October 31, 2014

Eve Settings reset

I now have a new machine on which I am playing Eve.  This also means that I'm discovering all the things which I have to configure.  I'll make a list here in hopes it might help other people too and keep updating it as I find other things, and perhaps some knowledgeable and influential people find it useful.  (Hi Sugar Kyle)

Edit: See the links TurAmarth ElRandir provided below for moving settings from machine to machine.
Overview
I thought with the recent changes the overviews were now on the server.  So when I logged in and heard a fleet forming up, I was surprised to see I had only the basic overview and none of mine.  Fortunately the new overview sharing capability meant that all I had to do was ask for the corp standard overview on comms and I was in business in a matter of clicks.

Speaking of which, brand new last minute announced UI dev blog sounds great.  Combined with the sharable overviews I'm sure we'll all have new ones flying around our corps soon.

Not Persistent (i.e. client side)
* Video settings such as a full-screen versus windowed mode.
* HUD location and settings are not persistent.  This includes the location of the HUD, the location of combat messages and general messages.
* Audio settings (Eve has sound? yeah, I know).
Left-hand Neocom icons.  I can't seem to find where the switch is to make those icons small.
Wallet flash.  Is that in the Esc settings?  No, it's in the Wallet settings.  I wonder what the design principle is on when settings are in the local interface, and when they are in the global (Esc) settings?

Persistent Settings (i.e. server side)
* Auto-Target back.  I would have forgotten this entirely if a new pilot in corp two weeks ago hadn't auto-targeted our fleet logi back, which meant that we had to talk him through turning that off.  I'm surprised this persisted give that other things on the ESC menu don't appear to have persisted.

October 24, 2014

Overclocked Weapons and building all the things

I want to briefly plug an idea that was posted for "overclocked" weapons by Phoenix Jones on the "Blighted Weapons" thread.  Here's a fragment from his post. (link)
The weapons are based off the t1 base constructed weapons (let's take a heavy neutron blaster tech 1), adds extra parts to it (let's say sleeper salvage (the non nano ribbon stuff)), and overclocks the weapon.
An overclocked weapon does the following
Damage is that of the t1 module as it currently stands. When heated, damage increases to that of a deadspace weapon (this is using t1 ammo). When unheated, goes back into normal t1 weapon damage.
This got me to thinking on other ways this might be made and how that might be expanded in the proclaimed future in which players can build everything.

The overclocked weapon is a particular invention outcome that an Inventor chooses to try to make, using a special decryptor which is found as a drop (perhaps with Rogue Drones).  This idea of a special decryptor might be the means by which player produce meta, faction, deadspace, and officer modules.  Instead of the drops giving the module directly, which short-cuts the richness of Eve's industrial side, this brings the ratters right back to work with their manufacturing counterparts (if they don't do both themselves).

October 20, 2014

I go away for a week and Eve changes

My family took a seven-day break from "screen time" which combined with a busy weekend to mean I've been away from things Eve for about ten days.  I had some podcasts downloaded from before the break to listen to on my commute, and I've seen the pings for fleets forming up, but I've otherwise been disconnected.  Now I'm ready to dive back in again.

Dynamic Worlds

The great thing about Eve is that the players change the world all the time.  There's the possibility that a system could change in FW and have locked me out of substantial parts of my assets while gone.  If you live in null you might have lost access to systems as well - though granted that world is pretty stagnant right now.  It's not like your standard MMO where the terrain around you and the forces in play are exactly the same over and over.  Barring a developer-driven new content release you'll see the same world unchanging every time.  If anything, I'd love to see more such dynamics in the game.  It keeps the game fresh if you walk out your front door (or station dock) and have a reason to look around.


Meta Moving

I look at my blog reader and see that I have 60 blog entries in my Eve section unread.  The Mittani has had I don't know how many pages of articles.  And oh, did I miss another dev blog?  And more stuff from Eve Vegas?  Right now it feels like the skeleton underneath Eve is constantly moving, and the six-week iteration cycle certainly is contributing to this.  Market speculators must be having a field day right now.  Exploration outputs to change?  Modules tiericide on the way?  Lots to try to latch onto and ride.

I get that the change right now may feel too fast for people.  Voices had been shouting for a long time that Eve needed change, and now that massive changes are coming from CCP then there is a chorus as those impacted wish they could had been done some other way.  I'm sure there's a classic Venn diagram of those who wanted change before, those who are against change now, with a overlap of some who were all for change until it turned out it was going to force them to change.  HTFU and "Adapt or Die" have long been the dismissive cries of the bittervet - now a lot of them are facing having to swallow that themselves.

Skill Queues

If there are tears on jump changes, there are tears of joy on the new skill queue limits (or lack there of).  I definitely saw that during the past week - I had to artificially move a level 5 skill up to the front of my queue so that it would be running during my absence - and it wasn't what I really wanted to be training right now.  The same thing that I'm sure so many of us do for vacations and major holidays.  Perhaps this was less of an issue for older characters for whom there is a surplus of very long running skills.  I had delayed starting MCT for an alt in part because I wouldn't be able to baby-sit them through all of the shorter skills they needed to get prerequisites out of the way.


Next time...
I also have just fired up a new machine.  I was a bit surprised to see all the things that I need to go back and change.  I'll make a separate post around that.



October 6, 2014

Get into Faction Warfare, they said...

... make some ISKies orbiting buttons they said.  Well, I figured I'd spend my time orbiting buttons to make ISKies whenever things were quiet.  Turns out I've been too busy fleeting to kill all the things to actually do much of that plexing business.  I am not disappoint.

Each of these is probably worth a full blog post, but instead I'm cramming them in...

BLOPSing around the Universe

Quick, get your BLOPS in before the jump nerfs.  We had a training BLOPS where we were mostly getting used to what it takes.  Keeping everyone cloaked and within a short-radius of the also-cloaked BlackOps BS definitely took some institutional learning.  Tricks to makings sure you can also take the bridge were also learned.  This is much better than being in mid-jump when the bridge goes down and being a sad Arazu with nobody on grid.  Thank you Templis for providing the targets we successfully smashed once we figured out what we were doing.

Muninns - apparently they are useful

So in Rifterlings there had been a long chat at one point about the uselessness of Muninns.  Fast forward to flying in a fleet of Assault Frigs and support, with me in a Maulus.  We spot RAZOR running about in a gang with a Muninn backbone and move into a Medium plex to set up.  After some dithering they came in.  Ooof.  the Muninns were two-shotting people.  My Maulus was apparently a priority, but I warped out in low armor.  Perhaps foolishly I tried to duck back in without repairs, but was immediately picked back up and popped.  The Muninns were able to get range and really put a hurt on with their artillery.  Nice job, RAZOR.

Intense Heat in the Templis Kitchen

Templis decided to attack one of our POCOs, so we musted out in battlecruisers and an admittedly (and unintentionally) high number of Exequors and they ran away.  So we shipped down to Vexors and chased in hopes they'd be willing to fight that.  Answer is yes they would.  This was the most intense fleet fight I've been in yet.

I had wondered if I would start to feel like an F1-monkey in larger fleets.  Apparently a 30-something fleet is still small enough that this wasn't a problem. Between applying drones, ECM, Scram, and trying to get on top of something close enough to use blasters, I was doing a lot.  And not necessarily well - there was a lot of time where I was forgetting to MWD close enough to get blasters on something because I was focused on drones following the primary and using my own initiative on where to apply ECM and scram/web.

Templis had a fleet that featured a Scorpion, Vulture, Slepnir, multiple Drakes, Moa, Ferox, Scythe, Scimitars, and then a wing of Algos.  I was certainly worried about the Command Ships and Drake's legendary ability to soak up damage.  But our DPS dropped them one by one, and the Logistics wing was doing an incredible job keeping people up.  The Caldari targeted our Logi for a while, but they managed to keep each other up, though many of them left the fight in 10%-ish structure.  Amazing work.

Summary and Lessons

I need to be able to keep on top of more things at once - particularly keeping my blaster-Vexor on top of targets to apply gun DPS/scram/web while the drones follow the primary call, while also applying Ewar where appropriate.  Whew.

Lots of small lessons about fleets in terms of knowing what the FC wants.  I was congratulated at one point for being succinct in providing intel on a fight, which was great, but I know I was not as disciplined at other points.  Much to learn