Tag: ship

Leopard, a Speedy Gonzales variation of Minmatar shuttle

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , ,

I spent some time today browsing the Static Data Dump (aka Crystal Ball). I was looking for clues about Nestor, the Sisters of EVE unique battleship (CCP has shown two images of it on their Facebook profile).

I found something else entirely:

Leopard-shuttleLooks like a Minmatar Shuttle, right? Well, yeah, almost. It’s slightly darker, but apart from that, it looks just like a regular shuttle.

Description does not shed much light either:

Rumor has it the Leopard originated as a secret project in the Minmatar Republic. In their endless battle against enslavement by the Amarr Empire, the Minmatar have had to develop ways not only to liberate large masses of their people, but also to sneak in and capture individuals of high strategic importance.

These kinds of black ops search-and-rescue missions might be executed for key people who were held by the enemy and possessed either special qualities the resistance needed, or information the Republic couldn’t afford having tortured out of them. It’s notable that these individuals might not all have been Minmatar, and that the resistance movement is unlikely to have restrained itself from using the same methods on key Amarr people they’d captured with the help of the Leopard.

It is an extremely fast ship, meant for quick and stealthy getaways, and while its origins are covered in rumors, chances are the Minmatar leaked it to the capsuleers in order to curry favor with them.

Still following me? At this point I thought there is nothing special about this ship, besides it’s darker skin. And then I looked at the statistics, and I was literally blown away:

Ship warp speed: 20.00 AU/s

 

Damn, that thing is lightning fast! Tech II rigged interceptors (w/o implants) can reach 12,5 AU/s top speed, and this incredibly fast already. This shuttle is still another 50% faster!

I don’t know about you guys, but I definitely want one!

More reading:

Which ships are worth manufacturing?

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , ,

big_drake_blueprint_iconFreedom and open-endedness are EVE’s greatest virtues. You can choose to blow up ships, or to build new ones. Or do both. It’s all up to you. If you’ve chosen to build ships, this post is for you.

Making ships is just part of the big picture of Industry as a whole, but it seems to be one of the most important branches of it. After all, EVE is a game about spaceships. While many people claim EVE is no longer an Excel-in-space (me included), I have used my trusty spreadsheet to calculate the build price of several ships and tried to answer the question which ships are actually worth manufacturing?

Tech I ships

First off, let’s start with easiest ships – Tech I. The initial investment is low, because a BPO only costs about 10 times as much as the ship itself. For a few million ISK you can start your own production line. I have assumed ME 10 BPO for the calculations below.

Catalyst, Venture, Drake

Table for Tech I ships

As you can see, Tech I ships are not the golden-egg laying goose: some of them offer substantial profit, and it’s always better to use freshly mined minerals to build ships, rather than just sell these minerals on open market. Also before you start mass-making Ventures, please mind these ships are given away to noobs for free by career agents. Catalyst and it’s new counterpart Algos however (not in the table) seem to be in constant demand.

Tech II ships

Let’s have a look at Tech II. Invention and multiple components make it much more expensive to start, but is it really worth it?

Kronos

Invention materials:

  • 32x Datacore – Gallentean Starship Engineering
  • 32x Datacore – Mechanical Engineering
  • 1x Megathron BPC (1 run – without decryptors

Kronos invention

* I have forgotten to put in the R.A.M.s into the table, but it doesn’t change the final price much.

At the time of writing this post, Kronos sells for 873,499,000, which means 138,440,180 ISK of profit (or 15,8%)

As you can see, the potential for profit is higher, but it requires much more initial investment and is more time consuming, because of multiple production stages. It is great for corporations however, because many players can be involved in different steps of the production chain: one group of players copy the Megathron BPO (ME 0 BPO is good), abother group makes Tech I Megathrons (high ME BPO required), Tech II components and R.A.M.s. Finally the last group makes the finished product.

Capital Ships

Capital Ships are the biggest behemoths roaming the stars of New Eden. The amount of minerals required to build them is equally huge. While logistics remains the key burden when manufacturing Capital Ships, is the potential profit worth the hassle?

Capital ship manufacturing is simplier than Tech II, with only two stages (minerals -> capital components; cap components -> ship). I am assuming ME 100 on components and ME 6 on the ship BPO.

Capital_ship_manufacturing

Pirate ships

These are technically tech I ships, but some of them drop as BPC from low and null-sec anomalies. Their value does not simply equal their mineral value like it does for regular Tech I counterparts, but partly from their limited nature. The difference between BPC and material price and final ship value is the potential profit to be made, so it’s worth having a look.

Pirate battleships manufacturing

As it turns out, Pirate battleships are far from worth the effort of manufacturing them for sale, but it is still better to buy a BPC rather than a ship already built.

By the way, have you noticed, that all pirate battleships with the exception of Bhaalgorn take the same amount of minerals to produce?

Conclusion

Making ships is a good business. Each ship class offers different profit margin, but also requires different amount of work and initial investment. It’s up to you to choose how much work you’re willing to invest in your shipwright business. Amount of ISK you get out of it is not only related to the biggest profit margin, but it also depends on the scale of the enterprise. Running a production line which makes a hundred of ships with 15% margin a week will yield more ISK than a Tech II line which only gives 5 advanced frigates with 50% margin in the same timeframe. Therefore, you should treat the analysis above as a starting point for your own business plan.

Christmas giveaway in EVE Online [2011]

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , , ,

And a chance to win a Talos battlecruiser – details below.

Every year CCP gives away some limited collectibles: ships, implants, modules or consumables. One of the most notable Christmas gifts was the Snowball Launcher and Snowballs (which later become melted by CCP, because players were using them for griefing). They were great, because you could shoot anyone without actually agressing them (the fun part was when someone fired back). Over the years CCP has also released several limited edition ships, like the Zephyr, Primae, Echelon or Apotheosis, which still remains the only jovian ship that players can fly.

A choice this time

This year, CCP gives away a different gift: a choice. There are real world companies, that make similar Christmas presents – boxes with a certificate inside, which can be exchanged for a number of things to choose from. But since EVE Online is all about choice, this year you can choose your Christmas gift yourself.

How to receive it

First, log on to your account management page. You will notice a big banner saying “Holiday Gifts. Will you be naughty or nice?”, click it.

On the second page you are presented with a number of choices:

  • 3 Destroyers with a sizable amount of small faction rounds,
  • medium and large faction ammo,
  • Zephyr, Primae or Echelon
  • POS fuel blocks
  • fuel block blueprints
  • +3 implant set
  • CA-1 Genolution implant
  • boosters (Quafe Zero too!)
  • a free neural remap
  • 2000 AUR

Please note, that you will have to make your choice before 21st of December. A day after that, on December 22nd your choice will be available for redemption at logon screen.

150 posts landmark here ->

(means a free Talos battlecruiser for a lucky pilot!)

I don’t know if you know but this is my 150th post. It has been a long and sometimes bumpy ride, starting in March 2010, just before the Tyrannis was announced. Initially my blog was not about EVE: it was about everything computer or photography related. When CCP announced Tyrannis, I began a cycle of posts about its features, playing mostly on Singularity at the time, and giving others the ability to track all the changes in the coming expansion. At this time my blog has received a  facelift, which was basically a whole new more EVE-like theme. I was also writing more and more about EVE, rather than anything else.

Unfortunately there were also bumps on the road, just like on any typical polish road (I think polish roads have more holes per kilometer than in any other country in Europe). On 14th of October my old webserver was ganked by a hard drive failure, which was not detected in time and struck the server perfectly, wrecking  for OMGWTFPWN filesystem damage. I am a seasoned admin, but that doesn’t make data recovery any easier. And  real men don’t do regular backups, you know. With a friend of mine, we have managed to salvage enough data to recover our websites, and we have bought a new server. Ordering new hardware, configuring it, installing OS, configuring OS, recovering the data and finally bringing the new HW to the datacenter took 10 days (I’ve been doing all this in my free time).

Providing information about the next EVE expansion has become my second nature. This status page about Crucible has received 574 unique visits on November 29th, and has been linked on many websites, such as Massively.

It would not be possible without YOU, my audience, so I would like to say:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

To celebrate, I will give away a brand new Talos battlecruiser with custom black leather upholstery and my signature 😉

Textured Talos model on Singularity

I will randomly draw the winner from the comments below this post; please write your character name in your comment, so I can contract the ship to the winner. Thanks!

The winner will be announced on 21st of December.

PS. If you do not have an EVE account yet, I have two 60-day free trial keys available until December 24th. Please contact me if you would like to start playing EVE Online.

PS2. The issue with Captcha permissions has been fixed (for good) and comments should work now.

CCP: What race should be the next Tier 3 BC? Players: Gallente!

Lukas Rox EVE Online, Games , , , ,
Gallente Tier 3 BC
Gallente Tier 3 BC

It seems that Hilmar keeps his word. He promised the playerbase new internet spaceships, so there will be new internet spaceships. Last week the Minmatar Tornado has been announced – a Tier-3 battlecruiser capable of using battleship-sized turrets. Battlecruisers were supposed to fill the gap between cruisers and battleships, and this new breed of BC’s seems to fit between battlecruisers and battleships. With the coming hybrid rebalancing Talos will be most likely a deadly short range blaster boat, sporting Neutron Blaster Cannon II’s.

The Talos has been nicknamed the king of in-your-face-glass-cannons: if one would compare a fleet to a human body, this ship would be its right fist. Bringing together the speed and agility of battlecruiser class with the firepower of a Megathron will make a very interesting twist.

Talos
Talos

This new Gallente battlecruiser is based on yet another player creation: the Seraphim. CCP however claims that the name “Talos” fits better (Talos was a bronze giant who guarded the island of Crete in the greek mythology).

I will not buy this ship on day one. Instead, I will buy the BPO!