15/05/11 08:39 AM
| Arkonor | 285 |
| Bistot | 217 |
| Mercoxit | 192 |
| Crokite | 187 |
| Hedbergite | 171 |
| Hemorphite | 168 |
| Jaspet | 152 |
| Dark Ochre | 147 |
| Pyroxeres | 118 |
| Kernite | 106 |
| Veldspar | 99 |
| Scordite | 93 |
| Gneiss | 90 |
| Plagioclase | 88 |
| Spodumain | 82 |
| Omber | 81 |
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On Deciding What To Do With The Coloured Balls In Space
A recent post by Letrange has twinged my industrial nerves and I was motivated to actually put words to thoughts about Planetary Interaction. I have had my own opinion swing back and forth a number of times on the subject as I give weight to various facets of the whole operation. On the one hand there is the raw price breakdown where P3 > P2 > P1 but balanced by the fact it is so very, very easy to just dump P1 [or even P2] on the market without worrying about colony setup/mainenance/balance.
The P1-chain is a pure set and forget production line with only a basic industry facility. It does not take much work and can easily be exported, scooped and marketed.
A quick and dirty look at P2 gives us a slightly more complicated chain for about 8% increase in isk. Again not bad if the markets hold and the post-production transport/sales are easy.
The P3-chain is another 8-9% increase in revenue but with a much higher investment and management cost. So far, I have been able to generate more than 10% in excess of the necessary P2 reagents for producing P3. This negates the increased revenue from the P3 by sheer volume of P2 [and even P1] produced.
For anything greater P4 and even tower/array building [tower prices on the rise], it takes a significantly larger time investment that I have not been able to integrate.
So in the end, I build some P3 [Robotics] to use for fuel because it is easier than importing to the wormhole, but much prefer to just produce P1 or P2 for market sales. Getting it to the market can be a bit annoying from deep in w-space, but is not something that must be sold quickly to maintain the operation.
On making the best use of a bomber
Fying around w-space on my own or in a pair, the stealth bomber makes for an excellent ambushing ship. And, being Caldari, my stealth bomber of choice is the Manticore. Because of the types of ship that are needed to engage Sleepers, I am generally restricted to ambushing miners and salvagers in the Manticore, which affects how the ship is fitted. My current fit is as follows:
| High slot |
Mid slot |
Low slot |
| 1 × cov-ops cloak |
1 × afterburner |
2 × ballistic control system |
| 1 × bomb launcher |
1 × warp disruptor |
|
| 3 × siege launcher |
1 × sensor booster |
|
|
1 × target painter |
|
| Rig |
None |
The high slots should be obvious, they’re for the pew. The choice of afterburner instead of MWD in the mid is because I am generally cloaked and cannot use an active propulsion module, and don’t want the sig radius bloom or need the speed to keep up with my target. Maybe the extra speed could help me escape when necessary, but the ship is so fragile it may not really matter. The target painter is to make the bombs and torpedoes hit harder against the non-battleship targets. And the sebo, loaded with a scan resolution script, is to help me catch pods. The BCS in the lows give my torpedoes more punch.
The fitting is situational, the one above being mostly for solo runs against salvagers and miners. A second Manticore in the same bombing run needn’t have the point or sebo, and can be adapted to complement the first. A good second fitting, which Fin uses, has remote sensor dampers, which can be used against combat ships to prevent reciprocal locking, either to stop the target from shooting back or damping a combat ship that is guarding the target. A damper can also be used to break a lock and shake off a point, to help you escape.
Most of the modules are Tech II, except for the siege launchers and target painter. The meta 4 target painter, the PWNAGE, is as effective as its Tech II equivalent but requires less CPU, helping the fit. Tech II siege launchers, even with advanced weapon upgrades V, simply don’t fit. At least, not with two BCS in the lows, which is the topic of debate amongst Fin and myself at the moment.
I have the meta 4 launchers and considered the extra rate-of-fire of the T2 launchers to be less desirable than the boost to damage the extra BCS gives. This was purely based on assumption, though. Fin ran some numbers, meta 4 launchers against T2, with no BCS, one BCS, and two BCS, the latter option only available to the meta 4 launchers because of the tight fitting restriction. It turns out that T2 launchers with one BCS would give a minor, albeit real, increase in DPS over the meta 4 launchers with two BCS. I think that surprised us both.
| Low slots |
Meta 4 launchers
faction ammo |
Tech 2 launchers
faction ammo |
T2 launchers
T2 Rage ammo |
| — |
338.8 DPS |
368.4 DPS |
498 DPS |
| 1 × ballistic control system |
416.4 DPS |
462.7 DPS |
515.5 DPS |
| 2 × ballistic control system |
498 DPS |
— |
— |
Of course, I tried to justify my position, but not merely out of pride. My first argument that flying a fully T2 ship would be too expensive is rather silly when my alternative is to fit meta 4 items, which generally tend to be more expensive than their higher-tech equivalents. However, my other argument concerns how much use we get out of the launchers in the first place. There are few times when our bombers are engaged in a sustained attack on a target, and if we are then time is not really a concern. Normally, we only have the opportunity to fire one or two volleys of torpedoes, if any at all, before needing to warp away or cloak.
If we only get to launch a single volley of torpedoes then damage-per-second is not a useful metric. What we need to know is the alpha strike, the single volley damage of the launchers. And as the T2 launchers don’t add to the damage directly, just the rate-of-fire, the volley damage should be higher with a second BCS, which can only be fitted with the meta 4 launchers. If we only get one shot, we need to make sure it counts. But after spending so long training AWU V and advanced torpedo specialisation to get the snazzy T2 launchers fitted there must be some advantage to fitting them, and the advantage is that the extra damage of T2 missiles, only usable in T2 launchers, offsets the missing BCS.
Naturally, T2 ammo is expensive, but over the average life of one of my Manticores in w-space it will probably work out cheaper to fit T2 than meta 4. So it seems like the best option is to fit T2 launchers and sacrifice a BCS. The damage will still be equivalent, or better, as will the cost, whilst freeing up a low slot. Unless a mid slot fitting is reduced to a T1 module, the spare low slot will need to have a co-processor fitted. But making the switch allows for the low slot to be used for a nanofibre modification, to improve agility for fleeing, or an overdrive to increase cloaked velocity, both options appealing to the covert ambusher.
But there is another option, which Fin cleverly realises. Keeping the co-processor in the low slot allows for rigs to be fitted, covering the penalty of higher CPU requirements for the launchers. Specifically, warhead calefaction catalyst rigs can be fitted, which are effectively each a direct replacement for a BCS, at least for the damage bonus. With two rigs and a single BCS in the low slot, the Manticore has the equivalent of three BCS fitted, all with the added benefit of T2 missiles. As Fin calculates, ‘for maximum alpha, an SB pilot could fit two rigs pushing its alpha another 700 damage higher to outpace the Meta 4 setup by 793! The total is about 5255 [with all skills at V], which is almost like hitting them with another 2/3rds of a bomb!’ A test firing with the new configuration confirms this, the only relevant skill I’m missing being warhead upgrades V. So my new fitting is:
| High slot |
Mid slot |
Low slot |
| 1 × cov-ops cloak |
1 × afterburner II |
1 × ballistic control system II |
| 1 × bomb launcher |
1 × warp disruptor II |
1 × co-processor II |
| 3 × siege launcher II |
1 × sensor booster II |
|
|
1 × target painter II |
|
| Rig |
2 × warhead calefaction catalyst |
And that packs one hell of a punch.
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 revisiting the scene of the crime
One of the features of the overhauled sovereignty system is system upgrades, allowing claimed systems to be modified to attract more anomalies and probably some other modifications. I don’t know, I live in w-space, where sovereignty cannot even be claimed, let alone the system upgraded. But it got me considering the possibility of an upgrade specific to w-space.
The genesis of my thoughts was the aftermath of assaulting a tower in w-space on Christmas Eve. It was a lovely present, to find an entirely undefended tower in w-space, but the strontium present in the fuel bay stopped Fin and I from doing any real damage. There was enough strontium for the tower to be in reinforced mode for forty hours, and our static wormhole only remains open for sixteen. Without wanting to remain isolated from our home system, and then making our way back via an exit to null-sec, all we could really do was turn around and leave the tower alone.
Such are tower assaults in w-space. I strongly suspect the occupants of this class 3 system rely on strontium to protect their tower from destruction, instead of weapon batteries for an active defence. Either the tower is put in to reinforced mode and the attackers go home, or the attackers remain in the system, severing their own link home, and risk waiting until reinforced mode ends. There is no guaranteed way back in to the same w-space system without leaving at least one scout there. Maybe there could be.
The wormholes in w-space are not entirely random. They are the product of Sleeper technology, opening links between systems, and maybe their randomness is actually a result of the ancient technology gone a bit haywire. Perhaps it is possible to harness this alien technology, much like is already done for strategic cruisers, to stabilise wormhole connections, at least a little.
The w-space upgrade I am thinking of is a celestial beacon. When installed, the beacon links one system to another, creating an anchor for the wormhole technology. When the current static wormhole collapses, the new one created will latch on to the beacon and open to the same system, allowing further journeys between the two systems.
The benefits should be obvious. A tower is no longer completely safe merely for having strontium, as a celestial beacon can be installed allowing a fleet to return after the reinforced mode ends. But there are other benefits. A rarely visited system, with dozens of anomalies or mining sites, can be plundered for profit over a greater period, instead of watching all the resources disappear with the current static wormhole. Or a connection to a system with a convenient exit to high-sec empire space can be utilised over several days, instead of trying to cram all the travel in to a few hours.
Such an upgrade is, of course, supremely powerful. After all, it essentially breaks the randomness of w-space, its defining nature. The way the beacon needs to be installed, and its fragility, hopefully will militate against most concerns of being too powerful. The beacon must be anchored to the K162 in other system, and after the old wormhole collapses any new wormhole will appear in the same position. It is also visible on the overview throughout the system, much like a territorial control unit, or stargate. Any capsuleer can warp to the beacon on a whim, without needing to scan for it. The beacon is also poorly armoured and cannot be repaired, making it an easy target for destruction.
The beacon may give an opportunity for return visits to the same w-space system, but it is far from guaranteed, and far from safe. Being able to see and warp to the beacon allows locals to destroy the beacon easily and keep their system safe. The attackers would need to defend their beacon heavily to ensure a further assault against any tower in the system, which may take too many resources compared to perhaps a simple bombing run or two needed by the defenders. The guarantee of a K162 being at the beacon would also make it a prime target for ambushers from other systems, adding some danger to planting one even in a system marked for profit or its exit.
The only issue that could be a real problem is abusing the beacon to allow greater numbers of ships to travel between systems. Rather than only being able to get a certain number of battleships in and out before the mass allowance is surpassed, a beacon would guarantee further passage between systems, essentially allowing as many ships as possible to enter and exit, a new wormhole being created each time the current one collapses. Perhaps this will be solved by the beacon only renewing wormholes that collapse during their end-of-life stage. Those wormholes that are intentionally collapsed by mass at any other time would also destroy the beacon. That would limit the number of ships that could transit every twelve to twenty hours.
I think a celestial beacon could be an interesting w-space upgrade. Allowing continued passage between systems that could otherwise not connect for months is useful occasionally, and the drawbacks of it being so visible and obvious should limit its appeal to be used relatively scarcely. There may be other drawbacks I haven’t considered that are the reason why there is no such Sleeper technology yet found, or perhaps it simply hasn’t been uncovered yet. Either way, it would be interesting to see if a celestial beacon would enhance w-space life, or ruin it.
On telling pilots to ‘get lost’ without so many words
Listening to corporation colleagues get themselves organised about who is in w-space and who is in empire space, and how to transition back again, gets me thinking. It should be surprisingly easy to trick a pilot in to getting isolated in w-space. Or, at least, to let a colleague know he is annoying you.
The only way to travel between w-space systems, and to get in and out of w-space in the first place, is to use wormholes. These need to be scanned initially but, once resolved, can be bookmarked and the bookmarks used for navigation. The bookmarks can also be shared and used independently, although I’m sure we’d all like a more robust system.
It should be difficult to get another pilot lost in w-space, because bookmarks for the current system show in green in the nav-comp, and there should be at least a pair of bookmarks per system for the way in and way out. But pilots can be trusting, and often take data at face value. Abusing this trust is the key to isolating pilots.
Let’s say a pilot wants to return to the home w-space system from empire space. You scan an exit, bookmark the wormholes, and contract the bookmarks to the pilot so that he can follow them in. Normally, he won’t be returning in a scanning boat, which is why the following method will work to isolate him in empty space.
Scan the exit normally, and make regular bookmarks; you’ll need them for yourself. Make a copy of the bookmarks and store them in a separate folder, as you won’t want to get the two sets confused. Now delete a couple of crucial bookmarks, such as a pair of wormholes in the same system. A pair of wormholes across different systems would be funnier, as long as they break the link in the right place.
The normal route should be complete:
home ↔ w-space ↔ w-space ↔ empire space
Keep this route for yourself.
A simple broken route deletes a pair of wormholes in the same system:
home ↔ w-space ×→ w-space ←× empire space
Or you can break the route across systems:
home ×→ w-space ↔ w-space ←× empire space
But don’t break the link in the wrong place:
home ←× w-space ↔ w-space ×→ empire space
The pilot won’t be able to get in to the system in the first place, but even if he does he will still be able to navigate out.
Missing bookmarks are quite obvious, though. Certainly, enough pilots have ventured in to systems without ensuring they have the wormhole back bookmarked, including myself, but any pilot paying attention will notice only one bookmark present in the system and realise that he needs two to navigate properly. So you need to make some fake bookmarks. It may be obvious, but it is important enough to have to state: the fake bookmark must be made in the same system as the authentic bookmark it is replacing. This will not only colour the bookmark green in the right system but make the pilot warp to it instead of the wormhole, as required.
Creating safe spots will work for the fake wormhole bookmarks, or you can simply warp to a celestial object and bookmark the warp-in point. Sending your colleague to a celestial object makes him easier for any local activity to hunt, until he makes his own safe spot, which adds to the amusement. When you make the fake bookmarks you must label them to look authentic. Give the fake bookmark the wormhole designation, it’s signature reference, the class of system it leads to, and any other notation you normally use. You can simply copy the details from your correct bookmark. If it looks good, it is unlikely to be questioned.
Contract the bad bookmarks to your colleague, sit back, and watch corporation chat explode with confusion and pleas for help as the pilot warps to empty space in both directions, isolated in w-space with no recourse to scanning his way out. Ha ha ha, what a jape! The same method can also be used to poison a shared bookmark container. Replace a pair of wormholes with empty space fakely labelled, and watch the fleet warp out with no way home. Oh my, the larks that can be had! For added fun, and some level of plausible deniability, claim the the wormholes have unexpectedly collapsed.
This method isn’t flawless. A keen capsuleer can check the authenticity of each bookmark on every stage of his journey, by selecting the wormhole and seeing if ‘approach location’ appears for the wormhole he’s supposed to be sitting on, and not ‘warp to location’, or by creating his own set as he travels. But the idea is that many pilots trust the bookmark set implicitly, and do so whilst in ships that have no method to scan for wormholes. And the only guaranteed way out of a w-space system is to self-destruct and bio-mass your current clone.
It certainly seems that the Echelon looks to be a basic, niche ship that won’t see general use, even more so as it can’t be replaced.
But to everyone who is saying they are ‘not excited’ by it, or that it is a ‘massive disappointment’, if this is how you react remind me never to get you a Christmas present.
On Not Learning Anything Any Longer
 Learning is for sleepers. [Due to a publishing issue, this was originally posted by the wrong author. That has been corrected. Sorry Penny. Ed.] There is some griping and much discussion about the disappearance of the learning skills. Most of the distress is not in making the game easier for newbie—indeed, this is seen as a positive move by the same people—but that the investment in the learning skills is now going to waste. That is almost understandable, as the raw skill points injected in to the learning skills, and that will be refunded, do not translate directly to the gains those skills will give a character. But this is also the very point that renders the complaint ineffective.
‘I chose to invest time’, writes the typical veteran, ‘and now I am getting nothing from that investment’. Sort of. Your advantage of training in the learning skills will be negated, but the effect is not gone. Far from it, as the training you invested in the learning skills helped you get in to the shinier ships with bigger guns faster than if you hadn’t learnt those skills. There is simply no way that effect can be removed from your character. The time you spent waiting patiently for the learning skills to complete has helped you gain skills faster than any short-sighted or impatient capsuleer who didn’t plan similarly, and has done so for however many years it has been since you trained them.
 Get it working If I were to offer any pilot the opportunity to go back in time and train from scratch, knowing that this deletion of these skills was coming one, two, or six years down the line, I daresay no one would choose to eschew training the learning skills. It would not be seen as optimal to put those couple of million skill points elsewhere, knowing that that’s where they would be put eventually once the refund was given, as the overall rate of skill point accumulation would still not be as great. After all, the whole point of planning ahead and investing the time in the learning skills was to eventually gain more skill points than would otherwise be possible. The accelerated training rate would mean you would recoup the skill points invested in the learning skills after a period of a year or so, and only continue to reap the benefits after that.
Indeed, the clever capsuleer is taking last-minute advantage of the imminent learning skill refund, dumping more points in to a learning skill using her favoured attribute, with a view to refunding the points in a skill of her unfavoured attribute. Such cunning, using learning skills to gain skill points faster than normal right until they are taken away. But that’s what the learning skills were there for, and any pilot that took time to invest in their training has either gained the obvious benefits for a long time, or will see the skill points refunded for no loss. And as the learning skills are themselves affected and accelerated by the attributes they increase, any training in them will still have created more skill points to be refunded than a new pilot would have gained normally.
 We all start somewhere I don’t see any reason for veteran pilots to be frustrated by the removal of the learning skills. To claim they now have no advantage over new players is absurd. A new player will not gain ninety million skill points overnight, because of this change or otherwise. And the very existence of the learning skills means that every pilot must invest in them in order not to fall behind, which just puts everyone in the same boat. Rather than having new players have to find the ISK to buy the expensive, second-tier learning skill books, then themselves get frustrated as they spend a couple of weeks learning with no immediate gain to their character skill, we now all train at the same rate.
That is, we all train at the same rate except when using the expensive implants that only veteran players can really afford, after training the cybernetic skill. As for the time investment, neural remaps have made available even longer-term skill training plans, for pilots who like to think in years instead of months. Removing a pointless part of the already fierce learning curve can only be a good change, which is what deleting the learning skills achieves.
Probably one of the safer groups of people to use hardwiring implants are professional mission runners. Since the majority of mission runners use missile based set-ups [Caracal, Drake, Raven, CNR, Golem, Tengu], most of these people will benefit from implants that maximise their application of missile damage to their intended targets as quickly as possible. They also have the added benefit of being able to earn the LP necessary to buy the implants in the first place as well as face a relatively low risk of losing them. They can most likely justify spending a large amount of isk and resources on a nicer set of implants than someone who is doing regular fleet-ops in 0.0 or pirating in low-sec.
It can be overwhelming to decipher the implants that you are looking for in the sea of choices. All of the missile hardwirings begin with either ‘Snapshot’ for improving missile damage or ‘Deadeye’ for improving missile related skills. Since there are 5 slots that the missile implants can slot into, here is a break down by slot and then what a couple of sets might look like.
First up is slot 6. The options available here include boosts for Torpedo [ZMT-500/1000/2000] or Cruise [ZMU-500/1000/2000] damage. This will likely come down to whether you are flying the Caldari Marauder Golem or any other ship. The Golem‘s insane boosts to torpedoes makes the addition of the implant marginally useful, but flying a billion isk ship that likely has more than a billion in fitting modules on it makes the implant a fairly small drop in the isk bucket. For everyone else, slot six is likely to just be a utility for more capacitor, CPU or power grid.
For slot 7 there is a choice between the two cruiser sized missile platform [Heavy Assault {ZME-500/1000/2000} vs. Heavy {ZMH-500/1000/2000}] damage or increasing missile ranges [ZMC-10/100/1000 or ZML-10/100/1000]. For those in torpedo or rocket fit boats the added range is nice, but for cruise/heavy/standard missiles it is less useful due to their already long range. It could be argued that you could maximise a sniper cruise boat, but the real question would be why. If you are in a PVE ship- you probably want to get the heavy missile damage implant, for a PVP ship like the Sacrilege consider the HAM damage implant.
Slot 8 really does not have a choice. The two available missile hardwirings are for defender missile [ZMD-500/1000/2000] or explosion velocity. I honestly cannot conceive of a situation where using a hardwiring to boost defender missiles is beneficial. There really are only a few situations where having defender missiles are even remotely useful and having an implant for that is not going to make the difference. On the other hand, if you are using cruise or heavy missiles, the bonus to explosion velocity is icing on an already very tasty cake. While it will not make your cruise missiles hit for more damage, it will increase the amount of their damage that actually gets applied to smaller targets. If you are using the unguided missiles [Rockets, Heavy Assaults or Torpedoes], consider filling slot 8 with something like the Rogue DY [for afterburner cap savings], the Squire CC [for more capacitor] or the Alchemist WA [longer drug booster effects - a whole other set of topics].
Slot 9 for missiles is either for small missiles [ZMR-500/1000/2000 and ZMN-500/1000/2000] or for explosion velocity [ZMS-10/100/1000 - all missiles]. If you are a dedicated Hawk, Hookbill, Flycatcher, Heretic or maybe even Kestrel pilot, the two small missile hardwirings could do you good. Until they make a change to rockets, the explosion velocity is likely going to do you more good than the damage boost. It also has the added advantage of working with any other missiles that you might fire.
Finally, slot 10 is a lot like slot 8. The need for Friend-or-Foe [F.o.F.] is highly situational and not likely to be one that you face often. Thus the need for an implant that helps the explosion radius of F.o.F. missiles [ZMF-500/1000/2000] is not going to be a great choice. The other missile hardwire for slot 10 is one that has a direct effect on DPS by boosting their rate of fire [ZMM-10/100/1000]. This is a great choice for PVE and PVP both.
So to recap [and provide application to the above rhetoric] – here are a few specific suggestions:
| PVE Torp Golem |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Torpedo Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMT-2000 |
~170m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
Flight Time |
‘Deadeye’ ZMC-1000 |
~177m |
| Slot 8 |
Booster Duration |
‘Alchemist’ WA-2 |
~100m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-1000 |
~165m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-1000 |
~177m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVE Tengu/Drake |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Capacitor Recharge |
‘Gypsy’ KMB-50 |
~23m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
HML Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMH-2000 |
~160m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-1000 |
~170m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-1000 |
~165m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-1000 |
~177m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVE Raven Cheap |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Cruise Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMU-1000 |
~22m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
Flight Time |
‘Deadeye’ ZMC-100 |
~15m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-100 |
~21m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-100 |
~22m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-100 |
~24m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVP Generic |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Ship Velocity |
‘Rogue’ CY-1 |
~5m |
As an alternative for slot six, the pirate ‘Omega’ implants can be used to compete those sets. |
| Slot 7 |
Missile Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZML-10 |
~1.5m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-10 |
~2.1m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-10 |
~2.2m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-10 |
~1m |
On Being Plugged In
 Plug It In, Plug It In There are within EVE a plethora of ways to get better and be better than the next pilot. Fitting your ship, pilot ability, skill training and finally implants. Like the Glade® Plug-ins of Terran myth, these cool little doodads work their magic by being inserted into sockets in your brain and having some larger effect on the world around you. Unlike the Glade®’s they can be more than just a fresh scent. They can increase your ability to squeeze things on your ship, improve your cap-life, add time to your tank, and even speed up the rate at which you acquire new skills. They are the magic beans being sold by the side of road. They are quite simply, rigs for your brain. In much the same way you might spend extra money to rig your ship for a performance increase, you can ‘rig’ your melon with implants for an increase in something [often just ego, ask Krull].
They can generally be divided into two broad divisions and several sub-categories. First there are the attribute implants that increase your Intelligence [Einstein never had it so good], Memory [Where did I park my Onyx?], Perception [I see dead people], Willpower [OBEY!] and Charisma [Leadership skill training?]. The second division is the broad range of enhancement implants that improve how skills work, how modules function, how damage is calculated and applied even how effective the drugs you might be taking are on you performance. Each of these two broad divisions can be further subdivided into categories:
- Attribute Implants:
- Specific Attribute [Int/Mem/Per/Wil/Cha]
- Limited
- Limited Beta
- Basic
- Standard
- Improved
- Pirate
- Hardwirings
- Armor
- Drones
- Electronics
- Engineering
- Gunnery
- Industry
- Leadership
- Missile
- Navigation
- Science
- Shields
There are a myriad different ways to fit these into your head, just as there are millions of possible ship configurations. Hopefully over the next couple of posts I will examine some different combinations that can serve particular needs. If you a particular set you like to use or rely on, post a comment and I will see about getting it put into the mix.
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