may not hold water in the design phase and therefore may not make it into this particular expansion. Similarly some things might get added to the list. We will keep you updated on our progress every step of the way because, as Hilmar said, communication is one of the things we are dedicated to improve.

It‘s time to get serious about these spaceships.

Arnar Hrafn Gylfason Senior Producer of EVE Online"

....

....

*squeeeeeeeeee*

*cough* Pardon me.

First of all, this has the biggest potential to break Eve asunder. Worse than Incarna, although it has things that faaar more people want and the game needs. So...um...let's break this down a bit.

Hybrids- It's about time and man am I glad to have a Vindi now. But I wonder how they think they will do so. Less damage, better tracking or range? Rails need more dps so nerf tracking? No clue..

FW- That'll be a nice injection that is late but hopefully will be appreciated. You know...as long as it's done right.

ASFs- You mean they might actually be a viable ship to use instead of just a more expensive gimp? Sweet, my Hawk thanks you.

Caps- Again, about time. I hope this balancing includes longer logoffski timers and no SDing..or at least a much longer SD timer.

New T2 mods- I'm guessing for caps here? Can't imagine what other mods don't have T2 variants. That'll be an interesting one to keep an eye on.

Starbase Logi- I know a few people that will certainly appreciate that. Not sure what it will entail in CCP's mind though.

EWAR- new drones? Now that I will definitely follow, because...well I love EWAR. But new drones? Didn't know any new ones were needed.

T2 rigs- If this means that I could viably fit T2 rigs on my ship without double or tripling the price from that alone I'm all ears.

Ship spinning- Ok here I call shenanigans. You're putting this as a feature? Really? Before it was what you were relegated to, not some privilege and it never should have left since CQs suck at being intuitive.

New font- Well that's definitely good on the communication front and it's been needed for years. But not really FiS feature.

CQs- Oh...good....mk...so instead of a rust bucket to walk in circles in, I'll have shiny walls to stare at? Call me when I can actually leave said room.

Time dilation- This one is pretty cool and you should check it out on SiSi. Bullet time in space FTW.

So I certainly appreciate the new "SRS BZNS GAIS" attitude, I just hope it keeps momentum and that we can see the actions clearly reflect the words and intentions. It is just a game, but if it's your job and you wanna claim to listen then we pay attention to what is done, not what is said.

That being said...I'll keep this warm and fuzzy a bit longer if you don't mind.

Cheers,
-Mem

The Warrior's Path cont.

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:16:00 +0000

The Warrior's Path part 1

Sadly, by the time we killed the Loki and ran to the next wormhole the opfor had retreated to their POS. But we didn't want to give our hand prematurely, so we had a bit of bait go in to see what they did.

Here I'll fast forward. It ended being a lot of waiting, we showed our hand and didn't get a kill but decided to stay on the hole to see what they did. They had a Tengu popping in at range to harass us with missile volleys, but we couldn't nab him. So I decide to motor out to 200km in a few different directions to try to get him to engage me or see if I can decloak and point him. But no luck.

So now I am just sitting. 200 km off the hole. Which we have bubbled. Great plan, right? It's far enough out that they can drop the bubble and warp to me and far enough to look appetizing. I had been trying to log for a while though so I was getting tired of waiting and bored since they probably wouldn't come out. They had been logging pilots in and shipping up for the entire time we sat, so we were hopeful but things tend to disappoint.

These guys didn't disappoint. Suddenly a Drake lands 15 off me and we start to go at it. The fleet initiates their way to me just as the hostile fleet gets into motion. Suddenly I have a flycatcher bubbling me and their entire drake swarm primary-ing my idiot self. I had my AB running so I have to wait for it to stop so I can kick on my MWD. Time waste means they have vaporized my shields and are eating my armor. Which then goes faster when I try to MWD out of the bubble...dumb. And now they drop a Thanny on us. Awesome.

There's so many of them, 25 or 30 if I remember which was quite a bit more than us. So I watch my armor melt off, then my structure goes bit by bit. I am hopeful since at some point the bubble went away so I was ready with my overview set to Pod Saver. Spam warp, Spam warp, Spam warp, Spam warp, Spam warp. Why didn't I eject...what an idiot >.>

So I am now in my pod slamming the warp....just as our HIC decides it's a good idea to bubble me....awesome.....motor out, motor out, motor out.....ohai der Mr. Drake don't mind----nevermind.

I went a bit ragey here, logging off after I replaced my attribute implants at the very least....took a shower and came back to listen to the rest of the fight. I was mainly mad at myself for a couple reasons and some rage came from the surprise of not being able to save my pod like I expected. But we put up a knock down, drag out, brawlfest that is one for the books.

Every time we killed one, they just reshipped to another Drake and came back. So we had to start getting pods. With the Thanny repping, it was a bit harder but awesome calls were made and their fleet was getting whittled down. When we died, we got out and reshipped to come back for more, but weren't as close to the fight. Short of it? We won, including taking down the Thanatos in the end when they started to burn away and warp out. That was insane, with 34 kills and we lost only 9 pilots, including me and my pod. Talk about epic.

Then they surprised us by giving good fights and thanking us. Heh? Apparently, they had moved out of nullsec because they were tired of getting good fights but then getting dropped by supercaps. They came to wspace because they wanted exactly what we had just given them, a good ole' fashion bloodfest. So major props to these guys and I can't wait to see them in space again. We need more like them.

So despite my losses and missing out of the killmails for that fun, I was glad to have been able to be the catalyst for it. Lucky thing I just got paid too, but I think I'll be flying cheaper for a while. Or at least not taking as many risks.

Haha yea, I almost had you didn't I. Not take risks? What is this, Hello Kitty Online? No risk, no ISK amirite?

It was then that I looked at my personal killboard.

I guess with all this recent activity I've had, I finally hit the 100 billion mark for ISK destroyed, with 4.2 bil of it being in one morning at the first of the month. Sweeeet. I feel like I should have some sort of event or something...all the cool bloggers do after all :P We shall see.

This is why I came to wspace. This is why I play Eve. The great fights, the great people and the great times. And of course, Bob wills it!

Although this reminds me that I need to make a post about the second run of Russian POS bashing I did last week. Hope you're enjoying this all as much as I am.

Fly risky
-Mem

The Warrior's Path

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:40:00 +0000

There are times in every Eve player's career when they just have one of those times they think "wow...that was just epic-ly full of epic epicness." And one of those times has come yet again for me.

I'll have a TL;DR at the end if this doesn't get put into two different posts. Basically, you want to look at our killboard and specifically at Oct. 1st. We can't even fit it all onto the front page it's so long..

So I woke up yesterday, late since it's the weekend and I am trying to avoid my work, and decided to pop on to update my PI and skills if they were running out. Bringing up comms gave me a bit of interesting chatter, the type that usually involves shooting someone. So I made a comment about how I was probably going to miss it since I just got on and needed to get bookmarks and all that jazz.

To which I got "No, you definitely won't miss it."

"Oh, I guess I'll get bookmarks and head out."

Listening to the chatter intently now, it seemed that we had been playing around with Narwhals Ate My Duck in our chain a bunch, popping some of their frig sized hulls and ended up running into White Noise in a nullsec link. We had tackled a Proteus that then got reinforced by an Archon.

So I hopped into my trusty Drakghar, a Legion with an interesting fit that has served me quite well. As I got out there, we were jamming the Archon and having to kill the Prot in between jams. It wasn't long before his tank gave way and melted under our fire. I think we also podded him. Nearly 2 billion worth of destruction in one small cruiser hull....astounding. All that was left was to work this Archon down before he decided to log or self destruct. Until the Chimera landed.

Our force was too small to burn the Archon and now the Chimera was going to make things even harder. But thanks to our two ECM pilots, of whom I have to give major props, they kept the Chimera jammed the whole time. The Archon kept cycling in and out of triage to get cap from the Chimera and keep his own reps up, despite our neuting power. It was like fighting uphill through molasses and every time you think you're at the top, a fresh wave of molasses hits you and drags you back. I just kept popping his drones and fighters, then back to neuting and dpsing the carrier itself. It was especially annoying when the Chimera started to smartbomb and nearly killed my entire flight of Hammerheads.

"Chimera disappeared! Chimera has logged!"

What?! With all our notifications, nobody has noticed him go and the Archon most likely wasn't far behind. But here's a couple stupid points I want to bring up. Amusing that it's, yet again, Russians doing it too.

Log off timer for a cap is 15 minutes. Wtf is that about CCP? We don't roll in dreads or supercaps so downing caps in that time is stupid.
Some modules shut off when you log, some don't. Cloaks decloak, but reppers keep running? CCP, fix it to be one way or the other for all modules.

So now it was a race against time and the carrier's offline reps. After a few heart pounding minutes, we finally had it capped out so that the reps stopped running. But now we needed to eat through 3/4ths of its armor and the structure before it disappeared. At this point, I began to cycle my overheating on and off to make my guns last as long as possible, but still get some good dps out of them.

It was getting so close and comms were getting quiet as it got closer. Pixel by pixel the armor chipped away and we all were urging it down further.

"It'll melt like butter when we get it to structure."

It felt like an eternity trying to wear it down, finally getting some excitement with structure bleed. We had no clue when he had logged and didn't know how long til we lost yet another cap kill to Russian flee tactics, but it was intense.

Structure. Everyone overheat! Burn that sucker down!

Then came the blessed explosion.

Wait...that Proteus was twice as expensive as the carrier? Yup...apparently so.

And wow what a way to start your day. But it seems this chain was to be the chain blessed by Bob, god of wormholes, and the chain that would keep on giving.

As we were fighting the Archon, a Narwhals manti had decloaked and then recloaked near us. We had also had some more of their cloakies following us around the chain, so it wasn't long til most of our fleet was nearly home and our scouts ran into a Harby, while its buddies staged in their home system.

Two of ours that had stayed at the nullsec engaged the Harby and, by a comedy of errors both jumped out when they thought he jumped. So he got back to the hole that went towards his home, only to run into another one of ours. Ohai der Mr. Harby. Uh....you seem to be missing a couple slots there bud. With the Ducks out killing Russians, I guess only alts are left to guard home.

That was when we moved the entire fleet to engage what force they had waiting. By the time we got there though, only a cane, guardian, brutix and something else that warped out was there. The cane got out thanks to someone getting jammed or something. It was ok though, for some reason both the Guardian and Brutix were pointed but didn't jump through the wormhole to run. Soon they both met their manufacturer.

This gave us a good bit to talk about as we headed home. But yet again, we would not make it there. Instead, a Duck ran around in his Loki and engaged one of our Tengus. So we all waited for it to jump into our fleet on the other side of the wormhole, while 2 of ours tried to break him. This wormhole was in the direction of the Duck home system.

Of course, this all got confusing when one of our pilots got engaged by the residents of the next hole over toward our home. Two conflicts at once made things frantic. Finally the Loki jumped in half armor and we polished off his Loki and pod. It seems it was the season for a Duck hunt. We then rushed to our corpmate's aid, who had been reinforced by one of our cloakies and both had been pushed through the wormhole before they got popped.

---

Keep an eye here, the second half of this whole story comes in the next post.
-Mem

For Serious, Incarna Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Memoocan) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:33:00 +0000

Ok, so my last post was playing around and trollin' a bit, but this one is for cereal.

It seems CCP is finally moving forward with Incarna features, albeit stuff that most people will ignore entirely. If you haven't gotten the SiSi client downloaded and installed, you may want to soon to get a preview of the upcoming cyno effect change, addition of other CQ types, and supposedly a new font.

New Cyno Video

New CQ types will be cool and should have been in the first iteration consider the time they had...so now they better be even better. But that's superficial stuff. The font is what really intrigues me since the current one is such an abomination.

Maybe it's because I do a lot of typography and my font collection is as big as my music collection, but this font is the worst thing possible. There's waaaay too many characters that look the same and it's hurts my eyes to read. I hear the new one's not that great, but I want to see it for myself.

The cyno effect is a neat change, not that I'll see it much. The current one is pretty crappy, considering the original was so hardcore.

And, drumroll please, SiSi is also showcasing the return of ship spinning! So, no more whining eh?

Personally, I'm unimpressed. It's like when I do a design that gets torn to pieces and then redo it. The next week, my professors will make the comment that it's finally where it should have been in the first place. Just so with CCP, they waste resources and then waste more redoing something that should have been done correctly the first time considering the time and effort spent. And while we all know and expect that, I am not satisfied with simply saying "welp, :ccp:" and having to continue to wait on the proper execution. Not that there is much I can do and that I do end up having to simply say it, but still...

EDIT: Forgot to say Time Dilation is now on SiSi as well. I hear it's pretty cool.

You heard it here first. Maybe.
-Mem