The great wormhole CSM 8 debate

Down the pipe has hosted a podcast with a lengthy wormhole debate http://downthepipe-wh.com/?p=57  

Two-step has a post with links to the different announcements for candidates.  Rather than try to keep a partial list here, I will just send you to Two-step's page.

In this post I may enjoy being the peanut gallery.  However it is a wall of text.  If you don't care about WH's (or maybe POS roles) and CSM, then this post may not be for you.

As an open letter to the WH candidates :

Somewhat random thoughts

You can please some of the people some of the time or all of the people some of the time.  You can't please all people all of the time.  Same applies to fooling them too, which might be the same thing.

You are speaking to a wormhole audience.  During this an interview to a specific audience seeking votes, speak to what they want to hear.  Null sec players might have highsec mission alts.  I suspect many WH residents use highsec to buy and sell stuff, but have null oriented PVP alts which look and act a lot like their WH pilots.  You are a WH candidate. Don't dismiss nullsec or lowsec concerns, but you are after the WH players vote.  You won't get the goon vote regardless, don't spend time trying. You can go after the newbie vote; that is worth while (if you can get them to vote).

As a personal preference, I get information from blogs.  I can make sure to read your blog, I know what I am getting.  Don't make me read the forums, a horrible "noise to signal" ratio.  (If I was talking about anything other than blogs I would use the term signal to noise).  By preference, don't make me listen to to podcasts.  Some might even say it's easier to read blogs during 9-5 than it is to consume other Eve related material.  Others players will clearly have their preference too.  ().

One of the suggestions is that Random NPC attacks on POS/POCO, and that they should be capable of their existence, 'to keep players active'.  This is not required.  Those part time corps established in wormholes already have to do POS fuel, which does not come cheap to a part timer.  If you want to spend ISK (or time) on fuel but don't want to use it your POS, go for it.  You won't get more players in a wormhole by telling part timers that they can't set up POS.

Random NPC attacks on player ships are OK if you want, but I lose ships to random player attacks on my ships anyway.  I am not sure what you gain, but it might give the appearance activity.

Randomise NPC abilities on sites is a fine idea.  Variety is always good, but those that bash out sites will ask more reward for the increased difficulty/time.  That is not to say that players should get it.

I would have no issue destroying ships inside a forcefield if attacked, and feel 'entitled' to continue to do so.  However if you are attacking my forcefield while I self-destruct ships, I have no issues with it showing up on a kill mail.

An additional WH conflict point may be desirable (not convinced but then I don't shoot things).  Player deployed 'minor buff' structure.  One way to implement this (and there are plenty others) is a device that must be anchored around a moon, offers a minor buff: a few % 'bonus' to scanning probes; maybe an occasional hint as to wormhole collapses; or possibly even a few % reduction to POS fuel requirements.  Maybe even several different modules doing all of the above but with a smaller individual bonus.  All of these devices would be 'bashable' in the way of POCO's but with far fewer hit points.  These would have timers of some kind, on a scale similar to the wormholes for that class (say 16- 24 hours for c1-3 wormholes, 48-72 for c6 wormholes).  They should also have crap shield regen, but a lot of armor.  This would enable and maybe even require a large amount of time spent outside of a POS shield to either break or repair.

On POS: I agree that there is needed change to the wormhole role granularity.   I agree with Two-step's comment about private storage (1:47).  I would like to grant permissions on a POS by POS basis, rather than on a corp/division/role basis. I won't grow a WH corp past 7 players due to this.  I might add multiple corps to a WH as alliance. 

Interviewers question about ECM/ECCM : Are you asking a question or telling interviewees the answer?  You have a gripe about ECM/ECCM - sure.  Caveat : I get shot at; I like overpowered ECM.

For the record: I don't like active nerfs.  You 'forgot' how to do something you knew how to last week.  However, learning a counter makes perfect sense to me.  Disruptive things happen in first life.  Then they get counters.

Oh and I love the (nearly) closing comments regarding ... a certain country and free speech.  There are certain individuals you could send your regards to.  (One of them is planning on running for my first life government's senate).


Impress me with your competence and enthusiasm.   By competence, I am speaking by preference of "unconscious competence".  One guy in the interviews impressed me with this; pity he is not running for CSM.  Mind you, I loved Nathan's challenge "Are you saying that the creation of your character date is the most important part of your resume?" (1:30:40).  Probably not always the best thing to verbally shove your interviewer onto their back foot, but I loved it the same.

How (not) to ditch a mutual wardec

TL: DR. When your corp leaves an alliance with a mutual wardec, you not only take the wardec, it remains mutual.

We are a wormhole corp.  We do PI even with our highsec pilots.  You can reset your planets from highsec. Why that works is beyond me, as you can't refresh research jobs from outside the wormhole system, but I am not complaining.  The pilots come back to the wormhole every week or two to deliver goods to the POS and maybe even take some goods to and from highsec markets.
Our pure wormhole pilots simply treat every unknown ship as hostile, and quite a few of the known ships too.  DScan and mild paranoia are bred into your nature and you slowly forget that local ever existed.  Even those of us with highsec pilots in our accounts slip into this role very easily.  War declarations are meaningless for some of us.

Our part time wormhole pilots however find war declarations somewhat more painful.  Hauling pilots like to fly AFK with the knowledge that Concord will eventually come to the rescue.  Mission pilots like to fit for PVE and not PVP.  Wardecs mean that highsec becomes troublesome.

We don't mind being shot at, but we want there to be a cost for shooting at us, at least in highsec.  We also don't like staying in stations.

Our alliance got caught up in a mutual wardec, with our alliance as the defender. To be honest, without a lot of shooting on either side.  But when you are travelling 30 jumps to get home, there is a strong temptation to go AFK, and regardless you don't pay full attention for the entire trip.

After discussing it within corp and up the chain with the alliance leadership, we decided it was time we try to shake the wardec.  Research said that if we break out of the alliance, we would end up as the aggressor in a brand new war.  This war would last a week by default and then we could let it expire.  Nothing would prevent our 'nemesis' from re-declaring war, but at least then they would be paying for the privilege of shooting us.

No organisation wants to lose members.  As a corp, I don't want to lose those highsec pilots.  That applies to our alliance as well.  We will perform all the social graces to ease the sting, but I can't believe our alliance likes see us wanting to leave.

After one last pang of concern I break us out of the alliance.  We have the acceptance of the alliance.  Bless it.  That wardec is not only still there, but it is still mutual.  We are still the defender!

Time for plan (B).

CSM primer for newbies

www.tinyurl.com/caldariprimeponyclub 
 ( or https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2754916#post2754916  )

This year I will be voting in the CSM elections, but I am not yet sure who for.

The Buzz words that I thought I was looking for were:

• POS revamp (with themes of better security options), 
• Wormhole
• Destabilising the large null alliances

However, today I had pointed out a new buzz word pointed out to me : New Player experience.

If you do not know how the 'Player Representative Council' (called the CSM) elections work, especially if you avoid game forums due to the noise to signal ratio, then consider reading the above article.

Prototype cloaks for T1 scanning ships

Yet again, while shuttling (expensive) goods to highsec, I find a T1 scanning ship sitting in plain sight, on the highsec side of a wormhole.

Wormholes and their entrances are not places to be casually visible, sitting in space.  There are some exceptions.  These are :

• You are showing off how bad-ass you are (but rarely with cause), to scare away the timid.
• You are bait.
• You are actively shooting things.
• "You" are a POS or POCO (these things can not be hidden).
• You are sitting inside a POS (so you can watch the system and pretend you are away from keyboard, and what the hell, they found your POS anyway).
• You are going somewhere and are not in a covert ops ship.

If you can be seen, you can be countered.   (If you are bait you want to be 'countered').

In a wormhole, any fight that comes to you is an attempted gank.  Any fight you take to someone is an attempted gank.  (A broad statement, but still true).  For any fight you undertake, be the one to initiate it.  This means stealth and surprise are your friends.  Sitting openly where anyone can see you means you have lost that stealth and surprise.

I play the hunted rather than the hunter.  I am 'timid' with cause (well as timid as anyone living in a wormhole).  A tech 1 frigate sitting at the highsec entrance to my way home means I am just going to turn around and safe up.  If you wanted a shot at my industrial (most likely full of expensive stuff), cloak up and catch me on the inside with a tackle.  (Mock bravado now.) Be warned: Even timid animals will bite if they are cornered.


Stealth is just as important if you are 'merely' running unclaimed sites.  You still don't want to advertise that you are around, and an easy mark.

Hunters that find you are just going to refit for PVP to take you out (if they are not already kit out that way), and even the distracted can hardly miss a ship sitting on top of a wormhole.

Gankers : You can assume that any hauler coming out of a wormhole is likely to be profitably gankable.  Wormhole pilots are also not your traditional AFK highsec hauler.


This means that you should not sit in a wormhole in a scanning ship uncloaked.  You should not sit at the entrance to a wormhole uncloaked, even a highsec entrance.

Sisters of the epic length arc

After my fiasco doing that level 1 agent's mission, I have sent two pilots off, away from the wormhole and away from markets. Off to get some experience that is not 'tend my farms' (otherwise known as wormhole PI) or starter missions.

I would like jump clones.  I could join a specialist corp but would rather earn it on my first couple of pilots at least.  I am hoping that jump clones can be installed from faction rep but suspect I will actually need corporation standing.

My two pilots in question have moderately good standing with Servant Sisters of Eve (7 and 6 respectively), Gallente and Minmatar (6 and 5.5).  It is a pity that no corporations hold me in similarly high regard. I earned most of my standing by doing newbie missions ad infinitum and a bit of 'keeping crime in check'.

I have heard about that 'Sisters of Eve' epic arc, with its attending "large" faction boost.

The Eve University has a good page with a description of the arc, though it seemed a bit different towards the end.  Jowen Datloran's PDF is also worth following. I am sure there are other guides too.

• http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/jowen/SOE_Epic_Arc_guide_by_Jowen_Datloran_v0.95.pdf
• http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/The_Blood-Stained_Stars

For this arc, I flew an Algos and a Moa with two pilots running in parallel, under the theory that dual boxing will be faster, even if only while jumping.  Truth be told, after that last mission, I wanted a safety blanket of backup.

The Algos, with its drone bay was more than adequate for everything but one mission.  I fit the ship with short range guns (falloff 3K), but ended up staying at 25k and using a mix of hobgoblins and hammerheads.  The only mission I had any problems was about 2/3 through the arc where I had to destroy a structure.  All hostile ships were dead, but I was doing zero damage to the target with either drones or guns.  I am unsure whether it was a bug or if I had insufficient weaponry.  Problem solved with the Moa in short order.

The Moa, with railguns and medium range ammo was faster.  For a couple of fights having the hobgoblin drones help peel off annoying frigates was helpful.  Most of the time the drones stayed in their bay; and the Moa took very little effort or time.  If I ever do this arc again; it will be in something like the Moa.

For the missions itself, most are quick.   Some take time.  The worst was 'go jump 25 systems to meet someone.', which is no problem if you want to AFK at that point in time.  I didn't want to AFK.

The biggest issue is that there are 50 blessed missions.  That takes time.  50 mixed but easy missions, when I could be doing 30 or 40 L4 distribution missions which take only a little longer, picking up a few  L4 storyline missions on the way.  The SOE arc did give me an easy storyline mission (I think L1) part way through.

Did I mention that the arc was longer than one of my blog posts?  It is really long.

SSOE faction went from standing 6.99 to 7.02, and my target faction went from very roughly 6.4 to 6.6.

As a counter point : 60 starter career agent missions get me to faction standing of just over 5 (with a few points each of social and connections), doing all 3 sets of my target faction then all 3 sets of the allied faction. 

In other words : I did a load of work for very little improvement.  There was 10M ISK in benefits; good enough for a series of newbie missions, but I am a beyond needing that kind of ISK/hour.

There is one benefit.  These missions did not affect other faction's standing.    That is; it did not tank my already poor off-faction standing.  You get to choose who will like you out of the mission arc.  If I do this again, I will use the opportunity to boost the regard my off factions hold me in. 

Maybe in the months it takes the mission to become available again; I will get amnesia and run it for that other faction.  Maybe.

Working harder not smarter

Your mission should you chose to accept it:  "I Lost My Stuff (2 of 2)". 

I do far too little PV anything.  For me so far; Eve has been farmville (a crime according to some).  Well, time to get involved in blowing things up apart from the Iterons (or even the Orca's) that I fly.  And by blowing up, I actually causing the blowing up rather than receiving it.

It's a mission from a level 1 agent; should be easy as.

The rewards : some crappy blueprint copy, 160K ISK as a bonus, but most importantly "1.725%" Caldari faction standing (or about 0.1 for me at the moment).

I do some web searching and the cosmos missions are not as well documented as other missions.  I do however find "Hint: This item is a random drop in Contested Plagioclase Field within the Contested Caldari Lai Dai Refinery"

So; it's a level 1 mission; can't be that hard.  I know I do very little combat; and what I do have is the larger ships (recently got Battleship 5 - woo hoo).  However, battleships don't fit. The acceleration gate restricts you to cruiser and below.  

Ok; I have spent some time in a destroyer doing career agent missions.  It is a level 1 mission; it will be fine.  I actually swap out the spare 'detritus' (Career missions need mining lasers; repairers and very little DPS), and head in.

This room is the toughest fight I have experienced.  Many waves of ships, 8 or so to a wave; each wave 50 k apart.  I clear out three groups, and the first one has respawned already.  Bless it.

Finally an unrelated ship turns up.  I primarily fly in wormholes, so unrelated ships mean bad things. However, this one clears up a couple of waves of ships, and finally the wave is cleared, and I race off to the acceleration gate for the Plagioglase field.

This next wave is tough. I clear 1/2 of the wave at range, then get both scrammed and webbed, and ... well I didn't really want that ship anyway - it obviously had a crap fit!

Mmm.

I grab a logi pilot and a DPS pilot and put them both in cruisers; a Scythe and a Moa, and refit my baby pilot into an Algos.  This will blitz it.

Room 1 clears easy enough and off to the Plagioglass field.  About waves of Wave 1 down; Wave 2 down; Wave 3 happens and the Scythe gets targetted and is down into armor and warps away. Grr.  Our Moa and Algos continue on.  We take some additional damage and decide to warp squad out and repair up.  Except the Algos *now* gets a web and is scrambled seeing the Moa warp to safety.  A valiant fight down to 2 remaining 'rats' before it pops.

Anyone spot the deliberate (ok maybe not so deliberate newbie) errors.  Well I do.  Fight together or warp together folks.  Look after your healers.  Work out who is scramming you and get them first. ... Fit a ship properly already.  L2P.

However, this was a Level 1 blessed agent.  How hard can it be?  There is next to nothing on the web for this mission, well at least not what I find from google.

By now hours have gone past, but it gives storyline level standing and I will not give up!

I call on yet another pilot.  This time someone who has shot things before and knows what he is doing (I hope).  I invite him to bring along 3000 units of Isogen to do the prequal mission.  It will however take until after downtime for him to get to the system (Airmia).

So; fleeted up; Once more unto the breach; and we absolutely blitz the first room.  A cake walk.  sigh.  (self confidence not too great just now). Then I notice 2 other ships in the room again; clearing crap out.  The plagioglase room goes pretty much the same.  The NPC's are downed in short order, with a whole lot of ships killed by our fellow visitors. 

Loot the wrecks, and nothing interesting.  I ask our fellow visitors what they are up to; and they are here for some reports.  We chat some more and says he thinks he might have my drop (Kusan Niemenen's Missile Launcher).  While chatting the NPC's respawn and we again clear up quickly enough; this time I get my drop.  Woo hoo.

The fellow visitor says he has found them, has 5, and I offer 1M each (someone else surely wants to buy these for cheap faction rep or maybe an alt of mine),  he offers them up on contract.  I accept.

Facepalm.  Not at the accepting the contract; that's fine.  It was that I bought cruisers (not our preferred class); spent hours, when I could simply have looked at this.

250K, in my station, as a contract.

Working harder and not smarter.

The industrial is dead. Long live the Iteron Mark V.

Currently there are different 'best' industrials depending on how much skill you want to learn. 

• Racial Industrial 1-3 : Bestower (Amarr)
• Racial Industrial 4 : Mammoth (Minmatar)
• Racial Industrial 5 : Iteron Mark V (Gallente)

This wiki page has a good page showing the different cargo sizes. I don't get quite the cargo sizes suggested as I also include defensive modules on most of my industrials.

For those of us that have far too many PI alts with too few skillpoints; we currently have interesting choices to make : Learn Amarr Industrial for now; Minmatar Industrial for a little later; or Gallente Industrial for off in the never never (that is : when will I get time to learn another month of training skill on that 3rd pilot?).  Even I feel the pain of not training my primary toon on an account, and I am not combat oriented.  This choice currently matters.

Below is a copy/paste from the recent dev blog.

Industrials

• All ship skill requirements reduced from 1-5 to 1. We want to overhaul Industrials roles as part of the Tiericide initiative and this is the first step in that direction. Watch out for more details when they are ready for player feedback.
• Racial Frigate skill requirement removed from the Industrial skill

Now aside from a standard caveat (i.e. watch out for more details), my interpretation is that after teiricide (maybe the 'summer' expansion):

• Learn Gallente Industrial 1 but if you are really keen maybe learn it to 3 (for the quick additional 10% cargo space); 
• Reprocess your Badgers, Mammoths and Bestowers (and other T1 industrials) into scrap and put their BPO's away until the next major revamp.  
• Start researching your extra copies of the Iteron Mark V BPO now.

Of course I read this dev blog just after I put the Badger, Mammoth and Bestower BPO's into material research for quite a while.


DoToo (my first pilot) will be jealous of all the under-skilled pilots flying his class of ship.  My PI alts that are dreaming of one day flying an Iteron Mark V will love it.

As someone still struggling where to allocate skill points; even though it will make my alt's life easier; I am not sure I approve.  A good game has interesting choices.  This change, if it goes in as planned, makes those choices less interesting.