Wow, that was a long break! It's been forever since I posted here, but I'm back, at least for a while. My voluminous following must be wondering what I've been up to. Am I still playing Eve? Am I still in the same corporation? What have I been doing in game? Sit back and all your questions will soon be answered.
Long story long, here's what happened. Many months ago (maybe 10 or so), the corporation decided to make a big push into wormhole space. I went along, and got myself trained up to Amarr battleships to help kill sleepers. We had corp members that would scan down the various anomalies and we'd get together every so often to go kill sleepers every few days. That was pretty fun, because it required teamwork to bring down the sleepers. We'd also did a fair amount of mining in the wormhole which was very lucrative, and the corp was able to get into T3 production which was cool too.
The downside for me was that I spent most of my time stuck in the wormhole with not much to do most of the time. My scanning skills are not great, and I'm not very good at scanning to start with, so there were many nights where I was basically stranded in the WH, spinning in the POS. When we got together and mined or ran sites, it was great, but that was not often enough to keep my interest.
Compounding that was the nature of the WH exit. I was part of the build crew for the corp, so I needed to get out of the WH once a week to do my builds. But as you know, the WH exit jumps around, and I would often find myself coming out of the WH with 35 jumps to the system where we do our builds. Ugh!!! I spent significant time every week travelling to and from the wormhole which is not my idea of a fun gameplay style.
After a while of this, I began to hate the wormhole with a burning passion, but since that was where our corporation was operating, I felt I had to be in there. It was at this time that I started to lose interest in the game. After a while of this, I talked to one of the corp leaders that I was going to back off playing as much, and was going to take a pseudo-vacation from Eve. The plan was to move to our build station, and hop on once a week to update my skill queue and put in builds. I did this for about a month or so, and while I wasn't playing the game too much, I was still contributing to the corporation which I liked.
Around this time, I had gotten back into World of Warcraft more heavily, and started raiding Icecrown Citadel with my guild's 25 man group. I was enjoying this quite a bit, and was not missing Eve too much. When I had to cancel the credit card that was paying for my Eve subscription because of a little fraud situation (don't ask...), CCP couldn't get paid and my Eve account went inactive. I figured that since I wasn't really playing all that much, I'd just leave it as is, and it was the end of an era.
In my next post, I'll explain how I got back into Eve, and what I've been up to more recently.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
What I love about Eve #4: Freighter Kills
Here's a story that demonstrates one more thing I love about Eve. As we all know, the Dominion patch has changed how alliances can claim territory in 0.0 space. Now, they must deploy various structures in their systems to claim them and upgrade them to support things like jump bridges and so on. One item that needs to be deployed is something called an infrastructure hub, which is an enormous structure that must be moved by huge freighters out to the alliances' systems to be deployed.
Now huge freighters filled with expensive cargo regularly move around New Eden, but not usually in such numbers at the same time as is happening now when the alliances are upgrading their territory. This has provided an opportunity for mischief, which in typical Eve fashion has not been neglected.
In an ISD post on the Eve Online web site, there are reports that dozens of freighters have been ambushed and destroyed as they deliver the infrastructure hubs needed by their alliances. One alliance reportedly lost 17 freighters when an opposing alliance attacked a fleet of freighters moving equipment out to null sec. As a freighter may cost 1 billion ISK, and the infrastructure hub it was most likely carrying costs 500 million, the losses from these ambushes is significant to say the least.
Just one more reason to love Eve...
Now huge freighters filled with expensive cargo regularly move around New Eden, but not usually in such numbers at the same time as is happening now when the alliances are upgrading their territory. This has provided an opportunity for mischief, which in typical Eve fashion has not been neglected.
In an ISD post on the Eve Online web site, there are reports that dozens of freighters have been ambushed and destroyed as they deliver the infrastructure hubs needed by their alliances. One alliance reportedly lost 17 freighters when an opposing alliance attacked a fleet of freighters moving equipment out to null sec. As a freighter may cost 1 billion ISK, and the infrastructure hub it was most likely carrying costs 500 million, the losses from these ambushes is significant to say the least.
Just one more reason to love Eve...
Monday, December 7, 2009
PPL featured on CrazyKinux' web site
Check it out! My corporation, Phoenix Propulsion Labs, is featured on Crazy Kinux' blog. You can see the article here: http://www.crazykinux.com/2009/12/phoenix-labs-few-proud-industrialists.html.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
The means of production
According to some communist leader back in the day, it was he who controlled the means of production who had the real power in society. Well, I have now been given control of the means of production for my corporation, having been granted access to the corp hangars where we keep the blueprints we use to build tech 1 stuff. In addition, I've been added to the roster of builders, and now will be assigned stuff to build every week.
The funny thing about production is how easy it is, and yet how nice it feels to be a bigger part of our corporation's main money making operation. While all I can build right now is tech 1 stuff, by providing extra build slots to the corporation, the higher skilled builders can concentrate on building more interesting stuff. And since the tech 2 stuff starts life as tech 1 stuff, I'm providing the base items that get our who production process started. It's just one more way to contribute to the success of the corporation, and it feels good.
So while I am no more powerful than I was before, there is still something to be said about having access to, if not control over, the means of production.
The funny thing about production is how easy it is, and yet how nice it feels to be a bigger part of our corporation's main money making operation. While all I can build right now is tech 1 stuff, by providing extra build slots to the corporation, the higher skilled builders can concentrate on building more interesting stuff. And since the tech 2 stuff starts life as tech 1 stuff, I'm providing the base items that get our who production process started. It's just one more way to contribute to the success of the corporation, and it feels good.
So while I am no more powerful than I was before, there is still something to be said about having access to, if not control over, the means of production.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
D-Day Arrives...
Yesterday was the launch of Dominion, and overall I would say the launch was remarkably smooth. I know that a lot of the update was around 0.0 changes, but there were a number of changes that were really cool for any player.
The new browser that it built into the game is fantastic. It is not only usable (unlike the previous browser), it is actually quite fast and renders pretty well. Previously I would have to switch to windowed mode if I wanted to surf and mine at the same time. Now I can just use the in game browser to give me something to do while I am mining.
"X-ing up" looks like it will be a thing of the past with the new Fleet Finder. I used it last night several times and it really works well.
Finally, the mail looks much better. Our corp doesn't do much with mail, probably because the in game mail system was so bad, but the new system looks pretty good.
It was a successful deployment in my book, especially considering the fiasco of the last patch I went through when doing a gate jump was a crap shoot!
Way to go, CCP!
The new browser that it built into the game is fantastic. It is not only usable (unlike the previous browser), it is actually quite fast and renders pretty well. Previously I would have to switch to windowed mode if I wanted to surf and mine at the same time. Now I can just use the in game browser to give me something to do while I am mining.
"X-ing up" looks like it will be a thing of the past with the new Fleet Finder. I used it last night several times and it really works well.
Finally, the mail looks much better. Our corp doesn't do much with mail, probably because the in game mail system was so bad, but the new system looks pretty good.
It was a successful deployment in my book, especially considering the fiasco of the last patch I went through when doing a gate jump was a crap shoot!
Way to go, CCP!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Share your most embarassing ship loss
Hey, I just shared my most embarassing ship loss. I'd love to hear some of your embarassing ship losses. Perhaps it will make me feel better to know I'm not the only one who has lost a ship in an embarassing manner.
Please leave a comment to this post with your story.
Please leave a comment to this post with your story.
Oh no!!!!
Ok, first off, I know it's been a while. I've been pretty busy at work, and I've been using my limited Eve-related time to play the game rather than blog about it. That said, I'm back, and have some new things to blog about.
The biggest thing is that I lost a battleship the other day. Fortunately, it was a tech 1 ship with all tech 1 fittings, but it still was an expensive loss for me, and my first loss of anything bigger than a destroyer.
The sad part is that I lost it in a L3 mission, and in the most noobish way possible. Here is the sad, sad tale...
I was running a mission where you have multiple waves of frigates and cruisers that spawn and attack. The goal is to reach a station in space, blow it up and take the inhabitant.
Everything was going fine, except the fact that the fast ships were difficult to kill by anything except my drones, and I there were so many of them, they were starting to go through my drones after a while. I was tanking everything fine, and with my supply of drones dwindling, I decided that I'd just blitz the habitat, grab the hostage and get out of there. With that in mind, I recalled my drones, turned off my lasers and make a beeline toward the station which was about 55km away.
As I said, the ships attacking me weren't making a dent, and I probably could have stuck around all day with my armor repper and DC going, so the damage was not a big problem. However, that's were the first of my noob moves came in: I decided it would be a good idea to start softening up the habitat from range so that I could pretty much pop it as soon as I got close. I figured this would save me a bit of time and get the mission over sooner.
With this plan, I loaded up some longer range ammo (see last post!) and focused my bank of heavy lasers on the structure. Right here would be a good time to add one more bit of data: Eve Survival had mentioned that the habitat was a trigger for 6 cruisers, 6 frigates, and 1 more ship of some sort (I can't remember what). Therefore, I knew that I should only soften up the target, not kill it, as I would really need to warp out as soon as I did so to avoid a large pack of baddies that could take me down.
Anyway, back to my story. I let loose the first volley from my lasers. You can imagine my surprise when the target was into structure after one shot! Holy crap, I thought, and hit the F-Key to shut off my guns. Of course, the second cycle had already started, and when it went off, the habitat popped, the can appeared, and a bunch of new friends showed up. An aside: does anyone know a key that will abort a cycle in progress?
So now I've got about 20 guys on me, including a bunch of guys that can actually do some damage. The DPS started coming faster than I could rep it, but not too much faster. At this point I made a fatal decision: I was about 45km from the can and decided to see if I could make it to the can anyway. Armor was still high, but started dropping bit by bit. Still, it looked okay, and I thought I could ride it out. Then I noticed the wierd effect on my ship and realized someone was webbing me (by the fact that I was going about half my normal speed).
Now that I was making such slow progress toward the can, I realized that I would not be able to make it and decided that as much as it would suck, I was going to have to warp out. I tried to warp to a nearby station and nothing. Crap, I thought, I'm being warp disrupted! And this is where I had my second noob moment: I had no idea how to get out of the warp scramble! After it was all over, my corpmates pointed out to me the little icon on the overview that shows who is webbing and scrambling you, but at the time, I was completely at a loss. Instead of fighting back and trying to kill the guys holding me, I instead sat there trying repeatedly to warp as I watched my armor then my structure melt away. It was excrutiating!
Eventually, they popped me. I just sat there in my pod next to my wreckage stunned that I'd just lost the best ship I've ever had to a bunch of NPCs. It had been ages since I lost a ship, and I was really mad and bummed out. I will admit that I had potty fingers for a while after that in corp chat!
Anyway, I guess in the end I learned a valuable lesson, but it is pretty sad/embarassing that it took me all the way until I was flying a ship that cost tens of millions of ISK to learn that you can find out the person webbing or scrambling you.
Anyway, that's my tale of woe. Feel free to razz me now...
The biggest thing is that I lost a battleship the other day. Fortunately, it was a tech 1 ship with all tech 1 fittings, but it still was an expensive loss for me, and my first loss of anything bigger than a destroyer.
The sad part is that I lost it in a L3 mission, and in the most noobish way possible. Here is the sad, sad tale...
I was running a mission where you have multiple waves of frigates and cruisers that spawn and attack. The goal is to reach a station in space, blow it up and take the inhabitant.
Everything was going fine, except the fact that the fast ships were difficult to kill by anything except my drones, and I there were so many of them, they were starting to go through my drones after a while. I was tanking everything fine, and with my supply of drones dwindling, I decided that I'd just blitz the habitat, grab the hostage and get out of there. With that in mind, I recalled my drones, turned off my lasers and make a beeline toward the station which was about 55km away.
As I said, the ships attacking me weren't making a dent, and I probably could have stuck around all day with my armor repper and DC going, so the damage was not a big problem. However, that's were the first of my noob moves came in: I decided it would be a good idea to start softening up the habitat from range so that I could pretty much pop it as soon as I got close. I figured this would save me a bit of time and get the mission over sooner.
With this plan, I loaded up some longer range ammo (see last post!) and focused my bank of heavy lasers on the structure. Right here would be a good time to add one more bit of data: Eve Survival had mentioned that the habitat was a trigger for 6 cruisers, 6 frigates, and 1 more ship of some sort (I can't remember what). Therefore, I knew that I should only soften up the target, not kill it, as I would really need to warp out as soon as I did so to avoid a large pack of baddies that could take me down.
Anyway, back to my story. I let loose the first volley from my lasers. You can imagine my surprise when the target was into structure after one shot! Holy crap, I thought, and hit the F-Key to shut off my guns. Of course, the second cycle had already started, and when it went off, the habitat popped, the can appeared, and a bunch of new friends showed up. An aside: does anyone know a key that will abort a cycle in progress?
So now I've got about 20 guys on me, including a bunch of guys that can actually do some damage. The DPS started coming faster than I could rep it, but not too much faster. At this point I made a fatal decision: I was about 45km from the can and decided to see if I could make it to the can anyway. Armor was still high, but started dropping bit by bit. Still, it looked okay, and I thought I could ride it out. Then I noticed the wierd effect on my ship and realized someone was webbing me (by the fact that I was going about half my normal speed).
Now that I was making such slow progress toward the can, I realized that I would not be able to make it and decided that as much as it would suck, I was going to have to warp out. I tried to warp to a nearby station and nothing. Crap, I thought, I'm being warp disrupted! And this is where I had my second noob moment: I had no idea how to get out of the warp scramble! After it was all over, my corpmates pointed out to me the little icon on the overview that shows who is webbing and scrambling you, but at the time, I was completely at a loss. Instead of fighting back and trying to kill the guys holding me, I instead sat there trying repeatedly to warp as I watched my armor then my structure melt away. It was excrutiating!
Eventually, they popped me. I just sat there in my pod next to my wreckage stunned that I'd just lost the best ship I've ever had to a bunch of NPCs. It had been ages since I lost a ship, and I was really mad and bummed out. I will admit that I had potty fingers for a while after that in corp chat!
Anyway, I guess in the end I learned a valuable lesson, but it is pretty sad/embarassing that it took me all the way until I was flying a ship that cost tens of millions of ISK to learn that you can find out the person webbing or scrambling you.
Anyway, that's my tale of woe. Feel free to razz me now...
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