DUST 514 and Mini Rigs!

Two thirds through August and we have the news of DUST 514, visit http://dust514.com or http://dust514.org for more information.

Essentially, and little is known at the time of writing, it will tie our current Eve Universe with the console world via a First Person Shooter (FPS) called DUST514 for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

I can see the possibilities of this but I'm also wondering why should the average console gamer choose DUST 514 over the quite numerous other offerings out there in console land? We will find out more when Fanfest is on and as time goes on, no ETA has been announced for the release of DUST514 at the moment.

With the Apocrypha 1.5 patch we have, amongst other items, received rigs of different sizes, small, medium and large. This should make rigging the smaller and less expensive ships more viable as the cost will not be as great and also the calibration limit should allow more rigs, as the smaller rigs have a smaller calibration amount.

The game is evolving and meeting new customers while catering for the current ones, we'll see if CCP can pull this off.

Megathron Navy Issue bites the dust!

The Megathron Navy Issue that I've had for about two years was finally destroyed last night. In a strange sort of way I became attached to it, a constant companion during the good times and the bad.

Stupidity was my co-pilot on that fateful mission. A level 4, Worlds Collide, about 5k LP and a few million ISK. A mission I had done solo many many times. I was distracted, I was not concentrating and the mission bit hard.

Upon entering the mission I veered right, destroyed the ships to unlock the gate and gain some extra bounty. When I entered the next room it puts you in the middle of the enemy NPC's, they started to agro against me which is fine. My fatal mistake was not to concentrate and destroy all the frigates first. In a Battleship Frigates take a long time to target, 15 to 20 seconds sometimes, though this can be improved if desired. I targetted the Cruisers and Battlecruisers, gained all the agro and started blasting away with the 425mm Prototype Railguns. However the Frigates came upon me quite quickly, webbed and warped jammed the ship and then the problems started coming thick and fast.

When a Battleship is webbed it goes slower, the enemy can now hit you harder, your damage taken increases, normally panic starts to raise its ugly head.

So I've now realised the problem, about 8 Frigates orbiting me, my guns are useless against them, taking large amounts of damage from all enemy ships. I re-target the drones against the Frigates but ultimately their are too many and the ship is lost with only one Frigate left warp jamming me.

It is now a recovery operation. Head back to home base and pick up the salvaging ship, a Myrmidon, put a packaged Shuttle in the hold and head back to the mission system two jumps away. In my haste to try and warp away I was not able to bookmark the location of my wreck as my pod warped away immediately upon the destruction of the Battleship. So my plan is to warp to my wreck using the Shuttle, bookmark my wreck, talk to the agent in the adjacent system and intentionally fail the mission leaving my wreck and NPC wrecks, my drones etc, and take it all back to my home system. This all happens without any issues, I gather the surviving loot from my destroyed ship, use the on-board salvagers in the Myrmidon upon my wreck, and then salvage and loot the destroyed NPC ships.

So the lessons to be learned from this are as follows. Don't become complacent, missions can still bite and Frigates will bring about your demise more often than not.

Deimos Sales in Jita

It has been a while, but here we are again.

What the bloody hell is going on with Deimos sales in Jita? I've noticed a two week cycle where somebody buys a bunch of Deimos's and then sends the prices sky high, also the prices for the materials required to make the ship have increased, and further more the prices for one of the datacores required for invention have just peaked!

For a long time the Deimos has been in a bad way, the Micro Warp issues, which impact on blaster damage have given the ship a reduced usefulness in the Eve Universe. Currently it all seems to be about missile ships, certainly in PVE and also to a lesser extent in PVP, I don't think this situation is new however.

So what can be done? I'm not sure but it would be nice to have some blaster love from CCP.

So why have the prices gone up and why the demand for a ship that is supposedly a worse ship given the nerfs and buffs that have happened in New Eden over the past few years?

/me shrugs

Moving!

Finally I'm moving from the Olo system where I've been based for a very long time, probably a year or so. The Orca is such a nice addition to the game, with its help I can move in only three trips.

I am a hoarder, do I need 16 ships and 13,000m3 of weapons? Probably not, but the Orca lets me move it all!

Lai Dai Grind is Over!

My goal to have access to all the Lai Dai research agents is now done. My last task will be to update all my research agents with the new and improved ones I now have access to. Then I can sell or use the accumulated data cores they have been farming for me.

My next goal is to gain enough Caldari rep to put the POS back up, in my Gallente space era I shot up many Caldari, they did not like me for a very long time.

Caldari State status of 7.0 would be the ultimate goal but 5.0 is a good start.