Caldari Outcast

Whew. So I was waiting for my SiSi client to update while I made that last post, and with that complete, I poked my head in, bought a new Scorpion (WOOTNESS IS THIS THING HOTT NOW, erm) a Planetary Command Center, and made straight for Ikao IX. I popped the PCC and went about dropping extractors and production facilities per the Training Video and picked up my first load of goods. So far so good. Obviously, extractors, production facilities, etc, will become priced items, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were transit costs, motivating players to minimize the distance traveled to get their goods to the PCC.

However, my main interest, and the one I’m going to talk about most here, is launch facilities and cost. They’ve stated in the dev blog that they intend to have vehicular (think: rockets) and space elevators (<– YES I DO have that book, as well as about 50lbs. of others, including a detailed NASA feasibility study on the subject, and picked my double major so I can one day be one of the people that makes that thing happen). Now, they were talking about not being sure whether people should be able to build their own SE systems, and I can’t find a reason why not.

The stated advantages of the space elevator, is that while initial start up costs are high (and we have yet to perfect a ribbon material, though C60 carbon nanotubes are EXTREMELY promising) once complete, launch cost are only the costs of electricity to run the power climber vehicles. Today, it’s about $80,000 PER POUND of launch payload weight. Potentially, the space elevator could reduce that to as little as $100 per pound. I think EVERYONE should be able to build one, but I think it can be perfectly accurate to modern day projections, AND have fun gameplay repercussions.

1. The main limiting factor in construction of an SE system today is lack of a strong enough material to build the tether from. Obviously, since SE’s exist in universe in EVE, they’ve overcome that limitation. The second hurdle is deployment complexity. A vehicle has to be designed that can carry the pilot tether into High Earth Orbit, and still be able to maneuver and deploy the ribbon. Obviously, getting into space is no problem for the folks in New Eden, so deployment is a matter of “how much does it cost?” and then getting it done. Otherwise, CCP’s going to have to hand-wave an explanation that will be the Applied Phlebotinum version of “‘Cuz a Wizard did it” to explain WHY we can’t. (At the same time, some smaller planets are going to have such low escape velocities, it will NEVER be cost-effective to build an SE, since rockets will need less fuel to get into orbit.)

2. The primary danger for a real life SE is orbital debris. So while you may have the start up capital to get one rolling, the penny-pinching jerk-ass in the hex next to you is still flinging his payloads up with multistage rockets, because he plans to hit that planet and run. He doesn’t invest in a way to safely de-orbit his debris, so a chunk of rocket takes your fancy space elevator and whatever cargo it was lugging at the time out. You, understandably, find this slightly off-pissing. A quick search, boom, you just hired Noir. to pop his ass in game, and a few more clicks and a quick convo later, and you’ve got DUST MERCS HEADING IN TO BLOW THE FUCK OUT OF HIS FACILITIES.  Alternatively, you could hire some Dust mercs to sabotage a neighboring SE for a little economic warfare.

So, hard science geeky awesomeness? Check.

Opportunities for ISKage? Check Check.

More incentive for shit to get blowed up but good AND cause further mayhem, murder, and destruction? You bet your ass!

-Fly Crazy

So I’ve been on an involuntary EVE hiatus lately, but have finally been able to fight my way back to getting some playtime. In short, RL stuff got INSANE, with me trying to help plan my upcoming wedding, remodel my father’s house, keep up with college AND a part time job. With a lot of that being much more efficiently managed now, I can slip my warships back on and get back to pew pewity goodness.

(Also, I had a running bet with a friend Cyberin would be back. I won  Was it all an elaborate scheme to drum up MOAR READARZ? He’s not saying, but but I wouldn’t be past him.)

Anywho, I’ve been flipping around ideas for what to do with this site. Considered options have been getting roaring drunk and burning it (figuratively) to the ground, and getting off my ass and actually making some posts, since SOMEONE went out of there way to hunt down this little pathetic speck of a blog and put me on Evebloggers.com. My biggest problem has been trying to think if interesting shit to post. However, upon closer inspection of everyone else who has successfully made it in the Eve blogging community, I’ve realized something: It’s not up to me to find interesting things to say. It’s up to me to type what I think, what’s going on with my Eve life, and then, IF some people decide that what I type IS interesting, then MOAR POAWAR to me. However, I would like any and all suggestions on how I can raise my eve profile so I don’t feel I’m ENTIRELY shouting into the windy abyss of the Internets.

Also, I just fully fitted up my Sniperthron in 2-TEG. More Dakka, indeed.

-Fly Crazy

Nope, sorry folks, no sweeping, majestic and overly dramatic stories of how I will bravely charge into the fray to hold D-G, no “To arms, lads! Defend your homes!” bullshit. I’m not good at that, and any time I even try to dramatize my toon’s exploits, I just end up feeling silly anyway. I do write, but I write for the pure joy of writing, not to massage my e-peen. So, instead, I’ll just write a Joe Friday account of what we in m3 are up against:

-A- and allies Sys-K, Ushra Khan, and a few other’s I’ve forgotten

Here’s what we have: CVA, and holders alliances such as LFA, and Paxfed.

We’re playing for all the marbles, now, kiddies. We’re against the ropes, battered, bloodied, but still standing. D-G is the strategic bottleneck that maintains the fun pew pew balance in Provi. With that gone, at leat for a while, we’ll see the end of pew pew roams for fun’s sake, and as they say in thos ass-terrible movies “Shit’s just got real!”

What have I got? My Ship o’ The Line Megathron, I’m dubbing Mjolnir, and when she’s gone, I’ll be grabbing Bucephalus, my close range, anti-support Zealot, which I expect due to it’s T-II goodness will me primaried and smoked as quickly as a bead can be drawn on it, since it’s insurance payout is garbage. After that, I’ll be bringing in my Harbinger, named This Space For Rent, when she’s space dust, I’ll be aboard my Raptor, and then, it’s the T1 cruisers, frigates, and when that fails, naked pod, knives, sharp sticks and foul language. I am fully ready to lose my entire fleet of pew ships, and grab whatever I can beg, borrow, (but not steal) and put in front of -A-’s coalition’s horrific firepower…

But not til later tonight

Turned 24 today, and my fiance’s taking me to my favorite pub, then hopefully we’ll be able to hang out for a while. After that, with a 4-day weekend looking at me, I’ll be ready to go once more into the breech.

However, I was skimming for a poem to translate to German for extra Uni cred, and while I was searching, I found an old favorite that I feel oddly appropriate for the circumstances:

-W.B Yeats An Irish Airman foresees his Death: 1919. Pulled from Here

Yup. Sums my feelings up pretty well…

Let’s do this thing. /me ::cracks knuckles, prepares beer::

-Fly Crazy

So between finishing the last semester of college, my fiancee’s graduation, (Honors Program Summa Cum Laude FTMFW.) and a bunch of car projects finally coming to completion, all Eve related time has been spent PLAYING, rather that posting. At least all the time I’ve spent able to get online. The router decided to die on me, and I found a 5Ghz replacement. Bandwidth has been been incredible on the laptop… now if only Eve would be able to keep up… Zeh router! It vill not saves joos from teh Node Crash! Not that there’s been much until recently worth posting about…

…Til now. So we’ve been ass-deep in a sov war with -A- for a while now, and they’ve decided to take some time out of their busy schedule of painting their ships red with the flash-frozen blood of a thousand Goons and prying their corpses out of the ventilation ducts of their drives to play with us for a while.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve been more busy with behind the scenes stuff (read: schlepping stuff to shoot from hisec for the corp hangars cuz I’m never on during primetime to actually go all pew pew) but I DID get my first final blow KM during my posting absence: Here.

Got my sniperthron online this weekend, so I’ll be interested to see how the first deployment goes…

…got a feeling I won’t have to wait long for it

-Fly Crazy

^THIS

For the longest time, I’ve admired CCP’s creativity in starship design, but have been wanting something just a little more fantastical, perhaps with a little more whimsy that the focused brutality of my combat ships. I still take my Apotheosis out for a spin from time to time, but just these images alone have me eagerly waiting for the 18th.

I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of a solar sail, and it’s all the geek in me can do to keep from hoping the sails dynamically change size like the exhaust ploom on our conventional ships do. I may spend a few hours flitting around on solar winds popping screenshots for a while.

Space Tourist ftw!

Sleepers can’t target it, wonder if it’ll be immune to webbers, having no conventional drives… O.o

Full CCP article here: http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=722

-Fly Crazy

So Chainer and I, (and about 90% of the Eve bloggers channel) got on a long roll of classic PC games we grew up on. Here’s the list of those games I still have.  I kept every big cardboard box and phone-book sized manual I ever got, too. I used to complain about the how much space those boxes took up, until everything started going to DVD cases. I dunno why, but I think there’s something special about those old cardboard dinosaurs. Mainly memories of opening them in the car on the ride home and poring over the manuals and gorgeous box art and working myself into a frenzy before I could even get the disc in the tray. Anyway, here’s my list, with a lot of inconsistencies as far as how I list things:

Abuse

Age of Empires

Apache/Havoc

Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2

Civilization 2

Command & Conquer series

Cyberstrike 2

Descent: 1-3

Descent Freespace: 1 & 2

Deus X

Diablo series

Doom series

Earthsiege

Fallout 1 and 2

Freelancer

Ground Control

Loderunner

Half-Life

Homeworld: 1 & 2

Iron Helix

Jane’s Combat Flight series

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

MechCommander

Mechwarrior 2 & MW2 Mercenaries

Mechwarrior 3

Mechwarrior 4

MiG Alley

Myth

Quake series

Rainbow 6

Return Fire

Shogun: Total War

Starsiege

Starsiege Trimes

Star Wars Jedi Knight series

SWAT 1, 2, & 3

System Shock 2

TFX

Thief

TIE Fighter

Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

Wing Commander II

Worms seris

X-Com series

X-wing series

-Fly Crazy

Drool, bitches, drool…

A sexy Amarrian goddess…

And then Kate Beckinsale

-Fly Crazy

*Edit: Alternate Version, can’t decide

I can finally declare victory over Vista. I shut off nearly all the “great new features” they advertised when this piece of shit was brand new, and went from 1.28G memory usage at idle, to about 450M. I was always pissed, rocking a fairly impressive laptop (for 2 years ago, anyway) and having more than a quarter of my memory used up by Vista fapping itself to death.

So far, I don’t have anything negative to say on Dominion. Not getting the supercap changes they promised was a letdown, but not having FCs screaming “Titan online, fall back fall back fall back RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!” anymore has been great. Rather than making Titans useless, I like how the changes have mainly just removed them from the subcapital battlefield. As evidenced by AAA’s capital driveby kills with their Titan fleet, they still have their place, but no more 50’s movie nuke siren duck and cover silliness.

Me likey

-Fly Crazy

Dominion rocks…

-Fly Crazy

Being in a nullsec alliance, I’ve been voraciously reading everything I can on Dominion, and committed a large portion of it to memory. However, as I fired up Capsuleer on the old iPhone last night at work, I busted a nut laughing at my own stupidity. I knew the industrial skill changes that were coming up a month ago, so when I saw: “Karl Lang: Electronics Upgrades V 4hrs, 32m, 15s” I nearly died laughing at myself. So 15 hours before Dominion arrives, my industrial alt finished EU V so he can train Hacking. WOOOO! Except, of course, that once Dominion goes live, I’ll only NEED EU III now.

-Fly Crazy