Rollins' Ride in Eve

Dev Blog of Mini-Rage -- Ship Rebalancing

2012-03-06T19:31:00.001-05:00

The Dev Blog published today caused a widespread insta-rage, but let's start off by saying right up front: "YOU'LL BE ABLE TO FLY ALL OF THE SHIPS YOU CAN ALREADY FLY TODAY."

Now onto the news. The Dev Blog in question was released by CCP Ytterbium regarding ship rebalancing. The bulk of the rage comes from the pending introduction of racial BC and Destroyer skills as opposed to the blanket skills that exist today. Vets are raging because they don't want to lose the ability to fly 3 races of BC's even if they get fully reimbursed for one racial BC skill (same for Dictors/Destroyers obviously). I had the same initial thoughts. I am just finishing up a complete crosstraining at the moment. The only thing left for me is Amarr medium and large guns. I would be pissed if someone told me I just lost the Drake, Oracle, Talos, Myrm, etc (because I would definitely keep Minmatar BC. Tornado and Cane are enough for me). Luckily, Liang Nuren cleared that one up for me in one single tweet.

"According to CCP Soundwave cross trainers have nothing to fear from the skill changes: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=898397#post898397 #tweetfleet #eveonline"
- @LiangNuren

If you read through Soundwave's comments, he explicitly says "Destroyer and Battlecruiser reimbursement: it has been said before, but allow us to repeat again, that we do not want to cut ships you can already fly. Thus, having BC skill at 5 would mean you get all four variations at 5." Perfect. That's all I wanted, and now I can settle the hell down and analyze whats going on. Take a nice deep breath, everyone.

Overall the changes regarding ships are fair and pretty intuitive. It seems to be well in line with CCP's initiative to simply processes in Eve that are unnecessarily complicated. Was the current skill tree unnecessarily complicated? I could argue both ways on that one. I'll be honest, I was a bit confused the first time I hit Battlecruisers. "No Gallente BC? Just plain Battlecruisers? Okay works for me." But that was it though. In all honesty, I viewed both BC and Destroyer as quite a blessing once I began to crosstrain, and I'm sure many have. Getting BC V made me feel damn near invincible switching between races. I'll have to pick a new skill to point out to people as "the best level 5 to train."

At the end of the day though, it is a change that simplifies the game to some extent. Battlecruisers are the backbone of most fleets, and they may as well be introduced as part of the normal progression up in ship class. The same argument applies for Destroyers, but they aren't as integral as they just aren't used as much currently (ignoring Dictors).

I have two concerns with the skill changes however. The first is how much this change benefits the vets. Anyone who had one BC V gets 4x the amount of SP. If they don't change the rank of Battlecruisers, that means that each BC V skill will be around 1.5M SP. For each vet, that's on the order of 20-30 days of training. For a corresponding new player to catch up, thats almost 3 months extra training time when they were already behind to begin with. I'm not too sure I'm behind that element of it.

The second problem I have with the skill remapping is a small one. I'm not totally in favor of opening up a race's capital ships for Battleship 4. Personally, I really liked the BS V barrier into capitals, as I don't think they're just "next in the logical progression." I only have Gallente BS V, and although I have a Thanatos, I've never flown it. I just think that in a game where capitals, and even more so, supercapitals, are so often complained about, we don't need to lower the entry barrier. Everyone can get to capitals 30 days faster, and apparently Dictors/CS's are up to 20 days faster, but Battleships can take 17 days longer? The priorities seem backwards here. Battleships should be more attainable than capitals and high level T2 ships. I know that you obviously still reach Battleships before Capitals, for example, but even to trend in the opposite direction seems unintuitive.

As for the rest of the blog, its a lot of wait and see. The new ship lines are "fine" until we see what concrete changes come about. I'm in favor of every ship having a role because I think it could alleviate some of the FOTM type of stuff we see right now. I'm hesitant to get on board until we see actual stat rebalancing though. I hope CCP has their heads on straight for that one.

A final note for anyone who didn't pick up by the way:
TRAIN BATTLECRUISERS V.

Weekend Review 3/4

2012-03-06T01:07:00.000-05:00

Well it was actually a pretty solid weekend for me in RvB. Initially I didn't feel like being part of the blob and I've been trying to get out and nab some solo kills, so I made for Jan, which is the LowSec system next door to the Blue Headquarters. I hung around there for a couple hours, but not too much came through. I popped a few cyno alts, but that was about it.

I can't believe how quickly security status drops though. I was at -0.4 to start the day, and just after three little cyno alts, my sec status is down to -1.3. I'm still trying to make up my mind as to whether or not I want to go pirate on my main. I actually really like the idea of being a flashy red, but I'm not a huge fan of the logistics strain its puts on me. If any legitimate pirate corps are recruiting now a days though, I'd be very interested in joining up. Play time can still be quite limited during the week due to trying to wrap up my engineering degree, but I'm as active as I can be at the moment.

After waiting out 3 different GCC timers and the intermediate roaming around, I headed back to high sec to see what was going on with my RvB comrades. As I mentioned in my last post, RvB membership went through the roof this weekend for both corporations. Overall there was nothing too crazy here, but there were some good FCs online, and believe me that makes all the difference. Over the course of the weekend, I actually went 42-3, which is easily my most productive weekend to date. I still know its not hardcore PvP, but I'm also still having fun, so I've got no complaints.

I probably won't be able to log in much until the weekend, but Friday happens to be my birthday. I think I am going to go for a faction fit Daredevil to celebrate. I may arse around RvB to start, but I'm going to jump in a no-implant clone and head towards nullsec until I get popped. An early happy birthday to me then!

RvB Membership Explosion

2012-03-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

Members in both the Blue Republic and the Red Federation exploded almost overnight this weekend. I'm sure a few observant pilots noticed the ad for RvB at the login screen this weekend (I'm still looking for a picture of it if anyone grabbed a screenshot btw). Well you weren't the only ones. In Blue alone, there are almost 300 new members, and the average number of pilots logged in at any given time this weekend was usually around 90-100, which is almost double normal figures. Here are the respective membership charts for the two corporations, as provided by Dotlan

Blue Membership

Red Membership

I'd say the sudden growth strained the RvB directors a bit this weekend. I heard the influx of applications was pretty overwhelming, and tough to get the appropriate information out to all of the new players too. Also, our little rhythm of grabbing 15-20 pilots and meeting the Reds in Akon was a little out of whack too. It was no problem hitting 50+ fleets and often FC's had to take the advert down.

The next couple weeks will be telling as to how appealing RvB is to the masses. If all of these new players enjoy their experience, both corporations could undergo really massive changes in trying to deal with becoming some of the larger alliances in the game. I'd love to see the two corporations start employing multiple fleets or even themed support. The first thing that came to mind was a typical Cruiser/Frig fleet supported by a group of Tier 3 BC's to warp in and snipe. Regardless, more numbers should make for more ability to pick off loners in 1v1 situations and bigger fleet fights. It should be a great thing for the corporation unless all of these new members turn into more station humpers who can't undock without overwhelming odds in their favor. Believe me, I'm hoping for the former.

Eve Blog a Day #021 - Vote Match

2012-03-04T21:54:00.000-05:00

Question #021

Go over to Dierdra Vaal's Vote Match, fill out the questionnaire, then let the site tell you which candidates are most in line with your way of thinking about EVE Online. Which candidate is your highest vote match? Will that candidate be the candidate you're most likely to vote for?

My Response
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. I took the survey last year as well, and I think its another example of how awesome the Eve community is. The results for this one surprised me quite a bit, however. My number one match is Meissa Anunthiel at 66%. Meissa seems to be a very good candidate and is one of the longest standing CSM vets. I enjoyed listening to his points on the Lost in Eve debate #1, although I'm sure I would have enjoyed anyone pitted against Riverini in that one.

The pick that surprised me though, was Kelduum being #2, at 64%. I looked the issues, and it seemed that many of the points that we agreed upon were strongly held by one of us and not the other. Also, we agreed on many points in nullsec, despite the fact that neither one of us live there. Overall though, I suppose we still share a lot of similar points on issues. I'm not one to bash Kelduum just for the sake of bashing him, but hearing him on V&V really made me think that he was just the lucky benefactor of a large voting bloc as opposed to an intelligent candidate.

The only other "surprise" was where Alekseyev and Hans placed. I put surprise in quotes because they weren't that far from the top; I just figured they'd be higher. Alekseyev beat out Hans by 62% to 57%, respectively. I still find myself leaning towards one of these two, although Meissa is certainly not a bad choice either.

Lastly, who am I least like? Answer is Mu'ad Diib. This guy is either one hell of a troll or he's a bit deficient. He is clearly getting trolled by multiple Goons, and two current CSM members even drop by to give him questions/continue the trolling. I'm glad we're not too closely aligned as it makes me feel better about myself. This is an example of one of the candidates that proves this arbitrary "100 likes" threshold was setting the bar a little bit too low. If you feel like a good laugh, check out his election post in Jita Park here.

The Vote Match for CSM 7 app is great though. I think the best use out of it comes when candidates directly respond to questions (via the mouseover). Its a neat way to organize their thoughts on the issues in a very efficient way. Thanks to the creator Diedra Vaal and also to Poetic Stanziel for the topic once again.

Gladiators of Eve & Arena Warfare

2012-02-28T08:36:00.001-05:00

There has been a bit of buzz over the past week or so about finding good fights and the idea of arenas in Eve. One of the first things that struck me was a series of tweets by the Mittani:

"I withdraw any support for 'arenas' or 'battlegrounds' in #eveonline, it already exists in RvB. Holy shit this owns. #tweetfleet"

"Red vs Blue is one of the coolest things in #eveonline, holy shit. Been riftering all day, can't stop. #tweetfleet"

I think its cool that Mittani is checking out RvB. Its a great corp, and for the amount of play time I have right now, I think its an awesome place for some quick, fun pvp. The topic of getting good fights continued though. Over at Scram Web, Toterra wrote about the existing "arenas" in Eve, and its actually a nice little guide detailing some of the places you can get guaranteed fights against some pilots who really know their stuff. We're talking Amamake, Tama, Hevrice, the Syndicate region, etc. Its a pretty handy little run down.

The next day, there was a mini-guide posted over at Rifter Drifter on finding good fights. It actually mentions a lot of the same information, but Wensley also throws in some tactical information such as how to use the in-game and Dotlan maps among other things. Between the two of these articles, one would think you've got everything you need to find some combat, and you definitely can.

My argument is this: Eve is a great game as it stands, but I think there could definitely be an arena style of play that would be both incredibly fun and not detrimental to the rest of the game at large. Taking a look at the current Eve, there is nothing like this. In looking for a fair fight, you never know if that one pilot really is just one. Does he have friends? Is there a Loki booster alt around the corner? Is he packing a cyno for that Nyx in a Pos a few systems over? For the most part, this is what makes the game great. Every fight could escalate, and someone can always tip the scales in their favor via support or tactics. Wouldn't it be nice though if once in a while you could ensure a fair fight?

Right now, there is no mechanic to get a legitimately fair battle. Low/Null sec both always have the possibility of someone else lurking around you. RvB is perhaps close at times, especially when FC's arrange fights. The problem here is that you get yelled at for bringing anything bigger than a cruiser, and there is no strategy to the gangs. Its a bunch of Rifters, Punishers and Merlins versus another blob of Rifters, Punishers and Merlins. FC's pick targets at random, or at best they pick the more well known RvBers, and ships blow up. Approach, Orbit, Scram, Web, Guns, Overheat. Repeat til you blow up or they do. Its either that or the typical asymmetric warfare characterized by typical Eve combat. Don't get me wrong, I love RvB. Its just that its not the "arena" that Mittens and others claim it to be.

What I want is a mechanic that provides a system akin to the Alliance Tournament. Set up a few "stadiums" across New Eden (maybe 2-3 in each region). Once you get to a stadium, you can register your fleet (or open it to corp/alliance), and set your Rules of Engagement. If you want 5v5, any fleet composition, then you've got it. If you want 10v10 with full Alliance Tournament balancing rules, its yours. Once you set the preferences, you lock your ships in. Then, the contract for this fight is either open to the public or you can make it private in order to get a fight with a specific opposition. There could even be betting on the fight. The two entities could put up isk and pimped out ships and modules for prizes. Other pilots can see a beacon on the overview akin to a cyno when the fight begins, but they are not able to attack, repair, or pass bonuses to anyone in the fight.

I know a lot of people will flame because they say a mechanic like this will ruin Eve. But let's look at the facts. For one, some alliances in the Syndicate region already ran their own little Alliance Tournament, which shows some interest to begin with. Congratulations to Rote Kappelle on the victory for that one by the way. Details and a few great videos are available on Jester's Trek, of course. We have a chance to create the coliseum of New Eden, where each one of us is a gladiator to take part. No neutral boosting, repping or station games. Just a fair fight, rules laid out, and everyone is watching. I'm on board.

BB33 -- Eve Online: Top Gun

2012-02-24T20:16:00.001-05:00

Blog Banter 33: The Capsuleer Experience

"...we want to make the first days, weeks and months in EVE enjoyable and not just something ‘you have to plough through in order to get to the good stuff’" and the newly formed Player Experience team will focus on "...where and why people lose interest in EVE...".

"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."

--------------------------------------

Being a rookie in Eve ain't easy. In fact, its down right hard. I still remember on my first day, I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get to the next system over. I didn't know what a stargate was, let alone how to get to it or even use it. Its been a while since I've rolled a new character, but the experience is distinctly different for a brand new player versus one who is just making a new character. Legitimately learning the ropes can be tough. I personally had a great time. I was so impressed by the scale of the universe, all of the ships available, and how much you could do in space. I must admit though, I had some friends who were already playing the game, and that softened the learning curve quite a bit. The tutorials are good, but they still aren't where they need to be. From my perspective, they're missing the heart of the game: player versus player combat.

When a new pilot goes through the tutorials, he sees all kinds of things. PVE content is a big focus. There are a ton of missions to run, and they introduce you to the various professions of Eve. This is all well and good, but what about the personality analysis on the homepage? Where's the pirate tutorial? How about fleet commander? I've been thinking for a while about how to correctly implement this, and I still haven't reached a perfect conclusion. This is what I came up with though. First, Aura can take players through a little crash course on how fighting capsuleers is different. Call this course Advanced Tactics, or even Top Gun. If that doesn't sound appealing to a rookie, I don't know what would. Top Gun works like this:

A quick fitting primer

Armor or Shield, not both. Buffer or active, not both. These aren't absolutes, but general rules of thumb. Show a couple example fittings, link to other races.
Fit the same size & type of weapons. No one wants to see a killmail of some noob running around with a blaster and two different sized railguns on his first Incursus.
Propulsion - Break down both Afterburners and MWD's.
Warp Scramblers/Disruptors - Necessity for solo or small gang. Webs don't hurt either.

Trials against more advanced AI computers -- Lesson Oriented

If the noob doesn't fit a scram, have the NPC warp off if it is about to explode. Explain both how and why it happened.
Gradually introduce electronic warfare into computer based AI. If a rookie gets fried by the NPC's energy neutralizer, explain it to them and how to combat it by either Nosferatu's, capacitor boosters, or other capacitor mods. Same goes for jamming, tracking disrupting, all of it.

After graduation, the new capsuleer could read about the various routes they could go down, and what the implications would be. This should all directly tie into the personality analysis on the main site. If you get all excited about becoming a freedom fighter on the front page, you should be pointed in the right direction towards Faction Warfare after graduation. It only makes sense.

This is all technology CCP has right now, except for perhaps the responsive feedback part (Neuts really killed you, here's why). This could be so much more immersive. One would actually feel ties to the Federal Navy Academy or Republic Military School. They would also feel like they really got something out of it, as opposed to a bunch of random mods, some isk, and a couple T1 ships. Lastly, the new pilots would also be much more prepared, more interested and less frustrated. Sounds like subscriber retention to me, CCP.

Now here's where people may want to burn me at the stake. I'm kind of partial to a little 1v1 arena setup within each of the respective training academy schools. Restrict it to pilots with SP below an Alpha clone (900k SP) to keep it relatively fair. This gives pilots the ability to test out skills in a fairly innocuous environment, but they get kicked out and have to get their combat fix elsewhere pretty darn quick. Again, getting the boot from the training league would bring up the references to the various professions, and the pilot would have to find their own way. This would require a significantly larger investment from CCP developers, but what better way to learn PvP than to actually take part (in a semi-controlled environment)? It lets the rookies duke it out without being blobbed to death by a Tengu fleet when they can barely avoid the Rifter they have. There will surely be the sharks that have 899,999 skill points, all as maxed out as a rookie pilot can be and looking for easy prey. Oh well. Let's be honest, everyone sucks when they have little enough SP to keep an Alpha clone, and the new pilots have to learn how to lose ships some time anyway.

I know the latter part will almost certainly never happen, but I like the idea. In the military, everyone does training exercises to gear up for the real event. Hell, even the Harry Potter kids had duels with real spells (If Jester can make HP references, I can too). It's the perfect level of training before the newest class of capsuleers hits new Eden.

Regardless, I think a PvP crash course is essential for the New Player Experience. The current experience is largely very good. It teaches the player about many aspects of the game and even begins to provide them with ships, modules and skillbooks necessary to get on their way. They're redesigning the Rookie Ships too! That's also a huge step up. At the end of the day though, it comes down to getting people involved in the part of Eve that keeps people around, and that is player versus player combat. That is what will take the new player experience to the next level. Its time to start sending New Eden's newest pilots to Top Gun.

Inferno Dev Blog Teaser

2012-02-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

Just when it seemed like Dev Blogs had all but settled down, CCP Unifex posts one releasing the name and some core concepts for the summer expansion. Its mostly a lot of nothing, but he does hint at some interesting concepts.

"Reinvigorating Concord-sanctioned warfare" - Redesign of the War Dec mechanic, clearly. Should be interesting to see. This should have an interesting impact on CSM campaigns, especially Kelduum Revaan who has made this a key part of his platform. Given that it'll be done before he even could take office, that can't really be a major selling point anymore (besides revising it if CCP messes this one up).
"Looking to introduce many new things which will mix up all forms of combat in a way not seen for a long time" - If anyone has even the slightest clue what this means, please post in comments immediately.
"Factional Warfare will be seeing changes to make it more relevant and fun by giving real reasons to fight for your faction" - This sounds somewhat encouraging. FW has been a growing interest of mine recently, and it sounds like it needs a boost pretty significantly. I hope Mittani hasn't convinced CCP to make Faction Warfare "Nullsec Lite" though.
"Revealing more concrete steps in the link between Eve and DUST 514" - Pretty straight forward here. Just please don't mess up Eve too much.

The Dev Blog mostly seems like a lot of nothing, and Unifex admits that. It definitely is intriguing however. It sounds like there will be a series of small releases over the coming months, and the full Inferno will be released in the May-June time frame ("Just before the summer"). I think the big positive to take away from this is that there doesn't seem to be much fluff. CCP is apparently still operating along the same general philosophy as Crucible, but with the increased time they can roll out some bigger features as well. Its going to be quite the spring season with the CSM elections and all of the hopefully awesome Dev Blogs coming out.

Weekend Review 2/20

2012-02-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday, capsuleers! Sorry, I know that wasn't funny. Anyway, not too much going on here, but wanted to get an update out as a few minor things this weekend. First of all, the interview with Kelduum and Hans Jagerblitzen is now up on the Voices From the Void Podcast. I haven't had a chance to get to listen to it yet, as RL is fairly busy this week. I'm hoping to find some time for it tonight though. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing more from Hans; I hope the V and V crew gave him some tough ones.

Wasn't able to log on a ton this weekend, but I still managed to get a couple good fights. I hopped in fleet yesterday evening, and the Red fleet was pretty quiet. A Vexor jumped into our fleet that was sitting on the Hageken gate, and I managed to get the killing blow, which is always nice. Other than that, it was a lot of hurry up and wait. We did manage to get into a fight with some war targets though. A scout relayed that they had tried to take cover in a dead end system, so we camped them in for a while. A Harbinger came out, quickly followed by a Guardian. The Harbinger was humping the gate, and so he eventually disengaged and jumped, but we made pretty quick work of the heavily webbed Guardian, and he dropped almost instantly. Its a shame none of his faction mods dropped. No big deal though. As it turns out, my trade alt climbed over 10 billion isk over the weekend! I may have to take out some more shiny ships and have some fun. Or maybe a little birthday present to myself (early March, take note of course). Perhaps a pimped Daredevil or something? I'm certainly open to suggestions!

Look for a review of Kelduum and Hans as I get a chance to listen to the V&V podcast later. Fly safe everyone.

Hey Look! Jack Dant Fixed Lowsec!

2012-02-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

Okay, if you haven't yet seen Jack Dant's proposal for lowsec changes, go read here. Don't worry, I'll wait.

I'm going to say it up front -- I think this proposal is damn near perfect. Right now, lowsec seems to be the heart of small gang and solo pvp. I'm hardly an expert on the area, but as I've traveled through, I rarely see gangs larger than 10-15 pilots. Its not hard to find solo pilots, or least smaller gangs of 2-4 pilots. I can't speak for all of New Eden, but I love the idea of having this part of the pvp spectrum available. Nullsec seems to be more of an "all-or-nothing" situation, where vast swathes are empty until you hit an alliance hub with greater than 200 in local. Low security space has small groupings of pilots who don't want anything to do with sovereignty or CTA's. These pilots just want their Fight Club, as Hans Jagerblitzen is describing it.

I love picturing lowsec as Fight Club, except with current mechanics, I'd be out of highsec pretty darn quick. I'm already sitting at -0.4 from the occasional Hulk or pod gank, so it wouldn't be long before I hit -2.0, where you first start getting locked out of highsec systems. This isn't super appealing to me. I love being able to travel freely in highsec, and being held out of trade hubs for blowing up a few unfortunate pilots in lowsec doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth. Like almost everyone else at this point, I have alts that could help run logistics, but it can just be a pain in the ass sometimes to go through the hoops for the ship you need that's only two jumps away in a 0.7 security system.

The Dant proposal allows the casual combatant to still maintain travel rights, so long as he doesn't pod (in lowsec or highsec) or gank people in highsec. Also, no GCC for aggression towards anyone with a negative sec status is beautiful. I'd still push for a lower GCC timer in general, but let's let pilots fight denizens without any trouble. The other great part about the proposal is that anyone who wants to go full "-10" still has the option, and they should. I understand why people would want to go pirate, whether its RP or to just be a general bad ass, and there definitely should still be ways to do so. It's just not personally for me at this point because it seems like it would take too long to grind back up to even -5.0 security status, and its just not something I want to go through at this point.

So where does that leave us? Well I think it comes round about to the CSM 7 discussion again. I think at this point I'm becoming fairly certain that my vote is heading towards Hans Jagerblitzen. Hans has the Dant Proposal as part of his campaign platform, and in general, he seems to have a good head on his shoulders about all things empire. He wants to foster empire space in terms of casual pvp, and as a member of Autocannons Anonymous, he is a part of one of the better FW corporations for the Minmatar Republic. Overall, Hans is one of the better candidates out there, he's not from a power bloc, and he supports sensible changes to the areas I've flown in the most over the past year. I'm on board, and here's two votes for you Hans!

Eve Blog a Day Pair: CSM 7 Banter and My Eve Persona

2012-02-12T17:03:00.003-05:00

I try to keep up with Eve Blogs as best I can (and as much as I'm interested, of course), but sadly most of that is done over my iPhone. I tend to read via the Leaky Capsule app, which maintains an outdated Eve Blog Pack that updates in application. As an aside, the Leaky Capsule app is awesome for iPhone users. Its not as clunky as iClone, and still gives you characters, skills training and a blog outlet. Anyway, I tend not to keep up with too much else outside of this as I'm not in front of a computer screen too much recently. I did manage to check in at Poetic Stanziel's blog today though, and I really like the concept of the Eve Blog a Day. I probably wont keep up with all of them, but the most recent two have interested me.

Eve Blog a Day #019: Who Are You Voting For?
Well I suppose I could (and probably will) write a whole post about this one. At the end of the day, I haven't quite decided yet though. The CSM elections are interesting because it is a small enough scale that your vote could actually matter. I still vote in elections in the US, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it seems a bit pointless sometimes. Regardless, this influences my CSM voting philosophy. For example, I think its pointless for me to vote for The Mittani. He's going to get elected regardless of my vote due to just how large GSF is. I personally think that Mittens has done a great job on the CSM, even if he can be a bit biased perhaps. He does seem to do quite a bit of posturing, but overall I think that he and the other CSM reps from CSM 6 have been great representatives of what the playerbase needed over the past year. Regardless though, I will not be voting for any representative of the major power blocks because I feel that that throws away a vote for one of the smaller scale candidates who stands a chance at getting in.

That said, I've still got plenty of research to do. I've got a few thoughts so far, but nothing is set in stone. Its easier for me to say who I don't like. Two quick ones are Kelduum Revaan and Riverini of Eve University and Eve News respectively. Both strike me as a bit disingenuous and self centered.

To me, Kelduum just seems a bit fake. In the recent RVB vs Eve Uni war, Kelduum couldn't undock with his troops. Now in all fairness, it seems like few of the current CSM 6 members have seen any pvp action on their main characters in a simliar time frame (The Mittani, Seleene, Two Step, Meissa, any of them really), but there's really no reason not fight RVB in this case at least. Both organizations are in favor of good, clean pvp even if it can be a bit blobby among other things.

Riverini is just terribad. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate EN24 to some extent, and at least by killboard stats, he seems to be a decent pilot. But anyone who has read EN24 for more than a week or so know its biased as hell, and that Riverini is the guy who at least considered bringing us the How To on Botting. Plus, the other thing is that I don't think you want the politicians running the news papers or vice versa. Overall, Riverini just doesn't seem to have much of a platform, and the bias and lack of direction makes me think that this is just an egotistical push at E-fame. I'll pass. Plus, there's now a thread of why not to like Riverini, although its mostly just for the lolz.

So anyway, I'm still searching, and I have a lot of research to do. A not-so-small part of me still wishes Ripard Teg would run for CSM 7. I think my only reservation would be that it would slow down his blogging/play time, and that would mean less enjoyment for all. Oh well, that's the way life is. Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted and update as I make a decision.

Eve Blog a Day #020: What's Your Eve Persona?
First of all, a quick kudos to the Eve team for the new website. As I said before, it makes Eve feel new again, and that is a great thing. I took the Personality test, and here's the result:

Pirate was followed by freedom fighter and bounty hunter respectively. So it sounds pretty clear that I should be in lowsec soon, right? Well, yes actually. I'm still very much enjoying RVB, and in fact this weekend was quite a busy one for me. At the end of the day though, RVB can still sometimes be too constructed, and too many are afraid to get off station or out of the 10-25 man standard fleet composition of frigates, cruisers and BCs. I'd really like to get more into lowsec pvp for a few reasons. For one, in generally seems less blob-oriented. There is a lot of solo and small gang pvp to be had from what I've seen. Also, the ease of mobility is a plus. I can run to or from high sec without much problem to reship/resupply and there are no bubbles or anything in the way. That's definitely appealing to me. So we'll see where it goes. My goals in Eve can change quite a bit, but I know its certainly aligned with some sort of pvp for the rest of my career.

A big thanks to Poetic Stanziel for the Blog a Day initiative!

The Places You Will Go

2012-02-10T18:48:00.001-05:00

I've decided to do a post very much akin to Rixx Javix's "Getting Around the Neighborhood" series. I'm a big fan of statistics and infographics, so I figured I'd throw this one out there. Let's start right off with the graphic.

Although its still pretty condensed, this was actually year of pretty high mobility for me. With 0uch, I got out to the Ammatar and Curse regions for the first time. RVB has had me get to know the Lonetrek area pretty well, and its arguably become my home for the larger part of the year. Lastly, my brief time with MV put me into AAA space, including my first trip through HED-GP into Catch. I even got my first ride on a Titan. I saved over that picture (doh!), but I do have the first friendly Nyx I've interacted with.

Overall its been a pretty good year. I've hardly become one of the space elite, but I'm still enjoying the ride, going into almost my 4th year!

Eve's End Game & the Hunt

2012-02-10T18:25:00.001-05:00

I've been considering for a while what Eve's End Game is, and I think the question even bounced around the blogosphere for a bit over the past couple months. I was a bit surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of people believed it to be null sec fleet combat. I can't say I really blame them that much though, given the focus that CCP puts on it and the narrative surrounding it. I just can't seem to wrap my head around it though. Being a part of a 300+ man fleet is cool for the sake of sheer magnitude, but I can't honestly say that following an FC's barking orders is how I want to spend my time.

As cool as it is to ride a Titan bridge and get into an absolute slug fest with Supercaps et al, I can't really see much skill in it. You spend months skilling up for the FOTM, fit the FOTM as per alliance mandate, make a few jumps, engage opposition and head home. I suppose if you're the one scouting and doing intel, its great, but to just be one of the hoard seems a bit dull to me.

To me, the end game of Eve is being the hunter. If you step into my system, I want to be able to methodically find you, trap you and kill you. I want the rush of the hunt and the thrill of victory. The only places where I can see this mentality occurring currently are lowsec and perhaps NPC null. Even in RVB, the tendency is rare for corp members of either side to stray from 10-25 man fleets. I feel like the most interesting and exciting fights in New Eden come from well organized small gang warfare or even solo fights. Its for these reasons I love the Alliance Tournament as well. What's better than evenly matched, crafted teams going at it to the death (except for the Hydra/0utbreak match, of course)?

As a result of all of this thinking, I'm making a concerted effort to get more into lowsec adventures. The Syndicate region still seems to be calling my name as well, but I'll figure it all out. For some reason, Eve feels new again. And I like it.

Settling Back In

2012-01-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

Hello again blogosphere! Its been a little while. I've been keeping up with things from a distance, but haven't had the time to write in a couple weeks due to settling back in at school for my last semester of undergrad! \o/ Anyway, let's catch up.

The Crucible patch dropped yesterday, and it seems like more good things. Personally, the new UI is taking a little getting used to, but its not bad at all. I think the biggest thing from this patch is the AF "rebalancing." I've heard a decent amount of clamoring that the Assault Ships weren't properly rebalanced. I'd agree to some extent. Does the patch make them better? Certainly. Its just that it wasn't really a well thought out type of better. Some ships needed an extra slot (Here's looking at you, Retribution), but many didn't. I'm not sure why extra low/mid slots were given out across the board. It seems like CCP heard babbling about "this ship needs an extra slot," or "this ship needs grid/CPU" or "Assault ships need a 4th bonus," etc and just decided, Hell, we've give them all of those things plus a totally random MWD signature bonus. That'll do the trick. Well, maybe it did, but it definitely wasn't what most of us were expecting.

On a totally unrelated side note, it seems that the prices of tons of modules have been trending upwards since the release of Crucible. I've been wondering for a while now how long this will hold. I'm not an economics wiz by any means, but my assumption is that the flood of returning players with Crucible drove the prices up on most commodities; however, there should be natural price levels based on the relation of ships/mods and their component minerals. So without doing the math, I think we have a pretty inflated market right now. Makes a trader a bit nervous.

That's my take on the state of things right now. Should be able to log in and actually get some action by Friday. I'm looking forward to posting and actually playing more over the next couple weeks.

Some Days You've Got it...

2012-01-10T01:51:00.000-05:00

...and some days you don't. Today was the latter. I felt like I was always a step behind tonight, although it was good to log on and get some real combat outside of just ganking a Hulk (although I'm not complaining about that). I felt like I was always a step behind tonight. Entering local to see various people typing out the "gf's" indicative of the end of a battle seemed to be common.

On one such occasion, I managed to pop a Velator on its way out of Autaris \o/. Nothing like an unfitted noobship kill to boost your spirits, right? Anyway, the Reds finally engaged on Blue Headquarters. I was in a Taranis trying to bait this Vexor to engage. Finally he did, and sadly popped me and then docked before enough support was mustered to take him down.

The Reds came back in force though. 2 corpmates and myself decided to engage them and hero our Vexor and Rupture, sadly to no avail. I went down under the fire of mostly cruisers, including a sniping Thorax and a sniping Brutix. It was really just that type of night. Anyway, good to get back in the swing of things, and I should be able to log on a lot this week. I feel very rusty, not that I ever had any epic skills to begin with. It can only get better from here, right?

As a side note, I've been debating switching to a shield Rupture. I've been using an armor fit that has a pretty well bolstered tank, but I think I could pull off a nano shield Rupture using Barrage. It never hurts to have the extra speed. I'll see what I can come up with. Also in the notes of odds and ends, I have a few Tornados coming towards BHQ. This will be my first time flying them, and I'm pretty excited. They're a bit expensive for my liking given the current price of T2 large guns, but I'm not complaining too much. Hoping Red Frog comes through quickly on that contract! Anyway, that's all for now, goodnight New Eden

A Bit of a Milestone

2012-01-09T22:21:00.002-05:00

So I put on Caldari Cruiser V for the Christmas/Holiday Season, and as it finished I realized that I crossed 50M SP. It didn't really strike me as odd at first, but then I realized the small milestone passing. Having this much SP is always a nice thing. I wish I'd delayed the Capital skills training, as I've never flown the Thanatos that I have. I'm getting to the point where I can fit and fly almost any ship very well though, and its certainly a very nice thing. Now, after 2.5 years of playing, its time to legitimately develop my physical PVP skills to correspond to my excellent skill training. Cheers to 2012 and improvment!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well, its that time everyone! 2011 is almost done. I think I'll write a year-in-review post in a bit, but just wanted to explain the recent lack of activity. Its a combination of a lot of family time around the holidays, which is always... interesting, and also the fact that I got Skyrim for Christmas \o/. And wow, I didn't realize what I was in for with the latter. Everyone told me it was good, but its certainly exceeded expectations. I've been absolutely hooked running around as a High Elf in that game.

Anyway, everything should start to normalize in the coming days after the New Year, but probably not until closer to the 3rd or 4th of January realistically. I'm heading up to Manhattan for NYE tonight, but just wanted to wish all of you denizens of New Eden a Happy New Year in addition to a belated Merry Christmas! See you next year!

Redesigning the Eagle -- A New Way of Thinking

2011-12-23T01:29:00.002-05:00

Okay, so here's my crack at the Redesigning the Eagle Contest as sponsored by Kirith Kodachi. The basic premise is here below:

"The goal is to produce a description of how you would change the Eagle (and/or all of the Heavy Assault Cruiser class) to make it viable in the new Crucible age AS WELL AS one or more images of a hull redesign for the Moa/Eagle/Gila/Onyx ships very much like how the Scoprion and Maller have been completely redone.."

Here are my thoughts. Right now, clearly the Eagle is horrendous. Currently, it has a double bonus for range, a bonus for damage, and a bonus for shield tanking. It is still in a pretty bad state right now though. Even with the hybrid boost, the Eagle is not on par with other HACs. I used PyFA to get a look at its current state post-buff. Its currently possible to get a rack of 250mm rails and a pretty respectable shield tank. With Antimatter loaded, it hits 40.5 + 15 for 310 DPS and with the long range T2 ammo, Spike, it goes 130 + 15 for 207 DPS.

The numbers are meaningless without some comparison though. Here's the Muninn: 29.2 + 35.9 at 347 DPS with EMP and 105 + 35.9 at 232 DPS with T2 Tremor. And a sniper-fit Zealot: 29.2 + 16.4 at 436 DPS with Multifrequency and 105 + 16.4 at 290 DPS with Aurora.

Missing your undergrad calc class yet? The Eagle wins in range, but not DPS. Its also the slowest by about 300 m/s. Ouch. So it has range, but it can't maintain it? Seems like a pretty big issue.

So let's look at the state of the union then. The Eagle is the worst in its role as a sniper HAC, excelling only in range, which it can't maintain. Now we have Tier 3 BC's, and they can hit from farther range, run faster, and hit harder. Oh, and by the way, they're about a third of the cost and can be fully insured. Are you sold on the Eagle yet?

Rixx Javix wrote a little while ago about how a few HACs are "dead" after the release of Tier 3 BC's and a few other causes. For the most part, I think he's right to some extent. Especially on a cost/benefit scale, there are a lot of other options out there that fulfill the role that HACs used to have. The key is making HACs different and relevant. I don't think the Vaga has been outdone yet due to its speed. The Deimos is great close range brawler that might still be viable, and the Ishtar is certainly still a unique ship in that its a versatile drone boat. This is what the Eagle needs. It needs a role that no other ship in the game has right now.

Here's the proposal. Its not a higher DPS sniper. We've already got the Naga and the rest of the crew to do that, and the current mechanics with on grid probing/warp-to's makes pure snipers a tough place to be anyway. I'm also not suggesting a blaster Eagle. It will always be outpaced by the Deimos, among other ships.

My thought is its gotta be different. My thought is a torpedo Eagle. The only viable torp ships right now are bombers, the Phoon, and the Golem (pretty much PVE only). Add the Eagle to this list by bonusing it similar to bombers right now.

Caldari Cruiser Bonus:
20% bonus to torpedo velocity and flight time per level
5% bonus to shield resistances per level

Heavy Assault Ship Skill Bonus:
15% bonus to torpedo damage per level
5% bonus to target painter effectiveness per level

The key to this ship, as I see it, is giving it a distinct role that gives this Heavy Assault Cruiser strong capabilities without making more ships obsolete. In this torp Eagle, I think we've achieved that. Let's keep the same slot layout as the current Eagle. Change all the turret hardpoints to missile bays, giving the Torpedo appropriate grid for Siege Missile Launcher II's. This gives the Eagle significantly more damage than Stealth Bombers can do, and yet it still has a solid tank. It must give up one of these slots for a TP if one so chooses, or you could pair up with a Huginn. Note, the bonus is less than the Huginn, giving the Minmatar Recon Ship a decided advantage in the EWAR field. I'm thinking something along the lines of the following:

High Slots
Siege Missile Launcher II (x5)
Small Energy Neutralizer

Medium Slots
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon Microwarpdrive
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Invulnerability Field II
Photon Scattering Field II
Large Shield Extender II

Low Slots
Ballistic Control Unit II (x3)
Power Diagnostic Unit II

Rigs
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I (x2)

This ship would have decided advantages and disadvantages. On the pro side, it should be able to put out quite a bit of DPS at an impressive range. It would not be up to the level of snipers, but with Javelin torpedoes, it could get out pretty far (Bombers loaded with Javelin already get ~75km without rig additions). This ship could be great for a POS bash (woohoo just what everyone wanted!). On the downside, it could be a bit susceptible to smaller ships that can signature tank the torpedoes. Target Painters will be essential for this ship to do well in fights below its weight class.

Overall its an interesting, unconventional way to look the Eagle. Caldari ships do not (and in my opinion, should not) exceed Gallente ships in Blaster technology. With the Naga, other Tier 3 BC's, and current probing mechanics, dedicated sniper platforms are a tough sell as well. My proposed changes give the Eagle an interesting ability to strike hard at a variety of ranges so long as its target is large or well painted. It provides a ship role that New Eden does not have yet today.

[Note: I'm trying to work out a new design for the Eagle, but my drawing skills are horrendous. I'll try to get something worked out. If not, I'll hit up the CAD lab when I get back to school :) ]

-- Rollins

Flight of a Thousand Rifters -- Update!

2011-12-23T01:27:00.003-05:00

So I logged in and saw that I had a bit more money than expected. I checked my journal and found the following.

Cool beans. Apparently I got 4th place in Marlona Sky's Flight of a Thousand Rifters. I forgot it came down to her points system, not just raw damage on the Dreadnaught. Awesome. Never hurts to have an extra 300M isk, and I'm pretty happy to finish that high too! The official final standings are posted here in Marlona Sky's thread. I'd like to put out an even BIGGER thanks to Marlona, especially now that I'm in the payout!

-- Rollins

BB 31: The Game Outside Eve Online

2011-12-22T20:44:00.002-05:00

The 31st Blog Banter is out and the topic is an Eve Community Review. This also happens to be my first crack at a BB \o/ Its fun to be an active part of the action as opposed to just the regular reader.

"As any games journalist would probably tell you, a true and complete review of a Massively Multiplayer Online game is impossible. MMOs are vast, forever evolving entities with too much content for a single reviewer to produce a fair and accurate review. However, a collection of dedicated bloggers and EVE players (past and present) with a wide range of experience in various aspects of the game might be able to pull it off.

This special 'End of Year' Blog Banter edition aims to be a crowd-sourced game review. Using your gaming knowledge and experience, join the community in writing a fair and qualified review of EVE Online: Crucible. This can be presented in any manner of your choosing, but will ideally include some kind of scoring system.

With each Blog Banter participant reviewing the areas of EVE Online in which they specialise, the result should be a Metacritic-esque and accurate review by the people who know best."

Eve Online. Where to start? I know where I started. I began playing Eve at an internship almost three years ago, just after Apocrypha was released. Its been my first and only MMO, and I still remember asking, "So, how do you win at Eve?" I was of course greeted with a bit of a laugh, and in hind sight, I definitely deserved it. "Winning at Eve" is really more of a meme than an actual objective at this point. But as I talked to the guys at work, I could see their eyes light up about how excited they were about this game. They talked about all of the possibilities and all of the roles you could play. They showed me a couple diagrams online to give me the idea. First was all the ships of New Eden:

I didn't realize I'd be flying the barely visible ones..

So at this point I was interested to say the least. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about it, and I knew I had to at least give it shot. Just before I headed home that day, they showed me this graphic too, which I'm sure we've all seen by now. Okay, a little intimidated, but nothing I couldn't overcome.

Not too far from the truth

I spent hours that first weekend flying around in a freaking Velator. I couldn't wait til I had the funds for that 26,000 isk Atron. I was hooked though. So I kept playing, and after a while, my friends from the internship slowly faded out of Eve. I spent a while (way too long) running missions aimlessly. Its only really been recently that I've been getting into pvp legitimately, and I guess I'm still a bit of a noob in that respect, despite that fact that I'm about to cross 50M SP.

Its been a long ride, and its mostly been a blast. I think there were a few things that CCP and my friends didn't initially tell me about though. First of all, no one ever told me how much time I'd spend doing things other than flying internet spaceships. I've spent countless hours managing POS's, parsing through market windows for trade and jumping from system to system for any other reason. Eve can often be more of a job than a game.

The second thing that no one told me about Eve was that I'd spend so much time out of game talking, thinking and strategizing about Eve. I've spent an absolutely stupid amount of time in applications like EFT and Evemon. Why do I do it? Because its so damn interesting. Why did I listen to hours of Eve podcasts on the way home to my Dad's house this Christmas? Same reason. Theory-crafting about Eve is a beautiful thing. How can I beat this fleet composition? Where will they move next? How can implants/boosters/etc give me the edge I need? All of this doesn't even scratch the surface of inter-alliance politics and null sec in general. Its everything. I've probably spent even more time out of game thinking and planning about Eve than I've played.

What all of this comes down to is simple. CCP got it right when they said Eve is real. I wasn't too thrilled with their promotional campaign at the time due to the state of Incarna, but they were right. Eve is a great game, but its so much more. Look at media like the Clarion Call or Clear Skies series. Eve is virtual blood, sweat, and tears. Eve is real.

So my review of Eve? Its a pretty solid game. Its certainly still a work in progress, and Crucible has been a fantastic step in that direction. At the end of the day, its so much more though. Its a full immersive simulation in an alternate universe, and it can be so addictive it should come with a warning label. That's the Eve that I know.

-- Rollins

Macabre Votum

2011-12-18T00:51:00.001-05:00

As of earlier this evening, I am officially a member of Macabre Votum and Against ALL Authorities. This decision has been quite a while in the making, as I've been talking with a few good corps about possibilities. So far, I've gotta say I think I made the right choice.

The big conflict in trying to decide on a corporation was that I wanted small gang PVP but also an active corporation. A few of the corps that I was looking into had great stats and a bunch of legit guys, but just not enough activity for my liking. I wanted to join a corp with the intent on flying as a part of fleets, not just soloing under a different corp banner.

So in the end, I chose MV because they're a group of experienced pilots that always have gangs going out. Of course I can still solo or grab a few guys and take a small gang out, but its nice to have the consistent activity. -A- seems to be a good fit as well. I'm not one who needs sov to be happy, but its certainly not a bad thing. I have plenty of isk, and I don't get off to having more space-territory than anyone else. I do like to have stable resources and logistics though, and that certainly comes with established territory.

After being officially accepted, I decided to make the long trek down to our current base of operations. I grabbed an clone without implants, fitted up a Cheetah in Amarr for mobility and tore through Kerberz into HED-GP, an infamous high-null connection known for its violence. It turns out this first jump into null was the closest I ever came to getting caught, with a pretty established gate camp of Sabres, Vagabonds and Cynabals. Cloak and burn (almost) never fails though, and I got away. Besides a couple of roaming gangs, I didn't see much action again until I hit GE-8JV, which is currently owned by PL. They didn't offer too much trouble though, and I pretty much shot right through creating my bookmarks and warping away.

It was a night of no real action, yet some significant achievement. I'm all ready to go with MV. I just need to get some ships together and fit and I should be good to go. Its certainly going to be an interesting winter.

-- Rollins

Flight of a Thousand Rifters

2011-12-17T15:32:00.000-05:00

So through the grapevine, I caught wind of Marlona Sky's Flight of a Thousand Rifters event (Thanks Kirith for promoting that one). Here's the event description from her blog post:

"On 2011.12.17 (December 17th, 2011) at precisely 19:00 GMT (game time) I will undock from:

EVENT LOCATION
Vlillirier IV - Moon 13 - Wiyrkomi Corporation Warehouse

I will be sieging a station with Intigo, my Moros dreadnought. It has been irrelevant for a good couple years and it is high time it dies of a fiery death explosion.
I want to give players a change to do some damage and win some prizes so I will be running a player event to destroy my dreadnought. There are a few rules to follow for you to be eligible for prizes. The top three players with the most points gained with a frigate or destroyer class ship will each win one of three prizes. The player leaving the final blow on my Moros or the final blow on my capsule will each receive a special prize."

(Full Eve-O post: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=44946&find=unread)

I'd never really done any player events besides in-house RvB things, so I decided I may as well give this a go. I figured worst case scenario, I was still on a Moros mail, so let's give it a shot.

I fitted up a couple Catalysts, since the post-Crucible hybrid buff makes for some ridiculous Catalysts. Basically the thought process was total glass-cannon approach. I was just trying to whore on the mail and get enough damage to get in the prizes. So this is what I came up with for a pure DPS Catalyst.

[Catalyst, Marlona Sky Contest]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Warp Scrambler II

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Small Hybrid Ambit Extension I
Small Ancillary Current Router I

So I fit up a few of these, moved them out to Orvolle (3 jumps from Vlillirier), and hit the road. I entered local and the first thing coming across the airwaves was Marlona saying, "2 MINUTES LEFT." Perfect timing. I warped to Planet IV at 100km and aligned to the station. When I saw the dreadnaught on scan, I warped to the Wiyrkomi Station, turned on the MWD and locked up Marlona. All was going to plan.

The Great Beast

Then a Rifter from Red Federation locked me up and started shooting me. This was less than two minutes in, and I wasn't about to have to go reship that early. So I locked him up and started shooting. Small Blasters --> Yes. The eight Light Ion Blasters were ripping through this Rifter, and he hadn't touched my armor yet. I was still orbiting Marlona and he tried to run, so I turned on the MWD and caught up. The Rifter was AB fit, so he didn't stand a chance against my speed and damage. He exploded quickly once I caught up again.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14825149

So back to Marlona Sky's Moros. It was a bit of a slow process, and no one was really attacking each other for fear of station guns, which pretty much instapop small ships. Marlona Sky goes into structure at about 15 minutes in, and as she's creeping down, I overload my guns. All of the sudden, a Red Taranis, who has been well-behaved this whole time, engages me. I couldn't find his name quickly enough on the overview, and the glass cannon Catalyst goes boom at about the same time as the Moros.

Local explodes with questions of who got the mail. I'm pretty damn curious myself, as prizes were totalling over 4 billion in isk. I look on the mail when it is finally posted, and I was the 10th highest damage dealer. Top 7 got prizes :( Looks like I just missed out. I look at the mail and there are bombers on there. Damn, for some reason I thought it was only T1 frigs and dessys. My fault.

I have to wonder if my getting drawn off the Moros to fight that Rifter and my premature death from the Taranis cost me a spot in the top 7. Oh well, to finish in the top 10 out of 153 on the killmail is not too bad at all. In fact I'd say its pretty damn good.

Regardless, this event was awesome. I had a blast with the theory crafting and the event itself. A special thanks obviously goes to Marlona Sky for providing us the fun. It was an awesome turn out, and looking at Dotlan, Vlillirier is the second bloodest lowsec system right now \o/. A great time all around.

-- Rollins

Poppin' Pods

2011-12-16T21:10:00.002-05:00

I'm a bad boy.


Easy Targets -- Sidenote: How good does Sinq Laison Look?

I've had the urge for a few weeks now to suicide gank someone's pod. I wasn't going to worry about scanning them down for high value implants or anything (actually, can you scan down a pod's implants? I'll have to check), but I just wanted to pop one. I had an embarrassingly high sec status from my days as a carebear, and I wanted to fix it. So I did.

So what was I to go with? Only one good choice for a Minmatar pilot (sorry to betray my Gallente roots): a Thrasher. I was trying to make the decision between Autocannons and Arties for a little while though. Obviously Arties have significantly higher alpha, but I thought I could get 2-4 shots off with the AC's. I opted for the AC's since pods have such miniscule tank to begin with. So here we go.

[Thrasher, Poppin' Pods (AC's)]
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Tracking Computer I, Tracking Speed
Tracking Computer I, Tracking Speed

150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

It had everything I needed. Speed to close if necessary, and then enough damage to strike quickly before the CONCORDOKKEN.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14820932

No problems in the execution. It was almost anti-climactic when he popped so quickly. I got two shots off before the sentries took me out hard. Its kind of a rush. I literally almost fit up an Arty Thrasher to go pop noobs. Is that wrong? I may still have to this weekend. Watch out noobs everywhere!

Other than that, my Eve life is returning to normal due to my real life settling down. Finals week is over, which means one month full of way too much Eve is ahead (if there is such a thing as too much Eve of course). TFirish3 should be hopping into the new corporation this weekend, so I'll be sure to update on that as it becomes finalized. Tommy Rollins will start becoming active in RvB as TF leaves, and he'll have Thermodynamics by mid-week, at which point he should be good to go. Looking forward to flying with Rollins. Its always fun to train up a new character and see how it goes.

Not a bad start to Christmas break.

-- Rollins

Finals Slowdown

2011-12-13T10:48:00.001-05:00

Well, Eve time has been a bit slow recently. I'm going through finals week, which isn't too terrible, but it does mean a lot less play time. Anyway, here's a quick update on what's been going on.

One thing I always try to find time for is to update market orders on my trade alt. Let's say Crucible has been a bit profitable in that respect. Let's say it smashed my single week trade records -- twice. Its nice to see the wallet grow by over 1 billion per week with minimal work to update orders. I think its pretty clear a significant number of players resubbed. Hopefully we'll see that hold over the next few months (Ball is in your court CCP).

Not too terrible, huh?

By the way, for any budding traders, the above app is an iPhone app called EVE Trader (brilliant name, I know), and its fantastic. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone trading in Eve. Supports multiple characters, shows transactions and calculates reports. I love it.

Anyway, as I said above, in game time has been a little slow. The corp search continues for TFirish3, with some promising offers so far (could be headed to Curse, not to ruin any surprises). Other than that, just waiting it out til this weekend when I can undock again for real. Nothing too flashy for right now, but this winter break should be a blast.

--Rollins

Weekend Review 12/4

2011-12-04T22:49:00.003-05:00

I've decided I'll start doing a Weekend Review given that I'd like to have a regular series of posts and I'm primarily a weekend player. Fairly straight forward, huh?

Anyway, not a bad weekend in Eve, a bit uneventful. Friday was mostly playing station games, logging off 5-2, which is never too bad. I lost a Rifter and a Punisher before deciding to bring out the Drake. Saturday was a similar story, fleeting up and catching a few kills before dying in a fire courtesy of 18 red pilots.

I think that's one of the most frustrating things about RVB: the fleet warfare is evenly matched to the point where its a push, and without ECM or Logi's there's nothing really to tip the scales. That's why I've been pushing to get some 1v1's recently, although I don't arrange them. Arranged 1v1's are for sissies. I've been trying to get a decent fight in the Enyo since Crucible dropped last week, but it can be tough to pick off a lone guy in RVB sometimes. Its not for lack of effort though

My Enyo fit is pretty standard -- lots of DPS, armor tank and a small neut. Pre-Crucible, it has DPS just short of 300 before overheating. With the blaster buff (to include tracking, and therefore effective DPS), it should be an absolute beast. It is a little bit on the slow side, but I think if it gets within scram range, it should be good to go. Looking forward to testing it out when I find a good target.

I also picked up a Vagabond in Jita this weekend. I was looking at the numbers in EFT (Yes, I am an EFT whore. No, I don't think battles are fought in the fitting window.) and a Vaga loaded with Barrage looks like too much fun not to try. Similar situation as the Enyo though -- I don't want to lose it in a fleet battle where I'll get insta-primaried for flying something shiny.

Speaking of Jita by the way, I have a very strong urge to suicide gank someone's pod just to see what implants they have on the killmail. I've been dying to get this sec status down. Arty Thrasher, coming right up.

Anyway, I'm feeling the null sec bug start to bite me. I'm going to keep Tommy Rollins in RVB, but I think I'm taking TFirish3 out into the wild. RVB is great, but I'm looking for the real deal. I want small gang PVP for the moment. Blobs are boring, and I'm not too interested in hitting up Sov warfare at the moment. Smashing towers just doesn't do it for me. I'm thinking Syndicate though; it just kind of feels like home. I was actually in touch with a corp today about potentially joining up with them. Watch this space over the next couple weeks; I'm thinking I'll make the change pretty soon.

--Rollins

Burn New Eden

2011-12-01T21:04:00.008-05:00

“december summit agenda: destroy ALL the outposts. burn the galaxy to ash. nothing that exists should be immune to destruction #tweetfleet”

-- @TheMittani, CSM Chair

"Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

-- Alfred Pennyworth, "The Dark Knight"

The Mittani: out of game

Mittani is intriguing. Love him or hate him, its a fact. Now of course CCP is under no obligation to follow through on this one, but let's think about the implications. First of all, Outposts would have to have incredibly high HP, or else they'd become extinct. I'd also presume that you'd have to destroy all the Sov structures around it first before it becomes vulnerable. Regardless, it makes everything a bit more interesting than a POS bash. Are ships going to drop when you destroy it? ALL of the ships in the Outpost? Even if they don't, if CCP finds a way to make killmails and incorporate all the ships destroyed, these things will go down and FAST.

This puts a whole new spin on 0.0 warfare if these changes go through. It essentially creates the same situation with Stations as we have with podding: "Give us 100 Billion isk or we blow up the station." Pandemic Legion will have an absolute field day with this. All of those supercaps that were put on ice (maybe?) from Crucible will be right back in play, destroying your assets one station at a time. I love it. Its all of the best (see: worst) parts of Eve. Don't feel like participating in that CTA? Okay, enjoy waking up in high sec, no clone, tens of ships all gone. Beautiful.

This will change null sec, no doubt. It gives motivation beyond the typical sovereignty reasons. It gives pilots a reason to undock that isn't motivated by money or normal PVP. New Eden will Burn.

-- Rollins

Crucible: Thoughts

2011-11-30T13:05:00.002-05:00

Official Eve Crucible Trailer

Well I've gotta say, Crucible seems to have had an incredibly warm reception, and I can see why. As a player who started in Apocrypha, I didn't realize how incredible that expansion was. T3's and Wormholes -- wow. I remember my thoughts about each expansion, and I've never been as excited as I have been for Crucible (although removing learning skills with Incursion was pretty nice).

To begin -- HYBRIDS. I've been primarily a Gallente pilot for quite a while, and its freaking fantastic to see a boost for them. For a long time, Gallente has had the closest range, highest damage, but most of their ships are relatively slow, and they lack the resist bonused ships that Caldari and Amarr have. I haven't had a chance to test out the new bonuses yet (increased damage and tracking for both blasters and rails), but I'm optimistic.

Tier 3 Battlecruisers are another awesome feature of the expansion. These glass cannons, or pocket-battleships as Kirith Kodachi is calling them, are intriguing to say the least. They seem to be a potentially potent anti-capital weapon with the new fighter bomber balancing. The Tr 3 BC's also give us a huge new ganking toy. I'm looking at you, Mittani (PS: Big fan of the Ice Interdiction. Not a fan as someone who needs it for his Thanatos, but I love the idea). I'll definitely pick some of these up as prices come down (200m+ for a BC? No thanks).

I am a little disappointed by the Dramiel nerf, but I understand it. All in all, it doesn't look too bad (I'm pretty sure I can still fit a dual-prop, 150mm AC/Rocket Dram with some meta 4 gear, but I haven't run the numbers yet). I was trying to go out and lose these before the patch, but I just couldn't lose one ;)

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14692727

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14690926

Overall, there are a ton of little features in this expansion, and all of them together should make this a great one. I'm going to pick up an Enyo at Jita tonight and see if I can undock sometime tomorrow to test out this blaster balance. Enjoy the new expansion, and here's to CCP doing more like this one in the future!

-- Rollins

The New Eden Experience: An Introduction

2011-11-30T12:09:00.000-05:00

Hello World. Or... well, maybe Universe..

I'm your brand new host, Tommy Rollins. I've been in Eve for over two and half years now (its the whole "long time listener, first time caller" deal), but just starting to really come into my own. Let me give you a quick background about me.

I started in June 2009 (wow, quite a while ago) playing with some friends from work. I was a TOTAL carebear for a few years, and I'm finally starting to come around to the darker side of things. My first character is TFirish3 (didn't realize people used actual "names" in MMOs at the time), and he's well specialized in Gallente/Minmatar subcaps. My other primary character is Tommy Rollins, who's just getting started in RVB as a Rifter pilot.

I first started reading Eve blogs in a Solid Mechanics class in Undergrad, and I've been hooked ever since. The urge to become a member of that community has been nagging at me for a while now, so I figured I'd finally give it a go. Look forward to a post regarding the new Crucible expansion later today.

-- Rollins