Blog Banter Special Edition: New Eden is just awesome

CrazyKinux asks a very good question:

Whether you’ve logged into the game every day since its launch in 2003, or you’ve taken one or several sabbaticals from your capsuleer career, you’ve always come back to New Eden don’t you. Why is that?

We know the EVE Online Community is unique in so many ways, and that EVE Online is like no other MMORPG out there. But what makes the game special for you?

What is it that makes this particular virtual world so enticing, so mysterious and so alluring that we keep coming back for more. Why is EVE one of the very few MMOs to see a continuous growth in its subscriber.

To put it simply: Why do you love EVE Online so much?

I don’t have one single, simple answer. So I thought I’d try something new, because New Eden is just awesome.


I love the wormholes
I love our avatars
I love the scammers
I love the epic arcs

I love our spaceships
And all the ways we fly

Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da

I love Syndicate
I love cloaky ships
I love Metropolis
I love those sensor scripts

I love the forums
And all our flaming threads

Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da

I love space opera
I love post-cyberpunk
I love PVP
I love to salvage junk

I love New Eden
It’s such an awesome place

Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da
Boom dee ah da


Blog Banter 14: Enabling the future

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves, “What Now?” What will I attempt next? What haven’t I done so far in EVE? Was it out of fear, funds, or knowledge? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

I’ve had a rough idea of how I would like 2010 to go (EVE-wise) for a while, at least in some senses though not necessarily others. So let’s take a look…

(more…)

EVE photo winner

I got some happy news last night: EON Magazine selected my submission as a winner for their Dominion screenshot competition! I’ll get a free copy of the magazine and a bit of ISK. Not a huge amount but I’ll never turn down actually free ISK (scammers need not apply). This shot shows an Intaki Bank station in Syndicate.

In related news, I have an EVE Online photo set at Flickr now. I’ve made a first stab at incorporating that set in a sidebar box here at my blog, but I want to iterate on that design and find a better way to include more and better EVE-related images.

Intro to booster production

Overview

Everything starts with biochemical gas clouds. Mykoserocin clouds get used for the weakest (and only legal) variety, synth boosters, while cytoserocin clouds get used for standard, strong, and improved boosters. These clouds reside in ladar sites, particularly in null sec but also in some limited high/low sec regions. Harvesting this gas requires you to train one level of Gas Harvesting for each harvesting module you want to equip. Note that specialized mining ships like barges and exhumers cannot use these modules. Generally, you should use a tanked cruiser or battlecruiser for this activity. Mining bonuses don’t generally apply, though those from mining command links (e.g. on the Orca and Rorqual) do.

The Syndicate produces a faction version that has lower fitting requirements but does not mine any faster. It only requires 26 tf of CPU (reduced from 60 tf for the stock tech I version or 70 tf for the tech II). The Gas Cloud Harvester II, however, pulls 20 m³ every 40 seconds instead of 10 m³ every 30 seconds, giving 50% better yield. It also requires 5 MW of powergrid (instead of 2 MW) and the rank 1 skill Gas Gloud Harvesting trained to V (instead of I). No other factions have specialized gas harvesters available.

The Syndicate harvester arose out of a joint research project undertaken by dozens of Station owners across the region. The residents and industrialists of Syndicate appreciated, more than most, the latent potential of the underground booster industry. Although their modified harvesters offered no improvements in yield, they were easier for newer pilots to fit. Their investment in more accessible harvesting technology paid off, when eventually the empires quietly backpedalled and legalized the production and sale of Synth boosters.

Note that some ladar sites actually contain facilities and NPCs rather than gas clouds. These sites provide the blueprints, reactions, and sometimes skillbooks needed for the production post.

Once you’ve acquired gas, you’ll need a reaction and a blueprint to actually produce the booster. Using a biochemical silo and reactor array, you react the gas with water (or other materials, depending on the quality of booster to produce) to produce a pure version of the booster. Producing the final booster requires cutting the pure booster with megacyte in a drug lab at a low-security starbase.

While customs officials will not like standard boosters or better in high-security space, the market administrators don’t mind. So you can either sell the boosters at a market hub (assuming you can smuggle it successfully there) or via alternate methods, including direct trades or in low-security space.

References

• EVE Evolved: Combat boosters – description of each booster’s effect
• Combat booster manufacturing – excellent overview from EVE Wiki (eve-wiki.net)
• Boosters Part 2: The Secrets of the Drug Cartels – older overview by Kirith Kodachi
• Getting high on your own supply – dev blog detailing changes in Apocrypha
• Meanwhile, back in the exploration bunker – slightly older dev blog about synth boosters
• Booster production – support page explanation

Image credit nick_russill

Space nomads

In New Eden, many pilots live in a defined area for substantial periods of time. This might mean a particular solar system, or a constellation, or some other zone. They work the same agents, mine the same belts, prowl for ratters, defend their sovereignty, or work the same trade routes.

Nomads don’t fly thay way. We move from place to place over time, always looking for what’s on the other side of the stargate. We don’t consider ourselves to belong to a particular nation or to own some volume of space. Instead, we go where we want, when we want, to do what we want. We travel and tinker and trade and, yeah, take.

So we don’t have twenty different ships in our hangar. We have a industrial ship and travel light. This week, I live in Essence, and the next week I’m back home in Metropolis before spending some time in Syndicate or Lonetrek.

A nomadic lifestyle doesn’t necessarily mean operating independently, though for some pilots it might. We fly together as a clan and we support each other in our endeavors. We set goals and achieve them, both for individual and group benefit. But that “group” means us, not some larger state to which we should owe allegiance due to the happenstance of our birth.

I am a Thukker. The world will decide whether it sees me as one or not. But I fly Thukker until I die.

Image credit thesocialnomad

Shining light on what comes next

I flew out to Jita last night. Far from my favorite place, but sometimes you have to go to the market first in order to bring the market to you. Still running some numbers, but it seems that various reactions can produce profit on the margin in terms of the reaction items themselves. I’ll need to account for fuel costs and a risk premium, but we’ve discussed this internally quite a bit and I think we may finally pull the trigger on that project.

In not unrelated news, I’ve replaced my Prowler (with a few improvements other pilots have suggested) and the Matrix Inversion made her maiden flight last night back to Hatakani. Endless tinkering with blockade runners is still fun, and this one will fall right into line.

In a larger sense, though, now that major nullsec powers (like IT Alliance) seem to have moved on from Syndicate, we feel confident about our ability to move back into our home region as a corp. We’ve come up with some short and mid range plans that should address what most of the corp wants to do.

I don’t want to put everything into the public, of course, but for those interested in the Back Alley Trading Company, I’ll lay a few things out here.

Enforcement operations will focus directly on combat. We will run missions for Syndicate agents in small squads, which should help with security as well as improve everyone’s standings with them. Additionally, we will run patrols and roams focused on finding pilots attacking Serpentis ships in belts and similar locations, as part of providing defensive services to our patrons.

Commerce operations should directly generate revenue and will fall under my direct supervision. Given that the Syndicate region does not have arkonor, bistot, or crokite (to my knowledge), we expect to find resources in other ways, including gravimetric and ladar sites as well as wormholes. From these resources, and others acquired via the market, we will carry out a number of industrial processes, including gas reactions, as well as consumable items like ammunition and drones.

Clearly, these goals will provide lots of room for participation from all of our pilots. Please note, pilots do not have to limit themselves to one area. Many of us have skills and interests across the board, so everyone can participate in operations that interest them (or help schedule them if they haven’t run at convenient times).

Now let’s fly wreck less out there.

Image credits duncan and drewish

Syndicate-Thukker deterioration

The intricacies of power politics never cease to confuse me. I spent some time out in Syndicate this week, conferring with the Intaki Bank offices in TXW-EI (and a few other corporations) to clear up some confusion from a few months ago. An agent had asked me to remove a troublesome Minmatar Republic convoy, and I had trouble. We exchanged some heated words and evidently he filed a report indicating that the Syndicate couldn’t trust me. I’ve got it all fixed now, or nearly so.

But during this renegotiation process, when Louis Stiers, another agent, had asked me to deal with some police surveillance squadrons and listening posts, an odd request came up. Interspersed with various assignments focused on the Khanids, apparently working with the CONCORD Directive Enforcement Department (DED), and, to a lesser degree, the Republic and even the Gallente Federation, I received a nudge to hit a Thukker convoy. When the agent transmitted the contract to me, I immediately turned it back around. Not only did the Thukker tribe have traditionally good relations with the Syndicate (if a little strained due to Maleatu Shakor’s political efforts), but they have a station in the same system. I may not mind starting all sorts of violence among podders, but I’d rather stay out of an underworld war against two large groups with whom I really like working, particularly where Back Alley has an office and various business interests.

For a bit, I wondered if they not might have just tried to test me. I thought this because, as soon as I rejected it, the agent immediately gave out an assignment to deal with some regular scum who had made the mistake of falling behind on rent payments for their pleasure hub location in the next system up the pipe.

At any rate, the Bank has assigned me another agent for now, one Guispon Meganier. He understands how to use my abilities a little better, so I’ve done some discreet deliveries and even inserted a marine detachment into a Syndicate station whose guard commander had gotten a little corrupt (well, independently corrupt). Unfortunately, I lost my Prowler to a Nighthawk underneath the station while I argued with traffic control to let me back into the hangar.

So I clone-jumped back to Oursulaert for a few days to attend to business there. In the meantime, I consulted with my old friend Eran Mintor, who seemed equally troubled. Wonder if I should go talk to somebody back at the Tribe about this?

Image credits josh.liba and america.gov

Dominion: What I want to see

Apart from hoping that the deployment goes smoothly and doesn’t result in major new bugs or unplanned downtimes, what do you want to see immediately after Dominion, in real terms?

I want to see the big boys leave Syndicate for real nullsec where they can fight over sovereignty.

I want to see more and more players getting into exploration as their starting career.

I want to see new machinima making use of the new planet graphics.

I want to see smaller alliances finding places to establish small homes in nullsec without constant steamrolling.

I want to see my corp mates repairing their standings with the Angel / Serpentis / Syndicate bloc.

What do you want to see?

Image credit Dude Crush

New joint venture

Some of you may have noticed that CONCORD no longer registers me as flying for the Ecliptic Rift corporation, nor some of my associates. While ERIFT still exists (and I still own it in full), I now manage Back Alley Trading Company, a joint venture between several pilots located in the Placid region.

BKAT is a free market syndicate dedicated to market development in low and null security space. We have begun some forays into the Syndicate region as part of a new working arrangement with the Intaki Bank.

Traders, miners, and other industrial pilots with an interest in the profits that can result from flying in these areas are welcome to join the “Streetlight” channel, as are combat pilots interested in escort and security duty. In fact, we’d happily discuss our services with anyone with an interest.

We’ll have more to say about the Company in the future as events warrant. This site, though, will continue under its current name and focus.

Fly risky!

“Doll”

Really, it all started with a doll.

I’d flown out to low-sec to take advantage of a deal on an ocular implant. In the undock vector, my covop’s sensors picked up signs of a pair of Iteron wrecks, just starboard of us. A quick scan showed a number of sealed cargo crates and something else in the twisted remains of the industrial hull. I reached out with the default low-power tractor beam and pulled it in, then trained one of the cargo hold cameras on it.

I had pulled in a doll, though some sort of cargo packaging still encased it. I had no idea why the wreckage had this one extra item. Since I didn’t have any CONCORD or Republic protection out here in low-sec, I just aligned to the gate and warped off. No point in sitting there figuring it out and possibly getting hit by a recon ship.

Once I got back to my hangar in Hek, though, I had one of the crew chiefs bring it over to my shop. One of the shop assistants sliced open the packaging and we looked at it more closely. Quarter-scale and made out of some sort of gelatinous material, the doll felt almost lifelike in many respects. The artisan had stylized it, though: big eyes, a long neck, and impossibly high cheekbones. The doll didn’t appear to have prurient uses, though. In Gallente space, most stations had a few out-of-the-way shops where lonely customers could purchase mannequins for their own private uses in the bedroom. This looked more like the sort of doll one admired.

I bit my bottom lip and thought quietly about what to do with it. Maybe use it as decoration in my suite here? The assistant, though, kept inspecting it and ended up calling my attention to something.

On the doll’s lower back, just at the base of her spine, we saw a symbol imprinted into her skin. My assistant didn’t recognize it, but I did: the logo of the Syndicate.

The Syndicate controlled their own small region on the borders of Gallente space and mostly consisted of independent Intaki who didn’t care for the Federation’s government style. Mostly that meant that they found ways to make a profit from things the Federation didn’t allow. They had connections to drug cartels, slavers, arms dealers, and every other sort of business that most “reputable” governments disallowed.

Why did this doll have their logo? I couldn’t think of a plausible explanation, so I poked back through the packaging to see if it had any other clues. Sure enough, it held an unsigned note.

Toubuelin: I won’t forget her, either.

I sent the staff out, then sat for a long time silently, watching her.

---

Syndicate space, contrary to what the government propagandists told everyone back in the Republic, didn’t present too many obvious dangers. Then again, most real dangers wouldn’t appear so obvious.

After docking up my covops in ZN0-SR, I went upstairs to the main agent lobby. As you’d expect for a corporation associated directly with the Syndicate, an investment office for Intaki Bank had security everywhere: silent guards in completely black uniforms, drones buzzing quietly down the steel corridors, and unfailingly polite (if scantily dressed) young female administrative assistants guiding me upstairs.

I walked into the front office of the agent I’d come to visit. A blonde secretary, hair teased up into the latest Intaki fashion, smiled sweetly and inquired whether I had an appointment. I just shook my head. “No, but I think he’ll want to see me.” She peered around at the small crate floating on my cargo bot, but politely did not ask what I had brought. If it had passed security, she wouldn’t give anyone additional trouble.

The hexagonal antechamber had artwork from all around the cluster. In one corner sat a small Amarrian shrine, available to any of the faithful who might chance to come through heathen space. In another, in stark contrast, stood a Gallente sculpture, an homage to love (though perhaps the worshipers in the other corner might see it instead as lust). A triptych holo of Republic freedom fighters adorned a wall, full of heroic Brutors, cunning Krusuals, and spiritual Vherokiors. I’d seen other work by the same artist, actually, back in my home system of Eram, but never this piece. After a few moments, I realized that the agent probably had an original. Directly opposite the triptych sat a miniature Achuran meditation garden. It held fine sand, raked elegantly in simple patterns, a few well-worn stones suspended a few centimeters above the sand, and a small plant fed by circulating water.

“Mr. Dalledaury will see you now,” the assistant spoke quietly in my ear. I turned around and eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then beckoned the cargo bot and entered his office.

The agent wore all black, much like the guards. The fabric shimmered slightly, perhaps with a slight glow from the threads themselves. He had that classic Intaki calmness about him, as if nothing could perturb him in the least.

“Ah, Miss Truza. What an unexpected pleasure, your visit.”

I shook my head. “Just Casi. No need for formality.”

He stood next to his desk and placed a finger on a display, moving it about for a moment. “I find much surprise that you’ve flown out here. I have colleagues in the Cartel who’d reward quite well for your, ah, organic residue, one might say.”

Despite myself, I shivered. The station might belong to a bank, but the Syndicate dealt even more ruthlessly than your average corporation. Get between them and their profits or other ventures, and you could find yourself floating home, the long way.

“Actually, Toubie, I’d thought maybe you could help me with that.”

He hadn’t expected that. The agent looked up and regarded me closely. “You wish to work with us? And why, my dear, should I go to such trouble for someone whom I do not know, even a capsuleer such as yourself?”

“Well, I think this might belong to you…” I reached over to the package on the cargo bot and, with the press of a button, opened the container.

The hydraulic hiss from the crate echoed in the now silent office. He sat down, hard, and stared at the doll I’d brought.Several minutes passed with no further sound.

Finally, he spoke, though far more quietly than before.

“Not yours, this doll.”

I smiled. The gamble had paid off. “Of course not. I didn’t carry it across four regions and past pirates, customs, and warp bubbles just to keep me company. I believe it may belong to you.” He dabbed his eyes for a moment, then I continued. “This represents my good-faith gesture that perhaps the Bank could find some assignment for me.”

Another long moment passed. “Please see my assistant. She will direct you accordingly.”

I walked out of the office, leaving the doll and the bot behind.

---

Not much of an assignment, it turned out. Some spoiled son on a station in a nearby system only would drink water from ZN0-SR III. He claimed it had an unparalleled bouquet with hints of Jin-Mei kmeria flowers. It tasted like regular water to me, but they paid me either way, so off I went. Local only showed one other pilot, so I pushed the ship as quickly as possible away from station. The next system held no other podders at all, and the one after that, only a pair.

After dropping off the water and getting the appropriate receipt, I contacted Dalledaury’s office to let them know. The blonde assistant gave me that smile again and informed me that he’d like to speak with me once more.

The return trip held even less excitement, so I really took no time at all returning. Once I reached his office, she waved me back without bothering even to pause her conversation with a chatty friend who’d stopped by for a visit.

He’d composed himself again and changed shirts. Still that odd fabric with the glimmer, but instead of black, the shirt had a lavender tone.

“I’ve spoken with my director. We believe that, in fact, the Bank may have use for someone of your, ah, particular talents.”

Bingo.

“So you’ve got more for me to do, then?”

He shook his head.

“No, he’s asked that you see Fusbenne Attens in our office across the system. Once you dock, our security staff will take you right to him.”

Hm. A promotion? This smelled worse than an Amamake Fedo. But I didn’t really have a good reason to say ‘no’. I thanked the agent, and turned to leave.

Two security guards stood in the door. One carried the doll.

The agent spoke from behind me, his voice now low and guttural. “A gesture of thanks, madame. As you returned it to me, so shall I return it to you. It has already served its purpose for me.”

The air filters must not have been working that day, because I swear that, right at that moment, some dust mote got caught in my eye and made it water a little.

Photo credit SHIN．world / Shin via Flickr