Sometimes Eve just says 'login' - it is time to do things.

I have been quiet in game lately.

There was a recent blog banter asking the same question that has been asked of games since I can remember.  'Doctor! Am I going to die?'  The answer usually is 'Yes, but not today'.

I did a little too much during the recent war.  Our Alliance CEO was critically ill in hospital for months, and I stepped in.  A small amount of drama, and a large amount of 'If you don't join the war - we will stomp you', followed by other so called friendlies saying 'You joined the war - we will stomp you'.  I made some choices - to join the attack on those who would ruin my game, and to not immediately bend the knee to those who would rather have me as cattle to be farmed.

These choices were right for some (including me) but not for all, but they came at a personal cost.   Herding cats was the most difficult part of my time in that other very large MMO.  It is not much different in Eve.  I provide infrastructure and a framework, but encourage others to do what they will with that .

So ... I am spending a little time out of our game.

As part of this time out  - the worst happened in our C5.  The POS ran out of fuel. Yes it was found fuelless, and the appropriate response happened.  It's arrays got popped.  For the record : Ship maintenance arrays drop loot and appear on killboards.  Assembly and corporate / personal hanger arrays do not, but they do lose all their contents beyond recovery.

Shrug.  If we really were paying attention, the POS would have been kept fueled. ( Who's job was it? )

'Today' however, (and this post has a mild delay), Eve said 'login'.

I have to replace stuff in the C5 and that was a hauling task.

This means I want a highsec wormhole.  This never happens.  Highsec wormholes come just as you are loging out for the night, spending hours scanning.  They come with gate campers or in highsec islands, or are already end of life.  They come when you are competing with first life deadlines.

Log in and scan.  Very first scan shows 3 stronger signatures.  Second scan says 1 is wormhole and 2 are gas.  Third scan is a 100% on the wormhole.  Warp to wormhole and it is a K162 to highsec. Sobaseki . My DST and Jita is only one jump away.


Normally I don't like Jita so close, as it is not just easy for me but it is also easy for others.  But ... Sobaseki is quiet - Jita might have thousands and Perimiter hundreds .. but Sobaseki - 22 in local.

This is not to say you don't take care.   A bait iteron, borderline gankable in it's own right precedes a more expensive DST.

Sometimes we get distracted from this maddening and engaging game we play. Sometime Eve just says 'get off your sorry backside and do something'.

Citadels and access control lists

Citadel control using Access Lists is a new idea for Eve.

It uses access control lists, which are a powerful if sometimes not the most straightforward thing to set up.  For those used to POS setup, you already know that we need a more powerful tool.

There are two parts to set up.  One or more access control lists, then assigning these to citadels.

For this post, my goal is to set up 3 lists.

• Director level people who can do everything on my behalf. This includes the trusted few and alts.  These pilots will be given destructive abilities.
• Gunners who will be given access to Citadel guns.  These pilots will be able to cause mischief. They will be able to engage friendlies on grid and generally waste ammunition/fighters (even steal them), but not decommission the citadel itself.
• General access will give permissions to dock and use infrastructure.

There are two other groups that you may like to set up.

• Public.  You may wish to freeport your citadel.
• Blacklist.  Especially if you have freeported your citadel, you may decide there are some trouble you wish to exclude.

There will be lots of ways to set up controls. This is how I am planning on setting up controls.

Note: with all screenshots you can click on to expand.

Access Lists

The first part is the Access List.  To do this, open your This is available from Neocom > Business > Access List.

Add a 'New Access List'.  In the below screenshot, I have added 2 new lists already (BlogDirectors and BlogGunners, and am in the process of adding BlogGeneral).

I am then going to populate the 3 lists.  Firstly for the BlogGeneral list, I am going to add an alliance, a corporation and a pilot.  This brings up a standard search box.

There are 4 Levels:

• Admin (Can add / remove members from any level - including Admin)
• Manager (can add pilots, corporations and alliances to member, can add pilots to blocked)
• Member 
• Blocked

You can drag any pilot into the Admin or Manager icons.  Corporations and Alliances can only be members or 'blocked'.  You would use blocked if you allow public to use your citadel but want to block a specific pilot, or maybe you sent some members of a corp to the 'sin bin'.

In the above screenshot, DoToo is an admin, Padecain is a manager.  For the sake of example only, I have allowed 'Public' (you are unlikely to see this in one of my wormholes), and banned another Foo wormhole corp.

Remembering my goals:

• BlogGeneral would be my friendlies list.  For the NPSI crowd, this would include your fleet mates.  In first life, I would walk down the street with these people.
• BlogGunner would be those I reasonably trust. In first life, I would lend these people the car keys.
• BlogDirectors are those I explicitly trust.  In first life, I would share a bank account with these people. ( I did not use this list )

https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/208289645-Access-Lists has a little more information about Access lists.   The most specific permissions will override the least specific, that is DoToo's role as Admin takes precedence over his role as corp or alliance member.

Admins and Managers can the member lists, and also also see a history of changes.

Profiles

Profiles are available from Neocom > Business > Structure Browser

In this instance I am adding a new profile 'BlogProfile'.

Open the profile and go to profile settings.  Under that window I have obscured the reinforcement timer.  There is also a 'fuel remaining' option to cover services.

There are several items to configure.

Docking Rights

I have added the General group to the docking rights.

Corporate Offices

For the corp offices, I want anyone corp that can dock to be able to rent offices and pay ISK.  There however is the option to charge close friends (alliance members, personal alt corps) different rates. Alternatively you could (if you wanted) to charge 'nearly friends' even more isk by creating another access list with higher rates.

Defense

This is the one I am tightening down.  I am granting BlogGunners to the defense group.

Clone Bay

For those citadels with Clone bays work out who you want to use them.  Please note that a clone bay in a wormhole is for swapping implant sets only, and not for jumping into and out of.  Citadels in known space are more 'regular' allowing clone jumping but can also be used (I think) for implant swapping.

Similar to office rental, different access lists can have different costs for clones

Market

If I had a market (and I don't) I would want to set it up so that everyone can use it with a reasonable tax.  For my wormholes I already provide a cheaper tax for a fixed fee, so would be tempted to do again for markets.  Again, a new access control list is how I would set this up.

Reprocessing

Reprocessing looks a lot like market in setup.

Again CCP has for more information on profiles https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/208289635

Citadel profile

Now you have set up the profile, it is time to set one or more citadels to use that profile.

From the structure browser - My Structures choose 'Any Profile'.

Right click on a structure and set profile to your desired profile.

Other Information

Other useful reading : http://eve-guides.fr/index.php?article=132

PS All screen shots are taken from Singularity.  Feedback - especially anything I have missed is welcome.

There are new structures coming soon (tm)

I like access lists as a method to control structures, but they do take a bit of getting used to.  The primary advantage is you can set up the access list and profile once, then use it on any later structures.

If you want to modify your citadel access lists, again, change once and apply everywhere.

This is still new in Eve and not necessarily well understood (though no one ever really understood how to set up POS).  While all posts welcome comments, I especially welcome any corrections or other citadel guides that you can find.

What can die to 50 man gangs?

Like just about every corp that has ever based out of a POS, I am trying to work out if a citadel is defend-able.

I have been involved in POS bashes before, both as aggressor and defender.  At one point I had a medium POS reinforced by a 10 man gang in a C1.  I learned the benefits of multiple POS gunners and what you can do in the event of an eviction attempt.  Evacuate the expensive non-pvp ready assets and find some more guns.

If you can make a 50 man fleet that is partly competent against an unsupported tower, you can reinforce a large tower, come back 42 hours later and finish the job.

I have little surprise that even in wormhole space, you can make a 50 man fleet that is partly competent to reinforce an unsupported medium citadel, repeat in 24 hours, then repeat in another 24 hours.

The time commitment (DPS grind) is less on a medium citadel, but there is a requirement to show up in a much smaller window 3 times.  A successful defender is not left with the 'joy' of repairing guns while feeling incredibly skittish.

Looking at the current page of zkillboard for Astrahus : https://zkillboard.com/ship/35832/

• There are 40 unfit citadels that were stillborn, and died unfit.
• https://zkillboard.com/kill/54325101/ is a partially fit, nullsec industry rigged citadel, ganked by 101 pilots
• https://zkillboard.com/kill/54317387/ is a twin neut, wormhole pvp rigged citadel, ganked by 14 pilots with twin guardians.  A Large POS may have survived this better.  Nothing except tower fittings is visible on zkillboard as having dropped.
• https://zkillboard.com/kill/54288932/ has a token fit in highsec, ganked by 19 pilots.
• https://zkillboard.com/kill/54254569/ is another partially fit, industry rigged highsec citadel, ganked by 19 pilots.

Of all of these citadels, one had a reasonable shot of being defended.  The rest?  Unless you have a defense fleet, don't deploy a citadel with someone in local, or with open wormholes in Jspace.  When I previously read zkillboard I was seeing similar ratios.

If you are ganking with 101 moderately competant pilots without a significant number of experienced defenders, I don't expect either a citadel or a POS to have much luck.

As a potential defender, I am somewhat concerned about loot drops out of citadels.  I did however support the call that wormholes should not have the full known space safety rules (and a small part of me thinks that they should not in known space either).  I do want better mechanisms for citadel owners to forcibly clean wormhole citadels occasionally.  If, as a citadel owner, I am pro-active about keeping loot limited, I want the tools to do so.  I have not checked what is visible outside the citadel during any citadel shutdown timer, but would want this to not be a call to loot for a full 7 days.

So far, ganking of empty citadels looks like 'content' rather than 'loot' motivation.  Sufficient numbers are being generally brought so that it probably does not matter what structure is being lived in.

(ninja edit  on first line : like every corp that has based out of a POS )

The citadels are coming ... and not just for me

PI prices right now are in an interesting place.

A lot of PI is very expensive compared to historical prices.

I prefer to trade mostly in 'P2' , easy to make, with good compression (not as good as P3, but certainly easier).  P2 'refines' being the first of Foo's Eve PI spreadsheet - Manufacture Tab

Fuel block based PI  (Coolant, oxygen, mechanical parts) have mostly depressed pricing. Enriched Enriched Uranium is ok but even that is down from it's peak.  POS fuel is more expensive but that is due to the addition of strontium clathrates (now being 14% of the cost), and is not caught up in the PI demand for citadels.

https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/market/link/10000002/9832

Some 'P2' is crazy expensive.  Microfibre shielding, Polyaramids, Silicate Glass and Test cultures are all sitting above 30k.  These normally are at the 10k mark.

https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/market/link/10000002/2321

On that note, I have changed (again) the cache setting on my pricing spreadsheet. Possibly less stable, but definitely more up to date.

I also have been trying my hand at twitter,   For someone as verbose as I can be, the 140 character limit is an interesting challenge.  I have already found that there are some ideas worth expressing but not worth a full blog post.

Moving slowly to citadels

At some stage soon, the Foo wormhole corps will be moving to citadels.

Our large Minmatar POS are currently costing approx 700M/month to fuel, and citadels don't have ongoing fuel costs just to exist.

Astrahus - the medium citadels is what we will set up in our C1 and C2 wormholes.  The C1 is for those that prefer the comfort of highsec nearby, and our C2 is for those that prefer to remain in wormholes with a little better PI.

The first citadels of are built in POS, with a significant time efficiency bonus.  (Well maybe not the Palentine Keepstar - but that is a 'unique' proposition.)

Just because I have my eye on the 700M/month prize, does not stop me from keeping an eye out on citadel prices.  When they first came out, the medium citadels were costing 9B, and are currently fairly rapidly.  I expect that the mediums will settle around the 1.5 Bil mark for a while and I will be looking for a few more days of stabilised prices before I go on a spending spree.

From Fuzzworks - my current preferred market history site

https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/market/link/10000002/35832

I am also after a Fortizar for our C5.  Yes ... the lure of capital escalations exists for some of us, and we will get around to it again one day ... honest (Nullsec is keeping me very busy, and Bob only knows what I am even training at the moment.  All I know is something random I set up quite a while ago).

Unsurprisingly the Fortizar's are not heavily stocked.  At roughly 10 times the cost price, and (I believe an even longer research time), they will be slower.  Where there are a lot of mediums on market, there are precious few of these large citadels.  I would like to spend 15B but I might be pushing it somewhat.  Until now the Fortizars will be POS built, with the station based large citadels starting to come out very soon.  I expect that will drop the prices somewhat once station based citadels come out ... maybe.

https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/market/link/10000002/35833

The Keepstars are not even available yet.  30 days for the first citadel off an unresearched blueprint, so the first off the factory lines that are POS based will be approximately 19 May, with the station based builds ones coming out roughly 28 May.

Oops playing with twitter a little too much

I have been playing with twitter blogger intergration.

It seems like I may have been too successful and need to not write new posts just because of tweets.

Looking to fix now.

Democracy is the worst form of selecting player representatives, except for all the others.

I have a plan.

• I love the idea of player representation bringing ideas, thoughts and fears to CCP.  
• We know in huge groups there is a low 'signal to noise' ratio.  Somewhere between 10 and 20 people still make a very large group on a day to day basis, but we probably need this many pilots to represent diverse groups
• CCP should talk to this group 'in confidence'.  Nothing earth shattering if it gets leaked, but still sanctionable if someone should step too far out of line.  It doesn't matter the game, there is always the 'but you promised me a pony' crowd to upset.  Making a pony is hard, and not all attempts work out.
• The largest groups in the game should have people stand up to represent them.  Some of these groups are called 'bears', others have less savoury names.
• Democracy is a the worst way to elect representatives, except for all the others.  (Well, you could vote me in as benevolent dictator, but I am not entirely sure I would return the favour)

If other players see the value in such an organisation, they should support it, and support the candidates.  I know that such an event will be work, and tempers will be exposed, and sometimes people will get inappropriately passionate about this game.  I still support such a body.

Some are even asking that the 85% be represented on such a body.

I might even call this body the Council of Stellar Management.  However the name is unimportant. The number of seats or length of service are also less important than giving the feedback.

I ran for CSM.  Other very worthy highsec and lowsec candidates of various stripes spring to mind. Steve of course who was elected.  I thought other candidates here were also worthy; ranging from bear though lowsec pirate, all the way to highsec wardeccer.

High and lowsec had an opportunity to have more voices.  My initial response to seeing this year's representation was ... to use an eve phrase: salty.  I would love to see a wider representation this year's CSM, and I suspect CCP would too.  If you want a better representation, promote the best candidate you see, or even better run for yourself.

Sorry Rixx, if you read this, reserving votes for some sections of the game won't work.  I might prefer different results for the CSM, but highsec has 85% of the population, and lowsec has been well represented in the past.  Carving off quota's either ends up where 3% of the voters get 30% of the representatives, or it ends up being meta-gamed into pointlessness.  I do endorse one thing though:
In addition CCP needs to help bring the election to the game itself. An active and participatory player base is good for everyone. So I'd like to see more log-in screen support, in-game notifications, billboard and hangar ads, etc., next year.  I want voting for player representing groups to be an 'in game' activity.


Highsec, lowsec and even WH groups can be motivated, and it is up to the bloggers, the FC's, alliance leads and redditors, even the forum posters.  This is a sandbox.  Go build a castle and put 'eve is great' advertising on it.

I want contstructive criticism of the CSM and CCP.  Shine a light on interesting decisions.  There is a however a difference between 'this group can't be all things to all people' and 'all player representation is evil'.  I don't even care if commentators on EVE get it right, as usually even the worst critic's have an element of truth.  If you claim that someone/something will get an unreasonable nerf or buff, you may be right.  If you claim that the sky is going to fall because of it, I want to see compelling evidence.

Where the opportunity exists for me to affect the game in a positive way in the future, I will endeavour to take it.  This includes my blog, and my time, and using the contacts I have made through this CSM attempt.

As usual, I will do what I can, with what I have, where I am.






P.S.  The last few years, CSM released the STV results themselves.  I have not seen them this year.  I would like to peruse those particular tea leaves if anyone has the link.