EVE-Mag.com

First Impressions– A Newbie Perspective of EvE Online

Published on 11. Jun, 2009 ... written by Deibos.

As of this writing I’ve been playing EvE for a whopping three weeks and I love it. Yes, I’m a complete newbie and I have no idea what’s going on most of the time but I am really enjoying the hell out of it.

EVEMag was one of the websites I found in my search for information regarding the optimization my character playing. Honestly, it wasn’t that much help. In fact, a lot of websites aren’t all that much help for the new player. You veteran players take for granted a lot of the stuff we really have no idea about, but that’s ok, this makes the game more realistic.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent guy. I’m an engineer by training and a teacher by trade; I’m no stranger to learning or to hard work. I’ve been playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) for well over 10 years; Ultima Online and World of Warcraft being the two most significant chapters. So why am I having so much trouble learning the ropes in EvE Online?

This game takes the “Massively” in MMORPG to another level. As the great Nigel Tufnel would say, “it goes to 11.” I honestly can’t believe the expanse of New Eden, the online activity, or the options presented to the player.

Now don’t get me wrong, the basic mechanics of the game are not super difficult to learn. The new player tutorials and three career agents at the beginning are really great and I strongly recommend them to anybody new to the game. I went ahead and did all three career agents since they were basically giving away free stuff and ISK. This gave me a lot of practice with moving from one system to another, NPC combat, the basics of mining, and the basics of industry. However, this isn’t what EvE is all about, these are just the tools used to play the game. It’s a big galaxy out there and it’s filled with a lot of different options.

The size of the galaxy and the freeform nature of the game make choosing a path a little bit overwhelming to the new player. It’s pretty difficult to pick a career when you don’t know which skills you need to be successful in said career. For example, in my first week I was just training whatever fit my fancy at the moment. Typical of a former WoW player I wanted results fast. I was generally picking skills that would train in under an hour so I could put another “skill complete” notch in my belt. All this resulted in was a waste of about 25% of my newbie training bonus. If you want to be a good player it’s really important to do a little research and find a career path you can focus on early. You can knock a lot of hard skills out of the way with that double training speed bonus in the beginning.

With all that said, you still have to be careful with that training! A career isn’t “I’m a dude who flies battlecruisers.” It’s really “I’m a dude who is good at flying battlecruisers.” I’ve found that EvE has a lot of “secondary skills” that support whatever your primary role in the game is. Being well trained in secondary skills separates the good players from the average players. How did I find this out? Well, after I determined that I could make decent money through mining or ratting and salvaging I started looking at the things I was going to be able to afford in the market. Specifically I looked at ships and I started at the top. Obviously Titan’s were out of the question but maybe a battlecruiser wasn’t. If I could grind up 30 million ISK I could afford a Hurricane and I’d be all set, right? Again my experience from previous games gave me the confidence that I could grind the cash by the time I was done training the prerequisites but I didn’t appreciate that those minimum prerequisites on the info tab were just that, the bare minimum skills needed! Sure, I might own a Hurricane but the first serious tangle I get in and *poof* all that work is for nothing.

Discovering this was a hard and nearly expensive lesson for me. It all started with something that I thought was a ship most newbies couldn’t afford or weren’t smart enough to get into quickly, a Minmatar Stabber. I took my awesome new ship to lowsec and started doing a little ratting on pirates with 500,000 ISK bounties. I knew they were my ticket to my battlecruiser. I had already calculated that I only needed 60 of them for the ship and maybe 20 more for the armaments, mostly guesswork but I’d sort out the details later. Anyway, I’m minding my own business working the pirates when all of a sudden the lights start flashing and my shields and armor start going into the red. Enter the first Player Pirate I’ve ever seen…. He “snuck” up on me, probably by flying in from 100 km when I wasn’t smart enough to keep an eye on the overview. By the time I knew he was there I had just enough time to try and warp away and I learned my second lesson for the day, this one was about warp scramblers. Needless to say I died a quick and noisy death.

This is the part where I know a lot of new players can get frustrated and sometimes quit. If you’re new and you’re reading this you should realize that player pirates are part of the danger of lowsec. People can and will kill you there for no reason other than the fun of it. This is called “risk vs. reward.” The reward for you is more bounty from better pirates or more money for better minerals. The risk is from bigger pirate NPCs and even pirate PCs who will kill you and probably take your stuff.

I ended up starting a conversation with the fellow that killed me and he turned out to be a really cool guy. I gave him some respect for the quick kill and for not podding me and he thanked me for not being a smack talking douche from highsec. He was the first other player I ever talked to and the 10 minute conversation we had cleared up a bunch of my questions. He even ended up giving me my stuff back AND more stuff on top of that without me even asking. Guess what, Pirates are people to!

His biggest piece of advice for me is the same I’m still following and the same I want any other newbies that end up reading this to take; join a player run corporation designed to help newbies. There are some pretty well established ones that are pretty big like Eve University or you can go to the eve-online.com forums and find groups in the recruitment forum.

I have to tell you, joining a player corporation has made all the difference in the world. They’ve helped me figure out the fittings that work on my ship, the type of career I’m best suited for based on what I wanted from the game, more efficient methods of earning ISK, and how to survive and thrive in lowsec.

Here is a summary of my advice to all the newbies that read this:

1. Do the new player career missions, yes all 3 agents. Hit F12 to get to the help and the select “Show Career Agents” near the bottom. This is going to give you a good handle on the basic mechanics of the game and give you a bunch of free skill books and ships.
2. Join a player run corporation as soon as you can. Find one that suits your personality and has members which are active in the game when you are. If you’re not engaged with them in conversation then you’re not going to learn much.
3. Try to focus on a particular career path. Learn the secondary (or support) skills needed to supplement that path so you’re good at what you do.
4. Have fun and don’t be afraid to talk to other players, even the ones that kill you. In my short few weeks of this game I’ve found the player base to be exceptionally mature and respectful. Maybe I’ve just been lucky or maybe the Barrens Chat in WoW has just really lowered the bar for me.

Until next time, keep on learning and have fun playing.

Deibos
Ultra Newb

Continue Reading

A Day To Go Down In History

Published on 31. May, 2009 ... written by Ecaf Ersa.

by Ecaf Ersa

Beep – beep – beep – beep – beep – beep

I slammed my hand down on top of the alarm clock.

Beep – beep – beep – beep – beep – beep

The alarm clock flew to the floor.

Beep – beep – beep – beep – beep – beep

“What the f…?”

I had been having a great dream and was very annoyed. I can’t remember what it was about now but I knew it had been a good one. Opening my eyes I saw the flashing light on the comm panel and realised my rude awakening had not been the alarm clock’s doing. Despite it’s recent cruel treatment at my hands it still dutifully informed me that the time was 03:42.

Through the sleepy haze I stabbed at the respond button, “WHAT?!”

“That is no way to answer the comm Ersa.”

Recognising Major Felps’ voice snapped my brain into gear. “Sorry Sir, you caught me in the middle of a good dream.”

“Well…for that you have my apologies Ersa.”

Major Felps was a good guy and a great officer – no, a great guy and an outstanding officer. He was the kind of officer that would have me instinctively reaching for the warp button after ordering me to send my freighter into a group of hostile battleships.

Socially he was a real riot and, outside of work, was referred to exclusively by his nick-name “Major Ding-Dong” which he had earned after having being seen naked in the shower. He was not the best looking guy on the station but could get nearly any woman he wanted into bed just by telling them how big his manhood was, which he was not at all shy about doing. This would usually result in anything from a shocked look to a witty put down and even occasionally a slap in the face but nine times out of ten their curiosity would get the better of them and we would see Ding-Dong heading for the bar door with the lady in question on his arm. Our well rehearsed salute to this would be the whole table shouting in unison “DING-DONG!! Time for bed!” – which we never grew tired of.

Felps continued, “Is your Recon flight ready Ersa?”

“Nothing I can’t fix in ten minutes Sir.”

“Good, be in my office in full flight gear in fifteen minutes.”

“Sir.”

The comm light went out and I hurriedly dressed.

*********************************

It only took me a few seconds analysing the scanner data to be sure. “Yes Major, it’s the same thing as I encountered yesterday in DY-P. Looks much bigger and more stable too.”

“Any way of telling where it goes?”

“Not that I can see. That information could possibly be in this data but if it is we don’t know how to decipher it yet. Sending a probe through it might tell us more.”

“Might?”

“Yes Sir, it all depends on where the other end comes out. The probe will need to be able to recognise stellar patterns to know where it is and be able to communicate back to us. For all we know it could get crushed into a microscopic dot before it even makes it through and we’d have no idea.”

“Hmm, that’s comforting to know.” said Felps in a matter-of-fact tone whilst appearing to intently examine the floor.

Looking up at me he continued, “So any volunteers to go in first and find out?”

I knew I was the only other person there but couldn’t stop myself from looking around the room. “I guess that will be me then Sir.”

“Good man. Fit your Recon out as best as you think and be in the briefing room at 04:30.” Free reign on fitting? – that was something new.

I snapped to attention and saluted “Sir!” before turning and marching out. Felps might have been Mr Social but in work you did everything by the book. It had only taken one of us to be fined three days wages after calling him Ding-Dong in the office to learn that you didn’t blur that line.

I quickly adjusted the fitting on my ship. Most of what I figured I might need was already on there, the obligatory covert ops cloak, a full probe launcher, as much of an armour tank as can be crammed in, my treasured Gallente Navy webber, a disruptor and a microwarpdrive. I opted for sensor dampeners seeing as survival was more important than kills but swapped out the energy vampires for a couple of medium railguns just in case. Four medium drones completed the set up before I rushed off to the briefing room.

The briefing revealed a total of ten ships of various types being mustered for the mission as well as three carriers and a dreadnought ready to be hot dropped in at a few seconds notice. I was very happy to see a still blurry-eyed Marakal taking a seat in the room. He was the only one there that would be bringing a battleship to the party. My “volunteering” for a potential suicide mission had earned me a place at the table with the officers and brought a silent “oooh” face from Marakal.

This was to be primarily an information gathering exercise but given that we had no clue what would be at the other end, or even where that would be, we had a very wide remit to do what we thought best in any given opportunity and as I was the scanner I was made FC. WOOT!

*********************************

The nerves began to creep in as I approached my Arazu “Nysm Nyd” but I stopped at the sound of quick footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Felps’ assistant Rashelle chasing after me. I’d been very shyly flirting with her for ages but hadn’t had the guts to ask her out yet. My heart began to race as it usually did whenever she came close. Damn she was beautiful.

“Come back please Ecaf” she said.

I thought at first she meant that the plan had changed but as I started to move back towards to the hangar door she leant in quickly and kissed me on the cheek. “Otherwise I’ll never get that dinner will I?” she said with a cheeky smirk and I realised she meant to come back from the mission.

I forgot my nerves for a few seconds and a big smile grew across my face. “Sure!” I responded and, now full of courage, I added, “Leave a light on for me.”

She just smiled coyly while twirling a lock of her long blonde hair around a finger. I took as long as possible closing the Recon’s hatch as she waved me off and at the last second before it sealed shut she blew me a kiss. Safely out of everyone’s sight I caught it and put it in my top pocket for safe keeping. It was bloody typical that I score just before a deadly mission into the unknown. We didn’t even know if our medical clones would function properly wherever it was we were going.

While the nine of us sitting outside the station waited for Marakal to buy replacement lasers for the ones he was for some reason missing, I examined our odd collection of ships. An official fleet wouldn’t usually comprise of such a variety. We had two frigates, a Rifter and a Maulus, two cruisers, a Vexor and a Blackbird, an Ishtar, a Sleipnir, a Myrmidon, my Arazu and Marakal’s still absent Apocalypse. I guess we covered most of the bases between us.

After another ten minutes had passed boredom began to creep in and I started having some fun abusing my FC comm channel permissions by cutting the middle out of peoples sentences. The resulting confusion was hilarious until everyone realised what I was doing. Within seconds I was webbed, scrammed, sensor damped, unable to target anything, my capacitor drained and my shields down to half.

We were cut short by Felps on the command channel, “What’s with the weapons fire Fleet Commander?”

I thought quickly, “Ah, just testing our set ups before we head into the unknown Sir.”

“Good idea but do it somewhere other than outside the station please.”

“Yes, sorry Sir. We’re done now in any case.” and as Marakal finally appeared I added, “Moving on to the wormhole now.”

“Align planet three.” After an appropriate pause I initiated fleet warp.

Ten ships all sharing a warp tunnel is always sight to behold, no matter how many times you’ve been there before, and I stopped contemplating the enormity of my task ahead to enjoy it. Marakal’s Apoc, with his signature crazy flames paint job, drifted in close then disappeared behind me as the tunnel collapsed and we shot out of it next to the wormhole.

Up till that point the fleet channel had been filled with lots of “La-la lala la-lah, Ecaf’s got a girlfriend.”, “Get bent”, “Up yours” and more of the usual general banter but now it fell silent as everyone except me took in their first sight of a wormhole. The pictures in the briefing room had been pretty but the real thing was simply awesome. Even I was somewhat taken aback as this must have been five times the size of the one I had found before, just a few minutes before it had fallen in on itself and disappeared.

I opened the fleet channel again. “OK guys, this is it, on the clock now, comms clear.”

I switched to the secure command line and reported that we had arrived and were commencing scanning. I fired off the deep space probe and took some initial readings from the wormhole. The data showed it was very stable and would take a significant amount of traffic. While relaying this to command I instructed the probe to move to the wormhole entrance. It was rather fortunate that the science boffins had recently discovered how to cram not only a simple ion drive onto these probes but remarkably a warpdrive as well, otherwise this would have been nearly impossible.

Energy began to crackle around the wormhole’s entrance then leapt across to the probe which simply disappeared.

“Erm….what happened there?” asked Marakal over the fleet channel.

“Comms clear please.” I responded calmly. I didn’t want to admit just yet that I didn’t know. I was getting no telemetry data from the probe and I wondered if my big break was going to be a washout. Then suddenly the data screens blazed alive as the probe reconnected with the ship’s computer and masses of data started pouring in.

“Command this is W-Squad FC. The probe is intact and sending data – routing it to you now.”

“Roger Fleet Commander. Give us your analysis as soon as you have it.”

It took a couple of minutes to extract the information I needed. Basically it was space just like any other bit of space but the probe had no clue where it was despite having the sum total of all technical data regarding all the stars in our known space. Nothing that it detected matched anything in it’s database – it did not recognise a single star.

Command’s analysis concurred with my own and I was given the order to proceed.

“Felder, connect to the deep space probe. I’ll contact you through that.”

“Roger Fleet Commander – Good luck Ecaf.”

A round of good luck messages came from the rest of W-Squad, except Marakal of course who instructed me to find the first bar I could and “get the beers in”. A private typed message appeared on my comm. It was from Felps and read “Major Ding-Dong wishes you the best of luck Ecaf. Fly safe.” I beamed at this previously unknown breach of protocol from a man I admired so much. I briefly considered the possibility of a promotion from this – if I could just make it back out alive.

I manoeuvred my ship toward the wormhole and when I got to around a kilometre away the same energy we had seen before crackled across the gap between the wormhole and my ship.

It appeared I was still alive so I opened my eyes again. Space looked pretty much the same here as it did everywhere. Checking my instruments revealed a standard solar system with four planets and six moons.

I reconnected to the probe and sent a message to Felder that I was alive and well and instructed the fleet to standby. After firing off several different probes I cloaked the Arazu and began to collate as much data from the system as I could.

A few minutes scanning satisfied me that I was alone and I sent another message to Felder to send the fleet through. Only he would remain behind to cover the wormhole entrance and to relay communications with command.

Within a few moments all eight of them had appeared around me and I opened the fleet channel, “Everyone bookmark the wormhole then find a safespot please. Make extra copies of your safespot bookmark for everyone.”

Once they had all reported back I ordered them all to warp to Marakal’s slow-boat battleship where we exchanged safespot bookmarks and established fallback plans and meeting points in case of various possible events. Leaving them there I returned to the wormhole cloaked so I could keep an eye on it while I used core probes to search out any signatures of interest.

I found a lot more than I had expected to and picked the one with the strongest signal. Having scanned the site down to the exact spot I warped in at a distance. I don’t know what I had expected but the sight of a complex of significantly sized structures was not high on my list of possibilities.

The structures looked industrial and although they were clearly not derelict there was not one single sign of movement or life. A place like this back home would be constantly buzzing with activity.

I related this development to the squad who all wanted to come and see it but I told them to stay put for now. I quickly put together a transmission package of scan data from the site and sent it to the deep space probe waiting patiently by the wormhole for Felder to send on to command.

For a while I flew around the buildings looking for some clue of what this place was for. The buildings were arranged in a rough, almost semi-circular, crescent moon shape with the larger structures concentrated in the centre and thinning out at the points. The whole complex was well over two hundred kilometres across. Getting nothing from the structures themselves I navigated towards the logical centre of the site.

Much became clear in the space of just a few seconds. The first unexpected event was the stars on my viewscreen suddenly moving downwards at speed and I instantly recognised that my ship had bounced off something that I hadn’t been able to see just a second before. This was followed quickly by my Arazu’s de-cloak alarm warning me I was visible.

Surprised into inaction for a second or two I sat momentarily confused as the ship attempted to return back to it’s previous course. The stars previously on the viewscreen had now disappeared, obscured by the vast expanse of metal less than a couple of kilometres in front of my ship, “Holy crap!!!” being the sole thought bouncing around inside my otherwise stunned and vacant brain.

The beeping of alarms and sudden appearance of multiple ship signatures on my overview dragged my mind rapidly back into focus and I quickly turned the Arazu around and flew toward open space. More ships poured from the structures and I frantically spammed the cloak button as lock-attempt warnings flashed all over my screen. Thankfully I disappeared again before any of the locks completed. Adjusting course slightly to head straight toward a planet that was mercifully close to my alignment, I had a few seconds to view the gigantic, newly found object as the alien ships swarmed toward my position. The closest was just a few kilometres away when the stars stretched out into lines and I warped the hell out of there.

The pounding of my heart drowned everything else out including my own voice rapidly repeating the single word “SHIT!” Slowly I edged back to reality and what I had seen began to form into a single coherent word – “SHIP!”. The configuration was nothing like anything I had ever seen before but it was easily as big as any titan we had. No, it had to be bigger, much bigger. I’d never before faced a titan without having one of our own plus hundreds of other ships in the fleet and never while I was in charge. My pulse rate raced upward again as I fought to control my panic.

*********************************

“Ecaf…you found that bar yet?……Ecaf…….Ecaf…….FACE!” Even Marakal’s impatient use of my nickname failed to penetrate the terror that gripped my mind like a slaver hound’s jaws on it’s victim’s neck.

“Ecaf…if you don’t respond I’ll have to assume command and take the fleet home without you.” Gorden was designated second-in-command but even this threat to my command didn’t drag me into focus.

“Come back please Ecaf.” Rashelle’s silky tones soothed their way into my head and I calmed down enough to take back some semblance of self-control.

“Comms clear…I won’t say it again. Safespot seven NOW…please.” As if disconnected from my own body I watched my fingers though a haze as they trembled over the controls. “Come on Ersa… get a grip!” By the time I arrived, last of everyone after even Marakal’s battleship, I had the situation clear in my head.

I quickly told them what I had found but had to shout down the babble of questions from everyone. “SHUT UP!!!…They could be listening. Nobody says anything from hereon in – use broadcasts if you need to alert me to something.”

I had been packaging what little data I had of the new ship and sent the transmission to the probe. Aura answered “Unable to connect.”

“WHAT?!…Shut it bitch!” I tried again but got the same result. I had been resolving myself to the task of returning to the site to gather more data but now I had a new problem. I kept this piece of information to myself for now and after broadcasting “Hold position” I warped to fifty kilometres of the wormhole, cloaking mid-warp, but arrived to find nothing. I checked my position – exactly fifty kilometres from my bookmark. “Where the hell is the probe?… Where the hell is the wormhole?…Shit!”

“OK Ecaf…keep calm…think……..right…it’s simple…get more data…make as much distance as you can from all this…scan for a new wormhole…get home…report in…be the hero…take Rashelle out to dinner…take Rashelle to bed…live happily ever after……yeah right…piece of cake!”

Buzzzzz….buzzzzz – the de-cloak alarm again. One of the alien ships had somehow sneaked up on top of me and I was being rapidly locked. With no time to run I locked back and activated all my weapons and warp disruptor while setting an orbit course. The alien ship was roughly the same size as mine but couldn’t keep up with my microwarpdrive enhanced speed so I kept the range I wanted and had good time to analyse the ship. I could recognise features but the technology was quite different, even the material it was made from was unknown to me.

Thankfully it’s turrets couldn’t keep track on me either and I was only taking random hits which my shield easily coped with. Launching my drones at him finished the job off and I rejoiced in the explosion. I was a little surprised to see a pod emerge from the wreck so I failed to lock it before it disappeared. Though why should a pod be surprising? We’d seen near identical technology develop independently in more than one place before. Unless…the two technologies had a common ancestor. This thought worried me a little though I wasn’t sure why.

Bolstered by a nice kill I was back in the zone again and warped back to the complex at a distance, cloaked of course. Some pilots bitched at cloaking ships claiming it was unfair – but bollocks – all is fair in love and war and if it keeps me alive then I’m going to use it. And besides there’s nothing stopping anyone from using them.

Things were now much more like I would expect, a mass of bustle and activity. Hoards of ships flitted here and there, mostly concentrated around the “titan” (for want of a better word) but also many combat vessels patrolling the perimeter. Only now I noticed that the ship was unfinished, although not by much. This site was clearly a mega-shipyard, probably, hopefully, built just for this one ship.

I sat and observed the proceedings for a while, manoeuvring just a few times to keep clear of the roaming sentry ships. After about ten minutes all the ships that had been scurrying around the colossal ship, like tiny shrimp on a giant whale, moved away and huddled next to the structures. A little concerned at this I backed away too. Nothing moved for a few more minutes until an almost microscopic movement in the corner of my viewscreen caught my eye. I watched as two alien pods emerged from the central structure, lost in the vastness of the place. They made their way quickly to a neighbouring structure where several seemingly inactive but identical ships were clustered together. The two pods each disappeared inside one of these ships which then came alive and moved out into the centre underneath the titan.

As they came close, one almost right at the front and the other roughly in the centre, hatches opened and the two ships disappeared into the belly of the great beast, the hatches closing smoothly behind them. Not many seconds later the ship became animated. Plumes of fire, steam and smoke ejected from various points around it and my data screens started showing massive energy spikes coming from the mighty vessel.

I quickly identified two distinct energy signatures, one of which correlated very closely with the energy we had analysed from the wormholes. The other was new but bore many similar characteristics to readings I had seen on doomsday device scan data. My fear that this ship could only have one possible purpose solidified into fact.

I worried that the devices might be set off but I was further away from the titan than the structures and other alien ships were, so I sat tight and waited to see what would happen. By now I knew we had no choice but to somehow try and destroy this ship before it could be unleashed. I had no proof it would be heading to my home but that was a chance I didn’t want to take, and even if it first went elsewhere in my galaxy, would we be able to stop it once it was in full swing? The best chance was now, before it was completed, and I put my mind to thinking up a plan. But how could we achieve such a daunting feat with a handful of ships not suited to the task?

As I prepared to return to the fleet, the energy spikes dropped back down and the beast went back to sleep. I delayed warping as I watched the hatches open again and the two ships re-emerge to repeat their previous journeys in reverse.

A new idea began to form in my mind – an idea more crazy than the whole concept of crazy itself.

*********************************

“You’re fucking insane Ecaf!” shrieked Marakal uncharacteristically, “You have no proof any of this will work!”

“Give me a better idea mate and we’ll do that instead.” I answered sombrely.

There was no response.

“We’re on our own here boys…I can’t, and won’t, make any of you do this. If anyone wants to go off and take their own chances then good luck. But I’m going in with this plan even if I’m on my own.” I’d always pictured myself draped in glory but I’d never gone as far as considering martyrdom before – I was too fond of life. Yet here I was, in all probability signing away my immortal life on a slim chance that I could save the galaxy from something it didn’t yet know existed. Worse than that, even if I succeeded they’d probably never even know I had done it. What a way to go – but the futility of it all somehow spurred me on – too many drunken nights watching action holo-reels I expect.

“OK dude,” came Marakal’s quavering voice over the fleet channel, “You’re a crazy bastard but I’ll follow you to our collective graves. You’re going to need a BS to have the remotest chance of pulling this off.”

Seven more responses came one at a time, some more enthusiastic than others, but all in the affirmative.

After hammering out the last details of the plan, we assembled at safespot two which gave us the best angle of warp into the crescent shape. We said our farewells, some on the verge of tears but I had a grim determination about me now. I wished I could have one last beer before my doom overtook me but, alas, I had neglected to bring any. Then I suddenly remembered boarding my ship and my mood lightened a touch as I put my hand in my breast pocket and retreived the “kiss” from Rashelle that I had stowed there. I pictured her face as I touched my fingers gently to my lips. It was the best I would get now.

I couldn’t enjoy our shared warp tunnel this time. I was too fixed on what I had to do. Against my whole Gallentean upbringing I decided to pray. Not because I was about to die but just in case there was a god out there who could bless this suicidal quest and make the assumptions that our slender chance of success relied on turn out to be fact.

*********************************

I could only watch helplessly as Gorden’s Myrmidon and Pauli’s Vexor disintegrated and their pods blown into spacedust. Samethi’s Blackbird and Zurgu’s Maulus had both done well to keep the alien ships off for as long as possible but now they were gone too. Asketh’s Ishtar had survived remarkably well, taking out dozens of the smaller ships before finally succumbing under the weight of the enemy.

Just four of us remained. Marakal’s Apocalypse was completely obscured by swarms of alien battleships as he sent barrage after barrage of hybrid salvos into the unfinished section right at the rear end of the titan. As we had planned he was attracting the most attention from the aliens. His structure had taken a severe battering and he was barely being kept alive by Jordi’s Sleipnir which was also suffering badly under the onslaught of so many ships. We needed the Sleip for just a little longer and again I prayed that this could be so.

As I neared my objective on the other side of the titan I called to Jaxsen still waiting at safespot two in his Rifter and he confirmed “on my way” a few seconds before he dropped out of warp on top of me, uncloaking me in the process. Saved me from doing it myself I guess. We both ejected our pods and closed the last few metres to the only ships left silent, the ships that had earlier docked with the beast. I crossed my fingers and instructed my pod to board the closest ship. Damn! It was working! As my neural jack interfaced with the ship I became overwhelmed with alien symbols and had to fight to make any sense of it.

Slowly I began to recognise patterns of data and worked out how to get the ship moving. Nobody had noticed us yet but none of the other ships were moving. I hadn’t seen which one Jaxsen had boarded and couldn’t work out how to communicate with him. I didn’t have time to wait for him and carried on across the void towards the head of the beast. I started to make sense of the data I was getting and the picture around me became gradually clearer. I anxiously watched for Jaxsen to start moving but nothing stirred. The aliens seemed to be ignoring me, probably assuming I was on their side. “Yes, yes, I am on your side…move along…nothing to see here.”

An explosion erupted from within the mass of alien ships and I knew this meant the Apoc was no more, but I noticed a pod moving swiftly away and prayed that Marakal had ejected and escaped in the confusion before his ship had gone. Immediately Jordi became the focus of the alien’s attention and it was his turn to disappear inside a cloud of red. The pod that I hoped was Marakal was evading attention and moving toward the silent ships. Then my luck ran out and I turned my focus to the alien frigates which were closing in and starting to target me. Jordi also targeted me now and began turning his repair systems to my aid but surely he couldn’t last much longer.

My alien ship was just holding together as I approached underneath the front of the titan. I wondered how I would get in and just tried a “board ship” command. Logical I figured and sure enough the hatch started to slide open. It seemed I was doing the right thing because suddenly the Sleipnir reappeared again as every alien ship decided I was enemy number one. But they were too late – I was nearly inside the beast.

“Damn dude, you took your time getting that thing going.” came Marakal’s voice in my head and turning my attention aft I just glimpsed an alien ship docking in the rear hatch marginally ahead of mine.

I laughed for the first time in what seemed like forever and our fallen comrades were briefly forgotten as I instinctively quipped back, “Well you always were the languages man. If only you could add two numbers in your head you’d be a genius!”

“Haha, touché! Now, let’s get this party really going…with a great big bang!” I could imagine the grin that would surely have accompanied that sentence.

As the hatch slid shut below me my mind became suddenly stunned with a concept so large my brain struggled to comprehend it. The universe was trying to enter my brain all at once and I felt tiny…microscopic…infinitely insignificant against the backdrop of all of existence.

I was being to drown under it all when “WHAO! What a rush!” and I was back again, Marakal’s voice echoing through my head, anchoring me to reality and my pod, barely bigger than me.

I struggled to get any words to form “Nnnnn….how…did..you.cope with that so easily man?”

“Damn dude, didn’t you do X when you were a kid?” I knew he was referring to the highly illegal mind-bending drug X-Instinct.

“Erm..no.” I almost felt ashamed of my staid years at university studying away diligently while everyone else around me was off their heads.

“Much the same feeling. Are you with me? Jeez this is a damn awesome ship!” He was babbling a bit now.

“Errr..Ecaf…sod self-destructing the ship…we can take this home!”

“What!?!” was all I could manage finally adding, “How?”

“We can make wormholes!”

“Erm…we can?…well…that’s good…I think…carry on then.”

“Roger Fleet Commander. But first, if you don’t mind, I’m going to set off this über-doomsday device!”

“Erm…OK…good idea…proceed!”

Within less than a minute an enormous blast of energy radiated out from our newly acquired ship, majestically sweeping most of the giant structures with it, leaving strands of twisted girders spiralling jaggedly off into the distance. The alien data streaming into my head from the eruption of energy had made a beautiful pattern and I felt the secrets of the universe’s energy unlocking themselves in my mind, as if they had always been there, hidden away in the darkest recesses.

A large number of the alien ships had stopped trying to destroy their own ship and warped off when they realised what was going to happen but they now returned and resumed their vain assault. I felt hope for the first time since I first saw this beast but regardless of the final outcome I was unashamedly proud of how far we had got and what we had already achieved.

I could sense large amounts of energy accumulating within the ship again but this was different to the last time. I excitedly realised this was going to be a wormhole and sure enough seconds later space began to warp and distort a few kilometres away to our right. There was a rushing sensation as if atmosphere had unexpectedly found its way into a vacuum, then the distortion erupted outward leaving behind a shiny new wormhole.

“Right your turn Ecaf…get this giant lump to that wormhole.”

My grasp of the alien technology was forming nicely now and the huge beast began to turn, agonisingly slowly, toward our road home. “Couldn’t you have made it in front of us?” I jokingly chastised Marakal.

“Pfft…the cheek!” was his response to that, thankfully picking up on the joke.

“Good work though mate. Well done.” It might have been my plan but he had made it work and, assuming we made it back, I would make sure he got the credit.

After what seemed like an age we made it to the wormhole with the alien ships still pounding away at us. I’ll never complain about a freighter again. Marakal spoke again, “They know where to hit us dude, some critical systems are going offline. I made the wormhole as big as I could but I don’t think it will survive this much mass. Fingers crossed we make it through.”

The energy from the wormhole surrounded our titan and the mouth opened up, sucking us inside. As we barrelled through the tunnel I noticed many ships following behind us but one was giving off very different energy patterns to the rest. I jubilantly recognised Jordi in his rather battered Sleipnir racing up next to us but I could also see the wormhole collapsing in on itself getting closer and ever closer.

The alien ships bringing up the rear span madly out of control before falling into the oblivion of the collapsing wormhole. A strange pain began to form in my head as the collapse caught up with the rear of the titan and our smooth transit quickly turned violently turbulent. I shared the ship’s pain as it began to twist and writhe under the cosmic stresses. The last thing I was conscious of was a feeling very much like when my ship disintegrates under fire automatically ejecting my pod, but there was something else too – a sense of abject loss, as if I was missing a limb.

*********************************

“You have both suffered some neural damage but exclusively in certain specific memory engrams. Nothing you won’t recover from in time.”

*********************************

“Please come back to me Ecaf.”

*********************************

“Oi!….Dude!…There’s a cold beer here…if you ever come round.”

My eyes opened. Strip lighting. Plastic ceiling tiles.

“Finally!!…Here quick…before the nurse comes back.”

I turned my head toward the voice. Marakal was grinning inanely, as usual, from the bed next to mine, but more interestingly was waving a bottle at me. I tried to lean across but my body didn’t want to respond and the attempt was feeble. He leant in closer and closed the remaining gap between my hand and the bottle which I finally managed to grab. I stayed there just long enough to hear the familiar clink of glass on glass before slumping back into the comfy, welcoming embrace of the clean, crisp bedsheets. Lifting my head a fraction I poured the beer into my open mouth. Shame most of it missed.

“Great man! Well done! The nurse isn’t going to miss that! Neck it quick, we’ve got four more each to finish before she comes back and confiscates them.”

“Oh…by the way dude, we’re fucking heros…and Rashelle just left your bedside for the first time in days…that’s some bladder control she has…I reckon you’re well in there mate.”

He raised his bottle and winked before sinking the remaining contents and grabbing another one. I settled my head back on the pillow and, forgetting all about the beer, smiled the biggest smile of my life. At last…a hero.

Continue Reading

Eyes of the Apocrypha

Published on 04. Apr, 2009 ... written by Alesk Remo.

I sit in wonder, stars surround me
The fate of worlds eaten before me
The blue sun glaring, its power unyielding
I watch in awe, worlds and plasma colliding
Forces unknown, melting, destroying
Imagined screams, fading dreams
I watch in horror, silence consuming
The planet cries, the explosion defiant
On its knees, the planet core breaking
I watch in terror, beyond all reason
I fear, I run, I scream, I’m falling
Plasma grasps, warp drive burning
I watch in blindness, blue light blazing
Warp drive dying, I keep praying
Silence engulfs me, freedom escapes me
I watch without emotion as my clone denies me
I wake in sweat, Death escapes me
Images burnt forever in memory
The fate of worlds destroyed before me

Continue Reading

EVE-Mag Lottery #2

Published on 03. Apr, 2009 ... written by Securitas Protector.

Hi everyone!

We’ve been pretty busy here at EVE-Mag, and over the past few days, we’ve created a variety of ways for you to get your daily fix of news, politics, and general info as well as to interface with us, the EVE-Mag staff.
Also, we have our more ambitious official Lottery #2.

Twitter – Our continuing newsfeed
Our Facebook page
Our Feedburner RSS feed

Lottery #2 on the official EVE-O forums

Enjoy EVE-Mag and win! Same chances as last time with more prizes and more tickets!
Good luck & have a great day,

Securitas & the EVE-Mag Team

Continue Reading

The Pawn – Epilogue: Fool’s Mate

Published on 01. Apr, 2009 ... written by Ecaf Ersa.

Drevek was exhausted and aching like hell but nonetheless flushed and elated. He gazed at the only ever love in his life lying beside him, once lost but now refound. He took in her perfect skin, her perfect curves, her perfect eyes – simply perfect.

Kira broke the silence. “You know that dream you told me about?” she said with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

“Erm…the one where you tied me to the bed and slapped me?”

“Yeah. Do you wanna give it a go?”

“Erm….hell yeah!”

Kira jumped up with excitement and looked around the small cabin finally settling her eyes on the overalls Drevek had been wearing. She swept them up and began tearing off strips of cloth. Drevek couldn’t believe things could keep on getting better and was aroused again already. He positioned himself on the bed as she straddled him and tied his hands to the metal posts of the bunk. Turning around to tie his feet she wiggled her backside in his face and giggled as she looked between her legs at the inane grin on his face.

Satisfied the bonds were tight enough she got off the bed and picking up her clothes began to dress, the naughty smile having disappeared.

“Thank fuck I haven’t got to go through that again.” she said in a cold tone.

Drevek’s excitement dropped in stages as it slowly dawned on him that she wasn’t joking. Once again words failed him and he just stared at her, disappointment and confusion stamped across his face in huge capital letters. Memories of being strapped to that cold metal table flickered through his mind.

“Oh come on Drevek.” she said, “Don’t be so damn thick!”

“Wha…” was all Drevek could manage.

A look of triumph crept onto her face as she leant over him, “Who do you think hired you to kill Hodron? Who do you think tipped off Baston knowing he’d tip her off? You think you found me all by accident that day? Your maps were wrong – I arranged for them to be wrong!”

Clearly in her element and enjoying his discomfort she continued, “You men are all the same, so easy to control. You’ll do anything when a bit of pussy is waved in your face.”

“Kira….I….I….love you!” It was the first time he had actually said it and now it sounded desperate and hollow.

She laughed long and loud. “Funny that! That’s exactly how Sella said it. Just before I planted the seed of my master plan in her mind.”

She couldn’t help herself now. Having held it all to herself for so long she finally burst and revealed the whole story to him. She told him how she had discovered Hodron’s secret account chock full with all the embezzled funds and blackmail payments, the sweetness of finding out Hodron didn’t like the touch of men either and how she had manipulated them all into this merry dance.

She used one more strip of cloth to gag him but was surprised that he didn’t resist. Maybe it hadn’t just been lust with him, did he really love her? But she couldn’t contemplate that, it was going to take too many showers to wash the grubby man-hands off her as it was.

She paused in the open doorway and turned to Drevek, “So darling…if you’ll excuse me I have one more thing to take care of then I can finally be back in the arms of my love….” and grinned as she added, “….and stacks of money of course.”

Anger finally came over Drevek but it took a minute or two to wrestle and tear his way out of the bonds. He raced to the flight deck and slid open the door to see Baston slumped in the pilot’s seat, out cold with blood trickling from his temple.

The viewscreen showed a station, though Drevek had no idea which one or even which system he was in, and a shuttle only a few meters away turning then disappearing into warp.

A quick scan of the instruments showed that he was back home, back in Oursulaert where he had not been since the morning after his trial seven and a half years ago.

He was wondering if Kira had just let them go when a large ship creeping into view on the screen caught his attention – A Gallente Navy Customs battleship. The intercom crackled into life, “Caldari vessel ‘Salvation’, this is Colonel Torvan of the Gallente Navy Customs vessel ‘Intrepid’. We have reason to believe a fugitive wanted for crimes against the Minmatar Republic is on board your ship. Approach the station and prepare for docking.”

Drevek saw the obligatory supporting frigates closing in on the scanner and thought quickly. He pressed the button to respond and started to speak but quickly realised the channel was not open. Shock rose in his mind as he noticed the warning light flashing to show the ship was targeting another vessel. His worst fear was confirmed when he looked at the screen to see the yellow box zooming in around the Customs battleship.

The intercom crackled again, “Caldari vessel ‘Salvation’, drop your lock or you will be fired upon. I repeat, drop lock and approach the station for docking.”

“Kira! What have you done?” Drevek shouted, as panic rose in him. The split second he put his finger to the touchpanel to unlock the target he realised that was not the right move. He heard the railguns fire and watched as the charges burst uselessly against the battleship’s shield sending electromagnetic ripples down the length of the ship. Warning lights flashed and an insistent beeping started. Drevek stood frozen and could do nothing but look on in horror as the huge railguns slowly turned to point seemingly straight at him.

In the briefest of moments a thousand images from his past flashed through his mind and he realised with sadness there was not a single good deed among them. The penultimate thought that his mind conceived was that if the Amarr were right after all then he would be going straight to hell. The last was of Kira, of that smile she had given him in the first instant they had met. The antimatter charges spared him from the anguish of the only thought that could possibly have followed.

****************

“Yes Colonel, one of the bodies we recovered was Baston’s. The other one was Drevek Tesnar. We analysed the salvage and, as you suspected, the controls had definitely been tampered with. I don’t believe they had intended to fire on us. The oddest thing though…”, the man didn’t finish the sentence.

“What Midshipman? What was odd?” enquired Colonel Torvan.

“Well Sir, if they hadn’t meant to fire on us I’m confused by the calm smile on Tesnar’s face. You can still clearly see it.”

“Hmmph”, was the sound from Torvan accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, “Well, it’s all over now Midshipman. Your report on my screen in two hours please. Dismissed.”

As the door closed, Torvan looked away from the paperwork on his computer screen, stared at nothing in particular and said to nobody in particular, “I wonder if that reward is still valid?”

Continue Reading

The Dumbest Game in Existence?

Published on 26. Mar, 2009 ... written by Ecaf Ersa.

These are not my words! I could never say such a thing about what is for me the greatest game I have ever played and the only one ever to have engaged me so completely or for so long. The statement was made by an in-game friend who, for his own safety, shall remain nameless. It came in a conversation regarding the loss of his passive shield tanked Drake in the level 4 mission Recon part 1.

He had related to me how his Caldari battlecruiser, which would normally fare very well in level 4 missions, was destroyed in about 5 seconds. Recon 1 is pretty much accepted as the toughest level 4 mission there is so I questioned as to whether he had read the mission guide and he answered that he had not.

His argument was basically that to have to read a guide in order to just survive a mission was dumb. He has a point in so far as that in most games you would only read a guide if you repeatedly failed to achieve a particular goal, whether that goal be just to complete the objective or to excel to a point that opened some kind of cheat or bonus.

So, do we give any credence to my friend’s insult to one of the greatest games in existence? Well this writer says no, because EVE is not most games – it has the unique element that losses are permanent. The loss of your ship or pod, and the isk needed to replace everything lost or destroyed, is absolute. For me this is one of the greatest things about EVE – you do not go gung-ho into a hopeless battle on the gamble that your 1% chance of winning will come off nor do you enter the unknown without some sense of trepidation. It adds a healthy dose of realism into your tactical decisions.

In this kind of environment, where there is a real chance of loss, you must prepare yourself for the possibility that you might not survive any given situation and, just as in real life, you have to adjust your approach according to this fact.

You can do this in many ways, the simplest being to make sure that you have enough isk for a replacement ship. A more pro-active solution would be to scout out the mission in a shuttle or rookie ship first. What most people, including myself, will do is read the mission guide. The fact that eve-survival.org is most mission-runners in-game browser home page bears testament to this.

But as my friend suggests, reading a guide written by somebody who has already done the exact same mission that you are about to do spoils the realism of the situation somewhat! But if you want to immerse yourself as completely as possible into the realism of the game then you could take option 2 instead and check it out in a shuttle first. But then if it was as real as it could be then the NPC ships would move on somewhere else once they realised their position had been compromised. You could follow this train of thought for some time.

That conversation and all these thoughts that it provoked in my head led me to the real question I wanted to examine with this article – not whether the game is dumb but how real it is, in terms of both actual realism and gameplay.

The Physics of Space

I’ll start with one of the biggest problems for the game developers, the physics of space. This is tough not least because we as a race don’t actually understand it all completely anyway but also because it takes a lot of computing power to do it all really accurately. But putting these two factors aside the hardest problems of them all are balancing and playability.

In this section we will conveniently ignore technologies currently unknown to us, such as faster than light travel or stretching and contracting space.

Lets look at a recent contentious issue with EVE, the speed nerf. Sub-light travel is one area where EVE really fails to mimic reality. On our planet the maximum speed of a body is limited by, among other things, form drag, basically the need to fight against the atmosphere. It’s generally accepted that, due to the absence of form drag outside of the planet’s atmosphere, there is actually no limit on the speed that a body can achieve in space. Ignoring things like objects obstructing your path, the only limits in this respect are a) acceleration, which is limited by the propelling force and the mass of the body being moved, and b) time, ie. how long you have in which to accelerate.

In theory, assuming you can travel in a straight line, the quickest method of getting from point A to point B in space without any kind of faster than light travel is to constantly accelerate for half your journey then constantly decelerate for the second half. Given that, as far as we know, the only way to brake in space is to apply propulsive force in the opposite direction to which you are travelling, deceleration is basically negative acceleration and the same forces and limitations apply to both.

Another factor in sub-light travel where EVE falls down on the physics front is manoeuvrability. The ability to change direction is enabled by applying propulsive force in the direction you want to travel, so it’s all about acceleration again. The manoeuvrability of a body in space is defined by a) the ratio between it’s propulsive force and it’s mass and b) the ability of the body to apply that propulsive force in the desired direction. Probably the closest analogy we have to this in real life is the hovercraft, which is designed to negate most of the frictional effect of the surface over which it travels. If you’ve ever tried to steer one of these then you will have some idea of how difficult it is for our ground based understanding of manoeuvring to deal with.

So in reality, it is reasonable to assume that a fast nimble spaceship would not look anything like an interceptor in EVE. For starters it’s a fair guess that the engine would dominate such a ship. Without form drag there is no need to make a spaceship sleek and streamlined and it’s unlikely to have engine outlets that only point in one direction as this severely limits the direction in which you can apply force. Without an atmosphere there is no possibility of using planes, the movable surfaces on a contemporary aircraft’s wings, as these manipulate air pressure to make the plane turn. So you’re only options are to have directable thrust, such as what we can see today on the Harrier Jump Jet, or to have as many engine outlets as possible arranged around the ship even if those not pointing out of the back are small. Of course this looks weird, maybe stupid and isn’t as much fun or pretty as what we have in EVE and of course the ships in EVE don’t actually have to obey the laws of physics so what the hell!

So in the interests of aesthetics and playability we can understand why the game designers have opted for a more simplistic and atmospheric based system of manoeuvrability, and to be fair, given the nature of gameplay in EVE, it isn’t really important for our enjoyment.

The reason for limiting the speed of ships is all about balancing. In order to make the game balanced and therefore fair you have to place constraints and limitations on the factors that affect the balance otherwise the variables become too extreme and impossible to control. The reasons for the speed nerf happening in the first place highlight this well. Even with the very high, but still limited, speeds that some ships were attaining the balance of the game was seriously off. Imagine what this would be like if the speed of ships was unlimited as physics allows.

So, we can see why the physics of space have been adapted in the EVE universe, and to be fair this doesn’t really detract from our enjoyment, it adds to it in fact, nor do they seem particularly unreal to us because they adhere more to our atmospheric based understanding of physics.

However there are lots of seriously unrealistic things in EVE even within the constraints of our brain’s earth-bound comprehension.

Really Unreal!

1. Downtime.

The fact that the EVE universe ceases to exist for an hour every day and on occasion for as long as 24 hours is one of those things that we just have to live with and ignore as much as possible when it comes to gameplay. We are helped by our understanding that EVE is an extremely complex game environment that exists only in seriously powerful computers and all we can do is avoid our skills or research/manufacturing jobs finishing while the servers are down. Of course, since Apocrypha skills are no longer such an issue here.

2. The post-downtime re-spawn.

One of the real corkers when it comes to the unrealism of EVE is the re-spawning of asteroid belts after downtime. There is no possible way that this can be bent into any realistic argument, it just has to be accepted, again for purposes of balancing. I guess it would be possible to have much more vast asteroid belts that do not re-spawn but you have to take into account the fact that this is a game and new people join it every day. Newer players would have a smaller pool of mining material than people who started before them and whilst that might be more realistic it isn’t really fair. You can also imagine the field day that this would give to macro-miners who currently have to deal with a limited pool of asteroids in scattered locations during each 24 hour period. This system is just a practical compromise to a problem that is impossible to resolve in a realistic yet fair way.

The other unrealistic re-spawn is a mission that is unfinished at downtime. The universe disappears for an hour and when you come back all the wrecks you left behind have miraculously turned back into whole ships with crew intact. You can utilise this for your benefit of course, as if there are resources in the mission worth more than the time bonus as you can do the mission 6 or 7 days in a row before finally handing it in, but this only adds to the unrealism. There are a couple of ways this could be resolved. Firstly the server could remember the mission status at downtime and reinstate it after start-up. A more practical solution can already been seen in the mission Downing the Slavers part 2 in which the first area has many large omber asteroids. This mission is regularly allowed to re-spawn for omber farming purposes but if you enter the second area then you will find that the npcs and asteroids do not re-spawn after downtime.

There is also the even more unrealistic scenario of the re-spawning of buildings and npcs right in front of your eyes in static complexes. Several COSMOS missions call for specific items from these complexes, for example Okham’s Head which is literally a jar containing the head of an npc called Okham. The fact that you can hang around the complex and kill the guy several times an hour, collecting his head each time, is very unrealistic.

The flipside of the re-spawn is the de-spawn. When you hand in a completed mission all the buildings and asteroids in the deadspace area disappear. Where do they go?

These situations need to perpetuate in order to retain what is the backbone of most games like EVE, the mission. So this is something that again we just have to live with and these situations can be quite easily avoided if they are an issue to you.

3. NPC artificial intelligence.

This one is a favourite gripe of people who have little grasp of the complexity of programming artificial intelligence into non-player characters. It’s much more difficult than many of these people imagine although it is possible. The problem is the computing power required to simulate human intelligence quickly but I agree that this could and should be improved in EVE. The following chat posting by an EVE player taken from omgrawr.net highlights one of EVE’s AI failings in a very amusing way.

Heartstone > I mean missions. It’s like “Oh look Steve just got blown up! Let’s get him” “Now now John you can clearly see he’s 35km and we’re only meant to engage if he gets to 32km” “Dang you’re right… Wanna play poker?”

You can also wonder why the last frigate left in an area continues fighting to the death after you just destroyed the 10 battleships, 10 battlecruisers, 20 cruisers and 19 other frigates with ease right in front of him.

I am a supporter of the argument that it would be a great deal better to have 2 or 3 intelligent and difficult to kill npcs rather than 50 stupid ones. This would also in theory reduce lag, which can be quite bad in the bigger, more heavily populated missions such as Mordus Headhunters. It would also reduce the gulf between PvE and PvP and enable a mission runner to prepare himself a little better for what PvP is really like.

Well CCP have got round to sorting this one out. With Apocrypha the npcs we encounter in the new wormhole feature are much more intelligent. They approach you on an orbital trajectory increasing the transversal velocity, can assess targets based on threat level, lock multiple targets and if the threat levels change then change who they are shooting at. It has also been hinted that there may be “intelligence upgrades” for mission and asteroid belt rats in future expansions. Whether we will see things like using smartbombs to take out your drones or running away from a hopeless situation remains to be seen but these improvements have given me high hopes for the future.

4. Stationary orbital objects.

Here we are talking mainly about planets and moons. Generally speaking, moons will orbit a planet, which in turn will orbit a sun – except not in EVE. Look at the solar system map one day, go back a month later and they’ll be in the same place. In fairness, it’s no big deal in terms of gameplay and it would be complex thing for the servers to try to deal with so I am quite happy to forgive the EVE developers for brushing over this one.

5. Sound in space.

As we should all know, sound travels in reverberations through matter, whether it is solid, liquid or gaseous. The lack of any of these three types of matter in space means that sound does not travel. You would probably be able to hear the noise generated by your own ship’s engine or something striking the hull of your ship, but you sure as hell are not going to hear that battleship you’ve been shooting at blowing up! But this is nothing new of course, Star Wars had all kinds of sounds passing through the vacuum of space and sci-fi films through the ages have chosen to overlook this scientific fact that has been known since long before any of them were made. We ignore it because it adds to the atmosphere of the film or game and after all, does it really matter? No, of course not! We like it!

6. Substantial yet insubstantial objects.

What I mean here is that asteroid that your ship bounces off if you try to fly through it but that allows your opponents missiles and ammo to pass straight through and hit you. Maybe missiles and ammo can somehow temporarily go out of phase before they hit something they were not intended to!

First person shooters have for a long time let you hide from enemy fire behind walls or objects, which can even be destroyed making them useless to hide behind, so why not EVE? If they could sort this one out it would open a whole world of possibilities for avoiding your opponent’s fire. Imagine a fleet of cruisers and frigates hiding from a control tower’s weaponry in the lee of a well-tanked capital ship in order to get close enough to be effective or to allow shields or armour to repair!

7. Collision detection.

Most miners will know what I’m on about here. You go to warp out of an asteroid belt but there’s a roid in your way. You try to manoeuvre past it but there’s what appears to be empty space a kilometre wide stopping you! Again I think we have seen an improvement in this area with Apocrypha. The new asteroid renderings don’t seem to get in the way nearly as much as before. Cheers CCP!

8. Ship Crew

The backstory in EVE tells of our ships being crewed not just by us immortal pod-pilots but also having quite a large complement of staff on board, as many as 6,000 in a battleship. What happens to these people when you leave a ship in a hangar for months on end? Who feeds them? Wouldn’t we be faced with massive lawsuits from the relatives of all these crew if we needlessly lost the ship in a blatantly negligent act? Well personally this is one element of the story that I choose to ignore. It’s more immersive for me to believe I am the one and only living thing on board (apart from the exotic dancers in my hold) with automatic systems and robots performing all the dirty work.

There is no evidence of these people in the game so pretending they don’t exist is easy. It is less easy though to overlook the hundreds of people I have in my hangars such as exotic dancers, janitors, tourists and various military personnel. I try to make sure I leave them enough Frozen Food, Ice Cream and Long-limbed Roes to live on and even Quafe Ultra and Amarrian Spirits to party with but they never seem hungry or thirsty!

I don’t like to “Trash” them as this seems unnecessarily cruel and selling them amounts to slavery, which as a good Gallente I would never do, so how about a “Free Passenger” option CCP?

So there are some things that are not very real in the game. Some are unavoidable, some cause no problems at all, some are even desirable but a few could be improved.

Now we move on to the status of technology in EVE.

Technological Devolution

Sometimes you look at the interface or the way things work in EVE and wonder how future technology can be so backward!

1. Navigation Computers.

We already have computers in contemporary combat aircraft that can quite accurately plot an intercept course with another aircraft. Admittedly, ships in EVE travel considerably faster and can generally manoeuvre much better than what we have today, but you would also imagine that computers will be a great deal more advanced in the future of space travel. Yet, in EVE, attempting to intercept another ship travelling at sub-light speeds even in a straight line is a manual and awkward task. It could of course be the case that such functionality would require repeated communication with the server that would cause undue lag in which case that’s fair enough and I shall live with it as it is.

But worse than this is the fact that the ship’s navigation computers seem to be sometimes rather stupid! Try travelling in a straight line past a stationary object, for example a jet can, at 10kms then select orbit at 10kms. Nine times out of ten your ship will start travelling in another random direction rather than just turning around the can roughly maintaining it’s current direction of travel.

2. Tracking Computers.

Closely related to the problem with unintelligent navigation computers, it seems strange that with all the races in EVE using turret based weaponry to one degree or another that the computers that track opponents are not more intelligent. They will waste ammo firing away at an object that the turrets cannot keep up with.

We do of course have tracking computer modules in EVE but these actually increase tracking speed which would suggest more of an improvement in the turret movement mechanics than more intelligent predictions of a target’s trajectory.

I can accept that large turrets will move more slowly but what I have a bit more trouble with is that when a ship is orbiting you in a predictable course that the turrets don’t wait till the ship comes round again and shoot slightly ahead of it. This is something more like the behaviour I would expect from an advanced tracking computer.

I wouldn’t expect EVE to handle this accurately but how about a module that simulates it by decreasing rate of fire but making the turrets hit their target more often? Unfortunately I suspect that this would require a complete redesign of the whole turret system, which is probably too much to ask for.

3. Drone AI.

This one is a popular topic on the forums. Why, in such a technologically advanced age are drones so stupid and controllable in only very basic ways? Our modern robots are significantly more intelligent than this already and advancing ever faster every year. This has nothing to do with the difficulties of programming artificial intelligence as even the dumb npc pirates seem to be more intelligent than drones. It is probably down to the fact that drones are already considered over-powered in many quarters, particularly non-Gallentean ones.

The improvements in control we were granted a while ago have not really increased their intelligence only improved some of the areas in which their stupidity was extreme. The “memory upgrade” that stopped a drone from re-assessing its target when it passed from one “grid” onto another was probably the key improvement. It is a balancing issue again so I doubt we will see intelligent options, such as instructing drones to attack only one class of ship or to automatically return to the bay if under fire without a serious impairment of their effectiveness, for example damage dealt or speed. As a Gallentean I think I’ll stick with the status quo on this one!

4. POS weaponry.

POS weaponry itself is actually quite effective. The problem lies in the terrible way in which the tower uses it if there is not a player at the controls. You would imagine that a technologically advanced control tower costing hundreds of millions of ISK would be able to use its defences in an effective way. Unfortunately not! What you get is random locking of the available targets with the various weaponry divided up among them often resulting in one ship being warp scrambled and another being shot at. Add to that the fact that after a while the tower will drop it’s locks and make new ones.

This one I do find hard to understand. It’s not the same situation that we have with drones, which are more useable to pilots of Gallentean ships than, for example, Caldari ones. It’s something available to all races across the board and it would force a fleet to be better organised and prepared before it went off to try and take down a tower. There would still be room for even better control with pilots at the controls as they could pick and chose targets as they please but the tower should at least direct all the defences on one randomly chosen target until it blew up, left or clearly wasn’t going to blow up no matter how long the tower kept at it. It would put an end to the much more unrealistic practice of organising POS bashing operations at the time when you know most of your opposing players will be in bed!

There is the possibility to handle this with a new POS module that introduces more intelligent combat handling. It could require a hefty amount of CPU to balance it out and make using it a conscious choice.

5. The Market

Why is it regionally limited when contracts are not? If you are in a system at the edge of a region this basically means you can see the prices and place orders in a system 20 jumps away on the other edge of the region but not in the system next door which just happens to be in another region.

I appreciate that you probably do not want to wait while the server sends you the details of every tritanium order in the entire universe but why not allow you to select a specific region’s market to view like you can with contracts? Or even better would be range limited viewing and control, for example within 5 or 10 jumps. This type of functionality is already used extensively in EVE.

OK so I’ve had a bit of fun here poking holes in some of the areas where EVE falls down but for all it’s issues it’s still a truly amazing game. We cannot expect, and as I have indicated do not necessarily want, a game to achieve perfection on the realism front – the clue is in the fact that it is a game and not real life!

We must also take into account the fact that CCP’s resources are not unlimited. There is only so much they can achieve in any given timeframe and we all like new content in each expansion. The recent introduction of intelligent npcs shows that CCP do care about these things and are willing to address the areas where EVE players have legitimate desire for change. We just can’t have it all at once.

Despite all the issues I have highlighted here EVE has incredible realism in ways that blow all those concerns out of the water.

Really real in the ways that count!

Where EVE really scores is in it’s open-ended nature – the fact that you can do pretty much as you please just as in real life. For example, you are not obliged to ever make a single aggressive act. You can mine, trade or build things if that is what you enjoy doing. On the flipside of that there is nothing stopping you from making an unprovoked attack on an innocent person, you just have to accept the consequences of your actions just as you would in real life. This is real not only for the attacker but also for the victim. Other MMOs like WoW don’t allow this and usually have some kind of flagging system or battle arena for PvP.

There are many other factors that add realism into this game. One of the best of these is how highly it is driven by the player community. The market for example is almost completely player fed and consequently behaves very realistically to supply and demand factors. This player driven nature also allows events to occur that you could never see in other games. Take the “infiltration” and disbanding of BoB as a classic example of that. But it doesn’t have to be events of this scale that separate EVE from the rest of the pack.

Prior to players being granted the option to warp to zero, players created this by themselves by making bookmarks 15kms past the required destination and warping to 15kms of the bookmark instead. This created the opportunity for some players to made considerable amounts of ISK by creating folders of these bookmarks and selling them to other players.

There are many people who hire themselves out for various purposes, such as anchoring POSes in high security systems because they have high faction standings or mercenaries who for an appropriate fee will exact revenge on a corporation that crossed you. There are other people who take advantage of the innocence or gullibility of others by scamming them or fooling them into becoming a legitimate target just for the fun of destroying them. There are also people who run lotteries, PvP tournaments, races, poker games and even investment banks for the benefit of other players and maybe a little profit along the way too!

I have heard tales of an event that used to be run by EVE radio called “Lemming’s Leap.” The DJ would organise for a big crowd of first day characters to amass in rookie ships at a gate to a low security or 0.0 system which was known to be camped on the other side. They would all then jump through together and blob the unsuspecting campers. The fact that 30 or 40 of these ships could quite easily take out a battleship with an experienced and high skillpoint pilot at the helm is wonderfully realistic and something that is difficult or impossible to achieve in other games.

You also have the very real ability to use ships quite effectively outside of their intended purpose. Some examples are battleships than can outmine Retrievers, pirates using Orcas to evade the attention of CONCORD as reported by Jacob Mei in his EVE-Mag article The Orca is a double-edged Sword, jna’s Cruiser destroying Hulk, Chribba’s Veldnaught and the Marauder killing Rorqual.

It’s the possibility to think outside the box and act in ways that probably never occurred to the developers that makes EVE the most real game that ever existed. It’s that fact that sets EVE on a pedestal and has people still playing every day five years down the line.

Long may it last!

Continue Reading

EVE-Mag Lottery

Published on 17. Mar, 2009 ... written by Securitas Protector.

Welcome to the first Eve-Mag Official Lottery! For this first lottery, the ticket price will be 2.5 Million ISK, and there will be 49 tickets. The Lottery will end on the 24th of March, or a week from when it started.

This is a perfect opportunity to support the magazine you know and love; all profits will go to the magazine and its writers. The ISK should be sent to Securitas Protector, with ‘X Tickets’ as the reason. Please post at the forum, where there is also additional information.

Thank you and good luck!
The Eve-Mag Team

Continue Reading

Grade Time: Corporate Evaluation

Published on 16. Mar, 2009 ... written by RothimusPrime.

Picture credit: Wotlankor

• Does your Corp offer something special?
• Is your Corp looking to recruit?
• Does your Corp want to be able to reach out?
• What can you offer members or recruits?
• Want some publicity for your Corp?

I would like to see Corporations reach out to the people of EVE and provide an interview and/or review of their Corporation so that all of those wondering about a specific Corp or those just looking for a good fit can know: who they are, what they do, what they offer, are they recruiting, etc. This would provide so many advantages to Corps and their recruiting process. It could also become quite an indispensible service for those looking for their first Corp or a change in Corps.

The ability for a Corp to have an article and review written about them could really open up the door for many potential recruits looking for the right fit. This article could also be a way of issuing press releases to the people of EVE in order to help their stock price and attract investors (which may become more important here soon). The potential for good public publicity could be an amazing tool for the Corps of EVE.

Some potential interview questions could be (but not limited to).
Preferably answered by the CEO or other appointed PR person:

• What type of Corp do you have (mining, trade, PvP, etc)
• What does your Corp offer that others may not?
• Is your Corp currently recruiting, if so do you have any requirements?
• What can your Corp offer potential recruits?
• Where are most of your active members located (US, Europe, etc)?
• What is your Corp’s current financial situation?
• Approximately how much ISK does your Corp make on a daily basis?
• Where is your Corp located (HQ, Offices, Main Security Sector)
• Do you own/control any space or station(s)?
• Do you have anything you would like to personally comment on?
• Is there any press release(s) you would like to make public?
• Anything you would like to say to the readers at EVE-Mag.com?

Reviews will obviously be based upon the answers and information received in the interview. With the above information the reviewer of the Corp could simply transpose that material into an article here on EVE-Mag.com along with any additional information the reviewer would like to add. A rating system could/should also be established based on the reviewer’s final opinion of the Corp and the review. A small fee of ISK may be decided upon by EVE-mag.com for the time involved as well as the obvious advertising the Corp will receive, however as of the publishing of this article, that has not been discussed.

This is such a simple and inexpensive way for a Corp to reach approximately 500 readers a day, and that number is constantly growing. The potential for everyone involved could be astronomical. In the end it’s about finding good members for you and your Corp, along with getting your Corp a venue to promote itself. What an easy way to reach out to those looking for something new or looking for something better!

Carebear and Pirate Corps welcome to apply for a review. Contact me if interested in a review of your Corp. I’d be happy to assist and help get your Corp some recognition here at Eve-Mag.com

EVE Char: RothimusPrime
E-mail: RothimusPrime1@gmail.com

Continue Reading

Queuing – a very British Occupation

Published on 15. Mar, 2009 ... written by Ecaf Ersa.

The concept of queuing is one well known to us Brits – we love them. Very little annoys us more than somebody who jumps to the front of a queue after we’ve been standing patiently in line for our turn, except maybe being called away just as we make it to the front.

The call for a facility to line up skills in EVE has been long and loudly made especially since the removal of ghost training. “You’ve taken something away! Now give us something back!” was the cry, and CCP have heard, listened and delivered. We are finally indulged in the latest expansion Apocrypha.

CCP quite rightly had some concerns about such a system. They feared that some people would queue up a year’s worth of skills and not log on until their character was awesome and ready to face the universe with all guns blazing. This is somewhat understandalbe as, after all, the name of the game is EVE-Online not EVE-Offline!

Many possibilities were put forward as to how a suitable compromise could be achieved. One of the most common and reasonable of these was to have the next level of a skill automatically start if the user was not online when a skill level came to finish. Another was to specify just the next skill that would run.

But what CCP have given us is even better than both of these and resolves what is, for me at least, the most frustrating element of skill training, the short ones. Yes it’s great to get the same benefit from a level 1 finishing in just an hour or less than the weeks it can take for a level 5 but if you can’t be online for more than a few hours a day then there are only so many of these you can do, especially with the skill levels that take 5 or 6 hours. This gets even more complicated with a new character when there are so many skills you want that need this timeframe to complete or if you have the skill plans of 3 or 4 characters to juggle.

What we have is the ability to queue up to 50 skill levels as long as they all start within the next 24 hours. So in theory you could schedule 49 skills taking a total of 23 hours and 59 minutes or less and then one other skill level of any length at the end.

It only gives you an extra 24 hours of skills so there is no more danger of having people rarely logging on than there was before. But the possibility to now crack out 4 or 5 of those 4 to 6 hour skills during the 20 hours you are asleep and at work and still have a 2 week skill running at the end just in case you get run over by a bus in your rush to get back home to EVE is one that has me salivating.

No more will there be 10 partially trained skills in your plan because you keep having to swap from a skill with only a few hours left before you go to bed or work. No more setting the alarm for 3 in the morning because you have to have T2 Sentry Drones for that POS bashing operation tonight. No more lost time because a skill finished just as that interceptor locked down your battleship with ten of his friends jumping into the system. No more having to start a long skill that isn’t really a high priority for you just because of patch day.

What seems to be the only shortfall in this is that it does not look possible to queue skills that you have not yet opened the skillbook for. This won’t be a big issue if you already have the pre-requisites for the skill in question as you can simply open up the book for a few seconds then swap to another skill. However, if you need a skill that isn’t yet finished before you can open the new book then you’ll have to wait till you are next online after it finishes.

I can see this new facility having several possible effects on the game in general.

1. We should see a higher average skillpoint per day gain across the EVE universe as those who are not so bothered about making sure that they don’t lose any training time are given a total gift-horse. This should also help out new players who are yet to learn the importance of this.
2. One that I expect we will all forward to is the death of the “Server startup is delayed again and my skill finished 2 hours ago” whine thread on the forums! These people are already mercilessly flamed for not ensuring they had a long skill going. Imagine the responses once this system is in effect!
3. Less poorness, more mediocrity. It is now a much simpler matter to bring a skill up to level 3. I have many skills stuck on level 1 or 2 because they are not high priorities for me and I can only squeeze so many short skills into the time I am online in the evening. I predict that my shield tanking skills for example will quite quickly progress from being useless to passable. So it seems reasonable to assume that we should see fewer characters flying around in ships with poor skills.
4. Less greatness, more mediocrity. It may also discourage people from taking level 4 and 5 skills. The “new toy syndrome” could become a much greater beast than it is now with the ability to learn many more new skills in a much shorter time frame than it ever was before. The queue is in itself a new toy and one that I will enjoy playing with! I can see that even greater discipline is going to be needed to make sure those skills get up to level 4 before moving on new things.

Could these last two possible outcomes combine to usher in a new age of general averageness? I expect that only time will tell!

But regardless of the possible outcomes for other players and the game in general, this writer is excitedly shouting WOOOOOT!, YAY, \o/ and Thank You CCP – We Luvs Ya!

Continue Reading

Political Structures: Reaching for Liberty

Published on 27. Feb, 2009 ... written by Securitas Protector.

My alliance, Liberty., disbanded. Normally, no one would care, and maybe no one does anyway, but there are a few lessons that one could learn from how we went from an alliance with control over an entire region with 500+ players to nothing in a matter of a month and a half or so.

So, what did we do wrong, and what rules can we make out of it?
To start with…

Never overextend yourself as an alliance – don’t take more space than you can hold.

First of all, Liberty came in and took Pure Blind by storm, even though we only had maybe 200 members at the time. Sure, it was some feat, and it’s very tempting, taking a whole region by ourselves(with some help) like that, but ultimately it was a very bad decision in the long run. Even at our peak member count, we could not consistently patrol our space and defend our outlying miners and ratters. This made it so that ratting in any of our systems was a dangerous expedition, and even in our “home” of P-2, we couldn’t evict raiders, simply because we were spread too thin.

It is very important to regularly have gatecamps and operations within your own space, to reassure your members that it is in fact, your space.

Always utilize the space you have.

Secondly, except for a few possible exceptions, we did not utilize our space to it’s full extent. Mining operations were few and far between, as were ratting ops, or even PVP ops in general. If we ever ran complexes, I never really heard about it. Don’t get me wrong, Liberty was a great alliance and great fun to be in, but even when we had an entire region under our dominion, it just wasn’t used to it’s fullest extent. I feel that if we had continually ratted and mined and built things while in Pure Blind, perhaps we could have resisted the eventual invaders with much more strength.

Host operations and many of them

Always keep your pilots engaged and doing damage to enemies, it makes them feel important and as if they have a purpose. When I was in Liberty, ops were few and far between, even to defend our own space or gatecamp. The more busy you keep your pilots, the more they feel as if they are in an alliance worth their time, ISK, and energy.

Keep participation up

Always be sure to keep your pilots engaged, and to have punishments(that are actually carried out) for those who do not participate. Often someone would call out an op and attendance would number less than 50% of online, active pilots, even those in the same system as the rally for the op; they simply didn’t come because they were ratting or “doing something more important.”

Communication, communication, communication

This might seem like an obvious one, but always keep constant contact between Alliance leadership and the grunts on the front line. Having a sense of where you are today, what your purpose is, and where you’ll be tomorrow is important for any pilot. Often, new moves were announced or carried through with some pilots staying behind or leaving POS’s or other assets behind. New policies and initiatives were carried out without widespread knowledge.

Ventrilo and/or Teamspeak are great tools for communication, as well as forum boards and alliance mail. One of the things that Liberty did do right is mandating that ALL pilots had to be on Teamspeak ALL the time-although even then, communication was limited at best. I often found myself doing things without knowing why or how this was going to advance our cause.

Choose your friends wisely

When we did move into Pure Blind, we were surrounded by the massive, extremely powerful Northern Coalition, and faced an IRON that no longer held space. Although we were allowed to stay for some time, this was a recipe for disaster. We did form our own small coalition, but when it came down to it, most of our friends did not stay with us and in fact turned on us. Thus, when the NC supported IRON’s bid to retake Pure Blind, we fell in a matter of days, perhaps a week at most.

Keep your players excited and in touch – stay together

After we were kicked out of Pure Blind by the NC, we had a quick period where we were in Empire, not much was going on, and people were leaving by the droves. Perhaps some of them were simply dead weight, but after nothing eventful happens for a few weeks, it’s hard to blame those who leave. After a few weeks in Empire, we did move to Fountain as renters, however, not everyone moved and Liberty was split, with some players left in Empire and some who moved to Fountain. Ultimately this led to a less cohesive alliance and further breakdowns in communication.

In conclusion

To clarify, I’m not attacking Liberty or it’s leadership at all; we had some great people in charge, and that’s why we got as far as we did, I’m glad I was a part of Liberty while it lasted, and if it ever reforms I will not hesitate to rejoin. However, in retrospect, we didn’t always make the best decisions, which is to be expected – nobody’s perfect and as alliances go I feel that Liberty was a great one, but I’m laying down our mistakes here so we can all learn from them. I know I, and many other ex-Liberty members, already have.

Continue Reading