EVE: War Dec

Foo Signature Industries is under war dec by De Clan, a small (alt) corp with only 9 characters, most of them only a few months old.

The war was declared on december 10th. As this seemed more of a welcome distraction from running missions then as a real threat I decided to ask some locater agents where to find war targets.

Soon after my agent came with a response and pointed me towards Urlen. I found one character docked at a station so patiently started waiting on the undock for something to happen. After I was noticed a new member joined De Clan and soon after he arrived in system and on grid in a hurricane. I immediately engaged and started ripping through his shields but he disengaged and docked up, probably since he was unable to track my ship and apply damage.

Some time later he undocked but I did not engage because I expected a trap and was too cautious. This allowed him to warp off and leave the system only to return a little later.
By then I was a little bored and boredom breeds stupidy so I quickly engaged before he could dock up. Things started out well but then a caracal, stabber, corax and punisher landed and quickly immobilized me with multiple webs and points.

The cane was getting out of range so I tried switching targets to take out something small but that didn't really work out well for me since they were already orbiting to close to to track.
With everything going on I was losing track of what was important so didn't look well enough at range and speed of hostiles to identify the best targets. I also forgot to overheat modules, started my ancillary shield booster to late and if I hadn't turned off autoreload I might have lived long enough to survive the reload time.

When I finally realized I was not going to kill that hurricane I tried disengaging to dock but forgot about my drones for another 10 seconds.



The only kill of the war for De Clan.
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20905571

The only loss they suffered was one rupture against another corp they had wardecced.
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=21045646

After my loss I was contacted by a member of this corp and we had a chat.
I then realized I had seen someone idling around the same station I had been camping but somehow I hadn't made the link between that character and his corporation.

Had we talked earlier I probably could have counted on backup and things would have gone differently. I reshipped and fleeted up with with them but after killing me our war targets logged off for the evening.

A few days later the war was over, one day later we received a new wardec while the war against the corp that killed their rupture was not continued.

I've had this vagabond for almost a year and never used it so this seemed like a good idea for a baptism. Except for the part where I have no experience flying heavy assault cruisers and me confusing prices of the vagabond and stabber fleet issue making the ship a bit more expensive as a battlecruiser.

Not everyone in the corporation was happy about my loss since it might be what kept De Clan interested enough in us to renew the wardec but since we are a wormhole corp we are not really bothered by jita campers.

How do you feel or respond regarding wardecs?
Do you go out and hunt those that would hunt you or do you try to keep a low profile and evade fights so that the enemy gets bored and only loses money on a wardec?

How do you EVE?

In response to http://novakaneinc.blogspot.nl/2013/12/how-do-you-eve.html

EVE: New PI setup

Arrive home, read the daily webcomics (Dilbert, Order of the stick, Looking for Group, Penny Arcade and Schlock Mercenary) and log into eve with PI characters for maintenance.

Our static today exits only 2 jumps from Jita and we have no other incoming wormholes so this is a good opportunity to move some PI materials to the market. Cargo value is an estimated 245m so I jump the epithal to high sec, dock in station and contract the goods to an alt to haul and sell. After a stop in to Jita I am richer by 200m in direct sales and 70m in sell orders.

Previously I ran planets with single planet P2 production. As an experiment (temporary flatfee instead of % poco taxes) I switched to 4 extraction and 1 factory planet for several characters. The setups I have can be improved but since it hasn’t been that long since I set up in the first place I am going to delay the clickfest that is setting up planets from scratch. After a few weeks of running the new setups I have decided that my old way of single planet P2 manufacture is better suited to my playstyle. Gevlon Goblin also declared single planet P2 production to be most efficiënt in isk/effort so I am not alone in that idea.

Going back to single planet P2 production means that approximately the same effort I now spent on 4 characters could be divided among 8 characters instead.

Current daily PI production:

Alt 1 (CCU 4), produces 5 single planet P2 commodities, daily production 9m isk.

Alt 2 & 3 (CCU 4), produces 2 P2 commodities with 4 extraction and one factory planet, daily production 12-14m isk.
Character 4 (CCU 5) and has factories for 3 different P2 commodities, daily production value between 9 and 15m isk.

Let’s say 10-12m isk per character/planet/day. So about 200-300m a month per character since I don’t refresh planets and move goods every single day.

4 characters should earn me a solid billion isk each month, upgrading to 8 characters should get me anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 billion for 15-25 hours of work. This is better hourly income as most high sec activities and even if it wasn’t it would introduce some variation in my activities. I can run only so many missions and shoot that many rats or rocks before I need to switch to something else for a while.

The most important bit to maximize profit is simply picking the right materials to create. Don’t make nanites that sell for 3k when you can produce coolant that sells at 8k.

Extraction rates vary a lot between setups so it’s hard to sgive solid numbers on how much P0, P1, or P2 I produce in a day.

EVE: hello Isis

Rubicon brought us ISIS and masteries, everyone that cared about certificates is now training masteries.

Raziel has level V mastery in shuttle, badger, tayra and bustard. For the next 37 days I will train the skills to get all caldari subcapitals except manticore and widow to level IV.

Duriel, my pvp alt, would require 112 days to get level IV mastery in all subcapital ships except for ORE vessels, stealth bombers, command ships and black ops. Half of that time would be spent training shield management, sentry and heavy drone skills to rank 5.

Certificates are gone, featured below are the ones I thought worth preserving.



Finally some small ideas for game improvements.
1. Wouldn't it be nice if Isis could run in windowed mode instead of background mode? That way people don't have to minimize everything on the bottom half of their screen to view those industrial ship masteries.

2. Since the star/solar map also runs in background mode, how about that one?

3. It is now possible to plug in implants without pausing character training. Will clone jumping receive the same treatment?

4. A way to view the masteries and a listing of what ships or modules they apply to.
Originally these were 3 complaints.

EVE: Marauders and bastion module

I was working on a long post about my goals for Rubicon and how I felt about all the new features.
Well forget about that, we crossed into Rubicon territories a long time ago.

Most of my Rubicon experience so far has been with marauders, running the gallente epic arc in a golem and now working the minmatar arc in a golem and vargur.



Battleships are noticably slower in warping across star systems. Cruise missiles on the other hand surprised me with their speed. Over 13 km/s, so in most cases the missile will hit the target before the next volley launches.

Since it's a cruise golem my dps is relatively low, 600 vs 580 for my hamgu. But I was suprised by how well it's damage applied to frigates and cruisers.


The shield amount repaired in the fitting screen does not adjust for the bastion module so you'd have to double that.

My vargur tells me it is capable of 850 dps or so, in practice it's only lightly more as the cruise golem, tank is much better though.

If you need to move more as a couple of kilometers between gates or onbjectives just use the MJD to jump in a triangle. Jump up or down and after a minute you can jump to your target.

Once I enter bastion mode I deploy a mobile tractor, speeding up the process of pulling in wrecks.
Eve though the bastion module more than doubles local tank I still found myself refitting for more tank.

After the first few missions I now also remember to turn my module red when I am almost done instead of giving a warp or approach command and wondering why it is taking so long.

EVE: a day in the hole.

Four anomalies and four signatures that need scanning down in our C1. Ten minutes later I have scanned down one relic site, one gas site and two wormholes. I leave the wormholes alone and hop into some ships to run the relic site.



Three containers contain nothing of value but the sleeper wrecks leave behind about 20m in loot and salvage. Most of the salvage is worthless though, melted nanoribbons is what everyone is after. I finally understand what wormhole loot is all about.

I start on the gas site next, it contains fullerite C-50 and C84, I mine a couple of cycles in a venture and realize the gas is pretty worthless. Maybe next time I will clear the site but for now I leave the gas alone. So much for my first venture into gas mining.

Eve is then rudely interrupted by some real life activities. When I get back I log in again and start on the three Perimeter Camps, 30 minutes later only wrecks remain.
While a catalyst salvages the three sites to collect 52m in salvage , 50m of which is in nanoribbons another character hops into a mining vessel and collects an ore hold full of Arkanor.

Somewhere in between I find time to refresh PI planets and pick up some goods while my FW alt cries itself to sleep again without seeing any action.

Lesson of the day: you can only queue 50 skills.

Link of the day

XKCD somehow triggers me into sharing. I blame his alt texts..



From his alt text: 'There is only one group that comes out of this looking smart: everyone who pirated Photoshop'

Bonus link: http://xkcd.com/792/

EVE: Wormhole life

Yesterday we had an inbound C2 wormhole with a lot of sites. Since the wormhole didn't appear to have any active occupants we decided to run some sites.
One site was completed together with a corp member, unfortunately he had to leave but afterwards I completed another three Perimeter Hangar sites by myself, collecting about 50m in loot and salvage for my time.



Ships posing in a relic site, ready to hack some containers.

Today our C1 offers very little in entertainment. A combat and relic site were quickly cleared but no new signatures spawned leaving only the high sec static available.



Wormhole acting as a lens amplifying sunlight.

Short post but I want to move on from the previous topic.
Pvp is fun and all but exploration, getting loot and iskies still manages to get priority.
Planet management is suffering from neglect and needs some attention also.

EVE: Somer Cashout

5 Billion isk in Somer bonus credit and 63m deposited 15 months ago converted into:

1 Golem
1 Basilisk
1 Rokh
1 Drake
Delivered in Jita.

1 Implant set +4
1 Golem
3 Plex
Converted to 3.272m isk

230m bonus credit from achievements turned into:
1 Plex, awaiting contract.



13 PLEX blinks total.

• 7 times with 1 ticket, 1 plex isk buyout.
• 2 times with 2 tickets, 1 plex isk buyout.
• 1 times with 3 tickets.
• 2 times with 4 tickets, awaiting contract.
• 1 time with 13 tickets, isk buyout

What are the odds?



In the past my win percentage was about 10 percent so my expectations were I would end up with something like the 4 ships contracted to me. What I did not expect was winning four plex blinks.

EVE: SOMER GTC Promotion

So SOMER is now offering 1 billion bonus isk. I took advantage of this offer and bought 4 GTC's through Somer and Markee Dragon.

Why? Because I would be stupid not to.

One month of account time costs € 12,95 a month if I use account management to directly pay CCP for blocks of 3 months. Eight months worth of account time costs me € 103,60.



If I buy 8 months worth of account time through CCP by buying PLEX it costs me € 127,94



This morning Markee Dragon offered four 60 day GTC cards at € 102,16 total.
This evening Markee Dragon offered four 60 day GTC cards at € 103,56 total.

The dollar price did not change as far as I can see so obviously SOMER has affected international financial markets and euro-dollar exchange rate! This RMT thing must be even bigger as we imagined.



Comparison:
€ 103,60 gets you 8 months of account time directly through CCP
€ 127,94 gets you 8 PLEX that I'll value at 4,8 billion ISK on the market.
€ 103,56 gets you 8 months of account time and 5 billion in SOMER credit.

Subscription time through third party resellers, depending on exchange rates is cheaper as directly through CCP.

End of story. The rest is whining about paypal service.

I have an issue with paypal though. I transferred € 105,- to my paypal balance to pay for the GTC codes. Paypal however does not allow me to pay Markeer in euros but forces me to pay in dollars at their exchange rate. Thus forcing another paypal money transfer because at their rate of 1 euro = 1,31171 dollar I had to pay € 106,70 to paypal.

When I called Paypal about the trouble I had paying Markee through their website they were very unhelpful and simply explained that Markee forced users to have a credit card associated with their paypal accounts. This was despite the fact that the error was after leaving the Markee site when already on the paypal site trying to verify payment.

When I sent Markee an (angry) email I received a reply within 10 minutes.
In answer to my questions/accusation they stated what paypal told me is not true and that it would make no sense for them to force customers to add a credit card to their account.
Their advice was that I should cleare my cache (no effect) and otherwise contact paypal again and perhaps ask for a supervisor. (not needed but I doubt paypal could have offered any serious help in identifying the issue).

The issue was that my paypal balance did not cover the Markee fee at paypal exhange rates so I was not offered the option to pay through my paypal account, instead I was forced to add a credit card to my paypal account since there'isn't one associated with my account.

Markee answered my question quickly and they offer better dollar-euro exchange rates as paypal does.

EVE Online: first FW experience

My first FW night was enjoyable but expensive, I have 3 lossmails to show for my time and with assistance managed to get one one kill.

I made this Talwar fit. It can fit either a warp scrambler or warp disruptor.



My first loss was against a sentinel. He did a lot more damage as I expected and he neuted me totally dry in just a few seconds. My biggest mistake was in shooting at his drones.
I totally forgot a sentinel has a 60m3 drone bay, he didn't even have to recall his drones, he just released new ones. He was keeping range so I couldn't hit him even with javelin rockets.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237769



My second loss was against a vengeance and wolf. Only after combat did I realize the cormorant on grid was not hostile but also in militia... a minute later that at least was fixed.
I am just glad I didn't shoot that cormorant. Together we killed the vengeance, the wolf was undamaged as it popped the cormorant and I was already in half armor but engaged him anyway.
I think we both entered structure or low armor when my launchers burned out so he had no problems finishing me off. GF were exchanged. Very close and I wonder who would have won had I not burned out my launchers.

The kill: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237671
The loss: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237670



The two minmatar destroyer wrecks are mine. Sponge was the vengeance.



My last loss was a bit silly, I should have warped off when I saw multiple ships appear on dscan but there was a friendly firetail on grid as well and I didn't want to leave him to die if he engaged them. So I just overheated rockets again and started shooting an ishkur.

Then I died and called it a night.
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20238843



Looking at damage received I am not sure that EANM is of much use. Perhaps the BCS is better, it proved a significant dps bonus.

A talwar is slow so I didn't go for a kitey fit but always closed range and applied web + scram.

At least I am now motivated to go earn isk. I need replacement ships because learning when to engage and how will only generate more lossmails before I get better.
Should I go for max dps fits to burn down an enemy as fast as possible or should I go for something tanky so I have more time to learn the engagement? I'll have to think about this.

Final note: find out what is wrong with my teamspeak. Minmatar militia formed a fleet and they were able to hear me but I couldn't hear them. Probably a wrong output device selected is my guess but I couldn't locate the problem in the time available.

EVE Online: CCP vision.

During the New Player Training Sessions I saw some quotes by CCP Eterne.
I realize that these are just words from one CCP employee and not set in stone decisions.



Of course this isn't really new news but it was still nice to see confirmation that the idea is on the table. From an Eurogamer.net interview:

A sandbox can only be as deep as its creators allow though, and Eve remains a world tied heavily to CCP's fiction and rules - at least away from the low/null-security frontiers. In the second decade though, the game is stable enough to get more ambitious. "[The sandbox] should go as far as players want," says Lander." So, features like designing ships instead of just using pre-built ones? Having willing players replace the CONCORD NPC police force in high-security space? Destroying the four empires and shifting the universe entirely to a corporation and alliance driven one? "Oh, god yeah," Lander answered immediately - to the concepts, not confirming their imminent additions. "A lot of Eve's restrictions, they're because we had to get it out of the door."



I would hope Jove space starts out as a form of wormhole space that will allow cyno's and player-built stargates. Likewise it would start out without local chat and something like sovereignty upgrades to decide if there wil be a local chat or not.

Finally something for those angsty players that are afraid EVE will become safer and safer.

EVE Online: More RMT

Some guy just quit EVE, RMT-ed 125 PLEX for money and then bragged about it in his blog.

I am not going to link to his blog, I just unsubscribed from his feed and won't read another post of his. I am not willing to give him more advertising income and it would be best if EVE players did the same and turned his back on him.

I sincerely hope CCP confiscates all those PLEX from players that bought them. Unfortunately CCP can't really touch this guy anymore except through legal means and I don't hold high hopes for that. Though I would love for CCP to make an example of players like this that ruin the game for those of us that still play the game.

About the only solution I can think of to stop RMT though referral kickbacks is to remove GTC from the game and only allow players to buy and sell PLEX through CCP without any third pary interference. I have no idea though how this would impact the game. I cant see any drawbacks but I am pretty sure this is only because I haven't thought it all the way through.

No paper policy is going to stop bots or RMT. Perhaps it's time for CCP to kick it up a notch again and take some action.

The other thing that gets me going:
Amazon discounts.. The 5 dollars for 3 plex is an amazon mistake and the people that managed to buy 60 or 600 PLEX while it lasted just got lucky. But this isn't the first time amazon offers deals that are way below previous rates.

Without a credit card one of the few ways for me to get a PLEX to sell on the market is to pay € 35,- for two PLEX. Bought directly from CCP. I admit to some envy regarding players that were able to take advantage of the offer.

Metallica: Through the Never

Two days ago I went out and saw Metallica: Through the Never.



My expectations were not that high but I knew I would regret it if I hadn't seen the movie in IMAX 3D while I had the chance. So I talked my friend into seeing this movie and while he is no metal fan at all he was sitting on the edge of his seat.

The cinema sound system really creates an immersive experience. The concert and narrative combine to create a surreal movie.



As far as I can tell not a single person got up before the end credits finished.

I was drawn in and blown away. This is my movie of the year.

EVE Online: GTC referrals and RMT

Yay finally I joined in and made my own post about the SOMER RMT questions.

The real issue is that ingame parties can refer players to GTC sellers and get a share of the profits.

The real question is whether or not offering isk as a reward for using your referral is considered illegal RMT.

Instead of SOMER you could also Goons. They orchestrate ingame events and activities so they can generate articles on themittani.com. TMC.com refers people to a GTC seller. TMC generates dollars from this.
Perfectly legal so far.

Now TMC decides to offer 50m isk bonus for any GTC bought through their website to entice even more players to click on their GTC referral link.
Suddenly RMT.

But there is Good RMT and there is Bad RMT.
-Bad RMT: you pay 20 dollars and get 1 billion isk.
-Good RMT: you pay 20 dollars to buy a GTC and get 50m bonus.

Of those 20 Good RMT dollars:
-CCP gets 15 dollar (same as if someone had paid to extend their account one week.)
-GTC reseller gets 3 dollar.
-TMC gets 1 dollar.

With Bad RMT the isk seller gets 20 dollars per billion isk and CCP sees none.
With Good RMT the isk seller gets 20 dollars per billion isk and CCP gets 300 dollars.

Imagine CCP allows this and every big alliance and RMT traders jumps in.
Soon referrers will have to offer 200m isk bonus per GTC to get players to click their link instead of going to a competitor. With Good RMT the isk seller then gets 5 dollars per billion isk and CCP still gets their 300 dollars for selling 20 GTC to a third party reseller.

Who loses if this is allowed?

The limit on how much isk you can convert to dollars is just on how much people you can get to click the referral links. But let's say people are lining up to buy GTC through your referral and the limit is only in how fast you can pull in isk to hand out as bonus.

To earn isk you have to play the game. To play the game you need account time. CCP earns 15 dollars if you pay for that account time (if you plex someone else already paid for your account time).

CCP is not the loser here, someone pays for that GTC.
The GTC seller is not the loser here, he sold a GTC
The referrer is not the loser here, he just plexed his account.
The player that wants isk is not the loser here. He is not forced to buy a GTC.

Of course botting to earn inhuman amounts of isk would break this.
That is why botting is illegal and should be a high priority for CCP to combat.

What if the CFC turns into a human botting alliance focusing on pure PVE?
Then there are a lot of PVE carebears making themselves a big target for any PVP-ers.

What if you can't fight the CFC because they are too big?
Well obviously goons have won at EVE. Now HTFU and go fight goons, join goons or get the fuck out of this game you pathetic whiner.

Personally I have no idea yet what I will do, but quitting EVE is not an option under consideration.

EVE Online: Nosy Gamer slippery slope SOMER poll

The nosy gamer put up a poll asking players how they feel about SOMER and the accusations of RMT. http://nosygamer.blogspot.nl/2013/10/first-poll-is-somerblink-conducting-rmt.html

Yes, and SOMER should be banned with all assets confiscated.

Yes, SOMER should be banned, but CCP should try to restore ISK to players.

Yes, but since CCP tacitly approved, SOMER should be allowed to stay in business if he follows the rules in the future.

Yes, but so what?
When I started this post there was just a poll with answers to choose from and no separate post so I answered the question: 'Is SOMER involved in RMT and what should CCP do about it.'

Feel free to imagine other questions that would fit this answer template.
Imagine SOMER hadn't received Ishukone Scorpions but some other unique ship and sold them for isk.

Is it wrong for SOMER to sell customized spaceship skins feating pink unicorns?

A blessing of ..

Have you ever heard the expression, "a gaggle of geese?" These names for groups of animals are pretty peculiar, too.

1. A shrewdness of apes	12. An exaltation of larks
2. A battery of barracudas	13. A troop of monkeys
3. A kaleidoscope of butterflies	14. A parliament of owls
4. A quiver of cobras	15. An ostentation of peacocks
5. A murder of crows	16. A rookery of penguins
6. A convocation of eagles	17. A prickle of porcupines
7. A charm of finches	18. An unkindness of ravens
8. A skulk of foxes	19. A shiver of sharks
9. A troubling of goldfish	20. A pod of whales
10. A smack of jellyfish	21. A descent of woodpeckers
11. A mob of kangaroos	22. A zeal of zebras

Can you guess what webcomic led to this post?

.. unicorns.

EVE Online: New Player Training Sessions

Earlier today was the first of the New Player Training Sessions.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/new-player-training-sessions/

New players can participate by joining the "New Player Training Sessions" channel in game at the listed times. We will also be advertising the sessions in the rookie corporations and Rookie Help Chat channel during the event times.

Track: Player vs Player Combat
October 15, 17:00 UTC – Modules
October 17, 17:00 UTC – Fitting Your Ship
October 22, 17:00 UTC – Earning ISK
October 24, 17:00 UTC – The Overview and UI
October 29, 17:00 UTC – Piloting Your Ship
October 31, 17:00 UTC – Skills
November 5, 17:00 UTC – Crimewatch (Featuring live demonstrations)
November 7, 17:00 UTC – Combat Basics
November 12, 17:00 UTC – Teamwork
November 16, 17:00 UTC – PVP Fleet
November 18, 17:00 UTC – Progression: What’s Next?

Minutes before the first session started the channel had 134 people in it, this jumped to over 300 when the first session started, about 450 fifteen minutes in and almost 500 by the time CCP Eterne finished talking.



Full seminar text will be posted on the EVElopedia. This is a good thing as text was pushed off the screen after the seminar ended and chat was opened up for questions.

One note: https://wiki.eveonline.com/wikiEN/images/8/87/Propulsion.png
Isn't that supposed to be 100 km?

Overal I found it an informative session, even if there was some information overload at times.
Finally got to see CCP devs in the game as well.

Link of the day

Old Spice commercial featuring the awesome Bruce Campbell.

Other Old Spice commercials. I thought they were pretty hilarious.

EVE Online: Wormhole PI update

It has been almost a month since the move to a C1 wormhole to do PI and it has proven lucrative enough that two characters are now training CCU rank V.

Total Sales	105.230.195,37
Total Sales	115.483.947,24
Total Export Tax	-10.496.000,00
Total Export Tax	-9.084.300,00
Profit	201.133.842,61
Open sell orders	90.000.000

These are numbers from two characters. I run a two day cycle but installations still fall idle every now and then.

Overall my wallet balance dropped because I've been buying some ships. At minimum I put a scanning frigate and epithal in all main trade hubs. I just pick the nearest hub to sell my items and switch ships if necesarry.

EVE Online: First tears collected

The first thing I saw on overview was a Vherokior Probe loitering on the wormhole.

I had just jumped my pve Oracle from high sec to a class 1 wormhole. I decloak, lock up the target and shoot the ship first and the pod second as it doesn't warp off. Seconds later a retriever leaves warp so gets shot as well, unfortunately the pod is able to warp off.

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801048/
After killing the ship I felt a bit sorry for killing what was probably an afk noob on a daytrip.



http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801053/
After killing the pod I felt annoyed that this guy went afk in a dangerous spot and would probably end up blaming me.



http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801063/
After killing the retriever I felt like it was my birthday party and I wished that second pod would stay and let me crack it open to see what was inside.



Lessons learned:

• Refit that pve oracle. Replace those cap rechargers with sensor boosters. Lack of cpu (36 available for two mid slots) prevents me from fitting anything really useful in the mids but sensors boosters are
• Watch dscan, next time it might not be a retriever that leaves warp.

Lesson's taught:

• Don't go afk uncloaked on wormholes.
• Warp to zero, that retriever landed 10 km away.

Reaction from the victim:
Mail 1: ты сука пролетела через нашу систему, и еще насрала там
Google translate: you bitch flew through our system and there is still shit

Mail 2: ты мразь у меня инет глюкнул, тебя бы там разодрали на твоем оракле
Google translate: you scum I Inet glyuknul, you would be there on your tore Orakle

Local chat:
[13:51:53] pirdutcho > че мрази спрятались
Google translate: human scum hiding
[13:52:22] pirdutcho > бледво
Google translate: bledvo

And after that I decided to move on to my destination system, apparently some people are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.

I do not believe Gevlon Goblin would have approved of this mining fit.

EVE Online: Four years

Time flies when you are having fun. It has been over four years since I started playing Eve at the urge of one of my best friends. Unfortunately he didn't stick around.

At the start I had only one account, after a few months I realized the only way to 'level up' a second character was if I had a second account. The other purpose was to have a scout when moving around in slow but expensive ships like a drake or raven.



Raziel, birth date 12-9-2009, 64m SP
My main prefers to fly caldari hulls. Skill training has been all over the place and next twelve months will be used to raise existing skills to rank 4 to fill gaps in support skills.
Most flown ship: HAM tengu, it gets boring.



Uriel, birth date 4-10-2009, 46m SP
Uriel prefers amarr hulls. Main purpose is as an industrial character doing PI and manufacturing. Secondary goal is firing (mining) lasers. Long term training goal at creation was to get into a dreadnaught. The next year will be spent getting into and orca, archon and amarr tech2 hulls while fleshing out industry skills where needed.
Favorite ship: anything with lasers. Ungroup for better effect.



Duriel, birth date 24-1-2010, 62m SP
Duriel prefers minmatar hulls. Main purpose is as pvp character, secondary as scout and support. Long term training goal is to fly all subcapital hulls. Next twelve months will be mostly support skills because those are subpar
Favorite ship: stealth bombers. Theory only.



Gabrielle, birth date 9-8-2010, 47m SP
Gabrielle prefers gallente hulls. Main purpose is industrial support for Uriel. Long term training goal at creation was to get into a carrier. The next year will be spent getting into a carrier hull and improving drone skills.
Biggest disappointment: blaster proteus. Navy megathron does it better.



Finally I have two minor alts.

Minor alt 1 (6m SP): 3-4-2011, freighter pilot.
Minor alt 2: (8m SP) 3-4-2011, meant to be a pirate or suicide ganker or something else not carebeary. Currently engaged in carebear activities.

Assets
A while ago I valued my own assets at about 15 billion isk, this was excluding any production materials and modules I had lying around.

This week I downloaded jEveAssets and it gave my total asset value as 19.503.030.987,34 isk
This took me four years to accumulate. Gevlon Goblin had 20 billion isk in two months.

Speaking of Gevlon. I saw his two ganking alts pass through my high sec mining system twice today reminding me I might want to look at changing my mining fit. A retriever with MAPC and MSE for shield tank. I could replace the MSE with an invulnerability field. This would remove the need for the MAPC freeing up a low slot for a second mining laser upgrade.

SOMER T20

Post inspired by http://funkybacon.blogspot.nl/2013/10/somerblink-t20-13.html

In short, CCP gave SOMER employees rare Ishukone Watch Scorpions.
http://themittani.com/news/ccp-secretly-gifted-somer-blink-ishukone-scorpions

Some people are raising hell and equating this to the T20 scandal, others think it is overblown and SOMER just received some gifts comparable to othere freebies CCP has handed out to community sites in the past.

SOMER blink is not a community site.
SOMER blink is a gambling site.

And that is why I believe SOMER should be treated differently from real community sites.
Other community sites generate advertising income or receive gifts from CCP as well but those sites are still presented with their service as primary goal. SOMER does not exist to sponsor events, that is just advertising to promote their primary service, gambling.

Gambling is not a community service.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://crossingzebras.com/2013/10/06/conflict-of-interest/
First reply: Colluding in a secret process makes it appear seedy and underhanded. If it is a reward why not celebrate it in a public way to encourage other people to contribute to the community?

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2013/10/hobbit-birthday.html
http://jestertrek.blogspot.nl/2013/10/conflict-diamond.html

I won't quit EVE over this, I won't threaten to quit EVE over this. At best I will keep it in mind the next time CCP slips up again. I think this is how bittervets get born?

EVE Online: Standings repaired

A few days ago I finished Penumbra, the final of the four epic mission arcs.

One of my long term goals is to have is high standings with all four empire factions. The time I started the standing repair plan my gallente standing was about to hit -5.

These standings were with the connections skill at rank 3
Caldari State   8,66
Amarr Empire   5,6
Gallente Federation   -4,71
Minmatar Republic   -2,96

I started by completing all tutorial missions and did datacenter missions by turning in dog tags and running the courier mission chain. Of course I did storylines in between as well though I should probably avoid doing those in the future.

Faction standings before I started the 4 epic arcs with connections 4
Caldari State  4.64
Gallente Federation 3.78
Amarr Empire  3.72
Minmatar Republic 3.54

Faction standings after finishing the 4 epic arcs, the SoE arc (Minmatar variation) and training connections 5.
Caldari State 5.68
Minmatar Republic 4.91
Gallente Federation 4.66
Amarr Empire 4.52

Training connection skill rank 5 my caldari standing went from 5.5 to 5.68.

The Blood-Stained Stars was done in a nighthawk, previously a hawk was used. Next time I'll try a crow. That should speed things up nicely 3 months from now. Combats are mostly against noob frigates and most time is spent warping around anyway.

Totally off topic, ships will travel faster as a result of the warp changes. This would allow fleets to move around faster if titan jump bridges are ever nerfed in a far away future.

Old Man's War

This is not a story about Eve Online and pvp in Old Man Star.

This is about two secondhand books I bought this afternoon.
Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
Old Man's War by John Scalzi

I am about 100 pages into Old Man's War by now and hooked. It was mentioned as reminiscent of Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman's Forever War and while I don't have Starship Troopers I do have 6 other Heinlein books and both Haldeman's Forever War and Forever Peace.
So far OMW is on track to be just as entertaining and engaging.

John Scalzi apparantly was a creative consultant for Stargate Universe. I own season 1 on DVD and seen the first six episodes. Stargate and Atlantis were more enjoyable more but perhaps the characters will grow a bit more likable over time.

Last and First Man has been named as an influential book by a lot by other writers so looking forward to that as well.

Other books I have recently read are:
Fate of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
and Saga of the Pliocene Exile, a trilogy by Julian May

Back to OMW.

EVE Online: Customs Code Expertise

CCP SoniClover came with news about high sec player owned customs offices. The full article can be read at http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/player-owned-customs-offices-in-hi-sec/

Of course the real news is the introduction of an awesome new skill!

Customs Code Expertise
This will reduce the NPC portion of the tax rate, by 10% per level (so at level 5 the NPC export tax rate will be 5% rather than 10%). Again, this skill only affects the NPC portion of the tax, not the player owner tax.



Reducing tax by 40 or 50 percent sounds pretty decent even if taxes are only about 10% of the sale price. Giving us this skill at the same time when any NPC customs office can be destroyed and replaced by a player owned one...

Ripard Teg mentioned CCP devs trolling players?

EDIT:

The NPC tax will continue for hi sec POCOs (as we want low sec POCOs to still be competitive). The tax rate stays the same, at 10% for export and 5% for import. This is then in addition to whatever tax the player owner sets.

Perhaps I should have read this part a few times more. The good news is that reading http://mabricksmumblings.blogspot.nl/2013/10/we-need-better-than-double-taxes-and-no.html pointed out this mistake to me before someone had to do it in comments.
The bad news is that it removes the point of my article since Customs Code Expertise is apparantly a real skill and not some dev trolling.

No regrets about moving my PI operation to a C1 wormhole.

EVE Online: Certificate changes

CCP Ytterbium posted a dev blog yesterday with details about the certificate system revamp.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/license-to-kill-certificate-overhaul/

Just my feedback here, anyone can read the full dev blog for themselves, no need to rephrase and repost the entire blog.

Certificates can no longer be set as public.
I liked setting non-pvp certificates public. It gives people a little idea of what my character focus is and might lower the barrier to approach me or ask questions.
http://eveboard.com/pilot/raziel_Walker/certificates

Removal of redundant starter profession certificates.
They are redundant because they cannot be made public anymore. Was I the only player that ever looked at them? Did roleplayers have any use for them?

Automatic certificate claming.
Only now do I realize I should have trained basic certificates, claimed them and set them public. Then train the improved/elite certificate and do not claim it. That way people might think my character is an untrained alt and underestimate some skills despite his character age.

Ship masteries
Shield reinforcement and tackling certificates for a Megathron?
I understand maximizing anything that might be relevant for rank V mastery but it still looks a bit silly.

Corporation created certificates
Are these possible or will this be possible with a future release?
This is the real new news that will get people excited about this dev blog.

You want to fly the fleet doctrine fit?
Match this certificate to be eligible for ship reimbursement.

Link of the day

EVE Online: Rubicon winter expansion announced

The new expansion, named Rubicon, has been announced officially.
A recording of the announcement can be found at http://www.twitch.tv/ccp/b/465203586

Features announced or speculated about include:

• Capsuleer controlled high sec customs offices - Will this affect default tax rates? Is it feasible for small alliances or corporations to control custom offices or will big coalitions swamp empire space with their poco's? Where will the solo player turn to?
• Accelerating to warp speed will change. Bigger ship classes will be slower while smaller ships will accelerate faster and cruisers will stay as they are. So watch the direction that battleship flies off towards, follow in your interceptor and still arrive first.
• Interceptor rebalancing, bubble immunity, perhaps warp speed adjustment? 
• EAF rabalancing
• Interdictor rebalancing, bubble immunity
• Marauder rebalancing and Bastion module, (only just now noticed that the marauder bonus will change from active tank to webifier bonus for all 4 variations)
• Sisters of Eve faction ships. Amarr (armor tank) and Gallente (drone) based with cov ops & perhaps an exploration (role) bonus. Frigate and cruiser hulls, these will also be the first T1 faction ships that get covert ops ability.
• Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher for battleships.
• New character login/selection screen
• New Cert System, certificates will be organised together for ships, only has skills and no other certificates as pre-req's.
• 4 New deployable personal structure, all are attackable and won't initiate a Concord response, just a suspect timer. I wonder just how much EHP these will have. Can I attack them solo or will they survive a small gang?
• Siphon Unit - steal resources from star base's. deployable thing that lets you steal moon goo from POS-es but anyone can take stuff from it. How does this combine with the guns, neuting battery and scram battery on grid with the hostile Pos I want to rob? Can we do this guerilla warfare style in solo/small gang or we warp in a full fleet, reinforce the POS and basically siphon the moon empty?
• Personal Depot - Mobile home base with storage space and something like refitting/repair services. This will have the best defences of the four deployable structures, including a reinforcement system.
• Deployable Automatic tractor beam and looting device (won't salvage). But it will pull together all wrecks and put loot into a single cargo hold or container.
• Deployable Temporary short range cyno jammer, disposable one time use, around a 100km range they are working on that. This won't block covert cynos
• Integration of Twitch TV into the EVE client, no 3rd party, all integrated in the game, easier to share.
• Expansion out on 19 Nov

http://eveblog.allumis.co.uk/?p=1728
He thinks customs offices might turn a big profit if you start building some now.
Custom Office Gantry BPC's sell for 30m on contract, add 45-50 isk worth of extra materials and sell for 90 million.

http://interstellarprivateer.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/banks-of-the-rubicon/
Is the new auto-tractor & looter accessable to anyone? Is ninja looting back?

http://madhaberdashers.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/dare-i-cross-the-rubicon/
Can I raid a moon POS? How much cargo space will these structures take up and how much can fit inside them? BLOPS drop on null sec day trips? Low sec pirate gangs stealing from big coalitions?

Evenews24 tells us interdictors are sold out in jita to speculators. perhaps interceptors will get a bump in price as well?

I can't wait to get my hands on these new Sisters of Eve ships.
Perhaps I should get off my lazy ass and build modules that these ships will surely fit.

Just a quickie.
CCP was about to hand out some priceless eve online ships though a third-party lottery (Somer Blink). The message I read between the lines is https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3660642#post3660642 that CCP audits Somer Blink and tells us we can trust Somer blink not to scam us in any way. All those sites saying Somer is fraudulent or at least has something fishy going on can be dismissed.

I am not alone in my assumptions, I just noticed http://www.minerbumping.com/2013/09/ccp-audits-somer-blink-gives-them-free.html and http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.nl/2013/09/ccp-has-learned-from-t20-scandal.html

Why not a Red, Banana or Orange Magnate instead of gold? New ship, no big deal if that is handed out as a prize.

Why do I have to spend isk on a third-party lottery to get a chance at CCP sponsored prizes?

Perhaps I could try running SoE missions to stack LP for immediate use when the expansion arrives.

EVE Online: ME research

This post started out as a reply on http://foo-eve.blogspot.nl/2013/09/research-numbers.html where someone asked Foo to research the following BPO's for him. This is also where I get the number of 10.000 isk per hour to rent a slot. Research at a POS goes 33% faster so it compares to an empire rental rate of 7500 isk per hour but has no waiting times.

To compare:
Isaziwa (high sec) ME slots are 15.600 isk/hour and available in 93 days.
Auviken (high sec) ME slots are 4163 isk/hour and available in 42 days

Horrkisen (low sec) ME slots are 8162 isk/hour and available in 28 days.
Horrkisen (low sec) ME slots are 2091 isk/hour and available in 25 days.
Tama (low sec) ME slots are 177 isk/hour and available in 25 days.

Hobgoblin I
Cap Booster 50
Phased Plasma S
Incursus Blueprint

Most BPO's have a default waste value of 10%. This means that at ME 0 you need an additional 10% materials as compared to a perfect ME where you have 0 waste.

To calculate ME levels I use http://zofu.no-ip.de/bpo
For a manual calculation divide the material with the highest requirement by 5.5. (I use the material requirement including the 10% base waste. Otherwise you could use the materials required at perfect ME and divide by 5 to get the same result.)

A hobgoblin I at ME 0 requires:
504 tritanium so ME 91 to eliminate all (tritanium) waste.
7 pyerite gives ME 1 to eliminate pyerite waste.
4 Isogen and 2 Noxcium means that even at ME 0 there won't be any waste materials of these.

So a hobgoblin has a perfect ME value of 91.

The same way we can calculate the perfect ME levels of the other three items:
Cap Booster 50 blueprint has perfect ME level of 90. (495 tritanium divided by 5.5)
Phased Plasma S blueprint has perfect ME level of 29 (163 tritanium divided by 5.5)
Incursus Blueprint blueprint has perfect ME level of 2400 (13200 tritanium divided by 5.5)

But researching BPO's can be expensive. When using a BPO with a wastage factor of 10% you get the following waste percentages:

ML0 - 10%

ML1 - 5%

ML2 - 3.3%

ML3 - 2.5%

ML10 - 0.9%

ML50 - 0.2%

So researching anything beyond ME 3 to 10 offers very little in return.

Material	ISK pu	Base	ME:0		ME:1		ME:90		ME:91
			needed	wasted	needed	wasted	needed	wasted	needed	wasted
Tritanium	4.64	458	504	46	481	23	459	1	458	0
Pyerite	11.16	6	7	1	6	0	6	0	6	0
Isogen	119.99	4	4	0	4	0	4	0	4	0
Nocxium	708.16	2	2	0	2	0	2	0	2	0
ISK	5.7k	4.1k	4.3k	224.66	4.2k	106.75	4.1k	4.64	4.1k	0.00
Base Lab time				x1.00	2h40m		1w3d0h		1w3d2h
POS Lab time				x0.75	2h0m		1w0d12h		1w0d14h
Skill & POS Lab time				x0.56	1h30m		5d15h0m		5d16h30m

At ME 0 the material costs of a hobgoblin I come down to about 4300 isk.
At ME 91 the material costs of a hobgoblin I come down to about 4100 isk.

At ME 10 the waste is 4 tritanium.
At ME 20 it is halved again to 2 tritanium.
At ME 30 to 90 the waste is 1 tritanium.

As I write this the best price if you were to sell to buy orders is just over 4300 isk in Jita.
Sell prices are:
4000 isk in Jarizza (Derelik high sec)
4341 isk  in Amarr
4400 isk in Dodixie
4619 isk in Jita
4639 isk in Rens
5498 isk in Hek

A Hobgoblin I BPO sells for 250.000 isk. If your profit margin is 500 isk per drone you only have to sell 500 drones to earn back the BPO investment.

ME 1 takes 1,5 hours of research for in investment of 15.000 isk. Since you now save 100 isk in waste for each drone build you only have to build and sell 150 drones to earn back the investment in ME research.

It takes about 136 hours to research the BPO to a perfect ME. At 10k isk/hour to rent a research slot this is an investment of 1,36 million isk. With a price difference of 200 isk due to reduced waste compared to ME 0 you need to build and sell 6800 Hobgoblin I drones to earn back the investment in ME research.

The difference between ME 1 and ME 91 is 100 isk material cost per drone and 135 hours of research. 1,35 million isk divided by 100  = 13500 hobgoblin I drones that have to be build and sold to earn back the investment in research from ME 1 to ME 91

My Hobgoblin I BPO is ME 100 (and PE 60). I just calculated the perfect ME level and since it didn't take that long I rounded it up. Looking back ME 1 is the optimal value since it requires the lowest number of built drones to turn profitable and will actually reduce the number of drones you need to sell to make a profit on the original BPO investment.

My Cap Booster 50 BPO has been researched to ME 90 (perfect)
I do not own a Phased Plasma S or Incursus BPO. (Phased Plasma M or L anyone?)

The incursus is an altogether different story though.

Material	ISK pu	Base	ME:0		ME:1		ME:3		ME:6
			needed	wasted	needed	wasted	needed	wasted	needed	wasted
Tritanium	4.64	12000	13200	1200	12600	600	12300	300	12171	171
Pyerite	11.16	10000	11000	1000	10500	500	10250	250	10143	143
Mexallon	37.14	3600	3960	360	3780	180	3690	90	3651	51
Isogen	119.99	30	33	3	32	2	31	1	30	0
Nocxium	708.16	15	17	2	16	1	15	0	15	0
Zydrine	636.25	5	6	1	5	0	5	0	5	0
ISK	455.2k	318.4k	350.9k	32.5k	334.4k	16.0k	326.1k	7.6k	322.7k	4.3k
Base Lab time				x1.00	1d9h20m		4d4h0m		1w1d8h
POS Lab time				x0.75	1d1h0m		3d3h0m		6d6h0m
Skill & POS Lab time				x0.56	18h45m		2d8h15m		4d16h30m

ME 1 reduces Zydrine waste to 0.
ME 3 reduces Noxcium waste to 0.
ME 6 reduces Isogen waste to 0.
ME 720 reduces Mexallon waste to 0.
ME 2000 reduces Pyerite waste to 0.
ME 2400 reduces Tritanium waste to 0.

ME 0 build cost is 351k including 32.5k on waste materials.
The BPO price is 2.825.000 isk. At a sell price of 381k and 30k profit you would need to build and sell 95 ships to break even on your investment.

ME 1 reduces waste from 32.5k to 16k. Research cost is 187.500 isk for 18,75 hours.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 1 you have to sell just 12 ships.

ME 3 reduces waste from 32.5k to 7,6k. Research cost is 562.500 isk for 56,25 hours
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 3 you have to sell 23 ships.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 1 to 3 you have to sell 45 ships.

ME 6 reduces waste from 32.5k to 4,3K. Research cost is 1.125.000 isk for 112,5 hours.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 6 you have to sell 40 ships.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 3 to 6 you have to sell 170 ships.

ME 10 reduces waste from 32.5k to 2,7K. Research cost is 2.500.000 isk for 250 hours.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 10 you have to sell 84 ships.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 6 to 10 you have to sell 860 ships.

ME 100 reduces waste from 32.5k to 316 isk. Research cost is 25.000.000 isk for 104 days (2500 hours).
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 100 you have to sell 777 ships.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 10 to 100 you have to sell 9375 ships.

ME 720 reduces waste from 32.5k to 20 isk. Research cost is 180.000.000 isk for 750 days
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 0 to 720 you have to sell over 5500 ships.
To earn back the investment in researching ME from 100 to 720 you have to sell almost 525.000 ships.

I am not even going to calculate the return values for higher ME values.
Researching to higher ME values is only worth it if your profit margins are very low and you can move large volumes

What is considered an optimal ME is of course subjective but I would place it between ME 3 and 6 for an incursus based on these numbers.

Creating a 1500 run copy of my Hobgoblin I BPO takes 3 hours or 30k isk.
That comes out to 20 isk per Hobgoblin I. An ME 1 BPO requires an investment of 265.000 isk and the ME 91 BPO has an investment cost of 1,61 million isk.

Seems to me my corp mate is better off buying copies from me as he is getting his own BPO even if I ask another 10k isk per copy.

Creating a 1500 run copy of my Cap Booster 50 BPO (good for 15.000 cap booster charges) takes 45 minutes or 7500 isk. Cost to create a BPC is 2 isk per charge.

Shameless selfpromotion in case anyone would like me to built him something or wants copies of my BPO's:

I own about 150 BPO's among ammo, cap boosters, scripts, probes, R.A.M., R.Db, some modules, rigs, 6 of the T1 industrial BPO's, 20 frigate, all 8 destroyer and 18 cruiser BPO's.
Also Caldari Fuel Block, Nanite Repair Paste, Graviton Pulse Generator and Photon Microprocessor.

Another 50 T2 BPC's that I invented but never built, mostly scourge fury, javelin and precision missiles .

EVE Online: WH vs high sec PI

In high sec I sometimes ran a somewhat ineffective PI setup on a 7 day cycle.

The basic setup has me producing a refined commodity on each planet.
Two extractors, one for each raw material (P0), two basic factories to convert raw materials (P0) into processed materials (P1) and then on to a single advanced facility where I manufacture a refined commodity (P2).

Below are two images comparing a high sec and wormhole temperate planet.





Below are two images comparing a high sec and wormhole barren planet.





My basic wormhole setup runs on a two day cycle and extracts, processes and refines about 4 to 6 times the volume per hour. It has the same two extractors but instead of two basic factories and a single advanced facility I might need two or three as much factories even though the number of extractor heads is reduced from the maximum of 10 to about 3 or 4.

With high sec planets I am happy with skills at rank 4 but in wormhole space you need more factories which leaves you with very few extractor heads. Command Center Upgrades 5 takes about 20 days to train but it would definately be worth training if I want to stick with PI in wormhole or null sec space.

I just realize that with a low custom office tax it is probably a lot better to extract P0 and only process them into P1 and do all the P2 and P3 production on a barren or temperate planet. Production costs will still be low and you don't use that much overhead PG/CPU to the extractor itself so your overall production volume will be much higher.

So far I invested about 60m in my wormhole adventure. 30 Million to set up 5 planets and another 30 million on a scanning frigate, tayra and epithal for my alt.
The first PI export run had a value of about 25m so next week I will be even and can set up another character the same way.

That way I should end up earning about 30-50m isk per week per character or 300-600 million isk per month per account. Perhaps enough to buy a plex.

In an old forum post I mentioned that at the time high sec PI earned me about 180m isk a month, that would compare to the tripled yield I see from my current extractor setup.