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EVE Evolved: Research: Reverse Engineering and Tech 3
In the first two parts of this guide to Research in EVE Online, I covered the basics of Tech 1 blueprint research and the "Invention" system that allows players to make their own Tech 2 blueprint copies. The reverse engineering process used to make Tech 3 blueprints is a lot like invention except with a new set of materials, equipment and skills. Though the process used to create it will be familiar to inventors, the end product is a strange beast. Unlike Tech 2, Tech 3 isn't just a straight improvement over lower tech levels and doesn't use Tech 1 or 2 as a base. Instead, it's an entirely new technology used to make custom, modular ships. At the moment, the only Tech 3 products we have are the modular "Strategic Cruiser" class but more is planned for future patches. Tech 3 frigates are rumoured to be next on the development table and it's entirely possible that we'll see strange new Tech 3 modules thrown into the mix too at some point. In today's part of this bumper guide to research, I look into EVE's newest addition to the researcher's repertoire as I examine Tech 3 and "Reverse Engineering". I'll look at how it all fits together to make a finished product, what's required to get involved and best practices for staying profitable in what has become a very competitive marketplace.
EVE Evolved: Research: Invention and Tech 2
In last week's first part to this multi-part guide to research in EVE Online, I covered the basics of Tech 1 blueprint research. Tech 2 blueprints are an entirely different animal and the way players get their hands on them has changed vastly over the years. The first system put in place was an agent-based lottery system. Players would set up research contracts with the various NPC R&D agents in EVE, who would then generate a certain number of research points per day. Whenever new Tech 2 items were released into the game, original blueprints were passed out via these agents. Each research point you had became a ticket in an on-going lottery and the prize was essentially a license to print money. After many player-run cartels, rampant price gouging and one incident of developer misconduct, CCP replaced the blueprint lottery with the "Invention" system. Although the invention system contains no way to get an original Tech 2 blueprint, it does allow players to upgrade Tech 1 blueprint copies into limited-run Tech 2 versions. In this second part of my guide to research in EVE, I look into Tech 2 blueprints. I delve into the invention system, explain how to make your own Tech 2 blueprints and look at all the variables that could help you get an edge in a competitive marketplace.
EVE Evolved: Research: Invention and Tech 2, part 2
Although the bare minimum required for an invention attempt is the Tech 1 blueprint copy, data interface and datacores, there are two optional extras that are often worth using. A base item can be added to improve the success chance of the research job. The worst named version of an item is meta level 1 and adds only a few percent to the success chance, while the typically more expensive meta level 4 item can improve success chance by up to 66%.
EVE Evolved: Research: Tech 1 blueprints, page 2
Once you've been running your own research jobs for a while, you'll invariably notice that all the ME and copy slots in high security space tend to be packed, with queues over a month long. The only way to beat the queues is to make use of private labs not open to the general public. You don't get to access the labs directly and so you can't make use of copy facilities as there would be no way to retrieve the copies.
EVE Evolved: Research: Tech 1 blueprints
While it's most often lauded for its PvP, not everything in EVE Online is about shooting people. Research and manufacturing are two of EVE's most popular PvE professions because of the small time commitments they require. A lot of things in EVE are built from blueprints and through research, you can be one of the people supplying those blueprints. Whether you want to improve your own blueprints to increase manufacturing profit margins or make blueprint copies for sale, it's worth looking into doing your own research. Jobs can be set up to run for days on end, taking you as little as a few minutes per week to manage. This can augment your income from active sources like mining, trading or mission-running. In this article, I look at the basics of tech 1 blueprint research, the skills required to make the most of your time and how you could run your own research labs in the relative safety of high security space.
MMOrigins: Life's funny like that, page 2
What started as simple forum posts on tanking and a little number crunching bloomed into a full guide in Issue 2 of EON, EVE's official magazine. When the article was finally in print, EON editor Richie 'Zapatero' Shoemaker came to me with a work proposal. After writing several more articles for EON and acting as editor on countless others, university work began piling up and I had to stop.
MMOrigins: Life's funny like that
We all got started gaming somewhere. For a lot of people, it was the Sega Mega-drive, the Atari 2600 or the NES that signaled their first steps into gaming. For me, it was the Commodore Amiga, a machine that was more a complete home computer than a games console. It was on the Amiga that groups like Team 17, Ocean, Electronic Arts and Blizzard first really made their mark on gaming and it was a great time of innovation in the industry. I recall long nights spent playing Frontier: Elite II, scooping hydrogen fuel from the corona of a star or wormholing into deep space. Another favourite that I still play occasionally was K240, an early space 4x game and still one of the best I've ever played. It was the public domain market on the Amiga that really caught my attention. It's one thing to play a game, but here was the opportunity to make one and sell it via a page in CU Amiga magazine or a PD order disk. I've always been more interested in making games than playing them but being young with no programming experience, I was limited in what I could do. I tooled endlessly with the "Shoot 'em up Construction Kit" and "Reality Game Creator" packages, making countless primitive prototype games that only I ever played.
EVE Evolved: The faction warfare mission debacle
When faction warfare went live with EVE Online's Empyrean Age expansion back in the summer of 2008, It was a magnificent success. It was intended as a way for newer players to get into PvP and as a stepping stone from the safe haven of empire to full-on sovereignty warfare. It wasn't long before large fleets were duking it out in low security space and for a time, it was great. Eventually, problems began to come to light that demanded developer attention. Capturing exploits and a lack of rewards were causing players to leave the war and after a year with no development, faction warfare was looking abandoned. Rewards were eventually implemented in an attempt to revitalise the ageing faction warfare system and promote PvP. With the Dominion expansion came the most anticipated of those rewards - new tier 1 navy battleships available only from the faction warfare loyalty point store. Since the announcement that they were coming, mission-runners have been farming faction warfare missions like crazy for loyalty points. The promise of unique rewards from the missions was intended to revitalise the game and give pilots something to fight over. But did the rewards really improve faction warfare and promote PvP or was it a huge mistake? In this three page exposé, I run down the history of faction warfare missions, from the development mistakes to the EVE corp that made almost enough ISK to build a titan. Did the mission buff revitalise faction warfare or did it put the final nail in its coffin? And just how did mission-runners make billions of ISK?
EVE Evolved: The faction warfare mission debacle, page 3
Certain missions that required the collection of an item from a wreck or killing a lot of ships were eliminated as they would take extra time or pose extra risk. With intense practice, missions ended up taking as little as 30 seconds each and at most a few minutes. By using a strong PvP presence to lock down the systems in which they took missions by force they were able to keep their mission-runners safe and run 45 missions in an average of one and a half hours.
EVE Evolved: The faction warfare mission debacle, page 2
The save came in the form of the previously mentioned unique items limited to the faction warfare loyalty point store. LP was given out for kills against the enemy militia and completion of missions. The hope was to get more people back into the war and give them some incentive to do faction missions that put pilots at risk of PvP.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Tips and tricks
So far in this guide to trading in EVE Online, I've covered the jobs best suited to new players and some of the more advanced trading techniques like margin trading, market speculation and price manipulation. This is by no means the entirety of what can happen in EVE's marketplaces, but serves as a good foundation for those trying to break into the trading game. In the hyper-capitalistic world of New Eden, the markets are hugely competitive and any edge you can get will help. With that in mind, this final part of the guide will cover a few of the tips and tricks I've learned over the years that have given me an edge in the marketplace. Some are common sense rules that most traders will learn eventually and will be invaluable to newer players. Others are more closely-guarded secrets that I've gleaned from years of gameplay. What is a cyclic product and what do you do when you spot a price manipulation? In this final part of the trading guide, I dish out some of my personal top tips for budding marketeers.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Tips and tricks, part 2
If you spot a market manipulation in progress and have some of the item yourself, take advantage of it by repeatedly listing the items on the market in small amounts. When small and medium rigs came out, the first producers made an absolute killing on them too.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Advanced trading
In the first part of this guide I covered the basics of trading in EVE Online and some of the jobs best suited to newer players. There's a lot more to trading than buying low and selling high and in this week's installment, I'll cover some of the more advanced trading and marketeering tactics that have proven themselves effective in EVE. From margin trading on the market to making a living off the contracts page, anyone with enough dedication can learn to rake in hundreds of millions of ISK per day without even leaving the station. For the gamblers and risk-takers among you, market speculation and price manipulation can produce incredible short-term profit but with significant risks attached. In this second part of my concise guide on trading, I look at margin trading on the market, playing the contract pages, market speculation around patches and the dirty art of market manipulation.
EVE Evolved: Trading: Advanced trading, part 2
A good example of market speculation is the recent issue of moon minerals and the Dominion expansion. It was predicted that the expansion would contain a revamp of the moon mineral distribution system. For those who felt the risk was worth the potential rewards, it was a no-brainer to buy up rare moon minerals now and wait for the expansion.
EVE Evolved: Trading: The basics, page 2
The two primary ways to make money off the items you get are reselling them for a profit and reprocessing them for minerals. Tech 1 items may be resold or reprocessed depending on which will give the most profit. Keep in mind that some named modules actually refine into fewer minerals than their standard Tech 1 counterparts.
EVE Evolved: Trading: The basics
Of all the moneymaking endeavours you can take in EVE Online, trading is perhaps the one with the highest potential for profit. While mission-running profit tops out at a few tens of millions per hour and the profit margin from production isn't that big, trading is limited only by the amount of effort you're willing to put in and is much improved by inherent business talent. At the low end of the trading spectrum, beginners can make a healthy income ferrying items from A to B. At the other extreme, a market-savvy individual can pull billions per week out of the players in EVE's great conglomerated marketplaces. In this first guide in a short series on trading, I look at the different types of trading options available to newer EVE players.
EVE Evolved: Dominion be damned
At the last EVE Online fanfest, it was announced that the Dominion expansion is slated for December 1st to coincide with Iceland's Sovereignty day. With less than a month to go until launch, there has been growing concern at the extreme lack of information on the new sovereignty mechanics at the expansion's core. There have been a few scheduled tests and several devblogs but few factual details on the mechanics we'll be using once the expansion goes live. I've even been on the test server and tried the new mechanics out but they're far from finished. The worry was that if the specific details weren't revealed as soon as possible, it might end up being too late to make necessary changes based on player feedback. On Friday 6th, a devblog was finally released explaining the cost breakdowns in the new sovereignty system and what bonuses will be given for the various system upgrades. Rather than allaying people's fears, the devblog set the forums on fire. An intense debate has sprung up, with massive outcry from those that live in 0.0. Their concerns may well be warranted as the proposed mechanics don't quite match up with the original vision of the Dominion expansion that the EVE community has shown support for thus far.Has Dominion veered off course and is time running out to get it back on track? In this opinion piece, I run down the new devblog and give an inside view into parts of the heated debate it sparked off.
EVE Evolved: Postcards from EVE: Reader Submissions
As a tribute to EON Magazine's "Postcards from the Edge" feature, last week I started this two-part series of postcards from all around EVE Online. In last week's first part I presented a gallery full of postcards from my own travels in EVE. I then asked readers to email in any of their own screenshots that they wanted to appear as postcards. This week, I finish the series with a mixture of reader submissions and my own remaining postcards. As with last week, they're all high-resolution shots suitable to be used as widescreen backgrounds. Feel free to save them out from your browser to get them at full resolution. Thanks go to Massively readers "Mike", "Mark Pittam" and my corpmate "Retalus" for their submissions. Included are some shots of the new planets coming with the Dominion expansion in December and a lot of pictures from Sleeper space. Hope you enjoy! %Gallery-76973%
EVE Evolved: Postcards from EVE: Wish you were here!
Whether you love EVE Online or hate it, there's one thing people tend to agree on - it makes for some great screenshots. EVE has a history of players producing some amazing videos, screenshots, artwork and fiction. YouTube is filled with intense PvP action videos and over four hundred players write the stories of their travels on personal blogs. People have even created some incredible papercraft ship models. Because we all love eye candy, screenshots from EVE even make a regular appearance in Krystalle's daily MMO screenshot column "One Shots".EVE's Official magazine EON runs a regular feature called "Postcards from the Edge" where players write in with a screenshot and a short story about it. As a tribute to EON, who I wrote for before coming to Massively, this week and next I present galleries full of postcards from my own travels in EVE. They're all high-resolution shots suitable to be used as widescreen backgrounds, feel free to save them out from your browser to get them at full resolution. %Gallery-76482% Do you have a particularly awesome screenshot you'd like to see as a postcard? Email it to me at brendan.drain AT weblogsinc DOT com along with a few words describing its contents and I'll make it into a nice postcard for next week's second part of this gallery piece.
EVE Evolved: Graphical upgrades for EVE Online
Some time ago, I looked at the different graphical updates EVE Online has received over the years and what was to come. The ship graphics were renovated years ago with the Trinity expansion and much of the rest of the game was left looking dated in comparison. The Apocrypha expansion picked up on the upgrades where Trinity left off, with re-developments of asteroid graphics and most of the game's special effects. Future updates were planned, with promises of bringing new life to planets and everything else that hasn't been improved. With the Dominion expansion on the horizon, it now seems that those promises are being fulfilled. We've seen new planet graphics and even shiny new starfields on the test server but are there other parts of the game that could benefit more from a graphical overhaul?In this short opinion piece, I take a quick look at the graphical overhauls that are coming with the Dominion expansion and ask which other aspects of EVE's graphics are long overdue for an upgrade.
