Eve Online Planetary Interaction

A few thoughts about Planetary Interaction...

I control 9 worlds now between 2 accounts.

What cycle time works best?

So far what I have seen is that using the 5 hour cycle times allows for far more benefit than other times. I can set one cycle just before bed, sleep for 8, set another cycle in the morning, work for 8 hours, set another cycle when I get home. It apears that running the 5 hour cycle even twice a day produces more raw material than the 24 hour cycle. The 96 hour cycle is pointless unless you're going on vacation.

What layout works best?

I piddled around with different builds, but what appears to create the maximum resources is to place 3-4 extractors in a tight group right on top of a resource hot spot. Delever thier material to a Launch Pad then route from the Lauch Pad to an adjacent Processor. Remember to route the Processor back to the Launch Pad. This will create a tight bundle of about 5-6 objects over a hot spot. With Advanced CC's you can have at least 3 groupings per planet--possibly 4 if you're happy with only 2-3 Extractors per group. You want to deliver to the Launch Pad first because (hopefully) your rate of extraction exceed your rate of manufacturing. Excess material routed to a full Processor is lost, the Launch Pad storage area acts as a buffer.

Why Launch Pads and not Storage Silos?

LP's can store 10,000 m3 while Storage Silos only get 5k. Yes, Silos use a lot less Command Center CPU, but nothing seems to really chew up CPU anyway. By not not even attempting to link far-flung groupings you save tons of Power allowing more Extractors and Processors--more ISK. Besides you can't get your goods out of a Silo and into your ship without a Launch Pad anyway. The Command Center launch feature only allows 500 m3 at a time. A word of caution though, each Launch Pad is 900,000 ISK--it is the most expensive PI object after the Command Center.

What about Stage 2+ goods?

My focus is producing basic raw materials for now. Until CCP removes the NPC seeded goods, there isn't much point in making or selling any PI materials. But in preparation I have made one of my planets a "factory" where I have a cluster of Stage 2 (Advanced) Processors. Once I gather all the raw materials from the other planets, I can Import them to my factory planet and make anything.

What do you think PI will do to the markets?

Well, already I can see folks buying up NPC seeded goods by the freighter load. Folks are expecting the prices to rise. For a while those that bloat themselves on trade goods may realize a profit. PI takes time and has some hard limits to what can be maximally produced. No one will be able to harvest mass quantities alone which means the market will be mostly dominated by small producers. These small quantities will encourage Traders to buy out whole regions and repost for slight mark-ups. The goods most likely to move in Empire are the POS fuels--Oxygen, Mechanical Parts, Robotics, Coolant, and Enriched Uranium.

What is interesting is what this will do to Empire markets. Now that 0.0 space can produce their own fuels, it will be unlikely that Alliances will come to Empire for fuels. Empire certainly won't be going to Nullsec for purchasing so the POS fuel market in Empire will be dependent on the owners of Empire towers... Setting up Empire towers is difficult and generally only used for Labs. They are also typically placed by Corps/Pilots who love industry anyway and will likely be making their own fuel! With demand reduced, I would not expect the Empire PI goods market to be much above cost (if at all).

I would predict that most ppl doing Planet harvesting will do it solely to supply their own needs--more out of convenience than need or cost.

What about Dust 514? Will I lose my investment?

Taking any guesses about what CCP may or may not do with DUST 514 are purely wild guesses. CCP has consistently talked up their cool expansions and then delivered only minimal features. While we can't predict what they may do, we can be pretty safe in predicting they won't deliver everything they have talked about. The second point to consider is Dust is probably 3-4 years away (2 at best). CCP is only now *advertising* for Dust 514 developers. Without a dev team even assembled, when it can be delivered is many, many moons away. Incarna was first advertised as Walking in Stations over 5 years ago and the last CCP announcement was that it will deliver *after* Dust! So CCP has a history of extremely long release time-lines.

So... in a nutshell... don't worry about it. We won't see impact for a long time.

What skills should I have?

Bare minimum to try PI would be: Remote Sensing 1, Planetology 3, Command Center Upgrades 3. That will allow you to scan all the planets in your current system, place *one* Improved Command Center, and play around with what it can do. But you can train all those skills in a day.

I would recommend Remote Sensing 4, Planetology 4, Adv. Planetology 2, CC Upgrades 4, and Planetary Interaction 4. This will take about 10 days, but it gives you 5 Advanced Command Centers and the ability to control them from quite a ways out. Masada manages planets in Rahab from Palas (about 4 hops out). I haven't played with the limits.

Gaming may Save the World!

A co-worker of mine linked this TED video of a presentation about the potential impacts of online gaming...

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

The video is well worth a look. But a few highlights really stuck in my mind. In particular the factiod that a gamer kid will spend 10,000 hours playing video games by the time they are 21. This is just a random fuzzy number until you also know that 10,080 hours is the exact amount of time you will spend in school from 5th grade to 12th (or year 6 to 13 for you Euros). So most gamers will have spend as much time learning their games as they have spent learning about everything else... This creates a great many focused minds. If we tapped just tiny fractions of game time to teach a few key skills... well imagine what you could do.

I have often thought that if you could inject a little bit of the gaming fun in to the real-world work place you might find new ways to really spark people's motivations and creativity. I think any working professional can remember a time where they were forced to participate in some lame team building exercise... that's not the sort of work gaming I'm thinking of. But something you could really do day to day with the people you work with. People who play together often get along better. You have other ways to relate to the people you work with.

Jane didn't touch on other side effects. While sitting idle is not good for physical activity... it could be looked at as a way to reduce our "footprint" on the world. If we're playing at home more often, then we're not driving our cars or generating litter. If we learn to eat responsibly, then we might actually reduce the food we consume. These benefits are a stretch, but they'd make a good study. Of the 500 million gamers world wide... what is their footprint compared to non-gamers?

Interesting game fodder for thought... Game On, folks! Save the Planet.

What does roleplay (RP) mean in Eve Online?

In the recent event of the Eve Universe, a player controlled roleplay alliance has lost a vast portion of space called Providence. I've written about these events before and talked about CVA, Ushra'Khan and AAA--all player alliances. Many players of Eve have commented that CVA's rebuttal of AAA's demands was "stupid". The logic behind these statements is that AAA is a much, much larger alliance and would mop the galactic floor with spilled CVA guts--which they have proceeded to do. These pilots are confused by CVA's motivations... why on Earth would the fools choose to fight AAA? CVA has said they have done it for "roleplay" reasons which has sparked a wave of bewilderment from the AAA community about the stupidity of roleplay as a reason and further that CVA has quite obviously "lost" so roleplay has failed. But that misses the whole point... Let me back up.

Eve is a very open ended game. You have pilots, skills, spaceships, lots and lots of industry, and a whole galaxy of solar systems to explore. You literally wake up in this world with no set goal. You get to decide what ships to fly, what goods to buy, and how to make your living in this world. Now maybe you're serious about your roleplay and create a back story for your pilot and you live life as the immortal "capsuleer" that all Eve pilots are... But even if you don't do this, to some degree, all your decisions are roleplay decisions. What did you want to do in the game? The game didn't lay out a path for you. You were not created a Mage in a static region with 250 quests to complete before you could advance to the next region... Your story will not be the same as any other player. All your choices have been a reflection of what you wanted to do, not forced down an alley of what "character class" you picked.

The CVA alliance is just an extension of this taken to the Alliance level. The leaders of the player created structure had decided they would control Providence as their own entity. They would fight to keep it "free" for all pilots to explore. They would fight against aggressors that disrupted their space and aggressors that would not honor their "right" to rule the region. No one at CCP Games gave them this right... they took it. When AAA appeared (yes, provoked, but that's not important here) CVA kept true to their vision and vowed to fight the aggressors. They knew they would likely lose, but it was more valuable to them to keep up their identity as CVA than to keep the region known as Providence. They did not acknowledge that AAA had any greater right to tell CVA what to do than anyone else. Of course, AAA has overwhelming force of arms and has demonstrated its power. While AAA laughs at CVA's "roleplay" decisions it is humorous to note that AAA itself decided it didn't like CVA's lack of respect (a very roleplay decision) and invaded Providence. For all the pundits hurled at roleplayers in Eve, we seem to not realize that all of us are roleplayers in Eve--some just write more fiction about it than others.

Enjoy the show folks. These events are what make Eve interesting. There will be no "Lich King" release to drive some sort of story in to Eve... the story is written every day by each of the pilots in New Eden.

Mandatory CTA's

Okay, here's the reason why "mandatory cta" policies are stupid, doomed to fail, and will contribute to the end of your alliance...

A Call To Action/Arms is a generic term that basically says, "We need a big fleet for X purpose." A successful CTA needs to have a clear Goal, a Time Frame, good comms, and a specific request for ship types. It is important to note here that not all CTA's need to be combat oriented. Sometimes they can be mining operations or Freighter escorts, etc. While some number of combat ships is usually required, it doesn't have to be the focus. What I really have a problem with is the mandatory Combat CTA. A fleet specifically needed (probably) to hold a system or take a system.

All nullsec alliances will need to fight for their space. This will mean fleets of a few hundred pilots. Fights at this scale need to be carefully balanced. The time/place of these battles needs to be carefully coordinated. Generals and Fleet Commanders must know what their strategy is. A war must be fought by those with the capacity to deal damage or prevent damage being dealt. The issue here is the word "mandatory". This isn't an optional sort of word. It basically is interpreted as, "if you're online, get in to the PvP fleet." It is usually accompanied by trollish shouts in comms to "GET IN THE FUCKING FLEET YOU MORONS/COWARDS/ASSHOLES!!!!" Let's break this down.

Lets say you have a modest corporation of 100 members (as listed in your corp details). This probably means you have betwen 50-75 real pilots, with the rest being alts/slaves. Out of these roughly 75 pilots, about 20% will be actually online at any one time; so 15. Chances are, anyone else online is afk or several alts/slaves. So... now lets say your Alliance has 20 such corps. This means that *at peak* normal activity you'll have 300 pilots online that might be both a real person and active. Of these 300, I'm to say maybe 75% will be able to field a "good" or "standard" fleet combat ship. Of those 225 pilots, about 75% of them will actually have that ship to use. This is now about 170 pilots. This is about what you can expect from 2000 man alliance in it's normal activity timezone without special effort. The downside here is that it will *appear* that you have 300-500 pilots online... Screaming at the online player base for 2 hours about joining the fleet is not going to move this number up by much. It will also completely demotivate your participating pilots, unimpress your future fleet pilots, and will likely inspire many other pilots to quit.

I guess the point here isn't that "mandatory" is bad, but more accurately, setting the trolls loose in your comms is bad. If your goal is to entice more players to your combats, then it should be something that is fun and looked forward to. You want them to be excited to particpate in the unique experience of Eve fleet combat. But that experience is going to be terrible if the pilot goes in unprepared, in a badly fit ship, to sit for hours before being wiped out in the first bombing volley. Realistically, you don't want more than handful of pilots without the propper ships and/or experience. Too many "green" troops and you'll suffer from chaotic commands, bad tactics and likely get routed. This is also probably not one of your goals and another reason why "mandatory" participation can actually hurt you more than help.

If you haven't seen this Alliance policy first hand, let's imagine it. You're a good pilot, with the ISK to toss away on a PvP ship (T1, fully insured), and you're online doing your Making ISK thing. Suddenly an Alliance mail pops up saying an outlying system is being invaded by The Bad Guys with a 200 man fleet. Sov is on the line. We need a Mandatory CTA. The fleet joins go out; you're forming up now to leave in 1 hour. It will take a while to get a 200 man response fleet together, shipped, and moving to the destination. You're a good member and you drop what you're doing to respond. Within about 15 minutes you're at the rally point and ready to fight. Of course you'll have to wait a while for other folks to assemble. But already you have 90 in fleet (remember you'll likely peak out at 170). Now the trolling begins. Troll Butt #1 is spouting in Alliance randomly singling out pilots not in fleet and calling them assholes and fuckwads for not joining the fleet. Troll has no idea who these pilots are, but they are not in fleet so he feels allowed to abuse them. Most of the pilots he's abusing are mining/market alts with no pvp ships. Some are brand new pilots who don't know what's going on. Already this is a bad situation. What makes this *even worse* is if Troll Butt is the Fleet Commander or some other "voice of authority" for the Alliance. You have to endure 45 minutes of Troll Butt abusing alliance members, some of them are in your Corp. They're afk, leaving in 10 minutes, new or otherwise legitimately unable to be of value to the fleet. Even as you try to explain this, you're smacked down for being a corp of carebears and noobs. Boy are you inspired to help now! Ready to give your 100 million to a ship loss for the Alliance? How about all your buddies? Think they'll be ready to join the next op? What now happens is a slow attrition of attendence... oops! I thought we wanted more attendence! Each time fewer pilots will want to join.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that you do get all 300 online pilots in the fleet. This means you have some pilots running 2 ships, some pilots in tackle frigates, some pilots is strange ships/uninsured ships/bad fittings, some have no comms. So about 150 of your pilots are gimped (remember some are running 2 clients and basically give you 2 gimped pilots in place of 1 combat ready pilot). So again, you've *hurt* your combat effectivenes with 100% partcipation in mandatory CTA. If if you ignore the stupidity of dual clients, you'll be adding about 100 pilots in ships of little combat value. When the first fleet to fleet fighting engages, most of these 100 pilots will die within seconds. Many of them will lose 150 million ISK T2 ships with no insurance. Most of them will walk away thinking fleet combat sucks and will just make sure they're not online for the next CTA.

So now that you've managed to force a large percentage of your Alliance pilots to log off for CTA's... now the war heats up. CTA's are falling every weekend and sometimes during the week. Since these pilots now won't participate, they get frustrated about being unable to play and they quit your Alliance. Suddenly your markets dry up (a lot of these non-combat pilots were making goods or mining). The reduction in pilots hurts corp taxes, hurts the ability of corps to pay for sovereignty, and makes the hard task of holding space harder. Your alliance may not be falling apart yet, but it is stretching at the seams. You're not working together and most people are either A) mad because everyone else is not fighting or B) mad because they can't ever make isk to cover costs/replacements. This won't go on for long before you start to see whole corps leave or, even worse, simply switch sides. Every loss chips away at your pilot base and reduces the number of pilots (now war weary with no relief) who can fight. This is the Alliance death spiral.

"Mandatory" CTA's don't work. They fail to increase participation, they fail to increase combat effectiveness, and they fail to keep your Alliance healthy. You can expect pilots to rationally respond. You need to trust and respect members. These members will give more to the Alliance than any pilot "troll whipped" in to attendence.

Good Hunting, folks!

Re-Post of Eve in-game objects.

These links will only work from the in-game Eve browser...

Showinfo explorer - short php app allowing you to check any showinfo link with given id.
Database explorer - another short php app allowing you to browse all EvE items.
Useful info (commonly found in bios) - so you know what to tank
More about Invention >> - skills and items needed to make tech II breakthrough
More about COSMOS >> - handy info for COSMOS runners
More about Exploration >> (coming soon)
More about Mining >> - what roids give what minerals and so on
More about Salvaging >> (coming soon)
Tech II implant list - all about them

Implants

Republic Special Ops Field Enhancer - Gamma
Aurora Alpha
Aurora Beta
Aurora Gamma
Aurora Delta
Aurora Epsilon
Aurora Omega

Trinity new implants:
Low-grade Edge Alpha
Low-grade Edge Beta
Low-grade Edge Gamma
Low-grade Edge Delta
Low-grade Edge Epsilon
Low-grade Edge Omega

There is few more implant classes:
Low-grade Virtue Alpha
Low-grade Harvest Alpha
Low-grade Nomad Alpha
Low-grade Centurion Alpha

New Agent Offer items:
Syndicate Gas Cloud Harvester
Syndicate 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates
Syndicate Mobile Small Warp Disruptor
Sisters Radar Quest Probe
Sisters Scan Probe Launcher
ORE Strip Miner

You mix up components like these with normal drones:
Elite Drone AI
Drone Synaptic Relay Wiring
Drone Capillary Fluid
Drone Cerebral Fragment
Drone Tactical Limb
Drone Epidermal Shielding Chunk
Drone Coronary Unit

'Integrated' Hobgoblin
'Integrated' Hammerhead
'Integrated' Ogre
if you add even more rogue technology you get
'Augmented' Hobgoblin
'Augmented' Hammerhead
'Augmented' Ogre
Mining mission ores:
Banidine
Augumene
Mercium
Lyavite
Pithix
Green Arisite
Oeryl
Geodite
Polygypsum
Zuthrine

Funny stuff (Easter eggs)
Perpetual Motion Unit I
Villard Wheel
and now: Thermodynamics
just read all the descriptions :) Great easter egg.
Grace Tarsis
Body Bag
STOP
Powdered Cubensis
Pillaging 101
The Little Pirate That Could
17 Successful Torture Techniques
Think Tank
Me, Myself and Plunder

Wiretap Plant
Quafe Unleashed formula
Toxic Gunk
Rotgut
Smurgleblaster
Achuran White Song Birds
Armor of Rouvenor
Tournament Observation
Melted Snowball MMV
Snowball Launcher

Medals:
Alliance Tournament Gold Medal
Alliance Tournament Cup
Novice Medal
Intermediate Medal
Legends Medal
Onyx Heart of Valor

Aidonis Honorary Fellow Medallion
Ancient Amarrian Relic

Faction ships:

Shuttles
Goru's Shuttle
Apotheosis
Interbus shuttle

Blood Raiders
Cruor
Ashimmu
Bhaalgorn
Serpentis
Daredevil
Vigilant
Vindicator

Guristas
Worm
Gila
Rattlesnake

Angel
Dramiel
Cynabal
Machariel

Sansha Nation
Succubus
Phantasm
Nightmare

Caldari
Caldari Navy Hookbill
Osprey Navy Issue
Caracal Navy Issue

Raven Navy Issue

Amarr
Amarr Navy Slicer
Augoror Navy Issue
Omen Navy Issue
Apocalypse Navy Issue
Apocalypse Imperial Issue
Armageddon Imperial Issue

Gold Magnate
Silver Magnate
Minmatar
Republic Fleet Firetail
Scythe Fleet Issue
Stabber Fleet Issue
Tempest Fleet Issue
Tempest Tribal Issue

Mimir
Freki

Gallente
Gallente Navy Comet
Exequror Navy Issue
Vexor Navy Issue
Guardian-Vexor
Opux Luxury Yacht

Megathron Navy Issue
Megathron Federal Issue

Jovian
Fury
Lynx
Medusa
Chaos
Ghoul

Wraith
Specter
Eidolon
Enigma
Visitant
Phantom
SOCT 1
SOCT 2
SOCT Cruiser

ISD / GM ships

Polaris inspector Frigate
Polaris Centurion
Polaris Legatus Frigate
Polaris Centurion Frigate
...GM weapons and mods
GM Cloak
GM Ultra Mega Super Death Ray
GM ECM Burst

Industrial tutorial ships

Civilian Amarr Shuttle
Civilian Caldari Shuttle
Civilian Gallente Shuttle
Civilian Minmatar Shuttle
Trinity new rigs:

Mines (removed from game)
Python Mine Blueprint
Anaconda Mine Blueprint
Cobra Mine Blueprint
Asp Mine Blueprint

News from the Front: Providence

Fighting continued in the border systems of Providence over the weekend, but no news of further sov advancement has come forth. It appears that Atlas has stalled for a few days. Fighting is still wide spread throughout the region. 50 man roaming gangs are common. Small capital fleets appear and disappear in lightning "hot drop" strikes. The general impact of such warfare is complete disruption of most activities in the region.

In such times, careful ratting or complex running is about the only thing you can do. Mining assets are too slow and too vulnerable to cyno spawned attacks. 10 man gangs can not cope with 50 man gangs. Undefended POS towers are quickly disabled. Any sort of Freighter op is right out. Providence commerce is slowing to a crawl.

In LFA, fleeing corps have left systems empty. Empty systems can not provide intel and empty stations receive few goods. Plus there is an ugly downside to NRDS policy combined with allowing Neutral pilots station access... Neutral "alts" can dock and tie up station resources (mfg slots) and engage in market warfare. These stations can then be used to resupply the enemy.

LFA's pocket is under dire threat of collapse. LFA will either disband leaving their systems unclaimed over night, or worse, they may be forced to sign up with invasionary forces; switching all 6 systems effectively to Southern Coalition control overnight.

CVA is on the ropes. Aralis, their Executor, is battered daily with pleas for help, guidance, or anything that can materially impact the aggression. But the only responses are oh so similar to those spoken by war torn Empire corporations for ages... "Keep docked, watch intel, wait out the storm. try not to lose too many ships."

The good news is that still only a tiny fraction of what CVA holds has actually changed hands and the assaults continue to weaken. Perhaps in another 30 days all will be quiet again, but until then, Providence is descending in to 0.0 violence equal to that seen in any null sec war in New Eden.

Eve Online Drugs

This was hard stuff to come by as nothing seemed to be written in detail about it yet.

What I have discovered about Gas Harvesting...

Gas harvesting is a means to obtain the raw materials necessary to Booster production. Gas harvesting requires a gas cloud which must be discovered via Exploration as a LADAR site; typically you'll only find the right kinds of clouds in low sec / null sec.

Gas harvesting requires the Gas Harvesting skill which requires Industry 4 and Mining 1. The skill book costs between 36 and 40 million ISK. Each level of the skill allows you to fit one Gas Harvester I module. It trains fairly quickly requiring only 15 minutes at level one.

Each harvester module mines 1 unit of gas per 30 second cycle. The harvester module is considered a "turret" which prevents fitting the module on a Mining Barge which has no official turret slots. These modules seem to run about 9 million ISK each.

Each unit of gas (this might vary) is 10 m3 of space.

Gas clouds yield various types of "cytoserocin". Each type is a fundamental component of a different type of Booster. This should not be confused with "mykocerosin" which is used for Synth Boosters. Synth boosters appear to do the same sort of the things as "regular" boosters, but to a lesser effect and with no side effects--at least I didn't see any on Frentix synth boosters.

Gas --> Booster
Amber --> Blue
Azure --> Soothsayer
Celadon --> Exile
Golden --> Crash
Lime --> Frentix
Malachite --> Mindflood
Vermillion --> X-Instinct
Viridian --> Drop

Each type of cytoserocin must be combined with some other simple components like Megacyte or Water to create Simple Biochemical Reactions. This process requires a Medium Biochemical Reactor (POS). Once you have a reaction like Standard Drop Booster Reaction you can fabricate a unit of Standard Drop Booster.

Creating boosters requires the Drug Manufacturing skill. This skill costs 20 million ISK, but is generally only available in NPC 0.0 space. It will also require a BPO/BPC for the booster in question. As boosters/drugs are illegal in Empire, making them requires a POS manufacturing facility (Drug Lab). They will be confiscated by gate Customs Agents. BPO/BPC can be found in COSMOS complexes else they can be bought on Contract. Production of Boosters seems rare and thus the demand for the BPC's seems also low.

I did see a 1000 run BPC for Synth Frentix Booster in Jita for 8 million ISK. Each dose would require 17 "Pure" Frentix Booster (reaction). Each reaction takes 40 units of Lime gas... so 1 Dose of booster equals 680 units of gas. With 3 harvesters... that's 226 cycles... 30 seconds per cycle is 113 minutes or just under 2 hours of gas mining to get 1 dose.

Gas mining mission example: Like Drones to a Gas Cloud

Mine 425 (4250 m3) units of unusable cytoserocin AND kill all drones. There are only 4 waves of drones. The largest is cruiser sized (no battleship sized).

Award: 1.3 million ISK
Bonus: 1.3 million ISK

Standing Increase: 4.8% (will vary with your skills)

Recommendation: Start with a Battleship fitted with one or two harvesters and your favorite weapons. Kill the 4 waves. As you mine, remember to refresh your can. Alternately, after you kill the waves, swap to a hauler and AFK mine. Remember it takes 30 seconds per cycle... so 2 units per minute per harvester... 1 harvester means you're spending the next 4 hours mining gas.

My real recommendation is (even if you have these skills), just skip this mission. Complain about it loudly to CCP.