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Alternatives

Cartoon Boy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:30:38 PST

Back in the dark ages my security rating was almost a perfect -10.00. I say almost as it is incredibly difficult to hit the magic -10.00 security rating and only a handful of pirates have managed such acclaim (It’s one of my many missions in this life and the next). During this time it became increasingly difficult to obtain supplies due to the local Concord forces wanton destruction of my vessel. Faction ammunition was especially hard to come by even with my loyal IMP-A Corporation funding my motley crews’ cause deep in low sec.

For me an ALT account became essential, but fearing a significant loss to my training gain I decided to temporarily purchase a slave account and train an ALT to the required levels to make supplying my escapades easier. The plan was to train Miss NEXUS to the required levels then transfer the account onto the main. This never happened as I found new and interesting ways to use my new found freedom.

As an ALT Miss NEXUS has the liberty to do what she pleases even more so than myself, Mr NOXx. As a member of an NPC corporation she cannot be held accountable for her actions. This means that War-Declarations are forbidden and complaints are unheard beyond direct contact. I’ve come to believe that if you wish to pirate it is wise, nay essential to use an ALT to ‘clean-up’ in the wake of destruction left by such acts of aggression and to maintain a healthy supply line to Empire.

Miss NEXUS has become an invaluable part of my repertoire of piracy in many ways. She regularly supplies me with faction ammunition, acts as my eyes and ears in low sec and helps me maintain a legitimate foothold on my home; Sarum Prime.

There are many other uses for an ALT dependant on ones intentions, but if you don’t have an ALT it is recommended to get one, particularly if you intend to operate within the lawless confines of piracy. CCP regularly offer discounts for buying slave accounts(The power of two) but if you don’t mind losing a week or so in training(an ALT cannot be trained simultaneously to your main), an ALT can be born from a spare POD slot of which every pilot has 2 of(3 including your main).

Of course this is entirely up to you, but I can personally vouch for the practicalities of having a loyal slave.

Happy Hunting...

Veterans Day

Star Defender — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:32:21 PST

Like most of us, I have family members that have participated (and in some cases are currently active) in almost every major conflict in which the United States has been involved, going back to WWII.

I feel that these men and women deserve recognition of the fact that they have risked, and lost their lives for the freedom of the rest of this dear planet. Their sacrifices, whether it be time away from beloved family or even their lives, should be remembered.

Veterans: We appreciate what you have done for us. There are no words to express the impact you have had on all of us.

Dedicating this post to:

My Grandfather on my Dad's side, who served in the Army WWII, witnessed D-Day, was a tank and armored personnel carrier driver and lost many close friends.
My Grandfather on my Mom's side, who served in the Air Force as a B-52 pilot and also saw an enormous number of friends lost.
My Brother-in-Law, who currently serves in the Air Force and has seen hostile, active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
My Step-Brother, who served as a paratrooper for 4 years and was involved in a major conflict.

Thank You.

For the Fallen

rocwieler — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:13:02 PST

FOR THE FALLEN
LAURENCE BINYONE
SEPTEMBER – 1914

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

“Let us never forget those who have fallen in the name of freedom”, Sanmatar Maleatu Shakor began. “Let us never grow too busy, too self-important, to remember the price we’ve paid to even reach this point together.”

The Scope News team had several crews broadcasting the Sanmatar’s Remembrance Day speech, or “Khu-Matar” as it was officially known.

It was one occasion I could not belittle politicians their hidden agendas. It would be an eternal insult to the spirits of those who fought before us, giving their lives for their ideals, as we give ours.

By the end of the Sanmatar’s sombering speech, there wasn’t a dry eye in the live audience assembled in the inner courtyard of the parliament buildings on Pator.

My heart ached, my soul burned. It reminded me of how very proud I was to be Matari.

My thoughts are with all of us in remembrance and thanks, at the 11th hour.

To Do: Get Monkey Off Back... Check!

Kirith Kodachi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:33:19 PST

Last night I logged on and had the fortune to find that 1) my jump clone wait timer was just expired and 2) my corpmates were ready to go on a roam. SWEET! Five minutes later I was in base and loading up into my Myrmidon Vexo's Special for a small gang roam.

As the roam started out we came across an Atlas alliance pilot in a Rapier that jumped into us at a gate and we quickly made short work of him. Ah, that felt good.

We continued on and later we were tracking some hostiles. The intel channel reported 9 reds in the next system, and our gang was only seven. We sent in our scout and there the reds were, engaged with some blues. We jumped in with weapons primed and saw we faced a lot of stealth bombers and assault frigates.

I went after a Jaguar as it was closest. I got within 16 km but he turned away from me and I could not close the gap anymore as his afterburner kept him out of range of my web and warp scrambler. He got out of the bubble and warped off, but out interceptor pilot snagged a Purifier and... well... purified it.

At that point the wife was ready and I logged off, pleased I got in on the Rapier kill and ticked the Jaguar got away from me. Hopefully with the goose-egg on kills for Nov broken I can keep it up.

Cleaning up the Highways and Byways of the Cluster

prometheus09 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:44:50 PST

The Captains Log 11/11

System: Hakeri, Metropolis

Station: Sebiestor Triber Bureau

Flying the far reaches of Empire space I am absolutely appalled by the amount POS’s and POS modules just left lying around with no one to take care of them. They are cluttering up good space which could be put to better use by other people. So Daquaris and I have decided to something about it; blow them Up

Final Tally for this C1

Star Defender — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:18:41 PST

Final Tally for all 34 sites was 503,310,384 ISK. The issue was basically that so few of the wrecks dropped the Melted Nanoribbons.

The sites were:

13x Perimeter Ambush Point
12x Perimeter Camp
7x Phase Catalyst Node
1x The Line
1x Forgotten Perimeter Coronation Platform

With that, all that is left are 2x Grav and 5x Ladar sites. Not really planning on sticking around to clear them, so next online time will be jumping out of the static lowsec and scanning for other WH's.

Fly Safe!

Ship Setups - Blockade Runners, by Casiella Truza

CrazyKinux@gmail.com (CrazyKinux) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:28:00 PST

This guest post comes to us from Casiella Truza, who writes the blog Ecliptic Rift and can be found tormenting the Tweet Fleet at @casiella.

Think industrial pilots and traders don't get to have any white-knuckle fun?

Think again. We operate in the shadows of giants, in the spaces they cannot see nor follow. You might think that waxing poetic about a transport ship sounds slightly insane, and while you might have a point, the fact remains that the blockade runner presents pilots with tremendous fun and opportunities for profit.

This ship class gets bonuses to shield boosting or armor repair, depending on the racial type. But that bonus doesn't mean much in most cases, because this ship can equip covert ops cloaking devices, meaning it can warp cloaked.

In low-sec, a blockade runner pilot is nearly uncatchable at stargates. Once you've jumped through and see a gate camp, just choose your destination, issue the "warp to" command, and cloak immediately. If you do it right, only the Local comms window and perhaps a flash on the overview will signal your presence to the enemy. Your most vulnerable period will come when leaving a station, so if you get caught, keep moving, stay within docking range, and engage your shield booster or armor repairer.

Null sec might give you a little more trouble if you run into a warp disruption bubble, but even then you should generally survive if you keep your wits about you. Zoom out, find the closest point on the surface of the bubble, and align to it, then immediately engage your afterburner and cloak. You might reach the edge of the bubble before the enemy can decloak you, in which case you should align to the celestial nearest your heading and warp. Other typical nullsec navigation tricks may work better for you. Comment below and share your ideas!

Blockade runner pilots typically belong to one of two schools of thought. The first, and the one to which I belong, assumes that you use the ship to move small, valuable cargo (though not so small as to fit in a covops frigate). In this case, your ability to slip through gate camps or other hostile fleets matters most. You'll want nanofiber internal structures in your low slots, which will increase your agility but lower your structural integrity. (Protip: if structure HP matters for a hauler, you've already lost.) Inertial stabilizers can shave about half a second off of your align time, but they also increase your signature radius. With no rigs, I have 4063 m3 of space in my Prowler, or 5373 m3 with a couple of Medium Cargohold Optimization rigs. I also have an EFT align time of 5.8 seconds (5.2 if I use inertial stabilizers). If you feel like an opportunist and can fit it properly, you might throw a salvager in your spare high slot.

[Prowler, Quick]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

10MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Booster II
Invulnerability Field II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

The other school of thought wants to increase cargo space no matter what. Replace the lows with Expanded Cargoholds, and you can substantially increase your cargo capacity to 6604 m3 (or 8734 m3 with rigs). Then again, your align time increases to 7.9 seconds, and those two full seconds can mean the difference between a successful run or crying about Tech II insurance payouts.

Have fun space trucking!

More EVE Online news and rantings at CrazyKinux's Musing!

My Loots are Faster than Your Loots

Cyberin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:16:43 PST

I highly, highly doubt that many mission runners have noticed it, but there are a few missions that you can now use Microwarp Drive in. It’s been like this for a bit now, as us folks in Suddenly Ninjas have been talking about it…and some of us have even started putting an Afterburner and a Microwarp Drive on our ships…just in case.

Once we realized this we starting hoping that it’s some sort of new change coming in the future…where MWDs are allowed in all missions. Well…today, CCP confirmed it. Thanks CCP Dropbear!

Now I know lots of you MRs (us people in the ‘industry’ like to refer to Mission Runners as MRs in case you didn’t get that) are having mixed feelings about this. On one hand, your Battleships can go faster now…which you know you are happy about…for those of you willing to sacrifice a bit of tank anyway. But on the other hand…other people can go faster in your missions now too.

How do I feel about this?…well…that’s a stupid question. Whenever these changes are finallized and introduced fully throughout all missions…I don’t have to put along all slow like at 1,300 m/s, I will now be able to salvage the wrecks I find littered in space…and take you hands off my loots, at a nice, leisurely pace of 3,500 m/s.

Needless to say…I’m looking forward to it.

Steam Screwed Again

Rakanishu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:37:45 PST

I don't know why I keep purchasing games on steam. Part of me likes the idea of the digital age and I feel that my files are safer if stored online. The environmentalist in me likes the idea of not needing to waste a box, jewel case, and printed manual.

That being said I have had my fair share of steam problems in the past. From being unable to retrieve my account information to every kind of steam related bug you can imagine.

Today, however, I have experienced a whole new kind of being screwed by steam. Today, the 10th of November, was the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Biggest game of all time blah blah blah...

As always, the developers have a nice hefty patch for everyone to download before they can start playing the game. Considering that there are about 5 million users who are all trying to download this ridiculous patch at the same time, servers are crashing like crazy.

However, if you were 'smart' like myself, you would have fully anticipated this and pre-loaded the game on steam to play it immediately upon release. And it would have worked quite nicely if Infinity Ward hadn't delayed the release of the game to all steam users in order to free up bandwidth for all the other retail @$$hats out there!!

Fook you Infinity Ward. It's not enough that I pre-ordered, pre-installed, and paid $60 for your stinking game? Now you have make me wait longer than everyone else for being a steam user, even though I did exactly what you wished everyone would do, which is pre-install the game to avoid bandwidth problems on launch.

AAaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh I hate the world!

- rant over

The Headlines

Cartoon Boy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:03:39 PST

Always upon the pulse of our beloved galaxy, the EvE Tribune is a plethora of useful guides, informed opinions and the occasional story. If you want to know what’s hot in New Eden there are few places better than the EvE Tribune.

I’ve been reading with earnest for the last few years and I look forward to each weekly edition with great enthusiasm. They occasionally have ship fittings which prove to be very capable, as well as Kirith’s Fighting Spacecraft; a detailed report on a chosen spacecraft detailing it’s development history and the reasons behind it’s commission. Most recently it was the turn of the Amarr Battle-cruiser; Prophecy and it’s command versions, which just also happens to be some of my favourite ships within the Amarr Navy.

A few weeks ago a link to comment was finally included on the posted articles, a welcomed addition which confirmed that the readers of the Tribune are all fine pilots who crave intelligent and topical conversation. This week there’s a hilarious write-up on the mercenary corporation; Angelic Souls of Fury Reborn, in which Miyamoto Isoruku hired them to do the business on his enemies. What transpired was almost completely pathetic according to Miyamoto. Of course this is here-say and the subsequent comments were a mixed bag of flame n’ shame. The topic was so potent even the legendary Garmon submitted his pennies worth to the argument as I’m sure he’s never short on the motivation to conflict.

Over the past month there have been regular interviews for the CSM candidates to put forward their respective cases for election. I’m not one for politics except when confronted with a ransom opportunity but it’s still an interesting read.

The EvE Tribune is always a well written, invaluable and informative weekly e-zine for which I highly recommend to any pilot seeking relevant and currant articles on the status quo of New Eden.

Related Links
EvE Tribune

October Character Review

Cyberin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:50:00 PST

Well…as always, I said I was going to pay better attention to my skills and stuff like that for making these Character Review posts…but October was rather hectic…and then at the end of the month someone tried to break into my house so I’ve been busy getting an alarm system…calming the wife down, etc…so it’s a little late to boot!

———-

First off, on Cyberin…I still haven’t started working on my learning skills yet….still 40 days to go to get all the basics to level 5 and advanced to level 4…it’ll happen one of these days, I’ve just had other stuff that’s more important to me for the short term.

I worked on getting some drone skills up because I’ve decided I like them again. Can use T2 Lights and Mediums, along with all the ECM, Logistics, and other drones like that. I also worked on my Remote Repair skills and now have 2 fully fitting Remote Rep cruisers sitting in station for when they are needed…one for shield (Osprey) and one for armor (Exequror).

Somewhere in there I also decided to get my scanning skills up to level 3 all around, with a plan of getting them to 4 in the near future. Other than that, I started training a few support skills that I’ve been neglecting…and then as I normally do, I try to buy all the skill book that’s I have the prereqs for (except those rather expensive ones) which is why I have so many level 1 skills…I just can’t help myself. I think I also threw in some missioning skills (diplomacy, etc) somewhere in October…trying to get my standings up a little for selling/refining purposes.

Ship wise…I cross trained into a few other ships…I can fly all the T1 Frigates, all cruisers except Amarr, and Caldari Battleships now…along with Minmatar, Caldari, and Gallente Battlecruisers…although, weapon wise I have to use most of the high meta stuff…still gotta work on the fitting skills for them sometime.

———-

The Nameless Alt got into an Orca last week and I’ve been enjoying that a lot…already used it in one Corp salvaging op as a central base of operations…and it makes for an excellent time while I’m solo salvaging. My plan now is to do a few more support skills to get a decent fit on the orca, and then I’ll be mixing my training time between skills for Logistics Ships, and Command Ships…since I want this guy to be purely a support character for me and other corp ops.

Also finished Cloaking IV so I can put that lovely Covert Ops cloak on the Blockade Runner!

———-

For the Number Munchers

Cyberin

Skillpoints: 6,338,000
Networth: ~ 1,653,000,000 ISK
Level 5 Skills: 8
Level 4 Skills: 32
Level 3 Skills: 37
Total Skills: 171

nameless

Skillpoints: 7,483,000
Networth: ~ 1,411,000,000 ISK
Level 5 Skills: 13
Level 4 Skills: 17
Level 3 Skills: 16
Total Skills: 89

XB360 Review - Borderlands

Spectre — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:44:58 PST

One of the first things most people will probably think to say upon noticing this review will be "First Person Shooter? RPG? Why the hell didn't you buy this for your PC?" Well, I spend all damn day at my computer at work and there is something to be said about playing games on a 50 inch plasma TV with 5.1 surround sound from a comfortable couch. This review is specifically for the XBox 360 version of Borderlands. Most of the content in this review is relevant to all versions but it should be noted that there have been many complaints about the fact that the PC version feels very much like a rushed port and has technical issues that are not prevalent in the console version of the game.

Overview:

Because Wikipedia gives better overviews than I do:

Borderlands features four player online cooperative play, which allows players to join and leave games whenever they want to, along with other single-player and multiplayer modes and a large number of weapons. Players can choose from four different playable characters who each have their own unique abilities and skill trees.In addition, players may have access to customizable vehicles for "vehicular combat" and will also be able to customize their pre-selected character. Defeated enemies will sometimes drop equipment, which is then available for players to pick up. The game is described by Gearbox Software as an "RPS," or "role-playing shooter."

Visuals:

While I didn't spend much time following the development or previews related to Borderlands before its completion, some controversy about the direction of the graphics and art style did come up around the gaming community during its development. The original art style was a bit more standard and gritty but was updated part of the way through the production cycle to have a more cell-shaded and cartoony feel by the time it was actually released.

In Borderlands final state, the colors are bright, the world is vibrant and both friendly and enemy character models are very nicely detailed. Textures on the XBox 360 become a little bit muddled as you get up to point blank range on your targets but in general everything looks sharp and the style come across as very unique and pleasing to the eyes. Perhaps the only big gripe with the cell-shaded style is that it occasionally becomes difficult to perceive depth or distinguish different pieces of terrain during a fast moving encounter but these incidents are far from game breaking and may be have been partially related to the players level of intoxication.

In addition to the terrain and character models being visualized well, the guns and other weaponry are impressive looking and varied. Every weapon you pick up will differ in its model, color, scope, muzzle flash and a number of other visual elements. In comparison to other loot-centric games where "Joe's Long Sword +3" looks identical to "Fred's Short Sword +5" virtually everything you pick up in Borderlands is going to have some graphical element that distinguishes it and accurately reflects it's capabilities, even down to the number of barrels your friends can see when they look at the front of your badass new shotgun.

Sound:

The sound effects and dialogue in Borderlands could certainly be seen as one of its brightest spots. Weapons and explosions generally add a great feel to the combat and I was especially fond of one specific sound effect that plays when you fire missiles out of the games vehicles. Additionally, player and NPC dialogue is done well and much of it is has a great sense of humor that matches the "gritty-but-silly" feel that the visuals also convey. You will never know what truly hilarious combat is like until you are listening to one of your friends yelling next to your ear by using the Berserk ability as you fire a shotgun into the face of a screaming midget.

Gameplay:

At its core, the Borderlands gameplay is easy to get into and very satisfying. Jump in with your friends, activate a quest, kill everything in your path on the way to the objective and bask in the loot and experience you gain as you move along. It is a tried and true formula that has worked for Diablo, Titan Quest and a number of other games. Most interestingly is the fact that Borderlands begins to give you that familiar feeling of playing a MMO as you progress further and further along. Moving around from lower level zone to higher level zone, completing quests with your friends, leveling up and assigning talent points to your character. It all feels very familiar. Gearbox even blatantly ripped off World of Warcrafts color scheme for items via the "White -> Green -> Blue -> Purple -> Orange" progression of item strength. Fortunately, it is here where the FPS elements come to the rescue and pull Borderlands out of the "been there, done that" quagmire that it nearly falls into. The unique guns and grenades and rocket launchers along with the real time twitch based combat does much to differentiate it from just any old fantasy action-RPG or even from MMO's such as World of Warcraft that it seems to want to emulate.

Regardless of this all, no RPG is going to succeed without interesting abilities that make you feel more powerful as you level and encouragement to continue questing to advance the story and obtain more levels and loot. In the same vein, no FPS is going to succeed without adequate focus on weapons that are responsive and feel right as well as interesting enemies and encounters that challenge without frustrating. So where does Borderlands fall in these categories? To generalize, the RPG leveling, talent and gear elements are fairly light and the story is downright forgettable. On the other hand, the FPS elements are satisfying and combat is exciting and well balanced (that is if you can ignore the ridiculous fact that running an enemy over in your car instantly kills them even if it would have taken considerably more effort via normal means). The overall success and satisfaction of the gameplay comes from the fact that Borderlands brings the unique addition of FPS combat into the action-RPG genre in a manner that melds very well and causes Borderlands to really become more than the sum of its parts.

The last thing to point out that will effect the game and your overall enjoyment is unfortunately a number of glitches and bugs that exist upon release. Gearbox is working hard to get out patches to fix issues related to talents that are not working properly, sound issues on consoles and even problems that cause all of your items and money to be deleted as you join your friends games. I ran into one of these glitches when my XBox 360 froze up during the games final cut scene. Because of the timing of the crash, the last boss no longer exists in my game but it did not register me as completing the game or even getting the final boss achievement. My character is now stuck in a permanent limbo where I cannot finish the games final quest. Gearbox is working on a fix but it is still obnoxious to know that so many serious issues made it through to release.

Multiplayer:

To be totally fair, it is hard to imagine playing Borderlands in any manner that is not multiplayer and it seems quite obvious that the game is balanced around more than one person playing at a time. Bosses feel like they are designed around having multiple players, many talents and abilities lend themselves to working with others and even the in game vehicles have seats for two players. The Berserker gets abilities that encourage him to tank for the group, the Soldier gets abilities that encourage him to heal and resupply and Sniper simply needs all those other people distracting for him so he can sit back and snipe without being mobbed. In some ways the classes are unrestricted as they can use and level up proficiencies with any weapon type but your combat effectiveness really begins to shine when you utilize some of the specializations and support abilities that is encouraged for each class.

It is due to this overwhelming design around multiplayer that I wonder why some pretty important things were omitted, most obviously is the ability to trade assets. Not being able to directly trade items is a little bit insecure but far from gamebreaking. You simply drop the items to trade on the ground and pick up what want but when playing with strangers who may have no inclination to share or play fairly it seems silly that there is absolutely no ability to set loot rules or roll for items. The biggest fubar is the fact that you cannot trade or give money! If your friend Johnny needs another $5000 to buy that awesome purple sniper rifle in the shop then it's just too damn bad because you cannot give him any of your hard earned cash. Why a game that is based around working together would leave out such simple and important cooperative capabilities is just bizarre.

Conclusion:

Borderlands is a great hybrid of RPG and FPS ideas and mechanics that is unfortunately marred by some weird design decisions and a few nasty glitches/bugs. It is a hard game to recommend if you are going to be exploring the world of Pandora solo due to somewhat monotonous gameplay and a very forgettable story but with a friend or three it stands up there with Gears of War and Left 4 Dead as an extremely entertaining and satisfying co-op experience.

Flesh Pirates

rocwieler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:36:52 PST

I awoke.

I didn’t know what year it was, let alone what day or what hour.

I was ravenous with hunger. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, but I needed to feed now with an urgency that threatened on obsessive.

My joints creaked from lack of use, my vision dulled and blurred on one side. Perhaps I had suffered sickness while in cryo sleep? It wouldn’t matter soon. Soon, my hunger would be satiated.

I remembered the days when I never suffered from illness, from when I was a capsuleer. They told us we would live forever. They lied.

Things had changed when Empress Jamyl Sarum I married Tibus Heth. That was the end of immortality for all of us. What made things even more interesting was the fact that our bodies then began aging at an accelerated rate. The top scientists of the Union (the new name given to the merging of Caldari State and the Amarr Empire) couldn’t find a cure.

Many of us believed this genetic virus had been engineered all along by Sarum towards the extinction of all capsuleers. Not surprisingly, very few Amarr capsuleers took ill, and none suffered this genetic mutation condition.

When we had fled New Eden in our Hel carrier, there were only a few hundred of us; time and necessity had seen our numbers grow.

The alarms blared. The attack had already begun. By now, some unsuspecting vessel would be locked in our tractor beams, having already been disabled by whatever fighter drones we still had functioning. Our existence was a risky one, jumping into high sec for a quick ambush, then retreating into the nearest wormhole we could find.

We were always cautious. Our scouts were very thorough. Over the countless years we had learned what could happen if we were reckless, having had our wormhole collapse on us previously, leaving us stranded in high security Empire space. CONCORD was quick to react to our presence, and it took us decades to restore our ship to fully operational status. Many lives were lost that day, but it was fewer mouths to feed in the end.

Still, maybe today we would be lucky. Maybe today we would pillage and burn, topping up our cargo holds and stuffing our faces until we could gorge no more.

Limping slightly, I left my room, if you could call it that. Even though we were on an old Minmatar Hel carrier, space was at a premium. There were thousands of us aboard, maybe tens of thousands, it was hard to keep track. So a room? No, more of a storage locker really.

The hallway was packed with fellow crew mates, all of us staggering forward to our posts. We reeked of body odour, not a one of us having had the luxury of a shower since before I could remember.

I made my way to a landing bay. As part of the assault team, it was my duty to get into the enemy vessel quickly once it was within our docks, neutralize any onboard threats, then return to whomever was in command that day. We were not to loot, or feast, before any others.

It was a rule.

My anticipation grew as I entered the main hangar deck and saw what we had captured; the largest luxury cruiser I had ever laid eyes on. There would be thousands of people aboard, enough to keep us going for years. I could feel the saliva building in my mouth, and my stomach growled, audibly chastising me for not fulfilling its needs already.

Three dozen of us boarded the ship.

The electrical systems had been shut down via EM pulse, knocking out not only the ship’s systems, but any energy based hand weaponry they might have aboard. The dark didn’t bother me; it never had.

Immediately upon entering the boarding ramp, we were attacked.

A male in light armour took a swipe at me with a weighted baton. My left hand thrust forward, open palmed, catching him in the muscle of the forearm, twitching reactively of their own accord, his hand opening, dropping the baton. The stunned look on his face was quickly erased as I drove my forehead into the meat of his cheekbone.

I grabbed his shoulder with one hand, his jaw with the other, twisting his neck perversely until I heard it snap. The saliva in my mouth threatened to spill outwards.

I was hit across the back by another security guard, and while I acknowledged the blow, it didn’t hurt. I turned, my one clear eye glaring at the terrified man who was already backpedaling away. He stumbled, falling onto his rump, and I winced a little at the thought of him damaging himself.

He rolled over onto his front, clawing and crawling, trying to escape. I reached down and grabbed him by the ankle, pulling him towards me, eyeing his meaty legs, but my planned attack was interrupted by a fellow crew member diving on top of the man, ripping through his armour and shirt with his bare hands, blood spraying everywhere.

I pushed forward more deeply into the ship.

There was screaming to be heard reverberating in every direction, and it was music to my ears. My heart raced with excitement. It had been so long, too long, since I had been awake. I was going to savour every moment of it.

I turned a corridor and came face to face with a red haired woman. We both stopped for an eternal moment, her horrified at my appearance, me shocked by an ageless memory of a woman I once loved.

She shrieked. My hand snaked out, grabbing her by the throat, hard, stifling her shrill voice. She grabbed at my arm with both hands reflexively, already weakening from my vise-like grip. Her knees began to buckle.

I punched her in the face, so powerful was the memory of that other red-headed bitch. I drove my fist into her nose, her jaw, watching her lips split, her eyes swell, knowing I was committing a horrible sin amongst my brothers, knowing I was bruising our food, and that I would be punished later.

I didn’t care.

I continued pommeling her as I lowered her to the deck of the luxury cruiser. I drove my knee into her sternum, rewarded with the rushing sound of what little air remained being pushed from her lungs, and laughed as she spit up teeth onto the deck.

She could barely struggle now, and I was so sexually aroused by the indecent act that I was performing, I could hardly contain myself.

I smashed my fist into her face once more for good measure, then leaned close to her, taking in a deep smell of her fear.

I licked at the blood on her face, delighting in its metallic tinge. Her skin was so soft, so lovely. It would look beautiful on me.

Unexpectedly, she reached for my ear, ripping the earring out of it, taking a piece of my precious skin with it. Again, there was no pain, but I was filled with such rage at her defiance.

I drove my fist into her face. And again. And again. I could feel my knuckles splintering, and laughed with glee as her visage became more and more unrecognizable.

The sound of bones breaking, the canvas of blood, I was nearly orgasmic. I knew she was already dead, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to reach into her face and pull out her spine, sucking on the tangy sponginess of her marrow. I wanted to consume her, strip her flesh, add it to my own.

I was tackled by three of my own crew mates before I could fulfill my dark indulgence. I was furious and turned against them with animal savagery.

It was my last mistake. As a pack, they surrounded me, inching closer, and I knew my miserable existence was at an end.

I had broken a rule.

I cast one more look towards my fair-haired prize, filled with a momentary regret that I would never get to feel her skin from the inside, that I would never get to eat her organs, or suck her bones dry.

With a guttural howl, I attacked fiercely, but was slowly, and literally, torn to shreds.

I awoke.

I was trembling. Aura had gently brought me to consciousness within my pod. My Vigil class frigate had arrived at my preset destination.

I had arrived in 0.0 space.

I tried to shake my mind free of that horrific and disturbing nightmare I had experienced, but failed.

Clearly, there was something wrong with me.

Goose-eggs

Kirith Kodachi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:18:05 PST

Here it is, November 10th, a third of the way through the month, and how many kills do I boast in my effort to acheive 10 this month?

None. Nada. Zippo.

Well crap. After having a great month in October my efforts to find pew pew have come up dry. And its not like I haven't been trying. I've been out there in my my interceptor or stealth bomber almost every night for 30-60 minutes and for a couple hours each Sunday doign nothing but looking for PvP (well, last Sunday I spend an hour doing corp logisitics to be fair) and still miss the PvP. Either the action happens after I log off or it happens on the other end of Providence.

Gah. I blame Ursha Khan, they're too good at slipping in and out of Providence. More crappy enemy pilots please!

So, in order to not start ruining my enjoyment of the game, last night I decided to stop trying so hard. Ten kills or not in a month, the pew pew will come when it comes. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

I had about 30 minutes or so last night so I jump cloned up to Empire to buy a Nighthawk and fit it out for some PvE action in Providence next time I run the carrier up and down, and tonight I'll set up my Ishkur and Taranis that I will qualify for as soon as Gallente Frigate V finishes in a few hours. Then its back to leadership skills.

Discussing the New Sov Mechanics

Hallan Turrek — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:18:52 PST

Well you've GOT to have an opinion.
Vincent Vega - Pulp Fiction

Costs

It will cost at least 2 billion a month to keep sovereignty in a fully upgraded system. That seems like the most important change. It will force 0.0 alliances to shrink their empires. This can only be good. More unclaimed space means more alliances will take that space. They may not fully upgrade it, but they'll own it and use it.

If you're willing to skimp on the extras(Cyno Jammers and Jump Bridges) you can hold sov for less than a billion a month. This is a much more feasible concept. If you just want to claim a system and that's all, it's only 600 million a month.

These are easily attainable numbers for small but active alliances. Even moreso once they've taken a system and have started to use it. The numbers are not concrete either, and I would wager they'll go down before the go up.

So the empires shrink, and more people crowd into more systems. Negative effects of course include cloakers(like myself) AFKing in a system and putting a hundred people out of work for a while.

Cool.

Upgrades

So now you can upgrade a system. You'll see more mining sites, hacking sites, archaeology sites, gas sites, DED Plexes, Anomalies, and even wormholes when you upgrade your system. I predict the prices on quite a few things will crash over the next year as the items begin to flood the market. I won't mind.

Also included in this is "forced activity". If you're not using your upgrades fully, you lose them. This is a great idea in theory, but it mainly means you won't be wasting money on upgrades you're not using.

Conclusion

I believe alliances that are used to owning multiple regions will be most opposed to this change. Obviously they'd be interested in keeping costs down. To those of us that are not in sovereignty holding alliances though, this is a boon the likes of which we will never get again. I hope to make good use of it. What about you?

Low Class-1 W-space yields

Star Defender — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:30:00 PST

Cleared 21 of the 34 sites and ran a short 9 jumps in the current LowSec exit to Jita to sell off the loot. Total yield: 198M ISK. More proof that the same effort would have yielded 3x in a Class2.

No other pilot traffic here as yet, and although I am getting some light respawns of the sleeper sites, I am wasting time here. Going to wait out a few more days to see if any interesting exits spawn, otherwise getting out of here by Friday.

Safe Flying!

Live Blogging the QEN - Q3 2009

Kirith Kodachi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:36:03 PST

Keeping with tradition, I'll live-blog the QEN as I read it. Enjoy!

Page 4 - Editorial paraphrased: "Blah blah blah"

Page 5 - Population holding steady but only covers up to June 09.

Page 5- Ships used: at the time of the snapshot, 42% of the ships were shuttles, rookie ships, or capsules. MY GOD! Is there ever a market for tech II shuttles!

Page 6 - "The Condor advanced from 13th place to 10th, making the Top 10 for the first time." - HUH? Why?

Page 8/9 - Huge drop in volume of Morphite traded in Sept, yet no change in price. Interesting.

Page 10 - "The deflation in the SPPI for September measured 8.6%, which is an exceptionally large decline. This drop was almost exclusively fuelled by a 24% collapse in the price of salvaged materials, which weigh heavily in the index. This was the effect of introducing different sized rigs, which is discussed further under the Consumer Price Index section." - Take that mission whores!

Page 13 - Avg CPU per user drop is illustrative of why macros are bad for the game.

Page 15 - Poor Wrath Cruise missile producers!!! LOL!

Page 21 - W-space is being used as evidenced by supply of Neurovisual Input Matrices.

Page 22 - Stealth Bomber changes still obvious. Tengu prices seem to have reached the plateau.

Page 24 - "Figure 41: Glossy Compound is a material that can be looted from the wrecks of Rogue Drone battleships and refined to yield various minerals. This item has been significantly affected by actions against real money trade accounts, with sharp declines seen in both March and July after the two large-scale bans of real money trade accounts were performed." - RMT players dealt in drone poo? Really? Odd.

Roc’s Rule #237

rocwieler — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:44:44 PST

Don’t worry about what people think, they don’t do it very often.

Exodus The Second

Tony — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:22:39 PST

Or maybe not.

The first sovereignty expansion of EVE Online was called Exodus. It was an ironic name, trying to push players into 0.0 when soon after it pushed them back into empire by introducing level 4 agents.

There has been an uproar from the null sec community in general at the cost of maintaining soverignty over their systems. Since a lot has already been addressed I won’t go into a great amount of detail about it, instead I will cover some random thoughts on the new mechanics.

When news about Dominion was first revealed, I imagined the downsizing of about 50% in all of the alliances you see on the Influence map at the moment. Territory controling would be harder because I believed that CCP would implement some kind of a fluid algorithum to determine the fees for alliances to pay. This however did not happen. Instead they added static fees to let me put it bluntly, nerf the logistics backbone of territorial alliances today.

Jump bridges and cynosural jammers are prominent in any 0.0 alliance. By increasing the price to maintain these things and keep them going, it is effectively going to limit the number of these things. This makes systems more vulnerable to being hotdropped and create logistical nightmares. As if it wasn’t hard enough getting in already.

The cost to maintain an empire needs to be scaled and not set in stone. Alliance membership sizes must be taken into account as well as including the rarity of moons and the number of moons they are harvesting from, along with number of belts are in their systems, and the amount of stations they hold.

One big quip I have with the new features such as “increased chances for this and that” is that chance based modifiers is absolutely pointless.

Think about it, if officer rats start popping up every two systems every two hours dropping their expensive crap left and right, the income made from it isn’t actually increasing, but rather being leveled out. If something sold for a billion ISK before hand and it’s only found 1 out of 100 times, post-changes it’ll be worhh around 1/4 billion being found 1 out of 25 times. Same with complex loots. If the same stuff keep dropping while there are more complexes to do, the value of items will decrease significantly. How about this, loot tables are adjusted for these changes? Then these changes are rendered completely worthless, again.

If CCP wants a single system to support 50 people, that would mean it would have to be able to generate at least 20m ISK per hour per player, about a billion ISK per hour all together, and finally about 20 billion a day fully upgraded. Theoretically most of this would be converted into taxes, 10% of 20 billion would be 2 billion ISK, enough to pay for the cost to buy upgrades and maintain them. But we all know people don’t operate like this and there is no way 0.0 can become this dense in population. Simple math tells us that when there is usually 40,000 people online during the weekend and there at least 1,000 null sec systems, it would be impossible to fill all of them with 40 people even. Half of them are probably in empire and wormholes, and a quarter in 0.0 are proabably AFK, more than half doing actual PvP, with the last little 10% sliver doing the PvE stuff.

Wait, this means out of 40,000 people, only 2,000 people would actually be doing any PvE. Does it mean each person will get 10 billion ISK in a day? Of course not! So take a look and try to tell me how without “passive incomes” can sustain these alliances.

Okay so you say we won’t do any PvP, we’ll just rat/explore/mine all day to make the money. Sure you can do that but what will you do when a gang drops in? What will you do when there’s that cloaked guy in the system? What will you do when there is a neutral? If you keep doing PvE, you’ll be killed. If you don’t, then you won’t be making enough money to pay for your systems!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. If I feel compelled to ramble on I will in following posts, but for now I think my obligatory “I’m busy but I’m still here” blog post has been fulfilled.

Enjoy your day!

Class 1 Wormholes

Star Defender — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:22:32 PST

First, a little back-story on why I find myself in Class 1 wormhole, as you may be wondering...

After pounding the proverbial systems looking for a suitable Class 3, I found myself mostly "chaining" (in some cases 3 or 4 w-space systems) deep into W-space, hoping for a good C3.

I actually found a packed C1 system with two Class 3 exits, a Class 2 exit and a LowSec exit. I figured (wrongly as it turns out) that at least one of the C3's or the C2 would be static, and with the extremely close proximity to my staging base (get this: one K-space jump + 3 W-space jumps!), I figured this was as good as any to move my "Large POS package" out to W-space.

With the 2 new Iteron V's packed and ready to go, I made quick work out of deploying a Small POS and Hanger to the C1, where my plan was to stage everything there until I found a good C3 exit spawn. Essentially, the small POS and Hangar are the "beachhead" to store the large POS package of tower and all associated modules. The 2 "currently adjoining" C3's were heavily populated, so I was willing to park myself and the entire C3 Large POS package until a good C3 spawned.

Well, turns out that this Class 1 only has a SINGLE static exit, that to LowSec. This is the first time I recall ever seeing W-space with only a single static exit, so I was pretty miffed. This could be common with C1's? But, since the system was packed with over 34 sites and I was a bit rusty after being offline the last month, I decided to go take down some sleeper sites. Because this is a C1, I could not bring in my BS's, so this was all about the trusty Drake. I knew from the earliest of early Apocrypha days that my Drake would not even break a sweat in a C1 even if I fully spawned the whole site. I cleared 10 sites in just under 2 hours.

It has been so long since I was in a Class 1 that several things occurred to me after my first day there:

The first observation mentioned above - that the C1 had only a single recurring exit. This one was to LowSec. Literally every w-space system where I have take up residence had two recurring/static exits. The fact that the only recurring exit is to LowSec means that I will have less likelihood of a quality adjoining system spawn and may mean I need to move my deployment package back to K-Space once I clean out this system. If a quality exit spawns before I empty this C1, then fine - C1's are low yield ISK.
C1 Sleeper sites are dominated by Emergent (Frigate) spawns, which have a skewed effect on drone consumption. My only prior experiences with C1 systems were "day-trips" while I was still getting up to speed on sleeper sites and ship fittings. At that time, I had not used drone DPS to any great extend and missed this observation. As compared to C2 or C3 sites, which are dominated by Cruiser and BattleCruiser sleepers, C1 sites are spawns of mostly frigates, which love to go after the drones. The BC's have poor tracking and it is really rare to lose a light drone to a Sleeper BC or BS. For example, in the last four Class 2/3 systems in total, I have lost no more than 9 drones. We are talking 100+ sleeper sites and tons of sleepers. But, in the first 5 sleeper sites alone for this system, I lost 6. As such, I need to slightly correct my prior statements regarding drone usage from "Ideal for C3 and below" to be "Ideal for C2 and C3" sites. Sentry drones would actually be ideal for C1, as they can be immediately recalled and the Emergent sleepers always come to you, whereas you need to strategically warp-in for C2/3 sites for efficient sleeper BS pwnage.
Proportionally smaller ISK yield. I would have expected C1 systems to yield less valuable loot, but linearly, not exponentially. Whereas there is a reasonable lift in yield when going from a C2 to a C3 system, the drop in yield from a C2 to C1 is substantial. Class 1 systems are a good starting point for testing your skills, but I am now going to regularly advise Class 2 and the minimum class for your first POS deployments.

That's all for now - back to (RL) work. Hopefully a good C2 or C3 will spawn from this C1 and I can get back to more challenging environments...

Fly Safe!