going inactive

one assumes the developers know how the players use the mechanics of their game. This game company, like most MMO companies, have consistently disabused me of this fantasy. It's gone too far though...they're making too many changes to too many things in this game that are simply cosmetic in nature and for all the wrong reasons...without the transparency one would expect.

It's been...what? since 2003 i've waited for this company to fix the 'gang' (corporation) mechanics. That's 9 years hoping i would be able to enjoy this game in the company of others without this nightmarish system where corporate spies and thieves are able to operate with impunity. The handicaps coded in for CEOs are hopelessly paranoiac if one is even able to form one and survive.

I have so much more in life to spend my time on than a screensaver with a built in chat function. I've always - always - enjoyed mining asteroids in pixelated outerspace. I'm finally sick of Eve though...it's just...well...there's too many griefers who have locked their lips onto developer arseholes. I've seen this pattern before, and the n00bs are told to harden the fuck up.

Meh. i think DUST is going to kill this game. This high stakes risk isn't going to pan out for this idiotic, egotistical company. It's what killed Netdevil's "jumpgate" oh so many years ago. Elitist pricks sucking dev dick + outside investment in a failed vapourware game.

home...was it a random choice?

"Some say a man's home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox. 

In EVE Online, what does the concept of "home" mean to you?" ~BlogBanter39

Fua and Hoosa constellations. If an eve player can name a constellation that usually means they're familiar with the location. I don't know why i've always hung around here...I've got a few ideas and guesses why...ones I hope aren't in foolish naivette of the riches awaiting elsewhere.

oh wait

There are riches elsewhere. Riches in farming faction warfare; enormous profits to be had in wormholes just a deep core scan probe away; ridiculous amounts of isk to rake in through null sec upgraded anomalies.

Why do I like mining ice in Gosalav, Hoosa constellation, Domain region, over the years? Why did I reject null sec play on grounds it felt too nomadic? Why do wormholes cause me to break out in hives?

I guess it's because I like a place i can call home...forever.  But why Hoosa and Fua constellation? I really ought to be based out of Aydoteaux (did i spell that right?) system in gallente space so I could fuel that type of tower which is the best for moon mining.

I had an idea back when I started and that idea was an attempt to roleplay (yeah, go ahead and laff) a Warhammer 40k theme and the Amarr faction was the best fit. I even made my1stwebsite to that effect. I wanted to based out of Theology Council stations exclusively and try to be very much like the strict eve roleplaying corps of the day...Alas, that NPC entity lacks factory services. I couldn't decide for a while between Sarum Family and Ministry of Internal Order. I think I decided that MIO sounded very dull indeed.

I used to haul electronics parts from Aliastra stations in Fua constellation to Sasen constellation for sale and buy polytextiles from Ishukone stations there for sale to the former NPC corp in Fua. It was risky and I got to learn about pirates and how to sneak by them during the week and mine ice in Gosalav on the weekend in a max cargo rigged hulk.

Nowadays, having maxed out my Sarum Family standings for refining, I run missions for that "dull" NPC corp, M.I.O. because they not only have a level 5 low sec combat agent (like i'd ever risk doing that. lol) but access to the first agent in the level 4 Amarr Epic storyline arc. Not to mention a really nice collection of agents in Penirgman, along with an 'event' agent (storyline) located in their station.

And finally i have Fahruni system (in Fua constellation) that I goto for ore mining and planetary interaction.

I've learnt a bit more about scanning (learning more ways to move probes about beyond just dragging on arrows; 'alt'+drag and "plane" dragging) so i think i might try my hand at scanning down exploration and wormhole sites in low sec Fua constellation.
But, I don't think i'll ever leave home.

 UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
So why do I consistently reject all temptation to turn nomadic? I'm supposed to be a Bartle "Explorer" mmog personality type...Aren't they supposed to wander the universe nosing into everything? Maybe that's the Type-A brand of Explorer. I'm the couch potato brand. lol.
But what is the concept of home? I've read some of my fellow bloggers opinions and it seems I'm a rarity to stay in on spot all these years (even during that year of null space I still called Gosalav home) so I'm a bit hesitant to lay forth a concept of home being some place that fits a player's original intent for plunking down $$$ for that initial subscription beyond the trial account.
Guess i'll say it again: Home in eve is the place that fits a player's motivate for subscribing to this mmog.
I suppose one could apply that to other contexts in other blogs to see if this hypothesis can eke out their motive for playing eve, if i may be allowed that conceit.

Kudi's Datacenter exploited...finally

Because i've never had the resources, the time, nor the willpower, i've been putting off going to a "data center." What's a data center? There's systems where there's a bunch of agents in space you can strike up conversations with and accept missions - requiring only pirate dog tags - they give you empire standings, but if you can't gather the dog tags before the mission expires (in less than a day) you're screwed.

Event Agents located at Data Centers offer a one time agent mission that will give Faction standing for a number of pirate tags. Data Centers are deadspace locations found at beacons in high-security 'Empire' space. There are twelve Data Centers total with three Data Centers for each of the four major Empire factions, Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente and Amarr. (Amarr share theirs with the Ammatar and have more agents total.)

I'm finally in a position where throwing mad cash at a problem IS finally an option, so armed with notes from DeMichael Crimson's threads and handy "faction standing repair plan", along with eve-central's database, along with eve-files to grab screenshots of jita markets, a knowledge of eve's map and how to get where fast and safe, plus lots of spare time with two alts i 'got busy'. I decided to focus solely on direct standings gains for amarr and not worry about adding in derived standings...kept things rather simple and orientated on "blood raiders" dog tags almost exclusively.


MAIN AMARR FACTION DATACENTER
data on corp/faction boost is derived from the repair plan notes
Kudi level 1 agents

• Nikmar Jyran 3 sansha copper tag Rewards 2.86% corp and 1.0% faction standings boost.
• Selate Kalami 20 blood bronze tag Rewards 5% corp and 1.5% faction standings boost.

Kudi level 2 agents (corp/faction standings 1.0+)

• Jur Zehbani 20 blood silver tag Rewards 10.0% corp and 3.0% faction standings boost.
• Subin Barama 20 blood brass tag Rewards 7.0% corp and 1.65% faction standings boost.

Kudi level 3 agents (corp/faction standings 3.0+)

• Timafa Esihiz 20 blood palladium tag Rewards 16.67% corp and 5% faction standings boost.
• Hatia Madase 20 blood gold tag Rewards 22.40% corp and 6.72% faction standings boost.
• Odoosh Teroul 20 blood electrum tag Rewards 1.38% corp and 0.41% faction standings boost.

Kudi level 4 agents (corp/faction standings 5.0+)

• Matna Meri 20 blood crystal tag Rewards 14.7% corp and 4.5% faction standings boost.
• Juki Khoun 20 blood platinum tag Rewards 29.1667% corp and 8.75% faction standings boost.
• Urat Mehrekar 20 blood diamond tag Rewards 23.80% corp and 7.14% faction standings boost.

all except Nikmar Jyran are Ministry of War agents (amarr faction.)  Nikmar is Amarr Navy. (amarr)
There's a courier mission to be had as well by an Khanid faction agent, Sevan Fagided

==============
ALTERNATES
In Ferira system, Taspar Zolankor (amarr navy) is Nikmar Jyran's counterpart there. (3 sansha copper)
In Polfaly system, Demi Lazerus (amarr navy) is Nikmar Jyran's counterpart there. (3 blood copper)
The other data center agents are either Khanid faction or Ammatar faction...you could get a synergy boost to amarr action from running missions for the latter, but that's beyond the scope of this blog entry.

=============
JITA MARKET
data on corp/faction boost is derived from the repair plan notes
Sansha Copper Tags (lowest sell 2.9m isk; hundreds on market) 9.7m isk for +1% amarr
Blood Bronze Tags (lowest sell 7.5m isk; less than a dozen on market) 150m isk for +1.5% amarr
Blood Silver Tags (lowest sell 0.6m isk; hundreds on market; high volume) 12m isk for +3% amarr
Blood Brass Tags (lowest sell 0.8m isk; hundreds on market) 16m isk for +1.65% amarr
Blood Palladium Tags (lowest sell 0.9m isk; thousands on market; high volume) 18m isk for +5% amarr
Blood Gold Tags (lowest sell 10.7m isk; hundreds on market) 214m isk for +6.72% amarr
Blood Electrum Tags (lowest sell 0.2m isk; thousands on market; high volume) 4m isk for +0.41% amarr
Blood Crystal Tags (lowest sell 0.3m isk; hundreds on market) 6m isk for +4.5% amarr
Blood Platinum Tags (lowest sell 1.3m isk; hundreds on market) 26m isk for +8.75% amarr
Blood Diamond Tags (extremely low price; thousands on market; high volume) peanuts for +7.14%


I ended up buying a shittonne of blood diamond tags for dirt cheap, 20 blood crystal and platinums for my main, then 80 blood electrum (for 4 of my characters)...after that i flew around eve universe snatching up as many cheap blood palladium tags as i could as well as brass and silver tags @200k isk each (all three types were around that price)
My goal was to get my main 20 tags of each of the level 4 agents, 80 of the level 3 and level 2...plus scrabbled a bunch of sansha coppers tags if they were cheap enough but the sansha were low priority since i'd really rather find out how to go about gathering copper tags by myself from rat loot.

================
APPLICATION
one of my characters was just shy of effective standings 5.0+ so here's the sequence:
number at end of link is base standing
initial standings upon entering kudi's datacenter 3.92
palladium 3.99
electrum 4.02
copper 4.13
silver 4.20
crystal 4.26 (after relogging)
platinum 4.56
diamond 4.64
copper (polfaly) - doh! didn't get pic
copper 4.83 (ferira)
brass 4.88
certificate (kudi)
certificate (polfaly)
certificate (ferira)
choonka's request 4.91
quelling the insurgency 5.00
That was pretty cool. went from 4.89 effective to 5.80 effective in a few hours. (social 4)
I found that the khanid kingdom certificate missions don't give derived standings to Amarr. boo
I also found that the numbers between the "repair plan" and the actual boosts weren't matching up...although i'll add a caveat that my math sucks

for example: the palladium mission gave +1.1963% to one character and +1.1975% to another (both social 4); the diamond mission gave +1.5508% to both; the electrum gave +0.5711% to one and +0.518% to another. I'm sure i'm missing some complex formula that explain why the numbers are so off from the "repair plan" numbers. 

the certificates referral was for Arizam Gimit in Lossa so off i go to do the "Quelling the Insurgency" 5 part mission seqence...

============
CONCLUSION
I found that the best deals were blood brass, electrum, palladium and silver. the copper tags also (because you only need 3 each for those agents)...if you have effective amarr standings of 5+ there's the very cheap and numerous blood diamond, plus grabbing a set of crystals tags won't hurt too much. Platinum is a bit pricey but worth it - giving the highest boost of all the dog tag missions.
The ones to avoid are bronze and gold.
Here's what i was paying for dog tags this week:
sansha copper  ~2m isk
platinum ~1.2m isk
brass ~900k isk
silver ~700k isk
crystal ~500k isk
palladium ~200k isk
electrum ~150k isk
diamond ~50k

============
UPDATE
Blood Bronze tags down to 4m isk

now for something completely different

 

Sometimes i get carried away with ranting and forget the wonderful stuff CCP has done for us over the years that really have improved the game in ways i think help retain new customers, not just old...things that just jump out as really necessary for a sense of immersion.

Two of the biggest were the "flying through planets" fix, and the addition of autopiloting to station dock. There was also corp bookmarks, and corporate fittings, plus a horde of other really cool stuff.

I try not to get too mad that corporate roles are still in beta-stage. Something i think too many bittervets take for granted that frustrates the new players and people trying to include new players into the social engine that really isn't that user friendly. ooops there i go ranting about 'factory manager' stuff again...It's just that CCP Unifex crowed about eveonline being a "social engine" which got me riled up.

*sigh* I love this game. it's super fun. Watching the alliance tournament was thrilling, even if i had to cringe pretty much constantly at the socially inept dweebs hosting and commentating. Way too much ego to go around. I forget how i got the impression CCP soundwave is a "douchebag" during all that.

All i know is that i get to play an astronaut in space. I also know i love mining asteroids. I love mentoring n00bs and i love sharing stuff with others as long as i can have a modicum of security for said stuff (like blueprints i've worked on for years)

on that note here's a few videos i think all new players and prospective customers need to see:
 butterfly effect ("sandbox"...except context is completely pvp)
 new player experience (includes chatter about "risk")

"The rewards for exploring the universe scale with the risks you're willing to take"

 introduction to missions (has tangents about incursions and wormhole anomalies)
 large scale fleet action
 incursion back story
 corporate espionage
hopefully, CCP make a CDIA about mining and industry to complement their CDIA - missions.

Risk is good, not greed

Blog Banter 37: The Line in the Sand 

"EVE Online sits on the frontier of social gaming, providing an entertainment environment like no other. The vibrant society of interacting and conflicting communities, both within the EVE client and without, is the driving force behind EVE's success. However, the anonymity of internet culture combined with a competitive gaming environment encourages in-game behavior to spread beyond the confines of the sandbox. Where is the line?"

1. The line is not about a "golden rule" morality nor a "ToS" legalism. That is something beyond the confines of any blog banter and belongs strictly in real world laws and CCP's 'EULA'
2. The line is where players stop making observations of the facts of game mechanics and begin speculating with a bias so severe it casts a shadow over not only EVE but any mmog. And it's a pattern seen everywhere. It's called "risk aversion" (so severe trolls simply don't have the word in their vocabulary)
3. The line is created and maintained by the trolls lumping 'non-consentual' activity into the PVP ("conflicting") community exclusively. it's a bias that damages everyone playing in the entertainment environment of any MMOG.
4. The line exists at all because 'risk averse' players demand a wingame button (both pvp and pve) that requires very little effort and risk on their part, and are blind to the nonproportional and negative affect this has on everyone else in the mmog.
5. The line has a clear bias, once crossed, that is stated simply as, "this game is at core about pvp" and everything trollish stems from that mentality - because not only do the griefers (pvp) promote that but the carebears (pve) do as well. The latter in denial their PvE actions have an indirect impact on other players. Both profit when a mmog's developers buy into that bias.
6. The line, if crossed, becomes a flamewar where both sides unwittingly (through arrogance and ignorance both) promote a one-sided bias completely at odds with the reality of the mmog they are playing and the asskissing brutal nature of the griefers is very seductive to the egos of developers who take this game way too personally (especially when they never have made a clear vision for their mmog, nor understand what really goes on in pvp and pve alike because they don't make the effort, but lie and say they do "understand" and that they do have a "vision")
7. The line in it's endgame is an unbalancing out of control spiral into mmog oblivion where only the 'killer' types are left with their lips firmly planted on DEV/GM buttocks as they give condescending elitist prick attitudes to n00bs in help channel and get away with it as the developers look on blindly with their egos inflated thinking "wow, this game is at core pvp"...because when you get chummy with developers that is metagaming at it's worst and lacks all sense of professionalism.
8. The line should not be tagged with a simple, "what happens in eve, stays in eve" cliche. Internet Spaceships is a serious business and the above points draw a line in the sand about not only in-game behavior but metagaming behavior both (and this includes developers obviously)
9. On one side of the line stand the interacting PVE players and the conflicting PVP players...on the other side of the line its the trollish griefers vs carebears. Seen in this light the line is plain to see: it's risk, and if you're blind to the realities of actual game mechanics the corollary is you're going to have zero vision where the blind lead the blind.
10. As for the anonymity of the internet, and gaming avatars in particular, i believe it's besides the point; A red herring at best, and strawman argument at worst. "outside the sandbox" is a loaded question, assuming we all agree the line is between ingame and reallife. I do not agree with that interpretation, obviously.
11. As for the competitive nature of both PVP and PVE...that is the point, although i suspect the creator of blog banter 37 was partisan enough to imply that only PVP was competitive (non-consentual)...and almost begs the question "et tu, Khadafi?"

PVE is non-consentual - markets drying up, that 0.01 isk stuff, high value things dropping in price once everyone gets into the act, roids being popped and belts cleared. how about those asshats who strip mine n00b systems? How about the lack of office space at some stations? the prices of rent?  It might be PvE but it affects the players indirectly in a mmog.

"The sandbox. where the actions of a single player can resonate throughout the entire game world. In eve the choices you make shape the outcome of events...what matters most is the event was emergent, unscripted. Because, in the sandbox, all player actions no matter how subtle or bold always have an impact."

PVP is also consentual - just look at RvB. Faction Warfare. And how about all the "waaaaa i got blobbed" emorage stuff? One cannot rationally and logically lump 'non-consentual' activity entirely in pvp.

There's also 'griefing' and that's a pretty subjective term. any 'non-consentual' activity (pvp and pve) can be seen as crossing that line by some of the people in eve or most. Scamming, spying, metagaming, piracy, theft, racial slurs breaching ToS/EULA, et al.
But, we're really not talking about 'griefing,' per se, are we in this banter? It's more of how ingame behavior melds with metagaming both for the interacting (pve) and conflicting (pvp) communities

It's very bewildering, so i usually attribute any 'risk averse' mentality as either hard core griefer (who wants to be able to hurt others with zero risk to themselves) or hard core carebear (who wants to be able to have a win-button that's risk free, but is blind to the negative monopolizing impact that has on other players - especially other pve types)

To call this game a "social engine" CCP must understand the 'risk averse' camp has TWO sides (griefers AND carebears)...The griefers want a "sandbox" where they can kick sand in other's faces as long as it takes very little effort and risk to themselves; The carebears want a "theme park" where they can play a single player game with win-buttons everywhere with little effort and risk to themselves. Neither gives a damn about how they impact everyone around them negatively (in a pvp and pve sense)...both profit from trolling the line that EVE is at it's core PVP.

This game never was, nor ever will be, based on a "pvp" vision. CCP never had a vision biased towards pvp or pve. They hardly "understand" this game. It's typical of developers of mmogs to get too attached to their game and play whack-a-mole with nerfs against players who simply have to invent their own vision for the game cuz the developers never have (that whole "we never intended that" is disengenuous.) In CCP's point of view, pvp seems to be "sandbox" and pve seems to be "theme park" where in reality it's the hardcore griefers who want full-on sandbox and the hardcore carebears who want full-on themepark. To CCP it seems like both camps are saying the same thing - and they are. They're greedy risk averse trolls. duh. Tell me why CCP boasted that infamous line about "greed is good" and that will be your answer why they bought the trolls' lines in the sand. Now, CCP in their ignorance are blaming their problems on incarna failing as trying to be too "theme park" content and wanting to focus on "sandbox" tools to compensate...which is to miss the lesson that greed isn't good because they don't know 'risk' is good - simply because the trolls don't have 'risk' in their vocabulary. Can't really blame CCP...would you rather yes-men than bittervets?

The best way to keep from crossing the line is to remember always that risk is good, not greed. Now if the developers would only "understand" this game and formulate a clear "vision" that doesn't pander to the troll's bias we might actually see Eve survive in the long run.

The bright spot in all this is if the developers themselves make the effort to stop lying and create a real honest to goodness "this is what we originally had envisioned eve and this is how it evolved as a VISION through each expansion and here is our future vision for how the interacting and conflicting communities both ingame and metagame should be" then a line would form that promotes interacting and conflicting within the community that is eve, and without: Making it a social engine not an anti-social one.

Let's not fool ourselves though. right now it's the blind (trolls) leading the blind (developers)...just take a look at how easy and risk free griefing corporate roles and access right are, and how much effort one must put into creating a minimum of pathetic security against such griefing.  And that's just one facet of this complex mmog rife with similar mechanics full of risk free effortless loopholes for griefing that CCP neither "understands" or has any "vision" because they are simply blind to the problems about which most customers will simply quietly take their wallet elsewhere.

Quotes from blogs i found relevant/germaine:

"In essence, there are those who who strongly believe in their line in the sand. And then there are those who don’t give a crap about theirs or anyone elses." ~Aggressive Logistics

"What I soundly reject, however, is the idea that this competitive gaming environment encourages in-game behavior to 'spread beyond the confines of the sandbox.' " ~Han's Job

"The most interesting part about all of this though, is that deep down, we secretly like that its a part of our game. I'm not saying everyone is out there hoping and praying that the opposing alliance gets DDOS'd into submission. No one roots for the internet stalker gathering others' private information. But it is intriguing. We like that people are willing to go to these measures. Its part of our culture at this point. It is very much a part of our "Eve is Real" notion. Its an extension of the old saying, "if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying," and in this game, everyone is trying." ~Rollin's Ride

"So, sorry to burst the griefer/window licker bubble, but you folks are WAY outnumbered." ~Blastrad Tales

"It’s probably more interesting to ask the question “Where did the line go?”, since it’s much easier to answer: CCP took the line, and buried it in gravel somewhere for three months.  Then, piece by rotting piece, they ate it with a chaser of Brennivín as a test of manliness." ~Warp Drive Active

"'EVE players are the nicest people in the world,' Hilmar said at this year's Fanfest, 'because they get all their nastiness out of them in game.'  I think we all recall what happened that same day.  And it didn't happen in game.
ddos attacks on enemy super-cap pilots and Teamspeak servers were reasonably common for a time last year, as were such attacks on EVE News 24 when they published something that this or that group didn't like.  White Rose Conventicle claimed such a ddos attack on their website a month or so ago.  Personal attacks against EVE players are commonplace and only rarely acted upon by CCP.  War declarations launched for personal out-of-game reasons go on for months at a time and CCP declares it as a 'social repercussion you've created'.  People are hounded out of the game on a weekly (if not daily) basis."  ~Jester's Trek

"If you feel that there should be some agreed 'line in the sand' in terms of the entire gamut of acceptable behaviour, with meaningful consequences from some 'higher authority' for stepping over that line, CCP has some words for you: Harden The Fuck Up." ~Rinn's Rants

Which illuminates what CCP considers their EULA for: covering their own legal ass and not ours...and it's the only line on CCP's mind that blinds them to the law of unintended consequences - that trolls will take this and run with it until all CCP has left are risk-averse game mechanics because they listened to the asskissing trolls who promote the "HTFU" (and the carebears do it just as much as the griefers in their desire to eliminate risk to themselves)

"To be honest. I think the line that the majority of people would draw in the sand has been obliterated by the number of people crossing it. Surely, even if you are not a roleplayer, you should make the distinction between in-game and out-of-game?" ~Sand, Cider and Spaceships

 "The view that there is some difference between your “true” self and your “online” self  really clouds the ugly truth that such a difference doesn’t actually exist.  True, people can “act” like contrary to their real personality for a time.. but even professional actors, if they play their parts for too long, start holding on to various personality traits of the person they acted as.  All it takes is time.  It is a human trait, that is used for both good purposes and bad.  Having a role model, for example, allows you to “roleplay” certain personality traits and habits until you see and experience the benefit to them and then those traits become part of who you are." ~2nd Anomaly from the left

Opening up the blueprints

There's two reasons i created a corporation. 1) to have lots more item bays to shove my crap in so 'assets' window is ship shape and Bristol fashion 2) that all the blueprints i've collected and upgraded over the years can be shared for use with others as early as possible in their eve career in OMNM.

Both those reasons are why i'm reluctant to leave or merge my corp with another...Sadly, CCP has seen fit to neglect their duties rather signally, in fact, when it comes to allowing corp espionage to be committed with such ease. The loopholes are staggering, and the interface not at all user friendly when it came to knowing about corporate security and then finding work arounds to the glaring issues.
 There's not a month that goes by where i don't mourn the loss of Ubiqua Seraph. I personally never believed that crap about "we were hired to assassinate" and saw it just as another opportunity to grief realized randomly in this "social engine" of a game. I find it slightly disgusting CCP gloats over this yet did absolutely nothing to tighten up the mess that are corporate roles, in their "social engine" of a game.

What have i done to allow myself the freedom to throw my crap in corp hangars and on the other hand open up my valuable blueprint for corporate use as early as possible to industry n00bs?

• On the one hand i've needed to handicap the "based at" hangar access privileges - i'd like nothing better than to allow corp members to rent their own office and be "based at" and thus have full access exclusively to that station's corp hangars. unfortunately, i need two stations that aren't included in the "other" category (there's only "other", "hq" and "based at") for my stuff. Why two? one for my personal factory location with upgraded blueprint copies and lots of ingredients to make stuff, the other is my personal piggy bank of toys.
• On the other hand i've allowed early access to my blueprint original collection in all 5 stations locationed in Kourmonen (they all have public laboratory services)...There's a half decent work around to making this secure: in order to start any factory/laboratory job you need only 'view' access to the blueprint hangar. So, by limiting players access to "other" offices hangars to view only they can play with manufacturing and research to their hearts content without worrying they're going to make off with ur stuff. Then, if you limit 'take' access to just one corporate hangar (i call this "loot/industry") hangar, corp members can put input required in the process to that hangar and select that hangar for where the output will be. Sadly, i need to give these corp members "factory manager" which allows them to not only start and finish jobs but cancel them...you can see the potential for abuse clear enough. If only CCP would give the role of starting a job to "rent factory" and "rent lab" roles and isolate "cancel job" to the directors/CEO (just like it's only the director/ceo who can unrent an office)

There's another facet to corporate 'roles' and that's the very aesthetic "title management" which allows me to group roles under certain titles that i'm allowed to name. I chose a religious overtone to my corp simply cuz i adore Warhammer 40k (although i'm not religious in real life)

the actual role descriptions for "station services" and "general" are not only cryptic, counter-intuitive and badly outdated...they're also FUBAR. plus ccp has a habit of fixing what ain't broke.

DEFAULT rights given at join:

• they can view "corp members in space" on the eve map under "my information" tab  
• they can put stuff into any corporate hangar even if they can't view inside anything  
• they can see the "standings"tab in corporate neocom panel  
• they can see the members list which shows the "last login" of all corp members  
• they can send corp wide evemails

LAYMAN roles given:

• "Layman wallet division" (can give and take isk to and from said wallet division)

ACOLYTE roles added:

• "Query" rights for the loot/industry hangar - allowing members to view inside but not take
• Auditor general role given which is pretty much useless redundant and stupid. yay

DEACON roles added:

• "Query" rights for all but the last corporate hangar (security)
• security officer station services role 
• starbase defense operator and starbase fuel technician general roles.

PRIEST roles added:

• "Take" rights for the loot/industry hangar.
• "Query" rights for the security corp hangar
• Rent office/lab and Factory manager station services roles 
• Personnel, Communications and Junior Accountant general roles

BISHOP roles added:

• "Take" rights for all but the last corporate hangar (security)
• Trader station services role
• Contract, Fitting and Diplomat general roles

CARDINAL roles added:

• "Take" rights for the security corp hangar
• Rent Office  station services role
• Config equipment and Config starbase equipment general roles

SUBDIRECTOR roles added:

• Station manager station services role
• Accountant general role
• access to all the divisional wallets

errata and clarification of the official descriptions:

1. trader allows access and view of the "deliveries" tab in inventory. also allows members to purchase things using corp wallet (it will appear in the 'deliveries' tab)...does NOT give access to the "corporate orders" tab in market.
2. security officer does NOT allow "access to corp hangars" NOR does it allow viewing of the "deliveries" tab (new feature; moron ccps fiddling with redundant shit)
3. communications role also enables the "settings" option in corp chat. It also enables "add/edit/delete" corporate bulletins. This role allows member to 'trash' corporate emails and delete corporate bookmarks.
4. junior accountants can see the corporate wallet settings tab and toggle buttons but there's no ability to save/submit changes. yay. Junior accountants can NOT see the "corporate orders" tab in market (nor the 'assets' tab in corp panel.) But, this role does allow 'view' of the "deliveries" tab (items will be 'greyed out' and cannot be taken).
5. personnel manager enables use of the "find member in role" tab (useless garbage) and view only of of the "role management" tab...it also enables a member to create/award decorations.
6. stack all and manual stacking not enabled for 'view only' corp hangar access rights. neither is 'repackage'
7. rent office role doesn't give the ability to unrent an office. (that's exclusively a director/ceo right) 
8. station (audit) containers/cans are useless, crippled and downright frustrating. do NOT use them. 
9. accountants aren't able to see corporate shares regardless of the popup saying that role is required...it's only available to the directors/ceo. They also need access to wallet divisions for this role to be effective. Accountants can also view the "assets" tab of the corporate panel, and see the Corporate orders in market.
10. Directors/CEO can unrent offices, see corporate kills/losses (in "wars" panel), edit the corporate "details" (although only the ceo can edit the hangar divisions), vote to (un)lock BPOs (although only the CEO can complete), kick members and access the role&title management panels (although only the CEO can toggle director role)

Planetary Interaction

INTENT
My goal is to be self-sufficient for Amarr Fuel Blocks (to power starbases) by making them completely from scratch.

• MajorFreak (lvl4 skills)  3 mechpart colonies and 2 robotics colonies
• MinorFreak (lvl4 skills)  3 mechpart colonies and 2 robotics colonies
• Hereticus (lvl4 skills) 3 mechpart colonies and 2 robotics colonies
• Seneschai (lvl4 skills) 3 mechpart colonies and 2 robotics colonies
  
• Kour Moan'n (lvl3 skills) 2 mechpart colonies and 2 uranium colonies
• Kour Moanin (lvl3 skills) 2 mechpart colonies and 2 uranium colonies
• Kour Moanen (lvl3 skills) 2 mechpart colonies and 2 uranium colonies
  
• Cheru'bael   (lvl3 skills) 2 coolant colonies and 2 uranium colonies

ROBOTICS
Over a week, based on 900,000 isk import taxes, 2000 mechanical parts were imported to replace that which was consumed in reactions to make robotics (i only have one commodity to import.)
Now, i had 4 characters with lvl4 Command Center Upgrades skill having such a reaction going on two plasma planets in Fahruni. This meant that over a week's time period i exported 600 robotics, or an average of 0.89 robotics per character per hour.
Ideally, an Advanced Industry Facility is supposed to make 3 units per hour...But, although i have enough Mech.Parts stockpiled at each colony i only have enough pwr/cpu to run a second Advanced Industry Facility along with the 4 Basic Industry Facilities to keep the former making Consumer Electronics.
So, in my case since the optimal scenario is 1.5 robotic units per hour, therefore i'm running (averaged over a week) at 60% practical efficiency - or 30% ideal efficiency assuming perfect input for the robotics reaction (which isn't possible at lvl4 and i doubt lvl5 would be able to handle that)

MECHANICAL PARTS
Would i benefit from running 2 mechanical parts and 2 consumer electronics colonies to feed a planet dedicated to importing both and exporting robotics? Well, honestly, i wouldn't really be doubling my robotics exports because i'd only have one robotics colony. I would however be able to export consumer electronics surplus...theoretically (of course mech parts are approx 20% more lucrative.)
currently, over a week's period i have roughly 4400 mechanical parts, before imports.

• MajorFreak (lvl4 skills) = 890 mech parts exported
• MinorFreak (lvl4 skills) = 785 mech parts exported
• Hereticus (lvl4 skills) = 700 mech parts exported
• Seneschai (lvl4 skills) = 925 mech parts exported
• Kour Moan'n (lvl3 skills) = 370 mech parts exported
• Kour Moanin (lvl3 skills) = 365 mech parts exported
• Kour Moanen (lvl3 skills) = 360 mech parts exported
• Cheru'bael   (not running mech parts)

 If i used up all 600 robotics into fuel block production i'd need 2400 mechanical parts too. OOOPS
Well, alrighty then!
So, basically, after that stream of consciousness, i realize i've hit upon the perfect formula - haven't i? I really am not creating any surplus of Mech.Parts.

ENRICHED URANIUM
Now, i have 4 alts with lvl3 skills creating Enriched Uranium on 2 planets each (the plasma planets)

• Kour Moan'n (lvl3 skills) = 475 uranium exported
• Kour Moanin (lvl3 skills) = 460 uranium exported
• Kour Moanen (lvl3 skills) = 340 uranium exported
• Cheru'bael (lvl3 skills) = 435 uranium exported

COOLANT AND OXYGEN
I'm simply not making enough enriched uranium to keep up with the demand. If i boosted the Kourmonen alts to lvl4 command center upgrade could i switch Cheru'bael to full coolant colonies? I think it's possible, although currently i only export 340 coolant a week so double that isn't nearly enough for the 4800 needed to make 600 fuel block runs (I'm sure my setup is well below optimal for the coolant colonies though.) That's for another time though...for now i have surplus oxygen and coolant from when NPC stations sold them.

CONCLUSION
Besides, going by the previous blog entry it would take 25 hours working my team over a week (that's just over 3.6 hours a day) mining 3600 icicles to keep up with my 'potential' exports! If i could though, that would mean 600 runs of fuel blocks producing 24,000 actual blocks worth 372m isk (not including the vast amount of surplus ice products to the tune of approx 568m isk)...and going by the previous blog entry, i could run 3 large towers and 1 medium tower to take advantage of increasing my profit. Assuming that i ran 4 alchemy jobs (1 neo mercurite and 3 others involving cadmium as a consumable - dysporite, ferrofluid, and promethium) for a week that would give me 6720 units of each moon product. What's that worth?

1. Neo Mercurite 134.4m isk
2. Dysporite 61.9m isk
3. Ferrofluid 48.7m isk
4. Promethium 31.1m isk

okay, so realistically, i seriously doubt that anyone would want to run anything but a Neo Mercurite alchemy setup on a medium pos. It just doesn't make any sense to do otherwise...Although running a large pos set up wouldn't lower one's profits below simply selling the blocks themselves (and in fact would become more profitable the more isotope prices fell...but i don't think they will much further)

• ICE - If i just mined 3600 icicles without any PI or POS stuff i'd make 779m isk
• BASIC - Coolant 4800 @ 7526isk = 36.1m; Uranium 2400 @ 7670isk = 18.5m; H.Water 180000 @ 79.45isk = 14.3m; H.Isotopes 1080000 @ 672.2isk = 726m; L.Ozone 90000 @ 431.25isk = 38.8m; MechParts 2400 @ 7100isk = 17m; Oxygen 12000 @ 182.15isk = 2.2m; Robotics 600 @ 57110isk = 34.3m; minus 14.34m in import/export taxes equals Grand total = 873m isk straight up sales
• BLOCKS - Ice product surplus sales of 568m isk; 24,000 blocks worth 372m isk ...minus 14.34m in import/export taxes equals grand total sales of 926m isk
• ALCHEMY - Ice product surplus sales of 567.7m isk; 20640 surplus blocks worth 320m isk; 6720 neo mercurite units worth 134.4m isk. (minus 3.6m for mercury replacement); minus 14.34m in import/export taxes equals Grand total = 1004m isk

COLONY SETUP
I'll be using my command center as the conduit between my 'extractor control units' and my 'basic industry facilities'...i tend to avoid splurging on 'storage units' because they use 700 pwr (which is an incredible amount.) I'm testing on Sisi whether placing a storage unit between the basic facilities and the advanced may collect surplus, but i doubt that (better to test it though to make sure)
A lvl2 command center gives +9000 pwr, lvl3 gives a total of +12000, lvl4 total of +15000

• Extractor control units -2600pwr
• Basic industry facility -625pwr
• Storage unit -700pwr
• Adv. industry facility -700pwr
• Spaceport -700pwr

My usual setup that i believe optimal is 2 extractors, 4 basic, 1 advanced and 1 spaceport like so:
note: you don't have to fly to the planet to install the command center - just be undocked insystem

The setup cost is 4.25m isk for the above structures.
The interesting this about the links is that on a smaller planet the links can go down to 15 between structures in the exact same setup as above. Radius of the planet has an affect, and i wonder what other effects i'll spot.

The above picture also shows a rough and ready extractor head layout (default) and we need to fix that good and proper:
Ionic extractor head setup followed by Aqueous extractor head setup
That's the easy part, if you can believe it...the hardest part is the clickfest that is very much like POS reaction mechanics. I took the time to make an animated gif of the process
And that's just for COOLANT, which is a Tier 2 product which costs 900 isk per unit to export to the orbital custom's office.

For reference, Warfdalic's retriever would mine 345.6m isk in scordite in 25 hours
[Retriever, Warf-solo]
Damage Control II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Scordite Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Scordite Mining Crystal II
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Acolyte I x5

RARITY OF PLANETS IN EVE 

Type      HiSec  LoSec  NullSec  W-Space   Total  
 Gas       3042   1783     8485     6372  19,682  
 Barren    3252   1712     8070     6101  19,135  
 Temperate 1222    607     2929     2242    7000  
 Lava       916    570     2830     2089    6405  
 Storm      772    499     2320     1796    5337  
 Ice        482    289     1391     1072    3234  
 Oceanic    459    284     1259      933    2935  
 Plasma     247    148      620      474    1489  
Shattered     0      1        6        2       9

resources:
planetary production for eve spreadsheet
rarity and location of planets
planets and their commodities
production grid

Ice Mining extraordinaire

Using max mining mods on hulks, in 2 hours 45 minutes my team is able to extract 390 clear icicles and profit to the tune of 163 million isk. (that works out to 59m isk/hr)

SOLO ORE MINING
xin's mega: 8.93 m3/s (no fleet boost)
warf's retriever: 18.71m3/s (no fleet boost)
FLEET ICE MINING
below assumes lvl 4 exhumer and fleet orca boosting

ice hulk (notank): 19.67m3/s
ice mack (ice mods): 17.21m3/s
ice skiff (ice mods):  15.66m3/s
ice skiff (tank): 12.54m3/s
ice retriever (warf): 12.52m3/s

 Market Index for domain region (highest buy/volume)

This translates to xin making 6.6m isk/hr (plain scordite); warf  13.8m isk/hr (plain scordite), or 8.9m isk/hr (icicles)...one could boost that by up to 10% if massive scordite could be mined exclusively.
my hulks make 14m isk/hr on icicles...in 2.75hrs my income at immediate sale is 77m for 2 hulks. If i wanted to go with skiffs instead (the ice mod ones) it would take 3 hours. It would take Warfdalic 8.65hrs to extract the 390 icicles required, and he'd obviously make 55% more iskies mining ore.

1. I take that 390 Icicles, refine them and take straight to market making  85.4m isk...I also have planetary interaction materials that are worth 11.7m isk at Jita (buy orders); minus 1.6m isk in import/export taxes = total sale value 95.5m isk
2. I take that 390 Icicles, refine them and skim off a giant secure can worth of heavy water (9750), liquid ozone (9750) and helium isotopes (26065) leaving surplus to sell at Jita for 61.5m isk. I take the three GSCs to my planetary interaction location and make 65 runs of Amarr Fuel Blocks which produces 2600 units. listing the sale at about, oh, 40.3m isk; minus 1.6m isk in import/export taxes = total 100m isk
3. I take that 390 Icicles, refine them and skim off a giant secure can worth of heavy water (9750), liquid ozone (9750) and helium isotopes (26065) leaving surplus to sell at Jita for 61.5m isk. I take the three GSCs to my planetary interaction location and make 65 runs of Amarr Fuel Blocks which produces 2600 units. I then use those blocks to power an Amarr Medium Control Tower that's running alchemy reactions for Neo Mercurite for 130 hours. (i also need to replace 650 mercury lost in the process which costs 3m isk at Jita) ...130 unrefined neo mercurite processes into 5200 neo mercurite which sells at Jita for a profit of 104m isk; minus 1.6m isk in import/export taxes = total 161m isk

*note that this does not take into account the surplus P.I. materials.

390 Icicles make enough liquid ozone (9750) to make 2600 Amarr fuel blocks, with surplus ice products

Assimilation vs Accommodation

so, do i blindly ignore what has come before and trundle into the future not realizing what's REALLY changed?

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it;
those who fail to learn history correctly – why, they are simply doomed.
- ACHEM DRO'HM

First off let's begin with two moronic quotes from dumbass devs.

"The current mining frigates will not be losing their mining bonuses in Inferno 1.2, and we do not plan to leave people without entry level mining options." ~CCP Fozzie

"If the appropriate bay is full, the module/drone will deactivate as normal, and excess ore is lost." ~CCP Masterplan

 both dead wrong, both in the past, the present and the future.
Let's tackle the next hurdle....what actually CHANGED for mining barges?

hulk losing 531 hull hp
gaining 787 armor hp
gaining 681 shield hp but the resists are all screwy
the hulk didn't have that bad of an increase in recharge
the signature radius didn't increase
the ore hold increased by 1000m3 since last i uploaded pics
mackinaw gains a low slot
gains 72 cpu
gains 1464 structure hp
gains 130 sig radius (effectively doubled)
gains 1512 armor hp
gains 1819 shield hp
shield resists all screwy tho
recharge more than doubled (bad)
the ore hold increased by 3750m3 since last i uploaded pics
skiff was massively boosted...only really scary thing is the recharge got nerfed HARD.
the ore hold was nerfed down to 15000 since i last uploaded pics

covetor, retriever, and procurer

how about the shield tank for the hulk all the carebears are whining about? how much was it really affected from this iteration to the next? The fittings haven't changed so it's easy to test (same implants; same skills, except shield management 3 on the test server; same rigs; same modules)
 old hulk

and how about mining rates? in the old system i preferred the hulk because of the best tanking and best cargo space (i tended to go afk alot) with an output of 13.28m3/s; I'd switch out to a mack with full mining modules when i was able to sit for extended periods without losing focus and get 18.81m3/s output.

In the new system i'm using the mack for a tanked afk machine (50% tougher than the old hulk) with an output of 12.16m3/s; I switch to a hulk with max mining mods/rigs (although only lvl4 exhumer) for an output of 19.08m3/s.

*-note: all fits and output calculations assume ice harvesting

My bookmarks

needs no introduction:
http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

excellent guide to gunnery mechanics
http://tinyurl.com/combatmechanics

guy to watch is CCP Dr.EyjoG
his latest forum posts are here:
http://tinyurl.com/Dr-EyjoG
(bottom of page 3 and top of page 4)
his blogs (special attention QEN):
http://tinyurl.com/9a6vsc9

jester's trek blog is very informative, especially on quirks of the economy
http://tinyurl.com/JestersEconomy

here's a handy cheatsheet for Planetary colonies:
http://fazenda.w-space.org/

here's a guide to increase faction standing:
http://tinyurl.com/FactionStandings
here's a cheatsheet to boost corporate standing:
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Mission_Hubs
here's a decent to run amarr COSMOS
http://tinyurl.com/COSMOS-01

here's a cheatsheet if you have astrometrics V
http://tinyurl.com/astrometricsV

here's the old tried and true regional ore grid
http://eve-files.com/dl/256552

here's a guide to invention
http://tinyurl.com/T2invention

want to know who's who with blue status?
http://www.eveskunk.com/standings.php

want instant intel on a character, his corp, his buddies and hidden corp stats:
http://evewho.com/

mission cheatsheets:
http://tinyurl.com/5bgt9

want to browse markets eve wide:
http://eve-central.com/

how to locate people via ingame tools:
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Locator_Agents

and my humble eve-files directory:
http://tinyurl.com/ministorum

------------
NPC damage types
http://www.ogrank.com/content/view/698/59/

ECM jamming calculator
http://pmic-eve.info/ECM_Calc/ECM_Chance_Calculator.html#
for a manual formula
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=801415#post801415

Turret and Launcher visual recognition
http://www.evealtruist.com/2012/06/turret-and-launcher-reference-chart.html

moon mineral reaction calculator
http://eve.stop-clan.de/tools/lookup.php

2007-2012 null sec sovereignty video
http://youtu.be/to7CHVR-Mxk

and how can i forget DOTLAN? just google it. lolz

what you can make from salvaged materials:
http://eveinfo.com/salvagedmaterials/
what bits are needed for rigs
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk-mfiI5S9zH-zKPiia4fYw

some really excellent databases (Loyalty pts, wormholes, etc)
http://www.ellatha.com/eve/LP-Stores

free spreadsheets
http://www.evehelp.myby.co.uk/eveunlocked2.html

cheatsheet for implants
http://home.wanadoo.nl/ntt/eve/library/implants.html

invention calculator
http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/invention_chance.php
invention database
http://swag.rtk0.net/eveinfo/inventionbrowser.php

data centers. are they worth it?
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Data_Centers#Kudi

the nerfed datacore Research agent calculator
http://hussars-online.ru/eve/datacore.php

the excellent Rooks and Kings videos
http://youtu.be/Xwql_Sp0QG8 (clarion call2)
http://youtu.be/j4hPTGN3Q6w (iron clad)
http://youtu.be/XrYe_4vHzgE (clarion call3)
http://youtu.be/RMFahR4wXTg (battlereport)


EON magazine's isk guide
http://isktheguide.com/

a very cool (refine or sell) 3rd party tool
http://eve.nikr.net/jeveasset
another one, much simpler
http://www.homo-programmatis.com/EveRefinery/

data on mission running profitability
http://srehn.com/blogs/index.php/2012/02/08/mission-running

recent CCP data on isk faucets/sinks
 http://twostep4csm.blogspot.ca/2012/03/its-econmony-stupid.html

CSM minutes - mining

CCP Xhagen asked it the meeting should discuss mining.
Two step asked if this was where the CSM trolls the player base and says that no one actually mines.
Seleene said mining is where you literally should be able to search for “unicorn dust” and “space whale oil” to build magical widgets.
Some CSM members jokingly said something about mining still being boring and it isn't supposed to be fun.
CCP Soundwave showed some statistics about mining since the drone regions changed and Hulkageddon. Mining in high sec is slightly up, low sec is way up and null sec is way, way up based on volume of ore.
Two step suggested that it would be cool if the character sheet showed you the volume you've mined in your lifetime.
CCP Arrow stated that the task to mine could stay the same but the visual elements could change to make the tasks more fun. For example when selecting an asteroid you could scan it to see more details about what was in it in terms of different types of ores in a single asteroid. The asteroid may even be displayed in a 3D manner showing the ore distribution.
Seleene asked if this would mean there were composite rocks with different ores and CCP Soundwave said that they would really want that.
CCP Soundwave indicated that ship of different sizes could be used but larger ships might be faster
or better.
Seleene asked for a proper capital mining vessel for ring mining.
CCP Soundwave also mentioned League of Legends, where there was a mechanic that allowed you to hide in bushes and that maybe you could use the asteroid interference to shield you from being scanned and maybe even being hidden from local.
Seleene pointed out that real asteroid belts have very low density (completely different from the famous Star Wars scene where the Millennium Falcon hid in the asteroid belt) while Trebor pointed out Ice Rings are more dense.
CCP Soundwave said they would be going with the Star Wars more dense field.
Two step asked if there would be rings in all security spaces and CCP Soundwave said they haven't decided but he'd prefer low sec and null sec only
Hans added “Put the best rings in low sec :) It needs a boost.”
Trebor added that you need to take damage if you are moving too fast and that his favorite Sci-Fi scene was from Wrath of Khan when the two starships appear out of the gas clouds and all hell breaks loose. If ring mining could provide that kind of experience, it would be great.
CCP Xhagen asked when we could expect ring mining. CCP Soundwave said after the POS work because it would most likely use the same team - best case scenario would be winter expansion 2013.
Seleene made the comment that there seemed to be some CCP resources not being used due to how the current production pipeline is being used.
CCP Soundwave indicated that these belts are going to long enough to fly in for hours. He also suggested the POSs may be used to scan the belts to indicate where the best ores might be.

my thoughts?
The "hiding from local" is pie in the sky concept that won't be coded. exploit? can you say "trial account cheap cloak"? i knew you could.
There apparently was no comment about the capital mining vessel from CCP. good. moron nullseccers.
I do like the idea of "composite" roids. But, it's a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"...this whole concept of 'ACTIVE' vs 'PASSIVE' is a bit silly since this game is literally a screensaver with a built in chat function. I'm not complaining though, since i used to play a game called 'JumpGate' and i was credited with discovering (and posting about) being able to increase mining output by orbiting the roid at high velocity.
the best quote is the second to last sentence. wow...it really will be ring mining. that's cool.

what i think should have been brought up:  the shitty benefit to the risk of low sec (nocxium prices)

What the new patch means to us (carebearish folk)

The idea is to make 3 types of mining barge (max yield/max cargo/max tank) that will make things alot more attractive to carebears, especially now that Orca fleets are so common for max yield.

1. The greedy industrialists will do what they've always done - max out mining upgrades for the fastest gatherer of ice/ore around. It was the pitifully tankable mack and now it will be the more expensive hulk with the same pitiful tank (because they believe they can gain more in profit than the gankers can grief)...and the hulk hasn't been boosted except to make it more attractive to the greed factor (hulk/covetor) 
2. They've made solo account holders who like to mine very happy with this patch too. imagine: it's like a hauler with lazorz. (mack/retriever)
   
3. CCP made it so that people willing to be less greedy can actually 'tank' the average lazy solo catalyst pilot out for shits and giggles. (skiff/procurer)

Singularity mining barges (inflight fitting screen)

That's all the test server mining ships set for (what i believe) is jester's recommended tank fit. They are all ice mining geared, btw. I've added notations as to m3/sec (although do note that the exhumers aren't set to exhumer 5 but only 4)...please note that all pics above do not include any fleet boosting.

The thing is mining ice lends itself very well to orca fleet ops. have a bunch of platinum insured covetors and you can pretty much go to town once the patch comes out.

my current maximum mining yield is the implants (sans rig of course) on a mack with orca support with 212.66s harvester duration.
This outputs 4 icicles every 212.66s for a cubic meter per second equivalent of 18.81m3/s.
My current maximum tank is the hulk with orca support and it only gives 3 icicles every 225.99s or 13.28m3/s
Squad commander: lvl4 orca, lvl4 warfare link, lvl4 info warfare, lvl4 armored/siege/info specialist; lvl5 skirmish specialist) - laser opt tech2, passive armorlink tech1, and shield harmony tech1. Plus mining foreman mindlink. 

max ice mining rate for the new patch would be....for mining upgrades, rig, implant, + lvl5 exhumer/barge (assuming above orca skills):

hulk=19.3m3/s
mack=18.0m3/s
skiff=16.4m3/s
covetor=18.3m3/s
retriever=17.3m3/s
procurer=15.6m3/s

although the covetor would be highly advisable for n00bs during fleet ops with orca support, for the bittervets the skiff looks to be mighty fine indeed at just 18% less efficient than the best hulk you can field (and at lvl5 exhumer mind you for the hulk)

neither the skiff nor the procurer lose much tank in the mid slots when going from full tank to max mining.

platinum insurance for the non-exhumer barges gives out this much:
25.75m isk covetor (costs 7.7m)
6.30m isk retriever (costs 1.9m)
1.84m isk procurer (costs 0.6m)

market value (current; domain; lowest sell)
covetor costs 33.4m
retriever costs 15.3m (price spike)
procurer costs 17.8m (massive spike, btw)


my assumption is that smart money goes to fully insured untanked covetors raking more value than griefers could impact. It's just the way i look at it currently with mackinaws (why are people using macks? for yield. period)
The attitude of carebears is: "fuck you, i'm going to mine way more than griefers can impact me"
Of course, this attitude lends itself too easily to "i'm greedy so it's the hulk maxed for yield" which will mean business as usual for hulkageddon. The risk averse carebears are going to be screaming like the trolls they are on the forums that they want CCP to make it inherently tanked so they can fit all the yield boosting modules they can possibly fit. lol. oh, the TEARS the glorious tears.

How about ORE?

Does mining ore solo make more iskies than mining ice in a fleet? I ran a test on singularity using a tanked retriever filling it's hold in 30 minutes (assuming 95% efficiency) with plain scordite, vs a covetor with mining upgrades mining clear icicles with an orca with gang bonuses out the wazoo.

 current Amarrian index ;  Scordite @ 212.91 isk/m3 vs  Clear Ice @ 270.09 isk/m3
All things being equal, ice seems the best bargain since it's over 25% more isk per cubic meter. All things are not equal though, since ore strip miners output more than ice harvesters per second.
So i decided to time how long a retriever fills it hold with scordite, then match that time with how many icicles would be mined in the same time. It's about 32.8 minutes assuming a 13% loss in efficiency for the ore miner due to depleted asteroids giving partial loads and the logistics of managing new targets. That's how long it takes me to get a full load of ore on a decent day.

So in just under thirty two minutes the retriever mined 28,125m3 of scordite worth 6.0m isk selling to buy orders.
In the same time period the covetor mined 36,000m3 of clear ice worth 9.7m isk selling to buy orders
Obviously it seems like i'm cheating with the fleet bonus, but i'm being pragmatic.

to be absolutely fair, to remove the fleet bonus on the orca and go with a retriever for mining ice the results are less than spectacular i'm assuming. here's the result: In 32.8 minutes you'd get almost 24 units or about 6.4m isk worth of ice products. fitting used was this
So what they've effectively done with the ice mining rig was to make the ore vs ice isk/m3/sec ratio roughly even (+/- 5% which of course you can make up by mining the denser roids)

Homecoming...out of null

Well, i certainly learned alot about how to live in 0.0
The only reason i left was my surprise at how nomadic null sec life really is.
I packed up shop and moved most of my nullsec market stuff, and jump clones to H-ADOC at the far end of the curse region pipe. Hopefully i can sell almost a trillion isk worth of sell orders.

Back in high sec now, mining ice in Gosalav. Prices on ice and minerals have really changed since i was last active.
2009-Amarr mineral/ice index
2012-Amarr mineral/ice index

Within 2 weeks of returning broke and with hardly any ships (compared to what i'd been required to produce in null) I've suddenly been able to afford an Orca, 2 mackinaws, the expensive parts for my Rorqual (clone vat bay and capital shield booster),


I'm training up some ganker alts to take care of macrobotters at the ice belt. It's a nice quiet belt and hulkageddon hardly knocks there - and i'd like to keep the riff-raff away so it doesn't attract attention. Ah yes, making friends and enemies in high sec. lol
[Catalyst, Hulkageddon mk0]
8x Regulated Light Neutron Phase Cannon I (Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S)
Passive Targeting Array I
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
3x Linear Flux Stabilizer I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
1x Hobgoblin I







Planetary Infrastructure is my new focus, since R&D agents got nerfed. I'm going to try and produce fuel blocks for sale by having most of my 4 accounts (yes, i got a new account last month)...to that end i've decided to set up shop in either Khopa or Fahruni



Since CCP coded in 'corporate' bookmarks i'm painstakingly distilling most of my bookmarks into the allowed slots.

Also moving most of my blueprint copies to amod SOE station...sadly i'm forced to use the corporate 'based at' privilege as an extra security measure against theft (since i need both a station to store BPCs and another station to store valuable non-blueprint stuff)

Bubbles Burst

I recently discovered a new 3rd party program called "EveRefinery" after googling "is it better to reprocess than sell straight to market?" I've been ratting in Angel Forsaken Hub anomalies in our Alliance's new backyard and salvaging a tonne of loot. This is the first real effort i put into isk making since last year when we were on holiday in Querious. I didn't think much back then or in the past about how the market was; to me it always seemed like demand by players that used the items drove prices up and that traders would capitalize on buying up whatever module was in demand by the player base. A couple weeks ago i trundled off to market through a wormhole and took some time to compare how much i'd get from reprocessing versus selling to buy orders traders put up...i figured the REALLY expensive items were worth way more than the mineral price of reprocessing the same item. Boy, was i wrong. massively wrong about "if it's expensive it can't possibly be worth it's weight in minerals", and especially now.

Dev Blog - what is going on with mineral prices? 

Today i braved the weekend warriors in the Curse pipe (namely K-Q) with my smuggler (newly outfitted - the ECM burst sucked from my earlier fit) and got my pigs to market...

Had some scary moments, but for the most part it was a successful jaunt with some excitement at one point early on when i had to crash the CL gate in K-Q with two of my pilots at the same time - my hands were shaking so much i couldn't use my mouse properly. lol. I was stuck for a bit so waited around for some poor schmuck to get shot instead...

Waiting for a bison to run over took a while so i amused myself by making extreme range pounce points off the CL stargate with one of my three pilots until said bison showed up and i got all 3 in system and safely on my way to high sec. Unfortunately, on the way back my main character got shot in a drive by and lost a set of implants worth a total of 100m isk. ouch. and some rifter blueprint copies (whoop dee doo) 
 I got out fuel block BPOs (3 amarr;3 caldari) researched to max, about half dozen other original blueprints that were surplus (junk basically) although one is a small anti-explosive pump rig BPO researched to max that is going to be useful at my research complex (still Kourmonen's 5 lab stations.) Along with 3000 faction large ammo, some more tags for my collection, and a bunch of items worth more selling straight to jita buyers than reprocessing for the mineral value including a "Domination 100mn afterburner" that's worth about 100m isk right there.

 ***

Oh, as for other news i finally unlocked the last of my blueprints in my research complex stations and have been losing many ships by seneschal, in that area, from either game mechanics bugging up or pure stupid "ooooo shiny thing" lack of concentration and being AFK in low sec - just a symptom i've gotten lazy about safety near my research complex:
kerblam,
and,
then,
and,
then.
Hereticus fared a little better although he did lose a shiny Sabre interdictor inside a cargo hold of a viator. them's expensive! am i mad, bro?  
My main character has been really happy with a new ship (Sacrilege) and has, after many weeks of ratting, and very little dying (or killing) has gotten an iteration of the perfect fitting for PVE.

So, yeah, i'm happy raking in about 7m isk every 15minutes. I hope this new iteration makes alot more, especially once i successfully get the proper implants from high sec (see "shot in a drive by" killmail.)  Escalations off these lowly anomalies i'm doing aren't worth doing, so i'm missing out on juicy drops but i think i can manage - it's way more than i'm used to.  

*** 

 Do i want to really get back into mining? not while i'm on vacation. I do hope to get an Orca bought at some point when they get cheaper. 700m isk for one? yuck! here's the fit i'll be using: 

[Orca, Supertanker JesterTrek] 

Damage Control II 

Reinforced Bulkheads II 

Domination X-Large Shield Booster 

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II 

Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I 

Medium Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800 

Mining Foreman Link - Laser Optimization II 

Large S95a Partial Shield Transporter 

Small Tractor Beam I 

Large Core Defense Field Extender I 

Large Core Defense Field Extender I 

Large Core Defense Field Extender I 

Vespa EC-600 x5 Hobgoblin II x5 

 Will i stick with this Alliance? Probably for a long time although i am being very careful about how much i invest in expensive things i might lose if things go tits up. I'm trying to keep it lean and mean in null sec and keep the fat transferred to my high sec carebear alt corp regularly. Speaking of which i just re-rented a couple dozen offices now that i have the income to maintain them, although i'll drop some of the more expensive ones once i'm sure which Ministry of Internal Order agent i want to go with - yup! I've gone from Theology Council fan to Sarum Family boi to finally the hated Ministry of Internal Order NPC corp as my favorite to run missions for. I didn't like the roleplaying aspect of doing that, but after learning about the amarrian epic arc storyline mission lvl4 agent belonging to said corp i couldn't say no any longer. I seriously want to get my corp's empire standing to a high enough level to get a 0.5 sec system POS system set up in the future and this corp is my ticket to that (especially since getting high empire standing means i can run the rest of the COSMOS agents for Amarr) 

Anyways, that's my current goals. My current fear is shown in a comment i made in Jester's blog, although while i wait for my penmanship to be cleared by the censors i just have the link to the comment i replied to  ...my reply's point had to do with how the insane risk aversion the more vocal members of the eve clientele tends to warp the "reality" of eve (in this case that "PVP is the core of the game"; aka Griefers) as a whole that outsiders hardly see as the reality at all, let alone the "perception" of eve in the mainstream (being "Eve is pro-PVP. yuck!"; aka Carebears)
The whole thing is a straw man. What I mean by that is outsiders are the silent majority who let the wallets do the walking, see the game as just another multiplayer game full of carebears and griefers as any game is - full of human folly - and leave the 'insiders' (aka the vocal griefers & carebears) content to weave a web of white/grey/black lies to their heart's content among the killers, socializers, achievers and explorers of a MMOG called "eve-online" who for the most part enjoy the element of risk in a game (but i think it got deleted out of hand for being flippant and poorly written)

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." ~Mark Twain (who attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli)

ah...my original comment was cleared. haha. here it is in all it's confuzzlement:

Hmmm...There was a sci-fi space simulation MMO called "JumpGate" that i played through beta and into retail. They were crippled just after trying to branch out into another MMO that tanked horribly.
That's one opinion. The other opinion was that the developers were sucked into the same "perception is reality" spiel touted by the vocal and rabidly vicious minority who wanted more player killing "because the core of the game was pvp"...
The game base dwindled and it is no more. Will that happen here? IMHO no it won't. there's a critical mass of carebears (the socializers and achievers) that attract the explorers such as myself. A critical mass that simply cannot be killed off by the griefers.
Besides, griefers and carebears alike abhor risk. each are prone to risk aversion. I think this colors the "reality" itself. The "perception" merely seduces the developers and clients alike to buy the 'straw horse' of the so called "reality" being beaten between opposing poles of the 'risk aversion' camps.
Outsiders neither care nor see the "reality" because 'reality' is soooo much different. The minority shout long and loud and the silent majority whose wallets do the walking have the last laugh. As long as CCP never lose sight of this i'm confident this game will never die.