EVE Journey

I’m now part of “The Scope”, a small sized corporation with global extent. The new corp chat shows 258 present but I’m just another person joining the ranks. Finally took the plunge to drop from TGIND as I’m not able to devote the energy and time necessary to get things working again. There are many things to fix and I wish Page well in rebuilding the corp.

Since I had roles, the action of dropping roles actually requires a 24 hour standby period. Interestingly Nova got war dec’d by OuterRim Jobs and fighting could legally start before I could quit so I helped out by talking to locater agents to find the “scumbugs” who declared war on us. Level 4 locator agents allow you to query a person on his whereabouts. Within 10 minutes, an evemail is sent indicating their location. There is a 15minutes interval before you can use them again so its worth going to a region where you can use a few locator agents at one time. Eve-agents.com has a great database of all possible agents you can work with.

2009.06.05 22:52
The sleazebag is currently at Nourvukaiken II – Moon 1 – Modern Finances Investment Bank station in the Nourvukaiken system, Okela constellation of Lonetrek region.

Mica has already moved to the forward base and I heard he had an interesting encounter but he’ll also be moving on after the war dec. Hope we get back to 0.0 soon.

Those of you who browse this site (I do wonder with RSS readers these days, does site design matter?) will notice that the background and header images changes pretty frequently. This is all thanks to a nifty piece of code by Matt Mullenweg at http://ma.tt/scripts/randomimage/.

I tweaked the code a little to run a cron job on the script so that it would serve the background and header of the site as a static file without requiring a script load every time the page was refreshed.

There’s a total of 6 background changes and up to 24 header images (as of this post) that is picked up automatically and served as I add new ones. The latest from the faction frigate series (more to come as soon as this war dec is over) is shown below.

Minmatar ships, they look like they are taped together but once you fly one, you’ll love the speed. The Republic Fleet Firetail has been high on my list of ships to test out ever since seeing it in action during the recent Alliance tournaments.

The Firetail is modeled off a fighter frigate known as the Shamrock, a design used by a small, now-extinct pirate faction known as Lazari Dromitus.  The blueprint found its way into the hands of Matari military forces after a raid on Lazari Dromitus’s headquarters succeeded in killing its leader, thus beheading the organization and scattering its remnants to the four winds.  It has since been improved upon and upgraded, and the Firetail is now a mainstay in most Republic Fleet patrols.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to maximum velocity and 7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking speed per level

Speed is a thrill .. Cap stable at 76% and speeding along at 1641 m/s (even faster if I have Minmatar Frigate V trained), the technicians have given me one hell of a zippy devil. I look forward to using this in fleets one day. Meanwhile, Gone Berserk mission is offered and I pursue the terrorist fanatics. Had to swap fits to get more DPS out of the ship and dumped the stasis webifier since it wasn’t helping much. Had to remind the weapon technician to load more rockets as I actually ran out right at the end! These fanatics sure don’t know when to quit!

[08:11:32] Message > EoM Priest:  More vermin have showed up on our doorstep.  Purge the unbelievers, in the name of the Lord!

[08:16:02] Message > EoM Priest:  Brothers, our own are suffering at the hands of these infidels.  Come to their aid at once!

[Republic Fleet Firetail, Mica - PvE ]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Gyrostabilizer II

1MN Afterburner II
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed
Peripheral Weapon Navigation Diameter

‘Malkuth’ Rocket Launcher I, Foxfire Rocket
‘Malkuth’ Rocket Launcher I, Foxfire Rocket
200mm Light Gallium I Machine Gun, EMP S
200mm Light Gallium I Machine Gun, EMP S

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Got a new mission while out testing the faction frigates. The Seven’s Brothel Objective : Find and eliminate the leader of the ‘Seven’s’ forces within their compound, then report back to your agent.

Great time to test another faction frigate from the collection! I’ve not been a fan of the aesthetics of Caldari ships (what is with the all the blinking lights?) but the Caldari Navy Hookbill actually looks pretty good.

Long struggling with a reputation for being the ugly duckling of the Caldari ship repertoire, the Hookbill recently got a new lease on life, being upgraded from a routine patrol vessel into a fleet-standard frigate. With the advancements brought on by the upgrade, the time is nigh for this little slugger to prove itself on battlefields throughout Caldari space and beyond.

Caldari Frigate Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to Shield capacity and 10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret optimal range per level

Shield tanked, this ship hardly broke a sweat against “Sarah”, the leader of the forces I had to eliminate. DPS was comparable to the Comet and slightly faster at 970 m/s. Losietes was definitely pleased when I reported success in a rather quick time.

[Caldari Navy Hookbill, Mica - PvE Blasters]
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Overdrive Injector System II

1MN Afterburner II
Small Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Small Shield Booster II
V-M15 Braced Multispectral Shield Matrix

Light Neutron Blaster II, Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Antimatter Charge S
‘Malkuth’ Rocket Launcher I, Gremlin Rocket
‘Malkuth’ Rocket Launcher I, Gremlin Rocket

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Ever since getting most of the  faction frigates together, I’ve not had time to do a proper test flight (missions only.. Not yet able to use them in actual combat!). Recorded the following image while running a Level 2 mission. With the rather large lights up front, the Gallente Navy Comet looks like a police vehicle!

The Comet’s design comes from one Arnerore Rylerave, an engineer and researcher of the Roden Shipyards corporation.  Originally created as a standard-issue police patrol vessel, its tremendous maneuverability and great offensive capabilities catapulted it into the Navy’s ranks, where it is now a widely-used skirmish vessel.

Gallente Frigate Skill Bonus: 7.5% bonus to Small Hybrid Weapon tracking speed and 5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage per level

The flight technicians had equipped the frigate with a standard load out for missions (wanted T2 rails but they had ran out!). It definitely feels very quick to handle at 900 m/s although it lacks the DPS of my favorite frigate class ship the Ishkur. The Serpertis pirates took slightly longer to take down but it was pretty manageable.

[Gallente Navy Comet, Mica - PvE]
Small Inefficient Armor Repair Unit
100mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

‘Malkuth’ Standard Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
‘Malkuth’ Standard Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
75mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Antimatter Charge S
75mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Antimatter Charge S

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Hobgoblin II x1

With another recent change in management and the lack of plans and activity, it seems that it might be time to move on to something else. I’ve tried my best and suggested stuff we could embark but the progress is non-existent. TGIND has a bunch of great folks and I wish them well.

Directed Mica to make a formal application to a PvP corp and hope to hear news soon. After 47 days in Empire, 0.0 beckons again.

Excellent guide to hiring mercenaries. We used Malum Crusis last year but good to know more about the hiring process.

http://podlogs.com/declarewar/?p=170

Just got news from the lab techs running the Arazu and Ishtar invention jobs! 3 Arazu and 1 Ishtar are now ready for production.

2 more Ishtars are being invented but chances seem slim.

T2-007 has also ended with 57.14% success for a total of 400 modules. Worst performing this time was 200mm AutoCannon II and 425mm Railgun II with 30% each. Surprisingly Armor Explosive Hardener II came up to 90% success. Its really like rolling a dice and waiting with dread when you hit the “Deliver” button.

Communiqué from K (research associate I knew from Core Complexion)

Hey Jar,

Just wanted to let you know that the research POS is up and running. We managed to get a good deal on a Shadow Control Tower and have anchored labs and defenses in a quiet corner. Let me know what you need and I’ll get started on the copies. Best of luck with the T2 program! Sending you a photo of the POS (did they upgrade the shields again?). Looks fine doesn’t it?

K

Excellent News! I met K while working at Core Complexion and he expressed a desire to start his own research facility. This sounded like a great idea since my lab access got cut off when we pulled out of 0.0 and having to endure Empire lab queues was a bad experience. Now the T2 process can be more efficient with BPCs being churned out at a faster rate. With some training, K can also take on some of the workload in the invention jobs and I can focus more on the corp programs.

T2-007 is putting along after I made a mistake with one of the traders and forgot to get sufficient Mechanical Engineering Datacores. The 425mm Railguns were left sitting in the hangars while waiting for new datacores to be delivered.  The rest of the jobs went smoothly with 55% success rate providing a spread of 330 T2 modules to work with.

After gaining Gallente Starship Engineering IV, I reactivated T2-005 to begin Arazu (Recon) and Ishtar (HAC) development. 9 hours to go before the lab techs tell me if they were worth the ISK. Mica has been pressing me to send these new ships so that he can start testing them out in the field. Hopefully I’ll see some success in invention as it will bring us a step closer in providing fitted combat ready ships.

Most capsuleers in EVE move on to a player run corporation one day (even if most choose to stay in NPC Corps for its safety net) since that is where the fun begins (drama, intrigue and espionage!). The key thing to a well run corp are the members who choose to be active. In the past year, TGIND has seen relatively good growth. However for the last few months recruitment has slacked (mainly as only 1 person was interested). With this current stint back in Empire, it seems we need to reform and rethink our goals and strategy.

The above shows a simplified view of how members can be organized to be more productive and actually have some fun while we focus on getting back in 0.0.

Example of teams and their goals:

Production
Every Month

• Produce 30 x Ships (T1 and T2)
• Produce 2000 x T2 modules
• Maintain 2 bil worth mineral store to facilitate production

Security

• Run Lvl 4 Missions as a group twice a week
• Run Exploration Complex (Scanning and Clearing site hand in hand)
• Run a 0.0 Roam Every Weekend with the aim of practicing FC’g and tactics.

Human Resources

• Recruitment Campaigns once a week in different Regions
• During off-hours can choose to be part of Security or Production
• Recommend recruits and train them to be effective in the teams they will be joining. This includes skillbooks, training plans, ships after they are certified.