A Scientist's Life in Eve

So I completed the last batch of T2 ship inventions, and managed to get an 80% success rate for some bizzare reason.  This means I now have 2 billion ISK worth of Broadswords to make, and I need to somehow explain to the Production Director that I acutally need to get 7 billion of nanotransistors, not 6

With the volume of ships to be sold, I’m going to spend some time between now and the final stages of production investigating the markets a bit more.  Although it’s nice to get a quick turn-over of ships and realise the profit, it also makes sense that this number of ships could be marketed in a slightly different way, and so I plan to try and seek out some different sales channels.  I may, of course, just end up dumping in a trade hub as usual, but it never hurts to look at your options, particularly when considering this level of production.

When I logged on last night, I was welcomed with a slight change to our Capital production schedule, with the Moros being moved down the list a little and a further two Archons ordered.

I zipped across to Jita and collected necessary items and then boarded the Bustard to take things into one of the construction sites.  I was very pleased to note that building two Archons would only require 1,020 425mm Railgun I’s when compared to the 1,050 needed to build a single Moros.  As I had already made the guns, my task was very straight-forward.

Two deliveries later, and the materials were reprocessed by my Production Director (who we realised after the event needs to train Accounting!!! Fail and waste of materials).  Production of the parts is underway as I write this now.

While in Jita, we decided to take the plunge and purchase the remaining three Capital Part BPO’s needed to make Carriers.  They’re sitting in material research right now, and I’ll be happy when they have received 30 days worth of effort.  It did make my spending spree rather more expensive than I had planned, but with the BPO’s inside a shuttle in a courier contract inside the Corporate Hanger of a very well tanked Orca flown by a character in an NPC Corp with minerals in the cargo hold in case he was scanned…. I was probably being a little over cautious, but then that’s just me.

I’m probably going to take this opportunity to put some of the other Capital Component BPO’s in for a bit more time research too.  It won’t make much of a difference, but it can’t hurt and I’ve decided that I need to stop inventing for at least a short time.

I mentioned to my Production Director that I need to get around 6 billion ISK of nanotransistors, he didn’t seem overly concerned.  In fact I think I was much more concerned with him.  That actually equates to around 1 million of the things.  I did promise that I won’t buy them, or transport them, in one go.

After the Bustard trips, I did briefly consider trying a couple of freighter runs to move some pre-constructed parts we have kicking around, but red activity had increased and due to my nature I decided that it was now a bad idea.

At the moment, I’m still not completely sure on our Capital Ship sales programme, and how to structure it.  Currently we’re doing well with pre-orders, which is perfect as I don’t really want to carry any real level of stock where possible, however clearly this isn’t a particularly agressive outlook.

By the time all the part BPO’s are researched and in place, I should have a much better picture of how to move forward.

It is definitely enjoyable building the (almost) biggest ships in the game.  However it’s still important not to stop the main ISK generating activities such as T2 modules and (to a lesser degree) T2 ships.

As I said in a post a while back, I tend to do ship building in cycles.  I’m just finishing the manufacturing cycle of the last batch of ships, and am also finishing the inventions ready to start the cycle again.  I put the last 8 invent jobs into the cooker last night, and started copying blueprints again to replenish the BPC stocks.

However, I seem to have gone a bit mad this time, as when I counted up all the BPC’s from successful invents, I realised that I had blueprints to build 107 T2 ships (cruisers, transport ships, command ships and two black ops).

Oops… that’s quite a bit more than I usually would do, so I think I’ll be batching my production a bit more to compensate.

In other news, I also purchased and fitted a Bustard Transport ship (hence the problems finding the appropriate MWD as per my previous post).  The first batch of 425mm Railgun I’s are ready and in just under two loads, I have everything ready to build a Moros Dreadnaught for an order we have.  Unfortunately I haven’t finished my training queue for reprocessing yet, so the Production Director will need to do that himself – I’ve got my special jeans with the knee pads on so I can grovel and beg appropriately

When I get something new, I tend to take a cursory look at the instructions, althougth this does depend on what the “something new” is, and since I hit the wrong side of 30 my cursory looks tend to be a bit more in depth.

The same applies to patches.  I usually look through the patch notes with interest to see what’s happening.  So it was with great surprise that I logged in last night after the patching had completed, and failed miserably to buy a Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon Microwarpdrive.  It was at a similar point that I noticed the ship I was in was now sporting an Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I and decided that now would be a good point to stop what I was doing and RTFM.

Note to self – in future read all the patch notes and don’t just assume you’re only getting an extra mid-slot to your fail Amarr AF (yay – no longer is the choice prop mod or point – you can now fit both!) and the use of those funny blue blocks that have been sitting in the POS for a week or two now.

Anybody else taken by surprise, or was I the only one not to read things properly?

As an industrialist, I don’t often do missions.  To be honest, when I do it’s more for relaxation and to earn a bit of ISK.  Usually I end up being annoyed about my continuing drop in Gallente standings, something which I will need to invest some time (and no doubt ISK) in to fix fairly soon.

Usually, when I grind standings, it is for a particular reason.  For example, getting the necessary standings for the right level research agent, or getting access to jump clones at a conveniently located station.

Over the past few days, mostly for very short periods, I’ve been getting my Caldari Navy standings up as they are one of the factions I want +7 or +8 standings with in order to do the mineral compression reprocessing activities.  With my social tree training, I’ve ended up (due to location of agents) grinding level 2 agents up to +5 so I can then use level 4 agents.

This has proved to be an eclectic mix of boring, amusing and irritating. 

Boring in that it is very repetative – i.e. undock, warp, lock, shoot, scoop, dock, complete, rinse and repeat. 
Amusing  in so far that I get on grid, and simply one shot almost everything, and usually don’t actually need to burn towards anything unless I need to scoop some loot from somebody (DNA for example).
Frustrating in that the ISK rewards are truly horrible. Truly.

Now I’ve got access to the leve 4 missions, things will progress in a more orderly fashion, and I’ll need to concentrate on what I’m doing otherwise it could end up being a very expensive exercise.

However, I’m almost there, and my wallet is now beneiting from the level 4 income.  I don’t plan to repeat this any time soon

So I’ve booked my flights and accommodation, and the actual entrance ticket is sorted too.  I’m going to my first ever fanfest.

For those who are interested, see the dev blog for further information.

I’ve got honestly no idea what to expect at all, so any comments and/or advice will be taken note of (but not necessarily followed!!!).

Hopefully I’ll get to meet some people there and put faces to names/toons/blogs etc.

Ironically following the blog banter topic, I found myself subject to some non-consensual PvP yesterday.  I had, however, put myself into a prime position where I’d done everything but actually ask for the fight.

Before we start mineral compression activities, we still have some capital parts kicking around that we needed to move to make a Revelation.  After checking out one of our production systems I jumped into a freighter, loaded up and jumped in, safely docked up and… uh oh, reds logged on in system, and even worse, in station with me.

I quickly undocked, hoping to catch them before they were fully online, and hit warp to gate, which fortunately means I actually approach the station and stay in the undock radius.  Seconds later a red ship undocks and locks me, so I dock up and quietly curse the situation.

I log the character off, for obvious reasons, and wait to see what happens for a bit, and then log back on.  The reds are in system, and one of them periodically undocks and then redocks.  I’m going nowhere… or am I.

Since I logged off, local has bumped significantly, and they’re all blue.  I open a convo (which is kindly accepted) and explain my situation.  No problem is the answer and I’m soon undocked and on my way, with some rude comments in local from the reds aimed at my escort.

After a bit of negotiation I’m also covered for the necessary second load of parts and then get out, dropping some ISK their way to thank them for the assistance.

With mineral compression, this will not happen, but for now, I’m very glad there were some extremely well equipped friends around to help.

“A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining
about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other
such tears. With the Goons’ Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of
mining ships, there were calls for an “opt out of PvP” option.

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online.
Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the
event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from
the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?”

In space, nobody can hear you scream.  Well, actually as a pod pilot, with the augmented reality the pod gives it’s pilot, some flashy red rich pirate out there probably has bribed numerous officials and had their interface “enhanced” so that when they blow up a pod, a scream is added to celebrate the event.

Eve is unique.  Eve is not real, but it really is unique.  No matter where in the universe I am, the second my ship leaves its hanger and enters space, I am available for PvP.  In other games, Rift for example, you need to do something to flag yourself available for PvP, or you need to join a PvP shard etc.  In Eve, it’s beautifully simple, you simply have to undock.

By all rights, I should be one of the people on the forums crying bitter tears abouot the fact that I can be shot at in hi-sec.  I have been mining in a Hulk and been the victim of a well orchestrated smartbombing battleship assault which resulted in the loss of my Hulk and my pod.  I do carebear stuff like missioning.  I fly freighters and orcas loaded with stuff to trade hubs (and regularly get scanned actively by people - don’t be lazy, fit a passive targeting module!).  So surely I’m a voice for the opt-out button.

No. Never.

Eve is unique, and part of that uniqueness is that you do not have a “no PvP” option when you press escape and choose how loud the background sounds should be.  Because of that, it has a vibrant mix of players and playing styles.  It has a flourishing market economy.

Let’s say that I could set “no” to PvP.  When I’m mining, obviously I’d set that.  When I’m missioning, again clearly I’d set PvP to off.  When I’m moving my freighter – definitely yes.  However, by doing so I destroy a bit more of the market for the things I produce, and I break Eve just a little bit more.

Let’s compare Eve to real life in a very loose way (Eve is not real – really it isn’t, even if the CCP trailer says it is).  If I live in the middle of nowhere, in a contested land without a proper governmental structure (think some recent African conflicts), then my ability to work the land or simply even live there is probably going to involve owning and using an AK47 at some point, or simply running away when the invaders come, or even switching sides (if even possible) and paying them money to stay there.  I’m in 0.0 space.

Maybe I live in a developing economy with a semi-stable government in place, however corruption might be commonplace and the law is “interpreted” regularly.  I am fairly safe, but I don’t really want to go out on my own at night and tend to keep a very low profile when certain people are in the area.  Conflict will happen, but generally there are more rules.  I’m in low-sec.

I live in a big beautiful city, although I’m just one of thousands who walk around the street doing my thing.  The problem is, lots of other people are also doing the same thing so competition is strong.  There are really safe parts of the city, (1.0 space) and some quite seedy parts where the police are less likely to spend significant time (0.5 space).  I’m in hi sec.

OK, that’s a really loose comparison, but let’s look at hi sec, as this is presumably the only area a “no PvP” option could be allowed (and then probably only in 1.0 and 0.9 space at worst).

If I go out of the front door of my house in my sleepy market town, I am at risk of being attacked, mugged, kidnapped, insulted or killed.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in a bad place, and the chances of (and instances of) that happening in my town are so low it’s barely worth calculating (I live in a really sleepy town traditional British market town!).  However, the possibility does exist, and if somebody tries to do any of those things to me, they put themselves in the position where the police will try to react and stop them – punish them.  However, in all likelihood they could mug me or assault me before the police respond, but they’ll try to find them and punish them – Concord and faction police in hi-sec tend to be more efficient than this.

If I’m in a very busy location with lots of people and police already there (compare Jita), then if somebody tries to attack me they’ll probably be stopped before things get too nasty.

So, what is the point of all of these comparisons?  Essentially, I’m trying to say that Eve is the game it is, because of the mechanics it has and the fact that PvP does not have to be consensual.  Without the depth and variety of players, playing styles which results in the combat and losses, the economy would not be what it is.  Further, I think that the links between hi-sec and lo-sec and 0.0 would be even more strained.

Eve is not real, however CCP have sort of mirrored real life law enforcement scenarios in the different areas of space and, for me, it works.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t emoragequit if you suicide gank my freighter or Hulk.  I probably will, but I will not provide public tears to fuel your gankmobile.

I will, however, be able to produce a tier 3 battlecruiser replacement for you at a very competitive price, including T2 fittings if you want

…because sometimes they’re really obvious, and other times they make no sense at all.

This follows after I went to make some Gas Harvester II’s over the weekend, just tidying up some Tech II BPC’s that were kicking around.  I put some in on one character, and logged my second production character on to finish them off.  What?  A red ‘x’ – I don’t understand.  Apparently I need to have Gas Harvesting trained to level II, which this character apparently doesn’t.  At over 20 million ISK for the skillbook, he won’t either.  What I found most surprising was not the fairly sensible and obvious pre-requisite, but more that my main character had actually trained gas harvesting already, and obviously at least to level II.

I cast my memory way back to my early Eve career, and suddenly remembered that, once, in my first Corp we had thought about the failed idea of ninja farming gas and sleepers from random wormholes that appeared in our hi-sec system.  Had I read even a single blog of the Tigerears type then my completely paranoid approach would have stopped me (don’t you automatically die when you enter lo-sec etc?).  So, because of this idea I had trained up gas harvesting and purchased and fit a Vexor I believe ready for sucking up the gas.  What was, at the time, even more fail was that I didn’t realise that you could actually get ladar sites in hi-sec where I could have “practiced”.

Eve does have some pretty obvious pre-requistes, such as training Assault Ships before you can train Heavy Assault Ships.  Training Capital Ships to actually fly a Capital ship.  Training Interceptors so I can fly Interdictors. Erm what? Not having to train Interdictors skill to be able to fly Heavy Interdictors. Hang on what? That makes no sense.

And there we have it, the mystery of the Eve online universe.  Some things seem to be quite logical and almost actually make sense, and then just when you’re getting comfortable, something very odd happens.

Is anybody able to explain why Heavy Interdictors don’t need to to have Interdictors pre-trained to IV.  I can see more of an argument for the Interceptors pre-requisite for Interdictors… just.

Many people have commented about the new nebuae in Eve, and they are a job well done by CCP.  The effect of jumping through a stargate, to be propelled in the direction you’re actually travelling, and to see effects such as cloud ring changing as you move around systems, helps to give even more depth to this already vast game.

So with that as a backdrop, how do different players, Corporations and Alliances approach their time in Eve?

Everybody in Eve has a goal, in some form or another.  Whether it be to increase their wallet to so many billions of ISK, to the (initially, but only when viewed on a superficial level) more straight-forward aim of getting more kills on their killboard.

Taking both of those examples above, they both are actually quite deep in their requirements.  For the person wishing to acquire wealth, they need to decide upon their way(s) of making ISK.  They need to plan and ensure that they have, or will have, the skills trained to allow them to do this.  Most of all, they need to work at it and however they approach it, it will inevitably depend on other players to a greater or lesser extent.  In Eve, unlike so many other games, I believe that it is impossible to increase your ISK without another player either being required, or being able to ruin your party.

Please feel free to point out the error of my statement above and I will, if possible, try to defend myself, or (much more likely) hold my hands up and admit a quick and painful defeat.

For the second person, who wishes to enjoy the simple(!!!) beauty of PvP and increasing their killboard, they also actually need to do quite a few things.  We’ll obviously ignore the question of whether other players can impact this goal, as without other players it’s impossible to achieve – unless you plan to shoot your own alt all the time, which is still technically another player, even if it’s you.

The killboard junkie needs to train the appropriate skills to fight with, and unless you have uber SP, there’s always something to train that will give you the smallest increase in DPS or slightly more tank and so on.  You need to decide how and where you’re going to shoot people – hi-sec war decs? Yarr another pirate? 0.0 fleet fights?  All of the above? It’s still a decision.

What I’m trying to communicate here, though, is that both of these differing aims involve short, medium and longer term plans, whether you acknowledge that or not, even if it’s a statement like “I want T2 large projectiles”, that could be a longer term goal if all your skills are currently invested in Caldari missile spam.

For Corporations and Alliances the question is, usually, much larger and more complex, as it is most certainly dependent on other players.

We, as a Corp, are looking at our goals.  Well, I’m looking at them and starting to talk with the CEO and other directors purely from my own perspective.  It would be nice to set ourselves a few objectives for the coming year.  Being the sort of Corporation we are, in the situation we’re in, it is certainly likely to be more ISK and achievement based (no – our Corporation did not just level up to level 27 and got 200 more health and 100 more magicka).

Objectives are nice, but must not be allowed to become obsessive demands that unbalance however, and so when (not if, after all this is Eve) our situation changes, we’ll simply park some things and move on.

For me, I’d like to save up for, and purchase, a Nomad this year.  I’m actually quite tempted to save up and build one instead – I’m still doing the maths for this, but I would (by choice) factor in buying the BPO’s for the parts, but only a copy of the Fenrir and Nomad BPC.  I could even try inventing the Nomad, depending on how lucky I felt.

So, although I have a number of other objectives for my main character (get into more fleet fights, including using my Damnation, make more ISK for plexes etc.), my other objectives are likely to be secondary to trying to really push the Corp forward into the next phase, and I’m hoping that somehow I can fit the Nomad project in (for my transport alt) at the same time.  The other goal for my Logistics pilot is to really skill up to become a high level Triage pilot in his Archon (which I’ve just sold… I know).  This will involve a number of 1-2 month skill queues, so his plan for 2012 is very easy.  My PI/transport alt will complete the set of 4 racial Jump Freighter skills and then probably just improve at mining/industry to round things off.

So – how do you play Eve?  If you really think about it, whare are your short, medium and long-term goals?