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!

Update (Long)

Wow, its been a while since I posted so here is the lowdown on what's been going on.

TF2

I've been spending a lot of time in TF2 lately trying to get the spy and sniper unlockables. I had taken a hiatus from TF2 so I'm also missing the heavy and scout stuff too.

When Valve first introduced the unlockables it was based on an achievement system. That is, you had a list of 30 or so achievements per class and by getting them done you "earned" the unlocks. For every 10 achievements you got you received one of the three unlocks (per class).

With the sniper/spy update they changed things up. Now to get an unlockable you need to spend an amount of time in game (it's been every hour for me) and then you randomly receive an unlockable (from a random class).

It has been quite interesting watching the fallout of this decision. Just check out the boards...

There are drawbacks and merits to both systems. Personally, I hated the achievement system. I want to play and have fun not quest for my new weapons. The new system is kind of screwy though... I've gotten a lot of stuff I already had (including 4 backburners) and only 3 unlocks I did not have already.

I still think TF2 is the best game for the money though. For a mere twenty dollars you get a great game that is still being actively developed with new content every few months.

EVE

I have not been in EVE a whole lot lately due to TF2 unlocks and studying/practice (see below). My industry corp continues to crank out goods which are selling for a decent profit. There isn't anything particular to report on, pretty much industry as usual here.

I've got some ideas brewing that I am actively working on but it requires skill training time on some alts. When this skill time is complete I plan on getting my corp into invention. I'm looking forward to this but need to do some research on what is best for entry level invention. When getting into production for the first time a lot of people start with ammo. I read somewhere that tech 2 ammo isn't the best thing to do.

My side project has halted my PVP character's training. I will be resuming hopefully soon though.

Free Realms

The wife and I created a few characters in Free Realms, Sony's new free to play game. She took up the occupation of a cook and I a miner. Neither of us are paying for the game, nor do we really plan to. I may purchase a pet, not sure yet...

I have been disappointed with the line of quests in the miner profession. At the very beginning (1-5), you would mine and quest (like 8 quests) and get to the next tier very easily. But level 6-10 you got fewer quests and had to grind that mining game longer. And then level 11-15 I only got 3 quests I think and had to grind out close to 2 whole levels. Now I'm level 15, and there was only 1 quest to do. So here I am, halfway into level 15 and apparently I need to grind out 4 1/2 levels? That's ridiculous! It should be fun to level, not so grindy.

The world is just simply beautifully to walk around in though. There is a lot to see and do and every area seems to have its own look and feel.

I'm currently playing around with my adventurer and brawler. I hope there is more to do than the miner.

Pilot

The end of last month and the beginning of this month I was spending a lot of time studying and practicing for my Private Pilot practical exam. I don't believe I've ever been so nervous in my life.

I scheduled my practical for the beginning of this month but the weather turned for the worse and had to reschedule. But a week later the weather turned just fantastic (a high pressure system came in and lurked around for a few days) and I was a go.

So I flew down to the examiner early that morning. I arrived about 30 minutes early but the examiner was okay with that. The oral/talking portion of the exam went rather well. He grilled me for about 2 hours on all kinds of things. I have always been pretty book smart.

When I got to the flying portion I started getting really nervous though. I made a number of stupid mistakes in the beginning but I think he saw how nervous I was. After that I started to settle down and did okay for the remainder. After my final landing and starting to taxi back, the examiner said congratulations and I had passed!

So I am now officially a pilot. It's been my childhood goal since I was 8 or 10 years old. Now I'm trying to figure out what to get into next. Should I get my instrument rating or get into twin engine planes? Decisions, decisions. But for now, I am extremely happy!

I took the wife up about a week ago and there wasn't a bump in the sky anywhere. I couldn't have asked for a better day for our first flight together.

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.