Miner With Fangs

New team, new graphics, same explosions...

2009-09-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

The activities of Seppuku Warriors resulted in an invitation to merge with Evolution and most of our combat pilots made the shift. Yup, I'm now a BoB biatch!

The Communism thing feels a little strange. Everything is a corp op. But the flip side is that the hangars are full and I'm flying ships that I would never buy out of my own pocket.

For example, the call went out for Guardian pilots. I'd never flown one, but just for giggles, I checked my skills against the ship/fit & determined that I could handle the ship, the remote reppers & the cap transfers. So, I raised my hand and a Guardian was dropped in my hangar & off we went. Setting up the cap transfer web was accomplished in short order. It's pretty amazing to see all those large reppers running & cap never dropping below 80%!

Yesterday, I logged in to hear a large fleet fight underway 35+ jumps away. I grabbed an interceptor & sprinted to the fight. By the time I got there, the fight had evolved into a planet chase. I managed several tackles & almost got popped a couple of times. In the end, I swapped my Stilleto for an Apoc, saving my pod.

I'll make that trade any day!

I'm still toying with new graphics, so let me know your feelings on the latest header.

Back to Chicago tonight. O/

RL is a bitch & other ramblings...

2009-08-21T14:51:00.003-05:00

I've been away from these pages & mostly out of game for about 6 weeks now. I'm on extended assignment in the Chicago area, and as much as I love the folks and facilities at the Hilton, trying to play Eve on their wireless connection is like trying to drink a milkshake through a juice box straw. Technically possible, but practically unsatisfying & very frustrating.

I've priced AT&T air cards, but I'm afraid that the 5GB / month bandwidth cap wouldn't be sufficient. (If you have personal experience that you'd like to share, I'd certainly welcome your input!)

In the meantime, I'm online as much as I can be when I'm home every other weekend, wishing I could take my FIOS connection with me!

The project team I'm on includes guys of all ages and I let my true colors slip early on in a meeting when I judged a proposed course of action "a fail cascade waiting to happen". After the meeting wrapped, one of the 20-Somethings asked "Uhmm.... Are you a... well... a gamer?". I shrugged & replied "Well, I have been known to take internet spaceships fairly seriously." He still hasn't decided if I'm jacking with him or telling him the truth. ;P

In game, I'm turning my attention toward Black Ops. With the addition of a fuel bay, this class of hulls is going to be very interesting in the future. Black Ops + Cov Ops + Stealth Bombers & Recons = the potential for a very interesting style of roaming gang.

Seppuku has merged and you'll soon see new graphics here. For now, this will have to do:

Blog Banter - It's the Scotch

2009-06-29T19:35:00.002-05:00

This story is submitted as a part of the latest Blog Banter Challenge. The names have not been changed, but some folks may appear in unexpected places and a few identities should be obvious, even without names.

++++++++++

Smoke. Peat. Honey. Heather. Just enough burn to remind you there was alcohol involved.

cr8rmaker wasn't quite sure where on Old Earth 'Scotland' had been, much less who the hell 'Glenn Morangi' was, but an appreciation for single malt scotch was one of the things he took away from his time at university.

The Old Man wouldn't have really shot the new bartender if the noob had gotten within three feet of the Old Man's glass with those ice cubes. At least, cr8r didn't think so. But, the Old Man had apparently gone off the deep end, leaving the safety of Empire for the lawlessness of null sec, so nothing was ever certain.

Another swirl of the glass.. Another sip..

His recent promotion within Trends and Analysis at The Secure Commerce Commission afforded him a few indulgences. That economic review of strategic cruiser production was well received by the suits, it seems. Upgrades to the CONCORD database access routines that allowed that analysis to be completed also pointed out some unusual loss circumstances. He'd have to have lunch with one of the guys from Loss Prevention and see if they were aware of the anomalies.

++++++++++

This was not going to be pretty, Jake was sure of that. 80/20 that he would not be the head of Loss Prevention in another hour. Even money that he'd be dead. Hardly gambler's odds, and gambling with the CEO of The Secure Commerce Commission was not recommended. She rarely lost. At anything.

The portal to Acacia's office slid silently aside. She was staring out the duraplast window that overlooked the undocking port. Her left hand held a small crystal glass and an earthy aroma infused her vicinity. Her right hand held a compad. Her left foot tapped slowly on the stone floor.

Shit.

Still facing outward, over her shoulder she said, “Jake, if this is your idea of a joke, it's not the least bit humorous.”

“I assure you, madam, there's nothing remotely humorous about it and the only joke appears to be on us.”

Turning, she swirled the amber liquid in the glass and emptied it.

“So, your telling me that we have been paying out insurance claims on ships lost to CONCORD across the breadth & depth of New Eden? For years. For. Years. FOR EFFING YEARS???” The last wasn't so much voiced as hurtled into space with the intensity of a full BlasterThron broadside.

“It appears so. Until the last upgrade, our datafeed from CONCORD didn't include information about who was responsible for the loss of insured ships. We just were informed that a hull with an in-force insurance policy was lost and we automatically issued payments. I assure you that I'm just as personally appalled at the immorality of such payments as you are and...”

“Immorality? IMMORALITY??? Jake, you pompus pommey bastard! It has nothing to do with 'immorality'!” she interrupted.

His confusion sealed his fate...

Her voice turned calm, with a tinge of sadness. “Jake, it's bad business. We collect 5.2 million isk in premiums from a squad of Thorax cruisers and 8.8 million isk from a Hulk pilot. The Thoraxes gank the Hulk in Empire and we pay out nearly 47 million isk in claims. An Amarr High Priestess can't pray that equation into balance! A preliminary review indicates we've paid out trillions of isk to people who were concordonkened. Trillions! How do you think the shareholders are going to take that lovely bit of news, Jake?”

His cosmetic permatan failed to hide the departure of blood from his face. Morals were one thing, but mucking up profits was a serious matter.

Turning back to the window, she asked softly, “Who else did you let in on this, Jake? Who else knows?”

“ORE. I... I asked if ORE could correlate what we were seeing with the demand for mining hulls.”

Silently, she crossed the room to the bar in the corner. Pouring an inch from a squat bottle into her glass and draining it without her customary swirl, she keyed her compad.

Her call was answered before the first ring ended... “Captain Nuff, Internal Security...”

++++++++++

The wormhole pulsed. It almost seemed alive, didn't it?

The unknown side of wormholes provided a convenient place for clandestine activities of all shades. Circuitous routes were the norm for getting to wormhole space, making it easier to ditch tails. Reception committees could be arranged for those that didn't belong and ships losses in wormhole space were to be expected. Those nasty Sleepers.

Secrecy was paramount. New Eden didn't need to know about The Meetings. Seeing representatives of the hull manufacturers, pirate factions and certain select ladies and gentlemen of 'convenient morals' gathering convivially together just wouldn't do. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

“Well, brosefs, it was good while it lasted, eh?” intoned one of the more infamous of the group, raising a small globe of dark liquid in salute.

“You really think they will cut off insurance payments for CONCORD losses?” the red headed woman standing by the bar asked?

The head of Duvolle Labs, looked up from admiring her stern aspect, winked and raised his own glass in appreciation. “Well, m'dear, once they figure out the economics of it, they won't have much choice. The mining and transport unions have already started asking some uncomfortable questions. Soon, there will be a full fledged media melt down. Followed shortly by an investigation. With the mood of shareholders since the EBANK incident, it's quite likely the entire leadership team will get spaced if their current business practices continue. The Secure Commerce Commission may be slow off the mark, but they aren't completely daft. They have to make changes.”

Smiling at both the comment and the unspoken compliment, she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, holding the gentleman's attention and mused “Well, eliminating all of the insurance payouts would require more, shall we say, judicious target selection on the part of those pilots that engage in that particular line of business.”

The chuckle from behind the bar, was sincere. “Ah, lassie, they canna lop off all the payments! Losing customers with appropriate connections would be bad for business, eh? Now, then, who needs some more of Clansman Glenn Morangie's Finest?”

++++++++++

Specific recommendation:

Insurance payouts for losses to CONCORD limited to 10% of normal payout value.

Limit adjusted upward by 1% for every level of the following skills:
Financial Connections
Political Connections
Bureaucratic Connections

New location = new perspective on some ships

2009-06-16T12:16:00.002-05:00

Seppuku has moved into 0.0 space for an extended period of time. Living here is very different from living in Empire in many, many ways (logistics, log off spots, logistics, tactics, logistics, intel... Oh, and did I mention logistics?).

Not the least among those differences is the value/utility that I see in certain ships & weapons systems.

Normal disclaimers apply: The opinions expressed here are mine & mine alone. I don't speak for anyone else. Your mileage may vary. Consult your physician if you experience... well, you know.. ;)

Here are a few items that I have a greater appreciation for:

Stealth Bombers

Bomb launchers turn this from a so-so battleship attack platform in Empire to a nasty, nasty gate camp crasher in null sec. A co-ordinated flight of 4 or 5 can pass out large helpings of hurt with near impunity.

Blockade Runners

Their speed in Empire is their main plus, but in null sec, the ability to provide stealthy logistics support is a huge advantage. I wish I could fly one with both my main and my alt.

Gunnery Support Skills

Early on in Eve, I started down the path of training to fly a T2 rail fit Rokh. The idea of sniping at insane ranges was the draw and now, as I start to cross train other races and other weapons, having those support skills nearly maxed makes it much less painful to start flying, say a T2 fit Zealot.

F10 & Statistics

I'm spending way more time looking at the statistical displays in map mode than I ever did in Empire.

A few things that are more 'meh' in null sec compared to Empire:

Missile Boats

And by extention, sadly, most Caldari ships. As far as I can see, the underlying reason is simply flight time. Darrell Royal might say "Three things can happen when you shoot missiles and two of them are not so good for you." (Your missile hits or by the time your missile arrives your target has already popped from the focused fire of your gang or by the time your missile arrives your target has left.)

Battleships

Not saying that they are not useful, but they are no longer the top of the food chain.

Haulers

Targets, really. That's about it. ;P

Mission Accomplished

2009-06-04T07:58:00.002-05:00

Link to Hi res version... If there's any doubt as to how you make it, look closely at the inscription on her ring.

Wanderings of a Carebear

2009-05-28T09:10:00.003-05:00

Kirith asks where have you been in Eve.

I was interested in that question, so I dumped the map below (click for the full view):

Pretty much what one would expect for a Caldari carebear. The few dots in Syndicate are recent and the result of Seppuku's HQ in Stacmon. I can't remember what I was doing in the fall of 2007 that had me out in the north east Indian Country.

Could be interesting to review this in 90 days or so and see what changes...

[Queue ominous music as Our Hero scans the horizon & mutters "It's quiet.... Too damn quiet... Security! Send a 2 man redshirt recon team to sweep the perimeter."]

Tum tum TUUUUUUMMMMM!

;P

Blog Banter - Bribe the Docking Bay Manager

2009-05-26T06:21:00.004-05:00

This month's topic comes to us from Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums"

Simple.

I want to be able to bribe the docking bay manager to toss you and all your corpmates that I'm at war with out of a station.

The fee would be on a per ship basis and would create a 1 hour cooldown where OPFOR couldn't dock at the same station, but my corp can't kick OPFOR out from any station until the cooldown lapses.

Thirty seconds of warning time to the kickee.

Would put a crimp in station hugging & ship spinning.

Here's to new ships & stuff!

2009-05-20T14:41:00.003-05:00

My buddy Eyedoll passed me a sniper fit Curse that I tweaked a little to get this:

[Curse, New Setup 1]
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Large Shield Extender II

Drone Link Augmentor I
Drone Link Augmentor I
Drone Link Augmentor I
Ammatar Navy Heavy Energy Neutralizer
Improved Cloaking Device II

Ancillary Current Router I
Ancillary Current Router I

Hammerhead II x5
Warrior II x10
Vespa EC-600 x5

When I first started looking at it, I was very skeptical. The whole fit is designed to allow you to squeeze a large neut on a cruiser hull. It is gimped in so many different ways that I was tempted to not even undock it.

And then I looked at the neut range and the neut amount....

Hmmm... 1 cycle caps out just about every cruiser hull & smaller... From 75km+ (named for 75km.... Faction will give you 88.6km)... Interesting... You'd be in falloff for Falcon's & Rooks and sensor strength of 28 means they will be having a hard time anyway... A little bit of DPS from the drone bay...

Certainly not a solo ship, but lots of ways to be useful in a small gang of HACs & Recons.

So, I undocked it and got various corpmates & alts to play target. We played with interceptors, Falcons, Blackbirds, logistics, battlecruisers and battleships. As you might expect, the smaller the hull, the more devastating the attack. 'Ceptors trying to burn to me were capped within 10-15k of crossing the 75km line. Cruisers took longer to cap, but covered about the same ground.

Bottom line is that I'll be flying this for real to see how it performs and how targets react to a Curse engaging them from 75km. I was hoping to do that already, but the last mercs that were hired to dec us retracted when their employer failed to uphold thier end of the bargin. Pity.

In other news:

- All of the battleships and pods lost in the Korsiki POS battle are in the process of being restored by petition. GM's can tell the difference between desynchs and disconnects, even if others who fail to understand game mechanics do not. Falsely accusing someone of employing logoff tactics is pretty lame and might be taken personally, if we cared.

- After watching Yue carve up everything in the sky with a Zealot, I've rearranged my training plan a bit. 12 days and I'll be fitting out one of those little monsters & asking Yue for lessons in flying it. The gold ships seem a little strange to me, though... Subconsciously, I'm afraid that it will 'glint' in the sun & give away my location! ;)

- The LT is on the manifest for the last 4 BCT 1 CAV flight out of the sandbox. 2 weeks +/- should see him home.

- Melissa Dawn started a new trend in Seppuku sigs that feature a more, shall we say, 'bare bones' approach to swords. Here's my newest take:

Final thoughts on Ivy Dec

2009-05-12T10:05:00.002-05:00

The Ivy dec has been completed. The conditions of our contract were all met or exceeded.

I've struggled to communicate the sincerity of my personal feeling that, for me, the dec was nothing personal and that the view that all who try to blow you up in Eve are scum, vermin or subhuman is not only factually wrong, but detrimental to the game.

The doubters and the haters are entitled to their opinion and throughout the discussion, both here and on the Seppuku public boards, they have been able to express those opinions freely and without restriction.

Actions speak louder than words and to demonstrate my sincerity, the following BPC's have been contracted to Azmodeus Valar DirLog of Eve University:

Megathron 3X ME40 PE15
Dominix 3X ME 30 PE15
Drake 5X ME35 PE10
Vexor 5X ME35 PE15
Harbinger 5X ME45 PE48
Blackbird 5X ME30 PE10
Stabber 5X ME30 PE15
Cormorant 10X ME75 PE60
Merlin 30X ME38 PE20

250mm Rails 300X ME100 PE50
Cataclysm 3000X ME75 PE75
Devastator 3000X ME50 PE50
Paradise 3000X ME50 PE50
Wraith 3000X ME50 PE50
Ogre I's 1500X ME120 PE120

Combat Probes 3000X ME50 PE25
Scan Probes 1000X ME40 PE40

Cargo Rigs 50X ME365 PE10

I'll have nothing more to say about Ivy and Uni.

Regards,
DC

Situational Awareness: A Must for EWAR Pilots

2009-05-05T21:51:00.002-05:00

If you are an EWAR pilot, one of the first things you need to understand is that there are times when you don't want to jam or damp a WT out of the fight. Doing so only helps him and hurts you.

For example, tonight a Uni fleet of 15-20, including a Scorpion, at least 2 Blackbirds and at least 2 Celestis, was holding on the Osmon gate in Korsiki. I was in an Onyx offgrid to the gate and had 5 or 6 support offgrid of the Korsiki gate in Osmon. The plan was for me to solo warp to the gate at zero and tackle the Scorpion and hold him down long enough for the support fleet to hit the gate & jump.

I landed on the gate and immedately tackled the Scorp & started tossing a few heavies at him to keep him occupied. I started receiving return fire from the Uni fleet and was having no issue tanking when the all of the Uni EWAR hit. I was jammed and damped before my second volley was fired. Doing so was a huge tactical mistake by the Uni EWAR pilots.

Why?

Because as long as I was agressing, my cool down timer for gate jump wasn't starting to run. As soon as I was jammed, that cooldown timer begins and I am free to jump system when it expires, but the folks that were jamming and/or shooting would not be able to follow the jump! So, since I was able to tank their damage output, I could have jumped and evaded as soon as the gate would let me.

In that situation, EWAR pilots should only jam or damp as a measure of last resort. You want me to stay agressed so that I can't jump. FC should also be considering jumping a few tacklers to the other side of the gate (assuming FC knows it's clear) to catch me if I de-agress and jump. You want to soak up my DPS so you can trap me on the gate and kill me.

Our support jumped in and Uni left the field with no losses on either side. I had a conversation with the FC later & we talked about the situation. He was unaware that jamming me allowed the cooldown timer to start.

Guess there's a few more Uni pilots that have picked up some valuable insight as a direct result of our war.

A few responses

2009-05-05T09:03:00.002-05:00

If nothing else, it appears that this blog is serving to allow some discussion back and forth between the various folks involved and that's fine with me.

Comment threads are hard to follow, so I'm working on some alternatives, but for now, I'll pull out a few specific items and respond here to keep things moving along.

From Rodney:

"I guess my concern with your suggestions would be that a lot of the experience you talk about seems to be either difficult to obtain for someone who joined another corp for a "sabbatical", or doesn't seem to be any higher-value for being acquired elsewhere, other than the PvP experience aspect.

Wouldn't it also be difficult to find someone who was out there in the real game, away from the Uni, and was willing to give up a big chunk of their time to come back and serve as Eve Uni's Director of Personnel, or Logistics, or Education?"

My suggestion was simply that a Director has to have flown with someone else, not that they serve in a position of leadership. DirLog (for example) could bring a much broader perspective of the logistics opportunities available to players having served in a corp that is focused strictly on mining or production. Bringing that knowledge back into Uni would be a significant benefit.

I think you would be surprised how many Uni vets and/or Uni supporters would return.

As far as any hypothetical return, I don't think that's in the cards, so speculation about tactical decisions, rather than strategic issues, would only tend to be divisive and draw the focus away from more fundamental questions.

From Ethan:

"At any point today was the success of your POS-removal mission in jeopardy? I'm pretty sure it wasn't, we may have had more ships but you had vastly more tonnage. I'm just curious what you have to say about it."

In terms of the overall mission and fulfillment of our contract obligations, I don't think so. The lag was very pronounced, but those of us who lacked big POS warfare experience learned tons about the appropriate techniques to minimize the lag experienced, to fight through it and be effective. I was surprised at the number of battleships it took. My expectation, based on my time at Uni was that a large Empire faction Deathstar POS would require between 100-150 battleships to take down. Our fleet peaked at around 50 or so.

Uni FC faced a tough proposition being outgunned against a group that was clearly willing to absorb losses to achieve the objective.

From Andrew:

"I'm still struck by the apparent split between the "it's not personal" claims, and the arguments we see everyday."

Let me try it this way:

The decision to issue merc contracts against Uni was highly personal for the issuer.

My decision to participate was not personal and remains so. I'm not going to make any isk out of it and didn't expect to do so.

What I did expect was to learn more about how to fight on the outnumbered side of typical Uni engagements and to blow stuff up. I expected that, unlike some Uni opponents, Seppuku would bring the fight early and often and that no one would ever be able to accuse us of dec'ing and then fading into the woodwork.

My expectations have been met so far!

From Kelduum:

"However, there is a discussion topic open on the Directors forum at the moment as to how we can rectify this, but of course, getting everyone in battleships without the ability to fit them properly is never a good idea."

There has been a thread discussing that topic almost continuously for years. The root cause is the Catch-22 of needing experienced, skilled combat pilots, but not being able to 1) retain them or 2) recruit them. In any organization, if the big picture attitudes and policies are consistently not allowing objectives to be achieved, then something has to change significantly.

Here you go....

2009-05-03T19:25:00.002-05:00

[Sigh]

When Morning Maniac echoes the call for specific suggestions, the level of respect that I have for him bids me to set aside my own preferences and stop teaching for a moment.

To set the stage, let there be no mistake. My attitude is different now than when I was in Uni. I do not hold the same beliefs about some of the core tenants that were being taught and continue to be taught to this day. I have changed, have never denied it nor do I see that fact as a shortcoming.

Those changes in my perception of those around me are the direct result of leaving Uni and experiencing the EVE universe for myself.

Others left before me and returned with comments and criticism. The conflict and internal drama that these episodes caused contributed to my own leaving. I was wrong to dismiss their viewpoints and cavalierly set them aside simply as the desire to control Uni after departure.

So, I have no memory issues and I'm aware that my viewpoints are different now than they were earlier, thank you. I have no desire to start a clone of Uni. My desire is that Uni continue to evolve in order to present a more accurate portrayal of the game, in all it's complexities.

Suggested 'Big Picture' changes:

- To serve as a Director, a player should have more than three month's experience flying with another corp in their area of expertise.

- Directors should serve staggered terms of not more than 1 year. Repeat terms should be allowed, but only after a 'sabbatical' of three months flying with someone else.

- A full and complete financial report (balance sheet, income statement and isk flow) and report of Departmental activities should be prepared quarterly and released to all involved parties, including students and contributors.

The focus of these suggestions is to make sure that Uni presents a balanced and up to date viewpoint of the game and is accountable to external supporters for Uni's stewardship of their support.

DC

PS
If you continue to hold the mistaken notion that I have some personal enmity for Uni, explain how it is that I refused to employ the power available to me as an operator of the Eve University public channel from the time that I left until that role was removed in the last few hours. What would be more 'personal' than finding out that all of the other operators were removed and that IVY was banned from the channel? I was aware of that opportunity and could have taken that action any time, but yet did not.

AWK for a couple of days

2009-04-30T07:27:00.003-05:00

In anticipation of the LT's return from Iraq, We'll be moving my daughter to the Ft. Hood area over the next few days. Things should be back to normal sometime this weekend.

ROFLMAO!

2009-04-29T11:10:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of Kirith Kodachi

/me goes to eat Cheetoes & watch TNG reruns while writing ADA code by hand on coding sheets.

Practical Instruction

2009-04-29T10:21:00.002-05:00

(Well, the comments have been interesting so far, haven't they?

I'll have more to say about the 50,000 ft issues later, but I'm going to focus on one specific challenge here.)

Generally, the gauntlet thrown down is "How are Uni students going to be better off with this war?"

In addition to all the other stuff that they should be learning, here's what I'm going to do that is totally out of the box.

I'll be commenting on specific ship fits that I find in our killmails that I think will be instructive.

Now, I hope you agree that it's a little unusual that I'd do that publicly and while the war is still active. Aiding & abetting the enemy & all that. Hell, Sabre may put ME on the target list!

I'm willing to take that chance to demonstrate:

- It's not personal
- Ex-Uni can, and will, provide valuable information
- It's not personal
- It is possible to critically review a ship fit without using the words "FAIL", "NOOB" or "LOLFIT" in such a way that guidance is presented not personal criticism.
- It's not personal

As I make my comments, remember, IT'S NOT PERSONAL!

*******************************

Now, I know a thing or two about Caldari EWAR ships, so lets take a look at a few of those:

1. http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3181229

/me smiles.

Very nice fit, sir! Completely in line with the role of Blackbird as cheap fleet jammer. No rigs. Jam for tank. More than Meta 1 jammers. Sensor booster with scan res script for quick lock. SDA's in the low. MWD allows sprint out to range and 'spank align' (be sure you understand the speed vs sig radius tradeoff). Armor repper in the utility slot to show a fleet mate some love.

The only change I'd make is to load up some faction ammo, not a whole cargo load, but just a few hundred to improve your DPS while you are on the battlefield.

2. http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3181232

/me smiles.

Another pretty good fit! Lack of AB or MWD means that you will be slow to get out to position. That may be acceptable if you have tons of bookmarks in the systems where you are likely to engage. Lack of a range script for the sensor booster implies that you've rethought this fit post ECM-nerf. With the scan res script loaded, if you can lock at your jam optimal + say 25% then the faster lock time will help you in quickdraw engagements where first lock = first jam.

Mix of jammer meta level indicates that you understand that, too.

Neut in the utility high slot is ok. My personal preference is for an armor repper, but it's just a preference.

FOF's are really out of place on a Blackbird. If you are jammed, you are about to be dead or you should be bouncing out and returning to the fight so your jammers can be effective again. Either way, FOF's just take up space. No real need for all that ammo either. Your role in the fight is ECM, not DPS. Carry a few faction rounds of ecm/kinetic & don't worry about it.

3. http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3176145

/me scratches head.

Pre-ECM nerf, this would be close to the fit that I would have been flying. My only nit would be 2x Minnie jammers. Minnie sensor strength is generally lower than the equivilent hull of other races and I mostly jam them with off-race jammers.

Post ECM-nerf, not so much. Sensor booster + range script gives you lock range of about 240, which is more than Optimal + 2X Falloff. In other words, you can lock well beyond the range at which you can jam. Swapping to scan res script gives you lock range of 150, which is just about Optimal + 2x Falloff and reduces locktime.

The key question is, how close to the fight are you planning on engaging? If you are going to standoff at 90-100km (so past Optimal, but within 1X Falloff, accepting the lower success rate of fighting in Falloff) then a sensor booster to improve locktime might be considered.

On the other hand, if you are going to fight at close to Optimal (65km), then you may want to think about swapping that sensor booster for another jammer (ECM tank) or for a LSEII (shield buffer tank).

4. http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=3181230

/me holds head in hands.

Now, I know the Rook is the new FOTM and everyone is hailing the 'new Cerb', but let's calm down a sec, m'kay?

General rules:
- There has to be some very specific purpose if you fit a ship ignoring it's main bonuses.
- Fit to compliment your fleet.
- If you have to use more than 1 low for CPU/PG buffs, you are probably trying to make a hull do something it wasn't designed for or you lack sufficient support skills for the fit.

The Rook is an EW platform. For large fleet actions by a group whose tactical doctrine includes an abundance of EWAR, EW platforms should fit EW.

If you want to sling DPS, a Caracal with 2 BCSII's will output more DPS than this fit at a fraction of the cost and is fully insurable.

*******************

Remember, it's not personal.

DC

Response by request

2009-04-28T14:11:00.002-05:00

Dee, feel free to explain just how you "believe that Uni can serve the new pilots even better than they do today". As has been said many times, anyone is free to set up their own competitor to E-UNI, and anyone doing so is welcome, but if there are things that can be done better now than when you were in charge, you should know I would be willing to hear them.

Personally, I find your attack against the POS, an asset provided to the membership at below public costs as a non-profit project, to be both disappointing and distressing.

So far, I have seen no actions which could be seen as benefiting Eve University, and in fact you threaten the continuance of its mission to educate players in all aspects of Eve.

The fact that after being Director of Operations for so long, you seem to have forgotten your reasons for leaving E-UNI, is what may be the most worrying aspect.

The question stands however - what, precisely would you do differently?

--
Kelduum Revaan
Director of Operations
Eve University

Hmmm... This is going to be a long one, so I encourage you to take a break, get a drink and come back refreshed. ;)

I'll make only a few specific comments about the POS attack last night and then move on from there.

1. The operation last night had no intention of putting the Uni POS into reinforced. Even a cursory examination of our fleet composition would have made that clear.

2. We had hoped to get a fight since you outnumbered us by at least 2 to 1 (force ratio was more in your favor really, as our gang included scouts, pickets & covops and no EWAR). We even sat still for long periods so your probers could get a warp in spot.

3. After more than two hours of plinking away at a few mods, our long range ships were running low on ammo and it was well into the middle of a weeknight, so we headed out.

4. From our side, we received some practical techniques and approaches to POS shooting and RR gangs (including my getting Concordonkened when I launched the wrong set of drones, to everyone's amusement, including my own!)

5. Your guys received some valuable experience in the techniques of POS repping, including how to deal with folks sniping your reppers.

6. No smack in local from our guys, although the Uni can inside the shield named "NO ASS LUBE 4 YOU" was a homey touch, I thought. ;)

Given that the mods were repped up within 12 hours, I fail to see how this could possibly 'threaten the continuance' of anything, much less an organization with the proven resilience and adaptablilty of Uni.

As for forgetting why I left, nothing could be further from the case, as I previously explained.

Which is more honorable? Attacking the POS of a declared WT in Empire or flying co-operatively with others to launch a suprise attack on the low sec POS of a set of 'pirates' that you are not at war with?

Which is more transparent? Openly declaring a NBSI policy everywhere or communicating NRDS (except in space that we claim sov where it's NBSI, but we don't have any 0.0 space, so that's not a player, and in WH space where we still fly NRDS unless someone enters 'our' wormhole, then we fly NBSI and they can figure out which wormhole is 'ours' when we start shooting them... {And that clear cut explanation only came to pass after ex-Uni folks pointed out the disparity between what your policies stated and what your actions demonstrated.})?

Which is more consistent? "See flashy, shoot flashy!" or "See flashy, shoot flashy, but not my Precious!"

Which is more loyal? Caring enough about friends to try and help them get a clearer picture of the world (virtual though it may be) or unilateraly removing the SA rights of the owner of your TS server's agent (who has been providing you TS service for free for years!), deleting all of the owner's corp channels, selectively purging forum access and using your own standings errors to gain changes under threat of refusing to allow those that fly with someone else to ever fly Uni colors again?

Which is more reasonable? To confine discussions of differences to private threads among higher levels of leadership or to openly call for the members of another corp to, in effect, mutiny in a preemptive fashion?

Uni does a wonderful job of teaching the mechanics of Eve, but presents only a limited view of the mindset of Eve. And, in my experience, the mindset presented is not the one that permeates Eve.

It seems to me, the initial question that you might seek to answer is this: "Can so many people that held, or still hold, positions of leadership in the Uni, including multiple DirOps (or equivalent), multiple Directors, multiple Managers and long time vets of the game, accurately, and without malice, see something from the outside about us that we can't see from an internal perspective?"

If you firmly believe the answer to that question is 'no', there is really nothing more to discuss.

If you can honestly answer that question 'yes', I think you will see the next steps clearly, as well.

As I can no longer post in the Alumni section of the Uni boards, you have my permission to link or quote this response (in it's entirety) as you see fit in the thread requesting feedback. Some of your members are crossposting portions of that thread to the Seppuku boards, where all are welcome and I will be linking it there.

Best regards,

Dee

Open Letter to The Students of Eve University

2009-04-27T13:04:00.003-05:00

Open Letter to The Students of Eve University

Many of you have expressed questions about why I would choose to participate in a war dec of Uni and why Seppuku has chosen to issue that dec.

Because Seppuku Pilots have been dropped from the scetions of your boards where you are discussing this (understandably), I will use this forum to try and explain it as best I can.

Seppuku has been offered contracts to dec the Uni before and we have turned them down. We have been offered these contracts by multiple folks, all of whom harbored Uni only ill will and had no justification for that animus. They were all turned down.

The current dec is the result of a contract offered under substantially different circumstances and based on other... let's just say.. less than friendly attitudes and actions taken by some members of Uni's current leadership toward us and others, there was no overwhelming reason to stay our hand again. Any possibility of reasonable discussion was quickly dispatched by both deeds and attitudes from both sides.

99.9% of all of this took place behind the scenes, with students seeing only what Uni leadership chose to disclose, as is their prerogative.

So, Seppuku has gone merc?

Not officially. Our mission remains the same. We are learning together by blowing stuff up and getting blown up. If someone wants to pay us for that, so much the better!

So, why am I choosing to participate? Have I failed in some duty to babysit Sabre like a 12 year granddaughter? Have I crossed over to the Dark Side and become another of the BAAAAAD MENZ that prey upon the poor poor noobs?

ROFLMAO!

Let's get a few things clear:

I have the utmost respect for Morning Maniac and his vision.
I have the same level of respect for the stated ideals, goals and objectives of Uni.
I strongly believe that Uni is the best place for any new player to start the game.
I am very proud of the time I spent at Uni and continue to be honored to have served there.

When I left Uni, I did so because I felt an increasing level of discomfort with some of the ideas and concepts that were being communicated. There was an increasing level of partisanship, that I freely admit I bought into at first. This 'bunker mentality' permeates and surrounds all. The message was that if you fought Uni, you were destroying the game, you were griefing and mere scum to be despised and disposed of. Internet Spaceships was DAMN SERIOUS and conflict should be approach only in the grave manner normally associated with real world issues of life and death.

But, increasingly, I interacted with those that, according to what was being espoused internally, I should hate, have nothing in common with and be prepared to find only the worst of humanity.

What I found was significantly different.

Most (not all!) were decent folks who didn't have any particular gripe with Uni. They were just out for a little fun with their pixels. They weren't vermin or lowlifes or bottomfeeders.

Trying to reconcile this disconnect (among other 'pinches') left me with the conclusion that I had to leave, at least for a time.

In my time away from Uni, I have learned much (MWD is not optional in 0.0, m'kay?), relearned much (everything in the game is PvP related, just in different guises) and unlearned much (I don't have to hate you to shoot you and just because you shoot me doesn't mean you hate me! It's not personal!).

I have learned that Internet Spaceships is not DAMN SERIOUS, that rearranging pixels on the screen can be great fun and a little smack never hurt anything. Oh yeah, and I learned that Sabre was right about just as many things as I was. ;)

That's all fine, you say, but why are you fighting Uni?

Three reasons:

I fight with my Corpmates.
Because I believe that Uni can serve the new pilots even better than they do today.
Because it will be FUN, win lose or draw.

Respectfully,

Dee Carson

PS: If you want my Director Emeritus medal, you can pry it from my cold, dead, hand.

PPS: Only 20 Million for my corpse? Hell, I'll match that, AK, you slacker! Lol

A better proposal

2009-03-26T12:10:00.001-05:00

No matter how loudly the checker players whine about Falcons sitting out at 200km 'permajamming' and how emphatically they support the currently proposed changes, their real beef is with jam strength.

And the proposed changes do not affect that at all. Falcons are still going to jam an interceptor with one module everytime and have a 94% probability of jamming a cruiser sized hull with 2 modules.

I suggest the following changes that address the real issues, but neither require scrapping the entire mechanic nor assigning another Caldari role to the scrap heap.

1. Decrease base jammer strength 20% across the board (reduced probability of jam).
2. New ECCM module that adds flat 15 points to sensor strength (more anti-jam, particularly for small ships)
3. SDA bonus applies to all EWAR modules (including ECCM, TD, TP & damps)
4. Falcon base optimal/falloff of 45/45 (brings Falcon in closer)
5. Split Cruiser skill bonus to 10/10 for Optimal and Falloff (brings Falcon in closer)

The results from a Falcon pilot's view:

- 17% reduction in jamming strength and 55% reduction in optimal (max jam fit)

or

- 26% reduction in jamming strength and 34% reduction in optimal (max optimal fit)

Falcons won't be as powerful, but they will continue to have a role in fleet/small gang work.

DC

It's still not Checkers 2.0

2009-03-25T12:30:00.004-05:00

CCP Devs have reconsidered at least one facet of the proposed ECM nerf, agreeing that the Falcon's role is that of long range jamming platform.

The nerf methodology of flipping the optimal/falloff stats of jammers will bring me closer to the fight and increase the danger of a missed jam.

However, it in no way affects the probability of me obtaining that jam. In other words, if you were bitching about getting 'permajammed' under the existing rules, you will see absolutely no difference. None. Nada. Zero. Your interceptor is still going to get taken out of the fight every time.

The stealth part of the nerf is the removal of the cap useage bonus. I haven't been able to model that quite yet to determine how severe the hit will be, but it will cause more missed cycles because of dry cap.

Here's my reply in the EO thread:

- With the revised Falcon changes
- With the flip of base optimal and falloff ranges
- With no change in either SDA, PDA or PDP stats
- With fit of 3 SDA + 2 PDP (so max jammer)
- With max related skills

Yields:
Optimal 46% reduction from 227 to 122.
Optimal + Falloff 25 % reduction from 267 to 202
No change in jamming strength which remains at 14.4

The results:

- No change in the probabilities of a jam. If you were on the wrong end of the jam strength vs sensor strength math before, you still are. Repeat, you still are.

- Increased danger related to a missed jam because you are inside engagement range of more OPFOR.

Easy Predictions:

- More Falcons on the field to cover the missed jams.
- Snipers will be the next nerf target, because with engagement ranges > any other ship on the field, the whines will start all over again.

Sorry CCP, but these changes won't obtain the result you seem to be after.

Once the checker players realize that their short range, one dimensional, total WTFOMGPWNZR mobiles are going to get jammed just as often, you'll see the expressed satisfaction with this proposed nerf drop like a rock.

Chess vs Checkers

2009-03-24T15:37:00.001-05:00

Checkers is an easy game, really. There’s a bit of strategy involved, but no one writes books about it. You don’t see checkers columns in the newspapers and the World Checker Champion isn’t though of as being particularly brilliant.

Take a checker player & put him on a chess board and things just don’t seem fair to him. The rules are different and the way to win is no longer straight forward. Confronted with this situation, most folks either learn to play chess (appreciating it for what it is) or return to checkers (playing what they enjoy). Few resort to calling for changes in the rules of chess to make it into Checkers 2.0.

These days, in Eve Online, it seems the Devs are listening to the checker players.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1032703

Yes, I’m a dedicated, maxed out Falcon pilot with months of invested training time, get that out of the way from the beginning.

However, the implication that Falcons are so overpowered that they need to be drastically changed is simply wrong. And wrong on several levels.

The role of the Falcon is that of force multiplier. It’s weapons are stealth and denying the enemy the ability to inflict damage. It has no tank and laughable DPS. The Falcon rewards pilots, FC’s and corps that understand tactics, that have the patience to prepare the battlefield and have the situational awareness to know when it’s time to move. Falcon’s are for chessmasters, not checker players.

Falcons are extremely vulnerable on their own. With no tank, minimal DPS and no drone bay, there are many ways to get a Falcon pilot to leave the battlefield, denying his force multiplier effect to your OPFOR. Bring your own Falcon or have a cruiser with combat probes ready to drop 1 short range probe, establish a warp in and insta-pop the Falcon or send an interceptor with a flight of Warrior II’s assigned out to the Falcon or warp your own set of anti-Falcon snipers into the fight after the Falcon is revealed or fit an ECCM module. Being ready to counter Falcons requires preparation and planning, but it is not impossible. It’s for chessmasters, not checker players.

And even if the foregoing wasn’t true, the proposed changes will not have the desired result.

To balance things out, Falcons will lose the range advantage, but will get more jam strength, more tank, more agility and more DPS.

And the checker players _like_ this?

Instead of reducing the number of Falcon pilots flying in small gangs, this will actually increase their proportionate representation. If you increase my jam strength 25%, then the number of jammers I need to be ready to apply to a representative battleship target to have a 94% probability of a successful jam drops from 3 modules to 2. So, 94% of the time my 6 jammer set up can service 3 battleship targets now, instead of just 2. What about cruisers and HAC’s? 1 jammer need now for 93% probability of success instead of 2.

Does this sound like a nerf to you?

For those that think that Falcons are overpowered in their effectiveness, I’d suggest you support a combination of the following easy changes:

1. Shorten the jam cycle
2. Reduce the base strength of all jammer modules by 10%
3. Reduce the optimal range bonuses by 5KM per level
4. Introduce scripts to Signal Distortion Amplifiers, 1 for optimal, 1 for strength

The results would bring Falcons closer to the fight and with a lowered probability of success. That is what you want, right?

PK-4

Flying a Falcon: the 3 F's

2009-03-07T06:53:00.002-06:00

Everything you need to know about flying a Falcon can be summarized by remembering the 3 F’s: Fit, Forethought, and Finesse.

Fit

Hi slots: Cov Ops Cloak. Everything else is optional. Probe launcher? Sure, but no ship bonuses, so your scans will take time. Heavy launchers? Ok, but if you are actually putting DPS on someone, you are either in very small gang flight against 1 guy or things have gone horribly bad. Remote armor reppers will earn you some ‘after the battle’ love, but are of no use during the engagement. Salvager, meh. Whatever. The cloak is the reason for the ship. Training Recons to 4 helps a great deal, but I didn’t even consider a probe launcher until I got to Recon 5.

Mid slots: 1X MicroWarpDrive, 1X Sensor Booster II, 4x Racial Jammers. 1X ECCM _or_ 5th racial jammer. The idea is to carry as many jammers as possible. MWD is a given. Sensor booster for quick lock on any other jammers on the field. ECCM if OPFOR is known to fly their own Falcons. Racial jammers in every remaining slot. Double up on known OPFOR favorite ship type.

Low slots: 2x Signal Distortion Amplifiers, 1X Tank (DCU II or 1600 plate) _or_ 3rd SDA.

Rigs: 1X Particle Disruption Projector (jam range) plus either 1x Particle Dispersion Augmentor (jam strength) if you fit tank in lows or 1X additional Particle Disruption Projector (jam range).

The goal is to obtain an engagement envelope in excess of 150-175km and then to maximize your jam strength at that range. Jamming is purely chance based and calculated by looking at the ratio of jam strength to target ship sensor strength. For example, my max jam strength for Gallente in my preferred fit is 14.52. Kaye’s Vexor has sensor strength of 14. 14.52 / 14 > 1, so I would perma jam Kaye’s Vexor. Kaye’s base Onerios has sensor strength of 20. 14.52/20 = 72% probability of a jam. Add an ECCM module to that Onerios and things get ugly (sensor strength goes to 36, probability falls to 40%). Add 3 and sensor strength goes to 89, with probability of 16%.

Megathron’s base sensor strength of 21 gives me about a 70% chance of a jam.

Key concept is that this probability is independent (ie the results of one ‘roll’ have no impact on the next) and is determined separately for each jammer. Quick and dirty method to approximate your total chance of jamming a given target with N number of jammers is to multiply all of the chances of a ‘miss’ and subtract from 1.

So, using our plain Mega or Onerios and 3 Gallente jammers we get:
Jammer 1 - 30% independent - 30% Cum Miss
Jammer 2 - 30% independent - 09% Cum Miss
Jammer 3 - 30% independent - 03% Cum Miss

If you think about it, this also hints toward why I never fly multispecs.

Forethought

If you have an established base, then you should have tons of bookmarks at your preferred jamming range. For stations, that’s usually measured from the undock point. You want book marks in all directions from that spot and, you want them to all be warpable from each spot. Six is a good minimum number to work toward. High, low, left, right, back, front. Have an offgrid spot or two and you are set.

Secondly, spend time on the OPFOR’s killboard if you can. Figure out what ships their main pilots fly and if there is an overall favorite race. If so, that tells you how to weight your jammers.

Finesse

Get in the mindset of the young Muhammad Ali. Long range jabs of power. Nimble. Moving about the battlespace, out of range of the other guy, frustrating his ability to hurt you (or your fleet mates). Don’t uncloak too soon. Always be moving. Co-ordinate jams with other Falcon pilots. Be alert for ‘ceptors! When they start heading your way, prepare to warp to the other side of the battlespace (using one of those handy bookmarks!) or to bounce off your offgrid & come back.

Prioritize your jamming. Put your racial matches where they will do the most good first, then follow up by putting anything left back on the target that you wish to have jammed the most.

Don’t initially jam targets that are sitting on the undock point or a gate. You want them to aggress so that they have a timer.

Don’t spam all the jammers you have allocated to a target at once. Hit one, wait 5 or 10 secs and then hit the next one. You want to minimize the amount of time between ‘rolls’.

Hope you find something useful here!

End of War One

2009-02-19T08:21:00.004-06:00

Seppuku Warriors has concluded our first campaign and the results were satisfying.

58 kills / 2 losses.

There was a little bit of everything, too. We flew battleship fleets, 'ceptor gangs & pretty much everything in between. Practical instruction on tactical bookmarking, station humping, remote repping and the use of OOC reppers, POS takedowns and the appropriate use of GF in local.

Personally, I flew almost everything in my hangar at some point, grabbing kills in some of my favorites (Can't Stop The Rokh!), protecting my mates from the shadows or savoring the 'new ship smell' of the latest addition to my HAC fleet ("He can't hit me from way out there with miss[BLAMMM]...").

Having finished off Recon V during the war, I'm beginning the process of cross-training some Minnie ships. Since all of my gunnery support skills work for projectiles as well as rails, getting to T2 fitted Minnie 'ceptors and assault frigates is just a few days training.

Too Long Gone...

2009-02-16T08:31:00.002-06:00

The past few weeks have been filed past the brim, overflowing with activities, issues and time sinks, both in RL & in EVE. I hope that things get back to something approaching normal soon. We shall see.

Seppuku Warriors is off to a rousing start. We are currently involved in a series of war decs with a Caldari Faction Warfare corp, applying the ancient axioms of warfare with internet spaceship interpretations...

This week's lessons:

"The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans"
and
“He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.” ... Sun Tzu

OPFOR's research division operated a high-sec medium POS, which fit well into our desire to discuss hi-sec POS tactics. OPFOR enlisted FW militia OOC repper support for the POS attack that they anticipated we would field as soon as the dec went active.

So, we made a big show of forming up a few jumps out, docking & undocking various big ships, testing RR capabilties, showing (almost!) our full hand to their alts.

And we sat there. And we waited.

After a few minutes, OPFOR decided abandon their defensive stance (including the protection of the POS shields/guns) and to come calling with 5X Ravens, a Rokh, a Scorp, a Blackbird and at least an equal number of OOC reppers and support ships. They warped to the station where our battleship section was docked and (curiously) began to activate their RR chains (which flagged most of the OOC reppers to us before the battle was joined!).

Our battleships undocked and OPFOR aggressed at the undock point. Our support fleet warped in with points & webs. Our EW broke the OOC repper chains. We lost a Scorp that got tangled up in the furball at the undock and a Falcon who jammed one of the OOC guys who wasn't flagged. In exchange, all of the OPFOR's ships went pop in less than 5 minutes, along with a few of the OOC reppers who stuck around too long and served as dessert after we had finished with the main course.

Then we followed them home and put the POS in reinforced, adding the POS, a cruiser, a battlecruiser, a logistics ship and two more battleships to the bag by the time the tower fell the next day.

Yeah, we had fun! :)

Having a blast!

2009-01-31T19:25:00.004-06:00

Our first set of students starts tomorrow and we have been having some great fun in the 'soft opening' phase! Lots of explosions! Some ours, some theirs, but lots of fun and everyone involved (including yours truly!) is learning about how much different 0.0 combat is from Empire.

The other really fun thing is to see how many talented artists that we have. I'm including a few samples of what great sigs our guys have built for our internal forums. m0rd0 was kind enough to give me permission to steal the base image of his sig as a new banner for this site. Hope you enjoy these as much as I do:

Incoming! BLU-82D The Drama Bomb!

2009-01-24T08:52:00.004-06:00

Mynxee proposes Topic 2 in her ongoing discussion round table:

The Corp Drama Bomb

So I ask you, dear readers, to ponder the corp drama bomb. What IS the most common cause? Are drama bombs inevitable due to the nature of life in New Eden? Are there early warning signs? Are some corps more prone to drama bombs than others, and if so, why? Can corps avoid the drama bomb and if so, how? How can a corp best recover from a drama bomb? Have you experienced a drama bomb that blew up your corp and if so, what did you learn from that experience?

OK--the floor's open. Share your own thoughts, opinions, experiences, and ideas

Ah, yes! The dreaded, despised, demoralizing, but inevitable, drama bomb. Sustenance to forum trolls and laxative to the tightest 4th points of contact in the Universe! Nothing compares to the deliciousness of the well played drama bomb.

Having experienced my share of drama bombs during my tenure of leadership at Eve University, I'll share a few observations about leadership responses.

First of all, recognize that, just as in real life, interpersonal conflict is inevitable. No matter how tight your group, no matter how long you've know each other or how much you care for one another, at some point there will arise an issue that upsets the apple cart. Knowing that such conflict is coming, how are you planning on dealing with it? Having any kind of plan forces you to think ahead of time, rather than just reacting. Planning also lets you examine alternatives without the time crunch of crisis.

Secondly, unlike real life for most of us, EVE puts you in an environment where many of the people that you interact with don't share your same native language, idioms, culture and values. Slang terms for innocuous items in your culture (say a British slang term for cigarettes) may be inflammatory to someone from another country who hears or reads a comment out of context. Not to mention the inherent communication problems that arise when a native German speaker tries to translate his thoughts on the fly to English and pass them to a native Spanish speaker who is mentally going from English to Spanish. The EVE universe has so many built in opportunities to mis-communicate, it's crazy! You must communicate simply, clearly and as often as possible in order to defuse the drama bomb.

Thirdly, just as in real live, recognize that everyone's position, feelings, outlook and attitudes contains a kernel of truth. Trying to find as many of those kernels from the same species as possible in any contentious situation helps everyone to see things from the other persons point of view.

Finally, again mirroring real life, decisions made in anger and haste rarely turn out well for anyone involved. Particularly when dealing with forum posts, I invoke the One Hour Rule. I compose my response and save the draft. I come back to it an hour later and if it still seems reasonable, I post it. Sometimes, just taking a breath can turn a drama bomb into a drama hand grenade. Still unpleasant, to be sure, but less likely to take out the whole group.

tldr version:

- Have a plan
- Communicate
- Shut up & listen
- Anger & the 'enter' key rarely work well together

Startup fun....

2009-01-22T16:23:00.002-06:00

Seppuku Warriors is getting off to a quick start.

There are lots of things to think about when you get ready to spin up a new 'open to the public' group.

Some are infrastructure related: Website. Killboard. Voice Com server. API tools. We are very lucky to have m0rd0 as one of our founders. He's an IT wizzard and had many of these items sorted before the rest of us were done making the list!

Some are communication related: Seppuku Warriors FAQ

Some are vanity, like all the cool artwork that folks have put together for sigs and banners.

Some are logistical. Like how to get a crapton of 'stuff' from Korsiki to Stacmon, not just for yourself, but for the new guys, too. Freighter/Orca alt FTW!

The sense of anticipation is growing and we've started accepting applications for the limited number of slots that will be made available at first. As a management team, we want to start small for lots of reasons and control our growth as we go forward.

If you are interested, the FAQ should answer your questions. If I missed something, post a comment here, PM me on the SW homepage, convo me in game or Eve Mail me.

An All-Star Line Up...

2009-01-18T12:50:00.002-06:00

Seppuku Warriors' PvP Instructors

One of the reasons I was excited about helping Sabre start Seppuku Warriors was the vision of including acknowledged PvP experts as a part of our cadre of instructors.

I think these fit the bill:

Sir Molle(EVOL) - CEO and Leader Of The Band of Brothers Alliance
KOTH Fluf(SHIVA) - CEO, NC Senior FC and Ex Leader of Morsus Mihi, VC and FA
Rooman(ANZAC) - CEO and Leader Of Southern Cross Alliance
00Tricky(RKK) - Director of Reikoku and GBC Senior FC

There are a couple of other folks that have yet to confirm, and of course our founders have chops of their own, but these name should be enough to tweak the interest level.

Obviously, these pilots will be represented by alts. No one could expect otherwise, but the key idea is that these guys are setting aside the political positions of their mains in order to teach small gang PvP to less experienced pilots.

Could it be that even the Big Guys still like to blow stuff up?

Solo in 0.0... Oh My!

2009-01-17T08:06:00.002-06:00

As a recon pilot, one of the things that I need in my bag of tricks is a bunch of bookmarks. When I go to a new FOB or execute a PCS (like moving from Korsiki to Stacmon), one of the first things I do is take an interceptor and a CovOps frigate & start making those bookmarks. Multiple safespots, station spots, undock spots, snipes for the belts, gates & stations. It's a PITA. But it's all a part of preparing the battlefield.

I aslo like to have bookmarks in the nearby systems where I expect to be active, so last night, I chinched up tight, took an extra wrap on my rope hand, boarded my Buzzard & headed off for 0.0.

Alone.

Now, I've been in 0.0 a fair amount of time with Uni fleets in many different roles. So I've been alone in a system before, but it's always been with 40-50 of my mates right behind me as a security blanket. Not this time.

I fully expected to lose my ship (and stripped it of all the 'good stuff' before setting out) and perhaps to wake up back in Korsiki, but I had work to do, so off I went.

It was interesting. From an observational perspective, there were far fewer pilots than I expected. Most systems had only a few. And it was quiet. Not much banter in local, even in the more populated systems. The belts were.... Amazing. That's the only word that I can use. As a miner, you get a sense of the size of the rocks. How big they should look when you are in mining range. That perception caused my first 'OH NOES!' moment of the trip. I warped into the first belt at 100 just to take a quick look. I dropped out of warp with an Eos on the overview and a veld rock that made me think I had mis-clicked and warped to the belt at zero. I was waiting for my cloak to drop and my ship to go 'poof'. Nothing happens. I regain enough composure to notice that the EOS is 75km from me, swap to my mining tab & see that the veld rock that I tought I was on top of was really 135km away. It was a moon! Clearly, no one mines much veld out here! ;)

From a personal persepective, it felt different... In Empire, travel is routine during peacetime and during wartime Uni intel is so good that I always knew where any nearby WT was before I undocked. So, I felt relatively safe.

This was different. At one point, I was alone in a system, making an OP bookmark on a gate at 150+ km. Multiple gate fires and all of a sudden I'm looking at 20+ red flashies right in front of me! O_O

The feelings called back to my first days in EVE when I had figured out that there were players that would shoot me and my little Merlin just because they could. It felt dangerous!

It was the most fun I'd had in a long time!

After a couple of hours of roaming, it was time to head back through low sec to our base. On the way, one pilot, who had seen me several times, and I had this exchange:

Pilot: "Carson, I don't know your new corp."
Me: "You will."

;)

Time to blow up stuff...

2009-01-16T09:12:00.005-06:00

What do you do when your maxed out as a miner? When those fangs that used to come out only for war decs now seem to itch all the time? When, like Bill, you struggle to control the blood lust? When, at the same time, you are conflicted by the desire to continue to teach and be of service to the EVE Community?

For me, the answer is help my friend Sabre A (yes, that Sabre A!) start a brand new PvP training corp: Seppuku Warriors.

Our vision is simple: we intend to teach pilots how to blow stuff up.

At this point, I cannot disclose the names of all of the pilots who will be serving as instructors, but I can tell you that our staff will include some of the most recognizable, experienced and respected PvP pilots in the game, from all sides of the current galactic conflict. If you are a student, you will be learning from the best.

Seppuku Warriors FAQ

See you soon!

Discussion #1: ECM Countermeasures

2009-01-14T14:26:00.002-06:00

From my favorite Lady Pirate:

Discussion #1: ECM Countermeasures

The core question is how to deal with OPFOR ECM ships. As a dedicated Falcon pilot, I'll take a swing at providing some insight.

I'll start with this: Fitting all your ships with ECCM gives me the win before I undock. Just don't.

Make sure you understand your goal. Do you want to kill me or is it enough to make me disengage so that you can kill my mates? Tactics always are a function of objectives.

Killing me usually means I've made a mistake. I decloaked too early in the engagement or too close. I didn't hold back that last jammer as a hole card. I wasn't moving and aligned to a 'Get Out Of Dodge' spot. If I've played the situation right, you are going to have to be very lucky to be able to drop a tackler on me. Falcons range tank and jam tank and have to have cap to live. Denied those three items, a Falcon goes 'pop' pretty darn fast.

Making me disengage is easier, because I have to honor the threat. If you have lots of points on the primary & secondary, send your interceptors my way. Warrior II's assigned to a Taranis are a nightmare. Counter-jamming with your own Falcon turns the engagement into a roll of the dice and I'll bounce out and back to force a re-roll if I'm unlucky. And if you have a Curse, you'll make me move quickly and often. Every time I'm forced to disengage, you open a window for your team to kill my mates.

Unless another Falcon uncloaks when I have to leave... ;)

Here A POS, There A POS, Everywhere a POS!

2009-01-13T07:44:00.002-06:00

When I stepped down from Eve University, one of the items I had on my list was to drop my own research POS. I had a number of BPO's that I bought in the past and used the 2Know POS to research them up a bit, so at least two battleship BPO's could immediately produce BPC's for sale. I read a number of the POS Guides that my fellow bloggers have produced and began my own checklist.

I looked at my standings to the Caldari State and thought that I'd be able to drop in Korsiki. What I didn't know then, was that the standings that count are not the skill adjusted (6.15 or so, as I recall), but the raw standings (5.88 at the time).

The thing that surprised me the most was how many inactive POS towers there are in space. Since they are still anchored, they can only be removed by their owner, but even in their inactive state, they prevent another POS from being dropped. In many systems that I surveyed, the majority of the moons were covered by inactive towers. Bummer...

But, at the end of the day, I found a spot where I could drop my small tower & 2 labs. I rolled a research alt and we've started cranking out BPC's to cover the fuel bill while researching a second set of BPO's up to an acceptable level so they can be copied, too.

I also discovered a great use for all those random loyalty points: charters. At 5 LP / charter these are a great value and, unlike many of the other LP redemptions, you don't have to add cash or other items to get what you want.

With all of the research copy slots full of my own work, I'm considering what to do with the invention slots. Renting them out would be an option, but I don't really want to let other people in to CACL, so they may sit idle for now.

The numbers indicate that I should recover my POS investment in about 2-3 months, but that's only because I already had BPO's ready to copy. If you are contemplating dropping your own POS for a similar use, be sure you include the cost of BPO's and the fuel cost for the time required to research them to a marketable level, along with the POS hardware cost in your isk needs. All of a sudden, that 200k-300k isk investment becomes 1.5B to 2.5B isk. And that, my friends, is a different kettle of fish! ;)

RL Update: Back Home and Thank you!

2009-01-12T08:05:00.004-06:00

My Father-In-Law has returned home and so have I. He continues to improve on a daily basis and the familial focus has moved beyond the immediate to the long term as we seek to find the courses of action that provide him with a satisfying lifestyle without putting him at risk. Your thoughts and prayers were (and continue to be) greatly appreciated by all of the family.

The LT has a new assignment in Iraq as the platoon leader for the Brigade 6's personal security detail. He will also get promoted to 1st Lt in a few days. Rumors swirl that their deployment will be cut short of the 15 month standard. My advice to daughter and wife has been to plan for 15 months unless and until he deplanes in CONUS with the rest of 4BCT 1CAV.

I'll post a separate EVE update later today and will only tease with this:

RL Issues and Questions Answered

2008-12-23T07:29:00.002-06:00

Ref:

My father-in-law suffered a stroke on Saturday, so I will be back playing cowboy and driving my mother-in-law to the hospital some 20 miles away. His long term prognosis is fine. He is not physically impaired, but his comprehension and communication skills are very limited at the moment.

My own RL situation is such that I can spend whatever time is required to support them and I accept that task gladly.

If you've followed my comments here in the past, you've seen hints of my faith. I've kept them to hints only because my opinion was that my faith has nothing to do with internet spaceships and had no place being front and center.

I'll only take a short time out from that editorial policy to just say that it is no accident that I had been led to step down from my post at Eve University, even though there was no overwhelming event or reason in front of me.

Perhaps, He looks after internet spaceships, after all. ;)

I won't be stopping my Eve activities, in many ways, I'll need the stress relieve more than ever. But bit of solo work fits perfectly for now.

Now what?

2008-12-19T05:47:00.002-06:00

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I want to explore the portions of Eve that my duties at Eve University precluded.

In the short term, I'm going to put up a POS somewhere in Caldari space. Kaye has some research and production skills, but I've never taken full advantage of those. A passive income stream would be nice, too. I'm considering writing a beginner's guide to POS activities. There are several technical POS guides available, but I haven't found the 'tactical to practical' bridge, just yet. If you know of such a guide, drop a comment. I'd appreciate it!

While I'm waiting for the standings reset in my corp, I'll be mining and missioning some. One of the downsides to leaving Uni is that I no longer have access to a shared freighter from Uni hangars. To fill that slot in my TOE, I need about 70M units of trit. I have sufficient quantities of everything else in my mineral stocks to do a minerals + build fee deal for an Obelisk.

Kaye finished Cloaking IV yesterday, and immediately fitted a Helios and refitted a Viator, adding a CovOps cloak. A road trip may be in order. I understand that Evati has seen some interesting events of late. ;)

I did receive this by email:

Along with this "You know you want to."

I lol'ed!

But didn't delete it.

Turn The Page...

2008-12-18T07:22:00.004-06:00

[Wall of Text Warning!]

Six months ago, I accepted Morning Maniac's request to assume the chair of Director of Operations of Eve University. I was honored to be trusted with the task of serving his vision of selflessness, the most human of qualities, in such an unexpected venue as internet spaceships and flattered that a bunch of 'kids' would consider listening to an old man.

The place of Eve University in the Eve-verse is interesting. By design, it is only a starting point. A place to gain an understanding of the game, in all it's complexity and to establish the knowledge base that allows a new pilot to choose a more focused experience and leave with our blessing and support as they go.

The guidelines that we place on our students invariably begin to chafe more and more as new pilots gain experience. They enjoy the camaraderie and experience so much that they don't want to leave, but the pinch they feel leads to frustration and efforts to transform the Uni into something it can never be as long as it remains true to MM's vision.

In speaking with many such students, I tried to stress that leaving the Uni was an expected event, something to be viewed with excitement and happiness, rather than dread and disappointment.

Really sucks when your own words come back to haunt you, but sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

The past few weeks have found me increasingly restless and frustrated with my game time. Being the Head Cat Wrangler put me in the position of attempting (wrongly) to be available for any question, crisis or dispute that needed attention. I had anticipated that danger and we implemented a distributed org chart and pushed down authority and responsibility as far as possible, but DirOps is responsible for all.

Rather than go postal, I determined that the time had arrived for me to heed my own advice and launch forth on my own. There was no single trigger. No one event or person that caused me to make this choice. It was just time.

News of my departure was initially interpreted as some kind of date challenged 'April Fool's Day' joke, but rapidly turned to an expression of gratitude and appreciation that validated my timing was correct. Always leave before you wear out your welcome!

My new tunic doesn't seem to fit quite right yet, but the medal from Eve University looks nice. I'm quite proud to receive the first medal awarded by the Uni and will always have it on public display.

To the students and faculty of Eve University, I wish for you:

A fast ship and a star to steer her by.
Fair winds and following seas.
A target rich environment.

AT/AP/AC

Your servant,
Dee Carson

[End Wall of Text]

tl;dr version:

So Long, My Brothers In Arms

Thanks for all the fish!

DC

CSAR and "One order of fried eyeballs, to go!"

2008-12-17T08:01:00.001-06:00

I logged in to finish my hangar cleanup at HQ. From Corp Chat, I learned that we had a member stranded in Urlen with WT in local and there was discussion of forming a fleet to get him out.

Determining that the member in question was flying a Merlin, it was clear that I could get him out and back to HQ before an effective combat fleet could be formed. Gathered up some ninja types (you guys rock!), positioned eyes on 4-4, the Urlen gate in Perimeter and outside the station where our corpmate was docked. Successfully got our guy in space an on the move to Korsiki.

Just as he was about to jump into Korsiki, reports of Pilgrippa (WT) in Korsiki local in a Zealot. Our guy docks up in Osmon while I jump into Korsiki & check the gate. WT leaves Korsiki, but not into Osmon. Our guy undocks, jumps through and safely docks up. CSAR evolution complete with no losses and one lost sheep returned to Korsiki.

With local clear, I was about to log when our WT popped back into system and shows up at HQ. An adhoc squad forms up and we begin playing dock/undock games. Manuvering to provide a warp in point, Jax got caught on the station and was popped before I could relocate & get WT jammed. My bad, Jax, I'll get you a new ship today sometime. We have a couple of instances where WT goes deep into structure before docking (in fact, I thought we had popped him once).

WT warps to a spot off the Osmon gate (mistake! He knew we had cloaking ships active!) and Hiroyuki Fujita positions to provide both the tackle and the warp in point. I go to warp and issue standby to the fleet. My concern is to not get small ships arriving too soon, getting popped before I can jam, so I wait until I'm 15 secs from landing before I call Hiroyuki to uncloak and engage and direct everyone else to warp to Hiroyuki and to engage on contact.

What happened next was a _perfectly_ delivered headshot.

I land 115km away from WT just as he and Hiroyuki execute the mutual tackle. 3 secs later, WT is permajammed. 20 secs later, our DPS starts to arrive. 1 minute later, "Boom Goes the Dynamite!".

Pod got away, though.

Good job by all concerned. The only hic-up was Jax's loss. Stations & cloakers are not friends!

Tagged?? Oh dear!

2008-12-16T18:04:00.002-06:00

It seems that I have been the victim of a drive by tagging from Karox.

So the way the game works is:
- Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
- Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
- Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
- Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Ok, here we go...

1. I'm a speed freak. I've driven a NASCAR stock car at 165MPH and _loved_ it!

2. I'm also a sailor, but cat's only, thank you. Hull flying ftw!

3. My musical taste has been described as "either prima fascia evidence of schizophrenia or the most eclectic rack mankind has ever seen". Nat King Cole? Check. Jamie Foxx? Check. Chet Atkins? Check. Mark Knoffler Check. Pavarotti to PDiddy, I got ya covered.

4. I've taught adult Bible study in the Baptist Church for 20+ years.

5. My home town has only 3 traffic lights. All 3 blink only.

6. Keeping with Eve University tradition, there is no 6. Here's why.

7. I remember both the Cuban Missile Crisis and the band that Paul McCartney was in before Wings.

Seven to tag:

Silentbrick
Dook
Galaxy Voyager
Vive Virtual
Ironfleet Towing
Votrian
Misguided Adventurer

I'll be leaving these folks comments to let them know they've been tagged in a bit..

Another War Dec....

2008-12-11T07:48:00.003-06:00

This will put us over a month of near constant war decs.

A dec every now and then is fun for us, but, because we close recruiting during wars, it means that we are unable to act on our main purpose, getting new pilots quickly immersed in the game. The frustration level among leadership rises because we know that the fewer people we help, the fewer new trial accounts convert to subscriptions. And no matter what your play style, fewer new pilots is bad.

So, our pilots continue to fight the way we always do. Tight discipline, combined arms fleets, lots of little ships with low skillpoint pilots and a few vets who bring the heat.

Trading cruisers for battleships. ;)

Orcas in Action

2008-12-08T07:24:00.003-06:00

The end of our last war has allowed Eve University to return to our primary purpose of taking new pilots and helping them scale the vertical learning cliff that is EVE Online. One of our traditions is that new members are greeted in Corp Chat with a chorus of "Welcomes!", a few Bunny Gank Tanks and a rouge Beer Truck. Over the weekend, Corp Chat never stopped scrolling!

I had the opportunity to roll out the Orca (USS New York LPD-21) for a little solo work Saturday and a Corp common can op on Sunday afternoon, where we ended up with two Orca's for the last hour.

For solo work, this ship is everything I had hoped it would be. Kaye pilots the Orca, with salvaging Dessie and Hulk in the ship bay. Dee flys a Raptor to web sling the Orca. Jump into system, use the Raptor to do a quick fly by of the belts and pick a spot. Kaye warps the Orca to Dee in the belt, Dee swaps to Hulk and the work shift begins. Takes about an hour to fill the ~135k m3 available. Dock, unload. Rinse & repeat. No can ever outside, much to the chagrin of the Rifter pilot who sat beside me for 15 minutes, popping off in local that he was a "can flippin' mofo, cum 2 steal yur rocks!" That earned him a pat on the head in local in return. ;)

For group ops, the real issue is going to be co-ordinating the haulers so they can keep up. Many of the belts required no repositioning to take down completely and only 1 move was required for the largest belt (22KM range for strips!). At peak, we were generating the equivalent of a full can every 2 minutes (134 sec strip cycle time!). The second Orca as hauler was a good solution. The hauler Orca stood off about 25km and we tractored a can back and forth to transfer. The can Orca has enough buffer storage to cover the trip by the hauler to the station. If you know that you are going to have 2 Orca's you can use 1 with mining links and the other with a different set (say shield links), too.

Some wierd GUI and stacking issues, but nothing too distracting. Kaye is only at Industrial Command Ship 3, so there's still 6% topside available.

Here's a pic:

On my absence...

2008-12-08T07:13:00.003-06:00

I've been absent for a few days. The LT's leaving has been tough for all of us, another non-war war for Uni and a general sense of meh all dampened my enthusiasm a bit.

I can't tell you how much your comments in local (particularly the "Hey Dee: For the LT - O7") have pulled me back.

Well... That and Kaye's Orca was delivered! More on that in a few...

Just an aside.... Not EVE related...

2008-11-27T14:21:00.004-06:00

The LT's leave is up today. My wife & I drove from Dallas to Norman yesterday afternoon and then I went to the OKC airport at Zero Dark Thirty to start him on his way back to Iraq.

Wasn't any easier the second time.

If my emotions were soup, Emeril would call the flavor complex. Savory pride in this young man. Sweet because of the love he has for my daughter. A touch of acid regret that the life they have chosen demands such self sacrifice.

Salt from my own tears.

O7 LT

QFT: Roc's Rule #67

2008-11-25T06:49:00.003-06:00

"Swearing is but a crutch upon which uneducated people lean to express themselves." Roc's Rule #67

One of my pet peeves, as well.

There's nothing wrong with a little profanity every now and then. Linguistic salt & pepper, if you will.

But if you are using various derivations of "F" as noun, verb, adverb, adjective and imperative, all in the same sentence, then get a thesaurus and have some alone time.

Today's Lesson: Dark Plans and Thunderbolts

2008-11-22T08:48:00.002-06:00

“Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” - Sun Tzu

The Uni normally flies in large fleets. We do that for many good reasons that have been clearly communicated before.

But sometimes, hidden amongst the fleet of 40 or 50, is a smaller strike team with a different agenda.

Here's the After Action Report:

Channelling H. Cosell : "Down Goes Sabre! Down Goes Saber!

(If you are of a certain age, you'll get the pop culture reference. If not, try ESPN Classic and catch Foreman/Frazier.)

The main fleet was forming up to head to Amarr & chase the Mercs. I had RL issues to deal with shortly, so I declined. WT AD had been in system for hours, not in station & not on scans or probes, so the conclusion was she was cloaked, probably observing HQ.

Just in case, I swapped my Falcon for a Scorp, fitted with less jamming than usual, but more tank & tackle. I undocked at HQ to provide cover for our guys joining the fleet.

A few minutes later, S logs in. I gang up Oli in his CovOp Scanner of Doom and Eyedoll slinging pure Amarr laser light love for DPS.

S plays snipe games for a bit. We almost have him a couple of times, but give the Devil his due, S is a slippery rascal & never quite stayed in one place long enough for us to get the drop on him.

S warps away from HQ toward the Osmon gate. Oli follows & call contact behind the gate (paying attention, here students? Behind the gate meant that there was no celestial for us to bounce off of and come in at range to our prober). Oil warped off grid to drop a probe and I move to safespot 16au from the Osmon gate.

Oli calls a hit & 'warp to me at zero'.

I'm on the way, Eyedoll is 80au out (Oh dear!).

I land basically on top of S's Cerb. Scram, web, 2x Neut 4X cruise and 2X Caldari jammers go to work.... I know I'm not going to take him down without Eyedoll and I'm wondering where A is....

A shows up first in a Rapier and engages me. No worries, drones out & last jammer on A.

Eyedoll drops on to grid and that pretty much is all she wrote. S down. A disengages. Oli docks up to repair (S was slinging FOF's). We loot the wreck and I'm getting ready to have it salvaged, when first A returns for a look (but doesn't stick) and then S comes back at range in a Raven. Having accomplished our goal, we left the wreck and retired from the field.

GF's exchanged in local.

Bravo Zulu to Oli, the Probe Master!

Melissa Dawn added her perspective on this engagement here.

Just for emphasis, let me quote just a small section of my reply to her:

However, this was not a solo action, but rather the co-ordinated effort of a small team that required the capabilities of three pilots of three different races, flying ships with three different roles. It should serve notice to our enemies that we have the capability and the willingness to engage in small unit fights. When they see three Uni pilots, they won’t know if our guys are scouts for a 30 man fleet, recons probing for weakness or a strike team prepared to take out the unwary. That uncertainty leads to hesitation and ‘he who hesitates, is lost”.

Dee

Today's Lesson: Lack of Movement = Getting Set Up

2008-11-21T07:51:00.002-06:00

When my RL ex-attack pilot buddies talk about combat tactics, they never fail to include one of their truisms : "One pass, haul ass!". In context, they mean that sticking around for an extended period of time in an area where there are people who are trying to kill you is generally a bad idea.

The EVE corollary is that sitting in one place allowing your OPFOR time to setup and bust you, even if you can see part of it happening, is not an optimal tactical solution.

One of our rising star FC's had a smallish fleet of about 15 next door to OPFOR's home system. In addition, we had a couple of Recon pilots keping an eye on OPFOR's home station. Couple of WT's in interceptors and a Rokh. One of the other Directors and I are in Korsiki, 15 jumps away. He & I discuss & decide that by the time we got there, anything that was going to happen would be history.

But... 5 minutes pass and no engagement.

So, Silent's alt grabs a Rapier & I roll out my trusty Falcon and we sprint down the pipe.

As we leave Korsiki, scouts report that one 'ceptor logged, but the other ' ceptor and the Rokh had warped to the the gate opposite of our fleet. The 'ceptor jumps through and heads out to an observation point 220+ KM from the gate with a clear view of our fleet sitting on the gate.

And they just sat there. Rokh about 20km off the gate, 'ceptor on the other side staring at our fleet.

They sat there long enough for a Rapier and 2 Falcons to make a 15 jump sprint and get set up with the two other Recons on the Rokh. Five recons? Overkill, you say? Psh. There is no such thing as overkill. There is only "Target!" and "Reloading!".

Rapier uncloaks & tackles. As soon as the Rokh aggresses, the rest of the recon gang uncloaks & starts frying eyeballs. FC jumps the fleet through and, as Grandpa would say, "It was all over, 'cept the shoutin'!".

So today's lesson is:

Sticking around the same spot, even if you are not technically 'still' is a bad idea. Someone is probably looking at you co-ordinating a party with you as the guest of honor. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you...

Today's Lesson: Logoffsky = fail , m'kay?

2008-11-18T08:07:00.002-06:00

The mercs that were hired to dec us have rapidly devolved to mostly staying docked up many jumps away from Korsiki. Understandable.

Yesterday, an OPFOR cruiser pilot made this mistake of warping to the same spot 100km off a Uni gate camp twice. After his cruiser goes pop, he immediately logged off. No prober was available, so it worked. This time.

Later, this same pilot returned to his home station in Amarr. I was in system providing overwatch and early warning as one of our student FC's formed a fleet in Korsiki, planning to travel to Amarr & at least show the flag. Other scouts were out and about in the area as well.

The OPFOR pilot in question undocks in a Harpy and proceeds to putter around the undock point. As some point, he must have flipped a can or somehow aggro'ed another corp, because about 1/2 dozen ships unloaded a can of industrial strength whup ass on the lone Harpy. I report this on our TS channel for the entertainment of the fleet forming.

The Harpy goes 'pop' and, lo and behold, the Harpy pilot logs in space and his pod warps away from the station. I report this in TS and one of our probers says that he is 4 jumps out, armed with a single Hobgoblin II and already inbound.

Seconds later "Probe Launched".... "Pod hit, warping".... "Drone Launched!"

I warped to our prober and arrived just in time to hear the 'squish' of a pod & "Tower, Ghostrider requesting a flyby!" from a solitary 'goblin II that was doing victory rolls!

So, boys & girls, today's lesson is about logging off with aggro:

- You are visible to all, not just those that you were aggro'ed with.
- Logging off in space with an aggro timer in a system with WT's who have demonstrated that they can and will probe you down is not going to get you a seat on the stage at graduation.

Uni gets some Massive love!

2008-11-17T07:34:00.002-06:00

EVE Evolved: Beating the Learning Curve of EVE Online

It's always gratifying to see the efforts of the staff and students of Eve University recognized.

Be sure you click the graphic inside the story that shows the learning curve of various MMO's. The section presented doesn't do the artist's creation justice. I had a good laugh when I saw the whole thing.

And they say romance is dead...

2008-11-15T07:38:00.001-06:00

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=923660

Just read it. If you don't laugh, send me Eve Mail & I'll send you 100 isk.

War dec and today's lesson...

2008-11-14T10:27:00.002-06:00

We have been war dec'ed. It's a paid job for some mercenaries, which is really interesting...

In any event, we continue to do what we always do. :)

Ref: This morning

I logged on to check a couple of administrative matters & saw that only one WT was online. Intel report of him moving up the pipe in a frigate, so I grabbed my tackling Scorp & headed to the Osmon gate.

WT jumped into Korsiki & began to move from safespot to safespot... I swapped to Raptor.

Today's lesson, boys & girls: If you are deep safespotted in the OPFOR's home system with 40+ WT's online and an interceptor drops on grid, you can be sure of the following:

1. Your safespot has been probed out.
2. The 'ceptor is not going to be alone very long.
3. Now is a good time to either leave or swap to pod saver overview tab.

I'm just sayin'...

Patch Day Ponderings

2008-11-11T03:55:00.002-06:00

While we are all waiting (you did set a 48 hr skill, right?), our recent corp theft launched a flurry of internal discussion far out of proportion to the deed itself.

The basic underlying question : "Is it reasonable to assume that the trustworthiness of a game character mirrors the trustworthiness of the RL person behind the keyboard?"

Now, before you go all emo on me, read the question carefully. It deals with trustworthiness, not morality. Many of my carebear brothers & sisters fail to make the distinction and start the flow of tears in situations where they are not warranted.

In the game, a pirate who catches you in low sec trying to ninja mine, offers or accepts an offer to ransom your ship and honors the ransom has demonstrated trustworthiness, just as a corpmate who hauls the ore from a co-op mining op and turns it all over at the conclusion of the op has done.

In a like manner, the pirate who neither gives nor asks quarter or ransom demonstrates trustworthiness, in that you can count on a certain course of action.

The disconnect is the person who tells you one thing, but does another. The person who drops a can in front of a starter station named "Free stuff. Take some!" and then pops the unsuspecting noob that does so. The pirate that offers ransom, takes the isk and blows you up anyway.

In my Eve time, I've found such disingenuous folks to be rare. Not unknown, just rare. I'm hopeful that is because Eve does mirror real life.

Corp hangar theft

2008-11-09T03:32:00.002-06:00

Every now and then, some super sekret spiez haxxor wannabe decides to launch his 'career' by infiltrating Eve University, stealing the contents of the student hangars with a disposable alt and then flushing the alt as soon as the swag is traded to an accomplice.

This isn't really much of an accomplishment. Our mission leads us to be very open in recruitment. Our internal philosophy in dealing with new students is filled with generosity, logistical support and lots of free stuff. Free stuff is self service. Access is based on time in corp.

But management and staff aren't dimwits. Cans are logged. The logs are reviewed. Stock levels in the cans are managed to levels that balance the need to have things readily available vs the minimization of the inherent risk. The free stuff provided is valuable to a young character, but cheap to vets. Most of the time, our budding producers manufacture the items, using minerals that the mining students produce. We don't sell the stuff on the market, so it's not even an income stream hit.

The bottom line is that someone placed an alt inside Eve University for nine months in order to steal a sack of T1 frigates, meta 1/2 modules and starter skillbooks. The total value of the stack could have been earned in a weekend of team running missions or mining.

(slow golf clap) Whoopdee doopee doo. To the person who was at the keyboard behind Ambassador Maleth, I hope you are proud. I hope you tell all your Eve friends so that you will see how valued your activities are.

To our students I said:

Eve is a harsh and cold place. People will take advantage of those that try and help others. Get used to it.

Orca Updates...

2008-11-06T07:58:00.004-06:00

Some changes to the Orca on the test server. All of them make sense and there are only a few more adjustments that I'd like to see, but all & all, I'd buy one with these stats right away.

The changes:

Added a 4th mid-slot. Allows for a 3 slot shield tank and a sensor booster. Swap tank for scanner, if you prefer.

Added 25 m3 to the drone bay and 25 to bandwidth. A flight of mediums and a flight of lights or 2 sentries and a flight of lights. More than enough, I think.

Added 10k m3 to the Corp hangar. 30k m3 was ok with me, so this is just gravy.

Mining Foreman III skill requirement changed to Mining Director I. Makes perfect sense.

BOM adjusted to include Corp Hangar Bay. The only component required that is not also used for carrier production is Cap Cargo Bays. Carrier producers will be able to shift production for the earlu adopters.

Can use 3 command links concurrently. This was bug fix, not a tweak.

In Action:

I've got some time on the test server with an Orca and a Hulk. So far, my initial thoughts about how the ship will be useful for me personally and for Uni have been confirmed.

With reasonable skills, you'll be able to fit/rig for more than 135k m3 in total cargo space (cargo + corp hangar). Solo mining in my Hulk, I can fill that in less than an hour and that fits my style of mining for about an hour at a time. No can flipper worries. Command links give me plenty of range so I should never have to move during that hour. If I want to mine in a system where I don't have good standings, it's much more convenient now. I can fly an interceptor to escort/web sling Kaye in the Orca with Hulk, salvage dessie & HAC or HIC in the ship hangar. When my mining session is over, a quick swap to the dessie allows for wreck clean up. Nasties can be discouraged by the cruiser size hulls, if need be.

In gang situations, the Orca will act as the warp in point for the haulers. Buffer space provided in the cargo bay and the haulers can access the corp hangar (with appropriate rights and with the hangar configured to allow it). Orca pilot tractors the cans and keeps the corp hangar full. Ship hangar holds support ships as required.

What I'd Change:

I don't think most folks are going to run 3 command links. Range & cycle time links plus tractor will be the default hi-slot fit, I think. A 4th hi-slot would allow a 2nd tractor or a salvager.

I still think that requiring Mining Barge V on a ship that can't fit any kind of mining laser is a bit odd. The Mining Director requirement is logical, as would be a requirement for Command Ships. I'm sorry, but the "It's a T1 ship! You can't have a T2 skill requirement!" holds no water with me. It's. A. Command.Ship. A T1 ship doesn't have the inherent ability to use 3 command links concurrently. Command ships do. Accept the fact that the Orca is a hybrid. It's T1.5 and get over it.

Just an aside...

Look at the ship model closely. Notice how the main hull is made of three modular sections with the superstructure sitting on top of the aft two sections. Now look at the ship models for an Ity III, Ity IV and Ity V. I'm just sayin'.... :)

I/O Overload!

2008-11-05T06:27:00.002-06:00

Quantum Rise Release date set for 11 Nov

QR Feature Set

CCP Zulupark's Ask Anything Responses

Also changes on the test server to Orca that I'll discuss separately....

Zulupark's Live Dev Blog answers were very, very interesting. Lots of nuggets of info and hints about things to be released at Fanfest.

Looks like we will shortly see:

- T3 ships
- non-static 'roid belts
- fuel bay added to Black Op ships
- Stealth local (at least in 0.0)

Of all of the comments/observations that Zulupark made the one that sparked the most volume and heat was this:

	eKuivocal wrote:
	5.) In short will hi-sec ever be nerfed? It seems crazy to me that you can chill in hi-sec and make just as much money running level 4's as risking your nuts in 0.0 ratting. Risk and reward between security systems should be rebalanced IMHO.

	CCP Zulupark wrote:
	High-sec nerfed: Personally I'd like to see more lvl4 agents move more to low-sec, but that's just my personal opinion. This is a very delicate system and any kind of interference with it needs careful consideration. So far we haven't looked at it in any seriousness.

Our internal forums are alive with the debate about the desirability/implications of moving most/all L4 agents to low-sec, despite the huge disclaimer at the end of Zulupack's comment.

The argument for moving most/all L4 agents to low-sec goes like this:

Eve is predicated on non-consensual combat (Risk)
For a greater level of risk, there should be a greater level of reward
Therefore, the greatest isk rewards should be available to those players that play in the riskiest areas
Running L4 agents in Empire removes players from high levels of risk, but provides very high levels of rewards
Therefore, moving L4 agents to low-sec is desirable because it balances the risk/reward equation

The response runs like this:

Eve is a sandbox game. Forcing players to choose between lowering their standard of living or adopting a PvP playstyle is fundamentally inconstant with that design philosophy.
This is the latest whine from pirates who feel that target density is too low and the existing targets are too skilled to be profitably engaged.
Moving L4 agents to lowsec will only result in mission runners concentrating on high quality L3 agents. Mission runners understand that their PvE optimized ships are not viable for PvP.
What about other professions? Trading/production/invention all can earn significant isk, with low/no risk. Will you also propose moving all of these professions to low/null sec?

At least on the Uni boards, this issue has stirred up pages of comments.

But, there's nothing coming soon, m'kay?

Thoughts on The Orca

2008-10-27T13:16:00.004-05:00

The Orca has been available on the test server for a few days and I’ve spent some time getting to know the preliminary version of the latest ship in the Eve Universe. I’ve looked forward to getting my hands on this ship since it was first rumored to be on the way. Having flown it, I’m even more excited!

Context

My comments about the Orca will be made in this context. I’m primarily a miner. My second character, Kaye Carson, was originally cast as a hauler and can fly Gallente industrials, transports and freighters. Recently, Kaye has moved up to fly command ships with 2 mining command links and a shield link. Both of us can salvage.

A typical scenario when we are flying alone is for Kaye to be in a fully rigged Ity V sitting next to my Hulk. I like to mine for about an hour at a time while I deal with my corp email box, then I’ll run missions with students or Kaye will shift to Eos & provide mining bonuses to a student fleet. Often, we’ll work with students to mine mission ore. Most of our mining is in Empire and in systems with refining capabilities.

Selected Orca Characteristics

• Approximately 78k m3 cargo (2x T2 Expanders, 3X T1 Cargo rigs

• 30k m3 Corporate hangar
o Configurable by pilot to allow/deny access to pilots in the fleet
o Carries same divisions/structure/access as Corp station hangars
o Can not be accessed by freighters in space

• 400k m3 Ship Maintenance hangar
o Carries only assembled ships
o Ships may have only ammo/scripts/crystals in their cargo holds
o Allows refits in space

• 3/3/2 Hi/Med/Low slot layout

• 50 m3 drone bay with 25 bandwidth

• 75km tractor

Skill Requirements

• Industrial Command Ships I (new skill)
• Mining Barge V
• Spaceship Command V
• Mining Foreman III (Per devs, will be changed to Mining Director I)
• Industry V

Overall Impressions

I like the ship model, but I’m not sure of the scale. It appears to be about the same volume as a Domi, about 6-8 times bigger than a Catalyst and about 25% the size of an Obelisk. This seems to be a bit small. It could use some Hulk-like moving parts and perhaps a lighter main color, but those are just nits.

Ship flight is sluggish, but appears reasonable and in line with other ships. Warp initiation is about 10-12 seconds slower than a plated Dominix and about 10-12 seconds faster than an Obelisk.

The Ship Maintenance hangar can carry 2 Hulks. Since I don’t rig my Hulks, I’m more likely to carry a Hulk disassembled in the Corp Hangar and fill the Ship Hangar with an Ity V, a CovOps, an interceptor, a salvage destroyer and an assault frigate (all rigged) when I go on expeditions.

Currently, only one command link can be used, but the devs have acknowledged this bug & indicated that the design spec is for three. This implies the need for one additional high slot to allow the fit of 3 command links and a tractor. I think the additional top slot is a necessary change and support the call for it. I'll probably run 2 mining command links, a tractor and a salvager.

You can follow the debate on the Eve Online forums about the specifics of the ship stats. There are those that feel that it needs to compress ore (I disagree), that it needs an additional mid slot and an additional low slot (I’ll never turn them down, but I don’t think the ship is broken because of the current mid/low layout), that the ship is a jack of all trades, but master of none and therefore useless (I disagree) and many other opinions.

Required Skills

Most of the forum debate on the skill subject revolves around the requirement for Mining Barge V to fly a ship that can’t fit mining lasers. I think this argument has merit. The devs have indicated that skill requirement will be adjusted to Mining Director I.

My recommended required skills would be:
• Industrial Command Ship I (new skill)
• Industry V
• Command Ship II
• Transports IV
• Mining Director I

At first, that appears to be a reduction of the skills required, but imbedded in the requirements are Battlecruiser V, Spaceship Command V, Leadership V and Mining Foreman V. The skillset that I’m suggesting appears appropriate for a ship designed to be a hybrid of a command ship, a transport and an upsized industrial. And before the post is made, yes, I realize that I’m suggesting a T2 ship skill (Command Ships) for a T1 ship. So? Orca is a mining command ship. It will run multiple command links. It gives bonuses for each of those multiple command links. Why shouldn’t a ship whose primary purpose is a command ship require command ship skills?

Using the Orca

When I’m mining alone, the Orca will allow Dee to get Kaye’s command ship bonuses without jet can mining. The capacity is appropriate for the amount of time that I generally spend mining with just my characters. Launch Hulk, launch Orca, fleet warp to belt, mine until full & then warp back to the station. Minimal threat from can flippers. Adequate drone capacity for rat defense. Just about perfect for individual and small group miners!

In support of larger Uni mining ops (particularly mining mission space with 40km+ distance from the warp in point to the rocks), the Orca will serve as the logistical nexus in the belt. Cans will be tractored to one location that doubles as the warp in point for the haulers. No more tractor relays or hauler slow boating. Centralized rat looting & salvage. Surge storage capacity if haulers are scarce or if the haul requires a system jump. What’s not to like?

Others can comment on the Orca’s use as a ship transport or mini-freighter or any other such role. I’m looking at it as “a vessel to help meet the demands of New Eden's industry and provide a flexible platform from which mining operations can be more easily managed.”

It looks pretty good, too!

Profile on CrazyKinux

2008-10-26T11:18:00.003-05:00

My profile was released on CrazyKinux's site today:

Dee Carson's Profile

Crazy's blog pack is a great idea and the synergies are already being seen, with many of the items in the blog pack being picked up at http://www.massively.com/ providing additional exposure. (Shout out to James Egan!)

Keep those cards & letters coming! :p

I couldn't help myself....

2008-10-25T14:19:00.002-05:00

The current war was retracted a few hours ago, which means I probably won't have any more fun like last night...

I was generally just casting about in my Falcon, running down contact reports. We have a medium sized fleet (50+) out but they were not having any luck either...

I'll let Silentbrick's after action report pick up from there:

AAR - 10/25/08 "Battle for Josameto Gate"
There was no fleet for this one. Basically Dee Carson (falcon) and Saphion (Crow) spotted a WT hanging around Josameto and New Caldari. I undocked and started up the pipe as the fleet was off in Amarr space, but when I got two jumps out they said he was gone. So back to station. I dock up, 2 minutes later, they say he's back so I undock and begin racing up the pipe ( I use the term 'race' loosely as Ravens do not exactly leave a dust cloud in their wake).

The target was hiding a bit, but as chance would have it, reappeared on the Josameto gate in New Caldari right as I landed on the other side. Saphion announced he was engaged, Dee uncloaked and jammed him as Saphion called a point and I hopped through the gate and uncloaked within 15km of him.

As I engaged with cruises and heavy neuts, the target tried to crawl to the gate and de-aggro to jump through, however his Ishtar was nano-tanked and nano tanks while sitting still tend to be eggshells. (I've never seen someone's armor vanish like that. It didn't go down, it was simply gone and he was 40% into structure. (Yay, Caldari Navy Devastators!) Poor Ishtar vanished under the hammering explosions of our missiles and then Saphion called a point on the pod and killed it just as my first cruise missile launched.

So, tally is 1 dead poly'd, nano'd Ishtar and his pod. And we lost some missiles.

Ship
Pod

Though why Dee jammed the pod....I dunno. Maybe to ensure he'd have 3 headed kids.

Excellent Teamwork, as any one of us couldn't have done it alone. Saphion and Dee couldn't have killed him and since he'd of run from me, I couldn't have killed him without their holding him down and jamming him. Fast response and good teamwork over solo flying any day!

Silentbrick

My response?

Multiple choice:

A. His left eyeball wasn't done yet.
B. It was a reflex action. See flashy, jam flashy.
C. I'm a killmail whore
D. All of the above

Dee

Scattershooting....

2008-10-25T08:13:00.002-05:00

RL > EVE
We have a saying in the Uni... Real Life > EVE and that was the case for me this past week. My wife's 83 year old father cracked a rib working cattle on their farm in Central Texas, so I spent several days there playing ranch hand. He's mending well and most of my soreness is gone! Returning to my rural roots was interesting, and there is much to be said for that life style, but a fast internet connection is not one of those characteristics!

I did conclude that yearling bulls & Uni nOObs have a lot in common. In small groups, they are pretty cute, but if you put 50 or so of them together in a confined space, they can be a force to be wary of!

War, again...
Merc corp with no current contracts seeks "fun". Finds opportunity to inventory station lights when Uni fleet of 50+ makes 25 jump trip to camp them in station.

Silent, Saphion & I did have a fun kill last night that I'll share more about later. Rapid response, tactical flexibility and teamwork ftw!

Free Willie! AKA Orca Released!
The long rumored Orca has been released on Sisi. I'm flying one now and will publish a full report in a couple of days. I want to have some hands on with it before I publish anything substantial, but first impressions are that it will be a valuable addition to my mining fleet.

Eve Blog Pack Profiles

2008-10-19T10:28:00.001-05:00

Members of the EVE Blog Pack are going to be coordinating and posting profiles of the members over the course of the coming weeks and months, as part of an effort to cross-polinate between our blogs!

Here is the first profile.

Name/Handle: Colonel Roc Wieler

Blog URL: Roc's Ramblings at http://everamblings.wordpress.com

Faction: Minmatar Republic

Started EVE: 2006

What brought me here:
My love for science fiction has been something inspired in me since I first Star Wars at the theatre as a kid. I loved the richness of the mythology, the vastness of the universe; the true sense of wonder. So naturally, I played Star Wars Galaxies the day it came out. Played dedicated for five years. The last two years though, I noticed the game was continually being dumbed down. I hate dumbed down. I enjoy depth. Someone mentioned EVE Online to me, and well, been here ever since. Even gave up Star Wars for it, my childhood love.

Playstyle:
I am a Fleet Commander for the Tribal Liberation Force, as well as recently promoted to Fleet Commander in my corp, Freeform Industries. I do missions every now and then, but my real passion is the market. Both my alts are out of the box traders, and I really enjoy the cutthroat nature of doing business. I've never mined, never even opened research or industry, and have never managed a corp. One step at a time.

What keeps me playing:
Ironically, there are two things. The first is that you don't need to be here 23/7 for fear of missing out on some huge event. That flexibility combined with real time skill training (as opposed to mindless grinding) makes it great for me. During the week, I'm a casual player, and that's just fine. The second reason I've already mentioned indirectly. Depth. Vastness. Mythology. EVE Online is so comprehensive that I am STILL catching up on my reading, just to absorb myself deeper into this universe we call home.

What I write:
My personal blog is all in character (with occasional exception). My approach to writing is a little different than most I am told. I tend to merge real life happenings with ingame happenings, with a bit of complete fantasy mixed in to throw you off. So far, it's been fun. I am also a columnist over athttp://www.eve-mag.com and hope to also get an article or two into EON Magazine. That would be something.

Other Interests:
I am also a co-developer for Capsuleer, the definitive iPhone application for EVE Online. I enjoy making 3D wallpapers as well, and have contributed some to the EVE Online galleries.

What you should know about EVE:
It's intimidating when you start; overwhelming actually. It's like learning a new Operating System and learning how to live in a completely new universe all at the same time. But stick with it, seriously. The rewards are worth it.

Co-Operative Mining Guide

2008-10-18T07:10:00.003-05:00

One of the new students who was participating in a quick & dirty little mining op with me Thursday night has been reading through the mining information on our internal forums and asked why the Co-Operative Mining Guide that I authored for Eve University was not on my blog....

Erm... Well... MetaDog ate my only copy? I'm working on a Sanskrit translation? It was in my alt's cargo hold when she was ganked in BWF?

Not buying any of that, are you...

The simple reason is that I didn't think about it until asked.

So, here it is:

Eve University Co-Operative Mining Guide

This version is more than a year old and needs to be tweaked just a bit, but 99% of the information conveyed is still valid.

The purpose of the document is to show how to take all of the wonderful theory in Halada's Guide and put it into practice. More hands on & less numbers. As such, it is not intended to stand alone, but to be viewed in concert with the other more technical resources available.

I'll put updating this on my To Do list. If I can find the last page...

"Have a rest! Sit a spell!"

2008-10-15T07:18:00.003-05:00

Growing up in the Panhandle of Texas and spending summers at my grandparents, I heard that phrase often uttered by Granny to friends, family and strangers who appeared at the door. It was an expression of welcome and hospitality designed to reassure the listener that their visit was a highpoint of the day and not an interruption.

So, to those of you who may find your way here today through the Eve Blog Pack mention in the Eve Online newsletter, "Have a rest! Sit a spell!"

The collection of blogs that CrazyKinux has assembled is a cross-section of Eve. Some of us wear 'white hats'. Some wear various shades of gray. Some only demonstrably black.

Some of us freely cross the line between talking about Eve as a player to looking at it from an external perspective. Others speak only in the voice of the character that lives inside the Eve Universe because, after all, interwebs spaceships are serious business!

Whatever your Eve profession, perspective or preference, I think you'll find at least one member of the Eve Blog Pack that provides information, entertainment or commentary that suits you. I know I have!

So, as Granny would say, "Don't be a stranger! Come see us soon!"

Haiduken War Video

2008-10-14T05:42:00.003-05:00

I started playing around with Fraps before the war, aiming toward a new recruiting video.

Although I did get lots of footage, frapsing has not become second nature, as I missed lots of opportunities. I need to update my pre-combat check list to include loading Fraps and my firing point procedures to include F9 right after F1-F8!

In any event, here is my first effort:

http://eve-files.com/dl/175539 This version is much higher quality than the YouTube one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKWNsJoMknA

Music:

Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
The Bug - Mary Chapin-Carpenter
Fast as You - Dwight Yoakam
We'll Meet Again - Johnny Cash
Beer For My Horses - Toby Keith / Willie Nelson

Tools used:

Fraps
Video Studio 9
Free MP3 WMA converter
Paint Shop Pro

The Poster at the end is a prototype that I stole... erm.. borrowed from Melissa Dawn. It's obvious that Melissa is a professional and I am just a rank amateur.

For a first effort, I'm pretty pleased. Take a look & let me know what you think!

Haiduken War Ends

2008-10-14T05:26:00.002-05:00

Our war ended as Haiduken withdrew the war dec a few days into the second week.

Lately, Uni wars had a very discernible pattern. Our opponents generally don't do any research before they engage us. As a result, when they discover that they will be outmanned 23/7 by large fleets of fearless students in cheap ships, they turn the war into a demonstration of their interceptor flying abilities, refusing to engage and turning local into a smack fest. No fun for Uni staff, no fun for the students and the students don't learn anything.

This war was totally different. Props to Broadcast & the Haiduken pilots. They continued to engage with ships of all sizes, our students had lots of fun, new FC's and new combat pilots emerged. Local smack was minimial and after almost every engagement, "GF" was exchanged in local.

And at the end, Haiduken joined us in a conga line outside a Poinen station. :)

Butt-kickings = Learning Opportunities

2008-10-07T15:28:00.003-05:00

Our current war is generally going well for Eve University. We have more than held our own and both new pilots and new FC's have been blooded.

Sometimes, the best lessons are learned from getting an old fashioned butt-kicking. Case in point:

The Battle In Obanen

Our opponents had been fielding lots of 'ceptors, nano'ed cruisers and other slippery ships. These present challenges for Uni fleets and new FC's because they allow the OPFOR to control the engagement. Difficult to lock and engage in Empire, such flight demonstration teams are not significant threats as long as pilots pay attention, stay with the fleet and have the dicispline to not get drawn away from support. Our pilots adapted by choosing smaller, specialized ships with gang support to capture and engage.

No matter the venue, combat is about the constant dance of action and reaction. Seeing our changes, our opponents chose to bring the big shiny ships this time. One of our new FC's had the fleet in Obanen when our opponents surged spider repping battleships into our force. What's more they supported this force with out of corp, neutral remote repping logisitics ships. Our FC fought well, but you can't send kittens against wildcats and expect them to win everytime. Our fleet was rocked:

http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=6200

What was interesting, was seeing how the students learned from the encounter. Moving from questioning "Can they do that? They can use an out of corp, neutral to rep them during battle?" to acceptance "Wow, I didn't know that! So that's why the logistics ship turned flashy...." to internalization of the lesson "So, when the logistics ship goes flashy, we should just kill it, too."

Payback in Korsiki

It's really great to see learning put into action, isn't it?

http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=6226

The logistics ship and the primary Dominix went down within seconds of each other.

And that, ladies & gentlemen, is what Eve University is all about. Learning. The pilots involved will forever be on the lookout for 'neutral' logistics ships and ready to deal with their intervention. Mission accomplished!

The Uni Goes To War!

2008-10-04T13:51:00.002-05:00

War decs are interesting for Eve University.

On the one hand, they disrupt normal class schedules, teaching activities, mining & missioning, trading and all of our intramural events.

On the other hand, our students get to learn how to FC (Anyone who wants the chair and can raise a fleet is welcome to try their hand. Many times, senior members fly as ordinary squad members, allowing budding FC's full control.), participate in real combat ops and raise a tall, frosty mug of warbeer in salute to fallen comrades & foes.

We fly the same way in every war. Our fleets are large (How can they not be? All those who don't want to fly combat leave Uni during wars as we prohibit all other activities. These folks are welcomed back as soon as hostilities cease.) We fly lots of cheap frigates & cruisers with tons of EW. We teach our pilots to fly and fight as a team, not as a collection of individuals.

Every group that decs us has spies inside the Uni. Our open recruiting policy assures this. It doesn't bother us. To be restrictive in our recruiting policies would be at odds with our purpose.

And, we generally hold up our end of the bargin. http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/

:)

"How old are you?"

2008-09-30T07:28:00.003-05:00

One of our members posed that question on our internal forums and added a poll to allow folks to both respond and to display the results.

With nearly 200 responses, the results are not only interesting, they are statistically valid for Eve University and close to being statistically valid for the Eve Universe as a whole. The results as of this morning:

How old are the Unistas?

8 - 12

[ 2 ]

13 - 18

[ 7 ]

19 - 23

12%

[ 25 ]

24 - 29

22%

[ 44 ]

30 - 37

26%

[ 52 ]

38 - 44

23%

[ 46 ]

45 - 51

[ 11 ]

52 - 60

[ 6 ]

61+

[ 1 ]

Total Votes : 194

What interests me is the almost perfect distribution curve around the mid-thirty age group.

First of all, I was surprised to see how old the central band was. I really expected to see more players in their mid 20's than in their mid 30's. That younger expectation seems to be the general consensus of other estimates of the average age of Eve players.

Secondly, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I'm not as much of an anomaly as I thought. There is a decent proportion of us that listened to Paul McCartney before Wings and actually dialed a telephone, rather than punching numbers!

On hardwiring....

2008-09-21T09:51:00.002-05:00

Most folks immediately understand the value of implants to speed skill learning. Far fewer seem to have a handle on the value of hardwiring.

Think of hardwiring as "mind-rigs".

The hardwire modules impact a specific attribute of the ship that you are currently flying in the same manner as rigs installed on that ship. If you need more cap, you can install a Semiconductor Memory cell rig on a particular ship. Or you could plug in a Squire CC series hardwiring to give you additional cap on every ship that you fly!

Like rigs, hardwirings are lost if they are removed, so you do need to think about what you plug into the clone head that you are inhabiting.

If you have multiple clones (you _do_ have multiple clones, right?), this gives you the opportunity to design a set of harwires to compliment your personal style & ship choices.

Like most of Eve, there is no single _right_ answer. There are simply choices.

Here is a spreadsheet to help you examine the various hardwirings and their impacts. THe organization will be obvious when you look at it.

http://eve-files.com/dl/173526

I've also included a few suggestions for typical harwire sets for those kinds of characters that I am most familiar with (Caldari railgunners who mine), but I'm not suggesting that these are optimal. You should use them as a starting point for your own exploration of the benefits and costs of using hardwirings.

Oh, and the disclaimer:

Use at your own risk. No warranties are provided, either expressed or implied. Your mileage may vary. Side effects are generally mild and include bloodshoot eyes, flat wallets and bruised foreheads from contact with desktop. In some instances, may result in a significant improvement in the capabilites of the character in question, leading to combat losses by those shooting at you. Do not use in connection with the ingestion of alcohol, perscription drugs or other mind altering substances, regardless of their legality. Do not operate heavy machinery for 12 hours after first exampination. If you experience epeen tumessence for more than 4 hours after plugging in your first hardwire, please consult a physician.

;)

On training....

2008-09-11T09:39:00.002-05:00

Many of the questions we see often asked on the Eve University forums and in various convos relate to skill training. New pilots want to get the 'right' answer. They seek a roadmap of specific steps to allow them to reach an undetermined future goal in the minimum amount of time.

Eve doesn't work that way.

Certainly, if you have a specific ship and fit in mind, EveMon will help you optimize the time that it takes to get there. But there are a couple of human problems with that approach.

First of all, rarely does the initial ship/fit goal of a brand new player survive more than a few days. As you gain a deeper understanding of how Eve works and what you find enjoyable, that initial ship will be shelved more often than not. So any initial plan that aims for a specific goal is quite likely to result in a mishmash of unco-ordinated, disjointed skills and some wasted time.

The alternative approach is to train nothing but learning skills in the beginning so that when you turn your attention to 'real' skills, your pumped up mind will minimize the training time required. That approach is clearly mathimatically valid. It's also no fun! While those that join the game at the same time as you did are off flying cruisers, you are still poking around in a low level frigate doing mental pushups. Bah!

For most people who want to balance long term efficiency with short term fun, a middle ground must be found.

Here are a few personal suggestions:

- Push a standard learning skill up quickly so that the next level takes 18-24 hrs.
- Train that skill when you are not in the game. When you get that one up to L4, pick another standard learning skill & do the same thing.
- While you are in game, train lots of different L1 skills. They train quickly and let you get into new ships and modules so that you can have some fun.
- A couple of weeks of this will help you settle on a realistic short term skill plan (say 3 to 4 weeks). Use EveMon to help you plan, but balance efficiency with fun!
- Never buy a skill book until you can train it.
- Never fly with a purchased skill book in your cargo hold. Start training it as soon as you buy it, even if you only train it for 30 seconds. A skill book in your head cannot be mislaid, lost, sold by accident, destroyed or dropped as loot if you should have a close encounter of the pod kind while returning home from the store.

Generic skillplans are just that. Generic. The right skill plan for you is the one that provides your personal balance between having fun now and having more fun later!

New ship = new fun

2008-08-27T05:28:00.002-05:00

Part of the appeal of Eve for me is rolling out a new ship. All of the planning, the futzing in EFT and EVEMON, the time spent researching fits and considering how to best incorporate a new shiny into your game play culminates when you undock and go for a spin.

Most times, the first few flights are uneventful. A few times, there can be excitement!

I've been working on a 6 week program to get my second character into an Eos with mining gang modules. Looking at all that extra mining capability makes me smile (and Sabre cry that I would 'misuse' a command ship that way!). Monday night, with our 'war' over, it was time to roll out Mom's Little Helper. The results were.... well, let's just say that it's no accident that there were a couple of missing belts when our little gang finished up. :)

Last night was different.

I was pulling missions next door, really after a mission 'roid spawn where I could get a feel for how the Eos would impact my solo work. Couple of students in local who were also mining, along with our most recent can flipper pest. I set the Eos up with an eye toward being effective as anti-can flipper, so it had full tackle, plus an assortment of damage, web and ECM drones. Our frigate-flying Can Flipper struck once as we were organizing the fleet and then left the belt to wait out his timer.

I warped the Eos to the belt and saw a couple of Can Flipper's wrecks and cans sitting around. A few more students joined our little party and a couple of us re-flipped the cans, flagging us to our little pest.

He warps to the belt a couple of times. Each time I lock him up with the Eos and he immediately leaves. Then, just as my timer is about to expire, he warps in, moves to 1500 meters from the Eos while I'm locking him and flips a can!

Scram, web, neut, guns, launch mixed flight of drones. Pop!

No idea what this guy was thinking, but it didn't work out for him. He made several more trips to the belt in his pod. Against policy, one of the students podkilled him, bringing a Concord swarm and leaving behind a frozen corpse. The student said that the sec status hit was worth it to get rid of the gnat. I just laughed.

So, boys & girls, today's lesson is: Don't flip cans in front of a command ship, m'kay?

War (?) Ends... So we go on a fieldtrip!

2008-08-25T14:22:00.003-05:00

Our latest war dec ends in a few hours. A 1 man corp dec'ed us, lost the ship for which his corp is named (demonstrating a total lack of understanding of one of the easiest fitting ships in the game) and then went to Plan B. Plan B involved logging on in space in a nano'ed Crow, warping from deep safespot to deep safespot, going 9k mps toward some distant celestial object & then proclaiming in local how uber he was, even as he refused all opportunities to engage.

Plan C involved self-posting to C&P on EO and asking for others to join him in his 'winning campaign'. Plan C must not have worked out so well either as his member count never moved from one.

Plan D involved just logging in on his alt.

So, since the warbeer supply was still adequate, we took the students on a little fieldtrip to 0.0. We take these on occasion and all the participants are clearly instructed to fly something they can afford to lose ('cause the odds are about 10 to 1 that they will) and to fly an empty headed clone (for the same reason).

Every time we do this, three things happen:

1. We have a great time, mostly going bloooie at some point!
2. A student forgets to check and loses a nice set of implants (Snakes? ouch!)
3. Somebody flies a ship they _really_ didn't want to lose.

As for our trip Sunday? Check. Check. And check.

Our 40+ fleet was holding the gate quite nicely. Big bubble up. Showing the students where to position tacklers to grab people that bounce off the bubble. Talking about the importance of positioning & scouting. Hostile count in local was about 10. We had popped a few of the curious and the unwary. Hostile count increased a bit... Our scouts were reporting what was jumping in system. Nothing to be concerned about so far. Then, in a set of clearly coordinated moves, a hostile Sabre jumps through the gate and a hostile Domi warps in at the edge of the bubble. No big deal... FC calls targets for the various squads, we start taking them both down. Then... Well, then, the Hammer arrived. :)

"A Ragnarok just warped in..."
"WTF is a Ragnarok?"
"Jum..."
"Momma? Look at all the pretty lights!"
"Momma? Why am I in a pod?"

That's right, sports fans! The Eve Uni fleet had just been Doomsdayed! Frigate wrecks littered the field. A few of the battleships survived and escaped, but the student ships were toast. It was epic!

A good time was had by almost all (the pilot with the Snakes was understandably not too pleased, but, hey, whadda ya gonna do?) and the students got some valuable lessons about how much 0.0 is different from Empire. I'm sure the Ragnarok pilot had fun, too!

Scattershooting....

2008-08-22T06:41:00.002-05:00

Just scattershooting while I wait for our single war target to log in... (I know, I know... I'll have more to say after the dec is over.)

This is a great set of info to get new pilots up to speed in a hurry:
http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/08/10-posts-for-eve-online-newbie.html

If you haven't added Crazy Kinux to your RSS feed, you need to fix that immediately. Lot's of good stuff there.

CCP is obviously re-thinking the nano-nerf.
Some of the changes were rolled back on the test server. Trit bar prices have recovered somewhat. The economy of Eve fascinates me. Almost pure capitalism at work. Pure supply and demand markets. CCP announces nano-nerf, players anticipate that certain rigs which use salvaged trit bars will no longer be popular. Players look in their hangars & see stacks of trit bars. Players start putting up sell orders and prices start going down. CCP rolls back changes & the price rebounds. Lots of isk made & lost as a result of crowd psychology, speculation & luck. I'll not speak too much about the whole nano thing. As in most situations in RL, there is a kernel of truth is the positions of both sides.

Unorthodox Mission Running
From my list of 50 Things I Know: "If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.

I've been experimenting with mission running in HAC's & HDIC's. Why? Because I love the tank. The DPS is a little low, but having a second account with a support Domi available solves that issue when it arises. It is really interesting to hear the 'Professional' mission runners get offended. If I'm having fun, what difference can it make to them if I choose to run missions in an Onyx, mine in a Rokh or autopilot through Jita at peak time? Choices have consequences, but if they are my choices and my consequences, then get your underthings untwisted & run along.

Here's to a broader audience....

2008-08-08T07:18:00.002-05:00

I had a note from a Uni Alumni suggesting that I check out this blog for lots of Eve content:

http://www.crazykinux.com/

I did and really enjoyed seeing some familiar faces and finding some new nuggets, too.

I'll be figuring our how to add the Blog Pack to the links, too. So make the jump & see what you find that's interesting!

War Ends

2008-08-06T06:56:00.002-05:00

Although, it really never was much of a war.

We lost 3 frigates & a destroyer in exchange for 2 battleships & a HAC. Great exchange ratio!

We had some new FC's step up to lead fleet ops and when they didn't find WT's they went to low-sec & vented their frustration on some pirates. SOPs were followed from the outset and were relaxed as it became clear the OPFOR wasn't a huge threat.

I'll close with this bit from a Uni member:

How EVE University fights their wars
by Patri Allin

How we fight a war -
We form a Grand Fleet with 3 people who have been to lots of wars, 20 people who have just taken the tackling class, 5 people who are wondering what a "TS" is, and 1 person who is so new they think this is part of the tutorial. It takes us 10 minutes to figure out if we are a "tackler" or an "EW", and we haven't even left the station yet.

We find the enemy. As Leader #1 "calls a primary" 4 people put their vote in gang chat, then Leader #2 says "Jam that guy" and somewhere someone stands up from their computer and starts to do the "Hammer", And although nobody ever quite realizes this is what happened, Leader #3 has already been podded by 5 of our own guys who are now super excited they killed an enemy Battleship.

After the dust clears we've got 5 people left - shot 5 of the enemy (net loss 45) and for us this is a MASSIVE FREAKIN VICTORY! It is too cause our ships cost 1mil each and thiers about 200. We try to remember which way is home and then fly off in the wrong direction as somewhere nearby, sitting in their pod in a station, someone is thinking this is the best tutorial in an MMO ever."

Quick RL Update...

2008-08-03T07:42:00.003-05:00

I've received a number of requests for an update on The LT's status, so I'm going to do it here so all can find it & I don't have to repeat myself!

The LT made it to Kuwait fine and spent a week acclimatising. Movement from Kuwait to Tallil was accomplished in the early hours of 01 Aug, via Japanese C-130 w/ full Japanese crew, featuring combat departures & approaches. Bet that was fun!

He has received his assignment as FSO of one of the companies of 2nd Battalion 12th Regiment, which is great because that's the billet he's trained for (as opposed to a slot in S4, where they tried to put him at first!).

Creature comforts are fine. He will live in a trailer with one other soldier. Getting his net connection sorted is high on his priority list. Skype > calling cards, mkay?

Daughter has returned to school for her last semester. Classes don't start for a couple of weeks, so things are a bit slow for her & that is stressful (<3 you, girl!), but should improve as the level of activity on campus goes up.

Thanks for all your comments and support. Both The LT and my daughter 'creep' this blog (took me a few moments to figure that reference when she first made it! lol), so know that support is seen by those that need it most and appreciated by She Who Must Be Obeyed and me.

O7
Dee

I did & it was. :)

2008-08-02T06:22:00.002-05:00

"Maybe I'll fit tackle gear on my Scorp. That would be ebil, though, wouldn't it..."

An OPFOR Vagabond was harassing a lone Uni student when I logged in yesterday. One of the students was forming a reaction fleet so I grabbed by Scorp, replaced two jammers with T2 web & scram and headed out to join the party.

WT stayed in system with our lone pilot for a long time as we transited the pipe. We took up a position with the WT in the next system on the gate to Jita there. Our scout put eyes on WT, who followed him to a station so our scout warped to a planet and lost him. Given the WT's aggressive nature, our FC determined to use the scout to bait the WT into an ambush at our gate.

Unfortunately, our scout was tackled & popped on the Jita gate in the next system when he went to start the bait activity. As soon as I heard the scout call on TS that he was engaged, I solo jumped & warped to the Jita gate, figuring that I could tackle the Vaga & hold him until FC got the rest of the fleet through & to the gate. In warp, others were encouraging FC to jump the fleet & engage. I informed FC that I was on the way to the gate already.

I landed within 1200 meters of the Vaga and immediately scrammed & webbed him. The Vaga agressed (renewing timer!) so I hit him with 2 jammers, F1-F6, launch drones and wait for the rest of the fleet to arrive.

The purple cloud appears and envelopes the Vaga. 15 secs later, it pops, followed by the pod before I could lock it.

Killmail shows that is was indeed nanofitted, as you would expect for a solo Vaga.

Lessons to be learned:

1. Appropriate aggressiveness wins. Experience teaches when aggressiveness is appropriate.
2. If you are solo PvPing against a much larger (therefor more likely to have lots of people online) Corp, the last thing you want to do is become stationary. The longer you sit still, the longer you give your enemy to form a reaction force, gather intel about you, travel to you and kick your ass.
3. Having an aggro timer and sitting on a gate or station is bad, mkay?. Loot & scoot!
4. Nano ships can be killed. Nano pilots usually have to make a mistake or be unlucky, but they can be killed and those losses are expensive. This loss was in excess of 140M isk. About 10M isk per second! ;)

Speed Gank in Osmon AAR 2008-07-31 23:18:00

2008-08-01T06:38:00.003-05:00

I was pulling picket duty in WT's home system 30+ jumps from Korsiki. No WT's online for more than an hour. I'm BSing with another director (Let's call him Warbeer) on TS.

Then at 23:02 buddylist notification of a WT logging in was received. Quick scan of local revealed that WT was not in local. Our intel dept locates WT seconds later in Osmon in Typhoon, where WT had logged off after the earlier engagement where Uni popped a Mega.

Warbeer is in Korsiki & heads to the gate. I dock & jump clone to Korsiki and grab my favorite Scorp. No fleet is up & no one is in ops channel on TS, so I drag Warbeer & myself to the Bar & Grill. Warbeer starts issuing orders and engages the WT jumping into Korsiki from Osmon. I get a fleet started.

WT reapproaches the gate & jumps back to Osmon before anyone else gets to the Osmon gate. Warbeer waits out the aggression time & jumps into Osmon & finds WT still in local & on scan. Our prober locates WT sitting outside a station.

Warbeer warps to the station & engages, WT returns the favor.

The rest of us jump in, warp to the station & engage. One of our frigates goes pop. WT de-agresses to wait out the timer & dock, but we put enough DPS on the Typhon to pop it before the timer expires. WT immediately docks the pod & logs out seconds later. 16 minutes from log in to ship loss.

What we did right:
- Rapid response
- DPS on target

What I could have done better:
- I only set up 1 squad as I formed the fleet. I got the self-invite sorted and the invitation in Alliance chat, but because I only left room for 1 squad, it maxed out. I was too busy to do anything about it until it was too late. My bad guys & I'll do better next time!

Bottom line: Great response, great kill!

I wish I was as talented as Mos....

2008-07-31T14:13:00.004-05:00

Seriously.

Mos makes _great_ sigs for Uni members and displays a wonderful sense of humor about Eve & happenings in the Eve Universe.

After a discussion about age, here's his latest effort for me:

I didn't blow coffee on my keyboard like I have in the past with some of his efforts, but I did laugh out loud.

And then, suitably inspired, I created this in response:

I'm not nearly as professional as Mos. I just try to make a clear, cogent point. :)

Love ya, Mos!

War Dec'ed... By a 5 man Corp??? By a 5 man Corp!!!

2008-07-29T16:14:00.003-05:00

This should be.... interesting.

I can jam their entire Corp & have slots left over...

Maybe I'll fit tackle gear on my Scorp. That would be ebil, though, wouldn't it...

:)

Milestones, Millstones & Rolling Stones

2008-07-25T19:50:00.002-05:00

It has been an eventful few weeks since I last posted.

Inside the Uni, we have completed our structural reorganization. There were a few surprises (seriously, who would have thought Sabre would ask to be DirLog!) and a few challenges, but all in all, we are already beginning to see the benefits of the new more streamlined structure. More classes, more new students, more new events. It's all good!

In RL, things are full of angst at the moment. My job situation is in flux and I'll most likely be looking for something new shortly.

We put my new son-in-law on an airplane headed to Iraq at Zero Dark Thirty this morning. It was the hardest thing I've been involved in since my Father's death 30+ years ago. It was a surreal event. The 25 or so Soldiers that were part of this movement were all so young. I've always thought it was trite to read comments about units heading out where the observer remarks "They were all just kids..." Changed my mind. It's not trite, it's the truth.

Scarcity of targets <> scarcity of hen's teeth?

2008-07-09T09:44:00.003-05:00

I have to admit, the passing of the DecShield protection and subsequent new war dec were a little stressful, being my first time in the DirOps chair.

My first priority was to be sure that the students received clear communication about what activities were allowed/disallowed during the war so that previous drama bombs could be avoided. Generally speaking, that part went well. A few minor miscues, but nothing huge.

Secondly, I wanted to kill targets. Blast their shiny internet spaceships into glowing gobs of pixilated goo. Pop their pods & collect the corpses for Uber. This part was an utter failure. Only 1 kill teaming with Silentbrick and his Onyx, Dook & Edile in 'ceptors & me in Falcon. WT's Manticore buddies were fine sitting 100km off the battle until I uncloaked & started frying eyeballs. They split & their pal's Jag and pod popped.

The rest of the week I saw no action. I even chased a target 25 jumps to have him dock & log as soon as I entered the system. Sigh. Oh well, as Forest says....

War again....

2008-06-26T07:50:00.004-05:00

Uni has been war dec'ed again.

We transitioned from civilian to military operations smoothly. Students have been given clear instructions about what activities are permissible and which are prohibited. Alternate corps for those that don't want to fly combat have been provided.

My whole goal in the transition is to be sure that the student's expectations are in line with reality as much as possible. As in all areas of life, some folks read & understand better than others... (seriously, how can you interpret "- No hauling. Period, full stop. Directors will be reviewing the 'Super Sekrit Who Is Flying What' list. If you are seen in a hauler, you are subject to being shot without additional warning or instruction." as allowing you to undock your Badger & move it 3 jumps in the Jita pipe because "I had a frigate escort and an alt scout.")

My main focus is to avoid drama bombs.

We'll discuss combat ops next time (assuming we find any targets...)

Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug....

2008-06-14T07:19:00.002-05:00

Our last war was in the wind down phase. Not yet on cool down, but the OPFOR had been scarce for a while. Students were getting restless about not missioning or mining and not being able to shoot anything either.

So, Silentbrick scheduled a suicide destroyer only op (which I missed because of scheduling) and a follow on Battle Badger trip to Maila.

I was late getting on and the fleet of haulers had already left. I asked if there was anything special I could bring to help out. Silentbrick says "Well, a Falcon would be evil! Bwaaaah haaaaa haaaa haaa!"

Only having recently started flying Falcons (and being absolutely in love with them!), I agreed, undocked & made best speed to Maila. As I'm jumping into system, Silent calls 'Contact, Curse!' I report that I'm in system. Silent indicates that the Curse has engaged and calls for me to warp in at range.

I initiate warp to Slientbrick, range 100. Fall out of warp right on top of the Curse, which de-cloaks me! This is going to be interesting. His drones immediately start pounding me. I'm aligning to get the hell out and initiating a jam cycle. Jam cycle hits and I'm thinking I may get out of this, start spamming warp button. And then:

"Your capacitor is empty."

Neut-ed. Completely empty. Can you say "Falcon on a stick"? Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the center.

Bad luck for sure, but it still stinks.

Got my pod out and the boys got a bit of my stuff. Silentbrick had a slightly used Falcon he sold me, so it was all good at the end.

War stories....

2008-06-10T14:22:00.003-05:00

I had lots of fun in the last series of wars. Most of my time was spent in my trusty Scorpion (Seen in local: "You've been playing Eve too long when you know Dee's Scorpion by name...), but I started flying a Falcon toward the end. Being able sneak around cloaked, uncovering at the most opportune moment to fry eyeballs is great fun!

About mid-way through the war, Sabre & I were messing around with a couple of WT's that were playing dock/undock games. We had a support fleet forming 4 jumps away, so we were failry comfortable even with the WT's having support in the next system, too. So they'd undock and agress, then I'd jam them and Sabre would pound on them until they would dock again... Pretty routine... Couple more show up & join the fun... Still no big deal... The support fleet has started to move and Sabre plots having them jump in & warp to the station as soon as we get one of the WT's agressed.

Some mis-communication later, Sabre & I are facing 6 battleships, expecting our support fleet to be in warp, when we discover that they are still 4 systems out & we are on our own! I have 5 of the 6 jammed, but have drone aggro from all of them. Sabre is trying to kill the drones. The 6th guy has me webbed & scrammed. I'm hung on the station. The situation is going south fast! I miss a jam cycle while aligning & swapping 3 jammers to the guy who has me webbed... I'm already spamming the warp button thinking this Scorp is done for & I need to save my pod...

Then, a near miracle! Jammers hit on the guy that has me scrammed & webbed. Warp initiates. I'm out with 2% structure. Yup, 2%. Those leadership skills & shield/armor bonuses just paid off in spades! Sabre is laughing on TS "Did ya' get out? Ya' got out, right, Dee? Tell me you got out, Dee?"

Shortly after that we're told, OPFOR leadership distributes a "Do Not Engage" list via corp mail. Pretty funny that the biggest carebear of them all (me) is on the list with the designation "EW God! Don't even bother...". After that, it was pretty tough for me to get into a fight.

Next time... I get my Falcon cherry popped.

New Chair

2008-06-08T07:08:00.003-05:00

During the latter stages of the latest Privateers war, our Director of Operations (think Chief Operating Officer), Kassie Kelmer stepped down. During war, this is not that big a deal as command of the Uni transfers to Fleet Admiral Silentbrick during war and all peaceful activities are suspended.

The return of peace to the Uni also meant that it was time for this chair to be filled.

I was quite surprised to receive a PM from Morning Maniac asking if I would consider accepting the position. Surprised is not really strong enough. More like stunned. The same way I would feel if Sabre and Riccar announced they were becoming monks & joining a monastery where they could only speak 2 words every year.

I asked myself a lot of questions, because I'm not a 'typical' MMO player or Eve player. I'm older. More, shall we say, restrained and measured in response. The PvP side of things is great fun, but is not my primary interest in the game. The social and economic sides of things are much more interesting to me than pew-pew. (But that doesn't mean I don't fly combat. When the call goes out, I'll be there frying eyeballs in an EW ship of some kind and performing well enough that our enemies take notice... But that's a story for another day!) My play time and my entertainment dollars that I spend in Eve are intended to be stress relievers for me. Would this new chair turn my 'fun' time into just another job.... A job that I pay for!

My decision hinged on these three factors:

Eve University was unique when founded because of the vision of one person who believed that there was a place for selflessness even in a game that was inherently selfish in design.
Eve University remains unique more than four years later because of the students, the instructors and the leaders who continually reaffirm that core value by their actions.
There is not a finer group of people, in or out of the game, than those that have Eve University in their history.

I hold to a belief system that calls me to be selfless in my interactions and unique in my viewpoints. I also firmly believe that a person's in-game behavior and interactions reflect the majority of the characteristics of the real person behind the keyboard. Given that, I was compelled to accept.

I am humbled to have been asked to serve in this position and grateful for the opportunity to assist in the advancement of our mission. I consider myself a steward of great things that exist and a facilitator of great things yet to come. Yes, it is just internet spaceships. But internet spaceships is serious freakin' business! :)

o7
Dee Carson
Director of Operations
Eve University

Bad, Dee! Bad, Dee!

2008-06-07T07:07:00.002-05:00

It's true. I haven't posted in a long time.

Some of the silence was due to the protracted war that we were involved in. Previous OPFOR leadership indicated that they were using Uni leadership blogs as intel tools. I don't think there was ever anything useful posted in any of our leadership blogs, but if there's nothing posted, there's no doubt.

Some of the silence was due to RL work issues. My new position is very stressful and the personal time that I had was best used in blowing WT's up. Internet spaceship explosions are great stress relievers!

Some of the silence was due to RL family issues. My youngest daughter was engaged early in the year to a fine young man, a 2nd Lt in the US Army (artillery). His first assignment was to take him to Ft. Hood as part of the 4th ID, which was just returning from Iraq. He was to have at least 18 months at Ft. Hood before any possible deployment, so December college graduation and December wedding all seemed in order. Location secured, dress purchased (mid July delivery), caterer selected. Check, check & check.

Then...

On 4/15, orders change to 4th Brigade of 4ID, which was reflagged to 4th Brigade, 1st Cav at Ft. Hood and set for deployment to Iraq mid June. Brigade S1 indicates that he would be in country by 1 July.

So, we had to respond to the logistical challenge of moving a wedding forward 6 months with 6 weeks notice. And you think COAD is full of drama!

Another dress, another location, an unusual time later, this past Sunday we got them married. Daughter & Son-In-Law report to Ft. Hood 12 June and we go from there.

Bottom line is updating my internet spaceship blog hasn't been very high on my list. I can't say I'm sorry, because even in retrospect, I can see no scenario where I would have changed my priorities enough to get this in.

I will say that I'm hopeful the drama curve in my life has peaked and is exhibiting negative slope! If so, I'll be more regular in updating this.

In my next post, Morning Maniac pays me a great compliment & I get a new set of Eve challenges.

On Crawfish....

2008-03-01T04:37:00.004-06:00

Corp chat turned to food a few moments ago, specifically crawfish. Every time anyone discusses crawfish, I think of this real life experience & giggle, so I thought I'd share...

In the mid 80's, I was an internal auditor for a company that had sea port operations in New Orleans. Another internal auditor, Jim, & I went to visit the terminal and do a couple of days of routine reviews. Jim is a man of some size. At that time, 6'4" & about 265 lbs.

The terminal manager, being a good host, invited Jim & me to accompany him to his church parish's crawfish boil. Now I love crawfish, so I was in from the start. Jim had never eaten one before, but he was game, so off we go.

The crawfish boil was taking place on the grounds of a little country Catholic church outside of town. Huge cauldrons of crawfish, potatoes, sausage & corn on the cob were being tended to over open fires. Every now & then one of the cooks would dip a wire basket into the cauldron, carry the load of love to wooden planks set on top of 55 gal oil drums under the trees, walk down the plank spreading the contents in front of the eaters. Cold beer was on ice & Cajun music filled the air. It was like a movie set!

Jim & I took our place across the plank from 3 aged, Catholic nuns. Greetings were exchanged & everyone got down to the serious business of breaking down crawfish. Jim, being a rookie at this, was not very speedy in the whole "twist, pull, pinch, bite" approach of getting a crawfish tail consumed. In fact, he was struggling...

With out a word of consultation, the 3 nuns began to place peeled crawfish tails in front of Jim. They would each eat one, then shuck one & place in front of Jim.

Jim, wanting to acknowledge the grace gift of these 3 fine women, says "Ladies, thank you so much for your help!"

The smallest of the nuns, in the thickest Cajun accent you can imagine says "'Sha! You was goin' to starve plum to death trying to feed yo big ol' self and the Church would take a dim view of us if we allowed that to happen."

I was still laughing the next day... :)

Quick lesson... Empire is saf_er_ , not _safe_...

2008-02-25T15:32:00.003-06:00

Had one of my Hulks out last night in Korsiki, ganged with Kaye (Ity V) and a student (Osprey) to pass bonuses.

Typically, when you think of passing bonuses as a miner, you are looking at mining yield, but every now and then, those combat related bonuses come in handy, too....

Reports in Corp chat indicated a couple of suspicious characters skulking around the belts, acting like can flippers. No worries for my little group as our can only held 100 rounds of small iron ammo as a popper-stopper. As ore was deposited in the can, Kaye immediately transferred it. When Kaye was out of the belt, the student & I held our take in our own holds until Kaye returned. Almost zero risk to can flippers.

The two ne'er-do-wells hit our belt and approached our can (one in Caracal, the other in a cruiser of indeterminate make/model). As I typed a warning in fleet chat, they opened fire on my Hulk!

Crap! What a time to not be aligned to anything! Crap! Shields down & armor melting, I'm aligning & preparing to bail when Concord arrives.... 2 secs later it's all over. Battered, but still space-worthy (thank you shield & armor bonuses!), I head to the POS & Kaye brings reppers. In fleet chat, the student says "By the time I figured out what was going on, they were both dead!"

So, dear student, remember, Empire is not safe... Just safer... Those who are willing to sacrifice their ship can cost you yours, even if they don't gain anything in the process.

Fuzzy made a comment about my shotgun...

2008-02-18T18:53:00.003-06:00

So I added a couple of additional pictures.

My new RL job is consuming tons of my Eve time. Fun in a different way and it's good that most of my skills for both Kaye & Dee are long term now... A 4 day skill seems short now!

Plus my new notebook will run the premium graphics. :) What a treat! I can even leave sounds & effects turned on!

I'm maxing out my exhumer skills, betting that will be a requirement for the rumored Orca, while Kaye is 26 days from Gallente Cruiser V. Not sure if her next step will be HAC's or Heavy 'Dictors.

Here's to a short, victorious war!

2008-02-07T07:11:00.000-06:00

Those Who Would Like To Be Named withdrew their dec last night right after we popped and podkilled 6 of 14 members of a cruiser gang in Korsiki, with no losses.

Previous to the withdrawal, I assisted in the CSAR of one of our cruiser pilots caught in station in Olo.

Subsequent to the withdrawal of the dec, we headed south to camp a few gates 2 systems from their HQ. One of the other directors had been stranded in OPFOR's home system earlier on a DC & emergency warp from the gate. I swapped to a Manticore to take a look at the gate & help him get out. Jumping into the system, I landed in the middle of 2 Scorps & a Typhon. Things were exciting for a moment as I made my way to a safe spot & cloaked. Moments later, 5 of the 6 WT's left system. I gave a heads up to the FC of our main fleet 2 systems out & returned to confirm the gate was empty. Our fleet took down all 5 smartbomb fitted battleships & 3 pod for the loss of a dessie, 8 frigs & 3 pods.

Meanwhile, my Manticore got popped as I was one volley hitting short of scoring a Caracal & my Raven buddy couldn't uncloak & target fast enough to support. My bad as I underestimated how much time it would take for him to get into the fight.

All in all, a very satisfying evening!

Once again, into the breach....

2008-02-05T09:23:00.000-06:00

War again, from those that would want me to mention their name.

Took a little trip to their HQ last night before the war dec went active. Just as many Uni pilots in local as soon-to-be war targets.

The difference was that all the Uni pilots were in space & all the OPFOR guys were docked.

Seemed familiar.

Peace is death to blog posts...

2008-02-03T13:58:00.001-06:00

At least it seems that way...

Caldari Battleship V finished, boack to work on mining support skills for a bit.

I broke down & bought a Raven and have been running some L3 missions for Lai Dai. Very easy so far. Hope to get to a L4 agent soon.

In RL, I have accepted a position as Chief Financial Officer for one of my audit clients. Will probably mean more travel, but I ordered a kick ass notebook (Dell XPS 1730) that supports the premium graphics. Spending the weekend moving files & stuff from old notebook to the new one.

Finraer is taking a bit of an extended leave of absence and will be missed.

Fingers crossed that Beastie Boys' Superbowl bet pans out!

Later!

Wish granted!

2008-01-19T07:51:00.000-06:00

Wish granted.

RL issues for a few days

2008-01-18T07:44:00.000-06:00

Headed to the in-laws for the weekend. No net access, so I'll be checking in late Sunday.

Wars end... 'Roids should be afraid...

2008-01-16T08:35:00.000-06:00

The first of our wars lapsed last night. The second should end in a few hours. Second group has never really shown up at all, so I doubt they will renew.

The 'roids in Korsiki should be afraid. They should be very afraid.

Is it wrong to hope for a can flipper or two?

It's quiet.. Too quiet...

2008-01-15T05:10:00.000-06:00

But, unlike the B movie, the lack of enemies has not foreshadowed any huge push. Instead, they have removed themselves from the Korsiki/Jita pipe. Showing up only as dispersed singletons with no desire to engage beyond ganks.

The problem becomes encouraging the students to maintain vigilance, to continue to observe the war time restrictions on mining/missioning/hauling and to continue traveling in groups.

These restrictions chafe, but they ensure student safety and deny the enemy cheap ganks.

Patience, Grasshopper.

Too much activity = not much activity

2008-01-14T07:24:00.001-06:00

Party on Saturday for a friend who had a heart attack 2 years ago & survived... Church activities Sunday morning & NFL playoffs Sunday afternoon. "Comanche Moon" last night...

Bottom line, I didn't fly much this past weekend. Hopefully, business will pick up.

New blood...

2008-01-12T08:05:00.000-06:00

Even though there are lots of things to not like about the series of war dec's that we've experienced, one of the positives has been the budding of a new crop of FC's.

Last night, I helped scout for one of our new FC's as he took a group of about 20 out for a bit of a spin. We played tag with a very fast interceptor and his alt for a time. I was really proud of the way that the fleet remained disciplined and did not reply to the taunts & jibes in local.

Fighting any kind of interceptor is frustrating. Fighting a 10k mps interceptor will make a preacher cuss from aggravation. He can't really hurt you as long as you stay grouped up, and you can't catch him to deliver a pounding.

His only effective weapon becomes local chat. Totally ignoring him denies him that satisfaction.

New FC's are learning that FC'ing is like playing speed chess against as many opponents as you have WT's, without any boards and with 10 people randomly putting information in your ear. The amount of stuff going on is dizzying and the rapidity with which the situation changes can leave you staring at the screen in full mental "WTF do I do now" melt down.

Key tools for new FC's:
- Note pad (Scout names & positions at the top of the page!)
- Hardcopy of Ombey's maps
- Sense of humor & double dose of patience

Once again, good job sir! Glad to scout for you any time!

More fun...

2008-01-11T04:48:00.001-06:00

Suffering no losses, we added a HAC, a Command Ship and a Domi to the bag in the past 24 hrs.

Lots of comments in local as we pass through.

One war target took exception to my Scorpion, suggesting that I wasn't playing "fairly".

Let's get this straight. The "fair" comes once a year, in the fall & features corny dogs & caramel apples. If I'm in a "fair" fight, then I've made a mistake. I want every engagement to be a 50 vs 1 insta-pop. CCP says that Eve features non-consensual combat. Fine. Those that would stoop to war dec'ing a training corp have no moral ground to cry for "fair" fights. They deliberately sought un-"fair" fights from the outset and cry out for "fair"-ness only when they are on the short end of the stick.

When you war dec the Uni, you must expect to fight overwhelming fleets of small ships piloted by the most bloodthirsty nOOb's ever seen, backed by loads of electronic warfare and a few specialized big ships flown by the Uni's most experienced pilots. Either that, or you must expect to stay docked.

Deja Vu all over again....

2008-01-10T07:37:00.000-06:00

About 36 hrs into the current war and we've popped a T2 fitted battleship, 4 T2 ships & 4 pods. Our losses are frigates, a cruiser, 2 battlecruisers & a single interceptor. Nearly 90% efficiency.

One comment from their killboard gave me a chuckle:

"i just docked and took a **** and 30 people were outside the station waiting for me."

Uni intel agents truly are everywhere, I guess....

More targets...

2008-01-08T08:53:00.000-06:00

Another war dec.

Guess I wasn't ready to go back to mining after all!

Eve University Fleet in Action (video)

2008-01-07T09:04:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Caligulus:

Uni Fleet

:)

RO, RO, It's off to work I go!

2008-01-07T07:31:00.000-06:00

With the war over, the Uni becomes a frenzy of activity...

We had more than 450 pending applications at war's end, with an other 75 or so non-combatants in the sister corp. All of these people want to get into the Uni as soon as possible.

Dierdra Vaal added several new RO's. I'm helping out with getting the non-combatants moved back and grabbing some of the overflow from the public channel as well. Yesterday, I conducted 3 group interviews of 3+ new students at a time while flying top cover for Jen Loo's for profit mining op.

Hopefully, things can settle down over the next couple of weeks. We need to reschedule the Mining Derby and I want to have a Road Trip to Debyl soon, too.

Training wise, the war interrupted my march toward Caldari Battleship V, so I have 26 days left there. On the bright side, I can now field a 7.2 kps Raptor, so it's all good!