Man, it’s been a while! Guess the semi-regular posting didn’t really work (yet?)
But I was really encouraged to blog after seeing CCP Seagull’s new announcement video and reading all the proposed changes on updates.eveonline.com
CCP will be rolling out a BUNCH of changes and new features going into 2016, and here are just a few of my favorites:
Directional Scan in the Starmap
This is something I’ve been praying for ever since I started EVE Online. Now it will be easier than ever to use d-scan and scanner probes to find juicy targets for solo or small gang PvP, or to simply be able to clearly visualize where in space your d-scan results are relative to other objects in space.
Missile Guidance Disruptors, Falloff on Neuts and Remote Assistance Modules, and EWAR Tiericide
Finally a way to use EWAR against missile ships (other than straight jamming their targeting systems) and some more granularity to neuts and remote reps. This should really add layers of tactical depth to both combat and logistics. Logi pilots will now have to make sacrifices and choose between two targets at maximum rep range on opposite sides, and actually move around, rather than just sit there and manage their cap. EWAR as a whole will also see some readjustments which should add some more flavor in its own way.
Tribute System
This is a rather vague one, but it sounds interesting. The official updates page says, “In a move to pay tribute to the growing power of Capsuleers and their efforts throughout the universe, CONCORD has authorized a fund to fuel extra rewards for pod pilots on a regular basis.”
To me it sounds like we’ll be seeing daily rewards for logging in or completing certain tasks, à la DUST 514. The implementation could be interesting, and hopefully it will help new players out and keep them in the game.
New Destroyers
Ever since Retribution, the number of Destroyer-sized hulls has really expanded, first with the second tier of Tech I destroyers, then with the Tech III Tactical Destroyers. These new Tech II Destroyers will be able to fit a new module that will allow pilots to micro jump themselves and surrounding ships. Sounds like it’ll be a cross between the existing large and medium Micro Jump Drives, the deployable Mobile Micro Jump Generator, and the Titan Jump Bridge Generator. Prepare for the new generation of hotdrops, this time with destroyers instead of supercaps!
“Brain in a Box”
This has been something CCP has worked on for years, and it’s great to finally see it come out. This will have mostly invisible quality-of-life improvements and reduce lag, but based on CCP Seagull’s video it’s also what’s enabling them to do some cool new things with modules and such in the future.
Graphical Updates
New Propulsion effects, dirt and rust on your ship (and a ship-cleaning service), and “Kill Marks” on your ship to tally off your PvP kills will add a lot of depth to the look of EVE Online. Nebulae are also getting some unspecified visual updates
New Launcher (beta)
The new EVE Launcher will have improved general functionality as well as support for multi-boxing, but sadly unavailable for Mac (which will get it’s own Client updates later in the winter) and Windows XP, likely because Microsoft has stopped supporting security updates for XP. Btw, if you’re viewing this on XP, go update your operating system. Preferably to Mac :)
Possible Blood Raiders Lore Event?
All that there is on the Updates site is a disturbing poem about a blood-drinker named Omir, which references the Amarrian religious cult that spawned the Blood Raiders faction. Seems the Amarr are getting hit on all sides by foes old and new alike. Hope the new Emperor we’ll be crowning at Fanfest is up to the challenge!
So what are you looking forward to in the coming months of EVE Online! Let me know in comments!
So it’s been yet another huge hiatus since last I made a post on Tumblr. So I thought that now with myself getting more involved in EVE Online as of late (and with Legend of Korra now a done deal), I’d try to make more posts about it on here as well. So as the eagle-eyed among you will notice (if there is a you anymore who reads this blog), I’ve changed my username and blog title to more accurately reflect the content of the blog in the future. So I hope you enjoy my little experiment as I try to post more often. That doesn’t mean any sort of regular schedule, but at least once every couple of weeks at bare minimum.
One thing that’s been sitting in my Drafts for a long time is a comprehensive Hacking guide. I’d like to get more exact numbers to put on there if I can, but being only one person it could take a very long time to gather all the information that I’d like to provide. So most likely I’ll try to get out what I have and expand upon it if the opportunity arises. So hopefully that will be published soon! I’m also planning a post on my thoughts on Aegis sovereignty, the new starmap, and other things in EVE Online that closely affect me. Stay posted for posts!
A historic state deserves to keep making history. Let’s get you on the Paper Towns ‘Get Lost Get Found’ tour schedule. Favorite and reblog to vote and make it happen! One note = one vote!
This morning at 9am Eastern Time (1pm local Reykjavik time), CCP Ytterbium revealed more details on the “Future Vision” for EVE Online’s structures system. Prepare for a loooooong post! ;)
Here’s a (hopefully) brief summary of the current system, just to orient you all and to make comparisons easier. There are four types of player-made structures:
Player-Owned Starbases (POS), which are actually conglomerations of various specialized structures, each anchored and onlined independently, held together by a Control Tower, which holds everything together in a protective force field (although the Control Tower and any defensive structures are still destructible by enemies).
Control Towers consume Fuel Blocks on an hourly basis, the consumption rate scaling with the size of the Tower with a percentage discount when the owning alliance holds sovereignty of the star system (only available in systems with security status 0.0 or lower, also known as null-sec)
Additionally, a POS can only be anchored around a moon, providing one is not already anchored around that same moon.
Outposts, which are only deployable above planets in player-sovereign null-sec. Unlike a POS an Outpost is indestructible once fully deployed, and also offers docking for player ships, which the owning group can charge a fee for, as well as cloning services (EVE’s “respawn” system for when players die) and office rentals for other player-run corporations, granting the renters space to cache assets and organize.
Like a POS, though, Outposts can also host research/manufacturing capabilities. (EVE features a massive in-game economy mostly run by the players themselves, who produce ships and ship equipment via blueprints which can also be improved for time and component materials efficiency.)
Customs Offices, another planet-orbiting structure, which can be owned, destroyed and replaced by player corporations, which use them to tax other players who use the Customs Offices to import and export planet-based resources, another facet of the game’s economy.
Personal Structures, also known as Deployables, the newest group, which are small, highly-specialized structures deployable anywhere in space. They provide multiple services, like allowing the owner to refit their ship in space (generally restricted to stations and Outposts), interfere with enemy scanners, and automatically tractor-beaming shipwrecks for easier salvage.
Okay, review over! So, what did the heavily-French-accented CCP Ytterbium actually TALK about? Second list coming up!
Both POSes, Outposts, and possibly Customs Offices will be gradually phased out. POSes will be removed, but based on one of Ytterbium’s slides, Outposts will not, it seems, but no more will be able to be deployed.
Anchoring restrictions will be mostly removed, with some light ones to make sure players don't do harassing things with structures like camp stargates, EVE’s main form of interstellar travel.
The POS forcefield will likely be removed and replaced by a mooring system for capitals and super-capitals, or for any ship on the smaller structures. Mooring will grant the ships invulnerability just like the forcefield currently does, but there will be finite "parking spots.” Sub-capitals will be dockable inside the larger structures similar to Outposts now.
Management and access roles regarding these structures will be simplified and made easier to use and understand.
Instead of having multiple structures held together by a forcefield and a Control Tower, there will be new, specialized structures that can stand alone.
These structures will have fitting windows similar to those used for fitting player ships, and have bonuses for specific uses, also like ships. (More details below).
Structure combat will be more or possibly all player-controlled, as opposed to currently when an AI takes over targeting and firing defenses. Ytterbium mentioned that this was at least in part to counter structure baiting in the current game but also simply to add excitement value.
Fuel Block consumption will be based on the activity of the structure, not time. This will be great news for smaller corporations and individuals, which brings me to...
Most new structures will come in varying sizes, small for personal use, medium for a corporation, large for an alliance, and extra-large for really big alliances, I guess. In some cases, as evident by the slides, the already-released deployables will take up the “small” variant.
CCP wants structures to be visibly active when being used, through things like moving parts, lights, etc.
All these new structures will be deployed using the same drag-and-drop method used currently by the newer personal structures, and unlike with current POSes, will have their permissions set AFTER deployment rather than DURING deployment. Ytterbium also stated that at least some structures may have the option to be set for public use, which would be a first.
Finally, although Ytterbium himself didn’t mention this, in the EVE keynote the day before it was stated that the structures would be able to be fitted pre-deployment into space.
Before I go into the third list in which I talk about the proposed structure classes, I want to go into some more detail on the concept of structure fitting, because it is slightly different than fitting ships. Note that this, like everything else in this post, is just CCP’s rough idea. Many things could and likely will change between now and when this system reaches players.
Like ships, structures will have high slots for damaging modules, medium aka mid slots for electronic upgrades and warfare (although Ytterbium didn’t state how the structure would make use of the upgrades), and low slots for weapon and general utility upgrades. All of these would consume PowerGrid and CPU resources from the structure just like on ships and current POS Control Towers.
Ytterbium made a clear point in the presentation that CCP at least currently is not planning on releasing modules that would increase shield or armor hitpoints because they want to avoid “structure grinding,” which was the main concern/boredom that led to their revamp of sovereignty warfare scheduled for June. Ytterbium stated that CCP does want all these structures to be destructible, likely using the Entosis Link module being released as part of those same June changes, but they currently haven’t figured out a system they like for handling assets contained in a structure when it blows up.
In addition, structures will have another fitting “rack” for their actual services. Currently a POS array has a built-in function, no further assembly required. In the new system, the structure will theoretically be able to perform any function of any other structure, but a bonus system will encourage players to use it for specialized roles. Ytterbium indicated in the presentation that services will also consume PowerGrid and CPU.
Finally, structures will have rig slots, which will cost calibration points as with ships and will be destroyed upon removal, unlike other modules or (presumably) services. Ytterbium stated that these will be closely linked with the installed services, further specializing and refining the structure’s capabilities. For instance, you could have an Assembly Array, with bonuses for any type of production service, install a module assembly line, and then install a rig to reduce production time or resource costs for a sub-group of modules like energy turrets.
So now for the REALLY cool stuff: the proposed new structures! These were all revealed in broad terms at the EVE keynote, but Ytterbium gave us some more details.
Assembly Array: for all kinds of production.
Research Labs: for performing material and time efficiency research, copying, and Tech 2/Tech 3 invention with blueprints. Ytterbium also mentioned a rough plan for removing the current non-player character (NPC) R & D agents who are used for generating Datacores and having the Labs spawn caches nearby which could be looted by any player, but at a tax.
Drilling Platforms: for harvesting and refining materials from moons and gas clouds. Ytterbium also outlined a plan in very broad strokes to have new, super-huge asteroids that would actually have one of these platforms deployed on top of them, breaking off chunks that players could mine regularly.
Offices/Market Hubs: for offering office rentals, market and clone services, and even possibly hiring NPC convoys for shipping small volumes/quantities of items for you across systems. Near planets, they may function as replacements for Customs Offices.
Administration Hubs: while they sound similar to Offices, Ytterbium said these would be more geared towards affecting the NPCs in the system, such as moving mission agents around and even affecting the local navy’s presence in the system and the security status itself, either up or down. They could also replace the Territorial Claim Unit used to “plant a flag” for an alliance and declare sovereignty in a system out in null-sec. I’d personally like to see the current Infrastructure Hubs, which are currently used by null-sec dwellers to upgrade their space, also absorbed into this new structure.
Observatories: Ytterbium gave a couple varying proposals for uses, such as messing with the game’s map filters, which are often used to track statistics like ship kills and stargate jumps along one’s route. Other uses listed were tracking other players and even some sort of anti-cloak system to make AFK cloaking less viable, since players often complain about that.
Advertisement Centers: These would essentially be custom-made billboards, although Ytterbium in his presentation also hinted at allowing player-made monuments which could then be shot at or even graffitied (although he may have been joking about the latter). There was no word on what kind of in-game or out-of-game tools would be used for designing these.
Stargates: possibly the most-anticipated structure, as CCP has been hinting for the past two years at releasing new areas of space accessible only via player-built stargates at some undefined point in the future. Ytterbium didn’t mention any details like what security systems his new configurable gates would be available in, but he cited ideas of using these new gates to affect ship warp speeds, the distance your ship lands from the gate on arrival in the system, and the complementary 60-second cloak it grants.
All in all, I’m really excited to see the final product. I think this new system will allow for some new and interesting gameplay across all areas of space. Check out Ytterbium’s new dev blog for even more details!
So in anticipation for today’s “flashback” episode in which we learn what Korra’s been up to these past three years, I found out the approximate time Nick released the premiere (8:00 am Eastern Time) and woke up accordingly.
I have to say that I was overall disappointed in this episode if I were to try and compare it to “Zuko Alone,” which the title refers to. Part of it is organic: in “Zuko Alone” we learned a lot of formative backstory to Zuko’s character and about Ozai’s rise to power. We don’t have anything quite like that to learn about Korra since her childhood has more or less been covered, even if not on screen. So making a comparison might be a bit of an apples-oranges thing, even though it seems to be what the creators want us to do.
The Good
It was nice to see Katara again and see her work her maternal words of wisdom (which were surprisingly low on the corniness meter), and watching Korra’s recovery was fairly moving, as well as her letter to Asami. The creators are doing a good job of showing how the two girls on Team Avatar have really drawn together despite the awkward Mako situation from Books One and Two. We also have the intriguing mystery of the strange semi-corporeal hallucinations Korra keeps having of herself in the Avatar State from the final battle of Book Three, but I’ll dig more into that later.
The Bad
Unfortunately this list is a bit longer. Korra’s recovery, while moving, was mostly effective because of the score. Plot-wise it was a bit predictable, but this was only a minor detractions.
The beach scene was kinda unimportant (we already know Korra can’t fight well for the moment), but at least we got to see Aang’s face again in a funny picture in the shack.
The travel montage made little sense. Korra just seemed to be meandering without any real direction. Was she simply running from her hallucinated self? If so, that was slightly unclear, at least the first time I watched it. After rewatching it, I got that impression a bit more strongly
I also have to admit I hated the voice actress for old Toph, at least on the first viewing. Her voice is gravely and I really didn’t want to listen to her dialogue, though when I watched the episode a second time with my roommate I felt more comfortable with it. They did a nice job with Katara’s voice casting, she has a soothing grandmother-like voice. I can understand if the casting director wanted to have a different voice style for Toph to emphasize the difference in the two personalities, but Toph just sounds a bit like a Hagraven from Skyrim to me.
Throughout the episode, I felt that the trailer for this season spoiled most of the episodes. A lot of scenes from the trailer were in this episode and vice versa. Many moments might have been more attention-grabbing if we hadn’t seen them earlier, such as Korra’s trip to the spirit world, the return to the Swamp, and even (dare I say it?) Toph’s reveal. With the last case, it definitely got me hyped for the season, but then (and I mostly contribute this to the voice actress’s grating voice) when it actually came my enthusiasm was close to zero.
The “What’s Going On?”
One thing that did give me reason to not abandon ship is that we did discover a very interesting mystery/internal conflict: Korra can't seem to access the Avatar State. Is this similar to when Aang was shot and his seventh chakra was blocked? If so, how will Korra remedy this? She doesn't exactly have an open wound to shove a rock into. And how do these out-of-body hallucinations tie in? One of the spirits at the Tree of Time said he couldn't sense any Raava energy from Korra. He later implied that this was because she's locked out of the Avatar State, but shouldn't there still be Raava's energy in her since they're fused? Is this possibly related to the mirage Korra had where she saw Raava on her own in the desert? Or am I just over-analyzing this? There is no evidence that Raava and Korra disconnected again, unless this is tied into the hallucinations again. After all, Hallucination Korra is in the Avatar State and can seemingly bend, interact with the physical world, and is visible to other spirits.
One possible solution to Korra's plight is that she'll need to make another Spirit World journey. One scene from the trailer that we didn't see in today's episode was this shot pictured below with the giant spirit leaves, in which she has the new hairstyle but her old clothes.
Overall, I felt like I would've been more praising of this episode of it didn't try to compare itself to "Zuko Alone." With Zuko it was heart-wrenching moment to heart-wrenching moment. This episode had its moments but they were few, a bit far between, and sometimes not up to my expectations.
But I am looking forward to whatever Toph is going to teach our young Avatar, as well as finding out what happened with the Metal Clan and why there seems to be a rift between Kuvira and Suyin. And I'm also eagerly awaiting Daniel Dae Kim's return to the show as Hiroshi Sato. Perhaps this week was a minor letdown, but I expect it to just be a bump in the road.
CCP Greyscale has just released a new dev blog detailing proposed changes to EVE's various "jumping" mechanics, which allow players to instantly teleport themselves and/or other ships to any star within a "light-year" range set by the game. Typically interstellar movement in EVE is restricted to adjacent star systems. To give a brief overview of how jumping works now:
A ship with the appropriate module "lights" a cynosural field ("cyno") in a target system for a fuel cost.
Capital ships (minus freighters, which can only use stargates) have a jump drive that can "lock onto" cynos belonging to fleet members within up to 15 light-years with maximum skills. They can then spend more fuel to teleport to the cyno's location.
Titans can fit special modules that allow them to generate Jump Portals (sometimes known as jump bridges, which is often confusing as a starbase module uses that name, officially), which can teleport nearby sub-capital ships in their fleet (but not capital ships as far as I know) to a cyno within the same range as they themselves can jump to.
Black Ops (BLOPS) battleships can create Covert Jump Portals, which perform the same effect as Jump Portals, but can only link to special Covert Cynos, which can only be generated by a small list of stealth-oriented ships, which are also the only ships capable of jumping through the bridge. All of these ships are sub-capitals.
An alliance with sovereign space can use a series of starbase arrays also confusingly called Jump Bridges, which function much like Titan Jump Portals except they have a range of only 5 LY and can only link to other Jump Bridges. However, based on my knowledge, capital ships can use them (albeit with a large fuel cost, which is incurred to some degree by any ship using them) as well as anyone in the owning alliance or who has a high-enough standing with the alliance.
The proposed changes by CCP are as follows (read the dev blog for the nitty-gritty details). Important to note that Greyscale and the rest of his team have not carved these into stone yet, they are very much interested in the players' feedback, so what's below may not be exactly what CCP releases in Phoebe come November:
All jumping, minus BLOPS bridging, will have a 5 LY maximum range, just as Jump Bridges do now.
A new metric called Jump Fatigue will now increase with every jump you make, corresponding to the LY distance you traveled, and decrease slowly over time
The basic formula is IF n = 1, F = (1 + distance); IF n > 1, F = (Fn-1 - 0.1t) * (1 + distance), where n is the number of jumps you've performed since having a fatigue of 0 (n = 1 being your first jump), t is minutes since your last jump, distance is in light-years, and F is Fatigue, with Fn-1 being the fatigue you had immediately after your previous jump.
After you jump, you'll experience a cooldown period equal to your Fatigue value before the jump in minutes. There's a minimum cooldown of (1 + distance) So your first jump, if it's at 5 LY, will earn you a 6-minute cooldown.
The net result is that beginning with the third jump, if each jump is done right at the end of the cooldown timer, each subsequent jump will cost you more and more time in cooldowns.
Jump freighters and Rorquals will receive a 90% role deduction (that is, unaffected by skills) to the distance value the game uses to calculate fatigue. Or in simpler terms, these ships will treat a jump like it's one-tenth the distance from a fatigue standpoint.
In addition, to compensate for the reduced teleportation ability, all capitals will now be able to use stargates in low- and zero-security space. (Capitals are already barred from entering high-security space)
Medical clones will no longer be able to be transferred to a remote station, eliminating the technique known as "suicide jumping" or "pod-jumping," by which a player moves their medical clone (their respawned body) to their destination station, then undocks from a station to self-destruct their pod, which houses their body, allowing a player to move across the galaxy in less than 4 minutes.
Sovereignty structures will have hitpoints and damage resistances lowered by some as-yet-unspecified degree to make up for the drop in damage output fleets will be able to field, at least at the start of a fight.
There will also be in Phoebe "a rebalance of starbase weapons, a rebalance of stealth bombers and heavy interdictors, enabling of lowsec doomsdays, and changes to interdictor bubble mechanics."
The response on the EVE forums has been slightly mixed, but most of what I've seen has been negative. Ironically, it was not so long ago when many players were up in arms over the ability for players to move their capitals across the galaxy in minutes using chains of cynosural fields. The remainder of this post is going to be a slightly edited version of a post I made on that thread:
I'll freely admit I'm no expert on null-sec, but based on my reading of this column by the Mittani and my own research into the current mechanics of jumping, here's my take on the proposed changes:
Teleportation, as the Mittani points out, is only half the problem with the current doctrine of 100% capitals and supercapitals. The core issue is the capabilities of cap/supercap fleets to withstand assaults by everything except a larger cap/supercap fleet without needing a subcap support fleet.
Slowing down the travel times of combat capitals is a good way to reduce the number of big fights that drain CCP's server hardware, but only in the short term. It still doesn't change the need for fleet doctrines of caps and supercaps. Reducing the HP on sovereignty structures will help make assaulting with battleships more viable in the early stages of an attack, but once the capitals finally arrive it's back to Clash of the Titans.
The better solution long-term is to alter the characteristics of capitals and supercapitals to make them more dependent on subcapitals for support (the Mittani uses dreadnoughts as a good example of how [super]carriers and Titans should behave.
The new jumping mechanics, whether they'll just be temporary while CCP works on implementing Point 3 or whether they become the new normal from now until the end of time, shouldn't be so penalizing that long-distance logistics becomes an extremely long, aggravating process within a few jumps. I think the jump drive range reduction is too much.
In CCP Greyscale's example in the dev blog, the theoretical capital pilot took the same number of jumps (4) along the same route, but post-Phoebe, he only traveled 1/3 of the way and had a 2-hour cooldown timer. That's going to create a ton of problems, especially if at some point null-security space becomes a more politically diverse place, as many players want it to be. If an enemy is sitting in the middle of two areas of your space or an ally's, you could end up stuck in their camp, and your other option of getting around--stargates--isn't going to be much of a saving grace there, either.
The jumping changes shouldn't penalize projecting subcapitals. To that end:
Jump Bridges (the starbase kind) should be restricted to subcapitals, just like their Titan counterparts.
Subcapitals should be immune from the new jump fatigue/cooldown mechanics. This makes sense as unlike capitals they can't jump to a cyno on their own. Sure, this allows you to set up a Titan chain much like fleets today have cyno chains for rapid capital deployment, but once the subcaps are on the battlefield they'll have to wait for a friendly Titan to arrive if they want to turn tail quickly. Plus with the new jumping restrictions, that chain will take longer to set up. Ideally, once the "Occupancy Sov" system comes into being, preventing alliances from controlling vast swathes of vacant space, alliances wouldn't have enough sovereign space to safely set up a chain in.
Off of the subject of jumping itself, I disagree with the reasoning behind the medical clone changes. Suicide jumping offers little reward (you can't take any implants, ships, or cargo with you) for a bit of risk (loosing any current implants and the fees of having to set up a new medical clone. Not to mention that if you forgot to update your clone before you suicide-jumped, you'll lose a percentage of the difference in skill-point capacity).
Some people on the forum thread have mentioned that the clone changes will make it hard for certain groups in deep null-sec, far from high-security space, to move their new members in, because they'll have to manually fly to the alliance's base, to which others have said, "Set up convoys." While a freighter convoy might be useful for newbies with lots of stuff to carry, requiring convoys for everyone would just be a headache. You'd either have to schedule a group of newbies to move in together (good luck with that) or give everyone a private escort. I'm pretty sure the null-sec alliances are there to fight for space, not act as bodyguards for rookies. If CCP seriously wants to limit the use of pod-jumping to circumvent the jump clone cooldown (a mechanic allowing pilots to safely transfer control to another body without destroying the original), they can further shorten the cooldown (like many people wanted them to when they did it last time) or limit changing the medical station to the current station or the corp offices or HQ, as one person suggested. It would restrict the versatility of the technique without punishing deep null groups.
With less than a week left before the premiere of Book 4, Nick released the official trailer, so I took some screenshots as I watched and will share my interesting findings with you all! Prepare for a long post!
Well, this is going to be interesting! Korra and the gang at 20!
Hmm, remind anyone of Zuko and Iroh in early Book 2? Little homage there? Also, looks like Korra's going green!
We already knew, this, but it's just so sad! Also, based on the Earth Kingdom-looking symbol in the background, looks like they'll be the focus again, not so much the Fire Nation as some people suspected based on the Avatar Cycle-like pattern the seasons had followed so far--Air, Water (with Unalaaq), and Earth (with the Earth Queen).
Loving the wingsuits for the airbenders! So long, glider staves!
Updated mecha tanks? With that symbol on them? Hmm...
Holy crap! It's a whole army of mechas! With airship support! Looks like we might be dealing with an offshoot of the Metal Clan as the villains? If Kuvira is the main antagonist, that makes a lot of sense.
Is that more mercury that Korra's going to have to deal with? Not again!
Ooh, are we going back to the Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se?
Looks like Kuvira may be in the conquest business. Perhaps this is her trying to reunite the Earth Kingdom after the death of the Queen and going a bit too far?
Who's this guy with the scary sword-knife thing?
Liking Jinora's new hairstyle! Also, seems Republic City still has a vine problem!
Does this guy look familiar to anyone? He did to me but I can't place him from anywhere.
Also, check out Asami's cool new outfit on the right!
Look on the right...Meelo has HAIR?!
What's going on here? Some sort of hallucination?
Making our way back to the Spirit Portal, Korra? What for?
Are we going back to the Foggy Swamp as well?
What's got Opal looking glum? (I actually thought this was Korra in airbender disguise until I noticed the green eyes. The bobbed haircut is starting to catch on with me.)
Zuko's daughter sitting next to him? More importantly, who's her mom? (Mai and Zuko broke up in the comics, if you didn't see that already.)
Katara's back! And I hope that's her healing Korra as part of her mercury-poisioning recovery, not from anything else later!
Not the desert AGAIN!
Zhu Li's gearing up! And she does NOT look happy?
Has Varrick been a bad boss?
Ooh, what's behind the big fancy door?
This shot reminding anyone Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings?
What's Korra looking for in the Spirit World?
And of course, the little tease at the end...
"I can't believe it...Toph?"
Can't wait for all of these things to pull together and for all my questions--and yours--to be answered! Book 4 is going to be great season based on this trailer!
As I've mentioned in a previous post, (click for link) I grew weary of The Legend of Korra during Book Two. I was mostly watching the show because I wanted to learn the origin story of the Avatar; the writing that season (and many of the new characters) began to enter that gray area between boredom and irritation. The jokes, as I mentioned in said previous post, were either weak and juvenile (Varrick) or just plain creepy (Desna and Eska).
Speaking of my hatred for the Ice Twins, as I was pre-planning this post I realized that part of the reason for my dislike hatred of them was that they were totally unimportant from the main plot, particularly Desna. Eska was only there to provide Bolin with one of his two love interests in that season and to creep us the hell out. Desna's only purpose was to get slightly injured trying to open the spirit portal, prompting a slight change of heart at the end of the season that led to them letting Mako and Bolin go, which Mako could have gotten them out of anyway if he'd used some of Zuko's firebending moves from the first season of The Last Airbender.
But sadly I'm not here to rant some more about Book Two. Instead I'm going to offer my own opinions on why Book Three has made me more excited about Korra than ever before. WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Book Three is not only better than Book Two, but for me it's even better than Book One, in part because as I'll discuss in-depth shortly, it borrows a lot of attention-grabbing, Lost-style mystery elements from Book One while providing more of a continuity between its preceding season than Book Two did (although, admittedly, Nickelodeon suddenly asking the creators for more episodes created that problem, not DiMartino and Konietzko themselves). It's also gotten several degrees darker and more mature, something I'll also talk about in a few paragraphs.
Book One got a lot of viewers because we were immediately presented with a puzzle to solve: Amon. The creepy mask, the creepy voice-acting, (good creepy, not Desna and Eska creepy.) (Sorry) and his terrifying power all grabbed our attention, making us giddy with anticipation for each new episode. In much of the same way, Book Three has done this by presenting us with a couple mysteries: Who are Zaheer and his crew, what are their goals, and how does Korra fit into their plans? The first two have been at least mostly answered, although the last question won't be completely answered until the finale next weekend. (hmm, wonder if that's intentional?)
Book Two did basically none of that. Unalaaq's motives were revealed before the season finale. They were a little more mysterious during the first two episodes, but right at the end of the premiere we saw he was evil when he occupied the Southern Water Tribe (although admittedly we didn't yet foresee that it was just a means to an end). And we found out he was working with Vaatu by the 9th episode out of the 14-episode season. The only new information about his plans after that was in the episode directly before the finale when he revealed he was going to become a Dark Avatar. The Book Two finale served not as a big reveal as Book One's was or Book Three's will be, but an hour-long battle. (Not that that didn't work well for the second half of the Last Airbender finale.)
Book Three is also much darker than any season of either series has been so far. Whether this is due to Nickelodeon's influence or that of DiMartino and Konietzko, the show seems to have realized that a lot of the fans of Korra are mostly old fans of The Last Airbender, meaning most of them are now around my age (eighteen). We don't need the reserved violence of kiddie kung fu movies were the bad guys and good guys just beat each other up until the other wimps out, at which point they're mercifully spared. This season has already had a surprising amount of dark, more realistic depictions of violence.
--Spoilers begin now--
One of my friends from high school suggested that this is also a possible reason why Korra was pulled from the TV schedule. It would certainly explain why they chose not to air the second planned episode for the last day they did TV releases, which was "The Stakeout," in which Zaheer remorselessly tosses Aiwei into the Fog of Lost Souls, dooming him to an eternity reliving his own worst memories.
The next episode after that, "Long Live the Queen," featured the first time a death was depicted on-screen (unless you count Combustion Man, although he just vanished in an explosion and the only reason we knew he died was because we saw his metal arm falling, detached from his body, without any blood on it, either). It was a pretty violent killing, too. We even saw the Earth Queen's eyes go bloodshot from suffocation in the most creepy extreme close-up shot in the whole franchise.
And in the most recent episode, "The Ultimatum," we not only saw Ming Hua threaten to cut Opal's neck with an ice blade, but Kai get shot out of the sky by P'Li (my question being who was flying the Red Lotus' airship?), Kya and Bumi nearly fall to their deaths twice, and towards the end, we saw a bruised, battered, and weakened Tenzin getting ruthlessly beat up by Zaheer, Ghazan, and Ming Hua, his fate kinda up in the air, although I doubt the writers will actually kill off Tenzin.
There were dark moments in The Last Airbender, don't get me wrong. Sokka and Toph nearly died in the same fashion as Kya and Bumi, Zuko threatened to kill Aang with his swords in "The Blue Spirit," (although whether he would have gone through with it is up to your interpretation) the aforementioned death of Combustion Man, the Air Nomad Genocide and Monk Gyatso's skeleton in the third freaking episode of the whole series, Katara nearly killing her mother's killer, Zuko's maiming by Ozai, and of course who can forget Jet, who nearly wiped out an entire village (and almost led us to believe he had) and then died rather violently towards the end of Book Two: Earth, even though he was still alive the last time he was shown onscreen and his death was only implied indirectly by Toph? And in The Legend of Korra, as my same friend pointed out, Tarrlock committed fratricide-suicide during the finale, and Unalaaq was killed at the end of Book Two...kinda.
But none of those deaths or violence (Ozai aside) was as vicious, cruel, and for the most part, shown directly onscreen, as what's happened in Book Three so far, which backs up my friend's theory that it's an unstated reason why Nickelodeon decided not to put it on their TV network anymore. The Legend of Korra and the whole Avatar franchise, for better or for worse, has outgrown a kid's television network. It's grown up just as we did, in a way that's somewhat reminiscent of how the Harry Potter books got more and more adult in nature as the series progressed. And that, in the end, is why I'm more excited than ever for new episodes of Korra. Because I seriously cannot figure out what comes next. It's surpassed all my expectations of a "children's television program," which were frankly lowered during Book Two. I could talk more about how the humor is notably better now that it's back to being more Bolin-centered or how the writers have truly mastered the art of cliffhanger-bending, as I'm going to start calling it, but it honestly comes down to the fact that much as the world of Avatar has entered a new age, the franchise has as well. And I think it's clearly for the better.
Hey Korra Nation! Phew. Some of you may have heard versions of this news elsewhere, but here’s the official word. After this Friday’s on-air premiere of Episode 8 “The Terror Within” at 8/7c, all remaining Book 3 episodes will move to a digital rollout. That means two things: 1) Korra is NOT...
Well, this is just depressing! Due to declining ratings and viewership, Nickelodeon is pulling The Legend of Korra from the air after one last episode tomorrow, Friday 25 July, but will instead release the remainder of the season (and presumably Book 4) digitally via their own website/app as well as third-party sites like Hulu, Amazon, Google Play, and Xbox, beginning 1 August.
This is in my opinion a dumb move by Nickelodeon. The chain of events leading up to this all leads back to Nickelodeon's own stupidity and ineptitude. So let's work our way back and I'll show you what I mean.
Nick pulls Korra from the air.
WHY?
Because viewership is down.
WHY?
Because of four reasons:
Nick hasn't been promoting Korra as much as it did in the beginning
Book 2 was kinda sub-par.
The show's premiere was rushed, because...
Nick's Mexican arm, MundoNick, accidentally released four episodes
So most of this is because Nickelodeon effed up.
Book Two's problems are obviously a separate issue, but I'm not saying that Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino produce a horrible season, either. Book Two had its appeal for those of us, like me, who really wanted more backstory on the Avatar (cause let's face it, that was really what the whole season centered around in the end). But the stuff in between was kinda...bleh. Desna and Eska are by far my least favorite characters. Their voice actors were terrible, their "comedic" moments were not amusing, and most of all, they were just creepy, Eska especially. Varrick pulls a close second. Every time he was on screen I wanted to punt him out of the animation cell. Part of it was his arrogance and egoism, which might have been the creator's design, but like the creepy twins his humorous moments were lacking in the humor for me. They were juvenile (remember the "money-pooping" platypus-bear?) when most of the Korra viewership is the fans of the original series, who are all my age. Many of us are starting college or have already. We've outgrown scatological humor as the "most hilarious thing ever." Not to mention the Asami/Mako/Korra love triangle felt like a dead horse being dragged across from the last season to be beaten some more.
I'm not trying to say that Book Two was absolutely terrible, it had its good moments. But it did have some flaws and I know for a fact that one of my good friends (on Tumblr as boyfriendswithchesttatoos) lost interest in the show around that time.
But back to the present, the funny thing is that the last few episodes have seen viewership start to rise again. Admittedly, the premiere still has the most viewers to date, but you have to admit the irony. Check out this Wikipedia link to see for yourself.
Whatever happens with Korra, I just hope we still get a Book 4. Supposedly it's safe from the deadly hand of Nickelodeon, but I'm taking everything from them with a grain of salt and a pinch of apprehension at this point. Hopefully I'm overreacting, as per usual.
Hello, everyone! It's been a while since I've blogged, about EVE or Korra (which premieres in 5 days) or anything for that matter! Just some quick things before I get into the meat of this post: I officially got EVE a little over a month ago. (yes, this whole time I've actually just been an EVE observer, not a player O_O) I'm enjoying my time, despite getting blown up about once a week!
But yesterday, while browsing the EVE-O forums, I came across a thread suggesting pirate subsystems for the Tech III Strategic Cruisers. There was a discussion over whether individual subsystems should be created or Pirate T3 hulls that could use subsystems from the two races whose spaceship command skills unlock the respective faction's ships, and over what the mitigating factor would be to make sure these things don't proliferate too much and become overpowered. Some people mentioned the price, but as was the case with Titans and Outposts, for most people (null-sec residents especially) cost is never a mitigating factor.
So I put in my opinion. I suggested that the most logical risk factor would be losing MULTIPLE racial subsystem levels every time you lose either a pirate hull or a regular hull using pirate subsystems, whichever version got picked, although there are some problems with that as I explain later.
The other thing to consider is that certain empire factions are "components" of pirate factions more than others. The Gallente spaceship skills, for instance, are as of Kronos, required for 5 out of the 7 pirate factions, while most other racial ship skills only grant access to 3 factions. The Caldari used to have the narrowest options as far as pirate factions went with only 2 pirate factions before Mordu's Legion ships were introduced. To give a brief overview:
Gallente: Serpentis, Guristas, Angel Cartel, Sisters of Eve, Mordu's Legion
Amarr: Sisters, Blood Raiders, Sansha
Minmatar: Blood Raiders, Serpentis, Angels
Caldari: Mordu's Legion, Guristas, Sansha
Furthermore, look the way the racial ship skills are combined:
Gallente/Caldari: Guristas, Mordu's Legion
Amarr/Minmatar: Blood Raiders
Gallente/Minmatar: Angel Cartel, Serpentis
Amarr/Caldari: Sansha
Gallente/Amarr: Sisters of Eve
Minmatar/Caldari: nothing
While a little bit more even than the earlier breakdown, this still shows the underlying causes of some issues that arise when trying to deal with the skills involved in either suggestion (pirate hulls or pirate subsystems)
For Pirate Hulls Using the Current Subsystems
No rewards for cross-training Minmatar and Caldari (although that's not a new issue with pirate ships)
Gallentean and Matari subsystems would be the most versatile and/or most used and would probably therefore see a rapid increase in demand
Caldari subsystems are only used on the least-used pirate factions like Sansha and Mordu
Looking at Offensive/Defensive Subsystems, would it make sense or be acceptable to have, for example a Sansha T3 Cruiser that could either armor or shield tank and use missiles or lasers, depending on the mix of Amarr and Caldari subsystems?
For Pirate Subsystems Used on the Current T3 Hulls
Still no rewards for cross-training Minmatar and Caldari (again, not a new issue, but something to bear in mind)
Assuming each faction gets its own subsystem set, there would be five sets of subsystems using the Gallente skills and three for all the others. Does this mean that I can fit a Sansha laser subsystem on a Tengu? Is that TOO versatile, even for a T3?
The Proteus, as the Gallentean T3, raises a particular problem when it comes to questioning the issue of being too versatile. A Proteus could fit a Mordu's missile subsystem or a Sister's laser subsystem, giving it access to every weapon system in the game. Additionally, it could fit a Mordu's or Guristas shield defensive system, allowing it to shield tank or armor tank effectively. And on top of that, by using a Guristas or Angel Cartel defensive subsystem, a Proteus could also (presumably) use the Caldari or Minmatar resist profiles, respectively, since those are the resist profiles those two pirate factions use. Even though there is some degree of uncertainty in predicting EXACTLY what a Proteus will be using (unless you're really good at identifying the subsystems on the hull), you know that it will be using either hybrid guns or drones and will be most likely armor tanked using the Gallentean resist profile of kinetic/thermal.
From a CCP standpoint, this would be a much bigger project than simply whipping up four new hulls and maybe tweaking some small things with the existing subsystems for balancing, both with designing new subsystems and probably handling the way the game makes you lose a subsystem skill if the idea I mentioned at the beginning of losing skills from multiple racial subsystems skills is implemented, because now the game would need to look at all of your subsystems to determine what skills you lose instead of just your ship as I presume is what the code does currently.
Continuing on from the last point, if I have a Proteus with a mix of Angel, Mordu, and Sisters subsystems, would I lose a skill level in a skill from ALL of the racial subsystem skill groups? Is that a fair risk vs. reward scenario, depending on how effective those subsystems all work together? Also, if my Angel's subsystem is a propulsion subsystem, should I lose my Minmatar Propulsion Subsystems skill every time I lose it or should my other Minmatar Subsystem skills be at risk? If the first option is used, which Gallente skill should I lose? Sounds like a coding disaster to me.
If you had, as some suggested, pirate subsystems that could only fit into certain T3s (like a Guristas subsystem that was only compatible with a Tengu), you could reduce ships like the Proteus from becoming overly versatile, but then that could make even more work from CCP, having to create FIVE new Proteus subsystem sets and THREE for each of the others, and thus TWO whole subsystem sets for each pirate faction.
While I'll admit that the idea of merging pirate factions with T3's is interesting as a thought experiment, it's a can of Worms from my perspective (yes, that was a Guristas pun). Strategic Cruisers already offer a sizable variety of fitting options, despite the fact that the planned fifth subsystem for each area was never added. Adding more ways to mix and match subsystems and bonuses through either of these methods would just be a migraine for CCP to try and achieve anything resembling balance. Just with the Orthrus and it's insane capabilities as the world's priciest bumping ship, we've seen how with just one ship CCP can produce unintended results.
Industry Overhaul Coming in EVE Summer 2014 Expansion
Hello! Do we all remember I exist? Yes, it's been quite a long time since last I Tumbled, or whatever verb form of "Tumblr" you care to use. Being a high school senior is surprisingly a lot of work. But anyway, as the title suggests, this is not about me! I've been brought back to Tumblr to share the exciting news from EVE: we're FINALLY getting an overhaul to industry! (At least most of it)
For those hoping to get a revamp to Invention and Reverse Engineering (dealing with the higher-level Tech II and III production, respectively), sadly CCP will be waiting until fall or winter to implement changes there. Just as well, in my opinion, because despite the headache that they are, they are end-game content. New industrialists with minimum skills will be dabbling in basic Tech I production, which is a complex and confusing muddle of data and mechanics.
So what is getting changed? A LOT. So in the interest of brevity:
OUT: Weird and confusing industry market groups
IN: A more easy-to-understand hierarchy (with updated icons! :D )
OUT: Damage (Random loss) of Robotic Assembly Modules (R.A.M.) and Research Databases (R.Db)
IN: Consumption of R.A.M. and R.Db like any other component. As compensation, all blueprints will produce 100x more R.A.M. and job requirements will be increased by (100 x old damage chance). For all you astute freighter pilots out there, CCP is looking into the volume issues this could easily create. And all existing R.A.M. units will be multiplied by 100 as well. In theory, these changes should keep supply and demand of R.A.M. at the same balance as they are currently, but a minor price drop would not be beyond the realm of possibility.
OUT: Extra Materials, that annoying (and cluttering) second list of mineral requirements on manufacturing blueprints. How dare CCP make us use math ourselves to figure out how much Tritanium we really need to make our suicide-ganking Talwars! :P
IN: CCP's new reprocessing mechanics, which accomplish the same purpose (preventing perfect reprocessing) without the clunkiness and clutter. Extra Materials are now part of the Required Materials list so no more math! :D
Expect mineral prices to go up slightly around patch day, as CCP claims that this will cause overall mineral requirements to go up for people with poor skills. According to their Before/After pic, though, adding up the Required and Extra Materials values in the Before picture I got a larger number than the After picture shows, I'm guessing because now ME improvements are being applied to the Units Formerly Known As Extra. So mineral prices may go up or they may go down, but either way it's likely to not be dramatic, at least not purely because of this change.
OUT: All manufacturing and research slots O_O
IN: A scaling-cost model (so now instead of waiting forever to build stuff in Jita you just pay up to 14% more ISK in fees). I'm actually surprised that this change came so relatively quickly after Odyssey bumped up nullsec Outpost slots. Not to say that that change was pointless, it was at least a fair short-term solution, but this will be so much more welcome from all sides of the community. Nullsec and POS industry will now be much more viable, although there are more changes regarding that...
OUT: Keeping a Blueprint in a station while having a POS work on it
IN: Yet-to-be-revealed buffs to Mobile Laboratories, Assembly Arrays, and blueprint copy time to compensate for the risk. That last part is one of my favorite changes. You will now be able to copy a blueprint in less time than it takes for you to actually use it for, you know, making stuff. YAY!!
OUT: Restrictions of POS placement because of system security or standings
IN: ALL POSES EVERYWHERE!!!!!
All told, I think this is going to be one of CCP's most well-liked expansions yet, between industry revamps and the complete pirate ship tree getting its turn with Tiericide rebalancing. Industrialists have been complaining for years in some cases about how their player base only receives marginal attention in each expansion, while the devs focus on the PvP side of the game. Don't get me wrong, EVE is, at its core, a PvP game. But it's also supposed to be an open sandbox for you to build in as well as destroy, and the building part just got a whole lot better (and cooler).
As CCP Fozzie posted in the Features and Ideas Discussion, the devs on Team Five-O have already picked out what mobile structures are to be included in Rubicon 1.1. Though Fozzie didn't say anything further, it appears Michael Harari of Hydra Reloaded may have some insights, as posted above. This image is from the Singularity test server, according to Michael. Some of these structures' names seem pretty straightforward, but I'm curious as to what a "Mobile Power Core" could be. So without further ado, let's go through the list!
Logistics Array
The general purpose is rather clear here by the name "Logistics," but I'm surprised we see this as one item and not split into Shield and Armor like most remote-repping-related modules/rigs/etc are. Perhaps this structure is for a purpose other than repair, then. Perhaps it functions as a deployable cross between the Mobile Depot and the redesigned Hoarder—a floating ammo bay that can be accessed by fleet mates. It could even be used in conjunction with the Hoarder if the stats are similar to the Depot. Picture a speed-built Hoarder running around with 10 of these things (500m3 capacity of the Hoarder ÷ 50m3 per Depot) deploying them and stocking them from its ammo bay. It would certainly be a bit easier than jettisoning canisters in big fleet fights. I'm out on a limb here, but if that seems cool to you, you can post that in the forum thread linked above!
Mobile Sentry Guns
It'll be interesting to see how CCP balances these things out between Sentry Drones and POS Guns if they come to Tranquility. Expect stats to be in between those two categories and most definitely a grid limit.
Mobile Laboratory
This could be a great tool for start-up researchers who need to avoid the often-crowded NPC station labs but don't have access to a POS or outpost laboratory or the capital to build one themselves.
Mobile Power Core
This one is the great mystery to me. The only thing I feel I can safely assume is that this will likely interact with other mobile structures. Perhaps the Mobile Guns will rely on the Power Core to fire (this could take the place of a hard cap on guns per grid, and make it more of a soft cap if CCP releases different Meta Levels of both the Power Core and the Guns that generate more power/consume less power, respectively.
Mobile Reactor
Now we return to the obviously-named structures! This will in all likelihood be a small-scale mirror of POS reactors. I'm imagining using a Siphon to steal another corp's moon goo and running off to a safespot to process it in my Mobile Reactor. Could make using the Siphon more profitable when used on Moon Mining Arrays pulling up less-valuable materials.
Mobile Shield Generator
This would appear to most likely be a portable POS forcefield. Nothing much to add, really, other than that I hope it has a high volume and/or price, because I'd hate to see it abused by tiny frigates to push out aggressors and allow themselves to warp away.
Overall Thoughts
If this is the direction CCP is headed, it's clear to me that this is how they're planning on phasing out the current POS system and replacing it with the promised modular system. "How?" you ask? These structures are all free-standing just like current POS structures. Yes, but as CCP has stated repeatedly in the past, the current POS system (coding especially) is a can of worms, and overhauling the entire system was going to have to be gradual.
With these mobile structures having a completely separate codebase from the POS system, CCP can write new and better code that can give them wiggle room in future expansions to make a modular POS system. As the new structures on this list indicate, CCP is hacking apart POS modules bit by bit. I think we're going to see somewhere down the line at least some, hopefully not all, of these mobile structures replaced by similar ones that can be assembled together to form a POS. Perhaps CCP will even go with a "Power Rangers"-style mechanic that allows the current and future Mobile Structures to combine into a POS (although this would reduce the cost of POS assembly and thus a) make them too ubiquitous and b) get rid of a significant ISK sink).
Wherever CCP is intending to go with these Mobile Structures, I'm sure it'll be pretty cool!
Part of the reason the summer's Fountain War was so exciting was because null-security sovereignty wars are quite rare, particularly in the West, where the CFC's conglomerating of space had resulted in stagnation up until the Fountain War, and is restoring stagnation now in Post-Fountain EVE.
Why is this? For one, it is the fact that the previous Technetium bottleneck in pre-Odyssey EVE gave northwestern sov-holders like Goonswarm a monopoly on a crucial Tech II production material. Especially in the aftermath of Fountain, no group in their right mind would take on the Goons and their allies; they have huge piles of ISK at their disposal.
The second and more important reason for null-sec as a whole is that sov warfare is a lot of shooting structures, which are long, tedious, boring, and most importantly, strongly favor the defender and give little rewards to the attacker if they are successful.
The Boredom of Structure Shooting
Taking another alliance's space is an arduous affair. Here's a flowchart from TheMittani.com:
That's a lot of fights and a long time fighting. Notice how many hitpoints (expressed in parenthesis) each structure has, also. 40 million for an SBU(Sovereignty Blockade Unit); 25 million for a Territorial Claim Unit (TCU); 200 million for an Infrastructure Hub, 300 million for an Outpost/Conquerable Station. That's a lot of hitpoints to grind down. And if the attacker loses enough SBUs, the whole process has to start over again.
Structures also take a long time to online: 3 hours, for SBUs; 8 hours, 5 minutes for TCUs. Part of this might be to give Tranquility time to go through the process of figuring out sovereignty changes, but I doubt that nowadays (Dominion, the expansion which created this system, was released in 2009) it would require such a long time, particularly since the Factional Warfare zones appear able to change rather easily.
The structure-shooting based system can also be exploited, as one EVE player explained in this forum post. Basically, a defender can place offline SBUs in their own systems, shoot them into deep structure, and let the shields regenerate. An attacking fleet can choose to online the SBUs, but risk the defenders destroying it fairly easily, or take up more time (and money and logistics) by shooting it themselves and placing and on-lining their own at full health.
Lack of Rewards for Attackers
While outposts and conquerable stations can flip ownership, as they are not destructible, player-owned starbases (POSes) cannot be conquered and essentially must be destroyed while not being a required part of the sov mechanics in the code.
In addition, benefits that the previous inhabitants had acquired by meeting residence requirements are denied to the conquerors as the "Strategic Index" of the system is reset to zero on loss of sovereignty by the defender. Jump bridges are no longer operational; I-Hubs and their upgrades are destroyed. In short, all the reasons for alliances to capture systems are denied to them.
Top-Down Business Model
As a number of sov-war veterans have expressed, moon mining creates a huge ISK faucet that brings prosperity to the alliance executives, but only benefits players indirectly by funding ship reimbursements and other "welfare" programs. It makes I-hub upgrades sort of meaningless, because alliances can make loads of ISK mining moons. It also means that alliance leaders aren't heavily invested in the average rank-and-file member who may want to do mining or ratting in alliance systems. Roaming gangs can't do much to hurt alliance income.
Make Sovereignty transfers faster and more interesting.
Reduce defender advantage while creating strategic options for attackers and defenders and eliminating a linear process.
Remove penalties for attacking a system.
Create opportunities for smaller groups to gain a footing.
Restructure the economy of null-sec to a bottom-up model as opposed to the current top-down model.
Manage ISK sinks and faucets.
Have the Strategic Index of the system based on the concentration of the alliance members over an extended period of time, say a month or so, using statistics like average pilots in system.
The idea here is to make it clear to potential invaders where the less-defended systems of an alliance's holdings are. It will also have an effect on the actual battle, as will be explained below.
Couple shooting structures with occupation timers and nerf structure hitpoints.
This will make even small-scale invaders a threat, not to mention make fights much shorter. The timers would function the same as in Factional Warfare, but if damage is applied to the structure, the timer will accelerate. Only Siege Dreadnoughts will be able to shoot sovereignty structures, with the exception of TCUs, which can be shot by anybody. Anyone can rep the structure being shot to mitigate timer acceleration. If the attackers leave the specified radius around the structures before the timer is finished, it will slowly decay.
Replace reinforcement timers with Reinforcement Windows as defenses against timezone-manipulation.
Each system would have a window up to 8(?) hours long, determined by a Station Manager, during which time all sovereignty structures in the system would have their base timer rates would be halved and attackers would only be able to move the timer to 50%. Timer decay will not begin until the Reinforcement Window ends. Pretty much this allows attackers to use timezones to get a headstart, but they can only get up to halfway done for the same amount of time as if they actually fought for the structure when the defender is supposedly "active."
Have the Strategic Index of a system, under the new system, determine the base length of the occupation timers.
The goal here is to make underused systems more vulnerable. Enough said.
Have TCUs absorb the functions of SBUs and reduce the onlineing timer and hitpoints.
The idea here is this: Instead of having to worry about multiple structures, an attacking alliance needs only to online one TCU (nearby the owners'?) to create a "button" around the defenders' TCU. Holding that button for a set time would cause the TCU to self-destruct. If the defenders' TCU is destroyed sovereignty would changed hands directly from one alliance to another and the attackers' TCU button despawns. However, the same tactic works for the defenders against the attackers' TCU. Alliances would also be barred from launching/onlineing TCUs against themselves.
Make outposts destructible.
Destroying and rebuilding outposts would be a major ISK sink. At the same time, if attacking groups want to take over ownership, that should still be an option, leading us to...
Make specific I-Hub upgrades targetable, and remove destroying I-Hubs/attacking outposts as requirements, but award moderate bonuses for destroying them.
This would further streamline sovereignty warfare and benefit small-gang raids, while at the same time giving larger fleets more options. Destroying either of these structures would reduced the time needed by the attackers to make vulnerable the defenders' TCU while increasing the time needed by the defenders at the attackers' TCU. Destroying an I-Hub would give a slight bonus for each upgrade destroyed and give a final, larger bonus if the whole structure is destroyed. The downside is obviously destroying the upgrades.
Create the option of transferring sovereignty between alliances, and have sovereignty transfers retain I-Hub upgrades and flip POSes owned by the defender.
This would eliminate lots of pointless structure shoots by attackers once the enemy has given up (see Fountain) and also create more incentives for contesting space. Defenders would have the option of surrendering a system at any time while it's contested, and attackers would be presented with the option of removing or keeping any remaining I-Hub upgrades upon capture. POSes owned by third parties would retain ownership and could remain unmolested if the attacker wishes.
Allow defender to regain control over conquered stations and I-Hubs to readjust the timers in their favor (slightly).
Defenders could attempt to slow attackers down by retaking stations and I-Hubs and restoring lost upgrades. This wouldn't fully reverse the effects of the attackers' victory overnight (destroyed outposts being a major loss), but the defenders' recapture timers (which would become available after a set time) would count down faster than the timers needed for the attackers to take them. Regaining control would reduce the time needed for defenders to make the attackers' TCU vulnerable and increase the time needed for the attackers to do the same to the defenders' TCU.
Economic Changes
Nerf moon mining yields, increase the rewards of null-sec mining and ratting, and create alliance roles and economic tools.
The idea here is to shift the economies of null-sec alliances to a bottom-up approach, based on small-scale economic activities. Alliance roles would function similarly to corp roles, just on a larger scale. The part we want to focus on is allowing alliance members to buy and sell on the alliance's behalf from an alliance wallet, just like corps can do. This would allow corporations to better pool their resources and generate income through trade.
Shift ownership of TCUs to the alliance as a whole and bill upkeep costs to the alliance wallet.
It just makes sense.
Create an alliance tax system.
Alliance taxes would apply to the following:
Mining/ratting rewards. (Again, these would be significantly increased to offset this and to make it more profitable for the individual.)
Customs Offices. Basically another level to the current corporate-based POCO tax system.
Corporate Incomes. This would funnel a portion of a corporation's tax revenue to the alliance wallet.
All these changes would, I hope, make null-sec a much more dynamic and interesting place to be in EVE. Once CCP expands DUST 514 to null-sec, this would need to be changed. (adding POCO timers for more small capture bonuses?) Feel free to leave feedback on my ideas!
In my previous post regarding Korra, I expressed a lot of criticism over the direction I thought the show was going and the screenplay of the season premiere. But last Friday's episode, "The Sting," is causing me to turn a 180. Here's why:
ALERT: SPOILERS BELOW!
The Humor is Tolerable Again
In the previous episodes, the comedy was rather strange and awkward, which I'm going to attribute to Desna and Eska, with their monotones and highly-technical way of speaking making me feel uncomfortable rather than amused. Varrick's eccentricity also contributed, in my opinion; while sometimes his gags hit the funny bone, the platypus-bear stunt just seemed like an idea the writers just sort of threw in there without thinking too deeply, particularly at the "pooping money" part. While scatological humor may attract little kids, most Korra viewers are teenagers who watched The Last Airbender as kids.
Without Desna and Eska, though, and with fewer weird Varrick stunts, the humor, while still lacking a bit of punch, has improved. I chuckled for the first time this season when Mako superheated Bolin's hot tub, prompting Bolin to scream, "My instrument!" in a possible double-entendre for the older viewers which now seem to be recognized by the writers.
ASAMI IS BACK ON CAMERA! / Romantic Entanglements Return
Asami finally showed up onscreen after the season premiere and the two-part "Civil Wars" story arc in "Peacekeepers," and her character is starting to develop a bit more. We see that she's willing to become a war profiteer by selling her dad's mecha-tanks to the Southern Water Tribe rebels in order to keep her struggling business afloat. In "The Sting," we see how emotionally invested she is in Future Industries.
We also see, in the aftermath of the Makorra breakup, that Asami is still in love with Mako, rather than angry at being dumped in favor of the Avatar. And even more troubling is the fact that Mako's mixed response to her kiss towards the end of the episode suggests that the feeling may be mutual to a degree. I'm sensing a lot of fiery explosions when Korra rejoins with the group.
Good Mystery Writing/Varrick Character Development
As I mentioned in my last post, the writers have hinted at a possible dark side to Varrick in released character descriptions on Nick.com. We finally were officially shown that in "The Sting," but surprisingly the writers did a fantastic job at making it not immediately apparent as to who was behind the attacks on the Cultural Center and Varrick's fleet. Not until the pyrotechnical designer showed Mako the remote detonator did I see the whole picture.
And that picture is just absolutely fascinating. Varrick always appeared as Unalaq mentioned in his speech during the premiere, "trivial." But now we see that Varrick is really a nefarious version of Sir Percy Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel (a great book, even greater musical): he presents himself as a superficial, unintelligent wacko, but is secretly brilliant and calculating. I can't wait to see what happens as Mako tries to find evidence to incriminate Varrick.
Cliffhangers/New Questions
Both the beginning and end of the episode left me in suspense. The opening scene was of Unalaq emerging from the Southern Spirit Portal, presumably on a journey to the Spirit World as hinted by Desna. But what was he doing there?
Then at the end of the episode, we finally learn what happened to Korra, but (*gasp!*) we discover that something about her encounter with the Dark Spirit (whom I'm nicknaming "the Kraken") left her with amnesia. Will the Fire Sages be able to help her? I guess I'll have to contain my excitement for next week, which will be the anticipated hour-long special on the origins of the Avatar!
