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EVE Evolved: Anatomy of a mining op
When EVE Online was first released in 2003, it was designed as a massive universe of competition and conflict between space-faring megacorporations in the distant future. Players bought into the premise completely and soon set about building their own empires and waging wars with neighbours. Corporations ran regular mining operations for resources to build frigates and cruisers for their members, and some of the larger corps co-operatively mined to build the first ever battleships in the game. The mining op has been a staple activity in the game ever since, providing a way for groups to work together on large manufacturing projects or just make some ISK during their down-time. Mining gets a lot of flak for being one of the most boring and least profitable professions in the game, but that's not exactly true. Solo mining can be a great way to spend your downtime while doing other activities, and it ensures that you're online when something exciting happens like a live event, your wormhole system being invaded, or a titan being tackled by your alliance. Co-operative mining ops also offer the social value of bonding with your corpmates when there's nothing else going on. Some players even run dozens of accounts at the same time to turn this ordinarily placid activity into an intensive profit-making activity focused on efficiency and organisation skills. With mining due to make a resurgence in the summer expansion, this edition of EVE Evolved is dedicated to the humble mining operation. I'll take a look at the various options for mining ships, the different haulers available, and the four different areas you can mine in.
EVE Evolved: Player justice in Retribution
This week CCP released a new devblog on upcoming piracy and PvP changes heading to EVE Online with this winter's Retribution expansion. In addition to new ships and an as-yet unrevealed bounty hunter revamp, Retribution completely redesigns the Crimewatch system that decides whom you can legally shoot and stops players from docking or jumping out of the system in the middle of combat. EVE's aggression mechanics are notoriously complicated and buggy, but Retribution aims to simplify the system and put players in the driving seat of criminal justice. The new Crimewatch system not only gets rid of old, undocumented code that was written when dinosaurs roamed the earth but also has far-reaching consequences for pirates, people engaging in PvE and the upcoming bounty hunting revamp. Pirates will now be able to escape into high-security space without police intervention, loot thieves will be subjected to mob justice, nullsec ratters won't be as safe as they think, and neutral remote repairing will be a thing of the past. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into Crimewatch 2.0 and how the Retribution expansion will change the game for pirates, ratters, and people engaging in PvP across New Eden.
Scientists study orca ears, employ lasers to create hyper-sensitive underwater microphone
There are plenty of reasons to want to monitor what's going on in the ocean, from whale migration, to the recent stylistic resurgence of hot crustacean bands. There are certain inherent difficulties, however, in creating a powerful underwater microphone, namely all of that water you've got to contend with. A team of scientists has taken cues from the design of orca ears, in order to develop a powerful microphone that can work far beneath the waves. The researchers developed membranes 25 times thinner than plastic wrap, which fluctuate as sound is made. In order to operate at extreme depths, however, the microphone must fill with water to maintain a consistent pressure. So, how does one monitor the minute movements of a membrane hampered by the presence of water? Lasers, of course! The hydrophone can capture a 160-decibel range of sounds and operate at depths of 11,000 meters, where the pressure is around 1,100 times what we're used to on earth. So if the orcas themselves ever master the laser, at least we'll be able to hear them coming.
EVE Evolved: Mining 101 -- Mining efficiency
Mining is one of EVE Online's oldest and most iconic activities, with a significant in-game community and several helpful guides. Although many players would rather pick up railguns and blow each other to bits than pick up mining lasers to hoover up some rocks, mining can be a very relaxing way to make ISK. In last week's first part of the EVE Evolved guide to mining, I examined at some of the most basic mining topics. I looked at the Retriever as an entry-level mining ship for new players, strategies for mining on your own, and the basic structure of a group mining operation. Although it's a relatively quick and easy profession to get into, there's a lot more to mining than meets the eye. Both miners and haulers have several skills, ships and modules available to upgrade their effectiveness and make the most of their play time. Finding out the best ore to mine or the best location to mine it also isn't quite as straightforward as it seems, which often makes it difficult to find a good mining spot. Once you've mined your ore, it's also not obvious how to get the most ISK out of it. Do you refine it yourself and sell the minerals, or will the raw ore be worth more on the open market? In this week's second part of the EVE Evolved guide to mining in EVE, I look at mining efficiency and how to make the most ISK for your invested time.
EVE Evolved: Having a fire sale
One of those strange rituals all EVE Online players go through at one time or another is the fire sale. Over the course of normal play, we buy, loot or otherwise acquire assets all over New Eden. After a time, our asset windows become a mess of long lost items and treasures hidden away in the cargoholds of ships we forgot we had. We all eventually reach breaking point and need to sell off our distributed stockpiles of odds and ends. Maybe it will happen when you run out of ships to PvP in, or perhaps when your subscription is about to lapse and you need to buy a 30-day PLEX. With the recent five-day reactivation offer on many expired accounts, I imagine a lot of EVE players are currently scrambling through their assets in an attempt to raise enough ISK for a PLEX. Whatever the reason behind it, that dreaded day when you need to have a fire sale on your assets will inevitably arrive. A monumental logistical task now lies ahead of you, but it doesn't have to be the headache you'd expect it to be. Having been through countless cycles of accumulating bits and bobs and then selling them to buy PLEX, I've picked up a few tips to make the process as painless as possible. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the tools and strategies you can employ to squeeze every last drop of ISK from your misplaced treasure troves, and how to complete the task with a minimum of effort.
Razer serves up shockingly green Orca headphones, envy comes free
At first glance, you may think you're eying Razer's Carcharias above. And in many ways, the new Orca ($59.99 / €59.99) is exactly like its perceived predecessor, thought two prominent differences set 'em apart. For one, there's no microphone arm on the Orca, so those who like to chat it up while deathmatching should look elsewhere. Secondly, the Orca is green. Really green. It's also designed for on-the-go use, with a shorter, standard braided cable accompanied by a two-meter extension cord. Internally, you'll find 40mm drivers with neodymium magnets, a 15 - 21,000Hz claimed frequency response and a conventional 3.5mm headphone plug. We'd encourage you to look for these later this month, but with a paint job like this, just glancing around aimlessly should do the trick. %Gallery-99165%
One Shots: So happy together
With the advent of Planetary Interaction in EVE Online, more and more corporations are finding reasons to work together -- after all, there's a lot of ISK to be made! But what is sometimes surprising is just what form those interactions wind up taking. Today we have a rather silly image of just how far inter-alliance fleet maneuvers can go when you're not paying attention. This image comes to us from Clovermite, who writes in: "I was managing my Planetary Interaction structures while doing a mining op. It was actually a pretty significant event, as it was the first inter-alliance fleet we formed since signing a non-aggression pact. When I exited out of the PI interface, I was a bit baffled to see such a strange looking ship... Then it dawned on me -- the guy from the other alliance had unwittingly sidled the fore of his ship into the aft of mine. But hey, I guess there's no better way to seal inter-alliance cooperation than an interracial 'transaction' between an Orca and an Osprey. We both had a good laugh and took screenshots." Have you caught an awkwardly silly screenshot in your favorite game? Feel like sharing? We'd love to see it. All you have to do is email it to us here at oneshots@massively.com, along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. We'll post it out here and give you the credit! %Gallery-85937%
One Shots: Under 'da sea
Life can be better, down where it's wetter. Well, if you don't mind all the murlocs, orcas, sharks, and other various things trying to eat your face in the waters of Northrend. Today's aquatic World of Warcraft One Shots comes to us from Trixxy, just in time to have a relaxing World of Warcraft image for the stress of patchy downtime. So, while the servers are down, think about all the places you'd like to be relaxing in-game with friends. Or if that doesn't do it for you, just think of all the murlocs you'd rather be killing while you're doing laundry or working. One Shots is looking for screenshots from all different manner of MMOGs - but we need you to send some in to us! It's easy to do. Just email them to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description of the area. We'll post it up here and give you the credit! %Gallery-9798%
EVE Evolved: Gear up for wormhole exploration
In EVE Online, large alliances of corporations lay claim to the lucrative 0.0 security rating areas of the game and smaller corporate operations generally don't stand a chance against them. Corps who want to claim a little corner of space for themselves are forced to join an existing alliance or compete with them for space. With the recent news of 2500 new star systems coming to EVE with the release of wormholes in the march expansion, small corps may find themselves able to carve out their own little corner of space to live in without being squashed by the big alliances.How will wormholes work? The information we have so far suggests that wormholes into one of the 2500 new hidden star systems will open randomly in all security levels of system. Wormholes will have a diameter that restricts the maximum size of ship that can enter it and a mass limit that restricts the total mass of ships that can use the wormhole before it collapses. Once the wormhole collapses, the chances of finding another leading to the same system are astronomical so choosing which ships you bring in carefully is a must.Read on as I describe how wormholes could allow corps to more safely own systems and go on to describe what equipment and ships you'll need to take up residence in your own system.
One Shots: A snowball's chance in... space?
*Foom*... *Poff!* The missile-launched snowballs have been flying fast and furious in New Eden. And hey, why not? After the holidays in EVE Online, all of the snowballs will melt anyway, so best to blow out all of that frosty ammo while you can! Today's EVE Online One Shots sent in to us by Farrellus shows off a snowball fight in progress where a great big Orca has just been pelted with snowballs and is floating amongst the flurries. Thankfully the ammo wasn't anything serious, considering what Orcas cost. If you've got a screenshot of a huge snowball battle - or any other type, for that matter - we'd love to see it. Just send those to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and what game its from. Descriptions are welcome, but not needed. We'll add it to our gallery and give you the credit for sending it in to us!%Gallery-9798%
EVE's 'Orca' mining vessel facilitates suicide ganks against miners
Among the changes to EVE Online introduced with the Quantum Rise expansion is a new class of ship, the 'Orca' industrial command ship.The ship is intended to be a major asset to mining operations in New Eden, but it's a flexible ship -- and this writer has been waiting to see what clever uses players will have for it. It looks like that day has come... The Orca's substantial cargo capacity, a ship maintenance bay, and corp hangar have made it an ideal base of operations for criminals operating in highsec, with an aim to suicide gank T2 mining ships. In other words, use fully insurable Tech I ships to gank specialized, expensive, and largely uninsurable Tech II ships. Suicide ganking is nothing new, but one of the major changes CCP Games put into place to dissuade players from committing highsec suicide ganks was to substantially increase the security status penalties players are hit with when committing aggressive acts in high security (Empire) space. But no matter how low one's security status drops, all players can move about in highsec in their ship's capsule. It's only when a criminal enters a ship in highsec space that CONCORD takes action. That is where the Orca comes in. Criminals can board new ships housed within the Orca at a safespot and then warp in on their victims en masse, in multiple waves of suicide ganks. When their suicide gank ships are blasted apart by CONCORD, they can fly in their pods back to the Orca and gear up for the next wave.
Behind-the-scenes video of EVE Online expansion Quantum Rise
The EVE Online game servers and forums are presently down in an extended downtime, during which time the Quantum Rise expansion is being rolled out. While EVE players cope with the withdrawal shakes, CCP Games has released a behind-the-scenes video to check out, in addition to the Quantum Rise trailer. EVE Online: Behind the Scenes is in some ways an introduction for new players to the setting of New Eden and the company that creates EVE. For gamers who are already EVE players, the video is a look inside the CCP Games office in Reykjavik, and features interviews with several developers in addition to some nice visuals of the new sub-capital industrial ship arriving with this expansion, the Orca. This video should really be seen in high resolution to appreciate the details, and can be downloaded from the temporary 'downtime news' EVE site which is up during the expansion deployment. In terms of when Quantum Rise is expected to be ready and the servers open up for players, the latest update from CCP is that they're currently on schedule, with the servers to open on November 12th at 02:00 GMT. In the meantime, we've got the 'EVE Online: Behind the Scenes' video embedded for you below the cut.
Voting for EVE's second Council of Stellar Management begins
This has been an important week for our American readers in terms of elections, but now that the minor distraction of real-world governance has been dealt with, it's time to focus on governance in the MMO space. You've got to keep those priorities straight, after all.The polls are now open in EVE Online's second Council of Stellar Management (CSM) election, where players can vote for candidates to represent their interests before CCP Games... and potentially impact how the game evolves. We can already sense the impulse someone, or several someones, out there has to comment below: "But why should I bother voting? What do they even do?" And to be fair, it's not been very transparent what the CSM has been up to (aside from the meeting minutes), but more so what effect they've had on EVE and its development pipeline.
EVE's Quantum Rise expansion features page is live
The feature page for the forthcoming EVE Online expansion, Quantum Rise, is now live. The ninth free expansion for EVE will officially launch on November 11th, and brings with it some new features we've been reporting on in recent weeks, such as the long-awaited Orca and industrial ship changes, not to mention the guaranteed-to-spark-forum-rage speed rebalancing, and alchemy -- which is invention applied to minerals used in Tech II manufacturing. According to the Quantum Rise expansion's feature page, there are also some previously unmentioned features like new additions to the RealX in-game soundtrack, new stargates, a host of improvements for industry players like assembly array upgrades, ammunition cost changes (namely for bombs), and a more flexible user interface. See the new Quantum Rise features page for more on what's in store for EVE Online players in the expansion geared towards the game's industrialists.[Via Winterblink]
Substantial changes to industrial ships in EVE's Quantum Rise
New additions to EVE Online through the Quantum Rise expansion are on the way, some of which are already on the Singularity test server. CCP Chronotis followed up his announcement of the Orca by outlining some big changes to ships that are some of the mainstays of industry in EVE. "Much has changed in EVE since many of the hauler of mining class ships were introduced. With Quantum Rise we felt the time was right to review these ships and make changes where necessary to refocus their roles and ensure they can still perform in the age of New Eden's Great War," he said. The changes outlined aren't finalized, and will go through testing on Singularity before any of this goes live. Chronotis addressed how CCP Games would like to change three categories of ships: blockade runners, deep space transports, and mining vessels.
EVE Online's rumored 'Orca' ship unveiled
Behold, the Orca! CCP Games developer CCP Chronotis unveiled the much-rumored Orca ship in EVE Online today, something industry-types have been looking forward to for a very long time. Chronotis said, "The development of the Orca has been unusual to say the least. With the introduction of the Rorqual last year Oveur immediately pointed out the remaining glaring gap in the industrial ship line and commanded us to fill it." The end result is a 'sub-capital logistical ship with a mining command focus'. Read on below for a brief FAQ drawn from CCP Chronotis' dev blog as well as his commentary on the forums, which clarifies more about EVE's newest ship, the Orca.
Live dev blog with EVE Online Senior Producer, October 23
Given all the EVE Online news of the past two weeks, not limited to new features being added to the game and old 'features' being taken away, CCP Games has announced a Live Dev Blog for tomorrow, October 23, at 20:00 GMT. The event is expected to last for about one hour. This time, the Senior Producer of EVE Online, CCP t0rfifrans, will be fielding questions from the players. As with the last few live dev blogs, the way this works is you need to post in the announcement thread with the questions you'd like answered. You can listen to the dev blog tomorrow by joining the in-game channel 'Live Dev Blog' and enabling EVE Voice via your right-click options once you're in. No doubt there will be a wave of Ghost Training nerf questions but it seems unlikely that this issue will be addressed any more beyond the two dev blogs on the matter. Then again, why should that stop you from trying if you've got legitimate concerns? But this would also be an excellent time for people to get Walking in Stations (Ambulation) questions answered as CCP is prepping a playable demo of it for Fanfest attendees, not to mention asking about new ship models like the Orca capital industrial ship.
CCP Games announces Quantum Rise expansion for EVE Online
The next major expansion to EVE Online, known internally at CCP Games as 'Midas', now has a name: Quantum Rise. The winter expansion will bring with it a number of new features and enhancements for the industrial and economic side of EVE, which we've just gotten word about from CCP, as well as confirmation of the rumored "Orca" capital industrial ship:"Players have great things to look forward to in EVE Online: Quantum Rise. Corporations will be able to set their products apart from the rest by building trust in their goods through customizable storefronts. The backbone of EVE's vibrant economy, industrial ships are being rebalanced and optimized to better suit the needs of haulers and industrialists-including the latest addition to the fleet, a massive capital industrial ship dubbed the Orca. A new certificate system will give a quick and verifiable means to discern a pilot's skill level in trading, gunnery or countless other professions, providing plenty of bragging rights. Meanwhile, the introduction of a medal system allows corporations to distinguish their most valued pilots and honor them for their achievements."Quantum Rise is being released in stages, some of which we've already seen and experienced, such as Stackless IO and EVE64. But other aspects of the expansion will include weapon linking, continuations of the Trinity graphics update, and other as-yet unannounced features. Keep an eye on our EVE coverage at Massively; we'll be watching closely to see what the Quantum Rise expansion will bring to EVE's players.
Toyota's i-Real: wrap yourself in a killer whale
Yes, it is possible for your lazy boss to intensify his slack. This automatic chair is on display at the Tokyo Motor Show 2007 under the "abnormal vehicle" classification. Who knew that Orcas could be so comfy and high tech? Details are nil at the moment so by all means, give us a clue if you know more dear readers. Another picture after the break.Update: Ah ha! We figured it out. It's the Toyota i-REAL concept. Video added after the break -- this baby cooks!
Leon Speakers to showcase elite on-wall Seven Series speakers
While not quite as niche as in-shower drivers, Leon Speakers is hoping to redecorate a few living room walls with its on-wall Seven Series. The lineup reportedly relies on two "hand-made German Eton 7-inch patented HEXACONE long throw woofers and a Raven R2 True Ribbon tweeter (all aluminum diaphragm) from Orca." Moreover, they can handle frequencies from 40Hz all the way up to 50kHz and sport a power rating of 250-watts per channel. Measuring in at 11- x 38- x 6-inches, these 75-pound beasts are slated to hit high-end audio shops sometime next month, and while we aren't apt to throw down the $17,000 required to pick up a pair, here's to hoping we get a listen anyway during CEDIA.
