Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

Eve Online source code leaked...or not?

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:31:59 -0700

Really? I'm so disappointed. Up to a few days ago I had a weird surge in hits to my other blog's (packaging source code for) PEAR article sourced from Google searches for "eve online source code". Now this reliable source of traffic has been wiped out from all those news articles declaring Eve Online's source code has been leaked - oh, the Client source code has the leaked. No wait, specifically the Python source code from the client. Hey, it's like less than 2MB???

Does anyone know what Python is?

If you're a fellow programmer you can commence giggling hysterically... The problem of course is that it's Python. Python is like Ruby, PHP and Javascript in that it's stored and utilised in its plain text form unless obscured to hide the source code (or compiled to bytecode if you want to be prim and proper) - and obscuration methods for scripting languages is notorious for being relatively easy to de-obscure once you know how the obscuration system works. In this case, it seems to be .pyc files - if so that means Python bytecode, and you can "decompile" it yourself using Decompyle. Hell, the decompyle guys offer it as an online service .

I think what really drew attention here is two fold. The main one being all those news articles without a clue what Python is, and why a torrent for Python code decompiled from an MMO's client is nothing news worthy to anyone with an actual clue. The second was CCP's
response, well, their reported response. They started banning accounts on the forums, apparently, and there are even sparks flying over reports of IP bans since they have been tracking the torrent themselves. Putting aside how stupid IP banning is (IP addresses are NEVER, and have NEVER been, a good basis as a unique identifier for an individual as any good web application developer will tell you), CCP's reported actions merely drew attention to the whole debacle (which has developers in stitches the world over by now) and pushed it into the publicity spotlight. Even if CCP didn't perform all the actions they were reported as doing .

That's the informed impartial media (aka Horde) for you...

At the end of the day, this is a story of misconceptions and overreactions without anything truly news worthy backing it up. The only news worthy tidbit in here is that someone distributed Python source code by torrent, easily obtained by any 4 year old with access to decompyler, and such distribution is no doubt illegal at a minimum for copyright reasons.

But maybe there's a shadowy side to all this. Historically, scripted code's readability and ease of access to the readable source code can be a serious problem. Once everyone can read the source code, everyone can also attempt to discover ways of using it to their advantage. We already know all the game logic required to operate the client is contained in the Python code (see devBlog (7 Nov. 2007): Penguins In Space.

But other than Bot programmers, who cares? The main risk to any application is that its state (i.e. the database usually) is compromised and open to data theft or manipulation. This has already happened at least once with a very public shutdown of the Tranquility for 10 days late last year, but I'm confident Python editing was not involved...

Programming during Eve's Downtimes: Do Nots!

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:08:22 -0700

I have spent the last two hours working on a registration scheme for Cidev members to register accounts on the corporation website (http://crimsonindustries.com. The only problem was that after an exercise in utilising the poorly documented Eve-Online API (took some digging in other sources to locate ALL the API server endpoints needed) to allow anyone confirm their registration using their limited userID and apiKey - my unit tests began failing.

Unit tests, if you're not a programmer, are tests written to assert something I programmed is working as intended.

So 12 failures later I started getting worried that PHP DOM was misbehaving (it's a bit of a complex beast to work with). I pulled apart a class, reran tests, and finally ripped out wget in bash as a last resort to see if a few manual URLs and POSTs would turn up the problem.

I immediately saw "Unexpected failure accessing database." turning up as the error message returned from the Eve Online server in it's XML response code.

Suddenly it hit me. The damn Trinity 1.2 patch was running today! I had been running tests against the offlined server!

I feel a bit of an idiot right about now . I'll try the tests again around 16:00 GMT when hopefully the server is back online.

Meet Brother Cathbadh!

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:27:36 -0700

Since I came to the realisation that in a sandbox game like Eve Online you pretty much invent your own definition of fun (or leave the game bored out of your skull because you think Level 1 missions and roid busting is the whole extent of the game), once I had set up planning for some skills to become a specialised Battlecruiser (specifically a Drake and Hurricane) pilot before moving up to Battleships I decided to see where else I could apply my meagre 8 week old talents.

The whole point of becoming a specialised Caldari and Minmatar Battlecruiser pilot was to limit my scatterbrain approach to skill training, while maintaining at least the flexibility to fly the ships of two races. Luckily with many skills equally important for all races, this isn't a massive time sink for Tech 1 ships! Since Maugrim is at heart a wardog, I was left wondering about the other side of the coin - mining and industry as a "carebear".

Cathbadh McFiriba, brother to Maugrim McFiriba, was lured into the fold of the Crimson Industries and Development corporation. As an alt, his duty is to bring laser death to asteroids and figure out how to manufacture items. His training commenced some days ago and with a little investment capital from Maugrim, he has his sights set on a Mining Barge as a short term objective (only 45 days to go for the best one available).

Unlike Maugrim, Cathbadh will be entirely mining and industry based. He'll be the hauler, miner and manufacturer complementing Maugrim's pure combat focus. He will put that much maligned cartoon series to shame and make all the other carebears jealous . But mainly he will let the guy pulling his strings experience and explore other areas of the game.

Cathbadh has been a serious investment. He now roams Uitra with a full head of +3 Attribute Implants, in a Badger with a full array of Cargohold Expander IIs, and is busy training Spacial Awareness IV at the moment. It will be a while before he becomes useful by being able to pilot a Retriever (followed asap by a Covetor), and in the meantime he has sunk a lot of funds donated by Maugrim. Luckily Maugrim does not require a lot of cash right now since he is bound to the Battlecruiser class of ships and doesn't need a lot of saved ISK other than enough funds to eventually buy and fit a Minmatar Hurricane.

For A Tech II Fitted Drake!

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:59:11 -0700

It's been a few days since I christened the hull of the Nemesis Prime, my new Caldari Drake Battlecruiser. In that period I've pretty much shaken down how to effectively employ it on Level 3 missions, paying particular attention to it's benefits in extended ranged combat using Heavy Missiles, and sharpening up its backup against Frigate sized ships, i.e. the capability of deploying 5 Light Scout Drones, or 2 Medium Scout Drones and 1 Light.

After some deliberation I selected a fairly balanced approach to obtaining my next objective:
Fitting a Drake with only Tech II modules!

The problem with outfitting Tech II is of course my continued struggle with Powergrid capacity. I intend training Energy Management V once and for all just to get over at least part of that bump (presently the Drake in Tech I/Named configuration can only fit 6 Heavy Launcher Is). On the plus side, the reduced DPS is not a huge problem in Level 3 missions since I finished training sufficient skills to fit Tech II Shield Amplifiers to provide an even more powerful boost to shield resistances.

Given the Drake's tank is barely bothered by a few lowly Cruisers, I've elected to pump in more DPS instead of hitting more levels of tanking skills. The main ones being targeting are training Drones V and the whole assembly of Drone skills for durability, etc. up to at least level III. Possible IV for a few. End game on that path would be to finalise training for Tech II Drones. You see it's not the Cruisers in missions I'm worried about, it's the waiting for 6 Heavy Launcher Is to pop support Frigates which can take a while using Heavy Missiles with their garbage damage levels against Frigates.

Once I can pull off some serious trouble against support Frigates, I'll detour into Energy Management before the next phase - Tech II Heavy Launchers. This will come close to a fairly decent set of fittings for DPS:

7 x Heavy Launcher II
2 x NPC-Specific Shield Amps II
2 x NPC-Specific Medium Scout Drone II
1 x NPC-Specific Light Scout Drone II

That should add some signicant damage output - after a month and a half of dedicated training! Yes, I've finally hit the time to start pulling the long-haul skill levels.

Once these are done I have two more objectives for Tech II fittings:

Shield Power Relay II
Invulnerability Field II

After that long hard slog (quite a few weeks in there wouldn't you know!) I'll drop back to one of two skill routes.

The first option is to go full bore at improving the passive tank on the Drake by focusing on the Shield Amps - there are a set of damage specific skills that will help increase the resistance rates I get from the amps by a respectable amount. The second possible path is Gunnery + Minmatar Frigate/Cruiser.

After some thinking, I've started a few tenuous runs into training Minmatar Frigate III so I can least run around in a Rifter for some suicidal antics in the Frigate Tournament that CIDEV is running. The problem obviously, is that up to this point I have put a lot of training into missiles, and effectively nothing into Gunnery. To narrow the training window a little, I've set my shortest term ultimate goal on the Minmatar trail to being capable of flying a Hurricane Battlecruiser which has a solid reputation in PvP (unless I'm totally wrong). Obviously, I need more skills outside of Gunnery for this such as training up skills on the Armour tanking and resistances side. Given the 7 week training stint to get into a Drake, I'd judge I could climb into a Hurricane for some random ratting in highsec within a few short weeks of obtaining Tech II Heavy Missiles.

Thereafter the race will commence for sufficient skills to roll out a full rack of 425mm AutoCannon IIs with possibly a Tech II Heavy Launcher for some additional DPS, or an Energy Neutraliser for some variety, followed up the inevitable visit to Tech II armour tanking ability.

By the year 2167 I should be a reasonably skilled pilot specialised heavily for Caldari Drake and Minmatar Hurricane piloting. Maybe sooner if Evemon will allow it and suggest Learning skills while I run off and buy a few 10mil a pop implants next week .

During this training regimen, and depending on synergistic skill training, I will try to divert into Cruise Missiles primarily for the time I can afford to purchase a Caldari Raven. Though to be honest, I'm not really attracted to poop-a-like Raven's design. The space-turd is however a impressive ship for running missions in and I'm not a million miles away from being able to find a few low quality Level 4 agents in the Caldari Navy.

Election Standards and F Bombs

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:40:56 -0700

In an earlier blog entry I detonated an F bomb (uncharacteristically so) after referencing three of the candidates for the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) in Eve Online. A few comments later I've had a chance to wonder why I effectively blasted the candidates and followed up the paragraph with some colourful language. Really, at the end of the day it was pretty much an gut emotional reponse to an situtation I found personally suspicious, in the context of the CSM being the possible outcome of a real world style democratic process (it's not real world but my sensibilities would prefer otherwise ).

Key term in the introduction is "real world style democratic process". Please interpret the remainder of this blog entry in that context bearing in mind Eve and CCP have no obligation to apply real world rules in any way whatsoever.

In reading the Eve CSM website as mentioned over on Crazy Kinux's blog, I realised it was operated by one of the other CSM candidates, Serenity Steele, dispersing information about all candidates. My immediate gut response was to commence thinking dark thoughts about politicians pulling the strings behind the scenes of the media to throw misinformation and subtle doubts upon their opponents.

In the context of Eve's CSM Elections, I didn't see any reason not to subject it to any further thought. By real world standards, politicians running for office do not control media outlets unless they wish to commit political suicide once the other independent media catch on. But Eve Online is not the real world! So this is neither illegal, illicit, or even worthy of suspicion - like I said I merely reacted to it as a questionable endeavor as any common sense voter in a free and open democracy would.

Perhaps my reaction was an overreaction, but I don't know Serenity Steele or his recommended candidates, so I feel no particular need to take it on faith without question that Eve CSM would never be open to possible massaging of other candidate's facts. Likely? Probably zero chance! But that doesn't comfort my personal sensibilities for real world standards.

Secondly I blasted the existence of the Pro.Capita corporation which will control voting by Yusra (a candidate recommended by the Corporation's financier, Serenity Steele) according to shareholder voting. Pro.Capita is a profit making corporation that aims to make profits using Yusra's seat on the CSM by selling shares so you can cast votes on how Yusra decides issues, and by charging people who want to raise issues to the CSM. Profits are then redistributed as dividends to the shareholders.

Again, bearing in mind Eve and the CSM are not subject to real world rules, this again I felt was a little offensive since it basically boils down to a CSM representative selling their CSM votes and representation for ISK. Back on my real world standards approach, I was wondering if the local Fine Fail party here in Ireland would raise the issue of lower VAT if I paid them a few billion Euros. Maybe . Either way, same problem - it's illegal in a real world democracy so why should I lower the bar personally for the CSM candidates? Heck no.

At this point, while writing the previous CSM entry's summary of all this I dropped an F bomb for emphasis. Two strikes was enough to determine I would not vote for all this silliness or any other candidate supporting such tacky tactics to raise ISK.

Effectively my gut reaction was to interpret the available website information as being created by a related group of three candidates (effectively the stirring of a political party representing 10% of all candidates for a 9 seat CSM - do the probability math) who by turns were intent on either making ISK or proposing chaotic voting anarchy or controlling at least one publicised source of information about all candidates and all of which were hosted (in the absence of any others) on a subsection of the well publicised Eve CSM site.

If a real world political party came remotely close to this, I'd be reading the docket for alternative candidates while the whole party sat in Mount Joy Prison...

Is this an overreaction? I'm 98% sure it is. The other 2% is the niggling voice in my head telling me to tread warily. I do live in a democracy afterall, and we democratic supporters have a sixth sense about such setups I simply cannot overcome entirely by logically repeating over and over that Eve Online is just a game and that the CSM is a relatively actionless player representative to CCP intended as a filter to player thinking (more signal, less noise).

Maybe they should not call it an election and stop bandying words like "democracy" around in relation to it?

Maybe I'm just frakking RPing way too much recently?

Next time... Maugrim drops S and B bombs in another gut reactive entry...

Eve Online Blog Feast

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:40:31 -0700

I've been employing Google Reader recently to aggregate Eve Online related blogs. If you're seeking Eve Online blogs here's the current list I'm regularly keeping track of in alphabetical order (as parsed from Google Reader's OPML export feed using a quick PHP SimpleXML script). The majority are wellsprings of player experiences, tips, and general wisdom the authors have gleaned from playing Eve.

I'll look into maintaining the full OPML feed here on the blog once I finish the redesign of a new Serendipity theme. Enjoy! And if you have an Eve Online related blog I've not yet added to my reading list then let me know!

Aeon's EVE

Arduron's Eve CSM Campaign Site

Articulated Sky

Bitter Old Noob: An EVE Online Blog

Caldari Navy Ibis: Noob Adventures in New Eden

Carebear on Helium

Chimps in Space

Congo Free State

CrazyKinux's Musing

Deranged Carebear

DEREKEST BLOG

Epic Words

EVE Online - EVE-Pirate.com

EVE Vault - The Ultimate Resource

eve-online.com | devBlog

eve-online.com | news from EvE

EVE: The Vivitari Story

EVE[geek] Eve news

Fighting Broke

Flashfresh - a pirate.

Flavan's Adventures in Empire Space

Hammer's Eve

Hardcore Casual

Hardin FAQ for CSM elections

Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah

Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Jade Constantine for CSM - Eve Online

Journey of an EVE-online pilot

Just a Girl and Her Thorax

Kane Rizzel - a Pirates Perspective

Kraesslers Coyotes

Lady in Space

Massively

Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

Max Torps's blog

Miner With Fangs

Morphisat's Blog

Noghri_ViR 08!

Nuyan's Hangout

Odd Pod Out

ofDanes

Omber Zombie's CSM Campaign

Ombeve

One Tired Blogger

postings from the edge

PVE-LOG

Ramblings of a forum whore

Rantings of a Carebear

Ryan Shwayder's Nerfbat

Scratchpad

Serenity Steele's Directive Perspicacity

Shiplog of a Privateer

Tales Of A BoB CEO

Terra Nova

The Ancient Gaming Noob

~The Caldari Piratess~

The Defias Blog - An EVE-Online Blog

The Wandering Druid of Tranquility

Van Hemlock

VoteDV

Votrian's Eve Blog

winterblink.com

Worlds of Note

Xyliana.com

Your money or your life!

Other reading? Eve Tribune which unfortunately does not have any RSS or Atom feeds for some reason.

Just to add to your daily reading worries, I missed mentioning the debut of an independent Eve Online magazine at EVE Mag which has a current special issue covering interviews with about half of the CSM candidates. Just to add to the unusual practices of would-be CSM members, many candidates have yet to submit an interview resulting in even more lost public coverage of their campaigns. What's that saying about catching the early worm?

See the rest of earlier today's opinions about the CSM candidates and their public practices over on CSM: The Council Of Stellar Management Elections

CSM: The Council Of Stellar Management Elections

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:16:50 -0700

I still don't feel too comforable posting to the Eve forums and adding to the noise to signal ratio (or detracting from it ), but the upcoming Council of Stellar Management elections being held in May are worth a wee mention here on my as yet rarely read blog. (Please subscribe - I don't even have ads to blind and dazzle you!).

Most notably I'm a blog whore, so obviously I put a lot of faith in community outreach via you local friendly blogosphere. It's interesting to note that the number of blog-connected candidates (who have blogs, or comment on other blogs) is far less than the number of candidates in total (or not - but as I said I'm still getting my feet wet on the forums but if the majority have blogs or dynamic websites they're doing a great job hiding them!).

I think it's minimally interesting because there is a segment of the community out there who won't fire up the forums regularly (how many folk have the forums blocked while sitting behind the office firewall again?) and not hitting the blog community with your point of view loses you that audience (says the guy with countless Eve blogs aggregated on Google Reader). So to be honest, the only candidates I really have a semi-grasp on are those either with blogs, or who have responded to blog posts, or who have managed to string more than 4 HTML tags together to make a website with information that requires actual scrolling down the page. In other words - not many. You merry few have grabbed my early attention so you're already ahead of the pack for my vote at least.

Where's the campaign love? Your audience sits just a few packets and cables away from some cheap hosting at $4.99 a month or even a free blog over on Blogspot.com. There's me...and well...me. But likely many others who remain anonymous lurking in the shadows quietly digesting web content outside the Eve forums.

Here's one very readable (do it now) example - Council of Stellar Management - Open Questions for Candidates courtesy of the Caldari Navy Ibis blog. How many of the candidates have responded since March 27th thus far? A whopping 6. Out of 30 candidates. What the frak? Where are the other 24?!! Do you not want my non-forum-reading vote?

At least I do know the missing 24 candidates' names courtesy of the one page Eve CSM website which lists their names, in-game portraits and a single catchphrase for each. I can't recommend the listing though since the site's author has personally recommended two candidates recently on his own blog. Interestingly one of the recommendations is a for-profit corporate representative he's financing (i.e. votes are dictated by the shareholders who purchase shares and individuals purchase the right to raise issues for attention). Fuck democracy, eh? Those recommendations have been flushed down the toilet at the back of my mind.

What about websites? Here the candidates differ significantly in campaign approach. Several put in some hours to create a website with a campaign message or platform summary. Others opened up brand new blogs - the less successful of that small group have not yet managed to post anything readable on them except one liners or the famous 1990's "under construction" style holder message. But overall, I'd have expected more from such a large group of motivated individuals seeking public office in Eve. A few shine brightly, but the majority vary between floating and drowning conditions so far. With the rest of April to go though, perhaps there's still that last mad dash to the finishing line when the will to get a campaign message communicated will spawn more will to do something.

For the present then, I've selected three individuals who have been most successful in convincing me they are worth voting for just from reading their blogs/websites/comments. Not to cast shadows, I'm sure the rest (or at least some of the rest) are quite illustrious on the forums, but since I rarely get the opportunity to partake in the forums I'll have to do some digging before they have a chance to overtake those three as my preferences.

In a world where political character asassination and exaggeration is performed every other day in full view of the media and where new age politicians are turning to blogs, Twitter, Youtube, and other points of content distribution, the CSM elections are a bit disappointing. I expected more spectacle but it's all falling rather flat at the moment. The will to dominate the election ticket just seems lacking a bit.

In any case, Crazy Kinux's latest blog update has a list of some resources worth visiting to gain information on the candidates. If they won't publicise themselves, there's always some someone willing to expose them more thoroughly ;):
The CSM, the Candidates and You!

Nemesis Prime: Bringing home the ISK

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:34:11 -0700

Over the weekend I finally spent some time, with a new set of Powergrid saving skills, outfitting my new Caldari Drake Battlecruiser. At a cost of roughly 33 million ISK for the ship, and probably half that again on the modules, it truly was an exercise in careful budgeting and trade offs. I'm taking it as a sign that I won't think about buying anything bigger for at least another month (honestly, probably two).

The current fitting is a mixture of Tech 1 and Named modules (and no rigs yet):

High Slots:
6 x 'Limos' Heavy Launcher

Mid Slots:
3 x Large F-S9 'Regolith' Extender
1 x V-M15 Braced Multispectral Shield Matrix
2 x NPC-Specific Shield Amplifier

Low Slots:
3 x Shield Power Relay I
1 x Ballistic Control I

Drones:
2 x Medium Scout Drones
1 x Small Scout Drone

Since we're talking about budgeting and tradeoffs, the experts in the audience will spot precisely two obvious ones. Firstly, I have 3 Shield Power Relay Is instead of 4. The simple fact is that cutting my capacitor recharge further would leave the named Invulnerability Field running out of cap after a while. I haven't had time to experiment whether losing the invuln field is worth the extra shield recharge rate. Secondly I have 6 Heavy Launchers fitted, and not 7. Simply put - I don't have the powergrid available (65 short of the mark) to fit a seventh. I have skills in training to try to open up another 65 grid to fit the seventh launcher. In the meantime I'll see whether a Standard Assault Launcher will do temporarily. The final 8th slot is not a launcher hardpoint - might go with a Salvager I if nothing else strikes my fancy.

Overall, my DPS is far lower against Frigates than if I were in a Cruiser! But the tanking is far more vital for the Level 3 missions I'll be running this week where Cruisers are more numerous. In those a Caracal would crack like an egg very quickly (as I found out in one Level 2 mission where I met 3 Cruisers head on and the dreaded Eve lag left my Caracal unresponsive to commands), whereas the Drake takes the damage and laughs in your face.

The first test of the new Nemesis Prime was in a level 3 Damsel In Distress mission (the one where Kruul's DNA is a looted item). Tanking damage using both the passive shield tank, and the advantage of my ranged missile envelope (up to 58km thus far with a 65km targeting window), I completed the mission without too much worry. The shields tightened up at roughly the 40% mark and refused to push lower (being a passive tank, if the tank looks like it will break it's time to pray you aligned on a warp target ).

The result is a solid investment towards a Level 3 Mission ship.

Now look at the return .

My first Level 3 mission offered 90,000+ ISK bounties on ships. The end reward was close to 800,000 ISK. I did not have time to salvage the mission wrecks. If I'm reserved I'll say a total of 2,600,000 ISK was at least feasible before salvage. Might not be consistent across all level 3 missions - I don't have that much experience with them yet.

That's perhaps 7-8% of the cost of a new Drake hull. Or it's enough to start converting those Tech 1/Named modules currently fitted into better Named or Tech 2 variants (depending on skills). Once I can meet the requirements of fitting Tech 2 modules on the Nemesis Prime, it will be a superior Level 3 mission runner. Possibly even capable of some careful Level 4 missions.

That's a staggering turnaround! Compared to Level 2 missions this is a suspiciously vast improvement. On one of my final Level 2 missions (at the highest available quality and a 5.8 Agent standing) I was getting up to 400k per mission maximum not including salvage or bounties.

The age old question of the biggest bang for my new bucks is a tricky one. I want Tech 2 modules to increase DPS (I can carry drones but I've not trained them extensively enough to make a huge difference) and tanking. At the same time I really want to go on a splurge and buy more skill books - I now also have an Alt seeking expensive 5mil a pop books . Specifically Guns for Maugrim since he is cross training a few racial skills to test drive a few new frigates (currently looking at the Rifter).

Mining Op Fun

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:47:00 -0700

Mining Ops are usually quite fun in the Crimson Industries and Development corporation. Some chat, idle conversation and making fun of dazler in his Badger....

This has been on of the biggest ops I've been in since starting Eve Online.

Look at all the pretty lasers! I'm the one in the Badger II helping out with hauling our Ore to a local station somewhere deep in Caldari territory.

Wish I had a mining barge already...

Setting my own goals for Eve Online

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:13:52 -0700

In previous entries I've noted how big and complicated Eve Online is as a game. I also noted that it's one of those games that attract people like me, who are less interested in the grind and more interested in being...well...interested. I hate playing any game where the fun times are few and far between. There's something suspicious about spending hour after hour grinding though repetitive scenarios without really sensing some form of accomplishment.

Eve has proven, so far, to evade that feeling. Even though running missions and mining is still technically grinding, it's somewhat displaced as being an artificial grind. It's more a realistic grind. It's hard to put my finger on it, but when you're mining in Eve Online there's a strong sense of connection to the rest of Eve. Since Eve has a real economy you know mining a bunch of Ore isn't just a pointless ISK generating activity where the ISK magically appears from the CCP compiled code on a server - it's coming out of another player's pocket instead.

Some of the best fun so far have been simple things. Missions are fun and engaging, but creeping up on a Corp mate after mastering the art of scanning and shooting a few Sabretooth light missiles at their Osprey in a belt is even more fun. As usual engaging real people is far more interesting (that word again) than a predictable NPC. Or there's warping into Uitra with a few mates and putting on a show for the locals (mostly lots of people just getting started) with missiles, nos, and flaring invuln fields as much entertainment as a fireworks display.

My own goals are twofold. The first is to go seek out more interesting encounters. I've gone off the idea a little of bringing a Cruiser down to lowsec when the aim is mischief and exploration. Instead I may start cross-training a few races' Frigate skills and play around with those. I keep hearing Rifter's are arguably the best PvP Tech 1 frigate so I'll be putting that assumption to the test by training Minmatar Frigate to lvl4 to start with.

The second goal is be a little bit more specific in what I train. Up until now I've been training anything that looks attractive and which has a training time of less than a day. Surprising how much that actually works for the first month and a half. Most of those are now tapped out and I am running into training periods of two or more days. So rather than extend my all-purpose skillset across weeks and months, I'm specialising now.

The three broad areas I'll be first addressing are:

1. Gunnery
2. Missiles
3. ECM

The first is up there since I want to play around with the frigates of a few races. Outside the Caldari, the weapons requirements for a standard fitting require Gunnery skills. I estimate this will take up a chunk of time - which goes to show my lacking skills in this area will make Eve less interesting until I train them up. Why frigates? Because they are cheap disposable ships and I can bulk purchase and haul them to specific resupply spots near any lowsec haunts I find attractive. Cruisers would be more expensive, and while they might live longer I'm willing to admit my total lack of experience is better served by learning in cheaper easy to replace ships that barely dent my wallet.

Missiles are almost not worth mentioning. I'm been training these skills ever since I started in Eve so my only real focus here is increasing my Heavy Missile skills for the new Drake Battlecruiser I'm in the process of purchasing. That and moving all Missile skills to at least Level 4 and 5 for the more general purpose skills. I may just settle on 4 until the Gunnery skills are gaining ground.

ECM is really the result of wanting something useful other than blowing stuff up. I'd put a few things in this category other than ECM only, e.g. sensor dampening, target painting, and their counter-skills. My initial take, without prompting from more experienced players to blow holes in it ;), is that Missiles/Railguns + ECM/Sensor Dampening isn't a bad mix of potential fun making chaos. Sure, it means mixing and matching but I'd be seeking mischief as a solo ship in the Frigate-Cruiser range anyway. And dying horribly is only a bad thing if I learn nothing from it . My ECM and related skills are continuing to mount up and I just finished Electonics 5 (one of the few 5's I've so far trained).

My only other real concern is efficient fitting of ships. I've played around with the Eve Ship Fitting Tool and my preferred passive shield tanked Drake fittings still don't fly. Apparently I run short of Capacitor for at least two modules (best fit requires dropping a Heavy Missile Launcher and a Large Shield Extender). Pretty sore about losing an LSE, but the resistance amps and invuln fields are the more valuable ones. I could mangle it a bit to use up all the available slots but I think I can solve the bottleneck by training Shield Upgrades 4 (might need at least 5). A short term solution is freeing up a slot for a Capacitor Battery or something similar to increase the Capacitor available for fittings. Still not perfect, esp. for a passive tank, but enough for Level 2 and 3 Missions with some care I bet.

Anyone care to comment a few pointers?

The Nemesis Prime hits the drawing board

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:21:14 -0700

A while back I posted about the Narcissus Prime, my new Caldari Caracal. This time the Nemesis Prime is about to hit the drawing board as my first baby step into the Battlecruiser class of Caldari vessels.

The Nemesis will be my first Drake Battlecruiser primarily designed for PvE (i.e. missions and hunting NPC pirates in asteroid belts). I've been checking the prices recently and they ranged from 32 million to 35 million ISK depending on the regional market and of course time. I've seen prices as low as 30 million previously. Obviously it's quite a chunk of ISK to spend, and even more obviously it only gets worse when you go looking to purchase fittings! There are folk in Evolution Alliance who manufacture ships so I have a possible lead on an available Drake for sale within the Alliance.

Since it's a PvE designated ship for Level 2 and 3 missions and some NPC ratting, I won't be going overboard. While I'd love to outfit a new Drake with Tech 2 fittings, I neither have the skills nor the ISK (I have a lot of ISK - but could you fit a Tech 2 Drake for less than 50 million?). So I'm going with Named Modules for now.

Being a Drake, it's shield tanking is incredible. I'm likely to go with a passive tank since it leverages my skills better. I am really close to training Shield Operation 4 which will in turn let me train specific skills to increase Shield Amplifier resistances. I don't use active hardeners yet, and I prefer to train one particular tanking ability only. So a passive tank is inevitable. Energy Grid Upgrades will need another level here too to fit Shield Rechargers.

Besides the highs which will be filled with Heavy Missile Launchers, I may start looking into Rigs. I honestly haven't the foggiest idea about rigs since it hardly seemed worthwhile fitting them on a Cruiser which has laughed at every Level 2 mission (and even a few Level 3's) thrown at it. My Caracal with it's active shield tank is not a force to trifle with.

This whole turning point of entering Battlecruisers of course also means I will certainly be moving into Level 3 missions soon. Hopefully the additional ISK and salvage from these missions will let me enter the realm of viewing Cruisers as disposable items. I want to finish off a few longer running skills before making a few visits to lowsec with my +3 implants (which will obviously get lost when podkilled so long skills first before I lose them for a week or two of persistance and stubborn lowsec invading ).

I'm thinking I will make the journey down to the Alliance 0.0 space to start with just to get familiar with the route and see what trouble I can get into. I've never experienced a gatecamp, get ambushed by Pirates when lowsec ratting, see what happens to an Osprey sitting in a belt of Omber, and figure out what I can learn from those experiences that written guides can't quite convey.

I think I Need To Be Ganked...

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:35:54 -0700

It dawned on me recently that I had hit a bit of a dead end in Eve. The dead end is ISK. Odd, though true, I have discovered my capacity to earn ISK has now exceeded my ability to spend it. I'm not a big believer in being a hoarder just to boast of my ISKiness, so I went on a spending spree, spending attrocious amounts on Skill Books on a mid-term plan to gain a 3 in every possible skill that doesn't require training for more than a day.

Not sure if this meets the criteria of the all-purpose specialised in nothing character, but I seriously doubt it. The truth is that there are enough skills useful to me as a future PVP pod pilot that I could continue spending ISK like water for a while yet.

It's intriguing to discover making ISK in Eve is not the biggest concern I'll ever have as a player. I think the skills are the problematic party! I'm currently facing up to the prospect that very soon I'll be facing a period of skill prioritisation where the lengthened training time of multiple days starts to slow down my character growth and push me into a specialised path. ISK may yet again become a factor once I purchase and begin outgrowing a Caldari Drake Battlecruiser, but for the moment I've decided to sit down and think hard on where I, as a PVP character, should focus the upcoming long skills.

At the moment I've spent upwards of a week and a half training for ECM skills, spurred on by the CIDEV Frigate Tournament. In turn, the cap eating ECM modules have sparked a new craze in maxing out all those basic skills like Electonics (which I want for another skill to boost ECM strength). Learning skills to increase skill speed and attributes are again biting for attention. I may actually pull up Battlecruiser 4, and then switch to hitting 4 on all learning skills I can possibly buy the skill books for. Then move to the long haul for level 5 skills in Learning.

The other newly emerging factor is that when ISK temporarily ceases to be a problem, you just know Frigates and Cruisers have reached the point of being disposable. You know what happens when you have disposable ships? You feel less inclined to safeguard them! I think it's nearing the time when I will set course for low-sec and get myself killed a few times over to learn from the experience.

On this random tangent, it spurs the idea that this path is effectively equivelant to paying around 5-10 million ISK a pop to gain Lowsec Survival 5 as a skill . People who lose their ships on risky adventures and cry about it after really must be irritating to experienced players. Here I am predicting the loss of upwards of 50 million just to play chicken with all takers down in lowsec. Weird attitude on my part? I do have implants in my clone's head, and no, I don't yet have a 8.0 standing to use jumpclones. I pretty much assume after Learning skills and I can live without them for a while continually killing or being killed down in lowsec until I have an 8.0 standing with some NPC corporation.

Maybe I'm just insane? I haven't seen much of a push towards PVP in CIDEV other than the Miss Galancia inspired bloodthirty jaunts after the Eve Tournament (I bet the lowsec oldhands just love the post-Tournament period when everyone want a taste of PVP suddenly ).

I'm no Pirate so I will probably ramble around displaying myself as a bumbling idiot player who doesn't understand anything about lowsec survival, and is therefore so in need of being podded as a lesson. The aim is to attract a fight, get killed, and then figure out how to improve my chances for next time.

Maybe if I ask for directions to Jita in Local it will attract a few vultures?

Recaptcha!

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:31:27 -0700

Now that the blog has been googled, it's become the target of the usual blog spammers that afflict all blogs. To head off any epidemic of comment spam while allowing readers not to fall afoul of delayed moderation prior to their comment publication, I've installed the Recaptcha plugin which in my opinion is the only free Captcha worth using since it includes an alternative for those with vision problems.

CIDEV Gets A Website

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:48:00 -0700

It's same old story, Caldari web application programmer joins website-less Corporation. Inevitably Corporation gets a website...

And so http://www.crimsonindustries.com was born. Home of the Crimson Industries and Development corporation.

The new website is still in its infancy but I have installed a reasonable frontend, forums, killboard, and the starting point of some online reference guides and future Corporation applications. The purpose of the website, obviously, is to offer the Corporation a boosted online presence while allowing for out-of-game communication using the forums. I'll be press ganging Corpies into signing up for forum accounts during the week.

The Eve-Development Killboard took some work to get going. The Eve-Dev.net website lists the current stable version as 1.2.2. Unfortunately that version does not install and results in failing MySQL queries. Luckily a search of the forums and some detective work uncovered regular snapshot downloads of the current in-development 1.4 version. Maybe whoever prepares these could use export in place of checkout since the download also bundles the excess .svn directories. In any case I went one better, figured out where the subversion repository was lurking online, and checked out a fresh copy myself direct to the server . Installation was flawless - a significant improvement over 1.2.2.

The website was also modified a little to work in-game. The In-Game Browser (IGB) has crap CSS2 rendering ability and all the usual CSS layouts fail - the IGB is pretty poor either way since the Eve client doesn't even seem to give it a new thread so it's really slow. But semantic HTML does make for a pretty decent IGB page - so all IGB requests are responded to without any CSS links. A simple user agent check server-side strips the CSS styles from requested page headers. It looks quite good - perhaps some minor styling and spacing issues some custom IGB css can easily fix.

The site is currently powered by the Zend Framework 1.5 and HTMLPurifier and runs on PHP5. Obviously overkill for simple sites - but I plan on layering in some handly utilities for the Corporation to utilise both in and out-of-game.

P.S. Apparently it's popular to use PHPNuke for corporation/alliance websites. Please don't. I haven't seen such an explosion of PHPNuke since the early 2000s and it certainly wasn't pretty or secure back then either.

Err, Join a Corporation?

nospam@example.com (Pádraic Brady) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:25:09 -0700

Maugrim McFiriba, Caldari Entrepeneur (and bane of the Guristas). That's me.

When I first entered Eve I found myself lost in a very large ocean (some call it a sandbox, but the ocean is bigger, so there!). And it's true - in any big ocean you will inevitably become lost, aimless and without direction.

My biggest step in discovering how fun Eve can be was joining a Corporation and discovering the internal compass that seems to spark to life. Crazy Kinux just posted a guide on finding the right Corporation so do please go read. It's sound advice.

Joining a Corporation provides a huge benefit. You should now have access to the collective knowledge of the Corp. They should be more than willing to share it. And they should offer your gameplay a bit more structure than simply completing Level 1 Missions. At the moment my Corp is organising a private tournament to provide some combat experience to all members. We're only using Frigates (which become cheap disposables in Eve very fast ) but seeing how others fight and how effective their tactics are is invaluable. You won't learn that by yourself without doing it the hard way!

For me, in my first week as a Corpie, I learned that Salvaging = ISK, Social Skills = Level 2/3 Missions = ISK, Mining Ops = ISK, and above all else: ISK = Skills. Do learn those skills. Here's another one: Implants = Faster Skills.

These apparently microscopic nuggets of wisdom were shared with me in my new Corporation some weeks ago and have stood me in good stead. Yet they seem to float outside the perception of so many new Corpless players. They say Eve has a steep learning curve, and they are absolutely right - it's horrendous at times. What new players miss is that like any great mountaineering expedition things go far easier with a support team and companions.

So go join a Corp!

And yes, Crimson Industries and Development are recruiting, so feel free to message myself or my CEO, ViolenceFetish, in-game. Or apply at our Uitra State Academy head office. See? This blog post does indeed have ulterior motives. What can I say - I'm Caldari.