Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2013

My Little Battleship?

Income. I'm not filthy space rich. I'd like to be but I'm not. Until Odyssey I made the bulk of my income through exploration. I considered this my main income. I did the pewpew at red crosses and occasional found shiny modules and valuable items. The changes to Odyssey changed exploration. It is easier. It is more poplar. You can get into it early. There is no more need of tanked ships to deal with NPCs in sites. There is no more need to duel box a scanning ship and a damage ship. Everything changed. A game was introduced. I spent a lot of time testing it because it directly effected what I had spent my time doing.. I also came to dislike it. I have not scanned since my last review of the Odyssey changes. I don't know why I dislike the system so much. It isn't bad. I think they have done a lot of fantastic things with the system and the UI. I do hate the mini-game. The spew containers are horrible. For some it is fun. For me, I found myself chasing after cans, hi

Eve Online Offline Online

There was a buzz and rustle through the community a few months ago when John Lander announced that he was moving divisions. Is CCP dying? Is everyone bailing ship? Oh noes. The tin foil was passed out and careful sculpted into helmets across the game. The move that Mr. Lander made was to CCP's Mobile division and some other stuff. Notice that I am a terrible reporter. There were some cheers. Yay! Eve Mobile! What we all wanted. This is why CREST is good say the people who understand it. Some other stuff goes here. Read this article on Massively if you'd like . I'm fine with that. I'm an android user. My phone is normally at hand or in my pocket. I've even been told it makes phone calls. I'm not sure about that. I do love my internet connection. I'd love more Eve functionality in my life. I'd love my apps to be better. I don't rant and rave because I cannot code them so I am instead happy with the free product that I have. That doesn't mean I do

The Angry Oddelulf Newbie

Oddelulf's angry newbie has me absolutely fascinated. He has managed to get into bickering wars with Ueberlisk now. This is on top of his rageing at Diz and Dave. They've been sharing logs of his ranting and rages. He is very, very angry at us for coming into Oddelulf and killing his unarmed, mining ships. He seems mad at Ueber for living there. He is also angry that people violence spaceships in low sec.

Nothing in Particular

At times I feel as if I should have deep thoughts on everything. That I should blog for a reason. That my habit of writing about whatever wanders through my mind leads me to write the most random things. Maybe I should look at serious posting. I could focus on wars and enormous topics. I could explain why my Jaguar fit is the best no matter what. Or I could talk about the random things that interest me me. Like names. I find this much more interesting and shall go about indulging myself. Having spent more time on coms of late then ever before, I've recently been struck with a familiar feeling of amusement as we talk to each other. There is something amusing to me about how calmly we call each other by our game names. It is not that I want people to call me by my real name instead of my game name. It is more the way we adopt our game name as our own. I've always noticed but being around a larger group it is more apparent. Sugar is my main and when someone addresses me, no

Thirst in the Desert

Arriving home rather late Sunday night I hopped in the bed and was asleep about thirty minutes after I got home. Then, up at five and off to do my twelve hours. Therefore, no Monday blog post. However, I am now sitting here musing over some ravioli as I look at TCS's stock needs. Running a market to the public is creating an interesting (to me) visual picture of low sec. If I was running a market to only my associates this image would develop differently. However, I seek to reach beyond my own channel lists. My sales show that I am doing that indirectly. Something that pleases me. While I was gone TCS rolled about 2.7 billion in stock. It would have been a bit more if I could have refilled things that emptied. This covers everything from ganking gear to Retrievers. Some of my first run of fighters sold and I am out of a few boosters as well. I often hear that low sec is a wasteland by those that do not live there. it is a desolate expanse where nothing is quite worth making

Catching Up

Niagara is a very lovely place to visit. A lot of water falling into more water. I don't see it as a yearly visit but it is nice to check it off of my list. Driving back from vacation has given me time to start catching up to what happened while I was away. Eve has a terrible habit of not stopping just because one happens to log off. It seems as if my boys were productive. They killed things and were killed. It seems that they bit at Procurer bait and it went sideways and upside down after that. I haven't picked up the details but from the amount of trolling and harassment of each other they are quite amused. Then, the group that set the trap recorded it and wishes to announce that we are terrible and they are awesome. So shall it be forever. Also several new apps are in or accepted. New members are healthy for the corp. Hopefully they don't mind that we are so terrible. 3D won a Ragnarok on Blink's celebration. I'm sure he is peeing himself he is so ex

Dat Rorqual Killmail

Oddelulf seems like a quiet system. It sits on the other side of a high security gate. It has two stations and three low sec points. It is an anchor to Molden Heath's largest low sec pocket. There is one asteroid belt and an Icebelt. There is a level 4 agent in high sec that will send you on missions there but out side of that it appears to be nothing more than a sleepy Low Sec system that people travel through. Occasionally it winds up on the front page of Eve kill, however. Such as the Rorqual that was killed last weekend by the King, Ueberlisk. Oddelulf attracts delicious delicacies into his trap. He has but to stalk his system and wait. This particular situation was that they lit a cyno on a station with a small undock. The Rorqual landed outside of the docking range and Ueber undocked in his vindo. Point, Vindi webs, and a call for backup. The Thanatos and Archon that came in on the cyno docked. They undocked in a Drake and Prophecy. It didn't work out. The Rorqual

Game Life Balance

There are times when my writings take on quite a serious tone. To an extent, that seriousness is real. I like to engage in aspects of Eve Online that are not limited to the realm of video game. Hence my musings on social relationships and the actions of people. My personal action is to go on Vacation this weekend. I’m rather excited about it. It comes with some interesting side effects related to Eve. Normally when I travel I take my laptop with me. Because this is a three day adventure put together for us by my husband, we are both going to leave our laptops (but take phones and tablets for we are but only so brave) for the duration of the trip. Eve is a game that one can pick up and put down at ease. My biggest task is making sure my skill queues extend well into next week. Sugar will work on her  laser  skills. Chella will follow Vand’s path of a perfect Guardian pilot. Life is good. But… I have an in game life that is affected. I run my market and after three sold days of ne

TCS: Dig In

I was asked, "How do you deal with market competition?" My answer was, "I don't." The real answer is more complete than that. I will get to it. The reason I say that I do not deal with market competition on the basic level is because I live with market competition. I do not actively attempt to control it. Instead I work with it. If I was trading in a hub, I'd be in a constant state of competition with hundreds of other orders all trying to do the same thing to a small but constantly changing audience. I need to stand up and stand out from the crowd. The only way to do this is to have the lowest price. People shop with their wallets and they shop to save. The filtering options of the market window allow the buyer to easily select the currently lowest priced item. Trade Hubs are like super centers. They are center points of the entire universe where people will cross paths without ever noticing that they crossed paths with anyone. Each transaction is a

Le PewPew: Fraps It

The video was recorded by one of the logistics pilots. The fight is sped up but still lasts 10 minutes. The entire thing took about 25-30 minutes. http://seventwo.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=19276533 Sunday night, to my surprise, I wound up participating in one of the fleets fights that everyone else had been soaking in all weekend. I had resigned myself to a combatless weekend. My activity tends to peak and dip because I work every other weekend which has the side effect of missing half of the scheduled ops. This one was organic, and the organic ones are often the best. Diz had taken Naoru, LR, and Fried out in a kiting Omen gang. They wandered into Rise of Legion and Noir. having a fleet out. Maybe it was their normal gatecamp. I'm not sure. Diz called to us and we started to form up a response. The goal was to get a fight and that is often up in the air. We changed up our tactics this time. Instead of just diving into them and pushing we decided to match ta

Origin of a Spaceship: Burst

Excerpt from: Origin of a Spaceship Burst a subspecies of spaceship that displays mutualism symbiosis to come open or fly apart suddenly Background The fossil records of the burst track it back to one of the oldest, non-predatory frigates. Located deep in the heart of the Minmatar nebula, the Burst were first overlooked as being pseudo-spaceships due to their odd structure and lack of apparent behavior characteristics. It was not until a comprehensive catalog of flora was being done that the Burst was observed in action. A larg group of cruisers sank deep into the thick, dust of the Nebula. At the heart of these clouds spaceships uses the dust to scrape parasites from their hulls. It was at this time that the first swarm of burst were seen covering a cruiser fleet. However, these small, flat spaceships were not attacking nor being attacked. Rich beams of energy flowed across the cruisers who held perfect still as the Bursts scraped their hulls clean and appeared to repair ba

Public Health Services

Eve is full of people who do services for other Eve players. It is another very fun part of the game. You are not limited to hitting wolves over the head and skinning them. You can supply the knives or offer to tan the skins. The problem is that Eve is also full of evil people who will backstab you in a moment. That alone will make most people shy away from a concept like this. But, this is not the first group that has appeared and offered to be logistics for THC2 or 7-2 or any group that they think might need a logistics wing. The idea of a logistics corporation is simple and elegant. First one has to realize that there is Logistics with a capital L. That stands for the spaceships that repair (heal :P) other spaceships. The action of doing logistics is more a player created occupation to function smoothly in Eve. Technically, the concept of Logistics Cruisers being a mobile repair ship makes sense for logistics capabilities. However, it is Eve and logistics is a word that has b

TCS: Loss for Gain

In trying to explain the mission and method of TCS, I have moved towards presenting the corner store approach. TCS is an embedded business, confined to a particular area of town. The residents of that area of town are the clientele that come to the store. The store caters to the clientele not itself for its success. To cater to people the store has to become flexible.' Most of the players in the game are in love with the games economy. They do not have to be aware of this love but a lack of awareness does not invalidate the truth of it. Without the economy stuff would not be important. Without stuff being important, nothing else in the game would be important. And importance does not mean that one wishes to take stuff to bed and cuddle with it to be reassured that there are no monsters under the bed. The importance is a driving force for every aspect of the game be it the great Sov wars or deciding which station to pick up a 500k ISK frigate hull. Because someone will decide to

Ramblings: "It's not you. It's your ship"

This is turning into one of my more active months since I started playing. Halfway through August and I've been involved in a lot of fleets. The killboard does not reflect this activity. Such as last night, when during a rather frantic moment I dropped fleet so that someone else could join fleet because we had a squad issue and their ship was more important to the immediate fight than my own. It's kind of like dressing for a party, preparing for a fleet op with preset doctrines. People start to trickle on and everyone settles into the station. Fits flick back and forth and trade windows open and close as everyone changes and adjusts themselves to what they need to do. If it is a planned fleet there is a plan. There is a fleet doctrine. There are goals inset upon the basic agenda. That agenda, as it is every night, is to destroy spaceships. And the adrenaline. When a fight is about to go down and the shakes hit. I find that I don't get adrenaline rushes constantly the

A Handful of Thanks

Yesterday, I wrote about my plans to pick and save up for a jump freighter of my very own. I have been working off of leased spaceships for the last several months. It has worked out for the most part with occasional patches of inconvenience. The inconvenience  is just a thing. The convenience more than make up for them. However, my quest in Eve is a lot about independence and proving myself to myself if not other people. A lot of my projects and activities in game reflects this attempt to be okay by myself without needing anyone else to do things for me. In it are echos of my real personality. But I need to get over myself some days. And yesterday, I was clearly reminded of that. I was reminded about the people in my Eve world. Not that I had forgotten them but how important they had become to what and who I am and what and who my blog has become. When I first started writing I tended not to use names until Ender came down and told me he wanted his name in print. After that, I s

TCS: The Taste of ISK

As odd as it may sound, I am not perfect. Occasionally, I fuck up. Fortunately it isn't overly often with my market. But it does happen now and then. I wind up with my face in my keyboard sighing nosily. Like the other day when I was quad boxing and accidentally sold all of my large guns to a buy order at half price instead of listing them for sale. Blah. It was a forty million loss on my side and an inconvenience to other's who had requested that particular module because they were setting up fits. I have also taken a few hits due to the Odyssey market woes. I wound up with a handful (around 5) of over priced T2 frigate hulls. I ate the loss and got the hulls sold. The market seems to have settled back down. Most of the time it is extra zeros when listing ammo, leading to excessive fee losses. Nothing world ending but frustrating all the same. I know I don't share as many numbers as some would like. I don't keep that close a track of them. TCS has been growing nice

Circular Social Links

For a Sunday I woke up early and excited. I had things to do today and sleeping in wasn't one of them. I was up, skimmed Jabber on my phone and woke up. The dogs were let out and let back in. I consumed a peach and drank some water and headed to the gym. I've taken up swimming and try to do 30 minutes in the pool on my days off for my exercise and I've made it a mandatory thing to get that done before I indulge in games. With my swim done I ran home, got cleaned up, made lunch, took a picture of the sleeping cat sleeping on my sleeping husband, and made breakfast. Once everything was done, head set was on, team speak active, and jabber chat open. I was ready. Once 1200 hours hit, people were on, a new channel was made, and we loaded up Civilization V . Eh? Eve? During the Fountain War, whenever Eve made headlines or someone tried to explain who and what the groups were, they often said "from reddit " and "from the Something Awful forums ". Many dis

Guest Blog: Opportunity Cost

" Calculating people are  contemptible   The reason for this is that calculation deals with loss and gain, and the loss and gain mind never stops. Death is considered loss and life is considered gain. Thus, death is something that such a person does not care for, and he is  contemptible .      Furthermore, scholars and their like are men who with wit and speech hide their own true cowardice and greed. People often misjudge this." -Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure Hello, I'm That Bitter Bastard who managed to piss off the Pirate Queen, Sugar Kyle, in a rather heated discussion over what amounted to quantifying opportunity cost .  She has graciously offered me the opportunity to guest post here on her blog. The main point we disagreed on is that I suggested rolling in transportation costs at Black Frog Freight rates into the price of goods. Now, to clarify where I'm coming from:  I do not run a lowsec store catering to all the needs of the local re