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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Color is very important in EVE. Other players are color coded in your local window, on their character info, and the overview. The different colors mean:

Another important tool for staying safe in null sec is the directional scan, or d-scan. This scanner will show you ships near by, and can be filtered by range and, naturally, direction. I’m not going to cover how to use it, but you should look around the net for tutorials, and ask your alliance or corporation.

We’ve talked about the alliance and corporation almost as if they were one. Since null sec space requires a large number of pilots friendly pilots to defend and effectively utilize, good corporations work closely with others in the alliance. From this point forward, we’ll just be referring to the pair as an alliance.

One of the most difficult parts of this journey is finding an alliance to join. Joining one that isn’t good at what they do can seriously change your experience in null sec. I’ve been in a bad carebear null sec alliance (basically IT pets aka renters), which I left for the PvP oriented alliance that I’m in now (which owns several systems and stations). The difference is incredible.

There are a lot of ways to go about choosing. You could try joining one of the massive alliances like IT, AAA, Atlas, or look for a smaller alliance. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. If you want to do a lot of PvP, most of the north occupants (IT, Atlas, etc) are blue to each other, so you’ll have to travel quite a bit to reach decent hunting grounds.

Another option is joining one of the smaller alliances in the Providence region. The region has a long ugly past, but now, it’s a well populated area, with plenty of stuff to shoot. With smaller alliances, essential  things like maintaining a local market that isn’t massively inflated and good logistics aren’t always a given. When you sit down for an interview with the CEO, remember, you’re interviewing them as well. Most CEOs will think more of you if you ask questions that show a general knowledge of null sec. Things like:

• Where do your jump freighters pick up?
• Do you have a local market for ammo?
• How often do you run PvP roams?
• How many systems do you own? Are they upgraded (there should be a system with anom upgrades)?
• How many stations do you own? What types? Can we use all the services (at least one station MUST have jump clone facilities)? Are they taxed?
• What voice comms does the alliance use? If the alliance doesn’t use voice comms, find another alliance. Null sec corps usually use the alliance’s voice comms.

One of the best ways to get into an alliance is to know someone who’s already there. They can tell you about how the alliance is run, which corp to join, and they can assure their CEO that you aren’t a spy.

I know I said I’d cover what you should bring down to null here, but this post is getting a little long, so we’ll cover that in part 3.

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.

The stealth bomber is one of the most essential null sec ships. Just like it’s RL counterpart, it’s highly specialized (taking around 30d to train for) and expensive (ship + fitting can run up to 55 mil, and T2 insurance covers maybe 10% of the hull cost). Having the structural integrity of a wet rag, stealth bombers are cloaking glass super cannons. One of the major reasons for training for the SB is to be able to travel to unsafe space with a relative degree of safety. Since they can warp while cloaked, they are one of the safest ships to fly around null sec.

Being able to fly a SB also opens you up to fly covert ops, which are arguably the best scanning ships. If you don’t know what scanning is, you should learn, and train the requisite skills to level 3 at least.

Battlecruisers are one of the most common PvP ships. You should train T2 tanking and weapons for a BC that can either engage at long range, or deliver a withering amount of short range DPS. Different alliances have different fleet makeups. You should find out which ships the one you are joining uses, and train for them (this assumes you have selected a good alliance, which will be discussed in part 2).

Ideally, you should also train for an interceptor and / or an interdictor. Both are indispensable for null sec combat.

Next time, how to choose an alliance, what you should bring to null, and the mentality of null sec and PvP.

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.

This is going to be interesting…