Crius is Coming

A few dev blogs have come out relating to the Crius mini expansion which is going live on July 22nd.

I think this: Upcoming API changes is one of the most important ones!

I am really happy that the devs and the CSM (pretty sure Steve had the most input here) chose option 2.

In short: they are going to rework the whole industry API so that it is updated for Crius. Hopefully this will mean that precise manufactoring calculation can be done in spreadsheets and standalone tools.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people play EVE for the "Industy Tycoon" experience. Without being able to set up your own calculations and be able to optimize your production CCP is taking away a large part of the game's core.

I myself have been producing T1 and T2 rigs for about 3-4 months. As soon as I read the manufacturing changes I instantly shut down all new production. Instead I started researching all the rig BPOs to ME 10 and TE 10 (optimal).

Also wanted to look at capital production but the ISK per hour on those things is really low to me for all the effort. It takes a lot of logistics and a lot of ISK to get it started...

Just in case, I researched 4 capital component BPOs to post-crius optimal (the ones needed for freighter production). I can possibly sell those at a profit after the patch or can start making freighters myself :)

Really interested in what Crius has to offer. Want to fire up rig production again but need to see first how the market and the third party tools turn out.

Just a few ideas on manufacturing and Crius :)

Fly on!
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New terms updated on the EVE explained page:

BPO - Blueprint Original. A blueprint from which something can be produced. Can be researched for ME (material efficiency) and TE (time efficiency) to reduce the needed materials and time to produce the good.

EVE-Uni Again

I'm still trying to find something through LS belt ratting. As I wrote previously, I lost my Algos to a clone soldier... Don't rage it me! It was intentional ("Didn't want that Algos anyway!"), in the sense that I could have warped out, but tried to get under his guns and didn't want to bail.

So I switched to a Caracal:

[Caracal, cara]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I
Ballistic Control System II

Warp Disruptor II
Medium Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Standard PvE / PvP fit. 431 dps with rage... so looked really good on paper. Fitted one up, and found instantly that its extremely slow at warping and aligning! (Well, at least compared to my Algos). I was checking far less belts than I did with the Algos... But I could confidently kill anything I found (which was nothing!) I'm going to track how many Belts I check, and what I find!

Anyway, after like 20 minutes of not even finding a BS rat, I stumbled upon a clone soldier with 1MM bounty... I was working him down without an issue (of course forgetting to use my two drones) and he was at 50% armor when an  EVE-Uni Ares appears on grid. ("FFS! Is this really happening again!") I spam warp but I seem to be too slow. No idea how as he was 35km when he landed and I can easily warp out in ~6s... Anyway, I'm pointed, I switch dps to the Ares and other Uni frigs land on grid... Had Javelins loaded so was expecting to blap the Ares, but could barely scratch him! ("Here we go!Thank god this is not the Tengu I'm loosing!" Suddenly I swarm of frigs surround me and I've got more ECM lighting up on my display than a christmas tree :) I spam warp so that I can get me pod out. I pop. Warp my pod out and type:
-gf
-gj UNI

They respond with a bunch of GFs and I also see a "sorry about that mate" in local :) I didn't respond, but instead docked up, logged off and went to help my girlfriend look at new laptops!

Previously to loosing the Caracal I was even tempted to take out the Tengu for belt ratting. I would have removed the bling and been using a cov-ops cloak, but I don't want to risk it anymore! I'm back to Algos v2:

[Algos, v2]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
[empty med slot]

Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
Salvager I

Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Anti-Kinetic Pump I

Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x3

Don't really like the fit! Hate having an extra mid slot open... This is designed for serpentis ratting, as the rigs suggest... Plan is to MWD till I get under the clone soldier's guns and have the AAR until I can mitigate the damage. Anyone got suggestions on this? Haven't read anywhere, but how tanky are those now Mordu rats?

ps:
I will be traveling to Rome on Saturday evening and coming back on Tuesday! This post will get published on Monday, should hopefully have time to write the Wednesday post too :) Wish me good luck for the flight! I am totally terrified of taking off. Anyone I travel with starts laughing like crazy at the whole "show" I do when we take off :)
ps2:
First "real" comment on the blog. First one was sorta "forced" via me contacting Pilgrim in Exile. Hope he doesn't take it the wrong way, I'm still honored to be on his blog roll!
The first comment came from Sugar Kyle! If you play EVE and don't know Sugar than you are either living under a rock or have just subbed like 30mins ago (I've read she hangs out in rookie chat so no excuse no to know her!)
I was totally shocked when I saw that she commented on my Incursion post. I was at work and instantly told the guy sitting next to me! Acted like a little girl who just got a pony :D
Gonna reply to her comment now!
No idea how she found the blog though :)

Fly on!

New terms updated on the EVE explained page:

LS - Low security space
belt - asteroid belts where NPCs (rats) spawn and can be killed for bounty and loot. You can also mine the asteroids
Ratting - Killing NPCs (red crossed on your overview) for bounty and loot.
BS - Battleship
Javelin - T2 missiles that have longer range, do less dps and are designed to be used against small tragets.
bling - expensive modules that are usually cost a lot of ISK but only improve your ship's performance marginally.
AAR - Ancillary Armor Repairer. Uses Nanite paste as charges and reps a lot more than normal armor repairers. When it runs out of charges it can still rep, but only about 70% of that a normal repairer.

EVE Explained

I remember back when I first started reading about EVE and didn't understand a single word. EVE news 24 and The Mittani have great stories and news and funny stuff IF you understand all the fancy EVE abbreviations and acronyms.

Straight from The Mittani (from June 10, 2014):

Leaping into action, Asakura dropped probes and scanned down the Ragnarok as Mr Bio pinged for reinforcements. Asakura then warped the two heavy interdictors onto the grid at zero, decloaking the titan. Points landed as the cyno went up, bridging in two more HICs to ensure a consistent point on their prey.

Didn't have to look long to find these beautiful two sentences that make absolutely no sense if you are new to the game. A solo player will never (unless by reading a hoard of info and news) learn what these (mostly nullsec) slang means.

Noobie friendly explanation to for the above paragraph:

Asakura dropped probes: 

Asakura is a player (thats clear for the articel) who was flying a ships which had an Expanded Probe Launcher fitted and launched the combat scanner probes so that he can pinpoint and warp straight to the ship he was trying to catch.

Mr Bio pinged for reinforcements:

Mr Bio is the other pilot. I haven't seen this myself, but big 0.0 coalitions usually use Mumble or Jabber where all online players are logged in and in case something big happens. They send out a message (ping) to everyone to log in ASAP and come and kill something :)

Heavy interdictors:
The only type of tackle (making a ship unable to warp) ship that can tackle a supercarrier(SC) and Titan. The HIC has a special module which can be fitted with a script which can then tackle even an SC. SCs are otherwise immune to ECM.

Grid at zero:
It the part of the solarsystem which you can directly see from your ships. Basically, if you are on the same grid you can see each other's ship on the overview. For example when you undock, you can see a bunch of other ships on the overview. Once you warp to the sun, you will only see ships which have also at the sun (thus, have previously warped there). At zero means that when warping the two HICs he selected to warp them at 0km. (right in the middle of the grid)

 Decloaking the titan:
All ships can fit a cloaking device which when activated will make your ships disappear from the overview and from D-scan. If something comes closer than 2500M to the cloaked ship it will get decloaked.

 Cyno went up:
A Cynosural field can be opened by any ship with the module fitted. To this "field" jump capable ships (capital ships and black ops) can jump and other sub-caps can be bridged to using a Titan with a jump bridge generator.

I honestly believe that EVE is too complicated and for noobies reading news can be extremely confusing.

I have been feeling that when I write my posts there are a lot of abbreviations and acronyms which might not be clear for all my readers. As a solution I plan to start an "EVE Explained" terms which will be a list of the new phrases I use. I'm not going to write up a full list from scratch. I will just add new terms as I use them :)

Hope this will be useful for the newbies! I don't think that I'm an expert or anything so please anyone feel free to correct my terminology and explanation :)

Fly on!

Incursion Prepartion

During my week off and studying at home I got to watch a few EVE streams. There was a dude streaming his incursion. The Dichtonian Fleet if I remember... was boring as crap but I got an inkling to get myself to try running in an incursion fleet at least once!

Naturally the next step was research!
I don't have T2 large weapons trained so I choose to check out Logi fittings... Healing in WoW was never too much fun... but its something totally new  in EVE for me! I found "Warp to Me" and joined their channel "Warp to Me incursions" read the whole FAQ and guide and whatnot.

They run shield incursions fleets and I have caldari cruiser lvl5 so checked out the Basilisk fittings. They have 3 on their site: WTM
It's recommended that you carry all the fitting so you can easily refit into what the FC wants. I checked the skill requirements to be able to fly all 3 (they are nearly identical, just one has a few more cap or tracking boosters):

[Basilisk, WTM Basilisk Standard]
Damage Control II
Reactor Control Unit II

Republic Fleet Large Shield Extender
10MN Afterburner II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier

Large Remote Shield Booster II
Large Remote Shield Booster II
Large Remote Shield Booster II
Large Remote Shield Booster II
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter

Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Light Armor Maintenance Bot I x5
Nanite Repair Paste x200

With Logi 4 it will take around 19 days in total. Not that bad... and those skills are all useful! Not training logi 5 though. Don't really see myself flying fleets too much in the future.

Currently there are still 9 days left till I have all the skills. It's going to be interesting flying in a fleet! I read the rules and it doesn't seem to be that complicated... just lock the people broadcasting reps and rep them :) Overheat when things get sketchy... Orbit your anchor... When you get yellowboxed broadcast for reps and spam your invul (if you are neuted). Think that's about it!

A couple of days passed, and was reading WTM chat, and saw people X-ing up in Meta4 blaster Vindicators. I quickly checked EFT if I could fly one of those fits... turns out I just need Minie BS Lvl 1 :) My gunnery support skills are all Lvl4, so my dps would be quite decent!

Money isn't really in issue, so what I will do is after getting the Basilisk skills I will also skill into the Vindicator and patch up the few skills (~5 days) to be able to fly it decently. Then, when I X up in WTM I can come as DPS and Logi (with 3 available fits) :) Happy days! (I hope!)

I will have to test out these broadcasts and targets and general fleet UI stuff because I have never really flown in an organized fleet :)

I will have time and skills to run incursion starting from the end of June. I will post updates if I decide to change my mind! Hopefully I can make some decent ISK too! All my non trading activities seem to be ISK sinks!

Any tips on Incursions?
I'm a bit worried as around 80% of logis have Logi LvL5...

Back on Track

Nothing much to write on, but just wanted to post a quick update:

The exam is done! No more intense studying, so should probably play a bit more EVE. Still have to wait 8 weeks for the results... Lame... Keep your fingers crossed though!

Was messing around a bit in Kronos! Decided to go ratting in LS... Not much luck on getting new ships BPCs... or I should say: No luck at all! Not even clone soldiers... :S
I was ratting in an Algos, when I found a clone soldier with 1.5MM bounty but it blapped me...
What is the best ship for ratting?
Gila maybe?

Houskeeping items:
I plan to post every second day: Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
This is my Monday post, even though its kinda late and not that interesting :P
Got a few new ideas and a lot of projects to write about! So stay tuned!

Fly on!