Are you a member of the 1 in 12?

I am reviewing CSM candidates at the moment, coming up with a first pass of recommendations. Some of the candidates are either among the 1 in 12, or someone close to them is.

I am talking about color blindness.  1 in 12 males can not see colours properly, the most common being red/green colour blind.

In Eve, we use colours to distinguish items.  The most common being a group being set red, or that we shoot red crosses.

Normal Vision

Usable but overheating will be hard

Normal vision was hard enough

Red Green Colour blind scanning

My son grew into red/green colour blindness . He can recall seeing differences as a pre-teen where it is now just another brown.

In your corp, full of mostly male players (as most corps are), 1 in 12 is colour blind.  If they are not, it is because they are no longer playing.  They generally won't bring it to your attention, there will just be some tasks in eve they do not like doing.

That said, we can all do what we can with what we have.

Nvidia graphic drivers allow colour rotation, or at least the last few we have in our household can. Nvidia Control Panel -> Display -> Adjust desktop color settings.

For the Red/Green colour blind you can rotate the red into blue which is much more visible to you. Eve will look weird, but more useable.  I know my son uses this to play some games where distinguishing between green and red is mandatory.

Default Hue

Hue @ 225 degrees. Taken with camera as it is only the display that has changed colour and not the underlying image

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SeewaldSolutions.ColorBlindnessSimulator an app that my son uses to good effect - allowing him to both 'rotate' colour spectrums and show others how it looks

I am not a graphic designer or a user interface specialist.  I also well know that a lot of assistance technology uses the same hooks as botting software.

I won't often talk about such things in public.  Maybe I should more.  I have already blogged about lack of contrasting colors in scanning, and there has been some improvement on the marking of signatures.  The scanning screenshot above is from a previous post.  Was the change driven even in part by my blog?  I don't know, nor does it matter.

Ideas like this do not require non-disclosure agreements, and as such can be asked for regardless of the season. For those wanting to push this a bit harder, why wait?    https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=270  is the features and ideas thread is a suitable place to drum up support.  Contact an existing CSM rep ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/195iCDMi2BpI6fwAGm0IXa6KTZMeivbnAbGMlGlQBpD0/edit#gid=1384275897 if you don't already know one)

Edit: Re-embedded colour blind images

CSM Summit coming up

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6337778#post6337778

It covers the second summit of CSM X.

I wish to cover a few things from it.  (OK,  I seem incapable of few).

Brain in a box : This has been a bigger project than many players will realise, and has nearly had it's desired goal : nobody noticing.  However, I have heard reports of many more pilots piling into systems without soul crushing lag.  It also has laid the framework for on grid links which some will love and those with off grid boosters will probably hate.

Capital Ships: For those that think that CCP doesn't listen to complaints, please see the backflip on using carrier skills for both Force Auxilleries and existing Triage Carriers.

Project Discovery (the new science project). I have not done any of this.  I was reading some comments from those doing it in the test servers, and some concerns that it was more a test of getting the mob guesses quickly rather than the correct results.  I am sure that this can be tweaked by review later, and adjusting the rewards for those getting correct results rather than common results.

Nullsec and Sov.  While entosis links are a maligned mechanic, I still endorse a bit of trolling here and there.  Troll mechanics is what keeps the largest groups from claiming unused empty space.  Please allow trolling  (or ambit claims) on at least unused systems.

In regard to ship balance, fits and ships will come and go.  I am well aware that pilots train into the flavour of the day,  small nerf will make pilots grumpy, but as it is where their skills are in these ships, they will continue to be flown after small nerfs.

Players seem to love events and new content (eg Frostline).  These are worth continuing.  Seasonal events with even dropping only vanity items seem to be a popular event.  (I say this second hand as I have not flown many)

Wormholes are near and dear to my heart.  Citadels are coming, good.  They will drop loot when destroyed, also good.  Currently POS only provide contents killboard information (and maybe loot drops?) based on what is in SMA's and not on the contents of corp hangers, assembly and research arrays. This was hard earned knowledge due to an exceptionally expensive failure on my behalf.  Will citadels drop only ships, or will they also drop contents of personal hangers or corporate offices? 

What I am concerned about is reading that Citadels may not provide contract ability at first.  The ability to move items between pilots not currently in the same corp is important.  Currently I use freight containers sitting in the POS forcefield.  As contracts are not easy (or they would have already been done), are citadels replacing one set of 'legacy problems' with another set of problems.  Or are they really 'coming soon'?

I have already said that I feel Citadels dropping loot to be a good thing.  However, with wormhole citadels having both a shorter 'grind down' window, and dropping at least some loot (instead of magical fairies taking both time and ISK to whisk treasured possessions to safety), I would like to see some other offsets for users of citadels in wormhole space.

For the new player experience, I would like to ensure the ability (on singularity at least) to be able to run the new starter missions.  Maybe I can and don't know it.

I love the new Eve launcher.  Players are still having problems copying old settings to the new settings.  Also, at one point I could log into one account and have all 4 appear.  Since the recent purge I can not do so any more.  I don't know how I set it up before so can't repeat it.

Crest.  Steve had good results with the CREST market browser.  I can't repeat it, but that might be my PC's setup.  https://twitter.com/evernusproject/status/696415727536992256 has some things of concern.  I also think that pilots should be encouraged to use bug reports where there are errors.

Finally, I note who is attending and who is not.  Combined with known grumbling from various quarters and a change in staff from CCP, it ... appears that CSM X has not been a happy place.  Those that think that CSM is the tool of any given player group should take note.

Cap stable interview and review

I have just listened to the Cap Stable review of my interview with them.

The review was at http://csmwatch.com/2016/01/26/csm-11-show-2/  , http://cdn.capstable.net/csmwatch/episodes/csmwatch_csmxi_analysis_002.mp3  starting at 31:58 for my review.

The original interview is at http://csmwatch.com/2016/01/19/csm-11-candidate-interview-dotoo-foo/

I was fine for the interview.  I did some of my homework, including listening to previous interviews from last year. I am an OK public speaker, though not as good as I should be given my training (an accredited coach for an public speaking organisation - Rostrum Australia).

I did have fun in the interview.

After the interview, I was shattered.  Some comments saying I did well.  Other comments saying not as well as I could have. I was too afraid to listen to my interview.

Listening to the CSM Watch review of interviews, I feel a lot better.  Thanks.


A couple of points that came up in the review. 

I do not have a large bloc behind me.  I will need you the reader of this blog to help get my name out there.  I will turn up to the opening of an envelope.  I will talk to any group, large or small.  Industry or PVP.

If you like my blog or even the odd post, please share it.  Hell, recognition is good, so even if you don't still share it.

In terms of talking to developers, yes, I will be able to talk their language. I have two first life 9-5 titles :  Senior Business Systems Analyst, and Release Manager, with previous titles of Analyst / Programmer.  I know how to talk to developers.  (With my current roles, they don't always like what I have to say, but that is a different conversation).

Anyway, thanks to the guys at Cap Stable.  If anyone would like to ping me, my contact details are here

Inject all the skills

You can now inject a skill even if you do not have it's pre-requisite skills.

This is part of the changes with the latest patch and skill injectors.  That means, anyone in null with a jump clone can jump to highsec, (or daytrip as a wh pilot) plug in whatever skillbooks they may want, and head home to train as they want.

There should not be any need to pay over the odds for skillbooks in null, nor be unable to train that next desired skill in a wormhole.  Of course, this requires forethought.  As such ... next trip to null, I will restock skillbooks.

I have another thought and there may be a time I would be tempted to use skill injectors (but still not any extractors).  That is on those horrible skills where, in the middle of one remap, you need to swap to a different one.

An example is tactical logistics reconfiguration.  

You have dreams of being a repair pilot in a capital ship (previously a triage carrier, soon to be a force auxiliary pilot)

You have been training Long Range Targeting 5 and Signature Analysis 5, both are int/mem skills.

Next you need to train what is now called Logistics  Cruisers 5, which is a willpower/perception train.  Then .. you go back to Int mem to pick up Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration, which you really want at 5.  After just a few more int/mem skills (Capital emissions and remote capital armor/shield) you will most likely want to swap back to Per/Willpower for your new hull.

Now this swap back and forwards is painful to anyone trying to optimise attributes.  Plenty of capital pilots before me have done it, and more will continue to do so. 

Even a new capital pilot will suffer from diminishing returns, and I certainly know that mine also have subcap skills so will experience them even more. The temptation will be there if I go through this on another pilot.

Skill injectors have been railed against, but the prices and trading say that someone is buying them.

Skill packet costs

Skill packet costs are announced. https://twitter.com/EveOnline/status/695689455496249347


1 empty packet : 999 Aurum (1 plex == 3.5 empty packets)
5 empty packets : 4499 Aurum (1 plex == 3.89 empty packets)
10 empty packets : 7999 Aurum ( 1 plex == 4.38 skill packets)

(30 days gametime == 1 Plex == 30 days multi character training == 3500 Aurum )

A skill packet will hold 500,000 skillpoints consumed.

Looking at the 'best case', +5 learning implants, best remap, I calculate 2700 skillpoints per hour, with a plex being 'worth' at most 1,944,000 skillpoints, though this is slowly over the month and not 'upfront' like an injector.  This pilot could fill 3.89 packets per month.

On the other hand, with the worst possible attributes, no implants, I calculate 1530 skillpoints per hour, or 1,101,600 skillpoints.  This pilot can fill 2.20 packets per month.  Even more relevant, this type of pilot may be better buying skill injectors than multi pilot training.

Those looking to give their main a boost regardless of cost will consume skill injectors.

For those looking to give low skill alts a boost and are in no particular rush, it will become a decision between stopping their main training, purchasing a plex/multi pilot training certificate, and purchasing skill packets.   Trading, industry and cyno alts often fall into this bucket.

What we do not know is how many pilots are willing to pay Plex to give up part of themselves (in the form of now useless historical training).  There are plenty of pilots who have now useless 'industrial' skills on the PVP mains, but these pilots are broke.  There are pilots who have surplus isk on their trading accounts, but they will have to sink a the cost of a month game time plus skillpoints give some up to a month of game time in training.

As a side note, I am astounded that pilots are currently unable to sacrifice their PI skills.  I have no intention of selling any skillpoints on any pilots (alt, main, useful, or temporarily useless).

I think the following pilots will be interested in skillpoints.

• Those that want a boost on their main, and are prepared to pay (probably first life cash) for diminished return.
• New alts wanted now and not later.  Things that spring to mind
• Cyno alts : 1 packet for Cyno 3, 4 packets for Cyno 5 
• Defensive scanner alts (Astero, cloak, scanning mids) : 1 packet
• Offensive scanner (as above, expanded probe launcher, covert cloak, coprocessor 2) : 2 packets
• Gnosis booster (T1 boosts) (6 tech 1 links @ with 2 relevant specialist 4): 7 packets.
• T1 fit cruiser for a single skill packet.  This includes a gankalyst.

The other thing with skill boosters, is they are based on a lot of waste.  Several redditors are not amused.  I think this is not unintentional.

There is no easy way to align aurum purchase needs with aurum packages.  Aurum can be bought for cash in packages of 900, 1,950, 4,035, 40,600 and 21,200 bundles, or 3,500 for a plex.  This means if you want to purchase a 5 packet bundle, you will need to buy 2 different aurum packages and will have left over Aurum.

The same applies to many skill bundles.  A cyno 5 package on a new alt costs 3.2 packages - you either need to be patient with 3 packages, or splurge on the 4th.  Eve skills are generally based around based maths, 500k is just short of the 512k you will want for a lot of skills. That said, I don't think you will actually care that much as a consumer because you will have other skills to consume any spare skillpoints.

In summary, skill packets will cost at least the equivalent of subscription costs, plus the seller's fee to offset the lost skillpoints.  Many (but not all) uses of these will better solved with multi pilot training certificates.  For pilots requiring large amounts of training the existing character bazaar is likely a cheaper option.

Dust 514 RIP, new unspecified PC game (re)announced.

For those that don't know, Dust 514 (a first person shooter somewhat linked to Eve) is end of life, to be closed on May 30th, 2016.  https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=225484

CCP have plans to build something better on the PC. ... build a new game from scratch using Unreal Engine 4 while harnessing all our learnings from DUST 514 ...

CCP are a company, and have to have a reasonable expectation of a return of any new expenditure, preferably with a profit on top of that.  Other games can can be subsidized in part by Eve itself, and I encourage a level of risk with new ventures, but I understand closing what I understand to be a loss making venture. 

The Eve player base is PC based.  Dust was Play Station 3, and that platform is very much end of life.

I have never played Dust, I do not own a console, and in general do not play first person shooters.

The Dust players who are about to have their internet pixels turned off have my sympathy, and it is a sobering reminder to us playing other games, that hosted platforms can indeed be turned off.

Dust players have the consolation prize of tiered recognition rewards. 

I have been involved in software development far too long, and know well enough that software delivery always takes far longer than the developers and their publishers think.

Once on a PC I will even have a closer look at the new game.  Fanfest will have more details in April.  I ... just would prefer to see a little more 'sugar coating', possibly in the form of a real replacement game, to soften the blow to our cousins in Eve, either that or possibly a longer period of life support to tide players over until the new software arrives.

Who knows, I maybe overly pessimistic, and there might be a new game released before the end of May.  Maybe, but probably we will be without an Eve FPS for a while.

Single Transferable Vote : The voting method of CSM and how to take advantage of it.

This is a post for those interested one method that CCP uses to get player feedback.

The council that represents players to CCP (the makers of our fine and sometimes frustrating game) is called the Council of Stellar Management, or CSM.

14 players are elected by players to this council via a Single Transferable Vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

Confusing words for many, by at its heart, this is a voting method to ensure that the population can get a group that we are happy with to represent you, or failing that, at least someone we can live with. If your preferred candidate fails, your vote is moved to your next preferred candidate. If your preferred candidate is chosen by more than enough, a portion of the vote is also transferred to your next candidate.

You will get to choose up to 14 candidates.

Under this method, each and every candidate that is elected must get 1/14'th of the remaining vote, or just over 7%.  Based on previous voting numbers, this equates to roughly 3000 votes.

If you are a candidate, with STV voting it is in your interest to form a ticket with other like minded candidates.  Put yourself at the top of your ticket, but encourage others to give preferences to other like minded candidates.  

And of course encourage other like minded candidates to do the same.  (Self interest acknowledged)

If you are a voter (and all candidates are eligible to be voters), then in a few months time, vote.  Also get all others you interact with to vote as well.  This includes alt accounts.  If you have 5 active accounts you are allowed (and even encouraged) to vote 5 times.

With many approximations, (and apologies to STV purists) when the voting is done the process looks something like this.

1. Sum up everyone's top preference.  
2. Any candidate with more than a 'quota' (let's say 3000 votes) is elected. 
1. Remove the elected candidate from getting any more votes.
2. Remove the consumed votes.
3. Surplus votes are available for later preferences.
3. If no one was elected at step 2, 
1. Remove the candidate with the least amount of votes.
2. These votes are available for later preferences
4. If 14 candidates have not been elected yet, sum up all remaining votes and goto step 2.

STV has some differences from other voting methods.

• If your 'group' has enough votes for over 2 candidates, your group will get 2 candidates and influence the election of a 3rd.
• If there are 2 similar candidates each with nearly enough votes, one of these will (usually) be elected.

Some questions that often get asked of voting in general.

• Q: I have 1 vote, a candidate needs 3000 votes, mine doesn't matter.  
• A: Far fewer votes than this seperate the last seat. 80 votes for CSM 9. and approximately 280 votes for CSM 10.  Plenty of elections come down to just a handful
• Q: What's the deal with the last candidate?  That guy only got a handful of votes yet got in?
• A: The last elected candidate is often not anyone's first choice but a compromise.  This candidate still gets more 'rough' support than anyone else.  

Some other players will tell you that CCP will only listen to that other large group, and will then argue about what defines that other large group, and then tell you not to vote.  They will then complain that other large group gets all the influence.    Then they tell you CSM has no influence at all.  Or too much influence.  I get confused about that.

Work out who best represents you and vote for them.  Give preferences to other similar candidates. Encourage your associates, corp members, friends in Eve to vote.  If you have multiple alts, vote often.

You will get the candidates you deserve.

It's up to you, the voter, to elect the candidates you want.