Precocious Pod-Dweller Planetary Puzzle Day -1

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As mentioned, I am giving Mabrick’s proposition a shot.  From the latest post, there a few things I am unsure of, namely, if his 500m isk/month claim was based in HS or WH space.  But, here are the conditions of my experiment: Skills:   Command Center Upgrades 4  Interplanetary Consolidation 4  Planetology 2  Remote Sensing 3 Production Final Product: Robotics Planets: 2 Barren R0 > P1 2 Lava R0 > P1 1 Barren Production Planet P1 > P3 All planets are in one High Sec system with standard Customs Office rates. A few other notes.  I am not taking up the challenge as presented mainly because I don’t want to move the alt, and it has about 30m skill points.  Those are almost entirely in mining, production, and recently combat. Here are the Planetary Management skills, IC 4 will be done soon: Here are the planets, pending the production planet due to IC 4: Here is the pattern used for all of the R0 > P1 planets: You’ll notice that the extractors are much further from storage than Mabrick indicates.  This is because HS planets have crap for resource distribution, so the R0 > P1 chain is located central to Continue Reading →

Mo’ Planets, Mo’ Problems

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As mentioned previously, I am rather space-broke at the moment.  To me this means less that a few hundred million isk in my account, above what is earmarked for purchases.  So I’ve started two endeavors: The first is a relaunch of the 30 Day Market Challenge.  I messed up the start already, after seeding 20 mil, I noticed I had about 70 mil in modules from the last go-around.  Stupid numbers making accounting hard.   I’m aiming to clear 10% margins each day, at least up to the billion isk range.  We’ll see how it goes.  Preliminary actions in Jita seem to indicate margins have gotten tighter on just about everything since the same time last year.  As long as the isk flows, I’ll be happy.  Not sure about daily updates, it may be more of a when I feel like it thing. The second project is based on a post over at Mabrick’s.  He seems convinced that HS planets can rake in 100m isk a week.  I’m starting with 5 planets, and a lower level of command center upgrades, but I’ll be posting my results over the next few days.  You can all judge based on that.  We’ll call Continue Reading →

30 Day Market Challenge Wrap Up

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This is meant to be a moderate guide for anyone looking to try and make some money station trading in Eve.  I will not go into arbitrage, which is buying in one region and hauling to another, nor is this about industry.  The main focus is making money in stations.  Station trading is the act of placing buy orders above the competition, then selling the goods from those buy orders as sell orders.  The profit is the margin between your (high) buy price and your subsequent (low) sell price. Time Required I am a graduate student.  This means I have the luxury of being able to carry a laptop with me all day and periodically (every few hours) log in and check my orders on the market.  At minimum you want to check your orders in the morning, once or twice during the day, and in the evening.  I personally like to check my orders one last time before bed, as that lets you get below or above other US TZ players that may have already turned in for the day.  This obviously changes based on your TZ.  The more you can update, the more successful you will be.  Updating Continue Reading →

Time, time, time…

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Unrelated to Eve: After almost a year off, I’m testing the waters in Eve again.  Crazy how fast that year went, and everything that’s happened in my life.  Marriage, moving twice, family illness, and a hefty Minecraft addiction all put Eve in the backseat.  Proof I suppose that everything has a season. Can’t stop the signal?  We’ll see… I’m going to start writing again, but with a few caveats:  I’ll probably talk about more than just Eve on this blog.  Due to that, I may have to revamp the format to make it multi-game appropriate.  If anyone who is *still* linking to me cares about that, make your adjustments accordingly :). Back to Eve:Just before I unsubbed, I had been working on a 30-Day market challenge.  I actually wrote the guide, but never formatted or posted it.  Expect to see that soon, as well as a new version.  I am starting up my market trading again, as the isk I made last year disappeared into PLEXes and I know find myself space poor once again, and looking to set up a sizable stable of ships for a new FW endeavor. To those who have stumbled here over the last few Continue Reading →

CCP Bullcrap

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I have been blitzing L3 missions, trying to repair Caldari faction standing, and came across this: I’ve mentioned it before, but CCP really has some fun ways of making people want to not play their game.  In case it’s not obvious, I declined an anti-Gallente mission, as my goal is to get back to 0.0 for all factions, not tank one to raise the other.  And the response, after waiting out the decline timer, is to offer me the anti-Minmatar version.  With a taunt, no less. Great way to get me hitting the log-off button.

Faction Warfare: Questions

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For a variety of reasons, I have been considering jumping into Faction Warfare.  However, I have a few problems: Aside from the popular bloggers’ affiliations, I know relatively little about FW.  I sense that Amarr and Gallente and in the crapper, based on the control maps.  But is this indicative of the level of players involved?  Part of me wants to join the little guys and get some fights.  But part of me is afraid that there is nothing going on in those militias.  Anyone care to share thoughts on this? I am terribad at PvP.  Mostly from lack of, well, doing it.  I’ve been a functional carebear for my career in Eve.  I put an alt in RvB for a while, which although fun, quickly devolved into Red Blob v Blue Blob, until one side got so outnumbered they had to leave the field for the night.  My few attempts to go solo roaming in low sec have brought me nothing in the way of combat.  So, any recommendations for gaining PvP skill, or lacking that, practice?  Good roaming routes? Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to answer!

HMLs, HAMs, and The Crazy Physics of Eve

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There is a fun little debate over heavy missiles spawned CCP Fozzie talking about reducing range and damage of HMs.  Read the comments of that blog post for fun. At the crux of the argument seems to be the underlying strengths of various battlecruisers, the weapons they fit, and range.  In the interest of full disclosure, I fly Drakes and Tengus a lot, and usually they sport HMLs, either T2 or Faction flavors.  And I think the hatred of those two ships using missiles comes not so much from the damage projection as from the rather outlandish interplay of slot layout, cap usage, and the location of armor and shield tanking modules. I’m a relentless fit experimenter.  I love trying to come up with crazy tanks while still putting out enough DPS to complete L4 missions in something resembling a sane amount of time.  A common thematic problem I run into is the fact that a shield tanked ship, on average, can almost always get a better tank and a better gank because of the slot layout when designing to PvE activities as compared to an armor tank.  Some ships buck this trend when you factor in drone bonuses, but Continue Reading →

Back in the Saddle

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This last week or so is the first time I’ve had to dedicate some solid time to Eve since early May!  Life got busy. I was living with my now, but not at the time, parents-in-law.  You can infer from the previous that I am now a married man.  I moved across the country twice.  I am also ramping up into a master’s project for my program, so a bit of time was poured into that!  I also developed a small Minecraft/Tekkit addiction that the wife’s father could at least understand, so it seemed more acceptable as leisure with the computer in a public space.  That said, and back to Eve: A lot has changed. On the individual front, 4 months of afk training has given me the ability to sit in a new T3, all the T2 hulls skills below battleships, T2 projectiles and hybrids, and a lot more skills overall.  I’m about a month from being able to fly every sub BS ship in the game, and fit them almost appropriately.  That’s after… about 31 million SP.  It’s rather interesting to log in, look at my skills, and see not a long list of what needs to be Continue Reading →

Summer Time! -or- Why I’m Not Writing Much

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Hello!  Not dead over here, just resting.  I figured now would be as a good a time as any to let people know that my slowdown in blogging is due to a few factors, and will likely continue for the next few months.  A lot happened over the last two weeks, and few things are coming, namely: I got a full time internship that pays real money, and lasts all summer! I had to (got the chance) move to DC for the internship! Sightseeing! I’m getting married in two months! It’s summer. So yeah, Eve is a bit back seat for the short term, and if Eve is back seat, the blog comes after I get to play :).  Anyhow, thanks to those who are coming by to read!  I’ll still be posting, and still playing, but I’m focused on some other things for the time being.

Inferno First Impressions

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The Good The new missile launchers are very pretty.  Staggering launchers is now really fun! The Wardec screen is much more legible. All the new screen revamps look pretty. Most of the new SB models look nice. Once you get used to it, looting no longer has the slight movement every time you get to a new wreck. The Bad Right clicking on a corp in the wardec screen only gives “Declare Mutual” and no option to “Show Info”.  That’s frustrating. It is now much harder to see into two “containers” at once, such as your ship’s hold and a loot can.  Grr.  Shift clicking is an extra step.  I didn’t try it, heard it works, we’ll see.  It’s still an extra step… The new Tree structure on the Inventory eats screen real estate.  This is challenging when you open, say, Inventory, Market and Wallet screens to manage market orders. The Inventory takes longer to load.  Not good. The “ghosting” effect of text in the new inventory.  It’s harder to read.  The Ugly The missile launchers on my Tengu.  I would really like to see either larger wings with an over/under turret placement, or place them in a nice line Continue Reading →