Is it just me or Post Dominion has the drop rate, er disappeared for these?
Over past month been missioning in Empire (over 40 missions with full salvage from all of them), and now down in Low-sec for 2 weeks now (again ran many anoms, many belts, many radar sites etc). And er, not a single cap console. Whats going on? Prior to this I got a few at least.
This is all in Gallente space, but if I'm right this could result in a huge huge increase in price to these and modules that use them... (CCC rigs).
Can anyone comment so I can get an idea if this is just me or not - I've been playing EVE a lot this month (in preference to blogging sorry!) - with over 70 hours clocked up!!! - which is more than I usually would play!
Monday, 21 December 2009
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The grind is almost over...
Now patching to Dominion 1.0.2 and thought I'd blog while it patches :)
Well finally last night I got to point where all bar one research agent in Core Complexion inc is available to me.
This is good news for me - and means I can return shortly to low-sec, and go exploring again from a FOB or two. The nice thing will be my invention/research will continue while I'm gone.
Dominion though - has anyone else noticed, is it quicker for you? On my machine it appears less memory hungry AND more responsive - a great improvement in fact - despite the new in game browser.
Apologies for lack of decent blogs on Industry recently (what its all about) - but my limited time gaming is best spent actually doing stuff rather than blogging for this last few weeks. Normal service will resume... shortly. What I can say is the corp right now has 600M in cash, 700M on market, and a mineral reserve that can support manufacturing for another 3 months. This despite some big spend outs recently in preparation for the move back to low-sec...
What am I hoping.... 0.0 alliances to er, remove some stakeholdings, and rent to small corps. This will allow more of us to move out there and upgrade. More pew-pew, more monies. But I'm waiting with tenterhooks to see if this is case or not. What I can predict is mineral prices will increase shortly with all of the freighters being destroyed in past week.
See you all online shortly, patching has completed on my 2 clients.
Well finally last night I got to point where all bar one research agent in Core Complexion inc is available to me.
This is good news for me - and means I can return shortly to low-sec, and go exploring again from a FOB or two. The nice thing will be my invention/research will continue while I'm gone.
Dominion though - has anyone else noticed, is it quicker for you? On my machine it appears less memory hungry AND more responsive - a great improvement in fact - despite the new in game browser.
Apologies for lack of decent blogs on Industry recently (what its all about) - but my limited time gaming is best spent actually doing stuff rather than blogging for this last few weeks. Normal service will resume... shortly. What I can say is the corp right now has 600M in cash, 700M on market, and a mineral reserve that can support manufacturing for another 3 months. This despite some big spend outs recently in preparation for the move back to low-sec...
What am I hoping.... 0.0 alliances to er, remove some stakeholdings, and rent to small corps. This will allow more of us to move out there and upgrade. More pew-pew, more monies. But I'm waiting with tenterhooks to see if this is case or not. What I can predict is mineral prices will increase shortly with all of the freighters being destroyed in past week.
See you all online shortly, patching has completed on my 2 clients.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Post Vegas Musing
Well, back all safe - bit delayed last week, then jetlagged - whichpaid heed to me actually blogging, but I did manage to get back to skill change and restock the markets for the corporation. Vegas was aweesome. Makes me consider flying over from UK for eve-vegas. I do get lots of air-miles from work some years, so I've gotta hope for 4-5 flights uk-us next year to make that dream a reality. I should be able to get the hotel comped, so I only need a flight - the girl at the players club was offering all manner of deals to get me back!
This week - well, I've been in final phases of slog to get L4 agents for another corporation, which should mean I have almost all datacores covered once complete. Plan then is relocation into low-sec again and a set of hauling of the various items at each end of the pipe (loot from low-sec to high, and new ships from high to low) - that have been stocking up over the past few months.
Finally once all thats complete the rest of the corp members hopefully will be able to help with a POS deployment operation in the next fortnight - ideally pre-Dominion, but maybe after.
Work has screwed with me though - aim was to get a day off to play EVE post release - (booked a couple of days after release - but work has stymied that move by "unbooking" the Friday I wanted due to a colleague taking a flight to Nashville, TN, leaving us shortstaffed.
Can't wait for the deployment of Dominion - still dream of a 0.0 system of my own. Once day - but I'll need capital ship first, which is a few months away now. And I'll need the ubiquitious Cyno alt/alts once I have Capitals anyhow, which is more training.
Yes I have voted - do your stuff and Vote for the CSM now. Its the last day today for voting - and if you don't vote you *may* end up represented by a set of fools on the CSM. Of course, you could want that - but equally I think a bunch of Yarrr types may be resented by the carebear majority - so vote and make your choices known.
Hope to see you all online - I know its Turkey weekend in the US - so hopefully lots of people online to chat to this weekend - and have a nice holiday everyone.
This week - well, I've been in final phases of slog to get L4 agents for another corporation, which should mean I have almost all datacores covered once complete. Plan then is relocation into low-sec again and a set of hauling of the various items at each end of the pipe (loot from low-sec to high, and new ships from high to low) - that have been stocking up over the past few months.
Finally once all thats complete the rest of the corp members hopefully will be able to help with a POS deployment operation in the next fortnight - ideally pre-Dominion, but maybe after.
Work has screwed with me though - aim was to get a day off to play EVE post release - (booked a couple of days after release - but work has stymied that move by "unbooking" the Friday I wanted due to a colleague taking a flight to Nashville, TN, leaving us shortstaffed.
Can't wait for the deployment of Dominion - still dream of a 0.0 system of my own. Once day - but I'll need capital ship first, which is a few months away now. And I'll need the ubiquitious Cyno alt/alts once I have Capitals anyhow, which is more training.
Yes I have voted - do your stuff and Vote for the CSM now. Its the last day today for voting - and if you don't vote you *may* end up represented by a set of fools on the CSM. Of course, you could want that - but equally I think a bunch of Yarrr types may be resented by the carebear majority - so vote and make your choices known.
Hope to see you all online - I know its Turkey weekend in the US - so hopefully lots of people online to chat to this weekend - and have a nice holiday everyone.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Off on hiatus for 1.5 weeks
Apologies for lack of posts recently - been preparing for the 1.5 week trip to Vegas. Stressful - now on way to airport, and typically have forgotten my toothbrush. Always forget something, but at least it doesn't appear that anything important is missing.
The good news - I've been playing EVE a lot more this past few weeks, but havn't had a chance to blog about it due to actually playing. Highlights - sorting out the corporations mineral needs for the next 3 weeks with a bulk order, which should allow the rest of the members to produce stuff if they want while I'm away.
The good news is the other 2 coporation members will be taking up the mantle while I'm gone. Jax is back - he had computer hardware issues and work issues meaning he hasn't been able to play for a few months. Its glad to have him back though - as it means industry wise we're set for the next big expansion.
Dominion - we have been working on our plans for pre-Dominion - needless to say we have plans for all of the corporations cash reserves, and I'm hoping we sell 50% of the on market goods while I'm gone to assist in the cash-heavy investment in materials for the next stage of growth. If some of my math is right from word from Sisi, the release of Dominion could be very profitable for us.
The actual stats are 700m on mkt, 350 million in bank - and a mineral stash sufficient probably for another 700 m- 1 bln of goods for market sale.
Basically its great stuff and I'm happy with current growth. Hitting the 1 billion in cash mark will likely happen eventually, but we prefer right now to keep our investments actually fluid, and to reinvest every isk we make in order to make the growth keep occuring.
Anyhow hope everyone has a good Bonfire night (its a Brit thing) - and will see you all weekend after next.
The good news - I've been playing EVE a lot more this past few weeks, but havn't had a chance to blog about it due to actually playing. Highlights - sorting out the corporations mineral needs for the next 3 weeks with a bulk order, which should allow the rest of the members to produce stuff if they want while I'm away.
The good news is the other 2 coporation members will be taking up the mantle while I'm gone. Jax is back - he had computer hardware issues and work issues meaning he hasn't been able to play for a few months. Its glad to have him back though - as it means industry wise we're set for the next big expansion.
Dominion - we have been working on our plans for pre-Dominion - needless to say we have plans for all of the corporations cash reserves, and I'm hoping we sell 50% of the on market goods while I'm gone to assist in the cash-heavy investment in materials for the next stage of growth. If some of my math is right from word from Sisi, the release of Dominion could be very profitable for us.
The actual stats are 700m on mkt, 350 million in bank - and a mineral stash sufficient probably for another 700 m- 1 bln of goods for market sale.
Basically its great stuff and I'm happy with current growth. Hitting the 1 billion in cash mark will likely happen eventually, but we prefer right now to keep our investments actually fluid, and to reinvest every isk we make in order to make the growth keep occuring.
Anyhow hope everyone has a good Bonfire night (its a Brit thing) - and will see you all weekend after next.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Fanfest Video roundup
Okay, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on some of the videos from Fanfest 2009. I've been watching every day at lunch instead of writing Blog posts, hence the hiatus, but hours of video does tend to take hours to get through!
Videos + a brief summary of my thoughts from the weeks watching...
PVE/PVP Roundtable discussion - Awesome both of these, and some valid points being brought up in the discussions especially in regard to ECM power, and ECCM lack of it in PVP imho.
CCP Panel - great questions on future of EVE and Dust integration. In summary, initial integration is limited, but sadly we can't gank the Barges as they fly between planets. Shame.
CSM Panel - Nice to hear from the delegates from this round. I'm not personally going to be going in for next CSM elections, but will be on the one after. I would possibly be shot if I agreed to the Sundays and trip in February right now considering other commitments with work, I'd never get to see the girlfriend.
GM Panel - Great to hear GM's are involved in scrum with regards to tools development to help them help us. Nice to hear they play the game as much as us too! Certainally beats some games I've played before - where the CS and GM experience is sometimes somewhat outsourced and seperate from the Dev's.
To watch next week Scrum and Agile Development, Game Design and the Ecomomy sessions.
Oh, and you all so have to listen to the Orchestration of in game songs - DJ Margeir was awesome. PLEASE repeat this next year - I am defeinitely attending fanfest anyhow, but I love orchestras - and orchestras playing Computer tunes is great.
Oh and you have to watch the Alliance panel presentation that Goonswarm (Darius Johnson) gave. Its not on youtube yet, but tentonhammer has the goods. Made me die laughing.
Hope you guys all have a good weekend - at the moment DSTI is concenrtating on producing items enough for the holiday period (I leave for holidays in about a weeks time now - so the mineral queue and production is concentrating on making sure I don't run out of stuff in the interim).
Oh and Rojaz - I've not been ignoring you - just I typically am away from computer whenever you chat to me!
Videos + a brief summary of my thoughts from the weeks watching...
PVE/PVP Roundtable discussion - Awesome both of these, and some valid points being brought up in the discussions especially in regard to ECM power, and ECCM lack of it in PVP imho.
CCP Panel - great questions on future of EVE and Dust integration. In summary, initial integration is limited, but sadly we can't gank the Barges as they fly between planets. Shame.
CSM Panel - Nice to hear from the delegates from this round. I'm not personally going to be going in for next CSM elections, but will be on the one after. I would possibly be shot if I agreed to the Sundays and trip in February right now considering other commitments with work, I'd never get to see the girlfriend.
GM Panel - Great to hear GM's are involved in scrum with regards to tools development to help them help us. Nice to hear they play the game as much as us too! Certainally beats some games I've played before - where the CS and GM experience is sometimes somewhat outsourced and seperate from the Dev's.
To watch next week Scrum and Agile Development, Game Design and the Ecomomy sessions.
Oh, and you all so have to listen to the Orchestration of in game songs - DJ Margeir was awesome. PLEASE repeat this next year - I am defeinitely attending fanfest anyhow, but I love orchestras - and orchestras playing Computer tunes is great.
Oh and you have to watch the Alliance panel presentation that Goonswarm (Darius Johnson) gave. Its not on youtube yet, but tentonhammer has the goods. Made me die laughing.
Hope you guys all have a good weekend - at the moment DSTI is concenrtating on producing items enough for the holiday period (I leave for holidays in about a weeks time now - so the mineral queue and production is concentrating on making sure I don't run out of stuff in the interim).
Oh and Rojaz - I've not been ignoring you - just I typically am away from computer whenever you chat to me!
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Fanfest
Thanks to all of the wonderful bloggers for showing us how good FanFest was this year. I'm not going to link them all as the other blog pack members have already done that this week already - but Ombeve and Roc specifically had great reviews up.
I will be going next year, the g/f has approved it, and may do the Sisters of Eve thing, she noticed my sad-face all weekend and realized why, great person she is :) I hope CCP release the dates asap for Fanfest 10 - why? Well, work leave is the only thing that will prevent me making it next year, and both early October and early November (previous Fanfest times) are somewhat contested times to go in my team. My boss likes the Caribbean in Oct/Nov, and my other colleague is actually off this week on a late summer break.
Right now, its only a few weeks until my big Vegas adventure though, so have been setting up ready for this in-game...
I've not been online much though just simply moving minerals and building vast quantities of ships (taking 20 days to build is not uncommon). This is so that I can reduce the mineral stack just a little prior to holiday...
The other big thing, is my annual accounts are due for renewal in November and I'm based in UK. I done the maths, and I've worked out that at the moment its close in price to go back to Timecards compared to buying annually (added to fact paying annually hits wallet a lot harder in Nov). At current exchange rates, a year of time codes = $209 - compared to €131.40 a year on credit card = approx £120 a year. At my banks's current exchange rates, to pounds, time cards = £134 for 360 days (ie time cards = only a 15 quid impact). I think I'll be buying in batches of ETC's - as if the Dollar falls against pound, ETC's will again beat yearly subscription prices with a movement in exchange rates. Link to Shatteredcrystal for those interested in this - disclaimer, I'll get some referral funds - but if you feel like making me happy, click on this link before purchase... I'm taking a risk that dollar will fall relative to pound basically...
I will be going next year, the g/f has approved it, and may do the Sisters of Eve thing, she noticed my sad-face all weekend and realized why, great person she is :) I hope CCP release the dates asap for Fanfest 10 - why? Well, work leave is the only thing that will prevent me making it next year, and both early October and early November (previous Fanfest times) are somewhat contested times to go in my team. My boss likes the Caribbean in Oct/Nov, and my other colleague is actually off this week on a late summer break.
Right now, its only a few weeks until my big Vegas adventure though, so have been setting up ready for this in-game...
I've not been online much though just simply moving minerals and building vast quantities of ships (taking 20 days to build is not uncommon). This is so that I can reduce the mineral stack just a little prior to holiday...
The other big thing, is my annual accounts are due for renewal in November and I'm based in UK. I done the maths, and I've worked out that at the moment its close in price to go back to Timecards compared to buying annually (added to fact paying annually hits wallet a lot harder in Nov). At current exchange rates, a year of time codes = $209 - compared to €131.40 a year on credit card = approx £120 a year. At my banks's current exchange rates, to pounds, time cards = £134 for 360 days (ie time cards = only a 15 quid impact). I think I'll be buying in batches of ETC's - as if the Dollar falls against pound, ETC's will again beat yearly subscription prices with a movement in exchange rates. Link to Shatteredcrystal for those interested in this - disclaimer, I'll get some referral funds - but if you feel like making me happy, click on this link before purchase... I'm taking a risk that dollar will fall relative to pound basically...
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Corporation update
Well, firstly we have a new industrial member, Rojaz, who is starting up a sales and production operation in a station we have identified is under-supplied for capsuleer demand - so I publically welcome this development.
Secondly, having now got standings with Creodron for my first level 4 agents, I am doing the same with Core Complexion - to be able to max all my R&D slots with L4 agents - Creodron only having a small number. So grinding of standings, again, not much fun for another month or so.
The biggest news in world of EVE had to be Pandemic Legion winning the Alliance tournament. Congratulations guys, its was a brilliant win, and showed the value of changing tactics upon every single match! The HD video feed was also omg awesome as the guys from CCP described it. Downsides are my shite PC couldn't handle the load of running the video and 2 EVE clients all that well - so for a lot of the final day I was watching with only one client up... It was great TV, and I really hope that CCP chooses to to a EVE TV broadcast again.
The other great news is the fact that the next patch will have a new browser embedded in game based on the same tech as Google Chrome- not the most obvious of good news - but excellent for app development. I'm hoping that once a decent browser is in there, that you will be able to use API hooks to in-game features. For example a spreadsheet updated using your current local market data may be possible. For industrialists, this part of the patch could be very interesting.
Secondly, having now got standings with Creodron for my first level 4 agents, I am doing the same with Core Complexion - to be able to max all my R&D slots with L4 agents - Creodron only having a small number. So grinding of standings, again, not much fun for another month or so.
The biggest news in world of EVE had to be Pandemic Legion winning the Alliance tournament. Congratulations guys, its was a brilliant win, and showed the value of changing tactics upon every single match! The HD video feed was also omg awesome as the guys from CCP described it. Downsides are my shite PC couldn't handle the load of running the video and 2 EVE clients all that well - so for a lot of the final day I was watching with only one client up... It was great TV, and I really hope that CCP chooses to to a EVE TV broadcast again.
The other great news is the fact that the next patch will have a new browser embedded in game based on the same tech as Google Chrome- not the most obvious of good news - but excellent for app development. I'm hoping that once a decent browser is in there, that you will be able to use API hooks to in-game features. For example a spreadsheet updated using your current local market data may be possible. For industrialists, this part of the patch could be very interesting.
Friday, 18 September 2009
EVE + Netbook
Well, I jumped in yesterday and purchased a Samsung N110 - mainly for blogging on the road, photo retouching from my DSLR. I had minor hopes it would run EVE, but it wasn't essential.
To my surprise, it does. Its slow, probably 10-15f/s in space - , certainally wouldn't want to be out in space on anything more than a haul with one... BUT it works. Some niggles like it being slightly too small to sell full screen (min eve res is 1024x768 vs 1024x600 on the 10" screen), so corp-hangers hard to access.
Overall though its good. The best bit, the battery - even with EVE up for half an hour I only dented 5-10% of the battery. I think the battery with real world usage will last me 6-7 hours every time - and thats even with use of EVE, it doesn't seem to dent the cpu much despite the 100% usage.. Great when you consider thats enough time for a nice train ride in/out of London twice, or one with problems. I've already got a 3g dongle, and experience with watching TV on an old-phone via 3 and a slingbox says for 90% of the journey it should work without any disconnects, meaning I can use EVE for market fun when I'm travelling, or away for a weekend :)
The other nice thing for those considering netbooks - is the thing actually boots/is usable WAY WAY quicker than my desktop. Both are running same AV, same OS etc - its a nice benefit, along with the fact the hibernate is sweet, meaning the netboot is almost instant-on.
Brilliant purchase, and although EVE wasn't the main reason for it, its a lovely side benefit!
This weekend I may not be online much - real life means I'm tied up with some DIY projects with some friends prior to the winter setting in.
Also - expect to see me online next Sunday..... :) I'll be in London visiting a friend in hospital during the day, but will be online on my journey to & from :) I'll be online Friday/Saturday also in all likelihood....
I still need to purchase the HD TV and PS3 for Dust - but thats the Christmas present :)
To my surprise, it does. Its slow, probably 10-15f/s in space - , certainally wouldn't want to be out in space on anything more than a haul with one... BUT it works. Some niggles like it being slightly too small to sell full screen (min eve res is 1024x768 vs 1024x600 on the 10" screen), so corp-hangers hard to access.
Overall though its good. The best bit, the battery - even with EVE up for half an hour I only dented 5-10% of the battery. I think the battery with real world usage will last me 6-7 hours every time - and thats even with use of EVE, it doesn't seem to dent the cpu much despite the 100% usage.. Great when you consider thats enough time for a nice train ride in/out of London twice, or one with problems. I've already got a 3g dongle, and experience with watching TV on an old-phone via 3 and a slingbox says for 90% of the journey it should work without any disconnects, meaning I can use EVE for market fun when I'm travelling, or away for a weekend :)
The other nice thing for those considering netbooks - is the thing actually boots/is usable WAY WAY quicker than my desktop. Both are running same AV, same OS etc - its a nice benefit, along with the fact the hibernate is sweet, meaning the netboot is almost instant-on.
Brilliant purchase, and although EVE wasn't the main reason for it, its a lovely side benefit!
This weekend I may not be online much - real life means I'm tied up with some DIY projects with some friends prior to the winter setting in.
Also - expect to see me online next Sunday..... :) I'll be in London visiting a friend in hospital during the day, but will be online on my journey to & from :) I'll be online Friday/Saturday also in all likelihood....
I still need to purchase the HD TV and PS3 for Dust - but thats the Christmas present :)
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Ghost Market manipulation
Okay, I'm going to blog about something I've noticed which I think may be an exploit....
I believe that one of my corp members has quit playing. His account appears inactive as the API key says Account disabled due to account status. So this probably means his account has expired....
Interestingly none of his corporate sell orders have expired (don't know about his personal ones) and have been being actioned the past few days, still feeding money to the corp wallet.... So I present Ghost Market Manipulation. Is this an exploit? Do you think its worth a bug report?
If this is true, I wonder how much this has to do with the current huge falls in price of Tritanium and some market side effects - after all, isn't it almost 3 months since the ban-hammer fell on bot accounts - so some 90 day sell/buy orders will be expiring. I've noticed huge falls recently in the price of Trit and even Mex in the short term. I wonder just how much the bot-accounts had on the market when the ban-hammer fell - and whether the lack of bots will be felt more widely than first thought starting now?
What do you think, exploit, or by design? Should CCP fix - as with ghost training being eliminated, surely this is the same thing?
I believe that one of my corp members has quit playing. His account appears inactive as the API key says Account disabled due to account status. So this probably means his account has expired....
Interestingly none of his corporate sell orders have expired (don't know about his personal ones) and have been being actioned the past few days, still feeding money to the corp wallet.... So I present Ghost Market Manipulation. Is this an exploit? Do you think its worth a bug report?
If this is true, I wonder how much this has to do with the current huge falls in price of Tritanium and some market side effects - after all, isn't it almost 3 months since the ban-hammer fell on bot accounts - so some 90 day sell/buy orders will be expiring. I've noticed huge falls recently in the price of Trit and even Mex in the short term. I wonder just how much the bot-accounts had on the market when the ban-hammer fell - and whether the lack of bots will be felt more widely than first thought starting now?
What do you think, exploit, or by design? Should CCP fix - as with ghost training being eliminated, surely this is the same thing?
The Big Industry update
Current stats: 300Mln available cash, 275M on market.
Good news : Minerals are officially no longer a problem. Have a stockpile of 100mln units of Trit, 40 Pye, 5 Mex, and enough of the high-ends to meet production for next few weeks.
Also have a buy-order for another 100million Tritanium out there. Its so cheap right now, it would be crazy not to - I can't honestly see the situation staying the same.
Production wise, I have my maximum 9 slots committed to builds for the next 10 days. I'm almost needing a production alt to get another 9 slots - the sheer volume of builds required is the problem.
The reason: Plan to expand the DSTIC empire to another 1/2 sales stations I've identified to speed up isk generation. Currently the build queues can support this - they only stop right now when minerals run out - this should hopefully double sales volumes as until now only 2 stations are "sales" hubs.
Jax seems to not be online at all now, so I'm reduced to a one-man corp effectively. This means recruitment is now open.... If you play UK hours of typically 7-12pm, and most commonly on 10-midnight, contact me ingame on the character Deafplasma. I can teach you production and supply access to the corporations blueprint stocks (use only access), and give you some pointers on where to sell stuff..... You need production efficiency 5, ideally voice comms via Eve voice (as its free), and a desire to make ISK for yourself and the corporation.
The other *great* opportunitie I've spotted needs a freighters to leverage unfortunately - basically its a double your money over time opportunity, with 83mln to be made every 30 days or so, and will only tie up half that amount of isk!!! :) But with this paying for a freighter over a year easily, I'm thinking of buying one, as it will also make mineral purchases interesting/fun. I've tried the method successfully, its the sheer volume to be hauled that causes the problem (its about 500,000 m3 needed every month).
I've also been online more recently.
And what would a post be without welcoming all the new members to the blog pack:
Good news : Minerals are officially no longer a problem. Have a stockpile of 100mln units of Trit, 40 Pye, 5 Mex, and enough of the high-ends to meet production for next few weeks.
Also have a buy-order for another 100million Tritanium out there. Its so cheap right now, it would be crazy not to - I can't honestly see the situation staying the same.
Production wise, I have my maximum 9 slots committed to builds for the next 10 days. I'm almost needing a production alt to get another 9 slots - the sheer volume of builds required is the problem.
The reason: Plan to expand the DSTIC empire to another 1/2 sales stations I've identified to speed up isk generation. Currently the build queues can support this - they only stop right now when minerals run out - this should hopefully double sales volumes as until now only 2 stations are "sales" hubs.
Jax seems to not be online at all now, so I'm reduced to a one-man corp effectively. This means recruitment is now open.... If you play UK hours of typically 7-12pm, and most commonly on 10-midnight, contact me ingame on the character Deafplasma. I can teach you production and supply access to the corporations blueprint stocks (use only access), and give you some pointers on where to sell stuff..... You need production efficiency 5, ideally voice comms via Eve voice (as its free), and a desire to make ISK for yourself and the corporation.
The other *great* opportunitie I've spotted needs a freighters to leverage unfortunately - basically its a double your money over time opportunity, with 83mln to be made every 30 days or so, and will only tie up half that amount of isk!!! :) But with this paying for a freighter over a year easily, I'm thinking of buying one, as it will also make mineral purchases interesting/fun. I've tried the method successfully, its the sheer volume to be hauled that causes the problem (its about 500,000 m3 needed every month).
I've also been online more recently.
And what would a post be without welcoming all the new members to the blog pack:
- Loaded Barrels, by Brutus
- EVE Newb, by Spectre
- My God, it's full of Stars!, by Jamenta
- Hands Off, My Loots!, by Cyberin
- Ecliptic Rift, by Casiella Truza
- Articulated Sky, by Godlesswanderer
- Munich Mataris, by DieRoteBieroness, Naanook and DocFloyd
- Diary of a Pod Pilot, by Myrhial Arkenath
- Nashh Kadavr's EVE Blog, by Nashh Kadavr
- The Captain's Log, by Prometheus09
- Level Cap, by Rakanishu
- Planet Risk Show (The), by Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm
- Corrupted Datacore, by Chainer Cygnus
- Yarrbear Tales, by 00sage00
- A Pirate's Life for Me, by Alagus
- Journey to New Eden, by Bill
- EVE Online Wormholes, by Star Defender
- A Rock in a Cold Place, by Abaddor
- A Ghost Blog, by Mr NOXx
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Eve Blog Banter #11 - a ship called Starfury
It's time for the blog banter again... now I know I didn't take part in last months - or the recent PodCast competition.... However, its a good thing really as I've had a killer cold recently, lost my voice and I'd probably sound all strange if I won anyhow :)
This month's banter comes to us from Joe Brusati a long time reader of CrazyKinux's Musing, who asks the following: CCP states that T3 Strategic Cruisers are just the start for the T3 line-up. In future Eve expansions what would you like to see as the next T3 ship type. Please be specific on details about what role this ship would play, cost of manufacturing, and the different modules that would be available for it, and of course you must give your T3 ship a name!
Well , first, I'd have a T3 Battlecruiser, and I would name it "StarFury". I thought about T3 frigates, but then thought with the new "rigging" changes that actually that may not be super-clever. Also, swapping small components in/out of a tiny ship like a Frigate just didn't make sense.
Battlecruisers however make perfect sense, and you know I'd like several additional T3 rigs, including propulsion. The costs of some T2 battlecruisers compete right now with T3 cruisers, so the next logical step is of course T3 BC's. Cost, maybe 4-6 billion isk each ?
My ideal battlecruiser would be a stealth ship, able to cloak, and be able to evade untargetted warp bubbles. It also would have ability to use a Blackoperations Jump Bridge - ie, be able to be brought into current "stealth" gangs for 0.0 roaming. The difference, having a tank able to withstand a little beating, but with the downsides of its tracking not being super-awesome. T3 Cruisers are great, but a BC would have 2-3x the staying power in terms of shields/armor/resists.
The other role for it would be a pure DPS boat. Weaker armor and resists than a T2 BC, but massive DPS potential of maybe 4 or 8x of say a Drake or Myrmidon with bonuses. ie, the facility to totally go wafer-thin on shields/armor (like between frigate and cruiser levels) for even more DPS....
You know the thing I'd really want though - a T3 jump drive for use in T3 BC 's - able to jump straight into engagements if needed (if a friendly opens a cyno). But, with an additional ability to jump out if capacitor is over 25% and not-warp-scrambled - ie a jump in, do some damage, jump out style ship......
The other thing to match would be a T3 module ship offering a perminant cyno beacon, but allowing movement at normal pace (but greatly greatly reducing shield/armor etc and also maybe reducing warp speed). The fun thing being, there shouldn't be a sign on the ship as to which is the one that has the beacon emitter. Basically allowing instant re-enforcement and bait-traps if 2 ships roaming together get attacked, with the attacker not having a clue as to which is the master "cyno".... The cyno ship should not be able to fit a jump drive though!
So, what do you guys think, are these not great ideas, and do you think they would greatly change the tactics of 0.0, and make people wary of T3 BC's roaming?
Friday, 21 August 2009
A week of eve
This is a phonepost so apologies if the formatting or grammer don't
hit usual standards! Writing on the train on the way to the stag
night of the dead movie premier in London, which I was lucky enough to
be an extra in my holidays over the last summer/winter!
hit usual standards! Writing on the train on the way to the stag
night of the dead movie premier in London, which I was lucky enough to
be an extra in my holidays over the last summer/winter!
The last week had obviously seen the Dust 514 news (providing I
remembered that right) - this does deeply excite me - the news of a
major fps / strategy console tie in excites as ever. The sovreignty
impact makes me really sad my fanfest attenance got called off for
financial reasons as the chance to see a demo would be amazing..
What i'm hoping is that sovreignty is changed so individuals and small
corps can get a foothold in 0.0 without getting tied up in
alliances. But that's a personal hope and I doubt CCP will cater for
those!
My concerns are lack of a pc version being mentioned as I prefer to
play both RTS and FPS games on the PC due to me being a mouse and
keyboard freak for this time of game.
The thing I am waiting for confirmation of are the available platforms
as if Dust is say PS3 exclusive I see a PS3 being an Christmas present
for sure!
In Corp news - we now have low quality level 4 r&d agents available to
us - bur need to be getting more high quality - this is purely down to
lack of gametime - I've been logged in only 60 mins this week!
Biggest issue now to the Corp is a severe local shortage of well
priced Mex - could anyone supply 10m units to me anywhere in Ours for
say 300mln isk?
Hope everyone has a good weekend and hope to see you online next week
if not at weekend!
Monday, 10 August 2009
Almost a year of blogging
This blog started on 28th August 08, and given its now 10th Aug 09, I can't believe its been active almost a year...
Now I've not been online hardly at all this past week - mainly due to post-30th-birthday celebrations and some surprises, including a holiday that was surprised on me (to the North of England), meaning I've not been around....
Anyhow, thought I'd update with the status from the weekend.
The DSTIC empire is continuing to grow, limited only by lack of retail slots currently (which skills are being worked on to fix). I decided to expand the sales empire into another station, and its had a noticable increase in sales. The weekly turnover is now well over 100mln. Downsides are I'm being limited by minerals again, the constant building has decimated the Megacyte supply, so I now have 0 units left. The annoying thing is I've had a buy-order for 20k units of Megacyte for months now, but its just not being filled despite regular tweaking.
The skills for L4 R&D still are eluding me unfortunatly, but I am close now. Once this is done, the POS plan will start, and then we can hopefully have a permanent supply of T2 items being built/sold. This should hopefully increase profits nicely.
The big skill I've researched recently is the remote industrial skill "Supply Chain Management" - which is proving super useful. I can sit in my missioning system (where L4 agents being sorted), and directly control my main hub of operations, building items for sale. The advantage is I only have to actually fly the 8 jumps home to move goods/minerals every 2-3 weeks - as now I can remotely alter prices of buy/sell orders, and build replacements without actually visiting the stations in question - its only the logistics of mineral moves that really needs me 100% now.
That said, I'm still missing the fun of low-sec. I will be returning to the base of operations there as soon as I can, I seriously can't believe its a month since I left. Hopefully I'll be bringing a hulk back with me, so I can mine some of the sites that have been unavailable to me previously. This should hopefully fix the high-end mineral shortage problem in the short-term.
Hope you guys have a good week and hope to see you online again shortly
Now I've not been online hardly at all this past week - mainly due to post-30th-birthday celebrations and some surprises, including a holiday that was surprised on me (to the North of England), meaning I've not been around....
Anyhow, thought I'd update with the status from the weekend.
The DSTIC empire is continuing to grow, limited only by lack of retail slots currently (which skills are being worked on to fix). I decided to expand the sales empire into another station, and its had a noticable increase in sales. The weekly turnover is now well over 100mln. Downsides are I'm being limited by minerals again, the constant building has decimated the Megacyte supply, so I now have 0 units left. The annoying thing is I've had a buy-order for 20k units of Megacyte for months now, but its just not being filled despite regular tweaking.
The skills for L4 R&D still are eluding me unfortunatly, but I am close now. Once this is done, the POS plan will start, and then we can hopefully have a permanent supply of T2 items being built/sold. This should hopefully increase profits nicely.
The big skill I've researched recently is the remote industrial skill "Supply Chain Management" - which is proving super useful. I can sit in my missioning system (where L4 agents being sorted), and directly control my main hub of operations, building items for sale. The advantage is I only have to actually fly the 8 jumps home to move goods/minerals every 2-3 weeks - as now I can remotely alter prices of buy/sell orders, and build replacements without actually visiting the stations in question - its only the logistics of mineral moves that really needs me 100% now.
That said, I'm still missing the fun of low-sec. I will be returning to the base of operations there as soon as I can, I seriously can't believe its a month since I left. Hopefully I'll be bringing a hulk back with me, so I can mine some of the sites that have been unavailable to me previously. This should hopefully fix the high-end mineral shortage problem in the short-term.
Hope you guys have a good week and hope to see you online again shortly
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Industrial Endeavours update
Well the T1 market is going well again for me at least. The sell it low, but in quantities tactic is resulting in significant sales for me.
Current stats: 500mln cash, 300mln on market, another 100mln of goods sat in hanger waiting for market orders to complete (ie restocks), and a new 40mln unit stash of trit + a tidy amount of pye. All good, and amazing volumes for my stocks.
Basically I think in past week of market trading - I *think* I've made 2-300mln - which is a good result - all off the back of 4 key items which are the cornerstone of the "trading" operation. What does surprise me though is something that usually doesn't sell (200mm steel plates) - had a huge rush of 300 buyers in a short period last week - this despite the actual price making me a tidy profit.
The L4 R&D "project" has stalled until next week. At the moment can access L3 Q16 agents so its getting close to L4 agents now on both characters - shame only one of them has research skills trained!
I have a week-o-eve next week - where the L4 project will complete with any luck, the store will be restocked, and I will venture back into low-sec for a month with a hulk in the hold for use in mining operations down in deep Low-sec. I'll be using a deep space transport for the trip - which should minimise risk of getting caught - its still possible to be scramed by a big gang however, so I will be tacking a escort or two.
I hope your week in EVE is fruitful, and my next post will be my Blog banter submission.
Current stats: 500mln cash, 300mln on market, another 100mln of goods sat in hanger waiting for market orders to complete (ie restocks), and a new 40mln unit stash of trit + a tidy amount of pye. All good, and amazing volumes for my stocks.
Basically I think in past week of market trading - I *think* I've made 2-300mln - which is a good result - all off the back of 4 key items which are the cornerstone of the "trading" operation. What does surprise me though is something that usually doesn't sell (200mm steel plates) - had a huge rush of 300 buyers in a short period last week - this despite the actual price making me a tidy profit.
The L4 R&D "project" has stalled until next week. At the moment can access L3 Q16 agents so its getting close to L4 agents now on both characters - shame only one of them has research skills trained!
I have a week-o-eve next week - where the L4 project will complete with any luck, the store will be restocked, and I will venture back into low-sec for a month with a hulk in the hold for use in mining operations down in deep Low-sec. I'll be using a deep space transport for the trip - which should minimise risk of getting caught - its still possible to be scramed by a big gang however, so I will be tacking a escort or two.
I hope your week in EVE is fruitful, and my next post will be my Blog banter submission.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Indusrial Meanderings and odd trading strategy
Well, I've been told that I need to post a bit more about industrial activities and whats going on in the world of DSTIC trading wise.
Current status: 500mln cash, 100mln in buy-orders, 250mln in sell orders.
Mineral stockpile: Reasonable, but needs replenishing for Tritanium and Nocxium.. all others have enough to restock the market between 3 and 5 times. (its about a 400-500 mil stash).
Build Queue: Just finished all 9 slots which have been building restock items last 5 days.
Blueprint/research status: Nothing in research, this is in preparation for the POS build - as easily can fill 1 or 2 labs currently...
What I've recently been doing industry wise, is more aggressively staking my claim in the market -Basically as almost 100% of the BPO's owned by DSTIC are more researched to within 0.01 loss, I can produce and only make a 8-11% margin rather than the usual 40%. Some may say "why sell low when you can make more money - the answer in my region is volume and time - I can make more in bulk than I ever can in small volumes...". This is meaning I'm aggressively pursuing a region wide lowest price in some cases, meaning my items are selling in bulk to seemingly T2 producers (who don't always have researched T1 BPO's meaning I can build/sell for less than they can build). Some items get sold out way before I get a chance to restock now due to this, and the turnover is amazing. Its not unusual to sell 250-500 of some items inside 5 days.
The change soon however will be the move to T2 production in-house. Some of the POS lab slots mentioned will be going to T2 component BPO's, which need research to "perfect" levels.
....
The other big big change in 10-15 days will be the ability to pilot a Hulk. Mining - I usually wouldn't consider it, but some of the sites that have been found via exploration in low-sec made me reconsider that assumption. The plan: To be self-sufficient in higher-end minerals, and maybe even supply market for a few of these.
The other aspect which I can't really discuss, is the move to market prediction - where I think a demand will exist in the future - I am pre-buying items to meet that demand - its a risky strategy, as I'm building a stockpile of what may be "useless" or low demand items now - but they may be highly profitable in 3-4 months time. Similar to share prices I'm speculating to accumulate, but with real items...
Its hard to be specific on the blog on some trading/industrial activities, as if I do, I may give away "insider" tips, which would result in my whole strategy being ruined ....
Current status: 500mln cash, 100mln in buy-orders, 250mln in sell orders.
Mineral stockpile: Reasonable, but needs replenishing for Tritanium and Nocxium.. all others have enough to restock the market between 3 and 5 times. (its about a 400-500 mil stash).
Build Queue: Just finished all 9 slots which have been building restock items last 5 days.
Blueprint/research status: Nothing in research, this is in preparation for the POS build - as easily can fill 1 or 2 labs currently...
What I've recently been doing industry wise, is more aggressively staking my claim in the market -Basically as almost 100% of the BPO's owned by DSTIC are more researched to within 0.01 loss, I can produce and only make a 8-11% margin rather than the usual 40%. Some may say "why sell low when you can make more money - the answer in my region is volume and time - I can make more in bulk than I ever can in small volumes...". This is meaning I'm aggressively pursuing a region wide lowest price in some cases, meaning my items are selling in bulk to seemingly T2 producers (who don't always have researched T1 BPO's meaning I can build/sell for less than they can build). Some items get sold out way before I get a chance to restock now due to this, and the turnover is amazing. Its not unusual to sell 250-500 of some items inside 5 days.
The change soon however will be the move to T2 production in-house. Some of the POS lab slots mentioned will be going to T2 component BPO's, which need research to "perfect" levels.
....
The other big big change in 10-15 days will be the ability to pilot a Hulk. Mining - I usually wouldn't consider it, but some of the sites that have been found via exploration in low-sec made me reconsider that assumption. The plan: To be self-sufficient in higher-end minerals, and maybe even supply market for a few of these.
The other aspect which I can't really discuss, is the move to market prediction - where I think a demand will exist in the future - I am pre-buying items to meet that demand - its a risky strategy, as I'm building a stockpile of what may be "useless" or low demand items now - but they may be highly profitable in 3-4 months time. Similar to share prices I'm speculating to accumulate, but with real items...
Its hard to be specific on the blog on some trading/industrial activities, as if I do, I may give away "insider" tips, which would result in my whole strategy being ruined ....
The fall of bots?
I was sat at the bar in Carirgnottin... My current L2 agent is here - for Creodron.
Carirgnottin and some of the surrounding systems have Gallente Ice fields (high-sec all around). The thing with ice fields is you usually get ICE mining robots in bulk from our Chinese macro friends.
The more interesting thing recently has been "local". The local pilots over the past week have been commenting "Where have all the macro's gone". And indeed, with me doing some quick looks - it appears Macro miners have decided to go on vacation, or at least greatly reduce their operations.
Has this happened where you are? If they are, it has far-reaching market implications - such as ICE prices and their derivatives rocketing in price.
Update - : Still no EON magazine, I'll be chasing this up with my reference number asap tommorow (once confirmed no arrival today)- as it now has been almost a week and a half...
Carirgnottin and some of the surrounding systems have Gallente Ice fields (high-sec all around). The thing with ice fields is you usually get ICE mining robots in bulk from our Chinese macro friends.
The more interesting thing recently has been "local". The local pilots over the past week have been commenting "Where have all the macro's gone". And indeed, with me doing some quick looks - it appears Macro miners have decided to go on vacation, or at least greatly reduce their operations.
Has this happened where you are? If they are, it has far-reaching market implications - such as ICE prices and their derivatives rocketing in price.
Update - : Still no EON magazine, I'll be chasing this up with my reference number asap tommorow (once confirmed no arrival today)- as it now has been almost a week and a half...
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Question on EON magazine
Once subscribed, how long does it take for first magazine (current) to be shipped?
I ask as I subscribed again last Thursday, and have not received the first edition yet - admittedly due to Royal Mail not delivering to me until noon, I can't check todays mail until I get home, but even so I was expecting the magazine yesterday/Tuesday or even Monday if I was lucky. Having not received yet I am getting worried.
I subscribed in past, and never had any delivery problems, but have missed last 3 editions. As mentioned before I can't make it to Fanfest this year due to the expense of fixing my PC to actually play EVE, so decided to resubscribe with the launch of EON 16... (well just after, I was a bit tardy!). I just find the delay odd, and not what I experienced in past.
I will update this post in comments as to what if anything happens.
I ask as I subscribed again last Thursday, and have not received the first edition yet - admittedly due to Royal Mail not delivering to me until noon, I can't check todays mail until I get home, but even so I was expecting the magazine yesterday/Tuesday or even Monday if I was lucky. Having not received yet I am getting worried.
I subscribed in past, and never had any delivery problems, but have missed last 3 editions. As mentioned before I can't make it to Fanfest this year due to the expense of fixing my PC to actually play EVE, so decided to resubscribe with the launch of EON 16... (well just after, I was a bit tardy!). I just find the delay odd, and not what I experienced in past.
I will update this post in comments as to what if anything happens.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
A more responsive Jita? Devblog comment
I though I'd paste a link to a Dev blog indicating whats been going on in Jita recently. Just in case any readers havn't seen/read it ! Basically over the last few expansions the Dev's have been working flat out to allow Jita and other busy systems to scale better.
Result: You can clearly see from the graphs linked above they have been successful - and I must congratulate them on finding such an improvement from changing the Inventory system.
Basically this is showing the Dev's are just as interested in making the game scale - in that they are fixing long term problems as well as making the "new shiny" features...
Not many MMO's release the tech detail CCP does on its Dev blog - I really wish more would..
Result: You can clearly see from the graphs linked above they have been successful - and I must congratulate them on finding such an improvement from changing the Inventory system.
Basically this is showing the Dev's are just as interested in making the game scale - in that they are fixing long term problems as well as making the "new shiny" features...
Not many MMO's release the tech detail CCP does on its Dev blog - I really wish more would..
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Power loss, and mission hub movement
I finally managed to login to EVE on Monday for 3 and a half hours, after only 10 mins logged in on Sunday. Why? Well, my house had no Power on Sunday 9am-8:30pm, with 30 mins of power 2-2:30. I did manage in that 30 mins to get my skill queue altered - but my hopes (with a day off) of a full EVE day were just that - cruelly dashed by the local utility company. This is the 3rd power cut recorded by my UPS since November of significance, and admittedly does follow a period of stability from March. It was however the longest power cut of recent times.. The good news though was the fact that during the period of power I managed to copy a load of movies to the laptop and PSP, enough to keep me going during Sunday afternoon. I also surprisingly got out on the mountain bike for a 5 mile blast (mostly uphill).
Yesterday therefore was the first proper EVEning in a while...
As promised, I moved from a Fed Navy Level 3 mission hub to a Creodron level 2 agent. I flew over all my important ships and equipment and setup for an evening missioning, when I completed around 10 missions. Standings gains were okay, but I've still not opened any level 3's up yet unfortunately - this current home IS only temporary until level 3 missions of any quality are available to me.
Once level 4 R&D missioning is done, I will be moving back to my low-sec neighborhood... and starting the invention process with a (high-sec) POS providing the BPC's for use... I've decided to setup a POS in high-sec purely as I haven't found any moons with value enough to offset the risk of moon mining in low-sec.
Sometimes grinding for standing is boring, but personally as I haven't missioned in ages, coming across "Damsels in Distress" and that permanent pest Krull is a nice change from watching my back in low-sec from gangs of real pirates. Downside is it is considerably less lucrative than low-sec exploration....
Yesterday therefore was the first proper EVEning in a while...
As promised, I moved from a Fed Navy Level 3 mission hub to a Creodron level 2 agent. I flew over all my important ships and equipment and setup for an evening missioning, when I completed around 10 missions. Standings gains were okay, but I've still not opened any level 3's up yet unfortunately - this current home IS only temporary until level 3 missions of any quality are available to me.
Once level 4 R&D missioning is done, I will be moving back to my low-sec neighborhood... and starting the invention process with a (high-sec) POS providing the BPC's for use... I've decided to setup a POS in high-sec purely as I haven't found any moons with value enough to offset the risk of moon mining in low-sec.
Sometimes grinding for standing is boring, but personally as I haven't missioned in ages, coming across "Damsels in Distress" and that permanent pest Krull is a nice change from watching my back in low-sec from gangs of real pirates. Downside is it is considerably less lucrative than low-sec exploration....
Thursday, 9 July 2009
A week of missioning.. and comment on Rigging
What I love about EVE is the fact there is so much to do - you literally shouldn't get bored, as you can move from one item to another.
My problem recently has been standings as although I have skills trained, I can't use Level 4 R&D agents due to my low standings. I tried a trip to cosmos constellation - but again my basic standings are just too low to be able to use the L3/L4 starter agents which would greatly improve my Gallente standing in days.
So... I've relocated temporarily to an old-mission-hub favourite of mine with the Fed Navy - for a bit of a change and some "blowing some shit up" action. I've fitted a full Tech-2 Myrmidon, with T2 drones, and have been greatly enjoying L3 missions again while my BS skills train for L4's. This is only a temporary move however - I may have to relocate again however to an agent for one of the "Research" companies to greatly increase standings gain there quickly to at least get some R&D going. This is likely to happen next week, with all the logistics fun that involves.... - got a Myrmidon, Ishkur, Salvager to all move. The good news is that if I take a small detour to pick up my "big hauler", I can fit the Ishkur, Salvager inside + a load of mission loot and stock to keep me going. The downside is the fact I have to fit/unfit and package the ships - but I hope this will give a chance to try the new fitting "templates", to speed this process up.
Now of course the big news is the Apocrypha summer expansion is to include changes to Rigs, introducing small and medium rigs. As an industrialist I see this as bad and good. Yes they'll require less items to make than "big rigs", but they'll also increase the utilisation of rigs, and thus potentially the price of them and of salvage.
Overall I think it'll be good news if you have vast quantities of salvage, as you may be able to make the new rigs for extreme profit, as I do expect salvage prices to peak after release. A wise man (even a missioner) would keep all salvage till after patch to see if this holds true.... the downside being if too many people do this it will result in prices dropping and an increase prior to patch due to the smaller amounts on market. How will I deal with this ? By following the market - I'll be keeping an eye on salvage prices on buy and sell orders, and volumes in 2 of the major trade hubs near where I fly and thus can remotely change price on - (Not Jita incidentally, as i don't want to leave an ALT there just to change prices). When prices are optimal to buy (ie if they drop), I'll buy. If prices optimal to sell, I'll consider either rig production or selling.
The good news is I already have researched large Rig BPO's for most of the popular modules..... which if I'm right may actually shoot through the roof in prices...
Interesting times for industrilists for sure.
I'll be online a lot in next 2 weeks, think every single day Mon-Thurs (starting next Mon).... this week I've been distracted by something called Torchwood - which apparently is aiming to deal with an emerging alien threat... It has greatly reduced my available time to actually fly my spaceships...
My problem recently has been standings as although I have skills trained, I can't use Level 4 R&D agents due to my low standings. I tried a trip to cosmos constellation - but again my basic standings are just too low to be able to use the L3/L4 starter agents which would greatly improve my Gallente standing in days.
So... I've relocated temporarily to an old-mission-hub favourite of mine with the Fed Navy - for a bit of a change and some "blowing some shit up" action. I've fitted a full Tech-2 Myrmidon, with T2 drones, and have been greatly enjoying L3 missions again while my BS skills train for L4's. This is only a temporary move however - I may have to relocate again however to an agent for one of the "Research" companies to greatly increase standings gain there quickly to at least get some R&D going. This is likely to happen next week, with all the logistics fun that involves.... - got a Myrmidon, Ishkur, Salvager to all move. The good news is that if I take a small detour to pick up my "big hauler", I can fit the Ishkur, Salvager inside + a load of mission loot and stock to keep me going. The downside is the fact I have to fit/unfit and package the ships - but I hope this will give a chance to try the new fitting "templates", to speed this process up.
Now of course the big news is the Apocrypha summer expansion is to include changes to Rigs, introducing small and medium rigs. As an industrialist I see this as bad and good. Yes they'll require less items to make than "big rigs", but they'll also increase the utilisation of rigs, and thus potentially the price of them and of salvage.
Overall I think it'll be good news if you have vast quantities of salvage, as you may be able to make the new rigs for extreme profit, as I do expect salvage prices to peak after release. A wise man (even a missioner) would keep all salvage till after patch to see if this holds true.... the downside being if too many people do this it will result in prices dropping and an increase prior to patch due to the smaller amounts on market. How will I deal with this ? By following the market - I'll be keeping an eye on salvage prices on buy and sell orders, and volumes in 2 of the major trade hubs near where I fly and thus can remotely change price on - (Not Jita incidentally, as i don't want to leave an ALT there just to change prices). When prices are optimal to buy (ie if they drop), I'll buy. If prices optimal to sell, I'll consider either rig production or selling.
The good news is I already have researched large Rig BPO's for most of the popular modules..... which if I'm right may actually shoot through the roof in prices...
Interesting times for industrilists for sure.
I'll be online a lot in next 2 weeks, think every single day Mon-Thurs (starting next Mon).... this week I've been distracted by something called Torchwood - which apparently is aiming to deal with an emerging alien threat... It has greatly reduced my available time to actually fly my spaceships...
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Blog Banter #9 - Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
"Last month Ga'len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith "WebMandrill" Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?"
My Big Idea
Well, I've found this hard to come up with ideas and I did come up with 2 in draft for this banter - but eventually it dawned on me the one thing that bugs me is Anchoring delays. Now as a lot of people have probably read in my blog - I don't have a POS up yet, but I have researched the mechanics, and hope I've covered what bugs me. I may end up looking like an Idiot, but will put it out there "I have not done this yet"
Anchoring fullstop bugs me - as you eject something in space, and it stays there - if its no subject to gravity etc. If it does need to thrust to stay in position, it isn't exactly a complex science - every action has an equal and opposite reaction - so if you are moving in direction X, fire thruster in opposite direction with same thrust. You then stay still. Are we seriously saying a starbase/gun array takes 5 minutes to do that? In the future?
Why remove the delay? Well, the delay mechanic is already there, in the Onlining (and offlineing) delay - why should there be a countdown delay to a POS actually being put in space with what I've mentioned? Anchoring to me seems a delay that doesn't need to be there. To counter this, and stop "ninja" pos's of course CCP will need to increase the onlining delay of towers themselves, probably via an equivalent amount.... But, tactically being able to drop a module into place immediately - and maybe reducing onlinging delay on weapons modules, the whole concept of POS warface could be made a little more tactical perhaps?
Some may say this is an over simplication - but maybe a delay on ejecting modules from ship would equally be more realistic than a "I'm floating in space and er, need to calibrate to not move".
Personally - Anchoring just is a idea that takes away from the Universe of EVE, as it doesn't feel a realistic concept.
The Other Thing
Rather than lose the other idea, I thought I'd put it out there in shorthand form. Standings requirements for Jump Clones - especially for Newbies - Why are they still there? My proposal is to remove these requirements for the first 1 or 2 clones, to allow the New pilots the use of instant clone jump travel over the Universe - which in the end reduces grind and travel time - but also may allow Newbies with impants to risk more by going into Low sec with implantless clones. And yes, I know you can get implants via a service corp or a big corp who already has standings, or a capital clone bay, but why should a new player be forced down this route immediately?
I'm sure the Pirates will love this idea, but its not entirely for them - I feel this is a good idea overall- as many characters I personally have ran into steer clear of low-sec, which is plain wrong. With the right caution its mostly harmless - and offers potentially more excitement to the game - nothing gets heart pumping for me more than outrunning or hiding from a silly pirate that is out to get me...
My Big Idea
Well, I've found this hard to come up with ideas and I did come up with 2 in draft for this banter - but eventually it dawned on me the one thing that bugs me is Anchoring delays. Now as a lot of people have probably read in my blog - I don't have a POS up yet, but I have researched the mechanics, and hope I've covered what bugs me. I may end up looking like an Idiot, but will put it out there "I have not done this yet"
Anchoring fullstop bugs me - as you eject something in space, and it stays there - if its no subject to gravity etc. If it does need to thrust to stay in position, it isn't exactly a complex science - every action has an equal and opposite reaction - so if you are moving in direction X, fire thruster in opposite direction with same thrust. You then stay still. Are we seriously saying a starbase/gun array takes 5 minutes to do that? In the future?
Why remove the delay? Well, the delay mechanic is already there, in the Onlining (and offlineing) delay - why should there be a countdown delay to a POS actually being put in space with what I've mentioned? Anchoring to me seems a delay that doesn't need to be there. To counter this, and stop "ninja" pos's of course CCP will need to increase the onlining delay of towers themselves, probably via an equivalent amount.... But, tactically being able to drop a module into place immediately - and maybe reducing onlinging delay on weapons modules, the whole concept of POS warface could be made a little more tactical perhaps?
Some may say this is an over simplication - but maybe a delay on ejecting modules from ship would equally be more realistic than a "I'm floating in space and er, need to calibrate to not move".
Personally - Anchoring just is a idea that takes away from the Universe of EVE, as it doesn't feel a realistic concept.
The Other Thing
Rather than lose the other idea, I thought I'd put it out there in shorthand form. Standings requirements for Jump Clones - especially for Newbies - Why are they still there? My proposal is to remove these requirements for the first 1 or 2 clones, to allow the New pilots the use of instant clone jump travel over the Universe - which in the end reduces grind and travel time - but also may allow Newbies with impants to risk more by going into Low sec with implantless clones. And yes, I know you can get implants via a service corp or a big corp who already has standings, or a capital clone bay, but why should a new player be forced down this route immediately?
I'm sure the Pirates will love this idea, but its not entirely for them - I feel this is a good idea overall- as many characters I personally have ran into steer clear of low-sec, which is plain wrong. With the right caution its mostly harmless - and offers potentially more excitement to the game - nothing gets heart pumping for me more than outrunning or hiding from a silly pirate that is out to get me...
List of Participants:
- Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
- EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
- Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter - It's the Scotch
- The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!"
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
- Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
- EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
- Miner with Fangs, Blog Banter - It's the Scotch
- A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won't You Die?
- Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
- The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
- Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
- One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
- Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
- Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
- A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
- Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
- Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
- Facepalm's Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
- Memoires of New Eden, You're Fired
- Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What's a Titan?
- Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
- Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
- I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
- Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
- Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
- More articles as they are posted!
Monday, 29 June 2009
Back in game today
As mentioned in my previous posts, I now have a couple of weeks ingame in the evenings during the week - so I'll be cranking up eve-radio, and playing 7-11pm Mon-Wed. I'm also not-on-call for once, meaning I get to drink beer and play eve. A mix of danger and fun!.
Good news is CCP have offered me 5 days of no-risk, no credit card down, playtime on my old characters. Why is this good? Well, around 300million of "stuff", 100 million of raw isk - amongst other items can be traded from my old characters to my "current" character. This is a quick win for me :)
The plan:
1/ Earn lots of ISK - personal funds are at 75mil levels, which isn't great. Even with the above "isk injection", I'll still be lower than I want. Having a hanger of T2 goodies sure is expensive.
2/ Start the road to Battleships.
3/ In the meantime, I may have to go back to doing missions in high-sec, purely for status gains - as the plan is to actually sign up for 2-3 level 4 r&d agents asap. Datacores required asap.
The POS, well, shall be put up at *some* point over next few weeks I imagine. The big issue here is the time to refuel - I really need to fly enough fuel down for 6 months to stop fuelling being an issue.
Good news is CCP have offered me 5 days of no-risk, no credit card down, playtime on my old characters. Why is this good? Well, around 300million of "stuff", 100 million of raw isk - amongst other items can be traded from my old characters to my "current" character. This is a quick win for me :)
The plan:
1/ Earn lots of ISK - personal funds are at 75mil levels, which isn't great. Even with the above "isk injection", I'll still be lower than I want. Having a hanger of T2 goodies sure is expensive.
2/ Start the road to Battleships.
3/ In the meantime, I may have to go back to doing missions in high-sec, purely for status gains - as the plan is to actually sign up for 2-3 level 4 r&d agents asap. Datacores required asap.
The POS, well, shall be put up at *some* point over next few weeks I imagine. The big issue here is the time to refuel - I really need to fly enough fuel down for 6 months to stop fuelling being an issue.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Feature I'd really like in EVE
I really missed this obvious usability thing in the last Blog Banter..
but...
Why can't a bookmark (I make "Home" and Safespot bookmarks) - be aligned to if you are in the same system as a bookmark. After all you can warp to it. Why can't I align to it?
Am I the only one this bugs?
but...
Why can't a bookmark (I make "Home" and Safespot bookmarks) - be aligned to if you are in the same system as a bookmark. After all you can warp to it. Why can't I align to it?
Am I the only one this bugs?
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Week of EVE
Well, I did manage to log in Tues and Weds - and caught up with Jax for essential personal and corporation chat.
The bad news is, no more exploration sites found, and my aim of making money via this have hit a dead stop. I actually think I am going to have to hit Level 4 missions asap - for both the monies gathered, the modules for refining, and for the faction gains... The faction gains being the most important for my characters right now - as they will open Level 4 R&D agents, which I need to consider if only for the free (ish) ISK generated.
As mentioned, I'm still well on the path to having a mining character in a Retreiver barge - expect it to take about another month for Hulk goodness. I think I will be going for the Hulk - purely due to the lovely mining sites I'm finding in low-sec, and the fact they should fix the perennial problems of getting high-end minerals for coporation building activities.
I will be back online for periods this coming week and the aim is to get some ships relocated to the cosmos area of Gallente space to finish up the remaining missions I have there.
Next week also starts the push for battleships.... purely for utility, but having them available will help greatly in the future for both level 4 missions and some of the combat sites I'm finding in low-sec. Aim is to have 3-4 of them, a mega and dominix in high-sec for missioning, along with a ship or two in low-sec for some of the exploration content.
The bad news is, no more exploration sites found, and my aim of making money via this have hit a dead stop. I actually think I am going to have to hit Level 4 missions asap - for both the monies gathered, the modules for refining, and for the faction gains... The faction gains being the most important for my characters right now - as they will open Level 4 R&D agents, which I need to consider if only for the free (ish) ISK generated.
As mentioned, I'm still well on the path to having a mining character in a Retreiver barge - expect it to take about another month for Hulk goodness. I think I will be going for the Hulk - purely due to the lovely mining sites I'm finding in low-sec, and the fact they should fix the perennial problems of getting high-end minerals for coporation building activities.
I will be back online for periods this coming week and the aim is to get some ships relocated to the cosmos area of Gallente space to finish up the remaining missions I have there.
Next week also starts the push for battleships.... purely for utility, but having them available will help greatly in the future for both level 4 missions and some of the combat sites I'm finding in low-sec. Aim is to have 3-4 of them, a mega and dominix in high-sec for missioning, along with a ship or two in low-sec for some of the exploration content.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Exploration
Apologies for lack of posts recently - I've been away on a mini-break, unexpected.
The good news is I'm back online, and for substantial periods for next few weeks (6 ish). Expect to see me this week online Mon, Tues, Weds and a bit of Thurs. I'm working next week so time will be limited then. The following weeks I'll be back on same days. Time to play EVE, and lots of it! I seriously can't wait.
Yesterday:
My little section of low-sec space has been quiet recently. Very quiet. All the locals appear to have up-sticks, so literally its me, myself and I in the 3 systems surrounding mine.
I went scanning, and looted a radar and a mag site - around 40 million of loot collected.. I also tried a unknown combat site, and the 24 battleships inside did not appear to like me much. Both my little ishkur assuault frigate and my Vexor couldn't handle the heat in there. That was most annoying for me - I havn't had a good combat site in seemingly months, and when I get them my current ship skills mean I just can't finish them. I'll be breaking out the HAC soon, once I have money to actually buy it to hopefully rectify this. I also plan to get some basic battleship skills and a Dominix/Megathron for similar activities providing low-sec stays this way. Last night I also found a large grav site - almost impossible to scan even with my rigged Cov Ops frigate - it mades me most annoyed I didn't have a barge locally to be able to mine the site. Next purchase for industrial division will be a mining barge equipped to be able to mine such sites.
The big problem recently has been personal funds. I still like to separate corporate activities from personal ones - and the corporations industrial activities are mostly pretty much self-funding and profitable (though they are aimed at making the funds to keep the offices running). My personal desires to fly in lots of shiny T2 ships mean my personal funds are not so pretty. I have a super-valuable hanger, filled with lots of shiny's. This is why I'm aiming to get a lot more playtime in over the summer - to make substantial isk to be able to buy more :)
I've not seen many wormholes locally recently (none in fact, in the 3 systems I survey) - but hoping for an expedition into WH space once I get a ship capable of dealing with sleepers....
The other plan is to go back to cosmos space with a AF and salvager in tow to finish off the cosmos chains I'm working on for quick, easy, faction gains - to enable L4 R&D agents hopefully quickly.
Finally over the period of next week - providing folk are online, I aim to contact back a potential new corp member or two who have eve-mailed me (though they havn't been online at same time as me, which doens't bode well). I'm generally online 18:00-23:00 EVE time on Mon, Tues, Weds for next 6 weeks as discussed, although next week may be a washout due to work trip as discussed.
More updates on my activities tonight tomorrow.
The good news is I'm back online, and for substantial periods for next few weeks (6 ish). Expect to see me this week online Mon, Tues, Weds and a bit of Thurs. I'm working next week so time will be limited then. The following weeks I'll be back on same days. Time to play EVE, and lots of it! I seriously can't wait.
Yesterday:
My little section of low-sec space has been quiet recently. Very quiet. All the locals appear to have up-sticks, so literally its me, myself and I in the 3 systems surrounding mine.
I went scanning, and looted a radar and a mag site - around 40 million of loot collected.. I also tried a unknown combat site, and the 24 battleships inside did not appear to like me much. Both my little ishkur assuault frigate and my Vexor couldn't handle the heat in there. That was most annoying for me - I havn't had a good combat site in seemingly months, and when I get them my current ship skills mean I just can't finish them. I'll be breaking out the HAC soon, once I have money to actually buy it to hopefully rectify this. I also plan to get some basic battleship skills and a Dominix/Megathron for similar activities providing low-sec stays this way. Last night I also found a large grav site - almost impossible to scan even with my rigged Cov Ops frigate - it mades me most annoyed I didn't have a barge locally to be able to mine the site. Next purchase for industrial division will be a mining barge equipped to be able to mine such sites.
The big problem recently has been personal funds. I still like to separate corporate activities from personal ones - and the corporations industrial activities are mostly pretty much self-funding and profitable (though they are aimed at making the funds to keep the offices running). My personal desires to fly in lots of shiny T2 ships mean my personal funds are not so pretty. I have a super-valuable hanger, filled with lots of shiny's. This is why I'm aiming to get a lot more playtime in over the summer - to make substantial isk to be able to buy more :)
I've not seen many wormholes locally recently (none in fact, in the 3 systems I survey) - but hoping for an expedition into WH space once I get a ship capable of dealing with sleepers....
The other plan is to go back to cosmos space with a AF and salvager in tow to finish off the cosmos chains I'm working on for quick, easy, faction gains - to enable L4 R&D agents hopefully quickly.
Finally over the period of next week - providing folk are online, I aim to contact back a potential new corp member or two who have eve-mailed me (though they havn't been online at same time as me, which doens't bode well). I'm generally online 18:00-23:00 EVE time on Mon, Tues, Weds for next 6 weeks as discussed, although next week may be a washout due to work trip as discussed.
More updates on my activities tonight tomorrow.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Eve Blog Banter #8 - legalised Gambling
Welcome to the eighth installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here . Check out otherEVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from me, Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums."
My views on this are simply - Gambling. The real world has it, and with the 4 factions in EVE, isn't it crazy to think that there isn't gambling going on between the citizens of the world - if so, why can't pod-pilots see part of the action. It would also introduce another career path to the game - bookmaker.
How I think it should be implemented:
List of Participants:
This month's topic comes to us from me, Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums."
My views on this are simply - Gambling. The real world has it, and with the 4 factions in EVE, isn't it crazy to think that there isn't gambling going on between the citizens of the world - if so, why can't pod-pilots see part of the action. It would also introduce another career path to the game - bookmaker.
How I think it should be implemented:
- A betfair like market approach - basically with CCP not investing any ISK in the market, but instead taking a 5% cut off winning bets, with none off losing. Allow users to both bet and lay on in-game events. Maybe a skill to reduce the CCP take, or similar to betfair, high volume traders getting automatic discount.
- Basically similar to the market in-game - bets placed should be taken out of current funds or a corporate wallet.
- Skills would limit amount of bets you can have in play at any one time similar to trade.
- Factional Warfare - who will own System X at date X. Should encorage both sides to place bets, and fight more strongly over single systems. Could be great fun.
- Individual PvP bets/matches. A match announced systemwide, both players move to a locked down deadspace - and fight to the death/one leaving arena. Possibility of match fixing, but what doesn't have.
- 0.0 Sovereignty - who will own region X at downtime on date X. Could destabilise 0.0 a little, but PvP is fun right?
- Real world terran sporting events perhaps. After all the non pod-pilots in the EVE universe must bet on sporting events, and these may be a universe wide market.
- In WiS - could have casinos, fruit machines, poker etc.
List of Participants:
- CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a little game of SecWars?
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, that new thing is so shiny!!!
- I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 - Return of the Top Gun
- Once More from the Beginning, 8th EVE Blog Banter May 2009 Edition
- A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
- Helicity Boson, Bantering the blog
- Achernar, Unique adventures
- Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and secondary factions
- The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
- Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What new mechanic should be added to Eve?
- One Man And His Spaceship, Blog Banter 8 - Something new to ponder about
- Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog banter 8: mentorship
- EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be boarded!
- The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
- Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
- A Mule in EVE, Expanding EVE
- Letrange's EvE Blog, 8th Blog Banter
- Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #8
- The Nude Nerd, Blog Banter #8
- Scop's Log, Blog Banter #8: "We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!"
- Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #8: Charisma Tanking
- Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #8: It’s Like Tetris for OCD People
- Diary of a Pod Pilot, EVE blog banter #8: Killing in the name of
- Talk Unfraid, Physical Communications
- Sceadugenca, EVE Blog Banter #8: Fighter-Class Ships and Sqadrons
- Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, 8th Blog Banter
- Into the Unknown, Eve Blog Banter #8: Player Bases
- EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #8
- Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #8: The Exasperation Factor
- Symptom of a Greater Cure, EVE Blog Banter: #8 - Tug Me Away
- EVE Journey, OOC - EVE Blog Banter #8: Marine Leader : “We have secured the ship, Sir!”
- Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, All Hands on Deck! We are at War!
- Ripe Lacunae, Into the Great Unknown (Eve Blog Banter 8)
- Mdhi Lihu's EVE Online Blog, 009 - Blog Banter #8
- Break Vol, EVE Blog Banter #8
- Inanity and Doom, EVE Blog Banter #8 - If I Ran The Universe
- Once More from the Beginning, EVE Blog Banter #8: Devil's in the details
- The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #8
- Still more to come!!!...
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Back in action
The graphics card arrived last Friday, and was installed by my deft hand. Slight issue though I've learnt though experience that a Stanley knife is not a good tool to cut cable ties with - resulting in a heavily bandaged painful thumb. This has made using the computer a pain - I'm only *just* over this.
However on Sunday I did have time to fly a ship or two back to high-sec in order to deal with the market as my "good sellers" were selling or sold out in many cases. After 8 manufacturing jobs had been setup and the corp mineral stock pile decimated, I quickly realized that it was time to spend out the corporations POS stockpile to buy more minerals for future endeavors (as such buy orders can take weeks or months to fill). Prior to the buying, corporation had 600mil in bank. With a refilled stockpile, we have 200 mill...
Skills wise, I have the skills for HAC's and could fly a HIC within a week or two, all fully T2 fitted out. Downsides are my personal funds are lacking due to lack of exploration recently, so I can't buy the ships or equip them - yet!
Invention wise, I'm getting there... I have most of the skills required now, and most of the datacores all stored ready for use. I don't have any research agents yet - so need to do some more work in the COSMOS constellation to more quickly gain faction with Gallente to make that process quicker. Scarily now through missioning/exploration - I may have enough tags to please the Datacenter agents also - which is another quick faction gain. What I don't have is the research POS for quick blueprint copies.
Oh and I've had a fair bit of Fanmail (well 3 eve-mails) and even some ISK donations from my readers - so thanks for that... I will blog further about this topic in the future :) Needless to say feel free to contact me in game or eve-mail me.
However on Sunday I did have time to fly a ship or two back to high-sec in order to deal with the market as my "good sellers" were selling or sold out in many cases. After 8 manufacturing jobs had been setup and the corp mineral stock pile decimated, I quickly realized that it was time to spend out the corporations POS stockpile to buy more minerals for future endeavors (as such buy orders can take weeks or months to fill). Prior to the buying, corporation had 600mil in bank. With a refilled stockpile, we have 200 mill...
Skills wise, I have the skills for HAC's and could fly a HIC within a week or two, all fully T2 fitted out. Downsides are my personal funds are lacking due to lack of exploration recently, so I can't buy the ships or equip them - yet!
Invention wise, I'm getting there... I have most of the skills required now, and most of the datacores all stored ready for use. I don't have any research agents yet - so need to do some more work in the COSMOS constellation to more quickly gain faction with Gallente to make that process quicker. Scarily now through missioning/exploration - I may have enough tags to please the Datacenter agents also - which is another quick faction gain. What I don't have is the research POS for quick blueprint copies.
Oh and I've had a fair bit of Fanmail (well 3 eve-mails) and even some ISK donations from my readers - so thanks for that... I will blog further about this topic in the future :) Needless to say feel free to contact me in game or eve-mail me.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Post 100 & sadness
Well, this was supposed to be a blog banter post, but over the weekend I have had hardware issues.
Essentially my graphics card looks to have gone to the big graphics card maker in the sky. This is a problem (and I havnt' changed my skills in days... Why oh why doesn't CCP allow web based change of characters skills?). It started on Monday with some blue lines over the screen... and now appears to have died completely. I'll be trying another reseat operation tonight, but if it fails, I'll have to order a new part. The computer/card is just over 2 years old, so it just our of warranty...
The issue is being a PCI-X card - I don't have a spare capable of running 2 eve clients simultaneously unfortunately.
So I have 2 choices essentially.
Basically not having a graphics card = no EVE = no computer. I'd prefer a working computer to fanfest. Its just such a hard decision to make.
Normal service will resume tomorrow with fanfest banter and updates on the graphics card fix plan.
Essentially my graphics card looks to have gone to the big graphics card maker in the sky. This is a problem (and I havnt' changed my skills in days... Why oh why doesn't CCP allow web based change of characters skills?). It started on Monday with some blue lines over the screen... and now appears to have died completely. I'll be trying another reseat operation tonight, but if it fails, I'll have to order a new part. The computer/card is just over 2 years old, so it just our of warranty...
The issue is being a PCI-X card - I don't have a spare capable of running 2 eve clients simultaneously unfortunately.
So I have 2 choices essentially.
- Buy a new graphics card and hope it fixes issue (comparible card = £200 or about $350).
- Buy a new computer if above fails to work - about £800
Basically not having a graphics card = no EVE = no computer. I'd prefer a working computer to fanfest. Its just such a hard decision to make.
Normal service will resume tomorrow with fanfest banter and updates on the graphics card fix plan.
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
The movie I'm in finally gets a premier
Apologies for the non-EVE related meandering, but I was in a movie - Stag Night of the Dead as an extra for approx 8 days of filming in the winter and springtime of 2007/2008 respectively at a disused ex-US airbase in the UK.
The films is finally getting a premiere: http://www.stagnightofthedead.com/blog/stag-night-of-the-dead-screening/
Basically - if anyone ever asks you to be a film extra - do it hands down, even if not paid - some of the folk I've met through SNOTD have been friends since filming. And it was hilarious fun getting to jump around made up as a zombie for days at a time.
Oh for a real sci-fi film wanting extras coinciding with my work holiday!
Now I can't wait for the premiere, so its time to book more work holidays for this.
The films is finally getting a premiere: http://www.stagnightofthedead.com/blog/stag-night-of-the-dead-screening/
Basically - if anyone ever asks you to be a film extra - do it hands down, even if not paid - some of the folk I've met through SNOTD have been friends since filming. And it was hilarious fun getting to jump around made up as a zombie for days at a time.
Oh for a real sci-fi film wanting extras coinciding with my work holiday!
Now I can't wait for the premiere, so its time to book more work holidays for this.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Not logged on in 1 week
Its sad to say apart from 2 hours of exploration, I've not really logged into EVE this past week. Personal circumstances and all that in the evenings limiting myself to about 1 hour of "spare" personal time a day. Which when its all I have, means I've not had chance to play EVE apart from to switch skills out.
The great news is I should be getting substantial playtime over the summer - just had semi-news in that regard.
I've also spent time playing with Apache/GD/PHP and Mysql to get a personal killboard setup at home. The URL will not be published, apart from for corporation members - and the site will be restricted to only corp I'm afriad. Why a Killboard? Well I am in low-sec now, so if I do end up PVPing I want to keep updated with my losses/gains.
I'll be logging in to place the POS fuel contract this week for sure, and doing a high-sec supply and sales run. I've also gotta do some housekeeping, in that I've got some ships (about 100 mln's worth in raw isk) stuck in a section of space I rarely use now. More concerning is the fact I've got about 100 mill of stuff there which needs the usual hauling back to high-sec.
The great news is I should be getting substantial playtime over the summer - just had semi-news in that regard.
I've also spent time playing with Apache/GD/PHP and Mysql to get a personal killboard setup at home. The URL will not be published, apart from for corporation members - and the site will be restricted to only corp I'm afriad. Why a Killboard? Well I am in low-sec now, so if I do end up PVPing I want to keep updated with my losses/gains.
I'll be logging in to place the POS fuel contract this week for sure, and doing a high-sec supply and sales run. I've also gotta do some housekeeping, in that I've got some ships (about 100 mln's worth in raw isk) stuck in a section of space I rarely use now. More concerning is the fact I've got about 100 mill of stuff there which needs the usual hauling back to high-sec.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Weekly update ....
Right now - corp has 450mil in bank, a sizable mineral stash (enough to replenish almost all the millions of stock on the market). Overall good. Downsides are that I'm not planning a trip back to high-sec for a while, meaning the market will kinda have to do without the items supplied by Deafstar Technologies for a while. This is down to the low-sec base now having supplies enough to survive for a while without this.
The POS still needs to be purchased and put up - the good news is I've found the moon for us to use initially.. All the research slots are now freed, allowing a full use of the POS's facilities for corporate use. I need to put a fuel order in with one of the suppliers for around 50-100 mln ISK's worth of POS fuel - ie a few months supply. If anyone is reading this and can supply Gallente tower full fuel mix contact me in game and I'll happily sign a contract - delivery to Stacmon or Oursaulaert (the 2 staging areas used).
Research - Need the relevant skills training up to L4, and the grinding is still needed with the research corporations I am choosing. Datacores are building up at impressive levels from exploration activities, as are invention tools.
On hand personal funds are very low indeed - this is down to having purchased/shipped a bunch of T2 items from high sec to my low-sec base (got around 200 mln of T2 modules sat in hanger to fit to ships as needed). If I got ransomed I'd have to actually get podded vs pay the pirates responsible..... To attempt to rectify this - I've entered the BIG lottery with a few tickets due to the 20 billion jackpot this week. As tickets are 10000 isk each, even a new player should be able to afford a few!
The new patch - as its only really reading as a bugfix patch - I'm not that personally concerned about the impact. I can't wait to get on with playing online this weekend however.....
In combat skills - I'm getting near ready for flying Heavy Assault Cruisers. Next stage after these skills will be to start on some battleship training - buy a HAC or two and fly up to sleeper space to try something new.
Hopefully in the next weeks you'll hear of the 1st POS launch for me - and its success.
The POS still needs to be purchased and put up - the good news is I've found the moon for us to use initially.. All the research slots are now freed, allowing a full use of the POS's facilities for corporate use. I need to put a fuel order in with one of the suppliers for around 50-100 mln ISK's worth of POS fuel - ie a few months supply. If anyone is reading this and can supply Gallente tower full fuel mix contact me in game and I'll happily sign a contract - delivery to Stacmon or Oursaulaert (the 2 staging areas used).
Research - Need the relevant skills training up to L4, and the grinding is still needed with the research corporations I am choosing. Datacores are building up at impressive levels from exploration activities, as are invention tools.
On hand personal funds are very low indeed - this is down to having purchased/shipped a bunch of T2 items from high sec to my low-sec base (got around 200 mln of T2 modules sat in hanger to fit to ships as needed). If I got ransomed I'd have to actually get podded vs pay the pirates responsible..... To attempt to rectify this - I've entered the BIG lottery with a few tickets due to the 20 billion jackpot this week. As tickets are 10000 isk each, even a new player should be able to afford a few!
The new patch - as its only really reading as a bugfix patch - I'm not that personally concerned about the impact. I can't wait to get on with playing online this weekend however.....
In combat skills - I'm getting near ready for flying Heavy Assault Cruisers. Next stage after these skills will be to start on some battleship training - buy a HAC or two and fly up to sleeper space to try something new.
Hopefully in the next weeks you'll hear of the 1st POS launch for me - and its success.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
I missed the blog banter
Apologies for lack of posting recently - I've been away for a holiday and a wedding and stayed a bit longer than expected.... Then I've been ill (thankfully not of swine flu variety), and not had energy to stay up past 9 at night, and thus have been limited in time available.
This resulted in not having much EVE time - still training is continuing as ever! Congratulations due to CCP on the 300,000 subscriber mark I've been reading today in the other members of the Blog Pack.
Scarily as I've only logged in for very limited period this past 2 weeks, I'm hoping I will get a chance to play tonight, as tomorrow the plan is to see the Star Trek film... and got visitors again this weekend and again for All weekend, so no EVE time :(
Industry wise, I've been keeping an eye via the API, and we have about 400mln in cash reserves available again. Slow and steady growth of monies to the corporation... The next job is getting some tech 2 component blueprints and getting the researched up for Material efficiency - but I think we'll deploy the POS first (even if only a research POS). After all we are now ready for this... Tonight I think I'll spend scanning moons again in another system - right now its 2 systems down - just on offchance I can find a free-ish moon. I can see the entire industry divisions funds being spent on the new setup, but it should save money and time long term in blueprint research and copy wait times..
As I missed the blog banter, I thought I'd pass on links for those who did contribute:
This resulted in not having much EVE time - still training is continuing as ever! Congratulations due to CCP on the 300,000 subscriber mark I've been reading today in the other members of the Blog Pack.
Scarily as I've only logged in for very limited period this past 2 weeks, I'm hoping I will get a chance to play tonight, as tomorrow the plan is to see the Star Trek film... and got visitors again this weekend and again for All weekend, so no EVE time :(
Industry wise, I've been keeping an eye via the API, and we have about 400mln in cash reserves available again. Slow and steady growth of monies to the corporation... The next job is getting some tech 2 component blueprints and getting the researched up for Material efficiency - but I think we'll deploy the POS first (even if only a research POS). After all we are now ready for this... Tonight I think I'll spend scanning moons again in another system - right now its 2 systems down - just on offchance I can find a free-ish moon. I can see the entire industry divisions funds being spent on the new setup, but it should save money and time long term in blueprint research and copy wait times..
As I missed the blog banter, I thought I'd pass on links for those who did contribute:
- CrazyKinux’s Musing, EVE Blog Banter #7: Eh, nobody told me you could do this in EVE!
- One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 7 - Expanding My Horizon
- I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #7 - What do you want to do today?
- Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 7: Trinity
- Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #7 - The me I am not
- Morphisat’s Blog, Eve Blog banter #7 - Treading waters unknown
- Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 7 - Roads Not Followed
- A Mule in EvE, DD, defend against a gank & POS gunning
- Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Choices
- The Ralpha Dogs, Road Not Taken… Or Not
- Melindhra’s Universe, EVE Blog Banter #7 - Where no one has gone before
- Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #7: Possibilities
- EVE Guru, EVE Blog Banter 7
- Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #7: Stones left unturned
- Flashfresh - The Pirate, EVE Blog Banter #7: This isn’t me…
- Nefchast’s Gaming Blog, CrazyKinux’s EVE Blog Banter #7
- A Merry Life and a Short One, EVE Blog Banter #7: Syphilis Doesn’t Count
- Rip Lacunae, Past & Future (Eve Blog Banter 7)
Monday, 27 April 2009
Weekend of EVE
I actually, for once, had a couple of afternoons this weekend to play online.
Started with scanning out a few systems locally. In my usual place there were 3 Wormholes - this system usually doesn't have a single WH, so I think the wormhole gods were making up for lost time. I didn't poke my head in.... I had my eyes on a combat site, a drone one as I hadn't done one before. It was "The drone hive", a 5/10 complex. 3rd room in, my ishkur could handle the site comfortably until we hit the first battleship - on which it could not beat its tank at all. This was most disappointing. I tried the Enyo - same result - just not enough dps.
It was good, even if not hugely profitable. The salvage ship salvaged the previous two rooms and the 3rd one (while the battleship was aggrod). 2 cargo holds full of drone stuff, it returned.
Now at this point I was peeved, as until now, not a single site had be beyond the reach of the ishkur. I decided to dump loot to high-sec, and fly up there to buy a new ship to beat this complex in. I built and fitted a cheap-ish Vexor with tech 2 blasters, T2 drones, armor repairer, and the standard low-sec tackle kit. Also purchased 100mln of t2 gear to move to low-sec to fit to other disposable frigates/cruisers as necessary. I'm also probably going to move a T2 fitted thorax down to low-sec - so I have disposable ships for pvp.
On Sunday I returned, and the site had respawned. I got to the penultimate room - The Vexor handles the site admirably, even when it hit the room with 6 battleships beating on it. However it got well and truely beat by the last battleship spawn (this must have been a t15 or higher overseer) and warped out with 25% structure. Filled 4 ships with salvage, and got about 100mln worth of salvage loot. Next thing to do is to get a Battlecruiser down here too for the real big guys...
In the meantime, HAC's are training, and will take approx 2 months to complete to a satisfactory level - it'll take one month to get into a HAC... but about 2 months to use it properly. Then finally I'll start on getting core skills to a far higher level..
My invention skills are almost usable now also - almost got enough skills to l4 to be able to start inventing some modules and ships.
The disappointing thing really has been the store/sales situation. Sold a lot of ships for a tidy profit (about 6 mil profit), but really don't have time to keep that situation tended, and a bit short on high-end minerals right now. The issue is the usual "strong sellers" - I have some competition in the local market - and basically folk don't appear to be buying items quite as frequently as they were... The turnover per week is down at 50mln.
The store has enough in it to keep going a while - but I will drop in time to time to place more mineral buy orders for the next batches of items to be sold.
Will be online more this week prior to the weekend when I'm away until Monday grrr.
Started with scanning out a few systems locally. In my usual place there were 3 Wormholes - this system usually doesn't have a single WH, so I think the wormhole gods were making up for lost time. I didn't poke my head in.... I had my eyes on a combat site, a drone one as I hadn't done one before. It was "The drone hive", a 5/10 complex. 3rd room in, my ishkur could handle the site comfortably until we hit the first battleship - on which it could not beat its tank at all. This was most disappointing. I tried the Enyo - same result - just not enough dps.
It was good, even if not hugely profitable. The salvage ship salvaged the previous two rooms and the 3rd one (while the battleship was aggrod). 2 cargo holds full of drone stuff, it returned.
Now at this point I was peeved, as until now, not a single site had be beyond the reach of the ishkur. I decided to dump loot to high-sec, and fly up there to buy a new ship to beat this complex in. I built and fitted a cheap-ish Vexor with tech 2 blasters, T2 drones, armor repairer, and the standard low-sec tackle kit. Also purchased 100mln of t2 gear to move to low-sec to fit to other disposable frigates/cruisers as necessary. I'm also probably going to move a T2 fitted thorax down to low-sec - so I have disposable ships for pvp.
On Sunday I returned, and the site had respawned. I got to the penultimate room - The Vexor handles the site admirably, even when it hit the room with 6 battleships beating on it. However it got well and truely beat by the last battleship spawn (this must have been a t15 or higher overseer) and warped out with 25% structure. Filled 4 ships with salvage, and got about 100mln worth of salvage loot. Next thing to do is to get a Battlecruiser down here too for the real big guys...
In the meantime, HAC's are training, and will take approx 2 months to complete to a satisfactory level - it'll take one month to get into a HAC... but about 2 months to use it properly. Then finally I'll start on getting core skills to a far higher level..
My invention skills are almost usable now also - almost got enough skills to l4 to be able to start inventing some modules and ships.
The disappointing thing really has been the store/sales situation. Sold a lot of ships for a tidy profit (about 6 mil profit), but really don't have time to keep that situation tended, and a bit short on high-end minerals right now. The issue is the usual "strong sellers" - I have some competition in the local market - and basically folk don't appear to be buying items quite as frequently as they were... The turnover per week is down at 50mln.
The store has enough in it to keep going a while - but I will drop in time to time to place more mineral buy orders for the next batches of items to be sold.
Will be online more this week prior to the weekend when I'm away until Monday grrr.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Apocrypha 1.1 Update
As many of my readers will know - I like to explore - especially around low-sec now, so the scanning changes in the new patch intrigued me, so I knew I had to try it asap.
I didn't want to comment until I had had the chance to properly play in the past 2-3 days post patch. Overall though - I like it - yes occasionally the arrows disappear, and its hard to grab a probe to move it - but remembering sites once found, and allowing bookmarking of sites straight from scanner (ie without warping in first), its just plain brilliant. It means I can scan out a site, and then send in a more specialised team to retrieve the loot or do the combat site (and even swap to a salvager if needed)... Being able to tell which "hits" are from which site is also another positive improvement...
Unlike some I don't think the changes are bad - they just need refinement. Being able to see the arrows and squares a little better would surely help a little.
I had some fun yesterday sitting cloaked and scanning while a 6 strong low-sec roaming gang were trying to probe me out in my nice hidden covert-ops frigate. Guys... it ain't gonna happen. After 15 minutes they left local, and stopped searching for little me :)
In an hour, probed 1 combat site, 2 wormholes, 8 ladar!, 1 gravimetric, 1 radar and 1 magnemetric site - looting the radar and mag site. The rest I decided to leave to another day...
Before retiring I took my drones on a trip to a nearby repair station - as most were truely in a battered state. With the cost of T2 drones, taking a cargohold or two full for repairs is a weekly event for me - as my drones do tend to get battered a bit by the enemy...
Reasonable week - now got 500mln on market, a nice, although disparate mineral stash (some hauling of minerals is required in next couple of weeks)... But basically now my high-sec operations should not need touching for 2-3 weeks at least allowing me to concentrate on low-sec endeavors, and isk-earning for a short while.
Short term planning now is to:
I didn't want to comment until I had had the chance to properly play in the past 2-3 days post patch. Overall though - I like it - yes occasionally the arrows disappear, and its hard to grab a probe to move it - but remembering sites once found, and allowing bookmarking of sites straight from scanner (ie without warping in first), its just plain brilliant. It means I can scan out a site, and then send in a more specialised team to retrieve the loot or do the combat site (and even swap to a salvager if needed)... Being able to tell which "hits" are from which site is also another positive improvement...
Unlike some I don't think the changes are bad - they just need refinement. Being able to see the arrows and squares a little better would surely help a little.
I had some fun yesterday sitting cloaked and scanning while a 6 strong low-sec roaming gang were trying to probe me out in my nice hidden covert-ops frigate. Guys... it ain't gonna happen. After 15 minutes they left local, and stopped searching for little me :)
In an hour, probed 1 combat site, 2 wormholes, 8 ladar!, 1 gravimetric, 1 radar and 1 magnemetric site - looting the radar and mag site. The rest I decided to leave to another day...
Before retiring I took my drones on a trip to a nearby repair station - as most were truely in a battered state. With the cost of T2 drones, taking a cargohold or two full for repairs is a weekly event for me - as my drones do tend to get battered a bit by the enemy...
Reasonable week - now got 500mln on market, a nice, although disparate mineral stash (some hauling of minerals is required in next couple of weeks)... But basically now my high-sec operations should not need touching for 2-3 weeks at least allowing me to concentrate on low-sec endeavors, and isk-earning for a short while.
Short term planning now is to:
- Start T2 invention skills and get to reasonable levels
- Get a full T2 equipped HAC - should be able to do this in about 2 months & also get some basic battleship/large weapons skills.
- Finish moon-surveying and deploy a POS to moon-mine. (ready now, but funds a bit lacking). All moons locally with anything useful have already been taken so this will entriely depend on what is found.
- Purchase and get full set of Caldari frigate/cruiser/destroyer blueprint originals researched. The POS may help with this but will not be essential.
- Get full set of T2 drone skills
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Market fun in 30 minute.....
Back from stag do, and managed to squeeze one single 1/2 hour of EVE time in the entire weekend. All down to matters outside my control, such as working the Easter weekend.
In that time however, I was productive, moving all the low-sec stuff back to high-sec. Next time I'll be bringing a different class of hull back to low-sec base with me however... so I simply can take more equipment each direction and more refinables back in the next batch.
I also moved 90% of the minerals in storage, in just 2 trips in the "Mighty Badger" - ie the rigged/expanded Iteron Mk 5. Discovered something very useful - the megahauler can carry enough minerals to build around 50 destroyers in a single trip.. Probably more for frigates. I'm considering running mobile "ship" building runs to populate ships in areas in which they are needed, but generally are not sold.
Stockpile of items for sale is "excellent". Got > 450million up for sale still - and the bulk orders for items continue to pile in. I think Gallente empire corporations may have realised I sell almost everything they may need in one single station at "reasonable" prices - only slightly above Ours, but available in greater volumes.
Future thoughts:
One issue is proving to be the POS fuel situation - lets just say POS fuel isn't readily available on market in my area. This means I'm going to have to use a POS fuel delivery service to get my 1st 2-3 months of fuel bunkered up in a storage facility. I'll still get weekly deliveries - but I think needing a good supply locally for the initial startup phases will be essential. This fuel can then be transported in from high-sec in a transport ship of some description.
I'm also running down the research for blueprints right now - so slots are free for some of the research that I'm aiming to run locally. I'll get additional BPO's to move to low-sec soon for the items that are planned in this space. With the Helios covert operations ships available to me, moving expensive BPO's though low-sec is a very low-risk option.
Hope everyone else has had a good weekend - looking forward to getting some time in-game this week - even if a lot of it will be focussed on Industrial endeavours.
In that time however, I was productive, moving all the low-sec stuff back to high-sec. Next time I'll be bringing a different class of hull back to low-sec base with me however... so I simply can take more equipment each direction and more refinables back in the next batch.
I also moved 90% of the minerals in storage, in just 2 trips in the "Mighty Badger" - ie the rigged/expanded Iteron Mk 5. Discovered something very useful - the megahauler can carry enough minerals to build around 50 destroyers in a single trip.. Probably more for frigates. I'm considering running mobile "ship" building runs to populate ships in areas in which they are needed, but generally are not sold.
Stockpile of items for sale is "excellent". Got > 450million up for sale still - and the bulk orders for items continue to pile in. I think Gallente empire corporations may have realised I sell almost everything they may need in one single station at "reasonable" prices - only slightly above Ours, but available in greater volumes.
Future thoughts:
One issue is proving to be the POS fuel situation - lets just say POS fuel isn't readily available on market in my area. This means I'm going to have to use a POS fuel delivery service to get my 1st 2-3 months of fuel bunkered up in a storage facility. I'll still get weekly deliveries - but I think needing a good supply locally for the initial startup phases will be essential. This fuel can then be transported in from high-sec in a transport ship of some description.
I'm also running down the research for blueprints right now - so slots are free for some of the research that I'm aiming to run locally. I'll get additional BPO's to move to low-sec soon for the items that are planned in this space. With the Helios covert operations ships available to me, moving expensive BPO's though low-sec is a very low-risk option.
Hope everyone else has had a good weekend - looking forward to getting some time in-game this week - even if a lot of it will be focussed on Industrial endeavours.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Low sec fun
Well, the missions continue - as do the rewards.
Myself and Jax had a mission session on Tuesday (I think) - week has gone by so quickly. Completed several cosmic Anomolys, as the system was emptied of signatures of interest... Some of these in 0.1 space are interesting - you're talking missings with only BC's and Battleships in them. Decent bounties, and salvage a plenty - one mission alone took the salvager 2 round trips to complete.
Since Tuesday I've only really been able to login to change skillplans - which are now sorted until next week thankfully....
Due to this the hauler is almost full of refinables for high-sec use, so a hauler run back to base can be expected shortly. However I'm not actually around much this weekend so this will have to be postponed for a while... Maybe until 2 loads are ready..
Also I noted through my view of market trading that people seem to be buying in bulk from my stores recently (but not completely selling me out to resell). I think this is someone building up their own corp hanger, not manipulation by another player, due to them not buying the entire stockpile. This is resulting in some small stock shortages on the market while I catch up & recover stocks to their usual levels..
I have a very rauchous stag weekend planned back on Earth.... 8 men, a undisclosed location, with some Exotic dancers, dog racing to be attended (that isn't the dancers btw), Friday lunchtime -> Sunday lunchtime. What will occur? I'm also working in London Friday and Monday - resulting in effectily a long weekend when I'm not getting a long-weekend. Hope to see you all online during Sunday however... even though I'll be getting an early sleep.
Enjoy the long weekend for those who enjoy it. See you guys on Easter Sunday/day after.
Myself and Jax had a mission session on Tuesday (I think) - week has gone by so quickly. Completed several cosmic Anomolys, as the system was emptied of signatures of interest... Some of these in 0.1 space are interesting - you're talking missings with only BC's and Battleships in them. Decent bounties, and salvage a plenty - one mission alone took the salvager 2 round trips to complete.
Since Tuesday I've only really been able to login to change skillplans - which are now sorted until next week thankfully....
Due to this the hauler is almost full of refinables for high-sec use, so a hauler run back to base can be expected shortly. However I'm not actually around much this weekend so this will have to be postponed for a while... Maybe until 2 loads are ready..
Also I noted through my view of market trading that people seem to be buying in bulk from my stores recently (but not completely selling me out to resell). I think this is someone building up their own corp hanger, not manipulation by another player, due to them not buying the entire stockpile. This is resulting in some small stock shortages on the market while I catch up & recover stocks to their usual levels..
I have a very rauchous stag weekend planned back on Earth.... 8 men, a undisclosed location, with some Exotic dancers, dog racing to be attended (that isn't the dancers btw), Friday lunchtime -> Sunday lunchtime. What will occur? I'm also working in London Friday and Monday - resulting in effectily a long weekend when I'm not getting a long-weekend. Hope to see you all online during Sunday however... even though I'll be getting an early sleep.
Enjoy the long weekend for those who enjoy it. See you guys on Easter Sunday/day after.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Monster shopping weekend
This weekend, I went shopping in the Oursulaert mini-market of fun...
Ships purchased include:
Total costs for above must have been in region of 3-400million ISK.
I still also need to purchase a deep-space transport for moving lower-value items around in... This as I can move cruiser sized hulls around in such a ship...!
Made friends with the corp "Nungunnerz", who I ran a mission with last Thursday night. Had about 24-30 Serpentis battleships testing the tank of the Carboneater - they had no joy as the repper could easily keep up with the incoming damage when pulsed. Made about 10-14 million bounties, and got some salvage to go sell in high-sec to split. (Don't worry Mugman, its in a container with your corp name so I know its a split of loot operation when it finally does goes up the pipe).
Overall though I'm still undecided on low-sec. I like the place, and like knowing the locals (they are generally more talkative than the folk in the other places I've frequented so far). I also pretty much know who to avoid, and who is a threat to me... The downsides - well, right now I just haven't had the quality of exploration finds I've had in the other areas of Genesis and Verge Vendor I've tried in the past. The good news however is that invention materials are dropping well - and the drops so far should greatly reduce my costs when I do finally start invention. I also have completed some moon-surveying, and have eliminated 3 systems from my inquiries - it appears ALL moons with deposits worth having have been taken already. Most annoying. As it takes about 30 mins to an hour to survey a system I will hold off doing any more until I'm more POS ready. I expect it to be a month before the basic pre-req's of deploying a POS are completed.
I've also found some potentially very lucrative mining sites in low-sec (gravimetric sites). What a shame I don't have a ship capable of dealing with them (in terms of a low end retreiver). I've started cross training a basic mining facilities - purely to just get in a barge.
Ships purchased include:
- Enyo "Friendly Fire"
- Ishkur
- Helios
- Rigged Iteron mk 5 "Mighty Badger", rigged for max-cargo (ie about 48,000 m3 when containers used)
- Viator - Gallente cloaked blockade runner. For running the more valuable items from low to high-sec for sales. Also used over weekend to transport above ship hulls from high-low sec.
Total costs for above must have been in region of 3-400million ISK.
I still also need to purchase a deep-space transport for moving lower-value items around in... This as I can move cruiser sized hulls around in such a ship...!
Made friends with the corp "Nungunnerz", who I ran a mission with last Thursday night. Had about 24-30 Serpentis battleships testing the tank of the Carboneater - they had no joy as the repper could easily keep up with the incoming damage when pulsed. Made about 10-14 million bounties, and got some salvage to go sell in high-sec to split. (Don't worry Mugman, its in a container with your corp name so I know its a split of loot operation when it finally does goes up the pipe).
Overall though I'm still undecided on low-sec. I like the place, and like knowing the locals (they are generally more talkative than the folk in the other places I've frequented so far). I also pretty much know who to avoid, and who is a threat to me... The downsides - well, right now I just haven't had the quality of exploration finds I've had in the other areas of Genesis and Verge Vendor I've tried in the past. The good news however is that invention materials are dropping well - and the drops so far should greatly reduce my costs when I do finally start invention. I also have completed some moon-surveying, and have eliminated 3 systems from my inquiries - it appears ALL moons with deposits worth having have been taken already. Most annoying. As it takes about 30 mins to an hour to survey a system I will hold off doing any more until I'm more POS ready. I expect it to be a month before the basic pre-req's of deploying a POS are completed.
I've also found some potentially very lucrative mining sites in low-sec (gravimetric sites). What a shame I don't have a ship capable of dealing with them (in terms of a low end retreiver). I've started cross training a basic mining facilities - purely to just get in a barge.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Life in Low-sec #1
Well, it took a while, but the corporation now has 3 offices:
One, in high-sec in a market hub, Oursulaert.
One, in high-sec in the Unour constellation, nice and near low-sec (but NOT in it). This was chosen simply so flights into the Verge Vendor/Placid low-sec areas could be got into quicker than if flying from Oursulaert. Doing exploration in Old Man Star would I imagine not be a clever situation, so mainly I enjoy roams 4-5 hops in.
The new office is in deeply low 0.1 low-sec space - where I made some "friends" over the weekend. I also lost the Carbonater (the first AF). It went up in flames from a pirate in the "Pain" system while I was scouting for possible locations for a new home. My mistake though, I'd asked the ship to dock while the Helios "Mighty Mouse" scanned the system, and assumed it was complete while concentrating on radar sites in the immediate system - luckily I got the pod docked before it went pop though.... Pain is an apt name as I did suffer it here. I had no qualms about replacing the ship as its made > 1billion of profit or close with its combat skills, and is, I think, the ideal low-sec combat ship - it can warp out of low-sec gate camps prior to scram being applied every single time from the experience so far.
As mentioned, I've made a few friends in my new home, and even a lot of the flashy reds are leaving the corporation alone by mutual agreement. I am still on edge however - keeping a cloaked ship by the 1st acceleration gate does provide some warning to incoming hostiles, and allows both ships to dock up if required. No-one has decided to bother us however in reality thankfully so far.
The downsides - well so far 0.1 space has less decent scanning loot than the 0.5-0.7 high-sec systems in Verge Vendor/Essence I was frequenting before... Some missions are exactly the same, some a bit harder, but all are still soloable in a AF. Hope to get decent loot soon, or will have to consider wormhole space, hopping in via low-sec.
The good news : The personal wallet is, er, good right now. Sold some of the higher-value individual site findings, and have a cool 300mln available instantly. Also still got at least another 500 mln in modules available to sell if required. 300mln is nothing, but I didn't want to flood contracts with 2 or 3x the same module as I can make a lot more money trickling the items on the market. How many people can afford a Medium Armor repper than retails for 100-150mln.
The bad news: All this new cash will be spent by Friday on new ships - to be brought this weekend:
New toy 1/ A blockade runner transport ship (to get large volumes in/out of low-sec)
New toy 2/ An Enyo assault frigate to compement the Ishkur in low-sec.. + a backup Ishkur hull + fitout in case the 1st Ishkur gets ganked. Blockade runner should in theory be able to take both back to low-sec in relative safety.
New toy 3/ A fully rigged Iteron mk5 (for high sec larger volume transportation)
New toy 4/ Start of purchasing of small or medium POS, guns, and ammo + POS fuel + a moon harvesting array, corp hanger array and science labs. Need to investigate exact specifics of setting up moon mining arrays in next few weeks. Do not plan on immediate setup however, until we have POS gunners available in Corp.
New toy 5/ A load of moon probes, got about 50 moons to scan over weekend so need at least this many.
New toy 6/ Some more basic +3 implants
Quick industry update. Close to going over 500mln on market + 250mln mineral stash - will update more later in week. Approx 300mln cash in industry funds. We need to go blueprint shopping at the weekend for the next items we wish to build - I suspect a Battlecruiser blueprint may need to be purchased, along with frigates/destroyers from other races.
Jax is also back regularly logging into EVE and using the mineral stockpile to increase his stocks of items for sale - I do need to find out exactly what volume of items he has up for sale at some point. He now can fly AF's similar to me, and thus we both may be doing low-sec activities shortly..
One, in high-sec in a market hub, Oursulaert.
One, in high-sec in the Unour constellation, nice and near low-sec (but NOT in it). This was chosen simply so flights into the Verge Vendor/Placid low-sec areas could be got into quicker than if flying from Oursulaert. Doing exploration in Old Man Star would I imagine not be a clever situation, so mainly I enjoy roams 4-5 hops in.
The new office is in deeply low 0.1 low-sec space - where I made some "friends" over the weekend. I also lost the Carbonater (the first AF). It went up in flames from a pirate in the "Pain" system while I was scouting for possible locations for a new home. My mistake though, I'd asked the ship to dock while the Helios "Mighty Mouse" scanned the system, and assumed it was complete while concentrating on radar sites in the immediate system - luckily I got the pod docked before it went pop though.... Pain is an apt name as I did suffer it here. I had no qualms about replacing the ship as its made > 1billion of profit or close with its combat skills, and is, I think, the ideal low-sec combat ship - it can warp out of low-sec gate camps prior to scram being applied every single time from the experience so far.
As mentioned, I've made a few friends in my new home, and even a lot of the flashy reds are leaving the corporation alone by mutual agreement. I am still on edge however - keeping a cloaked ship by the 1st acceleration gate does provide some warning to incoming hostiles, and allows both ships to dock up if required. No-one has decided to bother us however in reality thankfully so far.
The downsides - well so far 0.1 space has less decent scanning loot than the 0.5-0.7 high-sec systems in Verge Vendor/Essence I was frequenting before... Some missions are exactly the same, some a bit harder, but all are still soloable in a AF. Hope to get decent loot soon, or will have to consider wormhole space, hopping in via low-sec.
The good news : The personal wallet is, er, good right now. Sold some of the higher-value individual site findings, and have a cool 300mln available instantly. Also still got at least another 500 mln in modules available to sell if required. 300mln is nothing, but I didn't want to flood contracts with 2 or 3x the same module as I can make a lot more money trickling the items on the market. How many people can afford a Medium Armor repper than retails for 100-150mln.
The bad news: All this new cash will be spent by Friday on new ships - to be brought this weekend:
New toy 1/ A blockade runner transport ship (to get large volumes in/out of low-sec)
New toy 2/ An Enyo assault frigate to compement the Ishkur in low-sec.. + a backup Ishkur hull + fitout in case the 1st Ishkur gets ganked. Blockade runner should in theory be able to take both back to low-sec in relative safety.
New toy 3/ A fully rigged Iteron mk5 (for high sec larger volume transportation)
New toy 4/ Start of purchasing of small or medium POS, guns, and ammo + POS fuel + a moon harvesting array, corp hanger array and science labs. Need to investigate exact specifics of setting up moon mining arrays in next few weeks. Do not plan on immediate setup however, until we have POS gunners available in Corp.
New toy 5/ A load of moon probes, got about 50 moons to scan over weekend so need at least this many.
New toy 6/ Some more basic +3 implants
Quick industry update. Close to going over 500mln on market + 250mln mineral stash - will update more later in week. Approx 300mln cash in industry funds. We need to go blueprint shopping at the weekend for the next items we wish to build - I suspect a Battlecruiser blueprint may need to be purchased, along with frigates/destroyers from other races.
Jax is also back regularly logging into EVE and using the mineral stockpile to increase his stocks of items for sale - I do need to find out exactly what volume of items he has up for sale at some point. He now can fly AF's similar to me, and thus we both may be doing low-sec activities shortly..
Monday, 30 March 2009
Blog Banter #6 - One small chip changed the world
Welcome to the sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from Quintrala of Speed Fairy . She suggests to "write a short fiction story about the dissolution of the BoB alliance. It could be from BoB's point of view, the Goons', by neutrals in 0.0, civilians in Empire, NPCs or even rats. Write about before, during or after the coup; give us stories of market, war, people or love. In-character or roleplay. We want to know what happened, from those fictional characters that, in your mind, were part of it."
Personally I found this task hard - I don't usually do fiction. This is written over 2 days, please let me know your thoughts good and bad! Total fiction and the events told DO NOT represent the reality of the situation. Anyway lets begin:
*//
Senx sat in the bar in the Federal Navy station in Algogille. He was sitting uncomfortably, at a bar stool by the edge of the bar, with a good view of both entrances to the bar. He was noticeably on edge, and was to any observer clearly nervous. He ordered another drink, a Fried-Marble - a strange multi-coloured beverage which resembled a Whiskey sour in taste, but not looks. He sat at the bar looking more and more concerned by the minutes passed.
A group of Caldari walked in the bar, and he looked up alertly. He quickly settled again as their arrival hadn't bothered Senx at all - They didn't have the swagger or confidence of immortal pod-pilots so he resumed waiting, and casually observed the new arrivals getting a drink and sitting down in the corner of the bar.
Senx was a industrial hauler pilot, and had been hired to travel some 35 jumps through high-security space to deliver a encrypted data chip, but was required to deliver the item in person. This was unusual, but such was the items value, it was not being trusted to any electronic means such as contracts - on the off-chance the data would be stolen in-view by hackers en-route. A strange hooded gentleman, naming himself "TheMitani" had handed over the chip, a 100mln deposit, and instructions to leave quickly. He had explained that hiring a private contractor to move the chip was required, as a shipping company would get less attention from moving the goods than a personal flight from one of his corporation's members or friends (who would be mostly known by the enemy) . He also explained the delivery method and the fact he would know Darius by the fact he would order a "SuperNova" from the bar Senx now found himself sat in.
At the time Senx left quickly rubbing his hands with glee, as carrying a simple datachip all this way was great news as it meant that Senx had an empty cargohold to fill. With glee he used the deposit monies to fill his hold with Zydrine, as he knew it would sell for way more money in Gallente space than it would locally in low-sec.
He thanked the local station staff for their help loading the piles of minerals, then undocked in his Iteron "The Badger Baiter". He had an uneventful journey - and didn't notice anyone following him.
He eventually made it to Algogille, where we resume the story:
Senx was inwardly concerned "Where is Darius" he muttered under his breath. Why is he late... He knew what he was carrying must be dynamite. The fact he was delivering the item to personally to the CEO of one of the largest Alliances in the Universe indicated the items value. The other item that indicated this was unusual was the fact he was being paid enough to retire comfortably or buy a brand new freighter and skills to pilot it - a figure around 2 billion ISK once his taxes had been accounted for. He inwardly was wondering what data chip could be worth all this hassle...
In the bar, a rather bedraggled man was sat in the corner, in the shadows, watching Senx out of the corner of his eye while pretending to be interested in the attractions of a female who was openly flirting with him. She was obviously a professional - but this didn't bother him. He knew that in this area, in this bar, being seen with a professional was the perfect cover for his trade. Professional girls were generally not looked at, and were not seen by people not looking for their trade - and thus were ignored out of social habit. This man was a pod-pilot, a assassin & a spy and was thus a man who very rarely was seen by anyone. He operated in the shadows, and was also watching one of the doors. It had been said in the past by others who knew his name and reputation that this killer worked for a "higher" power, but in truth, he was a merely a hired gun. No-one who hired him had ever seen his face, and he had never been caught. He merely was known by the moniker "The Don" to those who did know of his services. Although Senx did not know it, The Don was here to protect him from threats known and unknown.... and was in the employ of TheMitani.
Senx however had no clue of Don's presense in the room. He was almost pacing in his seat at the bar. The barman came over and was looking concerned - he'd seen this behaviour before, and he was aware it usually resulted in either a a fight or flight without paying the bill. He decided to present Senx with the tab. As he did so, he noticed that his customer noticeably relaxed as he saw a tall confident swaggering gentleman enter the bar and start walking towards the main bar area. Senx watched carefully as the barman walked to the other side of the bar to greet the tall gentleman.
The tall gentleman ordered a "Luminaire Frogian" and sat down. He also was keenly surveying the bar, and didn't take long to settle his gaze on Senx. In fact he stared disconcertingly at Senx for a good minute before breaking his stare to look at the paraphernalia from the ball-games situated behind the bar. He reached under his coat and camnly started screwing a silencer onto the barrel of the old fashioned projectile gun he held there. It was a classic weapon, designed to avoid the modern world and CONCORDs weapon checks in this high-security station. Before he could finish screwing the barrel on, he was disturbed and embarressed by "The Don" putting a hand on his sholder & injecting some neuron-toxin into his neck to paralyse and kill him instantly. The tall gentleman slumped on the bar looking in like a drunk to any casusal observer, and "The Don" grabbed his gun from under his coat to add to his personal stash. He then simply & quickly walked out of the bar giving a subtle nod to the table of Caldari.
Senx was unaware of all this occuring however, and was just finishing paying the bill that had been presented in front of him. A dark faced guy from the group of Caldari he had spotted earlier came over, sat next to him, and ordered a "Supernova". He quickly turned and said "I'm Darius, we better get this done quickly". Senx wondered why, and before he could voice the question he got the response "Look, you're unware of the trouble you were in here. See that chap by the bar? He was going to kill me and possibly you when we met if we had not anticipated the attempt and dealt with it. Here is your money, give me the chip, you don't need to know the contents - its safer if you just leave now". "Forget me, forget my face, and you were never even in this bar today".
With that he left. Senx was 2 Billion ISK richer. He was elated. He quickly got back in his Iteron hauler and flew the short trip to Oursulaert to stay in the most expensive orbital hotel he could while he awaited the order of the Obelisk he had ordered from a local vendor to be delivered.
The next morning in the hotel room, listening to his favourite morning DJ, FunkyBacon, he heard the news on the radio. BoB disbanded, taken out using insider knowledge and encryption keys Goonfleet had acquired apparently. Senx was elated, and dismayed simultanously - He now knew what that chip had contained and realised he had played a part in one of the biggest changes in the world of the 0.0 lawless space - but no-one could know. Senx knew he would be the most wanted man in the galaxy if anyone knew. He also felt sorry for the ordinary civilian residents in Delve, as he knew he had turned their life upside down - they had been used to the stability of Bob, and now faced all out war.
/**
Participants:
- Speed Fairy, The Hand of BoB
- CrazyKinux's Musing, No where to go...
- A Mule in EVE, Rolling to the Warzone
- The Ralpha Dogs, Two Tales of Glory and Honor
- One Man and his Spaceship, Times they are changing
- OZ's House of the Evil Dead, Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Who the Hell are They?....
- I am Keith Nielson, He Gave Up the Stars
- Life in Low Sec, Six Degrees of Seperation
- A Merry life and a Short One, Die Bard
- Roc's Ramblings, Mythology
- Dense Veldspar, EVE Blog Banter #6
- Letrange's EVE Blog, A toast to the disolution of BoB
- Fumbling in Space, Scarnan Vs The Fleeing Bankrupt Hordes
- More coming soon...
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