Cleaning up My Blog List & Phone Apps

As The Adventures of a n0.0b and A Scouts Domain have not updated in seven and eight months respectively I have removed them from My Blog List.

I miss Capsuleer as the blog part of that application was very handy for my viewing habits.  Capsuleer still functions somewhat as it shows me my training and ISK but over time that will stop as CCP changes the API away from what Capsuleer can handle now it is not receiving any updates.

Posted here Portrait Bandwagon Continues was the Portrait Fetcher from Eveolution.de, now if you actually browse to the eveolution.de URL you'll notice an application for the Windows Phone 7 series of devices that should provide the functionality of Capsuleer and more.  Should the application also become available for Android and iPhone devices it could gain some traction in the Eve Online user base.

The only other comparable application I know about for smartphone devices is iClone.  I find iClone to be large and bloated, it also doesn't update the skills for my two main characters.  I have heard however they are working on a leaner and meaner version that may address some of these issues.

CCP are modifying the API at the moment which may be delaying the release of these programs, or CCP will be releasing one of their own, who knows!

The Locals are Grumbling

I finally caught up with Token Prophets the other day, only via communicator but better than nothing.  It seems she was many jumps away chasing some market goldmine as she put it and became distracted.  Sometimes it's better not to ask.  So soon she'll be back at our base area which will improve our cash flow, at least I hope.

One thing Token mentioned was the Sansha's, now I've been busy with a few things for a while and lost touch with the local goings on.  She mentioned the incursions which I knew about, in the abstract anyway, but also the mood of the locals out where she is.  Their is little protection there so the Sansha have been abducting hundreds of thousands of people at will.  The pod pilots are mostly safe, unless they directly engage the Sansha but the ground dwellers have nowhere to go, right up until they float into the sky and are sucked into the Sansha harvest ships.

Token said the locals are terrified, with good reason probably, and the cashed up ones are trying to pay their way to high security space for the increased safety. Makes sense to me, though it must be a pirates paradise at the moment as they interdict these desperate people and at best steal all their remaining wealth.

So I decided to get out a bit and wandered down to the mixed bar, this place has pod pilots and also station crew so noisier and not as safe but I wanted to gauge the mood.

Grabbed a drink and sat down, employed my station bodyguard to keep an eye out, the usual contract, half now and the other half transferred into her account should I survive.  It's a deal I've done before and she is good at what she does.

Listening to snippets of conversation I hear the system name Yulai a few times.  Now Yulai is a boring system, nothing ever happens there so I didn't know why they were mentioning it, but with the current Sansha thing I was rapidly connecting the dots.

I asked the bodyguard, her name is Zeta, to ask a local over who I'd observed talking about Yulai, it didn't hurt that this local was pretty, but I wanted to find out more.  So buying her a drink I asked my questions and found out the Sansha had hit Yulai with a sizable force and even the citizens of high security space are now scared.  If they can attack Yulai they can now attack anywhere, which it would seem was happening.

So I bid this local goodbye, gave some ISK for her information, from the way her eyes opened quite wide I must have over estimated the local currency exchange rate but no matter, a drop in the Iteron as they say.

I thanked Zeta for a job well done again and retired to my apartment, not forgetting to send the other half of the payment to her least she is not as trustworthy the next time we meet.

Right now though I have some thinking to do, how can we turn this Sansha incursion into profit.

Strange Error Message

I have been in a few fights were the lag was long and frustrations were high, but I have not seen this message before:

Thanks to Diary of a Pod Pilot for this one.

The portrait bandwagon continues!

Should you wish to compare your old portrait to the new and improved one I suggest you go here:

Eveolution (dead link - 29-03-2013)

This will give you four different size images of your new portrait and one of your old should you feel nostalgic.

I do wonder, given how good the new portraits look, if any folks are wishing for the old ones?

Here is a comparison of the old and new portraits of a random name pulled out of the air, Match L.

Stamp Goodyear on those bad girls!  She'd better hope that a brassiere in the Eve Online universe has some sort of anti gravity support device otherwise OUCH!

Group Shot

A few people have made a group shot of their avatars.  The process from CCP to modify your current visual persona has the potential of changing the final image that is shown to the world, something I don't wish to do.

So here is a group shot done by somebody else, click on the image for a higher resolution version.

Trying to Explain Rooli Pelaaja

As pointed out by reader Zemboscisk the possible inspiration for the awesomeness that is Rooli Pelaaja as seen below and first posted about here.

Could be Ruby Rhod from the 1997 Fifth Element movie also as seen below.

Maybe yes, maybe no.  For some reason I had mentally blocked Ruby from my mind, or just didn't make the connection, no idea why.  In his later years, lets call them the "Late Elvis Phase" Ruby may have let himself go, as seen below.

Enjoy!

Planetary Interaction - New and Improved!

This should also be subtitled "OMFG an article".

Yes after the literally some messages that have flooded (trickled) into my inbox about the lack of articles on this blog, I've finally managed to find the time and write something about the new Planetary Interaction (PI).

First we must visit the old PI one last time so I can explain some of the differences.  The old PI was more simplistic compared to the PI we have now.  In the old PI the area your extractors gathered from did not change no matter what length the extraction cycle was.  The resources in your area did not change so you could just run them on maximum extraction forever and the resource was not depleted.

Pictured below was one of my old PI setups.

You'll notice the position of the extraction units were placed more to convey an image rather than efficiency.

Now if we look at an image of the new PI setup below:

You will notice the faint blue discs around the extraction units (the extraction head) attached to the main extraction unit (the hub).  These head units cannot touch other head units otherwise your extraction rates will drop, though the survey program will show you this quite clearly and you can move them (the head units) to compensate.

The time you run the survey program for changes the extraction head area, the longer the larger.  So changing the extraction time may require a readjustment of the extraction head.

One thing to remember is power usage.  The links from the extractor to your launch pad or similar will cost you in power usage, but the links from the extractor to the various head units do not.  So place your extractor as close to your base as possible and move around the head units.

Moving out to a wider shot:

We can see I have depleted my local area somewhat, this did not happen with the old PI.  Should I continue extracting at a high rate I will reduce the amount I extract to a low level.  Two ways you can combat this are move your extractors to a new area (the whiter areas typically) or increase the time your extraction program runs for.  The planet will rejuvenate the extracted area at a certain rate, if you can adjust your extractors to that rate you may be able to find an equilibrium.

The survey program:

Now this is the heart of the operation as far as material extraction is concerned.  You'll notice under the green Program Running section are five images of what this extractor can source from the planet, you then click on the one you require.  On the left hand side are the controls for the Extractor Head Units, select as many of these as required, on your planet they will appear in a spoke pattern, you can then drag them to the position you desire, usually for the highest extraction amount.  On the bottom left is the Extraction Area Size, this will give you your run time, which also dictates the size of the extraction units.

In the middle of the image is an expectation of how your extraction cycle will run.  Notice the bumps?  I believe these are called Nuggets and are short increases in the extraction amount, possibly from the natural movement of the resource on a gas planet

Time creep is something to watch out for.  Should you choose a 24 hour program then the finish times will creep forward over a period of days, I'll usually set mine for 1 hour less than I expect my next PI time will be, so it is all done and waiting for me.

Finally to set the program going click on the Install Program button (in the Stop Program location above) and then also click on Submit just like any other PI change and it should start.

Other items are quite similar to the old PI.

Potentially the output of this PI iteration is lower then the previous, certainly that is what the forum whiners are saying, my experience suggests it is about the same.  Certainly the amount of time required to reset the new PI installations is GREATLY reduced and that alone is a massive saving to me, conservatively it would save me 20 minutes a day.

Well worth the change.

The Mimi Bobeck Award

The Mimi Bobeck award goes to Alotta Baggage for inappropriate use of virtual makeup!

Even More Portraits!

Most likely the last lot of random portraits, unless I find some more worth displaying.  I'll probably show all of mine once I'm happy with them.  However in order of appearance we have Dagnabits, Elena Severina and Sexyhoe.

Dagnabits has some great use of the ageing features, skin, hair etc.  Elena is mostly about the boobs, though her face doesn't look dead, unlike one of my two girls at the moment.  Funnily enough the fear was most people would great girls with massive breasts but this has not been the case, though from my experiments (hur, hur) I think CCP have toned down the potential size of the Bulgarian fun bags also.

Finally we have Sexyhoe who is showcasing a fairly well made female character.

While these images don't show this their seems to be an over abundance of red headed portraits, or wrangers if you will.  Mostly on the female side, perhaps it is a reaction to the available colours that many people have gone in that direction?

More Portraits!

Some more portraits for your viewing pleasure.  In order we have Icarus O'Sirus, Drastigh and Trollface Dingus.

Icarus is well done, very nice work.  Drastigh is Freddie Mercury meets I don't know what and Trollface, well it's awesome in a weird way.

Looking forward to the option to modify some of my portraits, mostly on the second account.  Funnily enough I created those after the main, but I think I rushed them and they need some tweaking.

It will give me the option to take full body screen shots of all the avatars for future use, must remember to do that, may need to write myself a note.

Avatar Creation!

The new portrait creator that was shipped with the Eve Online part three expansion for Incursion is an avatar creation tool, for other uses!

Already I have created or ripped newly minted avatars and used them in my Steam persona and also Facebook.

It's awesome!

New Portrait Winner!

Here he is folks the winner of the portrait competition that makes you laugh every time you see him, it's Rooli Pelaaja!

Even the passers by who saw this image on my screen laughed, huge win right there!

New Portraits!

It has been a funny morning looking at all the new portraits, and laughing at more than a few of them.

In local now it shows the portraits by default, rather than the previous method of clicking on them to show.  I'm not sure how this will effect lag but it is nice all the same.

Here are some example portraits:

Some awesome work here people!

Old Portraits

I couldn't resist showing this gem of a portrait before they all start changing.

His in game name is Duhoh and he is one ugly bastard.

Mentioned in the patch notes for the third part of the Incursion expansion is the option to now have a third name when your character is created.

So before you could have chosen John Citizen now you could have John Pyromaniac Citizen.

It would seem we were running out of choices unless you enjoyed the name of gnfheyrjfjf or 6475847565.

Enjoy the downtime and patching experience!

Tips For Character Creation

In a couple of days we should have the third part of the Incarna expansion which, amongst other things will give us the new portrait creation program.

(I love this image, the facial features are damn funny)

Here http://www.wtfpwnbbq.com/Incursion/ is the link for a pretty good site that should help you, if you need it, with your creation tasks.

Quote from the site, "I quickly went through the body and made some minor tweeks, gave her bigger theighs, a little bump in the trunk and reduced the chest size. If the system that is currently in place makes it into launch there will be a lot of redonkulus boobs flopping around Incarna like a flag for those who have never touched a pair."


Awesome.


At the bottom of the page are some links to Youtube examples, explore!

Appearance

When I'm riding my motorcycle on the highway it gives me a feeling of freedom.  I've put an image of me below.

I don't ride a motorcycle.

Here is a weightlifting image, pretty happy with my muscles.

That is not me.  It is a stock photo of some guy.  The hint should be the watermark.

Here I am looking into the camera, damn I'm sexy!

She is not me.  

A while ago a read a post on the forums of some guy who "proved" by showing several images that he was not botting.  The images he showed were some rigged affair of sticks and rubber bands that would let him move one mouse which then moved several others.  The same sort of thing for keyboard etc etc.

The images you see anywhere are not necessarily a truthful representation of the reality of the matter.

Should you accept them?  Perhaps.  Judge what you see and decide from there, at the very least until you know some more.

Try and use some common sense, which in my experience is in very short supply, before jumping aboard some movement that will just make you look bloody stupid.

As you can be damn sure I'm going to remind you of the matter for a very long time.

100 Posts!

One hundred blog posts!

I'm surprised it managed to reach this milestone.

The posting frequency seems to be increasing, for the quality you'll have to judge that for yourself.

Enjoy the next 100.

Incursion Part 3/Incarna Soon! (tm)

In a bit less than two weeks we should have the third and final part of the Incursion expansion.

What we should see is the Sansha invasion and the first part of Incarna, the new character creator.

Here is a sample image that somebody has made showcasing their attempts.

While not all the effects are currently available and I'm not sure of which test server iteration this is from you can see the results are striking.  They are certainly an improvement on what we can currently achieve.

Which leads me to this question.  Will I just re-create my main and alts or go for a different look?

The new creator will force some sort of different look as the engine used has more options, but should we try and duplicate our existing faces or create something new?

We can clone new bodies for our minds to be downloaded into upon our physical destruction, so why not a change to the cloning algorithm and hey presto a new face, slimmer hips and those perky breasts you've always wanted?

I can easily see this being a micro payment option at select stations for body or clone adjustment services, in fact it would be easier if it was just the clone, so when your body dies in the new body you go.

Sure it will cost you some form of ISK payment for the re programming and further ISK to upgrade your clone SP level.

Perky breasts!

Although the reality will be the stay at home loners, you know who you are, are going to create female avatars with fun bags so big you can stamp Goodyear on the side and we'll have to expand station volume by 70%.

CCP you know not the weapons you wield!!!

Some More Combat Notes

These were written down before, during and after the penultimate battle for LR-2XT in Geminate.

Last stand.
CTA called.
Forming up at POS.
Intel pilots reporting nuet & red movements in surrounding systems.
Expecting an attack soon.
RAGE has given 30 minutes warning for CTA, probably against us.
Fleet warping - red spike in destination system.
Warped to previously unknown bubble, left bubble urgently, warped away.
Trying to get a good warp in on the bubbled gate.
Situation is tense.
The enemy is here.
Warp back and forth repeatedly attacking, kill a few.
FC handover disaster!
FC only solo warped and left fleet behind.
Ships die, support dies
FC once again solo warps.
More die, support dies again.
FC fail cascade!
Waiting at POS to catch our breath.
They orbit our fleet with fast ships and then warp to that fast ship which puts their ships inside our main grouping.
Red response is fast.
Reds warp to POS and attack modules.
Station is also camped, blues die as they don't listen to comms or read fleet channel, they undock and die.
Watching reds kill our POS modules while we make a new plan.
Another guy dies after drifting from POS - stupid!
Reds killing cyno jammer.
Capitals will be next.
Our SB's bombing their drones.
Each successful bomb run brings a cheer over comms.
Capitals have arrived on station.
About fifteen.
SB bombing attempts do little damage against enemy ships.
We lose the occasional SB during bomb runs.
Reds leave system.
We start picking up the pieces.

Weighing It All Up

Our insurrection against RAGE and relations approaches its end game.  The final result was never really in doubt however we've done better than expected.

For instance they outnumber us by many numbers to one but the kill/loss (K/L) figure are almost the same, currently 250 kills for 242 losses.

Given that RAGE has in comparison virtually unlimited resources and we committed everything, including reserves I think from their point of view the K/L ratio (1.03) is quite poor.

Battles are often won by limiting the amount of mistakes, wars are usually won by those with the most resources.

Stealth bombers.  Early in the campaign we didn't use them very well, losing many of them.  As the campaign progressed we had an education under fire on their best use, and attempting to avoid losses.  We ended up using them much more effectively in the penultimate battle.

However in that battle, or series of battles some major Fleet Controller (FC) errors cost us some major ISK and certainly hurt our combat potential.

Would we have won these battles if these errors hadn't been made?  Maybe.

Would we have won the war? No.

In short we fleet warped carriers into combat that were repairing a POS and should not have been part of the fight, some were lost.  To be fair the carriers should have been paying more attention and stopped the fleet warp, so the blame lays somewhere between the two.

We also, on two occasions screwed up fleet warps, with just the FC warping away from danger, or his squad, leaving the fleet behind.  What hurt most was losing the guardians (combat repping ships) the first time, and then we did it again!  Fleet combat has plenty of stress, and this was probably an example of that.

Very soon the final battle will occur.  This will be mostly a show battle as the result cannot be changed, we will lose LR-2XT, the best we can hope for is to inflict some losses and harass the enemy.

Which should be rather enjoyable.