Amar gets the Nerf-bat on June 4 2011

It is official (not really) the Ammar Nerf happens on June 4th next year. Here is the proof. My new skill plan to finally start training Ammar. I am pretty sure once I am done them the Nerf-bat will hit nice and hard :(

Plex for Remap - How I think it should be done

Many, many people have complained about CCPs apparent decision to offer PLEX for neural re-map. Some high profile players may have even quit EVE over it. The problem was not just how it was communicated (through an interview not through the CSM or a DEV Blog) but also that the idea sucks. My main complaint was that EVE is an expensive game and asking people to spend more money on the game is greedy and going to actually cost them in the end.

If I was CCP this is how I would do it:

First I would make neural re-map an in-game item. It could either be stand-alone or, better yet, something that can be manufactured from new and existing in-game items. The new items would drop rarely in low-sec space only from rats. By adjusting the drop-rate CCP can make the price of a remap hover around 350 million isk price point or so. This would have the added advantage of increasing players doing missions/ratting in low-sec.

In fact with a little bit of programming they could make the neural re-map a really dark and cool feature IMHO. This would be the list of items:

1. Sansha Neural conduit (illegal in hi-sec)
2. Gurista Neural Stimulant (illegal in hi-sec)
3. Angel reincarnation loop (illegal in hi-sec)
4. Blood Raider neuron extract (illegal in hi-sec)
5. 10 corpses of pilot to be remapped
6. 100 live 'humans' (Exotic dancers, marines etc you get the idea)

Reaction must take place in a lowsec station with the pilot docked in that station. Reaction does not have to be done by the pilot.

All items including 'humans' are consumed

Pilot gets a neural remap option.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Would this be a possible CSM proposal?

Ships I Fly - The Rupture

For various reasons I have waited quite a while to discuss the Rupture. I have quite a love/hate relationship with this wonderful Minmattar cruiser.

Things I love:
- Although slow for a Matari Cruiser, the Rupture is still faster than cruisers from other races
- DOUBLE DAMAGE BONUS
- Lots of PG / CPU
- Nice Drone Bay
- Two Utility Slots

Things I don't love:
- Too slow to evade a gate-camp
- Less tank then other races Tier-3 Cruisers
- Anything a Rupture can do.... A hurricane can do better.

In other words, a Rupture is basically a glass cannon, or, as described by an enemy, "Primary".

Lets look at some fits. Like a Hurricane, a Rupture can be either Armour or Shield Tanked. Both of the below fits are T2 and cost between 10-15m isk. Cheapfits with T1 gear are also quite viable.

Here is an Armour Tanked Rupture:
[Rupture, New Setup 3]
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Projectile Burst Aerator I
Medium Projectile Collision Accelerator I


Vespa EC-600 x1
Hornet EC-300 x4

DPS: 317
EHP: 24,931
Speed: 1400

Here is a shield tanked Rupture:
[Rupture, Shield Rupture]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Tracking Enhancer II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

DPS: 397
EHP: 21,010
Speed: 1591


Vespa EC-600 x1
Hornet EC-300 x4


For both ships you can swap out a Tracking Enhancer for a nanofibre/Gyro as needed. You can also swap out the ECM drones for damage drones for an additional 100 dps or so. Personally I like to fit ECM drones since I feel it gives me a chance to escape when tackled, plus it can significantly reduce incoming DPS when the enemy is jammed. I like to bring along at least 2 types of close range republic fleet ammo plus barrage. RF ammo is good for DPS, barrage is good for range.

So what can you do with a Rupture?

In a small fleet a Rupture is both a significant DPS boat and heavy tackler. In general you want to get up close and personal, land a point/scram on a target and unleash hell while calling for reps from logistics. Obviously this role makes the Rupture an early primary, especially considering it's low EHP to DPS ratio.

For solo work the Rupture is very competitive when taking on Cruisers from another race. It's high damage/light tank makes for short intense fights. Since you are so fast, you should be able to outrun anything except a stabber / vagabond (don't engage Vagas if you can avoid it please) to escape an enemy if the fight goes south. Frigates sized ships are another issue however. Scram + web (if armour tanked) + neuts should make it possible to slow them down to be hit by the guns. The armour tank fit with smaller, faster tracking guns and a web obviously has an advantage here. If you are worried about frigates then fitting 6 warrior II drones instead of ECM may make sense.

I try to engage anything cruiser or smaller at near-close range if I can. 2000-6000m is ideal. There are some exceptions however. With a weak signal strength LADAR system and turreted weapon systems, a Rupture is vulnerable to both tracking disruptors and ECM. As a result an arbitrator or a blackbird (plus T2 variants) spells trouble. I have never successfully taken a Rupture against a Battle-cruiser or a Battleship but it should be possible under the right circumstances as many others have demonstrated.

Once you get familiar with a Rupture... try a Hurricane. It is sort of a Rupture on steroids, really really good steroids.

My wishes for the next Alliance Tourney Prizes

Writing about the Freki last post made me think about the prizes needed for the next alliance tournament. To be frank, the prizes for the last two tournaments have been a little pointless. With the possible exception of the Freki that is usefull for alliance tournament combat and that is about it, they are hanger decorations. What I would like to see is prizes that are actually going to be used, and blown up. People do fly and loose expensive ships all the time. A Freki costs approximately the same (give or take) as a super-carrier or a pimped out mission ship. The problem is that none of the alliance tournament prizes can do anything of note. For someone to actually fly the ship it must:

1. Be the best ship for that purpose.
2. Have a good chance of making it back to the hanger.
3. Make a real difference in a fight PvP/PvE

So here is what I suggest. Both of these ships are awesome, but I also think both ships would actually leave station. The Naga would be seen running LV 4 missions in Empire. It would be tough to suicide gank, but not impossible. The Fly-Swatter would be a major asset to any alliances fleet operations. Worth risking in the field to get a drop on a Super-carrier or a Titan Fleet.

If Caldari hosts it ( I will do Amarr at a later time )

1st place - 20x The Naga BPC - Field Command Ship (Ultimate Mission Ship)

Based on the Hull of the Drake the Naga represents the ultimate in missile platform technology. Pirates run in fear at the thought of one of these unloading a volley of hell on a target. Containing a unique shield defense core extracted from an archealogy site deep in wormhole space, its shield systems are the best to be found in New Eden.

BattleCruiser Skill Bonus:

* 20% bonus to assault missile, heavy assault missile and heavy missile damage per level
* 20% bonus to shield recharge rate per level

Special Ability:

* 25% bonus to assault missile, heavy assault missile and heavy missile velocity flight time and precision
* 25% bonus to shield resists

Role Bonus: 99% reduction in Warfare Link Module CPU Need

Powergrid 1000MW
CPU 1000TF
High Slots: 8
Medium Slots 6
Low Slots 5
Turrets 1
launchers 8
RigSlots 2

Shield HP 5400
ArmourHP 3400
Max Velocity 160 m/s
Shield Recharge time: 1250 sec

Drone Capacity: 25m3

2nd Place - 20 x Fly-Swatter BPC - Interdictor (ultimate bubbler)

A secret, heavily funded, experimental project commissioned by Caldari leadership created the Fly-Swatter. Unfortunately the design of this vessel was left incomplete after an a raid by Sansha forces. Despite this from the wreckage of the shipyard, enough was gleamed to create 20 copies of an experimental prototype of this vessel. Incorporating components developed from sleeper sites, and technology developed by the Crielere Project, no other ship in the universe can come in without detection, plant an interdiction bubble, and warp out at the same time.

Destroyer Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to speed per level
Interdictor Skill Bonus: 20% bonus to Interdiction Sphere Launcher rate of fire per level

Role Bonus
- Interdiction Sphere Launchers and covert ops cloaks require 99% less CPU when fitted on this ship

Note 1: can fit covert ops cloaks and Interdiction Sphere Launchers
Note 2: Immunity to non-targeted interdiction

High Slots: 3
Medium Slots: 3
Low Slots: 2
Turrets:2
Launchers:2
Shield HP 351
Armour HP 300
Max velocity 315m/s

Blake Lotto and How to win a Freki

If there is one ship in Eve that I would desire above all others it would have to be the Freki. 50 were given out to the 2nd place winners of the VII alliance tournament and no more will be produced. In short these ships are pure winsauce. Basically they created sort of a super-Jaguar and combined it with a super-Hyena. The end result is pretty much perfection. Oddly enough, the first place prize, the Mimir, kindof sucks eggs.

Anyways, the point of this post is to mention a lottery that a corp-mate of mine is running with a Freki as the main prize. Here is the main thread for details. I am not sure if there ever will be another chance to win one of these 25 billion ships again.

So while thinking about it, watch this match from AT VIII where circle of two fielded three of these awesome ships to win a second round match.


Edit... Lotto is sold out now. I didn't win :(

3 types of fleets in null-sec

I have been planning for a while to discuss the latest FOTM fleets that dominate Null-sec right now, but it appears that Kirith Kodachi of the Inner Sactum of the Ninveah has written a better article (Fall of the Sniper BS) than I would. Have a look. It is a great read.

WTF is this..... EVE Commissioned Officer Edition

Check it out on Massively

To quote the WTF part...

On October 19th in North America, the studio is releasing a new boxed edition of the game, titled EVE Online: Commissioned Officer Edition. The "commissioned officer" refers to an exclusive in-game item that comes with the package, a Cerebral Accelerator implant that will give a significant boost to new pilot skill development for the first 30 days.

EDIT: Here is the official press release from CCP.

Where are the gate-camps?

A year and a half ago I first ventured into 0.0. It was exciting and I felt like I was moving into a very dangerous part of the universe. One of the things that really impressed me was the way that entrances into 0.0 tended to be more or less perma-camped. Once in 0.0 it was pretty empty, but the boarders between 0.0 and empire space were bubbled up death zones not to be risked without intel.

This does not seem to be true any more. Over the last month or two I have been going on long solo roams, passing between 0.0 and empire in Delve, Querious, Providence, Catch, Great Wildlands and the like, and I have yet to come across a serious gate camp.

Is it just me or has something changed?

EDIT: That was tempting fate. 12 hours after posting this while I was headed to do some exploration stuff ... Suffice it to say that a plated Wolf is too slow for a pirate gate camp :(

------------------------------------------------------------
Gamelog
Listener: Toterra
Session started: 2010.10.13 01:39:04
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:18 ] (notify) Warping to Stargate (Onanam)
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:21 ] (notify) Rostro: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:24 ] (combat) Dual 150mm Railgun II belonging to Rostro misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:24 ] (notify) Ravow: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (notify) Rostro [QPIC]<FWA>(Lachesis) has started trying to warp scramble you!
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) Dual 150mm Railgun II belonging to Rostro misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow hits you, doing 52.6 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow barely scratches you, causing 31.5 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow lightly hits you, doing 38.6 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:25 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow hits you, doing 49.0 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:26 ] (combat) Havoc Fury Heavy Missile belonging to Rostro hits you, doing 65.3 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:27 ] (combat) Dual 150mm Railgun II belonging to Rostro hits you, doing 40.9 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:27 ] (notify) Nex loci: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (notify) Ravow [QPIC]<FWA>(Broadsword) has started trying to warp scramble you!
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Nex loci hits you, doing 303.6 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow lightly hits you, doing 27.5 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow heavily hits you, inflicting 42.2 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow heavily hits you, inflicting 45.8 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:28 ] (notify) Darmoreth: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:29 ] (combat) Darmoreth [QPIC]<FWA>(Hurricane) lightly hits you, doing 370.9 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:29 ] (notify) 5GT P3PP3R: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:30 ] (combat) Heavy Pulse Laser II belonging to 5GT P3PP3R hits you, doing 119.6 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:30 ] (combat) Dual 150mm Railgun II belonging to Rostro places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 84.8 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow heavily hits you, inflicting 48.7 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Nex loci lightly hits you, doing 330.3 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow barely scratches you, causing 23.1 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow barely scratches you, causing 20.9 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:31 ] (combat) 425mm AutoCannon II belonging to Ravow misses you completely.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:32 ] (notify) Ghostryker: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:32 ] (combat) Scourge Heavy Missile belonging to Nex loci hits you, doing 50.4 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:32 ] (combat) Havoc Fury Heavy Missile belonging to Rostro hits you, doing 94.4 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:32 ] (combat) Darmoreth [QPIC]<FWA>(Hurricane) hits you, doing 414.9 damage.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:33 ] (notify) Rostro: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2010.10.13 01:39:33 ] (combat) Heavy Pulse Laser II belonging to 5GT P3PP3R hits you, doing 406.9 damage.

Whoooaaa CCP.... don't tread on me

Interesting bombshell(to say the least) hinden in an interview in Eurogamer ... EVE: CCP Gives A Damn. Basically EVE players will soon be able to trade PLEXes for a Neural re-map. By itself this is not all that significant, but it does go against what they have been saying (linky). It is only a short road from there to more microtransactions (plex for sp seems to be the obvious direction that they will go in).

Personally I think this is really crap and here is why. Eve is already a very expensive game. $15*12 = $180 a year. That makes playing Eve cost as much as purchasing 3-4 other video games. Now they want even more money from players if they want to get ahead. It would be one thing if EVE was a PVE game like WOW or LOTRO, but in EVE we are not playing the computer so much as other people. Loosing a ship just because they have more money than you is not fun and is total crap. For example lots of people are playing starcraft II. If Blizzard had a special thing where you could spend another $100 and get +10% hp to all your soldiers, or some other special advantage, it would completely break the game. No thanks.

I understand that EVE currently has PLEXes which do give players with RL cash an advantage already. However the stated goal of the PLEXes was to stymie the illegitimate RMT traders, not to act as a cash cow for CCP. In other words the purpose was reduce the effect of RL money in the game, not increase it. This proposed feature would do the exact opposite.

So go out there and support your local CSM rep who are totally (as I understand) pissed about this and make posts on the CCP forums saying your opinions.

No job for me at CCP

Like many EVE players my interest was peaked by an notice on the start-up screen talking about open positions at CCP. Being a programmer I have always wanted to work for a game company, and what better company than the one that produced my favourite game. In fact, ever since I have started playing EVE, I have wanted to get an inside look into the EVE database schema. There is no porn for me like database porn.

For most of the last 10 years I have been a professional database developer. My experience is split more or less evenly between SQL Server (wonderful database used by EVE) and Oracle (evil crap database used by most businesses). When I saw that one of the open positions was for a database developer, and that they use SQL Server, I took the plunge and applied.

What happened after that gave me very little faith in CCP.

Soon afterwords I received an e-mail from CCP saying that they had my application and wanted me to perform a technical test before proceeding in the interview. This is pretty common in the industry. When I interview people I always make them write a bit of code to show that they do more than talk good.

On Saturday at an agreed upon time the test arrived and as I started reading through it my heart sank. This test was crap for the position I applied for.

This is the CCP programming test. The entire test consists of three questions. Each question requires you to write code to solve a short problem. We expect the test to take two to four hours on average, but you may take additional time if necessary. Please read each question carefully and answer each to the best of your ability. Your solutions will be evaluated for completeness and correctness. While these questions are of a limited scope, please answer them as if they were production code. Your answers will ultimately answer the question, “Do we want this person contributing to our code base?”

You may provide answers in any language.

The use of a compiler is highly recommended to verify the correctness of your answers, but a compiler is not required. All code and algorithms must be your own; however you may use resources as a quick reference for formulas or syntax.

Good luck!

The job I applied to was for a database development position. This was a test for a 3-D programmer, or for a UI programmer, or for some other programmer that you would never want withing 100 lines of code of the database. The questions were pretty simple but totally irrelevant. The first was a geometry question. I thought about writing the answer in TRANSACT-SQL (sql servers main programing language) but it was written in such a way that I couldn't really do that. I quickly put together a bit of code in C# that performed the required task.

The next question however was downright absurd. It wanted me to move nodes around a linked list. I haven't done this sort of stuff in 15 years. A quick search on the internet and the complete solution was downloaded and ready. I suspect that this is what 99% of applicants do.

The third question involved writing a small text game. Of all the questions this was the most interesting since the game had to be written in such a way that the computer cheated, but tried to hide that fact. Again I through together some C# code that covered the basics. My solution was not very imaginative but it worked (certified as working on my computer).

In the end I decided that sending in the answer to the second question was cheating so I simply dropped it and sent my response back explaining that the test was totally irrelevant to the job I applied for. Not surprisingly I soon heard back that I was rejected :(.

I guess that my annoyance is more that this whole process reeked of massive fail. This was the case of simply filtering out unsuitable candidates rather than trying to get the best programmers they could. This is the sort of thing I would expect from the large IT departments of corporations trying to be just good enough not to get the CIO fired, not of cool boutique development studios on the cutting edge. EVE is a hard challenge. It needs really smart people who can do wonders with software. This position needs to be filled by someone who can rip data out of the multi-TB database with the minimal possible load. This interview process will give them run-of-the mill crap who when asked to do a filter will code a routine that loads an entire table into memory as a singly linked list using code copied off the internet, and then runs through it row at a time. And then they will wonder why they are having memory problems.

For those who are not familiar with databases, they are very different to program than conventional programs. Most coding in C++ or Python is explicit. You tell the computer to do one thing, and then another, and then another. With databases you program it using set theory. You tell the database what you want, and it does it for you. Unfortunately to do this requires a completely different way of thinking, especially for large databases where you need fast performance.

And yes, I am bitter, my current job uses Oracle and I HATE ORACLE! PLEASE CCP HIRE ME SO I DON'T HAVE TO USE ORACLE ANY MORE.