Microbits

From what I’ve seen, the people who play a game usually don’t like the developers. Why? In the case of EVE Online, it’s quite simple.

CCP does not care what it’s paying customers think, want, or need. They follow their own plans with absolutely no regard for the people who pay their salaries by playing the game.

You don’t agree? Let’s look at Tyrannis. Planetary interaction great if you need the materials it produces, but means nothing to the majority of the players. The Scorpion looks better, but apart from that, no other clear changes were made. Supposedly lag was addressed, if “addressed” means that they barely did a thing.

Slightly more recently, the CSM, which is pretty widely regarded as a joke. The idea of the CSM was great, if they had any power over CCP, which they clearly do not. Now we have a group of people who CCP specifically chooses to ignore. Sorry if I don’t find this to be an improvement.

And lastly, perhaps the most insulting of all, Incarna. If we cared about walking around in a 3d avatar, we’d be playing WoW. No one cares about or wants the expansion, and yet CCP has prioritized it above everything else, going so far as to say they won’t be making any other improvements to EVE until Incarna is out (going so far as 12 – 18 months if my memory serves me correctly).

Here are a few little problems CCP should be fixing right now, before Incarna, in an expansion labeled “Sorry community, here’s what you wanted.”

• Fix the lag.
  • Large fleet combat is close to impossible. Use CUDA/OpenCL, get more powerful servers, optimize your code, etc.
  • Small fleet jumps (10 – 30 people jumping) cause clearly perceptible lag. That’s unacceptable.
  • General lag like station docks/undocks, jumps, and loading my EVE mail shouldn’t take 10 seconds. Even 5 is pushing it.
• Fix alliance management
  • Alliances are getting destroyed by one person. That should NOT be possible.
• Fix the POS management interface
  • People aren’t sure what their POSes will shoot. That’s ridiculous.
• Fix SBU invulnerability
  • You shouldn’t need a GM to tell people not to shoot something because it’s bugged.
• Give us new ships?
  • Hey, a feature we actually want. Try to avoid unbalancing the entire game in the process though (*cough* Titans *cough*).

That’s just my personal list. There are about 50 other things, all important, that have been suggested by other EVE pilots. Maybe CCP will defrost one of these days and start listening…

After realizing I was 40 minutes from a Kitsune, I picked one up, along with the requisite skills. Let’s look at the bonuses that ship gets:

Caldari Frigate Skill Bonus: 20% bonus to ECM target jammer strength and 10% reduction in ECM target jammers’ capacitor need per level

Electronic Attack Ships Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to ECM target jammer optimal range and 5% bonus to capacitor capacity per level

Obviously a jamming boat.

I adapted the following fit from the top rated fit on Battleclinic:

The only problem with that there’s no speed mod. Which lead me to:

Unlike 99% of EVE, meta 4 jammers are better than their T2 counterparts. They require less CPU and use less cap.

Yes, I know I was going to post about some FC mistakes, but I decided not to… I wish I could say more here but… You never know who’s reading your blog… BTW: That doesn’t mean what you think.

I’ve spent the last two days watching paint dry… Installing Windows 7 and VS08 & VS10 has taken the better part of the last two days. And it’s not just the installing… It’s update after update after update…

Microsoft, would it be so hard to just release updated installers instead of wasting everyone’s time installing out of date bits just to update them shortly thereafter?

Anyhow… Enough ranting…

Windows 7 seems to be a good improvement over Vista. Admittedly, almost anything would’ve been, but I’m happy with what I’ve seen so far. If I were to describe it in word, it would be fast. The new WD 1TB HDD I installed probably has something to do with it, but I’m not complaining (about the speed that is).

Hopefully I’ll have some time for EVE tomorrow… And a post about one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen a FC make.

From what I’ve seen of Python, I relegated it to CUI and backend type tasks, since C# and .NET offer a powerful GUI platform out of the box, and Python seemingly didn’t have anything similar.

After looking into the OpenERP/OpenObject project (which looks pretty neat), I realized their complex GUI was written in Python. After a little investigation, I figured out they were using PyGTK (Python bindings for the GTK widget toolkit) and Glade (a GUI builder).

Combining Python, PyGTK and Glade seems to lead to a workable solution for creating GUIs for Python applications. There’s a nice tutorial on how all these pieces fit together here.

You’ve picked out the alliance, know the JF pickup point, and have all the skills you need trained. What should you bring with?

One of the most important things about JFs is that space comes at a premium. Ships that aren’t packaged take up a lot of space, and a single unpackaged Battleship will NOT fit in a JF. Don’t rig or insure any of your ships until they’re in null sec, since you’ll probably need to repacakge them for transport.

Before you leave, pick up any skillbooks you need, stock up on ammo (what you normally carry), and contract everything to the JF pilot (make sure this is someone you trust, or you just gave them a ton of ISK, since most alliance JF pilots don’t use collateral).

Check with your alliance to find out the safest root to their space, and if someone is willing to escort you. Wait till right before downtime, hop in your SB, and fly there. As soon as you dock at your alliance’s station, install a jump clone.

You should also start an alternate character on the same account that sits in the JF’s pickup point. This alt will buy stuff and contract it to the JF pilot so you don’t ever have to fly your main up or JC to do so. You might want to train contracting to level 1 on the alt so it can have multiple contracts.

In large fleet ops, everyone has to maintain a basic level of professionalism. If people don’t, comms get chaotic, people can’t communicate, and the fleet loses coordination and efficiency.

What does it mean to behave professionally in EVE?

1. Proper communication
   1. If battle/fleet comms are in effect, only speak if it’s relevant to the operation
   2. Make intel reports clearly (no mumbling)
   3. The only thing you can say in local is good fight (gf for short). No smack talk, mocking, or otherwise disparaging remarks or comments (more on this later).
2. Listening to the fleet commander
   1. Do nothing unless directed to by the FC.
   2. Do whatever the FC tells you do without question (if you think they missed an intel report or something, that’s different).
   3. 1 and 2 are very, very, very, very, very, very important.
3. Fly your ships well
   1. Train for T2 fittings.
   2. Ask how other people fit their ships.
   3. Always fully insure your ship. It’s illegal to fly without insurance. Not really.

Besides those specifics, it’s more of an attitude. If you’re professional IRL, you will be able to carry that over to EVE.

Smack talk in local is a waste of everyone’s time, and shows a lack of professionalism. If you want to talk to someone about how they fitted their ship, comment on something they did that you liked, etc, private convo them. If you act respectful, they usually will. Other than that, keep it in alliance/corp/fleet chat. Your enemies will have more respect for you if you do.

Living in null sec is vastly different from high sec. You have to assume that whatever you undock, you may lose. CONCORD and the Empire police forces do not patrol null sec, and there are no gate guns. Alliances, their member corporations, and the corporation’s members are essentially responsible for their own security.

Because of this new responsibility, you will need to learn how to achieve a relative degree of safety to avoid losing ships while not engaged in PvP. Although we all enjoy PvP more than anything else (that’s why we live in null sec), there are always carebear tasks to attend to. Be it running anomalies, mining, POS maintenance, logistics, PI, research or manufacturing, it all has to be done.

In null sec, if another pilot hasn’t been labeled friendly, we generally assume they are out to kill us. Assuming anything else is ignorant and irrational. Friendly pilots in EVE are known as “blue”. This comes from the blue square that appears next to their name in local, in their portrait, and in your overview.

You might be wondering, what’s “local”? Local is one of the most valuable safety tools available to null sec pilots. It’s the chat window for people in your current system. The reason it’s so valuable is it lists everyone who’s in the current system. Using this list, you can quickly check a system to find out if it’s safe (if everyone is blue, it usually is for the time being).
Read more…

A what bear? A “carebear” is a term used to refer (usually negatively) to players who don’t participate in PvP. Some people PvP from the beginning, but I don’t think most do.

People who don’t plan to be carebears for life have several PvP options open to them. In my opinion, the most rewarding is to find a good null sec alliance and move out there.

Null sec is perhaps one of the most unforgiving environments in EVE, second only to W space. Logically, it’s also has some of the best sources of income. Better asteroids, huge rats, plenty of anomalies (if your alliance owns an upgraded system). PvP usually isn’t a source of income unless you fly solo most of the time, so I wouldn’t really call it a source of income unless your corp pays you (do any?).

Before you even think about null sec, you should know why you want to go, and what the risks are. You’ll also need some specialized skills, and plenty of ISK. There are certain ships that you probably ignored in high sec, because they’re build for PvP. Since you’ll be flying them, you should have most of them trained before you move.
Read more…

The longer DT to move Tranquility (the main EVE cluster) has run way over the allotted maintenance window.

Please remain calm. Your assets have all been deleted. The world of New Eden has ended.

Just kidding. Hopefully CCP gets the cluster back up soon.

I’ve been wanting to give OSX a try for a long time… I think it’s time to pick up a Mac mini…

This is going to be interesting…