Hi all,
From now on I will post my non-EVE Online related stories on my Thumblr blog: http://noxiouspluk.tumblr.com/ .
Come visit me!
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Friday, May 23, 2014
Lootlog toolbox updated
Hi all,
A while ago I created a small and easy tool to get the current (Jita sell) value of some items and split them between multiple people (it was posted on Reddit back then).
This was mainly created as a temporary tool for our own wormhole corporation (easily calculating sleeper loot shares after a site) but has always been open source and publicly available.
Today I'd like to announce an update to the lootlog tool with the following changelog:
FIX: Numbers with thousands separators no longer mess up the amount
FIX: Lots of changes that improve performance
FIX: Lots of coding style fixes
ADD: 24 hour caching for prices to make the whole thing faster and offload the eve-marketdata API
ADD: Debug mode with timings that can be enabled by adding ?debug=true to the URL
This update is not fully compatible with the previous one since it adds an extra table to the database (see the .sql file in the git repository).
A code change history can be found here:
https://github.com/doogej/lootlog/compare/ec135f94150c738ac093ea5a5df7abc3a5d08d90...25fbaa81e51c75748d186d641ed1dee8dcf19373
The full repository can be found here:
https://github.com/DoogeJ/lootlog
A live example can be found here:
http://lootlog.thedevilproject.com/
Keep in mind that if you are doing a new installation, you'll need the eve_inv_types table from CCP's data export.
If there are any feature requests, feel free to contact me here or open an issue on github.
Thanks!
A while ago I created a small and easy tool to get the current (Jita sell) value of some items and split them between multiple people (it was posted on Reddit back then).
This was mainly created as a temporary tool for our own wormhole corporation (easily calculating sleeper loot shares after a site) but has always been open source and publicly available.
Today I'd like to announce an update to the lootlog tool with the following changelog:
FIX: Numbers with thousands separators no longer mess up the amount
FIX: Lots of changes that improve performance
FIX: Lots of coding style fixes
ADD: 24 hour caching for prices to make the whole thing faster and offload the eve-marketdata API
ADD: Debug mode with timings that can be enabled by adding ?debug=true to the URL
This update is not fully compatible with the previous one since it adds an extra table to the database (see the .sql file in the git repository).
A code change history can be found here:
https://github.com/doogej/lootlog/compare/ec135f94150c738ac093ea5a5df7abc3a5d08d90...25fbaa81e51c75748d186d641ed1dee8dcf19373
The full repository can be found here:
https://github.com/DoogeJ/lootlog
A live example can be found here:
http://lootlog.thedevilproject.com/
Keep in mind that if you are doing a new installation, you'll need the eve_inv_types table from CCP's data export.
If there are any feature requests, feel free to contact me here or open an issue on github.
Thanks!
Friday, April 25, 2014
Probing guidelines
I decided to write a blog on probing guidelines.
Keep in mind that this is not a guide to probing in itself (there is a very good tutorial for this in the game) but more of a hints and tips section that allows you to probe more successful.
Of course probing skills are still the most important thing to get up if you want quicker results and there are some helpful implants. This blog is focused on wormholes.
The signatures always point to one of the following: Wormholes, Gas sites (formerly named ladar), Relic sites (formerly named radar), Data sites (formerly named magnetometric) or regular combat sites. In EVE there is a mechanic called probing which allows you to pinpoint those signatures and bookmark them.
Simply put, probing uses a technique called multilateration (a more advanced form of triangulation, techniques used in the real world to get an estimated location without using GPS) by using multiple probes in a 3D area that each check the distance to a certain signatures. The more results from probes in different directions around the signature, the more accurate the location. You might want to check the next chapter on prerequirements first if you are not already flying a probing ship or have the appropriate skills, below is an explanation of how probing works and a basic tutorial.
Higher probing skills will highly improve your performance. Other skills that are suggested are Astrometric Acquisition, Pinpointing and Rangefinding.
The signature strength has a direct relation with the signal strength that you see in the probing window, for example wormhole type E175 (destination C4) has a default strength of 5, this means that it will never show up with the strongest strength unless there are no other sites with strength 10.
Taking into account the signature strength allows you more easily to find a wormhole. I usually probe the strongest ones first because that's an easy way to check for incoming holes.
Keep in mind that this is not a guide to probing in itself (there is a very good tutorial for this in the game) but more of a hints and tips section that allows you to probe more successful.
Of course probing skills are still the most important thing to get up if you want quicker results and there are some helpful implants. This blog is focused on wormholes.
Introduction to probing
Cosmic signatures are certain indications in EVE solar systems that there are locations in the system that you need to probe down.The signatures always point to one of the following: Wormholes, Gas sites (formerly named ladar), Relic sites (formerly named radar), Data sites (formerly named magnetometric) or regular combat sites. In EVE there is a mechanic called probing which allows you to pinpoint those signatures and bookmark them.
Simply put, probing uses a technique called multilateration (a more advanced form of triangulation, techniques used in the real world to get an estimated location without using GPS) by using multiple probes in a 3D area that each check the distance to a certain signatures. The more results from probes in different directions around the signature, the more accurate the location. You might want to check the next chapter on prerequirements first if you are not already flying a probing ship or have the appropriate skills, below is an explanation of how probing works and a basic tutorial.
 |
| A real-life example of triangulation. |
By default EVE already gives you a global idea of where each signature is located. This is a sphere in the star map that shows in what area the signature may be. If you launch your probes, drag them (from the edge of the scan area) to the maximum possible size and analyze the signatures, you will notice that the spheres within the probe range change into dots to give a more accurate representation of their location.
Sometimes they will change into a circle, this means that there is not enough data from the probes to correctly calculate the location (for example, the signature intersects with only two probes) so it must be somewhere along the line of the circle. Re-position your probes around the object or scan a bigger area to find the location. Sometimes you also get two dots for a signature, this means that because of lack of information the signature can be in two locations. Check the most far-away dot first, usually that one is closest by the actual location.
After getting the red dots for locations you can move into locations with more precision. Since we focus on wormholes, you usually want to find those first. Sort the scanner window by signal strength and focus on the signature with the best signal for now. Later I will explain more about signature strength and the useful information behind it.
As soon as you select the signature in the scanner window you'll notice that the others disappear from the map for now. Move your mouse around and re-position the center of your probes to match the signature location as close as possible. Now lower your scan range to half (or less if you have good probing skills / bonuses). After you have done this, hit analyze again.
If you did everything right and did not go overboard on making the scan range smaller you should now see the same signature with a better strength. Keep repeating these steps till you are at 100% strength. At 25% strength you can see the signature type, so if you are looking for a wormhole and this is something else, you can simply ignore it. You'll notice that at 100% strength, a warp-to button appears in the signal column. As soon as it is 100% you can also decide to bookmark the location by simply right-clicking it and saving it to the bookmarks. Keep in mind that this bookmark is on average 10 km away from the signature so not very useful wormholes since you want to warp at zero.
Congratulations, you know how to probe now!
If this still is not clear I suggest trying the exploration tutorial.
Prerequirements to probing
To probe in EVE you will need at least the Astrometrics skill at level 1.Higher probing skills will highly improve your performance. Other skills that are suggested are Astrometric Acquisition, Pinpointing and Rangefinding.
Next to that you will need a probe launcher. The simplest version is the Core Probe Launcher I, the suggested launcher is the Sisters Core Probe Launcher or the Core Probe Launcher II if you can fit it. You'll notice that there are also Expanded Core Probe Launchers. These are being used to fit combat probes which can be used to pinpoint ships in space in the same way as normal signatures. Highly useful for PVP or finding back your accidentally bumped carrier.
Expanded launchers and normal launchers have the same bonuses to probing so if you can fit it, I would suggest using an expanded launcher so you don't have to reload as often (they can hold a lot more normal probes). For scanning signatures, try to use normal probes instead of combat ones since they have a better resolution. Combat scanner probes can probe a larger area at once (64AU, where normal probes can only scan 32AU) which might be useful to check all signatures at once if you live in a big wormhole system.
Then you will need probes. There are the normal Core Scanner Probe I probes but I suggest using at least Sisters Core Scanner Probes. They aren't that expensive and give a nice boost to probing stats. If you are getting the hang of probing and have some ISK to spend, try to get a pair of RSS scanner probes. They have some nice bonuses but also a few downsides (very expensive, can only stay in space for a short time).
Then you do want a ship hull. Every race in EVE has ships that have bonuses to probing, and there are also a few alternative ships that have probing bonuses. The tech 2 racial ships have the bonus of being able to fit a Covert Ops Cloaking Device II which is highly useful for scouting wormholes.
Some good alternatives that got probing bonuses are the Astero (frigate, cloaky), Stratios (cruiser, cloaky) and Gnosis (battlecruiser, not cloaky) but they are expensive.
When fitting your ship, there are a few useful modules and rigs:
Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rig: Improves scan probe strength, allows you to more easily pinpoint signatures without reducing the scan range
Scan Rangefinding Array midslot module: Same effect as the rig
Scan Pinpointing Array midslot module: Reduces scan deviation to give more precise information about locations, allowing you to skip more steps in scan range (32AU -> 8AU -> 2AU or even faster)
Scan Acquisition Array midslot module: Makes probes scan faster. The most useless one of them all although with maxed out skills and RSS probes it can make you super fast
Scan Rangefinding Array midslot module: Same effect as the rig
Scan Pinpointing Array midslot module: Reduces scan deviation to give more precise information about locations, allowing you to skip more steps in scan range (32AU -> 8AU -> 2AU or even faster)
Scan Acquisition Array midslot module: Makes probes scan faster. The most useless one of them all although with maxed out skills and RSS probes it can make you super fast
Hints and tips
Wormholes have a signature strength that can vary per wormhole type. Incoming wormholes always have strength 10 (just like most gas sites) but outgoing ones can be different per system. An easy way to check this is to look up http://wormhol.es/Jsomething or other sites like this and click the wormhole name (for example, E175).The signature strength has a direct relation with the signal strength that you see in the probing window, for example wormhole type E175 (destination C4) has a default strength of 5, this means that it will never show up with the strongest strength unless there are no other sites with strength 10.
Taking into account the signature strength allows you more easily to find a wormhole. I usually probe the strongest ones first because that's an easy way to check for incoming holes.
All signatures have ID's in wormholes. At downtime, all signatures get ID's that look alike (for example, XEY-, VEY-, HFY-, etc...).
If there is a signature ID that looks different (for example BCM-) then you know that this signature spawned after downtime. Thus it is more likely to be an incoming connection.
If there is a signature ID that looks different (for example BCM-) then you know that this signature spawned after downtime. Thus it is more likely to be an incoming connection.
All wormholes have an unique color scheme based on where they come from and where they lead to. Use this chart to quickly determine the source/destination:
 |
| All wormholes have an unique color scheme |
Incoming wormholes (K162) have no information on their destination except the description. It can name highsec/lowsec/nullsec but also have one of these:
- Lead into unknown parts of space C1-C3
- Lead into dangerous unknown parts of space: C4-C5
- Lead into deadly unknown parts of space: C6
Once a wormhole tells you that it is on the verge of collapse we call it EOL (end of life) and it has less then 4 hours remaining.
Wormholes have a maximum mass per jump, as a rule of thumb:
- C1: (battle)cruiser size max, with microwarpdrives turned off
- C2/C3/C4: battleships / orca max
- C5/C6: capitals fit, supercaps don't
- C4: 2.000.000 kg
- C5/C6: 3.000.000 kg
- Not yet disrupted: 50%+
- Reduced: 10-50%
- Critical: <10%
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Ewarball points per frigate based on bonuses, drone bay, slots and speed
Hi there!
A little while ago I talked about Ewarball, a minigame to play in EVE when bored or when you want to train your electronic warfare skills.
So far I've heard of multiple corporations/alliances (especially those located in wormholes) that they did setup an arena and played some rounds.
The biggest issue I have ran into so far is how some frigates have nice bonuses, for example towards ECM modules or a big drone bay (ECM drones are surprisingly effective against frigates).
For example, take a look at the Griffin that has a really nice bonus towards ECM modules or the Maulus, that has a bonus towards sensor damping and a very big drone bay for a frigate.
Now the yearly alliance tournament hosted by CCP has issues who are similar and for that reason, ships get points assigned and each team can use a maximum amount of these points.
The first thing to do was to gather all the important information of a ship.
So far I have figured that this includes base speed, drone bandwidth, low/mid/high modules and a bonus penalty if there are bonuses on the ship.
I've ran the numbers and came up with a spreadsheet including all frigates, rookie ships, faction frigates and the Venture. The formula I have used so far is ( ( base speed / 100 ) + ( drone bandwidth / 5 ) + highslots + midslots + lowslots ) * multiplier.
Now balancing this is far from easy, but if we look at teams that have 100 points to spend, you could do something like this:
- Griffin (27.83)
- Maulus (27.18)
- Cruor (23.54)
- 2x Ibis (10.62)
This leaves us with 0,21 remaining points, enough ships for a 5 man crew and a very strong ewar front.
On the other hand, you could also do a fleet with a bunch of Vigils (6 people + 7th in a rookie ship) that have no specific bonuses but a high base speed. Or even 'cheaper' ships and have 10 or more of them in a fleet.
It is far from perfect and I think it needs more work, but it makes it easier to limit the amount of ridiculously bonussed ships on the field. Trying to go against a fleet of 8 Griffins makes the fun stop soon.
Other ideas you can include, just like at the official alliance tournament is allowing each team to ban one or two ships from being used in that game.
A little while ago I talked about Ewarball, a minigame to play in EVE when bored or when you want to train your electronic warfare skills.
So far I've heard of multiple corporations/alliances (especially those located in wormholes) that they did setup an arena and played some rounds.
The biggest issue I have ran into so far is how some frigates have nice bonuses, for example towards ECM modules or a big drone bay (ECM drones are surprisingly effective against frigates).
For example, take a look at the Griffin that has a really nice bonus towards ECM modules or the Maulus, that has a bonus towards sensor damping and a very big drone bay for a frigate.
Now the yearly alliance tournament hosted by CCP has issues who are similar and for that reason, ships get points assigned and each team can use a maximum amount of these points.
The first thing to do was to gather all the important information of a ship.
So far I have figured that this includes base speed, drone bandwidth, low/mid/high modules and a bonus penalty if there are bonuses on the ship.
I've ran the numbers and came up with a spreadsheet including all frigates, rookie ships, faction frigates and the Venture. The formula I have used so far is ( ( base speed / 100 ) + ( drone bandwidth / 5 ) + highslots + midslots + lowslots ) * multiplier.
Now balancing this is far from easy, but if we look at teams that have 100 points to spend, you could do something like this:
- Griffin (27.83)
- Maulus (27.18)
- Cruor (23.54)
- 2x Ibis (10.62)
This leaves us with 0,21 remaining points, enough ships for a 5 man crew and a very strong ewar front.
On the other hand, you could also do a fleet with a bunch of Vigils (6 people + 7th in a rookie ship) that have no specific bonuses but a high base speed. Or even 'cheaper' ships and have 10 or more of them in a fleet.
It is far from perfect and I think it needs more work, but it makes it easier to limit the amount of ridiculously bonussed ships on the field. Trying to go against a fleet of 8 Griffins makes the fun stop soon.
Other ideas you can include, just like at the official alliance tournament is allowing each team to ban one or two ships from being used in that game.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Mentoring in EVE Online
Let's start by saying that EVE can be a complex game.
I started playing in 2006 (or even a little before that with another trial account) and while the game was a lot harder to play back in the day (tutorials? what are those?) the core concepts did not get any easier over time.
A lot was polished and more helpful messages were added but also a lot of new mechanics were added that make things even more complex. This is not a bad thing, EVE is a sandbox game after all and all these options give you more possibilities to be creative. I've once heard a CCP developer say that the idea of EVE was comparable to card games like MTG (Magic: The Gathering) or maybe even modeled after it. This might be even more on-topic by knowing that the first thing CCP made was not EVE but actually a card game.
So what is the reason EVE is so complex?
As said before, there are numerous mechanics in play on all parts EVE. Look at any single aspect in the game and almost always there is a lot of detail behind it.
Take the market, at first a very easy concept to understand but why are some traders more effective then others? There are time zones into play, the market is heavily influenced by in-game events (caused by other players and often not easy to predict), changes in patches, skills trained, standings with the corporation that hosts the market you use, locations, trade hubs, shipping routes, connections to manufacturers, other traders, alliances, etc... And all of these are almost equally complex on their own.
Some mechanics are often not fully used or expanded to their fullest extend by CCP themselves (for example the corporation shares system could easily be expanded upon to make them tradeable) and guarantee lots of possibilities for future expansions but even these are every now and then used by players in a creative way.
Are the tutorials alone not good enough to introduce players and get them going?
Yes and no. The tutorials have greatly improved over the years and I tell everyone that joins EVE to do all of them before they even start thinking about a way to go and find a corporation to join but still, they only scratch the surface of what is possible and only highlight the features that are at play most. To stick with the sandbox idea, imagine a parent showing their kids how to use a bucket to make a 'sand castle' while there are still numerous other options available.
This well-known image that pokes fun at EVE's learning curves compared to other MMO's is somewhat true. The first start is okay (tutorials) but then the freedom takes over and you'll have to create your own content to stay entertained.
So, what is and what is not mentoring?
Many think of mentoring as if it is a teacher-student setting. Personally, I think it's not.
For me, mentoring is much more about building a friendship. In fact, most mentoring happens without even knowing it. How often do you answer a random person a question about something in EVE? Even if it is a corporation member, someone random in local or somewhere on the internet - you are helping someone out.
A teacher is steering his students and giving them a direction to go, in some cases even limiting their choices. Teaching is not about giving someone freedom to do what they want and supporting them but mentoring is. If someone is asking me about mining in EVE, I will give them honest answers. I can still give them the advice that I would not prefer it as a primary income but I'm not limiting their choices.
There are corporations that claim to be mentors in EVE (for example EVE University / E-UNI, which are still doing a super good job) but in my eyes they are more of a teacher. They often have strict rules to obey to and there is no absolute freedom to do what you like. If you leave the corp you also leave the help you were getting behind in a lot of cases (unless they have members that still want to be your mentor, in the right way, but that is much more an individual task).
Why find a mentor?
EVE is complex and it is really hard for a single person to know all about it. For example, I know not much about lasers (never bothered to really skill into Amarr ships even tho I can fly them all) so when I need information, for example to make a fitting for a corporation member that is Amarr-skilled, I will try to find someone who knows his stuff on this topic. Off course there are guides, but separately from that there is a lot more to EVE. Personal experience is hard to capture in a wiki or information sheet and it will teach you a lot about how to use certain mechanics to your advantage. In this sense, even I need a mentor (on some topics) every now and then. Also things like discussing ship fittings can still be super interesting for more experienced EVE players. As I said before, you are not always aware of being a mentor.
Why be a mentor?
Why should you spend hours of time talking to complete strangers while you could also make very nice income with the knowledge you have, and keep it to yourself? Off course you need to like sharing your knowledge and I do not suggest sharing your business secrets to everyone you walk into but being a mentor can be very rewarding. Often you will end up with having a nice friendship in the end, and someone that is friendly with you is often also more interested in doing stuff together with you, sometimes not even in EVE only (I ended up with lots of 'real-life' friends that I initially met in EVE). Also being a mentor is very good for your own knowledge. You will often start thinking about things you thought to be very simple once you dig into them deeper. I must admit that in a lot of cases I do not know the answer directly, but I can use my knowledge of information sources and how to interpret them to give a sufficient answer and also learn from it myself.
And last but not least, and a bit a cliche is that it is also good for your skills outside of EVE. I learned how to explain stuff to people in a way that makes it understandable to almost everyone, which is a pretty good skill to have for a software developer.
Where to find a mentor?
There are a lot of experienced EVE players out there that are willing to give you all kinds of help. There are also specialized sections on the EVE forum, chat channels (rookie and help chat) and special areas on for example Reddit (http://reddit.com/r/evenewbies). Really hopeless? Feel free to contact me in-game or on Reddit!
Where to find someone to help out?
You don't have to search if you know where to look for. How often do you see someone ask in a chat channel about something? Be in a trade hub for 5 minutes and you will encounter this. Give them an answer and maybe start a conversation. You see someone new to EVE? Make a nice chat and welcome them to the game. Let them know that you are there to answer questions if they have them. The help channels are also a good place for this. Often when I make a new character I'm annoyed by the rookie chat channel popping up for the first X days, but on the other hand, I often find myself answering peoples questions for hours and hours and making friends.
Last but not least, a chat channel!
If you want to talk more about EVE Mentoring (or just find a mentor / someone to mentor), feel free to join the chat channel 'EVE Mentoring'. You can do this by clicking the chat-balloon icon in the chat toolbar.
I hope this post inspired some people to dig deeper into the sandbox that is EVE and find the answers they are looking for, and also inspired experienced players to be helpful to new players. Off course every new player is a "noob" but that is why you are there!
I started playing in 2006 (or even a little before that with another trial account) and while the game was a lot harder to play back in the day (tutorials? what are those?) the core concepts did not get any easier over time.
A lot was polished and more helpful messages were added but also a lot of new mechanics were added that make things even more complex. This is not a bad thing, EVE is a sandbox game after all and all these options give you more possibilities to be creative. I've once heard a CCP developer say that the idea of EVE was comparable to card games like MTG (Magic: The Gathering) or maybe even modeled after it. This might be even more on-topic by knowing that the first thing CCP made was not EVE but actually a card game.
So what is the reason EVE is so complex?
As said before, there are numerous mechanics in play on all parts EVE. Look at any single aspect in the game and almost always there is a lot of detail behind it.
Take the market, at first a very easy concept to understand but why are some traders more effective then others? There are time zones into play, the market is heavily influenced by in-game events (caused by other players and often not easy to predict), changes in patches, skills trained, standings with the corporation that hosts the market you use, locations, trade hubs, shipping routes, connections to manufacturers, other traders, alliances, etc... And all of these are almost equally complex on their own.
Some mechanics are often not fully used or expanded to their fullest extend by CCP themselves (for example the corporation shares system could easily be expanded upon to make them tradeable) and guarantee lots of possibilities for future expansions but even these are every now and then used by players in a creative way.
Are the tutorials alone not good enough to introduce players and get them going?
Yes and no. The tutorials have greatly improved over the years and I tell everyone that joins EVE to do all of them before they even start thinking about a way to go and find a corporation to join but still, they only scratch the surface of what is possible and only highlight the features that are at play most. To stick with the sandbox idea, imagine a parent showing their kids how to use a bucket to make a 'sand castle' while there are still numerous other options available.
This well-known image that pokes fun at EVE's learning curves compared to other MMO's is somewhat true. The first start is okay (tutorials) but then the freedom takes over and you'll have to create your own content to stay entertained.
So, what is and what is not mentoring?
Many think of mentoring as if it is a teacher-student setting. Personally, I think it's not.
For me, mentoring is much more about building a friendship. In fact, most mentoring happens without even knowing it. How often do you answer a random person a question about something in EVE? Even if it is a corporation member, someone random in local or somewhere on the internet - you are helping someone out.
A teacher is steering his students and giving them a direction to go, in some cases even limiting their choices. Teaching is not about giving someone freedom to do what they want and supporting them but mentoring is. If someone is asking me about mining in EVE, I will give them honest answers. I can still give them the advice that I would not prefer it as a primary income but I'm not limiting their choices.
There are corporations that claim to be mentors in EVE (for example EVE University / E-UNI, which are still doing a super good job) but in my eyes they are more of a teacher. They often have strict rules to obey to and there is no absolute freedom to do what you like. If you leave the corp you also leave the help you were getting behind in a lot of cases (unless they have members that still want to be your mentor, in the right way, but that is much more an individual task).
Why find a mentor?
EVE is complex and it is really hard for a single person to know all about it. For example, I know not much about lasers (never bothered to really skill into Amarr ships even tho I can fly them all) so when I need information, for example to make a fitting for a corporation member that is Amarr-skilled, I will try to find someone who knows his stuff on this topic. Off course there are guides, but separately from that there is a lot more to EVE. Personal experience is hard to capture in a wiki or information sheet and it will teach you a lot about how to use certain mechanics to your advantage. In this sense, even I need a mentor (on some topics) every now and then. Also things like discussing ship fittings can still be super interesting for more experienced EVE players. As I said before, you are not always aware of being a mentor.
Why be a mentor?
Why should you spend hours of time talking to complete strangers while you could also make very nice income with the knowledge you have, and keep it to yourself? Off course you need to like sharing your knowledge and I do not suggest sharing your business secrets to everyone you walk into but being a mentor can be very rewarding. Often you will end up with having a nice friendship in the end, and someone that is friendly with you is often also more interested in doing stuff together with you, sometimes not even in EVE only (I ended up with lots of 'real-life' friends that I initially met in EVE). Also being a mentor is very good for your own knowledge. You will often start thinking about things you thought to be very simple once you dig into them deeper. I must admit that in a lot of cases I do not know the answer directly, but I can use my knowledge of information sources and how to interpret them to give a sufficient answer and also learn from it myself.
And last but not least, and a bit a cliche is that it is also good for your skills outside of EVE. I learned how to explain stuff to people in a way that makes it understandable to almost everyone, which is a pretty good skill to have for a software developer.
Where to find a mentor?
There are a lot of experienced EVE players out there that are willing to give you all kinds of help. There are also specialized sections on the EVE forum, chat channels (rookie and help chat) and special areas on for example Reddit (http://reddit.com/r/evenewbies). Really hopeless? Feel free to contact me in-game or on Reddit!
Where to find someone to help out?
You don't have to search if you know where to look for. How often do you see someone ask in a chat channel about something? Be in a trade hub for 5 minutes and you will encounter this. Give them an answer and maybe start a conversation. You see someone new to EVE? Make a nice chat and welcome them to the game. Let them know that you are there to answer questions if they have them. The help channels are also a good place for this. Often when I make a new character I'm annoyed by the rookie chat channel popping up for the first X days, but on the other hand, I often find myself answering peoples questions for hours and hours and making friends.
Last but not least, a chat channel!
If you want to talk more about EVE Mentoring (or just find a mentor / someone to mentor), feel free to join the chat channel 'EVE Mentoring'. You can do this by clicking the chat-balloon icon in the chat toolbar.
I hope this post inspired some people to dig deeper into the sandbox that is EVE and find the answers they are looking for, and also inspired experienced players to be helpful to new players. Off course every new player is a "noob" but that is why you are there!
Friday, January 17, 2014
Ewarball, an EVE Online minigame
As a wormhole dweller, some days are a bit dull.
One day there is plenty of stuff to do, other days you sit around or go out to PVP as an alternative.
Now our biggest problem was that some of our members for sure needed some PVP training and besides of that, get familiar with all the kinds of electronic warfare that EVE has to offer.
To get this going, our director and me thought out a little game that would be a lot of fun during moments of downtime and also teach us a lot about electronic warfare. We called it ewarball.
For ewarball you will need to setup a 200x300x200 arena with at least 8 cans, a bookmark on each sides start position and a bookmark in the center:
The next thing you will need is a bunch of T1 frigates (you can off course also take another class of ships but I find frigates the most interesting since everyone can fly them and they are fast enough to keep the game going).
Now for those frigates we have the following fitting rules:
- Anything that can do damage in any way is not allowed
- Only ewar drones are allowed
- Tank is not required
- Every team should have at least one ship with a tractor beam
This limits both teams to only use electronic warfare to counter each other. Think about modules like scramblers, disruptors, webifiers, neutralizers, nosferatu's, sensor dampers, ECM modules (Griffin!), etc...
Offcourse you can allways decide to host a session where for example no ECM is allowed to make stuff more interesting. Also each team should think about their resistance to the other teams attack. Think about ECCM, remote ECCM, cap boosters, spider-'tanking' remote ECCM, sensor boosters, etc...
Each team starts at one of the start locations and in the center of the arena, a can (the 'ball') is jettisoned that contains one item that is to big for a frigates cargo bay (for example a POS mod, guns are cheap and big).
At the start of a round each team races to get within tractor beam range of the can and has to drag it to its own base (side of the arena). At each teams start location, someone should be present to count the score for the team. As soon as the can is within 5km of this person, they score a point, both teams return to their base, the can is replaced and the round starts over. Off course the trick here of the team that is tractoring the can is to keep the other team away and the other teams task is to disable the active tractor beam to capture the can for themselves, for example by using ECM, sensor dampers, neuts, etc...
If you want, you can allow people to refit in between rounds (or every X rounds) to better counter the enemy team.
For border violations we have been thinking about having a few falcons on standby that will ECM the shit out of anyone leaving the arena, rendering them useless.
While being a fun game, this will also teach your members a shitload about ewar and ship hull bonusses in general, thus making them more usefull in battle! Off course it is easy to think out hundreds of variations of this game and other uses of the arena.
Please let me know if you have any ideas about variations on this game!
One day there is plenty of stuff to do, other days you sit around or go out to PVP as an alternative.
Now our biggest problem was that some of our members for sure needed some PVP training and besides of that, get familiar with all the kinds of electronic warfare that EVE has to offer.
To get this going, our director and me thought out a little game that would be a lot of fun during moments of downtime and also teach us a lot about electronic warfare. We called it ewarball.
For ewarball you will need to setup a 200x300x200 arena with at least 8 cans, a bookmark on each sides start position and a bookmark in the center:
Ewarball PVP arena setup
The next thing you will need is a bunch of T1 frigates (you can off course also take another class of ships but I find frigates the most interesting since everyone can fly them and they are fast enough to keep the game going).
Now for those frigates we have the following fitting rules:
- Anything that can do damage in any way is not allowed
- Only ewar drones are allowed
- Tank is not required
- Every team should have at least one ship with a tractor beam
This limits both teams to only use electronic warfare to counter each other. Think about modules like scramblers, disruptors, webifiers, neutralizers, nosferatu's, sensor dampers, ECM modules (Griffin!), etc...
Offcourse you can allways decide to host a session where for example no ECM is allowed to make stuff more interesting. Also each team should think about their resistance to the other teams attack. Think about ECCM, remote ECCM, cap boosters, spider-'tanking' remote ECCM, sensor boosters, etc...
Each team starts at one of the start locations and in the center of the arena, a can (the 'ball') is jettisoned that contains one item that is to big for a frigates cargo bay (for example a POS mod, guns are cheap and big).
At the start of a round each team races to get within tractor beam range of the can and has to drag it to its own base (side of the arena). At each teams start location, someone should be present to count the score for the team. As soon as the can is within 5km of this person, they score a point, both teams return to their base, the can is replaced and the round starts over. Off course the trick here of the team that is tractoring the can is to keep the other team away and the other teams task is to disable the active tractor beam to capture the can for themselves, for example by using ECM, sensor dampers, neuts, etc...
If you want, you can allow people to refit in between rounds (or every X rounds) to better counter the enemy team.
For border violations we have been thinking about having a few falcons on standby that will ECM the shit out of anyone leaving the arena, rendering them useless.
While being a fun game, this will also teach your members a shitload about ewar and ship hull bonusses in general, thus making them more usefull in battle! Off course it is easy to think out hundreds of variations of this game and other uses of the arena.
Please let me know if you have any ideas about variations on this game!
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Thievery and Torpedo's - A story about a stolen freighter and a destroyed carrier
The story below is one that I originally posted first a half year ago at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gametales/comments/1efw5v/eve_online_thievery_and_torpedos_a_story_about_a/
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This story happened at the end of January 2012.
We were a medium sized corporation living in 'wormhole space'.
Wormhole space is something special in EVE. Where normal solar systems are connected by stargates; wormhole space is not. It is (obviously) connected by wormholes.
Wormholes spawn at a random location, lead to a random destination and have a maximum lifetime of 16 or 24 (most common) hours. Next to that, they are limited by the size of the ship that can travel trough them and limited by the total amount of mass that can travel trough them. At the end of their timer or when the maximum mass is reached, a wormhole will collapse.
Now wormhole space solar systems have next to the random spawning wormholes also one or more 'static wormholes'. Static wormholes allways lead to the same class destination, not the same system. And just like other wormholes, they will spawn in random locations.
Wormhole space classes in general scale from C1 to C6 in size, where a C6 has the most dangerous and deadly PvE content in the game and a C1 can be lived in by fairly new players.
We lived in a C5 wormhole, with a C5 static. This means that our static wormhole would allways lead to another C5 if we wanted a way in or out. Getting ships, fuel, ammo and other resources in and materials, harvested minerals and gasses and other stuff out was a time consuming and tendentious task. We would need someone to probe down our static wormhole (and possible other random holes that connected from our space into others, or incoming wormholes), open it, check if the other side was safe for traveling trough and continue probing there if it was, until we had a route to 'normal space' and we could fly in and out our stuff.
Recently I checked my old mails on one of my EVE Online accounts from that time, and found nummerous shopping lists for stuff that certain players needed. We would often mail everyone about stuff we needed or store it in a central place (forum, etc) so others could take note of that and bring it in when we were sleeping and they found a viable route.
So, one day; we had a wormhole to nullsec space. Now in 'normal space' in EVE, there are 'security levels' in each solar system (in wormholes it's allways -1.0, the lowest you can have).
The security level of a system tells you how much NPC police (CONCORD and regional navy) involvement there is. There is 'highsec' space (0.5 - 1.0), 'lowsec' space (0.1-0.4) and 'nullsec' space (-1.0 - 0.0).
After wormhole space, nullsec space is one of the most dangerous areas of the game, and it's where the big alliances roam around, fight over system control and protect their precious resources. To get an idea, all colored space on this map is nullsec and owned by various alliances. The rest is either nullsec owned by NPC's, lowsec or highsec space.
Now this nullsec space we connected to was owned by SOLAR WING. A quite big Russian alliance, part of a bigger Russian coalition holding - at that time - a massive part of nullsec space (they recently lost all or almost all of their space). Thanks to them being almost completely Russian, time was on our side (in Russia it would have been something around 5:02 in the night, depending on location - I believe Russia has multiple timezones) and there was only one other player in the system.
We scouted the system and found an online control tower (a player build structure that acts as a base - example image of another tower here). Inside this tower were 3 things that catched our interest. A Russian player that, according to his profile, had the appropiate roles to configure the control tower, but seemed fairly new. A Nidhoggur, wich is a carrier class ship of the Minmatar race and a Charon, wich is a freighter of the Caldari race.
We decided to play around with him a bit. The control tower seemed to have no defences at all so we decloaked a stealth bomber and flew at high speed into the forcefield, trying to reach one of the big ships in a hope to bump them a bit out.
Offcourse this did not work for a number of reasons. The stealth bomber was much to small, the ships were far inside the forcefield and we bumped off at high speed and returned.
The player inside the forcefield on the other hand got scared. He must have had the idea that we had the rights to enter his forcefield, because he changed the control tower settings to not allow any members inside at all.
This had a couple of results. He was bumped out, and once he realized his mistake he instantly logged off. But also the Charon and the Nidhoggur were bumped out. They flew off at a very high speed, without a player controlling them in it.
After some discussion we decided to probe down the Charon and steal it. I was the only capable Charon pilot back then, and one of my other corp members was our specialist in probing. He found the ship while it was still moving at over 3000 m/s; unable to catch up fast enough to get into it.
He kept flying behind it until it came to an almost stop. I warped to him, entered the Charon, warped to our wormhole entrance, jumped in and stored it in our starbase. First 900m ISK (the price of freighers back then, now they are around 1.4b) in the pocket.
Next we had the Nidhoggur. What to do with it? We had no pilot able to fly the thing (one of our members was one week off) and leaving it here someone could find and board it or the Russians could come and recover it. We decided to destroy it and take the loot that it would drop.
With a bunch of random ships we destroyed the Nidhoggur and stole the loot wich had a total value of around 250m ISK, giving us a total of over 1.1b.
On our trip back to our wormhole, it became unstable because of all the mass that traveled trough. We decided to jump our biggest battleship back in as the latest ship, and the wormhole collapsed behind him. No trails left behind.
Now this was nice, but more imporant, it was our first carrier kill; and when looking at the killmail, you could not tell if there was someone in it or not. It gave us bragging rights for months towards the rest of the alliance / corporation.
A year later we happened to join a rivaling Russian alliance, and this carrier kill with a bunch of random not-really-suitable ships was impressive enough to help us inside, especially because it was their bigest enemy.
We never heard about this incident again, but I can only imagine that the fairly new member living in that tower was scared for losing his position. By logging off and warning noone, he might have saved himself and noone might have found out what happened - until someone reads this and remembers missing his carrier.
As allways in EVE, little actions can have quite big consequences - and this time in our favor.
Fly safe o7
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