CSM XI campaign retrospective

Now that CSM voting is over, here are some of my thoughts about what I did and didn't do during the campaign.

I probably have more freedom to speak now than I do at any other stage.  Voting is complete so I dont need to worry about picking up or even losing votes.  Results are not in so less accusations of vindictive victory or bitter loss.

Application

I had formally applied applied to join CSM at the start of the official nominations period, but the submission form didn't 'feel right'.  I was expecting some form of confirmation that my candidacy had been received but I got nothing.  I reached out to a couple of existing CSM reps but was told that this was normal not to know.  You are only 'allowed' to apply once.

When I sent my passport photo in, I reapplied, and sent an explanatory note to the csm contact email that was published.  I evemailed CCP Leeloo I still did not get any feedback.

Towards the end of the nomination period, I sent a copy of my application to the contact email address.

When the nomination period closed, I got an email from CCP saying ... you application has been accepted, but can you re-apply on the website.  There was apparently a timeout issue on the website where if you took too long to fill in details

Doing the chase up work that I did was the difference between being accepted and not being accepted.

Interviews

I jumped on the  Cap Stable CSM Watch interviews very early, getting a time that suited.  I listened to some of their earlier podcasts to get an idea of what questions they were asking.  This research worked well for me, and my interview received good reviews.

I contacted Nosy Gamer about  https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire  and ensured my spot was up to date.

I answered the Eve NT http://www.eve-nt.uk/tag/csmxi/ questions.

I contacted (very late in the piece) Eve Guardian http://www.eve-guardian.net/article/22/csm-behind-the-platforms-dotoo-foo

Due to some confusion about my application (see above), I chased up Eve-Match http://match.eve-csm.com/  Eve Match is not available to be updated until the nomination period is finished, and put aside a couple of hours to fill in their questionnaire.

I did not chase up enough interview options.  I should have sorted out months in advance for various podcasts and bloggers for blog posts and nominations.

There was one prolific and somewhat caustic blogger that I spent too long trying to persuade to change his stance.  Hopefully I persuaded some undecided readers on that blog to vote for CSM.  I should have spent this time elsewhere.

Getting my name out there to friendly audiences

Before the CSM period started, I made sure I had more blog posts.  People come to blogs to read new material.  Hopefully it is good reading (daily posts are even better).  With lots of postings, players get a feel for what type of player I am, and if you are reading regularly, you can not help but have some empathy for the writer, even those you disagree with.

I re-titled my PI spreadsheet to ... beg for votes (no other word for it really)

My POS were renamed to something along the line of Vote for DoToo Foo.  The nullsec output that I had naming rights on, we renamed.  However, you can not use the words CSM in an outpost name so we used the word elections instead.

I spammed alliance and the Foo corps.

I even manually grabbed pilot names from zkillboard in wormhole space. ( eg https://zkillboard.com/api/kills/w-space/page/2/xml for the second page of kills) and spammed them.  This got some interesting responses to the effect of:

• Hey man, I already voted for you.  Love your PI spreadsheet.
• I can not vote for someone who's name sounds like a sneeze
• I am less likey to vote for you now (from a serious hunter corp that was not likely to vote for me anyway)
• Who are you, what is CSM, and why should I care?

I contacted some no longer actively playing alt-a-lots to vote for me.  Hopefully I got some votes there.

Our nullsec alliance leader spam friendly alliances.

I should have spent more time going through my email and conversation histories, and spamming everyone that I have ever spoken to.

I should have spent more time finding out the names of groups that play similarly to myself.  Zkillboard Epithal losses would be a great place to start.

I should have contacted every blogger on my blog role, active and inactive.

I finally got onto tweetfleet slack as well as on anoikis.slack.com for wormhole groups.

Cross endorsement

I spent some time blogging about the importance of this before the official nominatio period, and did some work, but should have spent more time teaching the other candidates about it's importance, and getting their official endorsements.

Slack was a good place to catch up with other candidates, where we sought cross-endorsement.

Time

I did well by handing over most wormhole responsibilities to other corp members.  I probably did not give enough support one one or two members but I only have so much time.

I picked up too many responsibilities in nullsec, but when first life illness intervenes with existing leadership, someone has to step up.

I also know that other candidates were feeling a little election weary by the time the period ended.

I only have so much time to go around.  The karma of this is that if I feel I should have spent more time campaigning, then I probably will feel I should spend more time on CSM.  I still spent more effort than many others.

So will I get in and when do we find out?

To be honest, I feel I am an outside chance for this run, and in at least Australian political terms, I am claiming underdog.  This is politician speech for 'I really hope I will get in but don't allows me to save face if I don't'.

I have laid the groundwork for next year's run and some pilots that didn't know me before now do.

In many ways however, CSM is a loud voice for taking our concerns to CCP, but it is only one (well 14) of many different voices.  I am still going to blog, sometimes more than others.  I now lurk where I know at least some devs also lurk, so will be able to poke and prod.

For now, situation normal (all fouled up?).  Some other blogs to write - especially about citadels and what I will and won't use them for (hint : not highsec or nullsec markets), Apparently some wars to fight (and if you want space in null, now is the time.  Recruiting for both PVE and PVP, in both wormholes and null.)

The big reveal is 21 April 2016 at Fanfest.  Then we can all find out together.

Three boxes of Eve Liberty

There are three boxes of Eve liberty:  Ammo, Soap, and Ballot.

Login to the ballot box above, then Vote #1 DoToo Foo for CSM 

Voting ends March 25^th, 2016.

PI prices have gone a little nuts

I blame citadel speculation but PI prices are a little out of normal.

Normally P1 ranges from 80 - 700 isk per unit.  Today Bacteria (normally 60-80 isk/unit is sitting at 380 isk).  Proteins are up to 1100 isk/unit.

P2 normally ranges from 4k isk/unit to 11k isk/unit.  today ... Polyaramids are up to 20k isk/unit.  (Water Cooled CPU are still aweful)

P3 likewise is now up to 160k isk/unit for High-tech transmitters.

P4, with integrity response drones is up to 3M ISK/unit .  Well above the normal 1.3M ISK/unit.

Citadels are coming.  The apparent destruction of 120 highsec Poco's from Eve Uni vs Pirat Alts won't help prices come down either.

To see at a glance what is profitable to make at todays prices, use the manufacture tab my Eve PI google doc 

To see at a glance what is profitable to extract, use the main tab from the same spreadsheet

I don't often speculate on upcoming patches and still can not tell you if the market is overreacting.  What I do know is that I didn't see this price spike for highsec customs offices.

Speculation: Why strontium clathrates are not my biggest worry

I don't normally speculate on future changes. 

Across 2 different market games, I have found that when a community gets on board with a speculation, they go overboard and overcompensate.

Today's topic is triggered by 'Bitter's comment'

Strontium Clathrates will become the bottleneck for ice that goes into Highsec POS fuel.  Ok, this is something to see despite my earlier brushing off.

The numbers

Glacial Mass: http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=16263

• 69 Heavy Water
• 414 Hydrogen Isotopes
• 35 Liquid Ozone
• 1 Strontium Clathrates

The equivalent in a Minmatar fuel block run  http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=4316 with ME 10% (ignoring PI)

• 151 Heavy Water @ 200 ISK , 0.4m3 / unit  : 30K ISK, 60 m3 total
• 400 Hydrogen Isotopes @ 745 ISK, 0.1m3 / unit : 300K ISK, 40m3 total
• 151 Liquid Ozone @ 350 ISK, 0.4m3 / unit : 53K ISK, 60m3 total
• (new) 18 Strontium Clathrates @ 4,000 ISK, 2m3 / unit, 80K ISK, 40m3 total
• roughly 60% isk is ice, the rest is PI

Yea, we will notice.  I will yearn for the days of POS fuel being 16k/unit.  At today's prices, Stront will be adding 9% to the cost of blocks.  https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/?typeid=4246

Current Stockpiles

He also asked "Do you think that there's a large, previously unwanted, hoard of Stront out there somewhere?"  There will be oodles of it out there.

This was a waste product of refining.  Historically 500 ISK per unit, taking up 3 m3.  (has become 2m3)

I just pulled down a C5 POS (currently for sale, we swapped a c5->c5 for a c5->c3)   The strontium was the last thing to be pulled from the site, mostly because I was bored waiting for the tower to come down.  We nearly left it behind, though in retrospective, maybe was worth hauling now.

It costs me 500 ISK/m3 for hauling out to my nullsec area, meaning it was not worth hauling.


Yes, there are large stockpiles out there, but even the largest stockpile wont last forever.

But ... who uses POS?

Wormholes do.  Large towers, sometimes multiple towers.  Citadels are coming, with a fitted medium citadel costing roughly the same as a fitted large POS, but with the ability to define when I am vulnerable, and no inherit fuel requirement.  (No more CEO's stuffing up and letting the POS forcefield down)

Staging towers where there are no usable stations, especially in lowsec and null.  These too will be a thing of the past.

Compression, refining, research and manufacture towers are OK for now, but we know that citadels are going to replace these soon.  I don't know how much fuel will be required when that happens.

Eventually even moon mining towers will be replaced (possibly by something else requiring an equivalent fuel bill).

Vanity towers will also be replaced with citadels.

I see the net demand for fuel blocks going down instead of up. 

PI demand will be fine as huge quantities of citadels are created and probably more than a few will be destroyed.

I am not sure of where the demand for ice is going to come from long term.

What happens next?

I have a broken crystal ball.  Anything said here will be over-analyzed and send market speculation into wild over-corrections (or I will be ignored by the common consensus).  I will say it anyway.

Many pilots sitting on their strontium stockpiles don't even realise it.  There will be a temporary shortage of strontium and those places with cheap stront will be bought out.  Stront will go higher than it is today.

Many Highsec manufacturers will probably hold onto their stront for a while in hopes of a bubble.

Nullsec will realise that junk called strontium they have in their hangars is actually worth something, and they will start exporting it to highsec, at least for otherwise empty return trips (it will still cost 1k isk / unit for my region in null to export stront, for a sale of 4k isk/unit)



Eventually we will reach a balance where more ice miners seek stront rather than Liquid Ozone as the bottle-neck.  I am no miner, but looking at ice compositions, anything that drops stront, drops even more ozone. 

A drop in liquid ozone prices should be a leading indicator for stabilizing stront prices.  (This may come from lowsec / nullsec mining of strontium rich ice)

Then citadels will hit, and then there will be a significant reduction in fuel usage.  It depends on whether speculators have over stockpiled as to how hard that crash is.


A good easy to use source of historical prices is at eve market data:
http://eve-marketdata.com/price_check.php?type_name_header=Strontium+Clathrates
http://eve-marketdata.com/price_check.php?type_name_header=liquid+ozone



Before relying on any material contained on this site, users should independently verify its accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance for their purposes. The material contained on this site is not made available for the purpose of rendering professional advice. Users should seek independent professional advice in relation to their particular circumstances. https://www.afsa.gov.au/about-us/corporate-information/about-this-site-1/disclaimer-and-copyright

Singularity : POS ship repackaging coming soon.

I have just been on singularity test server because of the recent patch notes (Release on Tuesday, March 8th, 2016)

http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for-march-2016-release

• Starbases can now repackage the same type of items as Stations.

This means I can, in my POS, assemble then repackage a ship.  Given the surplus T1 hulls I tend to collect in the corp POS, this will help. 

We still can not assemble a T3 cruiser in space.  Citadels are coming soon.

You will be able to get battleship hulls out of a C1 wormhole (repackage in POS and put the hull into a DST)

• Change distribution of Minerals and items from Planetary Interaction (PI) of all structure components.

I have not been following closely enough, but this will cause a spike in PI demand.  My crystal ball based on the highsec POCO replacements a while ago suggests a short lived and muted spike but still worth watching.

• Add 20 units of Strontium to manufacturing requirements all fuel block types.
• Changed name of fuel block and blueprints from racial to isotype type

Just things to watch for but nothing too serious


Added 4 new Structure skills to the market under the category Structure Management:

• Structure Defensive Systems
  Basic operation of structure defensive modules. 2% reduction in capacitor consumption of all structure defensive modules per level.
  Prereqs: Mechanics 1, shield ops 1
• Structure Electronic Systems
  Basic operation of structure electronic modules. 2% reduction in capacitor consumption of all structure electronic modules per level.
• Prereqs: CPU management 1
• Structure Engineering Systems
  Basic operation of structure engineering modules. 2% reduction in capacitor consumption of all structure engineering modules per level.
  PreReqs: Power Grid Management 1
• Structure Missile Systems
  Basic operation of structure missile launchers. 2% bonus to all structure missile damage per level.
  PreReqs: Drones 1, Missile Launcher Operation 1

Skills are Charisma/Willpower with a 2x training multiplier.

The old starbase defense management skill will end up going away once POS are removed, but a few 2x skills are going to take its place on citadels.  It will mean some cross training but pilots no longer need anchoring 4 as a prerequisite.



Ship repacking in POS.  Thank you CCP.

Probably final recommendation for CSMXI

Finally I have my recommendation list.
The easiest way to use my recommendation list is to log into https://community.eveonline.com

Then click  this sorted list of candidates

If you have done this in order, you will get my recommendations at the top of your list.


This list contains:

• DoToo Foo,
• Steve Ronuken,
• Lorelei Ierendi,
• Erika Mizune,
• Diana Olympos,
• Joffy aulx-gao,
• Borat Guereen,
• Tora Bushido,
• Niko Lorenzio,
• Commander Aze,
• Viceran Phaedra,
• Brodit,
• Apothne,
• Petrified

I encourage you to vote once for every active eve account that you have.

I have updated yesterday's post with my final 4 recommendations.

If you want to do some of your own research, look at the last couple of posts and look at http://foo-eve.blogspot.com.au/p/csm-xi.html for a list of resources I have used.


Vote early.
Vote often.

Edit: I have changed one of my lower ranked recommendations due to a reach out from some other wormhole residents.

CSM recommendations

Firstly, there are a set of resources at http://foo-eve.blogspot.com.au/p/csm-xi.html for you to do your own research.

There are other lists out there, and I will add them to my page above as I find them.

Most of my candidates will be listed the same resources that I read.

Here is my candidate shortlist, biases included.  It is nearly completed, but I have another pass to do.

DoToo Foo
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/dotoo-foo
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=216
Who else could be at the top of this list?

Steve Ronuken.
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/steve-ronuken
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=169
Third party apps specialist

Lorelei Ierendi
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/lorelei-ierendi
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=193
Highsec bear asking but acknowledging ganking.  Asking for a chance to get away (rather than binary every time / none of the time that most highsec ask for)

Erika Mizune
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/erika-mizune
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=170
Nullsec industrialist.  Just found her blog and the first post was about PI.  What isn't to like?

Diana Olympos
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/diana-olympus
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=199
Previously Phoebe Freeport Republic and now nullsec mercenary.

Joffy Aulx-Gao
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/joffy-aulx-gao
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=212
Lowsec PVP

Tora Bushido
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/tora-bushido
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=209
Yes, marmites.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  Tora is aware of the problems with highsec wardecs and ganking and ... just maybe the pilot to make wardecs and ganking less one sided in nature.

Niko Lorenzio
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=206
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/niko-lorenzio
Long term player, long enough to have lived in many spaces.

Commander Aze

https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/commander-aze
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=174
Industry, yet also highsec waredec.

Borat Guereen
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/borat-guereen
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=184
Solo PVP

And this makes 10.

For those eager to vote now, feel free to follow these recommendations.

There are worthy candidates not on my list.
If a candidate are not on both CSM wire and Eve match with a profile then it is harder for me to recommend them.
If a candidate is a joke candidate, or belongs to a group that exists to make others bend the knee, then it is also harder for me to recommend them.

You will also note that I have recommended candidates not commonly known for any support of the placid bear lifestyle.  (I prefer my bears with teeth and claws and a defensive reflex).

These restrictions will mean I have missed otherwise good candidates.  If you are sympathetic to Pandemic Legion, then some of their candidates are getting good recommendations elsewhere.

I will be looking again at CSM match  (plus reading Mike Azariah and Jackob  for the remainder of their analysis) to fill out to 14.  I will especially be having another look for more WH candidates.
For the audio inclined, http://csmwatch.com/csm11-interviews/ is also a good place.



Edit: updated with the final 4
Viceran Phaedra
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/viceran-phaedra
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=164 but is empty  Did do a CSM match interview.
Wormhole

Noobman
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/noobman
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=176
Wormhole (C5/C6 Hard knocks) 

Apothne
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/apothne
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=196
On the back of Jeff Kione's and Mike Azariah's recommendations

Petrified
https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-11-election/petrified
http://match.eve-csm.com/candidate.php?id=190
Null (now lowsec?) independent group.