Aeon's EVE

She loved the feeling of walking in a haze after a sleepless night. It was not something that she could do too often, but over the years it had become a sort of monthly ritual. Where many relied on drugs, she found that a little sleep deprivation provided a much more healthy kick. When the sister she lost six years ago suddenly looked back at her from the wall screen in her living room, she stared at the screen in pure disbelief. She tried blinking and looking away and back, but she was definitely no hallucination.

Her own survival had been a great fuel for her shame, since her reasons to be out of the Aramea system when the wormhole appeared were of a frivolous nature. To be exact, she had slipped through her parent’s net to be with a boy. To her dismay, she did not even recall his name anymore. She had spent the last few years trying to erase everything that had happened from memory, and to some success. By some weird happenstance, Loreena had survived against all odds – and now threatened to bring down all her carefully erected protection barriers. And yet, seeing her sister alive filled her with such a profound relief that it did not matter that much. Still, the main question was if she should make contact at all. Would her own life be better if she did? She knew she was a selfish bitch, but she liked herself just the way she was. Loreena had always been the more sensible one, and she was certain they would quickly resume their usual fights about how ill-behaved she was. No, this changed nothing. She would just ignore her as she did her past.

Three months later, she had to face the fact that she had to call Loreena. The knowledge that her family had not in fact been wiped out entirely had changed her in a number of subtle ways, to the point where she was not able to enjoy her frivolous activities anymore. Loreena’s face haunted her like a tattoo she could not remove. It enraged and frustrated her. She damned her sister to hell for doing this to her, but there was no way around it. So it was that laden with anger, frustration and grief she jumped into her ship and made her way to Gamis. She had made an appointment with Loreena under a false name – she wanted to shock her as much as she had been shocked. When she entered the Anthean museum, she was strangely humbled by all the work they had done so far. She averted her eyes from all these things trying to yank her back into her past and made her way to Loreena’s office.

When they saw each other, no words were spoken. Loreena looked haggard, but when saw her long-lost sister she lit up in a way that made her lose all her carfully erected composure, anger, frustration and grief included. “How could you?” she murmured softly when they embraced, but Loreena just held her tighter. She never understood exactly what had felt so good in that moment, but for once she did not try to investigate any further.

From there she joined the Aramean Excavations project as lead planetologist, her talents now serving a purpose beyond funding her lascivious lifestyle. Loreena had been changed more deeply than she could have imagined, now a lot closer to the elder sister she had wished to have many years ago. Maybe she could have the best of both worlds after all, she thought and jumped back into bed for some afternoon fun.

Where she goes from here remains to be written.

Marauders are the undisputed mission running kings. Usually able to field almost as much DPS as the highest tier battleship from each race and a much better tank makes them ideal for solo work. Marauders are also flexible when it comes to fitting, as you can fit more utility modules than battleships in general due to better power grid and CPU.

But enough talk, let’s have a look at some mission running fits for the Paladin. These are all fits that I used/use on Sparhawk’s Wrath, not just EFT theoretical fits. I based all of these on missions versus Sansha (EM and Thermal damage), of course you will have to swap hardeners depending on the NPC faction you face in your mission.

The poor man’s fit:

Apart from the essential modules worth investing in, this fit uses generic modules. I used this when I switched from the Abaddon, and could not afford any fancy modules beyond what I already had. It is optimized for tank, but already works like a charm in all level 4 missions.

[Paladin, Missioning Tank]
Imperial Navy Large Armor Repairer
Damage Control II
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor EM Hardener II

Cap Recharger II
100MN Afterburner II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Infiltrator II x5

Stats:
- Cap stable (except with Conflagration)
- 447 DPS with Scorch (559 with drones), 45 Km optimal
- 487 DPS with Multifrequency (599 with drones), 15 Km optimal
- 625 DPS with Conflagration (737 with drones), 15 Km optimal
- 1156 DPS tank
- 337 m/s with AB

Brick artillery style

This is a fit I used with Loreena along in the logistics for the more dangerous missions (overkill, but on the satellite connection better safe than sorry). It is made to warp in, and more or less sit there like a giant brick and deal some damage. Without AB the speed is ridiculous, but even with all the heat sinks it stays cap stable. To compensate the lack of AB, it has two optimal range scripts.

[Paladin, Brick Artillery]
Corpus X-Type Large Armor Repairer
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Damage Control II

Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

Infiltrator II x5

Stats:
- Cap stable without the Salvager and Tractor
- 781 DPS with Scorch (892 with drones), 58 Km optimal
- 852 DPS with Multifrequency (963 with drones), 19 Km optimal
- 1093 DPS with Conflagration (1205 with drones), 19 Km optimal
- 709 DPS tank
- 131 m/s

My favorite fit

This one is a good mix between tank and gank, so I do not have to worry about defense too much while dealing enough damage to get things done quickly. It’s an expensive ship for sure, but if you can afford it it’s amazing. It works well with less expensive mods as well, but your Marauder deserves it

[Paladin, Missioning Tank n Gank]
Corpus X-Type Large Armor Repairer
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Damage Control II
Corpum B-Type Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range
Republic Fleet 100MN Afterburner

Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Scorch L
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

Infiltrator II x5

Stats:
- Cap stable without the Salvager
- 665 DPS with Scorch (777 with drones), 52 Km optimal
- 726 DPS with Multifrequency (837 with drones), 17 Km optimal
- 931 DPS with Conflagration (1043 with drones), 17 Km optimal
- 1055 DPS tank
- 350 m/s with AB

For DPS-heavy missions, you can go all-out tank and add a hardener for each damage type instead of the two heat sinks:

[Paladin, Missioning Full Tank]
Corpus X-Type Large Armor Repairer
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Damage Control II
Corpum B-Type Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range
Republic Fleet 100MN Afterburner

Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency L
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small Tractor Beam II
[empty high slot]

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

Infiltrator II x5

Stats:
- Cap stable
- 434 DPS with Scorch (545 with drones), 52 Km optimal
- 473 DPS with Multifrequency (585 with drones), 17 Km optimal
- 607 DPS with Conflagration (719 with drones), 17 Km optimal
- 1776 DPS tank (!)
- 350 m/s with AB
- Empty high slot because of CPU, fit what you can

I know that I tend to fit my ships always the same way, so if you have a fit that works well for you please share it – I am always open for experiments. Also, there are no Beam laser fits here because I do not use beam turrets anymore. In missions with sniper rats the AB is usually good enough to get them. Either that, or tag along with a buddy/an alt… when I mission, Loreena comes along in the Kronos fitted with rails – problem solved with a fitting dose of overkill

Sayathea learned very early that good looks are both a blessing and a curse. Being born into a wealthy family of the Jin-Mei caste was similar: she got almost everything she wished for as a child, but as soon as she was of age to marry she learned that she was not free to make her own choices. To escape forced marriage and a number of other potential abuses, she fled. She knew exactly that she would never be able to go back, so she stole whatever ISK and valuables she could put her hands on and paid an amarrian merchant to take her into Amarr space. She knew her family had many enemies there, so pursuit was less likely – even if she was certain they would try to get to her anyway.

She quickly realized that she was not quite ready to be on her own in this harsh universe, especially not as a young gallentean woman in Amarr space. Nevertheless, she managed to survive long enough to pay for a pod pilot’s license – though along with her ship it cost her everything she had left from her heist. She was now as independent as she had dreamed of countless nights, but she would have to earn her keep from now on. It was the beginning of a long trek that took her to the edges of secure space, always mindful to keep a low profile. She evaded a few attempts from her family to either kill her outright or bring her back into federation space, until they seemed to finally give up a few years later. She had tried to keep in contact with her older sister and one of her cousins, but as their destinies grew more distant from each other so did their friendships.

It was on a station in Derelik that the last few years finally caught up with her. Stranded until her ship was serviced, she suddenly had time to reflect on her life, and she realized that she had no such thing. While she had been able to safeguard her body and freedom, there was nothing else to her. Now that the reason for her flight and years of traveling around the universe was gone, the prospect of beginning a life truly of her own was daunting. She was an empty shell without a purpose, lacking even the knowledge on how to find a purpose. It was in this state of mind that she met Loreena Syrkos for the first time. She instantly recognized her as a lone wolf like herself, with very little interest in the thriving social games pilots like to indulge in. She watched as she navigated through the crowd, expertly avoiding to initiate contact with anyone. She followed her from a distance, not exactly sure why she had this effect on her. A few corridors later, she disappeared into her hangar booth and later undocked in a Prowler – a fitting choice of ship in Sayathea’s book.

The ship’s name allowed her to find out that it belonged to a Loreena Syrkos, CEO of the corporation Aramean Excavations. Reading about the ARMEX project proved to be a revelation. Picking up the pieces of a civilization from among the debris of its home planet destroyed by a cataclysmic event sounded like what she was trying to do with her own life. The next few days while waiting for her ship to be ready, she read up on the project and Loreena herself. When she was finally back in space, she contacted Loreena and managed to convince her to meet. Instead of the eccentric personage she had expected her to be, she quickly found a true friend in Loreena, one who shared her broken soul. It turned out she was not the only one trying to piece herself back together through the project.

Her position as lead archivist was exactly what she needed. Cataloging all the artifacts and managing the dedicated museum’s expositions kept her on a tight schedule and filled her mind. Every little piece she added to their ever growing collection made her feel a little more at home here. Maybe her life could be mended after all?

Yes, it’s the infamous NPC damage types list that about 80% of all EVE pilots have in place of their biographies. This time in a pretty & practical printable format:

What it shows:
- NPC Damage Types
- Weaknesses
- Drones to use (light/medium/heavy/sentry)
- Countermeasures for dampening & disruption

To download it: Right-click > Save as. Enjoy!

Changelog:
v1.0: Initial revision
v1.1: Added countermeasures
v1.2: Corrected wording of ECM

So lately I had a conversation with my good friend Serotta Ortot (from Here Be Monsters) who was asking me if there was any ship I was still hoping to get someday. That was actually a question I had given a bit of thought to, and the answer was a Nightmare, one of the faction battleships. It is a good match for Aeon’s skills, and it is renowned to be a DPS beast and overall amazing missioning boat. Its design is somewhat twisted, but unarguably original. As I had just bought Loreena a Kronos, getting one was a plan for the long term.

Long story short, Serotta offered to buy me the ship in exchange for some help in creating a poster for his thesis. Now that was an offer I could not refuse He gave me his concept for the poster, and I prepared a preview version. The same day, I went to pick up the ship (in Jita if I recall correctly). The first hurdle was the fact that I had not fit a shield tank on a ship in several years. Since the Maelstrom in my first year of EVE, actually. Serotta was nice enough to sponsor a faction shield booster, and soon I had a working fit.

Dubbed the “HMS Serotta”, the ship proved to be everything I expected it to be: a beast. It pretty much rivals the Paladin in both tank and DPS. It cannot beat the Paladin, but that’s not the point – flying into a mission with it just feels awesome. If you are into role playing your characters occasionally, you cannot pass up on the scene of that behemoth warping into a bunch of NPCs and leaving a trail of smoking wrecks in its wake. If looks could kill, this thing would surely leave a few enemy pod pilots dead from shock on the battlefield.

Here is my current fit:

[Nightmare, Missioning]
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Capacitor Flux Coil II

Domination Large Shield Booster
Photon Scattering Field II
Photon Scattering Field II
Heat Dissipation Field II
Heat Dissipation Field II
Republic Fleet 100MN Afterburner
Gist A-Type Shield Boost Amplifier

Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager II
Mega Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Mega Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Warrior II x5
Hammerhead II x5

Not much to say here – with my skills it is cap stable without the AB/Salvager/Tractor. Could use some better modules – a ship like this deserves investing, especially tank wise and cap support wise (think T2 CCC rigs).

Some theoretical stats (vs Sansha):

- 946 DPS / 3646 volley with Hammerhead drones (791 without)
- 461 sustained tank. 86k EHP
- 321 m/s with AB (118 without)
- Resists: 76,5% / 81,2% / 40% / 50%

What I did not anticipate however, was that flying this ship announced the end of a great chapter in my EVE life. Indeed, Serotta had been unsatisfied with CCP’s vision for EVE for a while now, and a few days later along with a new client patch, he decided to quit EVE. You can read his related blog post, I understand his reasons completely. It had been a long time in coming, I know he was trying to revive his interest in the game – but in retrospect, attempting this in the middle of Incarna and a series of controversial updates was not an ideal time. As usual your mileage varies, so far I have not had many client crashes, and my play style does not touch much on the big issues being discussed.

Details aside, I currently live in a strange duality. It is both a happy time for rediscovering the game, but also a sad time for losing a longtime friend (fortunately only ingame!) – hence the plural in the post title. My secret hope is that he will come back, but somehow I feel that his decision is final – and I respect that.

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING AND GOOD LUCK!

I have made several attempts to discover and learn more about both lowsec and nullsec in the past. I was never really successful, and I was meaning to try again someday. As a solo player, there is not much incentive to go there, apart maybe for the adrenaline kicks. It is largely viewed as a very dangerous place, and even if they are usually not enclined to admit it, many players are afraid of it. I can honestly say that I was afraid of it as well, and still am in a way. While in genesis, I decided to take Aeon on a sightseeing trip to one of the local nullsec access points. The idea was to try and do some ninja ratting under the noses of the locals, in a cheapish ship that could cloak. What I came up with brought back some memories: I revived the Pilgrim of yore and fitted it as a pure drone carrier. That way I am entirely ammo-independent, and not fitting guns meant I could put lots of utility modules on it and stay cap stable.

After hopping into an empty clone, I used an Anathema to do some scouting. I found an interesting route of about six systems in a row in 0.1 sec that I could start my exploration in. It was still lowsec, so no warp disruption bubbles – which is a plus when you start out. The only danger comes from gate camps, but with a cloakable ship you are extremely hard to catch. People on gate camps usually have some small ships with fast lock times along, but since you can cloak more or less instantly, the only danger is if they try to approach your last known location to try to decloak you.

I encountered a few pilots here and there, but most systems were just empty. When I felt a bit more confident, I went back and took the Pilgrim. While roaming through the lowsec area I had scouted, I took note of the people flying there, checking bios and security statuses. To my surprise, there was a fair share of 5.0 security pilots. I scoured some belts, and found BS of up to 1,1 million bounty. Not a bad start, and speed tanking them was easy. The old trick with orbiting a container you jettison is still as effective. With an orbit speed of about 450 m/s, there’s not much that gets through to the ship’s tank. Of course you have this leisure only when you are alone in the system, if you’re not you have to assume the other pilots are looking for you or setting traps.

For example, I scanned down some seemingly lost drones with two other players in the system. When I finally locked on them with my combat scanner probes and warped to them (cloaked of course), no one was there as expected. However, as soon as I decloaked the other player decloaked and started locking my ship. You always have to be ready, so I managed to warp away in time. I did not expect this kind of cunning trap however, and have since revised my behavior with people in-system. Scanning stuff down is okay, since you can do that cloaked. Actually going there to investigate I now do when any lurkers have gone.

After a little while, I got more confident moving around. I have not encountered any gate camps so far, so that’s still mostly theory. I’m quite sure I’ll find some in the future though, and they will provide some crucial experience. For now, I set up camp in a nullsec system with two NPC stations from where I can launch skirmishes into the surrounding systems. All in all it has been easier than I thought, but it confirmed what I already suspected: nullsec is the playground of corporations, alliances and PvP gangs. Solo players like myself in search of things other than PvP will be hard pressed to find something to make them stay for long. It’s fun for a while, but in my case I soon missed the freedom of movement (think in terms of being able to minimize local and the directional scanner) that highsec offers.

My tip if you want to have a look at lowsec or nullsec: get a frigate hull ship that can fit a cloak, and slap a MWD (Micro Warp Drive) on it. I can only recommend skilling up for a Covert Ops frigate, as those ships have a lot of uses and are really fun to fly. If you jump into a gatecamp, you can use the tested and tried MWD + Cloak trick: Remember you have 30 seconds after a jump to get your bearings. Use them! You increase the chances of someone else jumping into the system as well, creating a bit more confusion as the gate campers now have more than one target to choose from. Select a point in space in front of you as far away from the gate campers as possible, and when ready fly towards it, activate your MWD and THEN the cloak. This will give you one cycle of the MWD before the cloak automatically turns it off. You can now warp off safely.

From a gate camper’s point of view, it looks like this: they can see someone jumped into the system (the gate shows that familiar flash of light), so the tackler(s) get ready to lock whoever is going to decloak. As soon as you decloak, they will try to lock you, as well as fly towards you. However, with that MWD boost, your ship shoots off in one direction and a few seconds later, disappears. They can try to decloak you, but determining your position is difficult.

You will find gate camps in two different places: when you jump into a system, or when you warp to a stargate. The first you cannot avoid; you have to use the MWD trick I described above. For the second, you have to understand that for a gate camp to be effective (especially in nullsec if they use bubbles), they have to place it on the warp trajectory between two gates – that way if you warp from gate to gate directly, you fall directly into the gate camp. So the solution is pretty simple: warp to a celestial before you warp to the gate you want to use, like a planet. This will alter the angle from which you warp to the gate, and avoid the gate camp entirely. Always use warp to 0 in this case.

I’m still figuring things out, but with those rules you can move around pretty safely. The key really is to use a small, fast ship. Needless to say, trying to do this in a battleship is not a good idea. That, and keep your cool. Come to grips with the fact that you will lose your ship sooner or later, as well as your pod – and think your way through each situation. That’s a lot easier if you don’t take your T3 on the first try

I just realized that if you take into account that this is the log entry for day 1806 of my travels, which means that it took me about 1800 days to finally take the step to go into nullsec. What changed? I could not say. More confidence maybe, a higher understanding of the power of the unknown or simply less concern about my expendable body? Regardless, I think it’s still pretty funny and shows how big of a carebear I am!

After an excursion into Planetary Interaction that was both fun and utterly unprofitable, I realized Aeon had become way too sedentarized. Stuck in the same system and surrounding area for months on end to be able to move PI materials to market, the monotony started to get to me. As a result, I logged in less often because I knew that if I did, it would only be to update extractors and ferry stuff around. Yes, that kind of activity can be fun depending on your enthusiasm – but it is usually just as boring as it sounds. It took an email request from one of my corp members to get me interested again – I logged on, and a few conversations later I was hooked again. It’s like logging into a website like DeviantART or even Facebook: if you want to avoid being sucked in, avoid logging in. There is no such thing as just logging in for that “quick peek”.

I knew my Planetary Interaction cycle was over. I needed to do something fun again, and after a good hot bath (my secret concentration weapon) I knew I had to take Aeon and Loreena back to their roots. Aeon has always been a nomad at heart, going where the cosmic winds take him. Loreena was uprooted from her previous life by her homeworld’s destruction, and has been a nomad since as well. I had to cut all ties to things that make you stay in one place in the game, the most notorious being a POS. I had moved Aeon to Chidah for the POS, but after its destruction by a roaming gang (due to my inactivity it had gone offline) I knew I would not set up a new one. It is always a bad thing if a GAME you play becomes as much a chore as your everyday job. In my opinion that is specifically an area in which CCP have blundered, but that’s another story. So for Aeon and Loreena to become true nomads again, I decided to let all this go. No more POS, no more PI, no more manufacturing.

Loreena sold her entire BPO collection for 2 billion (thanks again, DD!), which helped in funding better fittings for the few ships Aeon and Loreena would take along. Aeon needed only Sparhawk’s Wrath (his Paladin), Loreena provided support as always with Tatonka (her Orca). She transports all commonly needed modules with it, as well as a few ships: “Naeroth’s Razor” (her Proteus), “Repair-O-Tron” (her Oneiros), “Sentinel” (her Guardian) and a shuttle. No need for a fixed base of operations: between the two of them, they can master any task they might get.

As chance would have it, the evening I started looking for a place to go to, one of Sytek’s members mentioned missioning together sometime. So far I had turned down most offers because I was simply too far away from everyone and lacked the time to get started. The satellite connection at home did not help either, but I wanted some action and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. On a whim, Aeon flew ahead in a shuttle while Loreena packed everything and followed. It was a 32-jump trek from Chidah to the Genesis region, but with the shuttle it was a breeze. On site I could borrow a fully fitted Apocalypse, and we set out to kill some Blood Raiders. Flying in a fleet felt good, and the next day Aeon flew back to move Sparhawk’s Wrath over.

Loreena has access to some agents in the area, so we are going to stay a while – until the need to move surfaces again. I have rarely had something as liberating as cutting off all ties as I did. It put the fun back into the game, because it became a game again – a place without duties, with good friends and interesting things to do. Granted, EVE is not a fun game per se. That’s also its strong point however, and one that I have come to appreciate, within certain limits. This brings me to something I had been meaning to do for a while as well: resume my original lowsec / nullsec sightseeing tours

After my big server fiasco in 2010, all relevant posts are now online again over a year later. I even had to write a special filter in PHP that allowed me to import all the posts I had saved from Google’s cache. That way I could add them to the blog as drafts. The most work was uploading all the screenshots again and re-linking them manually. I’m really glad it’s all back now

I added a page that lists all post titles as a quick archive in the upper site navigation, and I have a few plans for the future of the blog. I will definitely keep posting, but as always I’ll do it at my own pace. It started out as a means to record my EVE adventures for myself, and even if it went somewhat beyond that’s still its core mission. I’m by no means a blogaholic, nor do big posts come to me easily – so I prefer to spend the time I need on them to be able to post something I’m comfortable with.

The upside of this was that I was forced to re-read most of the posts, and re-lived part of my earlier adventures. Some of the older posts nearly went into the bin, especially the one where I was showing off a Maelstrom fitted with lasers, for example. I could not delete it though, it’s part of the story…

Now that the past has been reborn, I can finally put my energy back into writing some new content! Here’s to a bright future for EVE so the adventure may never end

While the new portrait editor is all kinds of awesome, I think some of the characters lack the depth they had before. This is especially true in Aeon’s case: the old portrait was more expressive than what can be achieved with the new editor. One thing that really bugged me was the fact that I can’t have him open his eyes more – his race template does not offer enough leeway here. Difficult not to make him seem sleepy!

Nevertheless I am quite happy how they both turned out (even if Aeon looks like a monkey with the Captain’s Quarters renderer and Loreena is way too angular). As usual I did not use much makeup or additional decorations like piercings or the like, because both characters are very simple and it would not fit their style. I think they will not get anything from the NEX store either – the default choice of attire is more than enough for their needs

Aeon lost his front tattoo, the same one was available after the tattoo update of the editor, but it does not render the same – so I chose to go on without it. Maybe in the future they will add some more options, but for now they look good enough to me.

As I have to rebuild all of my 18 planets with the new changes to PI, I took the time to sit down and make some calculations for once before I start fiddling around aimlessly again. The aim is to make POS fuel commodities, so I inspected in detail what I need for them.

The idea was that I needed not only to find out which raw materials were needed, but to determine precisely how much of each I would consume, taking into account that some are used in more than just one commodity. For example, Noble Metals are used for Enriched Uranium, Mechanical Parts, and indirectly in Robotics.

Warning: I take no responsibility for any neuronal damage that may result from reading the rest of this post.

It took me a while to figure out the best way to do this, but I managed to put it together in the end. So, to build exactly one run of each commodity:

5 Coolant
5 Enriched Uranium
5 Mechanical Parts
20 Oxygen
3 Robotics

you need exactly this amount of each raw resource (with the number of cycles a basic industry facility has to run to process the raw materials):

6000 Aqueus Liquids (=2 cycles)
6000 Ionic Solutions (=2 cycles)
24000 Noble Metals (=8 cycles)
18000 Heavy Metals (=6 cycles)
18000 Base Metals (=6 cycles)
12000 Non-CS Crystals (=4 cycles)
3000 Noble Gas (=1 cycle)

This takes into account that you need to make enough Mechanical Parts to keep some as commodity and use the rest to make Robotics. So you effectively produce this:

5 Coolant
5 Enriched Unranium
15 Mechanical Parts
10 Consumer Electronics
20 Oxygen
3 Robotics (Using 10 Mechanical Parts and 10 Consumer Electronics)

Processing Infrastructure

Now to the tricky part: the amount of cycles I listed above represent how often a basic industry facility has to complete a full cycle to process the materials required by the rest of the production chain. If you want to have seamless production of all commodities, those cycles would ideally be concurrent.

What this means is that you should have one industry facility for each cycle so they can run at the same time. To produce one run of the commodities I listed above, you would need the following amount of Basic Industry Facilities with the according Schematics to process the materials:

2 x Water Schematic (Aqueus Liquids)
2 x Electrolytes Schematic (Ionic Solutions)
8 x Precious Metals Schematic (Noble Metals)
6 x Toxic Metals Schematic (Heavy Metals)
6 x Reactive Metals Schematic (Base Metals)
4 x Chiral Structures Schematic (Non-CS Crystals)
1 x Oxygen Schematic (Noble Gas)

Of course this would be distributed accross your network of planets, and it assumes that your extractors can keep up with the demand from the industry facilities. However, if you can manage to whip this together you will be able to almost seamlessly produce POS fuels. Almost, because I glossed over the whole logistics issue transporting stuff around

Base raw material requirements

For all intents and purposes here is the base list of raw materials needed for one production run of each commodity.

5 Coolant
> 6000 Aqueus Liquids
> 6000 Ionic Solutions

5 Enriched Unranium
> 6000 Noble Metals
> 6000 Heavy Metals

5 Mechanical Parts
> 6000 Noble Metals
> 6000 Base Metals

5 Consumer Electronics
> 6000 Heavy Metals
> 6000 Non-CS Crystals

20 Oxygen
> 3000 Noble Gas

3 Robotics
> 12000 Heavy Metals
> 12000 Non-CS Crystals
> 12000 Noble Metals
> 12000 Base Metals

Choosing the right planets

As for which types of planets you will need for all this, it depends on what you have available and where you do it – nullsec is definitely the place to be for PI (be it in regular nullsec or wormhole nullsec), as the extractor yields are extremely better than highsec. But highsec can work as well, you will just end up with a lot more colonies to do the same thing.

The planets distribution for the materials we need is this:

If you look at this chart, you will see that it is possible to have all you need even if you do not have access to Oceanic, Ice, Storm and Plasma planets (but you need Lava planets, which are fortunately more widespread). Beyond this chart, even if some materials can be found on several planet types does not mean they area all equal in terms of yield. For example, Aqueus Liquids are logically not as abundant on a Barren planet than on an Oceanic one. You will have to find the right balance for your selection of planets.

Now looking back at the list of raw materials we need, the topmost materials are Noble Metals, Heavy Metals, Base Metals and Non-CS Crystals. For these, you will have to build colonies primarily on Lava / Plasma / Barren planets. In highsec, this list will be reduced to Lava and Barren planets.

When choosing your planets, scan every one of them for the material you need (like Base Metals), and compare the yield bars between planets to find the one with the better deposits. If you want to be really precise about it, you can take screenshots of each planet and compare them by measuring the width of the bars in a graphics editor or overlaying them. To illustrate:

Planet B clearly has a better supply of Base Metals. However, this does NOT mean that a detailed scan will not reveal that planet A has spots with higher concentrations than Planet B: the bars just mean there is more or less of a material planetwide. Single deposits can vary a lot. So what’s the optimal way of finding the best planet for a material? My favorite technique is running a detailed scan of each planet without changing the resource limit slider.

Here’s how you do it: find the planet that has the biggest deposits of the material you seek. I’ll stick to the Base Metals in my case. When you have found the best planet, run a detailed scan for Base Metals and adjust the slider so that the biggest deposit you can find on the planet surface is shown with a white area, like this:

The single white area there is the biggest deposit on that planet. Logically if we run a detailed scan of the other planets, we should not get a single white area anywhere. However in practice, that is not always so. To illustrate, run a detailed scan of all the other planets. Chances are that one of them even has a bigger deposit somewhere on its surface. That’s where you should set up – even if the planet on the whole has less of that material, your extractors will have more to work with. In my case, I found this:

Now that’s a lot better than my initial scan.

Conclusion: do not judge a planet by its deposit bars! The best is to always use the detailed scans to compare them.