Incarna 1.1

Since the uproar over the release of Incarna, CCP seems to have been more quiet than usual.  This Thursday they release Incarna 1.1, the patch notes of which can be found here:

http://www.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=233

There is not much there from an in game perspective.

If I read them correctly, the new Forums will be deployed again, but not immediately made available.  Given the chaos after its first release, and with some players probably out looking for any excuse to rage, I hope they get it right this time.

The changes to customisable API keys are also being distributed.  That adds some possibilities going forward for new tools, but I hope EVEMon, EFT etc handle the transition ok.

Otherwise it is slim pickings.  There are some visual changes to Captain Quarters (don’t use it, don’t care), show info on drones will display the impact of your skills, you can now swap ships in station without the session change (fair enough, although I bet it makes the docking games worse), and some graphic bug fixes.

I assume the big change was meant to be activating CarbonIO in the client – as (somewhat poorly?) explained here:

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2332

But that has been crossed out from the patch notes.

Zzzzzz

Large Projectile Turret V

Having 3 accounts is useful if you fly capitals or spend time in 0.0.  It does come at a cost however.  My EVE game time was restricted over the last couple weeks, and when that was spread across three active characters, I ended up not getting much done with any of them.

I missed a PI cycle, so ended up only making 8M over the last week.  My Trading has also ground to a halt, the buy and sell orders just not being updated enough to turn over a profit.

My main achieved Large Projectile Turret V, can now use T2 Large Autocannon, and is 4 hours away from T2 Large Artillery.  Once I get the specialization skills to rank III, I think I’ll go for Energy Pulse Weapons V.

Alt 1 picked up Afterburner V, and is well through Acceleration Control V.  The only things in his training plan at the moment are social skills, but I suspect I will continue to max out whatever remaining support skills I can find.

Alt 2 continues to work on getting all the skills required to fly my current Orca fit.  She is just finishing off Drones V, and has around 15 days left on that list.

I moved Alt 3 (my main scout and cyno pilot) to live next door to my low sec carrier base.  I think once Alt 2 has finished the Orca related skills that I will move back to training this Toon.  I think I will use him to run high sec exploration sites and lower level missions, just when I have a spare 15 minutes here and there.

The Corp is now in a new Alliance.  This was done with minimal drama.  I haven’t managed to get down to the 0.0 base of operations as yet, although have managed to setup almost all the supplies I would want, waiting with the carrier.

 

I joined a Corp Mining Op, with the proceeds being donated to the current Orca drive.  (Basically where Corporation Members are getting discounted Orca’s through a program of donations and the receiving pilot making a nicely balanced effort and contribution.)  It turns out there are some politics involved in hauling and jet cans, which I will muse over on another day.

Drama

There’s a little drama within the new Corp.  The Alliance is looking to make a move that the Corp won’t be following.  I’m not fussed by the situation – it sounds like the CEO and his team is handling it well.  It has been interesting to see the zeal shown towards the Corp’s values and approach to the game.  Most of it is positive, in the sense they certainly practise what they preach.  A couple rank and file members though might be a touch too evangelical about it.  EVE is a more relaxing game when you come to terms with, and accept the fact that people play it in all sorts of different ways.

I’ve been busy setting myself up in the sphere the Corp operates around, but I haven’t had much opportunity to join in their activities.  (Ill health being the primary reason – how unpleasant it was to find out viral Gastroenteritis can last 12 days.)  I like the fact there are always people online, with plenty of relaxed banter, and an enthusiasm shown towards the game.  I think I should settle in nicely over the long run.

I even managed to take the hulk out and do some solo mining.  I suspect that is the first time in literally years.

I noticed this killboard example the other day (a couple references to the same kill):

https://www.pandemic-legion.com/killboard/view_kill.php?id=435242

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10395592

How did he manage to fit 2x1600mm plates on that ship?  Are there implants that would make up the 35% shortfall on power grid? Changed fits using a ship maintenance bay which messed up the killmail?  It is not the first time I have found a killboard fit which seemed implausibe.

Carrier’s Moved

I completed the preparations for my carrier move – systems recced, bookmarked, scouts and cyno’s in place.  I then logged in my characters and waited for a quiet moment to perform the move.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.

After several attempts across a couple days I had to give up.  It turned out the pirate group in the mid-point system had been war dec’d by another pirate group, and were being perma-camped in.

In the end I poured over Dotlan’s jump planner (http://evemaps.dotlan.net/jump) looking for new options, checking statistics, before settling on an extra quiet place in The Bleak Lands.  I’d never actually visited that region before – the area I moved through was dead.  I might have to revisit it at a later time.  Within an hour my Carrier was finally parked safely in my Corp’s Low Sec base.

I then spent a few hours moving in a ton of fuel, setting up spare Cyno ships, and began gathering ships to be jumped down to 0.0.

Enthusiastic Carebears

So I’ve been in the new Corp for a bit over a week now, got a grasp of their forums and in game Comms, won a prize in their raffle, set up 4 mining ships and half a dozen PVP ships, and moved lots of other ships around into staging systems.  I am currently going through the process of preparing to move my carrier to the Corps low sec base of operations.  It will require a mid-point Cyno, so I am book marking that system with my Alt.

I seem to be rather slow and methodical which such things – but it keeps me amused (and hopefully without an embarrassing loss mail).

From the killboards and evidenced in local, the mid-point system seems to be the home of a pirate group.  They are not particularly active when I am, so I should be able to pass through ok.  What does surprise me is the number of “young” pilots using the system to rat, mine and run exploration sites.  It is a pity that I am not inclined to be a pirate – as I would have had many opportunities to do so over the hours I’ve spent cloaked in the system.

I am relatively pleased with the move so far – it is nice logging in to almost always finding people active and online.  They seem to be fairly enthusiastic carebears, who look for opportunities to do projects together, share knowledge and help each other out.  They are also very much focused on EVE just being a game – with RL strongly and actively pushed as trumping any needs of the Corp or Alliance.  I think I’ll enjoy the game more for being here.

Crowdsourcing results are in

The results are in from the CSM crowdsourcing –

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/July_2011_Prioritization_Crowdsourcing#Notes_on_Results

I doubt very much it reflects the desires of the majority of EVE players.  Instead it is more a reflection on the type of people who bother to provide feedback.  Lots of the stuff in the top 10 related to empire wars and the aggression and docking games people play, which obviously annoy.  That wasn’t a surprise.

I did not however expect to see “more control wanted over medals” at number 10.  Reading further, that turned out to be a campaign from EVE University which had a block of over 500 votes put towards 7 items, including the medal option.  That was enough to influence the overall results.

I liked some of Ripard Teg’s remarks in his EVE News article here:

http://www.evenews24.com/2011/08/01/jesters-trek-mob-rule/

In amongst the top items were plenty of calls for Corp and Alliance tool updates, which in reality very few EVE players actually end up using.  I assume there were more than just the EVE University Alliance voting as a block.  Still, a number of my preferences were up near the top, and for the most part most of the changes would be a good thing for the game.

The new Corp has had a War Dec within the first week of me joining.  There were quite a few new recruits, so while the intel suggests another source of this nuisance, there must be a little underlying suspicion that one of us could be a spy.  I’m not fussed by the War Dec as it makes the game a little more interesting.

I was using the contacts tool to watchlist members of the offending corporation when I stopped to look at the labels options.

 

Rather useful.  I had noticed people requesting folders for contacts, but the labels work even better than that, since you can put contacts under multiple labels, and clicking on each label in effect acts as a folder.

I was distracted a bit last week, so my PI profits were only 24M.  I expect another lower return this week too.