Anatomy of a screw-up

About once a year, I have to write a major mea cupla blog post.  Welcome to this year's.   Well, at least I hope it's this year's!  If you write 500 blog posts a year, mistakes -- major mistakes -- are inevitable.  When I make a mistake, I always try to be diligent about first, correcting it, and second, owning up to it.  But I thought it'd be interesting to delve into this one in detail.

First, the mistake itself: in the midst of a little QOTW post earlier today, I said that the Odyssey feature of Personal Hangar Array module for POSes was going to be delayed to a point release.  That was mistaken.

For those who want to gloat at me, feel free to gloat.  I feel completely awful about this error, and have fallen on my sword to CCP.  It was a stupid thing to do.  When I was just a blogger, making a mistake like that is dumb but forgivable.  But for a CSM member, it's a lot more dangerous: while this blog is not an official communications medium, it'd be real easy for a mistake like that to go viral.  So I really need to be more careful about what I print here this coming year and that's why I feel so terrible about this early screw-up.

So I want to extend my apologies to CCP and specifically to Team Superfriends for this error.  If you want to know the story how this error happened, read on.  It might be of interest to EVE bloggers or potential EVE bloggers.  If you don't care, then you can move on to the next post.

Here's how it happened.

Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time knows that once a month, I do a little post that I call the "Junk Drawer".  The junk drawer is really a side effect of how this blog gets created.  To create the blog, I have a little mind-mapping application where I take daily notes on things that I read about, see in the game, hear about, or whatever.  Some of those little notes get expanded into outlines, and some of those outlines get expanded into full blog posts.  At any given time, there are a hundred or so "active" items in my notes, of which about ten of them are a paragraph or two (more about these in a second), three of them are outlines and about four or five more are blog posts in the process of being written.

Anything that doesn't make it into at least an outline in 90 days or so ends up in a junk drawer post.  And that's how those posts get created.

In particular, sometimes the notes themselves aren't big enough to generate full blog posts by themselves.  So they sit as a paragraph or two waiting to be connected to something else.  Sometimes when this happens, those two paragraphs go into the junk drawer and that's it.  But other times, I like to connect those two paragraphs to two paragraphs about something else if I can find a way to link them.  This month, I had written three paragraphs about MSCW that I thought would be interesting, but they didn't really warrant their own blog post.

On May 8th, I read this dev-post from CCP Fozzie early that morning.  Go read it.  Did you catch what I misread?  It was that second-to-last line:

We unfortunately will not be able to get Private SMAs into the initial Odyssey release. It is still something we want to do, possibly in a point release.

Apparently I should have waited to do my EVE Online forum reading until I was a little more awake because here's what I wrote in the mind-mapping app that morning:

DP: personal POS hangar delay point release, NBD

It's short-hand.  DP is dev-post.  NBD is exactly what it sounds like.  Usually, I attach the link next to it but for some reason, this time I didn't.  This would prove to be a major mistake.  Still, it wasn't enough to warrant a blog post of its own and hell, if I had gotten to the end of the month, then I would have realized that the line was wrong and I would have deleted it and no damage done.  Scary truth: sometimes this happens.

Know what else I had three paragraphs written on?  Themes, and how those themes would probably affect the future development of EVE, and how things might get pulled out of EVE expansions or delayed at the last minute if they didn't fit the theme.  Then, this morning, I watched that funny little exchange between CCP Rise and CCP Fozzie in the QOTW post and that exchange forged the connection in my head:

1. Odyssey is about finding things in space and things happening to you there.
2. MSCW might cause features that didn't totally fit that theme to be delayed.
3. What features have been delayed from Odyssey?

Into the mind-map I went looking for the word "delay".  And that's how a screw-up on a blog happens.  When I connected those three thoughts, I thought the resulting blog post was very clever!  Sometimes, it's when you think you're being clever that you're really not.

So now you know how that screw-up happened.  And knowing is half the battle.

I want to again apologize to CCP for my unintentional bit of spreading misinformation.  Fortunately, with the help of CCP Fozzie and a couple of comments here, I caught it only a couple of hours after it was published so hopefully the damage was minimal.  And hopefully the rest of the post still ended up being interesting for a reason other than the screw-up.  ;-)

In the navy

The navy battleships have a weird distinction for me in my play of EVE Online: at one time or another in my career, I have owned and flown every single one of them.  That's not a claim that I can make for any other group of ships in the game.(1)  They're not my favorite group of ships in the game -- that distinction goes to the battle cruisers, and T2 cruisers after them.  But navy BSs are such ferocious ships, and relatively inexpensive for how good they are.  That makes buying them an easy choice for me.  So I was obviously delighted when I heard they were going to be rebalanced for Odyssey.

Amusingly enough, the best change to the navy BSs of all isn't even in CCP Rise's thread on the matter but instead is brought forth by CCP Ytterbium:

Ah yes, this makes me remember to tell you guys something that should make you happy - we're going to increase calibration on all Navy Ships from 350 to 400. While it makes sense for Tech2 hulls to have less rig sots due to the specialized nature of the ships, Navy hulls are supposed to be an improvement over Tech1, but is not always the case right now due to rig / calibration restrictions.

I cannot possibly express how happy that makes me.  There are several ships that are going to benefit hugely from that, notably the Navy Raven and Dominix, both of which lose access to excellent fitting options thanks to their current 350 calibration.  Kudos to that change!

As for the changes to the ships themselves?  All eight of these ships are being fundamentally improved and with a couple of exceptions, I'm pleased with all of the changes.  I catch flak sometimes when I classify ships as "losers" (sorry about that, Hyperion) in these re-balance posts but keep in mind when I buy a car, I'm not comparing the 2013 Honda Accord to the 2012 Honda Accord... I'm comparing it to its 2013 competition from other makes and models.  And by that metric, all eight of these ships are winners.

Just some more than others.  ;-)  So I'm going to list them in the order that I'm looking forward to flying them.

#1: Scorpion Navy Issue.  Good Heavens, this thing is a monster.  It picks up an additional low slot (like the T1 Scorp) and even more base shields.  That, combined with the cruise missile buff and the calibration buff, vaults this one right to the top of the navy BSs.  PvPers will have their choice of a full T2 torp fit, plus a heavy neut, MWD and MJD, or whatever CML fit they want.  Shield brawling battleship gang... it might actually become a thing!  PvEers -- particularly incursion-runners -- have to be smiling ear-to-ear about this one between the large amount of extra damage, calibration, and CML speed.  The SNI is almost too good.

#2: Typhoon Fleet Issue.  In a way, this is a bit of a troll, the Typhoon Fleet Issue slipping right into the Tempest's old role as a fast, nasty battleship with high DPS and two utility high slots.  Know what?  Don't care.  Like the T1 Mega, we're going to be seeing a dozen fantastic TFI fits each better than the last, some shield, some armor, all awesome.  In particular, the Tempest never had that 125m3 drone bay.

#3: Raven Navy Issue.  That stuff I said about the SNI?  It also applies to the CNR.  PvPers will be using the extra mid to fit a MJD, and their buffed cruise missiles will be outrunning and spiking interceptors, particularly with Precision loads.  That's scary stuff.  Torp CNRs are also going to be fun as hell.  And you L4 Caldari missioners that aren't in this boat starting with Odyssey will be doing it incredibly wrong.  "This ship is going to be an animal," Rise says.  Yup.

#4: Armageddon Navy Issue.  With the T1 Geddon getting bounced around, the "Neddon" vaults for me into the position of the preeminent brawling battleship.  Biggest changes are the increase in sensor strength (Neddons have always been vulnerable to jamming out their already huge DPS) and base armor.  The latter should make a 200k EHP Neddon quite achievable... which will still be doing horrific DPS at close range.  The upsized drone bay is quite nice (though I would have been happer with 250m3).  I've had an occasional running argument with alliance-mate Ben Booley about the Neddon versus the Mega Navy Issue.  I reluctantly agreed that the Mega was slightly superior, mostly because the thinner Mega could cut through the Neddon armor before it went down.  The balance will be tipping to the Neddon's favor for Odyssey.

#5: Apocalypse Navy Issue.  I'm conflicted about this one.  Like its T1 counter-part, I'm not a big fan of the changes in cap and I think it renders this one too close to the Abaddon in capabilities, performance, and cost.  The buffs to mass and signature, while nice, are not going to off-set the usability issues.  The tracking bonus worries me.  Every Amarr BS these days fits double Tracking Computers so that opens up the very real possibility that Napocs will be blapping inties right off BS fleets.  The changes particularly hurt mid-range L4 mission-runners who rely on the Napoc's cap stability in all regimens.  If they could fit a full rack of Tachyons that would be one thing, but unless my math is wrong, they can't without the same fitting mod they need today.  Again, I'm conflicted about this one.  It's too good in some ways, too weird in others.  I can see what the intent was here, but it needs more tweaking, IMO.

#6: Dominix Navy Issue.  This one falls firmly in the middle.  I'm a huge fan of the throwback nature of the beast (it has this in common with the Neddon).  The buff to power grid is quite nice, which are going to make Neutron DNIs quite achieveable.  But the biggest buff is to calibration, which is going to make fitting that T2 Sentry Damage Augmentor rig possible.  Alternately, for PvE applications, double CCC/Sentry Damage Augmentor rig setups will also be possible, which is going to free up a mid slot for any number of possible uses.

#7: Tempest Fleet Issue.  Like the Tempest, the TFI was slightly over-powered relative to the others so it doesn't surprise me to see it's the least changed.  The slight tweaks to fitting will be welcomed by newer players who are using this ship.  I wonder who those might be?

#8: Megathron Navy Issue.  While I love love love the mass decrease, I don't understand the decrease in base armor, and I'm quite sad about it not receiving the 5th mid slot that its T1 counterpart will be enjoying.  The ROF bonus will make it an even more withering attack platform and as such it's a distinct improvement over the current model.  But most improved compared to the other seven it is definitely not.  In the unlikely event it gets that 5th mid slot, jump this one up to #3 or #4 but someone has to be on the bottom and right now this one's it.

EDIT (17/May/2013): Fifth mid-slot also appears to be out for the T1 Mega.  Boo.

So, that's where I fall with the navy battleships.  Where am I wrong about this list?  What did I get right?


(1) T2 frigates comes closest.  I've flown every T2 frig in the game except the Helios.  T1 BCs comes second closest.  I've flown all of them except the Myrmidon.

Quote of the Week: Themes and tag-lines

shit pops up
you go find it
things happen

the actual tagline for odyssey 

-- CCP Rise (the first three lines) and CCP Fozzie (the last line)

This exchange is reproduced with permission from the CSM-CCP Skype conversation.  ;-)  I just love it.  And it's the quote of the week.

From time to time here, you'll hear me make reference to the old-fashioned "theme" that was a hallmark of U.S. education when it came to teaching kids how to write in the 1950s and 1960s.  It eventually morphed into the "formal essay" form that I believe is still used today.  But one of the key elements to the old-fashioned theme -- particularly relative to today's more stream-of-consciousness writing styles -- is that kids were taught that anything that didn't fit the theme should be cut.

And that's kind of what's happening to Odyssey right now.  As we get closer and closer to the release date, some features are being postponed from the Odyssey release.

EDIT (17/May/2013): I'm an idiot.  I could have sworn I saw that Personal Storage Arrays weren't going to be ready in time for June 4, but Fozzie reports that they are.  So I've deleted the reference to them not being ready on time.  I apologize, and I regret the error.

Why pick that feature to delay rather than something else?  Themes!  This is how EVE development is going to work for what is likely to be the next three years:

• step one: a lot of potential and suggested features build up into a big pile;
• step two: CCP devs (with the help of the CSM) collaborate and decide on a theme for the next expansion;
• step three: features are pulled out of the big pile that seem to fit the theme;
• step four: if one of those isn't a big signature theme feature, then a big signature theme feature is brain-stormed and chosen;
• step five: devs work in sprints on the chosen features;
• step six: as the release date gets closer, features that aren't going to be finished in time are put aside; and,
• step seven: release date.

I'm not giving up CCP's secrets here.  This stuff was covered during sessions at Fanfest this year, notably at the opening Retribution Review session on Thursday, which turned out to be quite a good overview of how project management is done at CCP.  In particular, when evaluating a list of features for the next expansion, CCP uses a system nick-named "Moscow" to decide what will stay and what will go.  It's actually an acronym: MSCW, standing for "Must, Should, Could, Won't."  For a given feature, the devs decide "Is this feature a must?  Or a should?  Or a could?"  Each gets tagged and the "M" features get worked on first.  Stuff tagged "W" doesn't get worked on at all.  Stuff tagged "C" might get worked on or might get cut or pushed back in favor of "M" and "S" features.  Those new anomalies?  "M".  The new scanner?  "M".  Probing changes?  "M".  They're a direct part of the theme.  See the tag line above.  ;-)

But don't forget step eight: those features that didn't get finished in time for release date are pushed back to point releases.  This is what happened with dueling in Retribution.  It didn't get finished in time for Retribution 1.0, but it made it into the game eventually.  So "keep calm and carry on", I believe the saying goes.  The features that match the theme will be in the game first.  But the other stuff will make it in too.  We might just have to wait a few weeks since they don't really fit the theme...

Battleship bay

Heavens, this has been a difficult post to draft.

I mean, how could it not be?  The very best thing about CCP Rise?  He's willing to discuss and debate every little detail of his work with both CSM members and players, and make changes based on those discussions on a day-by-day, even minute-by-minute basis.  The very worst thing about CCP Rise?  The very same thing, heh.  There are -- and I wish I was kidding -- 363 pages of discussion on the tech 1 battleships on the EVE Online forums.  That's just the tech 1 BSs.  Then there's a hundred or so more pages of discussion on FHC and kugu.  The CSM has written hundreds of lines of suggested alterations and fixes.  There's no possible way anyone could keep up with it all and yet somehow Rise is managing.  I think.  I hope.

So I want to write about battleships.  But please do not operate under the illusion that I'm keeping track of every single solitary little change.  I'm not.  The battleships continue to evolve on a day-by-day basis.  Just today, I learned about two more (admittedly very minor) changes to two faction battleships.  But as I did with cruisers, and as I did with battle cruisers, I want to talk about winners and losers.  And within that framework, I'm going to stay away from specifics and talk broad strokes: the role changes of these big, bad-ass ships.  First, let's cover the tech1 BSs.


Winners

Typhoon.  Or should I say Typhoon!  I predicted this one was coming when I saw how the Cyclone was rebalanced and now that the day is fast approaching, I can't wait!  Torpedo Typhoons are going to be incredible, but cruise missile Typhoons are going to be even better.  Stupid fast, agile, and hard-hitting, expect to see a lot of MJD Typhoons land, start firing cruises, blink out 100km and keep firing without ever losing their locks.  It's going to be fun in a way I can't possibly yet imagine.  Needless to say, both Ripard and my combat alt are both in the midst of training Cruise Missiles V right now.  Which brings me to...

Raven.  Of the two, I like the Typhoon more.  Partially, it's the explosion velocity bonus (this post from alliance-mate Namamai deftly explains why this bonus is important).  The big thing the Raven picks up that's going to make this ship interesting is the great increases to speed and agility.  I'm currently flying a lot of PODLA Drakes.  I can very easily see myself flying some PODLA Ravens very soon.  It looks like the Raven's going to be tougher, just as fast, and nearly as agile... while doing way more DPS.  And not that the Raven needed any help on the PvE front, but the changes are going to make running L4 missions in this boat even easier -- and dare I say it -- slightly more fun!

Scorpion.  There's only one small change, but it's huge: plus one low slot.  If this change survives (and it should), it's going to change the Scorp a lot more than you would expect on the surface.  Armor-tanked Scorps have indeed been a thing, but with only a four-slot tank, have been fragile easy primaries and have not benefitted from particularly exceptional jam strength to compensate.  They've been used, but armor-tanked Falcons have been used more and have been more survivable.  With a fifth low slot, this opens up a lot of new options for either tanking or that all-important jamming strength mod.

Megathron.  This has been the subject of a lot of debate (it's no coincidence that the Gallente battleship thread is the second largest of the four).  Let me just say it: I'm nearly totally on Rise's side on this one.  I love these changes.  They make the Mega fast and aggressive, which is just what an attack ship should be.  I love the versatility this adds to the ship and you're going to see a dozen different fits come out for this monster, each better than the last.  In particular, shield gank Megas are definitely gonna be a thing and I can't wait.  The only thing I'm not a fan of?  The ever-shrinking drone bay.  That's why it falls behind the three ships above.

EDIT (17/May/2013): Fifth mid slot is off the Mega on Sisi.  Boo.  I still think we'll see shield Megas but they won't be nearly as much fun.  Mega gets bumped down to "In the middle."

Armageddon.  This was a close call.  I almost put it into the "in the middle" group below but I'm going to err on the side of optimism.  I wasn't initially a fan of the changes... in fact, when I first started playing with fittings for this boat, my first thought was to fit it like an armor Tempest!  Complete with auto-cannons!  But the more I play around with the options, the more this one is growing on me.  Biggest plus continues to be versatility and that isn't changing.  I don't much care for the increased cost, though...


Losers

Hyperion.  Don't get me wrong: Rise is trying.  But it's pretty clear that he doesn't have a clue what to do with this ship.  If I had to guess (and it is a guess... I have no inside information on this), I'd say it'll be watched pretty closely throughout Odyssey, then receive a second rebalance later this year.  I can't even keep track of what its slot layout is from week to week right now... let me go look.  OK.  I just checked Singularity and as of today, it's 7-5-7.  Poor Rise.  This ship is the other reason the Gallente thread is so monstrous.

Rokh.  I'm sorry and I know this ship has a lot of fans in sniping fleets, but it's always felt like someone's abandoned little brother... unless you happen to be a sov alliance of thousands of pilots.  In this case Rokhs take what should be a Minmatar role -- alpha strikes and blapping things off the field in one volley -- and do it better than the Minmatar can thanks to faster-cycling rail guns.  I'm not a fan but hey, that's probably my prejudice showing.  That said, the Rokh should have been given a slightly bigger drone bay and slightly better agility to make up for the resist bonus loss.

Small alliances in general.  With tiericide in effect, the battleships that used to be relatively cheap will be no more.  They are going to be much closer in price and as a result you're seeing a lot of speculation on the battleship markets just now.  Sure, things will stabilize, but the small gangs that hardly ever use battleships certainly won't be inclined to start when they're more expensive!  I'll have more to say about this in a later post.

Abaddon.  Like the Rokh, this ship should have been given something to make up for the lost resistance bonus.  Specifically, it should have been given either slightly higher base cap, or faster cap recharge.  But that of course would have made it even more like the Apoc.  The Amarr thread is the largest, and that comes down to how popular and iconic the Amarr BSs are.

The former tier 3 BSs in general.  It's no coincidence that I consider three out of four of the former tier 3 BSs "losers" in this post.  To a certain extent, Rise is doing to BSs the same thing that was done to BCs: make the good ones worse while raising up the poor ones.  As I put it in the BC rebalance post: the fives and sixes out of ten become sevens.  The nines, though... also become sevens.  It's not as bad for the BSs, thankfully, but it's definitely on my mind.


In the middle

Maelstrom.  For me, the Maelstrom is sort of the prototypical EVE battleship.  I agree that its roles and purposes have suited it well and as a "control" battleship receiving no changes while the others are modified around it, you could definitely do much, much worse.

Tempest.  Previously my favorite tech1 battleship, it will now be relegated to sixth or seventh.  That makes me sad, but the Tempest has always been slightly over-powered (like its little brother, the Hurricane) and so the other battleships catching up was to be expected.  I'm pleased it didn't lose a utility slot.

Dominix.  This one really needs something to happen with the drone combat meta to really come into its own.  I enjoy flying "herd Domis" from time to time, but it's not really a fleet meta that's gone anywhere in the last few years.  Ironically, this ship's place has been taken over by sentry drone carriers for the big alliances, and the smaller alliances for the most part would rather have that than the flying running shoe.

Apocalypse.  I alllllmost put this one in the "losers" category.  I consider reducing both base cap and removing its cap bonuses near-fatal flaws.  "There is some concern that the new Apoc will have a significant cap weakness, which will make it too similar to the Abaddon," says Rise.  Yup.  The initial very large nerf to cap has been adjusted to just a large nerf to cap, but I don't think it's going to be enough.  I don't think there's enough difference between the "Apoc" and the "Baddon" now and I think it likely people will just go for the latter.  On the positive end, I'm a huge fan of the new design.  So again I'm going to err on the side of optimism though in my heart, I really wanted to class this one as a loser.


After a lot of thought on the matter, that's my current thinking on the tech1 battleships.  In my opinion, Caldari battleships win overall.  And that continues with the navy battleships, but more on that presently.  In addition to training Cruise Missiles V, I'm also training up Caldari Battleships!  For these, what did I get right?  Where am I totally wrong?

What's in your hangar, 2013

Last year at this time, I wrote up a list of the ships that were in Ripard's hangar at that particular moment in time, and said that I thought it would be a fun experiment to make it an annual post to compare and contrast how my hangar develops from year to year.  In particular, I'm interested in noting which ships I fly a lot, which ones I never fly, which ones change, and which ones don't.

Last year, I was concerned that Goons would make T2 ships more expensive and yeah... that sorta happened.  But I find that I'm not losing enough ships in Rote Kapelle to care all that much.  So to date, it hasn't been an issue.  When I lose something, I replace it a week or so later and if that fleet comp comes up during that week, I fly some other role.  Ships that I fly a lot (or lose a lot), I keep two of in TXW, just in case I lose one.

Just a reminder: I like to name Ripard's ships after one-liners from movies, particularly action movies.  So in each case, I've given the source for the one-liner.  ;-)

So here we go (again), a list of all the ships in Ripard's main hangar in Rote Kapelle's home system:

Enyo (x2), "You're Fired".  Name source: True Lies.  I'm down to two of these, because Rote discovered quite by accident how awesome shield Enyos are in late night fleets, so I've actually been flying them again.

Harpy (x1), "I Don't Score Much".  Name source: True Lies.  I mentioned last year that all my AFs came from the same pile generated about three years ago, all named after lines from True Lies.  This is one that I rescued from E02 in Great Wildlands, but haven't flown this year.  It's a Blarpy.  I probably need to retire it.

Hawk (x1), "Dance for Me".  Name source: True Lies.  Also rescued from E02, also not flown.  I refit it to MASB.  I probably need to retire this one, too.

Ishkur (x1), "Snow Cone Maker".  Name source: True Lies.  I refit this one to shield also, and use it as a long-point AF in Rote's late night Enyo shield roams (the shield Enyos are typically scram fit).  Haven't lost it yet that I can remember.

Wolf (x1), "I Married Rambo".  Name source: True Lies.  Used this in a couple of solo fights and one frig fleet.  It's still awesome but I don't get to fly it very often.

Naga (x1), "Just Shoot the Thing".  Name source: Men in Black.  This is a new add.  As part of the donation drive last year, someone sent me one each of all four attack BCs.  The Naga gets flown the least, mostly because of its lack of agility compared to the other three.

Talos (x2), "Bring Me His Head".  Name source: Game of Thrones.  Probably my new favorite PvP ship, both of them are shield gank fit.  I just love them.  I use them for belt ratting in addition to PvP, where they make great mid-range skirmishers.  I got about 120 kills in this boat in the last year.

Tornado (x2), "Ska-doosh".  Name source: Kung Fu Panda.  Refit one of these to 800s.  Other than that, no change.

Armageddon (x1), "Fire ship".  Name source: Horatio Hornblower.  That all neut Geddon I praised to the skies today?  Have one.

Machariel (x1), "Let's Party".  Name source: Commando.  We continue to use a small number of these as anchors for larger nano gangs.  It's a role I really enjoy.  I don't get to fly my Mach enough.

Maelstrom (x1), "Flame Units Only".  Name source: Aliens.  This is an old LAWN NC fleet Maelstrom that I had a vague idea to refit to a double XLASB fit.  Haven't done it.  It's gathering dust in a big way.  I should probably sell it.

Raven (x1), unnamed.  Just got one of these from another Rote member.  Ravens are about to be awesome.  More on that when I finish my upcoming battleship post.

Scorpion (x1), "Nobody Likes You".  Name source: The Last Boy Scout.  This is an old Sturmgrenadier ship, brought in from empire because armor Scorpions are also soon to be awesome.

Tempest (x1), "For Close Encounters".  Name source: Aliens.  No change from last year.  Every once in a while I get to undock in it, but never for anything serious.  Sad face.

Typhoon Fleet Issue (x1), "Game Over, Man".  Name source: Aliens.  Remember that button-orbiting thing?  This is one of the few things I got for myself with that.  I would use it sometimes in goofy Rote armor gangs, where it was a lot of fun and got me strange looks.  So you can imagine my happiness given how awesome this ship is about to become.

Vindicator (x1), "No Mercy".  Name source: lots, but I was thinking of 300.  This was a thank you gift from Rote Kapelle for my support of our ATX team.  <3 Rote.  That said, I haven't gotten to fly it in anything serious.

Brutix (x1), "Hasta La Vista Baby".  Name source: Terminator.  Ripard spent a lot of this year bringing his drone skills from "shit" to "acceptable" to "pretty damn good."  I bought myself a couple of ships to celebrate that; a shield gank Brutix was one.  A dual-rep Myrmidon was another, but that one hasn't made it out to TXW yet.

Cyclone (x1), "Mail Order Shit".  Name source: Eraser.  Bought and built when it became clear how awesome Cyclones were going to be thanks to the BC rebalance.  And they're every bit as wonderful as I mentioned in this post.  I mostly use it for home defense.

Drake (x2), "C'mon Bennett".  Name source: Commando.  I flew this a lot in PODLA configuration this past year.  I've lost three of them and keep replacing them to keep my TXW stock at two.

Ferox (x1), "Party Pooper".  Name source: Kindergarten Cop.  I brought two of these -- originally Gentlemen's Club rail sniper Feroxes -- in from empire to lose in hysterical ways.  One down, one to go.  I teased CCP Fozzie at Fanfest about rail Feroxes but he remains adamant.

Gnosis (x2), "Sarah Connor".  Name source: Terminator.  Received three of these.  One dead, two to go.  One is fit armor, the other shield.

Hurricane (x4), "Alabama Tick", "Pushing Pencils", "Sexual Tyrannosaurus", "She's Your Baggage".  Name source: Predator.  One 425 Welp Cane, one armor Cane, one 650 skirmish Cane, and one 720 Cane.  No change from last year, except I think I refit the 720 Cane as an XLASB Cane.  I certainly haven't been flying these much since the BC rebalance.

Prophecy (x1), "English Accent".  Name source: Robin Hood, Men in Tights.  Rebuilt for "RR chicken" fleets, which are hysterical.

Huginn (x1), "Lowly Lowly Cook".  Name source: Under Siege.  Rote mostly prefers Rapiers.  I fly the Huginn in ultra-small fleets where DPS is a factor.

Lachesis (x1), "Still Alive, Baby?"  Name source: Mr and Mrs Smith.  One of the very few new T2 ships I bought this year.  It's fairly pimp and occasionally I get to fly it in skirmish gangs if I'm not asked to fly the Rapier instead (which is usually the case).

Rook (x1), "Gonna Get Me An Ear".  Name source: Firefly.  No change from last year.  I'm pretty sure I haven't flown this in the last year, but not for lack of wanting to.

Claymore (x2), "Overkill is Underrated".  Name source: The A-Team.  I heard the phrase "armor Claymore" this past year and the idea so intrigued me that I bought one and it actually works pretty damn well.  The other is still fit shield and I don't think I've flown it more than once or twice this year.

Damnation (x1), "Always Bet on Black".  Name source: Passenger 57.  This was brand new last year.  I've flown it a few times.  It's a dull but necessary role.  I've gotten into the habit of dual-boxing when I fly this ship.

Sleipnir (x1), "Stupid, but Ballsy".  Name source: True Lies.  When I am providing the DPS for Rote's nano shield fleets, this is what I'm flying.  I've gotten a fair bit of mileage out of it in the last year.

Vulture (x1), "Winter is Coming".  Name source: Game of Thrones.  I bought this with incursion money two summers ago and used it as off-grid links for incursion fleets.  It made the trip from empire to TXW when a couple of FCs suddenly called for a Vulture.  So I fitted it and got it ready... and there hasn't been a call for a Vulture since.

Buzzard (x1), "I Seee Youuuu".  Name source: Predator.  Pretty standard scanning Buzzard.

Cheetah (x1), "Like the Chameleon".  Name source: Predator.  Someone gave me this, but I usually use the Buzzard.

Arbitrator (x1), "Fear My Spears".  Name source: 300.  I bought lots of T1 cruisers this year.  This one is used in armor fleets and was a FOTW a couple of weeks ago.  I really enjoy this one.

Ashimmu (x1), "Web of Lies".  Name source: Mr and Mrs Smith.  I really like the play on words inherent in this ship name.  This was brand new to my hangar last year and quickly vaulted to one of my favorite ships to fly in armor HAC gangs.  It'll be a FOTW once I feel like giving away the secrets of this ship.  ;-)

Bellicose (x2), "Beautiful Death".  Name source: 300.  Another donation, someone gave me five each of my four favorite T1 cruisers.  The Bellicoses are the only ones that haven't died.  I get a blast out of flying them.  For all four of my favorite T1 cruiser fits, see the FOTWs from December.

Caracal (x1), "Fight in the Shade".  Name source: 300.  Had to try it out.  I like the Bellicose better.

Celestis (x2), "Dodge This".  Name source: The Matrix.  One's still fit as an (improved) Dramiel killer.  The other is fit as a dedicated damp ship for shield nano gangs.  I love love this ship.  It's thin as paper but evil and very effective.  It'll be a FOTW before too much longer.

Cynabal (x1), "Goan Bleed You".  Name source: Predator.  No change from last year.

Exequror (x1), "Devilfish".  Name source: The Winds of War.  Originally built to try out single-logi cruiser gang tactics, then I remembered how much I enjoy flying logi, so I pull it out sometimes.  It was a FOTW in January.

Moa (x1), "Very Human Chill".  Name source: 300.  My favorite Caldari T1 cruiser, though shield brawling fits are pretty rare so I almost never get to fly it.

Omen (x2), "I Can't Feel My Legs".  Name source: X-Men First Class.  My favorite Amarr T1 cruiser by a tiny margin over the Arbitrator.  I love its mix of tank, gank, how cheap it is, and how much fun it is to fly.  It's the T1 cruiser I've lost the most of.

Osprey (x1), "Ugly Motherfucker".  Name source: Predator.  No change from last year.

Phantasm (x1), "The Pointy End".  Name source: Game of Thrones.  Before "good cruisers" became almost literally a dime a dozen, the Phantasm was a good ship for a lot of different theme fleets.  It does good DPS and you can fit a strong buffer tank on it, about 500 DPS and 50k EHP, respectively.  Now it's out-classed by ships one-tenth its cost.

Rupture (x1), "A Fine Thrust".  Name source: 300.  Artillery fit, built for a Rote FC that loves arty Rupture fleets.  I've flown it a few times but it's not really me, which is weird because I really like skirmish tactics.  I guess for cruisers I prefer more brawly tactics.

Scythe (x1), "Redeemer".  Name source: The Winds of War.  Originally built to try out single-logi cruiser gang tactics, then I remembered how much I enjoy flying logi, so I pull it out sometimes.  It was the FOTW in January.

Thorax (x2), "This is Sparta!".  Name source: 300 (duh).  My favorite Gallente T1 cruiser, these are shield gank fit where they are pretty freakin' terrifying.  That said, I don't get to fly it as often as I'd like.

Vexor (x1), "Discarded".  Name source: 300.  This was another one I bought when Ripard's drone skills became greater than "shit".  It's armor fit.  I don't like it nearly as much as other T1 armor cruisers, notably the Omen.

Algos (x1), "Fly or Die".  Name source: Commando.  Bought and fit to try out the new destroyers.  Eh.  They're OK.  I should probably give this away.

Corax (x1), "I'll Kill You Last".  Name source: Commando.  Bought and fit to try out the new destroyers.  Eh.  They're OK.  I should probably give this away.

Hyena (x1), "Start Paddling".  Name source: Commando.  Keres (x1), "I'm a Special Boy".  Name source: American Pie.  Kitsune (x1), "Hush! Hush!".  Name source: Broken Arrow.  Sentinel (x1), "Did You Miss Me?"  Name Source: The Mask.  I have a dream.  It's not a big dream.  It's a small dream.  My dream is that someday EAFs will be good.  The Hyena isn't too bad and I fly it every so often.  The others are for tournaments.

Falcon (x1), "Death From Above".  Name source: Avatar.  No change from last year.

Rapier (x1), "People Need Killin'".  Name source: Mr and Mrs Smith.  I've been flying this one a lot this past year in nano shield gangs.  Matter of fact, I got a very nice compliment from a new member of Rote Kapelle who joined us after his previous alliance left Syndicate (and after we had killed him lots of times in his previous alliance).  The compliment: "I hated seeing you in a Rapier, Ripard, because that meant I was gonna die."  Rarely has anyone said anything so sweet to me.  ;-)

Rifter (x2), "Fly in the Ointment".  Tormentor (x2), "Monkey in the Wrench".  Name source: Die Hard.  From time to time, someone comes to TXW and asks for an honor 1v1 with either T1 frigs or T1 cruisers.  Rote Kapelle honors 1v1s.  So I stocked a few T1 frigates in case I'm the guy that's awake when this happens.  That said, you're not going to see me in these outside of a fleet.  My cheapest clone is about 20 times more expensive than the most expensive T1 frigate...

Daredevil (x1), "Don't Like Rednecks".  Name source: Commando.  No change from last year.

Federation Navy Comet (x1), "We Salute You".  Name source: Gladiator.  No change from last year.  Sigh.  I miss cop-car fleets.

Venture (x1), "Salvage Corvette".  Name source: Homeworld (the game).  The idea of having a tackle Venture tickled me, so I bought and built one.  Haven't used it in combat, though.

Cerberus (x1), "I'm Really Hungry".  Name source: Commando.  No change from last year.

Deimos (x1), "Pikal Envy".  Name source: Babylon 5.  I bought this one because Rote Kapelle frequently did Deimos fleets, but we don't do that fleet comp very much any more.  I've been trying to get this one killed in various armor HAC fleets.

Vagabond (x1), "The Quarterback is Toast".  Name source: Die Hard.  I pray for the day Vagas are good again.

Zealot (x2), "I'm Still Standin'".  Name source: Men in Black.  After we stopped doing Deimos fleets, we went back to doing traditional armor HAC fleets.  So I've got one of these fit for that.  But we also occasionally use Zealots in the Vaga's previous role of anti-tackle screen for nano skirmish gangs.  So I have one fit like that, too.

Broadsword (x1), "The Revenge Business".  Name source: The Princess Bride.  I bought this last year because we started occasionally needing shield interdictors.  Then we stopped needing them and I haven't flown this yet.

Phobos (x2), "Smell Them Coming".  Name source: Commando.  Ditto.

Ares (x2), "Sweep the Leg".  Name source: The Karate Kid.  Bought these so I could scout.  Haven't scouted.  Will probably end up selling these to or giving them to a regular Rote scout.

Stiletto (x1), "For Defense Only".  Name source: The Karate Kid.  No change from last year.

Taranis (x1), "Squish Like Grape".  Name source: The Karate Kid.  No change from last year.

Eris (x1), "My Mom Will Shoot".  Name source: bad Sly Stallone movie.  No change from last year.  It's armor fit.

Flycatcher (x1), "Suicide Squeeze".  Name source: Major League.  I was flying dictors really frequently right up until ATX and I was given two expensive clones.  Now I'm waiting for one of the expensive clones to die before I go back to flying dictors.  Hasn't happened yet.

Sabre (x2), "Stick Around".  Name source: Commando.  Ditto.  I just haven't been flying bubble ships the last year.

Velator (x2), "Seriously?"  Name source: lots, but I was thinking Finding Nemo.  I built this just for grins to kill anyone who lights a cyno in TXW.  ;-)

Hound (x2), "Motherfuckin' Tin Can".  Name source: Die Hard.  No change from last year, except that I talked some Rote guys into trying bombing this year.  They were... OK at it.  They need more practice...

Manticore (x2), "Shoot the Glass", "Yipee Ki-Yay".  Name source; Die Hard.  No change from last year.

Nemesis (x1), "Gimme da Cash".  Name source: The Fifth Element.  Bought to play around with bomber ratting.

Purifier (x1), "Landing Lights".  Name source: Die Hard 2.  Bought to complete the set.  ;-)

Legion (x2), "Freeze Means Stop", "I Like This Gun".  Name source: Men in Black.  Two out of three actual expensive things I bought this year.  I wanted to play around with the super-Zealot fitting (the latter).  But then I tried a HAM fit, which I liked much, much better.  The exact fit is kind of a trade secret for the moment because I think it's really quite good.  But it'll be FOTW eventually.

Loki (x2), "Come Get Some", "This is my Boomstick".  Name source: Army of Darkness.  One is a shield link ship.  The other is a AHAC web Loki.  The latter gets used a lot more than the former.

Proteus (x1), "Shadoo".  Name source: the EVE player of note, but I was thinking "Armor HACs! Armor HACs! Armor HACs!"  ;-)  I'll probably rename it to fit my meta at some point.  Anyway, it's for armor HAC fleets.

Tengu (x2), "I Got Lucky", "Sirius M".  Name source: Mr and Mrs Smith.  The latter is the same PvE Tengu that I used to occasionally do wormhole sites with.  I can't recall flying it at all in the last year.  The former is a Tengu that I bought with the intention of refitting it to a 100MN HML Tengu.  Then HMLs got nerfed into the ground and I haven't decided if I'm going to actually refit it or not.  Haven't flown this one, either.


So... ummm... 106 ships, an increase of 43 from last year.  Most of the increases are T1 frigates and dessies (9), T1 cruisers (14), T1 BCs (6: 2@Talos, Naga, Brutix, Cyclone, Ferox), T2 frigates (7: two bombers, two AFs, two EAFs, Cheetah), and T1 battleships (4: Geddon, Maelstrom, Raven, Scorp).  That's 40.  I added six expensive ships: a Tengu, a Proteus, two Legions, a Claymore, and a Lachesis.  I retired several ships: a Muninn, a Raptor, a Dramiel, and a Thrasher (heh).

But this exercise has clearly shown that I need to be more aggressive about retiring ships I don't use.  I don't know what the optimal number of ships is, but 100+ is clearly too many.  ;-)  Ripard continues to be unable to fly any capital ship, and though he can fly the Vargur and Kronos perfectly, I don't have either (I trained the skill for this year's alliance tournament).  Ripard cannot fly any black ops.  I have a second combat alt that flies mostly battleships, but that's pretty much all he has: a small collection of battleships of various types.

So that's this year's list!  Comments?

Fit of the Week: All neut Armageddon

I've done Armageddons twice before, but this time I want to do something topical and specialized.  Rote Kapelle has been getting bitched at by Clockwork Pineapple and I've been getting bitched at in my recent Gnosis post about our occasional use of triage carriers.  I'll say here what I've said in that argument: Rote gangs are typically so small (nearly always 20 or less, and often less than a dozen) that every single pilot has to provide maximum results.  That applies whether the pilot is doing special teams, DPS, or logistics.  If we're putting 15 guys in space and we want to armor brawl, we simply cannot afford three Guardians.  That's 20% of our DPS gone, which for us is usually the difference between being able to scrape together a chance at winning a fight and saying home.

That usually means one guy, often dual-boxing a Damnation or something, sitting at home in a triage carrier waiting to jump in if we get a major fight.

Where I'm getting bitched at is the impression that triage carriers constitute a somehow unfair or unbeatable advantage even if your gang has small numbers itself.  And that idea is so silly it really deserves a direct response.  Unlike a large fleet of supers, to which the only counter is more supers, small groups of capital ships are relatively easy kills even with relatively small groups of sub-caps.  Sure, it's easy to say "Jester, you idiot, a triage Archon can easily tank 17000 DPS for the five minutes it's going to be in triage.  That's like 40 armor HACs.  Are you calling that a small gang?" and on paper if you take on a triage carrier's tank directly, that's absolutely true.

But who says you have to take the tank on directly?  That's where something like this comes in:

[Armageddon, All neut]
Damage Control II
Reactor Control Unit I
Co-Processor II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Prototype 100MN Microwarpdrive I
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I


It's sorely tempting to believe that only Bhaalgorns are capable of neut tactics, but it's incredibly untrue.  The large sov-holding alliances like neut Tempests and use them to devastating effect in large groups against capital ships of all kinds.  But I like the "Geddon."  It's cheap, versatile, and devastating in this fitting.

The core of the ship are a full rack of heavy neuts and a pair of heavy cap boosters.  Step one, put those eight neuts on the triage carrier of your choice, cycled individually every three seconds until all eight are running.  Step two, have the rest of your gang continue to apply DPS pressure against whatever the carrier is repping.  Capital remote reppers are incredibly cap-intensive.  If you have spare DPS, put a bit on the carrier too so that it has to both self-rep and keep its gang alive.  In less than two minutes, the triage carrier's cap will be bone dry.

And that gives you three minutes to kill the thing while it doesn't have the cap to run any of its self-reppers.  It won't tank 17000 DPS.  It won't tank any DPS at all.  And if the triage pilot is dumb enough to have active hardeners fit, you'll cut through him that much faster.  During this three minutes, any other enemy repair ships on the field are irrelevant: under triage, the carrier can't accept any help.

So your big challenge is keeping your neut Geddon alive.  This is actually not too difficult owing to a strong tank with 30000 armor HP before any fleet or command ship bonuses.  Under a Damnation, this Geddon fit has about 188k EHP and fantastic resists for a T1 ship to everything except kinetic damage and very decent resists against that (71%).  So once the enemy triage carrier goes down, make killing blaster boats a priority but chances are you were going to do that anyway.

A neut Geddon is also quite effective at breaking other types of enemy logistics.  For instance, a single Geddon will snap a three Guardian cap chain in five or six cycles depending on the skills of the enemy pilots, a little over one minute.  And even the Geddon's current neut range is pretty good for this kind of work, at 25km.  But we'll get to that in a second.

Finally, even with a full neut fitting, the Geddon provides some damage.  I haven't included it in the fit above, but feel free to load a full set of Gardes for about 300 DPS, or you can go with a full set of heavies or a mix of Hammerheads and Warriors, or Hammerheads and EC drones.  Still, for this kind of ship, best to go with the highest DPS you can and then just make sure your insurance is up to date.  ;-)

And by the way, everything this ship does to carriers, it does even more to dreadnoughts.  For instance, if an enemy Moros with a single self-rep doesn't shut down its guns, it will be capped out in about two minutes... with dual cap boosters running full time.  If it hasn't fit dual cap boosters, it will be cap dry significantly faster.

When Odyssey drops, the Geddon is getting a working over that is going to decimate its current role as an Amarr gunship.  Still, for the neut role, that's not a tragedy at all.  The upcoming changes include bonuses to neut range (to about 38km), drone damage (to about 450 DPS with a single set of Gardes), drone bay size (which is being expanded tremendously), and cap (which is also being increased tremendously).  With a nice increase in CPU, there's even an excellent chance you'll be able to fit a Drone Damage Amplifier to this fit starting with Odyssey.  The only downside is the loss of a single high slot, which is going to make a single neut Geddon a lot more twitchy proposition when facing a triage carrier: it's going to take the ship about 2.5 minutes to cap out its target, which means you'll need comparably more DPS (or a second neut ship) to kill it.  Geddons are also going to be more expensive to construct come Odyssey, which is why the ship is being speculated on so heavily right now.

It's tempting to look at a triage carrier as an unfair escalation requiring a capital response of your own.  And if there are two or three of them, sure that might be the case.  But for a single carrier or a small group of dreads, a neut ship can be a great response.  It's not a ship or a fitting that you need very often, but when the occasion calls for it you'll find it a very handy response.(1)  So enough with the bitching, OK?  ;-)

Happy neuting!


All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only.  You may not have the skills needed for this exact fit.  If you do not, feel free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war.  Ships can also be adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the pilot flying it.  Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type of ship more aggressively and well.


(1) P.S. Virtually the same fitting makes an excellent "all smart bomb" fitting, by the way.  I leave the changes as an exercise for the student, but you should find them very rapidly.

Complicate the narrative

Warning: the following post is only peripherally about EVE Online.  It also contains spoilers for the game Bioshock Infinite.  Only if you've finished Bioshock Infinite and if you're a fan of EVE's underlying meta should you read this post.  The rest of you should bookmark it and come back to it later when you've met that condition.

So one more time: Warning!  Spoilers follow!

Ready?  OK.  I'm a really big fan of the Bioshock franchise and as such there was no question about whether I'd play Infinite, just when.  I finally got the chance to do so during the weekends immediately preceding and following Fanfest.  And once I'd finished the game the first time, there was also no question about whether I'd replay the thing: I had to.  Good Heavens, that was a dark ending!  Sure, the game itself was dark, but it was dark in a really appealing way.  Er... yeah.  Did I mention I'm an EVE player?  ;-)

Amusingly, the ending itself would be best explained by Doc Brown in Back to the Future Part II with a big black-board.  I could almost hear him talking about how the time-line skewed off from the moment of that baptism.  If you haven't seen it, how the ending works is best explained in the video below.  If you're not clear on the ending, I recommend you watch it to get a clear(er) picture.

Man, that's really grim, dark stuff.  On paper, the existences of Comstock, Columbia, and Elizabeth herself are wiped away.  The fates of Booker and Anna are a bit more opaque, but in the post-credit scene dated 8 October 1893, whether Anna is in the crib or not there are still gambling forms on the desk... pretty grim.  So the ending left me with a lot to think about.  And while it all appears to hang together beautifully through the game's Voxophones and in-character dialogue, I could feel in the back of my head that there were definitely gaps and plot holes.

And thus, this blog post.  Because sometimes to get back to EVE Online stuff, I need to exorcise this kind of nonsense out of my head.

"There's always a man.  There's always a city," Elizabeth says during that ending sequence.  And because of clever game design and player management, your camera is drawn to Booker as she says this.  And so your brain naturally jumps to the conclusion that Elizabeth is talking about Booker when she says it.  But that idea collapses under the tiniest bit of scrutiny because Booker was never associated with Columbia... Comstock was.  Booker was just the invader of Columbia, as Jack invaded Rapture.  Comstock was the "man" for Columbia just as Andrew Ryan was the "man" for Rapture.

But in a multitude of universes, it doesn't have to be that way.

And that's the hole I was intuitively seeing in Bioshock Infinite's ending: Elizabeth and the game designers keep pulling you along so fast that you don't have time to think.  Elizabeth and Booker want to stop Comstock's existence before it starts, and in that way they both really spend the entire game fighting desperately to negate their own existences.  That's why the game's ending is so grim and dark.  But ironically, it's also completely futile because ending Comstock's existence doesn't really change a thing!  In the game's backstory, Comstock is a politician who pushes for the American government's creation of Columbia as a show of "American exceptionalism."  That certainly wasn't changed by Elizabeth's actions.

After all, it wasn't Comstock that made Columbia possible... it was Rosalind Lutece that did so.  And in negating Comstock's existence, Rosalind Lutece's murder is suddenly also negated.  That means her work (and the work of her "brother") continues, in both the "Lutece field" and "quantum particles."  Hell, the (one? two?) people who benefit the most from Comstock being erased from existence aren't even mentioned in the game's ending.  And that means that there's nothing stopping Columbia from being built.  After all, there's always a man.  There's always a city.

If only there were some other wealthy, politically powerful, corrupt man that could sponsor Lutece's work... owait.  Know who else's murder was negated?  Jeremiah Fink... he could very easily step into Comstock's shoes.  The Bioshock wiki blandly states about Jeremiah Fink that the "...status of Fink in other realities is unknown, though with both Comstock and Columbia being erased from existence, it can be assumed that his life would play out very differently."

Huh.  You think so, Bioshock wiki?  I don't think his life would play out all that differently at all.  There's always a man.  There's always a city.  And Rosalind Lutece and her work opening tears are still out there, potentially allowing a powerful corrupt man to massively profit from knowledge of both future events and the events of alternate realities.  Fink presumably wouldn't have Comstock's religious zeal instigating racial warfare, but I think we can rest assured that Fink's version of Columbia wouldn't be all that different from Comstock's.  The class warfare would certainly survive!  Instead of religious zealotry, we'd have out-of-control rampant capitalism, out-of-control exploitation of the masses, industry gone mad for the purposes of unlimited warfare--

Hey!  You in the back.  Hush.  This post isn't really about EVE Online, remember?  ;-)

OK.  Maybe it is.  A little.

::coughs::  Anyway, it just struck me as funny that Booker and Elizabeth, in their rapid and desperate pursuit to negate their own existences, didn't solve the real problem at all.  I don't think we're done with Columbia quite yet and those that think Bioshock Infinite would have trouble finding fertile ground for sequels haven't thought the matter through.  Hell, thanks to a tear showing Fink a certain employment interview, the Bioshock franchise doesn't even have to put Booker DeWitt aside yet if it doesn't want to...

So I can be happy and secure in the knowledge that the Bioshock franchise will be interrupting my EVE play at some point in the future.  Anyway, demon exorcised.  Now back to our regular programming.

Kill of the Week: What a waste

Kill of the week honors goes to this waste:
http://www.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17646190

The Gnosis is a nice gimmick, but I'm coming increasingly to the depressing conclusion that it isn't much more than that.  What it does better than any other ship in the game?  It's a terrific newbie ship.  It requires no skills at all to fly, immediately gives you the best bonuses it has to give regardless of player skill, and doesn't require any fitting compromises for a new player to make it work.  As a result, I predict we're eventually going to see the Gnosis take its rightful place as a terrific PvE boat.

Remember how I said a Vexor would be great for tag ratting, for instance?  Forget all that.  The Gnosis is better, much better: it aligns faster, can use any gun you care to fit on it or a nice variety of offensive or defensive drones, and tanks just fine for that kind of role.  Or you can run missions with it.  Or you can run any sort of low-level PvE with it.  Or, I suppose you can lose yours in a totally ridiculous fashion by tossing some cargo in at and losing the poor thing in Rancer.  Whoops!

Even new players need to be shown how to play this game, I guess...  Ah well, I will continue to try to PvP in mine.  ;-)


Number of dead super-caps last week: 5

Pretty decent week for super kills this past week, with five of them down.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I only know the stories about three of them.

First super of last week to die was this Aeon, smashed in low-sec by a Pandemic Legion hot-drop.  I wasn't able to find any more about this one, though.  Anyone know the story?

Second was this Leviathan, also killed in low-sec.  The story on this one is covered by TMC, but can be summed up rather quickly with: "spy got access to tower shields, spy turned off tower shields, bat phone call was made, dead Leviathan."  It's rather a sad story, and one that is sure to be repeated right across New Eden in times to come.  Pandemic Legion was the beneficiary of the phone call and provided the bulk of the DPS once the Lev was cornered.  Anyway, if you want the full story, TMC has it.  There's also pictures of a huge purple blob and a pretty good video.

EDIT (14/May/2013): Heh, I didn't follow this one closely enough.  The spy tried to turn off the shields, couldn't, and somehow talked the titan pilot into warping away from the POS!  Whooooops...

Next was this Nyx, also... say it with me now... killed in low-sec by Pandemic Legion.  At press, this KM is producing an Internal Server Error from eve-kill, but I find the presence of Viper Serenity and one of his alts (both in hictors) on the KM very intriguing.  Viper's a guy that's well known for taking all comers, escalating with alts until he can't escalate any more, then hoping he can kill you or drive you off with superior reps and support.  He's pretty good at it, too!  It wouldn't surprise me at all if Viper pinned this Nyx and then bat-phoned the closest available DPS, but I don't know if that's how it went down...  But the server error is interesting.  Probably just a poorly formatted comment or something.  If I get more information about this kill, I'll update this post.

That brings me to the actual super fight of the week, in which this Red Alliance Nyx and Aeon were lost in 1V-LI2 to a massive NCdot fleet.  The battle itself was pretty enormous, with several hundred NCdot on one side versus about a hundred or so RA.  RA gave pretty well, killing five Machariels and a large number of other support battleships, dictors, and hictors.  But you can't win the fight without keeping your supers safe and RA wasn't able to do that.  A small number of other RA supers were able to get out.  It doesn't look like either news website has covered this one yet and I don't know how the fight started, but it only happened yesterday so I'm sure it'll be covered in another day or two.  Happy Mother's Day, RA!

Burn Jita Redux

I've been asked a few times if I was going to cover Burn Jita 2.0, which wrapped up right before Fanfest.  To be honest, I'd forgotten about it, but I was reminded of it over the weekend reading The Mittani's GSF CEO update for April.  So since I still have the notes, I thought it would be fun to cover it briefly.

In the update, Mittens is rather smug about how Burn Jita 2.0 went down, and with very good reason: it absolutely dwarfed the success of the first version last year.  By my count last year, a total of 53 freighters and 12 JFs died, for a grand total of 65.  42 of those were in Jita, and after that the Goons had to spread out their attacks quite a bit to continue to get kills.

In the following two tables, "j" is a kill in Jita.  "s" is Sobaseki, "S" is Sivala, "i" is Isanamo, "I" is Ikuchi, "n" is Niyabainen, "c" is New Caldari, "k" is Kusomonomon, "p" is Perimeter, "m" is Maurasi, "v" is Veisto, "u" is Urlen, and "U" is Uemisaisen.

Here's last year:

Friday:	jjuuj jijjj pppps pjjjj
Saturday:	jjspj jpksj jjjsj jjjjj jjvsj
Sunday:	jjjjp jjjjs jjsjs jjpjp

And here's this year:

Friday:	jjjjj jjjjj jjjjS jjjIj jjjjj nj
Saturday:	jjjcj jjjjk jjjjj jjsjj ujjjj jsppc jjjjj mjjjj jjpjj jjjjj jjsjp jjjjj pjjj
Sunday:	cjjjj jppjj jjjsj jjjjj jjIjj jjjjj jjjjp pjjjp jppcj jjjjp jj
Monday:	cpjjj jvUIj jjujp j

Last year, 65 total JFs and freighters died.  This year, nearly that many -- 64 -- died on Saturday alone.  Total for Burn Jita 2.0?  159 by my count, about two-and-a-half times the death toll last year.  I didn't count what appeared to be seven duplicate kills.  In addition, while last year 12 jump freighters died comprising about a fifth of the total, this year the total jump freighter kills appears to have been... 12.  So either JF pilots are getting smarter or the word spread among the JF pilots much more rapidly and thoroughly than among the standard freighter pilots:

Friday:	Ark, Rhea, Rhea, Ark
Saturday:	Nomad, Rhea, Nomad, Ark, Rhea, Rhea
Sunday:	Rhea, Rhea
Monday:	Ark

And this year's event was so successful and presumably so much fun for the participants that they had a hard time stopping.  Freighter kills continued well into Monday, so I've gone ahead and counted those 16 kills as part of the event.

As far as I can see, compared to last year the individual freighter pilots weren't carrying quite as much.  There were lots and lots of empty freighters this time, or freighters just carrying small ISK values in minerals or ships.  As far as I can tell, there were only a few freighter kills that could be valued above five billion ISK, and perhaps one or two above ten billion.  That's a far cry from last year where there were lots of high-value kills.

Still, 159 freighters and JFs can only be regarded as a massive success for the Goons.  Mittens and Co. have every reason to be really smug.

Much of the death toll can be placed at the feet of a distinct lack of publicity about the event.  The Goons announced it about three weeks prior to it taking place but after that, there was more or less a communications black-out about the event with almost no coverage anywhere.  I'm sure that helped with the initial surprise on Friday.  Last year, CCP went out of their way to warn players that the event was going on with both an in-game news item and a log-in graphic warning of the interdiction.  This year, I didn't see either of those.  And of course, I've already teased much of the TMC senior staff about their own lack of coverage.  ;-)

All in all, a really good event this year!  As long as you weren't a freighter or a JF pilot, of course...

Some highlights:

Scavenger	Looted a previously ganked freighter
Noob death	Killed in part by a bunch of Velators and Reapers
Wormhole loot	Because freighters are the best way to haul it
He mad	Died horribly, then posted about it
Cloak sale	Lost a couple months of T2 cloak production
Blueprints...	...but only for three BCs
Megathron stampede	...but none of them dropped
Invuls	Enough to make the world invulnerable
Ships for everyone!	No matter what type you want
Tengus and Hulks	But a shitload of Amarr armor dropped
Stock the world	Lots and lots and lots of T2 mods
Catalysts	Your attempt to bring them to Jita has failed
Faction mods	Why would you ever do this?
Advanced Mobile Labs	Worth ganking when Burn Jita isn't on
Paladins	They always had the lowest INT
Manufacturing pile I	Not going to sell any of this, sorry
Manufacturing pile II	Going to market, but not to sell
Ship pile	Cloakies and logis and Deimos, oh my
Feeding the fire	I wonder who those 156 Thrashers were for
Black Ops averted	Three Sins, 20 bombers
This guy lost two	This was the second loss in two days
Probable Red Frog	Likely, 19 failed RF contracts here...
Lots of implants!	But none of them dropped!

Will this be an annual event?  As long as Goons get their finances in order, I don't see why it wouldn't be... see you next year!