What happens when Data Analyst and a Coder team up? [UPDATE]

If you want to know what happens when Lockefox (@HLIBIndustry) and I team up, see these two links:

by-group by-type

What’s that?

This is animated kill stats for 2013. Each blink is a ship of given type (or group) being destroyed!

You probably wonder if you can watch the battle of Asakai here? Well, not really. Let’s say 1,167,452 capsules got killed in 2013. That means, on average, every 27 seconds one was popped. The Capsule image on the webpage will therefore blink every 27 seconds (since I speed up time by 20x, it will blink every 1,5 seconds instead). In short, it’s showing the average frequency, not the actual kills. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible to playback live data on this “ship grid” – it’s only matter of getting hold of the actual kill data as it happened. It should be even easier for a single battle – B-R – I’m looking at you!

How did we do this?

Lockefox had a database with kill data for the whole 2013 (downloaded from zKillboard.com), but we didn’t have an idea how to show it. Our inspiration came from XKCD Frequency – an animated gif, which shows how often some things happen in real world. Making it an animated gif however would be rather time consuming, so instead I’ve chosen javascript. First, javascript does a lot of things automatically. If I want to change something, for example update the data or make a 2014 version, I only have to update the CSV data with kill information. Scripts will do the rest. Later in the development I realized that for ship types I can actually use their icons instead of text, which should look better. So I came up with an idea of ship type grid, with icons blinking every time something is destroyed.

I have some more ideas how to present this information, so stay tuned. More pretty graphs and visualisations is coming soon!

Update

After we’ve published the 2013 kill stats yesterday, people kept asking if it was real time data. But it wasn’t.

So today I got the B-R5RB killmail database from Lockefox and used the ship grid from yesterday to make… an actual EVE Online Battle Player!

by-type

Since the event was played at 10% TiDi, if you set the time compression to 10x (yes, I’ve added a slider for that!), you will get real time as it would have happened without TiDi. Of course the entire battle took over 24 hours, so it’s best viewed at 100x 😉 Enjoy!

Wardecs, Business and POS

war-at-posI’m sure there’s plenty of high-sec industrialists, who are afraid of wardecs. There are players who do PVP on one character and Industry on another, but there is also lots of those who only like to build sandcastles, letting someone else destroy them (as long as it means profit of course). Corporations made of the other kind of players are at increased risk of non-consensual PVP. That’s why I’ve decided to write up how such corp can deal with agressors, based on our recent experiences.

There are two types of wardecs

One that is merely a nuisance and another that can be a show-stopper.

The beginning of new year saw an omnidirectional “Burn highsec” campaing by the Marmite Collective. While dangerous for travellers, these kinds of wardecs are more less safe for business, as Marmite’s rearely attack POS or POCOs, and logistics can always be done by out of corp freighter alts (or even Red Frog if need be).

But Aideron Technologies has fallen victim to another wardec in January: The BEA’s – Unintended Consequences alliance (a merc wing of what otherwise looks like a probably dead industry/pve alliance: The Butterfly Effect). They claimed they have a contract against Aideron Technologies for transgressions of one of our members. It sounded unlikely, even more so because they didn’t give any names. They were seen around our home system, so we have promptly halted all the production and pulled all the labs, turning on hardeners and waiting for the agressors move.

They didn’t talk to us until the last day of the first week, when they demanded a ransom (slightly more than one PLEX worth of ISK). Otherwise a fleet of Vindicators and a handful of other faction battleships would level all our POCOs and POS (mind Aideron Technologies has no POCOs at all, but whatever). Of course they all logged on instantly and undocked their shiny battleship fleet to show they’re not joking. Not sure why (probably has something to do with our diplo), but they let the first wardec expire and started another one, giving us 24 hours of time. It was a perfect window to pull down all towers to safety, thus there was nothing more they could ransom us for.

Fear not, the agressors didn’t stop there. For us not honoring the ransom they offered, they stated they are going to wardec us indefinitely, to completely break and disband our corp.

The war lasted exactly one more week

I am not going to lie. After having a blast in Stay Frosty FFA, I was eager to do some PVP. I was even devising strategies how to fight their Vindicator bash fleet. Unfortunately, Aideron Technologies being a purely industrial corp with only a handful pilots experienced enough in PVP was not going to fight. And my one man army of me, myself & I was not nearly enough to do so either. But I’ve gathered as much intel as I could, written it all down on the corp wiki (there is a few pages of information there now!) and had my locator agent pin the enemies on the map. Guerilla warfare favors use of fast ships like Vagabond and e-war ships like the Curse, so I fit a few of each. Surprisingly enough, the whole second week of wardec they only hopped online briefly to what seemed skill queue updates. Their killboard ends on January 30th. There is no sign of them afterwards.

Does it mean Aideron Technologies is not doing industry anymore?

Well, we’ve pulled all our POS down, which means we no longer have the labs to use. Our enemies thought we have no other choice: either pay up the ransom, or loose the POS towers (which means the industry would have to stop entirely, plus, AT has no standings with Gallente Federation to put the towers back up). Obviously, they were wrong, because we had a few more choices:

  • First, having a POS is a simple convenience. A high sec corp doesn’t need POS at all to run industry. All you have to do is decentralize, find NPC stations with free Invention and Manufacturing slots. Copying in NPC stations is indeed a pain, but we are patient fellows.
  • Secondly, we could join an alliance, increasing the wardec cost to a point where it’s not feasible for the attacker to keep the wardec up anymore
  • Thirdly, high sec manufacturable capitals, namely Freighters and Orcas can be easily made without a POS, and the whole enterprise can still be profitable.
  • Lastly, out of corp alts can always do the logistics

As you can see, wardeccing a high sec corp is easy. Killing their POS towers is only a matter of having enough force at hand. Stopping a corp from doing industry in high sec entirely? Nearly impossible, as they can stay turtled indefinitely, still making ISK in the safety of station.

And of course there is a handful of counters to a Vindicator bash fleet if you wish to fight back. They are short range Neutron Blaster fits you see. Is this enough of a hint?

Wardecs will happen, because this is EVE

As long as you stay in high sec, you will always be at the risk of wardecs. And that’s ok really. I mean, yes, they are a disruption of normal day-to-day operations. But this is exactly what I love EVE for: it’s unpredictable. Wars are a refresher, that makes the boring life of an industrialist less boring. They require creative thinking and using game mechanics to your favour. Which, again, is great. If I wanted a game that takes material records from database table A, inserts them as manufacturing tasks to table B, and then outputs them as new product records back to table A, I would write a browser game that does it myself (damn, this is an awesome idea! I think I should start writing that! …wait a minute, I still have a few outstanding projects).

What’s wrong with Industry in EVE?

The recent survey about industry by CCP Arrow has awakened hope in industry oriented players of EVE. Wait, does it mean something is wrong with the industry in EVE?

To answer this question we should first have a look…

Who is doing industry in EVE and why?

  • alts of PVP oriented characters
  • busy individuals who can’t stay logged in game for long

Industry (which is basically how crafting is referred to in EVE) caters to the needs of people who don’t want to (or can’t) spend a lot of time on EVE. Why? Because industry requires a brief period of activity, and then you are free to do something else. Install another Linux box, change diapers, shoot stuff on another character (* delete where inapplicable). It means industry is a rather passive activity. Should it be made more active? Should mining become a gang activity that requires 100% attention? Should industry be made more active like the hacking minigame was? Well, as long as it adds to the current system, rather than replaces it, I’m ok with it. But EVE requires different types of activities – it is great because you don’t always have to grind. Skillpoints are gained regardless if you’re logged in or not. There are activitites which require undivided attention, like PVP or Incursions. Or missioning/exploring low sec. There are those which require moderate attention – for example missioning in high sec. And there are activities that require low amounts of attention or none at all. Mining would be example of activity which doesn’t require much attention. Do you know why miners are so pissed with James 315 and his crusade to get rid of miners in high sec? Because ganks require miners to pay much more attention that they would otherwise have to. And there comes industry: most of production is done in the safety of a station, be it in high sec or low, or even null, not to mention PI which is as simple as “push button, wait x time, receive bacon”.

What’s wrong then? It seems industrialists are pretty happy with the state of affairs, no? They have their activities in EVE, that don’t force them to sit at the computer for hours on end. So, again: what’s wrong?

GUI is wrong. Well, maybe not in a strict sense wrong. It is wrong as in seriously outdated. It haven’t changed much over the years. Yes, it was iterated upon, for example when Reverse Engineering was introduced in Apocrypha, but it was rather adding a new record in an already existing database.

The core problem with industry in EVE is clickfest

Every industralist's favourite window
Every industralist’s favourite window

Most activities are highly repeatable. You have to login every x hours to start 10 invention and 10 manufacturing jobs. Starting up each job is 9 mouse clicks and 1 or 2 entries from keyboard.That gives 180 clicks just to set up one batch of invention and manufacturing jobs. It’s funny how CCP changed the first implementation of PI to reduce the amount of clicks. This is exactly what manufacturing, invention and copying needs: getting rid of the clickfest.

Possible solutions:

  • Introduce ability to start multiple jobs with just one set of clicks:
    • Choose an installation with free slots: Corp lab/assembly array or NPC factory
    • Set up parameters for a single run like you would right now
    • Choose to repeat the same job x times
    • As long as installation has free slots, there are correct number of blueprints and materials that meet the criteria, the job is inserted this many times
  • Make GUI remember past choices.
    • It already remembers if we used Corp or Public installations. Why can’t it remember the last invention/decryptor choice?
    • client should remember the choice for each blueprintTypeID
  • pick-installationChange the “Pick Installation” window to have installation list on the left, and production lines on the right, rather than one on top of the other.
    • In corporations with many installations (over 50)  the majority of time is spent on scrolling this list.  Why scrolling? Because the size of the installation list is fixed, and cannot be resized after reaching a certain height.
    • If the lists were displayed next to each other, the height limit would be the size of the window. This should make it possible to see either most or all available installations

Contribution tracking

Manufacturing and invention are very much like real ife work, so many corporations decide to pay their members for the work contributed towards corp goals. Unfortunately besides the API, game offers no GUI to track participation in the S&I program. Even if CCP wanted to introduce it in EVE it will be hard, because some corporations will choose to pay for the time character spent on manufacturing or invention jobs for corporation, promoting long jobs over short ones. Other corporations will choose to promote people who do a lot of clicking, paying for the amount of jobs installed, rather than for how long it took to complete them. There will also be those who would be willing to pay a share of the profit on specific item. As you can see, there is a multitude of options to choose from (which is bad for implementation).

timesheetSince there is no tools in game, Aideron Technologies has chosen to build our own tool (this is how LMeve was born). We have also chosen to pay for the amount of time, because if people run jobs for corp, they can’t run jobs for themselves.

What should CCP do?

  • Make a report available to corp Directors, which allows contribution tracking
  • The report should show (for each character)
    • How many jobs have been installed (per activityID)
    • How much time they took (per activityID)
    • How many products (t2 BPCs, items) have been produced

This would allow CEOs to pay their members for their chosen contribution metric. A contribution-to-isk calculator, that says how much corp owes their members would be perfect.

Progress Tracking

tasksCorp members can have many different production tasks assigned by corp. How would they know how many more Heavy Neutron Blasters they should build or invent? This is where progress tracking chimes in. Each character should have a small UI that shows their progress through the tasks that the Directors/Production Managers assigned to them. This way corp member “A” can invent exactly 100 BPCs, and corp member “B” can build exactly 100 modules, not to mention corp members “C” and “D”, who will make enough R.A.M.s and tech II parts to make said modules.

Planning

So the corp wants to make 200 Covert Ops Cloaking Devices II. This requires quite some effort:

  • 400 Tech I BPCs have to be copied
  • 200 Ishukone and 200 CreoDron R.Db.s have to be made to enable copying
  • 200 Tech II BPCs have to be invented
  • 50 Electronics R.A.M.s have to be made
  • Photon Microprocessors and Graviton Pulse generators have to be made (4000 and 3000 respectively)
  • Finally, 200 Tech II Covert Ops cloaks can be manufactured
  • of course Logisitcs have to provide all the materials, including PI, moon goo, minerals and datacores

kitsHow did I know how much work is required? Well, everything was in the Static Data Export, all I’ve done was connect and display that information. What should the GUI do in such case?

  • Insert a Copy task
  • Insert all intermediate Manufacturing tasks
  • Insert an Invention task
  • Insert a T2 Manufacturing task
  • Generate a shopping list for Logistic pilot

Of course some of the items above can be sourced from market instead of manufacturing them in-house. By the way, I’m pretty sure the ISIS interface would be great to visualize even the most complicated production process.

What’s wrong with Industry in EVE?

First, it’s a clickfest. It takes several mouse button presses to set up a single job. Secondly, game offers no tools to coordinate large scale S&I efforts. The GUI works good enough for a solo manufacturer, who uses either public or limited number of player owned installations, but is completely unprepared for corps which own hundreds of labs and run thousands of jobs each month. There are also no tools for planning or tracking S&I activities of a group.

The result: a multitude of third party tools to choose from

All the above results in players making third party tools which help with tracking and planning:

By the way. You know player-made killboards, right? Ever heard of War Reports feature in EVE? Guess which was first.

Rubicon 1.1 Static Data Dump conversion

DevFleetHi #DevFleet! CCP has again published the static data dump before deploying expansion to Tranqulity. I would like to thank @Darkblad_eve here, who sent me and @FuzzySteve a heads up tweet on Twitter last night about new SDE being available. It seems CCP has a new procedure: SDE is deployed on friday immediately preceding the usual tuesday expansion deployment on Tranquility (only database is available for now, icons have not been published yet). Anyway, today I had a few spare mintues to run the conversion. Please find the results here:

You might want to get the new “Ship traits” -> Head to Fuzzy Steve’s page (look for invTraits).

The original MSSQL data dump is available on the official Toolkit page.

LMeve Database updated

The item database has been updated to use the new Static Data dump as well. For example: Nestor stats are up to date now, and Deployable Structures have been move to Structures group, along with other POS and Outpost modules. When you head there, you will find all the new deployables (they will be missing icons until CCP publishes them, though).

…coming soon in Rubicon Point-Release

With the new year break now over, Rubicon 1.1 is looming closer. If you’ve enjoyed the new deployables in Rubicon, you will certainly like the two new ones coming in this point release!

Rubicon 1.1 will be deployed on January 28th, 2014.

Mobile Micro Jump Unit

  • single use structure
  • can’t be placed:
    • within 20km of gates or stations,
    • within 40km of a starbase tower
    • within 10km of another MJU
  • you have to be in range (within 5000m) to start spool-up
  • spool-up of 12s, skills are not taken into account
  • no cooldown – can immediately use a MJD or another MJU
  • anchor time 60s
  • lifetime 48hr
  • 5k EHP
  • can be used by friends and foes alike
  • 50m3 volume
  • 1M ISK build cost

If it could only be used by friends, it would be a major game changer, but it would also be overpowered a lot. With the approach CCP took, it seems much more balanced. Use cases? Quick spread-out to avoid getting bombed (MJU does not determine the direction of the micro jump). Will also allow a lot of cat & mouse games if you put enough of those around a reinforced tower. And yes, this structure is very similar to an acceleration gate (well, it does not determine the direction, though). Fun to be had!

Mobile Scan Inhibitor

  • single use structure
  • Can’t be placed:
    • within 75km of gates, wormholes or stations,
    • within 40km of control towers
    • within 100km of another scan inhibitor – MSIs can’t cloak each other
  • Hides everything within 30km radius from
    • d-scan
    • combat probes
    • itself it can be probed pretty easily
    • you only know something is hidden, but you don’t know WHAT
  • Ships inside 30km radius of MSI cannot use d-scan o probes
  • anchor time 60s
  • lifetime 1hr
  • 45k EHP
  • 100m3 volume
  • 15M ISK build cost

Again, not a major game changer, but allows to hide fleet composition from dcsan, which can be pretty useful. 30km range means that even if hidden ships are orbiting at 29,5km from the structure, it should be quite easy to catch them. Ceptors, arazus/lachesis’/proteus’ should be able to do that nearly instantly. HICs however would not be able to bubble everything just after dropping, though. Again, it gives a twist, but is not a major game changer.

Ships

More?

Well, if you log in to the Singularity test server, there is even more point-release things to see:

  • Little things by CCP karkur
  • Resists in Show Info are in one row now
  • Redesigned Station models (in space)
  • Redesigned Capital wrecks (WiP)
  • Rendered icons are now part of the patch

More reading: CCP Fozzie forum post, CCP Habakuk forum post

A drive that should not be tampered with

Undisclosed location in Essence region,
POS owned by Aideron Technologies

Research log, 23rd of December, YC115. I will be attempting to disassemble external compression dishes of new Sisters of EVE warp drive. Both armor and external hull have been stripped. Dishes are made of unknown, possibly fullerene material and are consisting of two 120 degree arcs on both sides of the hull. Arcs are fitted with a grid of graviton emitters and are bearing the logo of Propel Dynamics. Power coupling which connects compression dishes to ships powergrid is of Caldari origin as well and is based on graviton technology. There is an electronic interface on the bottom of the starboard arc.

astero-drydockRox was still amazed how Sisters of EVE were able to convince several companies around New Eden, from all four factions that are currently at war with each other, to cooperate and provide components for the new ships. Astero was half disassembled already, and only vaguely reminded of it’s original shape. With the armor plates removed, most of the ship was made of light grey tritanium alloy, full of sticking I-beams, wires and tubes interconnecting all the ships systems. The drydock assembly array was normally used by Aideron Technologies to produce tech II ships, but it was just as useful to disassemble them and analyze their inner workings. Powerful stasis field kept the ship in place, while robotic arms removed components part by part, like a surgeon operating on a beating heart. Lukas was just outside the structure in a small Gallente shuttle. It was curious how the Sisters managed to move one of the crucial warp drive components from the inside of the ship to the external, ringlike structures outside of the ships hull. This mechnism is what made these ships able to use covert-ops cloaks, without the need for advanced quantum computers and huge cooling systems normally required to keep them operational.

Now attempting to remove the compression dish control electronics.

Robotic arm reached for a small piece of electronics attached to the bottom of the right arc. Reverse engineering these chips would probably yield insights into how exactly the drive operates. Just after the device was removed, the grid on both arcs began to glow. It was a dim blue light at first, but it was becoming brighter and more intense with every second.

Graviton levels are off the scale, removing the control circuitry from the drive has caused some kind of runaway reaction. Aura, signal the CEO, we might have to evacuate…

Rox did not finish his command. Half-disassembled Astero collapsed violently as if sucked by a black hole. The surrounding assembly array followed the implosion, pulling all the robotics, then the dry dock, and the assembly array hangar inside. Rox willed his shuttle away from the structure, but it was too late. The implosion suddenly reversed, releasing bright white light that enveloped the tiny craft, obliterating it instantly. The capsule, even though well shielded, crumbled under the intense pressure and heat. The ectoplasmic gel, which normally fills the capsule began to heat and then boil, making Rox twitch in pain. The pain was so intense, that he wanted to scream, but the tracheal tube would not allow it. You see, in space, no one can hear you scream. The blast damaged the surrounding Mobile Laboratories disabling half a dozen of them immediately, and it made the POS shield flicker for a several seconds. And then everything went dark. At least as far as Rox was concerned.

***

Lukas was expecting to see white light; it’s normal, because new clones never used their eyes before, making them very sensitive for the first couple of minutes.

Instead, his body was still in dull pain. But pain meant he was alive. The capsule did not feed anything into his brain socket, so it must have been seriously damaged.

– Lukas, can you hear me? – a voice said – Are you all right? Listen, we’ve received a notification that POS is under attack. Are you ok?

– I will live – Rox willed his thoughts through the barely operational FTL radio. – Lukas realized it was Razeu, who came to check up on the explosion.

– I am repairing your pod, it caught fire. You should be able to fly back to station… right now.

Rox was weak, and couldn’t feel his limbs, but willed the capsule into warp. Medical personel was waiting on the docking ramp already.

***

Undisclosed station in Essence region
Poteque Pharmaceuticals property

– We are sorry – said a doctor in a white robe – but we were unable to save your left arm.

– It’s all right – Rox replied – it will only have to do until next time I die.

– Well, technically yes. But until then, you have been given a Phanca arm prosthesis. We were also able to treat all 12 broken bones and severe burns that you’ve survived. We did what we could about the scars, but I’m afraid they will still be visible. Of course since you are an empyrean, all these are permanent, but for this clone only.

– How long until I can get back to work? – Rox inquired

– You should rest at least a week before going back into capsule. We will monitor your vitals, but they should remain stable. – doctor replied

– I would probably be more lucky if the pod blew. – Rox said

– Not quite – the doctor said – You will have to ask your technicians, because I don’t know the details, but it seems the explosion disabled all FTL comms for a moment. That would include brain scan from your capsule.

A shiver went down Rox’s spine. That was close!

– It seems I should’ve listened to that note and not tamper with it. – Rox said to himself.

– Excuse me? – asked the doctor

A little Panzer Orca that could…

Some time ago I saw this sad video on Twitch TV

(Scroll to 1:48 to see the action, otherwise bear with ice mining for nearly 2 minutes)


Watch live video from x3aro on TwitchTV

Ganking is of course part of the game, and CCP is unlikely to do anything about it. Why? If ships are not blown up, nobody would buy new ships to replace them, and mineral prices would plummet quickly. I’m sure that would make miners way more sorry than ganking.

So, can an Orca survive a gank? Can Orca make it harder for the gankers?

When fitting a ship in EVE one always has a choice: more DPS, more tank or more mining laser output. Ships have limited number of slots, so they cannot be fit to excell at everything. As a high-sec miner, one would immediately assume that he should fit for mining laser output, whereas Orca pilot would fit to expand the cargohold as much as possible. Why would they fit any tank if they don’t anticipate any combat?

See, the problem is that even if miners don’t intend to fight, someone else might want to fight them. When fitting Orcas and mining ships, the real question should be:

Is the extra cargo space/mining output worth losing Orcas and Hulks? Does the margin gained by fitting 100% towards mining output or cargo capacity cover the losses? If your answer to this question is “yes, my profit margins are so great that I don’t care about losing a few Orcas”, then go ahead, fit for cargo space, and stop reading right here. However if the margins over untanked ships don’t come close to the price of your Orca, read on.

What I should do to make my Orca harder to gank?

– Fit a Panzer Orca of course:

tanky-view

tanky-fittingWhile this fitting won’t prevent a gank from happening, it forces the gankers to use five time as many ships to perform the gank (cargo expanded Orca only has 64,8k EHP, because Cargo Expanders and Cargo Rigs reduce hull and armor respectively). Unless someone is really determined to gank your Panzer Orca (which, knowing James315 is of course entirely possible), gankers will most likely ignore it and look for an easier target.

282k EHP with base Tech II fitting, Tech I rigs and Shield Harmonizing link II. This fit can be further improved by using Tech II rigs and deadspace mods, but the latter would again encourage the gank, so I don’t really recommend it, but yes, it’s doable.

  • Adding Tech II rigs will increase the EHP to 294k
  • Adding A-Type Invulns and X-Type EM/Therm hardeners will further increase EHP to 363,000
  • With Estamel’s hardeners, the EHP reaches mind-blowing 380,000, but 2 billion worth of officer modules will more than likely encourage the gankers to kill the ship for loot.

Granted, Panzer Orca pilot will have to warp back to station much more often, but as I said, that’s the choice:

  • excell at cargo and add lost ships into running costs,

or

  • have less cargo, but reduce probability of losing the ship by a substantial margin.

There is one more advantage to this fit: it increases EHP of all barges and exhumers in the fleet. It works as if they had one more Tech I Invulnerability Field. Pretty neat, eh?

Is there anything else I could do?

Of course there is! First off, watch local. While it was not initially intended to be an intel tool, it has quickly become one and you should make the best possible use of it. If local is at lets say 15 pilots, and then out of a sudden a ship warps to your belt and local jumps to 30, this is a sign of incoming danger. I would warp out if I were you, just in case. Better safe than sorry!

Every player in EVE who did any PVP is also very familiar to the directional scanner. It’s basically a magic radar that tells you what ships and other items are in space in a given range and angle from your ship. If you have ever mined or missioned in low sec you have most likely used it as well. Yes, you have to actively scan every x seconds, and if you see a group of ships like Tornado, Brutix, Catalysts or Thrashers showing up on radar all at once, it’s better to warp out.

You can keep an align to a station or celestial, but this means your ship will be moving. Depending on how you mine, this might be a serious disadvantage. What does it do? It allows for a very quick warp out in case of danger – just hit WARP and you will be on your way.

TL; DR

Always anticipate PVP in EVE. Fit tank on your Orcas, fly tanky Skiffs for mining. Take the game mechanics available to you in your hands and play them to your advantage!

By using the fit above you agree that author of this post will not be held responsible if you lost your Orca despite fitting Panzer Orca fit. Sufficiently determined group of pilots will always be able to gank any ship in high sec, including famous Chribba’s Veldnaught. It’s only a matter of determination and amount of combat ships involved.

My Fedo… my little Fedo!

fedo_bigIf you were lucky (or unlucky depending on the perspective) to get a Fedo instead of other Yule Lad gifts, you probably wonder what to do with it? Well, the sad part is… you can either keep it, or trade it, because it doesn’t do anything else. But what if it COULD do something else?

I got two Fedos, and I came up with an idea. I left my Fedos in the same hangar overnight, hoping they would breed. When I got back the next day, except for the foul smell, I found the same two Fedos I put there earlier.

What if Fedos actually did that? Wouldn’t it be fun if there was Easter Eggs in EVE like that?

Some other ideas:

  • make it a deployable. Once you deploy Fedo in space it will attach to your ships hull and will happily rove on it. Just don’t keep it in space for too long or it dies!
  • make it “a furniture” in CQ – if you have a Fedo in your hangar, it automatically appears in CQ as a 3D model. It would eat the leftover dinner and quafe cans
  • let Fedos breed! If there is more than one in a hangar, there is a chance that more will spawn over time.

EVE already has easter eggs!Yes, after 8 years of playing I know EVE is about blowing up spaceships (preferably not your own), but there’s nothing wrong in a bit of fun here and there. Especially if it is just a few days of development time for one programmer and one 3d artist (and one or two testers). Fedo is just one example, but I wouldn’t say no to a nice 3D Villard Wheel in my CQ. I would finally have a reason to enable the CQ mode at all 😉

There’s plenty easter eggs in the game already (just have a look at the monolith on the left). Not to mention Magic Crystall Ball, A Big Red Button, Scotty the Docking Manager’s Clone or Band of Brothers Director Access Key.

More reading:

Yule Lads are back! Celebrate EVE Holiday season 2013

If you logged on to Account Management page yesterday, you would have noticed a brand new Advent Calendar with Yule Lads!

yule-ladsEach day starting December 12th a new gift will be unlocked – simply click the number next to one of the Yule Lads. Each of them will bring you a few items – some of which are guaranteed, and some are completely random. Some players complain that the holiday gifts in EVE are more less worthless, but imho it’s not the point. Last years Festival Launchers, Snowballs and Fireworks were great fun, even if their market value was just a couple million ISK. Speaking of useful gifts, the Gnosis, which was given away for free for the 10th year anniversary, makes a great PVE and PVP ship.

I don’t won’t to spoil the surprise, so I will not tell you what today’s gift is. Will there be any ships to be given away this year? I hope so, because I have recently found a speedy Leopard shuttle in the Crystal Ball Static Data Dump, and I would be more than happy to give it a speedy spin! Let the gift hunting season begin!

Grab your gifts here


I don’t care about surprises, show me what gifts can I get!

Sisters of EVE Battleship announced: please welcome the ‘Nestor’

Yesterday afternoon CCP Rise has posted the proposed stats for the SoE battleship, the Nestor. For those who expected the first Covert Ops battleship: sorry, not this time. The rumors about Clone Vat Bay turned out to be false as well. The ship has some other traits though, most noticeably its mass, which is about 56% of other Battleships mass. It also has the exploration and hacking bonuses that its smaller siblings have. The initial review is “hmmm… that’s interesting, but…”

Let’s have a look at the tables first

Nestor
SOE_Nestor_Battleship_FinalConcept_lrg
3D webgl preview

Role bonus:

50% bonus to remote repair amount

100% bonus to remote repair range

50% bonus to large energy turret optimal range

50% increased strength for scan probes

+10 virus strength for relic and data analyzers

Amarr Battleship Bonuses:

4% Armor resistances per level

Gallente Battleship Bonuses:

10% drone damage and hitpoints per level

Slot layout: 7/6/6
5 turrets, 0 launcher
Fittings: 11250MW, 680tf
Shields: 8900
Armor: 9950
Hull: 9900
Capacitor: 6200
Cap Recharge: 1044
Max Velocity: 92 m/s
Drone bandwidth: 125
Drone bay: 500
Targeting range: 75 km
Scan Resolution: 85
Max Locked targets: 7
Sensor strength: 24
Signature radius: 465
Cargo capacity: 700

As you can see, it has quite a set of bonuses. We’ve got armor resists, we’ve got drones HP and DPS, we’ve got exploration and hacking and instead of Covert Ops cloak expected by some players, we’ve got 50% to remote armor rep amount. With 4 Large remote reps and 3 cap transfers, Nestor would dwarf Guardian and Oneiros. But there is one issue: Large Remote Armor Reps have slightly over 8km range. Question that is currently open is: will it be better to drop the 50% rep amount bonus for a 100% rep range bonus? Or should it have both? This question is a tough one to answer, because with both bonuses this ship would be seriously overpowered, and better specialized at remote reps than dedicated ship class (Logistics). On the other hand, in it’s current iteration it would be rather vulnerable to bombs.

UPDATE: CCP Rise added 100% remote armor rep bonus. Is this the first ship with 5 role bonuses?

Nestor’s stats also make it a decent PVE boat, rather similar to the Rattlesnake (but the latter can be 100% passively shield tanked). It also seems at least partially useful for Incursions, where crazy remote reps and high resists would be very useful (but to be honest I don’t know if Incursion doctrine is still all around shields, as it used to be when I last played with them. Can anyone shed some light on the current state of affairs?).

It’s going to be expensive

Now let’s have a look at the LP store price tag. It won’t be cheap I’m afraid:

Item Sisters of EVE (hi-sec) The Sanctuary (0.0)
LP cost ISK cost LP cost ISK cost

Nestor BPC (1 run)
Nestor BPC (1 run)
600,000 LP 150,000,000 ISK 400,000 LP 100,000,000 ISK

Nestor pre-built
Nestor pre-built
1,000,000 LP 100,000,000 ISK 800,000 LP 80,000,000 ISK

If we assumed the LP rate for SoE loyalty points at 1,000 ISK / LP (typical exchange ratio), the blueprint-made version would cost around 985M isk, and the pre-built one would be 1,100M (rather cost-ineffective). But that is a very optiomistic scenario. For example, Stratios currently sells for 435M ISK, and takes 120,000LP, 30M ISK and 10M in minerals to produce. That leaves us with 120,000LP = 395M ISK equation, which brings the SoE LP ratio close to 3,291 ISK / LP. Nestor’s initial prices will be counted in billions for sure.

 

nestor-02  nestor-05 nestor-showinfo-traits nestor-showinfo-description

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