EVE Blog Banter #12: Tying the dots and locking me in!

Welcome to the twelfth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's banter comes to us from none other than me, myself and I, and I ask the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

I've been dreaming of EVE Online on a mobile device since reading about it in the very first issue of EON. I've even made a few posts on this several times in the past, even going as far as teasing you about EVE actually running on an iPhone. That got a few folks excited as well as some others pissed! Oh well!

But realistically speaking, the day when the full fledged EVE client will be running on an iPhone, Blackberry or other smart phones will never come to pass, and that's a good thing.

When I came up with the idea of this banter, I wanted to come up with an EVE-based game and tell you all about it. Then I started thinking about ALL the mobile games I'd like to see, and the list was too long to even consider writing a single post on it.

Then I thought about DUST 514, and how the game will impact EVE the MMO. And that got me thinking. Why not create mobile games that are all connected to each other. Where you've got one single login for all of them and an achievement in one game, opens up a new level in an other, or a new feature, or new gear.

Say for example you complete a mission in EVE the MMO, and when you get back to the agent, she gives you a piece of "secret code" that you input in one of these EVE Mobile games. This in turns opens up a level in that game, one you wouldn't normally have access to by just playing the game.

Take this to the next level and you can see how all these games including the MMO, the console FPS could all be inter-connected. This way, when I'm commuting to work, I could still achieve things in my favorite Internet Spaceship Universe.

Have I lost it? Let me know your thoughts.

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - Tying the dots and locking me in!
2. A Merry Life and a Short One - I Don’t Own a Working Phone
3. Yarrbear Tales - EVE on Mobile Devices? Eh.
4. Hands Off, My Loots! - EVE Mobile…Possibility?
5. Achernar - Trapped on Planet Horror
6. Rettic’s Log - The Cronofile – Blog Banter: EVE Mobile
7. A Mule in EVE - EVE Mobility
8. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - EVE Mobile
9. My Life in EVE - 12th Blog Banter
10. My God, it’s Full of Stars! - 12th EVE Blog Banter
11. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - WOW, look at that ‘micro-Dust’
12. Adventures in Mission Running - 12th EVE Blog Banter
13. Ecliptic Rift - EVE Everywhere
14. Roc’s Ramblings - EVE Mobile
15. EVE Monkey - EVE on a Mobile Device?
16. Nashh Kadavr’s EVE Blog - I-pod Capsuleer
17. Escoce – EVE Trade - Dynamic System Security
18. Break Vol - EVE Blog Banter 12
19. Mikeazariah - EVE Mobility
20. Pods and Pills - The 12th EVE Blog Banter: EVE on the MOVE!
21. Lords of Space - EVE on my Iphone?
22. Cle Demaari - Is that EVE in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
23. Life in Low Sec - Wormholes On the Go
24. The Elitist - EVE On Mobile Devices
25. Into the unknown with gun and camera - Blog Banter 12: Glue
26. Zero Kelvin - A year of banting!
27. Corrupted Datacore - Blog Banter #12: MyEVE
28. Inanity and Doom - EVE Blog Banter #12 - We're halfway there
29. Aether - A little something for everyone
30. Many more to come...

[Delicious Tag is EVEBlogBanter12]

Ship Setups - The Minmatar Breacher & Rifter, by Kirith Kodachi

This is a guest post by Kirith Kodachi from Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah. You can follow him @kirithkodachi.

Minmatar ships tend to be odd birds. Besides the use of projectile weaponry, they tend to be all over the map in terms of other major systems. Some make use of missiles, others add in drones. Some are natural armour tankers, others better with shields, and some can go either way depending on the setup.

The downside of this is that you need a lot of varied skills trained well in order to handle the Minmatar lineup; the upside is that once you have those skills you have access to a flexible and powerful fleet.

I'm going to look at two Tech 1 Minmatar Frigates, the Rifter and the Breacher, and discuss some basic setups.

The Breacher

Often overlooked, the Breacher is one of the few Minmatar ships dedicated to missiles and as such can be thought of as a Minmatar version of the Caldari Kestrel. While it only has four missile launcher hardpoints, it is a lot faster with smaller signature radius and higher scan resolution for faster locking. Taking advantage of those strengths is easy.


Lows
Ballistic Control System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids
1MN Afterburner II
Small Shield Extender II

Highs
3 x Standard Missile Launcher II

This fast little ship can harry opponents up to 40 km away and fly over 1100 m/s without overheating and without the huge signature increase from a MWD. Not a bad setup for level 1 mission running should you want to avoid getting too close to the NPCs.

It takes a lot of practice to balance the capacitor using modules and make sure you don't run dry at the wrong moment, but once that skill is mastered you can take on a lot of ship types and be confident of coming out on top. The numerous named modules is to save on CPU.

The Rifter

The Rifter is actually decent at level 1 missions and frigate belt ratting as well. While the armour tank will work adequately in that scenario, the Rifter is one of those ships that can choose to shield tank in a pinch.

Lows

2 x Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids

Small Shield Booster II
1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200

Highs

3 x 200mm AutoCannon II
Rocket Launcher II

You're going over 1200 m/s and the shield booster can keep you alive in those situations where you bit off more than you can chew. Your DPS is surprising with the Gyrostabilizers and big 200mm calibre weapons. Fly in, orbit tight, kill target, hit the next one. If things get too hot, boot it out of there with your afterburner and shield booster blazing.

Now, there is a world of options between the first and second setups. Passive armour tanks, bigger guns, energy neutralizers, afterburner versus MWD, the list is damn near endless. Hence why the Rifter is well liked by pod pilots.

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - The Series

If there's one aspect of EVE Online that many players enjoy, it is playing around with the various ship modules to come up with the best ship setup (or loadout as it's also known) for a particular task. Whether mining, hauling, PvP or PvE combat every ship of every race has the potential to play vital roles as long as it has the right set of modules.

In effort to share the wealth of knowledge that the EVE Blogging Community has acquired, I've decided to start a new series of posts: Ship Setups. These posts will all be guest posts written by other bloggers, some part of the EVE Blog Pack, some not. The idea is to provide a friendly platform for discussion, where bloggers and readers can share their insight on the Art & Science of ship fittings.

I'll be using this post to list all future Ship Setup posts - by race and class. So be prepared to test out a few new setups, or to challenge the authors.

1. Breacher and Rifter (Frigates) by Kirith Kodachi
2. The Stealth Bombers, by Hallan Turrek
3. Electronic Attack Ships: Hyena, Sentinel, & Kitsune, by Manasi
4. Cruisers: All Purpose Uglies - Vexor, Rupture, Arbitrator & Moa, by the Gaming Griefer
5. A Mission Running Dominix, by Shinzann
6. Blockade Runners, by Casiella Truza

Many more to come!

Thought I'd add the ship setups I've written in the past as well to have everything in one spot!

1. Vexor set-up for both Solo and Gang PVP
2. Myrmidon Ship Setup
3. A Vexor set-up for security missions
4. A Daredevil set-up for agent missions

The Elistist: <-- NEW

• Good Ship Fittings
• Experimental Fittings

[Latest Update: March 9th, 2010]

Friday Video: James Cameron's Avatar The Game - Walkthrough

All I can say, is that it looks great. That's it though. It just looks good. Then again, I'm really hoping to be surprised by this game, and how the leverage the movie assets and all. My only other question is PC or console? With my current rig, I could probably run it fairly well. What do you guys suggest?


[Official Game Site]

You lose some, you win some - The State of the EVE Blogosphere

With the recent demise of the GameScribe platform and the few hundreds or so blogs that had been specifically created for the contest, the EVE Blogroll lost a few hundred blogs or so. Which was very predictable when you understand the time, dedication and effort it takes to keep a blog going.

Despite this inevitable loss, I'm happy to report that since then, I've received 50 [make that 51 with Finders & Keepers"] new blog submissions through comments and emails. Here below are all the new blogs that will soon be added to the EVE Blogroll. Though some of these blogs are now a bit outdated, I'm still posting them here so that this may excite their authors into more posts! You've all been teased!

1. .5 or Higher!
2. A "CareBears" Journey
3. A Rock In A Cold Place
4. A Sorta-Carebear
5. Achernar: eve
6. Amieta's Journal
7. Autopilot Disabled
8. Bael’s Blog
9. Blood-Thirsty Miner
10. Cle Demaari: Citizen
11. Corp of None
12. Corrupted Datacore
13. EVE Talk
14. Eveconomics
15. Facepalm's Ramblings
16. Finders & Keepers
17. Friends of EVE
18. Friends of Sharuveil
19. Geddonz gamer
20. Hardwirings and all that
21. I Love Sansha
22. Internet Spreadsheets Naptime Online - EVE Online
23. Into the unknown with gun and camera
24. Jumping through wormhole
25. Letters from Eve
26. Life among Pirates - The Romance and the Reality
27. Living A Lie
28. Logs of a Brutor
29. Make way for the fail train
30. mikeazariah
31. Missions Collide
32. Munich Mataris
33. MXB:EVE
34. My EVE Online Life
35. My Life in EVE
36. Nashh Kadavrs EVE Blog
37. Nukes Thoughts
38. Pirating By The Numbers
39. Pods and Pills
40. Rettic's Log: The Chronofile
41. Screamer - A Pirate's blog, from the beginning.
42. SFM Hobb3s Eve Explorations
43. Silver Night's Fiction
44. Smokes Black Aces
45. Sooner or Later
46. Strep’s Throat Noise
47. The Captains (B)log
48. The Captains Log
49. The inside of nowhere
50. Thoughts - TFG
51. Yo Ho! A Pirate's Life For Me!

Welcome to you all! Safe travels and happy blogging!

Friday Video: Halo 3 ODST - VicDoc "Terra Incognita"

The Halo franchise will forever have a special place for me. It's the game that got me onto consoles, it truly the first game where time became irrelevant, where I could not know if I'd been playing for 20 minutes, an hour or even 10. Halo 3 ODST, looks to be such a game as well. Looking forward to it!

Can't wait to start exploring New Mombosa!

And the Icelandic Gods created Planets...

...for capsuleers to admire and despise at the same time.

Borderlands is one sexy-looking cel-shaded game!

The last game I played that was cel-shaded was Robotech. And though I was a huge fan of the anime, the game wasn't all what I expected it to be. Borderlands is a completely different kind of game, and seems very much what I'm looking for in a shooter these days! Looks like October will see me busy shooting things up both spaceside and planetside!

[Links: Borderlands Official Site - Gearbox Software - 2K Games]

EON #016 - Table of Content

This is going to sound like a record skipping, but I've been late, really late that is, in posting the Table of Content for the latest issue of EON.

It's nothing to do with my enthusiasm for this fine piece of mashed-up tree pulp and chemical stains. Au contraire. I again have to blame this game called First Life. Seems the arrival of a RL clone once again has disrupted my current daily schedule.

Add to that the fact that I had to rebuild my PC, and recently lost my broadband connection, and we can start to imagine that the folks on Olympus have promised to make my life difficult.

But rest assured, I am starting to get control back. Slowly but surely, things are being worked out. The new PC is built. My phone/digitalTV/broadband provider, Bell Canada, is sending two of its technician tomorrow to get us back on track.

I can see the light at the end of the wormhole!

Table of Content - EON 016

• Page 6 --- E-ON Upfront (News)
• 12 ---- Quarterly Alliance Report
• 16 ---- Postcards from the Edge (Screen shots)
• 20 ---- In Crowd: Mathew Woodward
• 22 ---- The Warp Drive Active Story
• 27 ---- In Character: Sinqliason
• 28 ---- Alliance Profile: Veto (Veto Corp link)
• 30 ---- Chronicle: Freeze on Freedom - Part 1, by Douglas McKinney
• 36 ---- Cover Feature: Sovereignty 2.0
• 42 ---- Alliance Profile: CVA
• 44 ---- In Character: The Mittani
• 46 ---- Testflight: Strategic Cruisers
• 55 ---- In Character: Linesh Motex
• 56 ---- Chronicle: Freeze on Freedom - Part 2, by Douglas McKinney
• 60 ---- In Crowd: Alex O'Donovan-Jones
• 62 ---- Insider's Guide: Corporation Branding (by Mynxee!)
• 68 ---- Insider's Guide: Modules - Part 1
• 72 ---- Insider's Guide: Production - Part 3
• 78 ---- EVE Directory, by none other than James Egan
• 80 ---- My Two ISK - Thes Redav
• 82 ---- Teh Funnies (EVE Humour)

Friday Video: Mass Effect 2 Grunt Gamescom 2009 Trailer

More Mass Effect 2 awesomeness!

New to the EVE Blog Pack - Did you really want in?

Nothing gets me more excited these days than a well put together EVE blog. Seriously! OK, maybe DUST 514 and Ambulation/Walking in Station/Incarna (or whatever they'll be calling it next) does a bit more. But there's something about getting a group of EVE Bloggers together, to work on their blogs, comment on each others articles and participate in interesting, and sometimes volatile arguments. It was the idea behind the EVE Blog Pack when I first had the idea way back in June of last year, and it still is.

With the recent explosion of new EVE blogs, it was time to clean up the pack, remove the outdated blogs and welcome a few new members. When I mentioned my desire to do so in mid-August, I expected a good turnout, but nothing like I received. Picking and choosing those blogs that made it in the pack, and those who did not, was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I've realized that we've got some goddam good writers in the EVE Blogging Community, and the Pack is just the tip of the iceberg. As such, I'd like to welcome the 19 blogs below to the Pack (see the full listing of the EVE Blog Pack members). These new members are now part of an elite team of EVE Bloggers, and have an opportunity to be in the spotlight of our little corner of the Intertubes. Lets hope they use this opportunity wisely, and remember the responsibilities that come with the membership.

• Loaded Barrels, by Brutus
• EVE Newb, by Spectre
• My God, it's full of Stars!, by Jamenta
• Hands Off, My Loots!, by Cyberin
• Ecliptic Rift, by Casiella Truza
• Articulated Sky, by Godlesswanderer
• Munich Mataris, by DieRoteBieroness, Naanook and DocFloyd
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, by Myrhial Arkenath
• Nashh Kadavr's EVE Blog, by Nashh Kadavr
• The Captain's Log, by Prometheus09
• Level Cap, by Rakanishu
• Planet Risk Show (The), by Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm
• Corrupted Datacore, by Chainer Cygnus
• Yarrbear Tales, by 00sage00
• A Pirate's Life for Me, by Alagus
• Journey to New Eden, by Bill
• EVE Online Wormholes, by Star Defender
• A Rock in a Cold Place, by Abaddor
• A Ghost Blog, by Mr NOXx

Visit the EVE Blog Pack to see the full list of 40 blogs that are part of the Pack today.

Over the lifetime of the Pack, some blogs have come and gone, but all have had an influence on the Pack to some extent. Some still do. Because of this, I've chosen to give you the list of these so that you may pay them a visit.

• Ancient Gaming Noob (The), by Wilhelm2451
• Broadside, by Sard Caid
• Dawn of EVE, by Melissa Dawn
• Defias Blog (The), by Havohej
• EVE Guru, by Anthony Thurston
• EVE-Pirate.com, by Ander & co.
• Lady in Space, by Bri
• I am a Camera Drone, by Vestik Malice
• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…, by YoMma
• Miners with Fangs, by Dee Carson
• Nuyan's Hangout, by Nuyan
• Potshot, by Potshot
• Votrian's EVE Blog, by Votrian
• Your Money or Your Life, by Ka Jolo

As a friendly reminder to both new and the old Pack member, here are the To Dos that come with Pack-membership:

• Blog regularly about EVE Online, a few times a week preferably, but at least once.
• Comment on Pack members blogs.
• Make a post about the EVE Blog Pack (if you haven't done so yet). Make sure to link to it!
  
• Add each member's blog to your Delicious, BlinkList, Reddit, StumbleUpon and/orTechnorati accounts.
• Digg posts that you find useful or interesting.
• When writing a post, try to link to each other posts, bringing the community even closer together.
• Have a blogroll listing all the Blog Pack members.

Now go forth, multiply and blog. That is your prerogative!

Starcraft II, Supreme Commander II & a few games I'm looking forward to

Image adapted from a photo by John Thurm entitled "Motherboard City"
With the "New Gaming Rig Project" coming to fruition this week-end, I've been looking forward to getting a few new titles that I'll now be able to run on this speedy silicon calculator. Whether currently available or up coming most of these games were beyond the capacity of my ol'P4 PC, and so I had stopped 'looking' for new games. This all changes after this week-end.

Listed below are a few of these games.

• Supreme Commander II
• Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404)
• Demigod
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

And up coming:

• Torchlight
• Starcraft II
• Diablo III
• Star Wars: The Old Republic

There's also a bunch of Xbox 360 games I'll be asking for my birthday (which is next month) and Xmas! Some of these are

• Modern Warfare II
• Borderlands
• Brink
• Section 8
• Halo: ODST
• Halo Wars
• Halo: Reach

So, what about you?

Friday Video: Halo 3 ODST Live Action Trailer

I just hope the game is as epic as this trailer is!

10 days left for the EON half-price offer!

EON magazine, the best pulp gaming magazine period, is celebrating it's 5th year! Yeah, that's 16 issues published so far and I still have to say, the magazine's gone from great to even better, and now should be a necessity for every capsuleer worthy of flying a ship from the confines of a pod! If you're not sure that there's something of value in this beauty of a magazine for you, simply check-out the Table of Content I've put together for each of the issues published so far. I rest my case!

To mark this momentus occasion, MMMPublishing is pratically giving away the back issues. Indeed, until the 13th of September, these little paper gems will be offered at half-price! Here's the dull details on this magnificent offer:

To celebrate EVE's official magazine as it enters a fifth year, MMM Publishing is putting all back issues on sale. For a limited time only you can get all 15 of the first issues of E-ON for just $7 each – that’s less than half the regular cover price and cheaper than any games magazine on the planet! Not only that, but all subscriber freebies will be included, but only for as long as they remain in stock! The offer ends on 13th September, so get your order in early! All Back issues are still available – you’ll find them in the EVE Store. Quote the code EONM50 when you check out your order to get the discount.

Now get yourself over to the EVE Online Store and get those orders in, lest you miss out on all the extra goodies that'll be included with those back issues! Nuff said!

Space Blockades, Air Combat, Shock Troopers and Planetary Conquest

Planetary Conquest. Shock Troopers. Orbital Strikes. The idea was simple, yet complex at the same time: bringing planetary conquest to EVE Online. The contest was two-part: fiction and mechanics. The timing was perfect. DUST 514 was about to hit the gaming world, and shake the foundation of gaming genres. In the end, 17 articles were submitted, 2 of which were unfortunately disqualified for not making the deadline.

The quality and originality of the articles submitted was quite impressive, thus making my job of judging each one that much harder. I must have gone through the articles at least twice, if not three times. I must say I had a really hard time narrowing it down to the 5 best articles/ideas/concepts. But the Night is the mother of counsel they say. After a good night's sleep, the last 5 submissions you see below, managed to stand out in my mind.

1. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Planetary Control Contest
2. A Misguided Adventure - Planetary Conquest, my idea
3. Death's Sweetest Kiss - Planetary Conquistadors!
4. Bellum Eternus - Crazy Kinux's dev interview contest entry - Fiction Component, Design Component
5. Anomaly T - More Than a Rock - Planetary Control: Colonies and Capital

I really wish all these folks could participate in the podcast interview, but only one spot was available. The luck of the draw was Xiphos83's articles "Planetary Conquest, my idea".

Congratulations to Xiphos83! I'll be contacting you shortly to work out a schedule with the CCP Dev whom we'll be participating in the podcast.

I'd like to thank the participants, all 17 of you. Your ideas were all very ingenious! See you somewhere in space. Fly Safe!