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Showing posts from September, 2013

Building Blocks and No Instructions

"You can  literally  make more ISK doing anything other than mining." -Said almost everyone everywhere When someone inquires about mining the responders will often throw their hands in the air and tell the person that mining is a waste of their time. They will unroll vast spreadsheets of staticail equations in which they explain the economically unsound choice of mining as a career path. It is very clear that mining is not an optimal income. It is a poor choice and one smugly pointed out to the new. Yet, miners continue to rush the Asteroid belts each day and clean them out despite the obvious ISK making options out there. I am often puzzled by those carefully explaining to the miners why they should not mine. It is sad to watch the clumps of hair that wind up in their fists as they miners continue to mine. Nothing they say stops them. The miners continue to mine. They refuse to buy the minerals from someone else. They keep insisting that they are happy mining.

Eve Parodied to Pop music: "Polarizer"

A side effect of reading Eve as music played in the store. Warning. This is pop music for all the music purists. Nothing of interest beyond the cut. I'm sadly caught up in a rather creative spell due to trying to write fiction. This appears to be a random side effect.

TCS: Opting Out of Speculation

The announcement of the Winter expansion plans has, as expected, thrown the market for a loop. People are buying gentries to build customs offices like crazy according to a tweet by CCP. The moment the interceptor changes were announced the interceptor market was wiped clean by speculators and stock pilers. I admit, I logged on my market alt and grabbed a handful of the four interceptors that I fly before the market vanished or the prices soared up. I purchased them for me and not for TCS. For TCS I found myself faced with an interesting dilemma. I could up the price of the interceptors that I had listed. I could pull the interceptors that I had listed. Or, I could wait. I chose to wait. As expected, some purchased me out of interceptors a few hours later. Molden Heath is off the major paths so someone had to come region shopping to find mine. I let them sell for what I had listed them at. The focus on TCS has never been to ride speculation. I don’t plan to start now. It i

The Small Ones

[ Warning: Winter Expansion thoughts. Skip if already burnt out about it.] Of course we are discussing the expansion today. After I stopped seeing only interceptors in my vision the comment about the new POS siphons being amazing came up. I agree. In my campaigne for low sec I have put a lot of emphasis on the residents of low sec being able to live and thrive in low sec. Often when I mention this people say that low sec is shit because the residents insist on shooting each other instead of bluing up and farming everything in sight. The focus is that a consumptive group such as a low sec PvP group does not have resourses because of their nature. If we want to have we need to change that nature. Low sec has resourses that the residents should be able to secure, fight over, and live off of if they so wish. Not all groups will wish to invest in static structures. Some will and those that do will have an option. However, the nature of Eve made it that the resources CCP allotted to low

Obligatory Expansion Announcement Comment

The combs will come out. The threads will start. Eve's player base will begin a microscopic examination of the Winter Expansion starting now for the release. It is called Rubicon and I will be honest; my first thought was Rubix cube. It seems that the entire 'breaking away from empire' theme is still full force and motivating the expansion. Some stuff was said. It is coming in two months. Some new toys are coming into place that may allow smaller groups to defend a bit better against larger ones or attack larger ones. Who knows, that will be pondered later. Me? My mind turned off when I learned that interceptors will no longer be affected by Warp Interdiction Spheres aka Bubbles. Bubbles are a personal hatred of mine. It is the way you land in them, snapped out of warp and dragged from the gate. I don't mind on grid bubbles as much as I mind catch bubbles. I even understand gate bubbles to an extent. The protection of ones home space but when people bubbl

Origin of a Spaceship: Gold Magnate, History of the

Excerpt from: Origin of a Spaceship History Of, The Gold Magnate Status: Extinct History: History and classification of various sub-species of spaceship remain fragments in the records of Empire University Shipolgy files. Scattered notations made by researchers and filed away, unpublished in popular formula. References of the Gold Magnate are found in poems. It appears this particular ship was bred in the stables of the Amarr Imperial House. It is hard to separate the appearance of this particular Magnate from the rest of that cultured stock due to the simplification of the name, 'Gold' or 'Golden'. Yet, history tells that this particular ship, gifted with a ridge of quill lick structures and a thick, golden head-crest, caught the fancy of the empire and was offered as a gift, straight from the imperial hand during a gladiator tournament of some kind. It appears that the Gold Magnate was aggressive. Unlike its docile brethren who are common companio

TCS: The Bumps in the Road

"I am logging in market alts in anger." They had just informed me that the Drone Damage Amps on the Bosena market were on sale for 10 million ISK. Rage logins and using ships in anger are common terms tossed around. Allo went triage the other day for our battleship fleet and after he was done he said, "This is the first time I have triaged in anger." It is a very fun term. No one is truly angry. I toss that fact in because some people will miss it if not clearly said. It is more about a call to battle and at that moment as I started logging in market alts I was very mad. I then found out that it was my own fault. One to many 0's when listing. Whoops. I fixed it. That is not the first time I have done that nor the most damaging. I still laughed at myself and adjusted the price. It is ISK lost. It is part of the game. It is no different than burning out your guns. Sometimes you make mistakes. Often they are stupid and completely preventable. That at leas

What an Interesting Little Thing

I have multiple accounts. Some are lapsed for various reasons. Some are holding characters that I may recover in the future. I link all of my accounts to the same e-mail. I do this for many reasons. One is because I have zero plans on doing anything wrong where I need to hide who I am from CCP. The main reason is convenience. When logging in today to resub one of my lapsed accounts (it lapsed about an hour ago) I noticed something I had never paid attention to before. Or, it may be that I had not seen it before. CCP has been adding to the web interface. This particular area under Edit Account Information on the main account page also said "other accounts sharing: email address". I clicked it and saw all of the account names linked to that. A very useful feature for losing account names and keeping track of things. What a nice little feature. However, what caught my attention was a point of curiosity. Is this one of the steps forward to CCP figuring out who  is playing

Doing it Wrong More Better

This is about Jaguars.  That means this is a serious post. An important, serious post. Because, Jaguars. I got a present today. This came after I came home from a very long, very miserable day at work complete with a headache Advil was not making much of a dent on to this eve-mail: Blog Appreciation From: Aziza Minz Sent: 2013.09.24 22:32 To: Sugar Kyle,   I've never commented on your blog, but I've been reading it for quite awhile now and I must say that I really respect both your POV and your writing skills. As a reward for enhancing the value of my game, I've contracted you a Jaguar hull in Molden Heath to show my appreciation in a concrete fashion. Keep up the good work and fly better than your enemies. Aziza Minz I could be all coy and blush. "Who me! Aww gee!" Instead I squealed and wrote him a babbling note of thanks for reading and for the Jaguar. It is very cool to meet people who read what I write. The feedback is valuable a

Stations are too Small

It is often noticed when battleships undock that the size of the station and the size of the spaceships do not quite meet. The stations themselves are very large structures. You can see their shape from well off grid while the player ships will vanish. Yet, when that one to one ratio is made the size difference gets ridiculous. This could not be more apparent then when NC. used our home station as a mid point for whatever it is that large null sec alliances do. As local spiked to 200 and TiDi slammed in at 11% I did what any rational person would do and undocked to see what there was to be seen. Around this point I realized that dying was a possibility. But that didn't stop me from hitting my insta undock and waiting for myself to slowly enter warp and slowly exit as ships continued to pour into the system and out of the station. For those unfamiliar with jumping capital ships, the jump takes a large amount of capacitor. Docking instantly refills. This speeds up the travel

Intangible Stepping Stones

I wonder how people can play a game like Eve and cling so tightly to a one dimensional picture. I understand lack of interest more than outright rejection. It may be a reflection of the constant goal of defining the game that consumes some players.  But it is hard to define what is important to each person. Milestones can be big or small and sometimes to personal to share even while deeply celebrated. As I write this post, I'm sitting upon a personal milestone. It is one of great importance to me. I worked hard for it. I feel that I earned it. And for some it is nothing and for others it is incomprehensible. But, if I let myself and what I enjoyed be defined by others, I'd sit in endless frustration. I learned that lesson the hard it. The Fluffy Stuff: It seems that it takes many words for me to say that I purchased my jump freighter. Yet, when I looked at my account and realized that I had reached the goal point I wanted to reach when I hit buy and I stared at the prices

A Whoops that Didn't Matter

I learned that triage markes sparkly colors wash across the Thanatos. It was a very pretty effect that I watched as I drifted off into space, unable to do anything for the five minutes that my triage would be active. We were having a class on logistics which included playing with our triage. We were also on the test server so what would be a panic attack on the main server was giggle worthy on the test server. Last night, Aliak asked Van to run a class on logistics. 7-2 has closed recruiting for the moment to allow all of the new members to learn to mesh with each other. Even experienced pilots still have to learn each other. Language, lingo, behaviors, habits, fits, and such things are all different from group to group. We had a complex argument about fleet doctrine names the other day where people pointed out that hellcat was a known common term and other people pointed out that not everyone interacted in the same circles to know some fleet doctrine names as anything but silline

The Fights Where Time Stands Still

I get the shakes still when I fight. Normally now, it is anticipation. We are about to do something and the adrenaline hits right as things are about to kick off. This rush is different from the rush of shocked reaction that happens when you first start to PvP or even when you are well versed in it but wind up in a surprising interaction. I read reading Always a Noob  which is a new blogger to our blog community. He comments in his entry for Blog Banter #49  about being a noob and not knowing anything. It made me remember the confusion of things and the first time that I was killed by a player.  "It happened so fast!" I still remember the other player orbiting me at dizzying speeds and destroying my Catalyst. Just poof I was dead and poof my pod was gone! Seconds! How? My god! I couldn't react! Yet now, I wonder how people don't get their pods away from a Talos . When I have those musings I have to remind myself that there was a time when everything was so fas

Eve Dreams

I had an Eve dream which I posted on twitter.It was halarious enough, and I remembered it well enough, that I'd post it for people to snicker at me. I woke up around 0700 and I laughed because it was Saturday. Wake up or go to sleep? I woke up so early because I am normally up at 0500 for work. I decided, sleep! Back I drifted off after pulling my cat off of my face where she was trying to greet me. Normal morning picture with this kitty. She has recently gone blind but that hasn't stopped her from not realizing this and still find my face to be in every morning. But, anyway, its Saturday, mmmm sleep... and back I drifted to start playing Eve. I was in my Jaguar flying towards a stargate when I saw an Orca coak in front of me. I realized that it couldn't warp when cloaked so I burned right for it and bumped into it. It decloaked and I started to point it but it warped away. I warped after it and suddenly we are in a field on a planet, but obviously this is normal.

A Special Cog

A woman like this you've never seen, Come fly beside my sleek machine. A touch from the tips of my turrets is bliss, It's for you to decide, to take on a  girl in her ride. -Sugar Kyle It was like the toll of a thousand bells. A ringing gong that echoed through the atmosphere rippling the air as it passed. The vibrations sank down to the very bone until every nerve and cell echoed the call as confetti erupted into the sky. Large Lasers V is complete. In one moment I have achieved a major goal that I had this year and doomed 7-2 to never fly another Laser fleet when I am online. The second may not be fully true. It feels true. I have a tendency to learn something and the flavor changes. Yet, it is still an accomplishment for me. This opens up the third large turret type and greatly expands my ship options that I can put on the field. I, personally , wait until T2 weapons before I consider undocking in anything these days. Before I had my first set of T2 we

How to Waste a Billion ISK

Most of the fleet is still shaking our heads at the moment. You see, Altaen was out in solo warrior mode in a Cynabal facing down a four man Battlecruiser fleet (myrm, myrm, cyclone, harbinger). Vand offered assistance and glorious Talos were undocked. I was in a Jaguar. Off, Van, Floyd, and Robinton went in Talos with me streaking ahead in a Jaguar. We spared with Altaen's feet and they decided they did not like us and ran off to the high sec pocket. Molden Heath has a five system high sec pocket two jumps out of low sec. While we tried to guess which gate they would come out a tenish man cruiser fleet was seen a system away. They spiked local and we immediately lost interest in the hiding battlecruisers and chased down the cruiser fleet. We played gate jumps and they decided to engage us! Explosions happened and they decided to bail before everyone died. That is a change for that group. They used to do last man standing. We chased them down but we were unsuccessful with ca

Achievement Unlocked?

What started off as a comment on Twitter gained momentum and eye rolling from my side as my disinterest in the topic flared to life. I often attempt to suppress my negativity into focused, productive points. Sometimes, I find myself snorting in disgust and rolling my eyes as my fingers take on a life of their own. This is one of those times and it is completely due to my personal disinterest in the subject. This is one of those times I don't expect much in the way of agreement with my opinion. Said subject is achievements. I found that a Wikipedia page about them. Achievements are included within games to extend the title's longevity and provide players with the impetus to more than simply complete the game but find all of its secrets. They are effectively arbitrary challenges laid out by the developer to be met by the player. These achievements may coincide with the inherent goals of the game itself, such as completing a level, with secondary goals such as finding secre

Growth and Stagnation

For any who stare at the title of this post with greedy eyes and fingers already flexing to produce the responses that drip from the tip of excited tongues; let it be known that I speak of people in the game and not the game itself in the words beyond this sentence I am a people watcher. I watch them in game and out. It makes it very hard for me to block people because I enjoy watching them. I like to listen to what people say and then watch what people do. The two often diverge in amazing ways. I puzzle over the reasons and wants of my fellow players. After all, they are all members of my world and the interconnectivity of Eve causes their push and pull to affect mine. It may be casually through a shared chat or globally through threadnoughts and systematic player lobbying to CCP. There is a growth curve in any game when and where you learn the game. It may be fast or it may be slow. How you approach the game the first time you log it up and how you approach a game that you have p

jEveAssets - Eve-Online Asset Manager

I decided to try jEveAssets . It is an Eve Online asset manager that has been getting a lot of good word of mouth among those that I play with. Over the course of my playing, assets have started to sprawl out of control. Most of these are tucked away in low sec stations. Ether they are loot drop offs or ships dropped off mid roam and never recovered. The loot is nothing special, just regular T1 and T2 things. Expensive loot goes to the link alt or dedicated cloaky hauler who will gather and sell it after the fleet. The little stuff just gets gathered and dumped into hangars. I'm a container user in Eve. This is the average look of my hangars. Now, I have learned to use the filter to sort through items. I use it extensively for TCS. But for my everyday needs? Station containers all day, erryday. The side effect of being a container user is that I cannot use the asset list productively. The in game asset list does not search containers for you. You can remotely search them a

Saga Response - A Continuation

For those following the silly Saga there has been no in game response but there is another blog post response to read . If you are not into spoilers read it first before continuing. I know many have been amused. I received no in game response and doubt that I will be making a direct blog post response to him. After reading what he wrote I realized that I did not do a good enough job expressing my lack of interest intermixed with my distaste for his approach. I should have added, "please go away" but I was to busy being clever and cute. His reaction to send me a response crafted around my obvious desire for him and to treat me as a gold digger after his stuff left a sour taste about this entire thing. I'm sure many will find it well done and amusing. I know that it is all roleplay. I still find it incredibly disappointing that his reaction moved in that direction with a third party screen. So, I've been put in my place over the entire thing. I find it rather sad

A Response - My Admirer Saga

Altaen kicked me squarely in the creativity with his comment . Mixed with responses of others to no longer be silent I have entered into battle with a cold heart and a chilly stare. [ Warning: Mild Roleplay below the cut ]

Eve... uhh... Admirer

I have an Eve  stalker admirer. Where this post goes, nobody knows. Before I move forward with the rest of the post please understand that everything is in good humor and I am not being harassed. When I was first made aware of the situation I closed my eyes and hoped that it would go away. I decided not to write about it, even though it has been amusing, because it was silly. Lhorenzho is a member of Mirua Bull 's corp and appears to me to be a roleplayer. He likes to get fixations on female characters (players?). He has a blog and although he has been accused of being an alter ego of Miura Bull, Miura insists that he is not and he has been backed by members of R1FTA who have been in coms with both of them. I don't read Lhorenzho's blog because I do not like his writing style. It is very energetic and descriptive. It is also to frantic and full of slang for me to relax and read. I know many people find it very amusing. But, I am not a regular visitor. Therefore, i

TCS: Weekend Shoping

Questions are fun. I try to share what I do with people when they ask.This particular one came in at the the same time I was working through the store for the deployment.  Weekend Price Hikes From: Jyakai Sent: 2013.09.07 14:50 To: Sugar Kyle,   Miss Kyle, a quick question. In regards to major trade hubs, do you see a price hike in modules and items due to the weekend rush, or is it just the recent patch that made some of the modules jump so erratically? Regards Jyakai Weekends are interesting in Eve. They follow what I guess is the majority of the worlds habits of being off work on Saturday/Sunday. People flood to Jita to sell what they have been gathering during the week. The prices start to drop as people compete to get things sold quickly so that they can restock and start their cycles over again. The crash happens and everyone bails back to where they came from. The market is a living thing. It is easy to look at it and consider it static such as the local market y