There's been a couple of really interesting posts I have run across recently, that I wanted to keep track of and think about. Since I am writing them down anyway, you get them too.
On TMC, a really interesting article by FearlessLittleToaster on the woes of nullsec fleet fights. The thesis is this: because of logistics, there's been an escalation race where logistics can out-rep an entire fleet. Higher alpha is required to get any kills. Higher alpha fleets are deployed. Higher alpha causes the other side to escalate in ship class. Then the process repeats. We're getting toward the end of that, though, as there are no larger ship classes to go to. Anyway, interesting stuff. The author promises another article with his ideas on what to do to fix the problem. (I will update for that.)
Since I already have proposed a partial solution, I might as well plug it. Create an attrition mechanic that does not rely on the players, but rather, crowdedness itself. I am guessing that FearlessLittleToaster will come up with something related to nerfing remote reps.
At The Wild Rose of Molden Heath, a fascinating recap by Kaeda Maxwell of the use of battlecruisers in EVE. Since I know very little of EVE history, and very little about what people do in null and lowsec, this is all new to me and quite interesting.
While I am on the topic of EVE history (I just created a tag for it), I should definitely link to Sugar's series The History of Expansions. Every one of these is worth reading for the EVE aficionado.
One other interesting thing. It seems that CCP is planning to nerf the use of scanning boost parts, by making them active modules. That is, they will turn on and therefore you cannot use them when cloaked. A boon for offgrid boosters, a nerf to a lot of super-scanning ships.
Showing posts with label Kronos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kronos. Show all posts
Friday, May 23, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Kronos: Transports
The buzz in the EVE blogosphere is all about the revisions to transports that will be coming with Kronos. There are three forum posts detailing proposed changes: freighters, blockade runners, and deep space transports.
Most of the hubbub in the larger 'verse is coming from nullsec and lowsec people worried about jump freighting. Some of it is about normal freighters. I don't use a jump freighter so I have no opinion worth sharing on that. However, I do run a normal freighter from time to time, and the changes there don't seem to me to be terrible. Basically I can get similar performance to today, just by paying some for rigs. I probably won't attempt to rig my post-Kronos freighter to replicate its current stats, though. Instead I will go with probably one cargo expander and two hulls, since I'd like to be able to autopilot and I am more paranoid about ganking than many.
People seem happy with the blockade runner changes, which includes having two highslots on all of them. This makes me happy because I currently use Viators, which have one highslot. Obviously a stealth cloak is a must-have; much higher priority than a probe launcher. Still, a probe launcher would mitigate the possibility of being trapped when using EOL wormholes, and/or having one popped on you intentionally.
My big disappointment is the Deep Space Transport revision. I had hoped that the DST revision would position DSTs more or less between T1 industrials and Orcas in EHP and cargo. (T1: 20k EHP, 40k m^3; Orca: 200k EHP, 120k m^3. I was hoping for something around a geometric mean, 60k EHP and 70k m^3.) The current proposal does not really do that. What CCP proposes is to basically remove the cargohold as such, instead giving each DST a 50000m^3 corp hangar. (The unexpanded cargohold will drop from around 4000m^3 to 1000m^3, so expanding it won't really be worth doing.) This is a change in the right direction, but really 50000m^3 is not that much more than an Iteron V carries. The DST is going to be harder to kill, of course. A lone stealth bomber won't do it, so there is some value to it. They will be able to fit the new medium micro jump drives, so you have to tackle with a warp scrambler. But I think most people in wspace, at least, are using scramblers anyway. It's an argument for putting two scramblers on my default fit, but I'll have to actually see them being used, and used riskily, to do that.
The one thing I do see going for new DSTs is that you can't just bubble them; they can micro jump out. But this does not seem very valuable, since everyone will have a warp scrambler, and in wspace everyone appears within about 6-8km of a point. (Warp scramblers turn off microwarpdrives and micro jump drives.) Sabres will still be a problem.
Overall, you get a ship that has little more cargo capacity than an Iteron V, for many times the cost, and somewhat more survivability. I am underwhelmed.
Most of the hubbub in the larger 'verse is coming from nullsec and lowsec people worried about jump freighting. Some of it is about normal freighters. I don't use a jump freighter so I have no opinion worth sharing on that. However, I do run a normal freighter from time to time, and the changes there don't seem to me to be terrible. Basically I can get similar performance to today, just by paying some for rigs. I probably won't attempt to rig my post-Kronos freighter to replicate its current stats, though. Instead I will go with probably one cargo expander and two hulls, since I'd like to be able to autopilot and I am more paranoid about ganking than many.
People seem happy with the blockade runner changes, which includes having two highslots on all of them. This makes me happy because I currently use Viators, which have one highslot. Obviously a stealth cloak is a must-have; much higher priority than a probe launcher. Still, a probe launcher would mitigate the possibility of being trapped when using EOL wormholes, and/or having one popped on you intentionally.
My big disappointment is the Deep Space Transport revision. I had hoped that the DST revision would position DSTs more or less between T1 industrials and Orcas in EHP and cargo. (T1: 20k EHP, 40k m^3; Orca: 200k EHP, 120k m^3. I was hoping for something around a geometric mean, 60k EHP and 70k m^3.) The current proposal does not really do that. What CCP proposes is to basically remove the cargohold as such, instead giving each DST a 50000m^3 corp hangar. (The unexpanded cargohold will drop from around 4000m^3 to 1000m^3, so expanding it won't really be worth doing.) This is a change in the right direction, but really 50000m^3 is not that much more than an Iteron V carries. The DST is going to be harder to kill, of course. A lone stealth bomber won't do it, so there is some value to it. They will be able to fit the new medium micro jump drives, so you have to tackle with a warp scrambler. But I think most people in wspace, at least, are using scramblers anyway. It's an argument for putting two scramblers on my default fit, but I'll have to actually see them being used, and used riskily, to do that.
The one thing I do see going for new DSTs is that you can't just bubble them; they can micro jump out. But this does not seem very valuable, since everyone will have a warp scrambler, and in wspace everyone appears within about 6-8km of a point. (Warp scramblers turn off microwarpdrives and micro jump drives.) Sabres will still be a problem.
Overall, you get a ship that has little more cargo capacity than an Iteron V, for many times the cost, and somewhat more survivability. I am underwhelmed.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
CCP to Reduce Prereq for SDM
It appears that with Kronos, CCP will be reducing the level of Anchoring skill prerequisite to Starbase Defense Management, from Anchoring V to Anchoring IV. Anchoring V is about 12 days training beyond IV, on a skill with Memory/Charisma; this is a steep cost for a skill which is almost never used. And in fact, I have not trained it on any character yet, even though in the circumstance when it would have been helpful, it probably could have helped a lot. Link due to Foo, who also has a good discussion of some implications.
This is a very welcome development. I won't make SDM III mandatory, because that's not the style of my corp. But I will be training SDM IV for all three of my characters that live out of my POS.
This is a very welcome development. I won't make SDM III mandatory, because that's not the style of my corp. But I will be training SDM IV for all three of my characters that live out of my POS.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Kronos: the Prospects
What are the prospects for Kronos? Here's my me-centric view, that is, I am just discussing stuff as I think it will affect me and my corp. We live in wspace, do a lot of PVE and other carebear-type stuff, and we do some hunting when we can. So that's my frame of reference for this.
There's a lot of stuff in Kronos I don't care much about, like ship model changes, sounds, etc. There's new faction ships, which look good for PVP -- maybe I will get one -- but are not of any use in PVE. There's the industry changes. The ones to industry itself won't affect me much because I don't do much of it. They are largely good changes, though, in my opinion. Except for the "teams" thing. That one seems awful to me, trying to imagine running an industrial operation. Anyway, all in all I am pretty neutral to the whole expansion. And I don't think most of it will affect wspace very much.
The changes to refining, along with the changes to the POS refining modules, will probably be the biggest change for me and my corp, as well as the rest of wspace. We've dabbled in mining before, but currently it is not very viable. The hourly rate is not great, and that won't change. But there is always down time when we are zipped and don't want to open up. The main problem with mining is that it creates really huge volumes of stuff, with low value, that clog up our storage. If we mine a full fleet for an hour, that's about all we can store. After Kronos, we should be able to mine and compress, getting ten times the effective value out using Miasmoses. It is even possible that we might refine our own ore and manufacture something from it. This is something I need to look into. In any case, in Kronos CCP are finally abolishing the punitive automatic 25% refining lossage at POSes. Thus, refining and manufacturing is by no means out of the question.
Even if we don't mine more, I expect a lot of other wspace corps will. So, I am hoping for more targets, even if they are only the new jumped-up Skiff. My fondest dream is to perpetrate a mining-op massacre, solo, in a Onyx. I wanna be like Penny.
One ship that they are revising that we might use is the revamped Rattlesnake. Currently we use both Ravens and Gilas in our sleeper-killing PVE fleet. Snakes might fit right in there.
What else do I like? Well, CCP has announced hull-boosting rigs, as well as the ability to rig freighters. The combo looks good for autopiloting, or looked at the other way, a modest nerf to freighter ganking. Or, possibly, agility rigs for non-autopiloting. Either way, it's a welcome improvement to a tedious task.
They have announced that they will be revising the Deep Space Transports. A dev blog on that is promised but has not appeared yet. This has the potential to be something we use a lot. As I write this, I am moving stuff in and out of my wormhole using multiple runs of Epithal and Iteron V. Imagine a ship in between an Iteron V and a freighter in size and EHP. And which fits into sub-C5 wormholes. I'd buy that.
Finally, about the "Prospect". A Prospect is a tech II Venture (dev blog here). It is very similar to a Venture with just a few key changes:
But will I use them? Hard to say; depends on the price. I am guessing they should cost about what other T2 frigates do, that is, about 20-30m. Right now most of the gas mining I do is not very constrained by the ore bay. Usually I mine in my own system, where a trip to/from a POS takes perhaps two minutes after mining for half an hour. The additional risk of loss (due to the price) does not really seem worth it to me.
In an alien system, travel time is a bigger deal. There, maybe I will want them. So, I'll think about it. Still, because none of my characters have Mining Frigate V, and none are mapped for it, I will probably just put it off for a while.
I really wish they had added a small additional bonus to gas mining. For example, 1% faster gas mining per level of, er, "Expedition Frigate" (that's the T2 mining frigate skill). Then I'd be all over them.
There's a lot of stuff in Kronos I don't care much about, like ship model changes, sounds, etc. There's new faction ships, which look good for PVP -- maybe I will get one -- but are not of any use in PVE. There's the industry changes. The ones to industry itself won't affect me much because I don't do much of it. They are largely good changes, though, in my opinion. Except for the "teams" thing. That one seems awful to me, trying to imagine running an industrial operation. Anyway, all in all I am pretty neutral to the whole expansion. And I don't think most of it will affect wspace very much.
The changes to refining, along with the changes to the POS refining modules, will probably be the biggest change for me and my corp, as well as the rest of wspace. We've dabbled in mining before, but currently it is not very viable. The hourly rate is not great, and that won't change. But there is always down time when we are zipped and don't want to open up. The main problem with mining is that it creates really huge volumes of stuff, with low value, that clog up our storage. If we mine a full fleet for an hour, that's about all we can store. After Kronos, we should be able to mine and compress, getting ten times the effective value out using Miasmoses. It is even possible that we might refine our own ore and manufacture something from it. This is something I need to look into. In any case, in Kronos CCP are finally abolishing the punitive automatic 25% refining lossage at POSes. Thus, refining and manufacturing is by no means out of the question.
Even if we don't mine more, I expect a lot of other wspace corps will. So, I am hoping for more targets, even if they are only the new jumped-up Skiff. My fondest dream is to perpetrate a mining-op massacre, solo, in a Onyx. I wanna be like Penny.
One ship that they are revising that we might use is the revamped Rattlesnake. Currently we use both Ravens and Gilas in our sleeper-killing PVE fleet. Snakes might fit right in there.
What else do I like? Well, CCP has announced hull-boosting rigs, as well as the ability to rig freighters. The combo looks good for autopiloting, or looked at the other way, a modest nerf to freighter ganking. Or, possibly, agility rigs for non-autopiloting. Either way, it's a welcome improvement to a tedious task.
They have announced that they will be revising the Deep Space Transports. A dev blog on that is promised but has not appeared yet. This has the potential to be something we use a lot. As I write this, I am moving stuff in and out of my wormhole using multiple runs of Epithal and Iteron V. Imagine a ship in between an Iteron V and a freighter in size and EHP. And which fits into sub-C5 wormholes. I'd buy that.
Finally, about the "Prospect". A Prospect is a tech II Venture (dev blog here). It is very similar to a Venture with just a few key changes:
- doubled ore bay
- large enough cargo bay to hold a mobile depot
- four low slots, but no built in warp-core stabilization
- covert ops cloak allowed
But will I use them? Hard to say; depends on the price. I am guessing they should cost about what other T2 frigates do, that is, about 20-30m. Right now most of the gas mining I do is not very constrained by the ore bay. Usually I mine in my own system, where a trip to/from a POS takes perhaps two minutes after mining for half an hour. The additional risk of loss (due to the price) does not really seem worth it to me.
In an alien system, travel time is a bigger deal. There, maybe I will want them. So, I'll think about it. Still, because none of my characters have Mining Frigate V, and none are mapped for it, I will probably just put it off for a while.
I really wish they had added a small additional bonus to gas mining. For example, 1% faster gas mining per level of, er, "Expedition Frigate" (that's the T2 mining frigate skill). Then I'd be all over them.
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