Number 6

The 6th of 6 Industry update overview blogs have been released.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/industry-teams

This is not at all what I thought teams would be about when I first saw the topic, although it was apparent where it was going after reading earlier blogs.

I’m not sure what to think.  How do players incorporate these sorts of variables into their spread sheets?  Will it really add something worthwhile to the dynamic of the game?  I imagine teams with benefit for high volume, high margin type objects would be carefully targeted by larger scale industrialists who work out exactly at what pricing point they are worthwhile, and when they are not.  The more casual player won’t think much about them, or might grab the teams no one else cares for – for amusement value more than anything else.

Industry has gone from more simple, easier to access after the first couple Dev blogs, to more random and harder to fathom by the end of the six.  It is going to take a lot of forum reading to understand how these changes will really impact things.

As subtle as a brick

CCP is considering increasing the isotope fuel requirement for all jump drives and jump portals by 50% (and reducing their volume by a third so that ships can still travel the same distances).

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=340420

The views seems to be that with the removal of industry slots, people will pull down large research POS towers and replace them with small ones, lowering isotope fuel usage. By increase the use of fuel for jump drives CCP hope to balance any price hit on the isotope markets.

Funny – I was thinking there would actually be a whole heap of new POS being fueled. Yes – they would be small towers, but they would be anchored by all those people without standings or keen on industry, and will also cover all those systems previously out of bounds. I’d have put money on the fact isotope costs would actually increase.

I agree with the sentiment from many who posted in the first few pages of the thread – this sort of change hits the individual and small groups far more than the big name alliances. It seems a hurried and unnecessary nerf.

Number 5

Unexpectedly the 5th of 6 Industry Blogs has been released. I was assuming we would have to wait another day.  This one is about the highly contentious sliding scale fees.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/the-price-of-change/

I will be honest with you – I’m too tired to try and work out what it actually means to my game style.  I currently have no opinion on it.  I’ll read the forum posts tomorrow…

Rubicon 1.4

There was a ~250MB patch today for Rubicon 1.4

http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for-rubicon-1.4/

There is a new character selection screen, which is nice, but kind of clashes with the launcher colours.

 

If you haven’t recently, it is worth doing a show info on the ship you are sitting in.  That whole interface has really improved over time.  (The most recent updates are in the traits section, which I didn’t actually bother showing)

 

(The mastery tab though often seems to get it icon highlighting wrong.)

The addition of icons in multi-item contracts is nice:

 

I presume there was more backend work than was immediately apparent.  The patch notes don’t sound like “250MB”.

Number 4

The fourth Industry blog is out – covering changes to ME and TE.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/researching-the-future/

It seems a logical change that should be more accessible and easier to understand.  If you understand the current skill training structure, you should understand how the ME and TE research works.  My thoughts:

. Casual BPO ownership should be easier to get into

. There should be more, and cheaper BPC available on contract

. This quote is worth flagging – “Everything is on the table in terms of finding a reasonable solution that meets everyone’s legitimate concerns, so please approach the feedback in terms of telling us what you’d like to see rather than simply expressing frustration with the changes as described here. We’re not done with this yet!”  I have seen a number of such statements from CCP over the last week.  It is suggesting that the core of these Industrial changes are not meant to be confrontational. That is important.

. It will be interesting to see how the transition works from the granular old BPO researched levels to the new rigid 10 rank system.  I have some 700+ researched T1 BPO, most with carefully selected ME levels that maximise benefits from the minimal amount of research time.  If your current ME is 95% effective, will the blueprint end up with a rank 9 or 10 in the new system?

. I can see a large and long flood of BPO research being done after the changes as people mindlessly research everything to rank 10.  Depending on how the new scaling cost system works, this will likely have a heavier impact on the more casual players out there.  Corporations with the resources to run and share a research POS will have an advantage.

. Casual manufacturers might have more competition generally.  If CCP get the design right, this will continue into the future.

. There will likely be some nasty exceptions – probably around T2 items and those with special manufacturing rules.  CCP seem to be very amenable to addressing these if they are constructively highlighted.

 

Number 3

The third of the Industry UI blogs have been released.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/industry-ui/

As far as I could see there was nothing too contentious – although they remarked that in future they would look at Certificates for Industry, which might require skill changes to allow them to build a logical certificate hierarchy.

They are introducing a large number of new icons to the interface – so I presume they will all have tooltips.  It does however show promise.

 

Separately I’ve also updated the about page for the blog, full of answers to questions people generally don’t ask.

https://evehermit.wordpress.com/about/

Wardrobe Update

I went through the process of using the ship skin BPC’s I’d purchased through the NEX store. 

 

Submitting 20 odd jobs in quick succession was a painful reminder of why the whole manufacturing process needs an overhaul.  I have no idea what I am going to do with the ship hulls.  The things I do to show some support towards CCP’s ideas…

I also watched the Fanfest 2014 Pre-stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5UaIktkLGs

Can’t say it was their best work.  Only a couple bits of interest.  As has been mentioned elsewhere, there will be half a dozen odd new hulls in the next expansion.  The mock-up Industry interface will be used for manufacturing, science, invention and reverse engineering.  The first two will make it into the expansion, the last two will come in point releases.  I got the impression CCP was a little taken aback by the backlash on the first two Industry update blogs.  They suggested the remaining industry Dev blogs should be available before Fanfest, and that they were keen on feedback.

 

 

A distraction turned into something to do

For the first time in weeks my Saturday morning EVE session was available to me. To be honest I didn’t much feel like playing EVE, but I undocked to check what was in the system anyway.

I noticed a small Jaspet, Kernite and Omber site, and decided I’d start on that while I searched for some motivation. I undocked the Mackinaw, and then logged in my Scanning Alt so I would get basic fleet boosts. The alt sat cloaked over the site, and would warp in, salvage any rat wrecks, then warp out again.

In the end I cleared the entire belt, which was worth a bit over 25M ISK. My Alt picked up an extra 700K in Salvage. That covered my Saturday morning nicely.

Donated to science

I forgot about the mechanical noises and scream when you biomass a character. It’s a touch cheesy. I wonder how Roleplayers handle the process?

So that effort resulted in a free slot on the account to be unsubscribed.

Next step was to move my blog related ALT – EveHermit, to that account. The process is easy enough to follow:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Character_Transfer

You get three e-mails – a receipt, one addressed to the targeted account email, and one addressed to the source account email. Then you wait a further 10 hours for the move to happen.

It seems a touch odd to spent $20 to move a character with no training or assets, but I didn’t want to throw it away while I still maintained this blog. I remembered to put a note in the Alts BIO that it would be on an inactive account.

It seems strange that there is no visual evidence that the character is in a queue pending to be moved unless you click on it:

 

An idle thought.. it appears bounties placed by a character that is subsequently biomassed remain. Good to see that ISK wasn’t wasted.

Burn

It’s Burn Jita 3 this weekend – where the CFC and friends make a concerted effort to disrupt the primary trade hub in EVE with suicide ganking.

http://themittani.com/news/burn-jita-3-date-announced

http://evenews24.com/2014/04/22/cfc-annouches-date-burn-jita-3/

I was going to glibly remark that if you were not already aware of that, then you probably shouldn’t be playing EVE. Then I realised in most MMO’s I’ve played, I wouldn’t be aware of such player events. I might read the official emails, or any notices at log in, and probably the best of the various wiki’s available, but I otherwise don’t go out of my way to read blogs or news sites. I just want to log in, have my mindless fun, then log off again. There would be plenty of people in EVE in the same boat, so I expect there will be plenty of tears – tears I will have to have more empathy for.

It has been a few days since I’ve been able to log in. I wanted to continue the process of reviewing my Main Alt’s jump clones, but that will have to wait until Jita is available again so I can come and go buying various implants as I please.

I still have 30 odd days before my 3rd account expires, but I can’t leave the convoluted process of character shuffles too late, so time for step one.

 

My Amarr Price Check Alt gets the chop.

Changing Shirts

My jump clones and the implants installed across them are a bit of a mess – particularly on my Alts. Let’s just call them suboptimal. I’ve been meaning to try and sort them out for years, but the idea of spending a week doing daily jumps between clones while trying to select and then purchasing a good mix of implants hasn’t been my idea of fun.

With the long weekend drawing to an end and the usual busyness descending, I figured I’d finally try and tackle my main Alt’s clone situation. It should be something I can just fit in when I have some spare time, and dock up and walk away from whenever I need.

 

This Alt can have a total of 10 Clones – 1 active, and 9 stored in Stations. At the moment they have 6. The roles of some are already defined:

1: Home Clone, located in the home station

2: Capital Clone, located with his Carrier

3: Mission Clone

I am pretty sure I am going to hang around in this Hi-Sec Island, so I am going to need 2 Clones here. (1 for general use, and a backup clone in case I get podded and need to get back as soon as possible.)

4: Island Clone

5: Island Clone

I still haven’t forgotten my Low Sec goals. I haven’t been back to my selected area recently, but I will return. I am planning to actually live out of a Low Sec station. I will need two more clones in or around that system – again one being a backup in case I get podded.

6. Low Sec

7. Low Sec

I probably need one or two PVP clones. These would also be used for any time spent in Wormholes or Null Sec. This Alt’s skills are really focused on supporting my Main, including maxed out Warfare and Mining Director Skills, and jamming related EW skills. I could focus a clone each around that. I could also consider a blank clone – one to use when you know it won’t be docking ever again.

I can start this process by creating extra clones. To create a clone you either need access to a Rorqual with the appropriate modules fitted (which I don’t), or a Personal or Corporation standing of 8.0 or more with a NPC Corporation with a station that has Medical facilities.

 

As I remarked recently, I started out my EVE career in Derelik. The only personal or corporation standing greater than 8.0 for this Alt is with Ammatar Fleet. (Carthum Conglomerate is the Corp I get my datacores through, and TransStellar Shipping was the Gallantee Corporation I ran missions for to try and offset the impact of all my Amar related standings.)

I’m not sure if it is still up to date, but I used the following website to double check what medical facilities exist for the Ammatar Fleet.

http://grismar.net/eve/explorer/index.php

 

Two are in Hi-Sec Derelik, two are in Low Sec Derelik, and one is in a small Hi-Sec island behind Low Sec. I set Auto pilot on and travelled to Gamis and Salashayama to install two new clones.

 

SO this little side goal process has started.

I had a couple of thoughts during the efforts so far –

. It should be much easier in game to identify stations you can install jump clones in

. It would be nice to be able to label each clone

 

. It would be nice to show a count of how many clones you can create, and how many free slots you have left

. I wish there was a method to transport clones in a hull other than the Rorqual – either a special ship or a container that can fit in an industrial

. I wish you could store multiple clones in the same station

Grab the pitchforks and a cup of tea

I hope I didn’t come across as alarmist in my recent post about the industry changes and the possible Nerf to Empire space. I thought I was just calling myself out for missing key information in the DEV Blog, calling Jester out for thinking the average Empire Industrialist would consider the solution was to forge their way into Null, and just remarking on the need to wait for more details.

Personally I had assumed this was going to follow a somewhat well-trodden path with CCP. They would announce partial details of changes that could have far reaching impact; people would get upset, rant and rave, then CCP would clarify a situation that wasn’t nearly as bad as was being imagined. That way they implement a Nerf that people are almost thankful for.

(Who would have thought I get called cynical at times.)

However – if this does end up being a major Nerf for Hi-Sec Industry, I am not actually that concerned. I don’t see such a change making any real difference to the population spread in game, and I can’t imagine the volumes of goods produced in Null suddenly flooding the Hi-Sec markets. Instead I see people re-adjusting their spreadsheets, finding the next best methods to transport ingredients, and charging higher prices. The manufacturers in Null – even if they are able to produce volumes that have a market impact, won’t drive down prices. They will just continue to play the 0.01ISK games and take higher profits.

There will be individual areas where this won’t be accurate – but overall, I think people will continue to play this game the way they want to.

I am actually more focused on the UI and process changes to manufacturing and refining – and hoping the end result is more new players finding careers in Industry, and hanging around for longer.

Old Sala

After another busy week where I couldn’t undock, I managed to fit in three reasonable EVE sessions over the weekend. Two involved mining Cosmic Anomaly Ore Sites, and the third running a few Relic and Data sites, followed by a dozen odd Combat Anomalies.

Again income wasn’t brilliant, but it all adds up.

I quite like the Ore Sites, and I appreciate that they are regularly available in the Island. I’m not sure if it is their random nature, the different visuals, or the chance to be mining Ore not generally found in Hi-Sec – but I’ve ended up mining more in the last couple weeks than I have over the previous year.

In fact I am finding the mining here more relaxing – almost in the old way, when you did not have to worry so much about being ganked and griefed. Don’t get me wrong, the island isn’t some safe utopia. Low Sec is just next door and while the population is low, the inhabitants are generally very active. It is just easier to maintain your situational awareness. D-Scan sweeps are not cluttered by a dozen different ever changing ship types, and you don’t have a constant procession of different pilots passing through the system to do a “Show Info” on. In fact you recognise most of them.

I guess that sums up why I stopped mining in EVE. There was too much competition for resources, and I couldn’t mitigate the danger to my ships enough through care or attention – so it came down more on the side of blind luck. That’s not relaxing or fun.

This sort of mining takes me back to my very first year in game – living in Derelik, clearing belts in Iosantin while my Alt traversed to and from Salashayama hauling ore. The game has changed a lot since then.

Just move to Null

When I read through the DEV blog announcing the theme of the next expansion, I assumed the cost of the slotless stations would be based on a revamp of the currently insignificant station fees.  How bad could it be?

With lots of people up in arms about it, I re-read the Blog and noticed this bit in bold.

“Expect costs ranging from 0% to 14% of the base item being produced for the most extreme case”

If you are manufacturing T1 items for income, a tax / fee / cost of 14% of its base value would almost ensure there would be no profit in it.  I can understand why dedicated manufacturers are worried.

We don’t know at this point how this sliding scale will work, and what differences there will be between Empire, Low Sec, Null Sec and POS.  For that we have to wait for a DEV Blog from CCP Greyscale.

(Who?  Did they say Greyscale?  The DEV synonymous with ideas and ideologies that are hostile towards the solo empire dwelling carebear?  This could go well…)

Jester’s recent blog post relates to these changes.  I don’t always agree with him, but I tend to find Jester is knowledgeable, calm, rational and able to communicate well.

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/traitor.html

He flags that we should be concerned, and suggests industry players join a Null Sec Renter Alliance, grab a jump freighter, and profit.

If these changes fall into a substantial nerf to Empire manufacturing, how many people do you think would follow Jester’s suggestion?  As they say, interesting times.

And then there will only be two

I’ve cancelled the subscription on one of my three accounts. Over the coming weeks I am going to have to biomass one character and do three transfers so that I end up with my trained pilots across two accounts.

For the foreseeable future our household income will be halved as my wife leaves her toxic job, takes time to recharge her batteries, and then turns her attention to a rather bleak job market.

We are in a fortunate position where this doesn’t greatly impact on our lifestyle – but we have gone over our budget looking to ensure we can justify what we are spending. While I can still afford three EVE accounts, I can’t really justify it.

My first decision is which Price Check Alt to Biomass. One is older, has the nicer name and is the nicer to look at. The other has no way to link it with my Main account. (Something I am finding useful at the moment – a story about which I may re-tell later.)

I will then move my EveHermit Alt into the freed up slot. (I don’t want to Biomass that character, but not being able to access it doesn’t concern me either.) After that comes a shuffle of moving my Secondary Industry Alt, and then moving my Primary Alt.

In the end I will have

Account 1

Main
Secondary Scanning Alt
Secondary Industry Alt

Account 2

Main Alt
Scanning Alt
Industry Alt

That should cover me for everything I dual box for. I rarely used all three accounts together, so it is a luxury I can live without.

Oh, oh, oh

So the summer expansion is going to be Industry based.

The first Dev blog a few weeks ago was about reprocessing.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/reprocess-all-the-things

The second Dev blog released now is about manufacturing.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/building-better-worlds/

More DEV blogs are expected to cover the Industry UI, Research, Job Cost Scaling and working in Teams.

There is a lot to the latest blog.

They are resorting and labelling the Manufacture and Research section of the Market into something that is more logical to navigate.

The damage done to R.A.M and R.Db manufacturing inputs will be removed. Instead they will just become a standard ingredient item.

With the capping of Item and Ship refining at 55%, they will be removing the concept of “Extra Material” during manufacturing.

Somewhat contentious, they will be removing the slot system for stations and star bases. Instead of 50 manufacturing slots in a factory station, an infinite number of jobs can be submitted. They will be replaced by a scaling system – with costs to submit jobs going from 0 to 14% depending on how utilised the station is. If you are a full scale manufacturer that means you will want to move your jobs to a quiet station. For people just making small volumes of stuff for themselves, that means they should be able to use these services any time they want without waiting.  It will also mean BPO research should become much easier and more accessible.

If that wasn’t big enough, the next comment is that they are looking at allowing POS to be anchored anywhere in Hi-Sec (aside a handful of protected systems) without standing requirements. I expect there will be a run on moons when this is first allowed. I might even re-anchor a POS or two as place holders. (Surely they will also be allowing some mechanism to hack or remove such things though?)  There will be changes to the various POS modules to come in line with this new approach, and you will need to place BPO in the POS to do research on them going forward.

Last of all the Dev blog has an image of what the new Industry UI might look like. Pretty…

Very interesting and – I might actually be feeling a little excitement about the next expansion.

Buzzed

Another small goal completed:

Mastery V in the Buzzard on my Main.

 

Anything you want…

A variation to a common Internet Meme which I presume has been done before.

 

Paying attention to the stories

My Capsuleer awoke and undocked in their Buzzard. There were two other pilots mining and two signatures to scan down amongst a sea of anomalies. These worked out to be a Data and a Relic site, which were run for around 4M ISK in loot. There was a Jaspet site in system, so the Hulk was next undocked. The Alt was also awoken and refitted the Orca for mining boosting, and they also undocked. Another 19M ISK was earned over a short stint.

I’ve been in the island for a bit over a week now, and my total casual income has been around 125M ISK. These are from sessions which were as short as 10 minutes at a time, and included 3 or 4 mining stints, the most I’ve done in possibly years. Your real pay days with this sort of gaming are from the faction spawns – but there have been few; and their drops particularly poor. That’s just the luck of the draw – the fact I am undocking means I am open to the chance of some reasonable ISK.

That is what the Island is offering so far, reasons to undock, even if just for a quarter of an hour.

Mining tends to be more relaxed on the Island

The other day I noticed a suddenly influx of pilots in the system I was idling in. This many pilots appearing together is unusual for the Island. I glanced at them, and noted most were freshly in various NPC corporations, having just left a Player Corporation.

Looking at the war history of the corporation, I could see they were under a War Dec. Looking at the War Report, I could see they had lost a couple Orca’s and various other ships in the war, and were obviously losing. Given the pilots were all together, it didn’t look they were bailing out on each other, just (possibly temporarily) the Corp.

Because the area is quiet I am picking up a lot more of the stories behind the other pilots. There is a pair of Pilots – obviously a Main and an Alt, who are always circling the island probing down sites in a fairly methodical manner. There’s another pilot who circles the island at break-neck speed, running specific sites for maximum profit, and making a particular point to steal faction spawns from other players. There’s a couple mining Corporations who strip belts in an assortment of barges with support, and there are some mission runners doing their own thing. There are also a lot of explorers generally.

As I sat cloaked off the wormhole to Jita the other day I watched a procession of familiar pilots moving supplies in and out. Obviously this is a location and method of living that other pilots have also found to their liking.

An unexpected scramble

I was doing the rounds of the Island, checking for any Hi-Sec wormholes. Early indications are that these won’t be particularly common.

I was being regularly interrupted by wife and kids, so it was taking a while. Some of the inhabitance might have been thinking I was the worst scanner in history for how long the probes could sit idling in space.

I found a hole to Low Sec, which dropped me off in Reblier, right next door to High Sec. Having lived in Syndicate I was very familiar with Reblier, and its often camped neighbour 6-CZ49. At a pinch I could use it to ship in supplies, particularly if I used some scouts, but it would likely be dangerous.

I moved on hoping for a better option, and a couple systems later found a fresh wormhole to somewhere in Hi-Sec. The colour suggested the other end terminated in Lonetrek, and sure enough I stepped through to be only 3 jumps out from Jita.

I embarrassingly did a little fist pump.

So – I have the kids around all day and plenty of work to get done, but this is an opportunity I can’t pass up. Over the day the Wormhole saw a flurry of activity, with me having all three accounts logged in and active.

I moved my Main Alt into the pocket. I moved an Orca, Hulk and Mackinaw in. I moved half a dozen PVP ships in – mostly recons. I moved in some haulers and a Noctis, and last of all I moved in a PVE Assault Frigate.

I had to buy and fit all these. Although I had some of them sitting around unused in other stations, I just couldn’t afford the time to collect them. It was a mad scramble as it was just to get this much done in between all the normal busyness of my day.

In hindsight I really should have prepared all these before – probably having them in Jita already to go. The bank balance is a couple Billion ISK lighter because of it.

I’m still not fully set up, but I am in a much better position that I was before that wormhole opened up.