Free To Play EVE

Here's the prediction for an announcement at Fanfest this year: As of Citadel's release we will no longer need to pay our monthly subscription to play EVE Online. Instead we will only have to pay for characters we want to train. If we don't want to train new skills we stop paying.

The evidence is from the dev blog FANFEST 2016 - BRING ON THE WRECKING MACHINE! where they list the cosplay PLEX prizes in terms of "years of training time" rather than years of game time. Check out the image to see it for yourself:

So, dear reader, what do you think? Is this irrefutable evidence that EVE is going free to play and pay to train in the near future? Answers on a postcard.

Mission Complete

I better write about this quickly before CCP make changes to undo my achievement. A long time ago CCP took the wise decision to split the generic destroyer and battlecruiser skills into racial equivalents. This brought those two skills in line with all other T1 class ship skills. Of course panic erupted in the forums with people concerned they would become unable to fly their favourite ships once the changes came into play. CCP addressed this by announcing people who could already fly a given race's destroyer or battlecruiser would be gifted the appropriate racial skills at the old generic skill level. We were given specific details of the skill prerequisites which would ensure this happened. This triggered a race to train all the prerequisites and both destroyer and battlecruiser to V.

I succumbed to that on all three accounts. I almost didn't with my industrial character but at the very last possible moment I changed my mind and finished training battlecruiser to V mere days before the change happened. Post-release I logged in to find all my main characters with an extra six million skill points. Shiny!

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately depending on your point of view, this sent me on a completionist mission with Oreamnos. I decided I wanted to be able to fly each and every subcapital ship in EVE - from the smallest frigate to the blingy black ops battleships. There were a few distractions on the way. Someone pointed out that sitting in the ships wasn't really being able to fly them. This got me training all the weapons systems to decent T2 level (Specialisation IV). At one point I also needed to get myself trained into Archons. CCP added a few new ship types, namely mining frigates and tech three destroyers.

Last week I got notification that Gallente Tactical Destroyer had trained its first level thus ending my epic training voyage. Many of the ships I have never flown. A few I possibly never will. I'm just happy that I completed this quest. The question is, what do I train now? Many of the cap ships are only three days training now but have you seen the price of those skill books?! I might have to think hard about that.

EVEn on holiday

As I live in Scotland it is always nice to get away somewhere sunny and warm. It's nice to leave work behind and all the little niggling jobs around the house that I never get around to doing. On holiday you can sit around and relax guilt-free. Of course, to get on holiday there are many things which need taken care of: Pets need someone to look after them; Getting someone to stay at your house while you're away is also great (ignoring that it could be their house getting broken into instead); Wrapping up or handing over all your projects at work can be pretty exhausting. Once that's all taken care of, though, relaxation is key.

For all us EVE players there is one final detail which needs tended to - the skill queue. A unique selling point of EVE is the absence of level-grinding compared to other MMOs. In combination with the assertion that a new player can compete quickly with a veteran this seems a very compelling feature. Pretty much from the start most players realise that this offline progression means any time with an empty queue is 'levelling time' squandered. Thus they acquire 'skill queue anxiety'.

Thankfully for me it was rather easy to find skills for my three accounts to train. Orea got Large Hybrids V and Geo got Heavy Drones V. Dhal got Takmahl Technology V which is probably useless but will take him down to two skills left before he can build everything in the game. All of these skills started with well over two weeks of training so cover my break wonderfully. Before I had so many skills points I remember having to add skills to my queue almost every day. I can only assume I never went on any holidays when my characters were young as it would have almost certainly been impossible to find a 14 day skill back then. I also don't remember deliberately letting a skill queue run out so I guess I was just lucky.

The only thing which would improve this picture is a clean screen which is visible in the sun

One additional consideration I have when going on holiday is my role as both the alliance leader and as the admin of all the alliance IT services. Unfortunately I am way too controlling and paranoid to give anyone else admin access to our server or to have anyone other than myself in control of the alliance executor corp. This means I always feel compelled to take my laptop with me on holidays. This is strictly for emergencies only I tell my wife. I in no way, shape, or form did PI today before going to the beach. I was definitely not online two nights ago chatting with folk and seeking a route back to our home system for Orea.

So, dear reader, what actions and precautions do you take before going on holiday? Do you set any long skill regardless to whether you need that skill or not? Do you take a computer with you to maintain your normal training plan? Or do you simply forget about EVE and skill points and just finish your holidays to an empty queue?

More Posterity

On the eve of EVE crossing the Rubicon I took more screenshots to record for posterity. As many of you know, the old certification system is going away to be replaced by ship mastery. For a lot of people this will be considered a good thing as many of the certificates are a bit outdated now. For me, as useful as I hope the new mastery system will be, I will be a little sad at them passing into history. Certificates didn't exist when I first played EVE in 2005. A lot of the problems I had back then was from overload at the vast array of skills I could train. I had no idea what would be a good idea and what wasn't. In the end I didn't make it past the two week trial back then. The same story happened in 2007 when I gave EVE a second chance. By 2009 the certificate system existed and what a major difference it made to me.

I trained many skills since then, some following the certificates and others ignore them completely. There are two categories of certificates I got to elite level which I am rather proud of - Elite Core skills and Elite Defence.

Elite Core Skills

Elite Defence Skills

I have no idea how my skills will shape up under the new mastery ratings so let the record show I once was Elite at something.

Lost In Hisec

In partnership with one of the other wormhole corps in my alliance we have something of a wormhole academy on the go. As part of the fun of this academy we are organising regular trips from their C2 wormhole system to our C4 wormhole system.

The first such trip was not so successful as we didn't achieve a critical mass of people. The plan had been for a minimum of five people to come from the C2 so they could function as a coherent unit. Unfortunately, as is often the case in W-space, the route in wasn't as fortuitous as it could have been. Actually, there was no route in for the duration of the time frame people were online to enter. Of course, wormholes being a cruel mistress, the moment everyone coming to visit gave up and went home we acquired a route. Two people came.

During their stay those two guys had a blast. Made lots of ISK shooting sleepers and one of them has even applied to move up from the academy corp to my corp. This pretty much was the point of the operation so it could be deemed a success. An important lesson learned was POS mechanics suck for entertaining alliance guests. More about that some other time.

So having learned various lessons from last time, the new away trip for the C2 guys was much more thoroughly planned. Primarily, an Orca has been assigned to serve as a mobile CHA/SMA for our alliance buddies. So last night was time to escort them in.

The route was less than ideal with four wormholes to jump through, three of which were end of life. Intel indicated we should have about two hours remaining on the shortest wormhole so we decided to take a calculated risk. Running the most secure operation we've ever done we had eyes on both sides of every wormhole. There was no chance anyone would get the drop on us, and if they did we all would drop on their head and have a good fight.

Slow Orca was slow and seemed it would never ever get to our entry system. In the meantime we were keeping good eyes watching all the wormholes. Intel was so good that there was almost no delay between the static wormhole from our home system collapsing and it being announced on comms. Blast! Either that was an hour early or someone didn't keep good notes. C'est la vie.

Thus the away mission for the C2 guys came to an abrupt halt. About six of our guys, including me, had no way home. There was only one thing to do - we all headed to our office station and partied the night away.

More Pew Please

Recently I've become increasingly interested in getting involved with some lowsec roams or general small scale PvP. I'm not particularly interested in 'honourable' one on one duelling as I believe in the whole "don't fight unless you've already won" philosophy. That's not so say I'm adverse to fighting in uncertain circumstances, but I would rather be in a group of people than relying solely on my own skills and the honour of my opponent.

I've become a little protective of my existing characters' security status, and over-protective of my low number of ship losses. This means I don't want to take either Orea or Dhal out on such roams. Plus, getting Orea out of his wormhole can be a pain without prior planning. Anyway, Orea gets to do his own solo hunting for soft targets and I'm happy with that. The solution to this problem is obviously to create a character exclusively for roaming around to find some pew pew, thus Geo was born.

During the week an invite went out for an Alliance roam. Even though Geo was only thirteen days old how could I pass up the opportunity? It takes very little skill to fit a half-decent Rifter and not much more for a half-decent Thrasher. I rearranged the skill queue accordingly and flew two Rifters and two Thrashers to the form-up system. With my ships in place all I had left to do was wait for the fleet advert.

[Rifter, Geo's Rifter]¹
Small Inefficient Armor Repair Unit
Damage Control I
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
Limited 1MN Afterburner I

150mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I, Republic Fleet EMP S
[empty high slot]

Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

[Thrasher, Geo's Thrasher]²
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Damage Control I

Limited 1MN Afterburner I
Medium Subordinate Screen Stabilizer I
Fleeting Warp Disruptor I

250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light 'Scout' Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
[empty high slot]

Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Ancillary Current Router I

I joined fleet and we spent the next hour forming up in Derelik. We were informed the route would be taking us around Molden Heath. This isn't a region of New Eden I've spent any time in so none of the system names were familiar. With my copy of Eve Tactical Maps open in front of me I could see a nice little cluster of interconnected lowsec systems in Derelik. This lead to a very convenient loop of lowsec systems which, I correctly guessed, would define the roam.

Finally we were all set in our fleet of nine and off we went.
¹ Heavily influenced by Kirith Kodachi's recently published fit for his Rifter.².
² Suggestions for improvements are welcome, just remember this is a character with only 600,000 SP.

On Building T3s

After a long training queue, Dhal is finally in a position to start building T3 subsystems for Tengus. The skill for building the actual T3 hull, Cruiser Construction, is a slightly long one so is on hold for now while I get the skills to build all the different faction T3 subsystems.

Until this year Dhal had pretty much been wandering the universe with no point or purpose. Even though he's been a capsuleer for many years he had yet to focus on any single career. With Orea moving away into wormhole space it was time to actually focus on some other aspect of the game and industry seemed a good choice.

The interesting thing about low skilled industry is the margins are generally quite low. Randomly picking something to start building can be a bad decision and I quickly discovered there is nothing to be made building frigates or cruisers. Even if you do all the work from scratch - mining, refining, research, building, selling - the return on time is rather low.

To actually make decent ISK from the manufacturing venture I had to sit down with spreadsheets and work out potential profit per month. This was a very organised method compared to the fail method of randomly picking interesting things to build and giving it a go. Ammo is the eternal cash cow and by sitting down and making a proper plan I now turn a tidy profit. All of which has been funnelled back into the T3 business.

Unlike last year, Dhal now won't be seen anywhere near an asteroid belt or near a refinery. I now just buy materials as and when I need them. I guess the next plan is to start using buy orders to further improve the profit margin.

Skill Training Complete

I used to think skills that took a day or more to learn were long skills.
Then I thought skills which took 3 days were long.
Now I long for skills which only take a week.

New Eden: Welcome to the school of patience.