PI is bugged- I think

I have to agree with Letrange:
This is an image, er, 2 days after I started a 96 hour job and I DID not start this this morning!. On a planet I regularly start other extractors on. And it has only 9 hours into the job. Its bugging me, mainly as I need to switch the job to a 5 hour one, as I have since Saturday.

Infinite monkeys, thanks CCP. :)

But seriously someone could abuse this - I can't replicate it yet, only thing for sure is I alter other extractors on same planet daily... but its not obvious HOW this is happening - but there is some logic wrong somewhere.

Just thought I'd add my voice to this based on my experience of PI so far...

I'm back, Planatary Interaction

For those who haven't seen me in game - I'm back. I'm still stuck with Real life stuff meaning I'm only getting 1-2 days a week online - but really enjoying EVE when I do get to play.

So I've decided to build a PI stack to manage in my "home" system, which seems great, and should, in-time, produce me a full set of materials to build Deathstars (well POS's). I'm lucky in 2 systems next door should give me a reasonable amount of all pieces needed... Right now, I have a process building a massive amount of P2 mats daily. Once that piece is ready, it'll start going to P3, then P4. I'm hoping P3->P4 will be one planet.

Overall its nice... as its one less thing to buy, and I can sell any spare "parts" on the Jita Market. Its been fun to workout ideal production setups so no nasty "waits" occur.

I had my first duel in ages with Krysania recently, resulting in a win for DeafTurret, but it was close. I'm a little rusty at duels, so will try and avoid, but engage if provoked....

Well done Mynxee on the CSM. No wonder you got chairwoman - great campaign!. I do still hope to participate in CSM when my life isn't full of wedding stuff (probably 2013!). BTW, we're getting married in 2012, but with the venue being other end of England (literally) - its a pain, as every other weekend we're going up to scout out "the venue", church, etc. We think both are now sorted, finally, but just need to finalise the date prior to booking....

Blog Banter #14: A beginning is a very delicate time...

Welcome to the fourteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, in which I ask the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

With the future you have to first look at the past. 2009 was a good year for me in-game, with industrial activities growing over the year, but eventually hitting a wall of making profit, but not as much as I'd hoped when I started. 2010 will start re-evaluating the trading decisions made, with an aim to get out of small profit items and concentrate on big 1 million profit per item minimums. So my first aim for 2010 is to move from a 500 million isk turnover a month to a few billion. How to get there? Well invention was the plan for 2009, and skills are finally coming online to invent just about every module in existance (plus the ships). Aim was to get every skill needed to L4, and that will complete in mid-March, allowing me to compete in all T2 markets, and not just concentrate on small minorities.

Big aim for 2010 is to get the POS up - I've identified a system for this, miles from my usual hangouts - we don't even have an office in the system. Out of the way as its not for moon mining, but for reactions. Carefully placed one jump of a jump freighter from Empire - as this will factor heavily in logistics once I can afford one. The POS will be for T2 moon goo reactions and research (copying) of BPO's. I expect I'll visit it once every few days to move the reactions around, but it will NOT be my main hang out. I've also started logistics of fuel over the past month and have 2 weeks of fuel for a large pos there now. I need more for safety as the aim will be to get to having a jump freighter to factor as mentioned, and hauling fuel is relentless when you are 27 jumps from your main hub!

My other aim is to actually join an alliance and get some 0.0 or wormhole PvP boots in the latter part of 2010 - not done that yet, but I think DSTIC's industrial roots will help many a 0.0 alliance in logistics in terms of being able to build vs buy.

2010 will also involve getting back to blogging 2-3 times a week again as far as out of game activities go - works been a nightmare, and blogging even on my phone on the way to work isn't possible right now...

Dust 514 is interesting, if its going to be released this year (I hope) - I expect I'll be getting whichever console is required. CCP hurry up and commit, as I don't want to end up with the wrong one (PS3 or xbox, I'm not getting both).

I have renewed EVE for all of 2010 (on annual subs) - so I will be about - and I will be blogging about EVE once more. Look forward to chatting in game and seeing everyone more in next couple of weeks when work winds down from the post Christmas madness.

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - A beginning is a very delicate time...
2. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - Words, words, words…
3. My God It's Full of Stars - What Now?
4. The Elitist - Plans for 112yc
5. Into the unknown with gun and camera - Show me the money
6. Ecliptic Rift - Enabling the future
7. Inanity and Doom - New Year's Resolutions, New Eden Style
8. Break Vol - Blog Banter #14
9. Guns Ablaze - What Now?
10. Adventures in Mission Running - The Way Forward
11. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Things I want to do
12. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - The Year That Will Be
13. Roc's Ramblings - WordPress ate my blog
14. Vive Virtual - Frontier Living
15. A Mule in EVE - Next on the chopping block
16. Prano's Journey - I Peer Into My Crystal Pod...
17. Life in Low Sec - Expanding the Franchise
18. The Light of Stars - Testing the claims of CCP
19. A Memoir From Space - A New Direction
20. The Chronofile - Blog Banter 2010
21. FlashFresh - What now for Flash?
22. EVE Opportunist - Fyreite in 112
23. Mike Azariah - Jiorj
24. Yarrbear Tales - Year in Review
25. More to come...

Melted Capacitor Consoles

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!

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.

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!

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...

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 :)

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:

• 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

Congratulations to all of the above....

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?

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.

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 ....

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...

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..

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....

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...

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.

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?

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.