A Scientist's Life in Eve

I spent some time the other day thinking about my current life in hi-sec, although admittedly most (if not all) of these points are equally valid in low or null sec, or tbh in many cases probably more so.

I’ve learnt a large number of things since being in my recent Corp, both living in 0.0 and more recently in hi-sec.  Virtually all of you reading this can probably switch off now as I’m sure you know all of these things, but for me I guess by writing them down it helps me to think through where I could apply them better.

1. Blueprint safety
THEN – Originally I used to have my blueprints in my own hanger at the Corp office, I’d take them out of a can and either put the BPO into the Corp hanger to  make, or if it was a higher value BPO I’d bring the materials into my hanger to manufacture.  When I wanted to research or copy the BPO I’d put it into my cov-ops ship and fly through low-sec to the Corp POS and install the job.
NOW – BPO’s are locked in the Corporate office so they cannot be moved or removed.  I have the supply chain management skill trained so I can set manufacturing jobs remotely, but can also set jobs to be manufactured at our POS in the same system.  I also have the scientific networking skill trained.  Again, this means that the expensive BPO’s can sit locked in the Corporate hanger (requiring an unlock vote to be removed so some degree of security depending on share allocation etc.), and I can then use the POS in system (has to be in the same system) to research and copy the BPO.  No moving BPO’s worth over 100 million ISK around in a Cov-ops through low sec space!

2. Bookmarks
THEN – What’s a bookmark for?
NOW – Insta-undocks to prevent the scanning and gank chance at more popular stations such as Dodixie and Jita.  Safe-spots and on grid warp-ins for gates and stations (i.e. >150km from the gate or station) for use during war time.  On grid warp-ins for asteroid belts as mining barges can be really slow getting to the “nice” rocks that are left in busy mining systems.
NOTE – What I didn’t appreciate however is that too many bookmarks can result in lag.  Every time you enter a system I guess the client checks your bookmark list to see if any are in the system so it can set the UI up to allow you to approach/warp to that point.  If you have hundreds of them, it obviously takes a little bit of time, and if the system is already laggy….  I guess the solution could be to have sets of bookmarks in cans, depending on what you’re likely to do, e.g. roaming Delve, get the Delve BM’s loaded but take your hi-sec war set for Sinq Laison out of your active list.

3. Station games and aggression/session timers
I’m still no where near happy with my understanding on these.  I do recommend that every player selects the “show session timer” option for their UI, as this has proved really useful to me in appreciating things like cloak and undock timers.  Pressing CTRL+Space when I undock if there’s a red in system has been really helpful.  The only action I can do when undocking to not allow me to be targetted until the session timer completes, hopefully leaving me within the docking ring able to quickly dock back up if needed.

Agression mechanics I’m just not sure about, how long different timers last, when would I get shot by gate guns etc.  Neutral remote repping flags and neutrals in a fleet run by war targets are all things I’m just hazy on at the moment.  I think I’d benefit from some sessions on SiSi with some “virtual” wars declared to allow us to explore these further

4. Using SiSi
When PI was due to be launched, I always had SiSi up to date, and used it frequently to test the PI mechanics.  I participated in the mass tests and everything was good.  For some reason I haven’t continued this.  I’m not sure why, as it was pointed out to me last night that SiSi is perfect, particularly during war times, to undertake fleet training with newer members and PvP noobs (like me) with ships that have cost less than 2000 ISK to buy and fit, thanks to the test server environment.  Why aren’t we using this?  I really cannot give a sensible answer other than to say that it is a massive oversight and needs to be corrected.

5. Skill queues
Either make a plan and stick to it, or make a plan knowing you will not, or just don’t make a plan.  Actually, do what you want, but if you know you’re bad at sticking to something and have  a definite goal in mind – make up a skill plan and set a time limit, allow some flexibility for “diversions” and then cost up how much ISK you need to achieve that plan.  I tend to take the approach of buying all the skill books for my plan in one go, so they’re sitting in my hanger and the ISK isn’t in my wallet, this helps me to concentrate on actually doing the plan as otherwise I’ve wasted the ISK.

6. Have fun
Above all, it’s a game.  If what you’re doing isn’t fun – ask why you’re doing it.  If it’s a short-term thing which you need to do so you can start having fun again (like moving all of your assets 5 regions to the right for example), then ok.  If you’re not having fun, and actually this is just it and there’s no change on the horizon – ask yourself why.  Do you just log on out of pure obligation to refuel the 40 Alliance POS and then log off again?  Do you just log on and get endless convo’s and evemails from people you don’t want to talk to about things you’re not interested in or you had thought you’d actually already sorted out 3 times over the past 3 days?  I think one of the best things to consider here is how you want to play your game – it is your game after all.  Nobody should tell you how to play your game.  Now the thing here is that you might be in a large Sov holding Alliance who tells you when to go on CTA’s and what to do, but that’s different as you’ve chosen to be a soldier on the field, and maybe you have aspirations of climbing the ranks, or getting onto another Titan kill, or being involved in one of the epic battles you see on the Eve login screen.

Hope this makes some sort of sense.  I guess most (if not all) of it is simple common sense, but quite a few of the first things I just didn’t know about, and some of them I still don’t understand (eg Corp roles interface!).

The learning curve in Eve has been said to be one of the most difficult of all online games.  I think this is probably true, but there’s also lots of really good people in game who are prepared to help you up that curve, and a number of people who will gladly help you learn the hard way – and I actually think that a mixture of both is essential.  I got can flipped and lost my Badger that I’d just got from a tutorial mission.  I’ve never been unintentionally can-flipped since

So where is all this heading?

(Internet Spaceships + Incarna) x Dust = This

I just guarantee that my laptop will not cope.

As yet another hi sec war begins, I had to double check my Corp to make sure I hadn’t accidentally joined a Faction Warfare Corp

It’s at times like these you start to ask yourself questions:

1. Is it just a run of “bad luck”?
2. Is our location and/or activities affecting a neighbour who is hiring merc Corps?
3. Is it one or more Corp members who have “brought” the attention with them from previous Corps?
4. Is this just how it is when you’re a small to medium sized Corp living in hi-sec but not in an Alliance?

Of course I’m not really expecting answers (well, not truthful ones) from the people who raise the war decs.  At the end of the day Eve is a game, and for some people it’s about the kills, for some it’s about ISK, for others it’s about tears etc.

Through all of this, many things continue without being affected.  However you have to amend your game accordingly.  I could take a week off Eve and see what happens – not really my style to back away and ignore the issue.  We could try to settle with them – that’s not going to happen.  We could give up, disband the Corp and start a new one in a different location – just no.  We could just go hermit for a week and deny them the kills they want.  We could try to engage them on our terms (and not theirs) by using good intel and intelligent flying.

Really, the last two are the only options, and probably a combination of both.  A good number of the Corp have 0.0 experience and know what to expect in both 1v1 and fleet ops.

Time will tell, but my skill queue for that Hulk is starting to look less useful every day

Following the recent hi-sec wars we’ve been involved in, it leads me to think about Alliances.  Is there safety in numbers or does it just mean endless politics and onerous obligations, unnecessary meetings and unwarranted financial commitments?

I guess the question I’m really asking is whether it’s better for a Corporation to be on their own or in an Alliance.

Up until this point in time, I’ve only ever been in a Corporation within an Alliance, until my current Corp that is.  Obviously I started off in an NPC Corp, but I’m not counting that ofc.

I’ve not really been involved in any of the actual dealings within the Alliance – I’ve taken part in the CEO/Director meetings, but not as part of the actual Alliance Leadership, merely as a representative of my Corp, and always with other Directors of my Corp present.  However, I think it probably depends on a number of things:

1. Purpose
What is the reason for the Alliance?  Are you a 0.0 entity wishing to capture and hold Sov, then that’s your reason for existence.  You may well also be part of group of alliances (e.g. the NC).

What about a hi-sec alliance.  Faction Warfare I’m guessing (no experience) – industrial and mining.  Mission Running?  These alliances, their purpose is surely safety in numbers, i.e. a group of small and medium sized Corps who join together so the 10 member Corp doesn’t get griefer war-decs from 2 or 3 member Corps – the alliance stands together.  But does it?

Low-sec alliances.  Do these exist, and if so in what format.  Pirate / anti-pirate?

Worm-hole alliances?

2. Structure
So following from purpose comes structure.  Is it simply just a group of Corps with beteen (for example) 2 and 60 members who have just joined together to present a deterrent to the griefer war-dec corps in hi-sec.  If so, how organised is the response to a war-dec, and if the response is poor, would this actually encourage the war-dec Corps to engage knowing that they’re likely to get more juicy carebear killmails and tears?

Or is the structure a slick efficient organisation, operated by a few individuals (or even one individual) at the top, with designated responses to hostile actions (whatever the sec), alliance ops, policies, goals etc.  This is pretty essential for success in 0.0 Sov space, but to be really good in hi-sec, surely it is too?  However, does the “complacency” of the perceived safety of hi-sec undermine or reduce this cohesiveness to the point of complete disfunction?

Lots of questions – sorry if you’re looking for answers, as I don’t think I’m in a position to offer any

So the question probably is how small do you have to be to not “need” to be in an alliance, and how big do you need to be where you might not necessarily need to be in an alliance?

I think this is actually the wrong question, as I believe that it’s probably more down to what you’re actually doing in Eve that influences this.

Example:  Corp A is a 3 member Corp who have a hi-sec POS for R&D and one or two low-sec POS for moon mining.  Because of this they are really vulnerable – if they get noticed, it would probably be very straight-forward to shut them down.   If Corp A’s activities were only mining and/or missioning and/or production in stations (i.e. no POS), they probably wouldn’t even get noticed and would probably be very unlucky to get a war-dec.

But this then also scales up.  If Corp A just did mining and/or missioning and/or manufacturing but had 20 or 30 members, their activities would be more likely to get noticed (Orca led mining ops, bling fit T3 ships, freighters etc.) – at this point they become a more worthy target.  But if played right, they can protect their assets (which are their ships), whereas once you deploy structures in space it’s a different matter.

Then the alliance make-up plays a part.  If I saw an alliance of 50 Corps with 3 or fewer members each, I’d imagine (rightly or wrongly ofc) that any response to a war dec would be badly organised.  If however I saw and alliance of 3 Corps with 50 members in each, that any response would be much more likely to be organsied.

Does any of this make sense?  Basically I think I’m trying to establish in my own mind if there is a critical mass (which will be heavily influenced by the activities a given Corp undertakes), beyond which it would make sense to join an alliance.

To be honest, the answer for every Corp is different, and for some Corps it will always make sense to either be part of an alliance or not.  However, recent events have made me start to wonder whether my Corp will need to join an alliance sooner rather than later.

That opens up a completely different issue.  How to find an alliance, and what sort of alliance you want to join – what can you offer the alliance, what do you want the alliance to provide.  Perhaps it’s just safety in numbers, or maybe much more.

Well, we had our second hi sec war finish a short while ago.

Lessons learnt – in many ways it’s probably safer in null sec.  Sure being only a few hops from Jita has lots of advantages, but it also increases your visibility and allows Corps who specialise in hi sec war dec’s to find you easier and cause problems.  Some of these guys are very good at what they do, and it’s impressive to watch a slick operation deployed against you, even if it means you are going to lose.

Would I leave hi sec right now – no I don’t think I would.  I’ve got lots of things to work through in my current situation, a very long skill plan that I’m sticking to (managed to not get diverted yet!).  For me, I think primarily the thing that will hold me back from wormholes, null sec or even low sec, is going to be the PvP experience.  I’ve got a really nice PvE fit for my Legion that works very well – has a very effective tank and good DPS, however it’s most definitely a PvE fit, and to be honest if I was going to have a PvP Legion, I would actually go and buy a new hull as the rigs I have on my PvE fit would really nerf the ship for the PvP fits I have in mind.

I recently passed my one year in Eve mark, and thought this was a good point to look back at where I am.

I’ve got a good set of industrial skills on my main character – she can invent most things, manufacture most T1 and T2 things, with the exception of the higher level T2 cruisers, T3 cruisers and Supercaps.  She can fly battleships, although not very well.  She can fly a T3 to a reasonable level and a good selection of T2 ships to a good standard also.  My other characters can do some basic manufacturing, but between them have excellent skills in PI and logistics, which I’m finding is really useful – everybody train logi now!

So in a year’s time, what would I like to be writing about my second year in Eve?  I’d definitely like to be able to say that I have some PvP experience – not blobs, I’ve done that and was there in M3- when we hit over 3,200 players in system.  I’m referring more to the sort of gangs that people like Perseus Kallistratos run.  I specifically trained Heavy Assault Cruisers to 4 so I could fly a Zealot properly because I love the idea of being in a real tactical fight within a “properly” set up fleet, not just a rag-tag home defense fleet.

I’d also like to have built a Carrier.  This isn’t an unrealistic proposition at all, and in my current Corp is something I’m sure will happen within the next few months at the worst.  I’d quite like to fly a Carrier too, but not sure my skill queues will allow me the luxury during this year.

PvE for me is now to a level where I’m happy with my ship and it’s capabilities.  I’ve also been in an Incursion, and definitely want to do more of these as you have to be in an organised fleet to do them properly, and I like that structure.  I would quite like to do at least one of the Epic Arcs, but I’m not completely sure how I’m going to work this – I need to research the requirements for starting the Arc, and I don’t particularly want to end up not being shoot on sight in one of the Empire regions.

Maybe the above list is too prescriptive.  Maybe it’s too vague?  There are, of course, complete unknowns.  I didn’t, for example, expect to be in null sec at all during my first year, but ended up spending a number of months there.  I do still want to live in (or at least be involved in major operations within) a wormhole, but at the moment I’m not completely sure how this would fit in, and it certainly wouldn’t fit with my current Corp – which I’m really happy to be in and involved heavily with.

Null sec again?  Faction Warfare?  Low Sec?  Who knows.  To me there seems little benefit in setting up a low sec trade hub, as the risk of getting the items to the hub for selling increase your visibility, and if you’re a serious low sec pirate who can’t enter hi sec, you have an alt or a friend with an alt in an NPC Corp who brings you stuff in from the major trade hubs already, so that’s a pointless idea.  Faction Warfare – maybe, it would certainly be one of the ways to learn PvP, but as somebody with an industrial heart, I don’t think that would be compatible at all.

Null sec – maybe with suitable skills and more experience, I could see myself in an industrial biased Corp in null sec again.

But not right now.  Despite various things that happen and cause problems and issues.  Essentially I’m happy.  It is, after all, only a game.

So how many of you read the Eve news when you log in.  To be honest I usually scan it as I’ve just hit logon, and realise there’s something I want to read, so I often open up a second client (I’m starting to dual box lots more recently for some reason, and my poor laptop really isn’t up to it, even with pretty much everything turned off or to lowest setting).

Sometimes I don’t always read all the items, and in this particular case I didn’t initially read the article.  However, on logging on I was welcomed with a private convo of what is turning out to be a really good contact who pointed out the news item.

Now before I say anything else, I suggest you pause for a moment, click on this link and open it in a new tab, read it through and then continue.

Ok read it?  In my real life job, having policies about things is essential, and a good clear policy can really save you, but of course there’s always an exception or a special case, and if the policy is badly written or grossly unfair, then it can cause far more damage than good.

Things seem pretty straight-forward until you hit section 9.  To help, let’s look at them bit by bit: (please note that to date I have not experienced account hacking personally, however I have talked in-game to some people who have and can therefore understand how devestating this can be)

1.  If your account is accessed by another player and assets are stolen or transferred to other players, we will investigate and items that we are able to track down will be moved back to the rightful owner.
OK, so the screen shot I had could be true, but what if my stuff was in a ship array in my personal POS and I ejected them all for somebody to move before my account got hacked, I could be refunded for stuff I haven’t lost.  Conversly, how much data does CCP collect in their database – can you see the transfers and can I have my officer fit Nightmare back please?  No – it’s not in your logs

2.  Any ISK stolen from the account may be transferred back to the rightful owner on a case-by-case basis.
OK – easy one surely.  My wallet was 10 million ISK, now it’s 0.  There’s one transaction and it wasn’t me. Can I has my stuff back?  Yeah – cool thanks Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms GM.

3.  Any assets sold to another player will not be returned to the original owner; however, any ISK gained from the sale may be transferred to the original owner of the items instead on a case-by-case basis. 
Whoa. What? Seriously? So I have that Officer fit Nightmare (wish I did, but can neither afford or fly one yet!).  It was sold for 100 ISK to a player called IScamULotsNow (not checked if this is a real name, if it is sorry – I’m sure you’re nice really and it was just an unfortunate choice of name).  GM tracks it down – they really going to only give me 100 ISK back?  Oh, sorry, they “may” give it back to me. Eh? Did somebody forget to change the 1st draft and actually hit submit and upload instead?

4.  Reprocessed assets cannot be restored to prior status.
This directly goes against section 4 earlier in the news item, although reading that again suggests that the mechanics of detecting things means that the scammer would have combined stacks of materials and sold or moved them and I guess this means it becomes impossible to trace. 

5.  If someone gained access to your account as a result of your use of a third party program or other violation of our EULA/TOS, all requests for reimbursement will be null and void.
OK – that makes sense.  You break the EULA then there’s not really much you can do.

So there you have it.  Eve is a sandbox.  Scamming by selling that really special piece of Tritanium for 1 billion ISK is fine and I accept that.  Neutral remote repping – that needs to be fixed in my opinion. But if somebody actually breaks into my account, CCP have now given these people a routemap on how to do it so that they can ensure you really do lose as much as possible.  Surely that’s not right.

So what can you do – always use a complex password, the longer the better with mixed numbers, characters and symbols.  Change it regularly.  All the usual stuff.

The other thing you can do is let CCP *and* the CSM know that this policy is deeply flawed (unless you disagree, that’s what my comments section is for!).  We’ll shortly have a new CSM and this would be a good topic to cut their teeth on.

Most of all, the lesson I’ve learnt is to read the Eve news a bit more, especially the Dev blogs.

Particular thanks to the pod pilot who alerted me to this – you know who you are!

So my life in Eve heavily revolves around industry, whether that is inventing and researching/copying things, manufacturing, and even more recently mining.  As manufacturing scales up, this has caused me to think more about what we are manufacturing, and how many/few products we should focus on – how closely to follow market trends for the sudden spikes, and which of the “basics” do we concentrate on making.

From a pure profit point of view, you could see that T2 Module X was selling for 500k ISK, was only costing 200K isk to invent and make per unit, and you could make and sell 1,000 per day if you kept the market orders updated regularly.  Do you just do that then?  How long would this last before you suddenly got competition, and your profits margin dropped significantly?  How quickly could you re-tool to change product?

So maybe just doing one thing is bad – ok, not maybe, almost certainly it is.  But for me manufacturing goes well beyond this.  Everything I do HAS to be profitable, that is a given.  As an aside, to assist this I use the inevitabe Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but I also use the excellent (although for me sadly very unstable) Evemeep to help calcuate profit margins.

However, for me manufacturing is something I want to enjoy doing, so I want to do different things.  Ammo is a prime example, it’s not that profitable, and takes up manufacturing slots and takes time and can be quite bulky to transport, but I like making ammo, so one character I have, who only has 5 slots, just makes ammo.  Could I use him to make more profit than he does, yes, but then my goal in Eve is not to have billions and billions of ISK sitting there as quickly as possible, it is to play the game and have fun, so that’s what he does with his manufacturing slots.

For my main character, she does a variety of things, she does some T2 modules that sell quickly for good profit levels, she does T2 ships, frigates and cruisers – although she needs to train cruiser construction up a bit to be more flexible here.  Basically I do not use her to make anything T1 unless I really have to.  My third character I’m ashamed to say doesn’t have Production Efficiency to 5, but I use him to make the T1 modules for the T2 manufacturing.

But the main thing here is that what I do, I enjoy.  My characters aren’t uber skilled pure industrialiasts, but they are skilled sufficiently well to make very good returns on the effort invested, and most of all I make things that I enjoy making, if that actually makes sense.

Unwrapping it further, I see three cycles to my production:

1. Smal things that sell quickly – T1 for lower margins, T2 for higher margins, very little capital tied up at any one time
2. Larger things – T1 and T2 Frigates and Cruisers.  They sell well but tie up more capital and can take a couple of days to sell
3. Special interest projects – this would, I guess, involve things that I still want to do like build a freighter, build a capital ship etc

From the above, unless you have very large levels of liquid ISK (which I don’t!), you would find 3 impossible, but by correctly balancing 1 and 2, the income and profit from these should then facilitate 3, athough probably not many of them at a time of course!

So where does this leave me?  I guess a number of you will be shaking your head wondering why I’m not looking through the market in more depth, why I’m wasting my time making low margin things and so on.  I guess it’s because Eve is a game, and a sandbox.  I want to enjoy playing Eve, and I want to explore more of that sandbox (but not all eg ninja salvaging, griefing, scamming).  This will, hopefully, eventually include flying some of the capital ships like a carrier and maybe even a dreadnaught if they do something to make them more useful again.  I’m not worried about flying a supercarrier or a Titan.  From an industry point of view I would like to make capitals, more POS modules and T2 battleships.  I’d also like to live in a wormhole at some point.

Time to revise my Eve to-do list.  By the way I ticked off ice mining and gas harvesting this week, so that’s two less things to try.

Following my last post, and agreeing that I’d love to do and Incursion, I was convo’d by one of the guys I’d been introduced to and invited to a fleet.  I accepted without hesitation, jumped into my Oneiros on my logi alt and started the trek to Amarr space, listening on Eve voice as the fleet started to form, and asking some newbie questions in fleet chat.

Once ready, we went into an assault system and rescued some civillians from the nasty Sansha.  We had 20 people in an armour fleet, including 7 logi’s and an orca off grid giving some rather excellent bonuses.  My T2 large reppers were cycling at under 4 seconds which was very nice indeed.

That site was cleared, the civilians rescued and job done. We took a quick bio break and went off to another assault site and did a rinse and repeat.  Same outcome, and no ship losses at all which was a good result.  Target calling was quick and crisp, and people were broadcasting for reps when needed, although the watch list let me react quicker when one of my logi buddies started receiving some unwanted attention.

All in all, these sites gave a really good taster of what was to come, and the rewards were great – 18.2 million ISK for each site and some Concord LP points, although I was told that the LP points would only be awarded when the supercarrier was defeated, and that now these two sites had been cleared, the time for the carrier to spawn was fast approaching.

We warped to the next system, where the Sansha headquarters was located, and where the Revenant class supercarrier was due to appear.  Holding at  planet the FC was changed and the fleet grew to about 60 people.  There was also supposed to be a shield fleet, but they didn’t appear, so it was armour fleet FTW.

The call to warp in was given, a heavily tanked ship warped in first quickly followed by the rest of the fleet, I quickly locked up the brave soul who had warped in first and helped rep his armour back up.  What was fascinating was the mechanics of how quickly the Sansha switched targets.  I also didn’t really understand the reason for a hacker to be on grid, but this was explained later to me that his job was to make the other Sansha ships (not the supercap or fighterbombers) warp off grid.  From what I could see he did a great job.

All drone damage was put onto the Revenant, with focus fire on the Sansha ships on the field.  Every time a wave of fighters was launched from the Mothership, targets were instantly switched to those.  The infrequent ECM bursts from the Mothership which broke all locks unfortunately combined with a wave of fighters resulted in the loss of a logi – I locked and hit reps as soon as I could, but it was too late.  That is the drawback of armor repping, you only get the benefit at the end of the cycle whereas shield reps are at the start so if it had of been a shield fleet he would have stood a better chance.

Still, this was to be our only ship loss.  It wasn’t our only loss however, as a nasty ninja came onto the field and stole whatever loot the Mothership dropped.  We did all get over 60 million ISK and lots of Concord LP as a reward, but a slightly sour taste was left with the loot being “stollen”.

And on this note, I have a proposal for a change in mechanics.  At the end of the fight we were greeted with a message listing the top contributors.  My proposal would be that the can is locked so that only a member of that winning fleet can access the can for, say, a period of 10 minutes.  Sort of like a GCC for the can.  Anybody who tries to access the can will be denied access within that time and receive a red flag to the “winning” fleet, as if they’d can flipped somebody’s loot.  Sort of like the can belonging to the winning fleet I guess.

Now I’m not against ninja’s, and in this Eve sand box I accept that it is a perfectly valid type of game play, but if they go into a mission then they can get aggression and that’s how they usually want to work, ganking the bling fit carebear ship.  However, in Incursions there doesn’t seem to be a mechanic to fit, and this I think is an unfortunate oversight by CCP.  Yes they fixed the hi-sec remote rep “gotcha”, but this would make things fit better with how ninja salvaging/ganking works in the other aspects of gameplay.

 
Anyway, I’m pleased to say that the FC asked for us all to make a donation to the guy who lost his ship, which hopefully we all did the minimum asked for.  For me, on a rather shocking note, my Oneiros didn’t get hit once throughout all three of the sites we did. 

Now I need to go and find a Concord LP store and see precisely what I can do with 20,000 LP, and how much is actually a useful amount of LP to have.

I’ve flown in an armour fleet, ideally I’d like to fly by Basilisk in a shield fleet next, but I won’t be fussy!  I’m still probably about 2 months away from getting into a Guardian based on my current skill queue, as I’m doing Minmatar Cruiser 5 first to add a Scimmie as support to any fleets or roams that my Corp wants to form up, however Amarr Cruiser 5 is in the queue to complete the set of 4 logistics ships, then it’s rounding off a few skills – the shield and armour resistance skills from 4 to 5 for example.  Then, who knows.  I have for a laugh put Amarr Carrier into the queue, but my current queue will take me through to around July, so who knows how many times I’ll change my mind by then.

Incursion report completed.  My next post will be looking in more depth at manufacturing and reward vs effort, but before then I cannot recommend highly enough that anybody even vaguely interested in fleets and command read this masterclass article by Kirith Kodachi on his blog Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah.

Not quite as dramatic as the title, but yesterday I was convo’d by a seemingly random person.  I always answer my convos and say hi (not that I get many, perhaps I need to rework my avatar!).

Anyway, it seems that, despite me trying to not be too obvious who I am in the game, some very bright fellow had worked it out and tracked me down.  What followed was a really enjoyable talk over what was probably a few hours and included a number of discussions about things including PI, incursions and the social framework within which Eve operates.

I’m pleased to say that he’s allowed me to add him as a contact and I’m hoping to take my logi alt and go and fly with them in an incursion sometime soon, as apparently pilots with logi 5 aren’t that common out here in the carebear land that is hi sec.  Also, I learnt that if I get popped and they are in the right ship, I probably won’t be getting my pod out, so another reason to make sure I have a dead head clone (apart from some DPS increasing cheap implants) when I start doing some PvP practice.

Oddly enough, following from this it turns out a bit later that day that at least one of my Corp mates had worked out I write this blog too, so maybe I’m not so subtle as I thought, still as I’ve said often enough, I fail at plenty of things in Eve so why not that too!

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was talking about PI, and the new Extraction Control Units.  Each control unit takes 400 CPU and 2,600 MW base and 1,500 CPU and 8,100 MW when using all 10 heads, however unless I’m missing something obvious, each extractor control unit can only extract one material type.  This could have had such potential, and perhaps a future itteration will fix it, but as it is now for planets where you want to extract multiple materials, it can be a real restriction.

Fix – let you set different extraction heads on the same extractor control unit to extract different materials.  Maybe this is asking too much.

Pro’s and con’s???  What do you think?

The depletion mechanics already make you work harder for your isk, and so this could be a way to allow you to make things more interesting and set up more complex production chains, which is important especially for hi sec production.

Welcome to the twenty-fifth 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 or so 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 for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from @Tetraetc – “Tetra’s EVE Blog” – who asks: “Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?”

As somebody who has just left null sec and returned to empire, I decided to pause and reflect on this, reading other people’s posts before finishing formulating my own opinion.  There are some really interesting comments, and I recommend that you read through the other blog banter responses I’ve linked at the bottom.

I think the real question here is one of social interraction.  In Eve you can choose to play on your own, you can be a miner eating rocks in your hulk (or in my case a retriever still), you could refine that ore and make stuff to sell on the market and that could be you.  On the other hand you could board a combat fitted cruiser and try to rid the universe of the Sansha/Guristas/insert pirate faction here and just run missions on your own.  You could be a pirate or PvP fanatic and roam the (apparently) vast empty spaces of low sec looking for that perfect 1v1 fight.

However, I believe (and in all cases am more than happy to be corrected when wrong) that Eve is more of a social experience.  We’ve probably all seen the butterfly effect trailer – look at the video links on my blog page if you haven’t.  Essentially most Eve players interact, whether it’s in an NPC Corp or a player run Corp.  Lots of those Corps then form Alliances and quite a few are then based in null sec.

Do I think some things with the Sov mechanics aren’t quite right, well yes I do, but then there’s lots of things in Eve that “aren’t right” for different player groups.  One of the biggest things is probably that the Corp management interface needs to be fixed re-written and many things to do with Sov should be properly handled in a revamped Alliance interface.

Although I left null for various reasons, I do intend to return to null at some point in the future, athough this will be after I experience wormhole life, but neither of these will be anytime soon.  I actually quite liked null sec in lots of ways.  There was plenty of PvP if you wanted it.  As part of the NC, my Alliance was close to the front line and so we had the potential for lots of action, of which I’m now regretful that I didn’t get more involved in while I was there.  One thing is for sure, I do recommend that all pilots “try” null sec at some point as you meet some really great people and learn so much, even if you’re only there for a short time.

Now, to the actual mechanics.  Holding Sov is an expensive business.  And as it is so expensive, to be perfectly honest I can see why it needs to be a grind to take Sov from somebody else.  The cost of upgrading systems and so on should be something that takes a concerted effort to take.  Because of this cost, entities like the NC form and work together.  But, they only work together, they are not one Alliance.  If you took away some of the Sov mechanics, would the NC break up? No, I don’t think that they would.

Note – I’m not picking on them for any particular reason other than that I’m familiar with them having been part of the NC.

OK large parts of null space are empty, simply used as a route to get from A to B, but these systems still cost, and losing one would still matter.  The real issue for me would be if you removed some of the Sov mechanics, you’d also seriously need to nerf Super Carriers, and that’s another debate entirely.  I can’t fly one and have only ever fought one so I cannot comment on this subject.

This post may be jumping around a bit, but maybe if I sum it all up it will make sense:

1. I’ve lived in 0.0 and had some good times and some bad times
2. PvP is NOT difficult to find in 0.0 if you want, both large blob warfare and smaller gang, even 1v1, you just need to go look for it
3. Removing some Sov mechanics and allowing lots of stations would make null more like low sec with bubbes IMHO
4. Yes, there are lots of things that could be fixed, but the main fix appears to be doing something with Supercaps, and if you limit numbers per Alliance, you”ll just get people adapting by forming smaller Alliances so that won’t work

I was there in M3 when we hit 3,200 players in one fight – the lag was, well you can probably imagine and there’s enough reports you can read.  If CCP made it so you could have 5,000 players in a system and fight, then that would happen.

I think that where we are now, without some epic sudden change, which I think CCP have worked out by now is far too dangerous a thing to try, powerblocks will always form.  Some will last, most if not all will fall.  Look at IT – I personally really enjoy Perseus Kallistratos’s blog Aggressive Tendencies and have a huge amount of respect for what he has tried to do during the last few months within IT.  He’s somebody I’d love to take my FIST fit Zealot out with (subject to him getting me to change the fit accordingly to his fleet composition requirements ofc) and see how it’s done.  The lesson I take from this all is that Eve is basically a game.  People join, people leave, people change direction, people take a break to play new games and so on.  Power changes and shifts in null sec, and will continue to do so.

When I return to 0.0 will I be looking forward to attending my first 2 hour pos bash or station lockdown?  Maybe not completely, but then that’s part of the game and that will be my contribution to the particular part of Eve society I’ve decided to try and be a part of, so I’ll do it.  When all is said and done, that creepy noise and the note flashing up on screen telling you “x has claimed sovereignty in y for your alliance” still gave me a buzz every time, and when I saw Sov was under threat I wanted to do something about it.

There are probably a whole host of other things to fix first before CCP starts to “fix” this.  For starters – make BPC’s a different colour to BPO’s please!!!!!

Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean…..?
2. BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
3. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
4. Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
5. Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin’s
6. Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora’s Blog
7. Blog Banter #25 – Mad Haberdashers
8. Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
9. …Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
10. Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
11. EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov ‘n Go!
12. » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
13. Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
14. Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
15. EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
16. Who cares about Sov? – Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
17. The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty – The Phoenix Diaries
18. Achernar: The space commute
19. Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
20. (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano’s Journey
21. Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 – Crappy mechanics
22. Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
23. BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
24. Boom! Hull-Shot?: It’s the End of the Eve as We Know It
25. sered’s lives: EVE Blog Banter #25 – Size does matter
26. 25th EVE BB – Medieval Solutions to Spaceship Problems | Inventions of a New Eden Industrialist
27. Eve Blog Banter #25: “Have Alliances and Sov Limited PvP and RP in 0.0?” « Align Outbound
28. Banter 25: Sovereignty, Alliances and Power Blocs | TheElitist
29. Blog Banter 25 – But I just left all that! « A Scientist’s Life in Eve
30. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
31. >>>Vigil Ant: Alliances and SOV by Munny’s eyes.
32. Latro’s Bunker: Blog Banter 25 -Nullsec and Sov
33. A “CareBears” Journey » Blog Banner #25: Alliances and Sovereignty, and their affect on PVP and RP
34. Blog Banter #25 – Unstoppable « Roc’s Ramblings
35. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
36. EVE Blog Banter on PVP in Null Sec « Evehermit’s Blog
37. Sleepless in Space: Blog Banter #25: Moar Low Sec!
38. More to come…