Aeon's EVE

When I had the idea to integrate a preview of EVE ships in my blog gimmick ShipsQuickinfo, I had a look at what is out there, and very quickly realized that would not cut it. So I did what I always do, which is to overdo it outrageously. A single view of a ship is not enough in my eyes: to get a good idea of the ship you are looking at in a static image, you need more than one angle. I decided I would need three views: front, side and rear.

What ensued was a screenshotting session that lasted about a month on and off. Using the ingame preview window, I made three separate screenshots for every ship in the game – excluding the ones I did not have access to, namely the tournament prize ships and private/test CCP ships. Needless to say, post-processing was the biggest part. I had to rename all the screenshots, then manually edit each one to remove the labels the game adds. After that I was able to automate the rest with Photoshop batch processing.

Now that I am done there are 245 ships total, so 735 individual screenshots for the three views per ship. I am really happy with the result, as the blog gimmick is a lot more useful with the screenshots. Plus, they are unique – and that’s what I was aiming for. But the screenshots bundle offers a lot more possibilities, and I am eager to try out a few ideas.

To see how I use the screenshots in my blog, click on any of the following ship names:

Daredevil
Cruor
Paladin
Dramiel
Federation Navy Comet
Brutix
Crow
Gold Magnate
Keres

This gimmick is free to use for your site, the libraries are open source. You can download it from the ShipsQuickinfo project page.

And finally, the eye candy These are the 245 ships:

UPDATE: I have uploaded a much larger version on my DeviantART page.

Note that the complete screenshots package is for sale for ingame currency. The format is a DVD with all 6 GB of post-processed screenshots as layered PSD files in 1632 x 1020 resolution. Contact me ingame or via email for details and pricing.

I have switched back to Crimson Skies (Hurricane) for missions. Somehow it is a lot more fun, also through the fact that it has 6800 shield HP vs the Aeonizer’s (Harbinger) 5900 and thus can take quite a bit more damage. I was worried by the loss of the lasers damage bonus, but never even noticed it. I know it’s a big step backwards to the shocking “lasers on a Hurricane?!” effect, but to hell with it

I am not entirely pigheaded either, so I replaced one of the Cap Recharger IIs with an active shield hardener to see if that does anything. Okay, it does… to the point that I did not need my shield booster at all. This test made me see in a new light what everybody keeps telling me about specialization, only I still do not like it. Opening the fitting screen before each mission, swapping modules (and drones) for the mission’s damage types… I am too darn lazy for that. It damages the fun of just launching into the adventure without thinking.

Here’s a thought: the fitting screen should be able to store fitting schemes. Four of them should be enough, so that I just have to choose a fitting scheme before I jump into a mission and the modules are swapped automagically. As this probably will not happen tomorrow, the only realistic current solution would be to have one ship for each mission type, and only have to switch ships. On second thought, not realistic. At least not until I have found that steady source of billions of ISK per week.

“So”, I thought to myself. Where to go from here? Back to basics is always a good thing, so I tried to look at the whole picture. My current sub-optimal ship setup gets me through level 2 missions quite easily even disregarding everybody’s insistent counselling. However, I want to try and run some level 3 missions – so I think I will have to start listening before I do that if I want to keep my sorry pod’s hull safe.

In light of all this my current plan looks like this:

• Continue specializing for battlecruisers (fly what you are good at flying)
• Skill up in core capacitor and shield skills (an armor tank is much better with a good skill-based shield tank)
• Skill up to make the most of my lasers (go for medium laser specialization)
• Start using shield hardeners on Crimson Skies (and prepare for swapping frenzy)
• Skill up for better drones (I love those buggers)
• Try out other crystals even if it means less range (compensated by the hardeners)
• Concentrate on the skills I have

Only when I have that working will I go back to the Aeonizer and put together an armor tank, as that requires quite a few skills I either do not have or only at a low level. Aeon’s skills are scattered enough already, I need to focus on those he has now.

Will I really start being reasonable? Knowing myself a little, this plan can change again in the next few hours for the sake of fun. What I do know is that if I should be able to survive level 3 missions without all the specialization stuff, you can be sure Crimson Skies will be happily frying bogies with lasers!

Loreena to the rescue?

On a sidenote (lol), I realized I never mention Loreena Syrkos’ progress much, but she is starting to be an important vector for my corporation. She is the one who processes all the mission loot (having the Scrapmetal Processing skill) and uses that for manufacturing. Between Aeon’s mining runs and the reprocessed loot, I only have to buy a few materials like Isogen or Nocxium from time to time. The last manufacturing run was 10 Mammoths, and the sales made a welcome contribution to the Syrkos Corporation’s funds Just this morning, I started a 20 Mammoths manufacturing run… note me if you want one, special blog reader’s price.

Here is a short summary of her char (vs Aeon in brackets):

Skillpoints: 7.200.000 (7.900.000)
Level V skills: 16 (12)
Level IV skills: 9 (23)
Total skills: 39 (68)
Wealth: 2.000.000
Training: Minmatar Frigate V

The frightening part is that she is closing the skillpoints gap – they were a bit over a million skillpoints apart when I started her char, and she has brought that down to about 700.000 skillpoints. It probably has to do with the fact that I chose her attributes specifically for her tasks, and she only trained skills so far that required those attributes. For the Minmatar Frigate skill she reassuringly takes longer than Aeon.

I want to get her standings up to make manufacturing easier, but even courier-only agents have the odd kill mission here and there – so she is currently training for a frigate to take care of those. Actually, she is 10 days away from an assault frigate like the Jaguar, so that will give me an interesting insight into how those behave in a fight. She will only get the skills she needs for that, so she is the essence of specialization

Okay, enough chatter. It is waffle time – fresh, hot and covered with Nutella. No standard pilot rations here!

Ah, it’s good to be back missioning again – especially since I got to run a fair share of missions I had never gotten before, like “The Damsel in Distress” or “Gone Berserk“. A welcome change, and a perfect test for the Aeonizer (Harbinger). Speaking of which, I am still not entirely convinced by its defensive capabilities. A good benchmark ist the “Human Cattle” mission, which was always quite long but never dangerous with Crimson Skies (Hurricane) once I got to know it. With the Aeonizer, enemies are dispatched faster but I really have to make sure I do not get too close because those shields are gone very fast.

I actually had to do some armor repairs lately, which I never had to do on Crimson Skies. I feel a lot safer in the Hurricane, so I am continuing to level up key shield skills to balance out the difference. I cannot stop thinking about the fact that these new skills actually make the Hurricane a lot better too, so the Harbinger will never be as good. Ideally, I would want a Hurricane with laser specialization

Nah, I think in the future I will train some projectile turret skills to make the most of the Harbinger and the Hurricane, and switch between them depending on the missions.

Having moved around a bit lately, I have discovered a few new station types I had not seen yet – and started to wonder what other marvels the designer team at CCP still have in store.

Somehow I could have sworn that you need Minmatar Industrial level V to be able to fly a Mammoth. Loreena has been training for 8 days already, with 16 to go for that skill, and was quite agreeably surprised when I found out she could already fly one. Very handy indeed, as my buy order for a Mammoth had gone through just a few hours earlier… Figures.

Anyway this ship while not being as pretty as the Hoarder in my opinion (look at that blotchy front when you dock at a station), it is a fine ship with lots of slots to fill. With three cargo expansions and one Nanofiber Internal Structure (to keep a minimum agility) it can fit 10950 m3 cargo. I will have to skill up to increase that, but it is quite good already.

On AeonOfTime’s front, I put my Hulk plans on hold for now. I am on a kind of agility & speed trip, so to make more of Crimson Skies (Hurricane) I have skilled up in Navigation and Evasive Maneuvering. It currently flies at a cruise speed of 300 m/s and 620 m/s with afterburner. It turns very well too, especially with the Type-D Altered SS Inertial Stabilizers module I fitted. I finally have my current agent over 9 standing, so mission pay is getting better and I did quite a few runs that were very lucrative. My next step will be to try and find a level 2 agent now that I have a good setup to see how that fares.

And now for some eyecandy!

Today I ran a mission involving finding hidden documents in a warehouse, and took the time for some sightseeing after dispatching the few Angel Cartel ships protecting their assets there. The warehouse I destroyed was docked to an assembly of several modules including a housing module, power generator, cargo platform as well as a giant pressurized silo. The latter seemed interesting in terms of probable loot, so I began pounding it – and checked out the info a few shots later, seeing that it was more resilient than I thought… And indeed this monster was a hard nut to crack – just as the info stated it was heavily armor plated and its structure hitpoints were through the roof.

Nevertheless, the container gave up after a while of combined laser and missile fire, leaving behind a wreck with loot like capital ship torpedoes that fetched a nice price on the market – definitely worth the time. Hell, I had to make two runs to get it all!

Housing modules

While I was busy abusing the container I played a bit with the camera to have a closer look at the nearby structures and noticed that the housing module had a name: “The PIT”… it seems that its inhabitants have quite a warped sense of humour I left them the cargo platform and power generator, they should be able to survive. I think those Angel Cartel thugs used them as workforce, so they should be better off without them – especially with all those nice asteroids floating around. If the Angel guys come back, my agent will probably tell me to help them find their way to hell again and I will be glad to help.

Ripped Superstructure, part II

A while back, I encountered one of those giant ripped superstructures that look abolutely fetching against the starry skies – and when I uploaded the screenshot, I noticed that I did not even think of flying down the big shaft that leads to the bottom of the structure. Well this time I did – there is not much in there, but it was fun checking it out anyway. It took some fine navigation skills to get Azure Skies (Rupture) down there (at 20m/s), but I managed to wriggle to the bottom and bring back a fow shots. I think the most fun part was hitting the afterburner at the bottom and flying out of there at 570m/s, the walls of the shaft rushing past and finally popping out into the open again. You should try it sometime

Tonight I was in a mood for taking screen shots, so I made a selection that I added to the gallery. The missions themselves were pretty standard – my agents still have to surprise me. At least there were no Ex-employee missions this time, and just one rogue drones mission. While this is definitely fun, and certainly earns me some money, mining is way more effective. I will have to go back to it if I want to find 500 million ISK for a Hulk :/