As Jester said this is an excellent place to read up on all the new Odyssey changes coming on Tuesday.


Odyssey

In the process of creating a major project.

 I have been quiet on the blog lately, more then usual. It's because I'm in the process of designing something that I want to make come to reality in EvE. It involves a good amount of reasearch, planning, and then some whole hearted get down and dirty "make it happen" elbow grease.

 I'm not quite ready to lay all my plans out for you, but in time once it's in the rolling out phase, I may. So bear with me and watch this space.

 Untill then, I will try to remember to get some other topics up here, as I still have a list of things I want to convey on here.  

Eye's and Ears will save your life.

Perception

 This one word is so important in running a corporation in Eve. It is the act of determining what is going on by watching and making a judgment on what you are seeing or hearing. This does not mean that you are right, and in some cases you will be dead wrong in what you have decided is happening. Depending on the situation, and the importance of the act you have observed, this could be detrimental to you, and your corporation.

  What do I mean by this? Everything boils down to how we as humans perceive our surroundings, and what could be dangerous to us, and our way of life. We all have a lack of trust that is there to protect us, and in Eve it is heightened due to what we have witnessed, and read about. What we do is always seen by others, maybe in the right light, but where there could be cause for alarm we will err on the side of caution, and hushed whispers that something is up, and needs to be watched carefully. These emotions are heightened when seen through the eyes of higher ranked people within your corporation, since they have more to lose, and a greater sense of responsibility to protect the Corporation and its members from harm.

  An example would be someone pushing for more roles within the corporation, they may just want to be a bigger part of what’s happening, but they could also want those roles to sabotage your corporation and steal its assets. It all comes down to the perception of the command structure of the corporation, and what they deem as suspicious behavior. The person wanting more roles could be innocent of any wrong thinking, or malicious plans, but in a game like Eve it doesn’t matter. Trust is earned slowly in most corporations, one’s that have been burned before and one’s that have seen or heard it happen to others.

  A good rule of thumb is to be up front with the members of your corporation, or your corporation CEO’s if you’re a leader of an alliance. If people know the intentions, and the base perceptions for common actions within your leadership, they are more apt to understand how things work in your command and what is considered poor form, or inappropriate actions that will cause undue scrutiny upon you or your corporation.

  As always a certain amount of transparency goes along way to helping new people to your corporation, or new corporations to your alliance adjust and understand the reasons behind your command style. Eve is a game of distrust, but in the end when that trust is earned and appreciated it becomes the kind of trust that will last. Most spies will try to gain your trust quickly, after all time is money, and they want your money and don’t want to spend years doing it. Be advised though, there are people out there that play that game, they will spend all the time in the world to get you to make them a director, you will think he’s your best friend, he has your back, and would never do anything to harm you or the corporation he so lovingly pledges himself to, so be careful, be vigilant, but above all else be aware that the more you play this game, the easier it will become to perceive when something is not quite right. 

2014 Expansions, My Wishlist.....

 I was thinking of what I would like to see in the coming expansions for EvE Online. This is just my wishlist and opinion on what that might look like.

Ruin – Summer Expansion 2014

1. System shake up / all three sectors

  The creation of several Solar / and nebula events that will persist in the game universe. Space is not meant to be static, and there should be areas of space that are harsher, or change up the effects that occur in them. You do this to some extent in WH space with the suns granting buffs or debuffs to your ships. Just as everyday life on earth, the sun does not shine everyday, we have different weather effects that can cause us to change our plans, and in some cases, make us run for cover. Every system should not be the same all the time. Expanding on the exploration aspect some of these events or occurrences should have to be scanned down, and then exploited or marked as dangerous areas. The possibility of starting out with a system or two in all four races areas, low, and 0.0 space could see changes occurring to space in 12 to 20 systems to begin with and expanding out from there to create swaths of systems that create a natural block that will alter how we play the game to adjust to these phenomena. For lack of a better name, there could be the use of the terms Badlands (no shields worked, even on POS’s), Briar Patch (loss of all communications, or cloaking ability), ship altering nebula (unable to target, loss of shields, inability to warp or use micro warp drives), photon, plasma or ion storms (storms that would last a finite time in a system that would disrupt any number of things), comets (visual), black holes ( being in proximity to one of these would crush your structure), meteor showers (visual), the list goes on.

2. New NPC Pirate faction

  A new Faction, not necessarily pirates, but a group of capsuleers that have broken off from the main stream. Calling themselves the Jovian Guard, they have set up shop in a 0.0 system close to low sec. This new faction wants to be left alone and to their own devises. Claiming a system as their own and fighting fiercely over it, defending it against anyone that enters it. The AI would be more advanced with this faction and they would set up gate camps, and you would also find they have mining barges in the belts that when attacked would call for help and have other ships arrive to fight off the attackers.

 This new faction would have claimed this system and have a TCU set up and defended. If left alone and free to do what they want, they will eventually expand to a random neighboring system and begin attacks against the inhabitants of the new system. This faction would be an expansion on the current ratting as you would need small fleets of ships to take them on.

3. Expansion on exploration

  To expand further on the exploration theme added anomalies would be added that could aid or be potentially damaging upon being found. These new anomalies would have to be scanned down, and then once pin pointed the capsuleer would have to figure out what these new sites did, and how they could either benefit themselves or others. The ability to sell this information is an option as it would take a very good scanner to find these different and amazing sites.

  Some ideas would be a pocket of null space that once you warped to it you found yourself in a section of space that had no stars and was completely black. You would have to work out that this section of space removed you from local, and any type of scan. This could also be compounded by trying to figure out its size, and not knowing how long this anomaly will last.

  You could also find a section of space that once you warped to it after scanning started to eat away at your shields, armor, or structure. This could be potentially dangerous to anyone who entered it.

4. More dust integration / new ships

 Add two new ships to Eve that would work with dust game play. I am not sure if this could be done, but it is an interesting idea. Based off the shuttle design of the four races we could develop new fighters that would not be warp capable but would be able to have atmospheric flight. These new fighters would be transported in a smaller carrier the size would be somewhere between a Battleship, and a carrier, and be capable of carrying up to 5 fighters into a district for air support from eve players into dust.  

5. A more robust contract system / diplomacy

 Add new contracts to the contract system to allow for diplomatic contracts that would span 1, 3, and 6 month periods. This new contracts could be used for renting, non aggression pacts, and Alliance/ Coalition dues. This could be expanded further as the need arises.

6. Fleet command revamp

  The Fleet command system would be limited to 50 ships per fleet, and the fleet commander could set a certain number of specific ships that would be allowed to join it. For example a certain number of logistic ships / bombers, etc. limiting the fleet size would make it more interesting as you would need more fleet commanders, and more coordination between fleets to accomplish your goals, instead of blobbing.

  The other idea was to set a mass limit on cyno’s, there is a mass limit to entering wormhole space, why not how many ships you can jump in on one cyno? This change would require that a new section on the fleet tab would have to be made showing the current mass of a fleet. The possibility is also there to add a new capital cyno as well that had a larger mass, but could only jump capital ships in.

  We could also add a new ship here, called a bridging ship. It would be designed as a fleet command ship that would allow a link to the cyno and jump the fleet.

7. Risk / reward build

  With the new system effects, and adding harshness to some sectors of space should also bring a better risk / reward design to those areas. If you wanted to brave the new effects and set up in those areas, the reward should be equal to its dangers. Adding these elements would also change how we would fight within these sectors, if we would fight, and where we would make a stand. The potential to use these new effects to our advantage, or against our enemy would be different.

8. Unknown elements that must be figured out

  Exploration should be just that, and some of the things that are found, or new effects with in the systems should have to be figured out, and not hand feed to us. The idea of finding strange new sections of space, and then having to figure out just what they do would add a interesting and fun element to the game.

9. Corporation revamp / recruitment / no more 3 man corps

  The Ability to recruit has always been tough, unless you’re a huge coalition or alliance. This causes the game to stagnate as there should always be newer alliances, and corporations that are on the rise, and pushing for their own piece of space. I am not asking for a free pass, or a way to stop them from recruiting. There needs to be a way to limit the small to non existent 1-5 man Corporations that are so abundant in the game. I understand that Eve is a sandbox, and you should play however you want to play. I am just stating it’s very hard right now to find a way to recruiting players.

10. New exploration skills / navigation skills

   The Idea that we could add new skills that would help with what we find out in these new areas would have to be handled in a different way. I can’t see these skills just going up on the market as soon as the expansion hits, as that would defeat the idea of going out there and finding out what’s there, and how it affects us.

  There are two ideas I have that would maybe work better, or at least until the winter expansion came out. The first is to seed certain ships found in these new areas with the skill books that would lead to the new skills. They could be rare drops with not more than a dozen or two (combined) dropping in the first month. These new skills would allow for better navigation, scanning, or engineering to alleviate some of the effects found in the new systems. It would be interesting if there was a way to copy these skill books for resale as well, but it would have to take a decent amount of time to copy them.

11. New exploration modules

  New modules could also be introduced in the same way as above. I have also thought it would be interesting if you could have systems that required two modules to be fitted to work, it would make for some interesting fits.

12. Industry as a major advantage to PvP alliances

   I have always found that not all Alliances, but some always neglect the industry side of things. The quote “PvP makes you deadly, but Industry keeps you that way” has always stuck in my head. I am not sure if it could be expanded on, but I know that CCP is trying to do this now, so it’s possible that this will be the case in the near future.

Frontiers – Winter Expansion 2014

  Frontiers will expand on the Summer Expansion, with the addition of more systems having effects that change the way we play the game. I look forward to what CCP is doing, and by all means am not knocking the direction it is headed. I would just like to see some more interactive space in the future.

What's up Homie?

Home.

  What does that make you think of? A place where you feel safe, secure, and know you can always go to and be happy. Most people hate to move. You have to pack all your stuff up and either rent a truck, or hire movers, or con your friends into helping you for a six pack and a pizza. It sucks, no two ways around it, and no one wants to do it in Eve either. There are many places in Eve that you can find yourself constantly moving your stuff, and I'm not talking about working out of a home system and moving some of your stuff to a staging system to be closer to combat operations. I am talking about being in a corporation or alliance that is constantly on the move with no place to really call your home. People will end up creating their own home in some station that they feel is beneficial to them, not your corporation or alliance. You really can't blame them everyone needs a place to live even in Eve.

  There are some corporations, and alliances that have made it work for them and their members and that’s fine. I am not that kind of person, so this is for those of you that are like me and want a little stability in your Eve universe life. It has been written that if you can provide three basic needs to a person then there moral and happiness will be better off for it. Shelter, food, and clothing are these staples, but in Eve it’s different. Food is non existent, and clothing for most of us is as well. Shelter though in Eve terms is there, and needed if only for a place to keep my stuff.

  Stations are our shelter, be it in high sec, low sec, wormholes or 0.0 we need a place to keep our stuff. How many of us pull up our assets screen and it’s a mile long? Hands anyone? There are only a few stations that truly hold what is most important to us, the rest is just space junk for some of us. When you join a corporation or alliance they will tell you they are based out of some station somewhere in Eve, so we as good little pilots start our trek to the HOME system, and station. This is now going to be our home where we will live, and socialize with our merry band of brothers until death, rebirth and death do us part.

  Corporations usually run out of one system. I say usually because there are different types of corporations in Eve and this statement is and will be modified by someone. I can tell you that when I started I lived in Jakenerva almost extensively for more then six months. Mining, ratting, planetary interaction, what have you was always done there, except for jumping a system to ice mine. It was and is a good system, and it was my home for awhile. When your corporation decides to move forward you begin to realize that you have to move forward as well. Depending on what the goals of your corporation are, or you join an alliance and may have to move to a lower security system or wormhole space to continue to be a part of it. Where ever you end up, you want to feel somewhat stable, you want to know your going to be there for a little while. Constant moving is a drain on resources, logistics, and time better spent play the game. Understanding that if you PvP at all you will still have staging systems, and fleet deployments that you must attend. There isn’t really a problem with moving some combat ships into the area of operations, as long as you know you have a home somewhere to go back to, work out of, and generate some kind of income no matter how small.

Welcome to the jungle

  I also want to know that there is someone watching over my home, and providing security for it. Enter the home defense fleet that rag tag group of guys that make sure the system we call home stays that way. Who are these people? Look in the mirror, because if you live there you're one of them. Yes you, being a part of a corporation or an alliance means there are no free rides. You wanted to be part of something bigger, congratulations you are, and you are now part of defending it.

     Home defense fleets differ depending on the corporation, alliance, and the system or systems that need protection. Corporations that field a home defense fleet are usually protecting their assets, and not really the system. Depending on the size of the corporation it could effectively protect a whole system, but usually other corporations would band together to do this.

  Alliances are a different story. Depending on the size of the alliance, you could have several corporations tasked with defending a system from your enemies. Alliances would be more structured in how this is done. Alliances would select corporations that will work together to defend one or more systems, and to be the early warning system to put out a call to a bigger fleet to assist. Generally it’s a good practice to have these fleets up and active at all times, to make sure everyone involved is on a communication channel, and to have a special chat channel for that home defense fleet running.

  Making the CEO’s and directors “fleet leaders” should ensure that those responsible make these things happen, and to adhere to whatever the policy or current orders from the alliance leadership are in place. If your little piece of space heaven is safe, there could be a rule in effect that says go and check the surrounding systems. I personally wouldn't go more than one or two jumps from your assigned system. Corporations that are not actively on communication channels, chat channels or in fleet should be looked at to see if there’s a problem, and what can be done to fix it.

  The bonus to doing something like this is over time you will start to see potential fleet commanders come from these positions. Using this method you can move these “potential commanders” up and into larger fleets, and have someone else step into their old position. This allows the process to begin again, and the new fleet leaders of home defense forces become the new candidates for fleet commanders in time.

Home is important, it is yours, and everyone elses in your corporation or alliance. Treat it well, take care of it, and be proud of it. Moral is based on pride, trust, knowledge, and the successes that come out of work as a team.

Industrial Operations Part 1

  

 When setting up industrial operations there are a few things that you must consider. Where am I running these operations, and what do I have to work with? These two questions will determine what your next steps will be.

High Security Space

 In High sec there isn’t much to worry about, and the biggest question will be what you have to work with. In my opinion the minimum mining fleet will consist of a command ship and two to three mining barges. This will allow for boosts the fleet, and a large ore bay from the command ship, however this is not optimal since the orca would have to make trips back to the station to unload and the fleet would lose it’s boosts during this time. Adding a hauler to this fleet would mean that the boosts stay on the field and the hauler could make the trips to unload making the fleet more efficient. Anything you add to this fleet would just make it more of a beast, as with the current set up you could chew through a belt in less than an hour.

Low Security Space

 In Low sec things start to change, and not for the better. Industrial operations in low sec can be very dangerous, and become a bit more expensive to run. In low security you will have a large number of pirate corporations just itching to add to their kill mails with the loss of your fat and non combat ships. Any corporation in low sec that are thinking of mining out there needs to supplement you mining fleet with a security force of combat pilots to protect it. I would also suggest that any mining operations stay as streamlined and compact as possible limiting the amount of targets you present to someone. Using ventures in this situation is a great idea as they are fast and already come with built in warp stabs for a quick get away. In low sec I would also make sure that when entering a belt make sure all your ships are aligned to either a station or a safe to ensure the fasted warp out possible. Operations need to run as quickly and effectively as possible, get what you need and get out.

0.0

 Believe it or not, depending on the situation and safety of the system you are working in out in 0.0, it’s almost as safe as high sec. A mixture of both High, and low sec strategies apply here. Using the fleet composition described for high sec will work with a few exceptions. Using a Rorqual boosting off grid safe in a POS will give you great bonuses, especially if you have it in industrial mode, and your skills are high enough. Add the orca for hauling and either a bunch of ventures, or for their massive hp’s and ore holds, mackinaws. Make sure that you are following the same procedures as in low sec, by aligning to a station, pos, or a safe for quick warp outs if trouble shows up. Make sure you watch local, you will see them when they jump into system, don’t wait warp as soon as you do.

Conclusion

  Mining can be a lucrative isk generator. Ore and minerals sell well on the market and can infuse your corporation with much needed isk. If you have the players with the right skills in your corporation production can also be done, but make sure at least one active player has perfect refining to get the most out of the ore you mine.

  The opinions and ideas I have laid out are for a small to medium sized Corporation. If your corporation is large enough I would suggest that you keep your mining fleets to a manageable size and split them up between belts. This not only helps to not draw attention to yourself since large fleets are a target only because of the pack mentality of your enemy since they will attempt to scatter you and pick off the person that didn't warp fast enough or was sleeping / AFK.

  In Part two, I will attempt to explain the benefits to conducting mining fleet operations and how the proceeds could be used and distributed to your members. Alliances as well as corporations will be included in my ideas for discussion.  

Knowledge

"Knowledge is Power"

   This saying alone says it all. The more you know, the better you can deal with whatever comes along. It is much more than that in the world of Eve. Game or not Eve is driven by players, and most content is player created and can affect a great number of players. A good example of this is Burn Jita, and when the Ice interdiction was going on. Any corporation, or alliance learns this early on if they have any hope of surviving and reaching any far reaching goals they have set out for themselves.

  The more you know about what you're doing the better you can perform the tasks at hand. This goes for any aspect of Eve. If you want to scan down sites and do complexes, then you better have the skills and knowledge of what you are looking for, and how to find it. In Eve time is isk.

  Industrial corporations, and alliances need to learn how to get the most from their time in the belts, the best way to get the most from their refining, and the cheapest way to build the ships and modules that will make them money. Being inefficient can cost you isk that would be better spent on your members, and the needed goods the Corporation requires to continue in the black. Learning what skills are needed, what implants work best, and how many people are required to make the best of any operation is imperative.

  Military corporations, and alliances have similar needs, but are also more diverse in the information needed in order to complete its given role, or task. Starting at the bottom it needs combat pilots, they don't have to be good, but their knowledge of ship types, and roles is important. you can tell anyone what ships to fly, but they need to be taught why, and sometimes how to do it. It is a fact of life that not everyone is great at something when they first start out, and learning / teaching them the right things to do must be done. Dismissing someone because they can't solo PvP right away is throwing away a potential ace pilot because you couldn't be bothered with them. Eve is a harsh game with a sharp learning curve, those that keep trying are the ones you want to take under your wing and teach them what, why, and how to succeed since they already have the will and heart to want to continue in the Eve universe. Starting potential fleet commanders out in leading home defense fleets is a good idea, teaching them the leadership, and highly structured skills of fleet command with small steps, and building on that so "some" may someday take the reigns of large fleets within your corporation, or alliance and lead them to massive victories.

  Understanding that military operations are not always jamming a square peg into a round hole, but a concerted effort between a large number of people. Intelligence gained prior to any campaign, logistics moved prior to an operation, and operation security is all needed to lead a campaign to victory. "Work smarter, not harder" are words to live by in warfare in Eve. Learning and using strategy and tactics to confuse, and misdirect the enemy is essential to winning the war, and not just one battle. Understand what you can do with black ops, the psychological impact it can have on an enemy, and the ability to jump a black ops fleet in that can't be found is immeasurable in a campaign.

  Training can not be understated. When not in a war or running a major campaign, take a fleet out and get them used to your voice and mannerisms as a fleet commander. Anything you can do to get you pilots comfortable will be useful when the heat is turned up and you are fighting for your life and an important battle later on.

 In the end the more prepared you are, the more you know about Eve, the more you learn about how things work, and the more you put into your preparation before you rush into a war, battle, or operation the better the outcome will be.