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 Using PI In Our Wormhole
What seems like a sure-win situation with the planets we had available before the release has turned into an annoying state of affairs that will need a lot more work to make it a production reality. Whereas we initially had a fairly good spread of lava, gas, barren, ice, storm – we now have lava, barren, temperate, plasma, storm. This is coupled with the fact that it would appear that any two given resources needed on a planet to manufacture a specific tier 2 product are in fact separated by a fairly large distance. This requires a lot of CPU for links and reduces a given colony’s effectiveness.
After polling the other pilots who are setting up shop in the w’hole, it seems that they are needing about 2-3 million per planet set-up in extractor and refinery costs. This is assuming that you get it right and don’t have to move anything around later. We’re still in the exploratory phase and will likely end tearing down and rebuilding several times before we get it ‘right’. This is also coupled with the fact that we’ll need to start co-ordinating our productions once people have a better handle on the process.
On the plus side, we have more than enough enriched uranium to last out the decade. Too bad we can’t set up a shop out here in the nether world for pilots passing through to buy from us. Corporate Sales Array anyone?
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.
On Killing and Being Killed In A Wormhole
If you are going to fly in a wormhole, you are going to die. A lot. For a good summary of how that can happen, check out miningzen’s wonderful post on the subject. The reality is that you are going die everywhere you fly. Like the somewhat over generalised statement, “There are two types of capsuleers: Those that have been killed and; Those that are soon going to be.” Until Incarna, you are safe in the stations, otherwise, you are likely to have a deep and meaningful relationship with the subroutines that automate the transfer of consciousness into your next clone. As an impartial and biased observer, I can fully admit that I am very good at the whole dying game. As an industrial backgrounded character, my Osprey cruiser was as ineffective at resisting incoming damage as it was at chipping veldspar off of floating rocks. Very.
Flashing forward quickly to the present – I wake up in my pod [AT THE POS - I'M NOT DEAD YET] and am greeted with the news that my corpmates have recently stalked down and liquidated a salvage Hurricane and a Brutix in a nearby class one system. It seems that WHEN. pilots have finally shed any residual carebearistic tendencies and are fully blooded now. Well, with the exception of myself. Remember the part where I die a lot – usually first and before being able to contribute towards a successful attack? I was determined to not let that happen again. Ok, determined not to let that happen, every time.
A couple days before, our good buddies sometimes allies, Revival of the Talocan Empire had managed to screw up their settings for the fourth or fifth time and shot my Drake into tiny, tiny little pieces. Probably could have avoided any real hostilities if I had just idled in the tower, but I was incensed. The cheeky bastards bombed my tower! So I threw wads of flaming isk at them in protest. I had managed to bring a new ship into the tower and was considering how to refit for PVP even though I was well aware the the Core Defence Field Purger rigs that it still had on it were less than ideal for combat against other capsuleers.
In the aftermath of the ‘Cane/Brutix killing and clean up operation, one of our pilots noticed an odd dance of sorts going on. It seems that a couple of stealth bombers from the system’s current occupants were trying to harass a Nighthawk that was out running combat sites. They would warp in, drop a bomb and fly away all the while not doing a very good job at being stealth in either their approach, bombing or running away. At one point, the Nighthawk and a helper managed to catch one of them and quickly pop them. At this same time, a couple of our real friends pop up in chat and ask if we have anything they can shoot at. Bingo.
An ad hoc fleet goes up, and are met at the high sec side of the wormhole. I quickly jump into Shhhhh, a corp-mate‘s Manticore class stealth bomber and after loading the bookmarks am off at all speed to meet them. Two wormholes later, I am able to warp within 100 km of them and maintain my cloak the whole way. I begin motoring in toward them and looking for the best position to provide a drop point for our fleet. They finish up the site and start idling while a friendly Pilgrim and destroyer show up and begin looting and salvaging. Noticing that the fleet’s incoming wormhole is out of range of the directional scan, we call the fleet to jump through into the system and make ready to pounce. I managed to fly under their formation and come up, directly underneath them. Each of them is about 4-5 km from me. My heart is pounding and I’m absolutely sure they will launch drones or twitch and decloak me. Just as we say ‘GO’ they finish and warp away! Huh?
A combination of the locals trying to be aggressive and them finding another site to run, they had moved on. Quickly warping to the next anomaly on the list doesn’t show them and the fleet is sent off to a out of range planet to reform. The other stealth bomber has them and warping to him at 70 km manages to preserve my cloak but put me 105 km from them. I begin the crawl toward them and at 60 km the other SB is in perfect position to have the fleet engage. The fleet warps in, bubbles up and open fires. I drop cloak and start unloading torps as fast as I can, trying to burn toward them. The Pilgrim was just on the edge of the bubble and manages to get away, but the Nighthawk is right in the middle and soon goes up in a small but very satisfying ball of flame. Switching targets to the Prophecy, I am suddenly relieved of my ship and decide that it’s time to get into something a bit more secure than my pod. Before I am able to even reach the wormhole headed back to our tower, the comms light up with the news that the large, brick-like, Amarrian battlecruiser has also gone down.
So I managed to finally get a kill, and a Nighthawk at that. I am very grateful to all of our friends for their help and for flying with us. I still managed to lose a ship in combat, but at least I was able to contribute to a successful outcome. We salvaged the rest of their wrecks and were able to come out a head after replacing the two stealth bombers we lost.
Addendum: It was all a short-lived lie. Three days later I managed to find a Sacrilege, Vagabond, Devoter and a Jaguar waiting for me at a new wormhole. It was one of my shorter engagements. A few days later I ignored a yawn at the tower and flew off to support a couple corp-mates at a wormhole camp. I think I fell asleep mid-warp [it was +120 AU] and woke up in a new clone somewhere else. Apparently we had been ambushed from behind as third group of participants had found another hole into the same system and decided we looked tasty. Well, I did. Fortunately the others were able to get out of harms way.
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.
For the more observant readers [both of you], this is no surprise. For the rest of you, this wonderful piece of elocution is a wonderful guest post from a frequent partner in Sleeper related homicides and other nefarious asteroid related crimes. Please welcome and read, Penny Ibramovic, author of the wonderful Tiger Ears –Kename Fin
I sit docked at a station, keeping an eye on business. I open up the market interface to see how my orders are selling. I check if stations have received new deliveries and I am being undercut, modifying my prices if necessary and sustainable. Based on the market information, I instruct my production facilities to install new manufacturing runs, hoping that my mineral stocks allow it. If not, I hit the market again to buy more processed rocks. During all of this, my Crane floats serenely in the hangar as I conduct all my affairs through interfaces connecting directly in to my pod.
My thoughts naturally drift to wondering what it will be like when Walking in Station (WiS) becomes a reality, when I am flushed out of my pod goo and set free to explore stations beyond their hangars. Instead of staring at my admittedly beautiful ship behind several windows of information, I could be watching people, probably other capsuleers, from a table in a café, sipping on a cappuccino, albeit still from behind several windows of information. It would make quite the difference to see capsuleers come and go. Individual privateers will get new mission briefs to be completed, or groups of pilots all leave the area at once, boisterously heading off for a scheduled mining operation, or maybe quietly sneaking away to roam local low-sec systems for easy prey. Still daydreaming about the possibilities, I check my current station to see who also is currently docked.
 Space is big, and not just the parts with nothing in it. There are thousands of stars, hundreds under the umbrella of Concord in high-sec. Each system has several planetary bodies, many of them have stations in orbit, and a few planets more than one. Even if a system looks busy, with maybe twenty capsuleers present, the choice of place to dock means you are unlikely to find more than five or so capsuleers in the same station at any one time. Some of them may probably be shaking off a clone jump, or worse, and not feel in the mood to be seen in public. WiS sounds like an interesting idea, until you realise how lonely it is out in space.
Even the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Jita probably won’t be interesting more than a couple of times, after dodging scams and pushing through crowds to finally get served or find someone you know. And unless you dock in the navy station at Jita IV, moon 4 you still may struggle to find others to talk to. If it weren’t for intricate communication relays, allowing for real-time conversations across the galaxy, many capsuleers could go days without speaking to another person. But maybe that’s the problem, the universality of some channels meaning there is little need to gather in specific stations, so capsuleers don’t. It’s a slim hope, but maybe when it becomes possible to meet outside of our pods more capsuleers will be more likely to dock somewhere specific.
[caption id="attachment_404" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Capsuleers getting drunk before Angel Extravaganza"]  [/caption]
It’s a slim hope to expect pilots to congregate, if only because navigating systems can get tedious. Jumping across several systems is seen as a necessary means to an end for most tasks, but it is yet to be seen how many capsuleers are willing to jump five, six, or maybe a dozen systems to meet face-to-face, for a corporation meeting or a simple chat about ship fittings, when a simple communication channel could be opened instead. Indeed, it needs to be seen how WiS communications are handled before this can be properly gauged. Speech bubbles floating above capsuleers’ heads could make the air crowded quickly, and whilst the ephemeral nature of the conversation may appeal to some shady characters, the necessity of continually having to repeat yourself will annoy others. If WiS relies on the same communication window as other channels, I am sure many pilots will question the wisdom of spending half-an-hour flying to a station only to monitor a chat channel that would be identical ten systems away.
None of this is to say WiS can’t, or won’t, bring new aspects of capsuleer life to New Eden. Personally, a change of background whilst in a station will be welcome, even if it is only me and the waiter in the VIP room. I won’t get so desperate as to mingle with my crew or other civilians. And there is definitely one feature that would make docking in a particular station enticing: PvP. It would really add to the atmosphere of a station and lead to more interesting social dynamics if it were possible to spike a rival’s drink, start a bar fight, or stab a dastardly pirate. And I think this is the real purpose behind Dust 514. It may begin with ground battles for planets and moons, but Dust 514 must surely soon be revealed as the prototype system for WiS. You can leave your pod behind, but don’t forget your weapon.
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.
[caption id="attachment_328" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Class 4 Wormhole - Sold"]  [/caption]
The fourth incarnation of our frontline, wormhole, attack base is online and operational. We still have a few details to sort out and getting it all in was a bit taxing, however we are satisfied with the location and hope to hang out for a bit before bidding adieu to the current class 4 home. The resource collection has begun, but the depth of the rabbit hole is going to make this location a bit more challenge logistically. We are 4-5 holes deep and finding a way out is sometimes a bit “precarious” to say the least [one exit was 20 jumps through low-sec on the other side of the universe from where we needed to be]. This also means that a few of our pilots are still on the outside waiting to get in. They are excited about shooting sleepers and asteroids and gas clouds and even intruders.
[caption id="attachment_331" align="alignright" width="150" caption="That Looks Painful"]  [/caption]
The tower itself is running well and fueled for quite some time. Everything is a learning adventure and we will continue to adapt. The second adaptation we’ve had to make is something we were aware of from the beginning and had tried to compensate for. The wormhole has a spatial anomaly called a Black Hole that our pilots have begun to call by all manner of unseemly names that I can’t bring myself to post. It isn’t the prettiest system I’ve ever seen, but there are times when you can forget about the painful, pulsating rip in the fabric of space and get on with your business. Needless to say, we are learning more about the realities of the black hole as opposed to the statistical information about black holes. Professional tip from some amateurs: Target Painters. They are working wonders. Really.
And so it begins…
We’ve gathered all the fuel, most all of the supplies and we’ve got a possible wormhole scanned down. It’s a gentle Class 2 system with several signatures ready to process and not too big. We’re loading the ships and I’m out making bookmarks in the new system to prep for everyone being there.
Then a few minutes later I’m back with an Orca load full of fuel and tower. After anchoring the tower and getting it online, I get the ship arrays to anchoring and head back to bring in the rest of the supplies and escort the rest of the cohort in. We all meet at the known space side of the hole and prepare to jump. One, two, three and then me.
Except, the wormhole collapsed! No! No! NO! fortunately the ones that are through have some supplies and aren’t incapable of protecting themselves, but it is going to make it a bit harder to really get started. More to come later.
I found myself mining some ice to fuel our wormhole tower. As it was an off-peak time, there wasn’t anyone else from the corporation, so I was flying back and forth. The Hulk can hold three cycles with the cargo optimization rigs, so every 13 minutes or so I would make the round trip.
As I was getting several dock/un-dock cycles, I was able to catch one of the persistent display issues I’ve been having with my camera drones. A couple of them seem to have gone rogue and I get some very odd views. The net result was the following picture:
The effect is more interesting that upsetting. Any adjustments to the cameras’ vector, and they immediately self correct.
I don’t have all my ducks in a row. If I did, this wouldn’t be only second notice after a big dry spell. I’m trying to get caught up and re-arrange a few things. In the midst of all of this, I think I have determined what caused the previous communications outage.
Sure there was the tragic loss of hardware, resulting in an inability to connect to the interweb. Sure there were a lot of changes going on around me. I think that the real reason is much more insidious. As I looked back over some of the last pages that I had written and the information I had disseminated, one particular piece stood out. I mentioned something about trying to get caught up.
What was I thinking? More about that later. First a look at some possible methods things could have come to the horrible state that I found them in.
Had I become so cavalier with my time that I felt it necessary to provoke that God the Amarrian Cape Covered Corps keep babbling about [Just kidding Empress Jamyl. Don't suicide bomb my Hulk.]. I only meant that I intended to catch up. I in no way meant that I had it easy and needed a strong dose of hardship to bring me back to reality.
Perhaps I had pissed off the pragmatic capitalist pigs, er, Caldari. They knew I was beginning to get into a swing with my medium hybrid ammo store. It could have just been a case of warranted market pvp that resulted in my whole system of work getting screwed up completely. I was only making an average of 300-500,000 isk per day, which is hardly worth a kingdom.
I really didn’t have the Gallente or Minmatar on the radar. Mayhap it was just that little slight of attention that warranted there subtle interference. They could have always just let things be as I fully intended to sell them hybrid and projectile ammo too.
Regardless of the method, the reason was always the same. I had tempted fate and destiny had rained down ruin and distruction. Well pain and suffering. Well really just inactivity and boredom. I danced with destiny and she trampled all over my tulips before passing out drunk in my ship maintenance bay, obscenely blocking the airlock safety sensor. I’m to blame.
If you got this far, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get caught up. I will always be behind.
Je suis le ténébreux,- le Veuf, – l’inconsolé,
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie:
Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie.
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![Low DPS [Divide by 7]](http://eve.finkeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Low-DPS.png)
