One day I'll start updating this blog more regularly. I keep meaning to do so, and then forget. Oh well. I'm clearly getting old.
We had a few days of peace in E-Uni before we got another War Dec. This one hasn't been nearly so exciting, unfortunately. I have figured out a couple of Drake setups I like. Probably not enough for me to spend a month on Battlecruiser V anytime soon, but enough to be satisfied that my current missile training is worth it. I've got about 2 weeks left on that plan and then I'll be able to move into my next series of plans. It'll either be a direct run to Remote Armor Repping Logistics ships, or it's going to be taking a full plunge into other racial ships (likely Gallente and/or Amarr).
Other than that, I've got a couple classes to teach coming up. I'm doing an ECM class tomorrow, and I'm doing a primer on EFT and EVEMon today. It's amazing the little things you find when fiddling with programs for a class that you forget. For example, I don't really mine seriously, but I threw in a miner fit and realized EFT will give you your yield in ore. I'm sure miners know all about that, but as I only have just started a bit of a mining path on the alt, I didn't even think about that. It makes perfect sense though, now that I think about it for a minute.
The ECM class is an update to the class I ran a couple months ago, literally something around a week or so before CCP announced all the changes to ECM and their corresponding ships. That was more than a tad bit annoying. I finally got a chance to redo the class and knock it down to an estimated 2 hour length, which is more reasonable than the 2.5 hour class I had running before. My throat starts to go after 2 hours, and I've got a pretty good capacity for talking a lot.
Like I said, the alt is working towards some light mining, and I think I'll send them on a speed missioning training path in the near future to make some extra money. I enjoy missions (much to those PVPers pain, I'm sure) enough that I don't get super bored of them right away. Mining is just what I do if I run a DVD on the other screen of my computer.
Speaking of, I have a few other things to take care of before I dive into my notes for class, so that's all for now.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Skill Training Value
So I'm a solid month into my missile support skill plan. So far, so good, though now I'm coming up on those obnoxious 9 day skills. They aren't long enough to feel that painful, but just long enough to be annoying. Though I did have to make a very brief detour when I discovered a particular ship skill was lower than I thought I had it at. That oversight will be corrected in about 20 hours.
Right now I'm prioritizing my missile support skills by potential DPS they can put out vs. time invested to get that DPS boost. We all know that the sooner you can get a DPS boost, the better, but getting a 20 DPS boost for 5 days of training is inferior to getting 30 DPS boost for 6 days of training. In the former situation, you get 4 DPS per day spent of training, while in the latter you get 5 DPS per day of training. In addition, you need to consider if this affects all missiles, if it affects only guided or unguided missiles, or if it just affects a particular subset of missiles (Cruise, Torp, HAM, whatever).
This is why I look at Warhead Upgrades so poorly. It's a 2% damage bonus across all missiles, but it's a Rank 5 skill. That means per 100 damage your missiles do, you get 2 extra damage, and the level 5 takes 20-odd days, depending on your attributes. It's a completely terrible return on your time investment. Even if you're spitting out 1000 DPS, you get a 20 DPS boost for those 20 days, or 1 DPS/day of training. Is it better than nothing? Of course. In EVE, you want the biggest damage you can do. But it comes down to if you can get something more valuable for those 20 days of training. When you start talking about 20 day training times, you can almost always get a better value of putting those 20 days towards Ship Skill 5. If I was going to be doing any 20 day skills in the near future, it'd be for cross-training into another race further for some more PVP options (my PVE options are fine).
Anyway, I don't tend to get a lot of EVE time on the weekends due to my personal schedule. Hopefully I'm going to get some tonight, and we'll see if I get to go into any more war fleets before our the wars end. If not, I'll be more than happy to work on building up the wallet in ways that are more interesting than station trading on Station Alt.
Right now I'm prioritizing my missile support skills by potential DPS they can put out vs. time invested to get that DPS boost. We all know that the sooner you can get a DPS boost, the better, but getting a 20 DPS boost for 5 days of training is inferior to getting 30 DPS boost for 6 days of training. In the former situation, you get 4 DPS per day spent of training, while in the latter you get 5 DPS per day of training. In addition, you need to consider if this affects all missiles, if it affects only guided or unguided missiles, or if it just affects a particular subset of missiles (Cruise, Torp, HAM, whatever).
This is why I look at Warhead Upgrades so poorly. It's a 2% damage bonus across all missiles, but it's a Rank 5 skill. That means per 100 damage your missiles do, you get 2 extra damage, and the level 5 takes 20-odd days, depending on your attributes. It's a completely terrible return on your time investment. Even if you're spitting out 1000 DPS, you get a 20 DPS boost for those 20 days, or 1 DPS/day of training. Is it better than nothing? Of course. In EVE, you want the biggest damage you can do. But it comes down to if you can get something more valuable for those 20 days of training. When you start talking about 20 day training times, you can almost always get a better value of putting those 20 days towards Ship Skill 5. If I was going to be doing any 20 day skills in the near future, it'd be for cross-training into another race further for some more PVP options (my PVE options are fine).
Anyway, I don't tend to get a lot of EVE time on the weekends due to my personal schedule. Hopefully I'm going to get some tonight, and we'll see if I get to go into any more war fleets before our the wars end. If not, I'll be more than happy to work on building up the wallet in ways that are more interesting than station trading on Station Alt.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Classes and Rambling
I gave a little bit of a lecture on EFT and EVEMon for the Unistas today. About an hour long or so, and my first time teaching the class. The Uni does a great job of supporting it's teachers I've found, and I felt pretty comfortable teaching this class. It does help that in the real world I do technical support work, so explaining how an application works is fairly straight forward for me. ;) That said, I can see some areas for improvement when I look back on it. Next time I run the class I'll hope to have it more polished. I still need to sit down and polish up the audio recording and post that up for the corp. I may actually have some free time over the weekend to do that if I don't get it done sooner.
Also, I've gotten into a few more fleets. Some haven't gone so well, and some have gone well. I managed to work my way onto an Armageddon kill recently. Some discussion among the corp has me rethinking some of my fitting on my Fleet Drake, though it has worked well so far. I fully realize I can fly a larger ship and do damage, but I've been having fun with my Drake recently and it has more then held it's own in fleet fights so far. Part of me is considering Battlecruisers V some time in the future, but that may be put on hold. Training any ship skill (aside from racial frigate) to level V takes a good chunk of time, and I'm unsure if I'm going to fly battlecruisers enough to invest that much time into them. I also think I can get more across the board value out of increasing my shorter to train missile support skills from IV to V. They're smaller bumps, but they also help my mission ships and most of my other PVP boats.
Of course, when I generally only fly 3 damage dealing ships, I suppose that doesn't hold nearly as much water, now does it? Decisions, decisions...that's what makes EVE interesting though, I suppose!
Also, I've gotten into a few more fleets. Some haven't gone so well, and some have gone well. I managed to work my way onto an Armageddon kill recently. Some discussion among the corp has me rethinking some of my fitting on my Fleet Drake, though it has worked well so far. I fully realize I can fly a larger ship and do damage, but I've been having fun with my Drake recently and it has more then held it's own in fleet fights so far. Part of me is considering Battlecruisers V some time in the future, but that may be put on hold. Training any ship skill (aside from racial frigate) to level V takes a good chunk of time, and I'm unsure if I'm going to fly battlecruisers enough to invest that much time into them. I also think I can get more across the board value out of increasing my shorter to train missile support skills from IV to V. They're smaller bumps, but they also help my mission ships and most of my other PVP boats.
Of course, when I generally only fly 3 damage dealing ships, I suppose that doesn't hold nearly as much water, now does it? Decisions, decisions...that's what makes EVE interesting though, I suppose!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bookmarking
So, Bookmark Alt has a new home on a new account, and is starting to learn the basics of how to mine, in the event I want to mine to make money at some point. However, Bookmark Alt is currently doing bookmarking and it is a rather dull time, so I'm making chicken in the oven, so this will be rather quick.
Been on a few more ops lately on Drillock, and keep coming up without a war target showing up. However, one of the corps declaring war on us dropped the war today, so we'll be minus those targets starting tomorrow.
Anyway, got a system to finish bookmarking and food to eat! This is probably not the most exciting post I'll ever make, but I'll make up for it next time.
Been on a few more ops lately on Drillock, and keep coming up without a war target showing up. However, one of the corps declaring war on us dropped the war today, so we'll be minus those targets starting tomorrow.
Anyway, got a system to finish bookmarking and food to eat! This is probably not the most exciting post I'll ever make, but I'll make up for it next time.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Another One Bites the Dust
So, the Privateer war is over, but peace was short lived as we got decced by Red Rising and now Band of Bastards. Our fleet took a little trip looking for Red Rising last night to open the war, but our war targets didn't feel like playing. So, we took a little trip and ended up in Low Sec, where we got hotdropped on by some happy carriers. I was flying my Raven, and it got webbed, scrammed, and I was 12-15km off the gate moving at around 10 m/s. End result is one more dead Raven.
I'm starting to think I should only fly Drakes and Scorpions in fleet operations. Nobody targets the Drake, and I seem to have stupidly good luck flying a Scorpion. Only lost one once, and that was when I was flying with Slackers, Inc. during my brief trip into Faction Warfare. Given how quickly Scorpions are called primary, I'm amazed I don't die in that ship more often.
It's kind of annoying, because I'd like to actually1) see a valid target and 2) is not immediately be melted due to superior firepower. I'm rather confident in my ship's loadout, but 6 carriers, plus Command Ship, Falcon, Battleship, and other support is gonna melt me before I can do much of anything. Yep, it's my thirst to do significant amounts of damage rising up. But, the pirates had superior firepower by far, so hats off to them.
Fortunately, I made it home in my pod without incident. So, that's good news. I'm also pondering the idea of starting up a miner character on an alt to start earning some ISK. Station trading isn't that exciting to me, I'm afraid, and though my trip into trading has been profitable, it's not that interesting.
I'm starting to think I should only fly Drakes and Scorpions in fleet operations. Nobody targets the Drake, and I seem to have stupidly good luck flying a Scorpion. Only lost one once, and that was when I was flying with Slackers, Inc. during my brief trip into Faction Warfare. Given how quickly Scorpions are called primary, I'm amazed I don't die in that ship more often.
It's kind of annoying, because I'd like to actually1) see a valid target and 2) is not immediately be melted due to superior firepower. I'm rather confident in my ship's loadout, but 6 carriers, plus Command Ship, Falcon, Battleship, and other support is gonna melt me before I can do much of anything. Yep, it's my thirst to do significant amounts of damage rising up. But, the pirates had superior firepower by far, so hats off to them.
Fortunately, I made it home in my pod without incident. So, that's good news. I'm also pondering the idea of starting up a miner character on an alt to start earning some ISK. Station trading isn't that exciting to me, I'm afraid, and though my trip into trading has been profitable, it's not that interesting.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Intro Posts
Yay for introduction posts. So I'm starting this here Eve Blog for all my random Eve-related ramblings. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be posting here quite yet, so there you are.
Anyway, I'm currently hanging around E-Uni and we've been decced by the Privateers again, and have been for a bit now. I've been trying to fly some of my non-ECM boats this go around because it occurred to me that almost all I flew in the past were ECM, but I had some decent missile skills to toss in. So, my Drake and Raven have gotten some action so far, and my Drake even got in on a particularly nice kill a bit ago.
Right now I'm working on cranking up for Interceptors (finally) and then I'll go on a missile support skill binge. The plan is to spend a couple months bringing those skills up to 5 and then pretty much not worry about them. Most of them are at 4 now, so it's a matter of biting the bullet and grabbing the always somewhat painful to train fifth level. I'm pretty much just ignoring standard missiles, rockets, and cruise missile 5 for this training purpose, as I do just fine in my missions with Cruise 4 and don't care to spend a whole month for Cruise 5. I like my Torp Raven just fine, and have other long range options available to me for sniping.
After that, I haven't really decided. I'd like to get a chance to fly some of my gun boats a little bit, but that opportunity hasn't really come up as of yet. I've yet to decide if I like them sufficiently to train beyond what T2 skills I have for them so far.
Station Alt is busily trading goods in station to make me some extra ISK during the war. Much like Bookmark Alt is happily collecting Drillock some bookmarks for abuse later. Bookmark Alt has also been doubling as Hauler Alt, though since being moved over to my main account after closing my second account, Hauler Alt doesn't get to think about purchasing anything larger than basic industrials due to no training. Bookmark Alt leads a very sad life, but does have disgusting gunnery skills, so if I ever decide to play them, they're basically maxed on every single gunnery support skill except for Weapons Upgrades / Advanced Weapons Upgrades. One day, Bookmark Alt will have her day.
Anyway, I'm currently hanging around E-Uni and we've been decced by the Privateers again, and have been for a bit now. I've been trying to fly some of my non-ECM boats this go around because it occurred to me that almost all I flew in the past were ECM, but I had some decent missile skills to toss in. So, my Drake and Raven have gotten some action so far, and my Drake even got in on a particularly nice kill a bit ago.
Right now I'm working on cranking up for Interceptors (finally) and then I'll go on a missile support skill binge. The plan is to spend a couple months bringing those skills up to 5 and then pretty much not worry about them. Most of them are at 4 now, so it's a matter of biting the bullet and grabbing the always somewhat painful to train fifth level. I'm pretty much just ignoring standard missiles, rockets, and cruise missile 5 for this training purpose, as I do just fine in my missions with Cruise 4 and don't care to spend a whole month for Cruise 5. I like my Torp Raven just fine, and have other long range options available to me for sniping.
After that, I haven't really decided. I'd like to get a chance to fly some of my gun boats a little bit, but that opportunity hasn't really come up as of yet. I've yet to decide if I like them sufficiently to train beyond what T2 skills I have for them so far.
Station Alt is busily trading goods in station to make me some extra ISK during the war. Much like Bookmark Alt is happily collecting Drillock some bookmarks for abuse later. Bookmark Alt has also been doubling as Hauler Alt, though since being moved over to my main account after closing my second account, Hauler Alt doesn't get to think about purchasing anything larger than basic industrials due to no training. Bookmark Alt leads a very sad life, but does have disgusting gunnery skills, so if I ever decide to play them, they're basically maxed on every single gunnery support skill except for Weapons Upgrades / Advanced Weapons Upgrades. One day, Bookmark Alt will have her day.
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