All things EVE

[gimpyone]

I'd much rather be involved in a small corp of mercs or bounty hunters than play the whole catass of nations game.  That's fun to me, playing patrol the gate for 8 hours isn't.

That was an idea I had too.

On another topic altogether- anyone else enjoying the Tractor Beam BPO fiasco as much as I am? I think it is fucking hilarious.

I tried reading that... it was like they were all commenting on an article that didn't exist, or something.  It made no sense. 

Alkiera

Basically, CCP said in the patch notes preview that they were going to increase the price of the Tractor Beam BPO to  15 million to put it more in line with the prices of the materials needed to construct it. A bunch of people ran out and bought tons of them in anctipation of phat profits when the price went up (I think they were really cheap, like 81k or something). CCP then changed their mind before the patch went live, and rescinded the price change, sticking all the insider traders with basically worthless BPOs (they can't be resold to NPCs).

The people who tried to weasel the system got fucked, which brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Ahh, I see.  yah, kinda funny.  And BPO... Blueprint...  Object?  I never got the 'put letters in the middle of words into their acronyms' thing.  Another gotcha, these days, most blue prints aren't blue.  Weee!

Alkiera

Blueprint Original

[Viin]

Ahh, I see.  yah, kinda funny.  And BPO... Blueprint...  Object?  I never got the 'put letters in the middle of words into their acronyms' thing.  Another gotcha, these days, most blue prints aren't blue.  Weee!

Alkiera

Blueprint Originals. From BPOs you can make Blueprint Copies (BPCs) which you can sell. You use BPOs to research and stuff to make even better BPCs that will build faster and use less resources than the BPO calls for. All of the BPCs you see on the Escrow market are made from BPOs.

[Merusk]

Actually, I love it - the dev knows what they want their game to be and how they want it to work. They stick with it, and don't really put up with illogical crying - "If you don't like it, leave."

At least they have some balls. What's a shame is that they don't have a box on the shelves (that I could find). I saw a bunch of stupid EQ boxes, but no EVE. 

Oh I have no problem with it, I just find it weird in the way it's opposite of all prior examples.

some of those areas are freaking huge. I don't see how you could conceivably patrol them with even 1000 people in your alliance.

Control is easy since there's only so many ways into each sector.  Not sure if you pod people as they enter or as they leave, or if you can forcibly uncloak someone, but that's how it's done.

As the game gets more and more popular they're going to have biiiiig problems, though. (and not just the 'omgwtf everyone's stressing 1/3 of the server cluster' problems.)  The community has stayed small enough that people recognize each other and even the asstards have their place.  As it's started gaining popularity, the smacktards have started to filter in and hang around. If the game gets large enough it'll be a glorious clusterfuck where these hegemonys will have to contract or be on 24/7 a-la Shadowbane.

 Hell, even an infusion of just a few people can cause problems.  There's a whole corp of SA Goons that just started up and it's my understanding they're causing a few older alliances grief by being a nuisance and claiming their own space.  Theyv'e been largely ignored thus far because the major folks in the area they claimed are feuding with each other and too distracted with old problems.  I imagine they'll be large and experienced enough to REALLY be a thorn in the side by the time both groups turn around and pay attention.   One of the Corp guys is in this group and was talking about how they've already financially drained one corp who did try to take them on.  Sheer numbers and zergs of tier 1 cruisers and frigs later, and that corp is sending tier 1 stuff against them because they'd lost so many tier 2 battlecruisers and battleships. Whoopsie.

[Yoru]

POS = Player Owned Station, referring both to buildable/conquerable starbases in zerosec and the deployable space structures that go up around moons in lowsec; these latter types can be put up in 0.7 and below now due to the RMR update.

Ooooh really? Maybe we should scout out a good 0.7 sector and work towards putting a POS there. If we can use it as a gateway into lower sec space and carve out our own little pleasure palace...

That is a good plan. Get a border area we can use for a base camp and expand from there.

From my research, you want to think long and hard about a POS. It's a large initial investment (well over 100 million isk, even for the smallest stations) for what I hear is a relatively mediocre payoff (moon mining), and stations in 0.4 and above consume additional fuel (charters) as well as the already-large quantities of ice products. The ice products require guys in mining barges with ice mining, and I don't think anyone in F13 proper has a barge. I'm not sure how many hours of ice mining are required, but I imagine they're significant. (Ugh, maintenance!)

(Aside: I do have a barge and I'd bet that at least some of the Eve vets around here have one. They require about 2 weeks of training if you've gotten your learnings up; the lion's share of that goes into Industry 5.)

In highsec, the payoff isn't all that hot; in lowsec, you can get some benefit by finding a rich system with no starbase and setting up a corp hangar, warehouse and maybe a refinery.

[Viin]

Pssh we already have 700k ISK, what's another 999.3mil ISK?

[Strazos]

By looking at the updated f13 roster someone sent out yesterday, it seems that quite a number of people here are playing.

From what I know, we have a couple of cruisers (Yoru and I both have heavily-armed Caracal missile cruisers) and a smattering of people in frigates, who could very quickly get up in ability to the lighter cruisers, and a handful of good miners.

I won't rule out the possibility of setting up shop somewhere in a LowSec system. It also might not be a horrible idea to talk to some people from "that other site," though I personally have no relationship with them.

I would be perfectly happy controlling just a single complex at a moon. It would be OUR moon.

[Wolf]

According to the eve-offline.net map, someone claims (at least nominally) pretty much everything in zerosec. Whether or not those huge claims are tightly controlled or largely empty, I don't know.

The funny thing is that they're both tightly controlled AND largely empty. Alliances only control the choke points and patrols inside are only around the border systems.

Someone mentioned he'd never want to be in an alliance because he'll have to camp gates and be on patrol. Now I'm talking from my experience (and it's not a lot) with one alliance, but iirc FIX didn't have obligatory patrols. Whenever you felt like it, you just went to the QDF (Querious Defence Force or something) channel and ask for an assignment. In a time of war, of course, you were supposed to have a battle ready ship very close to you and be ready to defend the life of all fixians :P

Someone (I think Yoru) said 0.0 is highly unaccessible. While that's true, the whole idea of ISS' Outposts is to make it accessible for empire players. Most of the alliances are pretty scared by them, but the economic opportunity to have empire players bring down resources and modules swung them at the end. I'm guessing that at some point ISS would get some strong PvP support (their pvp wing is a joke) and they'll try to take both pure blind and catch and announce them free for all and have the forces to keep peace :) But of course, that's me speculating.

If you really want to go through with your POS idea PLAN it very Carefully. And location is pretty much everything. I guess almost everywhere will be equally difficult, but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DON'T BUILD IT NEAR THE RUSSIANS. Anybody you can reason with. Except the Russians.

[Yoru]

According to the eve-offline.net map, someone claims (at least nominally) pretty much everything in zerosec. Whether or not those huge claims are tightly controlled or largely empty, I don't know.

The funny thing is that they're both tightly controlled AND largely empty. Alliances only control the choke points and patrols inside are only around the border systems.

Someone mentioned he'd never want to be in an alliance because he'll have to camp gates and be on patrol. Now I'm talking from my experience (and it's not a lot) with one alliance, but iirc FIX didn't have obligatory patrols. Whenever you felt like it, you just went to the QDF (Querious Defence Force or something) channel and ask for an assignment. In a time of war, of course, you were supposed to have a battle ready ship very close to you and be ready to defend the life of all fixians :P

Someone (I think Yoru) said 0.0 is highly unaccessible. While that's true, the whole idea of ISS' Outposts is to make it accessible for empire players. Most of the alliances are pretty scared by them, but the economic opportunity to have empire players bring down resources and modules swung them at the end. I'm guessing that at some point ISS would get some strong PvP support (their pvp wing is a joke) and they'll try to take both pure blind and catch and announce them free for all and have the forces to keep peace :) But of course, that's me speculating.

If you really want to go through with your POS idea PLAN it very Carefully. And location is pretty much everything. I guess almost everywhere will be equally difficult, but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DON'T BUILD IT NEAR THE RUSSIANS. Anybody you can reason with. Except the Russians.

The ISS is one of a small handful of neutral options to getting access to zerosec that I've seen. Thing is, the more I look at POSes, the more and more unfriendly they look. Ice mining, high consumption rates of fuel, large initial investment, and (the one that really sticks in my craw) trade-good fuels that have to be hauled out from empire. Pretty much every aspect of zerosec looks quite unfriendly to non-catass play. You have to have a manufacturing, defense, hauling and mining setup up-front, then you need blueprints to rebuild stuff you use or lose (probably BPOs, which need researching), and the personnel to keep the whole logistical works running. If any of you hardcore zerosec folks see me online at some point, convo me - I want to pick your brains on the details of living out there.

Really, I need to sit down with the market screen and a stack of paper to work out the whole cost of setting up a sustainable operation... I just hope it doesn't involve partial derivatives or anything that complex. ;)

And yeah, the worst thing would be getting it all done and leaving the Russian station, half-drunk on cheap vodka, only to have your ship explode when you get back in the pod and try to rev up the engine.

[5150]

From my research, you want to think long and hard about a POS. It's a large initial investment (well over 100 million isk, even for the smallest stations) for what I hear is a relatively mediocre payoff (moon mining), and stations in 0.4 and above consume additional fuel (charters) as well as the already-large quantities of ice products. The ice products require guys in mining barges with ice mining, and I don't think anyone in F13 proper has a barge. I'm not sure how many hours of ice mining are required, but I imagine they're significant. (Ugh, maintenance!)

(Aside: I do have a barge and I'd bet that at least some of the Eve vets around here have one. They require about 2 weeks of training if you've gotten your learnings up; the lion's share of that goes into Industry 5.)

In highsec, the payoff isn't all that hot; in lowsec, you can get some benefit by finding a rich system with no starbase and setting up a corp hangar, warehouse and maybe a refinery.

I just got my barge on my main and it will be about a week on my mining alt (industry 5 is a bitch!) but I dont have any ice mining stuff at present.

That and I'm still head of my corp from start of retail (consisting of just my buds) so I'm not a member of F13 - not that I'm opposed to helping out but I can see GMT being an issue

Just to cover another point - I'm already in cruisers (I'm Caldari, dont know what the humorous nickname for them is I'm afraid) but my combat skills are pretty pants (medium hybrids, heavy missiles bugger all else) as I tend to only solo hunt NPC frigs or group hunt solo NPC cruisers (and their frigate escort) when they can/could be found in 0.4-ish space (thing they've been moved lower now)

[Cougar]

I consider 3 to be a sufficiently small group, although what would the NPC tanker/defender need? A lone carrier takes several minutes to blow up a battlecruiser-class rat, so I'd expect he'd either need to be in a battleship or a battlecruiser. I'd still be hesitant to bring a mining barge into lowsec under that small of an escort though, since the damn things align and taxi so slowly; a cruiser mining boat, though, would do fine.

There are two ways to group mine in low sec/0.0 space. You either find a sufficiently small NPC spawn (say 4 cruisers and a frig or two) and warp your Battleship/Cruiser in and wait for them to all start firing at him. The battleship sits there and tanks it (he needs good cap recharge and decent resists) everyone else warps into the belt and mines under the tankers protection. NPC's do not change targets once they begin to shoot at a target, thus this way is flawless (from NPC's) as long as your tanker can soak the damage.

The second way is to have a defender either in the belt or in the system clearing rats. You find a belt you want, send in the defender and he clears it of rats. Everyone warps in, with the miners paying particular attention to pointing their ship at a celestial object (Although they need to remain stationary in order to mine). When NPC's respawn, all of the miners need to watch their overview for the Red Crosses, and when they do spawn the miners need to warp to the celestial object they are pointed at. The Defender warps in, clears the spawn and rinse-repeat. This has a higher level of risk to the miners (although in .1+ space this risk is minimal) but the later way is a bit more of a deterrent for causal player pirates.

A question for you 0.0 folks, though; what sort of commitments do the 0.0 alliances demand? I find that the thing that'll turn me away from these worldy-type games is maintenance; I mind grinding minerals/money a lot more when it's going towards treading water rather than some goal. And the dead last thing I want to get roped into is mandatory patrols or mining - the instant someone says 'mandatory', it stops being a fun game and starts being a second job.

0.0 alliances demand various things, so you will have to research the various ones. I'm second in command of a 0.0 alliance right now (Vertigo Coalition - we don't claim any space) and I used to be fairly high up the command structure of the Fountain Alliance (although I was always trying to change it to the ways it needed to be, not one of the old bloods that ruined that alliance due to their inability to change.... .but that is neither here nor there :p), and we don't really have many rules. We only really recruit PvP corps, although some of the corps that are in our alliance do have a strong carebear streak in them to make their money. Other alliances will have various demands, FA was notorious for weekly patrols, others will jus insist that if the space the alliance claims is "invaded" that everyone pitch in to help. While some people might not want to fight, helping out in these usually epic struggles are really what helps to define Eve.

Additionally, 0.0 is there to who can take it. Yes, there are large parts of space claimed by various entities, but it is largely empty. I took my corp into space claimed by an enemy, and now we control the system and a few jumps in every area, regardless of what the map says about who controls the space. The trick to 0.0 is simply this: 0.0 exists for those who wish to reside there. Any attacker, no matter how persistant cannot force someone to leave until they are willing to settle the area (now, they can reduce the play time of the defenders significantly for their stay).

[Sky]

The people who tried to weasel the system got fucked, which brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Yes.

There's a whole corp of SA Goons that just started up and it's my understanding they're causing a few older alliances grief by being a nuisance and claiming their own space.  Theyv'e been largely ignored thus far because the major folks in the area they claimed are feuding with each other and too distracted with old problems.  I imagine they'll be large and experienced enough to REALLY be a thorn in the side by the time both groups turn around and pay attention.

This sounds like fun.

That and I'm still head of my corp from start of retail (consisting of just my buds) so I'm not a member of F13 - not that I'm opposed to helping out but I can see GMT being an issue

Alliance?

[Hoax]

And they say player driven content doesn't work.  Tell me this doesn't sound more interesting then the most well designed raid or quest from any EQ-clone.

[Yoru]

Additionally, 0.0 is there to who can take it. Yes, there are large parts of space claimed by various entities, but it is largely empty. I took my corp into space claimed by an enemy, and now we control the system and a few jumps in every area, regardless of what the map says about who controls the space. The trick to 0.0 is simply this: 0.0 exists for those who wish to reside there. Any attacker, no matter how persistant cannot force someone to leave until they are willing to settle the area (now, they can reduce the play time of the defenders significantly for their stay).

Mmm, "just take it"... that fans the flames of the rebel deep inside. I may have to do more of those foolish zerosec expeditions to scout out 'controlled' territory.

Convo or evemail me ingame, I'd like to chat with you about what's necessary for living in zerosec so I can plot out the costs of establishing down there.

That and I'm still head of my corp from start of retail (consisting of just my buds) so I'm not a member of F13 - not that I'm opposed to helping out but I can see GMT being an issue

Alliance?

Formal Alliances cost 1 billion and require the empire control skill at 5 (for the CEO of the founding corp) to start, and 1 million per week per corp to maintain. There's always informal alliances, of course, but then you don't get the nifty toys.

And they say player driven content doesn't work. Tell me this doesn't sound more interesting then the most well designed raid or quest from any EQ-clone.

 

[Cougar]

I'm Coug in game - I've been idling in the f13 channel to answer questions when I'm paying attention. Just shoot a convo when you see me in there, although I probably won't be around till Thursday.

[5150]

Formal Alliances cost 1 billion and require the empire control skill at 5 (for the CEO of the founding corp) to start, and 1 million per week per corp to maintain. There's always informal alliances, of course, but then you don't get the nifty toys.

OUCH!

and they wonder why so many people are macro mining or buying ISK off ebay......

[Hoax]

Umm just so everyone knows, you need to cancel your sub its auto-reoccuring.  Apparently I've been sub'd to EvE for a long time now..  I should check my cc bills more often apparently.

So anyways, I canceled but I'm d/l'ing the client, what a strange week this has been.


*edit*

Ok so my character's name is Elseix, 1.834million skill points (no sense of how many that is, and time played doesn't help because like I said above I forgot to unsub last time I pop'd back into EvE).

I'm qualified to fly Amarr Crusiers or Battlecruisers, although I currently only have a pair of Omen cruisiers which was the cheapo one back in the day.  I also have a lvl1 Amarr hauler (the best lvl1 if I remember right) which has 8.8k cargo but I could easily upgrade the expanders I'm sure.

I do have 106million isk, which is a nice thing, I think I forget how expensive things are.

So yeah, I'm going to need to collect all the random junk I have floating around, prob liquidate it into resources and move to whatever area you guys are flying in.  I need the following information.

What should I fly?
Where should I go?

I happen to be sitting in The Forge atm but I think last time I was playing I was just running a complicated series of npc and pc assigned hauling and I lost the paperwork for my route, so no reason to be here compared to anywhere else.

[gimpyone]

Hey your elsixe, we tried talking to you but you were mute.

If you're in caldari stay put unless you want to join the mining crew in heimatar.

[MahrinSkel]

Few things:

1) 0.0 space is dangerous.  "Newb Corp" ships and other unknowns are generally assumed to be alts for hostile alliances.  When things are quiet, someone on patrol may take the time to talk to you, more likely they'll just lock you up and shoot you because you don't belong there.  When there's any kind of hostilities (most of the time), they won't hesitate, they'll just kill.  They'll pod you on principle because frequently the point of newb corp alts is simply to spy, and a pod can do that as well as a ship.  Even in an alliance, outside of your own space where you can and can't be is subject to the tides of diplomacy and the whims of trigger-happy patrol commanders.

2) 0.0 space is *profitable*.  Zydrine and Megacyte (3-5K isk per unit, 100 units to an m3) can be found in low-sec (0.1 to 0.3) space, but they are in much greater concentrations in 0.0 (and not as mined-out).  Morphite (around 16-20K isk per unit) can only be found in 0.0.  0.0 npc spawns can be worth several million each in bounties alone, and routinely drop named modules worth hundreds of thousands to tens of millions.  Some 0.0 complexes can yield *billions* in "faction" loot (modules better than Tech 2) each time they are run.  Moon mining POS's can also yield zydrine, megacyte, and morphite, as well as containing refining complexes to process ore from regular mining (NPC stations with refineries can be few and far between in most 0.0 regions).

3) Even comparative newb characters can be useful to an alliance.  Fleet ops always need tacklers (light ships equipped with warp jammers and stasis webs to keep targets from warping away), a "poor man's covert" (a frigate with a cheap cloak) is a useful source of intel, and for ordinary patrols and raids T1 cruisers (or anything with target painters, webs, or scramblers) are always helpful.  *Anyone* can haul ore with minimal Industrial skill investment, and haulers generally get a full share on a mining op (which generally comes to millions per hour).

Eve in 0.0 space is a totally different game than Eve in Empire, a much more complex and interesting one.  Yes, you expect to lose a lot of ships and get podded a lot.  But if it were easy, everyone would do it.  And yes, if the f13 corp is interested, I can put you in touch with the people in FIX who deal with corporation recruitment, or see about getting individuals into either ImpTech or one of our close allies.

--Dave

[Strazos]

I just want to blow things up. Is that too much to ask?

[Soln]

Eve in 0.0 space is a totally different game than Eve in Empire, a much more complex and interesting one. 

Colour me impressed.  This game is getting richer with every extra reading. 

[WayAbvPar]

And yes, if the f13 corp is interested, I can put you in touch with the people in FIX who deal with corporation recruitment, or see about getting individuals into either ImpTech or one of our close allies.

That might be a good way to go. Hopefully we can get a consensus as a corp to do something like that. Will being in an alliance put us in any more danger than being an unknown n00b corp?

[MahrinSkel]

Yes and no.  Yes, because alliances have enemies, and sometimes those enemies will declare an Empire War, or pay mercenaries to do so, which will mean that Concord won't do anything if you get jumped by them in Empire (sometimes opportunist pirates will as well, but usually they wind up regretting that).  No, because at least in that alliance's space, you only have to worry about enemy raids and opportunists, and the alliance has your back.  And outside of it, you'll usually know where you stand, although that's never certain.

If you really don't like the idea of PvP, you shouldn't get into a 0.0 alliance, because you *will* be under considerably higher threat of it.  If you take getting podded personally, you'll get pretty frustrated.  Like I said, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

--Dave

[Viin]

The only worry I have about joining an alliance is two fold:

 - Time Requirements (are we required to patrol? watch gates?)
 - Money Requirements (how much are dues? how often?)

Since #1 can quickly kill a game for a new player, I'm very adverse to any 'have-to's. And, obviously, #2 is in short supply with a new corp. 

[Yoru]

I've had my eye on zerosec for a while now and I'm all hot on moving out there once the basics needed for survival are in place.

Basic financing is 1m/week base, although I expect some alliances charge more to cover operating costs.

If the alliance controls one or more outposts or conquerable stations, it might be possible to live out of one while the gap between 0.0 survivability and viable POS stewardship is overcome.

[MahrinSkel]

Different alliances handle the time commitment and finance issues differently.  FIX has a head tax, and rebates against it for killmail participation (and for a fortified POS or capital ship, Dreadnought+).  You're also expected to show up for a major alert, and there's a bit of battle fatigue right now for the sheer number of them we've had in the SA war for Catch.  The tax isn't too tough to pay, most corps have managed to completely earn out on rebates this month with all the fighting.  Beyond that, it's mostly just that you're expected to supply your own ships for fleet ops, the alliance will help you replace it and the modules if you lose it in a fleet op.

--Dave

[Merusk]

OOOhhh.. you're the guys fighting the Goon Squad?  Ow, sorry about that.

[Yegolev]

I am a super-noob (just over 20 days) but Mahrin is making this sound like a real blast.  My issue would be a time comittment, given my busy schedule, but of course if I am logged in and my corp or alliance needs something I can do I will report for duty... for as long as I can.  I am not able to sustain a battle for many consecutive hours.

Given my concentration, I will probably be most useful for mining or hauling.  I am still working on lv5 basic int and mem skills, next will be lv5 mining and refining sets and enough ship skill to at least fly a cruiser.

[Yoru]

You're also expected to show up for a major alert, and there's a bit of battle fatigue right now for the sheer number of them we've had in the SA war for Catch.

Fix is sounding nice, but I just want to make doubly sure that 'expected to show up' only applies if you're already in-game and doing something else.

You never can tell with MMO uber-organizations.

[Malathor]

I'm all for joining a 0.0 alliance FWIW.

[Furiously]

It's interesting how similar EVE is to early UO.

Sky - you could play a ore thief. You can just trade reagents between cities to make money. You can be a macro miner. You need to sit in your cabin to wear off your aggression timer. People have friends kill them when their bounties get high enough. You will get ganked. You will lose everything. But - there are warnings that say - There be PK's here!

[Yegolev]

It's interesting how similar EVE is to early UO.

I have been thinking about this for a bit, reading it somewhere before Furiously stated it, and it seems very true.  There are two big differences, though: I don't suck so much at EVE, and EVE has more things to do right out of the gate.  I am not really geared, still flying frigates and poorly I might add.  I am decidedly not good at EVE, and yet I feel like I have more power over my fate than in UO.  I am pleasantly surprised that I am actually enjoying a game with open PvP.

[Krakrok]

People can kill your pack animals too. Except in Eve the pack animals have afterburner!

[WayAbvPar]

Eve is different from UO in that Empire Space is big enough to enjoy the early game with relatively low risk. In UO, you literally couldn't leave town without SOME risk, and any known hunting ground was really asking for trouble.

The similarity is that there are great rewards to be had either killing the PKs, or by risking their wrath to trade/mine/rat in the low sec systems. I really hated PKs in UO at first, but I ended up missing them. The older I get, the more pro PvP I get. I realize now that the only true test of my skills is against another player.

[Cougar]

Hrm, suppose if you guys are going to look into FIX I'll have to put you to -10 as well 

I actually really like the FIX guys, but politics (their friendly kissy kissy relationship with BoB namely) makes my organization desire to shoot at FIX. /shrug

[Wolf]

Hey Dave, just curious, how is that war with SA comming along? I heard you're close to losing Catch and that SA are very, very pissed at you for some reason.

And what is up with Serpentis attacking BoB? Do CCP feel like they are too powerful? I feel that that is something pretty major, never heard of devs messing around in-game with player guilds/alliances. Didn't that tip the scales so G and Iron managed to push them south? I mean I heard there was a Carrier and a ton of Battleships. And why BoB and not RA, as far as i can tell from outside the game RA are causing a lot more trouble than BoB. I'm asking because I know BoB and FIX are close and you might know something from FIX's uba sikrit forums that you wouldn't get kicked off from sharing :)

Sorry for bombing you with a thousand and one questions, but that part of the game fascinates me.