BURN EDEN are the undisputed masters of 0.0 gate camping - not only do they use innovative tactics, rarely get killed, and frustrate large alliances constantly, but they camp ALL THE TIME. Seriously, that has got to get old.

If you haven’t had the pleasure, BE likes to camp 0.0 gates in cloaked BS’, using NPC corp alts as scouts and interdictor pilots to catch the unsuspecting. You show up, see one guy at the gate, align, bubble goes up, several battleships (including unconventional armor tanked, sensor damp, sniping Ravens) uncloak at range, a whole mass of dampening and jamming kicks in, and then you die.

They also tend to eat up uncoordinated attempts at camp-crashing, which is how I died the first time. T1 fit sniping Apoc, flying solo to join up with our response gang (yeah, I know. Smart). The backdoor gate to the target system was reported all clear, so I made my way through, not paying much attention to the NPC corp neutral in local. Jump, decloak, “uh oh, what’s that little guy doing here?”, “oh SHIT bubble”, “where did those guys come from”, <going down!!!> in gang chat, waking up in goo 10 systems away.

Nice.

Second time I lost a pulse-fit, plated Armageddon on a roving BS gang we did for kicks and giggles. Jumped into a hostile station system, noticed a bunch in local, but warped to the station anyway. Mid-warp the scout calls out “uh, there’s some bubbles on the station, but no ships around”. Pucker factor = high. But there is a sense of quiet resignation when you just KNOW you’re ship will go down. It becomes almost fun to watch the fireworks. Anyway, the fight itself wasn’t much - landed in a bubble, targets decloaked all around at every range it seemed, gang discipline went poof, and our ships quickly followed. Frickin’ BURN EDEN. Not a gate trap this time at least, but similar tactics transported to station camping. Either way, collecting ship insurance for me.

Nice. Remind me to just self-destruct if I see Evil Pookie, SATAN, or any of those guys in local next time, kthx.

“What the…

Where in the HELL am I?!?

WHO ARE YOU!!!”

Alright, so I admit grabbing the med techs left foot out from under him, sending him smashing to the deck clutching the terri-cloth robe he was planning to give me for warmth just moments ago…wasn’t the most civil of things I could have done. At least that’s what I took away from the rather angry stare I was receiving from the security guard at the far side of the room. But damn, it was the tech’s fault he didn’t stand back for a moment until I collected my thoughts. Right? On the upside, I think he only sustained a mild concussion. Nothing some juiced up Quafe couldn’t cure.

A robe. Why was he holding a robe? And why was I sitting up, naked except for a thick sheen of repulsively transparent goo covering my body, in metallic-smelling room loaded down with oppressively obnoxious track lighting? And is that retro-funk playing over the comms? I hate retro-funk.

Clone. Damn, I must be in a jump clone. Or death clone. Let’s hope for the former and assume the best. But where did I clone in from? Why does it feel like ages since I’ve made a note in my mental log like this? And who the hell is going to get me that damn robe so I don’t freeze to death??

Well, look at that. July 25th. My last blog post. I got off to a nice start blogging about EVE, then fell off the face of the planet. What happened exactly? Well, it turns out that starting a new blogging project with twin 2-month olds in the house is not the smartest of ideas. My EVE play time rapidly collapsed as Dad duties plus stressful RL work kicked in. However, I have managed to sneak in some play time, and hope to again with more frequency in the future.

So here’s the update:

Daniella has been mostly biding her time, though she did take her one-woman Empire corp into the Caldari Militia for a week or so to partake in the Tama pew-pew. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of ships my militia mates flew - no more T1 frigate gangs like I saw back in Amarr space in the early FW days when Furious dipped his toes into the 24th Imperial Crusade. Honest to God well fit HAC, ‘cepter, and Hictor gangs roaming about. That said, FW is just really not for me. At least not as a semi-solo effort. So Daniella is back to missioning and soaking up the passive income from her five Level 4 research agents.

Furious, now he’s been on a wild ride. Despite my earlier reservations about ever going back to 0.0 full time, I signed him up with an established corp living the alliance life in the Drone Regions. Why? Well, good RL community the corp belongs to, and hey, I’ve never played in the Drone Regions.

They are cash cows, btw, if you belong to a corp with good minerals-buying policies and infrastructure. Anyway, that corp left one alliance and moved into another Drone hideaway with a new one. Settling in, getting used to actually ratting in my Apoc (they work WONDERS against drones), and flying in the hone defense gangs whenever I can get time online. Interesting.

Hope to update here again with some frequency, but I’ll keep my ambitions as modest as my playtime for now.

I have been thinking of penning a series of short stories about the life of the little guys (non-capsuleers) aboard a station somewhere. We’ll see.

My Raven post to come shortly…meantime go read Ancient’s post.

If you haven’t seen the EVE news today, the devs dropped one of those “OMGWTF they killed my ships!!!” trial balloon game balancing blog posts. This one has been a long time coming - ways to pull EVE back from the “ludicrous speeds” that seem to dominate PVP. Predictably, the outrage (and celebration) is in full form.

All is well and good, I think that unrealistic speeds take away from the fun of the game. But that’s not my story here.

The past couple of evenings have been a bonanza of ISK making for Daniella - from finally getting standings with Carthum up to allow her to use all level 4 Carthum R&D agents, to some lucrative missioning (Blockade FTW!), to a bit of manufacturing fun. The last one may bite me, as this morning I decided to use up some of my hard-won salvage materials and build some rigs for the market, including (this should be fun) two Polycarb Engine Housings, aka the “Gold Plated Speed Rig”. I sunk 60-70M+ ISK worth of materials into them and proudly put them on the market at 42M ISK apiece. A nice, comfy 10-20M ISK profit margin. I was happy.

And then I read this, not 2 min later:

Polycarbon engine housings are overpowered, both in general and with regard to corresponding modules; this is because the tech1 version is currently more effective than a tech2 nanofiber. Following our changes we’re looking at them being 30% less effective than their module counterparts, which is more similar to the difference between modules and rigs in other categories.

oooh, that’s gonna hurt. Now I’ll just sit quietly and pray some eager-yet-ignorant nano’er is out there and snaps up my quite generously priced rigs before he pops on over to the forum.

Like all economics, the real money is made - and lost - in the realm where imperfect information rules.

By MMO standards, the place is enormous. You can career out in EVE without ever leaving a relatively small section of space, given the depth of content and geography in every star system. I generally have, over time, ended up mostly in Amarr space and the Tash-Murkon and Domain regions (mid-southwest on that map) and those could provide me with a lifetime of gaming fun if I so chose. I so happen to have “lived” in a dozen or so other regions in all four corners of the galaxy, and that alone illustrates why this is a paradox:

By game design, EVE really is a small place. Thanks to interplanetary warp drives and interstellar warp gates you can traverse dozens (or more?) star systems in less than an hour. You can, in effect, crisscross the map of the entire galaxy in an afternoon. This leads to some weird gameplay effects that really stretch the “realism” of the experience - massive “roaming gangs” of ships who randomly decided out of boredom or ambition to go kill some other folks on the other side of the galaxy, and yet be home before the six-pack runs out. Or, for example, the massive economic focus on one star system, Jita. These wouldn’t be possible without the hyper-efficient means of interstellar travel built into the game.

While convenient, it really highlights the one thing that I love in good space games and yet fled from me after a couple weeks of playing EVE - the awe-inspiring vastness of space.

Playing Freelancer a few years back, I got some of that. The core, safer systems had travel means similar to EVE and you could almost get around as fast. But the outer systems required you to mosey along outside of travel lanes at a relative snails pace. When you were out there, the time, distance, and mixture of great atmospheric graphics just screamed “damn, this place is eerily big”.

In EVE, that feeling is definitely there when you first try it - early missions may have you go one or two jumps from home, which seem like a big deal especially when you fire up the galaxy map and see the thousands of star systems that await you later on. But play for a bit, and you realize that running a few hundred or thousand light years, sprinting through 2-3 dozen star systems on the way to a trade hub is the in-game equivalent of running to the corner store to buy some milk - albeit in a particular nasty part of town.

I miss the empty, chilling, awe-inspiring vastness of space in EVE.

This guide was written to give a simple explanation to how you can grind up a fresh character to be able to use 5 lvl4 Mechanical Engineering agents. This guide will focus on Minmatar/Gallente agents from three corps: DuVolle Laboratories, Core Complexion and Boundless Creation.

It looks like it may work. I still need to get Daniella up a bit more with Carthum in order to accces the last level 4 R&D agent, so maybe I’ll go out and try some pirate tags just to see what comes of it.

(h/t to Angelonico in Amarr Militia chat)

My eyes started blinking involuntarily in rapid succession, some futile instinctive reaction to the mass of goo that seem glued to my face. All I could see was a white haze all around, until a hand reached out from it to wipe a clear path across the upper half of my face. That same hand proceeded to lift me up slowly to a sitting position and wrap a heating blanket around my shoulders.

“Well, we haven’t seen you in a while. Been playing it safe, eh?” A snickering laugh.

A white and red suited technician stood over me, with some kind of shit-eating smile on his face that in some twisted way put me at ease.

Familiarity.

Ah…the medical center, clone section, in the schoolhouse orbiting Marthia I. An old friend. I grunted out something approximating “nah, just lucky” and started at last to gather my wits and recall how I ended up sitting waist deep in a vast of nasty, clear jelly.

Adrenaline. Stabbing at drone controls. Radar targets dancing in and out of range. Gate flashes. A final desperate explosion.

What a fight. An ill-conceived, rash, ultimately losing fight, of course, but instead of feeling regret I felt keenly alive. And yes, I see the irony in that statement, having suffered corporeal death just moments before. The life of a capsuleer provides for some strange kinds of perspective on experience.

Just a few hours before, after taking a long week off from the Minnie front lines, staring at walls and silently going crazy buried in the cavernous walls of Emperor Station, I decided the time had come to shoot something. If only for the sake of sanity. Surveying my hanger, and doubting my own rusty reaction time after so long out of my pod, I selected “Mama Duckling”, a sweet Arbitrator cruiser-class drone boat, as my ride for the upcoming patrol. She has wonderful lines, with almost a predatory maw out front, and of course glistened Empire Gold. Plus or minus a few rust streaks - it shows character.

The Arbitrators are the oddball of the Amarr fleet - more Gallentean in their focus on drone-based weapon systems with laser almost an afterthought. Fortunately a Gallentean “business woman” owed me a favor or two back in the day, and paid her debt with a wealth of drone skill books, turning me into a vaguely competent drone captain. But that’s for another story.

As I immersed myself in the loving embrace of my pod’s special goo - not that grade C junk in the clone vats - and felt my neural net come online, I rapidly tuned into the comm channels for the 24th Imperial Crusade. A disorganized lot, which I found downright ironic given the nature of the Empire I so love, it still yielded the best opportunities to kill Matari. So my banner flew with them, for now.

Tonight however, the comm channels were more of a wreck than normal, and that’s saying something spectacular. Anger and recriminations flying back and forth - from the brawl of human voices I made out that several of the capsuleer corporations flying for the 24th had decided to wage war against each other. New or old grudges, I could care less. For my immediate needs this translated into a distinct lack of major fleet operations to link up with. Itching for a fight, and finding no one to coordinate with, I steeled myself for what could only be considered a suicide operation - running scoutless into Minnie-controlled territory in a armor-plated hog of a ship that couldn’t run a stargate camp by any stretch of the imagination. I loved the Mama, but speed was not her forte.

“Disgusting…” I forced the infuriating, pointless backchatter from militia comm channels out of my mind, just as the ship slid out of interplanetary warp to cosy up to the Kamela gate in Tuomuta - right on the edge of the true combat zone. Or in it, for all I knew of the news of late. The word was Amarr’s capsuleer forces were backpedaling in the face of overwhelming Minmatar numbers - what drew independent corps to the Minnie side I have no idea, but come they did and pushed Amarr back system after system through the Bleak Lands front. Whatever - the politics I could less about. I’m in this war to kill some rebels, damn to whatever flag flew over the starsystem on the neocom map where they died.

Gate flash. Kamela, lowsec space and definitely front lines. Silence. Local comm net indicated an even mix of Amarr and Minmatar capsuleers, but oddly none at the entrance gate to secure Amarr space - a natural killing ground most days.

Let’s go hunting, screw waiting to find a fleet to join up with.

10 minutes. Nothing aside from a friendly waggle of an allied Megathron-class battleship as it warped off the 24th’s station in system. Let’s take this a step deeper - warp right on the gate to Kourmonen, a major staging ground for rebel fleets. I was sure to find a fight there.

The flashing red radar signature that greeted as my warp bubble collapsed was the reward for my effort. A Thrasher-class destroyer - an excellent frigate killer but by itself no match for my cruiser. So of course, it wasn’t by itself. Two more Thrashers warped in from deep space to join the fray. All worked for something (someone?) named Huang Yinglong. Whatever - their autocannons ranging on my hull, followed quickly by EMP rounds ripping into my shields, proved their loyalties.

I stabbed out my scram, tracking disruptor, weapon systems, all the while toggling the microwarp drive to slide into a tight orbit with my target. Once within 10km a quick flash of my energy neutralizer danced out alongside twin pulse laser beams to wreak havoc on the smaller ship. 5 Galentean drones spiraled around him, adding to the sheer joy of the moment.

Seconds later, the first Thrasher exploded in a satisfying fireball. His compatriots fled, though I realized that it wasn’t entirely from my own combat prowess: an interceptor and stealth bomber from the 24th had joined the fight at the last moment. I loved the help but admittedly felt a bit cheated of the ego-padding solo kill. Fortunately Mr. Thrasher yielded some nice loot. Unfortunately, I yielded that loot right back to his friends just moments later.

Why? Eh, boredom. I knew his fleetmates had fled into Kourmonen, and that in all likelihood a gang was clustered around the other side of the gate waiting for me to be stupid - or aggressive - enough to follow them through. Stupid or aggressive, I was probably a bit of both.

“Ah, screw it. Let’s see if we can catch them off guard!” Plus I had recently updated both my medical clone and ship insurance, so the loss wouldn’t be too hard to take (goo notwithstanding). Who knows, maybe I could pop one or two along the way.

My instincts, unfortunately, proved accurate. Three Thrashers and a Stabber-class cruisers awaited, and my newfound gangmates had scouted a couple jumps out in the opposite direction. No help for me. Well, that’s what you get for being greedy - might as well go out in glory.

Fast forward 90 seconds and some tens of lightyears, and back to my vat of revolting clone goo. I didn’t even manage to kill one of them, and what’s worse, records show much of the original Thrasher’s loot survived the carnage of my ship’s destruction. I may as well have gift wrapped it for them.

Trading a cruiser for a destroyer is not the fast-track to fame, fortune, or respect among combat capsuleers. But the thrill of diving into the fight was worth every last ISK.

At least that’s what I told myself as I boarded a shuttle for passage back to Amarr Prime and my waiting ship hanger. On to the next one.

Perhaps she’ll celebrate with a romp out to kill some Sansha’s in the Oh Billy (battle-scared standard issue Raven)!

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as rumor has it Furious took a beating tonight on the front lines of the Amarr - Minmatar lowsec capsuleer war. Looks like Daniella better step up the revenue generating activities just a bit more…

My preferred setup, based on a smattering of experience and some good recommendations from friends - I need to get out and try this a bit more in combat before I swear to it though:

HIGH:
1x Medium Energy Neutralize
1x Standard Missile Launcher
2x Focused Medium Pulse Laser
I know you’re reading this thinking “don’t split weapon systems!” Normally I agree, but I happen to think the Arby works well set up like this.

MID:
1x 10mn Microwarp Drive (MWD)
1x Stasis Webifier
1x Warp Disruptor (20km)
1x Tracking Distruptor (TD) (with a Tracking Speed Script)

LOW:
1x Medium Armor Repairer (MAR)
1x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane (EANM)
1x 400mm Armor Plate
1x Reactor Control Unit (RCU) to make it all fit

DRONES:
5x Hammerheads
5x Vespa EC-600
5x Warriors
5x whatever lights

You can swap in T2 or nice named, but this is a throw-away cruiser so why bother?

Tactics:
Approach on MWD, kick in the TD if you’re facing a turret ship. Either orbit at 15km or so and pepper with your drones, lasers, and missiles OR switch to multifreq crystals and get in under web range and rely on your Neutralizer to cap the bad guy out before he can kill you in return. The Warrior’s are there in case you run up against any Interceptors or nano’d frigates - at least scare them out of scram range so you can flee. The Vespa’s are there to either a) break their scram and flee or b) just annoy the hell out of them. You lose a lot of DPS with ECM drones, but it could make for some entertaining combat. Plus you’re that much more of a help to your gang.

EDITED: in light of a very good comment that I got carried away with acronyms without spelling them out. Sorry about that!

One great thing I got out of CK’s speedlink - a new blog to read in EVE’s Weekend Warrior (and his guide to can-flipping for fun and profit. Although I thought the point of it was to entice people into combat…?).

I need to start up a pirate alt sometime - my guys are all goody goodies and maintain positive sec standings. Must unleash the darkness! I also must play more this week - I start a blog, and then work and family kick in immediately to impede my ability to actually play. Fun.