Logistics

I've spent quite some time away from game but I'm back now. This past week has been all about picking up where I left off and logistics.

While perusing the EVE forums I found something that really sounded interesting called Red versus Blue. Sounded like a lot of fun and a great fit for my low SP PVP guy, so I joined up! Was accepted into team Blue late last night. Can't wait to get into some action hopefully tonight and the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.

My Industry guy finished up missioning for Duvolle so I can now get level IV R&D agents. He's on his way toward Invention but still a long way to go yet. I also baked up a bunch of Rifters and T1 fittings for my PVP guy. Took two round trips to get all the stuff there. But he now has 14 fully fit Rifters ready to go.

I decided to fit 7 of them for buffer tank and 7 of them for active tank. I also splurged a bit and fit a few of them T2. The T2 fittings add up in cost quickly. I'm a complete PVP newb so I have no idea what works and what doesn't. They are fit with pretty classical Rifter fits. Can't wait to try them out!

All for Nothing

I've been trying to get my standings up with a particular corporation. Perhaps it was my hiatus away from EVE... or maybe I said something wrong.. but all the sudden my agent was giving me missions into low-sec.

I vowed a long time ago never to enter that pirate infested lawless place called low-sec. But my agent persisted...

First he wanted me to deliver some sort of classified top secret containers to some station I've never heard of. He told me I would be making jumps through two low-sec systems. I asked him what was inside and why I should risk my rear going through low-sec. He wouldn't tell me, he just kept iterating that they were critical and time sensitive. The containers were locked up with some sort of advanced security, so I couldn't peek. So I told him no thanks, low-sec is no place for a care bear such as myself.

Next he told me some transports in low-sec were being attacked by pirates and needed help immediately. Huh? I told him this is exactly the reason I would not travel to low-sec! Outlaws live there... and nasty things happen to unsuspecting innocents... And now, since I declined to take your top secret crap to some god forsaken station on the other side of low-sec, I need to go bail out whoever you sent in my stead?

I walked away rather frustrated and mad. After cooling off and taking some time away I returned to him about 4 hours later. I said no way, but I will gladly accept a different mission.

He told me he had these top secret containers that needed to get to some station I've never heard of on the other side of low-sec. Unbelievable this guy! We had apparently reached an impasse, he needed something delivered and I was unwilling to risk my hide for him. Fine, whatever... no guts no glory... I grabbed a few large shield extenders and some stabs and off I went...

Before I knew it I was on the high-sec side of a jump gate into low-sec. Upon downloading instructions to initiate the jump, a gigantic warning popped up on my system: You are about to enter low-sec, there is no CONCORD protection here. You may lose your ship. Sigh... proceed... I knew full well I'd probably be jumping into a gate camp or something.

My systems came back online shortly after and there was nothing. In fact there were only 4 people in the system! I continued my journey... there were only 5 people in the next system. As I was warping I checked out the other people in local, they did not look like law abiding citizens. But I made it! And I was still alive!

My return trip was pretty much the same... the jump gates were barren and only a handful of people in local. The mission was a success and I made it back to my home in one piece. In fact, a few missions later, my agent asked to make a return trip (they must have been pleased by my first mission's success). And that mission was a success as well.

The fear I have of low-sec is apparently unwarranted. Certainly I would not go ratting there... But for a simple jaunt from gate to gate? Sure!

Boxed Edition

In case you didn't know, EVE is being released in a boxed edition this expansion. Best Buy has is coming out in two days time.

I really hope it draws some more people into the game. The 60 day "free" playtime included is double what you normally get in other online games like WOW or EQ.

I'm really bummed they took down the forums. I was really looking forward to Halada's new guide today. Guess I will have to wait a while longer...

More Apocrypha Goodness

OMG!

Halada's Mining Guide is what got me going when I first started EVE. And I would bet a lot of ISK this is true for a lot of people.

He will be releasing version 3.0 the same day Apocrypha goes out. He is extending the guide to encompass Industry as well.

The guide will cover the following topics:

INTRODUCTION
Starting out
Attributes
Choosing a career

MINING
All from version 2.0 +
Orca+Rorqual Strategic uses

MANUFACTURING
Basics
ME/PE
Tech 1
Tech 2
Tech 3*
Drugs
Capital Ships
Supercaps (sorting logistics, securing exchange, maximize security)

RESEARCH
Basics
Labs
Copying
Researching (Perfect ME, etc.heyim)
BPO/BPC

INVENTION
Basics
TBA

STARBASES
Basics
Moon Mining & Reactions
POS Manufacturing
Tower Setups (Deathstar, Staging, etc)
Sovereignty
Tips (how to fuel, how to setup, tools, etc.)

OUTPOSTS
Basics
Upgrades (refinery and factory, worth upgrading?)
Logistics
How to maximize efficiency (upgrade vs extra factory?)
Deep Space Manufacturing (mineral compression)

MARKET & TRADING
IPO & Investments
Mineral Trading
Courier Contracts
General Trading

EXPLORATION
Probing
Wormholes*
WH Space Deployment*

RESOURCES
Tools
Links

CREDITS
Credits
Thanks

*marked content will be released 30 days after release in a new
revision

Skill Queues

Oh man... I can't wait...

The skill queueing system in Apocrypha is going to be better than sliced bread.

Have you seen their new Apocrypha site? They are really going all out this expansion.

Something Old, Something New...

Eternity II

I posted something about the Eternity II puzzle a while back. This puzzle still has not been solved (and I kind of doubt it will be, at least not without a lot of hints).

Over the past few weekends I have been revisiting my solver code and seeing what improvements I could make. It's been amazing! I've had new ideas and new approaches to take. All in all I've sped my solver up by 250%.

I run my solver in idle processing mode (so it doesn't interfere with my gaming). My old solver would get around 10 million placements a second. My new one gets 25 million. When I compile it for pure speed (i.e. no pretty pictures of its current state and a bump of processor priority) I'm closer to 30 million. And that number is per core!

EVE Blue

In my last post I mentioned I've been working on my own Industry program for EVE. This has been progressing rather well. I've named it simply Blue (for blueprint).

I've pulled and integrated the last EVE data dump. My character editor will download character stats with EVE API. I've also got integration to EVE Central.

After combining all this information and also information on station pricing (i.e. manufacturing, research) I can generate an array of reporting. For one of my reports I feed it a character and a fictitious ML and PL, and it gives me numbers on what blueprints may be worth buying for a particular region. Of course all this information needs to be taken with a grain of salt and researched in game before any action taken.

Here is a picture of my report here but I can't get blogger to show it full size... you will need to click it to read it proper.



I need to integrate sales volume from the market window into this program somehow too. This would give me more accurate data.

Transitioning

I've been progressing as a miner ever since I entered the world of EVE 5 months ago. Other than a few minor skills to shore up here and there, Ive gotten about as far as I wish to go at this time. My character can fly a Hulk and process any non 0.0 ore with 100% efficiency. I have not yet trained Exhumers V nor do I plan to at this time. I think there are more important things I could be training in the 28+ days it would take.

I've been dabbling a little in manufacturing already. I understand the basics but I need to get more serious. What I really need to do is sit down and crunch some numbers. I've started to write my own program to help with this. I've looked at some of the ones already out there but I know the numbers and layout I'm looking for and I've not been satisfied with what's out there already. Writing my own program will also help me learn manufacturing better, too.

Tagged!

Well, I've been tagged by Blackheart. I am both surprised and humbled people actually read my blog. Most every EVE blog I read has been tagged already so I won't bother perpetuating the game, but I will list my 7 things.

Here are the rules of this game of tag:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

And here are my 7 random and/or weird things:

• I am an alumni of The Ohio State University with a Computer Engineering degree. Go Bucks!
• My favorite television show is Stargate. I also watch a few of the reality shows like Survivor (I was a Bob fan) and The Amazing Race.
• I am a very Introverted person. Social situations are very difficult for me.
• My wife and I got our SCUBA certification earlier this year. We then went on a cruise to celebrate. The diving in Cozumel is awesome.
• I'm learning to become a real pilot. It's been a dream of mine since I was like 5 years old.
• I work for a company specializing in Grocery stores. Specifically, I work on Point of Sale systems.
• I am a member of Mensa.
  

Now that didn't take long at all

The Hulk is an amazing machine. I've already earned back my investment and then some! I suppose the current Tritanium prices are a huge help. Also, timing was good too. I bought my Hulk before the T2 market went all to hell (Hulk prices are up at least 20% in my area) due to the exploit fix.

Now I have a new problem: It takes frigging forever to haul all that ore and mineral to market. I'm seriously debating taking a month or so detour to train up Freighters (i.e. a Charon).

Your tax dollars at work

The crew of people in every station that repackage things amaze me. No matter how worn or old something is these guys come in and clean it up to look brand new! And these are government people! I even saw one of them going around spraying that new ship smell over everything.

I've offered to pay them in the past (I had them come in and repackage my old Osprey mining ship) but they always politely refuse. I wish more people were like this. They know their job and they do it very well. No frills or drama involved, just results.

Hulk just a day away...

And I can't wait! Its taken a bit to save up all the ISK to buy a brand new Hulk (82 mil) and the Exhumers Book (25 mil) but I did it. I've got a day left now in Exhumers training and I'm there!

When I get my Hulk I'll be focusing on getting my coffers back up to pre-Hulk levels and training Drones. I've been so focused on Hulk training my other skills are lacking. After Drones I need to get a good PvE ship and fit it nicely for missioning. I've been thinking a Drake for this. My newly acquired drone skills should offset all the missile nerfing as of late.

After that, I'm not sure. Probably I will get those last few skills in Industry where I want them then switch to Science for Invention.

My PvP alt is almost ready for some fun now too. Just a little while left his learning skills then I'll start in on the core, frigate, and gunnery skills.

Progress Bar

Or is it progress circle? I love the new progress timer CCP added!

My Retriever can only hold one strip miner cycle worth of ore. So I stagger my strips with a 10 second or so delay in order to give me time to drag out ore from the first strip before the second strip completes. If the second strip miner cycle completes while the ore from the first is still in my cargo hold, I loose out on much of that ore. In addition, I need to restart that second strip which takes more time.

When I mine I do a lot of other things in the background and try to keep a loose eye on what's going on in EVE. I would try to look at my clock and estimate the cycle end time. Most of the time this works but occasionally I loose track of time and loose out on some ore.

But now, with the new progress timers, I can see how close to cycle end I am with a single glance! Very nice indeed!

Geeking Out

Had a great EVE weekend! My wife let me geek out pretty much all day Saturday. Did a lot of mining and catching up from my hiatus the last few weeks.

Spent most of the morning mining. I replenished the stock of most all my minerals and sold what I had excess of. Tritanium is going for the highest I have ever seen it so I concentrated a lot of effort here. Made a small bundle but it was short lived.

I spent the afternoon identifying BPO's worth purchasing. So I bought about half a dozen BPO's in the late afternoon. ISK is easy come easy go I suppose... Threw most of the BPO's into ME research and then threw some of my older BPO's, which have already have ME, into PE research. I wish the ME research queues were as short at the PE ones. I've been wanting to get PE research done on my older BPO's for some time, it was nice to finally start this process.

Now I have a conflict though. As I mentioned a few days back I am less than a month from flying a Hulk so I really need to start saving for that. There are also some some expensive skill books I will be needing to buy here in a few weeks. I probably should not be spending the ISK like I did this weekend. But you need to spend ISK to make ISK.

More than I asked for

I was checking out my sales log last night and to my surprise there are people paying more for the stuff I am selling than I asked. Sometimes way more!

Is there some sort of mechanic in the game I have missed? When I look for goods to buy I open up the market window, search the item, and then figure out the cheapest price in a reasonable amount of jumps. I don't really see a way to pay more for an item than is asked unless you actually type it into the buy window.

Perhaps people are just so thrilled to be paying out ISK they feel obligated to tip me for the opportunity.

Update

Sorry for the lack up updates recently but I had some last minute work related travels a few weeks back. Then as soon as I get home I was off to the Caribbean for a week long cruise. Did some Scuba diving and shopping. Saw some Mayan ruins too. Fun times! Anyway back now.

My first batch of manufacturing goods were all sold. Made a decent profit of around 15%. I stuck another few jobs in the oven. They will be ready for sale end of week. My main is still working towards her Hulk, under a month of skill training now. I can't wait.

My PvP alt is still skilling up learning. It's going to be a while before I do anything serious with him so nothing much else to report.

Back in Business! Again!

Ugh... I seem to be having the worst luck lately...

I booted up my computer this past Friday evening and ended up with a black screen! I would get my Vista login prompt just fine... I'd log in... and that was that. I had a black screen with only a mouse cursor visible.

I rebooted and rebooted and tried safe mode... nothing seemed to get rid of my black screen. I even tried a restore point (using the Vista install disk restore function) and still nothing worked.

After consulting the all knowing Google, this is apparently a known issue. And the only way to fix is a re-install of Vista. I read that there was some luck with a settings change but that presumed you could get into Vista at least in safe mode.

So that is how I spent my weekend... re-installing Vista and recovering my data.

Everything is back up now though. My BPO's come out research early next month so I will start manufacturing soon. Should be fun and interesting.

Back in Business!

Yay! Power got restored yesterday! What a relief. Did two loads of dish washing, a load of laundry, went to the store to partially repopulate the refrigerator. Life is getting back to normal.

In my downtime I decided I will be getting a second account for sure. Was thinking of doing this tonight. Going to create a Caldari (all my other chars are Caldari) PvP build and get him started on learning skills. It will be a while before I do anything serious with him so training will be good.

Haha! I said "him"!

Its odd... all my other chars are industry types and female. But for my PvP I want a male. Not sure why... just how it is I suppose. In EQ2 all my healers were female. I couldn't bring myself to roll a male healer. Not trying to be sexist or anything, just pointing out an oddity.

Second Account?

I'm seriously considering the Power of 2 promotion from EVE. I've been debating now for a while on getting a second account to train up a PvP alt. Seems this is a perfect opportunity to do so at a reduced rate. I'm not quite when I would start playing the alt, but I could at least start a training program.

I rolled an alt on my primary account last night and formed a corp just to play around. I'm still trying to make heads and tails of how to setup all the Divisions and Wallets. Not sure if they are used for specific tasks (i.e. BPO purchases, research) or more generic/broader purposes (i.e. Industry, Trade). Also, I need to figure out how to partition off corp members and what they have access to.

One would think a handy corp setup guide would be out there somewhere. Seems like there are guides for every other topic. But alas, I couldn't find one...

My eventual goal is to get my current main in the corp and then generate lots of ISK to support my PvP.

An Experiment

I was out mining Friday night when in warps some random Pirate to the belt I was in. For the most part, I'm not to worried about these guys because I mine only in high sec currently. But this one made a line right for me, targeted me, and orbited me for a few minutes. I just kept mining away and few minutes later he warped off... but it got me thinking.

Next time this occurs I think I'll have a little fun. I'll target back and drop a jetcan with one Veldspar in it or something (or multiple jet cans). Basically, try to take as much of their time up as possible just to screw with them.

Should be interesting. I figure if they can have so much fun with poor little defenseless miners why not have some fun back?

Level II missions available

Well, as the title suggests I finally have a few level II mission agents available to me. I earned enough standing with Caldari Navy over the weekend. Have not tried any yet... I need to get my drone skills up and find a good Cruiser build first.

I will finally have the magical Refining V, Refining Efficiency IV, and Ore Processing I in a few hours. So I can refine at a 100% minus whatever the station takes. I'm working on that though (see above)...