Obligitory Skills Post

I’ve tried a couple of times to write a new post over the last week and a half. First it was going to be an After Action Report for one of the most entertaining roams I’ve ever participated in, then it was going to be about Anti-Piracy, then it was NRDS vs. NBSI… In every case, I’d get about a paragraph and a half, then forget the overall point I was trying to make and the post would fall apart. So, in the interest of keeping some posts flowing, I’m going to fall back on some Eve Blog Oldies. First up is the Skill Point analysis. I realize it’s not the most exciting of subjects, but it seems to be a popular one. So let’s get to it.

Clicky to Embiggen

Here’s the graph for Thansoli, who currently sits at just over 27 million total skill points. As you can see, Spaceship Command and Gunnery figure heavily into my point disbursement. The reason for this is quite simple. I initially created Thansoli as Caldari because a friend told me Caldari were awesome and had this great ship called the Drake that I could “totally kick ass with”. *sigh* This is what happens when you take ship advice from the most bearish of Empire Mission Bears. Since discovering the joys of capsuleer on capsuleer violence, and even trying to do some small gang work in the Drake, I have realized that Neo had it right; “Guns… Lots of guns…” So a few months ago, I decided to completely abandon the race of my birth and focus purely on Minmatar ships and weapon systems. At this point, my Minmatar skills far and away eclipse any capabilities I might have in a Caldari vessel. Let’s take a look at the major category breakdowns:

Drones – 915,231
My drone skills really suck. It’s a failing in my training that I’ve just come to accept. Caldari and Minmatar hulls don’t really rely on drone damage, so I’m able to get by with flights of Warrior and Valkyrie IIs, or the occasional *gasp* Hornet EC-300’s. Don’t tell Wensley.

Electronics – 2,629,300
There’s a lot of different stuff in the Electronics category, and I think I’ve got a smattering of all of it. My scanning skills are abysmal; I don’t even think I can get 5 probes in space. But my Electronic Warfare skills are good enough to undock  a T2 fit Scorpion with decent jamming strength and range, should the need arise. I’ll come back to the jamming skills if I ever decide to train Caldari Cruiser V and get in to a Falcon.

Engineering – 1,594,406
As a pilot of mostly shield tanked ships, I’m definitely lacking in this category. In addition to housing all of the shield skills, Engineering is also the home of the mighty capacitor skills, and really, who doesn’t want to complete their Core Capacitor Elite Certificate. When I talk about fleshing out underdeveloped skills, you can bet I’ll be looking here.

Gunnery – 6,989,885
GUNNERY, MIGHTY GUNNERY!! Apparently I wasn’t kidding around when I decided to switch to Minmatar ships and weapon systems. Most of the Gunnery support skills are already at level V, including Advanced Weapon Upgrades, and I have the ability to fit T2 Artillery and T2 Autocannons up to and including Battleship sized weapons.

Industry – 2,261,020
I am so ashamed. Mining V, Ice Harvesting V, Gas Harvesting V, Refining V, and Refinery Efficiency V. Plus I’ve already purchased and injected the processing specialization skills for all 15 ore types. If you were to peak in to Spaceship Command, you’d find Mining Barge V and Exhumers IV trained, too. On the plus side….on second thought, there is no plus side to Thansoli having all these trained.

Mechanic – 981,994
Armor Tanking. I only have 1 or 2 armor tanked ships that I keep available, despite armor tanking being perfectly viable for a number of Minmatar hulls. I’ll probably regret it later, but most of the stuff in the Mechanic category is on the “when I feel like it” list.

Missile Launcher Operation – 756,190
This category is only worth mentioning because I’m a Caldari pilot. I’ll pump up my torpedo skills for my Typhoon and Stealth Bomber fits, but otherwise I can easily live without ever seeing another missile launcher again as long as I live.

Spaceship Command – 7,704,204
There aren’t as many level V’s in here as I think I’d like. But at this point, I’m talking about stuff like Battlecruiser V, HAC V, and Recon V. My Minmatar skills are all level V here, with the exception of Minmatar Carrier (Uggh, drones) and Minmatar Dread (SOON!!). I don’t anticipate much growth here for a while, but when it comes time to cross train again, look for Caldari Cruiser V (Yay, Falcon!!) and the full Gallente cross train. Can you say Machariel?? I can.

So, what does the rest of YC113 have in store for Thansoli? I’ve already acquired both the Capital Ships and Minmatar Dreadnaught skillbooks, so you can bet I’ll be working towards that goal. Purchasing those skills put quite the dent in my wallet, so I won’t be buying and fitting my Naglfar until early next year. So to fill the time, I’ll go back and shore up some of the training holes I’ve previously mentioned. Lots of time spent with unexciting choices from Engineering, Mechanic, and Electronics.

Hopefully the Super Capital rebalancing that should be happening with the winter expansion will provide a good, solid demand for me and my Naglfar, minus the constant threat of getting insta-gibbed by some random Super Carrier hot-drop. Oh, and I hear that Dreads are somewhat lacking in the jump range department, so maybe CCP Tallest could help us out with that one while he’s at it.

CSM6 Fireside Industrial Highlights

I actually managed to catch the entirety of today's Fireside chat with the CSM today, despite some issues getting Mumble to work properly. Considering that the chat ran for an hour and twenty minutes, I'm not going to cover every comment made by every member of the CSM. So we'll just stick with some of the Industrial high points. The full audio of the Fireside Chat can be found HERE.

Industrial Questions

#1 – Does the CSM have any information regarding a possible re-balancing of moon materials, either from the moons themselves, or as a function of production requirements?

The CSM was not able to answer this question for a fairly obvious reason, the NDA. Despite that, several members did voice their own opinions on the matter. Chairman Mittens agreed that there needed to be some adjustments made, but that it would need to be more than just moving some moons around. I have no experience with T2 production, but it stands to reason that T2 production needs to include moon goo sourced from all over the cluster, and the value of Technetium needs to be reduced by eliminating or reducing the Technetium bottleneck in T2 production.

#2 – Where's the love for Low Sec??

There was a lot of input from CSM members, even from the pure nullsec members, which was a pleasant surprise. Many of the changes lowsec residents would like to see revolve around PvP, and those types of changes would require changes to the system CCP refers to as Crimewatch. Crimewatch is basically the system that kicks in every time you commit a crime, and it's a pretty big part of how Eve functions in the various parts of Empire space. There was some information about Crimewatch discussed in a DevBlog from CCP Masterplan of Team Gridlock posted in June. (LINKY)

Because so many of the problems with lowsec combat revolve around Crimewatch stuff, like gate guns, aggression timers, etc., any serious revamp would require the services of Team Gridlock, who are otherwise occupied at the moment working on Fleet Lag. Chairman Mittens came on an agreed that lowsec was in need of so much love, that only the dedication of a full expansion cycle would really do it justice. This is where I should throw in a joke about the famous 18 month development cycle...

There's hope to be had for the denizens of lowsec though. According to Trebor, CCP has indicated that some of their iterations on Incarna Establishments might (and I stress might at this point) give some inadvertent love to lowsec by pushing some of the more illicit capsuleer activities like booster manufacturing and sale out to to lowsec stations. Right up at the top of this blog, I point out that combat drives all capitalism in Eve, but as Dr. Eyjo as pointed out in the past; The inverse is also true. Whenever and where ever a capsuleer is making money, you can be sure that someone else will be waiting there to shoot him/her. So, we might get some additional traffic running around lowsec simply because CCP is forcing them to do business out there.

#3 – Incarna player run Establishments

There was a question posed about how players would pay the rent on a player run establishment, like a bar or something, and the CSM said they were expecting a combination of ISK/Aurum for rents and the items you put in said establishment. I'll be honest, I'm glossing over this topic quite a bit. There are obviously Industrial implications for establishments, just see CCPs booster sales idea for proof on that. Hell, the RPer in me has a dirty little desire to open a bar someday, but not if I have to pay CCP an extra monocle a month to do it.

#4 – The CSM hates WH residents!!!

OK, not really. But there sure is a lot of rage coming out of that camp. Basically, it was discussed at the May Summit that there may be too many ABC minerals coming out of wormholes. The CSM has said they would support removing ABCs from Class 1, 2, and 3 wormholes, maybe even Class 4s. Apparently, they have seen data from CCP indicating that a significant volume of ABCs are coming out of the wormholes and being sold. The CSM position is that the Risk vs. Reward for mining in these low end wormholes does not line up. Naturally, this is already causing a bit of an uproar from low end wormhole dwellers, who don't want one of their income sources taken away. Questions about this particular topic kept getting asked, until Chairman Mittens responded with what could only be described as a HTFU. Although the CSM would support a change like this, it's not something they really care about. Their focus will remain on the “sucking chest wounds.”

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Well, that about sums up the Industrial facing changes. Other topics discussed included the nullsec anomaly nerf, Teams BFF/Gridlock, the War on Bots/Lag, and plenty of overly specific, borderlline NDA questions from the player base.

DISCLAMER: If any member of the CSM actually reads this, and feels I have misrepresented either their personal position, or the position of the CSM in general; Please let me know, I will be happy to make corrections as necessary.

First Post!

Wow, it's been a long time since I felt the need to have an online presence outside of an email address and a Facebook page. I always seem to have things I want to share with the Eve Online community, and never have what I feel is an appropriate venue. Thus, Combat Capitalism is born.

So, what can you expect from Combat Capitalism, and who the hell is Thansoli?? I am a Minmatar Loyalist roleplayer. So, you can expect some IC posting and fiction entries, but there will also be plenty of OOC posting. We'll cover the more interesting aspects of industrial production, and of course we'll have plenty of Battle Reports covering my Anti-Piracy efforts within The Republic. Oh, did I not mention the whole Anti-Pirate thing?? Oops.


For The Republic