Being a currently Incursion-addicted miner, I am still none the less a miner at heart, it would seem, so when trolling through the implant lists on ye olde wiki at Eve University, along with the Highwall and Michi's implants, I also spied the harvest implant set. While I enjoy the enhanced skill point training speed of using +5 implants, it makes me reticent to go after a harvest set because they only give a +2. I have thoughts on that though.
The un-thinking will say that there is no real benefit to using the harvests. Really? Time spent NOT warping to a new belt is time spent sucking on rocks. That means more isk. The wider swath of asteroids you can cut from a single location, the longer you can stay there. maybe from the short sighted or narrow perspective of a single mining barge, sure, what's the point of the implants? Not much, really. From the point of view of a mining fleet, they start to have their value. A lot of value.
- when you warp a fleet into a belt, either multi-boxing or with other actual players, you need to set up the boats and get the lasers going. This isn't instant. It takes time. The more asteroids you can reach, the less often you have to do this.
- when you warp a fleet into a belt, setting up the barges on either side of the Orca nets an extra 4 to 5 km diameter to the mining circle while still allowing the barges to dump directly into the Orca. Barges can motor over towards asteroids and the Orca can simply tractor the jet cans of ore over to empty them. BUT, the more jet cans you have in space, especially high sec, the more of a target you are to gankers and flippers. With high hulk pilot and orca skills, you can fill your cargo hold almost faster than the jettison timer runs out, plus, constant jet cans are a PITA.
When it comes to the matter of the implant levels, there's a personally acceptable solution there too. I have remapped the toons to help train the major skill directions faster. For each +1 on an implant, it takes 5% off the training time, for a total of 25% if you have all +5 implants. If I leave the +5 implants in a clone, but substitute the Harvest implants for any of the other, I'll definitely lose a little time on skill training, and won't be able to take full use of a Harvest full set, plus Omega, but even if I get another 5% range increase, once boosted with an Orca, that's more than a kilometer. That's a nice extra boost, in my mind.
For the actually "getting of the implants", well, that's another thing again. They are few and far between. There's only one set in contracts and the guy wants 4.5 billion for them. LOL NOT! Mind you, this is quite likely in line with how hard it is to get them. ORE agents, as I found, are few. There is one high sec level 1 ORE agent. All the rest are in low or null, and all pretty much stretch down a long red pipe to a dead end. The entry system from high sec into low for this pipe, big surprise, has lots of activity - lots of kills. All the rest of the systems down, and into, this ORE pipe are relatively low in activity and even lower in kills, according to Dotlan and Statics. Battleclinic doesn't have a lot of kills registered down there, and the ones that are, aren't ever during my time zone of play. No, based on the way I've gotten other implants, I'm thinking that they are ORE storyline rewards, the same way the other implants that I've gotten were storyline rewards. Not all the storylines offer an implant, so I imagine ORE might be the same way. That means, I would need the time to do 16+1 missions, mining ones mostly (I assume) and hope for an implant. If all goes well down in the low sec pipe, I would need to do 85 missions minimum, to expect to get the full set of 5. Not sure about the Omega, but it should be some kind of special mission too. That's a lot of missions and no doubt I wouldn't be just running back and forth doing the missions in the agent system either. There would also likely be the occasional combat mission thrown in there, just like the other high sec mining and distribution agents.
So, something like 10 or 11 jumps into low/null sec. 85 missions minimum, with the level 4 ORE agent to hopefully get the implants. That doesn't even count all the level 2 and 3 missions I'd need to run, and you guessed it Monty, the lvl 2 and 3 agents are all in the same pipe. With all the social skills and the mining agent skill trained, it'll boost all the rep gains, but with all the agents being where they are, it's no wonder the implants are as rare as they are. Also, it could be argued, they really aren't all that useful. However, I will check things out over the next few days, maybe send my SB down the pipe for a recce, and see what the options are. If I can get enough corp members down there. We can all mission, plex and rat. The extra people in system with enough boats might deter any lone wolves from going down for a gank fest. Time will tell.
The Point? I'll see how hard it will be to get the implants. Even if I don't use them in the end, I can still sell them for a tidy profit as individual implants or as a set.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Insurance: Another peek
So I did another look at insurance. As I was experimenting in a Myrmidon on the lowbie toon in a storyline combat mission, I had completely forgotten about "orbiting" and was flying the BC in the combat mission like a parked BS in an Incursion. Not an entirely clever strategy, especially in a toon with high indy skills and relatively low or non-existent combat and core skills. Surprise, surprise, the Myrmidon popped. This wasn't one of those "way in over your head" scenarios either, as the boat had dual reppers, AB and 4 active hardeners, so it was taking a while to die, but somehow I thought that as the rats popped, the incoming DPS would drop enough that the dual staggered reppers would slowly claw things back. I hate running away, and that means I usually wait too long, and then can't run away in anything but a pod.
Anyway, about the insurance. Keeping a rough tally of the build cost of the Myrmidon, it was just under the 30 million mark. About 20 for the boat and 10 million for the mods, rigs, ammo and drones. The first BC that popped wasn't insured. The "no insurance " insurance payout was about 7.5 million. To insure the boat for the best policy was also about 7.5 million, and the payout is almost 29 million. Total boat cost is ~37 million with insurance, so the net insurance return on its loss is 22 million, and a net loss of about 9 million. If the boat wasn't insured at all, it would still be the ~30 million cost, minus the 7.5 million "un-insurance", for a net loss of about 22.5 million. If I do insure it, don't lose it until after the insurance runs out, and don't insure it a second time, then the net loss is back to about the original cost of the boat, 30 million.
Now, if I was a hard core pvper, I'd likely insure everything I undocked in. It'd still be a money-losing venture, but not as bad as no insurance at all, obviously. In my current PVE Eve universe though, I guess the only boats it's worth considering insuring are the combat boats. The Hulks and Macs have paid for themselves multiple times and the risk of losing them is very low. Same with the transports. I'm not too worried about frigates, but I guess for battlecruisers and battleships, I'll likely insure them at least initially. The bonus with Incursion boats, is that if you lose an armor incursion boat in an Incursion site, the crew from TDF and BTL will reimburse you up to 500 million. Where, how and why? Well, the money they make from auctioning off the MOM site drops goes towards a ship replacement fund, and as people don't seem to lose too many ships anymore, the fund is fairly flush with cash.
The Point? If a ship is likely to be lost to misadventure, I guess it's worth it to insure the boat initially. After that though, I likely won't insure it again.
Anyway, about the insurance. Keeping a rough tally of the build cost of the Myrmidon, it was just under the 30 million mark. About 20 for the boat and 10 million for the mods, rigs, ammo and drones. The first BC that popped wasn't insured. The "no insurance " insurance payout was about 7.5 million. To insure the boat for the best policy was also about 7.5 million, and the payout is almost 29 million. Total boat cost is ~37 million with insurance, so the net insurance return on its loss is 22 million, and a net loss of about 9 million. If the boat wasn't insured at all, it would still be the ~30 million cost, minus the 7.5 million "un-insurance", for a net loss of about 22.5 million. If I do insure it, don't lose it until after the insurance runs out, and don't insure it a second time, then the net loss is back to about the original cost of the boat, 30 million.
Now, if I was a hard core pvper, I'd likely insure everything I undocked in. It'd still be a money-losing venture, but not as bad as no insurance at all, obviously. In my current PVE Eve universe though, I guess the only boats it's worth considering insuring are the combat boats. The Hulks and Macs have paid for themselves multiple times and the risk of losing them is very low. Same with the transports. I'm not too worried about frigates, but I guess for battlecruisers and battleships, I'll likely insure them at least initially. The bonus with Incursion boats, is that if you lose an armor incursion boat in an Incursion site, the crew from TDF and BTL will reimburse you up to 500 million. Where, how and why? Well, the money they make from auctioning off the MOM site drops goes towards a ship replacement fund, and as people don't seem to lose too many ships anymore, the fund is fairly flush with cash.
The Point? If a ship is likely to be lost to misadventure, I guess it's worth it to insure the boat initially. After that though, I likely won't insure it again.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Incursion: Assaults, SF style
Whilst running some SF vanguards, one or two people had to leave after the one site. While the FC was looking for replacements, he simultaneously, and at the same time, got a message from a player he knew and this other player was looking for a few people to fill in his SF fleet for running assault sites. Well, not being one to look too critically at a new opportunity, I X'd up that I was in for some assaults.
The FC had a . . . unique style, to be sure, and it wasn't the fastest fleet to get set up, organized or get rolling, but as is often the case, if you're a little patient, and let people see that you understand how to take orders and are reliable, you just might get an invite back. The other thing was that the VG systems were packed with players and nearly every site was either done before we could get there, or another fleet would drop in on us and contest them. The contests were only about 50% in our favor too. Suffice it to say I didn't need to be prodded very hard to hook up with a new fleet, in a different, hopefully less populated system, and experience some new Incursion sites. Once I took my 2nd N Geddon the 2 jumps over to the assault system, wow, no one. Awesome. There were 21 people in system, and that was us. Normally, an assault fleet will consist of 5 or 6 logis, 4 to 6 snipers and the rest DPS. We had 21 because we had a booster character that was fleeted up, but off grid. We get the war link bonuses, but don't need to share the ph4t l00tz with them. It was an alt of one of the fleet members. The Fc had a Teamspeak server, so he gave it to us and we logged in and formed up at a planet.
Haltingly, we got going. He wasn't sure on the tagging, and neither was anyone else, so one of the other guys was tagging, verbatim, off an Incursion site guide, and everything went perfectly. The tagger tagged, we shot the tags, and the FC made sure the cats stayed in a herd and shot when he said shoot, and warped when he said warp. It worked like a charm. I hadn't read up on how to fly assault sites because I figured that was a ways off in my Incursion future yet, but it wasn't like I was the FC, so I got to see some new sites, different ways of spawning, different goals, it was cool. The SF assault fleet was WAY more realxed than the VG fleets were for the most part. Lots of younger/youngish sounding players who were pretty much min/maxxers looking for speed and violence and tons of isk. The SF assault fleet however, was far more relaxed, more patient, and generally a lot more tolerant of small mistakes. Before we started, not knowing much at all about the assault sites, I just pointed out that lack of knowledge, and asked if there was anything special I would need to do, or just follow the tags? Just follow the tags. Cool, I can follow the tags :) And I did. When you get red boxed in some of the sites though, by at least half the boats, they lay a serious shit kickin' on you :) You definitely need to trust in your logis.
In a little over an hour with the prior VG fleet, with all the competition, we'd only completed something like 6 sites in nearly an hour and a half. As we slowly got rolling in the AS fleet, we did 4 sites in the first hour, and 5 in the second. With a normal 11 man VG fleet, you get about 9.8 million per site. With a 20 man AS fleet, we were getting over 18 million. The atmosphere was much more relaxed, and the cash was better, aaaand, there was no one else scrabbling for the same sites. Very nice. A whole lot of fun. Assaults are the way to go. Let the impatient min/maxxing type spam the VG systems with their ship fits. I'll cruise on over to the AS systems, and PM the assault FCs that I was clever enough to add to my contact list ;)
The Point? Even if cash was the same, I'd still pick an assault fleet over a vanguard fleet as they tend to be far more relaxed. I would be worried about advising ASs over VGs if anyone saw this blog besides my mother and I, and she only stopped by once, couldn't find anything on gardening, and left.
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| SF Assault form-up |
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| Full on SF AS pew pew :) |
In a little over an hour with the prior VG fleet, with all the competition, we'd only completed something like 6 sites in nearly an hour and a half. As we slowly got rolling in the AS fleet, we did 4 sites in the first hour, and 5 in the second. With a normal 11 man VG fleet, you get about 9.8 million per site. With a 20 man AS fleet, we were getting over 18 million. The atmosphere was much more relaxed, and the cash was better, aaaand, there was no one else scrabbling for the same sites. Very nice. A whole lot of fun. Assaults are the way to go. Let the impatient min/maxxing type spam the VG systems with their ship fits. I'll cruise on over to the AS systems, and PM the assault FCs that I was clever enough to add to my contact list ;)
The Point? Even if cash was the same, I'd still pick an assault fleet over a vanguard fleet as they tend to be far more relaxed. I would be worried about advising ASs over VGs if anyone saw this blog besides my mother and I, and she only stopped by once, couldn't find anything on gardening, and left.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Blog Banter 30: The Melting Pot
Some people amaze me with their ability to come up with really amazing ideas. I am not that artfully minded, so by the time my bulldozer-like mental process puke out some funky idea, likely a billion other people have already thought it out, about 500 years ago. For instance, I thought it would be very cool to have something to wear on your hands, the same way you can wear socks to keep your feet warm. The difference is though, and get this, each finger would have its OWN little sewn pocket to go into. How cool is that! I would call them "hand socks". I think they'll really catch on. On to Eve though and what I would wish for if the devs had time on their hands.
When I started playing Eve, I thought of two things - Star Wars and Firefly.
For Star Wars, I spent a lot of time with my son playing X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. Awesome game and there was many a joystick we broke or just plain wore out. In that game, there was a lot of manual flying, but there was also times where you just set the throttle and flew. If the devs had the time, I think it would be cool to implement joystick connectivity if you wanted it. I had great fun chasing down enemy ships and shooting them, and I would enjoy chasing down rats and players and shooting them in the same way.
While the Eve guns track and move, completely different from the small ship guns in X-Wing, once in joystick mode (which could be switched to with a hot key) a small targeting window would appear on the GUI (that could be re-sized and moved around) and in the small targeting window would be a fixed reticule. This targeting window would also be able to have the camera view zoom in and out, like the main GUI, and is essentially the tracking computer/gun camera view. In order to shoot the target, you would actually have to fly your boat. The position of the guns sight reticule in relation to the ship you're trying to shoot is calculated by the combination of your character skills, and the tracking characteristics of guns, coupled with your flying speed. A green reticule shows you are in range, yellow in falloff, and red out of range. The better your gunnery skills, the smaller the reticule size. Your rounds/damage can land anywhere inside the reticule, so the better your skills, the tighter the grouping. In joystick mode, when the reticule is on target, that's where your guns will land. When you're flying in joystick mode, you would be able to select either volley fire, or ripple fire. Volley fire is great if you know you are on target, and all guns fire at once. If you are trying to bracket the target, or your reticule is larger, or you have a tough target, ripple fire activates the guns sequentially.
Switching into joystick mode would toggle cockpit view, so some simple windscreen/bridge layouts/views would be activated and you'd be looking out the front window of your boat. Each boat, or more specifically race, would have their own style of layout but it would still have all the critical information concerning ship status and equipment. Switching from keyboard/mouse to joystick would be no different than switching from normal GUI mode to map mode or planet view mode.
Now granted, how "exciting" is joystick mode going to be for a sniper Apoc at 140km? Quite likely not very. But that would change considerably considering the size of the ships and the closer orbit ranges of some of the smaller ships. Small ship fights and brawls would be much different than longer range encounters. There are lots of joystick controlled games out there and people gravitate towards them because of the personal skill it takes to pilot any particular craft well. At the same time, other might say it would be too hard to control. It would be too hard to learn. Point of fact though, the targeting/reticule window is EXACTLY how pilots of C-130 gunships aim and how most fighters aim (via HUDS). They fly their planes to put the reticule on the target. This idea might be impractical for Eve's ship mechanics, but joystick flying a spaceship is a blast :)
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The second part of the idea is fairly simple in scope, but fairly massive in execution. All the individual aspects are being worked on, or will be worked on by CCP anyway, it's just a matter of putting them together.
- CCP has Eve, space and their spaceships
- CCP is working on adding internal game play and avatars to Eve
- CCP is working on a ground based MMO in the form of World of Darkness
- CCP is working on a ground based addition to Eve in the form of Dust 514
Now, just put all those together. See? Told you it was simple. :)
Fly your ships around in space, and anything smaller than a battle ship can fly a few more places. If you warp to a planet, you don't just warp to a planet, you can select a city to warp to as well. Warp to high orbit, in the docking space of a ground city, and fly your ship down and dock at a spaceport on the ground. there could even be different space ports for different ships, IE commercial/freighter, shuttles, repair facilities that are player owned, etc. All the commerce and businesses that exist in space could also exist on the ground. Take any aspect of an MMO other than Eve, and incorporate that mechanic to the ground portion of Eve. The missions, the industry, the ground based skill sets, everything.
Scanning skills in Eve could also benefit scanning and exploration skills for new planets. Certain planets would by necessity have certain, unique, city structures, keeping in line with what Dust and current PI needs are. In the space age theme of Eve, (and/or Star Wars or Firefly), expanding to different planets, systems and regions is just a matter of a player doing it. Default, NPC "basic" settlements could/would exist to help an explorer with basic necessities on any planet they are landing on, but planet development would be directed by players and what they transport/freight in, and what they set up. Anything that the player can do in space, can be done in a similar ground-based theme. New player income and occupation opportunities would abound.
So, like, I know. "Dude, sounds like a job. Sounds like life. I play Eve for fun, not another job! I play Eve to get away from real life for a little while!" Yeah, but the difference is, as massive and all-encompassing as the Eve "universe" (truly) could be, with the amalgamation of space with the ground, you can walk away from it. If you're bored with space, go "live" on a planet. in real life, you have to do a lot of boring and tedious things, you have to "work", because it pays the bills. In Eve, if you're bored with running a mining/industrial POS in a WH, go try a mining operation on a planet where you manufacture weapons and vehicles for use on a planet. Go be a ground based bounty hunter or merc. Be a bandit and hijack ground based shipments or operate a shipping agency, ground to ground, ground to space, planet to planet, whatever you want. Is every planet going to be civilized? What kind of intelligent life or animals will be on each planet? At what evolutionary stage will each planet be? Want to fight alien dinosaurs or dragons? How about advanced AI machines? Whatever CCP and the players can come up with, there's thousands upon thousands of planets just waiting to be populated.
As monumentally huge a project as something like this would be, the upside is, EVERY gamer, whether they are console or PC, shooter, griefer, avatar-fan, whatever, they all would have a spot to fill, a place to play, a piece of gameplay that fits them. Want a melting pot? Eve: Universe.
On a more pragmatic note, maybe this is the direction CCP is headed anyway once they find out how well Eve and Dust are going to interact. Hope so, but it would be a fairly massive undertaking.
When I started playing Eve, I thought of two things - Star Wars and Firefly.
For Star Wars, I spent a lot of time with my son playing X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. Awesome game and there was many a joystick we broke or just plain wore out. In that game, there was a lot of manual flying, but there was also times where you just set the throttle and flew. If the devs had the time, I think it would be cool to implement joystick connectivity if you wanted it. I had great fun chasing down enemy ships and shooting them, and I would enjoy chasing down rats and players and shooting them in the same way.
Switching into joystick mode would toggle cockpit view, so some simple windscreen/bridge layouts/views would be activated and you'd be looking out the front window of your boat. Each boat, or more specifically race, would have their own style of layout but it would still have all the critical information concerning ship status and equipment. Switching from keyboard/mouse to joystick would be no different than switching from normal GUI mode to map mode or planet view mode.
Now granted, how "exciting" is joystick mode going to be for a sniper Apoc at 140km? Quite likely not very. But that would change considerably considering the size of the ships and the closer orbit ranges of some of the smaller ships. Small ship fights and brawls would be much different than longer range encounters. There are lots of joystick controlled games out there and people gravitate towards them because of the personal skill it takes to pilot any particular craft well. At the same time, other might say it would be too hard to control. It would be too hard to learn. Point of fact though, the targeting/reticule window is EXACTLY how pilots of C-130 gunships aim and how most fighters aim (via HUDS). They fly their planes to put the reticule on the target. This idea might be impractical for Eve's ship mechanics, but joystick flying a spaceship is a blast :)
----------
The second part of the idea is fairly simple in scope, but fairly massive in execution. All the individual aspects are being worked on, or will be worked on by CCP anyway, it's just a matter of putting them together.
- CCP has Eve, space and their spaceships
- CCP is working on adding internal game play and avatars to Eve
- CCP is working on a ground based MMO in the form of World of Darkness
- CCP is working on a ground based addition to Eve in the form of Dust 514
Now, just put all those together. See? Told you it was simple. :)
Fly your ships around in space, and anything smaller than a battle ship can fly a few more places. If you warp to a planet, you don't just warp to a planet, you can select a city to warp to as well. Warp to high orbit, in the docking space of a ground city, and fly your ship down and dock at a spaceport on the ground. there could even be different space ports for different ships, IE commercial/freighter, shuttles, repair facilities that are player owned, etc. All the commerce and businesses that exist in space could also exist on the ground. Take any aspect of an MMO other than Eve, and incorporate that mechanic to the ground portion of Eve. The missions, the industry, the ground based skill sets, everything.
Scanning skills in Eve could also benefit scanning and exploration skills for new planets. Certain planets would by necessity have certain, unique, city structures, keeping in line with what Dust and current PI needs are. In the space age theme of Eve, (and/or Star Wars or Firefly), expanding to different planets, systems and regions is just a matter of a player doing it. Default, NPC "basic" settlements could/would exist to help an explorer with basic necessities on any planet they are landing on, but planet development would be directed by players and what they transport/freight in, and what they set up. Anything that the player can do in space, can be done in a similar ground-based theme. New player income and occupation opportunities would abound.
So, like, I know. "Dude, sounds like a job. Sounds like life. I play Eve for fun, not another job! I play Eve to get away from real life for a little while!" Yeah, but the difference is, as massive and all-encompassing as the Eve "universe" (truly) could be, with the amalgamation of space with the ground, you can walk away from it. If you're bored with space, go "live" on a planet. in real life, you have to do a lot of boring and tedious things, you have to "work", because it pays the bills. In Eve, if you're bored with running a mining/industrial POS in a WH, go try a mining operation on a planet where you manufacture weapons and vehicles for use on a planet. Go be a ground based bounty hunter or merc. Be a bandit and hijack ground based shipments or operate a shipping agency, ground to ground, ground to space, planet to planet, whatever you want. Is every planet going to be civilized? What kind of intelligent life or animals will be on each planet? At what evolutionary stage will each planet be? Want to fight alien dinosaurs or dragons? How about advanced AI machines? Whatever CCP and the players can come up with, there's thousands upon thousands of planets just waiting to be populated.
As monumentally huge a project as something like this would be, the upside is, EVERY gamer, whether they are console or PC, shooter, griefer, avatar-fan, whatever, they all would have a spot to fill, a place to play, a piece of gameplay that fits them. Want a melting pot? Eve: Universe.
On a more pragmatic note, maybe this is the direction CCP is headed anyway once they find out how well Eve and Dust are going to interact. Hope so, but it would be a fairly massive undertaking.
Missions, missions . . . . EVERYWHERE
The one thing about Eve, that's sort of crazy, is all the missions, and gents, and did I mention missions? Just doing some simple math, there are something like 7500 systems in even. Often multiple agents per system, not to mention the special agents that are out and about, floating in space with a ship to fly up to. While many are similar, and something tells me that the same level of agent will offer the same catalogue of missions, in random occurrence, the variety of different agent types and locations will keep things interesting for a long time.
I ran enough missions with Carthum to be able to talk to their level 4 R&D dudes, but I only have the skills up to level 3. It's another 12 to 16 days to get the science skills up to level 4 to talk to their big dogs. More important things to do right now than train that. Slowly levelling up the toons and building up some isk by running Incursions and then back to the missions, although the isk from Incursions is very . . . addicting. :)
The COSMOS missions I've run so far were very cool. I love seeing new systems, new types of space, new stations and different kinds of missions. I've only scratched the surface on Incursions and look to collect a whole pile of funky BPOs, and then see how easy some of them will be to make. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Data Centre agents, and eventually would like to run the epic arcs as well. As most of the other toons, besides my main, have rather abysmal combat skills, the intervening time between now and some incursion cash build-up will involve training up the combat skills to carry on with COSMOS in a salvage and support capacity and then see where I want to go next. I have no doubt now, that the "next" will likely be a number of months down the road as the COSMOS missions take a while when running them in threes.
The Point? There are SO many missions in Eve, of so many different types, I find it incredulous when people say they are "bored" of missions. Reminds me of when I lived in Germany for four years, and friends and co-workers said they were "bored" with Europe after living there for 6 months. O.o
I ran enough missions with Carthum to be able to talk to their level 4 R&D dudes, but I only have the skills up to level 3. It's another 12 to 16 days to get the science skills up to level 4 to talk to their big dogs. More important things to do right now than train that. Slowly levelling up the toons and building up some isk by running Incursions and then back to the missions, although the isk from Incursions is very . . . addicting. :)
The COSMOS missions I've run so far were very cool. I love seeing new systems, new types of space, new stations and different kinds of missions. I've only scratched the surface on Incursions and look to collect a whole pile of funky BPOs, and then see how easy some of them will be to make. I'm also looking forward to seeing the Data Centre agents, and eventually would like to run the epic arcs as well. As most of the other toons, besides my main, have rather abysmal combat skills, the intervening time between now and some incursion cash build-up will involve training up the combat skills to carry on with COSMOS in a salvage and support capacity and then see where I want to go next. I have no doubt now, that the "next" will likely be a number of months down the road as the COSMOS missions take a while when running them in threes.
The Point? There are SO many missions in Eve, of so many different types, I find it incredulous when people say they are "bored" of missions. Reminds me of when I lived in Germany for four years, and friends and co-workers said they were "bored" with Europe after living there for 6 months. O.o
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Insurance assurance
Early on in playing Eve, and maybe even in the tutorial, a player is told to buy insurance. A good thing for a cash-strapped newb, but not so much of a big deal now that I am more flush with cash. I never worried much about insurance as 9 times out of 10, I usually lose my boats AFTER the policy has expired, and as I am allergic to checking my mail, I usually miss the mail notices that my insurance has expired. I'll maybe go do some experimenting with insurance costs on cheaper boats, but something made me stop buying insurance at all, a little while ago, and I forgot what it was until I recently had to replace my Incursion-expired N Geddon. "Ah haaa, she cried!", as I insured my replacement, NOW I remember why!
After I built up my new Incursion geddoG, I decided to insure it. Last one I built, I thought I insured it, but probably didn't. Likely forgot. No problem. I don't undock anything I can't afford to lose, and if there's something I can't afford to lose, I don't buy it in the first place. So, enough philosophy . . . the numbers.
After I lost the BS, I got a handy email from Concord, I think, telling me that they gave me 17.7 million bucks for my Geddon. Cool. It's "insurance for people that don't have insurance" insurance. As I said, I insured the new boat, and it cost me over 17 million to insure it for about 41 million - max insurance available. Not a whole lot of security for a faction BS, and I'll have to check and see if that is the max insurance for a T1 BS too. So, in theory, if I lose my BS before the policy expires, I make 24 million back, net. If I don't lose the boat before the insurance expires, I either spend another 17 million, or don't renew the policy. If I spend ANOTHER 17 million, now I'll only get an extra 7 million back (40-17 = 24-17 = 7). So, if I compare the un-insurance insurance (which cost me nothing) to the "extra" 24 million I'd get back if I bought an insurance policy, the difference is only about 6 million extra. Not much considering the hundreds of millions lost due to the cost of the boat in the first place. Also, if I manage to hang onto the boat long enough for the insurance to run out, I'm only "up" about an extra half a million. 6 million isn't even one Vanguard, and only about 30 minutes of mining. Not a lot of effort.
Now, when it comes to Eve, it's all about isk/hour and any "free" isk is good isk. So, on one hand, 6 million isn't much, but on the other hand, especially with an Incursion boat, the likelihood is higher that I will lose the boat at some point, so that 6 million extra might actually be 24 million extra. I fitted out a couple Myrmidons for the alts, and they were about 30 million each. I'll see how much I can get back with a maxxed insurance policy. Same with the smaller boats and Hulks.
The Point? I need to confirm that insurance is worth the money I pay. It probably is, otherwise it wouldn't be an option in the first place. I just need to confirm that.
After I built up my new Incursion geddoG, I decided to insure it. Last one I built, I thought I insured it, but probably didn't. Likely forgot. No problem. I don't undock anything I can't afford to lose, and if there's something I can't afford to lose, I don't buy it in the first place. So, enough philosophy . . . the numbers.
After I lost the BS, I got a handy email from Concord, I think, telling me that they gave me 17.7 million bucks for my Geddon. Cool. It's "insurance for people that don't have insurance" insurance. As I said, I insured the new boat, and it cost me over 17 million to insure it for about 41 million - max insurance available. Not a whole lot of security for a faction BS, and I'll have to check and see if that is the max insurance for a T1 BS too. So, in theory, if I lose my BS before the policy expires, I make 24 million back, net. If I don't lose the boat before the insurance expires, I either spend another 17 million, or don't renew the policy. If I spend ANOTHER 17 million, now I'll only get an extra 7 million back (40-17 = 24-17 = 7). So, if I compare the un-insurance insurance (which cost me nothing) to the "extra" 24 million I'd get back if I bought an insurance policy, the difference is only about 6 million extra. Not much considering the hundreds of millions lost due to the cost of the boat in the first place. Also, if I manage to hang onto the boat long enough for the insurance to run out, I'm only "up" about an extra half a million. 6 million isn't even one Vanguard, and only about 30 minutes of mining. Not a lot of effort.
Now, when it comes to Eve, it's all about isk/hour and any "free" isk is good isk. So, on one hand, 6 million isn't much, but on the other hand, especially with an Incursion boat, the likelihood is higher that I will lose the boat at some point, so that 6 million extra might actually be 24 million extra. I fitted out a couple Myrmidons for the alts, and they were about 30 million each. I'll see how much I can get back with a maxxed insurance policy. Same with the smaller boats and Hulks.
The Point? I need to confirm that insurance is worth the money I pay. It probably is, otherwise it wouldn't be an option in the first place. I just need to confirm that.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Incursions: All aboard!
As mentioned previously, there's lots of apparently badass and opinionated "experts" on running Incursion Vanguards, or fleets in general, but mainly, ONLY from the security of a position of minimal effort and minimal risk. Not being interested in sitting around waiting to be invited to a fleet, I've run enough, and read enough about the sites, that I decided fairly early maybe, to form my own fleets.
So anyway, one fleet I'm FCing, we're running VGs, and have done 7 or 8 sites. Decent fleet, people seem to have a clue, and we were running along at a little over 70 million/hr. I'm happy, but it's rather intensive as I'm FCing and tagging. No one else wanted to, or claimed to be able to, tag. No problem.
So we hit this one Override Transfer Array. Our logi pilots were good but one had to leave. I started looking for another logi, but the fleet members started talking about being able to run sites with just two logis. I didn't know, so I asked eveyone in fleet, confirmed with the logis that they thought they could do it, everyone said go for it, so we went in with 8 DPS and 2 Scimitars. I was running a safer shooting order this time. On good, smart, strong DPS fleets, and if the spawns work as intended, you can kill the first two Augas, leave the Deltole, kill the next two Deltoles, ignore the Augas, do the first Deltole, and boom the site is done and chicks want to go halfers on a "memory" with you. Problem with this method is that a fairly lethal number of ships can build up and if the logis can't keep up, you're screwed. I elected to run a little safer, that takes a couple minutes more, and kill the Augas, then the Deltole, rinse and repeat twice more. While waiting for the next "AAD" spawn, we were shooting Tamas to reduce the incoming DPS.
Two of the DPS "experts" started a discussion, which turned into an argument, about the shooting order. I told them to be quiet and just shoot the tags. The dick that one was, he said FU and bailed in the room, leaving us one DPS short. I didn't realize this at first as I was making sure DPS, tagging and spawns were being sorted out. In the short time that it took me to realize this, a new spawn appeared seconds later, and before I could formulate a plan, the one Scimitar got primaried, was popped as the other scimi was trying to rep the first, and then we were down to one logi. Now supposedly memory is enhanced during traumatic events, but I have no idea about the name of that fucker. No one else seemed to remember him either. Too bad. At any rate, people were starting to freak out, understandably so, the last logi is saying GET OUT!! I'm ALL OVER that "suggestion", and I'm trying to wing warp the fleet to the sun, which was nearly dead ahead, and lots of stuff is popping, and unfortunately not all of it is rats. Some got out, some did not, mostly not, but in suitable fashion, I think, I went down with the ship . . so to speak. I watched as some purples popped and thankfully, as a couple got out. I was the last boat in the pocket, watching as I was webbed, scrammed, neuted, tarred, feathered and anything else they could throw at me. I overheated the hardeners and DCM, like THAT was going to save me, and was hoping that the Deltole I was shooting at was third, because at this point now, if it WASN'T the third one, and/or I DIDN'T pop it, I was going to be a whole lot of space debris . . . like some of my fleet mates.
Point of fact, I really never had a chance, and ended up warping my pod to station to figure out what to do next. I was sort of overwhelmed. First, never in a million years would I have guessed that ass would have done what he did. 2nd, I really didn't understand the kind of shit kicking the rats could lay down once things start to go south in a site, mainly because the fleets I've been in have been strong - no problems. And C, because of points 1 and 2, I never really had a plan on what to do as a contingency. I thought/think I was managing the tagging and FCing duties well enough, as we had had no problems with the previous sites, even 2 other OTAs, but once the shit started to hit the fan, I think was was pretty much overwhelmed with information. If I had realized earlier that the ass bailed, I could have tried to warp the fleet immediately. It may or may not have saved more boats, but I run through mental what-ifs, every time I'm in a site now. NOW, I always have a contingency ready to GTFO at the least sign of trouble. Losing a site is nothing. Losing a boat sucks.
The rest of the fleet, at least the ones that stayed around or spoke, were pretty cool about it. I really didn't care about the shiny N Geddon I lost, I felt bad that I had been at the helm when other players lost their boats. Along with mine, 2 Scimitars, a Nightmare, a Vindicator and a Macharielisk by about 750,000, but the upside is two fold . . . three fold. If a logi drops, there should be enough DPS to chew up the rats and everyone is safe. If a DPS drops, we still have 7 DPS and 3 logi - everyone is safe. If no one drops, 8 DPS and 3 logi should enable the fleet to run the rooms quicker, which compensates for the initial loss of 750K per site.
The Point? Be prepared for the unexpected and don't underestimate the power of the dark side, or the rats - they're bad monkeys! You can't know certain things about players unless/until you fleet with them, so make sure there's "head room" to manage emergencies, and I'll be handing off tagging duties to someone else next time I FC - it's really not that hard.
So anyway, one fleet I'm FCing, we're running VGs, and have done 7 or 8 sites. Decent fleet, people seem to have a clue, and we were running along at a little over 70 million/hr. I'm happy, but it's rather intensive as I'm FCing and tagging. No one else wanted to, or claimed to be able to, tag. No problem.
So we hit this one Override Transfer Array. Our logi pilots were good but one had to leave. I started looking for another logi, but the fleet members started talking about being able to run sites with just two logis. I didn't know, so I asked eveyone in fleet, confirmed with the logis that they thought they could do it, everyone said go for it, so we went in with 8 DPS and 2 Scimitars. I was running a safer shooting order this time. On good, smart, strong DPS fleets, and if the spawns work as intended, you can kill the first two Augas, leave the Deltole, kill the next two Deltoles, ignore the Augas, do the first Deltole, and boom the site is done and chicks want to go halfers on a "memory" with you. Problem with this method is that a fairly lethal number of ships can build up and if the logis can't keep up, you're screwed. I elected to run a little safer, that takes a couple minutes more, and kill the Augas, then the Deltole, rinse and repeat twice more. While waiting for the next "AAD" spawn, we were shooting Tamas to reduce the incoming DPS.
 |
| R.I.P. buddy . . QQ |
Point of fact, I really never had a chance, and ended up warping my pod to station to figure out what to do next. I was sort of overwhelmed. First, never in a million years would I have guessed that ass would have done what he did. 2nd, I really didn't understand the kind of shit kicking the rats could lay down once things start to go south in a site, mainly because the fleets I've been in have been strong - no problems. And C, because of points 1 and 2, I never really had a plan on what to do as a contingency. I thought/think I was managing the tagging and FCing duties well enough, as we had had no problems with the previous sites, even 2 other OTAs, but once the shit started to hit the fan, I think was was pretty much overwhelmed with information. If I had realized earlier that the ass bailed, I could have tried to warp the fleet immediately. It may or may not have saved more boats, but I run through mental what-ifs, every time I'm in a site now. NOW, I always have a contingency ready to GTFO at the least sign of trouble. Losing a site is nothing. Losing a boat sucks.
The rest of the fleet, at least the ones that stayed around or spoke, were pretty cool about it. I really didn't care about the shiny N Geddon I lost, I felt bad that I had been at the helm when other players lost their boats. Along with mine, 2 Scimitars, a Nightmare, a Vindicator and a Macharielisk by about 750,000, but the upside is two fold . . . three fold. If a logi drops, there should be enough DPS to chew up the rats and everyone is safe. If a DPS drops, we still have 7 DPS and 3 logi - everyone is safe. If no one drops, 8 DPS and 3 logi should enable the fleet to run the rooms quicker, which compensates for the initial loss of 750K per site.
The Point? Be prepared for the unexpected and don't underestimate the power of the dark side, or the rats - they're bad monkeys! You can't know certain things about players unless/until you fleet with them, so make sure there's "head room" to manage emergencies, and I'll be handing off tagging duties to someone else next time I FC - it's really not that hard.
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