There are many blog entries out there about how to make money as a trader or a industrialist. I haven't seen one on the main means by which I've been able to fund PVP: SOMER Blink. So what is it about a online Eve lottery that could result in profit?
The Basics
SOMER Blink is a lottery using ISK. Like any lottery, the prize is (generally) worth more than the sum of all of the tickets that will be bought to win that prize. In addition to the mainline lottery there are sideshows such as "promo blinks", "bonks" and "mini-bonks" and gifts at celebrations that happen every 50T in paid out prizes. Bonks are entered using deposited ISK. Promos and mini-bonks are entered using tokens that are given out at a rate of 1 per 1M ISK deposited.
We're going to want to consider the ratio of prize's value (easily determined on the market) to the sum of the cost of all of the tickets. We can look at what payout we expect to get after we've paid in money to enter in the lottery. If the EV is positive, we can make money. If the EV is negative (the usual case), the house makes money.
Market Shifts and Market Arbitrage
SOMER changes the price of their tickets, but the market moves even faster. This means that the EV may briefly go positive. For instance, as of this writing Imperial Navy Energized Nano Membranes have a 10M ticket, have 8 tickets in a lottery, but have a low sell order of 99,998,660 in Dodixie - and you can generally have your prizes shipped to major systems in highsec all over New Eden. In Jita these faction modules are only going for 64M.
Promo Blinks
Promo Blinks happen randomly offering up a prize for 1 token, with 250-350 slots available - of which you only can buy one. These can be very rich prize. My play in RVB for a while was funded off of the win of a Bhaalgorn, and before that an Archon.
You only can play a promo if you've played a normal blink in the previous 48 hours. It doesn't matter what size, but if you set up a spreadsheet from the previous step (determining EV) you'll see that the cheap tickets (faction frigates and interceptors) only will return 0.50 to 0.75 ISK for every one that you play. You can look at this as the price of playing promos for 48 hours (assuming you don't see any that are positive at the moment). Right now if you buy an Enyo that price is 1.9M.
Let's say all you cared about was the promos (and thus tokens) so a token is straight up worth the 1M you deposit to get it. You see a Kronos on promo with 350 slots. The Kronos is going for about 800M. That means your 1M ticket will bring you back 2.28M - given enough play. As with any gambling, it's all about the long run average.
Note that promos often come in sets of four, so if you see one stick around with that refresh button.
And it's fun... and you don't have to logged into Eve
I don't have a lot of Eve playing time, which is what makes ISK-earning vocations painful for me. But I do have lots of time I can have a browser window open during the day. You only can deposit from the Eve client, by giving money to the SOMER.Blink corporation.
Have I been lucky with my wins? According to SOMER's website I've deposited 458M (most of which was from winnings I sold) and I've won 2526M in prizes. That could just be a quirk of the random number generator. Or it may be that I've (mostly) avoided the impulsive play that costs the most money.
I haven't tried to analyze the Bonks and Mini-bonks too much, particularly because you don't know how many people will buy into them. I play them for fun pretty consistently though.
If you get sucked into the fun of playing the games, you'll be paying money to the hardworking folks and SOMER for that entertainment. In my opinion, you shouldn't complain about it either (see also the regular "SOMER is a SCAM!" threads on the forums). It's just math, people.
June 15, 2013
June 12, 2013
Cloaky Cloaky
Exploring has been a bit of a bust for me recently. So I decided to give that a skip and try some hunting in lowsec which was fun, even if I got nothing to show from it at the end. But new lessons about cloaking have come and new opportunities continue to beckon!
Exploring
I missed the rush to explore after the patch due to busy RL which sounds like I may have missed the loot tables being turned to 11 for a bit. I've been staying in highsec since I wanted to learn how to do the minigame and because I'm not yet sure if my hack skills are up to lowsec. The first time I got in there to try it I ran a half-dozen relic site and maybe brought in 10M in loot. The second time I must have been a few steps behind someone else as every system was stripped down to the wormhole signatures, except for one data site which was empty of hackables, so I must have been right behind someone. But I did find I was enjoying zipping around in my Helios and practicing cloaking.
Cloaky Hunting
So I moved on to something different the next time I logged in. I popped a cloak on a PVP Vexor fit (losing a turret slot, I know) and headed off to lowsec. My general plan was to cloak and hang out around some of these exciting new locations, standing 5km off of the warp-in point, and drop in to surprise someone looking to rat for tags or ninja mine some ice. The lowsec system I had picked was an entry system between a lower-population highsec and a big string of lowsec, and one that looked inactive for PVP. In other words, the place I hoped someone would also consider attractive for ratting - one jump back to highsec and quiet. Considering the limitation of a non-covops cloaker I didn't want to have a susbtantial local resident population to worry about.
The general plan for this fit was to be agile and have a MWD. I know I'm going to have a long delay between decloaking and locking, so the idea is to get close to the target and ram them under MWD while resetting. I'm loaded with blasters, so being on top of him is what I want anyway. I have Hammerheads, Warriors, and EC-300s for fighting cruisers, faster ships, or for GTFO.
Insertion into the system was uneventful and local was empty, so I popped on over to a ice belt and sat for a bit while reading forum threads and looking at market stuff. Then it occurred to me that attacking an ice miner wasn't likely to net me much, so I moved over to an asteroid belt and repeated. I waited. I stopped and killed some rats out of boredom (and sec status) and moved to another belt. Local still zero. Hmm, definitely need to plan ahead to have some indy planning to do or the like.
Aha! Someone comes into system. I look him up. Apparently he's recently been caught ratting in an autocannon Wolf and had some shiny modules dropped. Excellent! I start d-scanning and looking to see if he shows up in any belts around the same planet as me. I'm pretty sure I can take a PVE Wolf fit like the one he lost, though I know I may really regret the loss of that one neutron blaster. I see rats, then I see wrecks, and the Wolf is moving around. Argg, but I realize the rats in my belt are small ones and so may not be worth his time. So I dscan down the belt he's moved to with live rats, align, and come out of cloak to warp and pounce.
I come out of cloak, start locking, got lock, hit the warp disruptor - Invulnerable. Damn! Just missed him - there he goes off to a planet with lots of belts. I pick one and give chase. This is probably going to be a fool's errand since he almost certainly can align faster than I. I cloak up and wait a bit more. I wait - let him get back to ratting, then try one more time. But now he's probably watching d-scan and he's gone from his belt before I even arrive.
A couple Russians show up and I think both the Wolf and I safe up, considering how he disappears. I see some core scanner probes on d-scan and then they're moving on. And my Wolf pilot as well. Ah well, it was fun.
Cloaky Spying Ninja
The next time I log in I decide to try another idea - scanning down mission runners and going after their loot. My plan is not to do a full ninja in front of them (something I'm familiar with, ahem) but to clean up after those who tend to blitz or just are taking a long time. But first I have to find them, so it's time for the Helios again. I find a nearby system with an L4 security agent and away I go.
And there's a battleship - Megathron! Let's take a peek and warp to about 30km away. It's not just a Megathron, it's a Megathron, Loki, Rapier, Talos - oooh, it's a highsec fight. And the targets become little Caldari wrecks pretty much as soon as I see them. The victorious ships start warping off - perhaps they saw my "not trying to be subtle" combat probes and think an enemy is looking for them. If they want to leave those PC wrecks behind I'll be glad to - oh bummer, the Loki is sticking around an salvaging them.
Back to the scanning. There's another Megathron. Warping in I see an acceleration gate. D-scan shows the Mega nearby, so presumably inside the gate. I slowly move up to the gate, trying to remember if it will activate at a range greater than the decloaking-range. Nope, decloaked by the accleration gate. So know I'm surrounded by lots of yellow triangles - and no Megathron. There's another gates, so the BS must be in the next room since he's still on d-scan. I bookmark and warp out to pick up a Noctis.
Warping back I see the gate - oh, right, you can't bookmark inside of a room only the gate. Okay, back in. Now I'm getting nervous. Once I pick up the loot I'll be flagged and I'll have to wait that out. And I wasn't smart enough to make a safe in this system, it's one of the ones around here that i don't already have bookmarks for. And the battleship is no longer on D-scan. Is he coming back? Did he see my Noctis before he left?
Right, line up so I can tractor the large wrecks first. lock'em and ... what? You can't tractor someone else's wrecks! I think I have the wrong tool for the job - maybe a Noctis is too pricey an asset to risk instead of loading a destroyer full of salvagers. A suspect timer will hold me for 15 minutes and I'm already up later than I planned to be, okay, maybe I'll try this again some other time. I head back to base, making a midwarp safe along the way for later.
Lessons Learned
Cloaks are fun - train for them. But not being able to warp cloaked is going to limit me a lot. A Helios can't fight and I can't afford to be running a cloaky Proteus around lowsec looking for danger. Middle ground would be a Force Recon - I'm not sure really what I could beat with a Force Recon, but I'll be really interested to try. Signature Analysis V is now on the training list to meet the prereq. Who knows, they may get a rebalance by the time I get into them.
There's a lot going on out there, if you know where to look. I didn't mention spotting the Black Frog cyno alt above, since that's about all there was to it. Presumably they didn't open a cyno that I saw because the place was wrong or because there were people in system. Then there was that highsec fight. How to look into all that action is an interesting question to think more about.
Lowsec exploring. I think I'll set up an Imicus with non-faction probe gear and slip into low to try the sites. Though with the mass of people doing exploring it may just be something I back-burner for a while.
Think through the plan. If the Noctis was the wrong tool it shouldn't have been out there. Arguably I really should think about whether I'd be better off just getting back to trying L4 missions, which could net me loot I would own and get me standings too. It would be nice to have jump clone standing with someone.
Exploring
I missed the rush to explore after the patch due to busy RL which sounds like I may have missed the loot tables being turned to 11 for a bit. I've been staying in highsec since I wanted to learn how to do the minigame and because I'm not yet sure if my hack skills are up to lowsec. The first time I got in there to try it I ran a half-dozen relic site and maybe brought in 10M in loot. The second time I must have been a few steps behind someone else as every system was stripped down to the wormhole signatures, except for one data site which was empty of hackables, so I must have been right behind someone. But I did find I was enjoying zipping around in my Helios and practicing cloaking.
Cloaky Hunting
So I moved on to something different the next time I logged in. I popped a cloak on a PVP Vexor fit (losing a turret slot, I know) and headed off to lowsec. My general plan was to cloak and hang out around some of these exciting new locations, standing 5km off of the warp-in point, and drop in to surprise someone looking to rat for tags or ninja mine some ice. The lowsec system I had picked was an entry system between a lower-population highsec and a big string of lowsec, and one that looked inactive for PVP. In other words, the place I hoped someone would also consider attractive for ratting - one jump back to highsec and quiet. Considering the limitation of a non-covops cloaker I didn't want to have a susbtantial local resident population to worry about.
The general plan for this fit was to be agile and have a MWD. I know I'm going to have a long delay between decloaking and locking, so the idea is to get close to the target and ram them under MWD while resetting. I'm loaded with blasters, so being on top of him is what I want anyway. I have Hammerheads, Warriors, and EC-300s for fighting cruisers, faster ships, or for GTFO.
Insertion into the system was uneventful and local was empty, so I popped on over to a ice belt and sat for a bit while reading forum threads and looking at market stuff. Then it occurred to me that attacking an ice miner wasn't likely to net me much, so I moved over to an asteroid belt and repeated. I waited. I stopped and killed some rats out of boredom (and sec status) and moved to another belt. Local still zero. Hmm, definitely need to plan ahead to have some indy planning to do or the like.
Aha! Someone comes into system. I look him up. Apparently he's recently been caught ratting in an autocannon Wolf and had some shiny modules dropped. Excellent! I start d-scanning and looking to see if he shows up in any belts around the same planet as me. I'm pretty sure I can take a PVE Wolf fit like the one he lost, though I know I may really regret the loss of that one neutron blaster. I see rats, then I see wrecks, and the Wolf is moving around. Argg, but I realize the rats in my belt are small ones and so may not be worth his time. So I dscan down the belt he's moved to with live rats, align, and come out of cloak to warp and pounce.
I come out of cloak, start locking, got lock, hit the warp disruptor - Invulnerable. Damn! Just missed him - there he goes off to a planet with lots of belts. I pick one and give chase. This is probably going to be a fool's errand since he almost certainly can align faster than I. I cloak up and wait a bit more. I wait - let him get back to ratting, then try one more time. But now he's probably watching d-scan and he's gone from his belt before I even arrive.
A couple Russians show up and I think both the Wolf and I safe up, considering how he disappears. I see some core scanner probes on d-scan and then they're moving on. And my Wolf pilot as well. Ah well, it was fun.
Cloaky Spying Ninja
The next time I log in I decide to try another idea - scanning down mission runners and going after their loot. My plan is not to do a full ninja in front of them (something I'm familiar with, ahem) but to clean up after those who tend to blitz or just are taking a long time. But first I have to find them, so it's time for the Helios again. I find a nearby system with an L4 security agent and away I go.
And there's a battleship - Megathron! Let's take a peek and warp to about 30km away. It's not just a Megathron, it's a Megathron, Loki, Rapier, Talos - oooh, it's a highsec fight. And the targets become little Caldari wrecks pretty much as soon as I see them. The victorious ships start warping off - perhaps they saw my "not trying to be subtle" combat probes and think an enemy is looking for them. If they want to leave those PC wrecks behind I'll be glad to - oh bummer, the Loki is sticking around an salvaging them.
Back to the scanning. There's another Megathron. Warping in I see an acceleration gate. D-scan shows the Mega nearby, so presumably inside the gate. I slowly move up to the gate, trying to remember if it will activate at a range greater than the decloaking-range. Nope, decloaked by the accleration gate. So know I'm surrounded by lots of yellow triangles - and no Megathron. There's another gates, so the BS must be in the next room since he's still on d-scan. I bookmark and warp out to pick up a Noctis.
Warping back I see the gate - oh, right, you can't bookmark inside of a room only the gate. Okay, back in. Now I'm getting nervous. Once I pick up the loot I'll be flagged and I'll have to wait that out. And I wasn't smart enough to make a safe in this system, it's one of the ones around here that i don't already have bookmarks for. And the battleship is no longer on D-scan. Is he coming back? Did he see my Noctis before he left?
Right, line up so I can tractor the large wrecks first. lock'em and ... what? You can't tractor someone else's wrecks! I think I have the wrong tool for the job - maybe a Noctis is too pricey an asset to risk instead of loading a destroyer full of salvagers. A suspect timer will hold me for 15 minutes and I'm already up later than I planned to be, okay, maybe I'll try this again some other time. I head back to base, making a midwarp safe along the way for later.
Lessons Learned
Cloaks are fun - train for them. But not being able to warp cloaked is going to limit me a lot. A Helios can't fight and I can't afford to be running a cloaky Proteus around lowsec looking for danger. Middle ground would be a Force Recon - I'm not sure really what I could beat with a Force Recon, but I'll be really interested to try. Signature Analysis V is now on the training list to meet the prereq. Who knows, they may get a rebalance by the time I get into them.
There's a lot going on out there, if you know where to look. I didn't mention spotting the Black Frog cyno alt above, since that's about all there was to it. Presumably they didn't open a cyno that I saw because the place was wrong or because there were people in system. Then there was that highsec fight. How to look into all that action is an interesting question to think more about.
Lowsec exploring. I think I'll set up an Imicus with non-faction probe gear and slip into low to try the sites. Though with the mass of people doing exploring it may just be something I back-burner for a while.
Think through the plan. If the Noctis was the wrong tool it shouldn't have been out there. Arguably I really should think about whether I'd be better off just getting back to trying L4 missions, which could net me loot I would own and get me standings too. It would be nice to have jump clone standing with someone.
June 5, 2013
Odyssey, night one
I logged in last night and got at least an hour and some trying out the post-Odyssey world. Much of my reaction to Odyssey was formed before I even saw it, thanks to the ample communication from CCP and other fan media sources, but that's different than actually getting out there.
Public Reactions to Odyssey - weren't you paying attention?
Perhaps this is my first step towards bitter-vet-dom, but I found myself annoyed by probably predictable forum posts on the day of Odyssey's release. "What happened to my Hyperion's turrets?" or "I was training for Jump Freighter and now I'm behind." Well, if you'd read the dev-blogs, or any of many of the eve bloggers, or listened to podcasts, or looked at the the Features and Ideas forum? Complaining about it after the patch is a very inefficient way of getting what you want.
But what I suppose this really means is that I'm now one of those Eve player who is at least somewhat tuned into the meta. I get that some people don't want to put that effort in and don't get that enjoyment out. But if you don't, then don't be surprised when things change and you aren't aware of them.
You even have a change to log into SiSi and see things ahead of time, something I didn't do and maybe should. Then I would have know more about...
Scan Overlay, Hacking, and ... Incursions?
So last night I downloaded the update, logged in, and futzed around while I waited for my jump clone timer to count down so I could switch to my exploration clone. The cost of retrieving my low-implant clone from RVB-land for future low sec roaming near my new home base. No biggie, I needed to straighten out some industrial things anyway.
Then to my exploration clone. Hmm, my exploration base of operations is currently under Incursion. I do want to try Incursions sometime, but until I have either T2 Large Hybrids or T2 Logi skills I'm not going to be accepted into any such fleets. Even then I probably can't bling out a battleship to the level that seems to be required unless I win another billion on SOMER.Blink. So now's not the time to start - and from what I understand of Incursions I don't think it will be that much more dangerous to be in a high sec area under incursion. Unlike lowsec, Sansha won't be camping the gates with scram/web ships. I see the various penalties to ship systems, but if exploration runs ok hopefully I won't have need of such considering that they don't spawn rats now.
Except everyone else in this area is apparently doing exploration too of course. I'm seeing plenty of wormhole signatures, but only one combat site and one data site. Data site was cleaned when I got there, combat site had someone through the first acceleration gate by the time I got there. Ah well, those are the breaks of exploration in an area not too far from a market hub, as well as logging in when there are 41k+ players on.
Lessons Learned
I skipped this section last post, but I figure I always should put voice to this. I should learn something each time or there isn't much worth posting about. Sometimes though it isn't so much about a definitive lesson as a question that still needs an answer.
Basing Decision. I need to make a firm choice on where I'm basing out of. My current location is too near high traffic to be great for exploration. I need to research a location to move a bit more out to. With Iteron Vs now easier to get into skill wise, I should be able to move a pretty substantial amount of stuff easily enough. A spare CovOps, fittings, drones, ammo. Fly the IttyV out, duck back, fly out the CovOps I have rigged up now, duck back, fly out the BC I've been using for combat sites (particularly since T3s are now banned from high 3/10 and 4/10 combat sites - just in time for me to get the skills together to fly one). Preferably somewhere with plenty of lowsec connections in case I want to try out lowsec exploring.
Dual-PLEX my alt? With the new ability to train my alt the temptation to have her skill on her industry is there. But I'm also getting burnt out on the industry click-click-click. It's something that is easy to do while the kids watch TV before bedtime, where an interruption will not leave me with a blown up ship (probably). But then there is the chasing around materials, etc. Bleh. So I'm thinking no dual training now. I need a more coherent plan of what I really want to do with her. The standard answer out there seems to be station-trading, which fortunately she already has the skills for as an adjunct to industry.
Public Reactions to Odyssey - weren't you paying attention?
Perhaps this is my first step towards bitter-vet-dom, but I found myself annoyed by probably predictable forum posts on the day of Odyssey's release. "What happened to my Hyperion's turrets?" or "I was training for Jump Freighter and now I'm behind." Well, if you'd read the dev-blogs, or any of many of the eve bloggers, or listened to podcasts, or looked at the the Features and Ideas forum? Complaining about it after the patch is a very inefficient way of getting what you want.
But what I suppose this really means is that I'm now one of those Eve player who is at least somewhat tuned into the meta. I get that some people don't want to put that effort in and don't get that enjoyment out. But if you don't, then don't be surprised when things change and you aren't aware of them.
You even have a change to log into SiSi and see things ahead of time, something I didn't do and maybe should. Then I would have know more about...
Scan Overlay, Hacking, and ... Incursions?
So last night I downloaded the update, logged in, and futzed around while I waited for my jump clone timer to count down so I could switch to my exploration clone. The cost of retrieving my low-implant clone from RVB-land for future low sec roaming near my new home base. No biggie, I needed to straighten out some industrial things anyway.
Then to my exploration clone. Hmm, my exploration base of operations is currently under Incursion. I do want to try Incursions sometime, but until I have either T2 Large Hybrids or T2 Logi skills I'm not going to be accepted into any such fleets. Even then I probably can't bling out a battleship to the level that seems to be required unless I win another billion on SOMER.Blink. So now's not the time to start - and from what I understand of Incursions I don't think it will be that much more dangerous to be in a high sec area under incursion. Unlike lowsec, Sansha won't be camping the gates with scram/web ships. I see the various penalties to ship systems, but if exploration runs ok hopefully I won't have need of such considering that they don't spawn rats now.
Except everyone else in this area is apparently doing exploration too of course. I'm seeing plenty of wormhole signatures, but only one combat site and one data site. Data site was cleaned when I got there, combat site had someone through the first acceleration gate by the time I got there. Ah well, those are the breaks of exploration in an area not too far from a market hub, as well as logging in when there are 41k+ players on.
Lessons Learned
I skipped this section last post, but I figure I always should put voice to this. I should learn something each time or there isn't much worth posting about. Sometimes though it isn't so much about a definitive lesson as a question that still needs an answer.
Basing Decision. I need to make a firm choice on where I'm basing out of. My current location is too near high traffic to be great for exploration. I need to research a location to move a bit more out to. With Iteron Vs now easier to get into skill wise, I should be able to move a pretty substantial amount of stuff easily enough. A spare CovOps, fittings, drones, ammo. Fly the IttyV out, duck back, fly out the CovOps I have rigged up now, duck back, fly out the BC I've been using for combat sites (particularly since T3s are now banned from high 3/10 and 4/10 combat sites - just in time for me to get the skills together to fly one). Preferably somewhere with plenty of lowsec connections in case I want to try out lowsec exploring.
Dual-PLEX my alt? With the new ability to train my alt the temptation to have her skill on her industry is there. But I'm also getting burnt out on the industry click-click-click. It's something that is easy to do while the kids watch TV before bedtime, where an interruption will not leave me with a blown up ship (probably). But then there is the chasing around materials, etc. Bleh. So I'm thinking no dual training now. I need a more coherent plan of what I really want to do with her. The standard answer out there seems to be station-trading, which fortunately she already has the skills for as an adjunct to industry.
June 4, 2013
Ready for an Odyssey
One of those posts sitting in draft for a long time, but I figured I'd better get it out since Odyssey is now here. I've moved back out of RVB and am looking forward to some playing around with the new mechanisms. But first...
RVB vs. Brave Newbies
The war between RVB and Brave Newbies was a interesting step up in intensity from the usual Red v Blue. Podding was certainly in the offering, though I neither was podded nor podded anyone else. The scale in terms of number of ships was higher than the usual Red Standing Fleet takes on Blue Standing Fleet, and the size of the ships notched up. Generally when I was around we were overmatched by BNI and we played raiding style attacks. That particularly seemed good for our higher-skill pilots who reveled in diving in solo or in small groups to attack BNI formations. I think I got a bit carried away with that myself when I drove my Tristan in to attack a Thrasher who appeared to be trying to get away. Yeah, that didn't work so well. My usual Thorax did do well, even if I did manage two lose two of them in rapid succession when we were contending with a large BNI defense fleet.
I had gotten used to active tanks for PVE and buffer tanks on the small ships I'd been using for PVP, particularly shield fit ships like Thrashers and Cormorants. But with the RVB/BNI war there was a call out for bigger ships to get in fleet so I threw together a Brutix. It feels so wrong to put together a Brutix that is going to ignore its active tank bonus. Unfortunately the fleet I joined up with didn't end up seeing action before I had to logoff. It would have been my first fleet action with serious Logi support - I had offered to buy and fit up a Exequror to use my newly trained remote armor repair skills, but the FC was only looking for T2 logi.
Out of RVB
In anticipation of doing a lot of exploration with Odyssey I've dropped out of RVB. I've spent a bit more time with my industrial alt recently, in part due to IRL demands and in part because I wanted to get somethings done. In particular I've rolled off a pair of new battleships for Jakob before the mineral needs jump with the new release. I'm not sure if I'll end up using those for missions (or how fast I'll get bored of that) or just resell them at a profit. I am tempted to grind up some standings at least to be able to make my own jump clones instead of switching back and forth to Estel Arador.
Exploration, ho?
I'm sure there is going to be a swarm of people trying out exploring. I'll probably need to find some new exploration grounds. Alternatively, this sounds like it might be a nice time to join the mob that will be sweeping lowsec looking for tag and combat. I'd rather not let my security standing drop below -2.0 (and thus banned from 1.0 sec systems) so I think some ratting is going to be in there somewhere. The recent fun with RVB/BNI and RVB Ganked has brought my sec status down a bit more - though to be honest it has been a long time since I had a positive sec status. Neither a full pirate nor a full law-abiding high-seccer - I think I like that range.
RVB vs. Brave Newbies
The war between RVB and Brave Newbies was a interesting step up in intensity from the usual Red v Blue. Podding was certainly in the offering, though I neither was podded nor podded anyone else. The scale in terms of number of ships was higher than the usual Red Standing Fleet takes on Blue Standing Fleet, and the size of the ships notched up. Generally when I was around we were overmatched by BNI and we played raiding style attacks. That particularly seemed good for our higher-skill pilots who reveled in diving in solo or in small groups to attack BNI formations. I think I got a bit carried away with that myself when I drove my Tristan in to attack a Thrasher who appeared to be trying to get away. Yeah, that didn't work so well. My usual Thorax did do well, even if I did manage two lose two of them in rapid succession when we were contending with a large BNI defense fleet.
I had gotten used to active tanks for PVE and buffer tanks on the small ships I'd been using for PVP, particularly shield fit ships like Thrashers and Cormorants. But with the RVB/BNI war there was a call out for bigger ships to get in fleet so I threw together a Brutix. It feels so wrong to put together a Brutix that is going to ignore its active tank bonus. Unfortunately the fleet I joined up with didn't end up seeing action before I had to logoff. It would have been my first fleet action with serious Logi support - I had offered to buy and fit up a Exequror to use my newly trained remote armor repair skills, but the FC was only looking for T2 logi.
Out of RVB
In anticipation of doing a lot of exploration with Odyssey I've dropped out of RVB. I've spent a bit more time with my industrial alt recently, in part due to IRL demands and in part because I wanted to get somethings done. In particular I've rolled off a pair of new battleships for Jakob before the mineral needs jump with the new release. I'm not sure if I'll end up using those for missions (or how fast I'll get bored of that) or just resell them at a profit. I am tempted to grind up some standings at least to be able to make my own jump clones instead of switching back and forth to Estel Arador.
Exploration, ho?
I'm sure there is going to be a swarm of people trying out exploring. I'll probably need to find some new exploration grounds. Alternatively, this sounds like it might be a nice time to join the mob that will be sweeping lowsec looking for tag and combat. I'd rather not let my security standing drop below -2.0 (and thus banned from 1.0 sec systems) so I think some ratting is going to be in there somewhere. The recent fun with RVB/BNI and RVB Ganked has brought my sec status down a bit more - though to be honest it has been a long time since I had a positive sec status. Neither a full pirate nor a full law-abiding high-seccer - I think I like that range.
May 16, 2013
Fun with an Algos
So I bought a pair of Algos as part of stockings things for RVB and finally got around to fitting it and flying it last night. Unfortunately that matched with low activity around RVB, perhaps because of the coming war. However, I did get some killin' in.
The Algos
So I checked out BattleClinic and Failheap and then ended up making a fit that wasn't from either one. I'd say this was an example of how a night of fights isn't a good test of l33t fitting skills. It's a shield-fit, 75mm railgun Algos, which gives me room to put on a MWD and a neut. Drones were Hobx3, Hamx2 - I debated packing some ECM but decided not too - this is RVB. (Actually I don't think I've actually used ECM drones yet)
The plan was to use the MWD to get onto targets I want and keep out of engagements with targets I don't want. If RedFed had gotten a fleet together I should be able to kill things that other people have pointed. The flaw - since this is scram fit then if I have a target scrammed then they can scram me, which means the MWD goes off. So once I do decide on the fight I'm probably committed until the bitter end.
I just recreated that in Osmium and with perfect skills (i.e. not me) this has 271 dps from drones and 115 dps from the railguns, but is just shy of 10k ehp. Moves at over 1600 mps. Yes, ganky. With my skills, knock probably 5% off those numbers.
And Yes - I'll take any and all suggestions on how I should fit the other Algos.
The Fights
Since nobody was about I headed towards local lowsec. Nothing seemed to be going on there either. Just as I was thinking about either turning in or suicide-roaming into nullsec one of the guys on corp channel said a Hurricane had aggressed him on the HQ undock. Now there is no way that my Algos here is going to solo a Hurricane, but if there are several of us... I rushed back towards Otela.
I warped to a safe near the HQ and took a D-scan peek in. No Hurricane. Bummer. But I did see some frigates (Merlin, Merlin, Kestrel) - maybe one or more of those are BlueRepublic and thus targets. I warp in to 20km off station so if they're right on top of the station I'll get a chance to make a decision.
By the time I land, seconds later, I see that the three frigates are RedFed but that they're being engaged by a Stabber. I start moving in and locking as I see one of the frigates disappear, so I figure it's gone down to the Stabber. My drones pile in on him, followed by my ship's scram, neut, rails. The Stabber goes down. Turns out he's MWD/Disruptor fit, so getting scram-tackled was probably going to be the end for him. Nice, glad to have a kill, okay I'll go to bed - I dock up.
But the pilot there is a long time RVBer and actually only recently jumped from RedFed to BlueRepublic, so I'm guessing he's just working through his stock of T1-fit ships still in the RedFed HQ. On chat I hear he's back out again, so I undock.
Now he's in a Rupture, so we give chase again. This time I get on top of him with drone, rail, scram, neut and he replies by turning his medium neut on me. My cap starts to disappear fast and if I try to use the MWD to stay within scram on him it's only going to go faster. But my rails and drones are chewing through shield fast so I don't want to let go. He's into armor as my cap bottoms out. I have to hope that someone else in our rag-tag group (we're not even fleeted) has a point on him, so I try to fire my guns whenever I get enough cap and keep relatively close to him. The arty Rupture goes down. GFs in local again. Really great of Dan to keep coming out when outnumbered to see what he can take down and give GFs to his ex-corpmates.
Lessons
MWD plus Scram ever? I'm still undecided on this because it means that once I'm scrammed there is no getting away. Now in an Algos (which isn't that fast to begin with) it's not that I'm getting away when AB-fit either, really, so I think it's okay. Getting away isn't something I've generally been that successful for. Plus, if I'm working in a fleet then it's going to be more about getting in there and doing my ganky thing.
In my opponent's head. In the last fight I'm not sure why Dan neuted me but had turned his artillery on the faster, smaller frigates. Maybe one of them had low transversal and he hoped to pop them fast with a volley or two. And since the Algos is a drone boat neuting me didn't actually lower my dps on him by that much. Or maybe he was like me most times where things become a blur.
Neuts target selection. I'm new to using neut, though I've had a nos as an afterthought on some frigs in the past. Is neuting a Stabber or Rupture really a good use of my own cap, given that they are using cap-less weapon systems? I don't know those ships well enough to know if a bit of cap pressure is enough to start impacting Invulns and MWDs.
As a funny aside. As pointless as killboards can be it is still a bit frustrating that I got top damage by a lot on both of those kills, but not final blow. Perhaps payback for when I was lucky enough to get final blow on the Cynabal on the last roam even though I did a very small portion of the damage.
The Algos
So I checked out BattleClinic and Failheap and then ended up making a fit that wasn't from either one. I'd say this was an example of how a night of fights isn't a good test of l33t fitting skills. It's a shield-fit, 75mm railgun Algos, which gives me room to put on a MWD and a neut. Drones were Hobx3, Hamx2 - I debated packing some ECM but decided not too - this is RVB. (Actually I don't think I've actually used ECM drones yet)
The plan was to use the MWD to get onto targets I want and keep out of engagements with targets I don't want. If RedFed had gotten a fleet together I should be able to kill things that other people have pointed. The flaw - since this is scram fit then if I have a target scrammed then they can scram me, which means the MWD goes off. So once I do decide on the fight I'm probably committed until the bitter end.
I just recreated that in Osmium and with perfect skills (i.e. not me) this has 271 dps from drones and 115 dps from the railguns, but is just shy of 10k ehp. Moves at over 1600 mps. Yes, ganky. With my skills, knock probably 5% off those numbers.
And Yes - I'll take any and all suggestions on how I should fit the other Algos.
The Fights
Since nobody was about I headed towards local lowsec. Nothing seemed to be going on there either. Just as I was thinking about either turning in or suicide-roaming into nullsec one of the guys on corp channel said a Hurricane had aggressed him on the HQ undock. Now there is no way that my Algos here is going to solo a Hurricane, but if there are several of us... I rushed back towards Otela.
I warped to a safe near the HQ and took a D-scan peek in. No Hurricane. Bummer. But I did see some frigates (Merlin, Merlin, Kestrel) - maybe one or more of those are BlueRepublic and thus targets. I warp in to 20km off station so if they're right on top of the station I'll get a chance to make a decision.
By the time I land, seconds later, I see that the three frigates are RedFed but that they're being engaged by a Stabber. I start moving in and locking as I see one of the frigates disappear, so I figure it's gone down to the Stabber. My drones pile in on him, followed by my ship's scram, neut, rails. The Stabber goes down. Turns out he's MWD/Disruptor fit, so getting scram-tackled was probably going to be the end for him. Nice, glad to have a kill, okay I'll go to bed - I dock up.
But the pilot there is a long time RVBer and actually only recently jumped from RedFed to BlueRepublic, so I'm guessing he's just working through his stock of T1-fit ships still in the RedFed HQ. On chat I hear he's back out again, so I undock.
Now he's in a Rupture, so we give chase again. This time I get on top of him with drone, rail, scram, neut and he replies by turning his medium neut on me. My cap starts to disappear fast and if I try to use the MWD to stay within scram on him it's only going to go faster. But my rails and drones are chewing through shield fast so I don't want to let go. He's into armor as my cap bottoms out. I have to hope that someone else in our rag-tag group (we're not even fleeted) has a point on him, so I try to fire my guns whenever I get enough cap and keep relatively close to him. The arty Rupture goes down. GFs in local again. Really great of Dan to keep coming out when outnumbered to see what he can take down and give GFs to his ex-corpmates.
Lessons
MWD plus Scram ever? I'm still undecided on this because it means that once I'm scrammed there is no getting away. Now in an Algos (which isn't that fast to begin with) it's not that I'm getting away when AB-fit either, really, so I think it's okay. Getting away isn't something I've generally been that successful for. Plus, if I'm working in a fleet then it's going to be more about getting in there and doing my ganky thing.
In my opponent's head. In the last fight I'm not sure why Dan neuted me but had turned his artillery on the faster, smaller frigates. Maybe one of them had low transversal and he hoped to pop them fast with a volley or two. And since the Algos is a drone boat neuting me didn't actually lower my dps on him by that much. Or maybe he was like me most times where things become a blur.
Neuts target selection. I'm new to using neut, though I've had a nos as an afterthought on some frigs in the past. Is neuting a Stabber or Rupture really a good use of my own cap, given that they are using cap-less weapon systems? I don't know those ships well enough to know if a bit of cap pressure is enough to start impacting Invulns and MWDs.
As a funny aside. As pointless as killboards can be it is still a bit frustrating that I got top damage by a lot on both of those kills, but not final blow. Perhaps payback for when I was lucky enough to get final blow on the Cynabal on the last roam even though I did a very small portion of the damage.
May 9, 2013
Eve PVP Videos
Eve PVP Videos are an odd thing. If you aren't a pretty knowledgeable EVE PVPer then most people's FRAPsed fights won't make much sense at all. There are standouts like kil2's videos and some of the Rooks and Kings ones. I thought I'd link some with pros and cons. And yes, maybe it is unfair to compare a quick self-FRAPs to the polish of the Rooks and Kings.
This is the blog post that got me started on the idea so I'll start it here. I'm sure it was an exciting fight for them. There's even a Titan involved. The usual kind of music track is put into the background as you see ships targeted and then exploded. I'm not really sure what I should be able to get out of this. I see this as a "hey, look what I did" in which case great, thumbs up for you buddy, glad you're having fun.
Opening screen, beautiful video shots - hey, Eve is damn pretty. Talks through the uses of Logi in the midst of showing us the fight, including explanation of things like logi cap chains. The overdub voice helps keep us in touch with that's going on without constantly rambling. I particularly like the use of their actual comms. I could only hope to aspire to the calm calling we see hear on the Rooks and Kings videos. On this particular video I recommend jumping to 04:44 as things go rather wrong.
I would probably links Rooks and Kings videos one after another but here are some more must-see ones:
* Anatomy of a Fight
* Clarion Call 3: The Black Fortress - "one does not simply walk into a wormhole"
Sadly, it looks like the big production value types haven't really been continuing from Rooks and Kings. Their blog hasn't been updated since March 2012. I know they're still out there - I've seen them and run from them once.
So Kil2 (now CCP Rise) is a must-follow for those of us who want to get into the solo, small gang types. It's unfortunate that we won't see more videos from him since he's working for CCP now. What always amazed me is that he got those fights despite the fact that so many people (should have) known his name.
The great thing is how he explains what he's doing as he does it. That includes what mistakes he's made. I've definitely learned from his videos. Tricks that other PVPers may have learned from corpmates or the like I learned from these. Tricks that I've found other people haven't learned, to my advantage.
So, what EVE videos do you think are worth watching?
Anabaric's Shadow Cartel vs. Pandemic Legion
(link to his blog entry)This is the blog post that got me started on the idea so I'll start it here. I'm sure it was an exciting fight for them. There's even a Titan involved. The usual kind of music track is put into the background as you see ships targeted and then exploded. I'm not really sure what I should be able to get out of this. I see this as a "hey, look what I did" in which case great, thumbs up for you buddy, glad you're having fun.
Rooks and Kings - Iron Clad
(link to the You Tube)Opening screen, beautiful video shots - hey, Eve is damn pretty. Talks through the uses of Logi in the midst of showing us the fight, including explanation of things like logi cap chains. The overdub voice helps keep us in touch with that's going on without constantly rambling. I particularly like the use of their actual comms. I could only hope to aspire to the calm calling we see hear on the Rooks and Kings videos. On this particular video I recommend jumping to 04:44 as things go rather wrong.
I would probably links Rooks and Kings videos one after another but here are some more must-see ones:
* Anatomy of a Fight
* Clarion Call 3: The Black Fortress - "one does not simply walk into a wormhole"
Sadly, it looks like the big production value types haven't really been continuing from Rooks and Kings. Their blog hasn't been updated since March 2012. I know they're still out there - I've seen them and run from them once.
Kil2
(Any of his Solo Commentary videos are worth watching)So Kil2 (now CCP Rise) is a must-follow for those of us who want to get into the solo, small gang types. It's unfortunate that we won't see more videos from him since he's working for CCP now. What always amazed me is that he got those fights despite the fact that so many people (should have) known his name.
The great thing is how he explains what he's doing as he does it. That includes what mistakes he's made. I've definitely learned from his videos. Tricks that other PVPers may have learned from corpmates or the like I learned from these. Tricks that I've found other people haven't learned, to my advantage.
So, what EVE videos do you think are worth watching?
May 7, 2013
RVB and Small Fleet Action
It was a fun weekend with RVB Ganked. Hunting down CPP Devs. Shooting at everyone who is around a certain Nyx. Flying superslowmo through TiDi to get to said Nyx. At the end of the day breaking the PCU record and getting a Gnosis (which I had an alt redeem). Perhaps a good time to take a moment to look back on things. I'm going to start with the lows and work towards the highs here.
I find myself not wanting to bother to fit up and fly the frigates for which I do not have racial frigate 5. I feel like I'm behind enough trying to figure out what to do with projectile weapons, for instance, without being worried about that 5% difference between my Minmatar Frigate 4 and his Minmatar Frigate 5. I'm still casting about for decent Rifter and Slasher fits.
On the plus side, generally (not always) the other guy will share you his fit and talk to you about what all happened. That's something I'm not expecting to get as much of with random roam fights. And of course it's easy to reship and try it again. Best two out of three?
Learning more nuances about small fleet action (or FC'ing them) is something that I might not be able to learn without being in a tighter-run group though. Generally we get the order to engage, target is called, everyone does their thing. No ewar, No Logi, no fancy manuevers, no dedicated tackler roles or the like. It may also be that you don't see that until you get out into nullsec fleets.
I've also run into a couple times where Blue Republic has either station camped us in, camped the gate, or "accidentally" brought BCs into an already underway arranged frigs/dessies fight. Yeah, there's one particular Blue FC behind those incidents and it sounds like he has an established reputation for that. Now for those in more serious low/null corporate warfare I'm sure that learning to deal with (or ignore) such overwhelming force is just part of Eve. Recently when that was happening our Red fleet decided to head off and roam instead, which ended up with me getting a final blow on a PL Cynabal that aggressed us on a gate.
Bonus: since I started writing this there was an announcement of Agony Unleashed classes for RVB members. Sadly it is also blocked by multiple RL commitments, but it is another bit about why RVB is pretty awesome.
RVB = Instant Explosions, mostly mine?
Indeed the frigate 1v1s are easy to come by and a great way to lose a lot of frigates fast. I'm not sure if I'm learning as much from them other than "damn, that guy is a lot better than me". Something less obvious is the rock/paper/scissors aspect of frigate 1v1s that any experienced pilots have internalized.I find myself not wanting to bother to fit up and fly the frigates for which I do not have racial frigate 5. I feel like I'm behind enough trying to figure out what to do with projectile weapons, for instance, without being worried about that 5% difference between my Minmatar Frigate 4 and his Minmatar Frigate 5. I'm still casting about for decent Rifter and Slasher fits.
On the plus side, generally (not always) the other guy will share you his fit and talk to you about what all happened. That's something I'm not expecting to get as much of with random roam fights. And of course it's easy to reship and try it again. Best two out of three?
RVB Standing Fleets
RVB generally has a standing fleet you can join up with. There is apparently a channel for Blue and Red FCs to chat to set up an arranged fight. They try to match up numbers and ship class then meet up for big explosions. People who have never FC'd are encouraged to take over these fleets, which mostly appears to mean getting used to target calling and when to tell the fleet to bail. I should really try that - I want to learn about that and RVB is a very forgiving place to do that. I've also been FC'd by first time FCs who were very calm and did a great job, so it's not all Leroying.Learning more nuances about small fleet action (or FC'ing them) is something that I might not be able to learn without being in a tighter-run group though. Generally we get the order to engage, target is called, everyone does their thing. No ewar, No Logi, no fancy manuevers, no dedicated tackler roles or the like. It may also be that you don't see that until you get out into nullsec fleets.
I've also run into a couple times where Blue Republic has either station camped us in, camped the gate, or "accidentally" brought BCs into an already underway arranged frigs/dessies fight. Yeah, there's one particular Blue FC behind those incidents and it sounds like he has an established reputation for that. Now for those in more serious low/null corporate warfare I'm sure that learning to deal with (or ignore) such overwhelming force is just part of Eve. Recently when that was happening our Red fleet decided to head off and roam instead, which ended up with me getting a final blow on a PL Cynabal that aggressed us on a gate.
RVB Ganked
This is pretty much the top of the list in terms of the most fun I've had in RVB. Big mob of ships looking for a fight and sometimes getting slaughtered, sometimes wiping things out. Fleet doctrine - yeah, sure, if it counts that we're (almost) all in Ventures! I'm sorry to see that the next two Ganked nights aren't going to work out due to RL commitments.Bonus: since I started writing this there was an announcement of Agony Unleashed classes for RVB members. Sadly it is also blocked by multiple RL commitments, but it is another bit about why RVB is pretty awesome.
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