Three in a row

I use two 27″ Monitors which provide me a total screen real-estate of 5120 x 1440.

My EVE clients run at 2300×1300 – which works well, but I am limited to running two clients side by side at the same time.

While I would like to add a third screen, I don’t have the room unless I remove my AV Receiver.  Given this sits as a hub between TV, two PVR’s and a PS3, I’d prefer to leave it.

I also have a laptop – which while getting a little long in the tooth, I can still run EVE on.  After seeing some examples elsewhere, I purchased an inexpensive laptop stand, installed Multiplicity so I can just use the one mouse and keyboard, and shuffled things around on my desk.  I can now run all three of my EVE accounts at the same time.  It is not awkward of fiddly – it just works.  I’m not sure why I didn’t do this earlier..

Interestingly while testing this all out I had two things happen in game.

The first was one of the other POCO owners in the system opened a conversation and asked for mutual standings to allow free use of each other’s Custom Offices.  I was happy enough to do that, and had a good chat to them.

The second was while undocking I noticed my second Ghost site in local.  I managed to clear two of four caches and picked up an implant BPC.  I’m not sure of the value, but it gives me something to look into.

It does pay to log into EVE.

1.3 Little Things

The following Forum thread covers some of the little things that should be found in Rubicon 1.3

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=325233

There were a couple that stood out for me –

– The Directional Scanner has 2 input fields (km and AU) and a slider for range. The 3 inputs are connected so when one is changed, the other ones update
– Orbital bodies in the Show Info window will now have more functions in the right click menu
– You can filter out or highlight words in the chat tab

The first is obviously useful, particularly in wormholes. I’ve noticed before that the Orbital body list right click is missing functions that would be useful. The last one I can see as being particularly useful for keeping track of where your pilot name is being used.

Another thread outlines some of the graphic changes:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=325283

I look forward to seeing what the new asteroids look like, and the redesigned Tristan.

There are also lots of little changes to Frigates and Cruisers – with the Rifter’s different bonus being one of the bigger ones:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=325209

Life’s Barometer

EVE can often be a barometer on how well I am tracking in Real Life.

When I am playing, writing, and keeping up with other people’s EVE Blogs it tends to mean I’m on top of life.

When I am not doing those things – it tends to mean life has my measure.

If I am sorting inventory and reducing my asset spread in game, it will often mean my real life feels cluttered and dis-organised.

If I am undocking to do exploration or my wormhole travels, it will often mean life on the home front feels good.

If I ever catch myself questioning what I am doing in EVE and should I stop playing, it will normally mean I feel the need for change in Real Life.

On the Radar

Blog notes from the last week.

Another 5 days of work has past, with another 5 days of minimal EVE. I hope this isn’t my new level of busy during the week.

I’ve almost finished the asset sell off at my home station. I’ve cleared out about 8.5B ISK of stuff for an increase of 7.5B ISK to the bank balance. A loss of around 1B might seem a lot, but it works out to be a bit over 11%. Some of this relates to transaction taxes, some to the averaged value simply being wrong, some to selling in Jita where there is competition pushing down prices. Mostly it relates to selling to buy orders if they were within 5% or so of the value. Given I had to do minimal baby sitting on the sales, I was happy with the outcome.

During my clean up I came across some BPO that I wanted to research. A tip for those looking at what ME level to train – you can see the perfect level, and play around with lower levels on the Blueprint Browser in EVEMon. The queue in the closest Hi Sec Stations for ME Research was out past 50 days, with Low sec not much better. I flew some 8 jumps to a station with delays of only 20 days.

In my clean up I decided – even though they are unlikely to get use, to have a handful of PVP ships on hand in my home system. Having POCO means there is always a chance you will get War Decd. Given all the hull and module changes and rebalancing I decided start again on all my PVP fittings. I completed my first re-fit on a Dramiel.

I’ve finally managed to run my first Ghost Site in Empire. I noticed it by chance in my home system, grabbed my Stratios and warped to it. After scanning each can I picked the most profitable. The Sansha turned up a few seconds after I had opened it. I’m not sure if they were on a timer from when I first warped in, from when I first cargo scanned, or when I got within a certain range of the first can. Regardless I wasn’t given much time. I managed to rush through and finish the mini-game and grab the loot before everything blew up. The profit was a piddling 3M, but I was glad to finally manage to run one.

I’m back down to 3 accounts now, after moving my new scanning Alt onto my main account once my 60 day code was finishing up. I used a PLEX to activate dual character training for the first time – just to round off their training for another 30 days. It was easy enough to do – simply right clicking on a PLEX and selecting activate against the option that came up.

EVE encroached on my Real Life this week. One of the guys in our DDO guild asked for information on setting up an account. He is still on the fence about starting, but he is interested. Later that same day the story about the EVE Monument found itself on my Facebook feed from a non-player. She wasn’t terribly flattering – with a “oh my god” type comment about computer gamers, but EVE was out and about on the radar of non-players.

Source of Fans

After exchanging Valentine Cards with my wife, I started the normal morning routine by turning on my PC, checking emails, etc. I noticed that 5 hours earlier CCP had announced on Facebook and Twitter that pre-orders were being taken for a Limited Edition of EVE Source.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/eve-source-limited-edition-open-for-pre-orders/

There were going to be 1,400 copies, 1,000 to be sold via the EVE Store, 200 at Trade Shows and the like, and 200 distributed through stores in Australia and New Zealand. The first 500 sold through the store would be signed by the two main artists.

I Googled the company meant to sell the book in Australia, but it did not seem to have a web presence.

I then went over to the Online store and to my surprise all the signed copies had already gone, and there were just 160 regular copies available.

https://store.eve.com/eve-source/eve-source-127

It would seem getting to the party late are just part of the joys of living on the opposite side of the world. I did not specifically need the limited edition version, but it is the sort of thing I like so I figured why not. The idea of looking for one that would be vaguely distributed to Stores locally didn’t appeal so I ordered one from the store. Not cheap.

By the time I had decided and gone through the process, the counter was down to 140 copies available. After taking my son to school, I noticed they were all sold out.

The non-limited edition copies are still available – but for 1,000 people to have spent that much on a book about a niche online computer game in around 7 hours is quite something.  The game has its fans.

Distractions

I’ve pulled down most of my Market Buy Orders, and am putting my Trading endeavours on hold. It seems like months since I have given it any real attention anyway. The process has proven successful – even in a relatively low volume backwater. I could take the lessons I’ve learnt and scale the operations up if I wanted to, but frankly that doesn’t sound like fun.

I want my Corp to earn around 15M ISK a month to pay for the Alliance fee and the Corporation Office. The POCO tax income has been poor and won’t cover that, so I will have to ensure I do at least one PI run a month. Otherwise my two Trade/Industry Alts will be quiet for a while. I’ve already moved training on that account to my Primary Scout Alt.

I kicked off the character transfer of my Secondary Scout Alt. I set that up using the Collector’s Edition game card. That will bring me back to three accounts. While she can fly Covert Ops and Scan ok, I have a couple PLEX allocated to allowing Dual training, just to buff those skills out. I don’t actually have any immediate plans to use that character, but I want it there, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I’ve been to Jita another half dozen times since my last post. Some of those were in an Interceptor rigged for Warp Speed, carrying low volume but high value goods. On one of those trips I found the Jita gate was closed due to traffic issues. It only took a couple of seconds to warp away, but it made my heart skip a beat. No one wants a 600M unarmed Interceptor loss on their killboard.

I’ve sold off about 5B ISK of stuff across my Main and Corp, with more to go. (Although some of what remains is bulky or will be slow to sell.) I don’t actually need the bigger bank balance, and I have no plans on spending or investing it. It would have been smarter to leave the ISK wrapped up in goods that should appreciate in value. This process however is more about de-cluttering and removing distractions. When I do get time to play, I need to stop spreading it out across so many different areas.

In between hauling I ran 14 basic anomalies in my home system last night, getting three faction drops and earning around 35M for the hours work. It has been good to be undocked and doing a few things in EVE again.

One of the ship hulls sold off

Monumental Arses

While a somewhat strange bit of news to provide a countdown timer for, CCP recently announced that they would be unveiling a monument / sculpture on the eve of fanfest this year. On it will be engraved the names of the highest SP character on every account active on March 1st.

http://eve.com/monument

Personally I thought that was rather cool – and I expect it is a somewhat unique idea.

I mentioned it in passing to my wife – who cares little for online games or EVE, and she also thought that was rather cool.

I expect it would get some coverage in the gaming media, so wasn’t a bad idea from a marketing point of view either.

Then, as remarked on in Jester Trek’s recent Blog post, the EVE players got involved.

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/mfw.html

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=318953

I’ve mentioned it before, but sometimes CCP must find it difficult to like the spoilt, tantrum throwing child that is the EVE player base.

Moving cake slice by slice

I’ve spent a little time undocked this week – although not doing anything that will generate new wealth. I’ve been selling off collected loot and excess assets and supplies, such as 75% of my spare Faction Modules. It is a task that fits in well with my current limited play time.

I’ve made 7 round trips to Jita so far. Some of this necessity relates to volume – I’ve sold off a couple dozen ship hulls, but most of it relates to limiting the value I carry in each run in a T1 Hauler to around 500M or less.

In Dungeons and Dragons Online when I want to sell off loot and spare equipment I go through it to see if anything will sell well on the world wide Auction house, otherwise I buff my Haggle skill and dump everything at the Bar Tender on the Guild Ship.

In EVE almost everything has to be sold to another player. You have to decide if you will sell it on contract or on the market, then where you are going to sell it from, how you are going to move it to market and in what ships and volume / value, if you are going to accept a buy order price or list it yourself, how much you are going to undercut other sellers, how often you are going to update your price, how long you are willing to wait, or even if you want to end up refining the goods into their raw ingredients for easier sale. In amongst all that you have to worry about people ganking your haulers, scams, mistypes and misclicks costing you money.

I guess it sounds horrible, but there are so many ways other people can be involved in the process. You can haul and sell your own goods like I am. You could be the person with buy orders looking to flip goods for a profit, you could be someone scanning ships as they pass you in choke points, you could be the suicide gankers who attack rich ships further down the trade routes, or the pilot who picks up the dropped loot, or you can offer hauling services, or have buy orders across regions to save people the hassle of moving things (at a discount of course). There are lots of decisions, possibilities and risk to weigh up. The very market is a sandpit. Or you can play another game where every Bar Tender buys your goods at a set value.

Long Range Pilgrim

My fits are normally over tanked and generalist in nature. While they may offend the min/max type of pilot, I have flown them lots before I post them and know they are suitable for purpose.

The following fits have not been extensively play tested, and I’m just not getting the time to do so. Given there is a reader who has been waiting very patiently to see them I am posting them now.

The Pilgrim is a ship I like on paper, but I find it has one major failure. Like the Arazu, it tends to be heavy and slow to pilot, and doesn’t inspire confidence when flying in dangerous space. To be honest it also doesn’t really have enough cargo space for this task either.

The following fits are for the one hull – swapping modules with a mobile depot, for running exploration sites in Low Sec and Null, usually via Wormhole chains.

This is the default scanning set up.

[Pilgrim, Ex All – 01 Scanning]
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

10MN Afterburner II
Data Analyzer II
Relic Analyzer II
Scan Rangefinding Array II
Cargo Scanner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Hobgoblin II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Hammerhead II x5
Warrior II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5

(I use the same Drones on the following fits, so will not repeat them.)

The probes have a sensor strength of 96 with my skills. The Analyzers do suffer a bit from a lack of rigs helping them. You might want to consider implants. You might also want to consider dropping the armor repair and putting in a Nanofiber, but I leave it this way to rat if I feel like it.

Speaking of ratting – this seems to work fine for Ninja Ratting

[Pilgrim, Ex All – 02 Ratting]
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

10MN Afterburner II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Scan Rangefinding Array II
Large Capacitor Battery II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

The last variation is something I have used ok in a couple Low Sec Escalations and easier DED complex. I really don’t think it will work however in anything more dangerous.

[Pilgrim, Ex All – 03 DED and Escalations]
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

10MN Afterburner II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Cap Recharger II
Large Peroxide Capacitor Power Cell
Large Capacitor Battery II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

I also carry supplies to fit Remote Armor and Hull reps for repair of Drones when stations are not available, and a very basic PVP fit which is so uninspiring I won’t be posting it.

TO DO LIST

Effectively nothing accomplished in January.

From the pointless and mundane, a list of any (and I mean any) EVE related task I’ve scribed down. Again this is just for myself. Note many come from reading release notes.

Rubicon

. Buy Large Rapid Launcher BPO?
. Source / Stock some Siphons
. Buy Small Mobile Siphon Unit BPO (10M)
. Test scanning down Mobile Structures with combat probes [PART]
. Identify the amount of explosive blast damage done by Ghost Sites in Hi-Sec, Low-Sec and WH.
. Save basic fleet setups for Main and Main Alt
. Review my Sentinel Fit
. Review the fits on the Interdictor I have
. Review all fits using Rapid Light Missile Launchers [PART]

General

. Run L4 Missions for SoE in Osmon? [PREPARED]
. Review all Clone Implant sets [PART]
. Source / Stock some Personal Hangers (is there a BPO?)
. Check what BPO I am missing
. Look into manufacturing Nanite Repair Paste
. Set up a Low Sec base of operations [PART]
. Continue Wormhole Trip
. Continue Exploration
. Continue Trade
. Keep an eye on the skills missing on the Main Toon
. Think about trying some of the other race Cosmos Sites

 

January Done

I post these for myself as a way of measuring and tracking what I am doing in game. While not entirely accurate, I use jEveAssets to track my rough overall financial position across all Characters and Corporations.

Game Hours & Play

And I thought December was busy. In January I played the least number of hours (by a fair margin) since I started EVE in 2006. I remember spending a session in Wormhole space. I remember selling some stuff off in another session. I thought I also undocked and ran a handful of Empire Exploration sites, but then realised that was on the 1st of March. There was no PI and no trading done. Thanks Real life.

Characters

I have 1 Main and 8 Alt Characters. 1 Alt supports my Main, 2 are used for Industry, 2 as Scouts, 2 for Price Checking, and 1 for this blog.

Wealth

19.8B Wallets

. 6.5B Main
. 12.9B Corp

36.3B Assets

. 22.0B Main
. 7.5B Corp

Approximate Wealth
56.8B ISK (Up 0.6B)

Any increase was through inflation.

Industry / Trade Details

No trade / industry done.

Training

Account 1 (Main) – 138M SP. Finished Cloaking V and Cynosural Field Theory V. Working on Armor Layering V.

Account 2 (Main Alt) – 130M SP. Completed Rapid Launch V and Cloaking V. Working on Signal Dispersion V.

Account 3 (Industry Alt 1) – 42M SP. No Training
Account 3 (Industry Alt 2) – 13M SP. No Training
Account 3 (Scout Alt 1) – 16M SP. 5 Shield and Armor tanking skills up to Rank IV, Covert Ops V, and now working on Astrometrics V.

Account 3 (Scout Alt 2) – 2M SP. General ship skills for the first 15 days, then Gallente Frigate V, and currently just about to finish Electronics Upgrades V so she can fly a Covert Ops.