On Crucibles Of Change

So in a few moments, the universe as we know it will collapse in on itself in a cataclysmic cacophony of conniptions that we will come to call Crucible. There are changes enough for everyone, including everything from lowly munitions all the way up to galaxy spanning goodies. There are new modules/equipment as well as new ships to put them on. There are old types of equipment with new abilities and properties as well as new paint on old ships.

Perhaps more than with other releases I have been keeping an eye on this update. Regular daily Singularity updates and visits have become a part of my routine as much as my morning coffee. Perusing the differences of the new equipments, ships and visuals has become something of a habit. By-and-large, there is little in the changes that will effect my day-to-day routine significantly [with the exception of corporate bookmarks - which still seem only half of a solution]. There is a bit of internal struggle that coincides with all of this change, mostly centered around the question of, “Why do I care so much?” Bear with my introspective, belly-button browsing as I consider how all of this is affecting me so deeply.

In a bit of confession and disclosure, I have toyed with the notion of hanging up my pilot’s license and settling down into a long stasis. Over the last year has seen some interesting flak and change happen in the universe and not all of them have been useful or happy. There were times and days where I could not be arsed to haul my pod into a ship to do much of anything, let alone fly around, shoot, scan, salvage, explore…. So in the midst of all this malaise, comes a rather expected update to the universe with rather unexpected feelings attached to it.

Where there was apathy before, suddenly there is attention. Where before I felt like giving up, I am tending to feel things going up. I look forward to sliding into my ships and launching forth to interact with the others around me. If nothing else, at least there is in Crucible the concern for quality that derides my contempt and compels my attention.  I am ready for change. The world is again before me on a plate of stars waiting to be devoured with the utensils of ships and shots.

I would like to leave you all with a quick Wordle of the patch notes mentioned above. I was singularly impressed with the results and how much it reflects the essence of change.

On Strip Mining Planets

Moving into a Class 5 wormhole after the Class 4 saw a shift away from producing anything and toward raw extraction. This was the part of the plan where I put down extractor heads and landing pad to rip as much stuff out of each ball of dirt/lava/gas in our system that I could get my greedy little command centres on.

The initial plan here was to stockpile the extracted Planetary resources [P0] materials until a suitable wormhole opened up and then flood the market with it all. The basic tenets involved were: Low Stress; Low Time; Low Margin; Medium Returns. This plan was enacted and working for only a couple days before two things happened to change it all up.

The first was the change from extractors to extractor “control units” and “heads” for getting the P0 out of the planet. This required going back to each planet and restructuring how everything was laid out on the colony. While this was time consuming, it was in all actuality a blessing because of the following reason required some colony restructuring/thinking.

The second issue was probably the more important factor – raw P0 are rather bulky in large quantities. Another pilot and I quickly realised that using the XL ship assembly array as well as the freighter was not going to be sufficient to hold all the stuffing we were pulling out of our plush planets. A quick refit saw the new extractor heads added and a couple dozen basic processors to change our P0 into Tier 1 products [P1]. This resulted in our good only needing 25% of their former volume [3000 units of P0 = 20 units of P1: 30m³ P0 = 7.6m³ P1]. This made storing the produce much easier, moving it out take less time/effort and allow us to wait for a suitable exit that we were comfortable using.

In a typical day I could collect about 18,000 units of Oxidizing Compounds [there was a lot of gas] over three planets. A fourth planet was setup on our temperate world for exporting mass quantities of Industrial Fibers which could theoretically generate about 12,000 units. If you noticed from the previous paragraph, this is a still a lot of cubic meters of stuff. So much so that in order to keep enough space free in the spaceport I was forced to export my planetary goods 2-3 times per day. This was also an unworkable solution not to mention unsustainable from a resource point of view.

In the end I scaled back the extraction and production on the gas planets to about 3,100 units of P1 each day [ending with a full spaceport] and then could export and restart the whole process over again. This was all worth about 500,000 isk per planet per day logged on. This meant with my 5 planets, I would be able to generate 2.5 million isk per day for about 20 mins of clicking. Yeah – it took a while for that to sink in. This was not going to be a long term cash cow but it was certainly something to fill in the space between scanning, running anomalies, hauling crap and running reactions.

On Using The Noctis [or not]

In a recent discussion with Penny [thank you for helping to keep Our Eve stocked and readable], the subject of the Noctis was brought up. Penny and I [and the boys too] have popped a couple Noctises [Nocti? Noctae? Noctices?] in wormholes since ORE began shipping the blueprints for manufacture and have seen a few different fits. This has raised several questions about the usage of and consequently the fitting for a Noctis. In view of my own usage, the Noctis – I would have to say that the answer to the first question is a resounding, “Maybe” and the second question has an even more amorphous answer.

On the one hand, a pilot could try and fit his salvage ship to survive. Plates and resists for protection and rigs to round out its ability to tank. This seems like a fairly tenuous position as the ship is quite fragile and will not be able to mount a very effective escape with such a high armor burden. The other option might be to generate as much speed as possible though it will be impossible to outrun all but the most inexperienced pilots.

Still a third option might be to use a cloak in a high slot to help “hide” for a moment to possibly confuse and confound a potential attacker. This can work for some ships, but the Noctis is still a big target that will be hard to miss when it does uncloak. Another problem with the cloak is the amount of time it adds to the job that the ship is supposed to be performing. Every decloak will engender a delay in targeting and the fitting of the cloak will increase the amount of time necessary to target the wrecks themselves. This can be mitigated to some extent by the application of Sensor Boosters and Signal Amplifiers. This is akin to ships fitting Ancillary Current Router rigs on Caldari ships so that anything “proper” will fit.

Penny is of the opinion that the best way to protect a Noctis is to let it do its job as quickly as possible. The less time that it spends in open space, the less time its pilot will spend updating his clone. This is true to a large extent and I believe that the fitting is only a small part of it. I would suggest that with the added bonuses to salvagers [and especially if you fit Salvage Tackle] that the onus for efficiency will fall on the tractors. Thus in general, a five-three split of tractors and salvagers will likely serve you better. This should hold true for high-sec as well as wormhole clean-up. I would suggest against a cloak as it is going to decrease the speed at which you get the wrecks locked and consequently the speed at which to process the trash floating around in space.

For the mids slots I would lean toward a microwarp drive for its ability to burn toward a gate or wormhole. It is going to make little or no difference in salvation of the ship should sneaky seeds of Satan show up to snatch your scow from you. It will however potentially get you to your destination in a more timely manner. A Sensor Booster [SeBo] is going to help get the wrecks locked more quickly and generally enable you to spend more time frantically mashing F1-F8 to clean the mess that was left floating behind. The other alternative is a Capacitor Recharger but will largely be a matter of choice.

Finally in the low slots do we come to the bones of contention. Cargo, Speed, Armor – which direction should you head? From the beginning I would suggest against a plate. It will do more harm that good to try and slap on a plate that eats up your powergrid, offers only limited improvement in tank and slows down your ability to turn, accelerate and go fast. Resists are a great option and will generally help bolster your tank so that your fleet-mates can arrive on grid in time to see you explode save you. I would avoid the expanded cargoholds unless you are working in High Security Space and you need the 3-4k m3 to store the level 4 mission loot you are collecting. Speed then is a great option to help you get close to the wrecks that are just outside your 68-80km tractor range or align when local/dscan spikes.

Your rigs are likely to just be Salvage Tackle and possibly a Low Friction Nozzlejoint or CCC if you have poor cap skills.

As I write this I am hearing and seeing a lot of negative commentary to the discussion of ship fitting in general and industrial ships in particular. Not everyone understands why they are told to fit a ship certain ways, and many more will believe whatever it is they want about ship fitting in denial of and with disregard for any suggested fittings. For those of you looking to shoot the Noctis, the best advice is just get in and apply alpha as it will go down very quickly. For those of you trying to survive, your best bet is to keep your eyes open and stay out of harms way.

On how to make your escape easier

So there I am shooting a couple of Hulks, but with only a single point fitted to my Manticore. I have a Tengu about to breathe down my neck, so I am not expecting to destroy both exhumers, but I am still trying to put the fear of Penny in them. I do this by cycling my disruptor between the two ships, exploiting the peculiarities of warp engines. When a ship is trying to enter warp but is prevented from doing so the engines will return to their previous mode of operation. What I am relying on is that the pilots went from being stationary to trying to enter warp directly, which when disrupted will cause the ship to ‘stall’.

Cycling the point between the two ships is a risky tactic, as it theoretically shouldn’t work. Either pilot should recognise when the engines are being disrupted and when they are not, and align manually to their escape route, engaging warp drive as soon as the point drops. But the stalling problem is compounded by another quirk, in that the escape route in w-space will often be your tower (or a wormhole, which suffers the same way), and warping to a bookmark is controlled by a context menu. Having to navigate the menu is rather more involved than rapidly punching the warp button on the overview.

Essentially, unless the pilots know exactly what’s happening and take care to align manually, their slow Hulks will never be able to get up to three-quarter speed in order to enter warp. Trying to enter warp directly and stalling the ship will reduce the Hulk’s velocity such that accelerating from zero takes longer than the cycle time of my warp disruption module. Of course, selecting a celestial object will open up the possibility of spamming the warp button, which is right next to ‘align’, another convenient button, but this is a risky move for the defender. The attacker could follow, and soft targets generally warp more slowly than pointy ships. As the defender still has to enter warp again once the celestial object has been reached, in order to get back home safely, all he has done is move the encounter.

Thinking further, using a celestial object to avoid using a bookmark to warp to could be effective if the celestial object is the moon where your tower is anchored. You still need to warp again once the moon is reached, the short distance to the tower, but anyone following will be at the mercy of the tower’s defences, making it a safer position to warp to. And you get to align easily and spam the warp button. At least, you could, if it were possible to add a single moon to the overview. Adding moons in general only makes the specific moon awkward to single out and clutters up the overview. But maybe you can add that single moon to the overview, just indirectly.

I’ve encountered a solution to adding the tower’s moon to the overview before, I just haven’t recognised it. Of course, it may not have been used as such a solution, but it occurs to me that anchoring a territorial claim unit to your moon creates a superior escape route. The TCU appears on the overview from anywhere in the system. It can be warped to, aligned to, and placed on the same grid as the tower. There will be no need to navigate relatively fiddly context menus to align or warp to a bookmark in a panic, and even though you won’t be inside the tower’s shields arriving at the TCU will provide covering fire from the active defences.

Maybe the TCUs I’ve so far encountered have nothing to do with providing a better escape route, and are anchored for completely different reasons. But it seems like a good idea to me to anchor one to provide a convenient point visible from anywhere in the system that can be accessed by standard navigation tools. The TCU may advertise the location of your tower, but that is far from a secret anyway. I’m wondering if a territorial claim unit may just save your clone.

On interacting with the environment

More PvE content has been added with the latest expansion to EVE Online, Incursions. This has caused a little stir amongst some capsuleers, concerned that mission runners are getting developer love whilst PvP combat is in a state of decay and in need of attention. I see it as more of a consequence of the nature of the two environments.

PvE content needs to be designed, crafted by developers, and seeded in to the galaxy. The nature of this design process makes each instantiation of the same type of content identical to the other instantiation, which is common practice for PvE. Random features can be added, but issues of balance and fairness rule out much option for a new experience each time.

The static nature of PvE makes the experience repetitive and, sooner or later, entirely predictable. Once a mission or anomaly has been explored and deconstructed it can be faced with no trepidation or concern for the unknown. Every foray in to PvE content ends up with essentially no risk and no surprises, and PvE becomes safe and predictable. The only way to overcome players knowing all the PvE content is to create new content, which itself will become known with time.

Contrast PvE content with PvP encounters. The field doesn’t need to be designed, although terrain features can create a focus and add to the complexity. Enemy ships don’t need to be designed beyond those the players already fly. New weapons or abilities aren’t needed, nor is any AI. Players provide it all. And, unlike PvE combat, every PvP encounter will be different. There is no set order as to who fires first, if a particular ship with a specific role will be present, or if the opposition will flee or call in reinforcements. There is no entering PvP combat knowing the outcome, even if it is possible to manipulate the odds heavily in your favour.

PvE content needs to be continually added for players to remain interested, as the same content remains the same. PvP content is made by the players themselves, creating infinite possibilities. There are certainly improvements that can be made, such as adding new ships, weapons, or terrain and mechanics (such as player-owned structures, or other sovereignty items), but the opportunities created with each improvement are vast compared with PvE additions. A few tweaks to the environment can lead to months of interesting PvP combat, as different capsuleers find new options and counter-options, whereas PvE content with a similar expected time-span may require dozens of missions to be designed.

I don’t think there is a risk of PvP combat being undermined in New Eden. Until low-sec, null-sec, or w-space disallow full PvP interaction—and let’s not forget that PvP is far from banned in high-sec—players will continue to fight players. The options, the risk, the uncertainty all combine to create new experiences on a daily basis. More missions and other PvE content may be added with each patch, but that’s because the PvEers need someone to make the content for them. PvPers make their own content.

On Doing Things Together

As part of an ongoing series of posts about corporation life, one of the issues that I have wanted to discuss for some time is the concept and process of being a team and cooperating. There are many pilots out there in New Eden and many of them want to be left alone.

• They are running missions and hoping Ninjas do not suddenly appear to steal their salvage.
• They are quietly mining ice with the desire for Battleterons V’s to be bothering others in some distant system.
• They are changing their sales by 0.01 isk to keep others items from being the best price.

All in all, they are not doing anything wrong other than missing out on the single biggest reason to keep paying a subscription to an online service, namely, interacting with other pilots. The single shard [Can you still call a system without other "shards" a single shard?] universe with all pilots interacting in the same temporal dataspace is essentially the paramount momentum behind being in New Eden. Even the aforementioned solo pilots rely on the rest of the universe to make their activities have meaning. They need others to buy and sell goods, power POSes full of arrays and even explode in fiery bursts of atmosphere and essential fluids. Without all of that, their activities in New Eden quickly become Sisyphean in nature.

Moar Droan Plz

For the rest of New Eden, the whole of the experience my best be paraphrased by Kirith Kodachi’s re-occuring motto, “Do Things…. With People” [though I am also sure he would like the rest of New Eden to chant, "Fix The Rokh"]. Whatever it is you like to do, I am positive there are others out there who would like to do it with you. There is always something more to do in EVE and someone new to do it with. It is an almost limitless universe with pilots constantly searching for new ways to beat the house, break the bank and burn the barns. If you constantly find yourself flying your ship solo, then you need to seriously ask yourself, “Am I doing it wrong?”

Sharing is Caring

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating against solo PvP or saying there is not a place for flying a mission or ratting by yourself. There are always times when you have to step to the side and get something done. No one else can raise your security status for you as well as you can. No one else wants to solo PvP with a partner [though two-man roams are wicked fun]. I AM saying that even all of those activities are better done in the midst of a group of like-minded pilots who both want to see you succeed and are trying to accomplish similar goals. It does not really matter what those goals are as much as your agreement and participation with them.

Rep or Die

In the end, you really have to ask yourself, “Am I doing stuff with people?” and for some people the question looks more like, “Am I supporting the group of people around me, doing the things we love?” Sometimes this can mean doing things differently and even expanding your horizons to include new activities or ones that you would normally not do. I do not mean to imply that you need to do things that you do not like, but rather there will be things that must be done, and the people that you have surrounded yourself with will likely find them just as burdensome as yourself. The more you do stuff with people, the more stuff that you can do with people.

Another pilot made the point that sometimes there are people who, for whatever reasons, prefer not to be around other people. Believe it or not, but there are other people out there like them. The reality is, we all have a need to belong even if we do not want it. As much as we might hate to admit it, we do need the next person [with the occasional exceptions, but you can just pod those pilots].