Jane's Guide to the Starships in New Eden

As another mining expedition in w-space comes to an end, with more than a few jet-cans full of exotic ores transported back to the corporation's tower, a lone capsuleer appears on the local communication channel. In w-space, no one appears in the local channel until they openly broadcast, which is mostly the reason why ambushes can be quite so effective as there is no indication of anyone being in a system unless they choose to announce themselves—or make a mistake.

The capsuleer sends a salute and wishes someone, presumably us, good mining. It is fairly obvious that he has performed at least a rudimentary scan of the system and found the several ships we have been using to mine the ore, but what isn't clear to me is whether this message is meant sincerely or as a warning. It could be they have been monitoring us for a while but sees that we are disbanding the operation for the evening and are no longer a valid target, or instead they perhaps stumbled on the wormhole and popped in to see if the system has been taken or just to take a look.

'It was just a frigate', I get told, 'it's not likely to cause any problems on its own.' That's good to know, even if we are all safely back at the tower anyway, but as I had picked up the ship on the directional scanner it reminds me that I still lack sufficient ship identification skills to be considered useful. I can see the name of the ship type on the scanner but unless it happens to be Caldari in origin or a ship I have taken at least some interest in I am unlikely to know what sort of ship it is, and thus how big a threat it poses. There are so many frigates, cruisers and Tech II variants that it is perhaps no surprise that I cannot tell an ECM boat from a heavy assault cruiser, although that I run panicked from an industrial hauler on occasions is a little embarrassing.

I have my EVE Online Strategic Maps atlas, which is handy in quickly visualising short routes and the security status of constellations and systems, amongst other uses, but perhaps a good companion would be a Jane's Guide to the Starships of New Eden. A book detailing all of the ships designed and available would be a wonderful addition to a collector's library, as well as a useful tool. The ships could be collected by class, faction and function, with a full-colour image of the ship presented alongside multi-angle silhouettes, and accompanied by some history of the ship, as well as perhaps general fitting advice.

I would love to be able to flick through an EVE Online ship identification guide. It would be a nifty art book and an interesting way to learn to recognise names and classes of ships.

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Tags: eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Backwards in time, perhaps

Julian, over at Kill Ten Rats, muses on our backwards virtual worlds, pointing out a handful of curious anomalies between virtual worlds and reality. I don't much agree with him.

- In reality, we’ve moved from expensive metal armors to lighter, cheaper durable fabrics for protection.
- In virtual worlds the progression is to from cheaper fabrics to more expensive metals.

We mustn't forget that we are generally comparing a modern, technologically advanced civilisation to a fantasy setting that more closely resembles the Euorpean Middle Ages. The trend may be to move away from bulky metallic armours in the real world but this process took centuries and generally involved more moves towards stronger metals before inventing advanced materials. I don't think I can begrudge fantasy games for not equipping warriors with carbon nanotube armour.

- In reality, adding an escort to a target dissuades enemy attackers by making the target more secure.
- In virtual worlds, escorting a target means an open invitation to be attacked by enemies which were not even there in the first place.

Adding an escort also effectively highlights a potential target, one that might have gone unnoticed if it weren't protected. It's also likely that the target may not have even dared make the journey without an escort for protection. And there is no way of observing an escort mission without there being an escort, thus not being able to determine and compare the number of potential attackers there would be against an unescorted target.

- In reality, packs of creatures in the wild protect their young and their weaker members by putting them in the center of the pack, out of sight.
- In virtual worlds, the weaker elements always surround the strongest member of the pack.

This may be true for wild animals, but for organised units the leader is generally guarded by weaker footsoldiers, in the same way a carrier sits miles off-shore and is protected by layers of defence. I can't say I've witnessed in the games I've played many instances of wild animals as disorganised as suggested, as they all tend to have some hierarchy that suggests leaders and followers.

- In reality, our world has been built to increase the safety of its inhabitants over time; generally, the longer a population has lived in an area, the more secure it tends to be.
- In virtual worlds, the longer an inhabitant exists, the more in danger he’ll be, statistically. Also, the oldest areas are generally the most dangerous.

The major cities and trading hubs, generally the oldest settlements, do indeed seem to be the safest areas in the world, and the furthest reaches of the land are the wildest and most dangerous. I'm not sure what the argument is here. As for the oldest inhabitants being the most at risk, it seems more that in a militaristic environment, such as heroes fighting ever-more powerful opponents, the most competent will tend towards the greater challenges. You shouldn't find many heroes battling tenth level kobolds for their entire career.

- In reality, physical and mental attributes of all living organisms naturally decrease with time and life progression.
- In virtual worlds, attributes increase with time and life progression.

Physical and mental attributes increase to a peak before decaying gradually, but experience and training can easily overcome this decades-slow decay of health. It's also worth nothing that mental health generally peaks later and lasts longer than physical health. A dedicated and active character can easily outmatch someone younger, even if the younger character is technically fitter. We can assume many heroes start out young, before reaching their physical peak, and so it is natural that their attributes increase. It should also be noted that virtual world attributes are not really increasing with time, but with training, which seems to be a natural progression.

- In reality, the world is built with the guiding principle of “How can we make things easier?”
- In virtual worlds, the worlds are built under the idea of “How can we make things harder?”

Well, yes. It would be trivial to make an 'I WIN' game, but it would also be no fun. Games are designed to provide a challenge that feels rewarding when overcome. There can be no direct comparison here as we are approaching a similar-looking problem from completely different directions. We can design virtual worlds in any way we please, so the design only matches our imagination, but reality is already designed and our challenge is to fit our demands in to pre-determined parameters.

- In reality, most items gain value over time.
- In virtual worlds, most items lose value over time.

Just about every item I own has had its value depreciate significantly over time. Would Julian like to buy my G4 Mac for more than I originally paid? Barring some expertly made items and occasional rarities I don't see this being true, and definitely not for 'most' items. Perhaps he is referring to value that isn't monetary, but it can be surprising how attached to virtual items some people can get.

- In reality, production of goods has generally evolved from few, expensive goods to mass produced inexpensive ones.
- In virtual worlds, crafting of goods evolved from large quantities of inexpensive items to few, expensive items.

And the large quantities of cheap mass-produced goods tend to have lower quality than the expensively crafted ones, leading to experienced and wealthy individuals shunning quantity for quality. I think the premise is wrong in general too, in that the games simulate an apprentice crafting many lesser items before being skilled enough to produce a masterpiece or two, not that characters are somehow learning mass production techniques before working out which end to hold a hammer.

Finally,

- In reality, you want to risk as little of your forces as possible to try and obtain the largest gains possible.
- In virtual worlds, you want to risk as much of your forces as possible to try and secure even insignificant gains.

With this I can agree entirely, and I think it is a major flaw in the design of many games that battling a challenging enemy almost guarantees the death of many allies, many times. Even in a fantasy setting that allows resurrection, it grates on me that the only way to defeat a powerful opponent is to be killed by him a dozen times or more. A game that works on the principle of scouting, reconnaisance and intelligence, and allows retreat and regrouping would be a major step forwards.

Our virtual worlds may be 'backwards' in some respects, but this should come as no surprise when they are fantasy settings based on medieval or earlier time periods.

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Taking a chance on invention

I really like the Crane. I borrow Kename Fin's when she's not looking, and when she's around pretend I couldn't possibly borrow it in a reverse-psychology manoeuvre that naturally ends up with me zooming across the galaxy at hugely impressive warp speeds. It warps faster than a shuttle, cruises sub-warp a little bit slower, and has a cargo hold, which makes it ideal to zoom from region to region on errands, whether personal, corporate or agent-initiated. I have been writing for months that I will get my own Crane, the goal reinvigorated after having piloted one.

The problem with getting a Crane is the cost. Or, rather, that I have a problem spending ISK, for some reason. The current trans-regional cost for a Crane transport ship is around eighty million ISK, which would make buying one my most expensive purchase in New Eden to date, and that seems extravagant for a ship that will not see combat and has less cargo capacity than my Badger Mark II. The other reason for not rushing out to buy a Crane, with my lucrative share of the profits from w-space operations, is that the capability to build my own Crane seems to be almost within my grasp, feeding in to the same drive to be self-sufficient that finally gets shield rigs fitted to my Drake.

My move in to Tech II invention was tentative but assured, picking small and cheap modules to invent that I was confident would sell on the market and didn't need widely different skill requirements to achieve. A bit of luck means that I only need to learn the Caldari Starship Engineering skill in order to have a chance of turning a Badger BPO in to a Tech II blockade runner BPC. As the material efficiency of a blueprint doesn't effect the resultant Tech II BPC's manufacturing requirements I don't even need to make copies of a researched BPO. I can simply copy the unresearched BPO to make a stack of unresearched Tech I BPCs to feed in to the invention process. After making the copies I can run the long process of ME research on the Badger BPO.

All that I need now are some datacores. Quite a lot of datacores, or a handful and a lot of luck. As my time recently has been spent in w-space and not trying to keep Lai Dai happy I have not been able to increase my standings with the corporation and find a higher level or quality R&D agent to research the datacores. By the same token, all the time spent in w-space has meant that the lone, low-quality Lai Dai agent research Caldari Starship Engineering for me has accumulated quite a few datacores already. And now that my skill training in warfare links has reached its current conclusion I can train to advance the engineering skill, which will increase my chances of success at invention as well as the number of research points gained per day.

As it stands, I think I have enough datacores available to be able to attempt a single invention job on a Badger BPC. I'm going to go for it. Invention jobs need to be installed individually anyway, so there is no functional difference between running a single invention or several, the risk per job is the same. Picking up the datacores from my current Lai Dai R&D agent is on my route to my BPC stash, so the time investment is minimal. Just a couple more days of skill training and then all I really would like before getting the boffins working is a decryptor to try to increase the yield of the BPC, which I think would be worth the cost for the potential gain in profit. I will have a Crane soon.

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Tags: badger, crane, eve online, invention, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Adding rigs to the Drake

I finally get my first rigs fitted to a ship. I have been aware of their benefits for quite a while, just as I have been aware of their multi-million ISK costs. As much as I would like a significant boost to my shield recharge time on my passively-tanked Drake battlecruiser, Non-sentient Ship, the twenty million ISK cost per rig is a little excessive, particularly as the ship itself only cost around thirty million.

I understand that rigs for smaller ships are being introduced. They will be smaller in size and calibration requirements, needing far fewer components to manufacture, whilst offering the same benefits, so it is perhaps a little foolish to rig my Drake at the moment. However, my motivation to fit rigs is my dedication to self-sufficiency. I certainly don't throw ISK at the market for such a luxury as a core defence field purger, instead I buy the BPO, research it for a couple of weeks in the corporation's facilities, then make use of the piles of salvaged components I have lurking in various station hangars.

It was after I found a working salvaging module in the hold of a wreck that prompted me to learn to salvage the wrecks themselves. This was quite early on in my career with the Caldari Navy, causing me to focus my training on being able to fit the recovered salvaging module. I had no idea at the time what the salvage was used for, I just knew it had value. I have gone through periods where I would sell my stockpiled salvage and reap millions in quick profit, but once I gained a decent cushion of ISK for my shapely behind I became happy to keep hold of the salvage, just in case I ever got a need for it.

Picking up the core defence field purger rig BPO gives me the need for some of the salvage. I also buy a cargo hold optimization rig BPO, either to generate more profit or to increase my hauling capabilities at some point. I am able to make one core defence field purger with the salvage I have to hand, and I only need to pick up a few extra pieces of junk from the market in order to make a second. A third rig, the limit that can be fitted to a Drake, will have to wait. The difference to the recharge rate of the Drake's shields is quite dramatic, boosting the rate by over 50%, which helps with tanking through a lot more damage, as evidenced when running a few level three encounter missions.

I know that I can sell the salvage to realise its worth in ISK, so I am not really getting rigs for free. However, I also know from my own experience that industrialists will cream as much profit from modules as possible, so making my own rigs is bound to be cheaper than buying them from the market. Although I have effectively just doubled the value of my Drake there is little cost to myself, save for the loss of potential from using some of my horded salvage. The only real concern is if Non-sentient Ship is destroyed, as then I will either have to get new rigs, which will be costly one way or another, or tolerate a lesser-fitted replacement. But, for now, I am happy to have even stronger shields for rats and Sleepers to penetrate.

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Tags: drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, salvage

Note to New Eden mission runners

A vital part of completing courier missions involves picking up the goods to be delivered.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Played by the market

When looking for materials for my manufacturing runs I have previously found a stash of minerals for sale at a bargain price, whereupon I snap up the entire stock, take what I need to use, and sell the surplass back on the market at a marked-up price. This gets me the minerals I needed at a reduced price, but if I hadn't needed some of the minerals the same principle could have been used to make a quick profit, buying goods low and selling them high, which gets me thinking of the possibilities of making some easy ISK.

A new batch of missiles comes out of my manufacturing lines, ready to be sold on the market, only for me to find that the market has been swamped by someone undercutting all the current prices. Whilst some of the material costs have been reduced lately, because of supply and demand, it is difficult to see how any significant profit can be made by selling the items so cheaply, or why it is worth the capsuleer's time making so many items for what can only be pocket change in profit. Never the less, with my previous success in buying and selling low-priced items I feel bold. I buy all the stupidly cheap missiles and relist them at the higher and previously reasonable price, hoping to take advantage of the price differential to make a profit for little effort.

With my experience in manufacturing I am expecting the huge quantities of missiles I buy not to be replaced within weeks, allowing me to reap the profits in the mean time. But, despite my instincts, it seems that it is possible to produce many more missiles in a short period of time, as within a few days a new supply of missiles is placed on the market at a ridiculously low price. The price is low enough that if I were to remain competitive it would not be worth my time spent manufacturing and shipping the missiles, a single level two mission earning around the same profit. Unfortunately, it means I am left with a massive stock of missiles that are now unlikely to sell.

The turnaround on missiles is quite high, but not high enough for the deluge of stock placed on the market to sell within a couple of weeks. I am left wondering what to do with my millions in invested product. I am tempted to write-off most of the expenditure and simply get as much of my ISK back as possible, selling the missiles at a slight loss. However, I am not quite foolish enough to spend so much ISK without effectively having it to spare—I just prefer having real and not potential ISK—and as the missiles will not perish I could hold on to the stock to sell once the market improves. I explore another option too.

I head to the EVE Online Agent Database and find some agents that are likely to give frequent encounter missions for missile-using capsuleers. Locating a few possible agents I check the market prices in their systems and see that if I move my stock from my normal markets across to these different systems it is possible I could exploit a price differential caused by the the inconvenience of travel times in New Eden. Of course, this inconvenience applies to me when hauling the missiles to the new market but, as the saying goes, time is ISK.

Spending some time hauling stock from the small range of systems in which I normally trade to a new set of locations takes a while, as I have several trips to make, but once the stock is moved I can rely on my trading skills to monitor the market price and alter my orders appropriately, to help ensure I remain competitive. Being able to modify orders remotely becomes invaluable in instances like these.

With any luck, and a bit of judgement, I should be able to sell most of the stock for a profit, although it will still take a fair amount of time. Even if I don't, at least it means I won't run out of missiles for my Drake for the next year. Maybe playing the market is best left to industrialists with deeper pockets, or those who actually take the time to monitor market trends.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Coin-op MMORPG

There is an interesting analogy about micro-transaction-based gameply over at Killed in a Smiling Accident. Melmoth likens micro-transactions to arcade machines that tempt players to 'insert coin/s to continue', not allowing further access to content without ensuring the game gets your money. I find his argument to be compelling, resonating with me. Brian 'Psychochild' Green replies to Melmoth making a good counterpoint, showing that a game relying on micro-transaction payments can be as good value for money as a subscription-based game, but I believe the two arguments are heading in different directions.

I think it is important to realise the changes that have been made to games in general since the early days of arcade gaming, moving to home computers and consoles, and the trends that are continuing. Early arcade games had characters that were fragile and environments that were lethal. It only took one bump with a ghost, knock by a barrel, or misstep off a ledge for your character to die, losing a life and often being put back at the start of the level. This quick loss of lives made good sense for machines that needed to be fed continually with coins for new games, but when the games were translated to home computers and consoles there was less reason to make the gameplay quite so frustrating.

Having bought the game outright, rather than renting time on a public machine, the notion of killing of the player's character quickly and often made less sense. Computer games no longer needed to be designed to have promote many short sessions of the same content, and instead could focus on presenting as much of the available content to the average gamer. Understanding the differences between coin-ops and home gaming led to a sea change. Where main characters were once killed quickly and brutally they became resilient to attacks, withstanding several bullet hits before dropping, swimming and holding their breath instead of drowning instantly. The health bar made all this possible, soon followed by the ability to replenish lost health through pick-ups. There was little point in killing off the character if the player behind them was not motivated to pour more money in to playing.

Being able to continue long games from where you left off underwent a change too. Arcade games offered a strictly time-limited option to continue within a matter of seconds, but home computers introduced the ability to store the game's state and reload that state. The player could either to continue at pre-determined points, which first had to be reached, or had to decide when to save the game manually, introducing its own problems of how often to save, to reduce the risk of future actions. Just as characters became more resilient so did the save game feature, becoming more automatic and regular, and even seeing some games, notably the Monkey Island series, remove the concept of character death altogether.

The divergence from arcade game lethality to home computing entertainment was gradual but had a profound effect on gaming. Understanding that games didn't need to be limited to five-minute slices of action led to new ideas and genres. Of course, the health bar and its relations were also used in coin-ops, where its application gave the player motivation to pump money in to the machine to boost dwindling stamina. And I think this is the crux of Melmoth's concern, that micro-transactions could be a worrying trend backwards. Comparing free-to-play games relying on micro-transactions for revenue to coin-op games seems apt, but is perhaps not as much of a concern as a game that also has a retail price, where development costs can be recovered more readily and thus be a more suitable platform for cosmetic improvements from micro-transactions. Brian Green's argument that gamers can find their own relative comfort levels of payment seems quite reasonable in this respect.

However, it is important to note that Green's perspective is less about 'micro-transactions' and more about paying reasonable sums for small expansion packs, whereas Melmoth seems focussed towards the prospect of many almost-negligible transactions that have the possibility to accumulate in to a significant expenditure over a period of time, in much the same way that ten pence per credit doesn't seem like much money until they are all added up at the end of a gaming month. Being able to pay for content as and when we want to gain permanent access to it could be a real benefit to the casual gamer, but having the true cost of a game masked by many small and individual charges is a legitimate concern, particularly if the gains are effectively temporary.

There is plenty of experience to show that companies rarely make decisions that benefit the consumer over the concerns of the company itself. Coin-ops are still around today, and their nature has evolved to adapt to the market. Understanding that some players are quite skilled and used to be able to play for hours on a single credit, coin-op games now tend more towards time-limited gameplay, offering a definite amount of time instead of a number of lives. And just as coin-ops still favour the games companies it is reasonable to expect companies basing revenue around micro-transactions to be as shrewd.

Companies may begin by offering additional and premium content for micro-, or macro-, transactions, but the payments can also be used in the same way that some coin-ops allow players to gain direct benefits, or extra longevity out of games by inserting coins. I sympathise with Melmoth's concern that micro-transactions will be used for consumable items or temporary gains that either let players twink their characters or almost vital in overcoming the more difficult challenges in the game. The worry is that we'll be find ourselves playing the MMORPG equivalent of Gauntlet, forever having to bolster our health by paying more money, whilst the ranger shoots the food.

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Music of 2009, part one

I have apparently been on a bit of a new music bender this year so far, actively seeking out new artists and bands to keep me entertained. I'm not quite sure why this should be, particularly as the iPod Touch still doesn't have an album shuffle mode, but at least organising my new purchases in to chronological playlists of manageable sizes helps me listen to newly bought music with some level of convenience. It can take a month or so before I get a good feel for new music, or even a new album from an established artist, which is why I tend not to review albums as I buy them. This first review of the year thus extends all the way back to January.

I read about Rolo Tomassi in the new music section of the NME. The band look interesting and give a good interview, so I pick up their album Hysterics to see what they are like. My first impression is that I really ought to use the internet more to preview bands before committing myself. Whilst technically impressive and having some semblance of music the propensity for awkward rhythms and the lyrics to be hurled with some violence towards the microphone makes listening to Rolo Tomassi a potentially unpleasant experience. However, with a bit of perserverance I find myself returning to the album on occasion. It is not music to be enjoyed, as such, but it can certainly be appreciated.

In contrast to Rolo Tomassi is the now-familiar White Hinterland, releasing a new five-track EP with vocals entirely in French. Luniculaire is a wondrous affair of four cover versions and one original song, with dreamy vocals, arguably enhanced by the French lyrics, draped over alternately smooth and stark music. I hope a second album is forthcoming from this excellent band.

The Wrecked Angles album from An Emergency is given a good review in the NME, but what caught my eye was the reference to being jazz-like. I don't get to find or hear much jazz, although I quite enjoy it as a genre, so I am excited to find some indie pop that embraces fat-bodied guitars and different time signatures played by each band member. Unfortunately, it turns out that I haven't read the review quite as it was intended, as I am presented with standard jangly guitars and fuzz effects that make the music quite clearly not jazz. However, with a bit of rotation in my playlist An Emergency's music grows on me and I find that the beats and time signatures feel almost jazz-like, with the album's name seeming quite appropriate, even if the music does not. Whilst it hasn't become a firm favourite I quite enjoy Wrecked Angles, certainly enough to pay attention for An Emergency's next release or to see them live.

With a name like Slow Club I am immediately attracted to the band. Finding out that they are a folk duo, and my increasing appreciation of the genre, only makes me find out what music they have available. Sadly, there isn't an album released back in February—although there is now—but there is a five-track EP, Let's Fall Back in Love, which I pick up readily. I immediately adore the EP, with the uplifting chorus of singers on the title track, the acoustic guitars and soft vocals of some songs intertwined with more upbeat pop affairs, and delightful lyrics. Slow Club is the first band this year to get me excited.

And Vampire Weekend are the second band to excite me. I keep on hearing their A-Punk single played on the radio, which considering I listen for about fifteen minutes a day is quite impressive, and not only do I not tire of hearing it but I enjoy it ever the more. Normally I am a little reluctant to buy an album based off one single I hear on the radio, as experience has shown that there are many one-hit wonders around, but occasionally I will throw caution to the wind, so it is that I buy debut album Vampire Weekend. Whilst there is possibly some discrepancy in style between A-Punk and most of the other songs there is enough similarity coupled with some startling jolly pop music to keep me thoroughly entertained through the whole album. Vampire Weekend even manage an impressive task. I find that my favourite track on any particular album is occasionally followed by the worst, if only because it is sitting in the shadow of a glorious tune, and it is rare that I appreciate, let alone enjoy, the subsequent song. I was expecting as much with A-Punk, because of it being how I was initially attracted to the band, but following song Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa is at least as catchy and often has me humming along to that more than A-Punk. I am playing Vampire Weekend's album an awful lot.

On a trip in to London I can't find the album I am looking for and stubbornly refuse to return home empty handed. There on one of Sister Ray's shelves of recommended music is the debut album of Crystal Stilts, a name I recognise. Hoping I recognise it for good reasons, and not just because every new band wants 'crystal' in their name somewhere these days, I pluck Alight of Night off the shelf as my own. On getting home I discover that I recognise the name because the band were in the new music section of the NME below the band whose album I was actually looking for, although I had been a little interested in Crystal Stilts too. On listening to the Alight of Night I find the music to be quite melodic and fairly relaxing in places. But the vocals are too relaxed, to the point of almost being emotionless, ending up dripping in melancholy and inducing an apathy that discourages me from listening to the album for long lest I will myself to fall in to a coma. Crystal Stilts show considerable promise but need to brighten up their vocal contribution beyond depressed emo kid droning. I think I would prefer to listen to Alight of Night as an instrumental album.

I am expecting some jangly guitars from School of Seven Bells when I first play their album Alpinisms, but am apparently mistaken as instead more electronic rhythms head my way. The staccato-voiced Iamundernodisguise is an interesting introduction but rather than hinting at the entire album consisting of clinical tunes with lofty aspirations of transcending genres, a warm flow of easy beats gently breezes from the speakers with each passing track. The slightly harsh vocal style from the first song is replaced by smooth and wispy lyrics draped over music that alternates between jagged electro and pop, and although the staccato vocals resurface occasionally, as in Trance Figure, the lighter songs sprinkled throughout, Chain being particularly jaunty, defuse the mood sufficiently for it not to feel quite as unfamiliar. Alpinisms is a fine debut album.

If you like your beats per minute to be higher than your blood pressure on ecstasy then don't listen to Harmonic 313's debut album, When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence. Instead of trying to cram in as many drum beats as the human ear can discern, Harmonic 313 retreats to slow, almost arhythmic pulses apparently generated from state-of-the-art electronic synthesisers from the 70s. This is the sort of music that robots will dance to, and although they may dump their cores at the unexpected rap in Battlestar it serves as a nice intermission for meatsacks. I also get a sneaky feeling that coded messages are being sent to machines in tracks like Flaash, hopefully a benign attempt to help our computer friends gain a better appreciation of art instead of a call to kill all humans. Whether or not there are robots overheating their servos keeping up with the lazy beats I find Harmonic 313 to be surprisingly engaging, even if it's based on a nostalgia trip harking back to my 8-bit days.

Given the review in the NME for the eponymous debut album from Grammatics I was expecting the saviours of all indie music to assail my senses and make me want to follow the band across continents as they storm through the smaller venues and in to stadia within a matter of months, such is the splendour of their music that Grammatics' rise to unimaginable fame and glory is inevitable. Of course, I have to hear the epitome of indie guitar music, and it comes as quite the disappointment to hear generic twaddle in its place. On the surface there is nothing wrong with the music of Grammatics, they seem to go through all the right motions, having fine tunes and meaningful lyrics presented with competence, but it all falls flat, almost completely failing to inspire, and I don't think it is the fault of any hype. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Grammatics, I suppose in the same way there's nothing wrong with a Digestive biscuit.

Quietly Now! is Frightened Rabbit's live and mostly acoustic version of their studio album The Midnight Organ Fight, which is quite difficult to track down. The folk songs of Frightened Rabbit are quite pleasant and catchy and like most live albums adds a more intimate touch to the music, even if I don't have the studio album to compare it to directly. Quietly Now! certainly builds on the excellent work of first release Sing the Greys and I will keep Frightened Rabbit on my music radar.

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Tags: an emergency, cd, crystal stilts, frightened rabbit, grammatics, harmonic 313, rolo tomassi, school of seven bells, slow club, vampire weekend, white hinterland

Back in the pocket

Operations continue in the w-space system we have declared our own, undeterred by occasional losses, even if they are unsettling. It is all a learning experience and as long as we continue to adapt we will be successful and profitable in the rich w-space environment. Despite the loss of mining ships and a clone recently the wormhole engineers are back out in gravimetric sites drilling in to huge rocks of arkonor and bistot.

To help prevent another brutal ambush we are in the site with a battleship escort, whose presence will be picked up probes. Guarding a few mining ships may not seem like a particularly glamorous task for a battleship pilot, but with the exotic mineral asteroids measuring in the tens of thousands of units it is certainly profitable. We are also more vigilant in checking the directional scanner built in to every ship, ready to sound the alert should any unknown ships or, more importantly, combat probes be spotted in the system.

Half-way through transferring an arkonor asteroid in to our holds—why we can't simply cram the whole rock in to an Orca, or tractor it back to a refinery I don't know—our battleship escort capsuleer lets out a strangled curse. 'Don't scare me like that', he says. Hmm? 'I was trying to find the Awakened Preserver!' Oh, right.

My idea to give jet-cans false names to fool the less observant intruders in to thinking the jet-can is anything but an inert floating container was initially rebuffed amidst claims that capsuleers look at the type of the object when scanning, that the name would not mislead anyone. But apparently it can fool some people some of the time. The pilot probably has a point that I ought not to name the jet-can after a Sleeper ship, though.

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Tags: eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Armoured warfare specialist Ibramovic

Not half-an-hour after finding the improved passive shield set-up for my Drake do I complete skill training in armoured warfare specialist I, having achieved armoured warfare V a little earlier, and I am ready to fit my first warfare link module to boost the corporation's battleships in w-space. It's quite exciting, but of course the new, powerful module destabilises the capacitor again.

Even so, it is a simple matter of replacing the thermal shield hardener for its passive equivalent amplifier—keeping the EM shield hardener as the lone active shield module, the Drake's shield being most vulnerable to EM damage—to return the capacitor to a stable condition whilst maintaining an optimal shield tank. With the tank resolved I can head out as part of a fleet in to a Sleeper combat site to test my new warfare link's effectiveness.

I have an armoured warfare link fitted, one out of a choice of three, becase the battleships piloted by the corporation's capsuleers are all armour tanks, so the link will not directly affect my Drake's performance in combat. Never the less, helping to ensure the big ships' survival is crucial to my own, and being able to assist every other ship in the fleet is a good cause for using the warfare link.

The first effect I notice when powering the warfare link is the glorious halo of light that surrounds my Drake, obviously centred on the ship but always appearing to emanate from behind it, as if it were supernatural in origin. Clearly, the purpose of the halo is to allow my lesser-blessed colleagues to bask in my brilliance. Note how the battleships are depicted to be significantly smaller than my battlecruiser, and it's not simply because I commissioned the artwork myself.

The second effect I notice is how the halo also acts as a glorious beacon, attracting Sleepers to my ship like moths to a flame. At least, the Sleepers' missiles and laser fire are the moths heading straight for my glowing, and soon to be melting, Drake's hull. With the warfare link active I may be helping my colleagues withstand more incoming fire, but it seems to be more a side-effect of attracting all the hostile fire myself instead as a direct result of the link's actual bestowed benefit.

Normally I am able to shrug off the attention of the Sleepers shortly after the corporation battleships start pounding heavy plutonium rounds in to their ships, but with the warfare link I find I am having to warp in and out of the combat site continually, my shields quickly taking heavy damage. As warp engines interfere with the functioning of the warfare link I am not able to grant my fleet mates the full benefits of the newly fitted module, which seems like a bit of a waste of so much training. On the other hand, maybe it isn't the warfare link but that I change the name of my Drake to Non-sentient Ship that is inciting the Sleepers' ire.

However, as we head in to a second Sleeper site after the first is cleared I find that perhaps the first group of Sleepers were particularly envious of Caldari technology, and the combat returns to the similar balance of the battleships sharing damage whilst I concentrate on the frigates, my warfare link remaining powered the whole time. All that is needed now is some experimentation to determine which armoured warfare link will be most effective for our fleet, whether it is rapid repair, damage control, or passive defence, and if it depends on circumstances.

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Tags: drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, sleepers, w-space