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.

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 :)

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?

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:
Congratulations to all of the above....

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?