[geeks] EVE: the new addition...

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Jun 17, 2008, at 19:30 , Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Mark wrote:
>> On 17 Jun 2008, at 23:05, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> Well, I'm not a care bear, I'm more of a rogue.
>>> I went ratting in 0.4 on day three in a Breacher.
>>> I lost the ship to a real pirate, but not until I had made around 1
>>> million ISK, a good part of it stolen from said pirate.
>>> The ship cost me 50K, so it was a worthwhile enterprise.
>>> You can be generous and still be a rogue though.
>>> I will fight for the militia and I've helped other newbies take down
>>> NPC pirates.
>>
>> Gentleman Scoundrel. I like it :)
>
> I think the term you're looking for is "morally flexible"  :)

Oh, don't assume I was flexing my morals... :)

The republic is a good cause.  Helping new pilots is a good cause.

Likewise, offloading excess wealth from rich miners is a good cause  
too... :)

> (thinks:  need a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates)

Or maybe Robin Hood...

> Sounds good.  Shame there's no way to get rid of the farmers.  Farmers
> have pretty much destroyed the economy of many WoW servers.

The problem is harder to deal with that people realize.

However, at least EVE does give you a way to fight them, though it  
probably means working with pirates and "morally flexible rogues"... :)

Also, some of the "macro miners" are really asian sweatshops that  
resell game gold in the real world.

Since they really are human players, it can be harder to detect them,  
and while most of them make poor fighters, they have enough money to  
hire mercenaries.

>> The combat is a bit clunky, I must admit. It's something I have  
>> always
>> struggled with to keep up and keep firing meaningfully at targets,
>> because the weapons and targets are always 1-offs. If you could  
>> target
>> queue weapons on target a->b->c->d then it'd be a lot easier.
>
> hm.  Not sure I like the sound of that....

It's not *that* bad really.  Your skills also affect how well it works  
out, as does your UI configuration which is entirely up to you.

For a skill example, you can train yourself for FoF missiles which  
auto-fire on enemies, relieving you of some of the frenzied manual  
targeting.

I've practiced combat quite a bit over the last week, and I've learned  
to use it fairly effectively.

One *HUGE* thing you need to learn is how to maintain proper range in  
combat.  You need to know your weapon and charge (ammo) ranges and  
maintain your ship at that range as you fly, so there is more to it  
than just pushing buttons and picking targets.

For example, I am a Minmatar Siebestor pilot flying mostly a  
destroyer, a gun-optimized warship.  I make sure I install guns which  
are all the same range or close, and preferrably all of them are the  
exact same gun.  Then I pick ammo combinations that compliment one  
another and have similar ranges.

In combat I maintain my range to target between optimal and accuracy  
falloff range.

Accuracy falloff means two things: optimal + falloff == maximum range.

You can hit at maximum range, but not do much damage.

The opposite is also true.  Turrets have limits to their radial  
tracking speed, so getting too close is also a problem.  Your falloff  
also determines how close you can get before you start losing accuracy  
and damage due to being too close.

Then you have some distance alteration due to the ammo you use, though  
I've found the gun range is the more important factor.

I use a combination of EMP and Phased Plasma shells.  The first is a  
shield killer, the second is generic shield and armor killer.  The  
combination is lethal.

I also have a very expensive missile launcher, cost more than my ship.

One thing that really irks me though, is defensive missiles.  They  
could be very effective, but unfortunately they have to be manually  
activated.  You have to know someone has fired at you.  If you know,  
they really work well and generally take out even high level incoming  
missiles.  It could be a skill I'm missing though.

For example, I read about people discussing auto-repeat actions on  
their weapons and ship modifications, and I don't see that option  
anywhere.  It could be something you must train for.

EVE is very complex.  It's not a game for people who play Quake.

However, if you take your time it's a lot of fun.  Also, you need  
tools to optimize your character development and ship fitting, because  
the documentation is not great on those parts.



-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com