Summer Time! -or- Why I'm Not Writing Much

Hello!  Not dead over here, just resting.  I figured now would be as a good a time as any to let people know that my slowdown in blogging is due to a few factors, and will likely continue for the next few months.  A lot happened over the last two weeks, and few things are coming, namely:

• I got a full time internship that pays real money, and lasts all summer!
• I had to (got the chance) move to DC for the internship!
• Sightseeing!
• I'm getting married in two months!
• It's summer.

So yeah, Eve is a bit back seat for the short term, and if Eve is back seat, the blog comes after I get to play :).  Anyhow, thanks to those who are coming by to read!  I'll still be posting, and still playing, but I'm focused on some other things for the time being.

Inferno First Impressions

The Good

• The new missile launchers are very pretty.  Staggering launchers is now really fun!
• The Wardec screen is much more legible.
• All the new screen revamps look pretty.
• Most of the new SB models look nice.
• Once you get used to it, looting no longer has the slight movement every time you get to a new wreck.

The Bad

• Right clicking on a corp in the wardec screen only gives "Declare Mutual" and no option to "Show Info".  That's frustrating.
• It is now much harder to see into two "containers" at once, such as your ship's hold and a loot can.  Grr.  Shift clicking is an extra step.  I didn't try it, heard it works, we'll see.  It's still an extra step...
• The new Tree structure on the Inventory eats screen real estate.  This is challenging when you open, say, Inventory, Market and Wallet screens to manage market orders.
• The Inventory takes longer to load.  Not good.
• The "ghosting" effect of text in the new inventory.  It's harder to read. 

The Ugly

• The missile launchers on my Tengu.  I would really like to see either larger wings with an over/under turret placement, or place them in a nice line on the slant of the hull.  Right now it looks... wonky.
• Drone Battleship explosions seem to be MIA.
• Directional lighting for 3D models in the Market.  Not bad, per se, but it's always been hard to really appreciate the ships with the dark lighting.

Adding Weight to Wars

After reading a lot of post about wardec changes, and thinking about the new v the old systems, and then digging into my own thoughts, I keep finding myself asking:  What is the point of War Declarations in High Sec?

At the core, a war dec allows Corp A to pay a penalty (isk), and in exchange Corp A gets a free pass to kill anyone in Corp B for a period of time.  Simple enough, you are paying to suspend the normal rules of the game.  But what is the point of this suspension of rules?  It is clear for Corp A, if ship destruction and loot, or the more esoteric value of tears are considered valuable.  Corp B gains very little.  A change to learn how to harden up, possibly get some kills or loot, or a chance to sit in a station for a week to hopefully bore the attackers into not paying for more rule suspension.  Oddly imbalanced no matter how you look at it.  And if you have made it this far, I promise there is an actual point to MY ramblings on this topic.

What is missing in this whole equation of war decs is meaning.  Corp A and Corp B will gain two things out of the conflict:  Killboard info and maybe isk.  This seems like a poor trade for disruption of the rules. I think there should be more at stake for both sides.  Defenders should have a reward for actually defending.  Attackers should have a reward for succeeding.  You could play with this in a lot of ways.  Kills could reward LP or Standings.  A loss (for either side) could result in station rights or office access changes.  Wardecs could become a tool to bring Faction Warfare into High Sec in a very limited way.  I'm not sure what the right answer is, but it seems odd that wardecs are allowed by the Empire factions if they do nothing but act as an isk sink.

And this could go deeper into how Corporations work.  Perhaps if you found a corp, your office and HQ locations become de facto Faction indicators.  So if you HQ Fancy Pony Bros in Rens, you are a de facto Minmatar corp, and can only be wardecced by non Gallente or Minmatar corps.  Low sec HQs would be unaligned, or choose a FW group to affiliate with.  Null corps would obviously be outside the purview of faction standing.  A huge portion of Eve's fiction and story is tied to the interplay between Empire and Pirate factions.

This is obviously a half-baked set of thoughts, but I think wars need more meaning to make them matter beyond how they hit player wallets.  Let's make player corporations a part of the larger story of Eve.  Let's make wars matter when moons are not being fought over.

Flame away!

Fail Fits and Rookies

Edit: A commenter noted that I am wrong about the tutorials teaching players to use multiple tank types.  This is very probably right.  I do no think that alters my fundamental point.

Read this over at Poetic, and the comments.  Always a fun time, reading the comments.  I'm torn on how to handle fail fits.  I'm sure I have some fail fits that I like, elite players be damned.  I also want to laugh at fail fits.  But then I wonder, did that fail fit player buy some PLEX and go nuts, only to get his investment all blowed up and not understand why?  And why do so many people ignore advice from those that blew them up?  Questions without answers.  But one thing could be done.

CCP could make the tutorials actually teach people about fits instead of having tutorial missions that encourage fail fits in a roundabout way.  I'm talking about those starter tutorial chains that give you a frigate, then give you an armor repper, then give you a shield booster.  And each mission tells you to use that specific module.  Not very good.  Arydanika talked about this on her blog a few weeks or months ago with some low-sec style guys, and they came to the conclusion that there should be fitting tutorials.  I agree.

So I propose, in the same vein, the following tutorials to be added as a Capsuleer Ship Fitting chain, given to you at the same time as the other newbie tutorials, or possible after the military/combat chain:

1. Charge the Batteries: Teaching capacitor basics.
2. Plugging in the Chips: Fitting to CPU requirements.
3. Turning on the Lights: Fitting to powergrid requirements.
4. She Can't Take Anymore, Captain!: Shield tanking.
5. Structural Integrity: Armor tanking.
6. Fire When You See the Whites of Their Eyes: Close range fitting.
7. Get Under Their Guns: Close range combat
8. One Shot, One Kill: Long range fitting.
9. Tack to Starboard: Long range fighting and kiting.
10. We're Going to Need a Bigger Ship: Moving up to a destroyer.

There, I made names and topics.  CCP can do the rest.

Faction Warfare in Inferno

I just read the new dev blog.  My two main accounts are faction standing agnostic, in that they decline any and all anti-faction missions because I have a habit of relocating to various areas in space.  Grimmash so far has 8+ standings with the Amarr Navy, Federation Navy and Ishukone Watch, as does my industrial pilot.  On those characters I value the ability to get perfect refines and jumps clones anywhere, and I like being able to fly in any area of space without wondering if gate guns are going to light me up like Paxista smuggling a certain book.

But my third account has a frigate pilot that does not care a whit about faction standings. She's only meant for fun.  The new FW changes excite me, and after a week and half of the trade alt training for more order slots, I may have to get that pilot up to Tech II projectiles.  The thought of having meaningful, structured pvp appeals to me.  I spent an all too brief stint in RvB, having fun blowing people up, and I have... 50 or so Rifters and half as many Thrashers languishing over in the RvB systems.  I could up fit those to real pvp fits without too much trouble.  By real I mean not meta 1 modules meant to be thrown against the rocks of Blue Fleets.

All of this is my long way of saying Faction Warfare may get some attention from me soon, and that is exciting!  High sec wardecs are pointless, but the new changes to FW are adding some persistent sandbox goodness to the mix.  If you want a much better look at FW, the changes, and reasons to get excited about it, go check this site out.

Day 30: 30 Day Market Challenge

Final Results:

THE END!

And a record setting day!  And this gem happened today:

Lesson:  Pay attention to your buy orders when you type them in.  This guy put an extra "1" in the hundreds digit, and I made about 70 mil off his mistake.  Woo!

Recap 

30 days ago I gave a fresh alt 5 million isk and just the basic trade skills.  Then I almost exclusively traded in stations, setting buy orders and flipping those to sell orders.  I started in Jita, moved to Amarr and then to Dodixie, and ended up back in Jita.  5 mil was turned into 1,461 million, or a 29,236% increase is value.  Here is the overall chart of the daily reports:

You can see the dips when I moved, as I cleared out stock before moving on.

My final Trade skills are:

• Accounting 4
• Broker Relations 4
• Marketing 4
• Procurement 4
• Retail 4
• Trade 4

I didn't even use all of those skills.

Hypothesis:  You can pay for a PLEX with a new character just by station trading.

Results: True.

Addendum

The full guide will be coming with lots more info.  I expect to have it done sometime over the weekend.  As promised, here is the complete list of items I traded in, pulled from EveHQ, so I make no claims for the accuracy:

Transaction Trading Report
from Tuesday, April 10, 2012 to Friday, May 11, 2012
Item	Amount Traded	Average Unit Profit	Total Profit
100MN Afterburner II	10	696,441.72	6,964,417.21
10MN MicroWarpdrive II	2	168,664.68	337,329.36
1200mm Artillery Cannon I	7	334,995.60	2,344,969.17
1200mm Artillery Cannon II	12	1,229,084.83	14,749,017.98
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I	28	583,923.12	16,349,847.39
125mm Prototype Gauss Gun	6	136,897.88	821,387.30
1400mm Gallium Cannon	8	458,853.80	3,670,830.38
1400mm Prototype Siege Cannon	15	625,820.00	9,387,299.97
1400mm 'Scout' Artillery I	36	787,499.77	28,349,991.81
150mm Light AutoCannon I	70	24,171.72	1,692,020.58
150mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon	22	87,572.32	1,926,590.95
150mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I	15	334,822.67	5,022,340.08
1MN Afterburner II	10	528,613.80	5,286,138.03
200mm Compressed Coil Gun I	14	95,853.95	1,341,955.32
200mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I	20	198,975.35	3,979,506.96
200mm Light Gallium Machine Gun	40	106,199.89	4,247,995.50
200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I	32	489,007.61	15,648,243.50
200mm Prototype Gauss Gun	26	785,169.97	20,414,419.22
200mm Railgun II	5	640,696.27	3,203,481.37
200mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon	10	153,799.95	1,537,999.53
220mm Medium Gallium Machine Gun	22	479,051.07	10,539,123.64
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II	5	339,150.96	1,695,754.80
250mm Light Artillery Cannon I	20	52,497.07	1,049,941.41
350mm Compressed Coil Gun I	9	507,837.39	4,570,536.54
350mm Prototype Gauss Gun	20	505,361.42	10,107,228.33
425mm AutoCannon II	69	402,053.09	27,741,663.39
425mm Medium Gallium Machine Gun	31	585,406.90	18,147,613.77
425mm Medium Prototype Automatic Cannon	10	749,791.81	7,497,918.10
425mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I	27	956,597.56	25,828,133.99
425mm Railgun II	1	972,111.00	972,111.00
650mm Artillery Cannon II	4	228,790.37	915,161.48
650mm Medium Prototype Siege Cannon	20	203,999.03	4,079,980.60
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I	32	83,366.64	2,667,732.63
720mm Howitzer Artillery II	6	646,737.61	3,880,425.67
Acceleration Control	10	11,847.45	118,474.47
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II	68	157,413.69	10,704,130.74
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I	133	200,958.95	26,727,540.72
Afterburner	8	95,136.75	761,094.00
Anode Electron Particle Cannon I	7	302,799.97	2,119,599.80
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I	15	164,052.64	2,460,789.65
Anode Mega Neutron Particle Cannon I	22	44,514.23	979,313.03
Anode Neutron Particle Cannon I	56	298,895.81	16,738,165.45
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher	13	2,814,736.79	36,591,578.24
'Arbalest' Rocket Launcher I	37	266,534.99	9,861,794.46
Arkonor Mining Crystal II	3	496,999.20	1,490,997.60
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I	22	737,147.67	16,217,248.82
Basic Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane	36	65,316.19	2,351,382.99
Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Power Relay I	10	143,621.09	1,436,210.89
Beta Reactor Control: Diagnostic System I	10	134,489.90	1,344,898.95
Broken Drone Transceiver	265	36.39	9,644.33
BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM	20	352,944.31	7,058,886.29
Cap Recharger I	97	20,483.91	1,986,938.83
Command Processor I	10	304,994.96	3,049,949.55
Conflagration L	10	332,865.95	3,328,659.50
Core Probe Launcher II	1	226,997.99	226,997.99
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II	3	1,466,335.07	4,399,005.21
Damage Control I	6	452.02	2,712.12
Damaged Artificial Neural Network	111	179	19,869.00
Drone Synaptic Relay Wiring	171	2.1	359.1
Dual 180mm AutoCannon I	23	109,948.96	2,528,825.99
Dual 250mm Prototype Gauss Gun	26	182,865.51	4,754,503.16
Dual 650mm Repeating Artillery II	11	1,047,128.78	11,518,416.57
Dual Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I	10	324,178.02	3,241,780.23
Dual Light Pulse Laser II	25	234,712.98	5,867,824.46
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I	13	443,497.86	5,765,472.21
Electron Blaster Cannon II	3	988,993.19	2,966,979.56
Energy Grid Upgrades	2	168,853.45	337,706.90
Energy Systems Operation	2	49,999.99	99,999.98
Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I	40	278,241.61	11,129,664.40
Evasive Maneuvering	1	47,473.95	47,473.95
Expanded Probe Launcher II	3	1,875,631.86	5,626,895.57
Experimental 100MN Afterburner I	50	61,888.10	3,094,405.01
Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I	150	71,752.98	10,762,947.68
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I	174	32,111.99	5,587,486.37
F-90 Positional Sensor Subroutines	16	275,573.99	4,409,183.90
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I	47	357,181.51	16,787,530.91
Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler I	57	7,766.50	442,690.65
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I	52	570,457.62	29,663,795.98
Focused Afocal Pulse Maser I	3	399,997.02	1,199,991.06
Focused Anode Medium Particle Stream I	14	292,801.38	4,099,219.37
Focused Medium Pulse Laser I	13	192,782.97	2,506,178.62
Fuel Conservation	10	4,548.50	45,484.97
Gallente Cruiser	2	154,000.01	308,000.02
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I	7	-10,411.92	-72,883.41
Heat Sink I	50	18,319.04	915,952.14
Heavy Modulated Energy Beam I	56	288,943.70	16,180,847.36
Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I	23	857,328.30	19,718,550.91
Heavy Pulse Laser I	2	82,990.43	165,980.87
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I	55	193,519.71	10,643,583.87
Hull Upgrades	5	34,646.00	173,230.00
Ion Blaster Cannon II	9	538,250.56	4,844,255.05
Kernite Mining Crystal II	7	190,701.46	1,334,910.21
Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II	5	189,998.69	949,993.44
Kinetic Deflection Field II	20	62,477.04	1,249,540.90
Large Armor Repairer I	60	260,078.24	15,604,694.11
Large Automated Carapace Restoration	20	-1.01	-20.2
Large Energy Transfer Array II	9	963,890.86	8,675,017.74
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction	40	51,340.17	2,053,606.73
Large Remote Armor Repair System II	5	458,622.08	2,293,110.40
Large Shield Booster II	6	255,266.13	1,531,596.75
Light Electron Blaster I	100	10,919.84	1,091,983.89
Light Electron Blaster II	6	616,341.46	3,698,048.78
Light Neutron Blaster I	288	24,411.14	7,030,407.57
Low Frequency Sensor Suppressor I	37	230,864.74	8,541,995.52
Mark I Generator Refitting: Diagnostic System	100	13,322.19	1,332,219.34
Medium Anode Pulse Particle Stream I	10	76,479.45	764,794.50
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I	1	0.66	0.66
Medium Inefficient Armor Repair Unit	19	17,678.86	335,898.30
Medium Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I	28	558,063.91	15,625,789.49
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I	5	875,687.91	4,378,439.54
Medium Pulse Laser II	37	354,620.02	13,120,940.56
Medium Remote Armor Repair System II	5	547,998.41	2,739,992.07
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I	1	2,147,877.19	2,147,877.19
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I	49	847,621.94	41,533,475.14
Mega Modal Pulse Laser I	14	1,336,236.11	18,707,305.48
Mega Modulated Energy Beam I	81	226,634.41	18,357,387.17
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I	12	157,040.48	1,884,485.81
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I	10	88,996.35	889,963.50
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II	8	1,652,367.52	13,218,940.17
Mining Laser Upgrade II	18	737,279.38	13,271,028.88
Mobile Medium Warp Disruptor I	3	1,279,051.74	3,837,155.21
Modal Electron Particle Accelerator I	3	3,150,286.43	9,450,859.29
Modal Ion Particle Accelerator I	33	1,085,437.43	35,819,435.23
Modal Light Neutron Particle Accelerator I	31	475,366.28	14,736,354.76
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I	15	874,624.68	13,119,370.13
Modal Neutron Particle Accelerator I	51	1,132,616.64	57,763,448.63
Modulated Strip Miner II	23	1,672,616.19	38,470,172.29
Parallel Weapon Navigation Transmitter	20	188,998.97	3,779,979.40
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I	29	611,291.03	17,727,439.83
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron	44	794,320.24	34,950,090.70
Power Diagnostic System II	28	104,687.50	2,931,249.87
Prototype 'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I	36	460,588.90	16,581,200.41
Prototype 'Arbalest' Light Missile Launcher	24	314,951.56	7,558,837.36
Prototype Cloaking Device I	3	298,661.22	895,983.65
Prototype Sensor Booster	50	86,737.80	4,336,889.79
Regulated Mega Neutron Phase Cannon I	17	81,000.27	1,377,004.51
Retail	11	27,986.21	307,848.27
Scorch M	2	194,843.99	389,687.98
Scorch S	4	186,791.91	747,167.64
Shield Boost Amplifier I	10	169,872.73	1,698,727.27
Shield Boost Amplifier II	10	108,459.95	1,084,599.53
Shield Power Relay I	100	20,028.50	2,002,849.58
Shield Power Relay II	10	158,981.66	1,589,816.64
Shield Recharger II	36	63,734.36	2,294,437.07
Small Auxiliary Thrusters I	10	67,691.84	676,918.40
Small Cargohold Optimization I	2	349,998.97	699,997.94
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I	1	349,997.83	349,997.83
Small Energy Neutralizer II	13	636,544.07	8,275,072.93
Small Shield Booster II	4	175,395.40	701,581.58
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I	12	564,236.33	6,770,835.99
'Stalwart' Particle Field Magnifier	3	25,217,129.79	75,651,389.37
Tachyon Beam Laser II	5	1,031,320.67	5,156,603.33
Tachyon Modulated Energy Beam I	45	260,934.48	11,742,051.62
Thermic Dissipation Field II	38	254,820.10	9,683,163.80
Trade	6	56,492.41	338,954.48
Upgraded 1MN Microwarpdrive I	5	41,323.18	206,615.92
Warp Core Stabilizer II	35	384,619.21	13,461,672.34
Warp Scrambler II	2	299,888.33	599,776.65
X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I	10	753,397.99	7,533,979.93
X-Large Shield Booster II	15	581,089.96	8,716,349.34

Day 29: 30 Day Market Challenge

Results:

I had my last final today, so not much happened.  Tomorrow is wide open though, so I am hoping for a strong finish!  Aside from my busy day, not much to report.  Mostly trading in weapons and various mid slot modules lately.  I did nothing special, just flipped a lot of orders while on campus.  The final write up / guide is also underway.  Expect that in the next few days.