Barging into Space

Earlier today I did a post about Exhumers and the changes from the patch.  I went ahead and worked up some builds for the Mining Barges (Barges) as well.  The Barges have much lower EHP but I was very surprised to see the output is very similar  or higher to equivalent Exhumer builds.  Combined with the ability to insure on a T1 level and Barges might just end up being the ship of choice for mining in high sec.  For now I'll just list the builds.

Exhumer Changes

A while ago I made a post about CCP fixing the mining ships by giving them some tank.  This week they put in the patch to make some significant changes.  One hull has a great tank with the smallest amount of yield.  The next hull has huge ore bay, medium tank and medium yield.  The last hull has the best yield but limited tank and an ore bay big enough for only one cycle requiring some kind of fleet support.  In theory this type of division sounds pretty good, giving each hull it's own role and providing options for miners to choose what fits their play style the best.

For the ice or gas miners there are no longer innate bonuses for those activities, instead there are two new rigs which boost ice or gas output but you can only fit one at a time due to calibration costs. 

Capital Intentions

  I'm swiftly approaching my first Capital specific skill training and it's time to talk a little about my initial thoughts about Capitals (Caps) and what I think will need to change in the future.

  When I started playing EVE I did some research about the ships, empires, and general background.  It's something I do for pretty much every game I play.  As I was reading one of the ship classes that captured my imagination was Carriers.  The thought of sending a flight of fighters out to engage the enemy conjured up images of Battlestar Galactica, Wing Commander, and Space: Above and Beyond.  Once I started playing and found out the reality of the game I realized getting a Carrier was something a long way into the future.

  The future is no longer a long way away though.  I should be flying a Chimera or two by spring of next year.  I could have made the transition to capitals faster but I took some good advice to work on the basics before even thinking about caps.  Thinking about caps is something I've been doing a lot of lately and I'm looking forward to the experience.

Tech 2 Cruiser Changes

  The last blog post talked about T1 cruisers with a promise of more to come.  Now it's time to dive into the aspects of T2 cruisers and see if there are any changes which might help.  Once again I'm not touching anything Amarr.  There are four groups of T2 cruisers; Heavy assault ships, Heavy interdictors, Logistics, and Recons.  HIC's and Logis are already in good shape and I'm not sure there is any need to dig into them for corrections.  Instead I'm focusing on HACs and Recons.

Ship changes- Cruisers

EVE, she is a changing.  The next year should see some dramatic adjustments to ships and the concept of tiers.  With that in mind I figured why not take some time to list what I'd like to see happen once the balancing hits cruisers, BC's and BS's.  I'm starting off with Tech 1 cruisers and I'll work my way up from there.  Also, I'm not discussing Amarr ships as I won't fly anything Amarr so I don't feel qualified to accurately assess them.

Cruisers-  The work horse of any Navy.  These ships are cheap enough to use in a variety of ways but versatile enough to fill a multitude of roles.

Fixing the cracked buckets in the Sandbox

  A lot has been going on lately in the world of Eve.  Burn Jita, Hulkageddon, OTEC, persistent Hulkageddon, changes to war declarations, and future plans for ship changes.  Most of the above are things I disagree with on principal but I do admire the ability to pull a lot of it off in the game.  I've helped herd cats in other games and I know it's never easy to get a group of people to jump the same direction at the same time.

  So with all of this activity I thought I'd spend some time discussing the concept of a sandbox game since I see the term bandied about quite frequently on the forums.  The first thing I did was went looking for any type of consistent definition.  Unfortunately there was no consensus opinion on what exactly was meant by sandbox.  The best I could find was a game where the developers provided sand and toys then the players set about creating the content.  In most cases content is considered activities like blockading a system, ganking other players, manufacturing, and all of the meta game activities that go on behind the scenes.

  The more I thought about what some people defined as content the more I realized that the problem I'm seeing isn't a reflection of player actions as much as the problem was one of CCP's poor implementation.  Let's go back to the sandbox and the dev's handing out toys to use for castle building and what not.  The issue is not players using the toys they are given but rather some of the toys have a flawed design.

Jumping Through Hoops

 One more post about the upcoming Alliance Tournament.  I thought I was finished with this subject but a response by a Dev deserves comment.  The first quote verifies the rules were intentionally written to cause confusion among the player base.  The second quote invalidates the reason behind banning Hydra and Outbreak as being because of working together on Sisi.  I'd quote the exact text explaining the bans, but the posts have been pulled down. 

"This rule is vague because it has to be. We have had 9 tournaments without this rule and for good reason, but the events of last year have forced us to react by including new rules such as the one above. Tournament staff and referees will act based on the information available and with the tournament both as an event for the players on the field and those watching on the stream on their minds.

Teams and players should hold the tournament in high regard and take the event seriously, if you have to ask yourself "would they stop the fight if we did this" then you should not do it. ""

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1392266#post1392266

"Sorry missed the bit about the test server, you can change corps and alliances as you like on Sisi. But based on actions taken by us so far I would be very wary if you intend to join someone else's alliance for "practice & logistics" reasons. Again, if your not sure about it, don't risk it."

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1398070#post1398070


Edit*  To top it all off a thread I started explaining my disappointment was mocked by CCP Soundwave.  It might be time to find a new game if that is their idea of professionalism.

  At this point I think the truth is that Hydra and Outbreak were never going to be allowed to participate in this years Alliance Tournament.  The two alliances were banned because they were in the same corp on test but we are now told that it's not against the AT rules to combine on test.  Hydra and Outbreak said they sent multiple emails and petitions to determine if their practice of testing against each other on Sisi was against the rules and eventually they received a reply saying it was ok, but in the end the AT Dev's banned the two groups anyway.

Spirit vs. Letter

Last year was the first time I watched an Alliance Tournament.  I picked the loser in almost every match I tried to guess but I have to admit the competition really sparked my interest in small group warfare.  Not that Eve ever really has combat on such a scale, but it's nice to theorycraft.  I also liked how the smallest details meant success or failure.  Sadly the final battle was a complete letdown, but the rest of the tournament was superb.

This year the Alliance Tournament is already off to a rocky start and the first match has not even happened yet.   The two teams that won last year have been banned for practicing together, against each other, and in the same corp on the test server.   The rules this year were changed to prevent one alliance from entering two teams but Hydra and Outbreak were clearly two alliances working as one team.

Breaking the spirit of the rules if not the letter of the law.

What's in your hangar

So once again I'm following Jester's lead.  This time I'm posting what's in my hangar.  Well, not just my hangar but the hangars of my two alts as well.  Since I fly pretty much all three at once and they are fairly interchangeable on most ships it seems to make sense.  I'm not adding the names because I don't use unique titles.  Instead I use modern day navy designations.  So my battleships are all BB-hull number- name.  Kinda plain but helps me keep track when I start moving stuff around.

5x Badger Mark II -  Mainly used for PI hauling and misc movement

3x Basilisk- All three pilots are Logi 5 and I use these for incursions mainly

3x Blackbird- Armor/shield versions, primary ship when not flying logi for pvp

4x Buzzard- Each toon has at least one scout

6x Caracal- I love the idea of this ship, but rarely fly them, first pvp kill though

3x Celestis- Experiment that never panned out

Charon- the first ship I knew had to have, useful for moving systems, rarely flown

2x Cormorant- haven't tried them out since the buff

Covetor- why not

Crane- for sneaking through low

2x Crow- rarely flown

Dominix- built for BS RR op, flown once

4x Drake- mission and exploration mainly

Falcon- rarely used as I prefer BB for pvp

3x Ferox- another ship I love the idea of, haven't tried it since hybrid buff

Gila- missions

3x Hawk- use them for running around solo, pvp fit

Hulk- cause sometimes you just feel like mining

2x Hurricane- one mission fit, one not fit

Machariel- mission fit

Mackinaw- ice, ice baby

Maelstrom- mission fit

3x Mammoth- cause sometimes a badger just won't do

Manticore- got it before I realized I have better options for scouting

Moa- No clue why I have this

Myrmidon- got it for mission dps, rarely flown

Orca- most versatile ship ever, love it

3x Osprey- RR fit for cheap support

2x Rattlesnake- mission fit

Raven- mission fit, rarely flown

3x Rupture- experiment, rarely flown

Scimitar- PVP fit, I need to get a few more, love this ship

2x Tengu- mission fit

Vexor- experiment

Worm- cause it's just plain fun to have that many drones in a lvl 1 mission

Investing in the future

CSM elections are happening soon and one of the problems I have with the process is the skewed voting from nulsec blocks.  The problem as I see it is the lack of true interest diversity because of the differences in how nulsec and high sec operate.  This post however is not about the voting process for the CSM but rather an attempt at expanding on the high sec point of view in regards to nulsec.

Nulsec is a scary place for someone who's never spent time there.  Traveling through nul isn't that big of a challenge most of the time, but living there is a different story. 

Hawk changes

  So I fiddled around in EHQ tonight working on refitting the Hawk.  So far it seems the T2 SML version is a pretty tight fit.  A rocket version is much easier but I'm not sure I want the reduced range.  Guess I'll work on it some more later.  Real life has me busy at the moment so not much time for fun.

Lost in space

  I logged on for most of the day and decided I'd get out and run some missions after dinner.  About the time I was ready to undock I realized I forgot where I normally go to do missions.  I haven't run them in so long I have to spend some time looking them up again.