Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wednesday of Fail - 2011/11/30

The morning after. Usually this means unbelievable amounts of coffee, gallons of Gatorade and crates of Advil to cope with drowsiness, dehydration and searing headaches resulting from the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol. But in our case the morning after means day-dreaming of last night's trip to a revamped New Eden full of nebulas, shiny new ships, and sleek engine trails! And because the morning after happens to fall on a Wednesday... welcome to another installment of the Wednesdays of Fail! This week's entry comes from my good friend and ex-corpmate Havegun Willtravel of Mobile Alcohol Processing Units. Unlike his first entry which was given straight to me to start my Fail Mail bank, this one was submitted in the traditional way and Gun had to wait in line like anybody else, to have his link appear on my pages. Although Gun himself does not show up on the killmail, we do know the perpetrators of the kill quite well so I'm sure they won't mind if it's Gun getting the ISK :) So the Basgerin Pirates were roaming away from their tiny constellation hoping to catch something tasty, and guess what, they did:



[Curse, Orrery Laicism's Curse]
Brokara's Modified Power Diagnostic System
Brokara's Modified Power Diagnostic System
Raysere's Modified Power Diagnostic System
Selynne's Modified Power Diagnostic System

Caldari Navy Large Shield Extender
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Dread Guristas Invulnerability Field
Heat Dissipation Field II
Photon Scattering Field II

Dark Blood Focused Medium Pulse Laser, Imperial Navy Multifrequency M
Dark Blood Focused Medium Pulse Laser, Imperial Navy Multifrequency M
Corpum A-Type Medium Nosferatu
Corpum A-Type Medium Nosferatu
Corpum A-Type Medium Nosferatu

Medium Drone Durability Enhancer II
Medium Drone Speed Augmentor II

Hammerhead I x5
Hornet I x1
Infiltrator I x2
Wasp I x1




People with more ISK than sense... always a great source of hilarity! First of all, let's put this Curse's cost in perspective: with the value as indicated on the Basgerin killboard, this ship could pay for OVER HALF A YEAR of game time. And this thing undock and died. Let's look at it from the ground up. The rigs are... interesting to say the least. I've seen all kinds of Curse fits but none of them with drone rigs, let alone T2 rigs. Next up, Holy Officer Mods Batman !!! Should I tell this guy that 3 PDS II and a Damage Control II would have resulted in a better tank? Nah, I won't tell him because this guy simply can't learn! On to the mids, this is slightly more down to earth (!) but 2 things are clearly lacking: propulsion and tracking disruption. Oh well, it's tanky! But the highs... damn those high slots hurt! Not only are they ridiculously expensive, but I simply don't see how this boat can need so much cap! Oh well, the power of turning GTC's into PLEX at work :))

Havegun Willtravel, for taking a page off of our long time enemies' book, you will be getting (fuck me.... what's the cheapest thing here.....) 85,000 ISK for the full flight of Hammerhead I's that somehow managed to survive this encounter. And props to A Lunchbox for killing this over-priced abomination :))

Do you have a funny killmail you would like to share with the community? If so, please evemail the killboard or BattleClinic link to Cozmik R5 in-game, or send it via regular e-mail at r3dfiv3@hotmail.com

Just as WDA and Ga'len have done in the past, the sender of a killmail that has been posted on the blog will receive a small ISK prize, the value of a random module fitted on the ship; dream on if you think I'll pay for Faction, Complex or Officer mods!

Keep your eyes open for Fail, and rid New Eden of these atrocities!

o7

The morning after

What an evening of Patch Day that was! I spent pretty much all day yesterday thinking about the expansion I would have to download, and all I had to satisfy my urge to play EVE was the blogs that I could read and a text copy of the patch notes. I had done a little testing on Singularity but very little, but only just enough to find out that the Tornado met and even exceeded my expectations. I had only seen the new nebulas around 6-something in Syndicate (whatever happened to FD-MLJ anyway?) and I hadn't even tried the engine trails. Yes, my gaming time sucks these days!

Yesterday I got to leave work a bit earlier; not because of EVE but the timing couldn't have been better. Got home, put supper into the oven, start downloading and hit the EVE-O forums. Ah the forums... this place has more trolls than the entire army of Mordor! "Waaaa new font!". "Waaaa Naga doesn't shoot missiles!". "Waaaa you broke cloaking!". "Waaaa you broke interdictors!". Trolls: please do not feed them, or if you do make sure the food is heavily spiced :)) But I knew that what little I had seen on Sisi and what I had read about in the patch notes was more than satisfying to me. But once I was finally able to log in the tune changed quite drastically as everybody I had in my various channels was singing the praises of this new EVE. For the first time in as long as some of the oldest players could remember, CCP had finally hit a resounding homerun. The only scratch on Crucible's paint would be the missing fuel block BPO's but this should be fixed soon. And for what I think is the first time ever, nothing that was working was badly broken. If there is it's not something that affects me. Haleluia to that!

So my first impressions on a few things:

The engine trails: having not really seen them on Sisi, I never thought I would like them so much. You see, the majority of the time whether it's for PvE or PvP I play with my camera view zoomed way out. It was one of the reasons why I felt the new turrets didn't excite me much. So with my ship being only a few dark pixels in the middle of my screen sometimes it was hard to see where I was in space in relation to other stuff, but now with the trails manual flying has become tons of fun. I spent almost 15 minutes doing "aerobatics" in my Malediction, giggling like a 10 year old boy! It's only a little thing, but damn is it good!

Auto-jump, auto-dock, loot all, etc: CCP Soundwave, you and Team BFF clearly deserve a medal, a bigger Xmas bonus, a holiday, or all of the above! I have always complained about the tediousness of playing EVE, but by making things easier to manage more time can be spent on more important things. As always, there is still the danger of misusing the auto-pilot, and I simply can't wait to read reports of haulers killed within spitting distance of the Jita undock with ungodly amounts of loot. But I'm sure someone heard my prayers of having the fitting browser and the market interact together seemlessly; in case you didn't know (I found out this morning before leaving for work), you can now drag a saved fit to the market window, and this will create a group from which one can buy the needed modules. It's not the 1-button "buy all" I had suggested but it's a step in the right direction. Less time spent buying and fitting means more time out in space. Awesome!

Nebulas, warp tunnel, ship textures, etc: space started to look better (to me at least) around Apocrypha, and then a bit better in Tyrannis. But now, it's simply breathtaking. I'll have to take a long roam to appreciate the differences between systems, constellations and regions, something that will happen this weekend. I read that Letrange found the region jumps to be a bit jarring, but previously you would have a few jumps were you'd go from blue nebulas to red nebulas in the same constellation. I also liked the much cleaner scanning view. The warping effect though... this has never looked this good! Warping to a star or through a planet is something worth seeing! Not dealing with cap ships these days I will be a while before I see the new cyno effect but from what I've seen in videos it must be great to see in-game. I was really impressed with the new ship textures; they make some truly horrible looking ships (ie: Caldari) better to look at, and some ships that were already nice looking really spiff. I was surprised by one ship that wasn't mentioned in the changes, at least that I know of: the Firetail's new dark brown paint job makes it look A LOT meaner :)

And that's about all the time I had for yesterday. I did give quick spin to one of my Taranii by killing a few Angel rats. Hitting for 200+ while afterburning at 1300 m/s is great, but for a real test I'll have to go up against capsuleer-flown ships, both in consensual PvP and in Surprise ClownSeks. You may have noticed I haven't talked about the new battlecruisers. I'm just not one of those rich tards willing to spend 200+ million ISK to be one of the first to own a new T1 ship. I'll let the dust settle a bit and when my T2 large lasers are ready I'll probably buy all 4 at once. I already have BC V so I should have fun :)

And there you go! For the first time since I started playing the game in January 2008 I REALLY want to play EVE, and talk about it, and try to get people to try it, and maybe even get some Bitter Old Vets to come back. Is Crucible good enough to bring back someone like Teadaze? Is it good enough to make a certain Virginia resident regret her decision to give away her well-known character? I can see where these two can be bitter as they spilled blood, sweat and tears over this game at a time when the developers were... what's the term... misguided? But I'm pretty sure that if they came back strictly for the game itself, they would like the brand new New Eden that was delivered to us. I can't wait to have some good quality play time :))

Fly. That's it. Just fly!

o7

Monday, November 28, 2011

Suddenly, the end of Incarna

After surviving some of the worst birth pangs ever suffered by an MMO game since the infamous Star Wars Galaxies NGE debacle (and we all know how well that went), EVE Online's Incarna will now be put to rest. And it will go down as the worst expansion in the game's 8 year history. When a game expansion incites masses to riot, unsubscribe and even quit entirely, something's way wrong. But all this can be left behind now, and we the playerbase can only hope that CCP learned from its numerous mistakes and make good on its promises to make things alright once more.

As I'm writing this in 24 hours people will be making preparations for the massive update that if all goes according to plan will be a major boost for the game. Capital ships will work quite differently (though I believe that still a lot of work needs to be done; supercaps have no business whatsoever in Low-sec for instance), a new class of ships will be born, loads of T2 modules will be appearing, and hopefully hybrid guns will finally work as intended, much to the joy of Gallente and Caldari pilots, and some perfectly skilled Taranis pilots :)

Here's a short list of the things that I'm looking forward to the most:

The new battlecruisers: when I started playing EVE I had asked my friend Letrange what would be a ship that would fit my style of piloting, which is fly fast, hit hard, and GTFO with none the wiser; tank is superfluous. His immediate answer was Vagabond without hesitation, but now I should have a new and cheaper option in the form of the Tornado. It's faster than the Hurricane and the big guns hurt; just make sure you don't let an interceptor, assault frig, or even a lowly Rifter get too close. I have yet to try the Talos, Naga and Oracle; Cozmik just got the ability to fit large T2 blasters, but no T2 railguns yet. And my large lazorz are only trained to a token level III so no T2 guns for a few weeks for the Oracle... just in time for Christmas I'd say. But I really liked what I saw with the Tornado; an AC/nano fit is doable, and the gank fit will simply be hilarious!

The new font and scalable UI: gone will be the days of squarish letters and numbers that look the same. How many people have called me "Cozmik RS" instead of "Cozmik R-FIVE", and how many Null-sec systems have been misread. And of course, the option of scalability will make happy eye balls the world over because the tiny font was tiny.

The new POS mechanics: yes you read right, I, Cozmik R5, am happy about the changes coming to Player-Owned Structures. Please don't choke on your coffee! The simplification of the POS mechanics means one thing: a lazy schmuck like me can now operate and refuel a POS without having to calculate tons of different components in precise quantities to make sure everything works for a precise amount of time. Just fill up the thing will fuel pellets and strontium calthrates and all is cool in the universe! Now why would I be so happy about this? First my noob corpmate is more interested in the industrial side of EVE and at some point we will have to set up a tower somewhere. Second, should I go back to W-space I will be able to help whichever corp I'm with better with POS operations. Hell I may even train up POS guns!

Player-owned customs offices: please don't choke on your coffee some more, I'm not about to start doing some PI. Much too lazy for this (yes, even if it's dead easy and maintenance free). Come on... the things are GANKABLE! I haven't see the HP stats on the offices but I can easily imagine myself and a bunch of friends looking fro trouble out in Low-sec and reinforcing offices for this simple reason: because we can!

That's pretty much it for the Crucible expansion as we should see it tomorrow, but there are still a few things that I hope will be on the drawing board for the summer 2012 expansion:

  • The fourth bonus on the Assault Ships: overdue much?
  • The fifth subsystems for Strategic Cruisers: they said there would be five... we're still waiting.
  • T3 frigates: one of the most requested ship, and yet it remains ignored.
  • The bounty system: one of the careers I initially thought I'd be able to pursue, bounty hunting as a viable money-making activity cannot work in the current iteration.
  • The Global Criminal Countdown: bring this down to 5 minutes. Non negociable.
  • Other stuff I can't think about right now: because I'm sure there is!

I know that there is a good chance that "walking in stations" stuff will have to be expanded upon after so much "flying in space" stuff (God I hate segregating EVE like this) but if CCP learned only one thing, and I sincerely hope that they truly learned their lesson, it's that what happens in space cannot be neglected. Ever. To do so is to neglect the reason why a vast majority of the players are playing the game. I'd say maybe bring down the prices in the NeX store to a sane level (to Hell with your 1000$ jeans Arnar!) and add lots, and I mean LOTS of stuff to buy, for those interested in such stuff. And when you actually expand on Incarna, make sure the players get to go places and interact. This has to be done correctly and not rushed the way Incarna was. And obviously not at the cost of further infuriating the player base. CCP survived the 2011 Summer of Rage, but it might not survive more failure of this magnitude.

In the meantime, all that's left to do now is wait for Crucible to be deployed, and hope that fun returns to New Eden. Incarna is over. Good riddance!

Fly hard

o7

Friday, November 25, 2011

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - 2011/11/25



I got to see Trivium just over a month ago when they were opening for Dream Theater, and I have to say I didn't get enough; an opening band always has lesser audio quality and not enough time to really show their stuff, and they unfortunately had to skip this great tune. This is a fan made video but it's pretty well done, so crank up that volume and enjoy!

o7

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Wednesday of Fail - 2011/11/23

You know it's been a shitty day at work when various co-workers get into various scraps with the boss for various reasons, when a co-worker has to meet the HR agent because of the complete ineptitude of yet another co-worker, and when YET ANOTHER co-worker stays barricaded in her office because her ex-boyfriend is a complete and utter douchebag. All this means only one thing, it's a Wednesday. But what better way to turn the shitty tide than with another installment of the Wednesdays of Fail! This week's entry was submitted by Naoru Kozan of The Tuskers. He and his mateys were out in Essence Low-sec space doing their Yarrrin' thing when they found a Gila to tackle who was ratting belts in numerical order; yeah, that's pretty safe right?. Having an ex-corpmate who has an on-going love affair with the Gurista cruiser, I know how nasty and effective this ship can be, except for one thing... I would bet my mom that my buddy Felix does not fit it like this:



[Gila, Socratic's Gila]
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Heat Dissipation Amplifier II
Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II

Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
[empty high slot]

Medium Core Defence Field Purger II
Medium Core Defence Field Purger II
Medium Core Defence Field Purger II


Ogre II x7
Ogre II x4




And to think I was amazed last week when the victim was sporting a single T2 warp core stabilizer, this guy has to sport 4 of 'em and yet died to 3 frigates. I'm pretty sure that one more and he would've gotten away! But I passed on the rigs... mmm'yeah, the shield recharge rate must be working good, especially at such a ridiculous price. The mids are nice and tanky but apparently they don't do anything else. The high slots... I'm sure something better can be done, but I'm no pro at Gila fitting. But two things tickle me: first is the ton of drones that were left in the ship, but this being a drone boat it was bound to happen. No, the thing that really hits me is that even with the benefit of "All level V" skills, all this doesn't fit on the CPU level, and I mean REALLY doesn't fit: EFT shows 486.75/437.5. Yeah, something had to be offline, and not just the small NOS. Which was superfluous anyway because even before putting it on the fit was 100% cap stable! So all in all, a pretty weird and funky fit all around!

Naoru Kozan, you sir will be receiving 612,960 ISK, your killboard's value for the Small Diminishing Power System Drain I. The reason: I have no fucking clue what it was doing fitted on this ship! Gratz dude and keep terrorizing Hevrice and its surroundings :)

Do you have a funny killmail you would like to share with the community? If so, please evemail the killboard or BattleClinic link to Cozmik R5 in-game, or send it via regular e-mail at r3dfiv3@hotmail.com

Just as WDA and Ga'len have done in the past, the sender of a killmail that has been posted on the blog will receive a small ISK prize, the value of a random module fitted on the ship; dream on if you think I'll pay for Faction, Complex or Officer mods!

Keep your eyes open for Fail, and rid New Eden of these atrocities!

o7

Monday, November 21, 2011

Having fun while losing

Yesterday when I logged on I decided that I had had just about enough of exploration. Sure, finding radar sites and the occasional Domination rat with sweet loot is nice, and the actual scanning mechanics are quite easy now (I do have to practice using combat probes though; never know when that skill will come in handy) but ever since my little trip to Providence and Catch I've been wanting to go back to flying dangerous so after the scanning of my home system and the system next door, which was crammed with anomalies and signatures but nothing came out of it, I decided to give my yet-to-be-blooded Firetail a spin. I knew how effective that ship can be when going for turret equipped targets having fallen victim to it in a Jaguar not too long ago, but hopefully now it would be my turn to do the killing.

My current exploration HQ is in the South-East of the Heimatar region (looking at the Dotlan maps) so from there the hunting grounds are plentiful. My first choice of destination was towards the Eifer system by way of Gusandall, hoping Mr Kane Rizzel was around because I know he's a good sport. But unfortunately he wasn't on and on top of it the area was very quiet. So much for that idea. I then flew towards Metropolis and Evati, but at some point (don't remember which system) I had faction cruisers, BC's and BS's on scan... and these people were active. Right, not such a great idea then. So I backtracked to head towards Molden Heath for what I call the "Tour de MH", with sneak-peeks into Etherium Reach and Great Wildlands. The way to Skarkon and L4X-1V was also quiet with barely a ship flying in space; those I could scan down always ended up being POS'ed up, and L4X was empty, not even a bubble left from a previous camp. But this being xxDeathxx space I didn't want to stick around too long. I then resumed the tour and what did I find? More emptiness. When people say Low-sec is dead, it is no rumor. I then made a beeline for the Egbinger system, and from there Great Wildlands was calling.

I had already roamed a lot at that point and knew that my gaming time was running short so instead of taking a long-ish road in search of stuff I took the straight path between B-VIP9 and 7Q-8Z2. This would take me through 2 of the 3 station systems in the region so if anybody was active, big or small, this is where they were bound to be. Once again, quiet space for a while but in the first station system, M-MD3B, we were 16 in Local. Only some small stuff out in space at the moment I passed by, but I didn't want to stick around long; I know from experience how hungry a bunch of people living in Null-sec can get! I then jumped into E02-IK, and this one was quieter; only 3 in Local and nothing in space. But the closer I get to the 7Q system the more bookmarks I have for safespots, offgrids and tacticals, so it's much easier to take time to see what kind of traffic is flying through. And it was finally in 7Q where I finally saw some possible action.

As I was sitting on a 200km tactical above the Khabi gate in 7Q, which sported a fail-anchored catch bubble, a Hydra Reloaded Dramiel landed, and after waiting a few seconds to see what my immobile Firetail was doing, he burned towards me like only a Dramiel can. I wanted to play some mind games a bit; I was looking positively AFK as he was closing the distance but when he got to around 40km I warped straight to the gate, jumped out, and reapproached the gate. Sure enough, a few seconds later the Dramiel jumped and as soon as he decloaked I jumped back to 7Q. I guess it did have an effect because when he followed me back in I was already at my tactical, and to help matters when he decloaked the rats that were on the gate aggressed him. Yay Angels! He easily out-distanced them and warped out; had he come towards me again I would have started the dance, but he didn't. So much for the Dramiel, or so I thought at the time. A few minutes passed before I saw more traffic and it arrived in the form of a Claw interceptor, from another alliance. Oh goody! Exactly the type of ship I wanted to hunt. When he landed on the gate (I was aligning to the bubble but yeah, it failed) he too started to burn towards me but I had much better confidence against a Claw, so I started the transversal spiral. And sure enough he got too close and I latched onto him with scram and web. Let the feeding begin!

Things were going well as I got rid of the Claw's shields but he was clearly armor-tanked because the armor was going down slower, but he was still going down. And what appears in Local? Mr Hydra Dramiel! Being now NOS'd by 2 ships and the battle taking a bit longer than I expected my capacitor got drained and a few of my mods turned off, but as soon as I regained some and was able to restart my afterburner and NOS it was looking like I may still get to kill the Claw; I don't know if the Dram pilot had pulled his drones or forgot about 'em, but I swear I don't remember seeing drones on me. Quite the fail if that's the case! But just as the Claw was entering structure a Crusader showed up and soon after he landed my cap went out and so did all my cap-eating mods, and finally the Firetail went poof and I was warping my pod first to a planet, and then to a safespot.

Props were given all around as this was a fun little fight. It was hard for me to judge who was flying with who as I had no idea if these guys were friends or foes. The Claw pilot did have a good point: next time have Barrage and get a bit more range instead of going for Rep Fleet EMP in the face. He did give me a comment that I found funny: "Real Men Fly Claws". I would tend to agree as I own quite a few Claws myself and have had much success with them. But do Real Men get on the Bat Phone when it looks like the fight is going the wrong way? That is debatable :) In any case, I had a great time coming back to The PvP even if I was on the losing end. But my point was to try this new Firetail fit, and I must admit that until I got out-numbered 3-to-1 it was working like a charm. I not only replaced it right away, but I also bought a spare. We shall try this again!

Fly dangerous; it's the only way to fly!

o7

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - 2011/11/18



Some Nine Inch Nails at 5h30 AM? Of course! It's also a nod to us New Eden residents as we're all in this together. Through good, bad and ugly we have endured!

Enjoy

o7

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Rescue in Providence

I didn't have much chance to write about a particular event that happened a little while ago but let's do some catching up. I've waited to post this for obvious reasons; I didn't want to give Test Alliance Please Ignore a free juicy kill! So some time in mid November, I logged on not being quite certain what I would do. Should I do some exploration to make a few more million ISK? Should I roam the near-by Low-sec pipes? Should i just chat it up with some buddies who are on? I don't know, I was kind of blasé that evening. But this turned around rather quickly. I said "hi" to my buddy Havegun in our good ol' MAPU channel and the following convo happened:

Me> o/
Gun> Hey Coz, I'm in a rescue mission in Provi
Me> LOLwut?
Gun> Yeah, one of the Grotto guys...
Me> An attempt at WH-fu that failed?
Gun> Yep!
Me> What system are you guys in?
Gun> D-GTMI
Me> OMFG! XD
Me> Aight, I'm bored anyways... omw to you guys :))

So yeah, long story short, one of the ex-AMC guys got his Orca stuck in a neighboring Class 5 system after escaping Certain Death in the form of a hunting Tengu. The "escaping death" part worked perfectly, but he was now stuck in deep W-space. After some probing he managed to find 3 exits: a wormhole leading to a Class 6 system, another leading to deep Null-sec (don't remember which region but something nuts like Paragon Soul or Omist), and finally the wormhole to D-G. Before I logged on Havegun had managed to reach Providence and scout the path for the wayward Orca, but there was a slight problem: this was right in the middle of TEST's little wardec against a certain player called Chribba. You may have heard of him. The plan was to go park the Orca in a classified station, put it on contracts in the hopes that some 0.0 dweller buys it, and get back to Empire space. So with these guys already in Null-sec, my job was to scout the way into and out of the Providence region.

At first I just did a "set destination" on the D-GTMI linked in chat, but from my current position in Heimatar space I noted a snag: the path was taking me thru the Dital system, making a jump straight from hi-sec into Providence. Huh... yeah, scratch that. With a little help from Dotlan and my previous experience with BOZO and CTA I found a slightly better door: the Assah/G-5EN2 gate. My vehicle of choice for crazy stunts like this was one of my trusty dual-propped Taranis interceptors. The trip to G-5 was entirely uneventful and before I knew it I was back in Sansha-land. I then set my destination to the undisclosed system and the only place where I did see more than 4 people in Local was in 9-UY, but nobody was out in space and no bubbles were on gates. I must once again thank BOZO, CTA and U'K for allowing me to collect tons of bookmarks in this space! Ultimately I got in touch with the guys and helped scouting gates and stations to make sure the Orca would get parked safely, and after it did we all took a much-needed bio.

So part one of the rescue op was done, but now we needed to get back home. Of course now we were much lighter and less expensive, but still, one of us had little in the way of Null-sec experience, and Havegun and I have very different ways of scouting; I find him too defensive and careful, and he finds me too aggressive and reckless :) But at least we've flown together a lot so there's no hard feelings towards each other. The first few jumps towards G-5 were uneventful but Gun scouted a small roaming gang. We were told not to warp but our inexperienced friend was already on his way... scratch one Incursus! Fortunately for him the small gang had no bubbler and he was able to get his pod out to safety. We waited a few minutes for the gang to get bored and move on, which they did much to our relief. The rest of the way out to Assah was very quiet, with only a Malediction which I was tempted to tackle but for once I thought of safety first, and finally we got to Hi-sec in the Bar system. Mission accomplished, at the price of a single T1 ship!

This whole trip made me realise something: I had missed this kind of flying greatly. The heightened sense of lurking danger at every corner, the possibility of The PvP at all times... yeah, I must do this more often! And who knows, if the Orca doesn't sell maybe we'll do another kind of rescue op. The kind with more ships with teeth :)

Fly dangerous

o7

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Wednesday of Fail - 2011/11/16

Wednesday. Also known as Hump Day. The day where you're already sick of being at work but you're still far from the weekend. I hate Wednesdays. I've had a lot of bad shit happen to me on Wednesdays, and I even predict that whenever a stray rock, an invasion fleet, a black hole, or a Vogon spaceway builder ship will hit planet Terra, it will be on a Wednesday! But at least now I'm comfortably chilling at home with an awesome Unibroue beer and writing the blog post that makes everyone on the planet forget that Hump Day just happened, and that we're already this little closer to the weekend :) Welcome to this new installment of the Wednesday of Fail! This week's Fail Mail comes from Efraya of Deep-Space Co-op Ltd. They were looking for stuff to shoot at in W-space when they happened upon someone sucking gas clouds. Yes, this is standard industrial shit to do in W-space, except when you do it in this:



[Scorpion Navy Issue, Mentozawr's Scorpion Navy Issue]
Co-Processor II
Damage Control II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Warp Core Stabilizer II

Pithum C-Type Magnetic Scattering Amplifier
Pithum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier
Pithum A-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier
Heat Dissipation Amplifier II
Explosion Dampening Amplifier II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Transporter I
Large Remote Armor Repair System I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
[empty high slot]

Large Core Defence Field Purger I
Large Core Defence Field Purger I
Large Core Defence Field Purger I


http://deep.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=11436684


OOOOKAAAAYYYY! First things first: you're using a what to do what?! I know some pretty advanced (read 100m+ SP) players that are gouging their eyes out with rusty spoons right now! But this is only the beginning. The rig slots seem alright, Caldari being shield-regen-happy so Purger seem fine. The fun starts in the lows. Over the years of this blog being active I've been pretty vocal on the uselessness of Warp Core Stabs, but to not only use one but use the TECH TWO ?!?! Yeah this Fail Mail is getting fun! The mid slots now... ridiculous amounts of ISK aside, this is a nasty tank! But yeah, ridiculous ISK is ridiculous. And now moving on to the highs... was this the corp's main repping boat? At a price like this, couldn't they get a carrier in their little hidy-hole?! And even if you can't bring one into the hole, you can build one there. And this very nice ship was being used to suck gas clouds, a job that a Myrmidon can do, and probably better because it can align and GTFO a lot faster than a battleship! So please don't use all that ISK to suck a few gas clouds; buy a Myrm and just send 500m ISK to me :)))

Efraya, for landing on this most awesome Dyson vacuum cleaner prototype, you will be receiving 624,990 ISK, your killboard's value for the Heat Dissipation Amplifier II. The reason: because Mr Mentozawr was very confident in his deadspace shield tank, but it ultimately failed him:)

Do you have a funny killmail you would like to share with the community? If so, please evemail the killboard or BattleClinic link to Cozmik R5 in-game, or send it via regular e-mail at r3dfiv3@hotmail.com

Just as WDA and Ga'len have done in the past, the sender of a killmail that has been posted on the blog will receive a small ISK prize, the value of a random module fitted on the ship; dream on if you think I'll pay for Faction, Complex or Officer mods!

Keep your eyes open for Fail, and rid New Eden of these atrocities!

o7

Monday, November 14, 2011

Blog Banter #30: CCP's Big Massive Test

It is Banter Time once again, and with the winter expansion just around the corner Seismic Stan from the Freebooted blog (and the most awesome "Fever Dream" mini podcast) has this question for us bloggers to banter about:

"With the Winter expansion possibly being named 'Crucible', it certainly is a melting pot of refinements and tweaks aimed at making the EVE experience smoother and more wholesome. If the developers suddenly found themselves some spare resources and approached you for an additional feature to include before release, what single concept would you pitch them and how would you implement it?

For bonus points, the one thing lacking from this "patchwork" of iterations is a cohesive storyline to package "The Crucible" together. How could this expansion be marketed to potential new customers?"

Link to Stan's original post here.

I haven't done any serious testing on Sisi lately so I cannot have a well-defined idea of all the changes and new stuff Crucible will bring, but apart from the Tier 3 Battllecruisers of Gankiness the thing that I find makes EVE a better and more comfortable place to spend quality time in is the simplification of some of the mechanics. I can already hear the Bitter-Old-Vet purists crying out loud "Why are you dumbing down EVE?", "EVE is supposed to be hard!", "HTFU!", "WAAAAA!". I have only one thing to tell those BOV's: shut the fuck up. A game that is hard doesn't necessarily mean that every single action one can undertake needs to be a complete pain in the ass. When I saw the image of an open wreck with a little button that said "Loot all" I was elated. Dragging and dropping could only go so far; this is supposed to be a sci-fi simulator, not a computer operating system. The same goes with the new POS fuel system. Having lived in W-space I knew how our little back-water cabin had to be maintained, and I was really happy that someone else was taking care of this. But now it's been simplified so even an impatient schmuck like me could easily set up a tower and maintain it. I dare any of the "EVE has to be hard" crowd to tell me that this is a bad thing.

And there are other things I would like to see that go along the same line of thought. The "Loot all" button is a step in the right direction, but I've been thinking, now that we can save fittings for various ships, wouldn't it be awesome if on the fitting browser there would be another button next to the "Fit to ship" button: "Buy all". This would only buy modules in the station where a ship is docked of course. I'm sure a computer can tell pretty easily what to buy between a mod that is 750k ISK, one that's 1 million, and a dorky sell order at 7.5 million. Computers today can do it, so I cannot see why they couldn't do so in warp drive/cyno jump society. I'm sure the scammers would cry rivers at the loss of scam revenue, but my message to them would be to never underestimate the stupidity of the human race; just read this very blog every Wednesday!

The announcement of the eventual reduction of the session timer was also some good news; so far it should be only from 30 seconds to 20 seconds, but I'm sure they could put it as low as 5 seconds and maybe even remove the timer completely. And do not get me started on the atrocity that is called the Global Criminal Countdown, CCP's way of saying "You did a dastardly deed, well sorry, you cannot play our game. Oh you tried to dock up? You cannot play our game some more." Pathetic.

What I'm getting at is this: anything that slows down the game to the point where you cannot even play (and I'm not even talking about lag here) is something that needs to be looked at closely to smoothen the gaming experience all-around. EVE is hard and complicated enough as it is, there is no need to have mechanics that only feel like jumping through hoops on fire, while you're on roller skates, juggling 5 Rubik's Cubes that you're also trying to solve, while singing the national anthem of 5 countries in their original languages.

I have to add that I'm turning down any bonus points. The changes that are coming were too long coming, and as I understand it this is the "please fix everything" expansion every EVE player has been wanting for over two years. EVE doesn't need another half-finished storyline spin. That's my opinion and everyone is entitled to have my opinion.

Fly dangerous; flying safe means you're not trying hard enough.

o7

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Wait begins

Well it's now official, my future in New Eden suddenly got clouded. Not from lack of interest. Not from lack of funds. And not because hard-headed vikings are hard-headed either. Just over a week ago an announcement was made by a little company called Piranha Games: Mechwarrior Online is in the works. Today the player name "CozmikR5" has been reserved, and now the excruciating waiting period starts. I'm pretty sure I'll have time to upgrade my machine before the game hits the shelves. In the meantime I just have to do stuff like this:

Pew-pew? No. PEW-PEW !!!
Yes, MekTek fills the gap nicely. Though I don't think that MechOnline will be as crazy on the unlimited ammo/no heat servers, and the game system hasn't been revealed yet anyway. But I strongly doubt that I'll be able to build this Uber Supernova (don't let the Mad Cat mkII image fool you). But still, I'm very excited to see the Battletech universe make a come-back to the fore-front of computer gaming, in the spot where it belongs.

So by all means, check out both the Mechwarrior Online and the MekTek websites. Mechs are awesome :)

o7

Friday, November 11, 2011

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - 2011/11/11



Last week as I was grieving the loss of a friend, the metal scene also lost a member of its family in the person of GWAR's Flattus Maximus, aka Cory Smoot. So what better way to pay tribute than by playing GWAR's bloody and gory brand of metal!

R.I.P. Cory

o7

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Wednesday of Fail - 2011/11/09

Ah yes, it is finally time to go back to normality, and what says normality better than an institution. A tradition even. Welcome to the next installment of the Wednesdays of Fail! This week is kind of special because for the first time, at least that I've heard of, the person who submitted the Fail Mail made it clear to me that he wish to remain anonymous because the player who lost the ship in this particular piece of hilarity is a member of his own alliance, and apparently also a repeat offender... and after clicking the link I hope and pray that Max1mus Dec1mus will not remain an alliance-mate due to his desecration of one of my favorite ships:





[Hurricane, Max1mus Dec1mus's Cane]
200mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
100mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
200mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Invulnerability Field II
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]

650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
'Malkuth' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Torrent Assault Missile
'Malkuth' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Torrent Assault Missile
'Malkuth' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Torrent Assault Missile

Hammerhead I x2
Hobgoblin I x2




Damnit! It's been a few weeks since this abheration has seared my eyes and now to post this I had to not only click the killboard link again, but I also had to fit the thing in EFT. I need a new appointment with my ophtalmologist now. Fuck! Alright, let's try to be objective about this: here we have someone who clearly has an addiction to armor buffer tanks. In case you didn't know and in the interest of n00blet education, this is not how to do it. Next, a Y-T8 microwarpdrive is fine on a Cane, but a shield hardener on top of the "armor" tank? Huh... no. And the high slots... I've had this Fail Mail for over 3 weeks now and I still don't get what MaxDec was going for. Care to explain bro? Hey this gives me an idea: if anyone sees his/her own killmail posted here and has the balls to go public as to why one would fit a ship like they did, I will match the ISK prize that the submitter got! The more funny stuff, the better :))

Mr Anonymous Fail Mail Sender, for putting your own alliance-mate on the Pedestal of Fail, you will be receiving 200,050 ISK which is the value of one of the 200mm T2 plates; I mean face it, how often do you see anyone fit a T2 plate ?!

Do you have a funny killmail you would like to share with the community? If so, please evemail the killboard or BattleClinic link to Cozmik R5 in-game, or send it via regular e-mail at r3dfiv3@hotmail.com

Just as WDA and Ga'len have done in the past, the sender of a killmail that has been posted on the blog will receive a small ISK prize, the value of a random module fitted on the ship; dream on if you think I'll pay for Faction, Complex or Officer mods!

Keep your eyes open for Fail, and rid New Eden of these atrocities!

o7

Monday, November 7, 2011

Back on track

Well, that was one hell of a week. It's always a pain in the ass when Real Life decides to not only throw you curves balls, but this time it does so like those baseball-chucking machines with names like Pedro Martinez for major league batting practice. So with the end of a parental weekend, Halloween, catching a cold while trick-or-treating with my boys, a childhood friend getting a visit from the Grim Reaper, all the brou-ha-ha that followed this event, and my cold taking advantage of my sleep-deprived body, I basically didn't get anything done in EVE. Oh and let's not forget that in the middle of all this stuff I managed to lose my main money-making boat. Yeah I know, I royally suck at PvE. I had bought a Maelstrom as a replacement but flying a ship that tanks less, has half the top speed, has less DPS, and that takes 2 to 3 times longer to finish L4 missions... no, I don't want to go through that again. It was the reason I trained up the Sleipnir in the first place.

So with hating all forms of money-making chores (I'd rather be poor and happy than a slave to money; I'm like that in real life too) my choices are very few: chain L3 missions and be careful to avoid all the ones against the faction navies, or exploration. The latter being a tad more interesting to me than the former, I fit out a Hurricane and started roaming in the search of stuff in space. Yesterday wasn't too great though as I was only finding wormholes leading to well-defended systems. I'll be trying another corner of our little universe tonight and hopefully my luck will turn. Some people would say I could get some ISK by buying GTC's, especially now that PLEX prices are reaching new heights but I haven't gotten my pre-paid credit card yet. I have to do so before December 17th when my subscription ends and there's a good chance that I will get a GTC at the same time as my next 3 months of play time. But as I said earlier I'm not rich in Real Life either and I have far more interesting hobbies to put my money on so I won't be making a habit of buying GTC's.

And the future in EVE? A lot of it will depend on the winter expansion. Some people may disagree but I still believe that this particular expansion will be a make or break. I mean, just look at the US TZ numbers: last year well over 45000 players were logged in on any given night, with peaks around 55000 on weekends, and this year it's barely 40000 on weekends when both the EU and US time zones overlap, and well below 30000 as the EU's are going to bed. I don't care what the subscriber numbers say, a lot of people are simply refusing to log in. If the winter expansion fails even ever so slightly, these numbers will keep going down. So far it looks like the bleeding has stopped, but the wound is still there and the bandage needs tending. So far the new stuff looks good; I may have gotten rid of the Maelstrom I got but I did keep the guns because of course I will get a Tornado, and Cozmik is currently training Large Hybrid Turrets V, and after the specializations are done I'll do the same for Lazorz. And even though I'm not into the whole sovereignty thing, I sincerely hope that the announced changes to caps, time dilation and other 0.0 goodies will entice people to log in again and breathe new life into New Eden. It needs it badly.

But there are a few things on the horizon that may cause me to take a very lengthy hiatus. On the gaming front there are a few games out there that I will be getting into as soon as my computer has been upgraded. I could say "soon™" but my money has to go on my electronic drums first, and also on the cyclo-touring gear I need for next summer's vacation. Games that would cause me to stop playing EVE, maybe even quit: Rage, Diablo III, ES5 Skyrim, rFactor2, Microsoft Flight, and the big one that's just been announced... MechWarrior Online. Yes, this would cause me to say the proverbial "so long and thanx for all the fish" to New Eden. A Battletech MMO is something that pretty much all BT fans have been asking for since time immemorial, and with so many people that know the BT universe and how it works, the game producer better get this one right, or else. But another thing may put a serious crimp on all this: the possibility of landing a spot on the Wishmaster drumline. I've been practicing my sticking and my reading like a madman lately just in case. I haven't heard anything official yet but there is talk of the band getting back together in 2012. I want to be ready for some eventual auditions if they happen, and not half-way at that; I want to make the snare line BADLY! If I do, kiss goodbye to all gaming time because I will be doing something A LOT more awesome than playing Internet Spaceships or battlemech piloting. The blog would probably survive but it would take a major off-ramp.

In the meantime though, I will still be playing EVE as it is still something unique in the gaming world, and I pray that all the fixes come to fruitition and help heal the game after the deep wounds it received when Incarna was unleashed. So far it appears that CCP has heard my prayer of Coffee Smelling and things seem to be looking up, but we're still some time away from the release of the expansion; we don't have a date, and it still doesn't even have a name. And winter is arriving soon...

Fly the way you want to, not the way you are told to

o7

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Wednesday of Fail hiatus

Due to Real Life being a complete bitch (read the previous blog post), the Fail Mail will take a break this week and come back stronger next week.

I'll be posting a musical salute to my friend on Friday.

Fly hard

o7

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Ode to a friend

Louis Delisle
1970 - 2011

Yesterday night after a wee bit of insomnia I got out of bed and went to the computer, and all of a sudden my little world was rocked. One of my childhood friends grabbed me on Facebook to inform me that another of my childhood buddies, one I have known since kindergarten, had been struck by a heart attack on Sunday and died pretty much on the spot. Needless to say sleep got scrapped, and the rest of my close-knit gang from the town of Longueuil Qc did its best to deal with the sad news.

How does one get a heart attack at 41 years old? By partying like a madman and doing obscene amounts of drugs. But that's not the Louis I want to remember. Before he started hanging out with "the wrong people", my friend Louis was very close to me as we were part of a very tight group of people pushing the limits of what could be done on a BMX bike. We were always together, and we were always pushing each other with new challenges, higher jumps, faster speeds and so on. One was always out-doing the other, and that went on for about 4 years. And where he had gotten me into BMX, I got him into skiing and following world championship races and stuff. There was always an edge to Louis but it was always in a spirit of sportsmanship. Things changed a bit when he started the Rock 'N Roll lifestyle, but he was still respecting that I was sticking to BMX when a lot of guys turn to cars, babes and parties. What I mean is that despite all the bad choices he might have made in his life, I have always considered him a dear friend.

Of course, life being life, I haven't seen him in about 10 years, but now I'm too late and I will not see him again in this universe. It feels weird to say that I will miss someone who had pretty much disappeared from my life but I will miss him.

The moral of my story: if you happen to know someone who is dealing with drug addiction, never ever look down on him or her. Support him/her as best you can through good times and bad times. Take him/her out to do stuff that will keep his/her mind not only occupied but to make him/her realize how awesome life can be. Drugs took the life of one of my best friends; don't let it take the life of yours.

Fly my friend, you're free now...

Vole mon chum, tu es libre maintenant...

o7

J'envoie toutes mes sympathies à ses parents et à son frère. Bon courage.