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EVE blogger unveils Project Athena, a collection of fictional ship manuals
Few things impress me about EVE Online's community more than the incredible videos, artwork and fiction created by players. For the role-playing and fiction-writing communities, the game's continually-updated prime fiction acts as a canvas onto which new stories can be blended. Long-time EVE blogger Kirith Kodachi over at Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah has been an avid fiction-writer and contributor to EVE Tribune, producing several articles based on in-character technical overviews of EVE ships. Over the past two years, Kirith has been teaming up with artists and volunteer writers to collaborate on creating a more comprehensive collection of these articles. Written in the style of fictional ship manuals and presented as technical briefings interspersed with historical information, the completed project (dubbed "Project Athena") features full articles on 23 ships and their Tech 2 counterparts. Although the historical information and technical specifications have been invented by Kirith and his contributors, he's done his best to stick as closely as possible to the official EVE prime fiction. At 64 MB, the huge PDF file isn't a small download, but for role-players or fans of EVE fiction it's definitely worth a look.
EVE Online and 'the places I've been' meme
The game world of EVE Online is called New Eden, a vast setting of over 5000 mapped solar systems and more than 2000 uncharted systems that can be found through wormhole exploration. The game has an interactive 3D map of the galaxy where solar systems can be color-coded according to the filters a player chooses. Pair that with a feature of the client that keeps track of each solar system you've visited, and you've got a colorful visual representation of how much of New Eden you've seen. EVE player Kirith Kodachi created a meme of sorts where players take a star map screenshot showing where they've been in New Eden and share it with others on their sites (or Kodachi's own, Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah blog). You can check out where it started with Kirith Kodachi and follow the 'links to this post' at the bottom to see where it leads.
A closer look at illegal drug manufacturing in EVE
The freedom to pursue a life of crime or establish criminal enterprises in EVE Online is one of the more interesting aspects of the game. One of those paths a player can take is being a drug dealer. Perhaps the closest approximation to this aspect of EVE Online is the classic game DopeWars, although EVE brings this type of gameplay to a far more interactive level, with a real social aspect to the dealing side. However, these drugs -- known as "boosters" for how they augment certain abilities -- aren't simply bought from NPCs and then resold at a markup. Like virtually all of the items in EVE, boosters are manufactured by players with an industrial bent. The boosters are then ultimately distributed by those who enjoy smuggling and dealing. Kirith Kodachi established much of the basic info about boosters in his recent article for EVE Tribune, "EVE's Little Pick-Me-Ups." Now he's written a follow-up article that explains a bit about how these illicit substances are manufactured. In Kodachi's "Boosters Part 2: The Secrets of the Drug Cartels" he walks the reader through the complex stages of booster production, from gas cloud harvesting and reactions to the use of drug labs. Check out Kodachi's article for a look at what's involved with establishing yourself in EVE's illegal drug trade.
Drugs aren't bad in EVE, m'kay?
One of the interesting features of EVE Online is that it has a drug trade in which players are actively engaged. Rather than merely being an illegal commodity, drugs -- called boosters -- enhance the performance of EVE's pilots, albeit with some potential side effects. To understand boosters though, we'll need to look into the game's setting a bit first. The thing to remember is that as a player, you're a capsuleer. You're not standing on the bridge of your ship barking orders at subordinates. Rather, you're floating inside a metallic capsule deep within your ship. Your mind is interfaced with the ship you pilot via neural implants, thus your vessel is an extension of your body and its senses; you regulate the ship's activities merely by thinking about them. Not all people in EVE's setting of New Eden have the raw potential to become a capsuleer, making your character one of the elite. However, when faced with others of your caliber in combat, every possible edge you can gain over rival capsuleers helps. That's where boosters come in... they're your edge. Boosters augment aspects of your mental processes and thus provide certain bonuses when piloting your ship.
