EVE Online

Spreadsheets? We’ve got Those

stargrace April 30, 2024 No Comments

I’ve been back in EVE Online since March 15th, and of course one of the first things I did was set up a spreadsheet to start calculating industry profits, and then another spreadsheet to calculate my total daily ISK earnings (across two accounts). We already know that in order to afford one month of game time, you need 500 plex, which (at the time of this post at least) comes to approximately 2.5 billion ISK. That means each day you’d want to earn roughly 84 million ISK in order to afford a single month of game time.

Earning currency doesn’t change much from game to game. Learning the markets takes time, but you already have a pretty good foundation if you’re already doing it elsewhere. It’s also not reasonable to expect a brand new player to be earning as much money as someone who has been around for a number of years and knows how to optimize (and who also has higher skills in the game, and higher skills in general). Most of the ISK on the main account (account E) came from industry. I’m just shy of the 2.5b mark for the month, but considering I just returned to the game, I’m very happy with those earnings. The ISK earned on my second account (S) is from selling off components of a package I got (I think I got the platinum bundle?) which included skill injectors (I sold them empty, I can’t afford to give up skills). Those numbers are highly inflated, and shouldn’t be considered ‘real’ numbers considering the lack of effort I put forth.

It does give me a nice nest egg. I’ve got a few months of game time on each account, and enough ISK to invest further into industry. I need to swap some PI around on my 2nd account, right now the components I’m making have almost zero market in my system, and while I know a lot of people adore the instant shopping in Jita, I prefer to stay away and sell slower (but for a slightly inflated price). Figuring out what sells, is the new game.

In the meantime, there are the constants. Ammo, drones, and a few meta ships. Consumables always seem to do quite well and you can really push out some nice numbers. I live in a system that happens to have ice mining, so I’ve started selling items related to that – and people are buying, even though they’re a higher price than other systems. The next challenge will be to beat this months earnings.

Fly safe! o7

My First Superior Ghost Site (sort of)

stargrace April 26, 2024 No Comments

Even though I’ve been “playing” EVE since 2009, this is the first year I’ve attempted to actually do more than just run NPC missions and explore high sec. I’ve had the skills to fly some pretty hefty ships (boosting orca, tengu, etc) but I’ve had no idea how to actually make use of those skills or what content I could actually accomplish. I’ve been afraid of ghost sites since I heard about them, and I normally leave them alone and avoid them once I’ve scanned one down – but it turns out that I could have probably handled them. There’s just one issue, I still don’t really know / understand HOW. There’s this uniwiki page about ghost sites which I’ve read through, but putting what you read into practice is a whole other thing. Here’s how yesterday went.

I found a WH off of my home system, a simple C2 with not much going on. Scanned down some connections inside, found one to nullsec (I avoid these, I feel so exposed in local I have rarely ever hung around in null) and then found another connection to a shattered C2, bingo!

Jumped in there, and I decided to take my combat probes with me first to see if anyone was hanging around. Maybe flush them out (or scare someone else) I found some mining drones that someone had left behind (yoink!) and not much else. Swapped back over to my regular probes, and found a few relic/data sites – one was a superior pirate site. Interesting!

I was terrified of losing my ship, the Tengu is expensive (I can afford to replace it, but that’s not the point). I had also removed the painter & one of my mid shield boosters (the wiki article suggests armor tank but my tengu is fit for shield so.. shrug) in order to fit the relic/data scanners. I have been contemplating crafting / buying the zeugma analyzer which is both data/relic in one, but they are SO expensive and I’m honestly not sure I want to justify the cost only to have it blown up. Anyway. I warped to the ghost site.

I did not have a cargo scanner with me, so I just hauled ass to the nearest can and hacked it. My hacking skills are pretty good, despite being ‘new’ to all of this I have a lot of scanning/hacking skills maxed out and the rest is just me learning how to play the hacking game better/faster. My heart was beating so hard in my chest! I didn’t really know what to expect. I decided to do things the easy way.

I hacked the can, succeeded at it, pulled out 90,000,000 ISK worth of loot and immediately warped away after that very first can. I know I could have tried to hack a second can, I could have probably even tried to tank the rats / explosion, but I just wasn’t sure what to expect, or when to expect it and I didn’t want to have to replace the Tengu (price tag of around 1.5b). I’m still incredibly happy with that haul, and I think I’m happier NOT knowing what was in the rest of those cans. I escaped, survived, and it was awesome.

After the rush from that site, I decided to try my hand at another site – which I’ll write about tomorrow. It wasn’t nearly as dangerous (well, it’s jspace, everything is dangerous) or as profitable, but it was still another ‘first’ and a lot of fun.

As always, fly safe! o7

Thoughts on Equinox

stargrace April 24, 2024 No Comments

CCP released a video yesterday that announced the next expansion – it’s called Equinox and it goes live June 11th – exciting! The video talks about redefining nullspace, four new ships, enhancements to the AIR program, automated moon mining – and my favourite feature, a new extension to SKINR.

• Design at your fingertips: The new SKINR interface introduces a robust palette of design elements, consisting of basic and metallic nanocoatings as well as patterns, alongside five customization slots for each SKIN design, four for nanocoatings, and one for patterns. Use your creations to express your unique identity and share them with other capsuleers.
• Sequence and share: Gathering design elements and sequence binders allows capsuleers to sequence ship SKINs, for themselves or to sell to other pilots. Sequencing costs are based on a tier system and calculated in PLEX based on the rarity of design elements and complexity of the SKIN, and your creations can be sequenced in bulk for your own fleet or your corp.
• Organized collection: A new cosmetics collection makes it simple to keep track of SKINs, components, and emblems. Applying SKINs and filtering through your collection will be easier and more enjoyable than ever with the new updates.
• The Hub awaits: Visit the Paragon Hub to buy, sell, and trade SKINs and components. A platform to showcase designs or discover the perfect look for every fleet, the Paragon Hub offers an easy-to-navigate interface and opportunities for budding designers to make a name for themselves, not to mention untold riches.

I’m very excited about this change. I love player created content, and I absolutely want to try my hand at designing patterns. Other things were also mentioned, like new anomalies, the ability to create sovereign hubs in space, new resources, and new encounters. For someone like myself, who hasn’t been around the block a time or two before during an EVE Online expansion release, these all sound like pretty neat things. Given that I HAVE been around the block a time or two before when it comes to MMORPG expansions in general, I will (as always) take a “let’s wait and see” approach to all of it. I do like that they don’t leave us hanging forever, June 11th is just around the corner, and I should be able to fit it in with all of the World of Warcraft stuff that is also going on.

Excited? Not? Let me know in comments, and as always, fly safe! o7

10th Annual Frigate Free for All

stargrace April 20, 2024 No Comments

Today was the 10th annual Frigate Free for All hosted by Stay Frosty, and I decided why not show up. I used my second account since this would be a PVP event, and it was actually a lot of fun! Minus the people who showed up who just wanted to create chaos and not play by the rules (not a big deal, more details about that later).

The event worked like this: You show up (I went early to make bookmarks) and then frigates with fittings were given away to anyone who opened trade with the hosts. Fly your frigate around and try to take out other frigates. The system was a .4 so there was no concord to worry about, though there was some sentry guns causing issues for some people I believe. Their range is 150km, so stay away from those and it was no big deal. There were shouts of ‘gf’ everywhere (I believe this means good fight?) and people good naturedly ribbed one another. Lots of harmless fun.

Then one annoying corp who had a beef with the host showed up and started demanding money to have you be flagged blue (allied) – they used legion’s to fight the frigates, not exactly a fair fight but since they were free ships it also wasn’t a big deal. They were intent on spoiling the fun for others, and I like to think that the 450+ people who showed up managed to have a fun time anyway, despite the sore losers.

I saw my first CCP employee, and also a GM in system playing along with. They interacted and had a good time all around.

I stuck around for a few hours (the event ran for 6) but eventually the harshness of it all started wearing me out a bit. I can only handle so many people screaming and yelling and fighting before I get tired of it and long for the quiet of jspace again. I am not much of a crowds person IRL and that is very much the same thing in game. Still, I’m glad I went and had some fun. It was neat to see everyone in local, and I enjoyed watching people greet each other who hadn’t seen one another in some time. I think the most exciting part was that so many people turned up for a player run event – I’m a huge fan of player run events, no matter the game, and with 450+ in local at the height, it was quite a sight.

Fly safe o7

Being Safer

stargrace April 19, 2024 No Comments

Much has been said over the years about the learning curve in EVE Online. Sometimes, when I watch streams, I’m amazed at how much of the language I still don’t know. I watched a big battle go down in Curse yesterday with 1900+ players, which was awesome to watch, and while I once again took absolutely no sides in the outcome, I did feel like I was constantly learning about the history and drama that has trailed people around.

To that note, I decided it was time to learn two aspects of the game that I probably should have learned years ago but had never really given it much thought. It’s two (well, I suppose one) ways to keep ‘safer’ in space, since you’re never really 100% safe no matter where you are (unless you’re docked). For the first time ever, I decided to create some insta-dock and insta-undock bookmarks.

I use a lot of bookmarks, but they’re usually to pretty mundane locations already marked in the overview. I have never really paid attention to the tips and tricks of flying around safely, and when you’re a beginner, that’s OK. EVENTUALLY you should learn a few things though, and one of those things is how to set up an insta-dock (and undock). It’s pretty simple. Normally, I warp to my home station using the overview, and dock. There’s a few seconds where I’m not safe, because I need to inch a bit closer to the landing area. So what I had to do was get within 0m the landing area (taking care not to bounce off of the structure) and create a bookmark. I made one for my shopping hub that I frequent on an almost daily basis, and another for my home station. When going to either of these locations, the idea is: Set my autopilot destination to the location (don’t turn autopilot on yet though). Then warp to the newly set bookmark that’s within 0m, stealthing as I warp (or not, if I’m flying something that doesn’t stealth), turn on autopilot as I’m warping, and when I hit that 0m spot, autopilot will turn on, and instantly dock me. I could also manually dock instead of doing the autopilot thing, but it’s easier to just have the game dock me.

I didn’t really understand insta-undock, but what I’ve gathered is – you undock from your station, and don’t touch anything, using a naturally fast ship (to create the bookmark). Then you drift out away from the station, turning on MWD if you want. You have to be careful to pick a spot that’s at least 200m away from the station – but (and here’s where I get conflicting reports) you also don’t want a ‘typical’ number, because someone might be waiting there for you because they know it’s a popular warp area. So to set this one up I drifted out some random number away from the station, bookmarked it, and then went back and docked using my insta-dock. How I believe the insta-undock works is that your ship normally needs time to align to whatever you’re moving towards after you undock. If you set a bookmark out far away from the station in a perfectly straight line, then there’s no time needed to align. There’s also a buffer of (10?) seconds where you’re invulnerable from attacks as you undock in case your computer has lag. I set up the undock bookmarks, but I’m still not really sure how they work. It didn’t feel like I instantly warped off to anywhere, and I’m not really sure I set them up properly. I’ll keep practicing though and see if I can get it all sorted.

Ideally, you’d make these bookmarks for any place you go to. For now, I just plan on making them for the more popular routes I take. As I get better / faster at it, I’ll add more bookmarks. Now that I’ve joined Signal Cartel these bookmarks are really important because we spend a lot of time wardec’d. Plus there’s been some little beginner gankers hanging out at my shopping district hoping for easy kills. I don’t want to be one of them.

Fly safe! o7