Kali Test Update

I managed to get into Sigularity first time round this evening to take a look at Kali part 1. I only managed a quick look around the UI and in station screens and there appear to be some major changes. Firstly the escrow button has been replaced by Contracts, which I expect will be a stopgap until a whole new escrow system is worked out. You can do several types of contract from a items(s) for isk, much like escrow, to auctions or trades (items for items). At the moment there is a 1 million isk minimum for contracts and a 1% tax.
The map, well where to start... You have the existing old starchart map as it is now in game, and a new system map, where you can zoom out from the station, planet or wherever you are right out to a galaxy wide view. Bookmarks and other information is all available directly from this map screen. There is a 3rd map screen called inflight, or something like that, not had a look yet as it kicked me out when I tried to undock, and then the login queue was up to the 300 mark again.

I will attempt another session in singularity this afternoon I will try to get my hands on some new ships to test, and get the skills for salvaging etc. More to follow….

Here is a link to some pics of new stuff in kali so far

Kali test

I thought it was about time I took a peek at Kali 1 on singularity, just to see how much has changed. It has been a while since I was on the test server and wasn't sure if my account would still be active on there. So I made a copy of my EVE install and patched away to the latest test version, and hit connect...
The nice new queue system told me that the cluster was currently full, but I had been played into the login queue at position #379. No problem, I'll go and do some ratting with an alt in low sec to kill the time, I thought to myself. Anyway 3 hours later and I am number 107 in the queue, so I go have some dinner, eventually I am #1 and hit connect. D'Oh! forgot to use all lower case letters for my login details, booted out, #400 in queue.... At this point I gave up and went to bed.
I tried again the next morning, and jumped right in at number #3 in the queue, connected after about 2 minutes and right into the character selection screen. I couldn’t get any further than this as all 3 systems where my 3 characters are located were all offline or in the process of starting up so I couldn’t log in again.
Not to be put off I resolved to try again the next day; next day next problem… There appears to have been a small patch overnight that wasn’t available for download, so it’s a version mismatch today. But hold onto your pants, what’s this a rollback? I now have the current version installed and away we go!!
Still no joy, I think Dodixie must be on some heavy sedatives as its always starting up when I try to connect to the test server, never mind, I will give it a go later today, and hopefully have a little update for you all once I have played for a while.

Covert Update

So I can now fit and use a Covert Ops Cloaking device to my Buzzard, (don’t phone the R.S.P.B it’s a ship) and warp cloaked.
I am sure you all know about the seriously high CPU needs of one of these cloaking devices, 10,000 units before any skill modifications are taken into effect. At first sight this looks like you are limited to fitting one of these beasties to ships bar dreads or titans and the targeting penalty on these ships would see you trying to lock a ship for about 3 days ;-)
This is where the specialist covert ops frigates come into play with their HUGE bonus to the CPU requirements of a Covert Ops cloak. Each level in Covert Ops reduces the CPU needs by 1% from a base of 96%, so at level 5 there is a 100% reduction in CPU needs. You are going to need at least level 2 Covert Ops skill to fit this module and anything else, level 1 might let you fit the module and nothing else, which can still be useful for just scouting unseen or being a warp-to target for gang members. To make the device ‘useful’ and to be able to fit other modules to your ship you are going to need level 4 in Covert Ops, this should reduce the CPU needs down to 100.

I have yet to test the Buzzard in stealth combat, still working on some more covert ops training, but I can see it causing some nasty surprises for enemies.
The ability to sit at an enemies POS, or safespot undetected is great. Anyway back into the pilots seat again for some cloaked warping about. I will update you with more news when I ‘fail to cloak’ and get pod killed…….

Welcome Zeno

I'd like to welcome another contributor to this blog, Zeno a long time friend in and out of EVE.
A self confessed EVE junkie, we look forward to hearing from you, if you can find time to post, I s'pose there is always downtime.....

Mission Mining

There comes a time in every clones lifetime when you need a whole heap of minerals to build some new ship or a stockpile of ammunition, and that pile-o-junk you have been saving up to reprocess doesn’t quite have enough mineral for the job, what do you do? Well you have two options really, pay for the minerals or go and mine them yourself…
Mining, oh joy! I hear you cry, everyone loves mining don’t they? OK most people don’t like mining, especially when its for low end minerals. If you are in the ship building trade you will already know that it’s the cheap low end minerals that can be a pain due to the sheer quantities required, especially with the newer classes of ships available to clones now. A problem with requiring huge amounts of tritanium or pyrite is finding a nice safe belt with enough ore for you to strip mine it with your Barge or Exhumer. The fatter belts are always in lower sec space where griefers and pirates hang out.
So enter mission mining, a nice safe, local source of minerals for your builders. The principal behind mission mining is simple, do take on a combat mission from your local agent, and clear out all the bad guys. Before you hand the mission in to your agent for the reward, you and your corp mates all jump into your mining ships and fly back out to the deadspace pocket with all those lovely asteroids. There are a few level 4 missions which have vast amounts of minerals just sitting in space waiting to be harvested, picking the right mission to mine is the key. Some don’t have warpgates, which is 1 less warp with your hauler to collect the ore you have mined, some look impressive but have very little ore, so its worth scouting with a survey scanner.
The plus side of mission mining is the deadspace pockets are only accessible to you and your gang, and they have no NPC pirates or any other threats, unless it’s a mission that respawns. Mission mining as a group activity is more productive IMO, you can blast thru the killing stage and clear out the area nice and fast, then mine and haul the area clean as a group.

Google Ads

I have decided to put some Ads by Google at the top of this site as you may have noticed. The thing with links is they are made to be clicked, so click away if you like. I dont condem the purchase of ISK for cash as it is againt the T&C and generaly unsporting.

Sneaky Sneaky Catchy Monkey

Just been out and got some kit for my new Covert Ops frigate, it cost be a bit, but it should be fun sneaking about behind enemy lines. The Covert Ops Cloak was a real rip off, imo its situations like this that are a flaw in CCP's Tech II blueprint release plan. You end up with a very limited supply of each item, and as is the case with the cloaking devices one or two players have the entire market. Don't get me wrong this isnt thier fault, but maybe a few more Tech II BPO's in the universe wouldnt hurt the market too much.

I am just finishing off learning some advanced cloaking skills so I can equip the module to test it out. Its a shame it doesnt look like it will fit on the Stealth Bombers, but I suppose this would make them far too lethal. I think even with Covert Ops IV its gonna be hard to fit much else to the thing, but we shall see.

The Great Lag Monster

I think everyone in EVE has suffered from an attack from the Great Lag Monster, even one so severe that it ends with you in a pod.

Well this evening was one of those times for a corp mate of mine. He is no young pilot, he has been around, fought plenty of battles and amassed a fair fortune. He owns an impressive fleet of the latest ships to be released from the 4 races top ship designers, and is an able pilot of them all.

Today he was out an about doing some work for an un-named military group within Empire controlled space, when the beast struck without warning. It struck whilst he was engaging a large enemy fleet, and the deadly assault from the lag monster was long and drawn out. To cut a long tale short, my corp mate came too from the attack by the G.L.M to find himself sitting in a pod.
Not too bad for an inusred ship you may think, maybe you loose a little on some nice modules, but when your fleet contains Navy Battleships and the almost legendary Rattlesnake, insureance is a pointless venture.
If you have a look at the kill mail below you will see how nasty an attack this was...
Must be almost 2,000,000,000 ISK worth of goodies and ship gone to the G.L.M

Needless to say the pilot has contacted the local Gods with a complaint about the beast, and awaits compensation for his losses.
I will keep you all updated on the progress of his claim.

2006.10.24 17:14

Victim: *********
Alliance: **********
Corp: *****************
Destroyed: Raven Navy Issue
System: Motsu
Security: 0.9

Involved parties:

Name: Bane Torpedo / Angel Cartel (laid the final blow)

Destroyed items:

Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Heavy Diminishing Power System Drain I
XLarge C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
Gist X-Type Heat Dissipation Field
Pith B-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Gist C-Type Explosion Dampening Field
Power Diagnostic System II
True Sansha Power Diagnostic System
Dread Guristas Ballistic Control System
Dread Guristas Ballistic Control System

A Day Off

On the 1st day of November patch day cometh, and all was quiet in EvE.
So we have hardware upgrades again, more nodes, better routing and faster storage. I can almost hear the trolls preparing their bait for the forums as I type this. We can expect numerous threads on fansites bemoaning CCP and the Dev team for letting down the player base, I mean who expects the worlds largest MMORPG to be offline, let alone for 24hrs. Most of these forums whores probably don’t even pay to play EvE their Mummies and Daddies take it out of their allowance, they definitely have zero comprehension of how a serious network of computers works, let alone a SQL db with over 2 billion entities. If I am mistaken and these twats do know how to administer a system such as this then get a job with CCP and prove me wrong.
So to you forum moaners I say this, just shut the f#ck up you whiney good for nothing twats, if you don’t like it take your money and f#ck off and play SWG.

Anyway that’s got that off my chest, now I just have to figure what I am going to be doing on Wednesday after work. Its looking like I am going to have to spend time with the Mrs. Although it is an ex-corp mates birthday on Wednesday so it could be a good excuse to pop down the pub for an ale or two. Then back home for some drunken counterstrike source, its less expensive than drunken pvp in a Cerberus……

Whatever you decide to do with your day off, have fun.