#eve_online

[twm12]

eve online chimera review 

[bearbarin-blog]

<10 Metal Scraps = Shuttle

In the Small Secure Container that I put in every ship I fly, I put modules like MWDs and Expanded Cargo, and various ECM flavors,  so that wherever I end up, I've got the tools to do the job.  I also take a  Shuttle blueprint copy and some metal scraps. That shuttle can be handy to zip around with if you decide to stay in a system to run missions and want to go back to your base to get a salvaging ship to speed up the looting. 

I used to put 30m³ of Tritanium with the Shuttle blueprint copy in that container, and thought I was so bright.  But 10 metal scraps only take up .1m³, and when reprocessed (depending on your Refining Skills) makes more than 3000 units of Tritanium, more than enough for a shuttle.  If a mission will take 30 minutes or more to salvage, you have time to reprocess the metal and make a shuttle.  So instead of just selling off your scrap or reprocessing it, you can use it like a bunch of little dehydrated taxis.

[bearbarin-blog]

So this happened.  Pantone's 2013 color of the year is this shade of Green: "Emerald"  that looks quite à la mode Gallente - n'est-ce pas?  it's sort of a funny coincidence that many of the words used to describe the color by Pantone PR also bear a certain congruity with Gallente characteristics....

[bearbarin-blog]

That Elusive Level 5

image from K162space

I've been playing for a little over 3 months now. I've been careful to keep my Skill Queue full, and I've reached 4.5 million skillpoints. And what I've found out is while there are many Skills that are useful at low levels just to access types of ships or modules for instance, it seems that increasingly, every skill I find I need I really ought to take it all the way to Level 5.  Sometimes the bonus bump per level is paltry like 2% so that leveling up to 5 will only give a 10% increase.  But when the bonus is 5% and up, and especially when it's something like Drone Interfacing which gives a 20% bump per level to drone damage and drone mining level - it makes it seem crucial to eke out that full Level 5. I mean, I'm running those damn drones, I paid a helluva lot for them, so I want them to deal the maximum DPS! ( Damage Per Second)  Of course you can't even inject the skillbook for Drone Interfacing until you've reached the Level 5 Drone Skill.  The question of course is time.  Most of the Level 5s I've needed so far have been able to be completed in 3 or 4 days, but now I'm looking at topping off a few skills that will take 2 weeks to finish.  Argggh.

When I looked  on the forums to see the sort of Ideal Fits for ships, I was surprised to see that some people came up with setups that seemed to deal outrageous amounts of DPS - even on little frigates. It didn't make sense until I realized that it wasn't just the Tech 2 or Navy Issue guns, it was also the accumulated skillpoints in Gunnery and Engineering and Electronics and what have you that exponentially increased the lethality of these tiny hulls. These sort of chains of skills leading to greater bonuses is what makes me quite content to just stay in Empire space for now, around people that haven't had the time yet to amass huge hordes of skillpoints.  

[bearbarin-blog]

Shield Extenders & Passive Shield Tank Modules - Why I Love Them...

So I'm Gallente, and all the Fitting Guides for Gallente Ships seem biased toward Armor Tanking, because Gallente Ships have better armor resists - yada yada.  And I'm sure that later on when I get into PvP combat, I'll yield to these greater authorities.  But now, I'm just building up ISK and learning how to fit and use different ships, and doing missions and Planetary Interaction and Skilling up, so until I jump into the PvP pool, I'm developing some Carebear strategies that might be useful for you.  One of these is going against Received Knowledge and using Passive Shield Tanking on my ships.  

I don't like Red in my Instrument Display.  I don't wig out now like I used to when I was just doing the Rookie missions.  But I still don't like Red much, and the less Red means less attention I have to pay to Defensive strategies and more fun I can have with Offense and the Pew Pew.  That's why I love Shield Extenders.  What they do is add time, sometimes doubling the amount of Shield resistance.  They take the place of your Shield Booster in the Mid Slot.  The link above has a good article on Passive Shield tactics.  Right now I use the basic Shield Extenders in my Destroyers on up - Cruisers, Battlecruisers, and Battleships, along with a Shield Power Relay module in one of my Low Slots. 

So far using Shield Extender-Shield Power Relay setups I've never gone through a shield into Armor Damage  - all Red is confined to the outer ring of the Display.  Granted I'm only doing Mission 1 Security missions now.  So that info is only accurate for Mission 1s.  I still fit an Armor Repair module in one of my Lows just to be prepared, but I never hit it now. 

So instead of the basic Frigate Defense of having a Shield Booster and an Armor Repairer, 2 modules that have to be activated in the midst of battle.  I've got 3 modules that I never (at least in Mission 1s) have to activate.  That's a relief.

But I doubt that the use of these modules would work for you unless you also have the relevant Skllls, you need Engineering and Electronics leveled up to 5, and then 3 Shields Skills: Management, Operations, & Upgrades.  It's never enough to have a good module, you have to Skill up to use it to the fullest. 

[bearbarin-blog]

Patience & Eve

“Impatience led to our expulsion from paradise, and impatience stops us returning.” - Franz Kafka

After all those weeks of training and ISKing to make and afford and insure and fly and fit that Dominix, my own Space Potato, it still seems that until I can fit it with the right dual large hybrid guns that I'm not going to get the Damage Per Second - DPS - that it's really meant for.  So Gunnery to Level V - yay - another 4 day queue.  Patience is what this game really teaches you.  Impatience leads you to make mistakes, waste ISK, train the wrong skill, increase standings with a less useful Corporation.  

With computers and the internet and the creeping societal ADHD, I can be impatient to click on things, it's tempting to over rely on intuition, all in the name of "saving time".  But what I had thought was going to be a big use for my multi-purpose Dominix - mining -turned out to be inefficient.  I hadn't considered a Retriever mining barge because there was another of those Level V - 4 day Skills to slog through: Industry.  But when I realized that I could eat up asteroids about twice as fast with a Retriever and two strip miners than I could with a Domi and 6 Miner IIs, much less do away with the jetcan chaining and multiple Iteron hauling trips then it all made better sense.  And Retrievers are relatively cheap, you can make the price of purchase back in about 3 or 4 hours of mining, and pay for modules and insurance with a couple hours more.

But the best thing about mining with a Retriever is that if you pick good large asteroids with a Survey Scanner, and release some combat drones, then instead of having to offload ore every minute with a Vexor, or every 3 minutes with a Dominix, you can sit back and read a book for about 22 minutes, checking the Overview for little red crosses every time you turn a page.  Not really AFK, but pretty peaceful, especially if you still use Mission Mining.