25/08/10 15:39 PM
| Jaspet | 55.92 |
| Omber | 55.99 |
| Hemorphite | 62.18 |
| Pyroxeres | 68.21 |
| Hedbergite | 74.04 |
| Veldspar | 65.77 |
| Kernite | 88.68 |
| Plagioclase | 84.13 |
| Scordite | 68.17 |
| Spodumain | 75.94 |
| Dark Ochre | 95.49 |
| Gneiss | 95.24 |
| Crokite | 172.65 |
| Bistot | 216.26 |
| Arkonor | 270.56 |
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On Measuring the Value of Ships
As a confessed and confirmed JOAT, I manage to get into a lot of things, but rarely do them well. As my corporation mates would probably affirm, I’m not the one to call for overwhelming DPS, scanning, stalking, mining, PI, hauling, racing, 1 vs. 1, or drone support. IF however you happen to need all of those things in moderation at the same time, then I am the one to call. This is symptomatic of having 55 million skill points in 279 skills. I like to do a lot and be able to fly a lot of ships no matter where I go. It’s a matter of taste that I don’t really have any battleship skills to speak of other than the very limited ability to fly a Tech 2 fit EWAR Scorpion. But for ships of smaller classes, I can at least make a showing, but am far from good.
With that background in mind, I think I am fairly qualified to speak on most ships and the whole gamut of possible roles those ships need to perform. To begin with, I recently had the opportunity to pilot a good friend’s strategic cruiser. Through a series of PVE and PVP encounters it worked well and performed above my expectations, even given the obvious stats and potential. It demonstrated the ability to adequately tank a larger amount of damage than expected, manoeuvre and fly with more agility and apply more of its damage potential to the targets than anticipated. Understand that I have been fairly reluctant to fly the Tech 3 ships as they are referred to, because I tend to overestimate hype and flavour. While I knew that they were good ships and competent in their ability and application, I did not fully realise how good until the other day.
After a particularly good stretch in the ship, I made the passing comment to the owner that, “This is what a 1/2 billion dollar ship should feel like.”
I look forward to picking out a couple of my own someday to fly around and abuse.
On the Prevalence of Drakes in Alliance Tournaments
I have noticed that on more than one occasion, the commentators for the Alliance Tournament VIII and in previous year lament the presence of Drakes on combat teams. Reasoning varies from low DPS to just extending the inevitable. Over the years, one thing that has held fairly consistent is the appearance and usage of Drakes by teams in the Alliance Tournaments. There are always multiple teams that field multiple Drakes. They are in fact, one of the most often fielded ships and account for a whopping 44% of all battlecruisers and more isk was spent on Drakes than battleships. Whatever else they might be, they are certainly present on a large number of teams. In the Alliance Tournament VII they were the third most popular ship behind the Rook and Ishkur.
[caption id="attachment_828" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Dead Duck"]  [/caption]
As the general consensus is that Drakes are poorly suited for PVP combat, why then do they show up so much? The certainly aren’t a requirement for victory as multiple teams have finished well and strongly without any Drakes on the field. Losing teams that fielded Drakes lost every one of them. Winning teams that fielded them lost 2 with a 87.5% survival rate and those were lost in the first match of the tournament. There is a lot of Drake-hate across the board.
This animosity towards the Drake extends far beyond the tournament. If you show up in a Drake for non-Drake fleet roams, you likely face ridicule. If you post a fitting on Battleclinic for a Drake you will get flamed and the fitting locked [more of an endemic problem with using Battleclinic in the first place] and posting to Scrapheap Challenge often results in cries of “Ban 09′s” and now “Ban 10′s” [referring to the registration date of the poster]. People associate the Drake with low-skill, new players who want to run missions and without worrying about anything other than F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7 [though now with grouping it has become even easier] and with Caldari Carebears who can’t be arsed to train for a real ship.
Maybe some of the FC’s with tournament experience can shed some light on this. I fully acknowledge the tournament doesn’t accurately reflect normal EVE PVP play. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are no Caps, there are relatively even numbers, there are no poddings…. Thus the expectations for what to bring may very well differ significantly than for a PVP conflict outside the tourney. In spite of all this, I think there are some valid reasons for their inclusion of the much maligned duck:
- Tank
- It will likely take more than one opponent shooting at it to be taken down.
- It can often stay on the field for a long, long time.
- It is not as cap unfriendly as the other tank options.
-
[caption id="attachment_829" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Incoming!"]
 [/caption]
Damage
- It can still produce a fair amount of damage:
- Heavy Missiles can generate between 330 [EM/Exp/Therm]-400 [kinetic] DPS
- Heavy Assault Missiles can generate between 450 [EM/Exp/Therm]- 570 [kinetic] DPS
- It can apply it’s damage over +70 km range for the Heavy Missiles
- Alpha strikes exceed 2,500.
- Drones can add another 80-100 dps with good skills.
Combined, this tank/damage combination causes two things to happen.
- Opponent FC’s hesitate to primary Drakes for the relative difficulty in removing them.
- Drakes are able to apply their damage over a longer period of time than similar ships.
Unless something changes significantly to affect the Drake’s tank or its bonuses, we will continue to see a lot of them fielded in the Alliance Tournaments.
On Being Angry With CCP and/or GMs
I’ve read a lot of rants in my life. Everything from cats eating neighbours’ birds, gimped drone bay on Rokh, dogs leaving their calling cards on the lawn, cans flipped, presidents sleeping with interns, GCC timers, GUI problems [or complete and utter failure at Human Interface Design 101] and letting people talk to Mr. G. Brown. But all in all, I’ve always assumed the majority of them are emotional responses to complex issue that don’t particularly affect me directly. So I smile, nod my head and move on.
Until Now.
[caption id="attachment_806" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Banned Wagon"]  [/caption]
I’m on the bandwagon. No, wait, I’m on the Banned Wagon. Persona non grata in EVE. I go to log in and I’m greeted with – “Login Data Incorrect” and no explanation. Huh, fair enough, I must have mistyped my passw… nope. 0/2 on login attempts. Quickly check SpaceBook, er, EVE Gate. It’s more informative, “This account has been banned.” To quote a corp-mate, “Bweh?” What is going on here. I quickly double check my email in case I missed something. Nothing I can find. I check the spam folder, nothing there. Check the servers spam que – AHA! A very generic message from a supposed Mr. GM Something or other indicating that my account had been hacked and as a security measure the account had been banned. Ok, fair enough, I’m all for them trying to run a tight ship and protect us from the evil account hackers and keyloggers.
As indicated in the email, I replied and asked for the account to be reset so that I could reset the password and survey the damage. As a corporate director, I was a bit fearful of the damage that could be wreaked on both our corporation’s wallet, our assets and those of our alliance mates. I quickly checked with them as well as the CEO. Interestingly enough, my character had not logged in since my own last activity. Additionally, the millions of isk in the corporate wallet were untouched. This is one very incompetent hacker…
24 hours pass… no reply to petition, no reply to email, no status indication at all. Additional petitions are made from other accounts to try and get some semblance of a response, acknowledgement, update. My last skill training ran out 20 hours ago [which was why I was trying to log in to begin with]. 36 hours. 48 hours, a reply to one of the players petitions, “Your account has been reset as per the email sent in response to your original petition on ….” First things first, reset the password and get to training again while surveying the damage to my personal wallet. Ok, skill set, wallets – Full. In point of fact, there was more isk in my wallet than when I logged off 2 days ago [several large contracts had cleared as well as personal donation from a very dear friend upon the loss of a close personal ship. What? Where's my 0 isk balance? Why are there still assets in my name? Why didn't the evil hackers strip my assets, post offensive pictures on the eve-o forum, offline all our towers and kick everyone out of the corp?
Hmm. Sure their must have been a reason they Fort Knox'd my account? The sheer paucity information released leads to my rampant speculation wherein I have then two broad scenarios that I can imagine [help me if I'm missing something]:
- My account was hacked in such a fashion as to easily alert prescient CCP/GMs to it’s compromised status and they reacted so quickly that no damage had been done while incompetent third world sweatshop hackers failed to capitalise on their access and steal the millions, nay, billions in ill-gotten gains from myself and corporation.
OR
- CCP/GMs are clicking buttons at random over there in New Hawaii and wouldn’t know a hacked account from a large cloud of volcanic dust if it blew up in their back yard.
If scenario one is correct, I encourage everyone to take a moment and give CCP/GMs a little golf clap for their supernatural ability to ferret out RMTs, hacked accounts and macro miners/ratters with ease. I would be momentarily happy to be a part of their Unholy Rage. If you’re right, everyone is happy and the experience gets better.
If scenario two is correct [and I'm more inclined to believe this given that I can just about find macro miners in every system with ice and macro ratters everytime our wormhole exit pops up in null-sec coupled with my own recent experience], then I am just sad. OK, angry and sad. I lost 48 hours of training time for someone else’s mistake? I missed out on 200-500m in revenue and cost my corp-mates the opportunities to do so as well, due to contributing to group activities? If you are wrong, admit you made a mistake and set things right.
How do I balance my own progress with that of providing for my corporation and or alliance? As an industrial character who has spent a fair number of hours learning to build nice things, how do I remain profitable while supporting those around me?
If I produce for the corporation and/or alliance, the expectation is that there is some kind of break in prices. As a conscientious industrialist, I am going to tell them how much it costs me and where it’s more than the market, suggest that they obtain it there. Where it is cheaper to build, I want to offer them the opportunity to get it cheaper and be there for the people that help make it possible. I have found that I am quite horrible though at maintaining the balance necessary between things produced for sales [the market] and those manufactured for consumption [the corporation/alliance]. Often then the result is a complete halt to my industrial tendencies.
This is often further complicated by my relative incompetence and disconnect with the sales and marketing side of things. I am quite comfortable in navigating the market, getting the resources I need, etc, but just as equally uncomfortable putting my wares up for sale. Finding holes, navigating gaps, incremental adjustments, market trends all tend to elude my grasp, leaving me with a very real sense of dissatisfaction with the sheer number of things I could be doing to maximise my profits, but are generally left undone. I envy both the selfless industrialist who is able to provide everything her corporation needs as well as the ruthless profiteer who is able to judge the market, jump into the fray and make obscene profits.
As a corollary to the above, there is also a push to be involved in corporate and alliance activities that are somewhat beyond my level. I am fairly competent at combat in sub-battleship roles, but could always use more experience and training in weapon systems. I’m quite happy to spend the time training for better weapons, drones, fittings, but have to balance this with a desire to also be able to improve my abilities to support my corp-mates with industry. Has anyone else figured out to do it all and do it well yet?
It is certainly something to work and think through.
[caption id="attachment_418" align="alignleft" width="64" caption="I Am Your New Master"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_421" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Bistot Is Primary!"]  [/caption]
Quick note: It looks like Bistot has edged Arkonor out as the mineral of highest refined value. Due in large part to the fact that Zydrine hasn’t fallen in price as much as Megacyte.
Hip, hip, horrific are the words we sing
Hip, hip, horrific is our thing -(TMBG)
As I look around and back at the posts I’ve written for the last year or so, I am reminded how well things have gone, but also how spectacularly I’ve managed to fail. If you are looking for pitfalls to avoid – you’ve found them. If you want to see how not to train for something; look no further. If you would rather have less isk at the end of the day, then this is your lucky blog!
Seriously, the posts that inhabit these pages are filled with the heartache and misery of a pilot bashing her head against the same asteroid day after day after day. At the end of the day there is a hangar full of veldspar and tritanium, some trash modules and a ship that desperately needs a tune up. Along the way the pilot has learned that you shouldn’t trust another pilot but you have to trust the other pilots until they fail you. You can’t put 4000 m3 in a GSC and there’s no way to get a station container out of a station. Overheating missiles is not so effective and skilling up adequately for boosters is going to be very expensive.
There are a few bright spots along the way. Namely, the ships and modules that have been opened up through a varied training programme that includes tech 2 mining equipment, logistics cruisers and some command ships. This is easily countered by the fail combat skills that barely allow for named heavy missiles on a Drake and some lame, unsupported rails on a Moa. It’s rather comical sometimes to be able to fit a full Tech 2 tank on every ship in the game, but then realize you still only have the equivalent of light weapons for armaments. Fear the fail firepower of 150mm rails on a Ferox! My heavy missile Drake of Dewm causes fits of laughter when people can safely orbit at 55 km and pick off my drones and then me.
![Low DPS [Divide by 7]](http://eve.finkeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Low-DPS-tm.jpg)
Other suggest that I should be proud of the fact that I can invent nearly anything possible on the market, but even that seems to fall flat. I have consistently managed to lose money or break even on Tech 2 invention and production. My volume approach is low and slow, so as to be moving backwards in appearance. I can train people to use the towers, labs, production facilities, but seem to fail in doing so myself. What was I thinking! Science is for smart people. Production is for people who are actually motivated.
So what have we learned from all of this:
- Train all the skills you possibly can [let's start with 231]
- Train a wide variety of skills to level 5 [53 is a good number]
- Science skills help you store lot’s of SP [9.6 million and counting]
- Collect ships [So you can collect dust]
- Every 3-4 months spend everything you have on one ship setup and then poke a pirate.
And I think I’ve rambled on enough for all of us today. And that is how to fail.
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
– (TMGB)
Because I’m always a bit distracted and doing 20-30 different things at once, it often means that I hit things hard and hope I get enough to keep the project afloat until I get back around to it again. One of those projects is the ongoing Orca development project that manages to be purely theoretical in nature. All this means, I don’t actually produce Orcas, but I come back and look at their production costs in relation to the current ore/mineral prices. In update to a post of long ago [Orca Production Calculations], the following changes have been made:
An Orca can currently be broken down into its component pieces and then sub-costed into their mineral components. The overall picture doesn’t include any of the manufacturing costs and assumes NO Material Efficiency research. I am putting the picture of the calculations in this post, but I’ll try to summarise the numbers for brevity as well.
To produce an Orca requires 7 component blueprint and one ship blueprint that all average around 1.1 billion each to purchase from the market. Each of the seven components will cost approximately 4 million in minerals on average [3.2 million - 5.5 million]. Combined with the total number of each component, the cost to produce an Orca is currently approximately 310 million. Since I’m not selling Orcas, I feel comfortable in suggesting that market prices ought to be around 350m allowing for profit margins, research costs and capital paybacks.
If mineral costs continue to fall, Orca prices could stabilize as low as 325 million. Adding rigs to them will still push them up over 400 million. The cargohold optimization rigs are still running over 30 million each. The addition of the ore hold has drastically improved the Orca’s flexibility and original role performance.
No, no, baby I ain’t convinced it ain’t so bad as you paint it
There’s plenty more heads of hair for us out there – (TMBG)
In case you don’t regularly look at minerals on the market and in case you might not noticed the prices of ore across the board have fallen sharply. In some cases, the minerals are lower than they’ve been in over a year. Things like tritanium are now abundantly available and no longer cash cows that they had become. Even the high end minerals that have historically been expensive are coming down. I don’t have a picture for the greater market as a whole as I just don’t keep up with everything, but I do keep a fairly close eye on minerals [the ore chart keeps getting updated].
I’ll refrain from speculating on the causes. Causality is a slippery slope that eventually leads to politicians philandering and your milk turning bad.
The results have not yet begun to filter down, but a cursory analysis [scribbling on back of an Al Abd picture in my pod] indicates that it could affect Tech 1 production costs by as much as 15%. While this good for the producers, I doubt we’ll see a corresponding change in consumer prices anywhere near that much, if at all. Maybe it will finally pay off to make T1 things again?
I like to be able to quickly evaluate a set of asteroid choices and decide what I want to mine. It can be confusing to me to have to get out the spreadsheet and calculator to figure out how much it’s worth to mine such-and-such if I refine it and sell it. To that end, I started the Isk Per Jetcan calculation that were originally posted on the front page. I’ve modified that a bit now to just be the Isk Per M3 calculations and then to know how much I can get relative to the others.
The combined Isk Per M3 and Isk Per Jetcan table is listed below. I try to keep these updated on a weekly basis for my own usage, but you are welcome to refer to them as you like.
| Omber |
61.83 |
1,700,364.81 |
| Jaspet |
63.20 |
1,737,866.53 |
| Hemorphite |
76.66 |
2,108,249.00 |
| Pyroxeres |
85.09 |
2,339,987.41 |
| Scordite |
93.35 |
2,567,046.59 |
| Hedbergite |
95.51 |
2,626,552.05 |
| Plagioclase |
103.01 |
2,832,832.01 |
| Kernite |
103.60 |
2,848,914.30 |
| Veldspar |
105.10 |
2,890,386.05 |
| Spodumain |
176.06 |
4,841,549.30 |
| Dark Ochre |
183.82 |
5,055,147.06 |
| Gneiss |
196.46 |
5,402,750.49 |
| Crokite |
363.37 |
9,992,732.56 |
| Bistot |
492.13 |
13,533,464.57 |
| Arkonor |
504.03 |
13,860,887.10 |
And so it happens. There is the past that is always with us. There is the present that is always running away from us. And finally there is the future that never quite manages to get here. There will always be another ship to build, another system to swim, another skill to train, et cetra. From my past I have trained to be a good scientist. For the present I am working on a few small projects, but the future draws my eyes to the misty veil of time. What then shall I do and where shall I go? Do I need this or that skill to get it done and how best to proceed in that direction? The future is always full of questions.
One of the things that has changed radically within the universe that we all swim through is the way new capsuleers join us. As technology has improved and the cloning and pod-pilot technology matured, we arrive at our current place where not only can you improve yourself towards any desirable end, you can also improve and train in what would seem like no direction at all. Now a pilot can not only improve her ability to learn skills that improve her ability to pilot ships that improves her ability to learn/earn/kill/thrill, but that same pilot can utilize the new technology available to rearrange the very fabric of the brain to enhance certain basic attributes or reduce others.
The veil around my own future has grown quite thick, and I am left without real pictures of what it will look like. There have been some things that I have always wanted to do, but given the lack of direction, I let them wander. I also know that sitting here in this present and expecting to get a clearer view of the future will never cause the past to go away or said future to become clearer. I have decided then, to walk off into that veil of mist. I have been to the new technology, and drank deeply of its mind altering draught. I am now as balanced in ability as any and only break down and cry a little about my slightly slower skill training in science on days that end in “Y”.
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![Low DPS [Divide by 7]](http://eve.finkeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Low-DPS.png)
