First Invention Run

Finally got level IV skills in Mechanical Engineering and Nuclear Physics, so I tried my hand at making 1400mm artillery (I had the BPCs handy).

So far, I’m four from ten attempts, which is in line with expectations. I can’t go full steam ahead for a number of weeks due to having long-running copy jobs in the queue (who knew cyno BPCs would take so long?) so it might take me a while to reach my target of 1000 invention jobs 🙂

Time Dilation Tactical Changes

Branch is on fire at present, as Goonswarm Federation invade their ancient grudge, Raiden. This campaign is the first with time dilation active, and strategies and tactics are already being adjusted:

What’s interesting is that TiDi also changes how battles like these work. Previously, people wanted their (super)caps in system so they had a better chance to load safely, instead of having to cyno in. Now it seems that the Goon supers that were already in 92D didn’t manage to get into the battle because when they logged in, TiDi had already kicked in, making the time for coming out of [emergency]-warp to the spot they logged off at (a safe tower) and aligning to the battle so slow that the Raiden. titan died before they were ready to warp in, so cynoing in seems to become a more efficient option for deploying caps.

Another side effect of TiDi is also that with everything slowed down, in absolute time, it takes much, much longer to recharge cap to a level where you can jump out again. This may also have lead to the Goon titan loss, because it wasn’t able to cyno out due to low cap. Two other Goon titans also bumped out of the pos were reported to only make it out while in structure (which makes me wonder wtf the Raiden. + friends bubblers were doing).

On a smaller scale, I can predict some obvious effects:

• Capacitor stability on battleships becomes more of an issue, because Microwarp Drives won’t cycle for free under heavy server load
• Long-range missiles become slightly worse, since warping out under dilation is now slightly more practical
• Rapid-firing weapons become more useful, since they will get their full rate of fire now, instead of all guns cycling once per minute.
• Bombs, when fired under heavy load, might actually blow up after ten seconds instead of sailing off into nowhere.

Of course, the biggest change to large fleet fights is that they won’t be excruciatingly random, painful experiences…

Goonswarm Black Ops guide

Found a great Black ops guide courtesy of the Goonswarm black ops group. It’s different to previous guides I have linked as it goes deeply into target selection and tactics.

Mineral Compression Bandwagon

It seems everyone is talking about mineral compression lately, which piqued my interest, since the corp has a semi-researched BPO that I can use.

The TARDIS of minerals

According to my research skills, I can fit the minerals required for a carrier into a two-thirds-full Iteron V, wasting only 8.6M isk of minerals due to manufacturing waste. I can get that down a bit with more research (Target ME309), as long as I have the research slots free (I don’t). It also leaves me with a bit of pyerite and assorted minerals left over as I’m a bit short of Tritanium, but I can shore that up by judicious use of Rift citadel torp compression, which supplements some of the missing trace minerals, and adds a bunch of trit without the corresponding amount of Pyerite.

300% Tritanium

Sadly, I don’t have the BPO, so if I want to use this at a reasonable ME375, I’m looking at almost a month of research. At this rate, I’ll have to make another research alt just for the slots.

2012 Industry Goals

I admit it: I am industry-curious. Reading about making stuff on blogs such as eve-fail, k162space and A Scientist’s Life have spurred me to try my hand at industry in Eve.

Also, real life is smashing my playing time and this seems like a way to keep some skin in the game.

I have an industry alt training up, and in 2012, I’d like to try my hand at science and manufacturing (I have some PI cooking at the moment but I have no interest in mining. Undocking is so passé)

My goals in 2012 are:

• Build and sell six capital ships, either fully-fit on contracts, or on the market with capital modules seeded by me.
• Make one thousand invention attempts. I don’t even know if this is possible, so let’s see.
• Sell a BPC on contracts for > 50 million isk
• Buy a capital component or capital module (e.g. siege module) BPO

To someone like me who is just starting out in industry, they look like challenging but achievable goals, and I hope to have a lot of fun striving to meet them in the coming year.

Carries ships, repairs stuff, doubles as a toboggan.

Customs Office changes on the horizon

CCP Omen asked for feedback on the player-owned customs offices introduced in Crucible.

After a few weeks to let the responses flow, he responded with this information:

I just wanted to post an update on what we are doing with your feedback.

DONE – Waiting for deployment (probably in January)

• Boost storage capacity of the “storage pin” to 12000 m3 from 5000 m3
• Increased the granularity of the standing check so that the standing of the user is checked on an individual and alliance level as well. The personal standing towards the owner corp takes precedence over the corp that in its turn takes precedence over alliance standing. Please keep in mind that it is still the owner corporation’s standing that it is checked towards.

ON BACKLOG – things that we are planning to do that will be released in point releases

• Allow owner of Customs Office to set standing check on behalf of own Alliance
• Allow owner of Customs Office to choose which wallet taxes are paid to

IN INVESTIGATION – Things we aren’t sure about but are considering for the future

• Remove the alliance only restriction on placing command centers in sov space
• Changes to the Jet Can
• Changes to the InterBus CO hp

Thank you for your feedback!
Regards
Omen

The storage pin (aka the silo) has need changes since its inception, with its present capacity of 5000 m3 being pitiful in comparison to the 10k of a spaceport, complete with launch capability. Perhaps now it will see more use.

Interesting Link #16: White Rose Eve-Central upload form

Eve-central aggregates market data from across every region in Eve. However, how do you ensure it’s up to date without manually checking the market yourself? Eve-central has an automatic suggestion form that will scan the market for what it wants updated, but that won’t help you much.

Solution: use the White Rose upload form in your in-game browser, select what groups you want to scan the market for, then let it get to work in the background. After that, your eve-central contribtastic program will automatically upload the data for you.

Helping other players just got a bit easier*

 

 

* don’t be alarmed at this sudden burst of altruism coming from an Eve player

Cue Foreboding Music

I logged in last night to discover that Cosa Nostra[dot] has declared war on my alliance. Perhaps they saw someone missioning in The Citadel and took offence. Oh well, we’ll all be low-sec for the next week so if they want a fight they know where to find us.

Speaking of low-sec, the area in which we operate is heating up. AAA has set up a forward base next door in Jan, and TEST seems to have deployed to Otsasai, one jump in the other direction. We also spied a Pandemic Legion Charon slow-boating in that system, escorted by what we assumed was a hot-drop Rokh.

In Nalvula itself, Ev0ke have set up a POS in system and have been cynoing in a bunch of suitcase carriers, so things are definitely in motion for an assault upon Tribute and surrounding null sec regions.

Watch this space…

Retrospective

My blog’s annual report came out, verifying my suspicion that people are really keen to find a non-terrible Tengu fit. I made almost 100 posts in 2011, which surprised me.

In Eve, I broke 30 million skill points on my main, got kicked out of null sec twice, saw my corp turn into a low sec alliance, and am increasingly finding that my ‘login, set jobs, trade, logout’ industrial character is a better fit with my free time constraints (i.e. two children under 3 years of age) than my pvp character. Sometimes, I undock and kill a cyno ship just to be on the killboard.

You know you’re time-poor when you have to bail out half-way into the first Incursion site you did that night…

On the plus side, I get to train long skills to V on my main without obsessing over the time it takes before the next ‘ding’. At this rate, by the end of the year, I’ll probably be capital-ship enabled.

Here’s to 2012 o/