In factional warfare on
7 July 2008 with 1 comment
The EVE Chronicles have been getting vastly better of late, with the influx of fiction that wraps around the Empyrean Age expansion. This latest, “The Dark End of Space” is as well nicely done. Aside from the contributions to the Empyrean storyline, I like the setup - four Admirals talking to four of their trusted Captains. A peek into the machinations of what’s to come, it seems.
And I do love this line, from an Amarr Captain:
Admiral: “Master politico-theologians say we’re experiencing a glorious sea change of unprecedented proportions, with nothing but celestial glory and heavenly fate that awaits us.”
Captain: “Theologians can suck my Apoc, sir. We’re the ones manning the guns.”
Though, to be anatomically accurate, shouldn’t that have been “…can suck my Geddon”?
In missions on
5 July 2008 with no comments
For all you mission runners out there, there are two sites I have come to lean on to make the most of the “daily grind” for ISK: EVE Agents and EVE-Survival’s Mission Reports (ex-Kill Mission Survival Guide).
EVE Agents
If you are just getting started, moving up a level, moving locations or corporations, or venturing into R&D - whatever the situation, EVE Agents is a fantastic resource to tap into. This is another one from Chribba (EVE Search, EVE Files…) so you know the quality is going to be high. Aside: Chribbs has one of the best RL company names I’ve seen yet: OMG Labs. I used this religiously to select where Daniella would primarily base out of to run her level 4’s (hint - Amarr L4Q20 kill mission agent with no risk of being sent into low-sec!). I also recently used it to select Carthum for Amarr-based R&D agents and find the research specialties of several level 4 agents. Again…invaluable.
EVE-Survival’s Mission Reports
If you run level 4’s, bookmark this site NOW. It recently found a new home and moved to a more wiki-like format, as I believe the strains of maintaining the constant flow of updates was wearing on the site owner. Note that this is a good problem to have, as it’s in large part due to the steady flow of new and revised PVE content CCP is putting out. The guides, while occasionally imperfect, are the single best way for a mission-runner to avoid losing that favorite faction-fitted CNR (excluding Goon suicide ganks, of course). When I have Daniella out building up some ISK, I keep the Mission Reports open in a browser at all times for quick reference.
If anyone knows of any must-have PVE resources, please let me know in comments!
In industry on
2 July 2008 with 1 comment
As in real life, building up a steady stream of passive income is a worthy goal. “Passive” in that you set up the business or process, do a bit of care and feeding, and cash out once in a while. In EVE, a well known path to passive income is running R&D agents - every now and then you use up Research Points (RP) to buy up datacores on a range of scientific disciplines, from Hydromagnetic Physics to Amarrian Starship Engineering. Sell them on the open market so that others can use them to research T2 ships, rigs, and modules (I am far too lazy right now to do the research myself…someday though).
I thought I would give this one a try, so I set Daniella to grinding missions with Carthum Conglomerate to work her way up to Level 4 R&D agents, of which Carthum has a few in hi-sec space. As Daniella has good science skills already, she was able to try out four different research specialties to hedge a bit against the market value of one or more datacores plummeting - Mechanical Engineering, Laser Physics, Amarrian Starship Engineering, and Hydromagnetic Physics.
Once the grinding was complete, and the agents set to work, I wandered off to other adventures eagerly anticipating the cash flow. Checking in a few weeks later, and posting the resulting datacores to market in Amarr, it looks likely I’ll net about 30 million ISK - or what I could make running and salvaging a couple decent level 4’s.
The path to riches? Not at all. But 30-odd million ISK funds plenty of T1 cruisers and frigates for Furious to get blown up by the Minmatar’s, and is a very nice complement to any ISK brought in from the occasional level 4 with Ministry of War I get the chance to run these days.
I’ll let the agents run another 1-2 weeks and post a more detailed breakdown of ISK made then.
In pvp, setups on
1 July 2008 with 3 comments
Thought I’d share my current favorite Crusader (Amarr Interceptor) fitting:
HIGHS
4x Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Scorch S Crystals
MIDS:
1x 1MN Microwarp Drive II
1x Warp Disrupter II (24km Range)
LOWS:
2x Tracking Enhancer II
1x Overdrive Injector System II
1x Nanofiber Internal Structure II
RIGS / IMPLANTS:
None for me, as I’m likely to lose this thing a LOT. Two philosophies though - fit speed rigs (Ancillary Thrusters or the insanely pricey Polycarbs) or energy weapon rigs to extend your range. I just go with the modules = good enough.
Tactics:
Goes roughly 6 km/s with decent Navigation skills (Nav/Evasive to 5, others to 4), so not wildly fast by Nano standards but good enough for my PVP skill level. Set orbit to 10-12 km, which translates to an effective 13-15 km with the MWD on. 13-15 km is optimal for my lasers with the Scorch crystals, so I can do damage, scram, and sit beyond range of *most* Webbers.
Run far away from Minmatar Recons as they will Web you to death, and as my last post mentioned, pay attention to Stealth Bombers or any of a range of missile (esp. assault missile) mounting ships. Cerberus’ I hear are particularly nasty in an Inty-killer role.
EDITED: Completely forgot to include the scram in the 2nd mid slot. Oops. Thanks Spectre!
In factional warfare, pvp on
1 July 2008 with 1 comment
When in an Interceptor, do not mess about with Stealth Bombers in the confusion of a fleet flight. I learned this the hard way a couple nights ago. A moderately sized group of Amarr loyalists had set out looking for a fight, shipped mostly in expendable T1 cruisers and frigates. Given Amarr have been consistently and massively outnumbered - and outgunned, what with the Minnie’s becoming more comfortable of late flying expensive T2 ships - this was a known suicide op.
Furious however had only a Crusader (Amarr interceptor) anywhere within 10 jumps, so I signed on with the fleet wincing a bit inside, knowing I was about to take a 15 million+ ISK loss.
Crusaders are a blast to fly - in FW of late I’ve been shipping in both Crusaders and Maledictions, and marveling at the feeling of ripping through space at 6 km/s - unrigged, no implants, so not horrifically expensive. With that speed though comes an entirely new style of play I’m still adjusting to. With speed being your sole defense, you must do everything possible to preserve it - staying out of web range, managing your cap to keep your microwarpdrive functioning, and avoiding at all cost flying straight at or away from anything that had decently ranged guns.
Add to that list - always pay close attention to stealth bombers in the enemy fleet. We had gathered in the Auga system and hugged a gate, daring the vastly superior Minnie fleet to jump in and make for some fun PVP all around. While the slow T1 ships clustered around, I took to joyriding in a 10km orbit around the gate at just shy of max speed. A few Minnie’s in system starting showing up at 100km+ range, poking about and we assumed gathering intel. Nothing much to bother…until the Hound showed up. When it locked me up I at first though nothing of it - then I noticed the distant but rapidly closing exhaust plumes of several cruise missile inbound on my position.
In my other life (my alt - Daniella) I have plenty of experience taking out frigate-sized targets with cruise missiles, at all ranges and speeds. So when I saw their fiery trails inbound, I started stabbing at warp out to any random celestial I could find. My shipped accelerated into warp just in time for the mammoth missiles to pass harmlessly behind.
Mr. Hound, however, came back to haunt me a few minutes later when the battle was joined.
Over voice comms I heard reports of the enemy jumping in. Local saw a massive 50+ red spike, lag blew away my ships responsively (another major enemy for the speed tanker), and the FC started calmly calling targets - most expensive ship on scans first. Theory being popping one good T2 + rigged cruiser or above would more than offset the ISK lost if our entire fleet went pop. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, and having already prepped my accountants for the expected ship loss, I set warp to zero on the gate and charged on it.
Somewhere in the deep of space, a distant yet distinct “Leeeeerooooy Jenkiiiinnnnnns!” cry could be heard.
Arriving on gate my overview exploded in red. I locked up the designated targets, set MWD to max and 10km orbit (at speed this translated to an effective 13-15km orbit - just out of reach of most Webifiers), and set my disruptor and 4x Dual Light Pulse lasers to auto cycle. A Rifter died to our combined fire, then a battlecruiser, a cruiser, and more. However…the Hound. I forgot about the Hound.
No one managed to Web my up in the melee - lucky, given my varying orbits even at speed took me well within Web range of any number of targets. Another important lesson for this new Interceptor pilot. But the Hound didn’t need a Web, he had cruise missiles. In the excitement I missed seeing his targeting sensors lock on, and didn’t realize I was in danger until after the first missile impacted on the Crusader’s fragile hull. 100% of shields gone, and 20% of armor - in one blast. The 2nd missile impacted moments later, and there may have been a third for all I know, not that it mattered. They shattered what remained of my armor and ripped my hull to shreds. After a brief flash my pod ejected me into space, and training born of time in null-sec space kicked in and helped me warp immediately out to a distant planet.
So my first set of lessons, hard won, on flying an Interceptor in PVP. The Duck’s Stinger was a fine ship, though short lived. She’s already been replaced with The Duck’s Stinger II, fitted out and ready to burn.
In random on
30 November 1999 with no comments
One of the paradoxes of EVE is how ridiculously vast it is - see the colored galaxy map below, each dot being an entire star system with moons, outposts, asteroid belts, and from zero to thousands of players - yet how unbelievably small it can be in practice.
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.
