Exploration Proteus
Urbanus proteus
I’ve wanted a strategic cruiser for some time, but held off from training Racial Cruiser V because I didn’t have tech II projectiles (for a Loki) or missiles (for a Tengu). Then I realized, hmm, I do have skills for tech II drones (light and medium) and decent drone skills overall, plus pretty good armor tanking.
So here’s the Proteus fit I think I’ll use for lowsec and nullsec exploration, primarily for radar (hacking) sites. The targeting delay introduced by the cloaking device won’t matter so much to a more-or-less focused drone boat; the railguns mostly help grab aggro and add a bit of DPS. The philosophy grows from my exploration Myrmidon, and you may want to replace one of the rigs with a gravity capacitor.
According to PyFA, with this setup and my skills (plus Gallente Strategic Cruiser and Subsystems all to IV), you’ll end up with something like 27k EHP against a uniform distribution. I tuned this particular setup against Sansha rats, but of course you’ll want to adjust to your region. In particular, note that it won’t be as strong against Angels due to the Proteus’s natural weakness to explosive damage. I can tank 484 HP/s, which should really do just fine in most cases. I might end up tweaking that down, actually, if needed, so I can improve capacitor stability (this ship’s primary weakness).
I welcome additional thoughts and suggestions.
[Proteus, Exploration]
Salvager I
Improved Cloaking Device II
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Codebreaker I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Drone Navigation Computer I
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Reflective Membrane II
Energized Thermic Membrane II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Thrusters I
Proteus Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
Proteus Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Proteus Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Proteus Offensive - Drone Synthesis Projector
Proteus Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Valkyrie II x5
Tyrannis interview by T0rfi: Planetary industrial domination
So CCP T0rfi gave an interview in which he discussed the summer 2010 expansion, Tyrannis, in somewhat greater detail. You should probably read it before pressing on with my thoughts… And note that I’ve intentionally avoided any discussion about DUST 514, mostly because the idea still frustrates me.
You can build infrastructure and interact with almost every planet in the game, regardless of whether someone has something there, already.
I sort of hope that the capital planets (Matar, Caldari Prime, etc.) remain off-limits. That just seems odd to me.
The problem is that the planets are going to have limited resources. So if too many people are harvesting a planet at the same time, there will be diminishing returns. So what you will find is that it will be much more enriching to travel to the more remote planets in the more remote systems, for planets which haven’t got infrastructure built up, yet. But of course that takes you away from the key trade hubs to which you want to deliver your manufacturables.
Now we can talk turkey… Planetary output seems to have a fixed cap, and so as the number of pilots exploiting it increases, the share of resources they get from it will decrease. I suspect they’ll use a lot system similar to the economic system in Pirates of the Burning Sea, where you have ten lots available to you and must decide how (and where) to allocate them: vertically integrate for an entire production chain? Specialize in a given resource or particular process, and thus increase your risk? Not too dissimilar from the current design allowing up to 11 research and 11 manufacturing jobs simultaneously, depending on your skill training. This implies lots of strategic choices for players, and I have every confidence that CCP can surpass the design that PotBS implemented.
And of course there are over 65,000 planets in the game. And you can interact with each and every one of them. Including those that are in wormhole space, which can actually be quite challenging.
This intrigues me to no end, both from a gameplay perspective (more profits in W-space and more activities out there for the residents) as well as from a “prime fiction” (canon lore) perspective. Do these planets have residents? If not, will we learn more about the automation and technology in EVE? This could potentially imply resources for tech III frigates as well. Back here in K-space, we should get much more information about who lives in low-sec and null-sec, and of course some areas could have potentially unique interest (e.g. COSMOS constellations or systems like Intaki).
We’re making really interesting manufacturing and resource trees here, right now. Going over ‘what materials are you extracting from gas giants, what are you getting from planets which are pretty much just molten magma. You will actually be able to put down facilities, arcologies, and cloud cities, or really tough units that you can place on very hostile worlds, to extract and manufacture from them. And then rocket the stuff off of them, or move it out with a space elevator. In general, of course, with more risk comes more reward.
This really grabs my attention, both for the gameplay as well as the fiction. What will we make? Will it be awesomely cool? And the fiction possibilities multiply exponentially here. Generally, when new resources become available, we get new end products as well, so even those folks not interested in the industrial gameplay benefit (cf. tech III strategic cruiser production).
Your ability to master a planet, to manufacture, build up, and manage it, will be bound by skills.
Guess I’ll sit on that neural remap until we know more about this. Industrial and exploration gameplay that results in passive income, with tons of fiction possibilities? I really want to immerse myself in this, and so I intend to focus largely on the new gameplay as I’ve done with other science & industry skills. But until we at least know whether they’ll largely focus on intelligence and memory (my current estimate) or even include charisma in some way, I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’ll have trouble keeping up.
One of our goals with planetary interaction is to phase out these NPC created commodities, because we want to put the power into the hands of the players and make EVE even more sandbox-y than it is.
There are elements of EVE which we feel can use some iteration based on the experiences that we have learned, running EVE for seven years. The NPC market is definitely one of them. It’s been with us for a long time. It hasn’t changed much. We want to take these commodities and move them into the hands of the players.
We are not giving out publicly yet which commodities these are. Even once we put it on the public test server, you will not be able to see what these final commodities are going to be.
I hope hope HOPE this includes implants (or meta 1-4 modules) and not just commodities like robotics and oxygen and trade goods. That said, I applaud this sort of thing, as it allows for continued emergent gameplay. The implications will have such a major impact on the economy that reserving more information on that until Tyrannis goes onto the production cluster really becomes a de rigeur decision.
Not that CCP made a bad decision by initially bootstrapping the economy with NPC-provided goods, as the game launched with a very small user base and has defied the typical MMORPG growth curves since then.
In 0.0 systems, we are expecting you to need sovereignty over that system for your infrastructure to function on a planet. So that you can’t have your enemy using or being in your garden, so to speak, or using your planets despite you having sovereignty over it. Taking sovereignty really disrupts industry and messes things up. The gameplay in high-sec will generally be more cooperative. The goal is that people will actually be working together on the planets, benefitting from each other. One player will not be able to serve in all roles, or specialize in all roles in the entire manufacturing and mining sector.
This has the potential to really revitalize factional warfare: occupancy can finally mean something, if CCP makes the right choices here and implements the philosophy of FW serving as sort of a training ground for nullsec. Cooperative gameplay in highsec sounds interesting but that could prove difficult. And even if we can’t attack infrastructures directly, a corporation could influence its competitors through wardecs in space…
[The first day of Tyrannis] will have people flying all over space, deploying satellites and scanning for resources. Also launching command centers and building infrastructure. And also starting to train the skills needed for it, of course. Some discoveries will be made, too. Some people will definitely be striking it rich by discovering huge deposits of valuable minerals in remote locations, and trying to keep these a secret for as long as they can.
Satellite deployment sounds a lot like survey probes for moon minerals… and I will probably take a day or two off of work when this launches.
And now, for T0rfi to have the last (and exciting!) word:
The goal is to have it out on the test server in little more than a week.
Skill update: January 2010
I haven’t done one of these in quite some time.
Science skills continue to comprise a huge chunk of my abilities, as they have in the past. Industry and Mechanics look fairly solid. That last will continue to increase, in part due to working on skills for armor tanking (Hull Upgrades V should finish this weekend).
In 2010, part of my goals involve continuing to turn up the combat abilities, so Gunnery, Missiles, and Drones will expand somewhat, and I will keep refocusing on Minmatar ships. In particular, I want to fly a Claw soon, and maybe a bit of ratting in a Jaguar or Wolf (more research required on this). T3 strategic cruisers will hopefully also come into the mix sometime this calendar year. And of course, I want to finish out the Core Elite certificate (52 days left with my current attributes, including a full set of +5 implants).
Sebiestor tribal corp concept
We frequently see corp or alliance identities in EVE revolving around larger factions. The Amarr have CVA, the Minmatar have Electus Matari and Ushra’khan, not to mention innumerable militias in factional warfare for all four of the primary factions. Smaller, interesting factions (Angels, Thukkers, Intaki, Sansha etc) also inspire a number of corporations and even alliances.
I know, we already have the NPC corporation, but nearly everybody in EVE knows why NPC corps stink. I don’t know whether bloodline NPC corps obviate any need for (or interest in) player-managed bloodline corps, and that could present an issue. But what would a player Sebiestor tribe corp look like? First, the bloodline description:
Widely respected as being among the most innovative thinkers of the cluster, the Sebiestor are an ingenious people with a natural fondness for engineering. For the last millennium, they have been pioneering advances in applied sciences despite laboring under chronic material shortages. Sebiestor engineers believe they can build anything, with anything, out of anything. Veritable masters of deriving solutions from impossible circumstances, they are most commonly found working in shipyards, assembly lines, terraforming projects, outpost construction, and aboard starships.
So maybe this hypothetical group could take the form of an industrial corp, based near Eram (the tribal HQ system)? Manufacturing and invention, in particular, make sense for Sebiestor pilots, and perhaps reverse engineering to support strategic cruiser production. Pilots could also participate in mission running, especially with the aim of gaining high standings with the tribe and perhaps the Minmatar Republic itself. The corp’s industrial focus could even turn to supporting the war effort by providing supplies and equipment to militia corps working with the Tribal Liberation Force in Metropolis. Alternately, salvaging, trading, and smuggling seem to fit the feel of a hard-scrabble, inventive group that turns junk into the most advances devices humanity has ever known…
This thinking doesn’t necessarily mean I’d leave the Back Alley Trading Company, of course. Right now, I’m just thinking out loud and musing on ideas, since I have always loved planning corp or guild concepts and organization in every MMOG I’ve ever played or even closely examined. This particular concept has a lot appeal for me, no doubt, but I have to weigh that against all the other concepts and game play that interest me. On the other hand, I wouldn’t quite rule it out, either.
Also, this marks my 200th post on Ecliptic Rift. My geek identity means I really look forward to the 256th post more, though…
Fitting a Loki Cruiser for Sleepers
Loki, the trickster god, changed shapes according to his whims and devious plans to cause headaches and heartbreak for everyone around him. He did all sorts of nasty things that his family and friends frequently didn’t appreciate it, and eventually slipped deeply into the dark side. Not everything ends well for him at the final battle of the gods, though…
So, in line with this, we now have the “Loki” tech III strategic cruiser class. Highly adaptable to all sorts of situations, this ship can do so many different things that pilots can shake their heads in confusion from the tyranny of choice. Where do you even start when trying to build one?
As one of my associates (my protégé, really) will start to fly one of these within the day, we’ve spent some time thinking about how to build hers. Constraints can really help narrow down one’s engineering choices, so we wanted this ship to focus on combat against Sleepers in W-space: accompanying the fleet into anomalies and radar or magnetometric sites as a decently-tanked combat ship rather than logistics (though I expect she’ll want something like that soon, too).
Right now, we’ve sorted through the possibilities and looking for something like a Cyclone setup (active tank, reliance on medium artillery), though with sufficient resistances so that this relatively small hull can at least try to withstand the onslaught thrown against it. The capacitor instability concerns us greatly, of course, as those medium shield boosters can really suck away the energy.
We’d love to hear and discuss suggestions from other Loki pilots or those experienced with this sort of work.
T3 Production Planning
I love it when a plan comes together
I spent some time gathering together key data for planning the production of Tech III strategic cruisers. I collected my results on a page here, and I intend to update it as I get more comfortable with the process. Yes, you can surmise from this that BKAT has new plans in this regard…
Image credit jef safi (‘pictosophizing)
CSM 3 Meeting Minutes
So CCP finally got around to posting the CSM minutes from the September meeting. They claim that they won’t allow such a delay again. We’ll see… as for now, a few interesting bits from my reading:
- The CSM members know that CCP hasn’t used them as much as they should (or even as much as they said they would). CCP agrees. We’ll see.
- Incarna has had some problems because DX10 and Vista suffered epic fail. But it will include machinima tools!
- The GMs suck. CCP says they’ve gotten better. The CSM thinks they suck anyway.
- CCP thinks starbase management doesn’t need a revisit, not because it doesn’t suck (it does), but because the sovereignty system will change in Dominion. But later they claim they’ll refactor them, so confusion still reigns. (My view: starbase management still needs work, since lots of other people use them, too).
- S&I got left on the back burner because pew pew seemed more fun. Hand slapping ensued. Some things, like a Blueprint Manager, might come our way soon.
- Alliances might get to join FW by forgoing sovereignty rights. (Not a bad compromise if implemented that way.) FW plexes and NPCs suck, and they know it.
- Gallente and Minmatar EWAR options suck and maybe someday CCP will even care. But who knows when…
- Capital ship docking won’t happen due to how session changes work.
- Did you know that T3 subsystems started out as crews in the design phase?
- Insurance (including T2, T3, and suicide) will get a look.
- Fonts should improve soon. (I hope they get larger for us folks with not-so-great eyes!)
- CCP has a low sec revamp in the concept stage.
What ship do you want to fly?
Yes, we fly ships.
Yesterday, I asked on Twitter, “Question for the day: what ship class do you currently not have trained but REALLY want to fly?” I got some interesting responses:
- CyberInEve: “Heavy Interdictors”
- diaryofaraider: “Time to sound like a total noob. Battleship. I’ve been way too obsessed with T2 frigates to train beyond them.”
- tehmetalleer: “covert ops!”
- ericscho: “Still badly need to do stealth bomber and interceptors on FW pvp alt !”
- Novon: “I’m finishing my SB skills then going intercept. After that going to look a going lvl 5 in cruisers.”
- Rettic: “Right now I really want to fly a Battleship since i can’t seem to do any successful solo ratting in 0.0 atm… but really I want interceptors. Shouldn’t be too long.” This led to an interesting discussion on 0.0 ratting ships as we educated him a little.
- SHM5: “I have just trained carrier and supporting skills bit can’t afford one. I’d love to fly a Titan & blow up 400 ships in one go” Not for long!
- hi7ch: “Macherial (spelling) Have Gal BS 5 do not have Min BS5.. or even BS 1. then again that isnt a class.. sorry”
- autumnn_aether: “strategic cruiser. 22 or so days away. (and a couple hundred million ISK…)”
- MissionsCollide: “blackops. Mmmm. Blackops.”
- ChainerCygnus: “T2 ships Destroyer and above, Strategic Cruisers, and all Capitals.” Way to focus, bro..
- chocolips: “For me, marauder. I do a lot of missions in my mach. But the vargur is more efficient. Just fugly
“ - 00sage00: “HICs (Broadsword), HAC (Ishtar), Recon (Curse), Command ship (Nighthawk). A lot of ships. And all different races.
” - Ionst0rm: “easy – Wolf and Jaguar
” - automaticjim: “I’d like to be able to fly a black ops battleship. I Know people don’t like them but the seem cool to me.
”
What about you?
Image credit unincorporated via Flickr
