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Following the ion trail of an Iteron

pjharvey — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:20:38 PDT

Aii's here, but is Aii really here? No, he's back in empire space, still shuffling ships around. That gives me another reason to scan, to give him a new entrance, as well as looking to make new friends in w-space. The home system looks clear, and jumping to the neighbouring class 3 system looks just as clear. A tower with no ships appears when I update my directional scanner from the wormhole, but with nowhere to hide in this tiny system I'll take that result.

Launching probes and blanketing the system reveals nine anomalies and eight signatures, which give me, yep, some sites, plus two wormholes. The static exit leads to a low-sec system in Essence, a mutated handful of jumps to Dodixie, and returning to C3a and warping to the suspected outbound connection finds a T405. A wormhole to class 4 w-space is good indeed for further exploration, as it is guaranteed to lead to at least one more w-space system. Let's see where it takes me.

D-scan is clear, one planet sits out of range. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan, giving me eight anomalies, seven signatures, and two ships. The ships must be out by that distant planet, which I am already warping to, and d-scan shows me two towers to go with the ships. I doubt the Thanatos carrier is piloted, but the Iteron hauler might be. But just because it's small doesn't mean it has a pilot. I've noticed a curious tendency for corporations leave a couple of industrial ships free-floating inside their force fields of late.

To find the ships means finding the towers. I narrow d-scan's beam and sweep it across the moons. The Thanatos is at one tower, and the Iteron is, oh, gone. But is it still in the system? Is it collecting planet goo? My probes can answer the first question, but I don't have time to wait for them to complete a scan. I just turn my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser around and warp back to the inner system where I see that, yes, the Iteron is still here and, yes, he probably is gooing.

I warped to an arbitrary customs office, not the first and not the last, but the Iteron isn't here. Pinging the other offices in turn finds the hauler with little delay, and knowing that he's not been out long I think I've got a fair chance of catching up with him. Instead of waiting for him to come to me I warp my Loki towards the Iteron, pinging d-scan every couple of seconds. He's still there, still there, still there... and gone. No matter. I swing d-scan around again and find the Iteron's new destination, by which time my Loki is ready to warp again.

I've been pretty quick in finding and keeping up with the Iteron, and the hauler hasn't shown the speed I associate with capsuleers of heightened anxiety, so when I land at the next customs office to see the Iteron still there I'm pretty sure I've caught him already. The hauler looks motionless but, to be honest, I don't think it matters if he's getting ready to leave. If he's aligning to warp back to his tower I will only get a shot if I decloak and aim for him now. And if he's going to another customs office, I can catch him if he cancels warp to try to flee to his tower, and will almost overtake the clumsy industrial ship in warp if he does get away.

Decloak, lock, shoot. My warp scrambler holds the hauler in place, but I burn towards it and give it a loving bump just in case it has a predilection for fitting warp core stabilisers. It's a straightforward kill, as it turns out. The Iteron is ripped apart, the pod is ejected, and even though it looks like I've stopped the pod in its tracks, my autocannons itching to fire again, the capsuleer uses some wizardry to flee. So it's just me and the wreck, until I loot and shoot it. I reload my guns, cloak, and warp back towards the towers.

That was a nice kill. Uncomplicated and fun, having to catch up behind an active gooing hauler is a bit more involved than following the exhaust trail from a tower. And back at the tower, the pod is thrown in to a Buzzard covert operations boat that warps to empty space shortly afterwards. I don't see any probes being launched though, so I probably won't see him again. Never mind, I have my own probes. I'll scan, if he doesn't want to.

The Man Behind Rixx

noreply@blogger.com (Rixx Javix) — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:15:00 PDT

My personal identity has never been a secret. Rather it has been something I just rarely talk about, and over the past four years, something I've never officially written about on these pages. It always seemed like a good idea to keep this Eve-centric journal Eve-centric. Not to mention that when I started this blog my life was rather... uh, complicated. To say the least.

At this point I'll disappoint you by noting that I'm not anyone famous. I know, bummer right? My name is Bryan Ward and I am a life-long geek of the highest order. ( For those of you hitting Google now, be sure to search "Bryan Ward Giant Ideas", the results are better. ) If you are interested in all of my business shenanigans a good Google search should satisfy your curiosity. I am the wearer of many, many hats but I did once own a great little agency called Giant Ideas for over a decade. Sadly, due to the economy and several bad decisions from a couple of clients and one employee, we had to close our doors last January. My long-time readers will remember it as the time I stopped blogging.

That was a rough spell. Which also included a messy, long and expensive divorce.

I've had an extremely interesting career. One I am proud of. But I thought I'd tell you some things about me from the "geek/nerd" perspective, things that aren't exactly part of the public knowledge base. Like Eve, I've been involved in one form or another, in geek culture my entire life.

One of my Iron Man cards

Back in the early to mid eighties I was a small part of the independent Comic Book resurgence. I self-published a popular fanzine of my own comic book work (xerox'ed and mailed about 1,200 copies every three months!) as well as paid work for many of the up-and-coming publishers at the time. I had two concepts considered by Vertigo, ghost-wrote several issues of a popular main-stream comic and then got my big break, along with my partner, from Caliber Press ( The publisher of The Crow ). Sadly, my partner got cold feet and backed out on me. At the same time my real career was taking off and comics took a back seat for awhile.

I also did some early work on Dungeons and Dragons, as well as a competitor project. But that's another story.

I became an extremely early adopter of computer technology. I was an original stock owner in Apple and a life-long fan. Some friends and I became Beta Testers for Adobe Photoshop and eventually members of the semi-official Photoshop Advisory Board which helped bring about Postscript integration in layers, and then became the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Which is kind of cool.

I started working for Marvel Comics thru Fleer Entertainment and got the chance to use my comic book knowledge to create most of Fleer's comic book based card sets during the early nineties.

These things were extremely popular! If you happen to own a set of Marvel Metal cards, then that is my work. Heck, just about all the card sets from that period. The best moment however, was creating a Marvel themed card game called OverPower. That was an amazing project. I still have dozens of un-cut card sheets! The worst moment was cutting the hands of dozens of children on "real metal" promo cards we handed out in New York! Yikes. I still have one in my desk drawer at work, a constant reminder to be humble.

I also helped to launch the Panasonic 3DO next-gen console game system. And the world's first Platinum credit card ( sorry about that one! ). This is right around the time the early Internet started to hit and I was involved from the early days in creating sites and using new media, teaching myself Macromedia Director and making early Flash animations.

I wrote movie reviews for one of the first movie review sites, about fifty or so. For awhile I was even listed as a reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes, but not anymore. I even did some spy work for Harry Knowles back in the day. One of the sites I created back then is still up and running, but I'm not allowed to talk about that one.

I have four WGA registered movie scripts, one of which came very close to being purchased by MGM a few years back. Sadly that one was the victim of extremely bad timing and never got off the ground.

I've written, produced, directed, edited, or otherwise created over a thousand television commercials. Including one of the first shot in HD, SONY was a client at the time and let me borrow one of their prototypes for testing. I even write songs, for commercials.

Me, on a bike I designed, at Crazy Horse.

And here is where I start to feel a tad weird. I've never been comfortable talking about myself and prefer to be the person behind the curtain, quietly working away, making things happen, but never in front of the camera. It all seems so impressive when written down and condensed like that, but all those words above represent thirty plus years of extremely hard work, luck and determination to not fail. And yet, tons and tons of actual failure. When we write history we tend to gloss over the stumbles, the mistakes and the utter failures. There have been many of those as well, trust me.

Like the television show I produced that was picked up by a cable network only to have the partners involved bicker and fight until the whole thing collapsed. Or my horrible decade long divorce to my first wife which cost me virtually everything, except my son. All of which proves nothing, except success is a fleeting and transient thing my friends. The true worth is in the journey, not the destination.

My own life has turned to personal happiness these days. I'm happily married now, with an even bigger family. And I've tried to focus on what is important.

I wrote this post because I thought you might be interested. If not, then no harm done, but now that my life has settled down I'd like the division between myself and Rixx to be less obvious. Sometimes real life is important to write about as well.

I'll leave you with this compilation video I did last year that showcases some of my commercial work. You might enjoy it. The person at the very beginning is me, the clip is from a Cloverfield Trailer parody that we did that won us two Webby awards.

Now, back to Eve.

No Kill Reports For Drones

NoizyGamer — Thu, 23 May 2013 06:57:48 PDT

Last night I found an Average Dark Ochre & Gneiss site. The first gravimetric site I had found all month, I wasn't about to let the opportunity to do a little non-belt mining pass me by. Things were going well for an hour or so. I sat around in my Procurer and mined 4,500 units of Obsidian Ochre and 4,500 units of Onyx Ochre with only the Angel Cartel and some rogue drones getting in the way. Those were easily enough to kill with a heavy missile Bellicose on overwatch.

I should have stopped then because I needed to get some sleep but with this perhaps the last grav site I would find before Odyssey and the changes to grav sites so I decided to press on. As I started munching on a Dark Ochre asteroid I saw someone enter the system and then a few minutes later Sisters probes in space. Someone was probing me down!

Did I do the prudent, carebear thing and dock up? No, I was greedy and wanted to keep mining. So while the Procurer kept mining, I swapped out the Bellicose for a Hound and stationed the stealth bomber 48km away from my barge.

When the interloper arrived, I suspected I was in trouble. I was confronted with a Pilgrim. At the time I didn't know it was the Amarr force recon ship. I just remember reading about Rixx Javix flying them, so I knew they must be pretty bad-ass. Yikes!

To say I panicked was an understatement. I fumbled at my keyboard and the Pilgrim scrammed me. I think he also was draining my cap, but I couldn't tell in the middle of the action. I forgot to launch the drones but I did remember to align to a station and hit the dock button. I then uncloaked and lit up the enemy ship with a target painter. I forgot to fire up the sensor dampener. I also managed to lock one of his Hammerhead II drones instead of the Pilgrim. That probably accounted for the lack of attention given my stealth bomber. The Pilgrim pilot didn't notice I was there with two ships until he saw his tech 2 drone go "POP!".

I think that made him mad because he forgot about the Procurer and came charging after the stealth bomber, allowing the barge to escape. Looking at the logs after the fight showed I had just enough capacitor to get me to the station. That's how close he got to capping me out.

At that point the Hound was aligned and firing Nova torpedoes. Explosive damage probably wasn't the best thing to use, but I forgot about swapping over to the thermal damage torps I had in the cargo hold. The Pilgrim did manage to get within 28 km before a burst of my afterburner extended the range out to 32 km. But at that point I figured I didn't have a chance of killing the ship so I warped off before he could get close enough to tackle me.

Okay, so I'm still pretty bad at this PvP thing. But while I fled the field, I did manage to kill a tech 2 drone, which means I won the ISK war, right? Too bad we don't get kill reports for that.

Roc’s Rule #505

Roc Wieler — Thu, 23 May 2013 06:09:36 PDT

Pain changes people.

Building an Outpost – Different Outposts and their uses

A scientists life in Eve — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:21:42 PDT

Well, this post comes ahead of some long overdue changes to Outposts. This Dev Blog should be read in conjunction with this blog post, as I’m basing my blog on post patch information, although it largely applies to pre-patch details, but just with… well… “less”.

Amarr Factory Outpost

It’s a bit odd to look at, and has some moving parts on it which add to the excitement of docking just that tiny little bit. The clue here is in the name… factory outpost. The basic Outpost will offer you 50 manufacturing slots, and a further 20 slots if you like producing boosters. At base, the Outpost also gives you a 30% reduction to manufacturing time, which is very very useful indeed.

I’ll cover upgrades in another blog post, but you can add further manufacturing slots to this Outpost which can also give you bonuses for T1 and / or T2 ship manufacturing. Take that you useless advanced rapid ship assembly arrays – finally something that can make T2 ships in Sov null-sec quicker without needing extra materials!

As with all Outposts, you can try to “cross dress” the Outpost through upgrades to do different things, like giving you more offices, R&D lines or refining. Note – you actually cannot refine in any unupgraded Outpost except for the Minmatar Outpost – the others simply do not have a refinery installed. Unfortunately, you won’t even begin to match the functions of the other Outposts this way, but it can be useful sometimes… again I don’t want to double up on my upcoming Upgrades post, so I won’t say more on the subject.

We currently live in an Amarr station, and as with our set-up, you will usually find a Minmatar Outpost in an adjacent system as these two Outposts work incredibly well together.

Caldari Research Outpost

The Caldari Research Outpost pretty much does exactly what it says on the tin. You’re provided with (unupgraded) 20 each of copy, material research, production time research, and Invention slots, as well as 30 Reverse Engineering slots. Yes, Reverse Engineering. This is the only place you can do Reverse Engineering unless you erect a POS and put up mobile labs, and 30 slots is quite a lot of capacity. You have 5 manufacuring slots to play with, and again you have 10 slots to make boosters – what is it with all these drugs?

One note is that the upcoming patch on June 4th will add lots of offices to all of the Outposts (except Minmatar which only get 4 extra), so multiple Corps operating out of this Outpost is not a problem, however realistically at base you only have 80 “normal” R&D slots plus another 30 RE slots. 80 slots really isn’t a lot as between me and my CEO we would be having to queue jobs up due to insufficient slots. Still, it’s nice to have them in station rather than having to undock and fly to the POS to collect output BPC’s and would save the fuel costs of the POS too.

Gallente Administrative Outpost

And here we have the biggest con trick of an Outpost possible. Yes, it has lots of offices – 36 unupgraded. Yes it can also make drugs – having 20 slots like the Amarr Outpost. Yes it can do a bit of manufacturing and R&D, but what’s the biggest and most odd fact about this Outpost? This Outpost has upgrades that offer reduction to manufacturing time of Capital Components.

Why????

Can somebody please explain what Capital Components have to do with Administration? In theory, you could upgrade this Outpost to give you 20 manufacturing slots, each of which has a 60% reduction in time for making Capital parts.

Now doesn’t that sound like a really nice place to make parts for Super Capitals? Perhaps it’s here as there’s lots of paperwork involved in making Titans?

Minmatar Service Outpost

The last of the Outpost types. If you want to make things, research things, copy things, invent things or host an Alliance (i.e. office space), this is definitely not the Outpost for you as it has no R&D slots and only 10 offices and 5 manufacturing slots. However, it is the only Outpost to have a refinery. At base it’s 35%, which with maximum skills and a 4% implant gives you a 99.35% refining rate.

Upgrade it one level (which pretty much everybody does) and you have a 40% refinery with which you can get a 100% refine rate if you either have max skills or you have ore specific skills to 4 and use at least a 2% implant (otherwise you get 99.4% which is still pretty ok).

This Outpost is an essential workhorse for any alliance that decides to have even the smallest industrial arm, as you need a refinery to reprocess things too, and if you’re making capital or super capital ships, you’ll need somewhere to refine those 425mm Railgun I’s at, and this is that place.

Summary / my preference

If I could choose where to live and the Outposts available to me, I would want to live in an upgraded Gallente Outpost, with an upgraded Minmatar Outpost next door. Although I’m operating almost exclusively in hi-sec at the moment (supporting my Corp who operate in null-sec), if I were operating in null myself I’d want to build all sorts of capital ships, and therefore the bonus offered by the Gallente Outpost would be what I’d want, using a POS with assembly arrays to build other things. Obviously the Minmatar Outpost would be for reprocessing imported 425mm Railgun I’s.

That’s me, and as you can see it’s pretty biased towards the industrialist. I have heard that Goonswarm have installed Gallente Outposts when invading territories to give the Corps a place to base from – not sure how accurate that is, but you can see the logic behind either building or capturing an Outpost with lots of offices to help your forces organise the logistics of a large scale invasion of an entire region or two for example.

The last post in this series will cover upgrading Outposts. Although I’ve hinted about that here, I’ll provide a couple of useful links and will spend most of my time covering the actual physical process of upgrading a station, and possibly the most disappointing thing about Outposts, which is a massive missed opportunity by CCP.

Gender

Roc Wieler — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:07:08 PDT

Her Diary

Tonight, I thought Roc was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn’t flowing, so I suggested we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn’t say much. I asked him what was wrong; He said, “Nothing.” I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn’t upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way back to his quarters, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving the skimmer. I can’t explain his behaviour. I don’t know why he didn’t say “I love you, too.” When we got back to his quarters, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched the vidscreens. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About fifteen minutes later, he came to bed. I still felt that he was distracted, that his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep – I cried. I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.

His Diary

Firetail won’t start … can’t figure out why.

Fit of the Week: Starter Moros

Jester — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:00:26 PDT

In honor of the XL blaster nerf, I thought it'd be fun to go with a capital ship FOTW. So here's a standard starter Moros for those of you thinking about one:

[Moros, Starter]
Damage Control II
Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Capital Armor Repairer I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

Ion Siege Blaster Cannon I, Antimatter Charge XL
Ion Siege Blaster Cannon I, Antimatter Charge XL
Ion Siege Blaster Cannon I, Antimatter Charge XL
Siege Module II

Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

This is about as basic as it gets for a dreadnought fit. You can obviously start with a T1 siege module as you train up for T2, but the T2 module is so much better than T1, you should definitely make training for it a priority. It adds about a 15% damage bonus. As a result, in terms of training order, I recommend Gallente Dreadnought III, then Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration II, then Capital Hybrid Turret III. That will get you very basic competence. Then Dread IV (adding 11% DPS or so), then Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration V (adding 15%), then Capital Hybrid Turret IV (adding 5%), then Dread V (adding 11%), then finally Capital Hybrid Turret V (adding the last 5%). All of that assumes you want a perfect dread pilot. If you want to be a bit more balanced, you can stop at Dread IV and Capital Hybrid Turret IV.

But if you do take it all the way, then in this fitting, you'll be doing about 11500 DPS with standard ammo and 12700 DPS with faction ammo. A third faction MFS adds about 250 DPS. CONCORD guns add about 400 DPS per gun. In the end, it will come down to the amount of ISK you want to put at risk. Since dreads rarely come under fire and those that do frequently die regardless of tank, you can even go with a damage rig if you like. Fully maxed out, you'll approach 15500 DPS... not bad at all.

Dreadnoughts generally operate "in siege" which should be the topic of a separate blog entry. But for the purposes of this one, siege lasts five minutes and is the only way you should operate dreads in serious combat. During siege, you will be unable to move, jump out, or warp. But your damage is hugely enhanced. Outside of siege, you'll be reduced to about 1300 DPS... you may as well bring a battleship instead.

Tank is provided by two EANMs, a damage control, and a single capital self-repair module. You cannot receive remote repairs while in siege. This tank is primarily intended to provide sufficient buffer and self-rep to safely attack a POS defended by large guns. It will provide you with some 2.0 million EHP of which about 350k HP is armor at an average resist of 66%. While this sounds like a lot, it really isn't. A single enemy Moros in seige can destroy you in about three minutes, and ten of them can wipe you out in 20 or 30 seconds, barely enough time to get a few cycles of this repper off. So while it may make you feel better to have it, don't kid yourself that it's going to do much. If you're put into this situation, the repper is there in case the additional seconds of life it provides are enough to get you out of siege and into the arms of a nearby (hopefully triaged) carrier. You can extend these seconds fairly significantly by springing for faction EANMs for the extra resists or having a Damnation or the like in your fleet. Otherwise, as I said, the repper primarily exists to mitigate POS gun damage during a POS bash.

A dread in siege can only lock a tiny number of targets (two with a T1 siege module, three with a T2 module), and locking targets takes forever without a Sebo (30 seconds to lock an enemy dread while in siege), so a Sensor Booster is more or less mandatory. It will somewhat lessen your pain. ;-) Two Tracking Computers is more or less also a requirement for armor-tanking dreads. The remainder of the mid slots are dual Heavy Capacitor Boosters. These will keep your guns firing under the heavy neuting which often precedes you becoming the enemy fleet's primary target. The Moros's cargo bay is enormous, so carry 800s and don't skimp on extra charges! The cap boosters will also help tremendously during a capital fleet's egress process: you can use them to "cap back up" quickly after coming out of siege, since you won't be able to use your jump drive until your cap is above 70% or so (assuming Jump Drive Operation V).

It's a great idea in a Moros to keep boosters in cargo, as well as several hundred units of nanite repair paste. Good choices for boosters are Mindflood (for additional cap), Frentix (for additional optimal range, though this one is going to become less important), Sooth Sayer (for additional fall-off; this one is going to become more important), and Drop (for tracking). Since dreads operate exclusively in low, null, or w-space, if your dread pilot can handle them, I recommend Standard boosters, if not Improved boosters. One of each of the ones you want to carry will probably be sufficient.

That's it for the basic fit. Something that is quite useful for dread pilots is to keep alternate modules for your dread right in the dread's cargo bay. Using these additional modules is quite reliant on having a carrier within refit range during dreadnought use (hint: this is a really good idea). And you should always jump into any combat situation in a dread with your basic combat fit. However, if you know you are attacking a POS that is unlikely to be defended, once the dreads are in siege and a carrier has moved into refitting position, you can adjust your fitting based on your needs. Good spare modules to carry in cargo are:

two Cap Rechargers;
two or three Capacitor Power Relays;
two or three additional T2 Magnetic Field Stabilizers;
two T2 Tracking Enhancers; and,
a full set of T2 active armor hardeners.

If you intend to attack an undefended POS, POCO, or similar structure, you can trade out your EANMs for the CPRs, the MFSs, or the TEs depending on the situation. For instance, if attacking an undefended medium POS, take off your EANMs and fit one TE and one addition MFS. Though certainly affected by the diminishing returns penalty, on a Moros a fourth MFS is worth 750 or more DPS... almost another battleship. ;-)

Similarly, if attacking a POS or structure, you can remove the Heavy Cap Boosters and replace them with Cap Rechargers. Once the operation is over and you're capping up for the jump out, replace two low slots with Cap Power Relays to cap up more quickly. If your fleet comes under heavy attack and you become an enemy fleet's primary, trade out your MFSs and one EANM for the full set of hardeners to increase your chances of staying alive (or at least to slow the enemy fleet's DPS down). With time and practice, you'll become quite good at swapping out modules on the fly and adjusting for the situation you find yourself in. In particular, if your fleet is attacked, make sure you get some resists back into the lows and the cap boosters back into the mids. You'll need them.

Finally, your first few fights in a dread are going to be somewhat nerve-wracking. A well-fit dread can run up to three billion ISK... not small change in just about anyone's book! Find a mentor to help you understand the rather specialized dread "battle language" and orders and to help guide you through your first few dread fleets. With a mentor looking over your shoulder, you'll be much less likely to make the really common mistakes that cause new dread pilots to lose their dreads...

Siege green!

EVE Online's Oral Tradition and Contextual Help

Poetic Stanziel — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:28:45 PDT

Most of what we learn about EVE Online we learn from other players. Whether that's directly, via chat channels or voice communications, or web sites maintained by players. In a sense, information in EVE Online is passed player to player via an oral tradition.

Take directional scanning, for instance. It's a reasonably simple system to use for most (if not all) players. Yet, most of us were taught how to use it. Few of us just dived into the d-scanning window and figured it out by trial-and-error. This is how we learn most of what we do in EVE Online.

There is no in-game help for directional scanning. Myself, I learned via my time in EVE University. D-Scanning 101 and 102. The course consisted of an audio lecture and a practical lesson, searching out the instructor in Aldrat. The first thing taught in the class is the orientation of the scanner, that it is a function of camera facing, not the direction a ship is pointed in. This is a fundamental piece of information on d-scan use, yet it's not at all obvious, and it is not documented in game. This is information that is passed player to player.

D-scanning is, perhaps, an overly simple example to use, but it is illustrative of the point that most information we have about EVE Online is taught to players by players. There are certainly more complex systems in the game, the knowledge of which is passed on player to player. Missile mechanics, for instance. Angular velocity, with respect to damage, the art of spiralling into a target versus flying straight at them. These are all systems that are not documented in-game, but rather learned via the playerbase through various means.

The EVE Online tutorial system is probably about as big as it should be. We certainly shouldn't expand upon it any further. It's already a lengthy, mostly boring, process for new players.

How else might we get information to players when they need it, and in a way that's as unobtrusive as possible? Pop-ups and the like can get annoying quickly, and a lot of players immediately start poking around on where to disable them. What about contextual help?

Every window, next to the little close and pin buttons, might have a question mark button, which would bring up contextual help for that window. If you have a Show Info window for any missile open, perhaps the contextual help button will bring up information on missile damage. Perhaps the context help button for d-scanning would bring up information on how to use d-scanning. Perhaps the context help button for the overview would bring up an article on how to change overview settings.

Contextual help could have all new text (a lot of work for CCP), or perhaps it just opens the browser, with an appropriate EVElopedia page loaded into a new tab.

Obviously all the information on EVE, we would ever want, is already available outside of the client. There are any number of valuable resources. But perhaps some method of accessing this information, contextually, from within the client would be a huge step forward in helping new players understand the game and at their own pace.

Corporate Economics and a Real World Solution Envisioned

Mabrick — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:20:24 PDT

"Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men." - Adam Smith, Chapter IX, p. 749, Book IV, The Wealth of Nations

Over on Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kirith Kodachi fingers a long simmering issue for corporations everywhere. How do you fund the organization? It's a serious issue for many corporations and for the economy as a whole.

Kirith correctly points out that it is all too easy to create inflation in the economy. Economic management is a tricky balancing act made less easy by too many hands in the pot. New Eden's economy, for all it's vaunted similarities to the real world, is still a highly artificial economy. I count this problem with taxation as symptom of that larger malaise.

No doubt CCP could treat the symptom. One thing corporations do is earn profit. From that profit they pay bills, some of which are employee paychecks. I would not be opposed to a change in Eve Online where all ISK made by a corporation member goes to the corporation. A percentage of that gross profit would then go back to the employee as a wage, determined by the corporation and the member based on that members abilities and contributions. Call it reverse taxation if you like, most people just call it a paycheck.

If you don't like that model, you could use the American Medical Association model, or any other model used by organizations with large voluntary memberships. Let's say a person wants to be a member of Goonswarm. There are many benefits Goonswarm provides it's members. That's never been something anyone could deny, not even me. Goonswarm could (should) charge pilots to be members of such an organization, flat out, no tax system needed. If someone doesn't pay their dues, kick them and set them red. Confiscate all their assets first if you like. Either way, if they don't pay they don't play.

Those are just two off the console ideas. There are many hurdles to clear to implement either of those suggestions, I won't deny that. It's easy for me to sit here and throw out suggestions. That's not the point though. What I really want to get across is the current taxation model is the wrong model. When CCP sits down and looks at a major industry revamp, I want them to consider making the current corporate model parallel the real world. That's where we need to go to correct this issue.

It's been written many times that the Eve Economy is unlike any other MMORPG in that it works like a real economy. So should our corporations. When I go to work for HBHI and SYJ, everything I make should go to them and for that I should get a paycheck. That might include housing allowance (POS space) and health care (clone reimbursement.) When on official company business, I should get paid mileage (ship reimbursement.)

This is already done in SYJ to a large degree. The alliance, no, let's call it a mega-corporation, takes possession of all sleeper loot. That's the mega-corporation's gross profit. The mega-corporation then pays each participating pilot a share of that profit. That's our paycheck. We have insurance. It is a ship reimbursement fund, the ISK for which comes from PvP loot. If we lose a ship on a mega-corporation job the insurance kicks in. It works quite well and it is all handled by our mega-corporation leadership using financial books (spreadsheets!) done outside the Eve client.

It would be nice to see some controls built into Eve to make it possible within the client. Is it a lot to stick into the game? Yes, it is. Will Eve Online ever be exactly like RL? Probably not, but any move in that direction would be a good move in my opinion. The models already exist for all of it. CCP would have to invent nothing. They'd just need to insure the game follows the models already guiding stock exchanges throughout the world.

And that's something else I've been mumbling to myself about. I'd like to see a New Eden Stock Exchange. The NESE would allow corporations and mega-corporations to become publicly traded entities. Expand those "shares" listed on the corporation page. A pilot wouldn't have to be a member of Goonswarm to get a piece of the Goonswarm financial action so to speak. Goonswarm would benefit from cash inflow. They would pay dividends, make quarterly reports, and all those other things mega-corporations do. If they don't, investors will take their ISK elsewhere. Supply and demand would control this market just like it does the current commodities market in New Eden.

But let's forget about Goonswarm for a moment (yeah, I know, that's difficult, but do it anyway.) Let's talk about all those Indy Corporations who live, work, and die all over New Eden. They may be a high-sec corporation or a renter corporation out in null-sec. They may be into T3 manufacturing or drugs. It wouldn't matter. If you could invest your ISK into those companies based on projections of possible future profit, how cool would that be? Forget about station trading, the real money is in the stock market! Do you hear me Gevlon?

This is a sort of dream I have. CCP, when you get around to thinking about how industry and the markets should work at the end of your five-year vision, take a look at the London Stock Exchange, the NYSE and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Allow New Eden companies to work like RL companies. Let us leverage our assets off. Give us the opportunity to become the next IBM of Wetware Mainframes or the next Solyndra of Nanite production. Either way, it'll be because of our economic chops (or lack thereof.) Give us that and you truly will make gaming history.

Fly Careful

Roc’s Rule #504

Roc Wieler — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:51:01 PDT

I want you to know that someone out there cares. Not me, but someone.

Roc’s Rule #504

Roc Wieler — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:50:51 PDT

I want you to know that someone out there cares. Not me, but someone.

Mystery box

Jester — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:15:19 PDT

So here's a quickie that's also philosophical. I'm in a philosophical mood this week.

EVE is often a bit of a "mystery box", or just a plain old black box. To learn definitive things about the game, often the player has to feed it a lot of inputs, see what comes out, write the outputs down, and then try to reverse engineer what the game is actually doing based on this data. There's certainly no documentation and because of game updates and the like, sometimes even the documentation that players have come up with is wrong.

A couple of good examples:

I'm sketching out outlines for the next few PvP guides, one of which will be basic electronic warfare. Those of us that do e-war have always had the impression that e-war strength drops very rapidly outside of optimal range. But to my knowledge, it's never been officially documented just how much.
In CCP Fozzie's XL guns thread that I referenced last night, CSM member mynnna and many other EVE players are having an argument about missile speed versus explosion velocity versus ship velocity versus explosion radius and how those factors interact.

In both cases, there's no definitive source that I'm aware of that has a canon answer. So players end up endlessly debating these and other subjects that are tied to the underlying mechanics of the game, which exist in the black box but are otherwise undocumented.

Net it down to its most basic level and you get "EVE is hard to learn and is hard to explain." This is just one of the reasons.

Here's the philosophical bit, and the bit that I'm very curious to get some player input on. I've blogged endlessly on the difference between needless complexity in EVE and complexity that adds to EVE's rich game-play. Which do you think this is? When you have to endlessly debate how missile explosion radius interacts with ship signature, is that adding to the richness of the game? Or is it complexity for the sake of complexity that should be simplified or removed?

In my opinion, someone very smart needs to take EVE's combat system, break it down and flow chart it, simplify it, and rebuild in a similar fashion to what was done with Crimewatch. Again in my opinion, most of the rich complexity of EVE comes from how the combat system is applied, not the mechanics of the combat system itself. It wouldn't reduce the richness of the game at all if I could explain EVE combat in simple terms. Again... in my opinion.

But I want to hear what you think.

But wait just a second. Before you answer, here's the really tough part... before you answer, remove from your head any thinking you have in terms of "EVE is hard, I had to learn it and it took a long time, and if newbies don't want to do the same, screw 'em." Because I'd like to hear your answer outside of that tendency that EVE players have to want to torture other (particularly newer) EVE players. Just look at the problem at its most basic, as if you were designing the game from the ground up.

Does EVE's black box nature add richness to the game? Or needless complexity? Discuss.

Poking and being poked

pjharvey — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:18:47 PDT

Just the static wormhole to resolve in the home system gives me an easy start to the evening. And ships and a couple of towers visible on my directional scanner in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system gives me a little hope for finding activity so soon, until I see a lack of wrecks, probes, or any other sign of actual life. Locating the towers is simplicity itself too, because, holy moly, there are eight planets in the system but only two moons. A Wolf assault frigate is at one tower, a Hurricane battlecruiser and Buzzard covert operations boat at the other, all empty of capsuleers.

A lack of pilots means the tiny system offers no disadvantage for not being able to hide out of d-scan range to launch probes. There's no one to hide from. Three anomalies and seven signatures give the usual gas, rocks, static exit to low-sec. And leaving w-space puts me in Khanid. Pout, in fact. I remember this system. My glorious leader didn't take kindly to the name, but I'm not one to, uh... Well, anyway, scanning resolves a magnetometric site and wormhole in the low-sec system, a K162 from another unfortunate class 3 system. Let's see if I can make whoever's in there even more unfortunate.

D-scan is clear from the wormhole in C3b, and exploring finds a tower with a piloted Manticore stealth bomber floating inside its force field. I want to warp away to launch probes covertly but the system is again small, giving nowhere to hide. But wait a minute, wasn't d-scan clear from the wormhole? Yes, Penny, it was. Well spotted. The canny placement of the tower has been negated by devious Sleeper technology creating a decent safe spot. Even so, I can't scan without my probes being obvious, it's just that the Manticore pilot, if he's awake, won't know what is scanning his system.

A wormhole, two rock sites, one gas site. The wormhole leads back to class 4 w-space in an eerie mirror of our half of the constellation. I jump through the connection, keen to see what Evil Penny looks like. A tower with a Rorqual capital industrial ship, Mammoth hauler, and Badger hauler is an uncanny replica of our system, except for the ships, and the lack of a pulsar. Never mind. The ships are all empty, quelling my bloodlust temporarily, and I launch probes to look for further K162s.

I concentrate on the chubby signatures of the sixteen in the system, plucking one wormhole out of the noise fairly early in my search. A Buzzard appears as I keep sifting, presumably cloaks and warps, so on a whim I recall my probes and warp to the one wormhole I found, where I see the Buzzard jump further back along the constellation. I follow, wondering why I'm even bothering to try to catch it, and end up in empty space around a wormhole in a different class 4 w-space system.

Whether the Buzzard saw my jump or warped away beforehand I can't say, but the cov-ops doesn't appear on d-scan alongside the tower, Orca industrial command ship, Dominix battleship, and Dramiel frigate. Maybe he's headed back a system further, or sitting here keeping an eye on me. But no ships come to the wormhole, and when I go to them they are all empty of pilots. Further back, perhaps. I continue scanning for wormholes, resolving two more amongst the ten anomalies in the system. Yet another C4 K162 is a possibility, but I rather prefer the look of the K162 from class 2 w-space.

My instincts are good. And bad. But good. A Venture mining frigate appears alone on d-scan in C2a, but my notes from a previous visit have the system being occupied by reds. Proper reds too, not reds I set as a joke. And just to confirm that I am in a pretty hostile system a Proteus appears on d-scan, dropping out of warp on top of the wormhole I've thankfully moved away from. A Legion is also on d-scan now, although this second strategic cruiser doesn't join the Proteus, who is launching probes near the wormhole. This doesn't stop me hunting the Venture, it just means I will probably die if I do.

Warping out, launching probes, and blanketing the system sees four signatures—at least two of which will be wormholes—and twelve ships. That gives me pause for thought, but dying to a dozen ships isn't much different from dying to two. The Venture blips off d-scan, certainly not making me feel relieved about having to make a decision, and I am definitely pleased when he returns a minute later. I suppose I should hunt him.

Being 7 AU away from the target will make probe placement a little awkward, so I warp to a nearer planet. 3·3 AU is better. I narrow down the frigate's position, cluster my probes around him, and scan. It's a good result, with the Venture chomping on rocks and not sucking gas, explaining the need to empty his hold, and I warp his way. Unfortunately, it seems I was spotted, probably. I end up near a rock of arkanor with no Venture in sight, and I think my slightly poor reaction time with recalling my probes is to blame. At least there isn't a Legion sitting nearby waiting for me.

My glorious leader, however, has found the scanning Proteus on her way from our home system to join up with me. In one of our ship-killer Legions, Fin engaged the Proteus but saw it slip back through a wormhole to evade her. It could be coming home now, and without the Venture to pop I may as well see if I can intercept its return. Our paths converge. The Proteus jumps through the wormhole from C4b, Fin's somewhere in that direction and coming this way, and I'm ready and waiting for the strategic cruiser to appear.

I'm decloaked with systems hot ready to engage, and pounce on the appearing Proteus. He returns my fire, adding drones to his blasters, as a second Proteus decloaks and mimics his colleague. That makes sense. The Proteus wasn't running as much as heading towards support, trying to lure Fin to engage on terms much more favourable to him. We were kind of hoping to do the same, but having two Proteuses and their drones blapping at my collection of girders wrapped in gaffer tape quickly takes its toll. I flee through the wormhole, moving and cloaking as one of the reds takes his time following me.

Still alive, but with no explosions of the good kind either, it's time to head home for the night. We're not going to do anything but die to the red ships, and they've presumably already scared away or destroyed any other targets in the constellation. Even if they haven't, they'll no doubt be watching and waiting for us to make ourselves targets. But it's been a good evening scanning, hunting, and shooting. There'll be more adventure tomorrow.

Refining my style

Roc Wieler — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:36:40 PDT

Evolution is a natural process. Our lives change and we either grow or die. Stagnation is not something I believe in. I’ve been working on some things – some EVE related, a few not. Hopefully they will materialize over the coming weeks and you’ll all get to be a part of my vision. I’m hoping it will be something we can grow together.

ARTISTIC STYLE

One of the things I have been working on is refining my artistic style when it comes to 3D imagery. Why? I’m pretty satisfied with my artwork, though there’s always room for improvement. When I see the stuff that comes from T’Amber and EVE Outtakes, I shake my head and feel like a noob. They simply do beautiful artwork. I’ve spoken with both of them and learned much in the last little while. Here’s a couple of wallpapers I did last night:

ROC WIELER: THE MOVIE

For the longest time I’ve wanted to make a short film. I’d like to think I could be my own composer. I do enjoy soundtracks after all. I’ve attempted this a few times during this last year and always end up walking away in frustration as my outdated computer system dies in the process. Again, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned how to optimize my models, how to bake textures and environments, how to cache effects. All of these things have slowly improved the chances of a Roc Wieler short film actually happening. I’ve even looked at alternatives, like UDK, Crytek, etc. My entire career has been as a developer after all.

On that note, Have you seen Cinebox?

Yeah. Wow. That’s awesome. I am very familiar with timeline editors: Flash, After Effects, Cinema 4D … I’m really excited to get my hands on this.

STAYIN ALIVE

You might also remember my first attempt at homemade motion capture in the Stayin Alive video I posted a while back.

Motion Capture has improved a lot since 2010 and has come down dramatically in price. Take a look at IPISOFT. At the high end, it’s $1000 and two kinect sensors and bam, mocap studio. I’ve been reviewing this product carefully and am convinced it will meet my need.

EVE FITNESS

The biggest time sucker lately has been a passionate idea ingrained in me since meeting many of you during Fanfest. I’ve thought of a way to help us all meet our healthy living goals together, as EVE players, and as real people, in a way that is hopefully engaging. It’s slow going, and I’m going to need help, so not going to reveal any more on this quite yet.

EVE ONLINE

My second biggest passion is the game we all love of course. I’ve been playing with JavaScript and webGL, which is really fun. Have you seen THIS (hint, use your scrollwheel to zoom in)? It’s basically an example of the kinds of things CCP is slowly making available to us. I love being a geek.

I’ve also been working on some mobile strategies, as well as refining a Dynamic Landscapes white paper, as well as actually logging in and enjoying the game every now and then.

MY WIFE

I saved the best for last. My wife thinks I’m crazy. I’ve been on the go non-stop since Fanfest. Not a single evening to sit and relax. I’m like a madman. I want to change our universe. I want to improve people’s lives. I want to take Roc Wieler to the next level. She’s incredibly supportive of my insanity.

Babe, I love you for that.

A Trend

NoizyGamer — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:57:48 PDT

Sorry folks, but something ate my original post. All I have left is this YouTube video.

Estel Arador Corp Services [EACS]

noreply@blogger.com (Rixx Javix) — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:03:00 PDT

I feel I owe a shout-out to EACS this morning.

I was taken aback a tad yesterday when I realized I only had Corporation Management trained to level IV - which means the maximum number of members I could allow into Stay Frosty was 40.

Uh, we were already looking at that close to 40 members half-way thru the day yesterday! And I know of at least 5-6 more on the way. Gulp. I dropped the skill I was training and started training CM to level V... but it is a 4d+ skill.

Then one of my pilots recommended EACS. I was skeptical at first, this is Eve after all. So I asked about them on Twitter and the response was overwhelmingly positive. With that feedback in mind I contacted them and waited. It took a few hours for them to get back to me, but once they did the entire process took about five minutes! And it went off without a hitch. No problems at all. And it didn't cost me a dime.

Now I can have up to 6,300 members in the Corp. I doubt that will ever be an issue, but one never knows for sure, does one?

As much as we hear about bad things in Eve, players taking advantage of other players, it is important to make mention of the good that also happens. I was fully prepared to scream foul here on the blog if things hadn't gone well - so I feel I owe them the same for things going so well.

For Jumpclone services, faction boosting, Corp update and Alliance creation I highly recommend the folks at EACS.

Stay Frosty.

Nobody Expects THAT Kestrel & Incarna, Missing the Point

noreply@blogger.com (Drackarn) — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:58:00 PDT

A double topic today. Firstly....

Nobody Expects the Armour Kestrel!

I generally fly with armour and gun implants in my head. That makes my implants pretty useless when flying a normal fit Kestrel. But I am a fan of mixing it a bit to surprise the enemy. I've previously shown armour Thrasher fits, but taking that a step further we have the armour Kestrel.

Now this can be either light missile kite or close range rocket. The trick is to squeeze a 400mm armour plate in there. Generally you can do this with a 400mm Rolled Tungsten Plate and a Micro Auxillary Power Core in your two lows. Mids I go for long point, MWD, target painter and sebo for the light missile fit. For rockets I go scram and web. Now any normal person who see's a Kestrel will assume its shield tanked. In fact if you come across me in one, it probably is. I love the medium shield extender+rocket fit Kestrel. However sometimes I will undock the 400mm plate version. Any normal player who see's a Kessy in low shield and immediately assume its going down. Then they get sloppy. Suddenly they find they have a extra 1050hp++ to crew through. Oh and most players will have loaded EMP ammo to fight a Kessy, right?

Mixing up your fits is a great way of killing. I don't know if this Firetail pilot looked at my killboard like I do. When I find a lone war target in a system and he's in a plex I'll look up his loss history whilst in warp to the plex. I'll compare his last few losses of that ship type and load the appropriate ammo. If its near to home I might even reship/refit. Some players use the same fit with the same ammo all the time. I'll just bring the ship/fit to counter what they are probably using. If the guy did that to me he'd have seen my last few Kessy losses were MSE and probably assumed that the ship I was in was the same fit. Bad mistake to assume in this game!

So whilst an armour tanked Kestrel might make people go WTF? Don't be too quick to judge. If its taken you by surprise, it may take your opponent by surprise!

-o0o-

Incarna, Missing the Point

This has been a draft post for over two weeks but not had oppertunity to post it, as we're a month past Fanfest and it refers to that I need to post it. Also since we appear to be in the pre-expansion lul and the Caldari Militia is over-run by farmers who get REALLY annoyed if you chase them from system to system, might as well use it whilst its quiet..............

I do feel the summer of rage post Incarna has had it's message diluted. A post-Fanfest post on the Eve-O LinkedIn group, referencing comments made at Fanfest, again suggests that CCP feel that we need 'meaningful avatar gameplay'. People are forgetting what we were mad at, and tend to think the rage was directed at the idea of Incarna. It wasn't.

Generally most people wanted Incarna. Remember the 2009 ambulation video? It got us all worked up in a good way. Then Incarna was released. The problems were not the idea of 'walking in stations' but:-

1. Forcing us to use the CQ with its slow loading times and poor and cumbersome UI. This was especially bad for quick re-shipping. In short, loss of the hanger view (and ship spinning ofc!).
2. Just the Matari quarters. One small box room with bad lighting and rust does not an expansion make!
3. Melted graphics cards. I canny doooo eeeet Captain. I don't have the poooower!
4. Neglecting FiS for 18 months for THAT!
5. AUR being potentially used for pay-to-win.
6. The leaked 'Greed is Good' internal newsletter. Who can CCP be greedy with? Us!
7. Hilmar's leaked HTFU email.

All these combined to cause the riots and unsubbing. Then, as is human nature, the masses started saying "Well I never wanted Incarna in the first place!".

The majority of players wanted Incarna before the expansion itself. It is just after the mess that was the "expansion" has tainted the original idea.

So CCP, let's not neglect FiS but lets get a decent Incarna deployed!

It does not need to be 'meaningful'. Where have you got that idea from? Did we want anything meaningful before Incarna?

Have you already forgot the issues with Incarna? Take ship spinning. Did you reinstate 'meaningful' ship spinning?

Like ship spinning, something does not have to be meaningful for us to enjoy it.

Welcome to the New Age

Ardent Defender — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:06:58 PDT

Because as usual I like cool videos!

I really enjoyed watching this one. I think its one the coolest EVE Vid’s I’ve ever seen or remixed in my opinion. So might as well help promote it. Plus I get to watch it again since it’s well… here.

Filed under: Blog, EVE Online, MMO Tagged: DUST 514, Eve Online, MMO, Video

Tales from the Hole: The Simple Things

Roc Wieler — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:31:57 PDT

by Jack Carrigan

Exhaustion swept over me, as did the acrid smell of burning tobacco and stale beer as I stepped through the door of The Black Hole. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, and it had taken me a while to find the place. Coming down from the capsuleer levels of the station always made for an interesting adventure. Most people could care less, some were overly friendly in an obvious attempt to get me to spend ISK on their wares, and others were just overtly hostile.

It had been a long day of waging war against the Nation again, and it was time to relax, get a drink, and fade away for a while.

I noticed the fact that this kind of establishment wasn’t one likely to have a high presence of any form of security or law enforcement, so I’d have to be careful. I was exposed, but unlike most capsuleers who remained in the well-protected upper levels of the station, I didn’t really worry about it.

As I made my way slowly up to the bar, I could feel the tack of something sticky on the floor clinging to my boot soles. More than likely a drink spilled by a boisterous drunk, or during a brawl. As I sidled up to the bar, a man approached me. He was clearly inebriated by the redness of his eyes, and the odor coming from his breath when he opened his mouth to speak to me, “Hey egger, your kind isn’t welcome here.” I smirked, “I think this place welcomes anyone who will pay them, I mean they let you in after all.” His eyes widened as a smirk came to his face, “Big mistake.” He drew back to swing at me with his left hand, but became unsteady in his balance, and then clutched his legs for support, only to vomit on his feet.

I laughed as I stepped up to the bar and took a seat. I reached for one of the ash trays on the bar, only to feel the sting of something striking my knuckles. I looked up, and noticed a very petite female bartender with short green hair, and eyes of the same color, “Paying customers only.”

“Well, get me a fucking drink then. Whiskey preferably,” I said, not exactly thrilled with the welcome. She rolled her eyes at me and slid the ash tray across the bar, “Coming up.”

I lit a cigarette while I waited for my drink, and it was obvious by the fact the bartender had gone back to her conversation with another one of the patrons, that it was going to be a while. I took a long drag from my cigarette, and blew smoke rings across the bar. After several minutes, I was still without a drink, “Hey, you going to get my drink, or am I going to have to get it myself?” The bartender glared at me, “You saying I don’t know how to do my job?”

“No. I’m just saying that you’re doing a shitty job,” I said with a smile. She sat the bottle in front of me with a glass, “Pour it your damned self.”

I had just started to pour my drink when I heard a voice from behind me, “Hey, egger. Got a minute?” I turned around, to face the speaker, a short man who walked with an obvious limp, “What can I do for you mate?”

“Well, I actually work for an anonymous party, and he directed me to you. He is looking for a bit of your product.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and turned away. The man sat down at the bar beside me, only to slide an envelope across the bar counter in my direction. I stubbed my cigarette in the ash tray. I then opened the envelope, and noticed that it contained a substantial amount of ISK. I placed the envelope in my inner vest pocket. “Hey, wait. Aren’t you going to…” the man started to ask before I cut him off with a hand gesture. I turned to him, and then shot a glance to a table in a more dimly lit part of the establishment.

I picked up my glass and bottle, only to make my way toward the table. I had a seat in the chair that placed my back to the wall, and gave me a clear view of the rest of the establishment. I poured myself another drink as the man seated himself across from me. I then raised my glass, took a drink, and watched the man squirm in his seat. I sat the glass down before I began speaking, “I’m assuming that you’re working for a capsuleer first of all. Secondly, I don’t see the deal with all of the secrecy. This shit is legal to buy on the open market.”

“Well, considering who hired me, and his employer, they frown on the usage of combat boosters,” he said with a sigh. I looked around, and pulled a pair of bottles from my cargo pocket, and placed them on the table in front of me, “Two million worth.”

“You’re shitting me! That’s a ripoff,” the man retorted. I chuckled, “Apparently you know nothing of capsuleer economics. That’s a good price for Synth Drop. You don’t like it, you can fuck off.” A defeated look crossed the man’s face, as my glance scanned the establishment. No one really paid much attention to his outburst. He sighed before scooping up the bottles and walking off, “Fine. Just know that I’m going to fuck you up if this goes sour for my employer.”

“Ahh, threats,” I laughed, “It’s the simple things in life.”

Travels and Saul Bass

Poetic Stanziel — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:21:59 PDT

Every now and again, I like to showcase my travels around New Eden. My time in faction warfare is still a bright yellow hot spot. Although completed 18 months ago, my circumnavigation of New Eden is still a faded red. My solo time in Stain is a slowly fading orange memory. And the start of my nullsec career is starting to show up in little pinpoints of yellow.

If you're not using mobile or Google Reader (or some other RSS/Atom reader), you'll see that I redesigned the website. I used Saul Bass as my inspiration. He's most famous for his film poster designs. Unless you have some sort of monster screen resolution, you'll not be able to see the complete background image. If you'd like to see it, here's a link.