Basic P.I. Boats - The Primae Vs Iteron.

Like most rational people I like free stuff. I especially like free stuff if it's AWESOME or truly makes my life better. The only down side of free stuff is it's typically something that is easy to give away for nothing and hence not that thrilling. Don't get me wrong in thinking everything has to be thrilling in life.

Here is a RL example of how a not very thrilling gift made a huge difference in my life. See right about 6 months before my first child was born my car decided to quit on me. This made getting to and from work VERY hard. The more round my wife got, the harder it was for her to drop me off at the train and pick me up. Winter hit and with snow storms and such it was not uncommon for me to make a 10 mile walk on snow covered streets home when it was simply too much for the Misses to make it out of the snowed in driveways at the end of the day. A friend of mine at the time had an old beat up '89 Subaru Gallant rusting in his yard. It had no back breaks, burnt as much oil as gas, was rust red-gray, and was missing the back seat. It was not thrilling to drive or look at but at the time as a gift it was a life changer. I spent $200 getting it on the road and I drove it for a year. I had very cheap insurance costs as well and frankly because it was "free" I could drive it care free. It spent the last 4 months of its life under my care in a snow bank before I passed it along to another friend who had no car. After that I am not sure where it went. However I digress. back to P.I. boats.

The Primae:

So the latest gift from CCP is the Primae which has the ORE pedigree banded on it. This made it easy to get overly excited about this dedicated P.I. industrial. Taking the wrapper off and opening the box the Primae is a stunning to look at like most ORE craft. It's got all kinds of protrusions and extensions that hint functional gathering of rocket cans and easy command center deployments. IT defiantly is a winner in the station spinning department. Sadly this is where the thrills end and the disappointment starts to settle in.

Opening the cargo hold reveals a 100m3 of space which frankly puts this industrial in the same cargo class as a noob ship. It's not all bad as we have 2 other holds dedicated to P.I. items. A 1600m3 command center hold which can hold 1 elite command center or 2 advanced command centers. Then there is a 1000m3 Planetary commodities hold for all your P0-P4 products. Frankly even a crappy highsec P.I. colony can churn out 1000-2000m3 of P1 products in a day and well you deploy command centers what 6 times a year on a max P.I. skilled avatar.

Opening the fitting screen we have 3788 EHP, 150m sig, and 240m/s top speed. Complimenting this are 4 low slots and nothing more. Dropping in 4 Expanded cargo hold II jacks the cargo space to 264.3 M3 but does not affect any of the dedicated holds and reduces the speed of the Prime to 180m/s. Fitting it with a SAR II, 100MM RTP, IS I, and NIS I. I got it to 3966 EHP and a 80/4.5 S armor repair. I boosted the top speed to 258m/s and dropped the inertia modifier 0.2 points at the small cost of 15M to the sig radius. Not thrilling at all for a dedicated ORE produced P.I. boat. With NO drone bay or other offensive ability this ship will see many kill mails from the loosing side and surly become a target for gankers and griefers.

Did I mention it's pretty and station spins really well?

The Humble Iteron MKI:

Lets stack this now next to a humble Iteron MKI. With skills that most industrial focused avatars have day 1 and for about 400K ISK you can begin your P.I. adventure. It's not much to look at resembling a plastic wrap tube with a storm trooper mask stuffed on one end. It's only got 1 bay to hold stuff in and well it's not made by ORE. Yet this little work horse has a 3000m3 (with my skills) cargo capacity stock. making it able to carry 3 advanced command centers and almost 2 elites. It's got more than enough raw cargo capacity for a highsec 5 planet farm. Not bad for 400K ISK.

Cracking the fitting window we have 1 high, 2 mids, and 2 lows with 3 rig slots. It's not high on hit points with 1918 EHP. It's got a 209M sig radius and a top speed of 186 m/s. You might be saying that the Primae has more EPH, a better sig radius, more speed and a better inertia modifier. Yes you would be correct but let's talk about some of the slots we have. So starting with a medium Cargo hold optimization rig I we jack the cargo hold to 3967M3 (with my skills). Add a nanofiber Internal structure I and Inertia stabilizer I to the lows. Then a 1MN AB (I use a Cold-Gas 1 Arcjet Thruster) to one of the mids. Round it out with a prototype cloaking device. Now you have a ship that pretty much warps when it aligns, can carry just shy of 4K m3, has a top speed of 218m/s, and can cloak. Sure it's not 400K anymore but most of these items are cheap or easy first build items for an industrial avatar.

So what would have made the Primae AWESOME!?:

It's not all bad in that it does align fast and enters warp might zippy. It can be armor tanked and it does offer a new player looking to start highsec P.I. a jump start on the past time. It saves them the initial cost of a basic hauler and has no requirements to be flown.

Yet to make it awesome you really need to take all the bays and combine them into a nice big fat 4Km3 + P.I. dedicated hold that can do both command centers and planetary commodities. A hold that can be influenced by cargo expansion mods and rigs.

If you want someone to actually fly this thing outside a 1.0 system it might be nice to have a few high slots and mid slots as well. Even giving it a 25M3 drone bay would improve its chances of making it past the first gate into lowsec. A high slot could be used for a tractor beam or a cloak. mid slots for speed or shields. A few rig slots would have gone a long way to making sure that these things actually get flown.

The ultimate awesomeness that could have been added to the Primae would have been the ability to act as a mobile customs center. You belly up to a planet and can interact with a launch pad on the surface. Transferring goods to and from the planet. Add the special ability to do this cloaked and lowsec P.I. just got a lot more lucrative and appealing to the masses.

Conclusion:

If you don't have a basic industrial the Primae is a fine beginner P.I. ship. It's free and functional making it a great starter ship for highsec P.I. industrialists. Sadly though I can see it becoming the next Zephyr with a future of being the gank target of pirates and griefers or the next cool hanger trophy for ship collectors. IF CCP decides to add them for sale and perhaps makes a T2 variant with some/all of the suggestions above then they will become the next Hulk seen throughout New Eden as a standard for planetary material extraction.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Well this isn’t cool!

Yet another week has passed and my real life continues to kick my ass. The long hours as a professional VMware geek combined with the summer schedule of a house full of energetic sons have me swamped. It’s sad that I once complained about mining and missions being enough to drive me to drink. It seems that my current level of EVE interaction is a daily R&D agent mission and keeping my 7 P.I. colonies going. Yes that’s right, 2 jumps to click request mission and complete mission followed by 10 thousand riveting clicks to start up all my 23 hour cycle extractors. I have even stopped logging into my combat pilot all together as it’s too damn depressing to log in and NOT get to fleet up and kill sods. I use evegate to keep up with his emails and have him set training interceptors V.

So seeing as my EVE life right now is pretty much 30 minutes of RSI inducing P.I. extractor clicking. I might as well use this time to share with you some of my thoughts on the new big awesome addition of Tyrannis.

/RANT

OK let’s start with the sheer amount of goddamn clicking required to do simple and remedial tasks in P.I. shall we. OK a click to scan each resource type. Four more clicks to drop a Command center. 2 more to drop an extractor, two more to drop a spaceport. Six more clicks to link the spaceport, extractor and command center. Three clicks to get the extractor going. Three more to get the P0 items routed some place. Oh and one submit or we do all the clicks again.

So 22 clicks just to get a single P0 resource extracting and routed to storage but that’s not ALL.

So we want to make a P1 product from all that nice P0 product. Two clicks to place the processor. Two more clicks to link it to the processor. Three more clicks to choose what you want to process. 5 more clicks to route the P1 product some place. 5 more clicks to route the P0 product in for processing. Oh and one more click to submit it or we do them all again. So that’s 18 more clicks before we get to a P1 product.

So basically if you want a single extractor and processor with a launch pad and the command center you need ~40 mouse clicks to get it done. Take into account that it’s not uncommon for an Advanced Command center to support 4-5 processors and 12-16 extractors. That’s a metric shit ton of clicks just to get P.I. up and running. Factor in 5 colonies and we are looking at enough clicking to wear down the half service life of the microswitch in the button of a $15 USB mouse.

What’s your problem EVE SOB, you only have to do it once! BULLSHIT once my ass, you jerk. So assuming I use 23:00 hour extraction cycles ('cause they yield the best bang for the buck) then once a day for as long as I choose to partake in this thing called P.I. I need to log in and tell my extractors to extract again. So with 6 colonies running 16 extractors each and 4 click per extractor PLUS a submit click and a double click to switch planets. I need to click ~402 times to tell my P.I. colony to do EXACTLY what it was doing for the last 23 hours. Don’t you DARE tell me to use 72 hour cycles on my extractors. The down time and the output are such that the cost of the colony is not going to pay for itself for a year.

This leads me to my next issue with P.I. in that the output in highsec (and low for that matter) is so bloody slim (don’t tell me I put my extractors in the wrong place) that frankly it’s going to take a looooooooooooooooong as time and a billion freaking clicks before I get any of my costs back and see profit. I am building some P4 products by now and frankly the number of days it takes to make them and the mind numbing clicking required to keep it all going isn’t worth it. Frankly P.I. is not worthy of the AWESOMNESS of a major patch. Insult to injury we get a free P.I. industry ship to click on and spin. MORE DAMN CLICKING! Oh and if you happen to be making P4 products and the processor cycle finishes during downtime. There goes your P3 products and the P4 product into the ether wasting ALL THOSE GOD DAMN CLICKS!

/END RANT

/emote punts house cat through wall /end emote

OK! So now that I’ve had a little sook and bitch season about my life and how P.I. might just have caused me to need surgery for carpel tunnel. Let’s suggest a few things to fix one of my sources of frustration.

1: Extractor clustering. So let’s say you find a nice big fat deposit of P0 type x. You know you want to deploy 5 extractors of Type x in that spot all nice and close together. You right click on that extractor type and choose “Create Extractor cluster”, choose the number of extractors in the cluster click install and then one more click to place them in the fat pocket of stuff. Those extractors are linked so two more clicks and you have linked them back to a storage node. So 6 clicks and you have created and linked 5 extractors back to the world. Now to put the icing on the cake now you click on the cluster of extractors and scan for resources, choose the cycle type, create a route. So in 6 more clicks you have told the extractors to extract and routed the P0 product. So 12 clicks to set up 5 extractors. The Cheery is when you come back on day 2 and see those lazy extractors sitting there doing nothing. You click the cluster, tell it the cycle type and click submit. So 4 clicks a day per extractor cluster. It will still be a crap load of clicks but at least it’s not telling each and every extractor that you want it to do the exact same thing.

2: A repeat previous action button: OK so processors will hang there and wait for stuff to process and continue on their merry way once resources avaliable. Extractors will extract until there extractor cycle is up and then shut down. If we could click on the colony, select “repeat previous actions” button and then submit. The day to day busy work of sucking P0 resources out of the ground and turning them into P1 resources would be 12 clicks not 402.

3: Oh shit I made a mistake when setting that 72 hour extractor cycle. WTF I’ve waited 72 hours and it’s still going. OMFG I need to destroy the extractor to change the extraction cycle time. Hey CCP how many kittens will it save if you add the ability to stop and change a running extractor cycle eh? Stupid

4: Hey you track the materials consumed by processors during downtime, how about you do the same for the output eh? STUPID!

OK I feel better about my EVE time now. If anyone can provide me with a way to never have to work, then perhaps I can get some bloody PEW PEW time.

Cheers

EVE SOB

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

Well the cluster is online and allowing 20 pilots to test. It's not accepting any real traffic right now. It does seem as if CCP has found the smoke and have been able to pump it back into the systems.

Databases can be fickle things and I expect there will be consequences. I hope the DBAs are taking extra time to make sure all tables and rows and attributes are where they should be. There will be rioting in the streets should we all suddenly find our self with an IBIS (yes we are all suddenly Caldari) and 100000 SP when we log in.

Soon my pretties we will have the precious...

Cheers

EVE SOB

Nasty Fithy Trixie Downtimesies...

So this is more a sense of sympathy to the masses out there huddled around our iPhones or PCs shaking involuntarily as we wait for our precious EVE online to come back. Fighting back the cold sweats and shivering of withdrawal as we run well past the end of the scheduled window. We all wounder if our sparkles will EVER come back to us.

I am passing the time with my busy real world life. In my little office in the cellar of my planet side home 4 monitors are alive in front of me. On one I am typing this post in order to keep myself from playing some OTHER game to fill the void left with downtime. The next screen has Kung Fu Hustle playing to provide some sedation to my lust to PEW PEW. To the right two more screens are dedicated to my real life world were I am actually migrating Virtual servers of a failing SAN LUN. Not quite the massive SQL cluster that is the guts of EVE, but it allows me to sympathize with the poor sods who are lip deep in IBM blades servers right now trying to bring back the precious.

Hang tight my fellow capsuleers for it is these times when it matters not if we are pirates, carebears, scammers, or null sec badass. Right now we are all the same lost souls longing for the precious. Be strong...

Cheers

EVE SOB

Odds and Ends Wednesday.

/Emote real life crushing. Eve time fading! /end emote

Nuff said about real life kicking my ass STILL! Let's see what is out there in the EVE world worth writing about...

AT8:

AT8 wrapped up with Pandemic Legion wining the whole shebang VS Hydra in the finals. I was rooting for Rote Kapelle and Logan "Big Bad Wolf" Fyreite this year mostly because there qualifying matches were awesome. The match Vs -A- was one of my favorites from the tournament. Congratulations to Pandemic Legion for the win and next year BBW, next year!

CCP bans a accessory to the fact. GM not allowing repeal or escalation.

All right if you read blogs today you know that Gilgamesh1980 banned without repeal . The long and the short of it is Gilgamesh1980 helped a RL Friend setup a POS farm. RL friend was not doing thing by the books and as a result Gilgamesh1980 had his accounts suspended without any method of repeal. So basically as a accessory of a ELUA breaking jerk. His account was locked and banned.

Mail Lite over at The beginnings of piracy posted about it here. Astral also posted a bit on it here. Essentially what bothers me is that it appears as if one GM is blocking further investigation here. In my mind there are facts missing to the public and CCP needs to step up and defend the no right of repeal stance with some concrete evidence. Scary stuff. I've given "noob" players ISK now and then. Hate to find my accounts banned without repeal if one of those noobs decided to break the rules. Heck I've been scammed too, would be the kick in the teeth after the boot to the groin if that scammer got me banned because CCP saw I "gave" them ISK. Hoping to see more info here before I start to rant, and we all know how I love to rant.

Blog banter #18:

"On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has your gaming style evolved through the years or months since you've started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance - say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!"

Loads of super awesome reads here for the 18th blog banter. It can never be a bad thing when a blogger gets a open invite to tell the story of their EVE avatars. Tune into CK's blog here for the full list of entries including my own.

CK does NOT hate me, well not much.

Thanks to a nomination from partiybit my blog is now part of CKs blog roll. I've seen some extra traffic from the add and hope folks enjoy the few minutes they spend on my site. I am not always the most grammatically correct blogger but I do try and write something worth reading. Either way thanks to paritybit and CK for the love.

P.I just another bugged out feature!?!?!

Letrange over at Letrange's EVE Blog has been posting some less than encouraging articles around P.I. goods mysteriously vanishing. His last blog on the topic suggests production runs that finish during downtime loose there output items but still cost the input items. Having lost some supercomputers recently on or about downtime and reading what appears to be sound evidence here. I am somewhat concerned that I have a number of P3 processes going right now during a really long downtime. OH well there goes a few more million ISK.

TQ moving' today

Yeap our entire everything is being shuffled about the datacenters today. Upgraded networking and routers, better cooling and more room for more nodes as TQ gets a face lift. Here is the original DEV post:

***WHOA THAT WAS NOT THE DEV POST***

Cheers

EVE SOB

Blog Banter #18: Learning to swim.

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

"On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you've started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance - say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!"

When you stop to wade through some of the deep pools of back story and character evolution that are part of this blog banter. My story is but a wading pool in comparison. I've only been in New Eden for 9 months making me in the grand scheme of it all just a child splashing about at the edge of an ocean.

This is not to say that I have not grown past day one in the least and I do have a story to tell of my evolution as an EVE player. You see the road to my current beginning in itself is a life time of wandering around the water's edge. The path we all must walk to discover there is no future for us if we don't get wet.

I've been a gamer for a very long time now. Starting over 24 years ago with my humble Commodore 64. Without boring you with the details let's just say I am a lifer when it comes to video games. I first turned my focus to EVE after 4 years of WoW. I had suspended my blizzard accounts for many months and was in game limbo. Filling the void with final fantasy 10 on the PS2 for the second time around. An old friend suggested I try EVE as he at the time was amazed at the depth. So I strapped in with a lone wolf mentality with a trial account looking to not repeat the political suffocation that ultimately lead to me leaving WoW. The grumpy space hermit know as SonOfBraben was born, named after the co-creator of Elite. The last space game I had played near 20 years before.

I remember being hooked after getting a free ship from running a mission. This was way before I even knew there was water surrounding me. I was locked in the awe and wonder of internet space ships and the endless things one could do with one. Hindsight now tells me that I was experiencing the small wisp of steam rising from an iceberg. At the time however I had a Navitas, Tristan, and catalyst all fitted with armor plates AND shield boosters. I had 100,000 isk and mining lasers hungry for veldspar. I was training for a Vexor, an eternity away, some painstaking 26 hours in the future. The universe was mine as long as I stayed away from those orange systems and scary yellow pilots.

It was funny to note that I had played for a month or more before I even joined a fleet with the friend who had suggested the game to me. I had rolled into their space like some badass with a retriever and a Vexor full of drones. I bitched and moaned about the 21 jump trip to move my stuff and how I had to go through a 0.5 system. I had T1 strip miners and Ogre I drones. I was hell on wheels and death to asteroids and belt rats. This corp. that my friend was inviting me to join would go far with a seasoned player like myself. I had 3 million SP for Christ sake and could fly a cruiser AND a mining barge. Looking back I was such a fool. Even worse I WAS a seasoned player inside the corp. The CEO had a toon that was older than EVE (beta grade), shame he had only played it for 5 months of those 6 years. It was not all bad though with my first corp. A lot of light bulbs went off in the month or so I was with them. I got to fly in a fleet and run missions as a team. I learned about salvage and how to take the rocks I mined and build ships. I learned of scanning and those scary wormholes. I learned of highsec corp. wars and the darker side of corp. Moles. The hours spent in a belt mining away struck some conversations with hulk pilots who helped me with my fits and my plans as a ship builder. So it was not so bad at all looking back.

I ultimately left that corp. having grown tired of 1 mans individual goals being the direction of an entire corp. My friend had emo rage quit over Ninjas in his missions as well. So really I was surrounded by mindless strangers who spent so much time complaining about having nothing to do. So I decided to step out on my own. Healthcare for Space Hermits was founded by my new sparkling "combat" pilot ZombiNutz. I had two EVE accounts now and still believed that a drake and a Myrmidon were unstoppable. I could fly a hulk now and had a hauler. The asteroids melted and I made 10-20M ISK a day. I was enjoying doing my own thing and went about setting the corner stone's of a ship building/missioning highsec corp. I ran LVL 4's with Caldari navy and built merlins and Kestrels for "BIG" profits. Yet something was missing in my EVE life. Everything was so easy and measured. Everything I did was calculated down to the missions I ran. The "combat" was scripted and I found myself completely fed up with mining and missions. Christ my "combat" pilot could now fly an ORCA! Things were ALL WRONG! I could smell the salty sea air as it drifted onto the ranch.

I had also in this time started to blog about my travels in EVE. Inspired by CrazyKinux's blog pack and realizing that blogging was as much a part of EVE as can flipping. I began to post my thoughts and adventures. I started to rant about thing in the game that drove me crazy. I started to post where I was in the game on the first of every month. I also started to post about being a drift without direction. I was at the cross roads and looking for change. Through the blog came guidance and direction from others. Manasi of A Mule in EVE dropped in suggestions and words of encouragement. Logan "Big Bad Wolf" Fyreite of Eve Opportunist in his own way shed some light on things. Another young player and blogger Astral Domnix of Astral's EVE trial by fire suggested I join his current corp. only to leave when I did. Watching him go from carebear to pirate with stops off In NULL has been a trip. He was also my first kill as a result of a T1 frigate duel. Through blogging I made my way to the shore line in EVE and started to look at the vast ocean of possibilities that exist. In joining Top Gear ventures and devoting ZombiNutz to a 100% PvP role. I got my toes wet and found what was missing. The blog today still provides me so much in return for the time I invest into it. Regulars like Rixx Javix and paritybit and their respective blogs EVEOGANDA and EVE's parity bit are daily reads for me now.

It is now 9 months into my experiences with in New Eden. I am but a child still standing knee deep in the foaming waters in front of me. I am no longer afraid of dark water far out on the horizon. I've swam to their edge across the orange reefs with the red flashy fish and left a marker to get back too. I've stopped trying to be awesome and reflected back on my flaws as a swimmer. I've been shown the many things I had missed and formed a new path for myself out into the waters. I go with other brave children in the company of kind strangers who have earned my trust. Even if they may be yesterdays sharks, today they are my dolphins guiding the bow of my tiny frigate. They propel me forward and guide the fleet with fluid motions through the dark waters. Some days we hunt and others we are hunted, but we hold onto our markers and with each day we look to make new ones further into the deeps. Slowly now the child looks to grown into a man, no longer in a rush to be the "hero".

SonOfBraben is an old man on the land still. He lives alone on his ranch not too far from the waters. He is a peaceful yet grumpy one as he checks his work and cultivates new opportunities. He has made billions in his time but remains broke funneling his profits into the ranch. His misses his former companion who appears lost in a second childhood at sea. Through this he sends the fruits of his work out to the waters to aid this "child" on his way. Another now bridges the gap making runs to the water from the ranch. She is a bitter old nun but very good at her tasks.

I've come a long way in 9 months only to arrive at the beginning again. This is the true nature of EVE. Every time we seem to reach an end it evolves into a new start. The evolutions we must take making these first steps again and again are what truly shapes us as players and forms this strong community. May there be many more beginnings for us all.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing: The Heroes with a Thousand Faces
2. StarFleet Comms: Life. Evolved.
3. A Carebear's Journeu: This Carebear Thinks He Is Developing Teeth
4. The Elitist: Our ventures in EVE
5. A Mule in EVE: From a guppy predator
6. Travels of the Ronin: Evolution and Adaptation
7. The Ralpha Dogs: The Past Through Tomorrow
8. Where the frack is my ship: A journey, not a destination
9. I am Keith Neilson: 7 Year Itch?
10. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Evolution Me
11. EVE Opportunist: A long history of a short time
12. Roc's Ramblings: Things Change
13. Guns Ablaze: Onwards and Upwards
14. EVE On Real Life: Haven't you grown up yet?
15. More as they get published...

Odds and Ends Tuesday.

It's one of those days/weeks where RL is getting into my playtime schedule again. I could get all worked up and go off on a rant about some aspect of EVE. I might anyway, but I'd rather take a moment and call out some stuff buzzing about the community.

It seems like Helicity Boson is gearing up for “Hulkageddon III: Summer of Gank” as seen here in his blog calling for donations. If you’re not familiar with the event the basic idea is for a week people suicide gank mining barges to win prizes. It a good time for industrial accounts to make and sell gank ships in mass. It’s also a good time to take a break from eye peeling mining and run missions or try another aspect of EVE like P.I. or PvP for example. I support the event if only to recognize the sheer influence it has on EVE. Last year it was a good call for me to take my miner and broaden his horizons. I made more ISK selling catalysts and running level 4 missions that I would if I mined the whole week. So be ready for it folks. Happy hunting to the pirates and death to all macro miners!

There is this alliance tournament 8 thingy going on. You can find most of the fights on YouTube which I encourage if you PvP. I’ve been following Logan “Big Bad Wolf” Fyreite’s take on it all over at his blog: Eve Opportunist

CrazyKinux’s released the winners of the Women of EVE contest. It was a little bit late but congratz to the winners. I don’t think any of the 80 entries were bad at all. On the subject of CrazyKinux he appears to be under the water a little with RL (like most of us) and is turning a new leaf in EVE. Looks like he is going PvP joining Cozmik R5. Read about it here. Also his blog roll has grown again. It still does not include my blog. I am not sure what I’ve done to piss him off aside from wanting to not be part of the blog pack oh and perhaps ranting about how lame the new one can be. Either way if you looking for a good source of EVE blogs check his blogroll. Just like I love evebloggers as well, even if they have a small creep of non-eve blogs in there.

Last mention before I go is A MULE IN EVE. Manasi has provided so much good reading to me and his fans that he has to be mentioned. His last blog about 4 common traps is just another good chunk of advice all EVE players should read.

Cheers

EVE SOB

10M Skill points for SonOfBraben.

Some balloons went up on the carebear ranch this weekend and some very dusty blasters let loose some shots of celebration. See the star of the ranch and the original EVE SOB toon ticked over 10M skill points over the weekend.

It was a quiet moment on the ranch when it happened. I had just pulled some 1MN MWD II BPC out of the oven and was pottering about in P.I. between RL duties. I happened to be checking my standings and all that when I noticed 10,000,123 SP on the dial for SonOfBraben. Wahoo!!! This toon might actually be worth a damn in the industry space and I might actually get to stop calling myself a noob. Sure it’s a small promotion to looser from noob, but still 10M SP is a milestone.

Taking a peek at EVE MON and the handy dandy “skills pie chart…” tool. It’s pretty clear that I am a carebear by looking at the generous slices devoted to science, industry, and now Planet management. It’s odd that spaceship command is the largest pie slice considering that this guy is not cross trained in any way past Gallente. Sure there is a hulk license in there but well it’s an odd stat to be so high considering all the T2 science skills this fool has.

The rest of the pie is filled out with some T2 armor and shield tanking basics with a splash of drones and blasters thrown in to make the Incursus and Brutix more efficient. SonOfBraben can fully fit a Myrmidon in T2 everything down to the rigs as well. So it’s not all manufacturing, invention, and P.I. colonies for this guy. Still he is soft and cuddly and not much of a fighter.

ZombiNutz is at 8,612,570 SP meaning we should have another party on the PVP side sometime next month. However for now let’s not steal the thunder from the ranch. Lord knows we don’t often have reason to praise it.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Carebear ranch goes Planet Side! Yeah P.I. BABY!

So it seems everyone is talking about PI. You're not cool unless you blog about the awesome new industrial past time that Tyrannis delivered. So not to be left out of the cool kid club here comes my bit on PI.

***PvP People skip this and go shoot each other***

Let's start with saying I started to skill day 1 towards PI. I am currently into the long haul for Interplanetary Consolidation 5 so I can get me my 6th Command Center. As of right now I've got 5 colonies cranking away on highsec planets producing P1 and some P2 commodities.
Let's take a look at the planet types I have going and what they are currently churning out.

Planet 1 is a nice Lava planet

It produces Transmitters and Construction blocks as well as some left over plasmoids , Toxic Metals, and silicone. I was recently able to add 2 extra extractors and basic processor by nesting my links better. Here is a before and after shot to show you how you can squeeze more out of your CC's CPU and PWG.

Planet 2 is a Ocean planet

It produces all the P1 products I can wring out of it. I actually built this colony last and nested the living daylights out of the links to get 14 extractors, 5 basic processors and a launch pad running off one Adv CC. I'd love to be able to get one more extractor, but sadly at 99.37% CPU this goose is cooked. Perhaps in 52 days I'll get me an Elite CC and make it work but for now this works.

Planet 3 is a Storm Planet

Ok so this was my second attempt at a PI colony and boy does it suck. The first problem is the resources are scattered to the seven winds. The long links kill any chance I have of getting any meaningful levels of output from this planet. It does produce all 5 of the planets P1 items but with only one extractor per processor and set at 96hour extract cycles. It truly does suck. Once the current extracts are done. I'll rip the links a new arse and try and squeeze at least 5 more extractors out of this ADV CC, wish me luck. This is NOT a good colony layout.

Planet 4 is a barren

It was my FIRST ever colony and to be honest it shows. The links are inefficient and the CC placement could have been better to avoid the links to both hemispheres. It's not all bad as It does produce all 5 of the planets P1's and two P2 products mechanical parts and nanites. At some point I'll come back here and nest all the bad links and squeeze out some more extractors. I look at it now compared to my last planet and boy have I got a better understanding of link nesting and CC placement. Here is the one that got me hooked.

Planet 5 is a Gas planet

It was one of the last ones I did and I am not happy with it. I am getting 4/5 of the systems P1 items out of it (5 is one I can get elsewhere). I have the most efficient links I can and I can only squeeze 12 extractors and 4 basic processors out of the deal. It's not a bad planet but I would like all 5 P1 items

Planet 6 will be a temperate

It will extract only 1 P1 item from the planet itself but what it will have is all the advanced and high tech processors I need to make P3 and P4 products. It will not exist for another 26 days so I cannot show you a pretty picture of it or comment on its efficiency. That is another post all together next month.

So what tips can I offer to folks?

1: Scan down all your P0 items and place your CC in the best spot to get them all with at least 3 extractors.

2: Nest your links up to 5 hops (I think you can do 6) and upgrade if you really need to.

3: Set your extractions for 23 hours. With tree extractors you will keep a basic processor happy and busy

4: Use a launch pad - It's just plain simpler and a little less risky. Also it lets you go both ways... ;)

5: A good plan will go a long way. Try to build backwards from the launch pad. Get the first processors and extractors built and then add more extractors until you max out on power grid on your CC.

Handy dandy links:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?key=t3wAXA82wbqy1eLqD4lwqAw&f=true&gid=0

http://www.eve-ivy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Planetary_Interaction#Skills

So if you're still awake after my riveting mandatory post on P.I. feel free to flame my colonies, throw beer cans, try to figure out where to gank me, and have some bloody fun with PI. Even a diehard combat pilot can build himself his Nanite repair paste with a few planets and a daily click or two. NOW if ONLY CCP would do some think like this for manual mining.... OK no rants today!

Cheers

EVE SOB

A little love for the rifter.

*cracked record* REAL LIFE HAS BEEN NUTZ! */Cracked record*


So when I do get a moment of peace and devotion for EVE it is always nice to get a kill and pod with ZombiNutz. Mrs. SOB had a hard day yesterday and retired early leaving me a few hours of solid focused time to myself. I of course devoted this time to EVE and more specifically to ZombiNutz and NULL PvP.

I logged in to the carebear ranch for a moment to check sell orders and run a fast R&D agent mission for the day. Then I jumped on comms and logged into ZombiNutz who was still out in Empire Stiletto shopping when the intel channels lit up about a gang of 5 Stealth bombers in our pocket. Voice comms lit up as well so I jump cloned back to home system and strapped into “pod racer MKIII” my trusty T2 tackle rifter and fleeted up.

With smooth co-ordination we were carved into camp squads and set up bubbles on outbound gates. Settled into our de-cloaking gate camp formations and waited. The gate gangs were small with only 6-8 ships per gate which was fine as we were hunting manticore and nemesis. These thin skinned slippery critters with big teeth require a quick shot more so than a large bullet. We did not have to wait long.

They filtered through one at a time through the two possible gates out of the system they were penned in. I was lucky enough to point one manticore and his pod but the other 2 that came through our gate melted before I could get a weapon activated with them de-cloaking on the far side of my orbit. In all we got 3 on our gate and they got one on the other gate. One made it through and hung around in local chatting with the FCs about the world and EVE politics.

There was a lot of chatter about the future of Alliance PvP on voice comms as well. Some links posted to fleet setups and fits for some future fun. Nothing I can share with you all at this time, and nothing that the spies don’t know as well I am sure. My infant steps into NULL PvP are going well and honestly I am having a blast.

Cheers

EVE SOB

How mining could be better…A rant on manual mining, the last non-automated industry of EVE.

All right so the more carebear side of me HATES mining. I mean I bloody hate it with a deep seething passion. I’ve almost coma quit EVE over mining. There is nothing exciting about sitting in an asteroid belt in a 200M ISK ship watching ore filter into your cargo hold every cycle. I mean the people I see out there day in day out in the same belt in a fleet of bloody hulks in highsec mining veldspar HAVE to be on some major lithium or put them self to sleep after a 750ml of scotch while rocking them self off to sleep with a cocked revolver to their temple. Yeah, I kind of do hate mining don’t I?!?

To make matter worse we harvest moon goo from orbital stations that extract the crap from the moon. With PI we have command centers and stuff we drop on the planet to suck the crap out. Christ we can even anchor a giant bloody can to store our mined asteroid crap IN while we mine. So why dear god can we not anchor a mining device in a belt with range X that can be set to mine away at the belt? Why in the love of all things holy must we park a ship there?

I mean it’s not like we are considering the little guy here. If you have ever seen a gang of 5+ hulks and an orca roll through a belt you quickly realize the little guy in the noob ship is screwed. It’s not like it’s really a skill sitting out there in belt clicking every 6 minutes either. Add macro miners to the mix and well we practically HAVE automated mining (those jerks, how do they get off having a life when so many waste DAYS for rocks). So why is mining asteroids/ice/gas the only industrial past time that actually requires you to interactively do something? Are the devs at CCP really that sadistic? I bet they have videos of mining fleets to watch when they are feeling like it’s a bad day to cheer them up. Honestly who ever came up with asteroid/ice/gas mining game mechanics is one SICK person.

I mean just imagine a world where you can fly out in your industrial ship, anchor a small POS type object, set the type of ore you want it to mine. Then off you can go to run your mission, or talk smack in Jita or whatever else you find interesting. Take it a bit further where there is a limit to the number of them you can have in a system. Add to that the ability for them to be attacked and shoot back. Ya know like a POS that mines moons, and perhaps SHOOTS back if you are not blue to it. Might take some of the fun out of Hulkageddon but I am sure the fun loving rum drinking pirate types will live.

I bet there would be less macro miners exploiting the EULA and crushing the market for veldspar if we could automate mining. If any Tom, dick, or harry could skill up anchored mining stations (AMS for short), meet some faction requirement for highsec perhaps, and anchor it in a belt to mine away at the asteroids. How many more kittens would be alive today? How many more pirates would be happier ganking the living crap out of some one more fun in lowsec? How many more pilots would be actually fighting for Null space and not mining only to have to SCURRY when a Stealth Bomber enters local.

Anyhow, all other industrial tasks are automated so why not bring mining out of the bloody dark ages with AMS. Free the carebear to build ships and kill rats freely. Make the suicide miner gankers a distant memory, hence making 12yo’s have to partake in REAL PvP. Add some more war targets to the game that can shoot back, but also provide steady income without the man hours. Free the Null alliances from the tyranny of carebear rot by allowing more pilots to make cash AND shoot people in the face for the good of the pocket.

Screw Incarna until you fix lag and abolish manual mining CCP!

Cheers

EVE SOB

The Interceptor and I...

While playtime might still be skint with work and life and the bull shit all that brings. ZombiNutz can now not only fly but also respectably fit a Stiletto interceptor. Having missed a curse tackle by meters with my T2 fit tackle rifter the last time I was able to play in Null. I now find myself in Highsec shopping for Stiletto hulls and fits.

So I have to admit when it comes to interceptors there is a lot of green wood in the furnace on my part. I’ve been reading as I can around fits for the little buggers. I’ve been trying to think fast and annoying while monkeying about with EFT but still have enough DPS and EHP to fend off some drones. I must admit I am still a little unsure what will work and what will not. I’ve dropped a request in alliance chat “Any one got a good gang tackle Stiletto fit they can share?” to which the response was “NO NEED TACKLE, BC/BS DPS ONLY.” I guess my Engrish is off or something, WTF?!?!? Sure it was a bad time to ask but hey, I kind of expected more as I know there is at least two folks in the Alliance that FLY A BLOODY STILETTO!!!

Anyhow, on my very own I’ve came up with the following generic gang tackle fit:

[High]
2 X 150mm LAC II
1 X Unknown – Prolly a Standard LM thrower.
[Mid]
1 X SB II1 X Scram II
1 X Disruptor II
1 X 1MN MWD II
[Low]
2 X ODIS II
1X NIS II
[Rigs]
2X Small Pollycarbon Engine Housing I
[Pointy stuff]
Barrage S/RF EMP S
*Flameburst/CN Sabertooth LM

Its Super generic I know. I’ve thought of a DCU in the lows over the second overdrive. Either way flame on but follow the fire with some input please. I plan to buy about 5 of these fits to field test.

Also from what I read a gang tackle ‘captor wants a wider orbit holding point only hence no web in the fit. Essentially I get ‘em by the BALLS…um. Warp drive…and wait for the mean nasty DPS types to show and fill ‘em full of holes.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Yeah, that UI thingy for Logan "BBW" Fyreite

Yeah so I totally spaced for about a month in response to Logan's call to the bloggers around UI setup etc. Seeing as he called me out on it today, it's time to man up and make good on the promise I made.

So here is what my UI looks like when ZombiNutz is out and about looking for stuff to shoot.

So as we walk around we have the HUD top of the screen and offset to the left. Locked targets flow to the right of it. OverView is next with 4 tabs ranging from the default with the world on it to PVP ships only showing anything with standings of 0 to -10 over there. Next down on the bottom right we have cargo hold for bullets and loot. Left of that we have intel channels and Alli chat (some blocking to protect the guilty). A big hole in the middle then D-SCAN followed by a BIG local with corp and social nested. Fleet sits on top in a very small window.

So basically that's my layout. I've been running it this way for a few months now and I like the click-ability of it all. I have a totally different layout for carebear stuff but well it's not exactly a sport for quick clicks and fast movement.

Feed back and questions welcome. No Logan I am not going to tell you what's under the orange boxes. :)

Cheers

EVE SOB

Where in the Universe is EVE SOB - June 2010

It is time for this month’s “Where in the Universe is EVE SOB” post where every month I summarize where I am at in EVE. I also throw in some real world stuff and the top CNN headline of the day for a historical WTF was the world doing back then element.

Where am I?

This is my 50th blog post which seems fitting as I start into the 6th month as an EVE blogger. I could bore you to tears with Google analytics stats but really there is only so many ways you can say that I am small time with ~264 unique page views over these last 5 months. I have about 20 “regulars” now and folks take a moment now and then to comment on my stuff. Really it’s all I can ask for when writing a blog for myself. So thanks to those folks who drop in now and then!
This past month has been a skint month for EVE time. The world planet side has been busy with mini clones, land frigates, potential POS moves, and duties to earn US$. However the month does not go without some milestones.

Perhaps the biggest news is that Tyrannies has been deployed as a major content patch to EVE. WE now have the ability to interact with planets in the form of small industrial colonies. These colonies can provide many of the NPC items needed for all kinds of fun and exciting things. Perhaps the biggest being POS parts and fuels but to be honest what you can do with PI is pretty cool. EVE UNI did a crazy good guide that can be found here.

How’s building stuff doing?

The ranch does well and while we are considerably poorer in terms of raw ISK. We have invested heavily in T2 production. The BPO library has grown to over 50 now with many component level items for common T2 mods and ships being added. Skills are chugging away, R&D agents at work, and we are making small batches of stuff to sell or ship to NULL for ZombiNutz to blow up.

Janice is making a nice side business running courier contracts for associates as well. Making herself and the ranch some modest income which in turn pays for a bigger cow to fly. She is also a diligent salvager and her work makes for some free rigs all around.

How’s shooting stuff doing?

Life has slowed down for ZombiNutz far too much with real life limiting play time. I’ve logged far too few hours with him and his skills are about all that has shown and great gain this month.
I have made a few fleet training and system defense ops though. Getting a raven kill during “gate camp school” which is always nice to finish a lesson with real world experience. I spent some time with the fleet last night chasing a curse and wolf out of our pocket last night. Ended in them both logging in system. I missed a point on the curse in my rifter by about 200M. Literally locked and MWD in with scram cooking to try and get it off the planet he landed off gate. Sure I might have been neuted to death but I have rifters to burn and the fleet was keen. Was anti climactic to see them log off in system but still it was good to respond to a threat and set up traps that were enough to force a log off. Next time!

What Skills am I training?

SonOfBraben: Is taking a vacation on PI skills then back to the long road of T2 production. So much the same as last month here but the 10M SP mark is closing fast. I’ll post some pretty pie graphs for the world to see when I hit the milestone.

Zombinutz: Is rounding out T2 Frigate hulls keeping his focus on tackle as the primary role for now. Half way through the month I should round out AF, interceptors, and Covert ops for both Minmatar and Caldari. Then I’ll focus on making the drake a little more use in fleet PvP with HAMs to T2

In that pesky real world:

Well to be honest the real world is insane. Work is ramping up as we move into broader waters and the summer of expansion/tech refresh projects get under way. To make things a little extra challenging and significantly add to the "crispy Fried" level of my. We are looking to move out planet side POS from one constellation to another so the mini clones can have better access to skill books (moving a few towns over for better schools, for those non-eve types). Aside from this the summer keeps me busy but is a ton of fun. Our May flies have died off so the hammock is getting more use and we can all enjoy the sunshine a lot more.

CNN headline for Today:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/01/obama.arizona.governor/index.html?hpt=C1

Cheers and Fly Grumpy.

EVE SOB