Logistics, just for something different

With the recent activity within the corp and alliance towards kicking down -A-'s door I tried my hand at the logistics side of combat and I loved it.  Out of all of the ships I have flown and of all the different content I have played through, flying a Logistics ship is probably the most enjoyable.

I am Gallente and Caldari specialised so the Basilisk and the Oneiros are the ships that I fly, neither happen to be the flavour of the month but are both still just as capable and solid as the Amarr and Minmatar counterparts.

A fleet op was on the timetable and I have two accounts running along, both fit with what works with the Logistics skill to 4.  The fit looked like this:

[Oneiros, Armor Medic]

Damage Control II

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Energized Reactive Membrane II

800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Cap Recharger II

Cap Recharger II

Cap Recharger II

Cap Recharger II

10MN Afterburner II

Large Remote Armor Repair System II

Large Remote Armor Repair System II

Large Remote Armor Repair System II

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Medium Armor Maintenance Bot I x5

With Logistics 5 you can fit everything much neater, add another Large Remote Repper and dont have to worry out cap issues.  The idea behind the above fit is to orbit a wing leader or someone similar dictating range so that your reps aer always available to the whole fleet.  The Afterburner is constantly on to increase your velocity and transversal which helps you survive a bit longer if targeted by the hostile fleet.

I wont be training Logistics 5 any time soon but I had a cracker of a night trying something different.  If you cant get into a Logistics ship you can always try the Cruiser with bonuses associated to remote reps to see how you like the job before putting 2 months of training into a plan!

Strategic Cruisers: The Proteus, buying

So here we have my shopping list:



Proteus Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Proteus Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Proteus Propulsion - Localized Injectors
Proteus Offensive - Hybrid Propulsion Armature
Proteus Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Proteus Electronics - Friction Extension Processor
Proteus Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Proteus Electronics - CPU Efficiency Gate
Proteus Defensive - Nanobot Injector
Proteus Defensive - Augmented Plating
Proteus

There is a mixed bag in there and I have probably grabbed a few things that were not 100% needed but onwards and upwards, EVE is about fun and I dont shy away from spending a bit of ISK for fun!  $624,557,994.90 ISK later and my first T3 ship is waiting to be moved out to my 0.0 home by the friendly logistics division within SP0RE.

I am still trying to work out the best fit for everything and might give the ship a whirl around on SISI with a few different fittings in one of the battle areas to see how it holds up.  If there are any active Proteus pilots out there with a wealth of knowledge, care to share your PVP fit?  Does anyone else try out new ship fittings in the test server or do you go gung ho on Tranquility?

Strategic Cruisers: The Proteus

 recent change of requirements means that I have to be kitted up and ready to fly a T3 ship before the end of September!  The Tengu and the Proteus were the options but since I can fly a Drake pretty well and the Nighthawk is very close to the Tengu so I picked the Proteus to spice things up a little from my missile heavy background.

The Proteus has a huge swag of options to its name, certain fits let it tank like a capital, dish out Astarte level DPS, have multiple flights of drones or be an exceptional tackler.  I have gone for a middle of the road fit with a decent armor buffer with some heavy hitting Heavy Neutron Blaster II's and around 20k Armor hit points.

So that means roughly 30 days of training to have all of the Gallente Subsystems skills to 5 and Gallente Strategic Cruiser to 4, getting the Strategic Cruiser skill to 5 seems a little bit wasted for 18 days worth of training.  So I can essentially fly this fit now:

Which I am quite happy with but I need to invest some more SP into my gunnery skills, with only 3.2mil worth currently sitting in there it needs to be bumped up ASAP.  So I have got another plan setup to get my gunnery skills up to around 6mil SP which will take another 49 days, Surgical Strike 5 is a big portion of that though (14 days) so I will weigh up the 3% damage bonus when it comes around to putting it in the queue.

My lovely Thanatos will have to wait a few months but I will keep my eyes out for a cheap one in the interim - if you have one you want to let go of give me a yell.

For the T3 capable pilots out there, what are you flying and how are you fitting them?  For the EFT warriors this is the fit posted above:

[Proteus, T2 DPS TANK]
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Reactive Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II

Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Proteus Defensive - Augmented Plating
Proteus Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Proteus Propulsion - Localized Injectors
Proteus Offensive - Hybrid Propulsion Armature
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier


Valkyrie II x5
Warrior II x5


I tossed up ECM drones but figure the more DPS the better with this ship, the web and scram could be switched out for different mods, I am still deciding if it is worth dishing out the 70mil for each mod.  Anyone who is running this able to sway me on going faction tackle?

CCP tells us about EVE and the battle against lag

Three blogs in very quick succession mark one of the pushes from the CSM for more communication from CCP about what they are doing and how they are exactly doing it.  The last CSM minutes can be found here and are a good indication of what CCP are reacting to and how they look at the items of importance raised by the players and brought forward by our representatives, eve-o forum follow up on the published minutes.

Fixing Lag: fostering meaningful human interaction, through testing and communication.

The Long Lag

Fixing Lag: and I, for one, welcome our new automaton overlords

If you have had any lag issues they are worth the few minutes to read through but it boils down to; CCP are working on fixing stuff server side but it all takes time.  After the recent CSM meeting instead of just plugging away at their tasks the devs are letting us in on the jobs they all do so we are in the loop and hopefully part of the solution (SISI mass testing).

SISI client changes are in the pipeline too which is very exciting, a single executable that copies your existing game files then grabs the relevant updates and lets you log straight on.  Hopefully that will see more things being mass tested before going live which should result in less buggy code going live and better overview of game changing features which might help prevent things like the NPC goods calamity.

Does the increase in communication make you feel better about the future of CSM within CCP or does the 18 month wait for anything beyond incarna/DUST integration negate any good intentions displayed from CCP?

Other people talking about it:

EVE Druid
Morphisat's Blog

The glorious Cyno alt

On your way to training a carrier?  It is most likely that you have to think about setting up some cyno alts in the very near future then and luckily I have just the plan for you!  For the unawares out there; a Carrier (and other capital ships) can jump without gates by utilising a Cynosural Generator which can be attached to a ship or a structure attached to a Player Owned Station (POS).
In under 5 days you can have your very own cyno alt that can fly every single T1 frigate in the game, I choose to train up all the frigate skills as you never know what is going to be available to fly when you need it.  I left cruisers off as there is always a frigate within a jump or two for sale.

The training time can be further reduced by training cybernetics and putting in a few +3 implants but that cost is slightly prohibitive to save 24 hours on training for myself, but if every minute of training is worth oodles to you then it would make sense to plug them in from the start of the plan.

Taking use of the skill remappings now available will also reduce your training time, so here is the base build for your cyno alt:

Total time: 4 days, 17 hours, 39 minutes, 24 seconds; Cost: 10,355,000

***Remapping (active) : i15 p5 c5 w5 m9***
Instant Recall I
Analytical Mind I
Learning I
Instant Recall II
Analytical Mind II
Learning II
Instant Recall III
Analytical Mind III
Iron Will I
Iron Will II
Spatial Awareness I
Spatial Awareness II
Electronics IV
Electronics V
***Remapping (active) : i5 p15 c5 w9 m5***
Cynosural Field Theory I
Caldari Frigate I
Caldari Frigate II
Caldari Frigate III
Gallente Frigate I
Gallente Frigate II
Gallente Frigate III
Minmatar Frigate I
Minmatar Frigate II
Minmatar Frigate III
Amarr Frigate I
Amarr Frigate II
Amarr Frigate III

I put in all the frigate skills, but depending on what race you start off as you will already have the frigate skill trained to level 2.  One additional thing to take into consideration is Jump Clones, setting up the ability to have 3 jump clones will add about 5 hours onto the training time but it will allow you to blip around the galaxy much faster and help you make the most out of your alt.

Joining the CK blog roll

I feel like I just received an Internet medal! Joining 51 other people on the CrazyKinux blog pack, which is also featured on the iphone application: Capsuleer, is pretty cool.  The blog pack started me off in the EVE community, with great sites like the Rifter Drifter fueling the desire to add something of my own to the realm of EVE stuff.

For the new comers to my blog, I have written a menial slathering of posts on general subjects with the one crown jewel so far being the ECM guide.  Part 5 is soon to be released and it will focus on the Scorpion and a recap of all the parts published so far, within a few weeks I will see it put into a refined PDF for easier reading.

EVE stuff is happening more for me at the moment and just having moved alliances I hope to have a bit more of a focus on engagements, emerging fleet tactics and further instructional guides on ships that I fly on here.

Welcome to the other members of the pack too:

Ardent Defender
Tiger Ears
Cogito Ergo Yarr
TooNu
Venoms Bite
me!
Faction Warfare Military Career Center

EVE bloggers checklist

After reading CK's stuff about writing a good blog I came up with a quick checklist of my own that I will start to follow for all future posts.

Do you like what you’re writing today?
Chances are if you dont no one else will, so if you have an article that doesnt sit well with you right now then save it as a draft and revisit it down the track.


Is the page one big block of text?
If it is then you are doing it wrong, walls of text make it hard for you to grab attention and since EVE has no sound EVE players are used to being drawn towards pretty pictures or red squares.



Does everything look right?
Layout, cohesion, image sizes, text colour and fonts being used can be a harsh mistress if treated disrespectfully.  Doll the stuff up but dont dress her up like hooker looking for her first paying customer for the day - unless you are a hooker looking for your first customer...

Does it make sense?
dabbjabazai    ...exactly!


So with these few points I hope that my next few posts should be my best yet.  For the rest of the bloggers out there what steps do you go through (if any) before pushing that publish button?

Character development

6 million Skill Points later on from the last report and I am just around the corner from flying a Thanatos.  Getting into a Carrier has been one of my long term objectives but nothing that I specifically trained towards until only a few weeks ago.

Picking up over a million skill points recently in drone related skills I will be able to use Fighters proficiently but not perfectly, training those skills to level 5 can wait until I am in a Super Carrier. 

I am currently pumping out Long Range Targeting to 5 so that I can jump into Logistics ships to be a general handy fleet participant, everyone loves a healer!  It will also be great for everything else that I fly so the 9 day training time is justified.  Having Cruiser 5 for Gallente and Caldari gives me the ability to do armor and shield logistics, with the armor HAC gangs that are popular right now it will be something new to try out.

The plan for the future is spread across 3 months, with plan one having roughly 60 days of carrier related skills to make sure I am well equipped to fly the Thanatos, field a wing of Fighters and be able to jump a reasonable distance by training up my navigation skills.

Plan two consists of getting into Interdictors and Heavy Interdictors, another support role but something that is always handy for any corp roams that comes along.  

So with 95 days planned I think that will be enough before I find something else that I MUST TRAIN FOR IMMEDIATELY!

Current EVEMon status looks a little like this:

ECM in depth: Part 5 RECON SHIPS

With a long break I am back doing EVE related things, following on from the previous entries on ECM I am a short way from finishing the series off.  In part 5 the focus is on Recon Ships and while I have posted a few fits there is at least 5 or more viable fits for each and I would be interested to hear back on fits that you may have used or be using right now.  So lets get into it!

I just finished training for Recons, what do i need to know?
1. Recons are expensive loss mails, practice with their cheaper cousin (Blackbird) if your funds are limited
2. You will be the primary target for hostile fleets
3. Train Recon Ships to level 4 and to 5 if you have the patience, ship bonuses are king
4. Fit for your situation, cookie cutters are out, task specific are in. Rigs are cheap, remove and interchange as needed.
5. Based on fitting hard points and ship bonuses Rooks use missiles, Falcons use hybrids - neuts are also an option for the highs.

Skills and Skill Plans
Here are the main skills you will be requiring to get yourself in the cockpit of a Caldari Recon ship:
Caldari Cruiser 5
Covert Ops 4
Spaceship Command 3
Electronics Upgrades 5
Signature Analysis 5
Spaceship Command 5
Recon Ships 1 (train this puppy to at least level 4)

Rook

Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
5% Bonus to Heavy and Heavy Assault Missile Launcher Rate of Fire per level
10% Bonus to ECM Target Jammer capacitor use per level


Recon Ships Skill Bonus:
30% Bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level
10% Bonus to Heavy Assault & Heavy Missile velocity per level



I have tried to remain impartial to the choice of weapons for all fittings so far but you are stuck with using the ship bonuses if you want to swat more than flys away from you.  Rooks, go with Heavy Assault Missiles (HAMS) for small gangs and gate camps and plain Jane Heavies for anything else.  Falcons, stick with hybrids to make use of the bonuses or fit neuts/smart bombs for anti-tackler/drone work.

Fitting the Rook

ECM Fit
Just under the maximum possible fit for all ECM related modules.  10MN MWD and a Damage Control II fitted to keep up with the gang and to help dictate range.  Pick your own flavor of drones and overheat your modules as needed, but be careful not to burn anything out.

ECM + DPS Fit
This ship is made for small gang warfare, it packs a punch that is very respectable (around 490dps with lvl 5 skills, 429 with my skills). A racial jam strength of up to 13.4 with the only downside being a very limited tank, so stay aligned or keep 'em jammed!  You can drop one of the racial jammers for a Warp Disruptor if your gang needs additional point and considering you will be in disruptor range while using HAMS it wont hurt to much to fit it.


Falcon

Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
5% Bonus to Medium Hybrid Damage Per Level
10% Bonus to ECM Target Jammer capacitor use per level

Recon Ships Skill Bonus:
30% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level and -96% to -100% reduced CPU need for cloaking device per level.

Role Bonus: 80% reduction in liquid ozone consumption for cynosural field generation and 50% reduction in cynosural field duration. Note: can fit covert cynosural field generators

Fitting the Falcon

Prober
You can fit better things than just guns in your highslots! A Covert Ops cloak and a probe launcher is a great combo that any FC would be happy with.  You are a force multiplier, scout and prober in one sleek package of scariness.  Drones can either be Hobgoblins, Warriors or EC variants.  I like using Warriors as they are the fastest and immediate DPS is called for in most situations.

Jamming
This is what you should be doing with your ship!  Working with max range in mind to get the best fit possible using rigs and Signal Distortion Amplifiers.  Go with EC drones or your favorite flavor of light drones.  The 3 x 250mm Railguns add some decent damage to small targets, load up with Spike and Antimatter ammo in case you cannot dictate the range.

Tank
Having invested a substantial amount in your ship and being the designated primary is a health hazard, to help you reduce the risk of a nasty loss mail fit yourself with some tank.  1600mm Tungsten plate is the key here, a Damage Control II is also on the shopping list.  The plate does increase your align time though so make sure you are keeping right on the tail of your gang if they are in small ships or you will find yourself a gate or two behind over time.  With my skills this fit requires a 1% PowerGrid implant, they are cheap and cant be found at any major market hub, go to a 3% implant if need be or reduce the plate to an 800mm and upgrade the weapons from 150mm to something bigger.


The Falcon can also fit another role and that is the role of a cynosural field generator (cyno), fitting the covert variant will allow you to open up a portal to ships that can make use of a COVERT cynosural field generator. Black Ops, Stealth Bombers, Transport Ships, Covert Ops, T3 (with the right modules) and Recon Ships.  There have been some pretty impressive stories out there of covert fleets hot dropping mining ops and ratting carriers to wipe out everyone on grid so with the right crowd it can be something worth doing.  YouTube has a few videos covering 'covert hot drops' and 'black ops' that show how quickly a focused gang can tear down a carrier.


So wrapping up, practice with the ships on SISI if you can or failing that option on some willing corp/alliance buddies.  You want to hone your locking/jamming tactics based on threat assessments to yourself then your gang, dictating and maintaining range and overheating to get the most out of your setups.  By this time you should have some very lean overview settings established, if you dont, configure a tab to show only ships that are not blue to you.  You can find overview guides here, here and here and pre-configured tabs here.


Enjoy flying your shiny new Recon Ship and dont forget to insure it!  The next and last part of the ECM series will be covering the Scorpion and a recap of everything to ensure all the information is still relevant.

Hiatus - back now

Howdy everyone!

Sorry for such a long break in posting but I had a new member of the family come along not too long ago and all my grand plans were laid to waste.  I still have the drafts of my ECM guide in the works and the series will be finished very soon.

If you have not had a look at them here are the links: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5: Coming soon!

Just read Mynxee's writeup on the recent CSM summit, you can find it here, it is always good to read about what is happening to make the game better.

Expect the next ECM article by the end of the week and regular posting will commence from there.

What butterfly?

This video explains in 2 minutes and 39 seconds why I play EVE.  A wicked clip that while done close to a year ago still remains relevant now, I believe it was done with an inhouse recording tool CCP made for promotional materials.  The HUD on the ships is a whole load of shit but it does blip into the actual gameplay windows which is a nice change from the CGI heavy stuff that gets pimped out but does nothing to show what the game is really like.


Was just thinking how funny it would be if CCP released a video from the recent lag fest that was the H-W fight, jump through, wait, wait, wait.....  oh new clone.  Regardless of the things that annoy us all the video still rocks my socks.

I have an hour to play EVE

Given one hour of log on time a day how much could you accomplish? Would you be able to PVP, trade, mine, build or even be a part of a corporation?

Recently I have found my free time waning and getting a decent chunk of time locked away is almost an impossible task, being in the Australian time zone I am also lucky enough to have a prime time hour pulled out from under me (2030 to 2130) and the associated wind down and wind up also chews another 30 minutes. So on either side of the scheduled downtime I try to get as much done as possible, but how much can you really do with an hour in EVE?

HEAPS! But most of it is not fun and I don't want to roam around solo all the time, EVE is an MMO not an FPS. I usually end up joining a gate camp or doing some anomalies but recently those gate camps have been very quiet and shooting rats all the time without needing the sec status boost is very stagnant. Alliance CTA's are out as are anything that involves more than 15 minutes travel chews into my hour play time too much.

I have had grand plans of taking on wormholes, installing jump clones in pirate infested space for quick engagements and flying through 0.0 choke points in the hope of fights but they all seems to be empty when I arrive. My corp is always a great source of entertainment and everyone is always willing to try something new but gathering a fleet and setting off in under 20 minutes is a miracle in the making.

So to the time conscience or time restricted EVE players out there, what do you do with an hour in EVE?

New comment system

Looking to the future for my blog I have installed the Intense Debate commenting plugin as it seems to be the comment system of choice for many other EVE bloggers out there.  The change was spurred on by someone having issues with leaving a comment on the blogger integrated system, the comments must flow!



There are several benefits over the standard blogger commenting system as it lets users log in with a wider variety of accounts, twitter included and also allows readers to keep track of comments so it is easier for them to come back to articles of interest and that helps build a community rapport.

I will go through my previous blog posts and restrospectivly enable intensedebate on all the pages, that should keep most of the comments on the site hopefully...

UPDATE: Seems like my old template would not play nicely with intensedebate and broke a few other things, taking it off for a few days while I sort out a permanent fix.

ECM in depth: Part 4 Kitsune and practical piloting

We are over half way there!  Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 have all been tweaked, reformatted, modified and updated to include extra details, slight corrections and more ECM loving so have a look back to see if you have missed anything.

Things on the to-do list today are the Kitsune, Thermodynamics and the Overview and without any further ado here it is!

I just finished training for the Kitsune, what do i need to know?
1. The average sell price is just under the 20mil mark
2. They are fragile
3. Max ECM strength mods are a must
4. Make sure you train Electronic Attack Frigates to at least level 4.

Kitsune skill bonuses:
Caldari Frigate Skill Bonus: 20% bonus to ECM target jammer strength and 10% reduction in ECM target jammers' capacitor need per level

Electronic Attack Ships Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to ECM target jammer optimal range and 5% bonus to capacitor capacity per level


Skills and Skill Plans
I would recommend getting behind the controls of a Blackbird before skilling up to the Kitsune as they are comparatively much more expensive and being a T2 variant offers almost no payout compared to their actual costs.  Insurance payouts are due to be changing to be more in line with actual hull costs, rather than some mumbo-jumbo-brown-magic figure created by CCP.

You will want these skills trained to the corresponding levels to enable you to fit the Kitsune in the best way possible for ECM.  For the other modules such as the MicroWarpdrive, Armor plates and Damage Control you will want Hull Upgrades to level 4 and High Speed Maneuvering to 3 in order to fit them.

Long Range Targeting 4
Electronic Warfare 4
Jury Rigging 3
Electronic Superiority Rigging 1
Caldari Frigate 5
Electronics Upgrades 5
Electronic Attack Ships 4

Fitting the Kitsune
Being a frigate hull the Kitsune is subjected to the lower end of the scale when it comes to the number of available low/mid/high slots so the amount of customisation for general use fits are quite small.  For your sampling I have two fits;

[Kitsune, speed and tank]
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II

ECM - Spatial Destabilizer II
ECM - Phase Inverter II
ECM - Ion Field Projector II
ECM - White Noise Generator II
1MN MicroWarpdrive II

Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I


Once again you will notice that the High slots have been left empty, this time it was done simply because there was no more power grid to use.  Higher survivability is the objective of this fit and with 3,606 EHP with my skills that is very respectable.  The MWD to dictate the range, since the base locking range is a limitation with this ship rather than the modules effective range.  Be careful with the MWD though as it makes you as it makes your sleek body balloon out to epic proportions.

[Kitsune, max range]
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II

ECM - Spatial Destabilizer II
ECM - Phase Inverter II
ECM - Ion Field Projector II
ECM - White Noise Generator II
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range

Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I



80km targeting range with your optimal being at that range also.  To use this fit correctly; blip in, jam what you can and stay aligned to something close by to reduce the downtime between being safe and being on the field.  See Part 2 for a short list of pointers on how to operate as an effective ECM pilot.

I have had some feedback from Manasi from A Mule in EVE about using Meta 4 modules over T2, he has some good points and the figures do show that the Meta 4 versions of ECM jammers are in fact a better choice if you are short on CPU or your cap is highly unstable.  The downside Meta 4 though is often the cost and availability, Meta 4 items normally run for double the price of T2 while being hard to find outside of trade hubs.  In the fits shown there is not much of an issue with cap stability or CPU so use your own discretion as to how you spend your ISK.

Thermodynamics
From the EVE WIKI: "Allows you to deliberately overheat a ship's modules in order to push them beyond their intended limit".  Thermodynamics otherwise known as overheating lets you get that little bit extra out your gear for a stronger ECM cycle, faster missile reload time or a quicker cycle of your energy neutralizers.  To be able to take advantage of this you need to have the following skills trained up:

Engineering V
Energy Management III
Science IV

The Thermodynamics skill is about 4.5mil so it is not overly cheap but the benefits are worth the cost as it can be used on pretty much every single active module, passive modules cannot be overheated but can suffer heat damage.  Each module has hit points much the same as your ship does, overheating modules chews through those hit points quickly and once you are out the module effectively dies.  Using nanite repair paste or the repair facility in a station can patch your modules up.

Starting with the top, you can overheat a module by clicking on the small green section, you can also activate/deactivate overheating by right-clicking on the module.  If you have a whole rack that you need to overheat then use one of the buttons to do so, but beware that this will burn out your modules very quickly.  The red portion of the outer circle displays how much damage has been done to a specific module.

Carrying on from the Meta 4 note I made in the fittings there is also an additional bonus with using it, the heat damage is significantly reduced when comparing to T2 modules.  So this means you can overheat more modules or entire racks for longer than you could with a sole T2 fitting.

The overview
It can be an unforgiving mistress capable of causing you horrible distress, but luckily I have found someone who has created a terrific set of tab and brackets profiles for you!  Brother Benthor over at the EVE-O forums has a great post listing the details of his overview settings and a download location for them, click here for the thread and download details.  Further details about the overview can be found on the EVE WIKI.

That wraps up Part 4 of the ECM guide, the next part will be looking at the Rook and Falcon Recon ships.

Blog Banter SE: I wish my wife played EVE

Todays banter comes from CK himself:


What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?

I wish my wife played EVE

Recently I read something about helping people jump to conclusions, this one example involved pretending to be a time traveler to garner the love from the girl of your dreams, but since this method cannot be used enmasse we must look at our other options.

Marketing, where does CCP spend their marketing dollars? I have no idea but it seems like most of it goes towards advertising on banners for various websites. Which websites? Male orientated ones! Go wack a 30 second advertisment during a girly talk show, tell them they can be the CEO of a galactic empire from their home or a mogul that controls the EVE economy and if that fails tell them about the pretty ships.

Give them something to be excited about, because lets face it EVE can get boring and then without warning be interjected with moments of face melting awesomeness. Like the butterfly effect video, highlight the awesomeness without the dodgy 'evil' Russian overlords.

What can CCP do directly? Hire Adrianne Curry and several other nerdy hot chicks to promote EVE. In Australia almost no one has heard of EVE let alone thought about trying it out. Of the people I have attempted to bring to EVE the learning curve aggrivates them to no end and the time requirments to actually learn just what is required to properly fit and fly a ship seems to instantly turn on the 'boring' switch in their brain.

If you have not seen the theme I am running with here, it is almost about taking the interesting bits to the market place then following up with an exciting community that is spurred on by CCP. To start with CCP can do the following for the existing community to get them excited enough to bring other people into the game:

• More DEV blogs and more response, when they release a devblog organise an interview on one of the many podcasts out there or release one of their own.

• Get better forums, if you cant create a decent set of forums whats the chance of your game being any good?

• Scream out your initiatives, CSM? FFS a member has to use their own webspace to publish the minutes in PDF form.  Give these people some more loving and spend as much money as you do on their flights back and forth towards support infrastructure within the community.

• Get the Chronicles out there, CCP you started with a single podcast for them then let it die in the ass - something like that is very cool but the uptake might be slow at first so dont just stop after one. Most people give no thought to the back story and universe events because it is something that can be easily ignored. Make it fun and entertaining and something easy to find - give everyone a bookmark to the chronicles on the IGB! Let the jukebox play the audio version of the chronicles.

I could go on for pages but what is the core of the problem is the interest that is created when seeing EVE, show someone one of your trailers and they will install the game. Get them logged in and once they log off I doubt you will see them again. Deliver on the promises of fun and adventure and the masses will come.

The good news is that my wife can change the skills for me in game now and I think with a bit of fun teamspeak banter she might have a laugh or two and miss the boring bits as she finds something she enjoys doing.

So getting back to the questions presented by CK, who is to blame?  Can you really blame a player for the game they are involved in?  Nope, you can ask them to contribute to and build a community but the responsibility must be solely placed and balanced precariously on CCP's head.


You can find other banters at:

Arukemos
Starfleet
Ghost Report
Astral's
Cataclysmic Variable

And a full list from CK's site.

ECM - not quite so in depth!

Over at the Rifter Drifter Wensley posted about an ECM 101 guide found over at the SCH forums, there is some great info that is very easily absorbed and displayed with a touch of class and a dash of humor.

Asday is the forum member who put it together.  Image after the jump

ECM in depth: Part 3 The Blackbird

Venturing on from Part 2 we are getting into the Blackbird this time around, as a recap did you identify all the ECM modules correctly?

Being able to associate the modules to the targeted ship types should be something that you do instantly and without reference, an easy way to identify the correct module to ship is the racial background - the colours should match - with that lets get cracking!

I just moved away from the Griffin what is different?
1. You are bigger, three times as big actually - so people can now target you faster and hit you for more damage
2. Targeting will be slower, when targeting a cruiser for example it take 2 seconds longer
3. You have a fat ass and it takes double the time to turn around
4. A full tech 2 fit with rigs costs roughly 12mil compared to 5mil for the Griffin
5. Extra slots to fill, 2 medium and 1 low.
6. Your ranges will have changed by roughly 30km (depending on skills).
7. The small Griffin drone bay gets removed entirely when moving over to the Blackbird

The mightier Blackbird!

Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
15% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level
10% bonus to ECM Target Jammer optimal range and falloff per level.


Skills and Skill Plans


With the above stats you can see that the ship bonuses are quite large so getting Caldari Cruiser to level 4 should be higher on your priority list than any other ECM skill at this stage, you should also apply this rule to all other future ships as the Spaceship Command skill always has the best bonuses (apart from drone interfacing).


If you absolutely MUST be seen to be flying the Blackbird then the minimum requirements for getting into it are:

Caldari Cruiser 2
Spaceship Command 3
Caldari Frigate 4
Spaceship Command 1


A relatively new feature to EVE are Certificates, the only time I use them is when I get the notifications from my character sheet, but they do have their merits as it lets you easily see related skills to your profession.  EVE recommends the following certificate levels to pilot a Blackbird:


Active Shield Tanking @ Basic Level
Core Competency @ Basic Level
Cruiser Launcher Control @ Basic Level
ECM Operator @ Basic Level


EVEMon will assist you here as they have a very good section for planning for certificates, by now you should be to the 'basic' level so after you have Caldari Cruiser planned to level 4 add in the additional skills for ECM Operator Standard - basic will just not cut it for the Blackbird!

EVEMon certificate planner

I would not stick with the certificate method for training the rest of your skills however as they often expect you to get everything to level 5 which is just not practical for most of us, diminishing returns and all that guff.  Taken directly from the EVE wiki: 'Certificates are only recommendations and serve as some useful guideline to the skills you may require to do a specific task or fly a specific ship. They do not prevent you from flying or doing a profession without having all the prerequisite certificates for it.'  There are many other skills that also need to be trained up at the cruiser level so you will probably need a good 2 or more weeks to start fitting the better ECM related modules and rigs to your ships.


Moving onwards and upwards from the Griffin you will need to create a skill plan and aim to get the following trained while behind the controls of the Blackbird:


Caldari Cruiser 4
Targeting 4
Electronic Warfare 4
Long Range Targeting 4
Long Range Jamming 4
Frequency Modulation 3
Mechanic 3
Jury Rigging 3
Electronic Superiority Rigging 1
Signal Dispersion 3


Review Part 2 of the guide to check the core ECM skills and level them further as your patience allows.  At this stage, if you have not done so already, you will need to look towards getting through the learning skills, engineering and navigation skills so that you have a wider choice of fitting options.


Fitting the Blackbird


We have cookie cutter fits and we have mission specific fits, I will look at both types of fittings and how to make the most out of them. There are no high slot fittings on any of these as I do not want to steer you towards any type of missile or gunnery skills that you might regret.  To help you along though you can choose one of the following or a combination of missile launchers, nos, neuts, smart bombs, salvagers or tractor beams.  I tend to fit standard missile launchers or assault missile launchers to take out light tackle or drones although I am becoming a fan of fitting energy neutralisers more recently as two medium neuts can cap out frigates with a single cycle.

Rigs? Aha! Rigs!  These are new from the last fitting suggestions, rigs are like other modules except for one major difference, and if you unfit them they are destroyed.  Kind of like whacking a sticker on something, there is no chance of you peeling it off 100% intact.  NEVER FIT T2 RIGS TO AN ECM SHIP as they are way too costly for their benefits.  The ECM related rigs are:

• Particle Dispersion Augmentors - strengthen jamming, but decreased shields as a drawback
• Particle Dispersion Projectors - increase optimal range of Electronic Warfare modules, but decreased shields as a drawback
• Signal Disruption Amplifiers - reduce capacitor cost of all ECM and Burst modules. No drawback.

The other thing you will notice is when I can I double up on Caldari jammers (Gravmetric) then Minmatar (Ladar), the reasoning is that there are more Caldari ships out there and I want to be able to jam the jammers.  The second doubling up is for Minmatar as they are the second most common ships I am seeing in hostile fleets, change this layout as required or when intel is received on specific ship types.

T1 tank! Cheap and practical.  It is a good starter ship that offers you a little extra survivability if you run into more than you bargained for.  Drop the rigs if you want to keep the price down. But they are cheap enough to warrant their use.

Purely T1 ECM, you can also go for meta 1 depending on the cost - just grab whatever is cheaper at the time.  This is a good fit to start with as it gives you the ability to jam an entire small gang.  Speed mods are not attached as you balloon in size when active and at the range you should be operating at, it should be quicker to warp out and back in than burn to the gate.

T2 is where the love is.  With a jamming range past my targeting range it means I can lock and cycle away knowing that I am laying on the unlock-able frustration at a safe and secure distance, you can add a sensor booster with a targeting range script to increase your targeting range.




If you see tackle burning towards you align to a planet and depending on your weapons of choice you might be able to take them down, otherwise see if you can keep them jammed.  If you get a jam cycle off on someone trying to tackle you, do not warp off if your gang will be able to come to your aid in time.  As a force multiplier you need to stay on the field as long as possible.  Fitting medium neuts will help against light tackle.

Triple the range and over double the strength compared to the T1 Griffin

This is my typical Blackbird roll out, all T2 ECM modules with neuts and some damage output with the missile launchers.  I can drain the cap from an interceptor or frigate in a single cycle and can take care of any drones coming my way.  This is not the "perfect fit" but it is a fit that works for me, you will notice the microwarp drive on this fit also as the places I roam around normally have some type of warp disruption bubbles up on gates.

With all the fits listed here I have done them based off my skills and not some ideal 'all level 5' character.  I like to see real world figures so that I am not disappointed when I realise that I still need to train for 117 days to get all my ECM related ship and module skills to level 5.  You may not be able to fit everything listed here so substitute it for what you can fit at the time, when flying ECM ships never leave a low or medium slot empty as they are your life blood.  The highs can be ignored if you dont have enough CPU or powergrid to fit everything listed but make sure you are not short changing yourself or your fleet to fit a missile launcher instead of a better ECM module or rig.

Stay tuned for Part 4 of the ECM guide where I will look at the elegant Kitsune, thermodynamics and training towards Recon Ships.

ECM in depth: Part 2 Starting out

Continuing on from Part 1, where I mentioned the ships used in conjunction with Caldari Electronic Warfare, basic principals and the maths behind ECM.

We all must have a beginning, so if you are starting out with ECM then the information contained in these articles should get you on track to becoming a force multiplier within any fleet that you are a part of.

Skills and Skill Plans

If you do not have it installed already then First of all grab EVEMon, now install it and setup your character.  These skills are the pillars of producing an ECM pilot:

• Electronics Upgrades - 5% reduction of sensor upgrade CPU needs per skill level.
• required for Signal Distortion Amplifier and requires Electronics and Engineering both to level 3
• Electronic Warfare - 5% Reduction to capacitor need per skill level.
• required for jammers, level 3 will let you use meta 4, level 4 will let you use T2
• Frequency Modulation - 10% bonus to falloff per skill level.
• requires Electronics 3 and Electronic Warfare 2
• Long Distance Jamming - 10% bonus to optimal range per skill level.
• requires Electronics 4 and Electronic Warfare 3
• Signal Dispersion - 5% bonus to strength of all ECM jammers per skill level.
• requires Electronics at 5, Electronic Warfare at 4

With the necessary skills covered off you need to be looking at getting your skill plan organised for the next few weeks, as with any other profession there is a significant time requirement to get the ECM pillar skill to a respectable level.  Give yourself 1 week to get into a good Griffin fit and upwards of a month for a Blackbird fit if starting from a new character. So here is what to train and to what levels:


Caldari Frigate 3
Electronic Warfare 3
Electronics 4
Electronics Upgrades 3
Frequency Modulation 3
Long Distance Jamming 2
Targeting 3

(your skill plan should look something like this, click to enlarge)

I will not go into specifics of learning skills, but briefly, you will notice in the bottom left hand corner a link 'Suggestion'.  Clicking on that link will provide details of learning skills that will make your overall training time much faster.  Throughout the guide I will be providing skill plans for each ships and their recommended fittings.  All the skill plans are going beyond the base entry point for each ship and modules though as having the skills to fly something is not the same as being able to use it properly.

Griffin for a Beginner

The mighty Griffin!

To go through the fitting in this guide go grab yourself a copy of EFT (EVE Fitting Tool) so you can add in your own items as budget and skills allow.  The basic fit for a Griffin will be:

(EFT fitting details with the above skill plan completed)

[Griffin, Starting Block]
Signal Distortion Amplifier I

ECM - Ion Field Projector I
ECM - Spatial Destabilizer I
ECM - White Noise Generator I
ECM - Phase Inverter I

If you right-click on one of the ECM modules you can get the statistics and information for that module.  You can use this preliminary information to get an idea at your operating range and your ECM strength.

So with this information I know that I need to increase my jamming range to help me live through more fights as being in that close is just asking to be smashed back into our pods, but with all things EVE getting that jamming range improved is a whole bunch of skill levels away.  So we will persevere with what we have.  Something to look forward to if you stick with a longer term skill plan however is a jam cycle strength of 16+/- at a stretch with overheating and a comfortable jam strength of 14.

Operating as an effective ECM pilot


This will be a shortened bullet point list that I will expand on and add to later on as I go through the different ECM ships.


Warping

• Do not be the first to warp to a fight or gate when in fleet, ideally you want to be landing in the middle of the crowd or dead last with smaller groups..
• When warping to a fight, DO NOT WARP TO ZERO!

Fleet smarts

• Ensure you have enough capacitor to jam before jumping into a fight, if you have been warping around and have an almost empty capacitor you will not be able to perform your role
• You have a very small signature radius, but that is negated if you dont keep moving, set the smallest orbit you can while maintaining full speed - you can orbit a fleet mate

Damage dealing

• Dont worry too much about shooting at hostiles, your job is to stop them from shooting at your and your fleet
• You damage will be measly but the Griffin can fit a single drone which you can set upon someone and if using missiles in your high slots then your damage is best used on the faster targets

The right ships

• Sometimes Fleet Commanders will not want any ECM out of disregard/hate for them or because they do not know how to use them effectively
• If the fleet you are in is Battleship size and going after a similar ship composition then a Griffin is probably not your best option unless it is your only option

That concludes part 2 of this guide, I had planned on detailing the Kitsune but I will do that in part 3 as it fits in much better as a step up from the Blackbird than it does here.  As always please leave a comment with your thoughts and suggestions.  I will leave you with the 5 types of ECM modules, see if you can identify them.

 


Keep an eye out for the next part of the series: ECM in depth: Part 3 The Blackbird