Prowler Math

On Wednesday Ripard Teg decided to pick blockade runners as the subject of his Fit of the Week.  As I spend a lot of time in a Prowler, I was interested in his opinions.  My ship follows all of his basic principles his first one. 

"Your rigs are two Cargohold Optimizations.  If you put anything else there, you will eventually be sorry that you did.  Yes, I know, putting Polycarbs or Low Frictions here is awesome.  Resist.  Sooner or later, you'll need the extra cargo room."

I currently have a Low Friction Nozzle Joints and a Polycarbon Engine Housing fit.  Back when I did my research on blockade runner fits I read that fitting Cargohold Optimizations was for carebears and would get a ship killed.  But since Ripard usually knows what he's talking about, I decided to do a little math.

First, exactly what are the differences in cargo capacity between someone going for maximum align time and someone desiring maximum cargo capacity?  The below table shows the cargo capacity  a Prowler has when fit with the two rig combinations and the number of Expanded Cargohold IIs.

Expanded Cargohold II	Low Friction Nozzle Joints/ Polycarbon Engine Housing	2 x Cargohold Optimization
0	4063	5373
1	5180	6850
2	6604	8734

The numbers are interesting, but what does that really mean?  To compare what the extra cargo capacity costs in terms of align time, I took the data I gathered from all the distribution missions I ran in low sec from 1 May to 13 June, put them in bands by cargo requirements, and came up with the following table.

Mission Cargo	% of missions	Low Friction Nozzle Joints/ Polycarbon Engine Housing	2 x Cargohold Optimization
0.1-4000	35.6%	3.4	3.7
4800-5000	41.6%	3.7	3.7
5400-6000	22.8%	4.2	4.3
7200-8000	NA	NA	5.1

Interesting.  For 41.6% of the missions I did in low sec, I would have had the same align time if I had used a Prowler fit with Cargohold Optimization rigs as with the more agile combination.  That also assumes that I religiously fit for max align times (i.e. fit my ship with the maximum number of Nanofiber Internal Structure IIs every time I dock).  I don't.  Through experience I learned that I can bust through a gate camp just as well if I have one Expanded Cargohold II fit as if I have nanos in both low slots.  I opt for the quickness of getting in and out of the station over getting that .3 second alignment time advantage.  With the game evaluating time in one second increments anyway, does that .3 really make a difference?  I haven't noticed.

In other words, after doing the math, I really don't experience a difference for 77.2% of the distribution missions I do.  The other 22.8%?  The difference is 0.1 seconds.  Seriously?

The only thing the math shows is that at the higher end, the align times are 5.1.  Knocking that under 5 seconds would make a noticeable difference.  I could spend the money on a +5 implant, or I could resort to using fleet boosts.  I found this in the Evelopedia...

"A Squadron Commander will grant his leadership bonuses to all members of his squadron, including himself."

I already do this when I mine and run security missions.  Why not distribution missions? Both my main pilots have trained to fly command ships and have Skirmish Warfare trained to V.  I just have to set the pilot actually running the mission as the squad commander and the align times look like the table below.

Mission Cargo	% of missions	Low Friction Nozzle Joints/ Polycarbon Engine Housing	2 x Cargohold Optimization
0.1-4000	35.6%	3.1	3.4
4800-5000	41.6%	3.3	3.4
5400-6000	22.8%	3.8	3.9
7200-8000	NA	NA	4.6

Sub 4 second align times on all the distribution missions I currently run and under 5 seconds when doing the larger missions.  Not bad.  I should add in the benefits when doing the storyline mission "Materials for War".  At level 4, the ore required takes up 9600m³ of space.  I have to make two trips in my current configuration.  With a maximum cargo capacity setup and using Giant Secure Containers, I can reduce that down to one.

EDIT: This only works if you have another pilot in system.  But nice for dual-boxing or in a fleet.

I have two Medium Cargohold Optimization Is building now and can update my ship the next time I log in.  I really can't argue with math.

Odyssey - Living Up To The Name

CCP named the summer 2013 expansion for EVE Online Odyssey because the theme of the expansion is exploration.  Admittedly, high school was over 30 years ago, but I remember Homer's The Odyssey as the story of a Greek king who had an unexpectedly long journey going home, sometimes facing great danger, after the fall of Troy.  On that level, at least for me, Odyssey is succeeding.

Unlike many, I like the mechanics of the new exploration system.  The changes to make the probing system appeal to Asian gamers is nice as only having to use the mouse to probe relieves some stress from my left hand.  In addition to getting up there in years, I'm still suffering the effects from years of playing the EverQuest 2 crafting mini-game.  I also like the new hacking mini-game.  Sure, I warped out of a relic site last night trailing flame courtesy of The Marmite Collective, but that pressure just adds to the fun.

I think where CCP fell down is that the system is less exploration and more shopping.  I now think of the exploration sites as data and relic stores.  When I jump into a system, I automatically see the billboards for all the stores tempting me to visit.  I see this a lot since I have a level 2 research agent I visit every day to run research missions for.  What normally is a 10 minute journey sometimes turns into an odyssey of an hour (sometimes two!) because I just can't resist dropping probes and seeing what bargains I can find.  I can usually find a store to visit in a few minutes of searching.  And like Odysseus, I sometimes survive the encounter by the skin of my teeth.

I should add that probing also finds combat and gas sites.  Yes, I finally found a gas site after a year of exploring.  I guess they don't spawn in faction warfare systems.  Like that ancient Greek king, I am seeing new things in my travels since the launch of Odyssey.  But I wouldn't call it exploration.  I'm just stumbling upon them in my travels, just like Odysseus stumbled across the Cyclops.

Erlendur on Jita

@chellaranier That way ==> to Amarr...
— Erlendur (@erlendur) June 11, 2013

No, the title of the post is not a reference to the system in Metropolis.  The Erlendur in question is Dr. Erlendur S. Þorsteinsson (Thorsteinsson), the Software Director of the EVE Universe and EVE Online. As you can tell by his job title he knows a thing or twenty about how the software that makes up EVE works. Recently he left the safety of Twitter and the Tweetfleet and braved the wilds of the official EVE Online forums to answer questions about the population cap in Jita under his nom de plume CCP Explorer.  I figure that since the official EVE forums is one of the few places that even the NSA fears to tread that I'd extract some of his answers to questions and produce a little virtual Q and A that kind of makes sense.

The Digital Dozen: 11 June 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 9 June 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	41.2	20,778	-0.3
2	2	Guild Wars 2	15.8	7,944	-3.3
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	10.6	5,345	+5.7
4	12	EVE Online	6.2	3,121	+250.7
5	4	Neverwinter	5.6	2,836	-26.6
6	5	Aion	4.8	2,414	-0.9
7	6	Tera	4.0	1,996	-11.1
8	8	Planetside 2	2.7	1,386	+5.8
9	7	RIFT	2.7	1,370	-8.8
10	10	Need For Speed World	2.1	1,081	-3.1
11	11	APB: Reloaded	2.1	1,071	-2.0
12	--	Star Trek Online	2.1	1,066	+5230.0

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 50,417

The gaming habits of the Xfire community apparently are settling down at the beginning of the summer as players only increased the time they spent playing the 12 most popular MMORPGs by 1.1% Sunday over the previous week.  The big gainers in playtime were Star Trek Online (+5230%) and EVE Online (+250.7%) while games experiencing the biggest declines were Neverwinter (-26.6%), Lord of the Rings Online (-19.2%) and Tera (-11.1%).

Technical Difficulties - Usually when one of the top MMORPGs has an expansion, the numbers automatically rise.  Not for Cryptic's first expansion for Star Trek Online.  The launch of the game's first expansion, The Legacy of Romulus, saw the numbers plummet to near zero.  Apparently Xfire has the issues detecting when the new version of Star Trek is running and the game made its first appearance on The Digitial Dozen since 3 March.

Back Bigger Than Ever - EVE Online rebounded strongly one week after shutting down due to a DDoS attack.  The effort was helped by the launch of the Odyssey expansion a week ago along with some promotions designed to get players back into the game.  The game's 6.2 score is its highest ever and the number of hours played the largest since late February. The actual concurrency numbers on the main Tranquility server of 61,580 was the fourth highest in EVE's 10-year history.

It IS Still In Beta - Neverwinter experienced a -26.6% decline in time played a few days after Perfect World announced a massive and gameplay update.  The F2P game is still officially in beta, with a launch date of 20 June.  Are players slowing down not wanting to burn themselves out before the official launch?  Or are players upset over their classes receiving nerfs?  We'll see in a couple of weeks.

Is 60,000 The New 50,000?

Yesterday saw EVE Online's Tranquility shard hit a peak concurrent user (PCU) mark of 61,580 at 19:01 EVE time.  No events like the 10th anniversary celebration or Alliance Tournament contests were going on.  Just an expansion and some fighting out in Fountain or Delve or some place out in bubble space.

PCU Numbers From Eve-Offline.net

For those wondering, the PCU record for Tranquility is 65,303 set during last month's 10 anniversary celebration.  How frequent of an event is exceeding 60,000?  Yesterday was only the 7th recorded time.

5 May 2013	.....	65,303
23 Jan 2011	.....	63,170
30 Jan 2011	.....	62,333
9 Jun 2013	.....	61,580
6 Feb 2011	.....	60,782
3 Mar 2013	.....	60,476
6 Jun 2010	.....	60,453

Notice the list is getting long?  More importantly, three of the seven times the PCU exceeded 60,000 occurred this year.  Of course, 2011 also saw three days exceed 60,000.  But back in 2011 not only did the numbers decline but the War on Bots began in earnest in February 2011.  The same occurred earlier this year.  The PCU numbers were growing but two days after the number was reached in March Team Security introduced a new bot detection method that knocked the concurrency numbers way down.

So does Team Security have something up their sleeves to keep the numbers down?  If not, I expect we'll continue to see the PCU top 60,000 on Sundays.  Well, at least as long as the fighting continues in null sec anyway.

Odyssey Odds And Ends

We're heading into the first weekend of Odyssey and I thought I'd just jot down a few odds and ends I'm thinking about going based on my experiences so far.

Exploration - I ran another relic site last night for 6.3 million.  Two of the eight spawns were bugged though.  I don't know if that was because the system cores were 50/10.  The cans whose cores were rated 70/10 worked fine.  Of course, I heard reports of instability on TQ around the same time, so who knows what actually happened.  For those interested, I spent 25 minutes running the site.  I'm at the point with the new probe system that I can scan down a site in less than 3 minutes.  The system still feels awkward when I'm resizing the probe ranges so I expect to improve on that performance in the future.

Jonny Pew has videos up on his first impressions of relic and data sites in low sec.  I watched the one on data sites and it was pretty good.  Then again, I like Jonny's work in general.

Low sec sales - After a pause at the beginning of the week I'm starting to see sales again.  I'm looking to expand my product line to include liquid oxygen.  I hear that's pretty popular.

Datacores - I'm currently deciding which agents to deal with.  I know that I'll have to sell the datacores in high sec, but for purposes of the low sec experiment as long as the agents are based in low sec systems that will count.  That does eliminate a level 4 agent, but since I set the rules on this experiment, I'd just cheat myself if I broke them.  I'll just have to keep track of the ones obtained from the datacore farming from the ones obtained through exploration.  Hopefully I'll have the operation up and running sometime this weekend.

Ice Mining - I've gone out ice mining twice this week, piling up 31,000 m³ of ice.  The first location of the anomaly was nice, 24+ AU from the star gates.  By this time the ore site should have respawned.  I wonder if the location is static or if the site moves around the system.

Even at my minimum level mining I have a lot of product to move.  I'll try to sell the liquid oxygen in Molden Heath.  The other products I may package together with the datacores and sell in Rens.

Concurrent users - For the first time I'm witnessing daily PCU numbers over 50,000 on non-holiday weekdays when I visit Eve-Offline.  So far each day's PCU since the expansion has exceeded 53,000.  Before the expansion, 50,000 was only exceeded on the weekends.  Is that bots, an influx of multiboxers from WoW, or could Odyssey rival the success of Retribution?  Looks like the subject for a post in a couple of weeks after the numbers firm up a bit.

Bots - Since I'm known for my coverage of the War on Bots, I have some sad news.  No tears.  I didn't really expect any, but I think a lot of people were hoping.  While I don't have access to the forum, I'm sure all the Red Guard users got hit with a $25 upgrade fee.  And I wonder if some of the changes in PvE combat are affecting some ratting bots.  I'll look more over the weekend but I didn't see any unified inventory sized event hit the botting forums this year.

Cleaning Up The Odyssey Spew

Yesterday I just gave some first impressions of Odyssey.  Today I look at handling one of the most villified aspects of hacking: the can spew after a successful hack.  I don't know if I'm handling the situation correctly, but so far the system is working for me.

First, you need to position your ship correctly before the hack attempt.  I'm finding that a position 2,200 - 2,500 meters from the container is good.  For my exploration runs I've actually swapped out the MWD in my Cheetah for an afterburner.  I don't need speed, I need delicate ship handling.  I also slowly inch my way into position.  By having my speed set to 1/4 or less this actually helps during the cleanup.  Of course, my Cheetah does 563m/second without afterburners, so those in slower ships may not have to worry so much.

The next step is to perform the hack.  For those having difficulties I recommend CSM 8 member Ali Aras' hacking guide on TheMittani.com.  A guide written by a real-life woman?  I know, I know, people think women can't figure out complicated stuff.  Don't be fooled!  In EVE, if a woman starts acting like a bubble-head, start looking for the scam.

All right.  The hack is successful.  Don't panic!  First, if you have not already done so, scroll the view from your ship out.  This slows down the speed in which the cans fly across the screen.  Once that's done, the time has come to quickly collect the cans.  But which ones?  Neural-Boost.com posted some research yesterday on this question. 

In data sites, pick the Parts containers first because the hold decrypters and datacores.  Next, pick Data containers because they hold blueprints and skill books.  The page then states there is really no preference, but I would suggest an order of material > equipment > scraps.

In relic sites, both the Material and Parts containers hold tech 1 and tech 2 salvage.  Parts gets a slight edge because those containers hold Electronics parts while the Material containers hold carbon.  After that comes the Data containers that may hold Spatial Atunement Units needed to create the new tech 2 scanning upgrade modules.  After that comes equipment and scraps.

Just remember that the mini-tractor beam that hauls in the cans does have a limited range.  White cans mean they are out of range.  Part of the reason for setting a slow speed in approaching the container is so you can slowly chase down a can.  They don't move that fast and you don't want to chase down one can only to overfly the rest.  Also, when a can starts flashing, that means the can is about to disappear.  If you have a choice between two cans, choose the blinky one first.

I hope this proves helpful.  Last night I ran a relic site and pulled in 11.3 million ISK.  Not great, but better than the 3 million I pulled in from a relic site on launch day as I was figuring all of this out.

First Day In Odyssey

Yesterday was launch day in Odyssey and I think it went well.  The downtime ended well before the scheduled time and the download was exceedingly quick.  I was able to get home at a decent hour and jump right into the game.  Here are my first impressions from what I did.

Probing - Of course, after checking my market orders, the first thing I did was jump into my trusty Cheetah and start probing down sites.  I think CCP did an excellent job of adapting the probe system for the Asian market as I didn't have to use the keyboard once.  I tried, but found my time spent more efficiently just using the mouse.  Amazingly, the system works just using a mouse.

Of course, I should add I have spent a lot of time exploring and have the skills to prove it:

Astrometrics V
Astrometric Acquisition IV
Astrometric Pinpointing IV
Astrometric Rangefinding IV

I think after all the changes are added up I actually gained 5% in scan probe scan time, maximum scan deviation, and scan probe strength.  Thanks CCP!

With the new system, the probes come out all at once, which saves time.  Then the sites come out in a pattern (I use the pinpoint one) which saves time.  Then the sites are already localized in red spheres, which saves even more time.

Actually manipulating the probes is easier once you forget the western need to use the keyboard.  Just move the probe icon to where you want to center your search.  Then select one of the edges of the search bubbles and move it to the size of the area you want to search.  Simple.  The only thing I need to do is develop the muscle memory to do that faster and I'm set.

Hacking - Admittedly I did play with the system on Singularity, but the game is pretty straight forward.  I only failed two hacks.  But remember, I was using a Cheetah with tech two version of the data and relic analyzers and I have both Hacking and Codebreaking trained to 5.  The only thing that gave me problems were the restoration nodes that granted more power to all the firewalls over time.  I finally learned not to chick on all the shiny things until absolutely needed.  The shiny things are data caches that show up as white dots.  They contain both good and bad things.  I figured out not to click on them until I didn't have a choice.

I do have to say that after the first day the rewards were disappointing.  I ran four sites and collected 37 million ISK in drops.  I think before Odyssey I was collecting around 15 million ISK in drops, bounties and salvage per site.  On the bright side, I did manage to run 4 sites, which I didn't do pre-Odyssey.  Because rats don't spawn, I don't have to worry about combat and salvage so I'm free to wander around farther afield looking for sites.  I actually didn't have to wander far as our new overlords in the Amarr militia and doing a good job of scaring the non-hardcore carebears away.

For the hacking, I'm hoping that everyone will hear the feature is not worth the effort and leave all the sites to me.  I actually find the hacking game fun and as everyone knows, I'm not really playing EVE to maximize profits.  I mean, I live in low sec.

Refining - After doing my exploration I was going to go belt mining.  Then I realized I had Dark Ochre and Gneiss that I had saved to refine.  With the changes to the mineral content in the high end ores, I decided to find out if I needed to mine for tritanium.  I didn't.  Let's just say that after refining that plus some Veldspar variants I mined plus some drone goo I collected I wound up with 2.6 million units of trit.  Enough to satisfy my manufacturing needs for a couple of weeks as long as I don't try to manufacture cruise missiles.  If ore sites pop frequently in low sec, I can see the veldspar rocks getting mighty big in the belts.

Ice Mining - With my regular mineral needs met, I decided to go ice mining.  I do have to say the new sensor overlay is nice and I don't mind having to find the ice site in space instead of going through a right-click menu tree.  So I warped in and mined 1 1/2 loads of ice.  I only stopped when I saw Shalee Lianne drop probes.  I lost one Procurer to In Exile. last month and don't want them to think I'm an easy target they can farm.  So since I was already aligned to a station, I waited a few seconds for the module to finish and then warped off and docked.

I wound up with 18 blocks of Glare Crust and 1 block of Glacial Mass.  Not too bad for 20 minutes of work.  I probably should put some rigs on my ice mining Procurer, but I'm in the habit of moving it around low sec and I'd rather repackage it and use the Prowler for moves than to risk gate camps.  I'll also need to look at the market in Molden Heath to see if the ice products will sell or if I need to go to Hek or Rens to sell my wares.  I may have a new line of products to sell this month.

Conclusion - So far I'm finding the new game mechanics interesting.  I think they will appear to the Asian gamer, but more importantly, I like the mouse-only system too.  Unlike moving in space, players can still use the keyboard, but really, why bother unless you are doing some of the complex stuff for PvP?  Last night was fairly quiet, but I expect that to change this weekend.  So for now, I'm having fun, which is the purpose of playing a game.

The Digital Dozen: 4 June 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 2 June 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	41.8	20,840	+3.5
2	2	Guild Wars 2	16.5	8,218	-1.7
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	10.2	5,064	-6.0
4	4	Neverwinter	7.8	3,864	-18.3
5	6	Aion	4.9	2,437	+10.7
6	7	Tera	4.5	2,245	+5.7
7	10	RIFT	3.0	1,502	+18.9
8	8	Planetside 2	2.6	1,310	-24.2
9	9	Lord of the Rings Online	2.6	1,276	-3.8
10	--	Need For Speed World	2.2	1,116	+30.1
11	11	APB: Reloaded	2.2	1,093	-1.5
12	5	EVE Online	1.8	890	-64.0

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 49,855

Sunday saw a 4% decline in the amount of time spent by the Xfire community playing the 12 most popular MMORPGs as determined by the community.  The decline was led by EVE Online (-64%), Planetside 2 (-24.2%) and Neverwinter (-18.3%).  Games experiencing significant boosts in interest were Need For World Speed (+30%), RIFT (+18.9%) and Aion (+10.7%).

Down But Not Out - Most of this week's decline is due to the DDoS attack experienced by EVE Online over the weekend.  While CCP took the servers down as a precaution, players managed to play long enough to keep EVE from dropping completely out of the Digital Dozen.  EVE remains one of four games (World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Aion are the others) that have remained on the list since its inception in February 2012.  Expect the numbers to jump next week as the next expansion, Odyssey, launches today.

Climbing Out Of The Hole - RIFT continues to build momentum towards its free-to-play launch on 12 June.  This week's 18.9% increase was aided by a promotion inviting those who had previously purchased the game to come back and play for a weekend.  Judging by the crowds in the starter areas the F2P launch could get crowded.

Coming Back To Earth - EVE was not the only sci-fi themed game to experience a big drop in the time the Xfire community spend playing it on Sunday.  Planetside 2's hours played dropped 24.8% following the double-XP Memorial Day weekend.  Unlike EVE, though, the drop brings the game back to reality and last Sunday's numbers probably won't occur again until the Independence Day weekend in the U.S.

May In Low Sec

With Odyssey launching Tuesday, I'm halfway through my project of comparing my low sec experience pre- and post-expansion.  I have altered the parameters because I abandoned my plan to go to high sec and do a level 4 epic arc series.  I just couldn't make myself go to high sec, which is good since Tranquility suffered a DDoS attack this weekend.  So instead, I will compare five weeks before launch to five weeks after launch.  And while the weekend's server issues should have suppressed my profits, I did manage to do a 5/10 complex and get 167 million ISK in drops and bounties, even though I couldn't take down the final boss.

So how did I play EVE in May?  Except for the 10th anniversary celebration when CCP broke into the sandbox and had a contest for killing the most ships, I conducted all my activity in low sec.  Well, unless a mission took me to high sec or the shortest path took me into high, but I don't include that.  Here is the breakdown of the activities: