Another Day. Another Dec.

Well, it's that time again.  Our alliance has been war-deced.  It is a relatively common event.  While they are a complete nightmare for those who get war-dece, on the flip side, they can be fun and the help drive the economy.  Yes, WH, null and low sec do help fuel the market, it is the high sec war-dec that can drive shock waves through the market.  Look at it this way, with the release of PLEX as a way for players to afford shiny things, it is highly likely that they will be caught out in the open and separated from their ship by a big explosion.  Destroying ships is good for the economy, so it is good for the industrial corp.

Image Copyright CCP Games

Corp leadership has a difficult time dealing with war-decs unless they constantly practice and drill.  Look, it is human nature for players to be resentful or downright hostile about being told not to fly their ships, mine and run missions.  They do have a point: They pay 14.95 (or more) to play the game.  Who are we to tell them what they can and can't do?  at that point, if they do not wish to leave the corp themselves, directors and CEO's sometimes have no choice but to kick players.  General members (especially new players) might not understand that the steps taken by the leadership during a war-dec could mean the difference between a war-dec getting extended or dropped.  If the aggressors are getting easy (and shiny) kills, they are more apt to extend their war-dec thus disrupting operations another week.  

The Leadership cannot afford to be in a war-dec.  They cannot recruit, hold corp activities or make money.  Members get disgruntled that they can only sit in station (unless the corp or alliance has active pvp players) so they will leave.  

I am writing this, drawing from my own experiences as a CEO.  I am mainly taking the stance of an industrial corp CEO with limited people willing to engage in pvp activities.  Some corps or alliances have a dedicated security force or part-time pvp's who have been through a few battles.  

It doesn't matter what side of the coin you are on, there is fun to be had during war-decs.  You just have sack-up and get out there with your fleet.  You might think people who war-dec are assholes.  Some are, but the vast majority are not.  They are just looking to do something that isn't industrial related.  It is how they play the game.  PVP is a huge part of EVE and to me, it can be the most fun and the most frustrating of all of EVE's facets.  

It isn't my first war-dec and it sure as hell wont be my last.

As always, Fly Safe-ish

Over 1000 Views. Thanks!

Just wanted to thank everybody who has been looking at my blogs.  I do them for you.  I will continue to strive for good and accurate content that matters and helps those who read it.

Feel free (and I encourage you) to leave comments, suggestions or questions.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Vex

New Industrial Skins for the Orca, Rorqual & Mackinaw

When I think of industrial equipment, the picture in my mind is of colors of black, gray and yellow (possibly bright orange).  I have grown up around heavy equipment all my life.  Perhaps it is just my natural instinct to correlate those colors with heavy construction equipment.  The Rorqual and the Orca have been shades of blue since I can remember.  I always like the skin of the Orca.  I never knew any other.  I did happen to catch the new skins on http://themittani.com/media/new-ship-models-sisi .  My heart started beating rapidly.  They are pretty awesome in my book.  Brings me back to my childhood of excavators, bulldozers and Lego Techniks.  Damn, I loved those things.

Here is the old and the new.  You can decide for yourself. 

(click to view)

Rorqual & Orca (Capital Industrial & Industrial Command Ships)

Mackinaw (Exhumer)

New Rorqual Skin

 New Orca Skin

New Mackinaw Skin

I know the pictures are dark but these skins are available on the Singularity test server should you want to check them out.  It's off to work I go.  As always, fly safe-ish

The Collector

I have been playing Eve Online since 2009.  Other than a year long break, I have been pretty consistent.  I like to collect things.  The last time I did some housecleaning, I sold off about a billion ISK worth of hulls, T2 modules and various NPC swag.  I did not sell off any gifted or collectors items.  I still have all the trading cards, snowballs and fireworks.  I never used any of them.  I still have all the launchers too!

I also have Taipan that I got when a friend gave me his ticket from Pax East.  He doesn't play Eve (I still don't know why - he is as much of a geek as I am). 

I have various other ships, like special issue shuttles, a Quaf Zero Iteron (from one of the fanfests) as well as implants, skill boosters, etc.  If I remember correctly, I might even have a few cases of Quaff Zero around somewhere.

I probably won't ever sell any of these items.  The only time I might touch them is when I move them to a new home station.  

I am a virtual pack rat.  On top of that, I just moved into the next evolution of collecting.  I am now the proud owner of the 2nd Decade Collectors Edition.  I just received it yesterday.  It is pretty epic, if not a bit spendy.  I love the Rifter USB hub.  It's fragile, but it was well done.  If one were to see a Rifter up close and in real life, it would probably look just like the miniature.  The paint looks like rust.  It's dull and almost looks powdery.  There are streaks of silver all over the place.  To me, it looks like hybrid and projectile charges bounced off the hull and left gouges and scrapes.  Pretty damn cool.  Oh, and it lights up.  

I recorded the entire unveiling.  I took pictures and screen captures of the code entries for the cards that come with the package.  I finished the editing and then I went to render it and much to my dismay, the program stopped responding.  I put a few hours into it, getting it just right.  I was pretty deflated.  I let it sit overnight instead of closing the program.  I guess I will find out if that worked tonight when I settle into Eve.  

I didn't open the color photo hard copy book though.  I was holding my phone in one hand and manipulating items with the other.  I didn't want to rip any pages.  There was also a tabletop game included.  I haven't looked into that at all though.  There was also a soundtrack performed by the Icelandic Orchestra too.  I like classical compositions, so I will probably enjoy that.  

I am a collector

Corporation & Alliance Wide Activity Ideas

I put this list together over a year ago.  If you are a CEO or Director, I give unto you some ideas for activities that the corp or alliance can run to get member participation, bring people together and work as a team.

****************************************
The list goes as follows:

Corporation / Alliance Events

Rookie Ship Brawl (RSB-B(basic)

All ships are fit with max civilian weapons (as in drop the miner) no modules other than what is included in the ship. Even teams, fight to the death

Rookie Ship Brawl (RSB-A(advanced)

All ships can be fitted with any module that will fit (including T2 guns, tank, etc)

Teams broken up so that there are the same amount of high skill players on each team, but if odd number, 1 extra low skill player will be added to offset either skills and/or weapons

Rookie Ship Brawl (RSB-FFA(free for all)

Last man standing, no teams by strategy is allowed.

T1 Frigate Brawls (same as RSB-A & RSB-FFA)

T1 Cruiser Brawls (same rules as RSB-A & RSB-FFA) (may make this to hull instead of death)

All T1 ship brawls (all variants)

• all EWAR allowed except Jamming. Tracking, Targeting, etc are allowed.
• all modules are allowed unless otherwise noted

All T1 ship brawls (team-based)

• same as above, but spider-tanking, cap-chaining and remote sensor boosting are allowed

Scavenger Hunt (D-scan)

Leadership puts out secure cans in a system or systems (could be each team has it's own cans to find)

first one back with all the items gets a prize. Also could put out 1 bonus can (first team to get it gets a bonus (can would be named so if you can find it on dscan, you see it is the bonus) random system or location. 1 hint given (system has “x” planets or “x” stations so they can narrow it down, but not get the exact system/location.

Capture the Can (team – no spawn)

each team has a can with an item in it. The first team to get their opposition's item wins the prize. If all enemy destroyed, you get prize bonus. Match lasts 10 minutes. No winner makes next matches POT larger say if match 1 pot is 10mil and no winner, next match pot would be 30mil, pot 1 + 100% + pot 2.

Or something along those lines

Capture the can (team w/ spawn)

Can respawn (match lasts 20 minutes)

Mining Operation (max haul)

Corporation who mines largest m3 of ore in 1 mining op gets 10% bonus on top of ore value

That is all I have right now.

I'm Here for You

I started this blog because I enjoy Eve Online.  I also feel that Eve has the best community of players out of any Game - by far!.  Not just MMOs.  As much as we love to hate CCP, that is one of the most polarizing things for the community.  We come together to assault CCP with flame posts and strong opinions.  CCP is gracious enough to admit defeat and/or change things in game to make Eve a little better (mostly) and sometimes they fight back tooth and nail. I'm cool with that.  Those who don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton

I hope you enjoy reading my blogs.  I would ask that you check back often and tell your friends, corp mates and leadership in order to spread the word.  My goal is to be on a CCP community highlight post or a member of the Blog Pack.  

PLEASE feel free to leave comments, suggestions, constructive critism and corrections at the end of every post.  Follow me on Twitter (@scifigamer), YouTube (http://bit.ly/1kkqQzq) and Google +.

I appreciate all your time.

Regards, 
Chris Nicholson (Vexed Nova)

Skills to Build On

I was once a fresh-faced, pie-eyed newbie in Eve Online.  My clone was the first of it's line and I had no idea what I was doing.  Sure I could read things online but usually just tested, failed, retested and succeeded.  It kind of rolled like that for a while. 

I wish I had someone to force the ways of Eve down my throat, somewhat like what parents do with their spawn.  I may have hated it and resented that person at the time, but looking back, it would have made things so much easier.  There is something to be said about conquering this yourself, but sometimes you need to take the smarter path.

If you want to be an indy person, here are some skills that you want to prioritize.

For manufacturing

• Industry 5 (reduces manufacturing time by 4%/level - also required for other production skills (T2 hull / capital/outpost construction as well as a prereq for other production skills))
• Mass Production 5 (adds 1 manufacturing slot per level up to 5)
• Advanced Mass Production 5 (adds 1 manufacturing slot per level up to 5 - combined with base (+1) and Mass Production (+5) for a total of (11) slots.
• Material Efficiency 5 (probably the most important, 5% reduction in material usage per level)

If you want to get into T2 or Capital manufacturing, you can start training for Frigate Construction, Cruiser Construction....Capital Ship Construction, etc.

For "standard" research (ME/PE)

• Science 5 (reduces copy time, but is a prereq for almost all advanced science skills)
• Laboratory Operation 5 (adds 1 research slot per level up to 5)
• Advanced Laboratory Operation 5 (adds 1 research slot per level up to 5 - combined with base (+1) and Laboratory Operation (+5) for a total of (11) slots

For "advanced" research & manufacturing (invention & T2 construction)

• Mechanical Engineering 5 
• Metallurgy 5 (5% boost to ME research speed per level)
• Scientific Networking 1 (allows you to remote run your research - level 1 will allow you to run research in the same solar system, level 5 allows you to run research in the entire region)  very handy if you need to run research in low/null sec))
• All advanced science skills to 4 - these allow invention of blueprint copies thus creating T2 blueprint copies used for T2 manufacturing.  Also need these skills to do the actual manufacturing.  [Examples: Amarr Encryption Methods, Caldari Starship Engineering, Hydromagnetic Physics, etc]

Having these skills will allow you the opportunity to manufacture high margin items (unlike the T1 swag for short ISK).

If you make the right decisions, you can make as much ISK as you can run invention and manufacturing jobs.  

As an example:

I have 4 alts that can do advanced and basic manufacturing work.  

• All 4 of my alts have ME 5 and Advanced Mass Production.  I can run 44 manufacturing jobs simultaneously.
• 2 of my alts can invent and build all T2 items (including ships under capital-class hulls)
• 1 of my alts can reverse-engineer T3 bpcs (haven't done it, but I can)
• 1 of my alts can manufacture capital-class hulls and invent and build jump freighter hulls
• All 4 of my alts can research 11 jobs for a total of 44.

You don't have to have 4 alts, but the more you have the quicker you can make ISK.  I don't suggest going out and buying multiple accounts if you don't have the RL money.  If you do, you can make a lot of ISK.

This isn't the end-all to manufacturing and research and I didn't discuss research agents to farm datacores.  That will be in another article. 

I hope this helps and as always, fly safe-ish.

API Keys and What they Mean to You

Originally published in June, 2013 on our then alliance forums

The API key is used by third-party developers and corporation CEO's to access a character's information. Before you throw up your hands and rage about security, remember this: It does not allow access to control your character, steal your assets or ruin your life. It is simply a read-only view of your character's skills, assets, mail, industrial jobs, market transactions, etc. You can customize your key to allow only certain blocks of information to be made available and it has nothing to do with your account-level access, passwords or login information.

Programs like EVEMon, EFT (to some extent), EVE Aura (Android), and a slew of others use the API key information to provide third-party software to access your character information to provide a service. The EVE API key is safe and in use by nearly 100% of every EVE player across multiple accounts. No one has ever had anything bad happen to them unless they send out an email with their login information or they were up to no good as a spy and got caught trading intel and subsequently booted from a corp or set up with misinformation and entered a trap.
As I stated, you can customize your API to allow only certain information be made available. Some third-party programs require a full-use API key to provide all the functions of that program to work correctly.
It is extremely common that CEO's, recruiters or directors ask a potential recruit for an API key as part of the recruiting process for security reasons. As far as I have ascertained, the mail stays available in EVEMon for a very long time, allowing a CEO to see if there was any correspondence regarding a potential spy mission. As stated above, it is a read-only thing, so there is no reason not to allow a potential corp to obtain your API key. Their duty is to provide security for the corp and they are only doing it to maintain a safe environment for their members.
The most important and useful thing an API key does is allow you to view your training queues via EVEMon. You get real-time feedback on what your character(s) is doing and how long until you need to update your skill queues. That alone makes the API key a god-send.
As of this writing, API keys are only available to pull on a an account-level after 48hours of the account being live. That is across the board, no matter how many toons you have on that one master account.
Another benefit is that you can view market transactions, industrial jobs, make skill training plans, view assets, EVEmail, standings, etc. So it is well worth setting one up and then downloading those third-party apps that you find useful.
You can access the API key section on the EVE Online site under HELP & SUPPORT, API Key Management.

The following information is taken directly from the EVE Online Site without any modification

What is an API key? What do I use it for?

The API key is a private code that identifies your account and allows third party programs and web sites to access information about your characters and corporations. Using this data, such utilities can improve your EVE experience by providing useful functionality such as wallet exports, skill training notifications, and other tools.

Is this safe? Can someone steal my account?

It is safe to provide your API key to applications and web sites as long as you are prepared to allow the application or web site to see your character and corporation information. You can specify which information is accessible for each customizable API key.
Sharing an API key does NOT give people access to your account while sharing your account password would. Therein lies the whole purpose of API keys. An API key only allows the recipient to view your character and corporation data but gives them NO control over it. They are NOT able to log in to the game or post on the forums with the API information. No part of the API key information is in any way generated from your account password - there is no way to calculate your password using this information.
This is the only safe way to give programs and web sites access to your data. Do not give out your account username or password to any person, program, or web site. Please keep in mind that doing so is a violation of the EULA and can lead to account termination.

I gave someone my API key and now I want them to stop using it!

If you believe that someone is misusing your API key, you can delete it from the list above or simply change the Verification Code. Please note that all programs and web sites that are using your old API key information will no longer be able to access your data unless you provide them with the updated info or a new API key.

So, in short: Don't fear the API. Embrace it. 

---V.Nova

Initiative

Initiative
Just a point that should be reiterated.
You do not have to be a director to get people together to do an activity like missioning or mining. If you are doing something and wouldn't mind the company, let people know in corp chat that you are doing "activity x" and if anyone wants to join, make a fleet and have some fun. Use your personal initiative and help the corp grow and stay active and also have more fun than doing things solo. You will also get to know everyone and they might have a trick or two they can show you to make things easier/more fun.

New Play Hints and Tricks

New Player Tips
Some new player tips:

implants:
you should make it a priority to train SCIENCE III and CYBERNETICS IV so that you can use +4 implants

these will add to your base attributes which will allow you to train skills faster (by a good margin).

You can have 5 attribute implants. I use in all my alts the following:
all of these have the "standard" suffix
Ocular Filter, Memory Augmentation, Neural Boost, Cybernetic Subprocessor, and Social Adaptation Chip

The "standard" suffix designates they are +4 implants. They go for about 25-30 million each, but they are worth the investment!

The +5 implants are also well worth it, but they run for around 130mil each.

Also download EVEMon, it uses your API key to keep track of your character in real time. You can watch your skill queues, make training plans, etc. A must have!

http://evemon.battleclinic.com/news/137041-EVEMon-1-3-4.html

Helpful and Handy Links for Eve Capsuleers

This was migrated from our old alliance forums and before that it was migrated from a corp forum.  I think most of these are still relevant today

re: Useful Links

by Vexed Nova on Wed May 15, 2013 12:23 pm

0

Migrated from the EVE Gate forums (posted by Warcalibre)
====================
Useful Links

In order to keep all the links in one place, if you have additional links, please send them to me so that I can add them to this post.

Eve survival (mission explanations):
http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports

Eve wiki:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Main_Page

Evemon
http://evemon.battleclinic.com/

Battleclinic Loadouts
http://eve.battleclinic.com/browse_loadouts.php

BPO Calc
http://zofu.no-ip.de/bpo

EVE Agent Finder
http://www.eve-agents.com/index.dxd?AgentName=&System=&Region=-&Corporation=1000109&Faction=-&Division=18&Level=-&Skill=-&Locator=-&Storyline=-&FWAgent=-&Sort=6&Direction=1

EVE Time Conversion
http://eveinfo.net/wiki/ind~8331.htm

EVE Tradefinder
http://eve-central.com/home/tradefind.html

EVE Damage Types
http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/damage_types.php

EVE PLanets (PI)
http://eveplanets.com/

EVE Altruist (eve guru)
http://www.evealtruist.com/

All's Fair in Love and War

originally published on 5/23/2013 on our old alliance forums

So yeah, here we are again. Yes, the title of this blog was intended to show the duality of EVE. You both love and hate EVE during a time of war. I guess it all depends on which side of the line you stand on. On the cusp of war (at the time of this writing) and looking to (as Kasigi so often states) “ Put the wood to them”. War is commonplace in EVE. It disrupts normal operations, wreaks havoc on member counts and generally causes untold amounts of damage for the ceo's and directors to clean up. It is extremely troublesome to industrial corps or those who focus more on PVE rather than PVP. It does not signal the end of the world, but it does influence short-term policy. Many industrial corps tuck tail and hide (whether they drop corps or just find something else to do for a week). Tri-G is not one of those who take it laying down. I am proud of that. I feel we have grown stronger and closer with every wardec and with our cooperation in day-to-day activities. We are trying to breed a close-knit group of pilots and I think we are accomplishing that. What I would like to say is that no matter how the fights turn out, all we need to do is give it our best go and I am sure once the dust settles, we will be on top. FDA has had run-ins with Dirty Dawgs before. From all accounts, they are war decing a lot of corps/alliances in our AoE. Just don’t panic. Listen to your individual leadership and follow the guidelines laid out and you will come through this just fine. Hell, you might even have some fun doing it. War is a pain, but it does keep the economy moving (as those high sec losses need to be replaced). It is a part of EVE and it is the circle of live here.

Failure to Launch

Originally published on 6/14/2013 on our old alliance forums.  Some of this is dated, but I still get launcher FUBARs and have to reload it.

In keeping with the “CCP Hates Me” theme, I would like to regale you with my trials and tribulations with the EVE client. A few months ago, about a month before the launch of Odyssey, my EVE client decided to shit on me (like after a night of Mexican food and Budweiser). I was already feeling like I was fighting the White Whale known as CCP, but the launcher really put the thundercloud over my head.

Some of you may have heard me reference the fact that I was having severe issues. At first, I was able to run EVE from the bin folder (which while I could still get into EVE, I thought was Busche-League). That continued for about a month, all the while, hoping CCP would fix the launcher. Perhaps they did. All I know is that it did not work for me. After Odyssey was released, things got worse. The launcher was still FUBAR and every time I launched EVE from the bin folder, it would try to update and then get stuck in some sort of quantum loop. Finally, resigned to the fact that CCP hates me. I decided to redownload the client and try a clean install. Boy was I in for a good time. First, the launcher still didn’t work (I wasn’t really surprised at this point). Second, I was able to launch from the bin folder, but only twice before it started playing dead again. So not only was it not working, I had all new settings (factory defaults if you will) as well as a temperamental client.

Undeterred, I tried to do a clean install again. Same result. I was getting “really” pissed. It was after midnight and I was weary with all the horse-shit I was going through. I finally buckled down, rolled up my sleeves, put on some arm-length latex gloves and began to reach inside the client like a vet checks for a baby in an elephant. I found a [very] obscure reference to a “beta” launcher that was being tested. “Why the fuck not?” I asked myself. I downloaded and installed it and set it up to log into Singularity. I failed to mention in the begging of this blog that I was also trying to get SiSi to work at the same time. While I would normally focus on only one major issue at a time, it turned out that my side-project to get SiSi running turned out to be the very solution of Tranquility's brick wall. Oddly enough, SiSi loaded right up. I was awarded all the super-caps in the game (I was so out of it (being 2am), I accepted them all in Orvolle (a high sec system) under my market alt (there were no portrait captures on SiSi) so I didn’t even notice my market toon loaded instead of Trunhe.

I then gave Tranquility the old “college try” and low and behold, it worked!

Every now and then I still have an issue (which ended my game time last night) where the launcher couldn’t connect to the server (I think the content server). Need less to say, I have still had to reinstall the beta launcher a few times, but other than that...I was able to fully grasp the inequities of Odyssey.

Oh well. Thanks CCP for making my life more “challenging” than it has to be. I have never had to work so hard to be able to play a computer game in my life. Spread sheets, 3^rd Party apps, ect. Such is the life of an EVE player, but multiply that by 10 for being a CEO. Anyway. That's my two ISK.

Save me from my Corp [Duties]

Originally published on 6/17/2013 on our alliance forums

Ok. I have yet another beef with my friends over at CCP. Everything..

More specifically, corp management.

The general corp members don't really have a full grasp of how much of a pain in the ass running a corp is. They just want to jump in, use the labs and jump out. They don't fully grasp the headaches that POSs are to the leadership. While the actually running of the corp (operations, financing, recruitment, etc) takes a huge chunk of time (that could be spent having fun), it does have its rewards. When I think of them, I will let you know.

Moving right along. CCP decided to table the POS revamps (which were pretty much underwhelming anyway) in lieu of focusing on dumbing down scanning, making pretty trailers and fighting off the masses who want to flame Mintchip (well, the last one was post-launch of Odd..sy). What that means is that the POS mechanics are still complete shit. The corporate hangers and management tabs are still complete shit, and running a corp is as much fun as straining out a shit. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy running a corp, but lately, they corp has been running me...ragged. When things are good, they take time but it is pretty good to see happy people happily being happy. When there is a war dec, forget about it. Its a shit show. People whine, leave, rage quit or ship spin. Its a nightmare. The corp loses all momentum, recruitment stops, taxes dry up and everyone looks to the CEO and directors for some kind of sign of life. Trust me, you think you have it bad as a member who can't make ISK. Try having a POS, munching hundreds of millions of ISK a month, having to online and offline modules and convulsing at the announcement of war. You can only online 1 module at a time and each one takes 2 minutes. So while you are running around doing your best to rush through your level 4's and getting some ore, please think of me. Sitting in the POS onlining 30+ modules on the eve of war. Other than that, even peacetime activities in the POS are a pain in the ass. Setting up individual permissions is a nightmare. Making sure everyone is protected from each other is a main concern and a tough decision since you only have so much organization available to play with (basically 6 divisions to use). Which means at some point, people will share hangers in the labs and such and shit can go missing (accidental or malicious).

I sort of chuckle when I recall when I was in a pvp corp out in null. We weren't in a large alliance. There were probably 10-20 of us on at prime time and we would roam around fountain, stain, cloud ring and providence looking for fights. Most of the time we got nothing (similar to roams in lowsec). When there was nothing going on, I used to get kind of miffed that my CEO wasn't pushing to move here or do this or run that. I guess that was me just being naive. Until I left and started my own corp, I had no idea what I was in for. It is very difficult to recruit people, make sure they are not Awox's and then keeping them active and involved in the corp. Announcements of various recruitment campaigns, prizes and bribes haven’t led to too many hires. Obviously, no one joins a corp during a wardec unless they are spies or good friends wanting to whore some kills. That, and the attrition rate skyrockets and a lot of those who leave never come back.

Where was I going with this.. Oh yes. Thank you CCP for making EVE less of a game and more of a job. I really do enjoy running a corp most of the time. If these stupid oversights were fixed, EVE would be a much more enjoyable place for CEO's and Directors. Anyway, that's my two ISK.

Did Your Mom Fit Your Orca?

Originally published on 6/17/2013 on our alliance forums

So, I was looking at MinerBumping today and of course the kills of the week. What I saw was pretty funny/appalling. To get an Orca ganked in high sec, not in a war, is pretty much the same thing as hitting a parked car or putting your hand on a hot stove. Perhaps better yet, putting your head into an oven that is set to broil. Now, don't get me wrong. I have made mistakes with industrial ships. Maybe that is why I am so adamant about how they are fit.

Let's break this down Barney-style, as I like to say.

Sensor boosters:

Are not a valid fit for an Orca. How long does it really take you to target a can? 10-15 seconds, maybe? Who cares, they aren't going anywhere unless your fleet decides to leave them out there for 2 hours before they mention they are ready to pull. Are you really so paranoid that you have to grab a can within the time frame of a eye blink or else it will be stolen (with no one around, no doubt)? Let's keep the sebos on insta-locking arty, tackle, logistics and EWAR, please! For the sake of everything that is holy.

Shield Rechargers:

I mean, really? What is the passive shield recharge on an Orca? I think it is measured in days. Why would you think that shortening the recharge time would be of any benefit to you. Furthermore, having only (1), yes one, shield recharger is going to accomplish what again?

Capacitor Rechargers:

Yeah, so running those survey modules, gang links and yup, a tractor beam really push the capacitor to it's extreme limits. Seriously, if you need a cap recharger, you are doing it wrong. 1. if you are active boosting your Orca, 1 cap recharger would be like taking a shower in the rain. POINTLESS.

Survey Modules:

Okay, you may have inferred from my forum posts that no one in an industrial ship should fit a survey module. It is a complete waste of a fitting slot. I have used them in the past, but I found with the short cycle times of mining lasers in a boosted fleet means that if you over run a cycle on a roid, you are only missing a very minute amount of ore. The use of a survey module isn't mission-critical and it really isn't a way to boost your output. A vast number of modules will certainly be more beneficial, but not any of the aforementioned ones above.

Shield Boosters:

Okay, this is a fine-line sort of module. The issue that I have is that without a shield booster, with a proper fit, you can get a 159k ehp fit just using the mid slots. My lowest resist on my Orca is 76%. I have 2 cargo expanders in the lows. However, should I find that I want a little bit more tank, I would replace those two with a DC2 and a reinforced bulkhead. This drives the EHP up close to 250k. No alpha fleet less than a couple DOZEN battleships is going to crack that tank before CONCORD meanders into the combat zone. I have found, with my buffer tank, I can walk away for a week letting rats chip away at my tank. There is really no need for a shield booster. The Orca doesn’t have a large capacitor but it has plenty to run active hardeners, gang links and tractor beams. Shield boosters will gobble up cap so fast, you will only get 10 cycles at the MOST. That is not a suitable tank when your EHP is only about 54k. Ancillary shield boosters!!! LOL. I was a fan of them on my Vargur when they came out (pre-nerf). I could cycle them and get nearly 1000dps, if I ran them both at the same time, it was a 2000dps tank. You can cycle them so that one charges and when the other one runs out, the 1^st one is ready to start again. Only a few times did I ever need to use both at the same time and that was as I was bugging out. Yes, you can fit thousands of cap boosters in an Orca, but you can still only use 3 or 4 every 60 seconds. That is shit. Leave those things in your hanger or put them up for sale on the marketplace.

Rigs:

It is a huge expense to buy an Orca. Why not protect it or get the most out of it. There is absolutely no reason what-so-ever to have empty rig slots. Fit them with either tank or cargo rigs. It doesn't matter, but you need something there. If you can't fit T2 rigs, train them. Its not a throw-away ship that you can get from the market by the handful. It is an investment, such as owning a car or buying a house. You need it more than it needs you and you need to protect it like a newborn child. It will always find it's way into troubled waters. It is your job to be a competent captain sailing for a safe harbor.

In summation: Industrial ships are the backbone of the EVE economy. They need to be treated with respect and care. They are not to be taken for granted or flown willy-nilly. If you needed to buy plex to get one, you would be spending about 30 USD. If you keep getting picked off because your fits are fucked, you might as well pay me 20 bucks a kill. I will save you 10 bucks each time. Don't even get me started on mining barges/exhumers. Anyway, that's my two ISK

Not Every Blog is a Bitch-Log

Originally published on 6/17/2013 on our old alliance forum 

I come to you with a slightly more up-beat blog. Now don't get me wrong. I strongly feel that the “b” in blog stands for "bitch" since the vast majority of blogs are a public soapbox for strong opinions against some entity or issue. Instead of burning an effigy of CCP, I figured I would blog about things they have done right (in my own opinion of course).

First: (and probably the most revolutionary and important aspect of EVE) is the single-shard universe. Not even in Planetside (which has a very large population cap for battles) can compete. I regularly sign in with 45-60 THOUSAND other pilots all doing their own thing. That is staggering. Obviously some highly popular systems (I am looking at you, Jita), have issues and the solar system itself has occupancy restrictions (but that is really minor). There are GINORMIS battles in null sec of upwards of 300 pilots. That is insane. Currently there are huge battles in Fountain between some of the largest alliances in game. This brings me to my next point.

Second:

The player can influence events that can span across the entire universe. While one player can cause other groups of people to search for other places to live, it is the alliance that molds EVE. The economy lives and dies by nullsec alliances like Test, Goonswarm, Pandemic Legion, etc. If they want to stop producing moon goo, the major market hubs will turn chaotic with the buying and selling of those materials. The blockade (or Burning) of Jita caused huge price fluctuations. EVE is also a pioneer of the player-run economy. I don't just mean off-loading loot to an auction house or NPC agent like in most other MMORPG games. I mean that everything bought and sold is play-made or player-looted. The only thing that is seeded by the server are skill books and trade commodities. However, those are also bought and sold by players during station trading. So in a sense, the player still controls every item in the game to some extent. Think about it, events like Burn Jita (a player run event), Hulkageddon (where people go out just to gank mining barges and exhumers) and even null sec sovereignty battles effect the market (and therefore the universe) in ways that can not even be fathomed in other MMO's. Hell, even the announcement of ship or module changes causes a run on the market where people make millions or billions (some even lose that much). I depth and complexity of the game is truly amazing.

Third:

The freedom to do whatever the hell you want. There are many things to do in EVE. PVP, PVE, Wormhole, Exploration, Manufacturing, Mining, etc. If you get bored with one, you can just do something else. Some activities net you more ISK than others, but there is always money to be made doing something. You don't have to run missions to gain experience and you don’t have to grind. You can choose what skills you want to train and when you want to train them. As I stated before, you don’t have to grind missions to make a better avatar. You queue up skills and they tick down in real time. You even train while you are not logged in. That is pretty damn cool. The one thing I hate the most about MMORPG's is skilling up. Yeah, for the 20 levels, things are enjoyable. After than, forget about it. They become super-boring and repetitive. You generally have to finish quests to get the large experience increases so you may be able to wander everywhere, but you are generally always behind the 8-ball because fighting things your level doesn’t net you a lot of experience. There are literately tens of thousands of ship fittings (each ship can be fit with a countless number of modules in order to fine-tube to your specific needs. You can also pay for multiple accounts and use them at the same time (dual, triple, quad box) It is completely up to you and your available finances. You can also pay for game time with in-game money. If you are a really successful entrepreneur, you will never have to pay for a subscription if you choose not to. I don't know of any games that can claim that ability. PVP is also non-consensual. Every time you leave a station, you agree to PVP. Even highsec (protected space) is not safe. This does cause issues (especially with new players who don't know the game that well). There are also player run corporations & alliances that you can join and have fun with other people who also enjoy the game and can teach you the ropes.

Fourth:

This is a sci-fi game for sure, but if you look at a lot of the modules, you will see that there is a scientific basis. Minerals are based off of real-life ones and the time it took to do the background research must have been painstakingly tedious. All of this makes for a very immersive and rewarding game play experience. While the sheer amount of information can be an overload to a new player, once you get past the learning curve, find yourself a good corp and really start to roll your sleeves up, you become hooked. EVE just celebrated it's 10 year anniversary. What other games have been around that long, let alone stayed fresh and relevant? I can't think of any. Free expansions, who does that? EVE does. Every expansion has been free for players. Sometimes the expansions are spectacular and sometimes they suck, but regardless of your opinion of them, they still can't be beat. CCP is always coming out with new improvements, modules, ships and other things. Again, sometimes they hit the nail on the head and sometimes they just dent the wood, but they still try. They haven't given up on EVE. Even when they take on new projects, the ones they follow through on are EVE related

Fifth:

How about adding an FPS game to the EVE “Universe”. Sure, we can do that. Dust 514 (again CCP is a revolutionary pioneer of the single-shard server) added just that. A alternate platform (PS3) FPS that is linked to the EVE Online universe in real-time. In fact, Dust ground-pounders can call in orbital strikes from EVE pilots. Dust players can also influence the EVE portion of the universe by holding strategic points on planets that can effect the planetary mineral extraction rates for EVE players. What?!?!? Yep, it is crazy.

So even though CCP does a few things wrong, there is no double that they have done so much right. They support the game fervently and there is no double that this game will go into the 2^nd decade with the same swagger and relevancy as the 1^st ten years. Anyway, that's my two ISK.

A [Very] Biased View on Wormholes

Originally published on 6/17/2013 on our alliance forums

The title of this blog will no doubt give insight to my thoughts on wormhole space. I have done it. I have failed at it.

Once upon a time in my more “rookie” years, I decided to try wormhole exploration. I scanned down a wormhole (it was a class III or IV) and not thinking about the wormhole mechanics, reshipped into a Maelstrom, went back in and ran some a site. I had myself a good old time fighting sleepers. They were not easy (even in a DPS battleship). After I had all my fun and scooped about 1/10 of the loot I made, I warped back to the wormhole bookmark and, you guess it, I found I had collapsed it with my battleship on the way in. That was a costly mistake and as it turned out, my least costly one.

Later in my career (maybe a year or so), as a CEO of In Tergo Nostra, I was “talked into” entering a wormhole temporarily (with a POS). A friend of mine had been a wormhole corp, taking a break from PVP to make some ISK. He talked to his CEO who had been living in the wormhole for quite some time and we formed a [short-lived] alliance. Spending half a billion ISK to form the alliance (yet another mistake), we stayed in the wormhole for about 2 months. It was an epic failure. Chops (one of my surly directors warned me against it. I should have listened. Even after considering all the bullshit we went through, I still find it a very valuable lesson in corporation management. One of the most informative lessons was role/POS management/security. In EVE, every corporation has had to deal with infiltration/spies/subversion, but the damage that can be done in a WH to the corporation turns out to be monumental rather than a nuisance. The WH alliance found that out very quickly. Once again, I made a costly mistake, however the other corporation in the alliance paid the price for that one.

We recruited a member (and I can't even remember his name now) who talked the talk and he told me of his concerns about keeping his ships in the member hanger for it to be stolen. I made special provisions to give him access to an unused hanger (not one that was full of corporate assets or anything like that. I would have regular voice communications with him on Vent or Mumble (whatever we had for voice comms at the time) and he was a pretty nice guy. Wanted to be active. Brought in fuel from Highsec (not asking for any ISK in return). All was well. Kasigi (another director of mine), a few other people (long since gone from EVE) and myself ran PI and did some mining. We didn't make the ISK that we were led to believe we could. We were on our last breath in the WH but I decided to give it another month regardless. What was supposed to have happened is that we were to have control of the Grav sites (and that was all) because the occupying corporation didn't utilize them. The WH promptly dried up for a good 4-5 weeks without any Grav sites. We were hemorrhaging ISK and I really had all I could afford, but still I tried to soldier on. When week 6 rolled around, the WH started producing Grav sites again. I had my orca, a hulk and another mining barge out their munching rocks. I had a PVP ship in the orca just for back up (it was a 2bil Proteus). You have no doubt inferred the theme. If you haven’t been paying attention, it was about costly mistakes. I will break it down, Barney-style.

One: Mining alone, not in a QRF fleet (Quick Reactionary Force) of the alliance.

Two: Triple boxing in a WH

Three: Not constantly checking the D-Scan

Four: Shit-Fit Orca (this is where my industrial fitting OCD comes into play)

Five: Panic-Induced paralysis

So if you add up 1-5 you don’t get 6 you get a nearly 4 billion ISK lost (that was probably my most costly mistake in EVE. Ever. After all that, I was done. We made preparations to move out, post-haste. Sadly, that was not my final WH loss. I had the POS almost done (I had one or two weapon batteries left). My orca was outside the POS spike and I was jumped by a (ironically) Proteus. I made every possible attempt to make it back to the POS shield. My efforts were in vain. If anyone ever asks me why I don't want anything to do with wormholes, the answer is pretty clear. I still have nightmares about them. We ended up staying in the alliance for a few more months before the other corporation decided to leave it for a larger WH alliance. We followed suite until a massive amount of wardecs killed the corporation. Our alliance leadership (without a vote or any mention of intentions) decided to make the war mutual. Mind you, they lived in WH's. Rarely did they ever appear in highsec. It turned out that the corp the alliance deced entered into DecShield before all the wardec revamps. In Tergo Nostra is still in a perma-war to this day. We had to bail and start FDA. It was a very unfortunate end to a free-fall of bad choices.

Getting back to the security issue. After chatting with the guy in Vent or whatever, one day he says to me. Hey Vexed, the other corp in the alliance is more in my time zone and they do combat sites which I am more interested in. Do you mind if I change corps? Being the eminent politician I am I said as long as it was cool with the other CEO, I don’t mind. He then told me he had all but worked that out which was kind of off-putting, but whatever. I would rather someone have fun then be somewhere they don’t want to be. As it turned out, a few days later this guy ejected all the ships out of their corporate hanger/ship maintenance bay (it was the rookie pos, so they didn’t loose a lot of shiny stuff, but it was still a low blow. He then spouted off how he and his friends were coming to roffle-stomp the system and kick us out. It was an eye-opening experience for sure. So to me, WH are to be steered well away from. Anyway, that’s my two ISK