Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo

Quick Update - Goons, Pure Blind and Other Stuff

2011-09-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

Our new/old friends, the Goons, have moved to Delve for a short campaign. They have been open about setting up the region like a high-end Providence. If they can pull it off, which is possible, I would be ecstatic. Good luck to you guys. For the time being, Razor is holding down the fort in Pure Blind.

With that said, Pure Blind is a little quiet, but there is no lack of kills in Tribute and Venal. We spent 5 1/2 hours last night hot-dropping the crap out the surrounding regions. Got some nice kills. Good times were had by all.

Ratting. Well, I pushed the Archon and Tengu through a wormhole into Tenal 2 days ago. Twenty-four hours later I had gotten 2 DG Invulnerability Fields (I know its awesome), fixed my sec status even more and made a nice bit of ISK to boot. Being on vacation and not being able to commit to FC duties is frustrating, but making some money for the big shiny is a welcome break.

Skill Training Update

Tib is nearly done with Recon 5. Once that is done he'll finish up Gallente Cruiser 5 and then move on to some much needed Drone Skills love.

Cheng is training for an Avatar. Capital Ships 5 has 2 weeks left on it and then he'll finish Capital Energy Turret 5 to round off the basics before I plug in the Amarr Titan skillbook. As long as I can get the money together... I should be in an Avatar come February or March. :-)

Orcae has finally finished Skirmish Warefare Spcialist 5 and I've plugged the mindlink into his head. Perfect boosting Loki FTW. A long time in coming, but well worth the wait.

The not-so-secret alt (who shall not be named) has been living in Jita 4-4 for 8 months training for a Thanatos. I'm still 100 days out, but it will be worth the wait. Right now he is finishing up JDC 5... the 3rd character I have trained this on. Ugh.

-----

This has been your not-so-important-but somewhat-informative update.

Fly safe and kill shit,

Tib

Blog Banter 28: CCP, the CSM, and Side Affects

2011-09-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

I want to give a shout-out to Rixx Javix and Seismic Stan. They are doing a great job in keeping the EVE blogging community united and moving forward. CK did a great job and we're sad to see him go. It has been a good long while since I have participated in the Blog banter, but it has also been a good long while since I have seen something that has caught my interest enough to dedicate a post to it. I am the type of person who forms an opinion on a subject only after (1) listening to both sides and (2) experiencing the problem for myself.

In recent months, the relationship between CCP and it’s customers has been the subject of some controversy. The player-elected Council of Stellar Management has played a key role in these events, but not for the first time they are finding CCP difficult to deal with. What effect will CCP’s recent strategies have on the future of EVE Online and it’s player-base? What part can and should the CSM play in shaping that future? How best can EVE Online’s continued health and growth be assured?

First of all, as many long-time readers of this blog will know, I have transitioned from a null-sec dweller, to low-sec pirate and drug manufacturer, and finally into an FC position in a major null-sec entity, Razor Alliance. Having been on the receiving end of pretty much all the major problems in EVE… my opinion of the situation may be a bit more dire than most. Let’s see... in more recent times… the Anomaly Nerf, DRF Super Capital rape-mobile (North and South), the great EVE Riot, walking in stations (aka, Barbie Goes to SPAAAAaaccceeeee), etc.

What effect will CCP’s recent strategies have on the future of EVE Online and it’s player-base?

Well, its going to be a long road ahead. Over the past 12 months, CCP has delivered on a lot of what we asked them to do prior to Tyrannis, little fixes. The song from the famous Mary Poppins, “Just a spoon-full of sugar, makes the medicine go down! The Medicine go down! …” would describe this situation very well… if things actually got better.

A perfect example of this would be the “Removal of the Session Change Between Ship Changes in Station.” When I saw this coming I was extatic! When the change finally came though, it brought with it the most frustrating side-effect… fitting manager cancer, random offline modules, ammo loading problems, etc etc.

To be honest, the recent patches CCP has been coming out with should be made into the form of those Drug Commercials which go like this:

“EVE Online Patch 1.1.17 can make your EVE health problems go away and give you your EVE life back. Side effects may include: extreme agitation, random client crashes, fitting manager problems, backward-flying ships, random offline modules, ammo loading errors and the inclination to unsubscribe. If you experience any of the symptoms mentioned for more than 2 weeks, please add your comments to the already 20-page threadnaught lambasting our inability to fix EVE and keep playing like a stupid little sucker… because EVE is awesome and you like it. Right?”

I digress.

CCP needs to do several things to expand its player base. First of all, focus on what they do best, making a space simulator (not a station simulator). Second of all, stop with the CSM shenanigans and just be open about what’s going on. I mean seriously, why all the secrecy? YOU HAVE NO COMPETITION! EVE is what defines the ultimate Space Simulator. Use that to your advantage and try not to disenfranchise your loyal customers.

Finally, stop with the whole walking-in-station shit. If you put that on the backburner for 6 months and focused on fixing (1) sovereignty mechanics, (2) supercarrier nerfing, (3) Technetium nerfing, (4) Black Ops boosting, (5) Industry expansions, (6) Low-sec development, (7) the little quirks that have accompanied your recent fail-patches, (8) POS mechanics development… like it not taking 8 hours to setup a resists-star and finally (9) undoing the anomaly nerf... CCP would see a resurgance in player activity and new people coming into the game. To be honest, I stopped inviting people to EVE 6-8 months ago because of all this.

What part can and should the CSM play in shaping the future?

The same role they have been playing. The CSM has done an outstanding job. I don’t really have any complaints about their current role or performance. The only problem I see is CCP’s cutting them out of the loop and shutting them up when they are afraid the CSM will vet their dirty laundry. Nuff said.

How best can EVE Online’s continued health and growth be assured?

I wish this question had a simple answer, but alas… it does not. I could write for age about what CCP should do improve the game, but it all boils down to a song by 4 Him from the mid 90's...

“We need to get back; to the basics of life!…”

CCP needs to get back to the basics of why they started the game in the first place. What were the game-changing aspects that REALLY made the game better and could they be employed again? More regions. Wormhole space. Tech 3s. New ships, specifically pirate factions. Ammatar Navy faction ships, anyone?!

EVE has continued to grow and hold its draw on players because of new content and better communication. This is eroding and unless CCP does an about face and fixes it, I’m afraid my 7 paying accounts will go into pod goo commas…never to wake up.

Still holding on…barely,

Tib

Well, I'm Traveling

2011-09-05T21:45:00.001-05:00

Now that everything is beginning to settle down in Pure Blind, the cyno chains and moving fleets becoming less frequent and the tower timers hitting the forums... it's time fora vacation, right?

I'm off to see the folks before my Active Duty Air Force duties kick in at the end of the month. This means I'll have time to blog and get excited about doing stuff in EVE again. Being a Senior FC in Razor Alliance means two things: More work and more work. Small vacations are good to keep things fresh and prevent burnout.

I'm almost finished with a battle report we had with IRC the other day. When I say battle, I mean IRC died in a fire.

Till you see that post.

Tib

BTW... I turned 24 today. I feel old.

Pure Blind

2011-09-01T18:36:00.000-05:00

Razor has been bouncing around for a while now. We've based out of Khanid and Derelik for the past 3 months after the DRF supercapital rape train kicked us from our space in Tenal. The game has changed significantly these past few months.

The EVE community has it in their mind that Razor is a dying alliance on it's last leg. This is not the case, hate to break it to you guys. ;-)

Well... we're moving to Pure Blind and hanging our long-time friends, the Goons.

I'm back in the blogging community. Getting back into the swing of things.

Regular posts coming soon.

Tib

Not Quitting

2011-06-24T11:02:00.002-05:00

Well, after my temper-tantrum was over, my keyboard replaced and the hole in the wall repaired... I logged back in.

With a fresh set of eyes on Incarna... I won't be quitting.

Captains Quarters does not affect me all that much because I actually like flying in space. I spend far more time on a Titan, camping a gate or roaming in a small gang than I do ship spinning.

For those who love ship spinning and staying docked 99% of the time, I can understand their frustration. Though honestly I don't give a damn about their bitching.

They rage-quit. I laugh at their tears. This game is about spaceships and all they are complaining about is that the station crap is dumb. If the station stuff is dumb...buy a damn POS and live out of that.

It is frustrating that I can't right-click on my ship in station, but I'll overcome.

The new Aurum (sp?) store is meh. Also does not apply to me. If I cared that much about my appearance in game, I would have bigger problems. :-)

Turrets are cool. Now CCP needs to add missile launchers.

I'm not quitting. Not even close.

Tib

Incarna Explained

2011-06-22T00:57:00.001-05:00

I bet you can't guess what ship I undock in. Wait, how do I change ships?

At least the turrets look cool, except they're an eyesore in my items window.

Hey, I can buy cool clothes! WTF?!? How fucking much for a damn monocle?!

If I am stuck in Barbie Dress-Up Adventure, at least I can run around to access stuff quickly. What?! I can't fucking run?!

*throws keyboard across room*

Tib

Update from the North...errr... South

2011-06-20T04:33:00.000-05:00

Overview of Recent News:
1. The NC lost.
2. Everybody reset everybodyy else.
3. Morsus Mihi is pissing off Stainwagon in Delve.
4. Razor is pissing off Stainwagon in Querious.
5. MM and Razor are still BFFs.
6. PL got curb-stomped at the tournament.
7. Razor Alliance took 4th. <3

That should about rap it up from my perspective. The warm, comfortable womb that was Tenal is gone and Razor Alliance has been thrust into the real-world for the first time in a good long while.

To get right to it, making people's lives miserable in Querious has been awesome. It's nice to bring the hurt to somebody else after you've been blobbed to death by the self-proclaimed anti-blobbing force which was PL/Raiden./NC./Merciless./White Noise etc. Our complacency was our downfall. Oh, well. Live and learn right?

Anyways... I have been FC'ing fleets like mad this past weekend and was able to catch a couple of kills here and there, but nothing big...till yesterday.

We had been trying to catch some ratting carriers in DS- in Querious, but the little buggers were always paying attention and warped to safety. We were fed up, so one of my corpmates put a SB alt in system for several hours and allowed them to grow accustomed to his unmolested presence.

I formed a shield nano fleet and burned towards the destination system, all while out SB scout leisurely kept eyes on a plethora of ratting carriers. I called for him to point a Chimera and we jumped in. The results were as to be expected.

http://www.eve-razor.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=407686

There is a pesky Rattlesnake and Raven Navy Issue in the next system over that have so far evaded my grasp; but not for long.

Tib

Future of the North

2011-05-27T20:34:00.001-05:00

I know that there is a lot of crap spewing from both sides about the NC vs. PL/WN/NC./Raiden. conflict, but the reality is simple: The drone Russians and their hired battle-whores are winning.

Did the NC stop the babushkas & friends at the Tribute line? Yes, and I know that we will not allow them to go further. They'll take Tech moons, but we'll just take them back. Like always.

The NC has never been in this situation though. We are on the verge of a fail cascade. I am all about optimism, but realism tells us that unless the NC puts aside elitism and works together, it will slowly fade into memories of grandeur.

"But the NC always pulls together!"
Yes, they have. RAGE has fail-cascaded. Majesta is holding strong, but is quickly losing the last of it's space. Vale is lost. The last line of defense is gone. PL, NC., Raiden. and DRF are now within easy jump range of the heart of the NC, Tribute.

The NC needs to pull itself out of apathy and put someone in charge of a counter campaign. We can't fight the full DRF/PL bandwagon in EU TZ, but we can in US TZ when the Babushkas go to bed.

We need a Sky-Marshall. We need a leader. We need someone to unite the clans. :-)

The goons look like they will e leading the charge...and it looks as if they brought someone in charge... Let's hope people follow him. :-)

We'll see what happens, but now it's only a matter of waiting... either for the end of the NC or the comeback we all hope for...

Tib

Ejecting from Ship, in RL

2011-05-27T15:50:00.001-05:00

The view from the ship was pretty cool from the orbital bombardment position, but I got primary'd and had to bail out. That's right. I ejected from my ship. It was terrible... there was fire and death and general unpleasant explosions. I successfully ejected in structure and got my pod out.

The shock of re-entry was painful, but the view was amazing:

Proof of successfully getting my pod out.

Heading back to the mainland this afternoon. I'll be re-shipped and ready to rock this weekend. There was much rejoicing.

Tib

For reference: http://www.skydivehawaii.com/

Taking a Break, Still Alive

2011-05-21T19:25:00.000-05:00

Well... I got burnt out blogging, being a CEO, and dealing with politics... all on top of university and other stuff... so I joined back up with the Mercurialis Inc. in Razor Alliance. I made a whole bunch of friends in that corp and wanted to move back. Waking Nightmare now has a new CEO, Vorengard, a very competent and experienced captain at the helm. Good luck to you, sir!

While I post this, I am sitting at the wet bar of a rented beach house on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii. Snorkeling, moped-riding and general mischief have been the activities of late. Skydiving next Thursday. This vacation of shenanigans shall end next Saturday, whereupon I shall gear up for summer courses, FC'ing for Razor/NC and having a gay 'ol time.

Till then...

Tib

"The Great Ash Alliance Massacre"

2011-04-15T05:35:00.001-05:00

The other day brought a great fight... err... gank.

Alliance chat was filled with bordem, so I called for mish-mash LR shield nano gang + scimis + tackle. Fleet rallied on our home station. Had 25 in fleet.

Proceeded to W-Q to try and provoke a fight out of our new neighbors, Dark Rising. I split our fleet into two groups. Vorengard (great job, mate) took command of fleet 2 while I took the forward bait fleet into the destination system. No fight was to be had. Sad face.

I pulled the fleet back together and rallied in UKYS-5 in order to try and play with Bang Bang Your Dead (BBYD). They also decided it was a good day to paint the dining room in their station.

Intel came in that the two -A- Tempests from an earlier engage (they logoffski'd) were heading down towards 42-UOW from T-8UOF. I split our fleet over A4UG-, W-V and 42- in order to try and catch them. This caused a nasty piece of chaos for a few minutes, but with some great help from my scouts, we had stuff un-FUBAR'd rather quickly.

Right when our trap was about to be sprung, intel lit up with news of an Ash Alliance gang entering LB0-A1 from a wormhole. They proceed quickly down the pipe towards CBGG-0. After a few minutes of getting eyes on them and trying to rally everyone in 42- on the CBGG-0 gate... we were able to gather our group to take them on.

Scout reported their gang jumping CBGG-0 and warping UKYS-5. I called for the fleet to jump into CBGG-0 and warp UKYS-5 and jump on contact.

I called for my hero Sabre pilot to burn and bubble their fleet. He did an outstanding job and bubbled most of them. Once the call had been made to burn towards them and point as much as possible… it did not take long to annihilate the majority of the Ash alliance fleet.

Drake: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365683
Drake: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365651
Drake: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365652
Drake: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365671
Nighthawk: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365648

As all of my Scimi pilots were EU TZ… I had everyone burn back home. Just when we all were docking up, Danny X called a Scimi and Drake from the Ash alliance gang bubbled in T-8 on the U2- gate. Danny, I love you man.

Scimitar: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365715
Drake: http://elmstreet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9365735

Kills: 5 Drakes, 1x Scimitar and 1x Nighthawk.
Losses: None.

Needless to say...their Pinata Party ended very quickly...and we stole their candy. (errmmm...)

Note: We killed and podded their entire fleet with the exception of 2 Scimitar pilots.

Stay tuned for more news from the ass-end of nowhere coming to a blog near you...

Tib

New Sov Mechanics: CCP Has Truly Lost Touch

2011-04-05T19:10:00.001-05:00

This Post = Musing + Rant

Over the past few months, I have worked very hard to keep this game interesting. The thing about Eve is this, if you're bored, you're not trying. I realized that recently I have been spending more and more effort into making this game fun.

In the beginning, New Eden was a mysterious new place that seemed huge.

As time went on, whole new worlds of opportunity unfolded themselves before me.

Since that time of innocence, I have been a wormhole dweller, pirate, corp thief, alliance leader, diplo guy, fleet commander, cap pilot, industrialist, miner, drug dealer, role-player and now a PvP corp CEO.

I have been a part of the largest fights in New Eden's history, suicide ganked others, been suicide ganked myself, roamed solo, honored/dishonored 1v1s in high/low sec, warped out in structure and podded those I just ransomed.

Tens of billions in ill-gotten spoils were once nuzzled in my wallet. I also remember a time not so long ago that a new Drake purchase was out of my reach.

....sigh....

Now I find the fun in New Eden lies with the people you play with. If you can't play with people, then New Eden is one big, complicated, 89 degree learning curve space simulation made by a company that has lost sight of the big picture.

Now before the Shiny, Shiny Knights of CCP come out of the woodwork to defend the Keep, let me go on. CCP has lost sight of the reason people play this game. We play this game because we like to play with other people and share good fights, funny stories, drunken mining ops, mission running, etc. It is a rare occurrence for someone to play this game solo for long. Space is cold, dark, lonely and quickly bores even those who posses the greatest of fortitude.

If we want to make an empire, we can. If we want to seclude ourselves to a dead-end low-sec pocket, we can. It we want to roam solo, we can. I do not need CCP telling me I need to fight more people, more often.

New Sov Mechanics, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS5IHVKRzwc. (Original Dev Blog) With the new sov mechanics, many null-bears with cry. Boo-Freaking-Hoo, I don't care about the 79 pages of raging. My point is that CCP is violating their own sandbox idea.

They are essentially coming into the sandbox and dumping a bucket of water on the hundreds of little sand castles built over the past 18 months and longer. Then they tell us they want us to fight amongst each other more...

Fix Black Ops. Fix the Dreadnought role. Add new ships. Add new regions. Add new storyline. Expand the universe. Build upon our foundation of dreams long-past.

I appreciate the little fixes. We asked for them and you finally delivered. Now can we get back to the big stuff?

Does this remind you of a Blizzard-type move? It does to me.

Tib

Still Alive... More to Come

2011-04-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

Since my last post, much has happened.

I moved Waking Nightmare Inc. out of Derelik low-sec to the Stain region. Everything was going well as a solo corp with plenty of small-gang warfare till a 1,000-man alliance moved into our home system. It was decided that we go with them and see how it goes.

The transition has been a bumpy one, but it's been getting progressively better over the past two weeks as everyone gets into the groove. I have taken several Shield HAC/Recon fleets into Paragon Soul, Delve, Period Basis and Querious. A couple of wormhole excursions as well as a capital fight have also provided much amusement.

The biggest thing for my guys is providing them the opportunity to make ISK to buy Caps and Supers which was not the case in Derelik. Many of us miss the sec loss with every kill, but all of us like the absence of gate guns and the addition of bubbles. This brings a whole host of new ship classes and fits now perfectly acceptable.

Tales of ganks, death via fire, and good laughs coming soon.

Tib

"dude-bro! where are my ships?"

2011-02-27T05:52:00.000-06:00

Myself and several completely bored members of our corporation stole a sizable amount of ships and fittings this very night. To the deep, dark parts of the Great Wildlands, we trekked. The corp from which these "pretties" were stolen will remain anonymous to protect their hurt feelings. Nah, don't care, Hellfire Hounds is now minus a lot of stuff.

After only 22 days in corp, one of my corpmate's infiltration alts were given rights to the corporate hangar and ship maintenance array. This would not be a big deal in most situations, but his corp had moved to the Great Wildlands and began living out of a POS. He waited until they had gotten settled in before he called in the cavalry.

We used a Redeemer Black Ops battleship to portal covert haulers into the 0.0 system, setup a small Caldari tower with Corporate Hangar and ship maintenance array, and spent the next 2 hours pillagin' and plunderin'.

The lootz, having been carrier jumped to the safety of our low-sec home can be seen below:

Most ships are T2 fitted with rigs. Both cans are full of fittings and ammo taken from the ships which were either un-rigged or were rigged poorly. The amount stands at... a lot. Estimates come in at 3-ish billion. The above picture does not show an Orca also stolen from the POS which has been moved to Rens for sale.

Dear mate,
From: Atmer ArAzar
Sent: 2011.02.27 07:19
To: XXX XXXXXX

This was epic. I have learned a lot from you. Thank you. Youre still a fucking asshole though.

-Atmer

They are now shutting down their 0.0 operations.

Tib

Character Review

2011-02-23T08:10:00.000-06:00

Thought I would give an update on the lot o' toons and their skill paths.

Tib has finished off the skills to bring his Tengu's tank and DPS to almost perfect. The path to projectiles, Vagabond, Loki and Rapier are now in sight. Having been missiles from the beginning, I am looking forward to sitting in, and effectively flying those classic PvP machines.

Cheng can sit in an Archon in three weeks. Right now I don't want to dedicate the extra month of training to being able to fit the capital energy and capital remote armor reps quite yet. It will serve as a logistics ship for the time being. Moving ships into and out of null is the primary need at this point. Once this training is done, Cheng will spend 2 months to train T2 Large Autocannons. This will put him very near the goal of being able to fit and fly the Machariel. Once the gunnery skills are trained, Minmatar and Gallente battleship skills will go to Level 5. That's gonna suck... but I will then be able to fly the Thanatos as well.

My soon-to-be perfect boosting, unscannable Loki pilot, Orcae, is well on his way to finishing the long skill queue. My fleets will be moving faster, getting smaller (sig) and pointing farther in no time.

Brother Thadeus is finishing up the fitting and support skills for his logistics track. By late April he will be able to fly the Scimitar, Basilisk and Guardian with Logistics 5. Everyone can use of these guys right?

Thoughts?

Tib

Successful Gank ... Gate Guns Bite

2011-02-17T11:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been very busy with my final semester of study at university, trying to correct a nocturnal sleep pattern and establishing a very active pirate corp. This means I can't get on and camp a damned gate for 5 hours at a time or go on a solo null roam.

Recently, I will log-in all the scout alts, position Tiberu and Cheng, and spend about 30 minutes looking around. Yesterday, the fight dropped right into our home system. Local bumps by a single neural and I see a Zealot on scan...score.

I warped Tib in his Tengu to the Zealot's destination gate and jumped through. The zealot landed behind me and jumped. I tackled him when he decloaked and went for a bump which failed. He jumped back through to Kehrara... only to see Cheng in a Harbinger sitting on gate. He tried to pull a ping-pong on gate, but I got a web and neut on him. He was still moving back to the gate... but he decided to engage me since I was now at about half armor due to gate-guns.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he brought in a Vagabond friend into the fray to save him. This didn't work too well as Tib finally jumped back in and scrammed the Vagabond who had decided it was a good idea to sit right on top of Cheng's dying Harbinger. (lolz)

The Zealot melted once Tib's HAM-fit Tengu arrived on the field (killmail). The Vagabond died shortly after (killmail). He tried to dissengage, but as most know, scrammed Vagabonds are, more often than not, dead ones. (that's a lot of commas)

The only thing I love more than hitting Pinatas...is the pretty faction modules that drop as a result. Mr. Vagabond pilot, thanks for the Dark Blood Warp Disruptor. Your donation to your local friendly pirate group is much appreciated.

Some readers of this post might wonder if my Harbinger got out alive. The Vagabond died and Cheng warped out in 7% structure...to the station. I had accidentally warped myself to station instead of my safe a few thousand off... 441 damage from the station guns and only seconds later... Cheng's harbinger was space dust. Fail Tib is Fail.

Tib

The Machariel says, "IT'S A TRAP!"

2011-02-08T11:43:00.000-06:00

Well, I setup a camp in Abha yesterday. Caught a Hurricane after just 5 minutes which kept me going for quite a while. About 20 minutes later, some poor local lost his Heron and pod with T2 BPCs. A few minutes later, a neut shuttle scout came through trying to escort his Obelisk. He stayed on gate a few seconds too long... and lost his Shuttle and Pod. He came back a few minutes later and paid 50 mil for safe passage. I know I could have gotten more... but that's life I guess.

Well... my scout saw a Machariel on scan and put it in Intel. I immediately dismissed the report as this pilot frequented the area in a Machariel, but never came through low-sec. To my surprise, he drops out of warp on the gate to the Abha gate. Seeing as I am in a Tengu and Sniping Apoc along with a new Harbinger pilot I was training from Reverberation Project alliance... I did not know if we could actually catch him.

He did not give me much chance to think as he barreled on through. Before he broke cloak, he expressed his sentiment in local.

StarCrasher > look what we have here
StarCrasher > silly noob piratez

What he was probably thinking was...

He broke cloak and started warping...instead of immediately burning back to gate. My overview shat all over itself when I dragged something to someplace without sacrificing to the New Eden gods...

But the new guy I was working with (he did an excellent job, BTW) burnt straight at him... and landed a scram and web on him. With the Mach tackled by both of us now (no, it didn't take long to fix my fail-sauce-ness)... the fight was on. I got an nice bump on him, but he still made it back to gate.

What I had not noticed...is that he had started killing my fleetmate's Harbinger. When the Harb burst into a ball of white flame, the Mach started neuting me to try and force my point to drop. At this point it was too late as he began to bleed into hull.

In a startling turn of events...my Tengu's launchers burnt out. I started to panic, but still had plenty of cap and an active point. Cheng was 180ish off gate still dropping 400 DPS... so... our Machariel friend eshploded in a beautiful ball of fiery fire.

As he exploded, I could not help myself and had to say something in local...

Tiberu Stundrif > silly noob mach pilot lol
Tiberu Stundrif > gf m8
StarCrasher > lol, gf o/

Yarrrrrrr,

Tib

If Life is a Marathon, what is Eve?

2011-02-07T11:46:00.000-06:00

"Its a marathon with gate camps."

The last couple of weeks have been filled with glorious gate camps, wormhole ganks, successful/unsuccessful skirmishes, POS bashes, recruiting, a little bit o' diplo... and homework.

The recruiting campaign is going quite well. We are bringing in a few really good guys and gals a week. The new piwates are just getting their feet wet in Derelik low-sec, but so far it's a helluva good time.

Yup, I'm rambling. Yup, you're bored. Time for the pew-pew story of the week.

Well, I logged on right after downtime the other day to find the local, neutral, station gnome guy docked up with me in our home station. I did not think anything of it and started picking up some stuff in Jita with an alt. About 5 minutes later, I see that he has undocked. As I am utterlly bored, I undock mah trusty Tengu, Scrap Metal, to see what's up.

Lo' and Behold, he was sitting right on the station in his shiny Arazu. I aggressed immediately expecting him to either dock or bring down Thor's Hammer on my ass with a black ops fleet. To my pleasant surprise, he does no such thing... he aggressed me back and goes balls to the wall.

I put a scram on him and overheat. His shiny Arazu goes up in a ball of flames. Killmail.

He warps his pod off and then warps back to station and docks up. I dock up to wait out GCC and go back to my Jita shopping alt. About 10 minutes later, I see him undock again. Of course I undock with GCC to see what he's in, expecting him to be warping off to high-sec to buy a new Arazu.

To my surprise, he is sitting there in his Megathron with drones out and sensor booster glowing. He immediately locks me up and starts pouring down his revenge on my poor little Tengu. As I had GCC at the time, I could not take him on without cutting it close.

I docked up, dropped my scram for a 2nd Invul, and undocked again. Without a 2nd thought he lights me up, I aggress back and the fight is on. I hope the reader now realizes that our Megathron friend is not pointed. As he enters half armor he begins to deaggress, but forgets to pull back his drones. I take advantage of this weakness by undocking Cheng in his Bhaalgorn to join the fight.

Not a minute later, his epic-revenge-boat bursts into flames. Feeling a bit bad for his misfortune, I convo him and explain to him how he should fit his next Megathron. I'm a nice person, honest...

More pew-pew stories on the way.

Tib

A Gank, A Roam...BTW...US TZ in Provi Sucks

2011-01-26T11:56:00.000-06:00

Well, Tuesday started out quite well with a new kills around the pocket. A cyno frig here... then the same guy again here. He just did not understand how we could lock and kill his cyno ship before his carrier could jump in. The 2nd attempt to bring in his carrier was successful, but we forced his carrier to dock in station with some carriers of our own. :-)

The next hour was uneventful, so some bearing was in order. Just as a few of us settled into a few Minor Sansha Annex sites and a War Supply Complex...our fleet of scouts and eyes started hollering over vent about an Armageddon, Drake and a Manticore heading into the pocket. Their manticore jumped into Dysa to check if the gate was clear, but he made the fatal mistake of having the Geddon and Drake land at zero on the other side.

For some reason my guys who were supposed to be pushing them through failed to point the Drake who then retreated to high-sec, but the Armageddon was not so lucky. While this was all going down, the Manticore pilot decloaked 25km off his royally-screwed Armageddon friend...he died with a bomb still in his launcher. I assume he thought bombs were a great idea in low-sec. But all was well in the world as they both received a free ride on the pod express.

Since the blood in the water was quite thick... I decided to call up a few friends and put together a 15-man shield roam into Providence. I knew it would be a ghost town, but we went anyways. I FC'd the gang through all but 2 constellations. Not a single damn kill. We dropped by NC. space... but found 30 and 60 in local... which we subsequently pulled a classic Monty-Python-"Run Away!" maneuver. Had a trio of Sabre pilots on our tail for a few jumps but all was well in he world.

As we headed home, my scout sabre pilot announced that there was a Vagabond pilot 60km off our home system gate. Knowing that he couldn't tank gate guns, I had him burn and scram the vaga as our 3 Basilisks landed. Poor pilot did not know what hit him...

A piss-poor night for kills, but good times were had by all. "Why is the run always gone?!"

Tib

It's a Pirate's Life for Me

2011-01-24T08:53:00.000-06:00

Thought I would jump right back into the swing of things by giving you a little something to laugh about. We all love getting those silly mails from those whom we have butt-hurt... but we rarely get one which acknowledges the fact. Enjoy.

Subject: Dick sucking for a sort of blueish color?
From: Annowyn
Sent: 2011.01.24 09:03
To: Tiberu Stundrif,

Hopefuly the subject has you considering it. ^^

What would need to happen to get some blue standing from your corp to mine? You can ass rape the rest of my alliance, but I would very much like to be able to move around Dysa without your bunch of incredibly patient gankers waiting for me at the other side of the rabbit hole.

Butt-hurt,
Anno

A new, refreshing set of tales are about to come forth from the bowels of the local pirate lore...wait...ewww...

Tib

Night O' Yarr

2010-12-13T12:06:00.000-06:00

Well, getting warmed up in the new corporation was a lot of fun. We decided to put together a little gate camp in our favority low-sec system, Abha.

First call of the day was a poor drake pilot. He jumped gate and it was only a matter of time. He tried to re-approach the gate, but webbed there was no hope. He had a massive tank on him and it took a good 50 seconds to kill him. killmail

Since it was the day of drakes, our next customer jumped through and just sat there. Silly drake pilot died hellz fast. killmail

That was about it for quite a while. Word prolly got out that there were do-no-goods in Abha. Meh.

A lot of us went about our business moving ships and fittings around and shooting crap on voice comms. Several hours later, after several of us were off to bed, diligence paid off with a Providence kill. Log-off-ski's are the way to go. His scout saw no one in local, till he jumped and soon became scrap metal on the overview. Win.

From there, we were all off to bed once we had scooped the lootz.

More YARRR coming soon to a blog near you.

Tib

Note: Writing about gate camps is boring. Roams to Providence and Curse next week should offer much higher entertainment value... instead of, "He jump and died far too quickly" stories.

Open for Business: "Waking Nightmare Inc."

2010-12-13T11:50:00.000-06:00

Well Gents...

Cheng is still pew-pew'in away in Razor Alliance (maybe not so much recently with finals and such). The fights have been nice, but the US TZ fights as of late are frustrating to say the least. Either they are taken out by fail-sauce FCs or we end up fulfilling the laundry list of things to do that they lazy EU guys didn't get to. I digress...

I have taken Tib out of MINC and moved him back down to the Derelik region. Here, along with several other x-pirates-gone-to-null-and-came-back have started Waking Nightmare Inc. We are a US timezone based group of bums who have a great time on vent/TS3 and generally cause mischief.

The skill requirements are relatively high as the stuff we specialize in requires more than the SP of a 2 month toon. We are looking for US TZ pod-pilots who just want to have fun. No politics. No "we are gonna take over everything." We are a corp of experienced pilots who enjoy getting the YARRR on. 0% Tax rate. Alts welcome. Have thick skin and know its all in fun. Currently we are living out of a 0.5 island as its easier for logistics. Caps are a couple of jumps over. Also, "bum" is a term of endearment...

CORPORATION OUTLINE
- Hellz lot 'o Fun
- PvP
- Black Ops
- Low-Sec / High-sec Wardecs
- 0.0 Roams
- Short Blue List
- Voice Comms

RECRUITMENT
Pilots must have skills to T2 Fit and Fly:
- Covert Ops
- Recon
- Strategic Cruiser
- Shield/Armor Battlecruiser
- Heavy Assault Cruiser

Other Requirements
- Must have 0.0 Experience (Wormhole or Real 0.0)
- US Timezone
- Voice Comms (Vent & TS3)

Recruiting: OPEN

For friendly banter and/or Recruitment: "AWACE PUB"

Tib

Yes, that's a Covert Cyno Field

2010-12-10T20:08:00.000-06:00

Well, Cheng is officially in his new shiny... the Redeemer. The skill training for this thing was a b*tch (why I sensor my own writing, I will never understand),but the long queue finally paid off. As Tib cannot fit a covert cyno yet (14th for learning skills FTW), I had him light a regular cyno is his Falcon (yes, I know, shut up) just to try out the jump drive. There was a short bout of childish giggling which could be heard down the dorm hall.

I look forward to posting the first KM.

Insert: *evil laugh*

Tib

Legion

2010-12-09T11:19:00.000-06:00

Well, it's almost Christmas... and I couldn't help it...

Tib

The CONCORD Echelon

2010-12-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

Our 2nd Christmas gift! You wanna guess the best thing about it?! It's free.

Link: http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=830

Tib

CCP: Fix the damn Black Ops. New Eden did not need another damn useless Frigate.

Redeemer, Falcon, Rook and Legion

2010-12-08T15:02:00.000-06:00

Ships for Tib

Tib has stepped into a whole slew of new ships in the past week and I cannot wait to really take them out for a drive.

The Rook was the first purchase. Nice DPS. Plenty of ECM. Light on tank.

I have been asking for the Falcon nerf for a while now... and you know what... I take it all back. Those who say the Falcon needs to be nerfed are those that have never flown one. For it's price point, the ECM is it's tank. Right now I have about 15k EHP with the DC II on. A couple of vollies from just about anything will send this thing all the way back to the moon goo from whence it came. You need ECM on a boat like this to be worth flying. Tib needs to light Covert cynos for Cheng's new Redeemer. The Falcon is the way to go.

Ships for Cheng

Well, since I finished up Amarr Cruiser 5 in October, I have had my eye on a Legion. A Slaver hound shy of a billion ISK later, the neut fit PvP legion is ready to go. This is a PvE fit, but the Legion can be easily be changed out for a PvP fit. The neut bonus is pro.

Last, but not in any way least, the Redeemer is almost ready to undock. A little less than 2 days of skill training left until I plug in the Black Ops skill book. I will be taking it to level 4 directly, but I am looking forward to undocking it on Friday. The fittings and ship are sitting in Jita station, ready to go. :-)

----------------------------------------------
Redeemer, "Aurora Australis"
[Low Slots]
Federation navy 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plate
True Sansha Adaptive Nano Plating
True Sansha Adaptive Nano Plating
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Plating
True Sansha Heat Sink
True Sansha Heat Sink
Damage Control II

[Mid Slots]
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
True Sansha Warp Disruptor
True Sansha Heavy Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 800
Gist A-Type 100MN MicroWarpdrive

[High Slots]
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
True Sansha Heavy Energy Neutralizer
Dread Guristas Cloaking Device

[Rig Slots]
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
----------------------------------------------

Well, looking forward to good times, but till then... so long till finals are finished!

Tib

Life in New Eden: 1,000 Words

2010-12-07T23:50:00.000-06:00

Tengu Down

2010-12-02T20:26:00.000-06:00

Nope, it's not some other poor soul's Tengu. It's mine.

The back story is simple. I warped to belt. Immediately scrammed and webbed by frigs. Jammed by battleship rat. Vagabond enters system. Two minutes later... I beez in an egg.

The planets aligned and I died in a fire. PvE losses do wonders for pilot ISK efficiency. :-/

Good fight to the Vaga pilot. This one hurt the pocket book, but this was my first Tengu and first loss. It has paid for itself 4 or 5 times its value. A good ship.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=11867001#mail

Well, off to Jita for a new shiny.

Tib

Mentoring in New Eden

2010-12-02T02:15:00.000-06:00

First Thoughts on Incursion

2010-12-01T13:15:00.000-06:00

The new menu layouts make a lot more sense, but its frustrating to relearn. Bad habits die hard I guess.

The new icons and labels on modules make life so, so nice. I can now easily see faction/deadspace/officer items in my hangar at a glance without having to read the name.

I have officially used Hail S for the first time, evarrr. Its now a standard ammo to carry. Good stuff.

Got the ORE Industrial skill book plugged in on a couple of toons going to LvL 4. I will let the Noctis drop in price a bit before I haul 1 or 2 out to Tenal, which gives me time to get the skill up to use it. Those who HAVE TO BUYZ ONE RIGHT NOW 4 5X THE COST...need to learn a little patience. But that's a free market and a culture of instant gratification for you.

Other than that... life goes on as it always had.

Oh, the NPC AI has not changed a bit. My Tengu O' Awesome can go up against a fleet of 'em without breakin' a sweat.

Tib

Incursion 1.0.0

2010-11-26T13:23:00.000-06:00

Well, the Incursion release sounds awesome. The Hawk is finally getting some love! The Black Ops... not so much... maybe next time. Seems like CCP is finally starting to eat away at the player-requested feature list. Enjoy the read...

Dev Blog Post
http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4241&tid=1

Information on the new Noctis
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=797

Patch Notes
http://www.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=214

Tib

November 2010 Prioritization Crowdsourcing (CSM)

2010-11-26T03:07:00.000-06:00

Here are a BUNCH of amazing ideas upon which the CSM is working to implement.

The original threadnaught is here: http://www.eveonline.com/iNgameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1414376

The results, which are very well-formatted and easy to read, can be found here: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/November_2010_Prioritization_Crowdsourcing_%28CSM%29

Enjoy!

Tib

Fiction: "Damage to the Starboard Engine Coupling"

2010-11-25T18:13:00.000-06:00

Ships Log: "The fight last night in a nearby enemy constellation knocked a few dents in the Tengu-class Tempus Incognitum, but the mechanics should have them worked out by morning. The Guristas bite hard when they resolve to use EM-based pulse weapons..."

My cabin door swings open and slams against the now-crushed, doorstop.

"Do you realize how long my team spent repairing those launchers, last night," exclaimed Tasha. "We have barely touched the defensive systems and the engines are barely holding on with shit Amarr-made masking tape. Crewman Timmons is in the infirmary after the forward bulkhead gave way on Deck 7. What the hell did you do last night?!"

Here she goes again. We have been through this before. Happens every time. I put the ship in a tight squeeze and overloaded the ships systems. "Well, Tasha, it was just..."

"Captain, you pull this hero shit all the time! Guess who has to clean up the mess?" The exhausted grimace on her face showed this was more than a complaining session.

"Tasha, you know I ran into a roaming Gurista pirate gang last night! When I drove them back to their base, the siege batteries hit the ship a little harder than I anticipated. At least I brought her back in one piec..."

Tasha interrupted, pointing her finger right in my face. "I don't want to hear your crap again. You know you were absorbing the damage just fine. You chose me as your Chief Mechanic for a reason; to keep the ship in ship shape and prepared to perform up to spec. You just just like pushing her to the edge!" She plopped down on my office couch, propping her greasy boots on the coffee table; her arms crossed. Eyes staring into the back of my head.

She had me. Damn this crazy-amazing woman.. "Tasha, I put you in this position because you are the best mechanic in the region. Your contract is not void of extensive work related to overloaded equipment." With all that said, I knew that was not going to stay her for a moment...and this was not going to help make the evening any easier.

"We opened the release lever on Launcher 3 only to find the electronics completely fried and enough missile residue to oil up half of the prostitutes in the constellation. What you do with your flight crew while shootin' around I will never guess."

If Tasha only knew about the scrape with the pirates in EOY- at the jump bridge starbase. Nah, I'll keep that to myself for the time being. Hopefully she won't find the Hybrid Turret damage to the starboard engine coupling.

"Something else..." She paused to look at her datapad. "Has the damage to the Starboard Engine Coupling been there long? I have never seen it before." She looked up at me, searching for the answer on my face.

Dammit. "Tasha, how long will the repairs take?" Maybe changing subject will work this time...

The look on her face turned from a grimace to a tired smile. "They'll be done within the hour." She gave me that face she always does when she knows she won the argument.

"Then, are we still on for dinner?", I asked with a puzzled look on my face.

Tasha got up off the couch shaking her head. She walked to the doorway, stopped, turned around while looking at the floor and said, "Tib, you're buying." She smiled and shut the cabin door behind her.

Damn Minmatar women. This is way too much work.

RIP: Learning Skills

2010-11-25T16:29:00.000-06:00

We've wanted them gone for a while now and CCP is finally getting off their bum and making it happen. Hurray, CCP! For the whole story, read: http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=824

Tib

Fleet Etiquette & Peeves About FCs

2010-11-19T12:22:00.000-06:00

Fleet operations are the backbone of any half-decent coalition/alliance/corporation. You have an FC which is experienced, knows the area, confident in his/her decisions and is not afraid to take casualties. With that said, the FC knows his/her surroundings enough to avoid a massacre. Though an FC might be awesome, he could have a bunch of lemming fleet members. Listening to commands can lower the number of lemming awards significantly. Below are a few random thoughts about fleet members and FCs.

FLEET ETIQUETTE

Radio Silence: Unless you have something really important to tell the FC/Fleet AND it is the right time to say it (not in the middle of an engagement), keep your mouth shut unless the FC allows relaxed comms.
Fly the Right Stuff: Bring a ship on the list of ships asked for. Example: Don't bring a Drake to an armor fleet. Also, in regards to your fitting, if someone would flame you for the fitting, change it. Don't fly anything you wouldn't want on the losses section on the kill-boards.
Follow Commands: When the fleet is moving, please pay attention to all commands. Jumping through a gate and not aligning when the FC tells you to align will just end up getting you killed. Follow commands and you will probably live to see another fight.
Never criticize the FC in fleet chat or on comms: If you think the FC is a lemming, finish up with the fleet, then don't fly with that FC again. If the FC is drunk/high and is about to get the fleet killed...well that is up to you... and the feeling is probably the same amongst the rest of the fleet members.
Complainers are NOT cool: If you have a burr up your ass, don't share it with everyone else. No one cares. Don't even talk, and if you can't help yourself, do New Eden a favor and dock up or log.

PEEVES ABOUT FCs

Kicking People from Fleet (in a fight): There are very, very few situation where this should happen. If they are a spy, or are shooting at the Titan, killz/podz them. Kicking someone from fleet in a large engagement is stupid. If its worth your time to right-click and go through the pop-out menus to kick them, ffs...broadcast target and get them out of the fight. This whole god-complex some FCs have where they will announce over TS/Vent, "I will kick you from fleet if you do X or Y again blah blah blah" is both stupid and evidence of a childish player who has missed measured certain personal sex organs.

Not Knowing the Area: If an FC is not familiar with the area he/she is taking the fleet, proceed with the following actions: (1) leave fleet, (2) dock up or safe up, (3) find another fleet/go play another game.

Being Indecisive: If you are in the fleet of an indecisive FC, think long and hard about going out with this fleet. I would personally try and find another fleet. If you are already out in the boonies, in the thick of it, try your best not to die and make a note to avoid going out under this FC anytime soon.

Unwilling to Take Advice: The FC should always be willing to take advice. (Note: As long as that advice is given at the right time. This does not include some random know-it-all in fleet giving advice in the middle of the FC calling targets.) When a decision needs to be made and there is a reasonable amount of time to make it, the FC should always be willing to take suggestions.

Drunk and/or High FCs: For the sake of everyone in the fleet, unless it is specifically a "drunken roam", FCs should avoid alcohol and drugs. When an FC is tweaking out while taking a 40-100 man gang through enemy 0.0, bad things will happen. The FC is responsible for everyone in fleet. He/She should take this responsibility seriously.

Understand that in no way is this to be seen as an all-encompassing guide to being a Fleet Member or Fleet Commander. These are only my observations on lemming and idiot/retarded FCs.

Tib

Lag 'n Us: Get Comfortable, It's Here to Stay

2010-11-15T12:40:00.000-06:00

GPU computing, FPGAs, blade systems, latency, security, PGP encryption, session changes and many other similar terms are common words I hear every day at University. I have been studying Electrical and Computer Engineering with an emphasis in Cyber Warfare for 5 years and will graduate in May. Between work for my professors and contractors, it's a wonder I have never thought about applying some of my knowledge to EvE blogging.

I have been shouting out at CCP to fix the lag for months now. To be perfectly honest, I feel RETARDED for doing so. It can't be fixed.

That's right, lag will never go away. Before you all get you panties in a wad, please read, "well, that was a few people" reported by CCP Veritas.

Imagine playing a game of Counter-Strike. There are various number of players (ex. 16) on the server and you experience "lag" and either die or miss a kill. I...err...you would curse to high heaven and try all over again. Is this the same thing? Of course not. Can this apply to New Eden? Absolutely.

In EvE, you can be playing with 100-200 other pilots in system without the slightest hiccup. CCP has spent millions designing a system which works beautifully with 100- to 400-pilot engagements. This is simply mind-blowing. In LXQ2-T the other day. I sat in my trusty Geddon trying to lock Babushkas for 15 minutes at a time. Did I complain? Like hell I did! You should have seen the bitching in alliance and fleet. I even decided to read some bookz while locking peeps...

With all that said, we eventually podded enough of them to lower the numbers in system to a manageable level. But I digress...

There were 3,242 pilots in local in LXQ2-T on that fateful day. The node did not crash / die in a fire. It really was a milestone in gaming to have that many players on a single node. With tens of thousands of unique requests, coming from every continent on the planet, going out /coming in per second, lag was the natural result.

In my research, I have experimented with some of the fastest small-scale computational architectures in he world using FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). Even with this technology, I could never piece together hardware (or software to run on that hardware) where I can create a lag-free environment.

Until we advance to Quantum computing some 150 years down the road, we will have to live with the time it takes for packets to travel between locations as well as the computation on both ends. CCP will continue to live up to its pledge of making this time shorter, but they are gonna have to supersede the laws of physics and the universe in general to fix it entirely.

We can all look back to the days of Apocrypha and salivate over "lag-less" fleet fights. A lot has changed since then. A lot of new features have been added to New Eden. Features have all come to know and love. With all that said (though I could go on for another 1000 words), CCP has established a new precedent on how to manage a true MMORPG, and is working to better New Eden with every update. Do they make mistakes, of course! Have their successes outnumbered the mistakes? Hellz, yeah!

"Dear CCP,

We no longer expect you to employ your "Neo" skillz and make New Eden smooth as butter when we decide to put 3000 pilots in a single system. We know that it's impossible in this era of technology, but we also know you are working hard to make it run as smooth as possible. Keep up the good work.

Satisfied, Pod Pilot"

Tib

Incursion "Delayed"

2010-11-14T21:20:00.000-06:00

"Arg, thanks for pointing out my coffee-induced n00b blunder. It's Incursion, not Incarna, that's delayed."

Check out CCP Zulu's dev blog from a few days ago.
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=814

If you haven't heard yet... Incursion has been "delayed." A better description would be "scrapped" as all the features are being released over the next 2 months. This means we really won't have an "Incursion 1.0", but Tyrannis 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5. No word on the new "Noctis", but I hope they fit it into Tyrannis 1.4 or 1.5.

Here's to hope that Incursion really turns out to be Incursion and not a patched Tyrannis. *raises glass of Spirits*

Oh, CCP, please fit some lag-fixing into this 2-month release schedule. Thanks.

Tib

Skill Training (almost) Complete

2010-11-14T09:47:00.000-06:00

Well, my toon Cheng Jaboo is halfway to Jump Drive Operation 5. Less than a month to go for the Redeemer, with the Revelation soon to follow. To put it simply, I am rather excited. Tib is still cleaning up Electronic / Engineering / Science skills before I remap him in January. Tib now has Cyno 5 is in the skill queue as Cheng needs someone to get him around.

For the time being, finals and last-minute semester exams are about to hit hard. Engineering Economics, Complex Variables, and Computer Systems Design are kick my butt and it's time to hunker down and finish strong. New Eden will function without me for a few weeks. :-)

More Lag-Laden Frustration & "Incursion" Thoughts

2010-11-08T18:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I was in the big CYB- fight the other day. Attempting to lock, and eventually killing lotz 'O Babushkas. Lots of lag, as usual. I have lost many a ship to lag since the days of Apocrypha have been left in the dust. The other day I put in my first reimbursement request for a technical/lag-issue-related ship loss. CCP reset the server in the middle of a Nyx kill...meh, okay whatever. I log back in 20 minutes later to see myself in my shiny Zealot; cool! As I come out of the emergency warp, my client grays out and crashes as the grid begins to load. Hundreds drop from system at the same time. I log back in less than a minute or so later to find myself in my "Pod 'O Awesomeness." Seems I had spawned 350km closer to the enemy POS into a bubble as one of my corporate saw me warp in. Not my problem. That's CCP's problem.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Lost Zealot as Node Came Back Online
Body: I did not have control of my Zealot as the node initialized in CYB-BZ. Client completely lagged out and I found myself in pod when client became unfrozen. I would greatly appreciate a ship replacement as this loss was due to technical issues with node lag rather than general combat. Thanks in advance!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CCP's response to my very straight-forward request.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
If you are part of a fleet engagement, being in the same system, we cannot reimburse, no matter the condition of our server. If we start reimbursing in those conditions than any party can force reimbursement by simply getting enough pilots to produce lag or any other side effect of a heavy load. That means we would have to reimburse any and all losses from every fleet engagement, including changes to sovereignty or the loss of sovereignty structures. Our petition system and reimbursement policy would become a tool for in-game parties to defend their assets or to manipulate the political and military landscape.

For these reasons we cannot deviate from our policy and for these reasons we cannot reimburse any losses suffered from a fleet battle.

With kind regards,
GM Homonoia
The EVE Online Customer Support Team
CCP Games
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, damnit. It seems its my fault that the server lags out and my client crashes. It can't possibly be CCP's fault! No, way!

Now before I say anything else; GM Homonoia has a good point. Using lag as a tactic to win in 0.0 is an exploit and should be dealt with as such. When the all-powerful CCP Atlas shows up to our fights to watch us all take 5-20 minutes to lock, move or whatever.. and does nothing more than resets the node... there's a problem.

*takes a deep breath*

CCP, please...PLEASE...find someway to fix the lag. I know you are working hard on it. I know it's a priority.

I also know that Incursion is right around the corner. I would give away the new Noctis, the Sansha Incursion crap, the overview updates and EVEN the new character portraits (even though they are the best thing coming)... just to have 500 peepz fighting in a system without employing lag-fighting tactics. I want to lock, press F1 and orbit without fear of dying in a lag-fire, only to realize 5 minutes later that I have been dead for 4 minutes.

I have used "I" in every one of the last several sentences. My English professor would love me.

Anyways...

I'm not mad about the Zealot loss. I am mad at CCP's policy of blaming their technical issues on humble wanna-be-pirates like me.

Tib

Babushkas Eshplode

2010-10-31T06:31:00.000-05:00

I have Russian friends in Eve. The non-Friendly Russians shall henceforth be referred to as Babushkas. I digress...

Well if you live under a proverbial Eve-rock, you might have still heard that the player in local record was broken yesterday. Once upon a time, yesterday, 3,242 pilots from the Northern Coalition and the "I-Heart-Babushkas Club" converged on the LXQ2-T system in what looked like the inverse situation of the Israelite exit of Eqypt during the reign of Ramses III. A pilgrimage with guns; lots of guns.

I was there, and it was very close to being over 9,000. ;-)

If you thought you had seen lag, you realized you had it good in the past. The fight took place in slow motion, srsly. It took 15 minutes to lock anyone. Everyone was in the same situation, Babushka and NC. But with all that said, we spent 24 hours eradicating the previous owners. We had gates bubbled from at least 10-15 angles with 50-100 pilots on every gate. If you were stuck in system after RAZOR took the station, you either stopped playing EvE or were sent home on the ship/pod-express.

In the infinite wisdom held by our Babushka friends, they have logged off 15+ Titans, 40+ Moms and a shit-ton of Carriers at towers and even a Titan on gate. Thanks to a near-endless supply of T2 Large bubbles, LXQ2-T is now rape-caged.

To my Babushka non-friends, I wish you the best of luck. Actually, on second thought, I hope you all die in a fire (in-game of course) and that I get on the KMs.

Tib

http://www.evenews24.com/2010/10/28/lxq-madness-10-hours-2000-ships-1000-deaths/

BTW, I'm back from a little break from came back at the right time.

(NC BFF)

Blood & Milkshakes

2010-09-23T01:40:00.000-05:00

No, this is not an opinion piece on a rather stupid syfy show, nor a role-playing-blood-raiders thing. Nor am I saying milk shakes and blood go well together...cuz that's just wrong. I am saying a milkshake would awesome right now and I need pew-pew.

Having been in MINC and Razor Alliance for about two weeks or so... I am starting to get the hang of things. Right when I joined, I got in on a whole bunch of KMs during a few fleet engagements, then a few trickled in from gate camps and roams.

All I have to say is that the US TZ in Razor is getting more active, but it's still slow. Once I have few more ships up here (end of the weekend), I am going to take out a few roams into our neighboring regions (Venal, etc).

To be honest, I am very apprehensive about running a small fleet in Razor...as I will need to fill some big shoes that have come before me (and exist now). I am the new guy.

I'll stick with the 8-15 man gangs for the time being. Once I take out the first roam, an epic story of carnage or dying in a horrible fire will be up for your viewing pleasure.

There will be blood!

Till then, RL calls with great tidings of tests and a research project for a professor.

New Eden will have to bide it's time till my full attention returns to the stars.

dammm hmwk!...brb, k?

Tib

What New Eden Lacks: Rewarding Accomplishment

2010-09-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

With all the beautiful starscapes, wonderous technology, utterly destructive firepower and sprawling solar systems filled with wonder...ship-life in New Eden feels, distant. We are held within the constraints of game mechanics where we can build, buy, fly, self-destruct, dock, un-dock, blow-up and reprocess hundreds of ships. What makes a ship, YOUR ship?

When I kill or lose a ship...I kill or lose a ship. It is nothing but a manufactured construct of minerals, moon goo or on occasion, sleeper parts. There is no emotional attachment to the ship. No value of ownership. Sure, certain ships (Supercaps and very expensive faction) hurt when they eshplode in a rather pretty ball of fire...but a new one just like it is probably available in Jita.

The idea of the capsuleer accentuates this conundrum. There is little or no pride in ownership or destruction. I can die in a ship, go get another one and come back like nothing ever happened.

I have a few answers to these holes in New Eden life...

1) Link the bounty to someone's ship, not their pod. A bounty really means nothing in low-sec when it is incredibly difficult, or impossible with gate-gun mechanics, to catch a pod (unless you smartbomb).

My Proposition: When a positive security (say, above 2.5 or or 3.5) person kills a person with a security status of -5 or below... in the wreck a tag with the pirate's name attached drops. This tag must then be redeemed at an anti-pirate NPC station to obtain their bounty and a security status bonus (like killing pirate NPCs but much more significant). My reasoning for this is based on common sense. If you kill an immortal pilot...they will just come back, right? If the bounty on their head is attached to the asset by which they pirate, they lose a bounty and a ship. This will make the "bounty" worth a lot more to the pirate, as it means they have not lost any ships recently.

Flip the whole thing for the pirates as well. The pirates kill peeps with a higher security status (idk, 3.5+) and get a similar tag drop which must be redeemed in a low-sec pirate NPC station for goodies or whatever.

I would think the higher or lower security status the victim might be, the higher the LP or whatever rewards would be. Just a thought. Bounty system fixed. :-)

2) Create a Maker's Mark (not to be confused with the independent brewery) tag which drops in every wreck. This tag tells the viewer who made the ship, its past owners, where it was made, and when it was first commissioned. This is not my idea, but I can't seem to find who said it first...but I give them all the credit. This would bolster the pride of the industry guy who built the ship and also add a little nostalgia in an "all-about-the-present" game universe.

------End Suggestion List------

If all these things were changed, the bounty system could actually work, industry guys would actually get credit for their hard work, and the pirate/anti-pirate struggle would actually make sense.

Some random thoughts, pieced together as best as I can...take them as they are...comment if you wish.

Tib

A Peak Inside the Cockpit

2010-09-20T11:55:00.000-05:00

So...EvE bloggers have put up pictures of our "Eve-space", but what about your cockpit? Each ship type we fly has a different "bridge" or "cockpit", but what does your's look like?

This question has been eating at me for a while. This game is more than, "I getz in mie pewpew boats and unDocz for WTFpwnzorZ." The role-playing side of me imagines what the inside of my Tengu or Dominix or Abaddon looks like, specifically the bridge/cockpit.

Something like the Millenium Falcon?

Picard?

Firefly?

Imperial Star Destroyer?

Klingon (Minmatar)?

Minmatar Pilot: Oscar the Grouch (Flying a Loki) ... Note: Unrelated to this Post.

Dramiel Pilot, flying a Dramiel (below)... Note: Unrelated to this Post.

With all that said, I want my bridge to look like this:

Yup, that's right. The new Star Trek Enterprise movie had the sweetest bridge of any spaceship I have seen in a while. I would like to believe my Tengu's bridge looks like this. Now that I have thought this one through... undocking in my Tengu feels SO much cooler.

"Data, set a course for the R-Y jump bridge. Engage."

Tib

Primae Noctis > EvE ...err... Noctis > Primae

2010-09-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

Well, by the subject you should guess my opinion on the subject. The PI focused Primae could not have been more useless to the majority of capsuleers. You can't persuade me on this. The ship hull looked epic, but the purpose (PI) and its makeup (4 lows, no mids or highs) ranked up there with the highest levels of fail (right behind PLEX-Kestral-guy, Officer-Paladin-Carebear-man and Coke Zero).

The Noctis on the other hand, finally got it right. A salvaging ship? Perfect. Great for missioneers and null-sec complex/anomalies runners. Will the PvPers get their panties in a wad over a "carebear" ship? Of course. Do we really have a need for another combat vessel? Not really (yet). There are some novelty ideas out there which I would love to see put into effect, but for the most part... we needed a dedicated salvaging/looting boat... and we FINALLY got one!

Read all about the new Noctis and drool as I have done.

Vegeta would agree. This ship is definately over 9,000.

I have set my calendar to gate camp...err...aquire the BPOs in Outer Ring during the next Eve expansion. Hope to see you there!

Tib

FYI: Definition of Primae Noctis and it's implications (has nothing to do with EvE unfortunately...but it's funny to see the devs do indeed have a sense of humor)

New Pilot Advice #3

2010-09-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

When actually fitting a ship you plan to fly...try to NEVER fit a module to your ship that is worth more than the ship hull itself. It will save you a lot of pain and ISK.

There are exceptions to this rule, such as T2/faction/low-quality Deadspace modules on Frigates once your skills are very good (level 5). With that said, hold off on doing this for a good, long while.

Tib

New Pilot Advice #2

2010-09-16T12:52:00.000-05:00

Pull local chat out and place it somewhere separately on your screen. This will enable you to check fleet/intel/Corp chat while being able to see those coming in and out of local with just a glance.

Tib

FAIL Windows 7, is FAIL

2010-09-15T15:07:00.000-05:00

So, I have been using 64-bit Windows for over a year now and I must say it is quite a piece of work. I really like it. Better gaming performance, more responsive, better memory usage, etc. What I do not like is the more random error messages. I tried to format a drive today in order to move a clean copy of my EvE stuff to another computer. What I got was this message, which to me (the Information-Assurance-Cyber-Guy) means absolutely nothing. The guy at Microsoft whose the job it is to write indecipherable error messages got a raise for this one...

Well... there you have it. For those less informed on the obscure terms of geek-world, I shall explain. A semaphore is, in basic terms, a fancy Ivy League computer science department amalgamation of a counter and a critical code lock. Which still tells you nothing and we are back to where we started.

I love Bill Gates. There, I said it.

Tib

New Home: Northern Coalition

2010-09-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

Say what you will about the North or the South... but I say that being a part of either is awesome. Back in the U'K and old Goonswarm days, it was fun, but that was quite a while back. A 2-year sabbatical, 3 new-ish characters, and a lot of new friends later... I am proudly fighting for RAZOR alliance alongside the Northern Coalition.

In my previous post about keeping up with two lives in EvE...well that went to crap really quickly when I wanted a toon for ratting and flying stuff smaller than a BS. Also, I wanted Tib to fly that shiny new Onyx, which he did last night. :-)

So I now have both toons (Cheng and Tib) in Mercurialis Inc. under the Razor alliance flag. I have already stacked up 23 kills in just 5 days...and that's only having been on 1 fleet op. The majority were just roaming and killing Pod Liberation Authority pods with Snake implants. (Dual-Sensor-Boosted Harb, FTW...well, not really...but scan res is 700 for a BC..n2b I guess)

It's been a blast so far. Still moving stuff in and well on my way to proving myself in MINC.

CCP, fix the damn Cerberus...srsly.

Tib

Quote of the Day #1

2010-09-12T03:24:00.000-05:00

Ataman Sirko > I have a RL friend too

Two Paths Diverge in a Wood

2010-09-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

My character, Tiberu Stundrif was my first character I created after coming back to Eve after a 2-hiatus. In late July I purchased a new character, Cheng Jaboo, from the character bazaar. After getting Amarr Battleship 5 and having started the Zealot training queue, I wanted to find a new home for him.

After asking around and frequenting the public channels of many corporations and alliances...my friend mentioned that he had joined Mercurialis Inc in RAZOR alliance. After speaking with a recruiter, we both quickly realized it was the place for me. Roles were dropped and 36-hrs later I am sitting in an over-priced ratting Prophecy in UMI-KK watching RAZOR alliance chat.

The next item on the agenda will be to get ships delivered. A pulse-fit apoc and geddon, harb and a couple punishers seems to be the order of the day. MINC has a great logistics program for bringing in ships, so Cheng will be ready for pew-pew in a matter of hours.

With all the boring update now given, I was thinking how to handle the two different perspectives in New Eden my characters now have. One in a high-sec combat training Corp, the other in Tribute, Tenal and Venal with RAZOR and the rest of the NC.

I have decided to split the personality of both characters by posting from the perspective of each one separately. Tib will post about the high-sec-pirate-griefers, turned to station-ship-spinners he is pew-pew'n with Chivalric Knights. Cheng will post about all the happenings and adventures with Razor.

Till I get it all worked out, have Sassy B make an updated banner, and get a new domain name...posts will continue as usual.

Tib

GM Gusto Pardoned

2010-09-08T03:46:00.000-05:00

5 Minutes after posting "Screenshots and Tib-Tears," GM Gusto came into work and unbanned my account. She has escaped my wrath and I am now warping back to empire with an alt who was already on the way to Jove space. :-)

And...I'm back!

Tib

Screenshots & Tib-Tears

2010-09-08T03:11:00.000-05:00

Since GM Gusto...*mumbles nasty words*...has not un-banned my non-hacked account, yet... I am up late looking through random screenshots. For your bored viewing pleasure.

Carebear Alert: Yes... this is my corporation about 6 months ago, mining in Serad. Most of these gents have graduated from Strip Miner Is to Heavy Missile Launcher IIs. Thank, God...

Random assortment of ships from I-do-not-know-where for I-do-not-know-the-fuck-for-why.

Yes, this is a Dread Guristas Control Tower Medium about to go 'pop'. I thought I had screenees of the large... but oh well.

Yes, that is an NPC Nidhoggur. One of the guys in my corp piped up on vent and said there was a carrier in his mission. I laughed at him...headed over to Hek to help him out. The Sisters of Eve missions have garnered new respect from this combat pilot. We got nothing from it...other than bragging rights about killing a CCP carrier (in my mind at least). :-)

A picture of a True Sansh Medium Tower going up in a ball of fire. This one only took a few hours.

I have no idea what just happened... I log into station and CCP has a bowel movement, as usual.

GM Gusto, you are on my list, dear sir. I replied to your petition almost 15 hours ago. Arrrr...!!! If this doesn't get fixed soon... I will glitch my way to Jove space to find you. Mark my words, Gusto... your Gu-s-t-ooo days are numbered! :-)

Also, Shut UP! I know I am crying Tib-Tears...but you would too if you were kept from pew-pew for no apparent reason. *shake fist at GM Gusto for banning Tib's account right at the end of the Viking work-day*

Tib

Account Tempa-Banned

2010-09-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I tried to login this morning to a wonderful message from Senior GM Gusto telling me my account had been temporarily banned. This could not have come at a worse time, but that's life I guess. Hopefully I can get the security thing worked out sooner than the 7-day ban the account is subject too...but you never know when it comes to CCP.

Till I return, Fly Safe!

Tib

RIP (false): Megathron Navy Issue

2010-09-06T16:45:00.000-05:00

Well, we wardecked a griefer corporation (which had created an alliance to protect itself) and it went active this afternoon. One of our corp members gave out a shout about one of the 3 WTs online at the time. He was in a Megathron Navy Issue and flying around Perimeter. Needless to say, we made full speed to system. After 20 minutes of directional scanning, our wonderful WT-friend logging in and out like bitch, and bouncing around safes...we finally pulled out the probes and nailed him down about .25 AU off a planet. Our scanner warped he and I on top of him. I thought we were going to miss him as it was 16 AU warp.

Our war-target friend sat completely stationary at his safe spot in his Megathron Navy Issue called "Pillar of Autumn" (looks like they met a similar fate). I guess he thought that his ship was invulnerable... because he surely acted like it. My infinipoint activated and the deal was sealed. Rest of fleet dropped in and he melted. One of our new members lost an Osprey cuz he sat stationary *slaps Lyonic*... but he learned a lot which makes it all good.

Rule for the wise: NEVER fly an armor tanked ship into a PvP situation without Hull Upgrades 5... or FGS T1 guns...especially faction battleships (just my opinion). I would never be caught in this ship with the fitting he thought made him awesome. http://chiva.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=7533229

He shall see what these guys will field now that the war has gotten off on the right foot.

Tib

HYDRA RELOADED... Is Dead... LOLZ

2010-09-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

Yup, yup. HYDRA Reloaded is dead. Not sure who the douche-bag is yet... but it will come out eventually.

Tib

Billions Looted from Offline Tower

2010-08-31T12:35:00.000-05:00

The epic POS takedown actions, recently made famous by "My Loot, Your Tears," has been a money-maker for me for some time. Usually the take from the towers my alt Corp hits value around 600 mil to 1.2 billion. For the effort put in, it's worth it many times over; but it requires patience...a lot of patience. Sometimes it pays off... HUGE. Last night it paid off... EPIC.

Well, last night was supposed to be quite uneventful. A dec on a 7-man Corp was about to go active. They had an offline True Sansha Control Tower Medium with 3 corporate hangars, a ship maintenance array, a mobile lab, a Hyasyoda lab and couple other random modules.

I was gonna pop the hangars and the ship maintenance array before I went to bed and then hit the tower today.

My Armageddon let off a couple of volleys on the ship maintenance array...Bestower and 2 shuttles pop out, damn.

I then hit the 1st corporate hangar, which causes 6 cargo containers to drop. I boat over in the orca and nearly have a heart attack. What I see is (at present value, still going through it all) 1.9 billion in mission salvage, skill books, implants, tags, T1 meta 4 stuff, T2 modules of all shapes and sizes, several faction modules, and 160 million in mechanical parts (?). I would list the modules and their quantity.. but I think WordPress has a post length limit... and I don't think you want to read it all. (Example: 5,462 Tripped Power Circuits was just a sample)

Pause... I am currently geeking out on Corp Vent. The guys are stunned and a corpmate I was working with verifies my claim for those silly doubters.

I scoop the goodies with several Orca loads and move onto the next hangar.

A couple of Mega Pulse Laser II volleys spill 1.3 billion (current estimate) with more of the same. (for the record...I nearly jizzed in my pants) The loot was quickly scooped to the Orca and my corpmate with his cloaky hauler.

The third hangar drops several T1 ships, random modules and AnD aNd AND... 105 researched BPOs valued at 1.5 billion.

At this point, I have not even hit the tower yet. Only the labs remain. The decision was made to pop them since I had already netted billions. The Hyasyoda lab dropped a can.

I then went silent on Vent...

Right before my eyes were 69 storyline BPCs with all runs (3-per BPC) remaining. Why the BPCs were in the lab I don't know...but whatever. Due to my lack of knowledge on many of them, my corpmate contacted Chribba (who was online at the time...Thanks man!) about them.

2 x 'Abatis' 100mm Reinforced Steel Plates I Blueprint
1 x 'Bailey' 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates I Blueprint
2 x 'Bastion' 400mm Reinforced Steel Plates I Blueprint
3 x 'Chainmail' 200mm Reinforced Steel Plates I Blueprint
1 x 'Citadella' 50mm Reinforced Steel Plates I Blueprint
3 x 'Gorget' Small Armor Repairer I Blueprint
1 x 'Greaves' Medium Armor Repairer I Blueprint
1 x 'Hauberk' Large Armor Repairer I Blueprint
1 x 'Censer' Medium Capacitor Battery I Blueprint
1 x 'Crucible' Small Capacitor Battery I Blueprint
5 x 'Harness' Medium Capacitor Booster I Blueprint
3 x 'Palisade' Cap Recharger I Blueprint
2 x 'Caltrop' Small Energy Neutralizer I Blueprint
4 x 'Ditch' Medium Energy Neutralizer I Blueprint
2 x 'Moat' Heavy Energy Neutralizer I Blueprint
4 x 'Knight' Medium Energy Transfer Array I Blueprint
1 x 'Squire' Small Energy Transfer Array I Blueprint
4 x 'Strigoi' Medium Nosferatu I Blueprint
1 x 'Vrykolakas' Heavy Nosferatu I Blueprint
2 x 'Arquebus' Heavy Beam Laser I Blueprint
1 x 'Ballista' Tachyon Beam Laser I Blueprint
1 x 'Gauntlet' Medium Beam Laser I Blueprint
1 x 'Halberd' Mega Pulse Laser I Blueprint
2 x 'Joust' Heavy Pulse Laser I Blueprint
1 x 'Longbow' Medium Pulse Laser I Blueprint
2 x 'Mace' Dual Light Beam Laser I Blueprint
2 x 'Mangonel' Heat Sink I Blueprint
1 x 'Trebuchet' Heat Sink I Blueprint
1 x 'Lance' Medium EMP Smartbomb I Blueprint
1 x 'Pike' Small EMP Smartbomb I Blueprint
2 x 'Warhammer' Large EMP Smartbomb I Blueprint
1 x 'Motte' Capacitor Power Relay I Blueprint
3 x 'Page' Capacitor Flux Coil I Blueprint
5 x 'Portcullis' Reactor Control Unit I Blueprint

The whole list was forwarded to him and after some thought and appraising, he threw a conservative value at...*drumroll*...4-6 billion. He also said that the true value could not be nailed down until sale due to several of the items' extreme rarity.

Vent went very quiet.

This operation just netted items worth around 9 billion ISK.

F...T...W...

Yup...I am still shaking my head in disbelief. Why did this guy keep this much stuff in a tower?!? Another question is why the hell would he let the damn thing go offline for more than a month?!? *facepalm* *facepalm* *facepalm*

In other news...just for the KB...we killed the naked tower. Killmail

It's not a Officer-fit Paladin...but I didn't lose sec status or ships in the process. ;-)

In even more news, I will be selling many of the storyline BPCs on the EvE forums. A link will be added to this post shortly.

Tib

P.S. A HUGE thanks goes out to Slax, Frabill, and Trigz for helping in scooping of the lootz!

Pod Pilots in "The Matrix"

2010-08-26T12:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been playing EvE since before Apocrypha. I remember the big fleet fights. I remember when the player base believed and trusted CCP to turn out a great expansion twice a year or more. So much has changed in such a short amount of time. This is not going to be a traditional post about lag, nor will this be a nostalgic post about good times past. This post has makes it's foundation in the aspect of role-playing. Role-playing a capsuleer and living life in New Eden.

No, I am not going to go all "all-hands-to-battle-stations-role-playing-crap" in this post. I will leave that to the UK- (or whatever they call themselves now) and CVA-types. My thoughts are more based around the experience from the quasi-perspective of a capsuleer in space.

As a pilot in Eve, you wake up inside your well-maintained, temperature-regulated pod fluid at the beginning of the day. The way your character interacts with New Eden is different from every other capsuleer. Trade, industry, science, invention, manufacturing, combat, exploration, exploitation, bullying, and all possible combinations of the above are at your fingertips. You can live in any one, or many, of thousands of solar systems and/or wormhole space. You can choose, should you have the correct skills, to fly any one of hundreds of ships. All these complicated, lumbering masses of death/peace, (or somewhere in-between) can be fitted millions of different ways (though most are deemed, "fail"). There are few things scripted in your existence. You live out this existence how you wish, when you wish and at what frequency suits your fancy. Only laws and rules established by the universal police force, Concord, can curb/limit your actions.

This is life in New Eden.

You don't know how you got here. This is of course due to the memory loss as a result of the process of becoming a Pod-pilot, but you constantly look to the future.

Life in New Eden is astronomical bliss.

With updates in laws and technology by Concord and the major Defense Contractors, life begins to seem...odd. When you travel through stargates, visit bustling trade hubs or unfortunately find yourself in a large fight for system sovereignty...reality seems to feel...less real. You don't know why. You don't know how. You just know that life does is not all that it seems. Then one day while jumping into a crowded system on your way through null space...

Everything changes...

        As you jump into system and enter the system chat, all your visual sensors fail to initialize. Within a minute of this darkness, which seem like hours, you suddenly find yourself sitting in your home station many jumps away. You try to remember what happened, but all you remember is blackness, then the pain of entering your hometown clone.

        You ask yourself why and how this could have happened? Then as time goes forward, you begin to question this reality. You begin to notice systems and life's little mechanics seem to happen slower than you wish or fail to work/happen altogether. You look to Concord to fix these problems, yet little seems to be addressed at all.

        These thoughts are pervasive for quite a while until you find out it's not just a string of faulty clones. Other pilots notice the same problems from their point of view.

        The sweet taste of New Eden gradually changes to a tasteless void in which your life goes on unchanged, but you know down in your cloned heart, that things are not as they seem.

        New Eden is flawed you begin to believe. Concord is more than just a police force. They are some sort of imperfect gods which have failed to keep the wall of "reality" and New Eden separated. They can no longer remotely control their creation in which you exist.

        The creators, in an effort to fix their creation, insert themselves into it. The gods come to your level and manipulate the physics of the spatial realm in front of your very eyes. You now know their plans. You speak with them about the creation in which you exist and complain when it's not fixed fast enough. Life in New Eden becomes a burden instead of a beautiful existence.

        You are presented with a choice. The Blue pill (not to be confused with the shield boost bonus) or the Red pill. You grab them both and quickly ingest them. *insert thoughts of The Matrix*

        What results is an existence somewhere between interfacing with the Concord "gods" and going on living in a quasi-reality in New Eden. This is taking a toll on our minds and tires our resolve to enjoy the boundless riches and depths of New Eden. How do we go back; if its even possible? Will the Concord gods (CCP) fix their creation and return the universe to its beautifully complex balance once known to many...?

        Real life hardware problems have entered New Eden and tainted it for many of us. CCP needs to realize that’s in not about lag or low-sec updates or walking in stations. It’s about fixing the problems in the real world which plague the far-off galaxy of New Eden. Keep them separated. We want CCP to return to the realm from whence they came; where they can orchestrate the cosmos from a vantage point unseen by capsuleers. If it doesn't happen soon, New Eden might forever be muddied by the constant meddling by her creators.

Tib

P.S. As I finished writing this, I saw Rixx's post entitled "Noob Wonder" which I thought complimented what I had written with a different focus. Its very thought-provoking.

P.S.S. No, I am not quitting EvE.

Public Relations Lag

2010-08-15T20:19:00.000-05:00

Zulu put out a dev blog the other day which was very encouraging. CCP has done a mediocre job at best when it comes to communicating their progress on the "fight against lag" to the player community. This blog post gives guys like me hope for a brighter New Eden...where the birds sing, the Suns shine, rain falls, the grid loads and modules activate when we tell them too.

This update from Zulu has been lagged to Hell. It should have come a while back, but now is as good a time as any.

It will be a great day when being in 0.0 with 1,000 in local does not make you want to click your heals and be in Jita.

CCP Zulu, my friend, we continue to await visible results.

Tib

New Pilot Advice #1

2010-08-15T19:36:00.000-05:00

"When at War, avoid going to Trade Hubs such as Jita, Rens, Hek, Amarr, or Dodixie. Most of the time, you will end up shipless and/or podless."

If you must go to pick up modules or simply move items, create a new character on your account. Pause training on your main toon for a day. Spend about 24 hours training Hull Upgrades to Level 2 and the racial Industrial of your choice. Keep this pilot in an NPC Corp. Use contracts to move the items bought with your new Hauler alt to your main.

Note: If you have extra RL ISK, buy another account and work upwards an Orca/Freighter alt.

Note: You will need to send your alt ISK to pay for stuff on your grocery list.

When you need ships, the following methods are commonly employed:

1. Buying ships for a little extra right outside trade hubs.
2. Move the ships in a shiny new freighter alt!
3. Get to Trade hub station in shuttle. Buy ship. Fill lows with Warp Core Stabilizers (won't work against that Heavy Interdictor). Undock and hope for the best.

Hope this helps!

Tib

Character Review

2010-08-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

Well, Tiberu Stundrif has been working on improving Missile support, Engineering and Electronics skills since he got in a Tengu in June. He will be in the Onyx on Monday with the Point next weekend. Once he has all that done, I will take him on a detour to finish up some much needed Learning skills since his remap is less than ideal (and can't remap till January).

I have another alt (new infiltration alt is new) which I started in May who is going to be my Triage Carrier pilot. Still working on the Intelligence/Memory skills. I will be able to remap this character to Perception/Willpower in about 90 days. Till then, keeping the skill-queue full with skills I can't use yet...is a fact of life.

Cheng Jaboo is a new character that I bought recently. I wanted an Amarr toon who had really good gunnery and a lot of room for customization. He had all his skills in combat and support skills which suited me just fine. The current queue is set for Redeemer, Paladin, Revelation, and Archon. This queue will finish mid-January-ish which will make New Years Day a time-frame to look forward too. Amarr Battleship Level 5 will be done training in 16 days (August 31st). Some BS roams will then be in order.

Once I get back to Texas from vacation, a picture of my Eve-Space is in order.

Tib

Honey, I'm Home

2010-08-13T16:52:00.000-05:00

I am back from a much-needed hiatus. At least an article a day going on three weeks started to get tiring. Enjoyable though it was, I was running out of creative juices.

So… I’m back in the sad…err…cockpit again.

My corporation’s search for something new led us to join HYDRA RELOADED and see how stuff worked out. It has been an interesting experience to say the least… no lack of pew-pew would be an understatement.

The rug rats over at The 0rphanage had a wardec active against HYDRA when we joined up. With the exception a Broadsword pilot in Bai (dude, lucky transversal, but gf), those pilots are good at two things: (1) station-camping trade hubs and (2) grossly superior blobs (killmail). I am glad the “war” is over and I wish you guys well in your…endeavors. Station camping Jita 4-4 with 10-15 ships has to get boring, but everybody has their niche I guess.

Anywho…

We have spent a good deal of time doing some random camps and roams into Geminate and Vale of the Silent. A stupid Vagabond pilot aggressed our bait drake in the bubble with all of us starting to pop up on grid. He could of gotten away, but our Interceptor made the hero tackle (survived) and he eshploded soon after.

Not more than a minute or so later, we caught an unfortunate Maelstrom pilot jumping into BWF-ZZ. I don’t think he quite had time for more than a single boost cycle before he was in deep armor. Say what you will about the Drake gangs… but they are a rather nasty force to be reckoned with.

Funny thing about our little camp was that SOLAR WING had about 25 in local (a few more than us) but never touched us. This is when the Drake gang makes getting good fights difficult, as no one wants to fight a Drake gang. We exchanged a few amusing broken-English/Russian comments in local about coming out to play and having cookies… but that was about it.

On our way back to our low-sec base, we came upon a Curse who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He offered a “gf” in local before he even died while completely neuting out our Drake tackler. Even after being blobbed to death, having a good attitude about the whole ordeal is a refreshing thing to hear.

We made our way home and most of us logged. Only 3 kills, but no losses.

It has recently been brought up in alliance chat and TS meetings that, “You know you’re in Hydra when living in low-sec and null-sec is safer than high-sec.” We have The Orphanage and their neutral logistics alts to thank for that. I’m not bitter, really.

Tib

Vote for New Eden! We have cookies!

2010-07-30T04:34:00.000-05:00

I laughed when I saw this. Is CCP really this removed from their players? Read this and make a decision for yourself.

http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1360067/page/1

Tib

P.S. I want my cookies.

Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers

2010-07-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the nineteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks: The CSM: CCP's Meta Game? - The CSM, an eve players voice to CCP, right? In the grand scheme of things, yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets to projects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has not come out this was not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scamby CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What's your take?

At first, I thought I was not going to reply since I already wrote a post about the CSM and CCP a week or so ago. Then I realized that this was what CK wanted the bloggers to talk about, so I will throw in my two cents since Zulu recently put out that insightful devblog.

Simply put, the CSM is a great group of dedicated EvE players who want New Eden to be a better place. CCP is a great group of programmers, developers, artists, strategic planners, accountants, marketers, etc...all who want their company to grow and help them bring home a paycheck to their family. Look whats at stake for either party. The CSM want a better gaming experience, CCP wants to be a successful business.

With that comparison made, I will not revisit and divert the focus a bit to CK's prompt.

From Wikipedia, a Stakeholder is defined as follows: A corporate stakeholder is a party that can affect or be affected by the actions of the business as a whole. The stakeholder concept was first used in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research institute. It defined stakeholders as "those groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist."

Very interesting. It seems that as a player who pays for at least one account, I am a significant stakeholder if we look at the number of active accounts. I would think the CSM would function better as a board of representatives of all the stakeholders; not be the only stakeholders themselves. They are the channel whereby I can communicate my desires to CCP. The CSM seems to be doing that very well and are informing me of their progress/lack of progress as time drags on.

CCP on the same note is letting its stakeholders know about what is happening in the company and what will be happening over the next 18-24 months. You can read that blog post here. As you can see in this post, CCP Zulu is very forward with what is going on and how resources are being allocated. With that said, he finishes his post by mentioning a communication breakdown between CCP and the CSM. Does his focus differ from what the CSM (aka, we the players) wants? Maybe? Possibly? Probably not.

The art of communication is arguably the most important art human beings ever participate in during their lifetime. This art is also the most difficult to master. I tend to think that the CSM and CCP staff need to work on it a bit more.

To the CSM and CCP: Please fix your petty communication issues. Both of you want the same thing, a better New Eden. Exchange fraking phone numbers and let's get down to business, shall we? - Tib

On an even more diverted note, I do not like the biased prompt against the CSM. Though it might not have been intended to be so, it is. I believe the purpose of the EvE blogging community is to share ideas, stories, argue tactics, etc. Dividing on an issue of whether or not the CSM should even exist is simply absurd. They are our fellow players and stakeholders. They represent our interests in this game called, EvE Online. We voted them into their positions. Personally, until they stop representing my interests, they have my support and my thanks.

Tib

Other Blog Banter Entries:

Growing Pains | CrazyKinux's Musing

CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden

CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!

Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE

A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms

CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson

Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs

CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You're a Chick?!

The Cataclysmic Variable: It's Crunch Time!

The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors

CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?

Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar

Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings

Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo

Blog Banter #19: Assumptions

More to come...

War!

2010-07-19T04:11:00.000-05:00

A pirate Corp, No.Mercy, decked my alliance...and there was much rejoicing.

Tales of great victory and loss are in the making! :-P

Tib

Published: CSM Meeting Minutes

2010-07-12T16:21:00.000-05:00

I read a great summary of the CSM meeting minutes over at http://theelitist.net/june-csm-summit/. You should check it out. If you would prefer to be "that guy/gal," you should read the whole thing. That's what I'm doing. If Mynxee and the rest of the CSM spent this much effort to make this happen, the least we can do is read the minutes. You know you've been gate-camping for 5 hours without a bite...safe up and read!

CSM Meeting Minutes (PDF) Download.

Tib

Funny Smack in Local

2010-07-12T16:06:00.000-05:00

Well, there has been this wonderful, loving griefer (self-explained non-pirate corp) Corporation who like to talk smack in local frequenting our pocket. They fight (and gank) when they can win and dock up when its even. Thats life, can't blame them. Well, they had 9 people in local and decided to start smacking. (There were 5 of us docked in station at the time). Griefer Corp comments are highlighted in Red. Friendly comments in Blue. Epic Comments are Bolded.

Bashiri > you guys are boring
Breionn > yeah we are preety bori QUICK DRAW *blows Bashiris' head off*
Vis Nyliss > BOOM HEADSHOT
Vis Nyliss > OLD MEME
Vis Nyliss > ANOTHER OLD MEME
Vis Nyliss > NEW MEME
Bashiri > http://www.nomercycorp.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13497 thats a head shot
Vis Nyliss > hahahaha
Vis Nyliss > chump change
Garst Tyrell > where was yor point?
Bashiri > http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss87/Bids99/1240478864_failed.gif you fit was looking good till i notice no point or scram so you get this
Vis Nyliss > /emote shrugs
Vis Nyliss > oh noes
Vis Nyliss > i fail at internet spaceshipt game
Vis Nyliss > what ever will i do?
Garst Tyrell > fail smack in local?
Vis Nyliss > oh noes
Garst Tyrell > inb4 witty rebuttal
Vis Nyliss > i also fail at smacktalk in internet spaceship games
Vis Nyliss > what ever will i do?
Garst Tyrell > [04:11:59] Garst Tyrell > inb4 witty rebuttal
gotcha bitch
Bashiri > give out more head shoots
Vis Nyliss > haha
Vis Nyliss > its pixels man
Vis Nyliss > PIXELS
Vis Nyliss > talking about this stuff like it matters
Bashiri > you giving head shoots matter to mee
Vis Nyliss > you know, Bash
Bashiri > yeah Vis giving head is nice
Vis Nyliss > there's another MMO you should try
Vis Nyliss > I think you'd like it
Vis Nyliss > its called "OUTSIDE"
Vis Nyliss > give it a try once!
Vis Nyliss > there's no subscription fee
Vis Nyliss > and it has over 6 billion players
Vis Nyliss > single shard, too!
Bashiri > cool
Bashiri > do you play?
Vis Nyliss > oh dude, a HELL of a lot more than I play EVE
Vis Nyliss > the missions get boring sometimes
Vis Nyliss > and vehicles are fucking expensive
Vis Nyliss > but other than that, its pretty cool
Vis Nyliss > like i said, might wanna give it a shot once
Prothax > While several studies find homosexuality in humans and other animals is biological rather than learned, a question remains over whether it's a hard-wired phenomenon or one that can be altered.
Bashiri > http://tacofries.com/img/comic/35.png
Prothax > A new study finds drugs or genetic manipulation can turn the homosexual behavior of fruit flies on and off within a matter of hours.
Vis Nyliss > lol
Vis Nyliss > fruity flies
Vis Nyliss > WOO LOGOFFSKI
Prothax > science says we cant fix bashiri

Bashiri then docked and logged off for the night. The rest of his greifer compadres, feeling dejected by their lack of intelligence shown in local chat, left to find some stupid, poor soul who happened to fly a Badger through the wrong gate at the wrong time.

Tib

Best Pirate Ships in EvE?

2010-07-11T03:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I saw this post over at kirithdarkblade and thebeginningsofpiracy about the best pirate ships in EvE. I spend most of my time making ISK, working Diplo and defending a low-sec pocket. When I do have time to go "pirating," I rarely take out the shiny ships though in my heart of hearts, look forward to every time I can. My impression of best the pirates ships has a lot to do with the carebear-stare look; that "omg itz A _____! Warp! Run away!" effect. One day, I will fly each one of these with max skills. It will be an epic day.

Number 5 - Nightmare

Number 4 - Phantasm

Number 3 - Rattlesnake

Number 2 - Raven Navy Issue

Number 1 - Ashimmu

Well there you have it. My favorite Pirate ships. Each one is a shiny. Each one is really good at what it does. I like. How much?

Tib

Gate Guns Kill Kittens

2010-07-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have spent a decent amount of time in null-sec and I have to say that getting kills is so much easier. Bubbles and the lack of station/gate guns allow the use of ships not possible in low-sec.

With low-sec, you really have to fly at least a BC or well-tanked cruiser (and be careful) in order to not risk exploding in a beautiful fireball due to gate guns. Low security space lends well to small-gang blob warfare because of this.

Mynxee really wants to improve low-sec PvP. What about removing gate guns in security lower than 0.4? You can't use bubbles, which still keeps the spirit of low-sec. This modification would make the use of Recons, HACs, Interceptors, Assault ships, etc. actually more possible in low-sec.

I know there are pros and cons to this, but really...why not!? Low-sec is filled mostly by Pirates, crazy mission-runners and ridiculous miners anyways...

*shrugs*

Tib

I cAn haz ur PLEX?

2010-07-10T04:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't care what other people say. Being able to move PLEX around will be very nice. It will definately impact the market as people can easily move them around to get the best price. Please people, don't be stupid and bring those things around in shuttles/frigates through low-sec/null...but if you do, I frequent low-sec Derelik.

Come on by. We can haz chatz and I can violence your boat.

Tib

The Great Division

2010-07-08T20:38:00.000-05:00

I have kept comments to a minimum as I have watched the CSM v. CCP debate go back and forth. It is amazing to see how much an organization whose sole purpose is to represent the player-base does so much to divide it. Now let me expand upon that comment.

Yeah, CCP did not take to kindly to the rather forward (though needed in my opinion) approach the CSM took several weeks ago in Iceland. The CSM did not take too kindly to the rather unwelcome (though understandable) response CCP gave. The result was a rift between two groups who have every right to be offended and hurt by the tone/response/allegations/demands/attitude of the other party.

*whew* That is as difficult to read as it was to write. Anyways...

The CSM proposed great ideas to CCP. Great ideas and ways to implement them. They are doing exactly what we elected them to do. We will support them because they represent us. Those who do no support our representatives are just shooting themselves in the foot. With that said, CSM must publicly present the process as tough but ongoing. If a couple of days in Iceland can fix 10+ major issues with the most complicated virtual universe created to date...Mynxee has my vote for Commander of the Galaxy (RL).

The CSM is a democratically elected, politic body that lobbies for the player-base of CCP's bread and butter, EVE Online. They are doing their job exactly as they should, but at the first sign of trouble, CCP-foul-play is shouted from the rooftops. As a lobbying body, the CSM must take their time to work through these issues with CCP. If CCP, after 1-2 months has failed to accomplish anything, then a public "call-out-on-the-carpet" of CCP is in order. Until then, update us on progress and keep the cross-hairs on the goal.

Sensationalism will not bring about a better gaming experience; it makes for provoking and divisive blog posts. Patience and determination will make New Eden a better place for us all.

Dear CSM,

We want to here your opinions, but don't turn us against the people who keep the planets aligned and warp drives unscrambled. It is counter-productive to all we want to accomplish. Keep working hard and representing our interests.

Supportive Capsuleer

Interview: Aralis of CVA

2010-07-06T19:19:00.000-05:00

After a long wait, I present to you my interview with Aralis, Executor of Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA). I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed interviewing this fine English gentlemen.

Tib: You are one of the few players in EVE to have a perfect employment record; having been a member of Imperial Dreams for over 7 years. What kept you in the same place for so long? Why CVA?

Aralis: Well it's my corporation you might say. If I don't like it here I have no one to blame but myself. But in fact I love it here. It is my friends, particularly my corp mates, who hold me in Eve more than the game itself.

Tib: Awesome. EVE was almost a totally different game when you entered New Eden as compared to today. What got you hooked on EVE in the first place?

Aralis: Well I led my corp in another game before this. This is our third game together for some of us. That's over 12 years. The first game just folded. The second we got accused of cheating. Which sufficiently pissed me off to leave and find a new game.

Tib: Really, what game was that if you don't mind me asking?

Aralis: Actually I'd rather not answer about previous games. :)

Tib: :-)

Tib: How much does role-playing play a part in the running of CVA?

Aralis: A lot. It is the deciding force. That doesn't mean we talk as our characters. But we try and do what they would do. Loyalty to the Empire is our motivator. On the other hand Amarr is presented as ludicrously evil and hypocritical in the background. Like Star Wars baddies going muhahah I'm the bad guy!

Tib: hahaha! Do you have new people joining often or is it primarily a strong, weathered group?

Aralis: We play people who really believe in the Empire and make it a force for good. Primarily a strong weathered group. Of course we recruit but turnover is much lower than for most alliances.

Tib: Very cool. That makes you a force to be reckoned with.

Aralis: It does. If you look at Eve history you see that the alliances who survive tough times are always those with a unique identity and we are one of them.

Tib: Many, many people ask all the time, "Why does CVA choose not to operate a Kill Board?"

Aralis: We do operate a killboard - but it's for CVA viewing only. The reason is simply that I dislike the epeen approach that the game is all about getting kills. We don't smack nor do I wish to engage in epeen waggling contests.

Tib: Okay. Incarna and DUST 514 will bring walking in stations and FPS on the ground. What are your thoughts on CCPs push to make this a major aspect of life in New Eden?

Aralis: I like the concept. I distrust how they will do it. They have made a bad job of most of their recent patches - way led by Dominion which was just embarrassingly dreadful. Indeed I suspect it will break the game in the slightly longer term. Dominion effectively outlawed our play style - and many others. The game is now very one dimensional and that is likely to get worse.

Tib: You are not only one who shares that opinion.

Aralis: Planetary interaction has primarily been setup to give them something for Dust to blow up. I don't think that's a healthy approach. Indeed the truth about Dominion is becoming clearer. I did warn about all this in advance. But CCP aren't very good at listening. They make a big fuss of listening but actually 99% is decided before they even tell us about it.

Tib: It is not news to say that many, many pilots in New Eden are dissappointed with how CCP has approached this. If Incarna and DUST are a hit, will you want to run around on the ground with a trusty gun at your side or will you stick to the shiny ships in space? How will CVA be a part of this?

Aralis: Personally I have no interest in an FPS game. How CVA will be involved I couldn't say. Will depend on the details of Dust.

Tib: Very interesting. We'll see how things turn out. Do you have a favorite ship?

Aralis: I'm not sure that I do. There are several ships I like.

Tib: Then, would you mind picking a couple you like to fly often?

Aralis: I'm not a very good pvp pilot. My own performance in the field is not a crucial part of how I play the game though I do get out and help on the field. The Guardian and the Archon I would say.

Tib: Solid ships indeed. CVA once had a rather strict policy of Amarr ships only. Why the relatively recent increase in the use of non-Amarr hulls?

Aralis: Actually CVA has never had a policy of Amarr ships only. Some CVA corporations have done so. I personally only flew amarr until recently.

Tib: I am guessing mostly due to the role-playing aspect?

Aralis: Mostly due to the roleplaying aspects. I changed, very sadly, because I felt I needed to be more flexible and have the right ship for the fleet as I was encouraging others to do. At times as CCP change things Amarr ships have gone from great to crap and back a few times. They are currently very respectable. There are practical problems. You cannot repair pos with Amarr ships for example.

Tib: Okay, very cool. On to a more serious topic, if I may. A lot of people watched in shock as CVA was kicked out of Providence several months ago. You have made it clear you wish to reclaim the systems occupied by U’K and others. Why Providence?

Aralis: Because it borders the Empire originally. Now because it is ours, we built it and we won't let go. Anyone trying to hold our space will have to fight us forever.

Tib: A scary proposition for the enemies of CVA. There is a lot of bad blood between the old Providence holders because CVA fell so quickly and moved to low-sec. Have you tried to reconnect with some of them to rebuild relationships?

Aralis: They don't 'think so. A lot of them have been conned by AAA and UK into thinking us a spent force. Time will make it harder. They will have other problems as people always do. They are reliant on AAA to keep them in place. Fundamentally however it's not about our enemies. It's about Dominion. This pulled the rug out from under us totally.

Tib: I assume CVA is making a move to retake Providence. If a group believed in your cause and wanted to help you take it back, what would they need to do?

Aralis: Talk to us in cva-diplo channel. However don't think there is anything special going on now. CVAs strategy for Providence is long and patient.

Tib: Good to know. On to a personal question from a friend of mine. Rumors of your personal wealth have achieved the status of New Eden legend. How do you suggest others manage their ISK to bring about the same for themselves?

Aralis: Hard work, patience and a long time horizon frankly. Most people naturally live hand to mouth. Never waste money even if you could afford it.

Tib: Patience is a virtue?

Aralis: Indeed it is. A very CVA virtue. :)

Tib: Where do you want to take CVA from here? What's the long-term, end-game goal?

Aralis: To build up and develop Providence into the richest region in the galaxy, a new shining heart for the Empire and a beacon of civilization in the face of all the brutality of the rest of 0.0 space.

Tib: A long-term goal, indeed. You will have the last word and an open floor. What would you like to convey to those reading this interview?

Aralis: A long question indeed. Absurd lies have been told by our enemies, which for a while some believed. The truth tends to out. Most people now realize you cannot trust AAA or UK, and you can trust us. In the long run that will be the deciding factor I believe.

Tib: Well-spoken.

Aralis: /emote bows, ty

Tib: Thanks for your time.

Aralis: No problem. Good luck out there. Thank you for your interest.

Tib: Fly safe and kill hard. O7

Aralis: o7

Well, my pretties. There you have it. A small peak into CVA, what they stand for and why they do what they do. I hope you enjoyed reading.

Tib

Drug Production & Manufacturing

2010-07-05T17:38:00.000-05:00

As promised, I present to you a broad, yet detailed, guide to Drug (Combat Booster) Production and Manufacturing.

DRUG PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURING

Skills Needed to use Boosters

To be able to use boosters, the following skills are necessary:

Biology

Science

Side effects can be mitigated by the following skills:

Neurotoxin Recovery reduces the chance of side effects

Nanite Control reduces the severity of side effects

Legality

All except the synth boosters are illegal in high security space. Those illegal boosters will confiscated by the authorities once they get discovered in the cargohold of a ship. The pilot then has to pay a fee and will get imprinted by a standing loss. All of the synth boosters are legal.

However, being "under the influence" of boosters is not illegal.

How to use boosters

To use a booster, it is necessary to right-click the booster icon and to select consume. When this is done, the Character Sheet icon in the NeoCom will blink. The currently active boosters can be seen at the Character Sheet at the Augmentations tab. A list of the active effects of the booster, the negative side effects and a countdown of the duration left is shown for each booster there.

As above explained, only at maximum one booster can be active in each booster slot. If already a booster is active in a certain slot any attempt to consume another booster of the same slot-type will be impossible.

Note that it is not possible to cancel or abort the booster prematurely once it is consumed. They only way to get rid of the booster effects is to wait until the duration of the booster is over.

Required Structures

Control Tower – To start production of combat boosters, you will need a POS. Gallente towers work well, but Caldari towers work best. I have worked with both. In order to react and manufacture the Standard variant, you will need the following structures: This POS will require at minimum six other structures to make the easiest manufactured type of booster, the Standard variant. These six structures are: 2 General Storage Silos, a Biochemical Silo, a Hazardous Chemical Silo, a Medium Biochemical Reactor Array, and a Drug Lab.

Biochemical Silo – This structure is used to store gas cloud material.

Hazardous Chemical Silo – This structure is used to store outputted uncut booster material from the production.

NOTE: The Biochemical Silo and General Storage silo are structures used to input materials into the Medium Biochemical Reactor Array, which then outputs a by-product to a General Storage silo and the main product to the Hazardous Chemical Silo.

General Storage – This structure is used to store an input material, which is mixed with the gas cloud material.

General Storage – This structure is used to store an output material, which is a by-product of the process.

Biochemical Reactor Array – This structure links all the other silos together and houses a complex reaction BPO. This is where the Input ingredients are reacted and outputted.

Medium Biochemical Reactor Array – This structure links all the other silos together and houses a simple reaction BPO. This is where the Input ingredients are reacted and outputted.

Drug Lab – This structure is used to combine all the necessary ingredients to manufacture Combat Boosters.

Finding a System / Moon

Drug reactions must be done in 0.3 systems or lower. You cannot perform reactions in a 0.4 or higher.

You will need to find a moon that no one would want to take from you. It shouldn’t have Rarity 16 or higher moon minerals. It is best to put it on a moon with no harvestable resources.

Setting up Shop

Step 1: Anchor your tower and get it online.

Step 2: Put Strontium in that tower FFS.

Step 3: Anchor and Online a corporate hangar. Make sure the Corporate Hangar is within range of moving fuel to the tower.

Step 4: Move all your required modules to the POS and start the anchoring process.

Step 5: When you anchor everything; do so surrounding the Corporate Hangar. It makes it so much easier to manage reactions.

Step 6: Before you put everything online, you must change the material type for all the silos. This took me a bit to get the hang of, but it’s really not that hard. Place the reactions (non-consumable) in your medium reactor array.

Step 7: Move materials to your Corporate Hanger.

Step 8: Everything is still offline. You need to make connections to everything. My tower is currently making two variants of Synthetic (Synth) boosters.

Example: For the Synth Blue Pill Reaction on the top Medium Biochemical Reactor Array, you will see two input materials. Since you have already setup your two material silos, all your need to do is drag the output icon of the gas and drag it to the input of the reaction. Do the same for the secondary material (garbage in this case).

Step 9: Once everything is linked and material has been placed in the silos, Online everything!

Step 10: Each reaction cycle lasts for 1 hour. It will say, “Online – Starting Up”, for an hour before it will switch to, “Online – Active.”

Step 11: Keep everything fueled and filled up. This will allow you to have a constant stream of reacted materials.

NOTE: Once you have reacted the Secondary Material (Garbage or whatever) and Gas, you offline the Hazardous Chemical Silo, remove the Pure whatever Booster material and place this in the Drug Lab along with the required Megacyte and the BPC.

NOTE: Manufacturing BPCs can be acquired in Cosmos areas and have a maximum run of fifty units. You then right-click the BPC and select the option to manufacture the/a Boosters.

NOTE: After the manufacturing time has completed, you can complete the job and the BPC and booster(s) will be delivered to the Drug Lab.

Manufacturing

Well, you have a crap-ton of reacted Pure Synth or Pure Standard or Pure whatever stuff. Now you need to manufacture the boosters themselves. You will need a Drug Lab. Along the way of skills, you will need Production Efficiency to Level 4 at least to reduce waste. You will also need Drug Manufacturing which need only be at Level 1 or 2 for Synth and Standard. Each Drug Lab has only 1 slot for manufacturing. Multiple labs to keep orders filled are a necessity.

Use of Boosters and Other Facts

Booster Slots – Boosters fit into "slots" in a manner similar to implants. If a booster of a particular slot is already active, another one cannot be used until the old booster wears off. The boosters sorted by slot are:

Slot 1: Blue Pill, Exile, Mind Flood, and X-Instinct.

Slot 2: Drop, Frentix, and Sooth Sayer.

Slot 3: Crash.

Bonuses And Penalties – The boosters and their associated benefits are as follows:

Blue Pill: increases shield boost amount, allowing a shield-boosting ship to sustain more damage.

Crash: reduces explosion radius of missiles, allowing them to inflict more damage to smaller targets.

Drop: improves tracking speed of turret weapons, allowing them to inflict more damage to smaller targets.

Exile: increases armor repair amount, allowing an armor-repairing ship to sustain more damage.

Frentix: increases the optimal range of turrets, allowing them to inflict more damage to farther-away targets.

Mindflood: increases maximum capacitor amount, which also improves capacitor recharge as a side effect.

Sooth Sayer: increases the falloff range of turrets, allowing them to inflict more damage to targets within falloff range, to farther distances.

X-Instinct: reduces signature radius, decreasing the amount of damage that the ship will take from most weapons.

Drawbacks and Penalties – Each of these boosters may cause any of four potential side-effects, though skills may reduce the chance of this and also reduce the severity of these side effects. The precise drawbacks that can affect a pilot vary by booster type, as follows:

Blue Pill: reduced shield hit points, reduced missile explosion velocity, reduced turret optimal range, reduced capacitor capacity.

Crash: reduced shield boost amount, reduced armor hit points, reduced velocity, reduced missile explosion velocity.

Drop: reduced shield hit points, reduced armor repair amount, reduced velocity, reduced turret falloff.

Exile: reduced armor hit points, reduced explosive radius, reduced tracking speed, reduced capacitor capacity.

Frentix: reduced shield boost amount, reduced armor hit points, reduced velocity, reduced turret tracking speed.

Mindflood: reduced shield boost amount, reduced armor repair amount, reduced missile explosion radius, reduced turret optimal range.

Sooth Sayer: reduced shield boost amount, reduced armor repair amount, reduced velocity, reduced turret optimal range.

X-Instinct: reduced shield hit points, reduced armor hit points, reduced missile explosion velocity, reduced turret falloff.

The intensity of the drawback increases with the potency of drugs. I.e., an improved booster will have a higher chance of getting each drawback, and the drawback will be a larger penalty, than would a standard booster. Note that synth boosters do not have drawbacks, because they are the weakest variety.

Hope this is Informative. If you would rather have a PDF version for offline viewing, please contact me in-game.

Clean your needles.

Tib

EVE Blog Pack

2010-07-03T10:50:00.000-05:00

I started blogging back in April after reading the blog back on my iPhone for good while. Writing had always been a hobby of mine and writing about Internet spaceships was rather appealing. So...there I began. The rest is written below.

When I found out that there were a couple of openings in the blog pack, I decided to drop CrazyKinux an email about joining. I didn't hear anything back for a week or so, assuming then that my blog didn't fit the bill.

Well, I got an email this morning from Kinux, saying I had been added as a potential blog pack addition.

http://www.crazykinux.com/2010/06/how-to-get-into-eve-blog-pack.html

Needless to say, this is an exciting change of pace. I could have blogged happily for months and years without a huge readership. Now I have the opportunity to blog about Internet spaceships to an awesome readership of people who like Internet spaceships. Fun times are coming.

I don't believe in changing anything other than including some more blog links and adding a new banner. I hope everything turns out and may the best blogs "win" (be added).

Tib

Also, The Blog Banter this time around looks quite interesting. I will be sorting out a few ideas and running with one of 'em.

EVE Blog Pack: http://tinyurl.com/eveblogpack
EVE Blog Banter: http://tinyurl.com/evebanters

Makeovers, Drugs and Missing Interviews

2010-07-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

Beware: Multiple Topics in this Post

Makeovers: Facelift Required

I am currently looking to have a banner made for "Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo." My budget is 250 Million ISK. A couple of the requirements.

Image Size: 920 × 180 pixels

Contains the "Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo" name.

I like Tengus, Scorpions and explosions.

Plasma planet background? <-- artistic license required here. Make it look awesome.

Font does not need to match the blog's text; just not clash (of the titans) too bad.

Please contact me at tiberustundrif@gmail.com or in-game "Tiberu Stundrif" for all those interested in helping me give the blog an epic makeover.

Drugs: Combat Boosters

I have been working with Combat booster production for the past three weeks now and I am rather impressed. It is much more time-intensive compared to T2 reactions, but the rewards are amazing. A friend and I have put about a billion for startup costs and will pay that off and more without a problem in the first month. Right now we are producing several billion a month with about half a billion in costs. Not bad at all.

My foray into booster production was met with tripping, falling, and stabbing myself in the eyes with multiple pencils. The EVE guides suck to be honest and there are few people who actually really work with them at all. Probably because of the hassle. I have seen multiple guides to boosters to themselves, but very few to the actual production aspect (step by step).

I am working on a guide which will fix all that. It will be posted on this blog and made available in a Word/PDF document. Pictures? Tips? Tricks? Q & A? All will be included for your drug-fueled pleasure.

Phantom Interviews

Well, this is still going to happen. I am in contact with a couple of big players atm and will be getting these up ASAP. Fear not my pretties... they are coming.

Tib

Johnny, what does the Obelisk say? POP

2010-06-30T11:46:00.000-05:00

Public Service Announcement: Ravnos Kalderash has learned that autopiloting his Obelisk through low-sec is not smart.

For a little background, this guy decided to try and jump through low-sec in his big 'Ob about three weeks ago. I was sitting there in a Drake and starting hammering into him. As we all know, a Drake without a web cannot easily stop a freighter from getting back to gate before it can kill it. I had several friends on the way, but he jumped back into high-sec right as my compadres landed.

He cried in local for a bit and asked why we were trying to kill him. We let him know that it was a lesson he needed to learn to not bring a freighter through low-sec, unscouted. He even went to the great lengths (we are nice guys, we really are) to let him know the safest times to traverse Abha and how to scout ahead before he came through. We are not a pirate corp, but we hate seeing stupidity reinforced with an epic-carebear defense mechanism from which tears in abundance flow...

Sparing you the rest of that exchange... we come to this morning. Our same friend, who didn't lose his freighter last time, decided to pilot (not autopilot) to Serad which takes him through Abha (0.4). He was warping to zero supposedly on his way there, but stopped...in Abha...at zero...on a gate to high-sec. Soooo...my CEO , Sydron Knight, being the good guy he is, let the guy know in local that he was sitting in low-sec. He even convo-ed the guy. No response.

With that said. The situation was this. Stupid person + Freighter + low-sec + AFK - scout = WTF. With all that said, we killed his Obelisk...at zero on a gate...to high-sec.

http://www.darkgrendal.com/ex/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=270

The following details the coversation we had in local.

[13:52:46] Sydron Knight > 0/
[14:12:05] Sydron Knight > Ravnos, you are a complete idiot
[14:12:57] EVE System > Channel changed to Serad Local Channel
[14:13:48] Sydron Knight > afk in a low sec system for an hour. wtf
[14:14:05] Ravnos Kalderash > and a reason for pirating....
[14:14:25] Ravnos Kalderash > still wonder why ppl who claims not to be pirates kill afk piloting people
[14:14:33] Sydron Knight > not pirating,
[14:14:37] Ravnos Kalderash > what else?
[14:14:42] Sydron Knight > just teaching you a lesson
[14:14:51] Sydron Knight > to not be stupid
[14:14:53] Ravnos Kalderash > ok. I will teach your corp than a lesson
[14:14:57] Ravnos Kalderash > we had this discussion before
[14:15:07] Ravnos Kalderash > but if you think you can act like this
[14:15:07] Sydron Knight > and nothing happened
[14:15:14] Ravnos Kalderash > under the umbrella of teaching
[14:15:20] Ravnos Kalderash > i teach you the lesson of pirating
[14:15:43] Sydron Knight > this is the second time you went afk in abha
[14:15:46] Ravnos Kalderash > the obelisk does not hurt me at all but the merc will hurt you
[14:16:08] Sydron Knight > looking forward to it.
[14:16:26] Ravnos Kalderash > pirating and saying teaching a lesson
[14:16:28] Ravnos Kalderash > wonderfull
[14:16:38] Sydron Knight > lol
[14:17:20] Sydron Knight > I tried to convo you, and tell you to move but you didn't
[14:17:28] Sydron Knight > i waited 30 mins
[14:17:36] Sydron Knight > you did nothing.
[14:17:40] Ravnos Kalderash > hmmm
[14:17:49] Ravnos Kalderash > wonder why it stopped
[14:18:12] Ravnos Kalderash > still had autopilot on
[14:18:25] Sydron Knight > like i said before, if you have balls. do it.
[14:18:55] Sydron Knight > your a young kid that doesn't have a brain.
[14:19:09] Ravnos Kalderash > and you are a pirate corp
[14:19:19] Ravnos Kalderash > and your industry corps will suffer from it as well
[14:19:26] Ravnos Kalderash > like I said
[14:19:28] Sydron Knight > who the F&%$ sits in a low sec system in a frieghter. wtf.. lol
[14:19:44] Sydron Knight > rof lol.. yeah,, ok.. sure
[14:19:45] Ravnos Kalderash > i do it when i don´t see pirate corps
[14:20:06] Sydron Knight > omg.. are you serious.
[14:20:23] Ravnos Kalderash > i don´t see a reason to shoot at anybody even in low sec
[14:20:27] Ravnos Kalderash > if he is not hostile
[14:20:38] Sydron Knight > you need to tell you mom you need your diapers changed
[14:20:43] Ravnos Kalderash > you act different. fine but you have to take your responsibilities for it
[14:20:58] Johnny Hammersticks > Yeah, I mean who kills people in low-sec, seriously?
[14:21:04] Sydron Knight > that maybe you. but you are red to use.
[14:21:09] Sydron Knight > us
[14:21:27] Ravnos Kalderash > i was red first time as well... soso
[14:21:32] Ravnos Kalderash > nice arguments
[14:21:41] Ravnos Kalderash > guys stop arguing
[14:21:50] Sydron Knight > and you took yours. the loss of your ship should teach you. but then again, your not smart enough
[14:21:53] Ravnos Kalderash > you pirate and you will get your lesson
[14:21:55] Ravnos Kalderash > i learnd mine
[14:22:04] Ravnos Kalderash > i see you as pirate corp now
[14:22:09] Ravnos Kalderash > and will act like this
[14:22:14] Lisias Feyri > YARRR!!
[14:22:35] Sydron Knight > http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf
[14:22:50] Sydron Knight > there.. thats a pirate
[14:23:20] Ravnos Kalderash > senseless. you did what you thought were right
[14:23:25] Ravnos Kalderash > and don´t tell anything about a lesson
[14:23:40] Ravnos Kalderash > we could have live friendly together or not
[14:23:42] Johnny Hammersticks > was right, not were right
[14:23:43] Tiberu Stundrif > I am glad to see you came to join our party again.
[14:23:44] Ravnos Kalderash > was not my decision
[14:24:00] Sydron Knight > i'm a carebear at heart. but No one can pass up what you did.. and i even tried to warn you
[14:24:26] Ravnos Kalderash > if you so you will have to figure out how to handle the empire war
[14:24:39] Ravnos Kalderash > as said first time I don´t care about the loss at all
[14:24:51] Ravnos Kalderash > my ressources are fine and even enough to finance pew pew to your ally
[14:24:51] Sydron Knight > i see that.
[14:24:56] Tiberu Stundrif > Your tears are gonna drown me if you keep this up...
[14:25:17] Sydron Knight > lol
[14:25:27] Tiberu Stundrif > If the loss was nothing, you wouldn't still be here bitching in local.
[14:25:28] Ravnos Kalderash > so i hope you are not only carebears otherwise it would get boring^^
[14:25:49] Tiberu Stundrif > Go cry in the corner, get your merc friends on the horn and get the hell out of Local.
[14:26:36] Ravnos Kalderash > thx for the very interesting conversation and the nice wording.
[14:26:48] Sydron Knight > here is Ravnos Kalderash in youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P7r9Y0SSBQ
[14:26:51] Ravnos Kalderash > better prepare for some empire war fights
[14:27:26] Tiberu Stundrif > Sie sind mit Müll gefüllt. Gehen Sie zurück und weinen, wo du wohnst. Senden Sie Ihre Söldner.
[14:27:27] Sydron Knight > for now on, i will refer to you as the angry German kids
[14:27:56] Ravnos Kalderash > german is in my country a flame word
[14:28:04] Ravnos Kalderash > so better stick to something else^^
[14:28:21] Sydron Knight > ok, Mr. Angry German Kid
[14:28:41] Tiberu Stundrif > You are still whining, btw
[14:28:55] Tiberu Stundrif > And your tears are like honey to my lips.
[14:29:02] Tiberu Stundrif > Keep 'em coming.
[14:29:20] Sydron Knight > I will put you in my Bio as the Angry German Kid
[14:29:31] Sydron Knight > for all to know of you
[14:29:42] Sydron Knight > your going to be famous
[14:29:46] Sydron Knight > lol

Nope... I was not on the KM. My alliance CEO texted me just as it popped. I was pissed I was not on the kill, but thats life. Sleep > EvE.

Learning Lesson: Autopiloting your frieghter through low-sec and then goin' AFK is just bad ju-ju.

Tib

BTW: He threatened to Merc us last time. We shall see what happens this time around...

Vacation Spot in New Eden

2010-06-24T00:56:00.000-05:00

It seems at least a couple of times a week I read about people taking a break from New Eden by not logging on, period. Is New Eden all that monotonous that it would require people to walk away to recharge? I would tend to think not, but I have not heard anyone mention this before.

I have been keeping a close eye on the Eve Travel blog and it got the old thinker going. As a director in a 50+ active member corporation as well as functioning as an alliance diplo, much of my time is taken up with these responsiblities. Doing something new in New Eden for a short time is the only solution. An in-game vacation.

As I would any vacation spot in RL, I have some expectations:

I don't want to do what I do all the time.

No Politics. Period.

An atmosphere of pilots who want something new for a short time without a lot of hassle.

A place which would cater to everybody but stick to a libertarian mindset. Example: Consensual PvP, etc.

A pub for shoot'n-da-crap without that annoying adolescent who perpetually posts stupid videos on Vent/TS3 chat.

A well-stocked market of Spiced Wine, Spirits and skill books so we don't have to go 15 jumps to find the best price...on skill books that is.

A place where I don't have to bring everything with me, but just a frigate or cruiser with a suitcase of the essentials.

Something else that I can't remember...

Would this place be the "Garden of Eden" in New Eden? Probably. Am I the only one thinking this would be amazing?

I only bring this up because I am looking for a good holiday spot.

Tib

CCP IT PERSONNEL ON STRIKE

2010-06-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

We all know that outside of the hamsters actually powering the CCP servers, gnomes run the IT side of things. The gnomes are on strike. Until they are appeased... we shall sit at our computers watching the EVE login page with "Status: Unknown".

CPP, work out your gnome issues and keep us in the loop on the proceedings.

Tib

Holy Crap, It's an Avatar

2010-06-23T11:57:00.000-05:00

So... I had never seen a Titan in game before 2 days ago. We were Titan-bridging into Opticon space in Providence using one of CVA's Avatars. When we warped to the POS, Vent went quiet. This is what we saw...

Oh, Crap! It's an Avatar!

It is over 9,000...meters long.

Tib

New Friends & Interviews

2010-06-22T03:53:00.000-05:00

Over the past month or so, my alliance, Externus Hostis, has established coalitions, blues standings and friendships with some heavy-hitters as well as some not-so-well-known groups.

I have put out requests to several of the executors of some of the heavy-hitters. These requests are for either written or voice interviews. Most have responded quickly and enthusiastically!

Over the next 2 weeks, I will be publishing these interviews for you reading pleasure.

Stay tuned. Keep an eye out.

Tib

The Roam. The Hunt. The Kill.

2010-06-18T16:13:00.000-05:00

Why is there such a huge draw to PvP in EVE? What keeps so many capsuleers going?

It is 3am in the morning. Everyone in the house has been asleep for hours, except for me. The roaming fleet I have been a part of for hours has dwindled from 25 strong to a group 4 stragglers. I wanted to go to bed an hour or so earlier, but something made me stay logged in. An indescribable hunger, though pulsing through my body, goes uncalculated and unnoticed. This hunger stems from the need to kill something, anything.

What would seem like an eternity without blood begins to eat away at my insides. I voice this complaint on voice comms to my fellow pilots who offer tired, half-hearted agreements; offering their own pitiful desire for something to kill. System after system we roam. Empty system after empty system we become more disheartened and more eager to inflict death; to experience the thrill of someone else's loss at our hand.

Pause: There are probably many who would disagree with this imagery as it presents an almost animal description of PvP. There are some who PvP because they hope for the loot drop, but I dare say these pilots are in the minority. The main reason people go on the hunt lies solely in the thrill a person physically feels by putting themselves in "danger," in order to destroy something the potential victim wishes not to lose. Sociopathic? Maybe. Fun as hell? Most definitely.

I am the first one to hit the gate and jump through. Once the grid loads, I push the scan button and to my amazement...a Rokh appears in the results. The heart rates of each of the pilots increase slightly at the announcement of a potential target. A quick narrowing down on the directional puts the Rokh in a belt, ratting. The unwary pilot pew-pews along as our pack of 4 assemble into position for the assault from the shadows.

At this point the heart rate of each pilot climbs considerably as the risk soon to be taken could result in ship loss. Our group consists of only HACs. The likely blaster-fit Rokh could make piecemeal of any one of us. The tension rises.

Our FC calls for a tackle and the pilot executes a perfect warp in with his Rapier. The Rapier decloaks, points and webs the Rokh in a blink of an eye. The tackle is announced over voice comms and each of three pilots lurking in the shadows know that this is their queue to engage.

The Rokh is now bleeding shields very quickly. Even while we munch away at his shields, the Rokh pilot who was clueless but a moment before engages the Rapier. The tackler is taking a considerable amount of damage, so he burns out to try and escape the optimals of the Caldari Battleship.

The Rokh hits 50% armor and we are assured of a lossless victory. We overheat our guns to seal his fate all the sooner. He pops.

The feeling of euphoric victory washes over the group of four who but 5 minutes before were a tired, ragged group of individuals ready to give up. Multiple GFs were exchanged in local as our group fails to catch his pod. Though true blood through a pod kill fails to materialize, the bloodlust has been fulfilled and we all decide to call it a night. A good night indeed.

"This stuff is like a drug," one of my fellow pilots voices over voice comms as he logs out.

Sweet. Euphoric. Victory.

Tib

The Shuttle Rant

2010-06-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

So...we all use, we all love them (or most of use that is) and we have never really looked at them before. I am sitting in station in a plain-looking Caldari Shuttle. At first glance we know they travel about 625 m/s with decent navigation skills and warp ar 6 au/s (without implants). There are no rig slots, highs, mids or lows. Wait... what?! I have 187.5 CPU and 31.25 Powergrid?

Can someone please explain why I have more CPU and Powergrig than some Tier 3 Frigates but don't have ability to use any of it? I am gonna have to mark this one up as another CCP-fail... but I might be totally wrong on this one. My thoughts are this... if I am not able to use any CPU or Powergrid... why on earth do the all-powerful CCP gods give the shuttle these specs in the first place?!

*Ends Shuttle Rant*

Anybody got any ideas?

Tib

P.S. Upon further thinking...maybe we could one day modify shuttles to do, stuff?! The hull (I hope not) of T3 frigates perhaps? :-/

Apoc/Rifter + Low-Sec Gate Camp = FAIL

2010-06-16T05:14:00.000-05:00

Well, the intel chatter turned into a blaze when we heard there was an Apocalypse and Rifter gate-camping in Abha. It was quickly determined that the camper, Draco25252003, had no eyes in the surrounding systems. As this system is used by us on a very regular basis, we couldn't have such an unfriendly gesture to go unanswered. We had a rather impressive group assembled within 5 minutes coming from as far as 5 jumps away in two different directions.

To make a long narrative really short, we had the Apoc in deep armor so quick the FC called a cease fire so that others could get on the KM.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=10577785

We haven't quite figured out what he was fit for... but in looks like he had a mission fit which was mish-mash fit with mission loot drops. Draco, we salute you. Come on by anytime.

Tib

Oh, I almost forgot... the Rifter that was with him lasted about 9 seconds after he engaged our bait Hurricane... "Remember, Kids! Gate guns bite!" I think the Rifter was an alt of our friend Draco whose only purpose was to hold down stuff long enough for the Apoc to lock it. Interesting strategy.

Donuts, Anyone? Concord says, "Yes!"

2010-06-16T04:54:00.000-05:00

I was on my to Jita the other day and ran into a CONCORD donut run. I apologized to the High Captain for interrupting and quickly scurried onto my destination. For your viewing pleasure.

Realism & Preparations

2010-05-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

The PI skills are chugging along and the excitement is building for PI to actually come online. A lot of people are really tense and waiting to see how this new industry will change the way EvE works.

The new planet organization and resizing really puts to rest the peeve I have always had with EvE. One down, 499 more things to complain about.

"Dear CCP, fix the lag."

Tib

A Capsuleer Never Retires

2010-05-28T05:41:00.000-05:00

I live in the Derelik region of space on Mahnagh - Planet 6. The Stokro people affectionately call it Stokro Prime. Why, I will never know as they occupy only one planet. I digress and shall return to the news of recent times.

This planet has a unique geothermal configuration which places all of our power production capability in the Northern Hemisphere. This leaves the Southern Hemisphere rarely touched by industry or commerce.

The planet population reached 60 million recently. It's still a wonder to me that the multitude rarely, if ever, visit this side of the planet I call my stomping grounds. You will find me in the mountains and foothills of the Kalplos continent. The sun rises from the northwest over the mountains every morning where my housing unit is currently anchored. Hearing age-old tales of permanent homes with an immobile foundation interests me, but I am glad technology gives me the flexibilty to move around as I wish.

There I go again, blabbering about. I was a capsuleer for many, many years. It interesting to have the ability to say you have lived a thousand lifetimes and lived the tell the tale.

I have done my share of prospecting and probing from a covert frigate, but what I see coming over the horizon interests me greatly. Mining the planets? The conservationists will whine, but I believe it will bring industry and commerce to this neglected corner of the region.

Forgive the lack of details accompanied by beautiful prose and wordy crap of my experience, but I now have 5 books which will take several weeks to read and study. I must learn how to get into this planet mining thing.

Working with CCP to regulate this industry will be a challenge, but as a retired capsuleer, I might just come out of retirement. Only time will tell...

Congrats to Mynxee!

2010-05-26T12:25:00.000-05:00

I am proud to say all my accounts voted for her and I look forward to seeing how her ideas will be implemented into New Eden. Congrats, Mynxee!

Life Lessons & New Eden: Patience

2010-05-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

Can anyone think of a game that requires you to wait months on end before you can access a certain aspect of the game? What about waiting a year before you ever get an opportunity to complete a certain type of mission/quest by yourself? As we all know, the answer is EVE Online. We all know it. We all hate it. Really, really long skills. You know the waiting will suck, but the reward will be worth it. New Eden does not value those who seek instant gratification.

Patience. The virtue which many aspire to embody but few ever master. If you are a dedicated EVE player, I would dare say you are well on your way to mastering the art of patience. Of course, the vastness that is New Eden easily distracts, but she values the patient pilot.

When you place a 2-3 or more week-long skill in the queue, you accept the fact that technically you are not learning anything new during that time. You know the outcome of the wait is worth it, but waking up every morning to see only a chip taken off the 25 days of training is quite depressing without the resolve to push forward. This game is not about skills, it’s about experience. When you are "learning" a new skill, you should be bettering your skills elsewhere. This could be PvP, PvE, scanning, probing, ratting, exploration, etc.

Help pass the time on long skill queues. Not by logging and powering up the XBOX, but take this opportunity to improve learning-independent skills which enable you to make New Eden a little better. New Eden values the patient, the resourceful and the dedicated. When that skill queue looks like it will never come under 24 hours, let New Eden teach you a little patience...just as she teaches me.

Tib

Update

2010-05-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

Well, in my previous post I did a little ranting, but thats how life goes. I spent several days away from EvE out camping with brother and friends in west Texas. It was a lot of fun and a nice little refresher. I am back with a force. Gotta run a lot of missions to make some ISK, but for the most part that will be interrupted by perpetual gate camping and hot-drops. :-)

The Tengu training will be done in a little over 3 weeks and I cannot wait to undock. Its gonna be good times. I have a two fits setup; one for PvP (and 0.0) and one for PvE for playing around in High-Sec.

I have the CNR up and running with a force on missions in Tidacha. This thing allow me to run through missions so much faster. I am putting together a couple of guides and another fiction piece. Once everything settles into the summer, EvE will be a little easier to work into the schedule for multi-hour sessions.

Tib

Stalled Innovation in New Eden?

2010-05-13T00:36:00.000-05:00

We've got hundreds of ships to choose from when we undock into the great void. We can fit them millions of different ways. We can jam, target, shoot, tractor, jump, bridge, warp, micro-warp, align, etc. We can gain sovereignty, lose sovereignty, kill, be killed, engage, and retreat. We have terrific amounts on control in New Eden.

CCP gave us T2 when there was only T1. CCP gave us T3 when only T1 and T2 existed. CCP is preparing to give us control of the planets.

If the universe is at our fingertips, than why can't we build our own ships? If anything, CCP got the Strategic Cruiser right. They gave the player the ability to modify the actual attributes of the T3 hull. Why has this ability not passed to other sub-capital ships?

Example: The Raven is a Swiss Army Knife if there ever was one. From hitting Starbases to killing mission rats, it's pretty epic. But it can't do any one of those really well. What if I wanted a cloaky Raven which sacrificed tank or DPS? What if I wanted a Drake-style Passive-Recharge Raven?

T2 Ships offer us higher resistances to damage, deal more damage, etc. They do the exact same thing the T1 does, but better. What about something different?

I thought this idea was garbage at first, but I put some more thought into it. I believe that CCP needs to give us T3 versions of Frigates and Battleships. This gives players more options to specialize in frigates, cruisers or battleships. T3 cruisers cannot possibly be the end of innovation in New Eden. The Scorpion looks cool and all, but why can't we add a 4th ship to the battleship class in general? Keep us excited, CCP...not wishing/guessing/hoping.

Reader, forgive my ramblings and complaints.

P.S. CCP, I almost forgot...Fix the damn lag.

I Voted! What About You?

2010-05-06T08:17:00.000-05:00

Make sure you vote for your CSM candidate of choice! Don't let this opportunity pass at being a part making New Eden even better!

Don't remeber where to vote? http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/

I voted! So should you!

Tib

5 Months in Space and Counting

2010-04-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

I have now been playing EVE for 5 months and All I have to say is tht it's been a blast! I broke from mining after 2 months and went the way of combat. In my first few weeks of utter lost noobishness, I spoiled my 2 remaps which kinda screwed up my attributes slightly. I am remapped Perception/Intelligence-ish which makes the training a little slower, but that is life I guess.

I am spread out when it comes to skills. 30% are in industry, the rest in combat. Heavy Missiles are going to 5 right now and will be done by the end of the week. Cruiser is then going to 5 where I will the specialize in the Tengu.

Once all the subsystems on the Tengu are at 4, I will then branch off to the Onyx, followed by the Basilisk. After a month or so in Logistics training, I am going to throw Battlecruisers to 5 on the burner and head towards the Nighthawk!

UPDATE: Posting from the iPhone app does not work that well. Lost the last half of the post. :-/

Anchoring Ships: Why The Hell Not?

2010-04-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

I was at safe spot the other day just chilling'. I needed to go 7 jumps over and deliver a manufacturing project and trade some ammo to a new member of the corporation. There was no problem with this, except for the fact that I was in a Raven and it would have taken forever to get over there and back (more lazy than anything). In that one moment, I wished I could eject, anchor the Raven and pod over to do my business and come right back. Oh well...

We can anchor Player Owned Starbases, all the structures attached, and giant secure containers. We can anchor giant secure containers, place a password on them and they will be there for a long time. No one can access, move or pick them up (unless you have the password). If you have ever been on a sailing ship before, when an anchor is put down, that ship isn’t moving. Obviously, if you leave the ship afloat on the ocean without a crew, anyone can come along, unanchor and skedaddle.

With that said; as is common knowledge, capsuleers have a "crew" in any ship larger than a frigate. When a ship is lost, either the whole crew dies or jump ship and escape moments before certain annihilation overcomes them. I dare suggest that CCP give us the ability to anchor (and password) our ships for a certain about of time.

The moment I suggest something along these lines, I find myself finding so many possible problems with something like this. There would be ships anchored everywhere! How long could a ship stay anchored before the crew abandoned ship and left it free-for-all? Where could and couldn't you anchor them?

I suggest the follow ding rules for anchoring ships:

You can only anchor a ship in 0.7 systems or below.

You must have the Anchoring skill to Level 3.

The anchoring would only last 6 hours at most before the ships became unanchored.

While anchored, your shields stay at 100%. That means when you jump back in, it’s as if your crew kept everything going while you were away.

A password must be placed on the ship in order to secure the anchor.

Maybe make your pod move as fast as a shuttle in warp? (6 AU/s)

Just a thought... What do y'all think?

Tyrannis Preparation: What are you doing?

2010-04-18T15:43:00.000-05:00

So, many of us have played around in Singularity and started to get a good idea of what is going to happen and how we are going to respond to the new changes. I am telling my corp members to work hard in building up their personal wallets as well as beef up the corporate wallet for the Tyrannis release in a month. The new game-play mechanics added by this game are going to change the everyday activities in New Eden.

To the EVE Blogging Community: What are you doing to prepare?

First "Epic" Ship

2010-04-17T20:11:00.000-05:00

So, in addition to the post I made the other day about what was in my hangar, I went out and bought a Raven Navy Issue. This is the first pricey purchase I have bought and I have already realized that this is one epic ship. I ran Angels Extravaganza (lvl 4) with a couple of friends and was very impressed with the result. I look forward to testing it on the 2nd wave of worlds collide. :-)

At first I just had the Meta 3 X-Large Shield Boost I, then my alliance CEO chided me and said to drop some ISK on the Caldari Navy X-Large Shield Booster. After looking at what EFT said, I went straight away to pick one up in Amarr.

My fit for the CNR is as follows:

Highs
7 x 'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I's (Soon to be replaced with Dread Guristas)

Mediums
1 x Caldari Navy X-Large Shield Booster
2 x Shield Boost Amplifiers (replaced with T2s in 2 days)
1 x Heavy Cap Booster II
1 x Pith B-Type Explsion Dampening Field
1 x Pith B-Type Ballistic Deflection Field

Lows
1 x Damage Control II
3 x Ballistic Control II
1 x Power Diagnostic II

BTW: The fit represents the Angels Extravaganza fit, but I have a full set of the Pith B-Type resists.

Any Suggestions?

24 Hours

2010-04-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

So...in real life, I am an electrical engineering student with a minor in math. When I pull an all-nighter, its for class projects or homework...not for EVE.

If I am so grumpy, then why am I so happy?

I was scouting moons for the corporation and I came across a Hafnium moon with an unachored coupling array as the only evidence of a POS long past. I scooped the goody into my hold, got my CEO on the horn, and went from mission-running to POS setup within 15 minutes! Whew...

With 4 hours till downtime, my CEO and I setup a large tower; stronted and fueled. We managed to get everything else to the newly anchored corporate hangar before server shutdown and then spent the next two hours (after server restart) onlining and anchoring a crap ton of stuff before my first 8AM class.

I post this from my second class in an effort to stay awake and alert. It was definately worth the effort and my fatigue is nothing Starbucks can't fix.

Tib

Home, Low-Sec Home

2010-04-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I spent about an hour looking for a decent starting moon down in lower-Derelik in order to throw up a small POS. I found a Cobalt moon with Atmospheric Gases and Silicates which I put up a Sansha small tower. I am living in the system in order to make it my home. Its a .2 system, so the ratting is good and there are two static complexes which re-spawn every 3 hours.

This was my first POS setup, so it is very exciting to have something I can truly call my own.

Please feel free to critique my setup:

Sansha Control Tower - Small

Corporate Hangar Array

Ship Maintenance Bay

Moon Harvester & Silo

2 x Warp Scrambling Batteries

1 x Stasis Webification Batteries

3 x Medium Laser Turrets

2 x Small Laser Turrets

Its no Death Star setup to be sure, but its also not one a couple of battleships would want to take on...Thoughts?

Tib

P.S. I plan to replace this small with a medium if things go well for a couple of weeks.

What's in your Hangar?

2010-04-13T14:55:00.000-05:00

Having read through several other blogs, it seems the big topic are a list/description/uses of the ships in your hangar.

Raven - "Ugly, Nasty Bastard" - A great torp-fit, buffered behemoth with a point. When hurt needs to be brought...*hits Undock button*

Drake - "Coke & Chips" - When it comes to a tried-and-true buffered PvP ship, the Drake reigns supreme. It will take a crap-ton of damage before it goes down, but if solo, it was go down quick and take nothing with it.

Drake - "Twisted Cross 2" - Well, Twisted Cross (the first one) was the subject of the fiction I wrote the other day, "Stuck."

Drake - "Cookie Extravaganza" - This is the mission drake with mission-specific hardeners. Amazingly enough, I have such a good buffer-tank on this baby, most Level 4s are not even an issue. Dropping the DPS is another story though... :-(

Dramiel - "Pesky Wasp" - A great low-sec ratting frig. Drops more DPS that most missile-fit cruisers even with my crappy gunnery skills. I took on a Wolf the other day and was Neck-and-Neck until his friend came in a jammed me. At this point my two friends came in and helped mop up. If it weren't for my gunnery skills being as low as they are, I might have been able to solo him.

Republic Fleet Firetail - "Cylon One" - I have not had a lot of time in the cockpit of this ugly beauty, but once Minmatar frigate goes to 5, this will see a lot more action.

Caldari Shuttle - "Puddle Jumper" - Must I say more?

Zephyr x2 - "Zephyr" - The name says it all. They are repackaged in a secure container and will not come out for a year or more (when they go for 500 mil a pop).

Ferox - "To The Point" - A little pet project I have been working on. Armor tanked Ferox? More information on this one will come in a later post once the fit in complete.

Wish List: Once I have my engineering skills up a bit more, I gonna git meeself a BS mishun ship. Some say to go for a Golem, but right now I need a BS to run Level 4s faster and make money for the PvP.

Raven Navy Issue

Fiction: "Stuck"

2010-04-11T09:42:00.000-05:00

"Captain, sensors have recalibrated. Nothing on scan. What are your orders?" Cmdr Ashriu respectfully awaited a response as he always did.

Cmdr Ashriu had been my Second through thick, thin, and ship loss for years. I trust him with my clone, my ship and it's crew. I am immortal, but not unbreakable. His experience among the stars spans many years before the birth of my conscience and is what I lean on when my experience is no longer adaquete. If anything is going to get us back to Empire alive and in one piece, it's going to involve working together and making smart decisions.

"Store this exit in the ship's computer. Place all defense systems online. Verify Scourge Fury ordinance is loaded in launchers. Launch probes and begin a system scan. Set threat condition: Orange."

As my orders were passed on, I used the few minutes to look up the system in the galactic database. Class 2. Several sleeper sites. A couple of belts. Uninhabited as of last month.

"Captain, we have Sleeper locations pinpointed and three safe spots at random moons. Awaiting your orders."

This situation is sizing up rather nicely. No bubbles, baddies or buddies. Alone in the void. It would be considered foolish by some, but my crew and I see it as a great adventure.

"Cmdr Ashrui, let's check out the first site. Go to warp when engineering is ready."

Within two short hours, all the sleepers in system were blown to space dust and their juicy inards safely in the hold. The thought crept into the back of my mind that I was being watched.

I broke the buzzing of voices on the bridge, "Scan system for threats, Ensign. We don't want anyone to ruin our good times."

"Sir, nothing on scan."

A small relief. Good, we might get home unscathed. Time to head home.

"Align and warp to wormhole exit. Continue to scan at 360 degrees."

The Drake class "UFS Twisted Cross" aligned and quickly entered warp. Everything was quiet as the minds of those on the ship began to ease after the stress of lingering in the void. Cmdr Ashriu and I are the only ones uneasy as we know the most dangerous part of wormhole travel had yet to be encountered.

"Sir! We have a warp distruption bubble dead ahead! I also have a Scorpion, Typhoon, Drake and Hurricane class ships dead ahead."

This was not good, not good at all. The chances of the ship being caught was high and the loss of the entire ship just as dire.

"Battlestations! Prepare to enter a combat zone! Disengage safety locks on excape pods!" The ship approaches the bubble and we are forced out of warp 17km from the exit. "Lock onto the Scorpion and fire at will!"

Cmdr Ashriu gave the ship status, "Sir, we have been jammed, but the Scorpion just took a lot of damage from our two volleys. We are taking damage slowly, but the destruction of the ship is imminent."

I quickly weighed my options and decided it was best to lose the ship and save the crew.

"Cmdr Ashriu, sound the abandon ship. Get the crew out of here. We will meet up in Abha at the starbase once the system cools down."

With the ships crew safely away, we could try and take one of these Wormhole Mercenaries with us.

"Cmdr, primary the Typhoon while we are no longer jammed. Prepare to warp our pods to a safe."

The shipped could not take the repeated beating and within two minutes, the ship lost structural integrity and our pods were jettisoned.We both aligned and warped to a deadspace safe.

"Captain, what's our next move? They have the only bookmarked exit completed blocked." My old friend and I had been through this many times before, but not in wormhole space.

"I will contact the Mercs and request a ransom for safe passage. Its our only option and we need to get out of here before the exit collapses." Cmdr Ashriu nodded his head slowly in agreement, but showed his uneasiness at the whole situation.

Within 15 minutes we were back in Abha and warping to the POS to meet up the rest of the crew. The situation brought the loss of a ship and 50 mil ISK loss on a ransom, but no loss of life.

Be thankful for the little things.

A Bag of Hammers

2010-04-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

Having moved to the Derelik region about 2 months ago, we are beginning to settle in rather nicely. We've done a lot of missioning, a crap-ton of mining and manufacturing, ratting, and little bit of directed privateering. We have a whole bunch of new friends, but have realized there are always three or four or ten baddies who like to throw their weight around just for shits and giggles.

From now on, I will refer to such pilots as a hammers. I call them this, because in real life, hammers are absolutely useless unless a part of a construction project of any certain scale. If not a part of a bigger picture or in the hand of a big-picture craftsman...they cause broken broken projects, broken bones and broken spaceships as this situation dictates.

So what's my point, you may ask? My point is that many, many pilots in EVE are afraid of hammers and for good reason. Hammers are usually correctly characterized as jerks who hot-drop random people just cuz they can. How do a group of persons who specialize in frigates, battlecruisers and battleships with a handful of cap ships combat this?

Simple. Befriend groups hammers who are friends with other groups of hammers. Simply despising those lone hammers who happen to have some friends and hoping they don't hot-drop you perpetuates weakness and gives them an easier target.

Lesson #1: "Always have bigger hammer friends."

Tiberu

No Coffee Breaks

2010-04-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

I was compelled to Gank a noob ship in Abha the last night. He was autopiloting through low-sec. It was not worth the sec hit except for the principle of the thing. I was the nice guy who convo'd him and explained how to warp to 0m on a gate and jump.

Lesson: "Never autopilot through low-sec."

Lesson Translation: "Get the coffee after you've gotten through low-sec."

Tib

Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo

Quick Update - Goons, Pure Blind and Other Stuff

Blog Banter 28: CCP, the CSM, and Side Affects

Well, I'm Traveling

Pure Blind

Not Quitting

Incarna Explained

Update from the North...errr... South

Future of the North

Ejecting from Ship, in RL

Taking a Break, Still Alive

"The Great Ash Alliance Massacre"

New Sov Mechanics: CCP Has Truly Lost Touch

Still Alive... More to Come

"dude-bro! where are my ships?"

Character Review

Successful Gank ... Gate Guns Bite

The Machariel says, "IT'S A TRAP!"

If Life is a Marathon, what is Eve?

A Gank, A Roam...BTW...US TZ in Provi Sucks

It's a Pirate's Life for Me

Night O' Yarr

Open for Business: "Waking Nightmare Inc."

Yes, that's a Covert Cyno Field

Legion

The CONCORD Echelon

Redeemer, Falcon, Rook and Legion

Life in New Eden: 1,000 Words

Tengu Down

Mentoring in New Eden

First Thoughts on Incursion

Incursion 1.0.0

November 2010 Prioritization Crowdsourcing (CSM)

Fiction: "Damage to the Starboard Engine Coupling"

RIP: Learning Skills

Fleet Etiquette & Peeves About FCs

Lag 'n Us: Get Comfortable, It's Here to Stay

Incursion "Delayed"

Skill Training (almost) Complete

More Lag-Laden Frustration & "Incursion" Thoughts

Babushkas Eshplode

Blood & Milkshakes

What New Eden Lacks: Rewarding Accomplishment

A Peak Inside the Cockpit

Primae Noctis > EvE ...err... Noctis > Primae

New Pilot Advice #3

New Pilot Advice #2

FAIL Windows 7, is FAIL

New Home: Northern Coalition

Quote of the Day #1

Two Paths Diverge in a Wood

GM Gusto Pardoned

Screenshots & Tib-Tears

Account Tempa-Banned

RIP (false): Megathron Navy Issue

HYDRA RELOADED... Is Dead... LOLZ

Billions Looted from Offline Tower

F...T...W...

Pod Pilots in "The Matrix"

Public Relations Lag

New Pilot Advice #1

Character Review

Honey, I'm Home

Vote for New Eden! We have cookies!

Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers

War!

Published: CSM Meeting Minutes

Funny Smack in Local

Best Pirate Ships in EvE?

Gate Guns Kill Kittens

I cAn haz ur PLEX?

The Great Division

Interview: Aralis of CVA

Drug Production & Manufacturing

EVE Blog Pack

Makeovers, Drugs and Missing Interviews

Johnny, what does the Obelisk say? *POP*

Vacation Spot in New Eden

CCP IT PERSONNEL ON STRIKE

Holy Crap, It's an Avatar

Johnny, what does the Obelisk say? POP