Will mine for faction gains

I'm currently working for a manufacturing agent with Core Complexion, Inc., which involves mostly courier missions. These are nice and simple and let me run around high-sec space in a shuttle, the Orca Mk II, with most deliveries fitting in the voluminous 10 m³ cargo hold. The undemanding nature of the missions also gives me time to check the market and my industrial jobs, even if the speed of the shuttle lets me jump across systems quickly enough that my screens refresh frequently. Whilst courier missions mean I don't need to worry about ensuring I have an hour or two to deal with a blockade my agent gives me occasional requests to mine some ore for him, the git.

Although I'm still quite the newbie I am not so unprepared as not to have a mining ship to hand, as I try to take advantage of the occasional floating chunk of omber or pebble of kernite that crops up in mission deadspace pockets. It is a simple task to take my shuttle back to my Caldari Navy mission base to collect the White Cat, my mining Osprey, briefly checking its configuration. Fitted with mining lasers, a single launcher with bloodclaw missiles and a drone bay full of Hornets I am ready to go AFK in deadspace. I shove the shuttle in to the hold of the White Cat so that I don't need to make a separate run to collect it afterwards, thinking that I may as well keep the Osprey handy, and as the amount of ore to be mined will need to be hauled back by my Badger anyway the reduced cargo space is not much of an inconvenience.

I warp in to the deadspace pocket, find the asteroid that has the barely interesting rock composition and set my mining lasers upon it with all my vigour. After one cycle of the lasers I jettison the collected ore in to a can and go off to wash my dishes, returning every two or three minutes to free up space in my cargo hold. As I get to drying with my tea towel some flashes on the monitor grab my attention. I amble back with great excitement to check on my mining operation to see that three rats have warped in, targeted the White Cat and opened fire.

CCP really needs to sort out the failing sound in Apocrypha, because had I been 'resting my eyes' whilst mining I may not have noticed the rats shooting my ship until I had been reduced to a pod. Of course, they could just accept that mining is boring and not try make it seem more dangerous simply by throwing rats at you every fifteen minutes. Never the less, I am prepared, even more so after taking advantage of the skill training queue to beef up my drones.

It is because I have been warned of the dangers of mining by a previous agent that my Osprey has Hornets and not mining drones in her bay, and now that I have trained in some more advanced drone skills there really is a marked difference in their effectiveness. My drones cut through the rat frigates like a Mackinaw through ice. It's great that I can see so clearly the benefit of the recent skill training and realise how much more effective I can be with a full drone bay at my disposal. With the drones having a whale of a time my launcher remains cold.

Mining and collecting the ore is a simple enough task, particularly with the rats swatted aside by my drones, merely time-consuming. With the asteroid eventually depleted of useful ore I run the White Cat back to base and recover the ore with my Badger to complete the mission. It is handy to keep the cruiser around and not just to be ready for any further adventures in mining. The Osprey is a good complement to the Badger and shuttle for courier missions. Without it I would have to use the Badger for anything larger than a few cows, which my agent has some fetish about, and the industrial ship is awfully sluggish compared to the shuttle. But the cruiser is fairly agile and its moderately sized hold allows for quicker deliveries of just about anything except for large quantities of minerals.

With my shuttle, Osprey and Badger I am beginning to make my Core Complexion, Inc. agent quite happy, and I'm having a pretty good time in the process.

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Tags: deadspace, eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

The battle for Lake Wintergrasp

The battle for control of the open PvP zone Wintergrasp is an attackers' game. Despite the defenders having a fortress in which to be protected and medium-range turrets to repel intruders the attackers can assault the fortress from many sides. The defence generally either tries to stop each attack at the same time and thins its forces to be mostly ineffective, or concentrates the defence on each attack in turn and suffers heavy damage on the undefended sides. In both cases, being lulled in to completely obliterating each wave of attackers instead of leaving ineffective stragglers to retreat and lick their wounds is a tactical weakness. The attack only needs to be pushed back. Chasing after the retreating forces for that extra kill or two only pulls you away from effective defending. And once the main wall is breached a known bug allows the demolishers to squeeze through a gap in the inner walls less than half their width, letting them trundle right up to the main internal door of the fortress to create advanced havoc.

There are strategies for the defenders to follow. First, don't try to assault the workshop closest to the enemy's spawn point to the region. Even if a significant number of defenders attempt this they will be met by dozens of hostile characters bolstered by overwhelming numbers and, although you may get a lucky kill or two, they will overrun you quickly. It isn't that this tactic won't even slow them down much, it will actually speed them up. Each character needs a certain number of enemy kills before gaining a promotion that lets them pilot vehicles, so by throwing yourself at their swords you effectively grant the enemy early access to vehicles, the only means available to damage structures. Trying to defend the wrong workshop will only see a dozen siege vehicles trundle up to the fortress within a minute of the battle starting.

Destroying the southern towers reduces the time allowed for the assault on the keep significantly, giving a slight advantage to the defenders. Getting slow demolishers or siege engines down to the far south of the region is a long process, though, and takes some defending forces away from the battle. Unless the vehicles are defended they are also vulnerable to even a single hostile player and won't be effective against the towers, taking away more personnel from the defence. However, whilst it is definitely worth the time advantage to destroy the towers it may also be worth attempting an assault on them if only to pull away a handful of attackers from the fortress to deal with your single vehicle.

Even so, most of the time the attackers successfully assault the keep and take control of Wintergrasp. I think it is good to give the advantage to the attackers, as it should allow the region to change control regularly rather than remaining in the hands of one side for many battles at a time, if not days, which would be the case if defending were favoured. Because of this, it seems that World of Warcraft has learnt from its own past, as well as probably from other games, and has created a vibrant, repeating conflict in Wintergrasp.

The half-hearted attempts at world PvP objectives with controlling towers in the Outlands regions of Zangarmarsh or Auchindoun, where the combat was held in open PvE zones and the rewards for victory were tenuous, have been abandoned in favour of Wintergrasp's being an open PvP region. Entering the region guarantees the risks of PvP combat being consensual by virtue of your presence whilst remaining entirely optional in the game as a whole, unless you accidentally fly over Wintergrasp. Rather than the eight-hour period of control of the Outlands PvP objectives the battle for Wintergrasp continues two-and-a-half hours after the previous battle is won, making it frequent enough to allow both planned or relatively spontaneous contribution without it occurring too often to prevent other activities outside of the PvP combat.

The rewards are generally the same PvP-based items, except also allowing the opportunity to run the Vault of Archavon instance, which is based in Wintergrasp keep and unavailable if your faction does not control the region. This creates a decent incentive to participate and succeed in the battle, and favouring the attacking side allows a fighting chance for each faction to control the region regularly. It also encourages mutual cooperation to work as a cohesive team, with open raids beginning to form at the fifteen minute call-to-arms, where there is perceived and real benefit from being part of a larger group rather than trying to maximise individual benefit, which is insignificant at best.

The battle for Lake Wintergrasp is one of the more interesting and vibrant aspects of gameplay to be introduced in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. If I'm logged in, you can be fairly confident that I know when the next battle will start.

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Tags: mmorpg, pvp, wintergrasp, world of warcraft

The return of warp transition turbulence

The recent patch to EVE Online brought back the warp transition turbulence that the introduction to Apocrypha temporarily removed. The turbulence is the violent shaking your ship experiences when transitioning between warp and sub-warp speeds and is a visual cue I find to be quite important.

Normally I am not a fan of shaky-screen effects but the warp transition turbulence occurs only at times when the capsuleer is entirely passive. There are no inputs the capsuleer needs to make or items required to be monitored that are affected by the screen shaking, rendering it functionally harmless. Having the whole screen shudder can still be visually distracting but that is mostly what makes the visual cue important.

When the screen starts to shake you know that you've either entered or are shortly to be leaving warp. When you've entered warp you know you are safe from immediate harm and can reload launchers and turrets, turn off modules and relax a little. When you are about to leave warp you either need to get ready to jump or to activate modules and keep an eye on the overview and tactical overlay for trouble.

Without the turbulence effect the transition is too smooth, you end up having to pay attention to your whole journey through warp so that you don't miss when you drop out of warp, which gets tiring quickly. It's much better to be able to sit back and play World of Starcraft until the shaking graphics catch your attention and pull you back to the real galaxy.

It would be even better if Apocrypha's sound were fixed and the warp boom and deceleration noises could be heard reliably, but until then I am glad to see the warp turbulence return.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg

Getting to know Core Complexion, Inc.

In order to build up research points more quickly to accrue the datacores required for invention I need to increase my standing with a corporation. I have chosen Core Complexion, Inc. because it has level four agents dealing in both mechanical and electronic engineering, which suits me. To increase my standing I need to run missions for the company.

As luck would have it, I based my manufacturing operations in a Core Complexion station, with no grander scheme in mind than I could remember where I had parked. There also happens to be a second Core Complexion station orbiting the same planet, with a level two agent available to talk to me, so I don't need to start with level one missions again. This is perhaps partly thanks to a little training of my social and connections skills but also partly down to the fact that I ran a bunch of low-level missions in Minmatar space when I was in my previous corporation, which has helped my standings with Minmatar factions a little.

The agent I am able to work with is in the manufacturing division, so I will be picking up a lot of courier missions and few combat ones, although that suits me for the time being. I don't need to move my battlecruiser here and can make do with some simpler ships instead, and the courier missions offer quicker, more frequent opportunities to build up standing, even if the individual gains will be less.

As it is apparently my lucky day the first mission completed for my new Core Complexion agent triggers another agent sending me an EVE Mail offering a storyline mission immediately afterwards. It looks like I started working on my reputation at just the right time. Storyline missions offer more significant standing increases over ordinary missions, often with a useful reward too. The storyline mission is another simple courier task, so for picking up some documents and delivering them to the agent I see my standings jump a little, which is a splendid start.

Being offered undemanding courier missions means I should be able to complete quite a few whilst still being able to monitor the market, checking how my modules are selling and seeing if there are any mineral bargains to be snapped up, so I don't need to neglect my industrial endeavours whilst I make friends with Core Complexion, Inc. Everything is coming together nicely at the moment.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

The trouble with DPS

You could call the guild I play with in World of Warcraft on the US server small, if only because we need everyone to be on-line at once to try a five-man instance at full strength. They are all fabulous people and instance runs are a lot of fun amongst increasingly intimate friends. There is only one problem. We are lacking in a certain function, causing adversaries to appear more powerful than they are and leading to wipes in circumstances that should be within our capability.

We certainly don't lack for healing, having two excellent healers available. One player has a priest for guild runs and she has kept everyone alive with such expertise as to often make us forget that we're taking damage. Another character has a tree-form druid that heals in PuGs and Wintergrasp regularly. She was kind enough to tag along when I tanked The Old Kingdom, in which the group was progressing smoothly enough that I thought I'd avoid a potentially tricky pull by simply grabbing both groups at once. I asked if people thought we could handle it, knowing that I'd be able to keep my threat up easily, but it was only when my health plummeted that I realised the extra burden I'd put on the healer. But we all survived. Healing is not a problem in our guild.

Tanking is covered too. I have my protection warrior and frosty death knight, and I like to think I know what I'm doing. When we went to Violet Hold recently I grabbed my death knight to DPS after our second warrior agreed to take on tanking duties. Despite being specced in arms talents when he switched to defensive stance, equipped a shield and was given a couple of pointers he became pretty sticky, holding aggro on the bosses without any fuss and keeping everthing in order. Our guild is fine for tanks.

But when it comes to DPS it looks like we have a problem. I only grabbed my death knight for Violet Hold because we were having trouble taking down the first boss, wiping twice before I switched to a DPS rôle, after which we cleared the instance. Checking my damage meter shows that even though my death knight can output a steady 1,400 DPS at 76th level the other DPS characters are below 1,000 DPS, even at higher levels. It doesn't matter how good our tanking or healing is, without the damage to complete the holy trinity of MMORPGs the mobs will eventually win. It's not like the monsters will get bored and wander off after a while.

It strikes me as peculiar that we have no trouble in the two more responsible rôles of healer and tank but that the presumably easier and more diverse DPS rôle is lacking. However, it makes some sense on reflection. Poor healing is quite visible, as the tank tends to die fairly quickly in big fights, causing wipes and the almost-inevitable accusations. Poor tanking is also quite visible, with mobs running loose and causing mayhem amongst the healer and DPS characters. Healers and tanks have to learn quickly in groups in order to progress anywhere. DPS characters, on the other hand, have no outward signs of poor performance, at least as far as the standard game client is concerned.

The only consequence of low DPS is that mobs take longer to kill and with good tanking and healing all this means is that the difficulty of the encounter seems greater than expected. Poor DPS in solo play might get the character killed more often, but again this may well be attributed to the game being difficult and not poor performance. There is no other feedback to gauge performance so unless you participate in other groups with decent DPS, showing how quickly mobs can be defeated, it will just seem like the game is too difficult and not that your damage output isn't high enough. It is only with an add-on damage meter that DPS levels, both absolute and relative, can be reliably measured. And it is only when I started using Recount that it dawned on me that our guild lacks DPS. I had been curious how PuGs I join are able to breeze through instances where the guild falters, but now I think I know.

What is more interesting is that playing a DPS class seems to be difficult to master. Coming from playing a warlock, then a rogue and now a death knight I suppose I have had quite a bit of practice, and I readily admit that I know nothing about healing, so it could be as simple as players being more comfortable with one rôle over another. It's fabulous that we have both tanking and healing covered in the guild, particularly as those rôles can be more difficult to fill than DPS, but we definitely need to find the DPS character in us if we are to continue running instances successfully.

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Tags: mmorpg, world of warcraft

Stumbling vaguely towards invention

Well, that was easy. A few of my orders start being bought up and my level three agent asks me to clear a blockade, adding a nice chunk of ISK to my wallet that is begging to be spent on skill books for invention. The prices for Caldari Encryption Methods, Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering are cheaper than I thought so I pick them up and inject them. A quick manipulation of my skill training queue has all three skills learnt to level I within a few hours. I thought setting myself up for Tech II production would be more complicated.

Then I read Karox Lominax's Guide to R&D and Invention and I realise I have only scratched the surface with my skill training requirements. There is a fair bit more preparation work required before I can get a Tech II BPC, surrounding agents, tools and secondary skills. A little more digging elsewhere also reveals information about the materials required to manufacture Tech II modules, including all the exotic compounds gathered from low- and null-sec space, refined in POSes that reside at least in low-sec space and the complex reactions they feed, and it all makes my head start spinning. I'm clearly going to need to take progress a step at a time to keep some kind of tenuous grip on my sanity.

The guide first settles a curiosity I have with the engineering skills, in that there is no listed benefit to training them beyond level I. The guide points out that training the skills to a higher level increases the probability of successful invention, making it useful to learn the skills at least to level IV. That's a simple task that I can set in motion straight away and I adjust my skill training queue to this effect, in-between revisiting my still-lacklustre core competencies.

Whilst I am spending the few weeks training the skills I can build up faction reputation with a corporation that houses a suitable research agent, which the guide helpfully including hints on what to look for. A bit of poking around the in-game interface, and a bit of help from my gorgeous corporation colleagues, shows that both Lai Dai Corporation and Core Complexion Inc. could satisfy my requirement of a research agent specialising in mechanical and electronic engineering, even if Lai Dai only offer a level three agent for one of them.

It is time to start running missions for at least one of the corporations so that I can gain faction standing and move towards a position where I can build up research points, which are needed to get hold of the datacores required for invention. I even nestle a couple of social skills in to my skill training queue that should help speed up the process.

Whilst I am back running low-level missions my skill training will advance and I will aim to continue to make a profit both from missions and by maintaining my industrial endeavours. I will need to earn another chunk of ISK in order to buy the Research Project Management skill book, although it looks like it can be an investment made later in the process. As for manufacturing the Tech II hardware, I'll worry about that when I'm somewhat closer to having a Tech II BPC sitting in my hangar.

I have to admit that I am quite impressed with capsuleers who pioneered these processes and were able to manufacture Tech II modules and ships without having informative guides to hand. I would also like to thank Karox for being generous enough not only to write his Guide to Almost Everything in EVE and pointing me towards it but also for taking time to offer some advice directly in New Eden.

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Tags: eve online, industry, penny ibramovic, tech ii

A tale of two kitties, or how I stole my neighbour's cat

Late last year I come home to find a small kitty mewing at my neighbour's door. I have seen the neighbour just walk inside and, as it is cold and damp, knock on the door to let her know her kitten is outside wanting to come in. There is no answer, though. I don't like leaving the kitten outside in the poor weather but I can't just bring her inside with me, so I give her a few kitty biscuits outside on the pavement to make her a little more comfortable.

A few nights later I see the kitten again, outside in the cold and damp weather and no one around to let her inside her home. It is late and I don't like the thought of her staying outside during a Winter's night, because she looks really young, barely older than a kitten. She is friendly enough to let me pick her up, so I bring her back inside with me. I already have a cat, a beautiful and absolutely gorgeous white kitty called Kenickie, and the last thing I want is to upset him. I know that if they don't get along I would have to put the other cat back outside. But Kenickie is wonderfully tempered and is rather nonchalant about the visitor, so the kitten stays inside overnight.

The kitten doesn't seem to know how to use the catflap, which probably explains why she is left out on occasion, not realising that humans go to bed at different times to cats and not knowing how to let herself in. I try to show her how the catflap works but, as is fairly common, the idea of the flap bouncing off her head repels her a little. Not to worry, I let her out and she scoots off to enjoy the day, and I am pleased that I gave her shelter for a night.

I see Panda cat a few more times, giving her that name because of her black and white markings, not knowing her given name, and my lack of imagination. A couple of times she runs in through my open door late at night and is happy to spend the night inside, and I am happy to see her as long as she behaves around Kenickie. I bump in to my neighbour and let her know that Panda is with me, gladly giving the kitty back to her owner knowing that she is home again. My neighbour asks if the white cat is mine, saying that she got a surprise when popping in to her kitchen in the middle of the night to see him sitting inside. It seems that we have an exchange programme.

When Panda is with me I introduce her to the idea of the scratching post, which she doesn't get shouted at when she scratches at it, unlike my carpet or furniture. I also tempt her to use the catflap, if only so that she can leave my home whenever she likes and, hopefully, go back to her own. Each time she stays I make sure she is outside before I leave to go out, as I am wary about leaving her inside with Kenickie and away from her owners. Kenickie seems fine with Panda, but that doesn't mean Panda won't try to make a move on his territory and my priority is to keep my own cat happy.

One day, I am only going out for an hour and Panda is happily dozing somewhere, so I tentatively leave the two cats inside. I fret all the time I am out, wondering what mess I'll return to, but when I get home all I see are two content kitties sleeping next to each other on the bed. That's not to say they are like brother and sister. There is the occasional scrap between the two cats and I break it up and put Panda outside when it happens, feeling a need to reassure Kenickie that it is his home first. But overall the two of them get on quite well.

After one of these scraps where I put Panda outside it comes as a surprise to turn around and see her sitting casually on the stairs as if nothing happened. I may have actually trained her to use the catflap! A little observation reveals that Panda can indeed now come in and out through the catflap as she pleases. I'm not sure if this is good or not, though. It is good that she has learnt, but she really should be in her own home and not mine.

I catch my neighbour another time and tell her that Panda is again with me. I say that she really is no bother, the neighbour replying that she must like Kenickie's company, which looks to be true. Again I give her back gladly. The third time I bump in to a neighour it is the man of the house, who tells me just to throw her outside and doesn't seem interested in getting her back. Since then Panda has seemingly spent nearly all her time with me, happily sleeping during the day, scrapping and playing with me and Kenickie during the afternoons, and alternating between exploring outside and napping during the night.

It has been about six weeks now and I have not heard from my neighbours. Panda has effectively moved in, making herself completely at home. This is demonstrated most pertinently when I go out to see Watchmen at the IMAX, leaving home early in the afternoon to return late in the evening. When I get back I see Panda patiently sitting at the top of the stairs waiting to be fed. I can't think of a clearer sign that Panda thinks she is at home than her waiting for someone to come back to feed her.

It may have been a mistake to start feeding Panda, but I leave dry food down for Kenickie all day and I couldn't stop her from coming in. It was probably a mistake to bring Panda in to begin with, but she seemed no older than a kitten—I believe she's only around a year old now—and I was only trying to do a good deed. All my actions were performed with the best of intentions, even if they were perhaps a little misguided.

As it stands, I have a second cat. Panda is happy and settled, Kenickie is his old self and comfortable with another cat around, although they can both be a little territorial at times. They sleep on the same bed and sofa, and eat out of adjacent bowls, so it seems like a happy home. My status as a crazy cat person must be increased too, as cats are apparently attracted to my home. I just hope my neighbours are okay.

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Tags: kenickie, kitty, panda

Flying in to Icecrown

Nearly all of my visits with my death knight to Wintergrasp so far have been highly enjoyable PvP romps, but it is only recently I've realised that being below the level cap has meant missing out on collecting Stone Keeper's Shards from the Wintergrasp daily quests available. On the one hand, this hasn't spoilt my fun in the chaotic and exciting open PvP combat that is far more challenging and demanding than solo PvE content. On the other hand, the shards are used as currency to buy high quality equipment and without the daily quests my access to the shards is much more limited. This realisation prompts a new spurt in gaining XP, letting me reach another milestone in the process.

Only being three bubs away from 77th level, after various instance runs, a short return trip to Zul'Drak quickly sees me gain the level and, with that, access to cold weather flight training. I have the gold to hand to pay for it and a friendly guild member lends me a chunk of gold to upgrade my flying skills to the artisan level, giving me swift flight over the whole of Northrend. Before I know it, I have joined an exclusive club of characters invited to Icecrown. I get sent both to the Argent Crusade camp and the ship flying above Icecrown, opening up a wealth of new content.

Normally I've been whining about being locked out of content, so being granted access to what is effectively an 80th level zone is just what I am after, something more of a challenge. Of course, the content was still locked and only opened by training in cold weather flying, but the training is not an unreasonable cost even if it is an artificial restriction to limit early exploration by flight. All of a sudden, the continent of Northrend seems open to me where before I was struggling against forces holding me back in regions I was ready to leave. I take on the new missions in Icecrown with some enthusiasm, readily gaining a third of a level in XP without breaking a sweat.

Even so, I am going to whine about level-restricted content again. It was only at 76th level that both Sholazar Basin and Zul'Drak started offering quests to me. My previous visits to the regions had me turning back disappointed and frustrated at not seeing a single yellow exclamation mark, despite being quite capable of fighting my way to the camps. It seems I spent three levels in Borean Tundra and three levels in Dragonblight, unable to progress except sideways to an alternative zone of the same level, only to be granted access to the next zones for effectively a single level. Once Icecrown and Storm Peaks become available the lure of Sholazar Basin and Zul'Drak diminishes greatly.

I simply don't understand why access to quests in the zones are withheld from characters for so long when they are also made redundant so quickly. If Sholazar Basin had unlocked its content to me even one level earlier I would have been happier to explore it more fully, but now it is relegated to a zone to explore and quest in only for achievements once I've reached 80th level and need something to do. Considering that Icecrown is now offering me quests that con orange to me, showing they are above my level, I really don't see why the same couldn't have been the case for other zones, with players able to make their own decisions about where they want to explore and how difficult they want their quests to be.

But I am happy that I have access to Icecrown and the quests within. The scenery is imposing enough to fill any rational character with dread, the early quests have kept me both busy and engaged with the content, and flying has enabled me to explore more freely and marvel at the continent of Northrend. I must note how picturesque Dalaran looks from the skies, for example, an impression not possible to fully appreciate from inside the city. It's just a shame that Blizzard think so little of Sholazar Basin and Zul'Drak that they apparently want players to avoid going there.

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Tags: icecrown, mmorpg, wintergrasp, world of warcraft

Moving towards invention

My industrial career in New Eden is coming along nicely. I have trained in many skills so that I am now productive. The handful of BPOs I speculated in have gone through long periods of material research, mostly waiting for the research laboratory to be free until I got access to my corporations POS, coming out with a much more efficient design process so that I don't waste so many costly minerals in manufacture. I have manufactured modules from the BPOs with at least one production run each, buying and storing the required minerals and building up knowledge of market prices of both the minerals and modules, allowing me to understand which modules are sought by capsuleers and which modules are too commonly dropped by rats to be worth manufacturing.

It is becoming clear to me which BPOs are worth investing more time and money in manufacture and which aren't likely to be profitable. I am also finding the whole process to be quite interesting. Being involved in the material requirements, to refining the processes, getting good prices for minerals, keeping track of manufacturing costs and eventually finding a place to sell the finished product presents lots of little challenges and opportunities, all of the competition being against other capsuleers.

At the moment, it is still more profitable to run missions than to rely on manufacturing to make ISK, but missions are now a pleasant distraction that can help to fuel my industry rather than being my sole enterprise within the galaxy. But there are still ways to increase my ability to profit, which I can achieve by looking to more advanced modules. I can start manufacturing Tech II hardware.

Tech II manufacture isn't quite as simple as buying a BPO and installing a job, the advanced electronics needs to come from somewhere. Tech II modules come from invention based on Tech I hardware. I am still not altogether clear about the entire process, although Kirith Kodachi has given me some excellent advice on how to get started. Using his guidelines allows me to make some sense out of the 'invention' tab on a BPO, which details what skills and items are needed to run invention jobs on a particular BPO.

My first task is to pick a suitable module, something that will sell quickly and profitably as a Tech II item. There is the option of the always-popular invulnerability shield, with armour repairers and medium drones also a possibility to begin with, hopefully all items that are in demand and benefit from being advanced technology. I can buy the BPOs and get them started on ME research. Once the ME research is at a reasonable level I believe I need to make BPCs from the BPO, with the BPC being consumed in the invention job.

With the BPOs in for research I can look at what skills I need to perform the invention task on each of them, as I can't get anywhere without the right skills. I find that I have most of the prerequisite skills already learnt with only the top-level skills required to be bought and trained. That is my next task. Once I start getting the skills trained I will look in to the datacores and data interfaces required for the invention job. I am still not entirely clear how I get R&D agents working for me, or what that actually means. I'm sure I'll be able to find out some relevant information about the process soon enough, though.

I think my main stumbling block at the moment will be finding enough ISK to pay for all the skill books and exotic items required. With my industrial endeavours feeding a steady stream of ISK to my wallet, and occasionally jumping in to a battlecruiser to augment my income with some mission rewards and bounties, I should be able to keep everything running smoothly.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, tech ii

The vigilant warrior

There is a neat talented ability called Vigilance that is available to protection warriors. When applied like a buff to another character that character takes 3% less damage, 10% of their generated threat is transferred to the warrior and whenever they take damage the taunt cool-down is refreshed. As a tank my first reaction was that this ability is meant to be used on the group's healer. With all heals generating threat against every mob in combat the 10% threat transference is a handy, if not entirely necessary, way to prevent a stray mob from picking on the healer, with the taunt cool-down refresh allowing any arrant mobs to be peeled off the healer quickly and calmly.

However, putting your vigilant gaze on the healer is not the only way the ability can be put to use. Whilst heals generate threat the amount generated should be manageable, unless the fight starts to go wrong and heals are thrown around the group with gay abandon. Your average DPS class, on the other hand, is a fission reactor of threat forever testing the bounds of control rod placement. Putting Vigilance on the character who tops the damage charts strikes me as a good idea, with 10% of all the threat they generate, and it will be quite a lot, transferred to the warrior. The DPS character will be able to push their damage output higher for longer without drawing aggro and the warrior can cycle through other mobs gaining individual threat without worrying too much about losing it on the main mob.

I'm sure there must be some way to manipulate Vigilance in a raid setting too. I haven't raided since the days of old Naxxramas, but the 40-man groups and the challenges they faced would have lent themselves well to the benefits of Vigilance. With main tanks and off-tanks required for many boss fights, where the tanking duties would need to be swapped several times during the fight for various reasons, having the two warriors buff each other with Vigiliance would allow them to taunt the boss off the other until successful, as each time the target was struck by the mob the cool-down on taunt would be refreshed. I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar situations in the current raid fights.

Whilst Vigiliance may be designed to protect a group's healer there are certainly other uses available to a vigilant warrior, which could boost the efficiency of a group without diminishing the warrior's effectiveness.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on The vigilant warrior
Tags: mmorpg, warrior, world of warcraft