Industrial/weekly update

Characters skills update:
Had to take a small diversion caused by a lack of market slots. I've got items stacked up waiting to sell, but no slots to use to do so...! Overall about 20 days until Deep Space Transports and thus hauling large quantities becoming possible from low-sec to high sec and vice versa with a lessened pirate risk.

Overall the corporation is doing reasonably despite my lack of attention. No new members and no sign of Jax for a week or so. Can't wait to keep playing, and its looking like I'll have a full weekend of hardcore EVE-time gameplaying coming up this month (Saturday 21 March -> Sun 22 evening). Perfect given launch of the new expansion on 10th March (which btw, I can't wait for!).

Corp Marketplace stats:

• 375mln ISK of items for sale on market in 48 lines of business in one station. This isn't growing as quick as I'd like as finding market opportunities in tech-1 manufacture appear limited. Going to have to bring forward T2 manufacturing I think from being a "would be nice" to being a must-have.
• 250mln in bank - this is going to have to be spent on datacore/decryptors I think.. or new BPO's for research.
  

Once the transport ship is ready am thinking of setting up a new corporation shop near low-sec (or even IN low-sec if preferred) full of items piratey types need but usually need to fly to Ours/a major hub to get. Mynxee/other trustworthy pirates - would this be useful to you? - if so, shout what you need to fly to empire for most of time in a comment and I'll start the process up of starting a new corporate hub for this reason - though will expect NAP or similar for my corporations ships in exchange for this.

This week expecting to be online on Wed, Sunday only (when not gardening) due to fact I'm away again over weekend, visiting a friend all day Sat and not arriving home until late Sunday...

Blog Banter #5: Alts & me!

Note : Apologies for lateness of this post - I've been away since last week on secret squirrel work activities.

Welcome to another installment of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter invites enthusiastic EVE bloggers to address a common topic for a period of one week. Posts run the gamut: short, long, funny, serious, and everywhere in between, but always fun to read! This month's topic comes to us from Mynxee of Life in Low Sec. She asks "Alts and Metagaming: Is playing two accounts who are logged in at the same time and work together (hauler/miner, explorer/combat associate, trade alts in trade hubs) a form of metagaming that is "ruining the game"?"

Direct questions about the EVE Blog Banter to CrazyKinux. Links to other EVE Blog Banter articles will be listed at the end of this post as they become available.

Well, my views are simple - No it isn't ruining the game! I'll explain my reasoning below.

EVE is a team-game for sure, but with the vast diversity of play - anyone joining the game right now has to be specialised to a specific career choice really - or wait a while to get their jack-of-all-trades character up to speed. Basically the metagaming aspect in my opinion allows a new player to get productive quicker.

In my case I made the decision last summer when I started re-playing the game to roll 2 brand new characters - one for combat activities and one as a support industrial type character - before they were too generally skilled to be useful at any one item (and were specialized in completely the wrong areas for what I wanted, such that re rolling resulted in quicker start to my aims).. Would playing one character have greatly reduced my fun in EVE - the answer is probably. Right now, 7 months in, the team is working well. I now have a scouting alt with CovOps ability/scanning ability, and industrial activities turning over hundreds of millions of isk a week (of which a lot is pure profit). I also now have a formidable combat character.... flying tech-2 ships/fittings instead of a peashooting Drake pilot.

The alternative to playing multiple characters is to join a trustworthy corporation and work as a team. When I first played EVE back in 2004, I had one account only and never really got "Industry". I would say I didn't need the 2nd account until I fully understood the game.... and I've been playing 2 full accounts from Jan 2008. Joining a corp back in those days did help me learn to play and filled in the missing link in my knowledge. I don't think I'd have brought the 2nd account without this experience.

The sharing of resource between 2 alt's that you control in the trader/hauler alt is essential for logistics, in fact the game's design leads to this. Jump drives anyone? With the need for a alt-to light a cyno field, it basically means you need 2 accounts just to get to go places in your carrier if on your own.

There are many other uses for Alts than the ones I use right now - the legit long-term Spy? Everyone knows the metagaming aspects - and I seriously can't believe any big alliance doesn't have a "covert operations" pot for use in alts to infiltrate rivals. With fact you can buy timecards/codes via ISK now ingame via the pilots license extenions - this is only going to increase in my opinion. EVE is also less-cpu-intensive to run multiple instances than many other games so keeping.. Metagaming in spy's and defectors makes EVE more like real life - no "hand holding", which I think is in the aim of the game. If you are stupid enough to give access to the corporate crown jewels to a newbie don't go crying to CCP when they are stolen. The real world is a dangerous place, and as such so is trading in EVE. Trading items in low-sec is aiming to be double crossed and stuff stolen. I have heard through grapevine of a few pirates using industrial alts to er, lure characters into low-sec to buy an item and camping gate on way out so to get the money and the loot.

The other alt use is in a hauling alt/Orca pilot for mining - increasing yield, and amount that can be hauled in a single run - and saving the annoying fly back to station scenario which is all-too-boring when mining.

The corporation I used to belong to with my old-characters was actually only 7 people, but together we had around 30 accounts. My experience is with EVE is that most longer-term players who have player for > 1 year will typically have 2 or more accounts. Why such a small corp having so many accounts - same as above - basically to increase time played, and specialize more. It also allowed for belt-destroying mining operations....

Other games also have similar aspects - back in the days I played Everquest - and multi-boxing was a common occurrence amongst the hardcore players. However with Everquest I couldn't personally see the benefit. Its actually a testament to CCP that with EVE I'll feel the need for and pay for 2 accounts - as will many others. Its also the game that made me go multi-monitor so I could play both clients simultaneously.

CCP profit from alts after all this - and they almost give it their blessing... Would we have "Power of 2" promotions yearly (or more frequently) if CCP did not see this need?

In fact the only reason I can think of for this being bad is it may be keeping some people more insular than they should be really in-game - thus stopping people from having human interaction with other humans. But some people do like playing like that - so why should we be judgmental and say this is a bad thing?

Overall, good for CCP, good for some players playstyles, and essential for espionage, I'd say the use of alt's is basically part and parcel of EVE universe, and I'm glad!

Participants

• Epic Misadventures, This is my Alt - There are many like it but this one is mine.
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, I Missed This Month's Blog Banter!
• A Mule in EvE, Meta what? Is it hurting EvE?
• Morphisat's EVE Online Blog, Me, Myself and I
• One Man And His Spaceship, Me and My Shadow
• Ombeve, Blog Banter edition 5
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, CK's Blog Banter #5: Everybody Needs Somebody
• Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter
• Ecliptic Rift, OOC: Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• The Ralpha Dogs, Me, Myself and I
• Mad Rant, "Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to...."
• EVE Chick, The Handicapper General
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "...you see mate, it's a matter of leverage, savvy?..."
• New Eden Diaries, It's only a game
• Oz’s House of the Evil Dead, If You Can’t Ride Two Horses At Once, You Shouldn’t Be In The Circus
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, Everybody Needs Somebody
• CrazyKinux's Musing, Leave what you know at the door please!
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• Roc's Ramblings, February Blog Banter - Meta Me

New Member to corp

We'll see how it goes - but invited a new-ish player(who appeared lost) to join Corp when traveling via Algogille on Sunday to drop-off items for sale and pick up items purchased....

Unfortunately due to my time being extremely limited we didn't get much time to fly together... Most time spent being setting her up with cruiser hulls and t1 fittings.. She is based in Belgium and thus GMT+1, and had to leave at midnight local time. (11 EVE time). This particularly unlucky due to the loot picked up in a set of escalations on a "combat" site that was picked up right at 11... and finished at 0:30. Corelli C-type 1MN MWD, + a few Shadow Serpentis goodies off the overseer at the end... I also now have 2 serpentis small blaster (or is it rail) BPC's (for fitting to towers). Anyone interested in bidding for these?

The escalation took me all over Gallente space - including a trip via low-sec to Stacmon via one of the most camped gates I think I've ever seen. Was glad I was not travelling in other direction as the sensor boosted ships sat waiting for outbound travellers from Stacmon would have locked even my AF in a very short while...

Why the new players, well I'm a sucker for them - and being honest our base corp hanger isn't exactly loaded with "choice items" - but it is better in many cases than the junk new players can buy off market (lots of named mods, but not super expensive ones). So if any new player empties hanger, we'd be 10mln down... no big deal when the corp assets can easily recover from that.

Industry this week has been good. 180mln in bank, 250mln on mkt, and about 200mln of mineral stocks. Some minerals low-ish though, so need to restock on high-end's. However need to keep corp cash reserves high due to plans below.

Considering buying minerals down in low-sec, its way cheaper in the region I'm based in now (like 1.5 isk less than the Ours trit price). With the Transport ship/Blockade runner being a short while away, hopping through gate camps shouldn't be a huge deal. Am thinking of multi-hop logistics, with hauling vast quantities of minerals to a office in a gateway system to high-sec (say Stacmon).. then hauling them up to production base via a rigged Itty V, or a freighter. I think freighter would greatly increase profit margin, and make the hauling a less frequent thing...

Current plans:

In 1 week: Covert operations ship for moving high value items around low-sec (should allow the 500-1bln isk's worth of high value items to be moved from low-sec to Ours for sale).
In 1 month: Transport ship - for moving quantities of minerals around low-sec + POS fuel..
In 2 months like to see Corp put up a research, reaction and moon-mining POS in low-sec. A few systems in mind for this, but need the cov-ops to go scanning for minerals. POS may go up sooner if good items found. Need a few more corp members who can fly decent defensive ships and PVP experience before POS goes up.. so I see myself/Jax/new member (who's name I forget) going roaming in W-space/low-sec with cheap-ish ships prior to this..

Beyond this, I'm thinking training up pre-requisites for carriers....

Going to be online this week tonight (extremely limited, just movement of ships and and purchase of t2 drones to replace those killed) - and hopefully Weds night, and again Sun. Real life does get in way of EVE sometimes.

Am I the only one who's got lots of under 24 hour skills left and can't wait for new expansion to enable all these to be finished?

Industry update

Well, its been a few weeks, so heres the DSTIC trading update as far as my characters go - I havn't had a chance to catch up with Jax to see his stock situation:

Corporation cash on-hand: 100mln ISK (give or take).
Mineral stockpile (at last count): 150mln ISK or thereabouts.
Stock on-hand to be sold (but not on market): 50mln ISK or thereabouts + 50mln ISK's worth of minerals tied in production that finishes Wednesday.
On-market: 170mln ISK. Sold out 100% of several lines over past few days. What is it with people buying batches of > 100 items!

Personal wallets: Low - really low - under 75mln on hand. Expect even this to take battering. Have placed a snake implant for sale at lowest in region price, in Ours - to top this up by 60mln. Its a false reading though really as got about 1/2 a billion of goods out in low-sec, which I need a covert operations ship (can fly one in days now thankfully). Will be flying out to recover said goods asap this week.

Why the above changes - well blueprints were purchased and researched, and theres a few months backlog before profit can be taken from these... More blueprints also need purchasing, so I sense a spending trip is required.

Skills also are getting expensive - spent around 50mln this past week on new skill books for Deafplasma/DeafTurret.

Overall - its positive. EVE-mon is also showing DeafPlasma may overtake Jax for 1st time in overall Skillpoints over coming days/months due to my training rate being vastly greater currently.

Overall industry also needs to start research on T2 component BPO's for the items we're planning to make...

All looking like will be setup for the new expansion in terms of readyness - probing/scanning skills - check - Cov Ops capable - check. Only thing missing for one of my plans is Gallente Industrial 5. This is the next skill on the list once Covert Operations ship is mine.... Only downside is total available funds (as ever) not being huge. Once covert ops ship is mine, plan to go on a moon surveying run and look to deploy a POS in low-sec as the next overall phase to the plan... and deploy science labs + moon mining (yes I know this is a 300mln or so investment - but by that stage we should have that on-side as petty cash.

Is anyone else hoping surveying missions into W-space could be cash cows? Jax is setup for battleships (so need to get him ready for PVP fit battleships)... I'll be flying a Myrmidon fit out with T2 drones, tracking computers (speed script) + medium turrets (possibly T2 rails or blasters). Hopefully 2 characters will cut it (+ a hauling & salvaging covert ops blockade runner or covert operations). We'll see.

Anyone else in the "just can't wait" mode for the new expansion?

Hardware issue day

I had noticed pre-christmas that EVE would cause my PC to power-off completely sometimes. I hadn't really commented on this as a normal "reboot" cycle seemed to fix, and make the PC work again in EVE again fine...

However, converting video's a plenty this weekend - the computer started to power off as soon as it hit the intensive part of the process - the 2-step conversion to mp4 for iphone/psp's 2nd step seems to hit all 4 of my CPU's cores at max power. As such I decided to pop the lid off for a look.

The computers main fan was embarrassingly clogged with "dust" - I should have realised this was the cause earlier. This was causing a thermal overload... and the machine to power-off to protect its components. To allow me to monitor this better in the future I've installed an ASUS thermal monitor for PC, mainboard + fan rotation speeds. If PC hits over 60 Celsius it should alert me...

I'm now as typing this using the distributed.net client + video conversions to stress all 4 cores - and its been doing this for 30 mins now. The PC doesn't sound like an aircraft now, and is staying a constant 57 Celsius. Fantastic.

But a lesson to me - get the air duster out a few times a year to clean the PC's fan's or it will suffer from unreliability and noisiness...

Bob Collapse - espionage/defection

Okay, everyone now knows what happened from other blogs, so I'm not recapping possibly the games biggest ever espionage incident...

Apart from to say thanks to FunkyBacon on Eve-radio - for the excellent coverage last Thursday. I know ER had problems with the sheer amount of listeners during his show - but the coverage was excellent, thought-provoking, and plain amusing. Excellent, professional job Funky, and I'm hoping you get many more listeners to your show as a result..

The above show is actually pretty much the only EVE Radio listening time I get right now due to personal circumstances meaning time in game is limited. Good news is, I should get at least one evening this week in which I can spend some time actually doing some exploration (which I love doing). I even missed helping set the new PCU this weekend (51400 I think it was?) - which is unusual as I usually get online with my 2 characters during that time so next time it may peak even higher (by 2 at least).

I'm hoping the BoB controversy leads to more people joining the game - its brilliant that one trusted defector can effectively destroy an alliance. As such I imagine a lot more corporations & alliances will be less trusting and re-evaluate their directors.

Though that said our existing structure in the DSTIC corp I manage designed to eliminate precisely this possibility... although I will be promoting Jax next time he's online as he is a very trustworthy individual (given he's paid for 50% of the BPO's in value pretty much).. and being honest him not being a director is harming the corporation as both of our time is limited online thus not being able to see which market orders need manipulation or restock can cause problems.

In non-EVE news the Wedding in Vegas thats preventing the trip to Fanfest (presuming its on usual week in November) has now been booked (flights/hotel etc), meaning sadly I'll definitely not be attending Fanfest 09. Sadness due to not attending. Joy cause it looks like a crowd of >20 of my best mates will all be in Vegas together and I know we'll be having an awesome time.

Updates on current trading situation to follow later in week.

Back from a short leave of absense.

Well, it's been a week between postings, which I try to avoid but are sometimes necessary. Reasoning was my g/f moved in finally (been awaiting the day a while) meaning time was limited Fri-Mon while all was sorted and the stacks of boxes packed then unpacked, and the office tidied so was finally usable. Works also been totally crazy busy with problem after problem - so time to play has been limited to 15 minute bursts here and there.

Crazykinux has added me to the EVE blog pack - as of last week (I missed the posting due to above issues - but linked here!) so I'd like to say Hello to any new readers who have discovered this blog using this method.

Of course the above being away from EVE doesn't really mean away - I've used the time to set some long skills going, and gave the corporation shop a full restock. Hit an amazing barrier as of Sunday - 250mln ISK of items for sale - all in the one single station - all on my personal character. Doing industry jobs with only 15 mins of playtime here and there works a treat.... its one reason I continue to play EVE whereas other MMO's just tended to lapse due to the high input required.

For the moment, similar to my corporation member Jax, I've moved both my characters back to the Ours central hub from which the corporation operates on a day to day basis, but left jump clones over in the "exploration area" where I've found great spoils - allowing quick jumps back to do a few days exploration. Obviously I've also left the ships required for this back in same area.

I can't wait for next week - as finally Gallente Frigate 5 will be done on my "scout" - meaning Covert-operations frigates and thus the reduced scan times are but a few hours away. Vital for the upcoming expansion.... which I can't wait for.

On the subject of which, once its out I think the corporation will have to go on a recruitment drive for characters interested in joining us in exploration/combat in late Feb/early March - as based on the recent Dev blogs - I think it'll need a group to be able to be effective - though we may be able to do with myself and Jax on, we probably ideally need 2-3 others with AF, BS, BC type ships. We also likely will need more industrialists later this year when Jax/myself start hitting limits on amount of production slots..