Antikythera Elements for Sale… 1 ISK Only!!!

~or “Runnin Sleepers in Hisec, Who'da Ever Thunk It?…”

I have been having a ball in Hisec… bet those of you who know me, or actually read the stuff what comes from my brain, never thought you’d hear that from me, but it’s true…

You see I base out of Amarr when in Empire and last weekend I was in the hole solo and I scanned a hellishly long pipe out to Empire and made a store run to Amarr to sell my PI wares. I had thousands of Supercomputers, Robotics, Consumer Electronics and a smattering of over produced P2s to sell… enough to fill a fully canned and Cargo fit Prowler… vurry nice semi passive income to say the least.

Anyhoo, so while in Empire I decided to see to rounding up some of the last of my ships and goods as were still strewn here and there around the ‘verse and try to get them in the hole. These are all the leftovers from the Big Move into our new C4 homehole. Over in Mormoen I had a Mastodon and a shit tonne of GSC’s (Giant Secure Cans) full of PI and a crap load of mods plus a couple of ships so I trundled on out that way inna Prowler as I knew I had some high value stuffs and wanted to get them in to market too.

So I get out there and I’m gettin’ the Mast and Prowler loaded up and squared away when I discover a very particular SSC, Small Secure Can… one that has, well let’s just say it’s worth more than the ships and all the other CAN’s combined shall we? Hrm… Now while Prowlers cannot be cargo scanned, or because Prowlers cannot be cargo scanned, they sometimes fall prey to ganks on the off chance they are hauling something really valuable… like a SSC worth its weight in PLEX, and no, that is not what I had in the SSC… I don’t ever EVER transport PLEX… I am amazed that anyone ever does, no matter the reason.

That said, so I have this really godsawful expensive SSC I need to safely move to Amarr… so I bought a Crusader ‘ceptor and fitted it for SlipperySpeed… IE fast to warp plus just fast. But I lost the lows to the x3 Cargo Expander IIs needed to carry the 100m3 CAN… that cost me some slippery an’ some fast but not too much as she worked just fine when I finally made the trip safely to Amarr… Yes ‘made’ as in past tense so no one needs to waste time camping the route.  =P

Anyhoo, while I am doing all of this I am also as usual following them as I follow in the blogshere and Neville Smit, of NevilleSmit.com (go figger) recently posted a nice little write up, Bits and Pieces: April 2015, in which he gave us this…

“The lore also makes me want to try some new - and possibly very stupid - things. For example, I'm off to hunt Circadian Seeker cruisers today, to see if I can collect some Antikythera Elements without getting zapped by a Drifter Battleship. I'll share how that goes in a future post.”

Hm, uh, er, hm. I make my daily bread killing Sleepers in Anoikis… and ever since the Seekers first appeared in Empire space they have not really attracted much of my attention other than the very cool ‘whatthehellisCCPuptonow??’ factor, which was plenty good IMHO. But this was the first I had heard that they has started dropping stuff worth killing, and possibly dying for…

Well, it turned out one of the ships I had in Mormoen was one of my Sleeper Ishtars, schweet. I had her broke down and crated for the move so I broke ‘er out and fit ‘er up with what I felt it might take to handle Seekers, CAP stable w/ MWD off, active shield, 26k EHP, 70/82/94/77 resists and our std Gecko/Hammer II/x3 Hobgob IIs Sleeper drone setup. The tank is designed to let me kill the Seekers and also to ‘potentially’ buy me the time needed to GTFO if/when a Drifter drops on me while farming his little seeker pals… IF I’m flying smart and on the bounce that is… big ‘IF’ that…

So I’m ready and I undock… and lo and behold there is a Jove Observatory in Mormoen!! I do the warping back-n-forth thing make some pounce BMs at 160km at the station and at 200km at the Jove Observatory... then I warped into the site, 5 Seekers spawn and I go in hot...

Now here’s the fun… the Seekers do not react in set piece ways all the time, they are tough but not too tough, fast but not too fast... and they sometimes warp off if you break contact OR they sometimes follow you if you warp off!! And they will re-engage! At one point I decided to refit as they were outrunning my heavier droans and it was taking longer than I liked to break them.

So after downing 3 of the Seekers I broke contact and warped to the station pounce… and the remaining Seekers followed, landed and engaged me! I fought the same spawn at the Jove Spike and at the Station!! Schweet! I settle with the last 2 Seekers, dock up, refit to add a Web, go out and scoop the Antikythera Elements (AKEs) drop them in station and warp back out to the Jove Spike.

I piddle around a bit at the Jove Spike but no spawn to I go back to station and fiddle with my fit a bit more… go a few hops out n back to get some other mods to try, that done I head back to the Jove Spike and… 6 Seekers spawn! Hells yes! I go in and orbit close to use the web and now things are going a bit better.

One of the things that makes this so much fun is the constant and very real fear of the Drifter HotDrop... I have watched the videos and read the killmails and battle reports… Drifters kill capitols… while the Ishtar is good it aint THAT good!! So I am trying to really watch the sky but... as I am finishing off the last Seeker my attention is focused on… in order; order drones IN, burn in to the wreck, align out, loot the MTU, scoop the MTU…

So while I’m trying to do all this a Drifter spawns and I don’t realize he’s there until I get hit… but Drifter weapons fire is very distinctive and I know immediately that that’s what I’m getting hit with! But luckily I had already aligned to my pounce so I spam warp and he only gets one more hit on me before I went to warp and broke contact… but even then…

Yup… 2 hits, stripped off all shields and armor and 9% of my hull... But I DID make it out validating my mathing that the tank I had devised just might last long enough to get me out IF I was flying smart and on the bounce… and I was.

So I land at the pounce, the Drifter targets me and goes red as I go to warp to the station to repair… but the station I am in does not have repair facilities. So I undock and… He’s there… EEP! I reflexively dock up until I realize I have full shields again, still no armor and 91% hull though… so I played dock games with the Drifter for a little then warp off and find a repair station.

Now back when the Drifter had spawned I had not made pickup on the MTU as it had been pulling in the last wreck when I warped out… So I head back out for the last Seeker Drop and that MTU and damn near got caught by the Drifter again... He spawned in the site as I landed at the pounce 200km out… he warped out as I warped in I grabbed the MTU and passed him again on my way out… LOL!!

I ran another spawn a bit later so that night I ran 2 spawns of 2 waves each and scooped a total of 9 Antikythera Elements (AKEs) for an ingame estimate of 12.6m ISK each... potentially 113.4m ISK!! oh hells yeah!!! Simply the BEST and most lucrative pure FUN I have had doing anything, much less solo PvE, in Hisec in YEARS!!!!

Oh and the title? Yea that… the next night I flew to Amarr and the actual sell price for AKEs was 13,899,999.99 ISK… I was gonna put mine up for 13,899,000.00… so I typed “1” and my pinky hit the “enter” key…

<facepalm>  I got 9.00 ISK.  =\

But… derping aside… really really nice job CCP... have a cookie. =]

Fly reckless and see you in the Sky =/|)=

Tiles in the Mosaic...

~or “Some Cool Features Coming in the Mosaic Release… and How is ‘ol Tur BTW?”

So I know I had not updated in a while… part of why I am not a recognized ‘fan site’ is my helter-skelter-lack-of-an-actual-posting-schedule thing… so I thought I’d bring ya’ll up to date on all things me/Tur and EVE as you know yer just dying to KNOW…  =]

I haven’t been blogging on much or even loggin on much these past few months… Mostly been playing PI Online (seems Skill-Q Online went away with the skill queue changes…). Not anything bad per se, just moar RL>EVE is all…

My job is going well, Monday is my 6mo anniversary… and I can start using built up Vaca time for ‘stuff’… or not and save it for an actual vacation. Keep in mind I have been an IT Contractor for 17 years… YEARS… and contractors rarely if never get vaca or paid time off or sick leave or, well ANY benefits outside of base payrate X hours submitted. I also have full medical insurance (of my own) for the first time in the same span of years so to say I’m happy on the career front is putting it mildly.

One slight downside is my hours… 9AM to 6PM US East Coast TZ. And my job like so many is not the kind you can always walk away from when the big hand hi-fives the small one right at 6P… many days I don’t get out till 7ish and Friday I dint leave until after 9PM… While I like the later start making for easier mornings, as I am not a ‘morning person’ by any means, the later arrival back home makes for shorter time in which to get things done ‘round the old place… and then there’s all the usual time burners and most nights now I find I just don’t have the energy to do a few hours online.

The rest is just the usual getting busier out-of-doors as the weather starts to warm up and ‘things’ become needful… yard work, tractor, driveway, Jeep, pigs, horse… yeah, pigs and horse. My wife decided late last year that she is a pig farmer at heart and we are raising pigs. For meat. Yup. My dottir calls the little ones, “Bacon Seed”…   =]

Plus this seems to not be limited to just me… several, well most, of our main content makers and enablers have had more on their plates IRL than over the winter so overall corp activity is down. But no one seems to be really worried that we are dying or stagnating or anything really negative… it’s just part of the usual ebb n flow of the mix of RL and our shared virtual lives in EVE.

OK, so the RL update is done, on to teh fun stuffs…

In EVE we have a bunch stuff comin down the pipe so to speak, CCP has a new site up called EVE Update in which one may get a glimpse of the future… of things to come. The next update, Codename Mosaic, is gonna drop this coming Tuesday April 28th… just 2 days from my typing this. EVE Update is a great site to get a decent snapshot of what’s in the works and I thought I’d work my way down the list offering the Interwebs ‘My Opinion’ ™… as if anyone asked…  The ones I CARE DEEPLY about havs Pictures!!!    =P

Permanent Ship Skins…  A personal meh for yours truly…

Now, you just let ME chose the colors and where they go and put MY Corp Logo on my ships and you will see me get embarrassingly mud-on-head excited… but until then, ifn you get you one a them ‘fancy nano-painted’ ships, well yer just one of the crowd buying someone else’s idea of how your ship should look… You might as well just get all Quafe ships with Quafe logos and be a flying billboard… not me.

Opportunities for all… Great for noobs… to bad I’m a vet, sounds like a far better way to get into EVE.

3D Starmap… Still deciding how I feel about this.

One thing you cannot deny is that the New Map sure is purty… just not sure how much added functionality, if any, it brings… I can say I did not like how it showed my “Visited Systems”… Very hard to see the systems you had NOT visited and one thing I liked in the old map was you could SEE the comparison… now you get a poor low color view of really only the systems you have actually been in and the circle they use to show number of visits does not scale enough to readily ‘see’ any real difference.

Burner Missions: Serpentis and Blood Raiders… Good.

These are the new Cruiser level Really Dangewus missions… I have not myself tried any of the burners for that would mean I would have to spend time, over and above store runs, in Hisuc and… well… I’d rather hit myself in the face with a hammer TBH… I’ll keep killing C5 Sleepers in a ‘Cane if it’s ok with ya’ll… and making far moar ISK than any “mishes” could ever net me to boot… But I do hope them as like ‘em like ‘em even moar now.

New Assembly Effect for Anchorable Structures… OK, now we’re sotra talkin!

I have HATED… (yes ‘all caps’ HATED) the way in which we build structures in New Eden since the first time I shoved one o them fugly as hell potato sacks out of the ass end of a Hoarder and watched as our POS ‘Tower’ “Magically” appeared from said ‘potato sack’ (if you’ve ever done it you know what I’m talking about, if you haven’t, please for the love of Bob, don’t so you can retain some tiny smidgin of belief in science in EVE… cause the way structures are “grown” in EVE is the stuff of pure WoW magic…)

And, TBH, this new mechanic, while light years better than the old way is still so far off the bat (personally, ‘tis me blog ya know…) that I can’t say as I ‘like’ it… but I will accept it as a tentative step in the right direction, though a faltering tentative baby step at best…

“So what do YOU want Tur?” you ask… Why, thank you for asking…    =]

[Wall-o-Text Warning… and no, ya don’t get no TL;DR… read it ifn yer interested…]

BUILDING a Planetary Orbital Station in SPACE should require at least 1 Deep Space Transport (or something with the same or larger Fleet Hangar capacity) for a Small POS, 3 DST’s for a Medium and 5 DST’s for a Large. ALL ships MUST be on grid at the same time, all will be loaded at or near max Fleet Hangar capacity (hence DSTs or larger) with the PARTS required to construct the given POS. The number of parts required would be manageable, say 10 for a Small, 30 for a Med and 50 for a Lrg, meaning 10 POS parts would fill a DST Fleet Hangar.

Note:

Yes this kinda screws with OMCs (One Man Corps) and solo players… it does seem to sorta force them to create alts or actually break their Vow of Hermitedness and debase themselves to actually talking or even (eee gads) working with other players… I dunno… mebbe a solo player could contract NPCs to bring the other loads out to the job site?? I’m quite sure this is naught but a bugaboo that can be worked out… later… mebbe much later…    =\

Anyhoo… The DSTs (or whatever) would need to be fitted with a “Construction Tractor Beam” (CST) module required to place the various parts together, and no, not the standard Salvage Tractor Beam (STB), though the CTB module could be based on the STB module in Industry… but the CTB could not only pull something to you, it could also push something away from you or hold something in place (and no, it would still not work on ships so you in the back quit whining…)

You also would need a “Construction Foreman” (new skill) and a “Foreman” variant of the CTB that would be required for construction to take place. The Foreman will be one of the hauler pilots and would oversee the whole job. The Foreman would have a Build Plan for the POS to be built in the form of a script that is loaded into the “Foreman” CTB.

All haulers would ‘anchor’ for personal/corp/alliance all the parts they carry (and yea I feel we should be able to select those levels of ownership)… These would appear in space in a “Construction Container” (special Jet Can) and the Foreman would call for each piece as required. The pilot with the requested piece would activate his CTB on it and (the CTB would) place it where needed. The Foreman would then activate his CTB to ‘weld’ it in place… this continues until the POS is completed at which point the Foreman just fuels her up and hits the Big Red Buhtan to raise the POS Forcefield.

Note: a POS could NOT be ‘partially’ built, once construction starts you are on a timer albeit a generous one, but all the parts need to be welded in place in order and before the clock runs out or the POS fails, breaks apart and you have to scoop all the parts back to cargo and start over again.

There would need to be a std hauler or 2 for fuels and stront same as now, or for that matter you could carry enough fuel in the std cargo hold in the DSTs to online the FF. Defense and interior modules would of course be staged as usual ready to bring in…

This whole effort could easily be designed to take approximately the same time it does now. But a well disciplined and well practiced crew could learn to shorten that time to its theoretical minimum…  And with this POS Construction would be an actual interactive ACTIVITY instead of a passive waiting game… one which in the history of EVE has been mostly spent waiting to get jumped, blobbed and die and to watch your POS get stolen to boot. This new mechanic gives us new gameplay, new modules and skills, new BPOs and BPCs for new ‘stuff’ to make for the market… hey, someone has to make all those POS parts and CTB mods right??

Does this mean it would not be as dangerous or moar dangerous than today’s mechanic?? I dunno… so why don’t let’s try it and see hrm?  Anyhoo… back to our not so regularly scheduled programming…

T3 Destroyer Rebalance… I have a Confessor and Svipul… but I live inna hole and we really haven’t had a real use for them so I can’t say I’ll see any real difference in gameplay as I am not that experienced with them yet… so this one is kinda meh…

New Control Tower Forcefield Effects…

Love it… crazy about it… don’t ever want to lose it…

Already blathered on about this in my last post here…

Mosaic Theme Song…  EVE has sound????

TBH I have not cared one whit for any of the theme music in EVE since they shut off the Incursion Theme… I have been faithful enough to give each a listen, but after a few minutes I shut off the theme music ‘cause nothing has ever come anywhere close to getting my blood up like those drums did… Heck the music of Incursion was actually part of why I chose to be a Matarii… it sounds so tribal and raw and pure…

 

Higher Nullsec Mining Yields… Oh joy, more love for (1) the space I couldn’t care less about and (B) the gameplay I couldn’t care even less for… Oh I know this is BIG STUFF for many, not dissing their game… (well, ok mebbe a wee bit of dis for nullsuccers…) but it’s just not for moi.

Two Factor Authentication… Hooray Moar Security!!!!  Boo Less Freedom to Hack!!!! Wait, wat??

Sensor Overlay Update…  FUKKIN BOUT DAMN TIME.

The ability to TURN OFF the Gods Damned Discovery Scanner Sweep has been badly needed… as a matter of fact that whole idea shoulda died horribly and noisily in the crib…

But I can now go back to at least pretending I am an Explorer in a Vast Uncharted Frontier… instead of just one moar sad Pedestrian milling about in the Billboard Covered Starscape we actually live in.

Corporation Roles Interface Improvements… I actually should be jumping up and down over this one… I used to be a POS Manager and yeah, it does suck. But I know of things that suck worse and all in all once you understood it, it was what it was. Now understand I am NOT saying it was good or shouldn’t change but…

I look at changes like this and worry about Nerf Creep… those small changes to make ‘this’ just a little easier and make ‘that’ just a little less complex… and when you add up all those inconsequential ‘little’ changes it one day ends up with us now really bitter vets crying in our Ruum an Quafe over the good ‘ol days when EVE was harsh and hard and not full of 13 year olds playing in Creative Mode…   yuch.

Visual Upgrades For Environmental Content… I am all for better visuals… but I do worry about the effect on players with lower end video capabilities. I play EVE onna simple Laptop, an HP Pavilion Sleekbook 15, not a Power Gamer System by anyone’s lights… but I must say I recently upgraded to 8GB RAM (from 4) and I can run dual clients at full video boogety with no real issues...

So, while I have my concerns they are outweighed by CCPs relentless, and so far successful, efforts to keep the client as clean and lean as possibly while giving us a visual right-out-of-the-box-experience bar none.

I know some guys who go to great lengths to push their systems and mod games like Skyrim to the point of being Uber Real… and yet EVE is as visually stunning (to me) as all that without the mods and without all the low slots full of Water Cooled CPUs…   =]

Battlecruiser Warp Changes… Faster is good… ‘nough said.

Nullsec Infrastructure Improvements… so very much less than meh.

New Damage Control Module Icon…

Me no like. Want suitcase back. Bad CCP… no donut.

This is a change without a reason. Explain WHY it had to change and if logical, I will accept it, until then this is change simply cause ‘change’ and that is simply not good enough. There is value in History and Legacy and Tradition… not all change is ‘good’... Dunt believe me? just ask the guy with one foot if all ‘change’ is good.

Import Clipboard Skill Queue… Hrm.

I miss the old skill queue… ok, go ahead… scream and yell and throw things…

OK, you done? No?…

OK, are you done now? I do hope you got that out of your system.

Ok, so as I said I miss the old 24 hr skill queue. Why? Cause skilling doesn’t MEAN anything anymoar. I never know what Tur has learned or when he has crossed some Big Skill Line and can now use T2 Heavy Missiles… ‘cause Aura doesn’t say in her oh so damn sexy voice, ”Skill training complete.” anymore… ‘cause for me to have any idea where I am in skilling I have to go look and I have NO REASON to go look anymoar ‘cause Tur’s Skill-Q is FULL for the next YEAR so I can just fahgetaboutit… and I don’t like that. No, not one bit I don’t.

Skilling used to be an active part of my game… it was something I and all of us managed and thought about a lot and planned for and around and it was something we DID. It was something you checked on EVERYDAY... and I miss the excitement of knowing I could now use T2 this or that… This is, to me, a perfect example of Nerf Creep.

Oh please CCP make Skilling easier ‘cause it’s Hard and it makes me Have to DO stuff and it makes me Have to Log On and that irritates me and it should be a game and it should be EASY… oh, and while yer at it can you just give me ISK, ‘cause Running Missions are Hard and running them makes me Have to DO stuff and running them makes me Have to Log On and that irritates me and it should be a game and it should be EASY…  see? Nerf Creep. So yeah… I miss the 24 hour Skill Queue.

Mac Client Improvements…  Finally!! Something I care about even LESS than nullsuc!   =P

Th, th, th That’s ALL FOLKS!!!!

Fly Wreckless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

“Is CCP Gonna Bust Da Bubble?”

~or “Woe Betide the POS Force Field…  Mebbe.”

For them as did not catch it, I recently commented on Sugar’s blog about the impeding removal of the POS Force Field… This was brought on by section 5 of the BACK INTO THE STRUCTURE Dev Blog… which I quote in toto here;

5.     Housing

Proper housing of player items and ships is a critical must-have if we wish those structures to be used over NPC stations. As such, we have different ideas up our sleeves to make that happen.

First, docking will still be available for the largest structures, as long as you have rights and your ship isn’t too big for this kind of purpose (we are looking at you, Supercarriers and Titans).

For the smallest structures, or if your e-peen is too large for docking, mooring will be preferred option. Replacing forcefield mechanics, this will make your ship invulnerable and not being able to be bumped as long as you are within a specific radius of the structure. Of course, when that is the case you will not be able to interact with the outside world either. The idea for the mooring capabilities are that they are configurable and have a finite limit, so multiple structures will be required to house particularly large fleets.”  (emphasis mine)

Yup… according to the Structures Dev Blog it seems they are seriously considering getting rid of the POS Forcefield, the POS Shield. As a player who has lived almost exclusively in POSes for going on 3.5 years of the 4 I have been ingame… I find this change personally abhorrent and unpleasant… and even more, unneeded.

Unlike my null brethren who screamed and rage quit with the advent of the Jump Changes, getting rid of the POS Shield is not a ‘game changer’ that fixes anything game breaking like Force Projection did… the extreme ease of overwhelping Force Projection made possible due to the way Jump mechanics used to be was wayyy broken… the POS Shield is not and does not affect the game in anywhere near the same way Force Projection did.

I commented on Sugar’s post, CSMX - Post #1, about this… there was some back-n-forth commenting on this then Halycon said;

“Mostly it comes down to it cannot be fixed without a deep level rewrite of how the game functions and handles objects. I'm not talking horror code, I mean a complete rethink of the entire engine that handles objects in space, and therefore a complete ground up rewrite. The impact of that would be far beyond force fields. By it's very nature it'd change the entire balance of how Eve work; from flying ships, to weapons, to just about everything you'd do in space.”

and…

“The devs have wanted to do away with force fields for the better part of a decade, but couldn't. And now that they finally can, they're gleefully going to kill it. I absolutely guarantee the day they turn them off for good, one of the coders is going to have a victory dance.” (emphasis mine)

In four years ingame I have never once heard any of this…

Then Sugar responds… twice…

“Thank you Halycon.

They are trying to keep functionality (things floating in the shields are safe) with things like Intel and fix problems in Eve.

Force fields do not work. I'm sorry that I'm using the wrong words. But they don't work and they have to go. That means what you have now is going to be given to you in a different way.

Thianis the discovery phase of the details and everyone is trying to get it right but its not going to be the same. Your hangars should still be there for storage.

But shields are not staying.”  (emphasis mine)

Well… fuk me. But you know what, if it really is as stated, for the overall good and health of the game, well then I can and will, grudgingly granted, accept it… until I saw this…

During the EVE Online Fanfest 2015: Art & Graphics Panel I saw and heard this…

CCP BasementBen, Development Manager, showed us what you see in the title pic and here (25:52 to 26:50)… a short animation of an “improved” POS Shield… Hrm. Improved? Then CCP Mankiller, Lead Graphics Programmer, tells us it is “…basically a magnetic field with a bit of Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis…” hmmmmm…

Then during the Q&A, here, (44:07 to 44:40) there was this question:

“Hey guys, a quick question with regards to the POS Shields, umm, not sure if this is something that’s going to be covered next with the actual Structures discussion but, are we gonna see, when you’re taking out a POS, impacts on (the) actual shield instead of everything seemingly penetrate as if it’s not there and impacting on a tower, is that gonna change at’all and make it slightly more realistic?”

The response is… “Not for this, ah, this release.” then “Not for these POS Shields because the new structure things that’s the new thing to go and we will, most likely, do it for that yes.”

“…and we will most likely do it for that, yes.” Well… seems the art dept missed the ‘POS Shields have to GO.’ CCP/CSM memo… and I seriously doubt this CCP, the CCP being run as it is NOW, a company that it taking bold aggressive ownership of its product… I sincerely doubt they are going to accidentally allow the art dept to showcase something that is not at least seriously on the table… ESPECIALLY something that has such an impact on one of the biggest changes to come to the game in its going on 12 year run, something as regards the changes to POSes, Null Sov and the New Structures… changes that the players have been waiting for, and begging for, for YEARS…

Oh I know, I know… there are those out there who will LOL and say, “Dude, CCP always steps on their own dick man! It’s just par for the course!” but I disagree. I’m not saying they can’t make a mistake… anyone can… but this is BIG. I sincerely doubt CCP Seagull would allow something that states pretty plainly that they are working on the POS Shield and it is gonna stay when the plan is to take it down.

As for me… I will hold out hope that CCP decides that the POS Shield had uses other than just defense of a POS… for me, for most of us who live out of a POS, meaning all of us who live in Anoikis (wormholes) the POS Shield is so much more than just a defense… The Great POS Window is one of the few truly enjoyable aspects of POSlife... unlike the poor sots in Empire Stations and Nullsuc Outposts we have a huge 360 deg omni-directional WINDOW... we have a 30km of our very own protected space in which we can fly around in and DO shit… move stuff around, goof off with each other, plan ops, reship, prep for fights or just sit back and chill after a day of whatever and enjoy the company of our friends and corpmates… with the best gods damned VIEW in all of EVE…

Sugar also said, "POS shields are they currently are are broken and problematic. They don't work with how Eve functions which leads us to the endless cases of POS shield exploits."

Then FIX POS shields FFS... but don't just get rid of them. Make them work as they should... Like the guy asked… make them the thing you target, make them the thing you shoot, make the POS Forcefield actually impenetrable and everything inside it untouchable until taken down, period.

"They don't work with how Eve functions which leads us to the endless cases of POS shield exploits."

Exploits? It’s EVE, in EVE finding and exploiting cracks in the game mechanics, or ‘gaming the game’ is usually called ‘emergent behavior’… and the POS Shields ‘don’t work with how EVE functions’ how? because Empire Stations and Nullsec Outposts don't have them? Empire Stations and Nullsec Outposts aren't POSes... of course they don't have them... they are huge and invulnerable...

POSes are a western frontier fort with a wooden palisade, a sturdy log cabin out on the prairie with gun ports in the shutters... Anoikis is not Nullsec... we are the wild west of EVE... let us BE the wild west of EVE... please.

Please don’t screw us over once again like you did with the effing Discovery Scanner… don’t burst our bubble.

Fly Wreckless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

These Are Not the Freighters You Are Looking for, Just Move Along…

~or “EVE Needs a ‘Mayflower’ service…”

This is not a 'meta post', nor a 'what the hell is up with Fozziesov' post nor a 'the Svipple has tits?' post.... this is just yer run of the mill 'what the hell has been going on in Tur's verse' post...
We have moved… again.

This will be my fifth move in and/or out of an Anoikis system. We, meaning HBHI my home corp, originally lived in an Alliance owned and operated Large Amarr POS in the old Demsal Alliance C1 back many years ago now… but that wasn’t really ‘ours’ and cause we were not in the POS owning corp we therefore not only lived in our ships same as we do today but, we also had no POS access other than password-through-the-FF. 

What ships we had and other stuff had to be managed by the actual POS corp members, IE the worst possible way to live in a POS out of the wide range of unpleasant possible conditions that POS life has available. It was not long before we simply needed full access and that meant a POS of our own.

So we ended up anchoring, for the very first time, move #1, “Serenity Station”, a Large Matarii POS in the C2 owned by HELPeR, an Allied corp. This was our first real home in Anoikis. As these things go over time we decided we wanted not just our own POS but our own hole too, we had reached a point where the C2 sites n PI n raids didn’t provide us all with the levels of ISK to which we aspired, so we moved out and up to a C3, move #2.

This was our first real complete takedown, move out and setup in a new hole move. We lived in pretty happy with things for a long time until we got seriously camped by some guys from SYJ Alliance and all of that ended in us joining SYJ and once again doing a full move, move #3… this time out of the C3 and into Bastion, SYJ’s C6.

After most of a year there we left SYJ on good terms and moved out, move #4… temporarily living in Empire while we decided what to do next… which was going to be a C4, then we got wind that our old friends in HELPeR had left null and moved , move #4a, into a C3… we mothballed HBHI and our POS and POS mods and joined HELPeR, so not really a full-on ‘move’ for the HBHI guys as such this time.

Now, the corp has grown quite a bit over this past winter and we found were spending a lot of time scouting C5’s to run for ISK to feed the membership so basically, we needed to move up. So we have found... well purchased... a C4/C5-C3 with very good PI. This means a C4 wormhole with 2 statics, a C5 and a C3. So we will no longer have to scout for C5s… we will have a connection to some C5 23/7/365 and we will have a connection to some C3 which ‘should’ give us decent access to Empire most days… this is move #5.

And lemme tell you man, moving in Empire sucks, but changing wormholes can be a real logistical nightmare… you see moving between systems in Anoikis entails a few things even nullsecers don’t have to deal with…

(1) No gates. Daily you have to scan down the ever changing wormholes in and out of not only your old home home, but once you buy or find that perfect new hole with the great access to downtown and fantabulistic schools, you have to have all the holes there scanned down daily if not several times a day.

(2) Add to this is the moving of often large numbers of ships (I myself have over 43 personally owned ships in the POS…) multiple hauler runs loaded with equipment and everyone’s personal PvE/P ships out and in is dependent on the mass limits of the holes you find. Scanning down a hole that cuts 10’s or more Empire jumps down to a mere handful is met with raucous jubilation… but when it is noticed that it is a Frigs only hole… the scanning pilot has no other option but to leave fleet, cloak up and run for his life.

(3) No Red/Blue/Black Frog freighter pilot can help you at all… ‘cause at the VERY most your access to your new home system lasts just 24 hours, and C4 and down don’t take Freighters… and no self-respecting freighter pilot is gonna risk his ship inna wormhole… period. So the best you could hope for would be a pickup and drop off at the nearest station to your new home’s hole-of-the-day… but R/B/Black Frog doesn’t ‘guarantee’ delivery in under 24 hours… though you could possibly offer a bonus for that service.

Keep in mind, no matter where the holes put you, you HAVE to move ships out and stage them at the closest Empire station as fast as you can… hoping against hope that when you get time to move them in your new connection isn’t 45 hops away. We’ve had days where we get the dream… an exit from old home that is through an acceptable lowsec, not camped all to hell and rife with riff-raf… and like 9 or maybe even 5 jumps to the entrance hole to new home… and we’ve had days where we just can’t move crap cause old home is 5 low jumps to hisec and 2 are hard camped and new home has a pipe through null and an active C6… cripes.

Multiply all of this by the number of chars who have ships in the POS and, well… tempers between players who have never had a bad word to say ‘bout each other can get very short… and them as aren’t BFFs to begin with… well, it can get unpleasant, but… there is nothing to it but to do it.

Now the C4 is a trade-off… a compromise hole. Better home sites, vastly better PI than the old C3 and easy daily access to C5’s for sites and C3’s… the downsides? Easy daily access to C5’s and no static Empire holes... this means not only do we get the possibility of a C5 loaded with sites… we also have the same chance of a C5 loaded with players… eek. Plus the connection to ‘a’ C3 does not mean that we WILL have an Empire connection… just means we ‘should’ have one most of the time but still it will mean scanning down a ‘pipe’ to Empire instead of a direct connection, granted it will normally be a short pipe.

Still an all, the vastly better PI means greatly enhanced passive income for all and for the corp, plus the C5 static means over all better opportunities for enhanced ISK making in both home and adjoining holes… so the compromise is just that, some good some not so much.

Lastly there is the new hole to consider… choose a moon for the POS, get it all setup and deathstarry… get ervybody’s ships n shit in and now we get to settle in start runnin sites and setup PI… or, er, no. POCOs.

Planetary Orbital Customs Offices… (Player Owned Customs Offices)… all of the POCO’s are owned by other corps with various tax rates… which means… POCO Bash Fleet! Oh joy… 13 planets… Thirteen POCOs to bash down, and that aint fun shooting I dunt care who ya are.

Anyway we started in on it, as many as could joined in but I must say Joran, our member who is the most involved or at least the most interested in PI and Industry, was of course, the guy who put in the most time and DPS on this little project. To which we all owe some debt of gratitude as bashing POCOs just plain sucks.

Anyhoo, it is all now done and we are getting PI setup and final alts from the old home hole are now trickling in… and people are simply not loggin in as much. Huh…. Seems for many of us there has been a general feeling of being just kinda tired of the game as the last few weeks have not been about ‘fun’… they have been about work.

The ‘move out’… ‘moving ships n shit all over hell n creation’… the ‘move in’… ‘POCO bashing’… add to this that a few of our prime ‘content creators’ have had more on their plates than usual and the end of the move has also coincided with some RL>EVE stuff cropping up in some of our lives.

In the end you get people poking their noses in TS and not seeing anyone active so they log off and so… only a few of us are on together at any given time, and not enough to really ‘do’ anything. Not enough for sites or a raid or a roam or more than scanning all the things… and even that is not nearly as up to date as we used to keep it.

For me personally… I’m sitting on almost 2 bil ISK and so my inner drive to run sites or to even get PI setup is not as strong as it has been in the past when I was used to a much much leaner wallet… plus I am one of the ones who have been slapped by some of that RL>EVE stuff and so I am guilty of not loggin on as much nor for as long as usual.

This needs to change, hell… everything else has.  =]

Fly reckless and see you in the Sky =/|)=

He was, and always will be… our friend.

~or “Words cannot express…”

As all of you know by now, Leonard Nimoy has died. The facts are, he was 83, he died at his home in Los Angeles of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

I was hard hit by this news. You see, I am 54 and have recently, as those of us over 50 do, begun realizing I may have more years behind me than ahead… and I have begun to lose people who I never realized I would lose.

My youngest brother was taken from us by a drunk driver at 24, all of my grandparents are long gone, both my parents have passed… so many who were prominent in the news and in my youth are gone… but learning of the passing of Leonard Nimoy was different for me, as it is for so many of my generation… You see I watched Star Trek when it first aired… I watched Neil Armstrong, live, the night he first set foot on the moon and I watched every episode of Star Trek and every second of all the moon landings.

I grew up in a world where we WERE going to the moon and we WERE going to go to Mars and build space stations and have colonies on the moon and Mars and Titan and Europa and… and… and then I watched the politicians and the greedy and the shortsighted take it all away and leave me and my whole generation with bills and debts and the Cold War and the Vietnam War and many of those politicians going to jail leaving a trail of broken promises and shattered, stolen dreams.

Leonard Nimoy, through the character of Lt. Cmdr. Spock stood for everything GOOD in the hopes and dreams I and my generation grew up believing in… and lost. And now we have lost him. And I have cried deep inside every minute as I made my way through work today… as I drove home and met with my wife and daughter and we went shopping for her upcoming 12th birthday party this Saturday… Oh I smiled and joked and did the father and husband thing… but inside, deep inside, the 8 year old me, the boy lying on that rug in that living room raptly watching Neil Armstrong step off that lander on a black and white TV… the boy sitting cross legged leaning against the sofa raptly watching Capt Kirk and Mr. Spock win out against impossible odds in deep space…

That little boy cries still for the loss of a mentor and a friend he never really knew… but loved as though he did.

May we all… Live as long and Prosper as well.

NOVA EVE Meet...

~or “Internet Spaceships is Serious Fun…”

I finally made one of the EVE Meets that are taking place world-wide. This one was CSM Sugar Kyle’s meetup in Northern Virginia (NOVA) at the Dogfish Head pub in Falls Church. I have been looking forward to finally getting to one of these for some time, but RL>EVE has always gotten in the way… until last Saturday, Feb 7th. I made the 2 hour trip north from my home deep in the woods outside of Ashland Va. And once inside the beltway I was immediately reminded of why, even though I am southern by the grace of god and I love my home state dearly… I was reminded of why I hate NOVA so very much.

Seething Masses of People... Once you cross some undefined border as you wend your way northwards you reach the land of hives. In northern Va., in the suburbs of DC, they pack themselves in like termites. There is no where you can even cross a street with ANY modicum of safety… the traffic lights, head and tail light of the cars are an endless glowing stream on every road, major and minor… gives me the creeps it does.

You see I’m a country boy by birth and at heart… and while I live on what is considered a main roadway back home traffic levels are such that you could, relative to NOVA, safely lie down and take a nap in the middle of the road. Heck my dirt road driveway is almost a half mile long and you can’t even hear what cars and trucks and tractors as do pass by from my house…

This is just one more affirmation of my life in Anoikis… Wormhole space is the back country of New Eden… the wide open spaces with no damn people and no damn Po-po… just the way we like it…   =]

Anyhoo, I finally arrive at the Dogfish Head pub and on entering, there is Sugar Kyle doing the CSM and Host thing, hence she is up to her ears busy with everyone wanting attention and goody bags and CCP/EVE swag. I get my goody bag and she tells me to look for a number in the bag… I empty it and… no number… sadface, no swag for old Tur.

So I get a beer and I’m standing there watching people, tryin to pick out the players from the dinner guests and guys cruising for gurls… I say Hi to a random someone and he immediately asks, “Who are you with?” at first I thought, ‘Uh I’m here alone’ but then I realized he was asking what corp/Alliance am I in… ohhhh… Uh… I think for a sec and say, “HELPeR, but you wouldn’t have heard if us… I live inna wormhole.” The look I got in return was precious… and a second affirmation of my life in Anoikis… tell ‘em you live inna hole and they ALL look at you funny. LOL

Needless to say the night was a blast. I met many players, discussed matters of grave import and pure nonsense, many beers were drank and toasts were made. I finally met... 

Epigene, he who Journey’s Through The Mind… (he’s like really TALL and German…. who knew?)

I met Grimmash (Narwhals!!), he of the Games… seen here assisting the musician who was trying out the Oculus Gear VR Innovator Edition portable VR headset a Goon brought along… which was extremely cool!

Here we see Grimmash partaking of a tasty beverage while one of the Dogfish staff watches narwhals swim past…

I met a young lady Brave, here seen losing her mind over the Gear VR…

She was also slapping Brave tattoos on anyone and everyone!

And of course, the right honorable CSM, Sugar Kyle… seen here as she was all night, listening to her constituents and others and discussing our great game…

As I understand it approximately 50 EVE players made it to the event. I had a really great time and was among the last to leave at 11ish. When the last of us were getting our coats and such together, Sugar came over to me and handed me a rolled up poster… she told me the person who got the #3 Swag ticket never came forward to claim his prize, and so she handed it to me… I opened it and it was a Valkyrie poster! Schweet!

I discovered something on my way home though… I was going through the goody bag and looking at the buttons one Matarii and one Quafe and the trading card pack I got, when I saw, tucked inside the back of the Quafe button was a folded piece of paper… guess what was on it?  LOL

Yup… silly me

 The Swag!!

Fly reckless and see you at the Meetup! =/|)=

BB62: Boots on the Ground…

~or "Why We Actually Lost Walking in Stations …"
"…and Why We Should Have it."

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 62nd edition and first of 2015! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

Niden (@niden_GMVA) tweeted this:  “It's not cool to want walking in stations, right?”

That tweet got a few positive agreements, but on the other side of the coin we have Xander Phoena of Crossing Zebras and current CSM member being mentioned in the winter summit minutes: 

Xander said that he would officially like to be documented as protesting any art time going to avatars instead of spaceships.

What is and/or should be the future for walking in stations?

==================================================

The old grey haired Matarii steps out of the crowd. Looking around he watches the crowds passing by… hundreds, thousands of people going busily about their jobs and lives. The sound of a thousand voices and sound of thousands of boots and shoes and even bare feet on the steel floor was a palpable background in this, the main central square in the middle of the cavernous station concourse…

He stands, head bowed in quiet contemplation for a minute, then he sighs… sets the soap box down, and climbs up… "People... my fellow Empyreans of New Eden... hear me, hear me now…"  Rixx Javix has said, that new players “…curiosity (about WiS) is, and should be, a little uncomfortable for us older players. Frankly, we have some explaining to do.”  Yes, we are why it was shelved…. Not CCP, explain that to the new players… WE, the vets, are why they can’t get out of their ships and explore New Eden on foot also.

“We were never given a clear vision for what part WiS would play in the daily lives of our Capsuleers, or what (if any) point there would be for walking in a station.” Wrong… it would have added new CONTENT, new places/spaces to fight and explore and more importantly, new WAYS to do that… in both PvE and PvP…

According to Rixx, “It happened for good reason, CCP had failed to share their vision with us.” I disagree… in the strongest terms. No, this video shows us what their vision was…Please really watch this… and let your imagination run with the possibilities… the potential... and what was lost, what WE threw away... For it was WE who broke faith with CCP and the mob followed the loudmouthed knuckle dragging FiStards who can’t see beyond the end of their wittle spasships…

“They (CCP) were stung by the reaction to Incarna… This was clearly the lesson they learned from that Summer of Anger. It is, after all, what we wanted them to learn.”  What CCP learned was to fear their own customers… their own playerbase… because that playerbase is fickle and many, tooo damn many, are self-righteous entitled children who, instead of backing the company that CREATED EVE… threw a temper tantrum the likes of which has never been seen before in the gaming world… Was this what we wanted them to learn? To fear us?  

I quote CCP Seagull from her address in the 2014 CSM Summer Minutes, ‘Veteran Player Retention’ section, pg 120…
”I, as the executive producer, am in a risk taking mode. … We need to be bolder. We should be able to get over our trauma of Incarna. We need to own our game and be courageous with it. I think our players want that of us.”

“It's time to get over Incarna and start taking risks again, educated and calculated risks of course, but we need to make sure that we deliver solid content to veteran players.

We have trained players to be afraid of us doing big things. It meant we put something big out that was half done and it never got touched again. Us doing something big, such as industry, means CCP is going to mess it up again and we will have to pick up the mess.

We, internally, have become scared in a sense of making bolder changes to the game so that we know we can control the outcome. Because we do not want to be perceived as messing up again. We can predict what is going on. That predictability is boring everyone to death now. … We need to turn up the volume.”

“… get over our trauma of Incarna”
“We need to own our game and be courageous with it.”
“…It's time to get over Incarna and start taking risks again.”
“We have trained players to be afraid of us doing big things.”
“We, internally, have become scared in a sense…”

Scared of who? Us that's who. Their customers, their playerbase… We did that… we are responsible for not supporting CCP, for screaming at them like children, armed, nasty, self-indulgent children. Us and no one else… we broke faith with CCP and forced them to back away from the potential that was, IS, inherent in FPS gameplay inside of EVE.

“There is still no compelling reason for walking in stations.” and “There is nothing inside the station that I can do that I can't do without WiS.” … says Capt. Javix… Yes, as of now there isn’t… and what’s more, he doesn’t want it… but if WiS was implemented with content, which was CCPs major fail the first time, there are a great many players who would love this type of gameplay… and you don’t have to do a thing Capt. Javix… you don’t ever need to crawl out of your slimey pod, and avert your atrophied eyes from the light of day… but gods dammit man, don’t get in the way of those of us who DO!! 

And I’ll give you just 2 compelling reasons…

(1) once more, everything that the idea's in THIS simple demo video could have brought to us all…

(2) and a whole damned new playerbase for EVE…

Increased PCU, increased income for CCP, increased monies CCP can spend on ALL the playstyles EVE can support… oh, and one last thing… increased immersion in the grandest virtual verse ever invented by man…

YOU may not like or want it Capt. Javix, but I damn well do… and many, very many of us out here in the black, we want it too.

Before I close I must tell you I can’t help but wonder… if we did have WiS, and Rixx reined in his quaking fear of crowds of goons running around in stations acting the fool… if he tried his hand at exploring, on foot, inna Sleeper Station… just how would ol Rixx react when he ran into another player, quickly drew and at point blank range, fired his T2 “Spidey” Personal Webifier MkII…

And then watched in horror as the other player shrugged off the effects of the plasma web and ran away laughing with his Sleeper Riches… all because of the T1 “Freedom” Web Core Slicers module he had fitted onto his “Indiana” class Exploration ExoArmor DropSuit…? Oh the tears!”

Turamarth sighs… watching the parade of players walk by with but a very few listening or paying any heed at all… but he holds hope… that one day, one damn day… CCP will give us what they promised and stop listening to the naysayers and the shortsighted… and fulfill the dream that could be EVE.

The old grey haired Matarii steps down, picks up his worn, battered soap box… and walks quietly away into the crowd…

the What…

Exploring Sleeper Stations… 

the Why… 
On The EvE of Contention… 
On The Bone of Contention… 
On Getting Back in Contention…  

and the Dream… 
Worlds and Stations

CCP Seagull, Fly reckless lady... AND OPEN THIS GODS DAMNED DOOR!  =/|)=