Cruising to mine

I had read somewhere previously about finding ores rarer than normally found in a system existing in deadspace whilst on missions, and had found some omber of my own recently. In that instance, I took my Caracal home to Jita, dusted off my mining Bantam frigate and went back to mine it. Jettisoning the ore in to a can, which I also believe is standard procedure, I returned home again after having mined my lot to get my Badger, with its larger cargo space, to pick up the ore in the can.

I also found out some time ago that activating the warp drive uses a portion of the capacitor's charge, but it was only when I took the Bantam out to mine that I realised the amount of capacitor used is proportional to the jump distance. When trying to jump 49 AU the Bantam's feeble capacitor couldn't manage it, and I had to jump as far as the maximum charge would allow, wait for the capacitor to recharge during warp, then jump again the rest of the distance once the warp drive disengaged a portion of the way to my destination.

On top of that, another finding made by reading other journals is that asteroid fields can be patrolled by rats. My Bantam is unarmed, because the two hardpoints it has are occupied by Miners, necessary to extract the ore, which would make it a sitting duck against any opponent. Using one of the hardpoints for a weapon would obviously cut my yield in half.

The speed of mining is also quite slow, only having two miners running at one time. I looked in to other ships to see if there are any available that have more turret hardpoints, needed for a mining laser, and found nothing particularly interesting. Most ships available to me have only two turret hardpoints.

So it all came together when I realised that I needed to be armed, couldn't do better than two miners on a ship, and wanted to be able to warp to any reasonable location without having to stop for breath half-way, that I had the very ship right under my nose: my Caracal. I could replace the salvager module and one of the launchers for two miners, with the Caracal having two turret hardpoints, leaving me three launchers for defence. I could also fit a survey scanner, to find the asteroids richest in minerals, and still have shield enhancers and other lower-level modules fitted. If I find a mission deadspace pocket with some interesting asteroids I don't even need to head back to Jita to pick up my mining frigate, instead simply returning to where I am currently stationed for mission purposes. There I can install the mining configuration on the Caracal before going back to the deadspace pocket to start mining.

The drawback is in not getting the mining yield bonus that the Bantam offers, which is significant. Yet the bonus is negated if I need to fit a weapon in place of one of the miners on the Bantam, compared to fitting two miners and having weapons in additional slots. The Caracal even has a larger cargo hold than the Bantam, allowing for more time to leave the miners at work before needing to transfer the ore to the can.

I put this idea in to use today, and I'm glad I did as I was attacked three times during my brief mining period. The rats were minor irritations at best, particularly with three assault launchers at the ready. The Bantam would have had to run. Instead, my Caracal didn't even move to reduce the rats to wrecks, and that's when I had my second good idea of the day. I still needed to bring my Badger out to pick up the ore from the can, but when I did so I took out the useless miner from the turret hardpoint and fitted a salvage module instead. When I reached the deadspace pocket I transferred the mined ore in to the Badger's hold, then salvaged from the wrecks my Caracal had left. Nothing went to waste!

My mining was a little slower, because of the lack of yield bonus from the ship type, but I was safe. There may be a better ship in which to mine like this, but until I dedicate some time to mining proper I doubt there is any economic benefit in spending a few million ISK to get one.

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Tags: badger, bantam, caracal, deadspace, eve online, jita, mining, penny ibramovic

Sapphire bumps in to a gnome

It seems that I am still nervous about meeting new people. Despite wanting to level Sapphire quickly so that I can get to the Outlands and start tanking for my transatlantic group, and for a better chance of getting in to other instances, I turned down a random invitation to tank in the Scarlet Monastery Armoury. At my current level it probably would have been straightforward, I know the instance quite well, and there could have been a nice drop or two, so it was a little disappointing that I didn't accept. On the other hand, when I took Knifey in to Hellfire Citadel Ramparts I had logged on to do precisely that, and I had only planned to have Sapphire complete a bunch of quests for quick XP. Maybe my frame-of-mind is just as important in deciding what to do as opportunity, and I'll be ready and willing to tank when I'm... well, ready and willing. I think it will be easier in the Outlands, where there is less of a level discrepancy between characters and instances, making the whole process more predictable.

After having gained Sapphire a few quick levels recently I had opportunity to allocate some more talent points, and that made me check to see how long I would have to wait to gain some of the more interesting talents. I had some points spent in the fury tree, gaining extra critical hit chance; the Howling Pierce ability for slowing runners whilst in defensive stance, as Hamstring isn't available; and a booming voice for increased Battle and Commanding Shout abilities. Whilst useful, these choices meant I wasn't going to get the Shield Slam ability from the protection tree for a while, and it would be ages before Devastate would be available. I had gained enough levels that it was time to respec and put all my talent choices in to the protection tree. Now I have Shield Slam and Concussive Blow, as well as some other useful abilities, and am prepared to be a tank proper. My potential to kill foes is lessened in some ways, but the Shield Slam is a great ability, giving a nice extra hit every few seconds as well as debuffing the mob. I'm quite happy being a protection warrior.

Writing of debuffing, I had a few minutes spare last night and wondered if there was perhaps a quest I could complete quickly, choosing to see if I could get in to Kurzen's Compound, in the north of Stranglethorn Vale, to take out Kurzen and his commandos. From my earlier questing I had found a scroll of strength and rather than selling it I thought I'd keep it for my next quest, which was now. Just before I start my killing spree I complete the spell on the scroll and buff myself with the extra strength. The second or third mob I encounter hits me and debuffs the scroll's effects entirely. Fine, I'll sell the scrolls from now on if the game refuses to reward my choices in the expected manner. I'm not going to continue to buff myself with unsustainable effects if they'll get taken away from me potentially seconds after I've applied them.

Disappointment aside, I had a positive encounter as well. A gnome warrior, who looked pretty tall, was in the same caves and looked to be heading towards Kurzen himself. Mid-fight, he sends me a random invitation to team up, where I consider 'random' to be 'without initiating contact first'. I fight my initial urge to turn it down without having first been asked, instead reasoning that two characters in the same place are likely to be completing the same quest, and that gives good reason to team up and share the reward. This is essentially a collaborative game, after all, so I accept the invitation and we're soon fighting side-by-side. We're also soon running back from the graveyard as ghosts, but that was okay.

A quick corpse-run later and we're fighting our way to Kurzen. With my gnome companion's fury spec and my protection spec the combat goes smoothly, grabbing Kurzen's head and fighting our way back out again. Our shared quest completed, we bid each other farewell and head our separate ways again, both merrier for our encounter. People aren't so bad after all. Well, gnomes, at least.

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Tags: azeroth, sapphire, world of warcraft

Concluding Technological Secrets

The explosion-damping module is fitted, the heavy launcher is swapped out for a fourth assault launcher, all launchers are fully loaded with Bloodclaw missiles for kinetic damage; I'm ready to end the Minmatar threat I was made aware of in the level two mission Technological Secrets.

The Minmatar ships are converging in Amarachi, a single jump away, so it is not long before I am warping to the deadspace location. When I arrive there are a dozen or so ships loitering, waiting for the reinforcements before warping to their destructive destination, but I'm not worried. With my Caracal kitted out to hit them hard whilst having their missiles bounce off my shields what could go wrong?

I find out what could go wrong when I'm struck by the first volley of Flameburst missiles, hitting me for thermal damage and not the explosive damage that I took previously from the Piranha missiles. That's when I remember the agent saying this is a Minmatar/Gallente alliance, and I wonder if maybe I should have gathered some intelligence on the Gallente as well. But with my shield at half-strength already this is more the time to concentrate on the task in hand.

With the explosion-damping module drawing capacitor energy but not actually protecting my boat I turn it off and rely on my shield booster, once again balancing shield strength with capacitor charge. It is also pleasing to see a cruiser or two in each wave of frigates, just begging me to have a heavy launcher installed. Ah well, I have plenty of missiles and it just takes a few more to take the cruisers down.

As perhaps a gesture of goodwill, my final two opponents appear to be firmly Minmatar, firing Piranha missiles and being susceptible to the Ladar ECM system, allowing me to absorb most of the damage they throw at me whilst only having to deal with one of them shooting me at a time. All the dangerous work had been completed by then, and still I manage not to take any damage below my shields.

The mission complete I salvage from all the ships and head back to the station. My agent is quite pleased with my success, and gives me a healthy 240,000 ISK reward. The significance of the mission also increases my standing quite nicely, so much so that I have a look around again to see if any higher-standing agents are now willing to talk to me. I find a couple, one of which is only a couple of jumps away from Jita and has a quality level of -5, quite a bit higher than the -14 quality agent I'm currently dealing with.

I load all the salvage I've accumulated and my necessary spare modules in to the hold of Tiger Lily and prepare to ship back to Jita, to sell and store as appropriate. I'll send back Harvest Moon to pick up what the Caracal can't carry, before heading out to the system to introduce myself to a new agent. I would have made the move last night but I had a bout of narcolepsy and couldn't even get the Caracal's hold loaded (i.e. the client kept crashing).

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Tags: agents, amarachi, badger, caracal, deadspace, eve online, gallente, jita, minmatar, penny ibramovic

Fixing my CD player

I don't play CDs that often any more, instead generally listening to my old third generation iPod, plugged in to my A/V system, playing all of my music on random album play. It is nice to be able to interrupt the iPod's playlist without losing its place by using my CD player, which offers the opportunity to listen to six CDs of my choice in the order I choose. The sound quality from the CD player is better quality too, although it's not significant enough a difference always to use for general background music. I mostly use the CD player to play my recently bought CDs, letting me keep them constantly available whilst also having my entire collection playing on my iPod.

My aging Arcam multi-disc CD player has had the occasional glitch when changing discs recently, using its jukebox-style changer. It hasn't seemed to be anything serious, just a small snag that corrects itself. But last night when trying to load White Hinterland's Phylactery Factory the player got itself stuck and refused to recover. I tried to help it along, as best as anyone can on the outside of what is essentially a black box, and tried to get the disc to eject instead of load, but the player was clearly having problems.

With a little teasing the CD tray was drawn out. At least, most of it was. The CD was not on the tray and a part of the tray was not where I expected it to be. An examination showed the disc to be just inside the player, which was extracted easily enough and showed no signs of scratching, and the working of the tray was assumed. It seemed that there was a part of the tray that was able to slide back and forth separate from the tray's operation when ejecting from the player, and there was a spring-operated catch that held it in place or performed another operation presumably when changing discs internally. That catch had come off.

Luckily, the spring on the catch was still attached. Positioning myself under the player allowed me to see where the spring probably attached to when the catch was in place, which just left me the problem of connecting it again. The spring was small, with a tiny ring at one end that needed to be looped over a recessed hook. This was not a job for fingers. A quick improvisation with a toothpick and I impressed myself by hooking the spring back in to place on the first attempt. The catch was in place, the spring was hooked up, and I was able to get the sliding part of the tray back where it looked most familiar.

I loaded the disc back in to the tray and power-cycled the unit. The disc loaded, was read, and I set it playing, listening to the still-beautiful songs of White Hinterland. Once the disc had finished playing the CD player had no trouble moving on to the next disc, and by the time I went to turn it off it had made it's way through from the fourth disc to the sixth, then cycled back to the first. My only other surprise for the evening was remembering that I was actually listening to the CD player after pressing pause on my iPod and wondering why the music didn't stop.

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Tags: arcam, cd, ipod, phylactery factory, white hinterland

iPod Touch applications

I poked around the new application store for the iPhone and iPod Touch when it was opened a couple of weeks ago. Apart from getting the Remote application, which allows my iPod Touch to control iTunes on my desktop machine over the wireless network, nothing really grabbed me as interesting. I was only looking at the free applications at the time though, more idly wondering what was available than anything, as I see my iPod as primarily a music-playing device that just happens to have some neat extra functionality.

I had another poke around the free applications the other night, and came away with a few more applications this time. The complete works of Shakespeare gives me the equivalent of the books themselves, in that they will sit unread but looking awfully impressive should anyone notice, without even needing to distress pages or spines to feign having actually read them. I picked up a neat dice rolling simulator, which offers random number generation as if rolling any dice from a D4 up to D20, as well as 3D6, and 4D6 less the lowest result, both of which work for D20 character generation, which is nifty but unlikely to displace the physical sensation of rolling actual dice. And in a vain attempt to pretend to fulfil any of my weekend to-do list I downloaded a Mandarin phrasebook.

One new application that will actually get some use is the Moonlight Mahjong Lite game. My old third-generation iPod had a few games on it, of which I occasionally played Patience when travelling on a slow train or had an idle few minutes to pass, and the lack of anything similar on the Touch was a little disappointing. I had been looking forward to the application store's opening mostly to see if I could get a simple game in order to keep myself amused on occasion. This Mah Jong tile game is just the ticket. It's the solo version of the game, where paired tiles are removed from the edges of the stack until no tiles are remaining. Being nicely rendered in 3D the multi-touch screen of the Touch is used to move, zoom, and pan, allowing you to get a good view of which tiles are on which level, and tiles to be removed are selected simply by touching them. The game handles selecting the tile you're trying to touch quite well, even when the tile is partially occluded, making for a fairly error-free playing experience. It's a neat little game and shows off the capability of the Touch. The 'Lite' version of the game is free, with a full version available to buy that has more tile layouts.

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Tags: apple, ipod

Technological Secrets

My agent in EVE Online gives me an important level two mission. Codenamed Technological Secrets I am to find and capture a rebel captain, which means fighting off a few waves of his mercenaries first. I am going to encounter Minmatar ships again, so I keep the Ladar ECM system installed to disrupt their sensors, but don't worry too much about my missile payloads.

The captain I have to capture is only one system away, in the Motsu system, so after a single jump I head in to deadspace to hunt him down. It's not long before I have quite a few rats heading my way looking to stop me from finding their base, and it's only when they all start firing missiles at me that I start worrying. Up until now I have faced mostly ships equiped with turret weapons, which let me keep my distance and stay out of range of their weapons whilst firing back with my missiles. Now I find that I cannot avoid their weapon fire, and the missiles can hit quite hard. I jam what I can and take out the rats as quickly as I can. At least I am now able to lock on to an extra target, thanks to some more skill training.

There are missiles being fired all over the place, most headed towards me, but the only killing blows are being shot by my launchers. My shield doesn't look to healthy, though. All the blasts from the explosive Piranha warheads are taking their toll on my shield and I find it a tricky balance to keep it healthy, alternately sapping my capacitor to replenish the shield with the booster and letting the shield run down as my capacitor recharges. But, as before, I am able to last the entire engagement without suffering any damage to my armour, keeping a healthy ship.

After my previous engagement with Minmatar ships and their Piranha missiles I should have installed an active explosion-damping module. Having one fitted could have mitigated quite a lot of the damage taken and prevented the need to drain my capacitor quite so heavily in boosting my shield. With my agent telling me that there is still more to this mission I decide to remove the broad spectrum ECM from a mid-level slot and install an explosive-damping module instead, but I keep the Ladar-tuned ECM system fitted. I also notice during the dogfights that the Bloodclaw kinetic missiles definitely seem to be damaging the enemy frigates more than the thermal-damage Flameburst missiles, so switch over exclusively to the Bloodclaw missiles. Before I head out again I will probably also switch my lone heavy launcher for a fouth assault launcher, so that the missile boat frigates can be despatched as quickly as possible.

The first part of the mission was a success, but it was frustrating. There was a great deal of lag in Motsu, to the point of taking several seconds for systems to be switched on after requesting their activation. This is frustrating enough with the shield booster and ECM, but when launchers don't activate for half their recharging time whilst the rats are continuously firing on me it can get annoying. It certainly made victory in the combat more uncertain, but I'd prefer the challenge to come from something other than technical problems.

Whilst I was in deadspace I decided to check for asteroid types, after having read elsewhere about better quality of ores being found in mission pockets, and find an omber asteroid mingled amongst the veldspar and scordite. Apparently, the earlier in the alphabet the first letter of the ore type sits, the better the quality of ore it is. I'm still not much of a miner, and know nothing about manufacturing still, but I thought I'd try to take advantage of this find, however insignificant. I head back to Jita, switch to my Bantam frigate, Dewdrop, and head back out to deadspace. I mine the Omber asteroid, jettisoning my first yeild in to a can then topping the can up with each subsequent yeild until I have enough to fill my Badger. I return to Jita, switch from Dewdrop to Harvest Moon, take my Badger out to deadspace, fill up my hold from the can, then back to Jita to refine and sell the ore. Finally, I jump back in to Tiger Lily, my Caracal cruiser, and head back to Saila to hand in the mission, spending some of the time thinking about possibly expanding in to the manufacturing business.

Speaking to my agent in Saila sends me off to have a DNA sample analysed, which is a simple courier mission that takes me through some stunning systems, before asking me to return for some unsettling news. Intelligence has spotted a few waves of rebel Minmatar ships heading towards a starbase and they need to be stopped. It looks like I'll soon find out how effective my explosion-damping system is.

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Tags: badger, bantam, caracal, deadspace, electronic warfare, eve online, jita, mining, minmatar, motsu, penny ibramovic, saila

Sapphire breaks 40th level

Having recently mused about getting my neglected tank in World of Warcraft levelled up quickly so that I can enter the Outlands I logged in to see what I could do. I was concerned about running through the same content yet again, particularly as I had neglected Sapphire because of the over-familiarity of the content before me. I found myself in Stormwind, with just one item in my mailbox. It had been quite a while since leaving that spot, and I was sure anything mailed to me would have been acquired by the post office, so I was intrigued by what could have been sent to me. It turns out to be a message from the Elekk trainer pointing out that I am now eligible for riding lessons, despite not being 40th level yet. That's good to know, but I wasn't travelling back to the Exodar just yet, as I was only on for a short while and was more keen to get some levelling accomplished.

Examining the contents of my bags shows me all the items I had previously rescued from my mailbox, knowing that I might not be back for a while, so it is after a quick trip to the auction house that I start working out where it would be best to go for some quick experience point gains. My quest log points me to Arathi Highlands as the closest place with a few quests that could be completed quickly, so I jog over to the Stormwind flight master. And then I go AFK for ten minutes, as my gryphon takes me passively north. This is a barrier I hadn't experienced in a while, as both City of Villains and EVE Online don't seem to have the problem of needing me to return to a central zone regularly that then requires significant travel time to get back to the action. I suppose World of Warcraft has lessened this problem a little with Shattrath in the Outlands, but the cities in Azeroth become increasingly further away from quest zones with level.

With the gryphon flight over, I jog to where my current quests can be completed, adding a bit more time wasted. I get in to battle and fight through Stromgarde Keep to get the head of Marez Cowl, who is hiding behind a house. The hiding place is one that has been set up since I completed the quest with other characters, years ago, so takes enough finding that I no longer have time to head in to the main building for the other bounties. All I have time left to do is run back to Refuge Point to hand the head in, then use my hearthstone to take me back to the Exodar where I rest in the inn, ready to get riding lessons the next time I log in. I entered Azeroth about half-way through 38th level, and end it having made little apparent progress. This is not a good start to trying to get twenty quick levels, and is a little disheartening.

The quick levelling doesn't progress in the next session either, as I head from the Exodar down to Thousand Needles and ride through the Shimmering Flats on to Gadetzan. I pick up a few lower level quests at the Mirage Raceway and start on them to get some quick experience gains whilst easing myself back in to the abilities of the warrior. I end up the second short session picking up the flight point at Gadgetzan before resting in its inn, still only 38th level. It feels like getting to the Outlands will be a long slog. Still, part of the malaise that I had previously felt was likely caused by running the content almost side-by-side with my rogue. With Knifey now in the Outlands and Sapphire twenty levels behind him there looks to be enough of a gap not to feel fatigued immediately from repeating quests.

The weekend sees me running around the Shimmering Flats with more dedicated time, and it's not long before 39th level finally greets me. It still doesn't seem like much progress, considering how long it seemed to take to gain less than half a level, but that meant gaining the level seemed like an accomplishment. Getting more in to the swing of things I complete quests in the Shimmering flats and get sent to Stranglethorn Vale afterwards. Few people seem to like Stranglethorn Vale, and I certainly have bad memories of enough quests there to think twice before returning, but I have a handful of quests to complete there and a high concentration of quests in one area is a good way to pick up quick XP. There are more quests to pick up in Booty Bay, on the southern tip of Stranglethorn Vale, and I decide to try as many as I am comfortable with.

One of the quests I have left from some time back is Kurzen's Mystery, locating troll legends. I may have completed this quest once or twice in the past, despite having many more characters have it in their quest logs at one point. The troll temple where a couple of the legends are are rather too full of mobs, making it difficult to fight in and almost impossible to escape should the need to run present itself. Another of the legends is underwater, and used to be guarded by elite murlocs. Murlocs are nasty at the best of times, worse when fought underwater in their natural habitat, and downright evil when made elite. Luckily, I had a potion of underwater breathing handy, having got fed up of trying to catch my breath whilst fighting, and the murlocs had been demoted to normal mobs. Through luck and judgement I get perilously close to completing the quest, and decide to try to my luck in getting the final legend from inside the heavily populated troll temple. With some cunning, surprisingly dinging 40th level near the entrance, and having a mount on which I can ride out past the respawned mobs, I manage to complete the quest! That was quite positive, and not just because I had gained another level really quite quickly.

I get some training for being 40th level, including being able to wear plate armour. A quick trip to the auction house gets me some upgraded armour and then I'm off again, back to continue my progress quest. More quests are completed for Shimmering Flats folk as well as going back to Stranglethorn Vale and, to my surprise, I reach 41st level. I progress two full levels during the evening's questing, which is a much more positive experience than not making half a level during a couple of shorter sessions. I chewed through plenty of my rested XP bar, but that can be regained. It will still take a while to get ready for the Outlands, but it looks like I could have some fun getting there.

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Tags: azeroth, sapphire, world of warcraft

Weekend to-do list

Objectives I'd like to achieve, in no particular order:

• learn Chinese, either Cantonese or Mandarin;
• learn to play jazz guitar;
• write a work of significant merit;
• earn an advanced degree.

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Tags: education, guitar, language

LF39M

I completed an idle user-created quiz on old-school World of Warcraft raiding earlier, somewhere on the internet. A part of me quite fancied seeing how much I remembered of my epic warlock days.

Coincidentally enough, although I didn't realise it at the time, today I'm wearing my 'I killed Onyxia' t-shirt. Maybe I should look for a level 60 raid group.

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Tags: clothes, world of warcraft

Level two combat missions continue

After my introduction to level two missions in EVE Online I contact my agent to pick up another couple of missions, now that he trusts me enough to offer me the decent jobs. Before I take any new assignments I hit the market and look at different launchers, after being informed that assault launchers are the weapon of choice for cruiser-versus-frigate dogfights, and see that the assault launcher has that very claim in its description text. Excellent, I'll buy some of those, thank you. The price appears reasonable but the availability is scarce in the constellation, requiring several jumps to get somewhere that offers more than one, which has probably been scavenged. Instead, I head back to Jita, system of lag, where the market is generally quite vigorous. Not only are there hundreds of assault launchers to buy but the prices are an order of magnitude lower, thanks to the stimulation of the market caused by competition based on high availability of the item.

Having saved a small wad of ISK I replace the heavy launchers with assault launchers and head back to Saila to speak to my agent. Go and kill some rats, says my agent. Sure thing, I reply. Of course, because I have no heavy launchers installed it stands to reason that I'll encounter a couple of cruisers on the mission, with my light missiles tickling their shields for the most part. It's a good thing that the assault launchers hold 65% more missiles than a standard launcher, and that I always carry extra ammunition in my hold, otherwise I'd have been fleeing to a station to reload. I manage to destroy the cruisers along with the rest of the rats and head back for the juicy reward money, after which I'm feeling pumped and ready to shoot some more space pirates.

My agent has more work, something to do with Minmatar rebel plans to release a viral agent in to a planet's atmosphere. I decide not to ask him who even bothers going planetside these days and instead agree to stop the rebel scum. Watch out, says the agent, there are reports of interceptors in the fleet. Okay, sure, thanks for the warning! What are interceptors? I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

As I am to encounter Minmatar rebels I use my intelligence gathering to determine that I should fit my Ladar ECM system, and probably kinetic missile warheads. I also fit a broad spectrum ECM module that I have lying around, which I use either to try to jam a second target or perhaps assist with the main ECM system. I'm not sure if the modules can be used in that way, but I like to try and it seems to work. I decide to swap out one assault launcher for a single heavy launcher, on the chance that I'll encounter a cruiser or two amongst the frigates, trying to strike a decent compromise on firepower.

My ship breaks out of warp in to deadspace and I am faced with three clusters of enemy ships, one close by, two far enough away to ignore for now. I plot a course to keep myself in range of the closest group but on a general course to keep my distance, and start locking on to some likely targets. Ah, I think I find the interceptor amongst them, mostly by him finding me. Judging from my first experience, interceptors are fast and employ ECM techniques for maximum irritation. I would guess that their speed helps them mitigate some damage from missiles, as they are tricky to get a decent hit on. Tricky, but not impossible, and whilst I have foes swarming all around me at one point I emerge intact, surrounded by the wreckage of Minmatar ships.

As I found out previously with drones, if a group of ships in deadspace is out of targeting range and not being actively tracked they will not engage. At least, this has been true in my limited sampling of four missions. Managing to stay out of range in this fashion allows for my shield booster to replenish my shield, pushing that red bar back to a healthy white, as well as giving me an opportunity to salvage the wrecks without having to travel 100 km to engage more ships only to have to come back afterwards. Of course, if some of the salvage is within 50 km of active enemies it's best to be prepared to drop the current salvage target and warm up the launchers again.

The heavy launchers help in the fights, doubling the damage the light missiles would do to the transport ships, and helping out enough with the smaller frigates. The ECM systems seem to help when active, as although I am under near-constant fire it looks like I am able to keep a ship or two from maintaining a steady lock. Focussing the ECM on the missile boats reduces the damage I take to manageable levels, and never once does my shield drop enough for damage to get through to my armour, which I consider to be a good result.

The intelligence I gather on the radar system used was good, but the missile damage type to wield was uncertain. I have wondered about the existence of a more comprehensive combat log before, something more than flashing up individual messages on screen, and after a bit of poking around I find the log sitting under 'accessories' and call it up. The log itself is no more detailed than the individual messages, although I don't think I've checked to see if the amount of information logged can be changed, but at least the data is accumulated and can be examined quickly in battle or more thoroughly when sitting in a station.

The data in the log can be used to see how much damage each missile does to which opposing ship, as well as what damage you are taking. Damage taken is a little sparse, as most turret-based hits only mention that amount of damage, although that could be because the type is not important. Rocket and missile damage is noted through the type of missile being used, so you get a message that, for example, a thorn rocket hit you for so much damage. From that message you can check the information about thorn rockets, via the market, and see what type of damage they deal, whether EM, kinetic, thermal or explosive.

Damage done to the interceptor was varied, which is perhaps due to its speed as I wrote above. Damage to other ships also seemed to vary, with the thermal damage of the flameburst missiles seeming to be effective sometimes, and others the kinetic damage-dealing bloodclaw missiles seemed best. Some explosive warhead piranha missiles, which I plucked out of a wreck earlier and had loaded to ascertain their effectiveness, also seemed to be hitting for just as much damage sometimes. I essentially don't know what to load in to my launchers the next time I battle Minmatar; on the other hand, perhaps it doesn't matter too much either.

As I wasn't fighting rats I decide I'd better leave no trace of my killing spree, and clean up the battlefield with my salvager. Yep, I only leave smoking wrecks of hulls, rogue missiles empty of fuel, and plenty of floating corpses, just as I learnt from previously being a member of the Ghost Squad. No one will ever know.

The mission successful, I head back to the station and claim another big reward. My earlier concerns about level two missions not paying enough to warrant the added risk are completely gone as I get 224,000 ISK deposited in to my vault account from a -14 quality agent. The Minmatar rebels were not pirates and did not have bounties on their heads, much like drones, so no extra rewards were to come directly. However, just about each Minmatar wreck contained the military insignia of the pilot, effectively their dog tags, and by selling these almost 250,000 ISK extra was made. Adding in the salvage, amongst which I found a couple of alloyed tritanium bars, some armour plates, and handful of burned logic circuits, I estimate I made about 1,500,000 ISK in total, which is a neat haul for one mission.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Level two combat missions continue
Tags: combat log, deadspace, electronic warfare, eve online, ghost squad, intelligence, jita, minmatar, penny ibramovic, saila, salvage