A wise old dude once told me, when I was much, much younger, that it didn't matter what people did out in public. What matters is what they do when they think no one is around. I don't remember who told me that, but I do remember I was far too young to remember much of anything other than that I figured being somewhere else was better than listening to some old dude talk about shit I didn't understand. I am glad I remembered what he said though. It was long before sociology and psychology where the catch-all university credit and he apparently had some insights.
I think now, they have fancy-assed terms like "authenticity" or the "authentic self'" for what the old guy was talking about. In basic terms when you think no one is watching, you are for more likely, or completely likely, to act like how you really want to act instead of pretending to have a different behaviour or ideas or morals purely because of where you are and/or who you are with.
The internet provides a unique twist to that process, especially an internet with an environment where instead of no one watching, someone with suppressed urges has lots of people watching, possibly with similar repressed urges. The anonymity of the internet and its pseudonyms and avatars allows people to remain unidentified if they want so they have a big audience to show off to, yet at the same time feel the same kind of protection and lack of external pressures and accountability, just as if they were alone. In that environment, where society, surroundings or other people/players can't really force them to be something else, like in real life, the real them comes out.
In anonymous surroundings, or alone-like conditions, nice people are still nice people. Latent assholes however, will pop up like daisies. Out in life, these turds will wrap themselves up in gold leaf, and people think they are gold through and through. In Eve though, they're just the pieces of shit that they always were, that they are. Eve to assholes is like the dark to rats. Turn on the light of the real world, and the rat assholes of Eve scurry off, cover their shit with gold leaf again and claim they're not really an asshole, they're just "playing" an asshole on the internet. Sure, whatever you say. So not only do the internet assholes have the problem of being an asshole, on top of whatever "issues" they have that make them vent in games like Eve, but they also have denial issues as well. :)
So yeah, with people, in the real world or on the intarpipes, an asshole is an asshole. Whether they think anyone is watching or not determines how fast you see that they are actually a piece of shit. It's actually a fairly simple concept and something that can easily be observed by any one, almost any time.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Mining libations
My work, in the real world, is physically demanding and can be fairly mentally taxing with the concentration required. As a result, for relaxation (online), I enjoy doing things that require little or no mental effort. I relax, and wind down. Mining, requires minimal concentration and mental effort, is quite relaxing for me, and yet provides the requisite income to pay for itself in plexes so I can further my plans for Eve-verse domination. At times, after a particularly hard day, it can be too relaxing, and I can doze off. One particular incident, the last time I ever dozed off, resulted in an alarm clock going off (that wasn't an alarm clock at all, I realized, but the structure warning alarm) that cost me about 2 billion isk to turn back on. Such as Eve. To prevent further such expensive and alarming events, I went looking for other things to keep me awake, yet relaxed.
I listened to MP3s for a while, and while my tastes are fairly eclectic, I also sometimes listen to them at work too, and I don't have a massive library of music yet, so it doesn't take long to wear out the enjoyment of a few hundred songs, and I didn't want that to happen. Let's try books.
Books are not the best "next" option for a couple reasons. First, I can't read a book and keep track of a couple mining toons at the same time. On top of that, an old back injury wakes me up a couple times an hour every night, so I am in constant sleep debt, and when I try to read a real book, I fall asleep before I get 2 pages read. That would take me back to the top and the expensive alarm clocks. Not good. Audio books, however, are a perfect fit. I downloaded and listened to dozens of audio books. Sci-fi, as many of the Sharpe's books as I could lay my electronic hands on, mysteries, horrors, and anything that piqued my interest from the reader comments. Lots of libraries carry audio books now so it's easy to find non-pirated versions online. The last ones I listened to were the Dark Tower series by Steven King. The last book was a total let down and it really seemed like he just got tired of the series, ran out of material, and needed to end the series. I was disappointed with the series' end, so decided I'd try some pod casts for a while.
Skipped around with a bunch of random gaming pod casts, then landed on Idle Thumbs. I liked their style, liked and could relate to a lot of the content, so I went back to their first and listed to about the first 50 or so. Their dates and episodes started getting fucked up, so I went looking for some Eve podcasts.
First one I found was Eve Commune, but I'm not doing them the service of linking it as I think it is so fucking brutal. I listened to 3 or 4 of them but couldn't take it any more. Their content was very weak, they were pretty brutal at it and . . . "uncomfortable" sounding. Self-conscious or something maybe. Anyway, every show was announced to be "amazing" but generally had fuck-all in it. The host - don't remember his name - would run out of shit to say, of couldn't think of anything to say, so he'd fill the space with a completely "plastic" fake laugh. Man, terrible. I might go back and see if there's something more current and they're not so bad, but only if I absolutely run out of anything else to listen to. From there I found Kirith Kodachi and liked his style, or at least found it bearable to listen to, so I went back to his first and started towards the present from there. I listened to quite a few of them, and will definitely go back to listen to the rest, but somewhere in one of his casts, I think, I heard about Voices from the Void and purportedly the sexiest voice in Eve.
Went over there, and went back to the first cast, and started listening. I have to say, I always go back to the beginning of the casts because I like to start from the beginning, listen to some Eve history, listen to some predictions from the casters, and see how they worked out. At any rate, Arydanika definitely has a silky voice, and while she is a null-seccer and a bunch of the news is pretty good, she definitely leans on her voice more than she leans on information. This is particularly evident in one recent guest appearance on the Crossing Zebras (a more recent listening choice) where she was talking about "barricade runners", about how there were some "new" mining and transport missions, and how she couldn't see any reason or need to fly a logi in high sec. Maybe she's never heard of these "new" Eve updates called "incursions" or "war declarations". At any rate, I enjoyed her and her over-the-top pod cast partner for a while, but the way she "plays" her voice, especially the forced "tee hee hees" and squeaks. If you want to be serious, then be fucking serious and use your voice to speak with, not as some "thing" with wavering content behind it as a side note. It really started to grate on me, and as I listen to the casts for enjoyment, not aggravation, I passed on it but will check back when my nerves and ears recover. I guess she's part of the goon derp pets now, so, well, . . . we'll see if/when I decide to go back, at least maybe for the older stuff. ASS part of the goon pets, maybe she'll parlay her voice for some interviews with the goon brass. That might be interesting to listen to.
As mentioned, Crossing Zebras is the latest "fix". They are definitely comfortable behind the mic, and pretty polished compared to the others I've listened to. They are certainly often "gay" conscious and I might have heard them mentioned because of their frequent homophobic comments, but aside from ignoring that, I went back to the beginning again, and enjoy listening to their observations, opinions and predictions. I've nearly listened to them all, only a dozen or so, so when I'm done with the last couple, I'm going to try Lost in Eve. I heard Rundle and a Honey Badger pilot named Zakn on one of the zebra casts, and they both sounded informed and relaxed. Xander seems more prone to the asshole mentality in Eve, while Jeg seems much closer to my point of view. Right or wrong, the zebras or their guests, it's enjoyable for the most part to listen to their podcasts.
At some point I heard or saw something about Jester being on a podcast, so I went over to Declarations of War to check it out. Definitely a lot of Eve horsepower on that one cast with 3 CSM members and Jester, and the conversation was good, and intelligent, so I listened to a few others. Aleksyev, the host, can seem or sound fairly arrogant and full of himself. Not sure if this is a front, or really him, or it goes with the territory, so to speak, but it's an interesting commentary on null mercenaries and they have a lot of interesting guests. I want to go back and listen to more of those too.
On the one zebra cast, I enjoyed listening to Rundle talk. The zebras are always talking trash at/with him, apparently good naturedly(sp?), and on that one cast, with an opposing player in the form of Zakn, Rundle sounded comfortable and informed. Right or wrong, I know not, but he has a great "radio voice" and it's something I would be comfortable listening to as I have a beer or three and crush some rock. So, I think I'll do the last couple zebras, then drill down through Rundles stuff and see what he says about things.
So, for the pvp-think bunch that think it's great fun to station or gate camp, or ship spin waiting to get blue balled on a pvp op, or blob some neutral or single ship in low or null (yeah, I've done all that "wonderful" pvp too) or listen to some braggard or crass fuckstick in TS/Vent, it is infinitely more enjoyable, and for now, profitable to relax with a beer, listen to some casts and crush some rock.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
It's curious . . .
When all the shit hit the fan about Vile Rat, word also came out about some corp/alliance that was taking advantage of the goon's "quiet time" while they mourned VR. Supposedly/apparently/possibly/allegedly some organization was out shooting the goon's sov shit in the face, and all kinds of people freaked out about it. The thing that is curious about it, is that is pretty much stereotypical goon behaviour (the fucking-someone-when-they-are-down part) so that made me very curious as to why, even through their . . . "condition" at the time, they couldn't appreciate that behaviour, because it was exactly like something they'd do, and definitely like lil Alex's. As is generally the case with people who have anti-social behaviour patterns though, along with that mind set comes the, uhh . . "ability" to completely rationalize aberrant behaviour on their part while finding it completely revolting when someone else does the exact same thing. To me, that is some curious hypocritical behaviour on the part of the goons and all their little sycophants, pets and wanna-bees.
2nd thing that's curious, is how all the said goon-derps, sycophants, pets and wanna-bees lost their shit over an Eve player dying. He's not the first one, the first Eve player, to die from violence, disease or by other more peaceful methods. I remember reading not too long ago about a dude, an Eve player, who died in a motorcycle crash. No big song-and-dance or blog spam, or quiet time for him. VR might not even be the first goon to have died. I don't think the motorcycle dude was a goon though, so no big "candle thing" for him I guess. Now, to be fair, I think it's unreasonable for anyone to expect the goons to manage and keep track of all of Eve's obituaries. Friends and colleagues of the other deceased Eve players could have easily taken up the torch there, right? In typical goon fashion of "go big or stay on the porch", they went big on VR. I don't really get into it for three main reasons. First he was a goon, and I don't care much about what happens to anyone who gets their jollies by inflicting misery, real or virtual on other real people. Second, if we was "tight" with mittens, that's also a very, very good reason to have no interest in the individual at all. In all my years and travelling, I have yet to meet super nice people who hang around with assholes and sociopaths on the scale of mittens. IMO, you "play" one, and you are one. More on that another time though. Lastly, from decades with the military and government, and my share of hot spots, any kind of staff (from any country) that hangs out in embassies or is "liaison" (or any other flowery term you might prefer) in war zones are not the dopey diplomats, drivers and secretaries that their governments like to claim they are. Those people are there to apply some "foreign policy measures" and in real world terms, that means lying, manipulating and fucking with local or adjacent people and countries for their own gain. I think that's bullshit (from any nation) and I don't agree with it in real life, so I certainly don't agree with it in a virtual one either. I guess I'm not "evolved" enough to be OK with that level of personal hypocrisy. So, as VR apparently applied the same skills in the real world as he did in real life, I don't lose much sleep over those people either.
What's curious about all the uproar over VR, is that when a carebear Eve player got ganked and sent a sad little Eve mail to the goons, mittens decided it would be good lolz to publicize it and invite any and all, in the virtual world, to get the guy to commit suicide, in the real world. Now though, a guy who made a living in the real world by conniving, lying and manipulating people and places, like the goons do in Eve, is to be made an icon or a hero in a virtual world? The same little herd of sycophants, pets and wanna-bees laughed at the first example, and freaked over the second. That's some curious shit.
The last major thing I find curious is how disconnected from reality many Eve players seem to be, especially the ones that condone the ganking and bullying. In Eve, the "sandbox" is set up to allow and superficially "police" all the negative and aberrant behaviour that is not condoned in the real world. In Eve, goons, et al, can and do try anything they can to fuck with anyone that isn't a goon, or a goon fanboy, and they do it with pretty much no accountability, and the "carebears" can either suck it up, or fuck off out of Eve. Other Eve players, REAL people, complain about how senseless and unjust their behaviour is. The goons and their sheep laugh. They can't really be touched by their victims. In the real world, when individuals, organizations or countries fuck with other people on the planet, there aren't always repercussions or accountability either, at least at first, but in this case with the US embassy and the bombings, it's real people that are pissed off by being fucked with by other real people, only these "carebears" will fuck back. Regardless of country, because all the "civilized" or "rich" and/or "powerful" nations do it, when the real world "carebears" retaliate, interestingly, the people who started the problem are now the "victims" and THEY are the ones using the ever popular "senseless" and "terrorist" rhetoric. In Eve, like in the real world, the organizations with the most money and power are the ones that seemingly tend to fuck with people the most. I guess in Eve though, people have decided it's ok to do to REAL people on the other end of their electronic weapons, the same things they scream about in real life. That's curious to me, and pathetic.
In the end though, if the goon's big VR hullaballoo gets some kind of Eve player memorial to ALL the Eve players that have died, that I think is cool. As much as the goons and their like are assholes, if they can scare up 150 large for the widow and kids, then their in-game herd mentality makes them slightly useful assholes to at least 3 people.
2nd thing that's curious, is how all the said goon-derps, sycophants, pets and wanna-bees lost their shit over an Eve player dying. He's not the first one, the first Eve player, to die from violence, disease or by other more peaceful methods. I remember reading not too long ago about a dude, an Eve player, who died in a motorcycle crash. No big song-and-dance or blog spam, or quiet time for him. VR might not even be the first goon to have died. I don't think the motorcycle dude was a goon though, so no big "candle thing" for him I guess. Now, to be fair, I think it's unreasonable for anyone to expect the goons to manage and keep track of all of Eve's obituaries. Friends and colleagues of the other deceased Eve players could have easily taken up the torch there, right? In typical goon fashion of "go big or stay on the porch", they went big on VR. I don't really get into it for three main reasons. First he was a goon, and I don't care much about what happens to anyone who gets their jollies by inflicting misery, real or virtual on other real people. Second, if we was "tight" with mittens, that's also a very, very good reason to have no interest in the individual at all. In all my years and travelling, I have yet to meet super nice people who hang around with assholes and sociopaths on the scale of mittens. IMO, you "play" one, and you are one. More on that another time though. Lastly, from decades with the military and government, and my share of hot spots, any kind of staff (from any country) that hangs out in embassies or is "liaison" (or any other flowery term you might prefer) in war zones are not the dopey diplomats, drivers and secretaries that their governments like to claim they are. Those people are there to apply some "foreign policy measures" and in real world terms, that means lying, manipulating and fucking with local or adjacent people and countries for their own gain. I think that's bullshit (from any nation) and I don't agree with it in real life, so I certainly don't agree with it in a virtual one either. I guess I'm not "evolved" enough to be OK with that level of personal hypocrisy. So, as VR apparently applied the same skills in the real world as he did in real life, I don't lose much sleep over those people either.
What's curious about all the uproar over VR, is that when a carebear Eve player got ganked and sent a sad little Eve mail to the goons, mittens decided it would be good lolz to publicize it and invite any and all, in the virtual world, to get the guy to commit suicide, in the real world. Now though, a guy who made a living in the real world by conniving, lying and manipulating people and places, like the goons do in Eve, is to be made an icon or a hero in a virtual world? The same little herd of sycophants, pets and wanna-bees laughed at the first example, and freaked over the second. That's some curious shit.
The last major thing I find curious is how disconnected from reality many Eve players seem to be, especially the ones that condone the ganking and bullying. In Eve, the "sandbox" is set up to allow and superficially "police" all the negative and aberrant behaviour that is not condoned in the real world. In Eve, goons, et al, can and do try anything they can to fuck with anyone that isn't a goon, or a goon fanboy, and they do it with pretty much no accountability, and the "carebears" can either suck it up, or fuck off out of Eve. Other Eve players, REAL people, complain about how senseless and unjust their behaviour is. The goons and their sheep laugh. They can't really be touched by their victims. In the real world, when individuals, organizations or countries fuck with other people on the planet, there aren't always repercussions or accountability either, at least at first, but in this case with the US embassy and the bombings, it's real people that are pissed off by being fucked with by other real people, only these "carebears" will fuck back. Regardless of country, because all the "civilized" or "rich" and/or "powerful" nations do it, when the real world "carebears" retaliate, interestingly, the people who started the problem are now the "victims" and THEY are the ones using the ever popular "senseless" and "terrorist" rhetoric. In Eve, like in the real world, the organizations with the most money and power are the ones that seemingly tend to fuck with people the most. I guess in Eve though, people have decided it's ok to do to REAL people on the other end of their electronic weapons, the same things they scream about in real life. That's curious to me, and pathetic.
In the end though, if the goon's big VR hullaballoo gets some kind of Eve player memorial to ALL the Eve players that have died, that I think is cool. As much as the goons and their like are assholes, if they can scare up 150 large for the widow and kids, then their in-game herd mentality makes them slightly useful assholes to at least 3 people.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Armstrong should play Eve
No, not Neil Armstrong the astronaut, but the other one, Lance, the cyclist. Mind you, if you subscribe to the theory that NASA, with a non-stop fail and over budget performance at the time, faked the moon shot to save American face and their program, then Neil was doing some space RPGing already and might have been a good candidate for Eve as well. Neil died this summer though, so, we'll stick with the other Armstrong then.
As a long time athlete and avid cyclist myself, it doesn't take a forensic genius to put all the bits and pieces together to come to the realization that Armstrong was heavily into boosters, but was smart enough and rich enough to be able to stay one step ahead of the drug testing squad in terms of technology. Over time, pretty much his entire TDF winning squad admitted to being on drugs too, but of course Lancey-boy claims he NEVER was. Ok. Well, where there's smoke, there's usually fire, and while he could and did use his millions and law suits to keep other people's shut, apparently, the poor little fella has just grown tired of the fight, and has dropped his defense. He was immediately proclaimed a cheat, stripped of his "wins", and banned for life from "sanctioned" events. Lots of other current and ex cycling pros are coming out of the closet and admitting to the use of drugs, but with Armstrong's ego and reputation, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a character building moment like that. Without him having to train for pro or semi pro racing events, that should give him ample time for Eve.
As a liar, and a cheat, and a drug user, he should be a perfect fit in any low or null organization that operates on the same principles. If Armstrong publicly was playing Eve, it might be a draw for some new membership in the game. I wonder how many sponsors will be dropping him like they did with Woods? I wonder how that will affect his Live Strong donations? On the upside, his lying and cheating gave him enough exposure to raise hundreds of millions (reportedly) for cancer research, not to mention millions for himself. Lie and cheat for millions? Sounds like Eve too. So, I guess in the end, he's a lying, cheating piece of shit that did some good, but he still is what he is.
As a long time athlete and avid cyclist myself, it doesn't take a forensic genius to put all the bits and pieces together to come to the realization that Armstrong was heavily into boosters, but was smart enough and rich enough to be able to stay one step ahead of the drug testing squad in terms of technology. Over time, pretty much his entire TDF winning squad admitted to being on drugs too, but of course Lancey-boy claims he NEVER was. Ok. Well, where there's smoke, there's usually fire, and while he could and did use his millions and law suits to keep other people's shut, apparently, the poor little fella has just grown tired of the fight, and has dropped his defense. He was immediately proclaimed a cheat, stripped of his "wins", and banned for life from "sanctioned" events. Lots of other current and ex cycling pros are coming out of the closet and admitting to the use of drugs, but with Armstrong's ego and reputation, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a character building moment like that. Without him having to train for pro or semi pro racing events, that should give him ample time for Eve.
As a liar, and a cheat, and a drug user, he should be a perfect fit in any low or null organization that operates on the same principles. If Armstrong publicly was playing Eve, it might be a draw for some new membership in the game. I wonder how many sponsors will be dropping him like they did with Woods? I wonder how that will affect his Live Strong donations? On the upside, his lying and cheating gave him enough exposure to raise hundreds of millions (reportedly) for cancer research, not to mention millions for himself. Lie and cheat for millions? Sounds like Eve too. So, I guess in the end, he's a lying, cheating piece of shit that did some good, but he still is what he is.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Barging ahead . . .
Been busy with life, but still managed to do a little Eve time. With all the patch problems starting with that completely useless inventory change, I wasn't looking forward to how badly CCP could screw up the mining barges, but according to all the whining from the griefers, looks like they didn't mess things up too badly, so I thought I'd do a little experimenting to see what's what.
Apparently, CCP has started to wake the fuck up and realize that coasting along with about 120K to 150k players is slowly slipping behind as far as keeping account ledgers in black ink is concerned. They can boast 3 or 4 times that number of accounts, but they also know that's just marketing hype and that many, many players, maybe even most, run multiple accounts. One player leaving, takes away more than one account, and by the same token, luring a new player into the game means that same player is likely going to run more than one account. At any rate, CCP pushing the bad-boy mystique of Eve Online isn't conducive to coaxing new, non-angry players into the game. Increase the safety of players who don't have a massive chip on their shoulder, players who are looking to relax and have fun, and eventually word will get out. There are more contented (reasonably) and non-angry people willing to play spaceship games, than there are angry little assholes with no life, and low self esteem who get their rocks off by trying to make other people more miserable than themselves. Fixing the mining barges is a start along that path to making Eve more financially viable, and socially friendly, long term. . . . but about the barges.
So, before, the mining barges had anemic EHP. Contrary to what others think, mining equipment, or any rock handling/moving equipment, is fucking tough. It has to be or it would be used up, worn out and trashed in no time flat. Go find some movies on mining and rock hauling equipment. Education isn't a bad thing. As Mabrick mentioned it's not hard to blow shit up. Of course it's not. Ammunition will ALWAYS be easier, faster and cheaper to escalate and improve upon than the thing the ammunition is intended to destroy. Vehicles specifically designed for battle can still be trashed by weaponry, so it's not exactly Mensa scale thinking to deduce that non-military equipment can also be trashed by it, even tough mining equipment. CCP really missed the boat though on mining barges, and the scale of cost, training and toughness to fly a mining barge is far, far higher than the same factors needed for another player to fly a ship that can easily destroy a barge. I have no problem with ganking, just ganking where there's minimal cost, effort and penalty for one side, and massive cost, effort and penalty for the other.
For the players who are seemingly on a daily dose of stupid pills, they don't seem to "get" where most all of the toys come from in Eve's market. While the angry little griefer crowd looks down their nose at anyone who doesn't like to, or care about, blowing up other players, they are seemingly oblivious as to where their ships and modules actually come from. Not all manufacturing players are hard core indy types, they don't have to be. In the end though, someone still has to go out, and sit there grinding away on rocks in a belt, even for the non-mining manufacturing types. As the griefers made miners feel less safe, the mineral prices started to climb, driving up the price of everything with it, and then the griefers whined about the cost of everything. Duh. The mining barge fix is good for miner security, which means more people will mine, which is bad for miners making money. At the same time though, the lowered mineral prices, will eventually trickle down to the rest of the prices and everything else can and will become less costly to buy, and that's a good thing for ALL of Eve. Unfortunately, including the griefing assholes.
In the case of hulks, you could gimp the fuck out of their purpose and get them up to close to 30,000 EHP. Take away from the express purpose of a ship, and turn it into something else. Small minds think this is ok. I think any combat ship should have to strip out some of it's low slots and run cargo expanders or they only have enough ammo space for what's loaded in their weapons. Makes the same kind of sense. At any rate, the mining barge updates have changed all this. With a cargo hold only big enough, and sufficiently big enough, to carry strip miner crystals, a mining barge can be tanked up now, and not gimp the hell out of its ability to mine. Bring on the griefer tears. excellent.
None of the barges need the cargo optimization rigs anymore, so they immediately get replaced by core defense field extenders, or one CDFE 1 and one anti-EM screen reinforcer, depending on the barge. For the actual numbers, with a fully trained orca pilot, and a shield harmonizing 1 warfare link, the barge numbers are much healthier and far more usable than before. The boosted vs un-boosted yields won't change (MLU's change that), only the range and cycles times change.
- a boosted retriever with 2 CDFEs and an anti-EM rig, with a civilian shield booster and three, yes three, mining laser upgrade 2s, has a 10,651 EHP with 38% EM resists. It can also do 4,848 m3 of rock per cycle and the healthy 27,500 m3 ore hold gives lots of room. Triple MLU2s is great for griefer rage too :)
- the same retriever with a DC2 adds another ~5,000 EHP, much better resists and brings the yield down to 4,448 m3 per cycle
- the same retriever with a DC2, with an adaptive invuln field 2 instead of the shield booster, gives almost 18,000 EHP. Swap out the AIF2 for an EM ward amplifier 2 (EMWA), and the EHP drops to about 17,000.
Even unboosted, the EHP only drops about a thousand for all configurations. The retriever gets the same 50% yield boosts that the Mac does, so it performs much closer to the hulk than before. It's got much more leeway with it's power grid too, including 3 rig slots, so it wouldn't take too much creativity to likely boost the grid a little with a power grid rig and maybe get a little more EHP without compromising the ore output. It's got 3 times the ore hold that the hulk does, nearly the same unboosted EHP, but about 80% of the hulks efficiency. It is also only about 1/10th the cost of a hulk too. :) The fact that hulk prices have dropped by over 30%, and retriever costs have gone from 5 million to 20, tells you that the T1 boat is a much sexier option than it used to be, especially for beginning miners.
- a boosted hulk with 2 CDFEs, an AIF2, an EMWA2, a DC2 and a single DC2 has about 21,000 EHP, and does about 5,400 m3 per cycle. The 8500 m3 ore hold means you have to stay on top of things with it though as the ore hold obviously can fill fast.
- the same hulk with 2 MLU2s drops to about 15,000 EHP but raises the ore output to 5,883 m3. An anti-em rig instead of one of the CDFEs would likely add a few hundred EHP.
So, the hulk went up to ~15K EHP without gimping it's performance at all, while a minor downgrade in performance with a DC2 gives it over 20K EHP. Much better than before, about a 5K boost in EHP, and it still remains king of the miners. Prices on the hulk are dropping like a stone too.
- a boosted mac with a CDFE1 and a power grid subroutine maximiser 1, plus two ice harvester upgrade 2s a DC2, an EMWA1 and an AIF2, gets you about 26,000 EHP and a 133 sec cycle time
- the same mac with a LAIF1 instead of the AIF2, plus an extra IHU1 instead of the DC2, gets you about 18,000 EHP but a cycle time of 126.4 secs. 7 seconds per cycle is meaningless to a griefer, but to save that, every couple minutes per gun, and do that 25 times an hour, for a few hours, and that's money in the hold.
- the same 2 macs with strip miners instead of ice harvesters, one with 2 MLU2s and a DC2, and the other with 3 MLU2s, produce the same EHP values as the ice mac, and the tanky ore production is about 4,671 m3 per cycle, while the less tanky mac is about 5,091 m3.
Using a shield rig instead of the power grid rig would allow more EHP, but I wanted to experiment with production output instead of EHP. The fits I tried pretty much max the power grid, which is why I used the power rig. Experimenting with fits might mean the power grid rig allows you to upgrade the shields with mid and low mods more effectively than if a shield rig was used, but obviously at the expense of mining efficiency again. 30,000+ EHP standard fits should be really easy to come up with, and completely crazy tank fits if you don't give a shit about ore output at all. That, plus the 35,000 m3 ore hold is probably why the mac prices have more than doubled, and are now more expensive than the hulks. People are funny :) It mines at about 86% efficiency of a hulk, has 5 times the ore hold, and about 5,000 EHP more than a hulk. With the current prices climbing though, you are paying a premium for 20% extra armour over ~15% extra output.
- a boosted skiff with a CDFE1 and a ACR1 in the rigs, with 2 MSE2s, and 2 AIF2s, with 2 MLU2s, gives a stripminer production of 4,670 m3 per cycle and over 60,000 EHP, and all resists over 64%. With a DC2, the performance is down to 4,285 m3, but the EHP is ~80,000. Crazy :)
So, for about 200 million (right now), a skiff has about the same performance as a retriever, massive EHP, and about 2x the ore hold of a hulk, with about 79% of the hulk's mining efficiency. Even an unboosted skiff takes no effort to get over the 50K EHP mark.
I thought a ballpark table might organize things better, at least for me. The "M" stands for mining biased fits. "T" stands for tank fits, and "IT" and "IM" are for ice mining fits on the Mac. The percentages (%) relate how that particular fitting style and barge relates to the same style of fit for a hulk.
Obviously, there are lots of fitting options, lot's of EHP options, and the character's skill points go a long way towards coming up with a final number, not to mention what your goals in fitting are. I didn't check the coercer or procurer, as I was short on time, but I don't doubt all the barges will see more use than they did before. Gankers will have to expend more effort and money to gank miners now. They'll need to be more organized, and it'll take more of them. They'll whine more than they are now, but the ones that definitely want to shoot unarmed ships, will adapt, and in the end, if a ganker wants to shoot a miner, they will. In the mean time, miners will likely be out in force, all over the place. Ore and mineral prices will start to fall, everything will start to get cheaper to buy, and that includes the cost of the ships for gankers.
Apparently, CCP has started to wake the fuck up and realize that coasting along with about 120K to 150k players is slowly slipping behind as far as keeping account ledgers in black ink is concerned. They can boast 3 or 4 times that number of accounts, but they also know that's just marketing hype and that many, many players, maybe even most, run multiple accounts. One player leaving, takes away more than one account, and by the same token, luring a new player into the game means that same player is likely going to run more than one account. At any rate, CCP pushing the bad-boy mystique of Eve Online isn't conducive to coaxing new, non-angry players into the game. Increase the safety of players who don't have a massive chip on their shoulder, players who are looking to relax and have fun, and eventually word will get out. There are more contented (reasonably) and non-angry people willing to play spaceship games, than there are angry little assholes with no life, and low self esteem who get their rocks off by trying to make other people more miserable than themselves. Fixing the mining barges is a start along that path to making Eve more financially viable, and socially friendly, long term. . . . but about the barges.
So, before, the mining barges had anemic EHP. Contrary to what others think, mining equipment, or any rock handling/moving equipment, is fucking tough. It has to be or it would be used up, worn out and trashed in no time flat. Go find some movies on mining and rock hauling equipment. Education isn't a bad thing. As Mabrick mentioned it's not hard to blow shit up. Of course it's not. Ammunition will ALWAYS be easier, faster and cheaper to escalate and improve upon than the thing the ammunition is intended to destroy. Vehicles specifically designed for battle can still be trashed by weaponry, so it's not exactly Mensa scale thinking to deduce that non-military equipment can also be trashed by it, even tough mining equipment. CCP really missed the boat though on mining barges, and the scale of cost, training and toughness to fly a mining barge is far, far higher than the same factors needed for another player to fly a ship that can easily destroy a barge. I have no problem with ganking, just ganking where there's minimal cost, effort and penalty for one side, and massive cost, effort and penalty for the other.
For the players who are seemingly on a daily dose of stupid pills, they don't seem to "get" where most all of the toys come from in Eve's market. While the angry little griefer crowd looks down their nose at anyone who doesn't like to, or care about, blowing up other players, they are seemingly oblivious as to where their ships and modules actually come from. Not all manufacturing players are hard core indy types, they don't have to be. In the end though, someone still has to go out, and sit there grinding away on rocks in a belt, even for the non-mining manufacturing types. As the griefers made miners feel less safe, the mineral prices started to climb, driving up the price of everything with it, and then the griefers whined about the cost of everything. Duh. The mining barge fix is good for miner security, which means more people will mine, which is bad for miners making money. At the same time though, the lowered mineral prices, will eventually trickle down to the rest of the prices and everything else can and will become less costly to buy, and that's a good thing for ALL of Eve. Unfortunately, including the griefing assholes.
In the case of hulks, you could gimp the fuck out of their purpose and get them up to close to 30,000 EHP. Take away from the express purpose of a ship, and turn it into something else. Small minds think this is ok. I think any combat ship should have to strip out some of it's low slots and run cargo expanders or they only have enough ammo space for what's loaded in their weapons. Makes the same kind of sense. At any rate, the mining barge updates have changed all this. With a cargo hold only big enough, and sufficiently big enough, to carry strip miner crystals, a mining barge can be tanked up now, and not gimp the hell out of its ability to mine. Bring on the griefer tears. excellent.
None of the barges need the cargo optimization rigs anymore, so they immediately get replaced by core defense field extenders, or one CDFE 1 and one anti-EM screen reinforcer, depending on the barge. For the actual numbers, with a fully trained orca pilot, and a shield harmonizing 1 warfare link, the barge numbers are much healthier and far more usable than before. The boosted vs un-boosted yields won't change (MLU's change that), only the range and cycles times change.
- a boosted retriever with 2 CDFEs and an anti-EM rig, with a civilian shield booster and three, yes three, mining laser upgrade 2s, has a 10,651 EHP with 38% EM resists. It can also do 4,848 m3 of rock per cycle and the healthy 27,500 m3 ore hold gives lots of room. Triple MLU2s is great for griefer rage too :)
- the same retriever with a DC2 adds another ~5,000 EHP, much better resists and brings the yield down to 4,448 m3 per cycle
- the same retriever with a DC2, with an adaptive invuln field 2 instead of the shield booster, gives almost 18,000 EHP. Swap out the AIF2 for an EM ward amplifier 2 (EMWA), and the EHP drops to about 17,000.
Even unboosted, the EHP only drops about a thousand for all configurations. The retriever gets the same 50% yield boosts that the Mac does, so it performs much closer to the hulk than before. It's got much more leeway with it's power grid too, including 3 rig slots, so it wouldn't take too much creativity to likely boost the grid a little with a power grid rig and maybe get a little more EHP without compromising the ore output. It's got 3 times the ore hold that the hulk does, nearly the same unboosted EHP, but about 80% of the hulks efficiency. It is also only about 1/10th the cost of a hulk too. :) The fact that hulk prices have dropped by over 30%, and retriever costs have gone from 5 million to 20, tells you that the T1 boat is a much sexier option than it used to be, especially for beginning miners.
- a boosted hulk with 2 CDFEs, an AIF2, an EMWA2, a DC2 and a single DC2 has about 21,000 EHP, and does about 5,400 m3 per cycle. The 8500 m3 ore hold means you have to stay on top of things with it though as the ore hold obviously can fill fast.
- the same hulk with 2 MLU2s drops to about 15,000 EHP but raises the ore output to 5,883 m3. An anti-em rig instead of one of the CDFEs would likely add a few hundred EHP.
So, the hulk went up to ~15K EHP without gimping it's performance at all, while a minor downgrade in performance with a DC2 gives it over 20K EHP. Much better than before, about a 5K boost in EHP, and it still remains king of the miners. Prices on the hulk are dropping like a stone too.
- a boosted mac with a CDFE1 and a power grid subroutine maximiser 1, plus two ice harvester upgrade 2s a DC2, an EMWA1 and an AIF2, gets you about 26,000 EHP and a 133 sec cycle time
- the same mac with a LAIF1 instead of the AIF2, plus an extra IHU1 instead of the DC2, gets you about 18,000 EHP but a cycle time of 126.4 secs. 7 seconds per cycle is meaningless to a griefer, but to save that, every couple minutes per gun, and do that 25 times an hour, for a few hours, and that's money in the hold.
- the same 2 macs with strip miners instead of ice harvesters, one with 2 MLU2s and a DC2, and the other with 3 MLU2s, produce the same EHP values as the ice mac, and the tanky ore production is about 4,671 m3 per cycle, while the less tanky mac is about 5,091 m3.
Using a shield rig instead of the power grid rig would allow more EHP, but I wanted to experiment with production output instead of EHP. The fits I tried pretty much max the power grid, which is why I used the power rig. Experimenting with fits might mean the power grid rig allows you to upgrade the shields with mid and low mods more effectively than if a shield rig was used, but obviously at the expense of mining efficiency again. 30,000+ EHP standard fits should be really easy to come up with, and completely crazy tank fits if you don't give a shit about ore output at all. That, plus the 35,000 m3 ore hold is probably why the mac prices have more than doubled, and are now more expensive than the hulks. People are funny :) It mines at about 86% efficiency of a hulk, has 5 times the ore hold, and about 5,000 EHP more than a hulk. With the current prices climbing though, you are paying a premium for 20% extra armour over ~15% extra output.
- a boosted skiff with a CDFE1 and a ACR1 in the rigs, with 2 MSE2s, and 2 AIF2s, with 2 MLU2s, gives a stripminer production of 4,670 m3 per cycle and over 60,000 EHP, and all resists over 64%. With a DC2, the performance is down to 4,285 m3, but the EHP is ~80,000. Crazy :)
So, for about 200 million (right now), a skiff has about the same performance as a retriever, massive EHP, and about 2x the ore hold of a hulk, with about 79% of the hulk's mining efficiency. Even an unboosted skiff takes no effort to get over the 50K EHP mark.
I thought a ballpark table might organize things better, at least for me. The "M" stands for mining biased fits. "T" stands for tank fits, and "IT" and "IM" are for ice mining fits on the Mac. The percentages (%) relate how that particular fitting style and barge relates to the same style of fit for a hulk.
Yield (%)
|
EHP (%)
|
Cost (22/08/12) |
Ore Hold (%)
| |
| Retriever M |
4,848 (82%)
|
10,650
|
18,500,000
|
25,000 (294%)
|
Retriever T
|
4,448
|
18,000 (86%)
|
||
Skiff M
|
4,670 (79%)
|
60,000
|
160,000,000
|
15,000 (176%)
|
Skiff T
|
4,285
|
80,000 (380%)
|
||
Mackinaw M
|
5,091 (86%)
|
18,000
|
210,000,000
|
35,000 (411%)
|
Mackinaw T
|
4,671
|
26,000 (130%)
|
||
Mackinaw IM
|
126.4 sec
|
18,000
|
||
Mackinaw IT
|
133 sec
|
26,000
|
||
Hulk M
|
5,883
|
15,000
|
200,000,000
|
8,500
|
Hulk T
|
5,400
|
21,000
|
Obviously, there are lots of fitting options, lot's of EHP options, and the character's skill points go a long way towards coming up with a final number, not to mention what your goals in fitting are. I didn't check the coercer or procurer, as I was short on time, but I don't doubt all the barges will see more use than they did before. Gankers will have to expend more effort and money to gank miners now. They'll need to be more organized, and it'll take more of them. They'll whine more than they are now, but the ones that definitely want to shoot unarmed ships, will adapt, and in the end, if a ganker wants to shoot a miner, they will. In the mean time, miners will likely be out in force, all over the place. Ore and mineral prices will start to fall, everything will start to get cheaper to buy, and that includes the cost of the ships for gankers.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Whining bitches . . .
After the hulkageddon 5 gank fest, the princess of the goonderps claimed they just might make the miner bounties a permanent thing, but only on T2 exhumers that they can get about 10x the profit to bounty ratio on. They might be assholes, but they aren't STUPID assholes . . . per se. Of course, this provoked some fairly healthy forum posts all over the intar pipes, but for about 10,000 goon muppets to go about ganking non-pvp interested players, in un-armoured ships, and encouraging other maturity compromised griefers to do the same, is just good l0lz farming.
Bring in the war dec changes at the beginning of the month. As part of the goonderp's plan of harassing (just about) anyone who speaks ill of their muppetry, they war dec'd The Star Fraction alliance, of which Jade Constantine is the CEO and founder. I know a little about Jade. An old player, role player, was CSM chair a few years back, opinionated, speaks intelligently (from the things she's written) and she's anti ass-puppet, anti-drone, in other words, no respect for the kind of mindless asshats that collect under the goon banner. A lot of players don't seem to like Jade, apparently many goons and wanna-be's who can barely string together three words they thought up on their own. Big surprise they were dec'd by the goonderps. Jade planned to try out the new ally feature of the war dec system to even out the odds of 9000+ to 100 by inviting anyone and everyone to become their ally to help blow away the goonderps. Jade made the war mutual (which means the war dec is pretty much permanent) and gave the goonderps the surrender condition of 5 bisk per ally. As of right now, if you check out the handy little monitoring tool that is build into the corporate war dec panel, the goonderps are having their asses handed to them to the tune of 3 to 1 in ships and 10 to 1 in isk. Now, to a bunch of isk fountain drinking drones like the goons, money is pretty much irrelevent. BUT, the interesting thing is, that the much vaunted goonderps don't have the 100 to 1 lolz ratio that they apparently need, so mittenzez and his TEST ass puppet on the CSM immediately ran to CCP crying about how UNFAIR it was that they were LOCKED into a war dec that THEY STARTED, were getting their asses handed to them (and still are) and they would have to PAY to get out of it. So, 4 days into the new war dec system, CCP changes the rules so that allies can't be part of a mutual war dec, allies have to pay increasing amounts to be part of the war, and the ally "contract" resets every 2 weeks. The money it takes for a 9000+ alliance to war dec a 100 man alliance is still insignificant. In the end, it costs hundreds of times more for defenders than it does for attackers, and the overwhelming bully advantage goes back to the attackers. Back to the goonderps, which is how they like it.
So, what is the term for spineless bullies who have great belly laughs when they can encourage blowing up unarmed players, but immediately freak out when a hugely imbalanced playing field is evened slightly and they start getting their asses handed to them by people actually willing and able to shoot back? Whining bitches.
Bring in the war dec changes at the beginning of the month. As part of the goonderp's plan of harassing (just about) anyone who speaks ill of their muppetry, they war dec'd The Star Fraction alliance, of which Jade Constantine is the CEO and founder. I know a little about Jade. An old player, role player, was CSM chair a few years back, opinionated, speaks intelligently (from the things she's written) and she's anti ass-puppet, anti-drone, in other words, no respect for the kind of mindless asshats that collect under the goon banner. A lot of players don't seem to like Jade, apparently many goons and wanna-be's who can barely string together three words they thought up on their own. Big surprise they were dec'd by the goonderps. Jade planned to try out the new ally feature of the war dec system to even out the odds of 9000+ to 100 by inviting anyone and everyone to become their ally to help blow away the goonderps. Jade made the war mutual (which means the war dec is pretty much permanent) and gave the goonderps the surrender condition of 5 bisk per ally. As of right now, if you check out the handy little monitoring tool that is build into the corporate war dec panel, the goonderps are having their asses handed to them to the tune of 3 to 1 in ships and 10 to 1 in isk. Now, to a bunch of isk fountain drinking drones like the goons, money is pretty much irrelevent. BUT, the interesting thing is, that the much vaunted goonderps don't have the 100 to 1 lolz ratio that they apparently need, so mittenzez and his TEST ass puppet on the CSM immediately ran to CCP crying about how UNFAIR it was that they were LOCKED into a war dec that THEY STARTED, were getting their asses handed to them (and still are) and they would have to PAY to get out of it. So, 4 days into the new war dec system, CCP changes the rules so that allies can't be part of a mutual war dec, allies have to pay increasing amounts to be part of the war, and the ally "contract" resets every 2 weeks. The money it takes for a 9000+ alliance to war dec a 100 man alliance is still insignificant. In the end, it costs hundreds of times more for defenders than it does for attackers, and the overwhelming bully advantage goes back to the attackers. Back to the goonderps, which is how they like it.
So, what is the term for spineless bullies who have great belly laughs when they can encourage blowing up unarmed players, but immediately freak out when a hugely imbalanced playing field is evened slightly and they start getting their asses handed to them by people actually willing and able to shoot back? Whining bitches.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Interpretive dance
Since the goon derps, or more accurately, mittenz, declared that causing shit is so much fun, he's thinking of sponsoring the 100 million per 10 miner kills event, indefinitely. Actually though, it's only T2 boats like hulks and mackinaws, because those are the ones they get 10x the 100 million bounty on in profit from tech sales. Not surprisingly, non-ADHD players, who don't mind mining, think this blows chunks and are complaining loudly about it. I believe, that is warranted, but mining types need to understand what they are up against though.
Since lil Alex shot his mouth off in Iceland, mining-type people have been quick to pull bits and pieces out of the AUP and EULA in attempts to justify their positions in the same way that CCP did to ban the asshole for a month, and it's no news flash who that asshole is. Problem is, trying those justifications from a player position is never going to work. CCP did that because at that very time, they were trying to hype DUST and sell the idea of it and Sony to the gaming world. Some big mouthed player rep attempting to get other players to try to get a fellow player to commit suicide, is bad PR. Bad for sales. Bad for getting new players on board, even for a free console game. CCP likes the notoriety their game has produced and generates. As far as the bottom line goes, so far, "notoriety" is paying the bills just like "popularity" would and it's still printing their accounting books in the black, so it's all good. In the MMO world, they're the sort of the dangerous guy that it's cool to "know", but not really to talk to much. In the MMO world, there's not much news aside from updates. In Eve, most of the news is generated by or from the players, either from actions inside the game, in the meta game, or from updates that don't cut the mustard. Controversy in the news is CCP's bread and butter when it comes to Eve, so when there are big rip-offs, scams, battles or general uproars in the player community, that is good Eve press. "12 man mining fleet gets ganked for billions in high sec" is good game PR. "12 man mining fleet drains a 9 belt system in record time" doesn't mean shit to CCP. At the same time, all the negative player related press may be great for notoriety, but it isn't great for getting new, non-griefer players interested in electronic spaceships. It's actually fairly shitty.
At the same time, CCP is well aware of the player types and roughly how long their fuses are. The ADHD griefer types who take all their problems from the real world and like to bring them in game to bully other players, especially in un-armed ships, have relatively short fuses and short attention spans. When they lose the ability to cause shit, or get their electronic adrenaline shakes, even for a short period of time, they leave. Miners, industrial types and likely even a number of mission runners have much longer fuses. They're more patient players and their fun doesn't come from adrenaline fixes. If they lose the ability to play their style of game in a more open game like Eve, it'll take them a lot longer to get pissed off enough to leave. CCP knows this. Unfortunately for players that aren't assholes, you aren't only up against the assholes and CCP, but you are up against your own nature too. For anyone that can sit there and mine for hours, run around checking on and setting up BP activities, or doing PI, or even running missions, that takes patience. The kind of patience that acts FOR CCP when it comes to the point where a "carebear" is pissed off about the assholes in the game.
So, in a game that is run by a company that favours the behaviour of short attention span assholes, and is also conveniently the final arbitrator in player conflicts, they will do the interpretive dance and favour the news makers, the assholes, over the patient players who will take a lot more shit than they should. CCP tosses the "patient" players a bone every once in a while, like art or graphics updates, or like the new mining barge proposals. Even the patient players have a limit though and i guess time will tell how well CCP juggles the griefer's ADHD and the "carebears" patience.
Since lil Alex shot his mouth off in Iceland, mining-type people have been quick to pull bits and pieces out of the AUP and EULA in attempts to justify their positions in the same way that CCP did to ban the asshole for a month, and it's no news flash who that asshole is. Problem is, trying those justifications from a player position is never going to work. CCP did that because at that very time, they were trying to hype DUST and sell the idea of it and Sony to the gaming world. Some big mouthed player rep attempting to get other players to try to get a fellow player to commit suicide, is bad PR. Bad for sales. Bad for getting new players on board, even for a free console game. CCP likes the notoriety their game has produced and generates. As far as the bottom line goes, so far, "notoriety" is paying the bills just like "popularity" would and it's still printing their accounting books in the black, so it's all good. In the MMO world, they're the sort of the dangerous guy that it's cool to "know", but not really to talk to much. In the MMO world, there's not much news aside from updates. In Eve, most of the news is generated by or from the players, either from actions inside the game, in the meta game, or from updates that don't cut the mustard. Controversy in the news is CCP's bread and butter when it comes to Eve, so when there are big rip-offs, scams, battles or general uproars in the player community, that is good Eve press. "12 man mining fleet gets ganked for billions in high sec" is good game PR. "12 man mining fleet drains a 9 belt system in record time" doesn't mean shit to CCP. At the same time, all the negative player related press may be great for notoriety, but it isn't great for getting new, non-griefer players interested in electronic spaceships. It's actually fairly shitty.
At the same time, CCP is well aware of the player types and roughly how long their fuses are. The ADHD griefer types who take all their problems from the real world and like to bring them in game to bully other players, especially in un-armed ships, have relatively short fuses and short attention spans. When they lose the ability to cause shit, or get their electronic adrenaline shakes, even for a short period of time, they leave. Miners, industrial types and likely even a number of mission runners have much longer fuses. They're more patient players and their fun doesn't come from adrenaline fixes. If they lose the ability to play their style of game in a more open game like Eve, it'll take them a lot longer to get pissed off enough to leave. CCP knows this. Unfortunately for players that aren't assholes, you aren't only up against the assholes and CCP, but you are up against your own nature too. For anyone that can sit there and mine for hours, run around checking on and setting up BP activities, or doing PI, or even running missions, that takes patience. The kind of patience that acts FOR CCP when it comes to the point where a "carebear" is pissed off about the assholes in the game.
So, in a game that is run by a company that favours the behaviour of short attention span assholes, and is also conveniently the final arbitrator in player conflicts, they will do the interpretive dance and favour the news makers, the assholes, over the patient players who will take a lot more shit than they should. CCP tosses the "patient" players a bone every once in a while, like art or graphics updates, or like the new mining barge proposals. Even the patient players have a limit though and i guess time will tell how well CCP juggles the griefer's ADHD and the "carebears" patience.
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