Work Ate My Blogging

Yeah, so there's a lot I'd like to say, but I don't have time to say it. The TL;DR version?

• HIC changes are needed. Kvetching is irrelevant. But you'll get a dumbass mass-reduction module, hopefully for use of more than just HICtors, and hopefully something that completely assfucks you, like stops you from cloaking. Fuck you are your "got to be 100% safe whilst rolling" bullshit.
• ECM changes are dumb. Like, really dumb. But again, it moves ECM from a way of victimising people who get caught by a gang of enemies (eg; solo PVPers will be less assfucked by a single Falcon) to a tactical asset you use to get rid of, say, the enemy DPS or logi or tackle, etc. 
• I have a solo combat Falcon for sale, if anyone is looking.
• Nullification changes. Stop whining. You can still roam and get tackle, you just have to burn through bubbles again, with your gang of ships that travel at 4km/s. Stop whining you lazy shitlords. 
• Damavik changes. Too little, too late? Like, this should be the frig of choice for W-R brawling, but good luck with that crap, amirite? And how dumb is CCP thinking a 2 midslot ship was ever going to work...like, did they not learn from the Punisher?
• Overall activity in EVE is down. Sure the logon numbers are 'healthy' but a huge amount of them are now SP farm alts and rorqual alts feeding the titan proliferation. So, yeah, EVE isn't dying, but it's definitely caught a flu. 

Cyclone Kinda Fixed

So, I was complaining about how shit a HAM Cyclone was. Still shit. But I was vexed by its shitness, and I still are vexed by its shitness.

So I set out to fix the problem (application) by the following Going Full Retard;

[Cyclone, Appliclone]

Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Reinforced Bulkheads II

Medium Micro Jump Drive
Stasis Webifier II
Target Painter II
Warp Scrambler II
Missile Guidance Computer II, Missile Precision Script

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Heavy Assault Missile
Medium Infectious Scoped Energy Neutralizer
Medium Infectious Scoped Energy Neutralizer

Medium Transverse Bulkhead II
Medium Transverse Bulkhead II
Medium Transverse Bulkhead II


Hammerhead II x5

So I set out to FW space, and lodged up in Amamake. First cab off the rank was a Retribution (naturally) and an Enyo versus my Cyclone and a corpie in a Corax. Before the Corax was forced off field I scrammed the Ishkur and bingo bango 2 shots later it was no more.

We found our way through to Gallente FW space via a wormhole, and the only guy who would fight us was a Maller. Considering it to be bait, I thought what the hell, my 42K EHP and 720 DPS should be able to kill him before the backup arrives so we began the dange of death. I danced, he died.

We went back out through to Dal a bit later, and played around in lowsec with a few Shadow Cartel guys and a 15 man Hull Penetration T3D/AF fleet. Yeah, no thanks.

A proteus and a Cerberus began stalking me. I was wary, being set up to blap a couple of frigates and not too keen on being tackled by a Proteus and killed. 42K EHP in hull, not the best really.

Eventually, joined by some of the AQUILA guys we set up a bit of bait and switch, with the Cyclone being the bait. So I warped in to a medium at 50km and the Proteus decloaked at 5km. He was dead before the Cerberus got its first volley off, and I was still in armour. So my buddies landed a bit late for that one. RIP.

Then we all died to a bunch of kiteybois, illustrating why you fight to your strengths not your weaknesses.

So is the Cyclone rehabilitated? Not really. You can make a niche ass ship and fight a niche ass way, but that's not a Combat Battlecruiser that is supposed to be able to shoot whatever it can get its claws on.

TEST just won that war

Funny thing isn't it?

The big fight in UALX-3 saw 2 trillion ISK in supers and dreads torched. Then the node crashed when Goons or NC or whoever tried to dogpile in to a 5,000 person Local and maxed out TiDi.

So the whole PL super fleet and whole fleets of HACs and T3's were logged out by too many nerds trying to dogpile in to a Keepstar fight.

Now we have TEST with an anchored Fortizar and a giant field of bubbles on the site of the battle, and the logged off might of PL et al slowly logging in their subcaps and capitals into the bubble trap to be blasted to fuckery by fleets of carriers and Harpies.

Some pretty accurate memes show the situation. Osmelet shows the strategic situation.

The strategic reality of EVE nowadays is that if there's a big fight going down, the node will crash or the timer will go through due to TiDi in most situations. Too many nerds try to pile in and they simply fry CCP's infrastructure (cue whining about updating to 64 bit, blah blah blah).

TEST has soundly won this battle, and perhaps given themselves a huge strategic advantage in the short to medium term; even accounting for a 300B ISK keepstar loss, the second is now going to anchor, so they won that fight.

Secondly, the might of PL's super fleet is trapped out for who knows how long, and the subcap fleets are still fractured and dislocated and unable to form. The imperative for both types of ships is different.

For the subcaps they have to die and live again, shiny and chrome. So far dozens of subs and some Apostles have logged in to certain death, and fair enough. If your HAC is SRP'ed it's better to log in and 99% die and get back to making ISK in your ratting carrier / super, than be trapped out of the game for maybe a week or two. Strategically it makes more sense to get torched and be freed up again to re-enter the battle on your terms, in a coordinated fashion than have to be around to do a coordinated login which will likely fail. So expect to see TEST clean up hundreds more as this imperative is driven home by leadership.

For the supers, the story is different. The rescue fleets have to be formed and dropped into grid in coordination, to get the bubbles cleared ASAP, while the supers log in and begin capping up. The window is tricky, because TEST and the Legperium will respond in kind and a big shit fight will ensue, with the advantage firmly in favour of TEST now. So that extraction will be interesting; some have gone well in the past, others not so much.

For TEST, local supercap superiority is now assured in the short term. So they will be well served to reinforce anything they can, anywhere they can, while this lasts. They need to shore up their defenses and anchor what they need to anchor, while the chances of it being blobbed to death are vastly reduced. This gives them an opportunity to wreak some real damage on Fraternity if they take it, which they must. They have to turn a slight ISK-war loss in UALX-3 Round One, and leverage off this for a strategic push.

Interesting times!

Maiden Voyage? Only if it's not fucked

We were watching a guy buy and build his Avatar all day/evening long.  after some logistical setbacks caused by the loss of an Impel.

After dealing with this by downgrading from C-types to Navy EANMs (blew his budget), he finally undocked his giant space shroom/peen from the Keepstar in Maila, and sat there for about 20-25 minutes, letting the solar wind blow the cheetos dust off his giant hairy balls.

We were of course wondering where he was going, but with his hauling alt identified we hadn't quite clued in to who his cyno was.

So when he jumped to a midpoint system not on our radar, we had to scramble around to find this vital intel. We managed to get into the midpoint system and ID a few clowns as they left local, and confirmed our suspicions. We also then knew his destination; being Hull Penetration he would be heading to the Kamela area and would have to pass through 3 systems; Hedgiviter, Hrondmund of Bundindus.

We set up some alts, and marshalled the cats via a ping. We had our required tackle, DPS (lol, easily) and the hammer for the coffin nails all logged in and ornery within 10 minutes, as the cyno alt moved up the pipe and got comfy.

He used a SD cyno, so we were lucky to get a warp to zero on it when our tacklers jumped into local. But that was all we needed, so it was cyno up and bon voyage for one Avatar, coup de grace with a Doomsday.

Zkill values the maiden voyage of the space vessel Donald Trump at 72 bullions of space gold.

RIP. As I said to the guy, it's time for a cry-wank when you lose an Avatar on it's maiden voyage. Or as they probably don't say in German, a weinenwischen.

Then, a few hours later;

Well, that's one less piece of junk flying around EVE.

Good Content vs Bad Content

If you are on the Facebook EVE Online group you have doubtless seen or heard of the exploits of Thieves Guild, most notably Jim Halescott, who does a lot of stealing of citadels and grinding of structures.

His great new venture is to recruit "50 to 100"newbros to fly Catalysts around hisec and beat up on structures.

Yeah. Wow.

His plan is to split the loot.

In a citadel bash, assuming everyone can get 500 DPS from a Catalyst, nothing goes wrong and no one loses their shit, you need between 10 and 30 characters to beat down an Astrahus  or a Fortizar. This could be spread out over a week to three weeks of chasing timers, but lets say it takes 6 hours of actual player activity to manage. So you've got between 60 and 180 man hours of time spent beating up hopefully idle and loot-filled citadels.

It's hard to know what the loot per Citadel is in high security, but it's probably fuck all what with asset safety. Even salvaging for 10-15% would nett you all about 1.5B from a Fortizar, which is optimistic. If you've spent 180 man-hours bashing it (minimum) then your ISK/hr is about zilch.

Structure grinding as a content driver was the whole reason we had the Dominion patch, which I doubt Jim was around for. It was why we got Citadels in the first place, because the EHP buffer of POSs was often the sole deterrent in their removal. To make it fucking clear for dumbfuck poms used to dropping 6 Leshaks on an Azbel, POSs used not to be that fucking easy. They used to defend themselves without human intervention, unlike these dumb as bricks space toasters. Tackling a decently fit POS was a 6-8 hour exercise if you didn't use Trashcats, 4-6 if you did.

So, yeah, this kind of content model has been tried before. It fails, always, because it's bad content. It's bad content because it's repetitive (oh look, another Athanor to F1 on), simple (F1, AFK), unengaging and devoid of any reward either in ISK or in skills gained. What do you learn here with Citadels except orbit, refresh your guns, and warp away to a safe when the bad men turn up?

Hoping for fights in highsec war decs is also a joke. Thinking 50 Catalysts is a fleet, well, the man has no idea, clearly. I would love to find 50 Catalysts orbiting an Athanor of mine at 1km. A single Orthrus would kill any that were dumb enough not to warp off. And if you do all warp off, guess what, your work is undone.

Jim is entitled to try his hand at stealing the enjoyment from his corp mates as much as his victims, but it's a lot harder to find corpmates than it is victims. The thing is, newbros and bored old cunts alike will quickly sniff out boring content and not turn up for it.

Shame that he's going to burn all his credibility on this bald attempt to get other people to do the boring grind for him.

How Rorquals are Saving EVE

Seraph IX Basarab has a bit of a vent about the Rorquals on EN24.

Such salt. He wants to not only nerf them but remove wealth from the owners, which is kinda just a wee bit petty do you not think? It's not the player's fault the game is allegedly 'out of balance' so much that everyone can helicopter dick about in a supercapital and titan, you feckless dingo todger. So with that, you know he's just crying tears of broflake sissy rage because "Hurr CCP changed my game".

Grow up you simpering doltv; the game isn't broken by Rorquals. It's improved by them.

Like a lot of guys playing this game, who are merely human beings with limited intellect and pungent body odour like me, Seraph also has a very skew-whiff view of the economic impact of the Rorqual. He complains that multibox Rorqual miners are pushing down mineral prices, causing deflation.

Well, fuck me sideways with a snow plow, isn't that a good thing? MUDflation is a problem in all other MMO's. A boneafide economist studied it in EVE (and several aspiring economics students have written papers on EVE), CCP made some tweaks and changes years ago, and by and large MUDflation is absent due to taxes and charges within the economy 'shaving the cheese' as it were.

What Rorquals are doing is providing a mineral boom. The abundance of minerals makes ships cheaper; Cyclone hulls are down to 30M. Aeons are 13B. Both used to be double that five years ago, I'm pretty sure. Given rat bounties are still the same, this means that Rorquals have made it faster and less painful to rat your way into a ship. This is good news, especially for newer players.

PLEX prices are, in the old coin, 1.6B. In 2009 they were 300M. So it's gone up like Australian real estate; hardly Zimbabweification. And yeah, this has an impact on newer players and credit card warriors trying to afford their ships, which are now cheaper in real world terms.

I mean, don't tell my wife, but Titans are now so cheap that if I had the opportunity to live out of, say, the Maila keepstar instead of a podunk fucking Athanor, I would top up a few PLEX and maybe one day fly a Ragnarok on my main. Full dislosure, I did tell her that this was the year I was going to buy one and she said "Aren't those worth $6,000 in real money?"

Not anymore, hunbuns; thank the fucking Rorqual. More like a grand, and that's fitted to 100B ISK worth. If you just want to driveby dickheads, you could get out of it for 55B as Ranger Regiment showed recently, and hey, that's a spendy birthday present, amirite?

Rorquals. Making Middle Aged Men's EVE Dreams Possible.  Finally. 

Seraph also complains of guys (him, probably) with mineral stockpiles getting dudded because the price is dropping.

Puhleeze fool. If you've stockpiled minerals thinking it's a hedge vs MUDflation, you took a risk on a commodity market by going long, and if real world history of mineral prices shows, a boom in prices leads to overproduction and a crash. It also shows that with a step-change in technology (eg; cyanidation of gold in the 1980's) the price tends to crash after. So in EVE terms, when the miners whine enough that it's not profitable enough to mine, and CCP buffs a ship somehow, or creates the Rorqual, then the price of the minerals change.

Should CCP nerf Rorquals because some flappity-brained nincumpoop has bet that trit will be 15 ISK per unit by 2020 and sunk 300B into the market? No. CCP should balance the game around the market stability, the overall MUDlfation risk, and the balance and playability of the game, in terms of if trit was 15 ISK then it would be onerous to afford any ships anywhere and people would stop PVPing. Like, seriously, CCP should not balance around the greed of players.

Balance Issues

I will agree the current Rorqual meta is a problem in terms of balance. That's a combination of factors, but mostly we have to look at Goons in Delve to see the balance problem and that's a problem created by the Goon supercap umbrella.

Perhaps Rorquals are too tanky with or without the PANIC module. This is true when they have decent support and you can't prevent that support getting on field via any form of cyno inhibition. This is the Goons issue in a nutshell; dropping 40 FAX to save a Rorqual is Goons organising themselves better than anyone else. The effect of this is in effect virtually unlimited Rorqual mining in effective impunity. Is it a problem with the Rorqual? No. Is it a problem with being able to multibox them due to drones? No. Is it a game balance issue or a meta issue? It's a bit of both.

Is it CCP's job to nerf the Rorquals tank, to make Goon Rorquals more vulnerable to smaller gangs of bombers? This won't help the smaller alliances or the lowsec miners or the wormholers who pop Athanors and mine in C1's. The tank isn't the issue.

Cyno Inhibitors Should Be a Thing

Certainly cyno inhibition is effectively a nonevent in EVE. Occasionally someone has an old school POS with a cyno inhibitor running, and it's getting rarer especially now that everything can take a gate unlike the old days when you had to take a gate, bash a POS in subcaps while getting dunked on by bombers, cripple the inhibitor and then you could cyno in the big shit.

Oh, you have the mobile cyno inhibitor...which is effectively pointless against anything these days because you rarely get 2 minutes before the hammer drops or the rescue fleet hops in. But maybe if your victim is AFK and you're quick you can inhibit the response fleet or force them to drop on your 100km away....which is about 10 seconds of MWDing for the swarm of fighter bombers. The mobile inhibitor is an obsolescent piece of shit. It needs a 10 second or 30 second anchoring and at least a thousand klicks of inhibition.

And why not a class of vessels that can do this as part of their role? Sure it's open to abuse, and it would be heavily abused as a new meta evolves but so is anything else.

But think of it. Even if it's a T2 battlecruiser hull worth 600M ISK, pushing this through a gate at some hotdropping lowsec pirate types and cutting off their inevitable dunk squad of Nyxes? Worth it. Bridging one in to dunk 20 Rorquals and cut off the instant backup? It would certainly change the meta, change the behaviour, and not penalise the smaller players more than the Goons.

Hell, no doubt the Goons would either have CAP supers in the belt itself (a step forward from having region-wide umbrellas of supers on near instant call-out), or the Rorquals would utilise a cyno inhibitor on the belt to shut down hotdrops, forcing the hotdroppers to maybe light on the moon nextdoor and warp over.

Like, would that not be;

• fucking logical that inhibitor technology would one day make its way onto star ships
• fucking cool
• worth a whole fucking summer update
• open up whole new metas

It's time to throw this kind of shit at the alleged problem, to spice the game up, versus keeping Seraph IX Boohooahoohoosarab from salting up his cheeks at the thought of how much ISK other guys are making. Fuck that guy.

Police Brutality

[ 2018.07.09 23:20:35 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Ofage
[ 2018.07.09 23:36:36 ] Nick Devarti > anyone alive?
[ 2018.07.09 23:36:41 ] Nick Devarti > in local chat?
[ 2018.07.09 23:36:53 ] Basileios Schwarz > o7
[ 2018.07.09 23:37:19 ] Nick Devarti > i see to be having an issue where I cannot dock in  Ofage - Freeport
[ 2018.07.09 23:37:25 ] Nick Devarti > does that occur for any of you?
[ 2018.07.09 23:37:58 ] Basileios Schwarz > yep - same here - I was able to dock, but now it is not on the overview anymore
[ 2018.07.09 23:38:20 ] Nick Devarti > great lol i docked my fenrir in there
[ 2018.07.09 23:38:41 ] Nick Devarti > any idea why?
[ 2018.07.09 23:38:48 ] Basileios Schwarz > it's back
[ 2018.07.09 23:38:51 ] Basileios Schwarz > try now
[ 2018.07.09 23:38:56 ] Nick Devarti > fuck yes
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:11 ] Nick Devarti > thanks man lol
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:14 ] Nick Devarti > i got scared for a min
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:17 ] Basileios Schwarz > (no need to thank me, I didn't do a thing)
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:21 ] Basileios Schwarz > pure coincidence
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:49 ] Basileios Schwarz > I think it was a bug or smth
[ 2018.07.09 23:39:56 ] Basileios Schwarz > fly safe friend o7
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:02 ] Nick Devarti > you too lol
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:06 ] Nick Devarti > time to head back to jita
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:13 ] Basileios Schwarz > NO
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:17 ] Basileios Schwarz > don't go that way
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:20 ] Nick Devarti > why not
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:21 ] Nick Devarti > ?
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:26 ] Basileios Schwarz > Messoya is camped
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:37 ] Basileios Schwarz > only if you can jump
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:47 ] Basileios Schwarz > don't go through Messoya
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:48 ] Nick Devarti > seriously
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:50 ] Basileios Schwarz > pirates everywhere
[ 2018.07.09 23:40:55 ] Nick Devarti > Yeah but im going through all of highsec
[ 2018.07.09 23:41:28 ] Nick Devarti > MR logistic you here for a fight?
[ 2018.07.09 23:42:40 ] Nick Devarti > zandr
[ 2018.07.09 23:42:42 ] Nick Devarti > please dont
[ 2018.07.09 23:42:47 ] Nick Devarti > please.
[ 2018.07.09 23:42:51 ] Nick Devarti > let me go
[ 2018.07.09 23:42:56 ] Nick Devarti > i beg
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:04 ] Nick Devarti > i am a nice person
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:11 ] Nick Devarti > Zandryx
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:20 ] Nick Devarti > please!
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:25 ] Nick Devarti > ZANDR
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:26 ] Nick Devarti > NO
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:27 ] Nick Devarti > PLEASE
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:31 ] Nick Devarti > NO CYNo
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:31 ] Nick Devarti > PLEASE

A cyno is lit, and a posse of Police Skinned Marshals (and some poor cunts in Panthers) jump in

[ 2018.07.09 23:43:39 ] Not Orious > ALL OFFICERS RESPOND
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:40 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > Excuse me sir, are you carrying any contraband?
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:45 ] Nick Devarti > No!
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:50 ] Nick Devarti > I have tritanium!
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:51 ] Nick Devarti > thats all!
[ 2018.07.09 23:43:54 ] Nick Devarti > I can prove it!
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:00 ] Nick Devarti > please !
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:01 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > have you paid the toll on that?
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:03 ] Nick Devarti > I am nice!
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:06 ] Nick Devarti > whats the toll?
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:08 ] Nick Devarti > ill pay it
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:09 ] Nick Devarti > if you let me go
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:11 ] Nick Devarti > Ill pay it
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:20 ] Not Orious > I need you to calm down sir
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:27 ] Nick Devarti > sorry.
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:28 ] Not Orious > (officers, draw your weapons)
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:33 ] Nick Devarti > Im borrowing this ship!!!please
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:38 ] Nick Devarti > ill give you my stuff
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:41 ] Nick Devarti > i just want peace
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:52 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > who are you borrowing it from
[ 2018.07.09 23:44:59 ] Nick Devarti > My corporation leader.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:00 ] Trinkets friend > I need a Fenrir to move my ice for refining
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:03 ] Nick Devarti > I do not have money.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:07 ] Nick Devarti > please I am poor.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:08 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > does he know about it or have you stolen it ?
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:12 ] Trinkets friend > Can I borrow it for 20 minutes?
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:16 ] Nick Devarti > He knows about it!
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:28 ] Nick Devarti > i am moving 10 million tritanium, a tayra, and expanded cargo holds.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:38 ] Nick Devarti > ugh.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:41 ] Trinkets friend > Actually, can you move my ice for me?
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:52 ] Nick Devarti > sure. I can do whatever you need
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:55 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > you might want a lawyer present
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:56 ] Nick Devarti > aslong as I can move my tri.
[ 2018.07.09 23:45:59 ] Nick Devarti > ugh
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:02 ] Nick Devarti > great
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:04 ] Trinkets friend > ice first, sir
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:06 ] Nick Devarti > i screwed up lol
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:13 ] Nick Devarti > are you playing with me?
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:17 ] Nick Devarti > or will you let me go if I move stuff
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:23 ] Nick Devarti > im willing to do that
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:29 ] Trinkets friend > Warp to Wiskeber
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:42 ] Nick Devarti > will I get ganked by pirates?
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:45 ] Nick Devarti > ill go if I dont get ganked
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:48 ] Not Orious > no pirates here, only officers
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:52 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > there are no pirates here
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:55 ] Trinkets friend > sir, we are police, you will be protected
[ 2018.07.09 23:46:59 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > we make sure they dont appear here
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:00 ] Nick Devarti > Oh!
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:04 ] Nick Devarti > ok
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:15 ] Nick Devarti > im disrupted
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:17 ] Nick Devarti > i cant warp
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:29 ] Trinkets friend > align to Mateber gate, sir
[ 2018.07.09 23:47:29 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > align to mateber first
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:08 ] Nick Devarti > are you friendly people?
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:19 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > my mom thinks I am
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:22 ] Trinkets friend > We are. We just need some boring logistics completed
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:23 ] Nick Devarti > thats nice
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:44 ] Nick Devarti > as long as you protect me i can move your stuff lol
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:52 ] Trinkets friend > ok, warp over, sir
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:57 ] Sinshisko Van Raynar > ok warp to mateber
[ 2018.07.09 23:48:59 ] Nick Devarti > here we go.
[ 2018.07.09 23:49:20 ] Nick Devarti > can you invite me to your fleet?

We warp to Mateber and continue in Fleet Chat

Nick Devarti > i was hoping to move and afk warp to jita.
Nick Devarti > Ok
Nick Devarti > oh my goodness
Lennont Lemmont > unfortunetly your ship has been deemed dangerous
Nick Devarti > a titan!!!!
Not Orious > lol
Nick Devarti > I have never seen one!!!
Nick Devarti > holy cow!!!!
Lennont Lemmont > you will be reimbursed
Trinkets friend > \o/
Nick Devarti > wait
Nick Devarti > what?
Nick Devarti > wheres the ice
Trinkets friend > in my scotch
Nick Devarti > NO
Nick Devarti > PLEASE

Then he got Doomsdayed

Nick Devarti > oh my goodness.
Lennont Lemmont > reimbursement has been sent
Nick Devarti > WHoa
Trinkets friend > and that's your first doomsday
Nick Devarti > PLEASE DONT DESTROY ME
Nick Devarti > IM TAKING A VIDEO
Nick Devarti > OF THIS
Nick Devarti > AND SENDING IT TO MY LEADER
Nick Devarti > OH MY GOSH
Not Orious > congratulations
Nick Devarti > I WAS KILLED BY A TITAN!!!!
Trinkets friend > <3
Nick Devarti > OH MY GOODNESS
Nick Devarti > THIS IS AMAZING
Nick Devarti > why the 2 bill isk tho?
Nick Devarti > I am so thankful!
Nick Devarti > but why?
Trinkets friend > Because we had a lot of fun
Not Orious > come again some time
Lennont Lemmont > OFFICER DOWN
Trinkets friend > have you ever used a titan bridge?
Nick Devarti > NO THIS IS SO COOL
Nick Devarti > I WANT TO SEE THE TITAN MORE
Nick Devarti > LOL
Lennont Lemmont > warp to mateber gate
Rengas > these aren't even the cool titans
Nick Devarti > IK
Nick Devarti > im screensharing with my CEO
Rengas > everyone knows leviathan is the best
Nick Devarti > oh my gosh
ROSSLINDEN0 > come to mateber
Nick Devarti > YOU GUYS SENT ME 5 BILLION ISK
Nick Devarti > WTF
Lennont Lemmont > sometimes crime pays
Nick Devarti > im shaking rn
Nick Devarti > this is the coolest thing ive ever seen
Nick Devarti > what alliance are you guys apart of????
Lennont Lemmont > <url=showinfo:16159//99006970>The Ivana Trading Federation Federation</url>
Not Orious > the ivana trading federation of the ivana trading federation federation
Not Orious > part of the coalition The Ivana Trading Federation Federation Federation
Nick Devarti > can my corporation apply to join you?
Nick Devarti > The cool thing is I can fly a dread or a super carrier
Nick Devarti > but Im so poor rn i cant afford it
Nick Devarti > I have a naglfar and a revelation at malia that my corp uses
Nick Devarti > but no weapons
Lennont Lemmont > we will discuss this, but recruitment is very tight right now
Nick Devarti > now I can afford them!!!!!!!
Lennont Lemmont > jump into mateber
Nick Devarti > can I add one of you as a contract?
Lennont Lemmont > you may
Nick Devarti > holy shit
Nick Devarti > this is amazing
Nick Devarti > ITS SO BIG
Nick Devarti > LOL
Lennont Lemmont > right click the titan
Lennont Lemmont > and "jump to ofage"
Nick Devarti > That was amazing
Nick Devarti > i am putting it on youtube
ROSSLINDEN0 > please remember this area is under police patrol 24/7. other areas of lowsec are very dangerous
ROSSLINDEN0 > you should avoid those areas
Nick Devarti > Yes
Nick Devarti > I know

What's wrong with this image?

Yes, I did in fact manage to finish a data site in a C3 in a Nereus with no hacking mods whilst baiting. Made 13M ISK in data crap.

Then the locals, who I had been hoping would dump something on the Planet Dollaz and get a 7th kill mark on it, decided to drop a Stratios on the lowsec static. That didn't go so well.

So, what did we learn today?

1. You don't need no damn Astero to run data sites in safety. Just take a Nereus. Ain't nobody dropping on that bitch.
2. ??
3. ??
4. Profit!

Rolling Metabreaker

Soo.... you know the Rolling Sigil which I found out about in March?

Great for confusing risk-averse kilogram counting bears! Wait till they're in hardcore rolling fugue and YOLO through their camp of T3's on their static (a cloak + 100MN AB trick does wonders here) and shave 200M kg's off their static so that they cannot figure out the maths and can't figure out WTF you are up to when their static goes crit at the wrong time, leaving them stuck to your lowsec dungheap for 24 hours because they're afeared of your cynosural fields and gatecamps.

Literally gold plated fun (depends - do you have a SKIN for yours?)

Bin Day

Sometimes, you have to clean up the trash.

Athanor 1

Athanor 2

Athanor 3 (KM redacted for security reasons)

Heimatar lowsec is the cleanest* space in the game, change my mind.

* - no fucking citadel dandruff on your overview. Please visit for a calm astronautic flight experience.

"Something is wrong with our bloody ships!"

So is the quote attributed to Lord Jellicoe in the Battle of Jutland when the British Battlecruisers were popping like champagne corks under fire from the German dreadnoughts. It was probably poor design of the magazines and poor discipline in the magazine and turrets with cordite charges. Ammo choice sank ships.

Tonight I dropped a buffer gank Cyclone into a bubble in nullsec where a Gila was camping, with a battle Falcon to jam his drones out. It did not go to plan;

So, HAM application versus a shield fit cruiser is...worse than a single fucking medium drone apparently.

Plus missing 4 jams in a row on the dude's drones, and I was lucky to get out both my ships in structure when, on paper I had 70K EHP, 720 DPS Cyclone versus an ASB fit Gila with 500 DPS and 54K EHP (buffer plus charges).

In reality I had 150 DPS because, somehow, HAM application vs cruisers is 10%.

Fuck this game is bullshit sometimes.

The debate of proper Execquror Fits

So, today in a public roams channel (Redemption Road; weekly, almost daily US TZ roams for noobs!) newbros were sharing Execquror fits.

They were the classic terrible looking pastiche of 3 RR's, cap stable, single prop. Stuff you just plonk on grid (like a noob) and rep solidly at your team (like a noob) and invariably die in by the dozens.

So I shared the dualprop fit I use. C.f;

[Exequror, Dualprop]

Reactor Control Unit II
800mm Steel Plates II
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Explosive Membrane II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II

Medium Remote Repair Augmentor I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


Warrior II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5

Nanite Repair Paste x64
Navy Cap Booster 400 x4

Then, shortly after sharing this, some fuckboi pipes up that this is the most terrible fit ever. "You can't even fit 400's in small cap boosters (wrong). It's not cap stable (wrong...for any given amount of cap 400's). The AAR is useless (wrong)." he declaimed like a cucked husband discovering black trouser snake in his wife's ass. "It's too complicated for noobs to fly."

He claimed (with no evidence) he was an elite wormhole logi pilot. He claimed he never lost anything, or that's what I infer when we discussed Ming Sun-Tzu's Vexor loss to 3 Prophecies when I was solo Augoror logi - yes, solo Augoror and 69K damage taken; a failure to logi because a T1 cruiser died to 1500 DPS after 7 minutes of tanking. 

Yeah, no shit sherlock, you're going to lose a ship when you're 3 vs 1 + solo Augoror. That's what happens, you fucking genius, but the point is, the dualprop fit can rep and rep gud.

But let's compare this to other fits and wargame why the dualprop is so awesome and just sitting there like a cocksucker 'doing reps' standard Execquror fit. For a start let's do a typical MWD Execquror with cap stability. Oh, wait, you practicabily cannot.

[Exequror, MWD Reps]

Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
800mm Steel Plates II
Reactor Control Unit II
Explosive Plating II

Medium Cap Battery II
50MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
Cap Recharger II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II

Medium Remote Repair Augmentor I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Remote Repair Augmentor I

So this gets 3 minutes 34s cap stability, and is stable with the cap booster. It has 1K more EHP base, costs 1M ISK more, and is therefore actually significantly more useless than the DualProp fit. Why?

1. You have an AAR; when some fucktard sicks a flight of hammerheads onto you, you can tank them with pulsed AAR for ages, without calling for reps from any other logi or, indeed, without being driven off while a solo logi. 
2. You have an AAR you can use to tank a tackling frigate, for at least 5 minutes. Buffer setups will just die.
3. You have a dualprop; if you get scrammed by a tackle frigate, you put your AB on and keep moving, keep transversal, shed incoming DPS, maybe get out of scram range.
4. You have a dualprop; you MWD to range and swap to an AB to preserve capacitor and keep your transversal up, etc.
5. You have a dualprop; if people come after you whilst on AB, you decycle and swap to MWD to keep away from them and their DPS
6. You have cap injectors; if you get neuted you inject capacitor. The buffer fit has a battery, which gives resistance, but cap dead is cap dead. Two injectors is better than one. Sure, you run out eventually, but do we not see people (eg, Lussy Lou) taking cap injected ships into combat all the time? Guess they're gonna die. 

So, having said this again, I've now said it again; dualprop Execquror is the way to go. Gladly for me, no one seems to grok this significant truth, and they keep throwing shit fit, immobile clusterfuck mobiles you can immobilise with a ceptor or anything with a scram, who get driven off by a flight of drones or three. 

But remember: random shithead alt flies logi for elite wormholers and their logi is so stronk they never let anything die. It's got to be those fuckboi cowards who drop fleets with 40-60% guards. 

Finally - yeah, the dualprop execquoror takes serious skills to fly. So fucking learn, people. Learn by losing. Failure is how you get good. 

Touch Each Others Balls

The great (read: shit) thing about dread bombs is always that you are all at zero on each other's cynos.

See, eg; the recent counter-droppage in Estaunitte as recorded by Rist.

These sort of fights are always essentially a matter of attrittion; he who hath the most capitals wins. Very occasionally, say, in nullsec, you might see a group cyno in at range and utilise long range guns, but usually the long range work is done by carriers and supers.

This is what you get, basically, from the Siege module (and why, generally, you don't see too many people dropping Marauders in Bastion). The module is arguably holding back decent meta development in EVE and increasingly resulting in agglomeration of groups into ever-bigger coagulants so they can drop more dreads than the foe.

Sure, the emergency DCU has provided a small change, because who doesn't like cycling onto a secondary and waiting out the EDCU then finishing the dread off? It's not like it's going anywhere, stuck in siege as it is.

I dunno. Seems like CCP Fozzie could get his head around a new mechanic for Dreadnoughts.

Another interesting thing is the use of the Leshak in Rist's video. Or, perhaps, the misuse. For a ship that needs to spool up to full DPS over 45 seconds or more, swapping primary as quickly as they did there is kinda a bit pointless. Beyond of course, waving your shiny wang-ship about in space.

Also notable is the face the apoc fleet sat perfectly still for several minutes. I guess their foes didn't pack and anti-subcap dreads, so more fool them. Mayhaps one could suggest that, in future, since it's nice using caps and all but a bit of anti-support would go a long way.

But what do I know?

The Dreadnought is Sunk

Federation Yawn Prix

I gave it a good hard shake but I've bowed out at 50 points. I just can't be fucked going through the hilariously (no, really) camped lowsec pipes to get podded 13 minutes in to the run, or waiting 15 minutes for the run to expire.

While the idea is good, this is literally the worst game design for an event, simply because you can't bow out, so you have to just sit about for a quarter of an hour or risk dying to AFK nerds on a gate in lowsec, so it's really the time wasting that gets to me.

That said, smartbombing 66 shuttles in Yrmori with my alt was pretty hilarious. The idea that someone will pay 50M ISK to activate one of 55 kill rights when 50 of them are free? Got to hand it to that guy for entrepreneurial spirit.

Welcome to VNI Valley

So, this guy had a whinge about why he things that EVE sucks for new players.

So, let's review.

1. It takes 6-7 months to be efficient at making ISK.

Well, yeah, if you choose Gallente, and totally ignore the other opportunities at making ISK like hacking and archaeology and running combat anomalies. A 3/10 will drop about 50-80M ISK in loot about half the time and you can run it in an Algos. Not super-efficiently, but it's still better than 15M ISK ticks in nullsec 23.75/7.

2. Everyone thinks you are a spy

Well, he has a point here if you believe that a newbro should be able to engage in the highest level PVP that is available in this game on day or even month one, and don't understand that especially since skill injectors are now a thing it's almost irrelevant whether you check someone's toon's skills they can get skilled up into cynosural field theory 5 in literally 20 seconds if people want to use a 'newbro' as a spy and drop on your Rorqual fleet. I mean, just saying.

This also ignores the fact that there are plenty of newbro corps and noob friendly organisations and collectives out there who will take a newbro under their wings and provide them with not only efficient PVE options, ideas on making ISK, and abundant and plentiful PVP opprotunities with either free ships or full SRP.

I mean, yeah, if you're a dull neckbeard with no life and are ignorant of Pandemic Horde, BRAVE or Karmafleet, Spectrefleet, Redemption Road, etc etc...then yeah, you're a spai.

3. You have to run multiple accounts to make real ISK.

OK, he has another half-a-point to make here. Yes, I make 300M an hour with two accounts running C3 anoms at the deadest time of the day (just before downtime). You can even do this prime US/EU TZ if you are awake or want to take a bit of a risk. I can still make about 180M an hour solo in a Vargur in C3's. I still make 300-400M a day just smashing 3/10's to 5/10's in lowsec, solo. Or doing relics and datas.

Mining good moons in a Covetor? 60M/hr, easy. You can join a nullsec mining corp and do this, maybe not on grid with a Rorqual fleet to be fair, but there's plenty of moons to mine and people do mine in smaller ships than Rorquals.

4. The UI is shit.

Ehhh....OK, fair cop.

The duder goes on to make a few salient points though.

VNI Valley

For instance, he's right that being Gallente you are definitely railroaded into the VNI as a ISK printing machine, with about zero other options until you get to the Thanatos. This is a major issue for EVE, given how many ship types and ship classes there are (and now the basically useless Triglavian shit).

For Gallente one issue is damage lock to Kin/Therm with rails, and the terrible range of blasters makes the non-droneboat Gallente ships less than stellar for a majority of rats. Certainly the squishy Sansha rats or the high-yield and easy to tank Blood rats in nullsec aren't best shot with rails, versus packing a flight of Navy Praetors and a VNI.

The other issue is the ability to effectively AFK rat in a VNI with either a permarun MWD or a AB and sig tank; add this to the 650 DPS you can easily squeeze out of a VNI and even at 150M a hull it is simply the best cruiser in the game for Alphas looking to make 15M a tick. Even non-Gallente toons are well served training Gallente cruiser 4 (oh noes, a week or ten days in cross-training!!!) just to access the VNI.

The gutter in usefulness of T1 ships between the cruiser and the carrier is not a Gallente issue alone. This is because, typically, you're spending more ISK on the hull for shitter tracking, not much more DPS (eg; armour tanked Domi is +200-300 DPS over a VNI), slower hulls (warp time costs ISK/hr!), turdy tanking options (it's a struggle to make any BC or BS actually tank what a cruiser can sig tank effortlessly), and so on.

This is also true, to a large degree, of PVP ships. Certain hulls, in certain classes of space, become flavour of the month because they combine best-in-class attributes for better ISK cost than competing options. This is before we even touch on actual PVP doctrines and get into gank vs tank, range vs brawling, kiting meta, etc.

For what I do, it's really hard to go past the Loki because it's faster into warp and, with hyperspatials, through warp than any comparable cloaky DPS ship. it can still fit a decent tank (active or buffer) and is at least as ganky as any other T3. If it's not (eg; full on drone Proteus, and certain Legion fits) the extra agility and warp speed more than outweighs the lack of DPS. Plus there's almost no reason not to fit the Friction Extension subsystem and get 22.5km webs (more with pimp) and the standoff capability it gives you.

So, yeah, a valid point made here. My bro is struggling with the VNI at the moment just like this guy is; can't go past it, can't graduate from it, have to replace it when he loses it or he can't afford anything. It's like VNI Valley.

From VNI Valley to Gila Gulch

Sadly, the only way out of VNI valley is to go to the Gila, which requires a month of cross-training to Caldari Cruiser V. But then you're stuck in Gila Gulch, which is probably a bit more survivable due to the Gila's grunty passive tank and 850 DPS to gank your way through rats, and since it's drones you get to pick your damage type and go for it.

...which leads to Rattlesnake Ridge, where you're either poverty fitting 580M ISK or going troppo for 1.2B ISK active tanks.

The same is true of Minmatar PVE options: cross-train to the VNI or the Gila or both. The Cyclone is now better than it was, but it's still terrible for PVE (HMLEL's, impossible to permatank it cheaply), the Cane is decent enough, and BS wise....no. By the time BS become your thing a Minmatar purist is realistically into a T3 and a Loki.

The ISK/Hr Desert

One thing this guy fails to mention is the terrible, terrible, terrible ISK/hr on offer in low level missions. We're talking literally 5M ISK an hour earning capacity, rising to about 30M/hr for blitzing level 3's if you're smart and use your LP's wisely.

The missions have been in desperate need of an overhaul for ages. In my opinion CCP should use the Triglavian PVE model (sans the rats pointing you and podding you, and sans the timer killing you) to reinvigorate the mission genre. Procedurally generated rat swarms, with better loot tables and lootable items in missions, plus the reward and LPs, would go a long way toward making entry-level PVE more stimulating, challenging and rewarding for new players.

The fact is, theres no reason anyone should be restricted to shitty ISK/hr just depending on the type of content they are doing. Missions have a role to play in keeping players interested in the game early on, but making tragically bad amounts of ISK while grinding for better missions isn't going to help player retention let alone enjoyment.

Part of this is to find a way to bridge the gap in efficiency before VNI Valley and after it. It's a complex task, but CCP shouldn't be afraid to radically redesign missions, the LP store especially, and loot tables to make the grind less repetitive, more challenging (and maybe a bit more fatal?) and provide tools that aren't literally about 3 hulls out of 250.

The Raid

Last night I jumped a hole which apparently was crit - I didn't hear it chanting; often they don't when you first land on grid, and often EOL holes don't wobble, so you have to right-click, which I didn't - into a C2 and saw a whole bona fide Rorqual + Orca + mining fleet on d-scan.

Miskoranda was in her Astero, which I had just bought after I warehoused my old one when it got to 50 killmarks. So that wasn't ideal. What also wasn't ideal was that I forgot I was on my way to hand in 380M in Overseer loot. Welp, nothing else for it but to #YOLO.

So I warped onto grid and saw the Roqual leave. Were they on to me? 5 minutes of camping later I discerned that, no, they were not. We were left with an orca and 2 Hulks all within 5km of a Coesite rock (as an aside, coesite is a real world mineral created in asteroid impact sites, which is cool because CCP has done a bit of research on high pressure minerals to seed these moon belts with..../nerd)

So I reshipped TF from a Stratios into a Rattlesnake and hoofed it to the connection, and jumped in. The connection stayed up, which tells you all you need to know about how this would have gone if I had even a small batphone. But 0700 EVE time is a bit dead, so...#YOLO.

So I landed, pointed everything up, and blapped the 2 Hulks. Then I started on the Orca, though tbh I should have put my gecko on the Hulks and the RHML's on the Orca first, not the other way around, for when the Orca was in 30% structure the Athanor capped me out and I was in mid-reload when I had a Tengu, Ferox, Drake, Praxis pointing me.

So I MJD'd off, and warped out when the Athanor point decycled. Warped back to the entry hole, and jumped back...collapsing the hole. Which, realistically, is maybe what these guys are best off doing in future, I dunno.

Explain this to me...

CCP gives out a free tier 1 filament to each account. Is this a sign that no one is doing the content? Or just CCP trying to be nice?

Consider that Abyssal Depths took 1.75 trillion in 10 days, and only 0.6 T in the next 5; the rate of people dying is steadily declining, meaning either people are getting better (nope) or less people are doing it.

Chessur has been on Reddit shitcanning the Vedmak's ability to be FOTM solo nano kite boat. Apart from trying to use it for a purpose not intended (a great EVE motif) he does have some solid points, backed up by a couple of tweaks to fitting capacity and stats made in the last week.

I mean, does Chessur fly the Aug Navy? I don't think so, because it's just not good for what Chessur does (which is be the self-professed best player in EVE). Doesn't mean the Navy Augoror is shit, though.

Meanwhile, Lussy Lou is showing off a 100MN Vedmak with Abyssal mods (because the fitting was too tight to make it fit otherwise, tbh) and doing OK in limited engagements. See below.

So square peg, round hole I guess.

But Chessur is right; why start out an engagement at less than peak DPS? It's a dumb mechanic, because the normal ship will be doing the same DPS at the end as at the start.

Instead, we have people using Leshaks to pop POCOs in Hisec. Thumbs up for this expansion!

EN24: Siege Green Nabs Titan Kill

Bitch please, I miss more titans because I have to put my baby to bed.

Bath Time

Just finished the baby's bath, sat down to play, and immediately it was apparent there was something up. So instantly get into a dread, x for fleet, and jump in...

To this