VIDEO: EVE Online - Real Life Meeting with Chribba

Chribba, like you've never seen him before!

EVE Online Postcards for Wednesday February 24th, 2010

Who ever said that mining was boring, never took a long look at the vistas that New Eden provides! Ok, ok, I may be stretching it here just a little be, but nevertheless you have to agree with Maeve on this one, that ORE mining barge (a Retriever I believe) with the star partially hidden behind nebula are drop dead gorgeous!

See, I told you you'd find it pretty!

EON #012 - Table of Content

The unbearable wait ended yesterday afternoon when I received my copy of EON issue #12 in which I wrote the cover article "Mining Evolved". It's without a doubt the lengthiest article/post/feature I've ever written on EVE, and was a lot more work than I had anticipated.

I feel as though I'm walking with giants in this issue, with the likes of Nate Combs (TerranTus Novallum), Zapatero, Sivona and Benilopax having penned articles. Hopefully, I haven't made a fool of myself, and my humble efforts will give me the opportunity to repeat the experience.

/crosses his fingers...





As a side note, if you're interested in reading one other player's perspective on the current state of Mining in EVE, I highly recommend that you read Nyphur's article over at Massively.com entitled "EVE Evolved: Mining, the forgotten profession".

Table of Content - EON 012

• Page 6 --- E-ON Upfront (News)
• 18 ---- Postcards from the Edge (Screen shots)
• 22 ---- First Pilot's Club - Part 2
• 27 ---- In Character: Oresome
• 28 ---- Alliance Profile: Goonswarm
  
• 30 ---- One Alliance to Rule Them All - Part 2
  
• 36 ---- In Crowd: David Arnar Runolfsson
  
• 39 ---- In Character: Curzon Dax
  
• 40 ---- Cover Feature: Mining Evolved <-- My article!!
• 46 ---- Alliance Profile: Evoke
  
• 48 ---- Staying Underground - The Eur Story
  
• 50 ---- In Character: DHB Wildcat
  
• 52 ---- Testflight: Heavy Interdictors (Broadsword, Phobos, Devoter, Onyx)
  
• 60 ---- In Crowd: Halldor Fannar Gudjonsson
  
• 62 ---- Alliance Profile: Intrepid Crossing
  
• 64 ---- Insider's Guide: Lag
  
• 68 ---- Insider's Guide: Fiction Writing
  
• 76 ---- Insider's Guide: Forums
  
• 80 ---- EVE Directory
• 82 ---- Teh Funnies (EVE Humour)

All in all, this issue is again packed with a ton of great info, sites, guides and stories that I always find interesting. I can not wait for the next issue! It'll be all about Ambulation.

/me starts to drool...

EON Issue #012 should be here any day now!

The latest issue of EON magazine shipped out of the UK on July 4th, last Friday. So it should be here any day now. I think I've checked the mailbox at least 3 times a day since Tuesday. This is a special issue for me.

You see, yours truly, has penned the cover article for the issue. With some great editorial help from Zapatero, I've written the article on the history of Mining. So I'm a little anxious to see the final results.

Hopefully it'll come out not too bad. I guess you'll be the judge of that!Here's what to expect in this next issue:

LET'S ROCK Mining is a profession that has been cruelly overlooked by E-ON, and in-game miners have been looked upon with disdain by a great many. CCP itself admits it's a part of EVE that's been left to its own devices for a touch too long. In the face of such wanton ignominy, this issue we give some love back to the grime-faced mineral extraction technicians of New Eden by looking at how mining has changed, what the profession means to EVE in general and hint at what changes lie ahead.

HUGE FREE POSTER OF THE UNIVERSE Two years ago we gave away a free poster featuring a map of New Eden and an update has been long overdue. This issue we're proud to be able to give away to our subscribers a new, even bigger version. At A1-size (841 x 594mm) it will include notice of outposts, security information, jump lines and Faction Warfare regions, system and region jump lines and of course region names. It certainly won't have the same kind of depth as the new EVE Strategic Maps book, but will certainly be complimentary to it, and will look very cool on any wall regardless. Remember, it's for subscribers only.

COUNCIL MEETING With the freshly-interred members of the Council of Stellar Management having returned from their first meeting with CCP, as well as reporting on what transpired, we ask whether what went on was just a bit of a chat or the beginning of a revolution for virtual worlds.

THREE INSIDER GUIDES In a slight departure from normal gameplay guides, in this issue we bring you a look behind the EVE forums, an idiot-friendly guide to lag and a massive how-to on writing EVE-themed fiction.

PLUS Profiles on Intrepid Crossing, Goonswarm and Ev0ke | Heavy Interdictors undocked | Interviews with GM Wyrm and prepH | Curzon Dax and DHB WildCat? tell us their histories | ...and lots of other stuff

Maybe it'll be in the mail tomorrow. Or else it's going to be a long wait until next Monday!

The Mighty ORE Rorqual in siege mode

A few nights ago PPL members were in a low sec system mining ice. We've established a POS (Player Owned Structure) and have started our mining operation. Before heading out in my trusty (not rusty) Iteron Mark V to haul all that ice, I took some shots of the mighty and impressive Rorqual. Which reminds me, here are 3 videos showing the behemoth going into siege mode, as this one above has.

Have you seen one in transformation?

Two videos of the Rorqual in transformation mode

With this new industrial capital mining ship being introduced in the next Revelations Patch (2.2), I thought it'd be nice to see is it in action. Before you hit the play button though, here a description of the ship, taken from an interview done during Leipzig GC 2007 by the guys from TenTonHammer:

Another item that will be making an introduction into EVE Online in the near future will be the Rorqual, which is designed to be the mother of all mining support ships. "The Rorqual is designed to be able to compress ore to a fraction of its original size for easy transportation, and when it's in siege mode it has a 300 km tractor beam," Arend said. "It has a clone vat bay just like other capitals. It has a hanger array. The only thing I can compare it to is a Japanese whaling fleet. This is the mothership and all your mining barges are the feeders. We're still looking to balance it as far as compression ratios and defensive capabilities are concerned, but this is really going to be an asset," In the opinion of all those sitting at the table, we couldn't help but agree that even if some of the smaller corps could build one of these ships they could become much more economically viable.

"We're really looking forward to seeing how this affects the game," Arend said. "Our lead economist is tracking this particular ship very closely to see what kind of difference it makes. At the moment we're seeing mineral prices go to really, really high levels, and it's getting more expensive to produce stuff in the game. Seeing as our economy is player-driven, our economist is just keeping a really close eye on things. I think this is one of those situations where having a full-time economist is really going to pay off for us and especially the players. Economics in the real world is tricky at best; it's even different for a virtual world." According to Arend, the Rorqual will be released in Revelations 2.2, which is supposed to hit the servers in "a month or so."

This thing is going to be big, real big. Here are the videos then.





And here's a third one I just found after publishing this post:


Finally, here's a post on the EVE Forums with a few good screenshots of the behemoth. I can't wait to head over in a field of asteroids and rip through it! Oh well, you can't take the carebear out of me I guess!

Mining our own business

Last Tuesday night, my corp mates and I, had planned a mining operation and it was decided that we would be mining in a low security system to stock up on some precious minerals.

I dropped off my Vexor in Baratar, my current base of operations (got some quality security agents there), picked up an Amarrian shuttle and headed back to HQ, in Badivedfi, 17 systems away.
Once in there, I switched ships to my trusty Iteron Mark V, the Fat Mimi I, and set course for Nourbal where I would meet up with some of my corp mates. After getting there I started hauling back and forth between Nourbal and our deposit station somewhere near Nourbal, since that system has no stations.

Everything was running smoothly until we noticed a pilot who had jumped in Nourbal by himself. This guy was from the Federation of Freedom Fighters, with a low security rating. Now, be himself he would have been chop liver for our CAP, but these types of rats never travel alone. On my way out of Nourbal I noticed that on the other side of the gate, the only gate to exit Nourbal, there's was a few other of his corp mates from FoFF waiting there. Not good. Not good at all.

So we got ready in case things started to get ugly and on my way to drop the ore, I'm was getting constant feedback form my corp mates back in Nourbal, as to what the situation was. They we're not moving in yet, but by the time I had dropped the ore and started to head back to Nourbal, there was a total of 7 FoFF pilots gate camping in Kerbez. As I headed back to Nourbal everyone there was on edge and I awaited orders from our XO. Just before jumping into Keberz I stopped and waited there. It didn't take long for order to come through, we were pulling out!

I'm was given orders to "Get the ore, NOW!!" So I fired up the engine, jumped in Keberz, and headed straight to the Nourbal gate where all the FoFF fighters were waiting; except by then there was only 6 of them at the gate; one had jumped in. Thanks to some good bookmarking, I jumped into Nourbal as soon as I come out of warp at the gate. After going through our safe spots I headed towards the belt where we were mining our own business, before being rudely disturbed.

As I got there and started my approach to the containers, the pilot that had came into the system earlier, popped in the middle of the belt. Shit!! Our orders were to "Evacuate the system immediately and head back to HQ!" I picked up the ore and followed orders.



As we came across the gate in Keberz, we spotted all 7 of them still there, waiting to jump in Nourbal. I took the screenshot above as a souvenir. Man, I would have loved to see their faces when they saw us warping to the next gate as soon as we come out of Nourbal!!

The only casualty of this event was one of our corp mate , who had logged out while still in Nourbal. When he logged back in, the FoFF pilots were all in that belt and he was podded before he even knew what was going on.

Overall though, we did a great job, we got out safely and got the ore too! Now, we'll have to be a bit more on the look out, and will probably have to change our mining schedule so that we never mine in the same system, at the same time, on the same weekday.

But still what a night that was!

EVE Online: Mining over the last few days

This week we got orders to mine as many belts as possible, until but crumbs of Velspar remain. Here's a shot of our little operations, followed by to short clips I took earlier this week using FRAPS. A nifty little screen and video capture utility I'll be getting soon. (The trial version only lets you take 30 second clips).

Those are 2 Retrievers hammering at every rock in that belt!

The next 2 clips show 3 Retrievers and one Caldari hauler hauling the ore back to the station. With this set-up, we're usually able to clear an asteriod field in an evening.

EVE Online: Mining the Khanid Kingdom

This week-end we received orders from command that we needed to do some mining to get our ore supplies a bit higher. So the for the last 3 evenings I've been mining with some of my corp mates (Malindah, Padyn and Paladyn). I was the one hauling the ore, with the help of Malindah.

In this screenshot above, Paladyn was flying CAP (Combat Air Patrol) in a Brutix while I was hauling the remaining containers.
It was a change of pace from the agent missions we had been running the last 2 weeks in order to increase our standings with the Royal Khanid Navy and the Khanid Kingdom.

I tried to get my Teamspeak to work, but without a headset it isn't worth much. Guess I'll have to get me one!

Clearing asteroid fields of pirates for mining!

That's what I did tonight in EVE. Which should increase my security rating and eventually get me back above 0.0. Dragonmorph was online and so was Took. Met a newbie, Basinet, nice fellow who needed small help with a few (3) nasty rats. Me and my boyz (Wasp Drones) gave him a bit of help.

Then I mined a bit (see picture) and called it a night. I haven't seen Lugus and Muntchak in a long time. A few months I would say. Should email them and get the latest. I'm thinking of starting to recruit new members for Sorbion Inc. (my corp in EVE), cause as of now, I alone!!! Lost 5 members at the start of the summer!

Will do so after we get back from New York City.