Missions & Complexes

GAWD, you are indeed the Queen Troll. Maybe you should have your eyes checked since I already provided links supporting my statement in post 15 of this thread. Now you provide evidence that supports your claim. If what you claim is actually true facts then you shouldn't have any problem providing proof that's contrary to what I posted.

Since you can't, you conveniently resort to posting more insulting statements while trying to redirect attention once again. All you ever do is post sarcastic insulting rants and twist the meaning of other players statements around in a vain attempt to justify your own self-righteous viewpoint. Instead of posting some proof, you spout more conjecture and unsubstantiated beliefs.

Some players may believe your ignorant, unfounded, unresearched, implausible bullshit as factual truth just because you say it is. Unfortunately, there are still some players who want to see actual facts so here's your own words shoved back into your face: proof or STFU

Thanks for proving you are definitely a loud mouth windbag with that long rant.

You posted a link to the Wiki in an attempt to justify your statement while trying to discredit my statement, then when I post a couple links supporting my statement you say it's just more unsupported assertions.

The only thing you have proved here is that you fail miserably.

No. Once again, you're confusing me with you. That's what you did.

I posted a link explaining how skills affect standing to show that I did indeed understand how that happens (it's not a mystery really, the skills themselves explain it). The mechanics behind the social skills are well known, and the only real twist is that some of them — the mutator skills — go about their business by operating on the difference between actual and perfect standings, rather than directly on the actual number they are supposed to affect. Funnily enough, the mechanic you're suggesting, is nowhere to be seen in any of this. I had made no statement about my knowledge about these facts, it was just something you sprung out of nowhere, so there was nothing for me to “justify” (also, you keep using that word… it doesn't mean what you think it means), so already there, we can quite easily tell that you're confused about who did what.

You were the one who tried to post wiki links to support your statement and discredit my claim that the null hypothesis hadn't been falsified. Unfortunately, the links weren't quite up to the task.

…because the part you're failing to prove is how standings affect mission selection. The links you posted do not provide any evidence of this and there is no known mechanic behind it. Had you actually read the links you posted, you would have noticed that even they are unsure about whether or not it is the case — quite unlike your absolute statements that it is.

The official wiki (which is still just a wiki, mind you)) makes absolutely no mention of the mechanic you imagine. The unofficial wiki (which is thus even less unreliable than the official one beyond the fact that it is several years out of date, and which still doesn't provide any evidence or sources) merely mentions that it seems like standing affects mission selection. That is not evidence — it's just an unsupported, but at least honest, claim that edges more towards a guess, just like your claim that it exists (well… apart from the honesty bit).

If you're still confused about the difference, consider this: the part about skills affecting standings that begin where I linked it, and which is then continued a bit further down, and then further elaborated on in the actual skill descriptions all contain the maths and mechanics of which skill gives what effect using which numbers. I pointed to this and said “I know this”. In fact, my knowledge of these facts is what's in question — not whether or not the facts themselves are true.

You, on the other hand, are trying to claim that we have evidence that skills and standing affect mission distribution by referring to two articles that make only the briefest and vaguest mention of something that could potentially be interpreted as such a mechanic existing, except that it's quite expressly stated that it's not known whether it does. Here, it's the facts themselves that are in questions, and the problem is that the supposed facts don't even exist in the texts you linked. All that exists is a careful suggestion that they might exist, but no mechanics or maths or data is presented to support this suggestion.

So no, there is no evidence to support your assertions in those articles. It's just another layer of unfounded assertions (and it's a very weak assertion at that).

All you have is a first strand of a hypothesis founded on anecdotal evidence, which contradicts other anecdotal evidence. You have no data. You have no supporting empirics. You have no method. You have no analysis. You have no conclusion. You have no mechanic. In short, you have nothing that even begins to suggest that the null hypothesis (no connection) could potentially by falsified.

Thus, we come back to the same old chestnut: proof or STFU.

Totally Random

End of story.

(My God.................................) That really wasn't needed. Spitfire

I believe missions are allocated randomly. But since I don't have access to the game mechanics, I'm really only guessing based on my experience and knowledge of probability. I keep a database of all missions run for various L4 agents. There's over 300 mission records in this database and I don't see any pattern emerging in terms of frequency or order.

Perhaps some agents draw a subset of missions from the overall pool and perhaps there is a weighting system in place to make some missions slightly more likely than others. I just don't know.

One thing's for sure, the primitive human mind has evolved to look for patterns. This might be a useful attribute in caveman days - where we needed to detect patterns in the migration of animals, weather patterns, etc - but it's useless when dealing with randomly generated events.

For example, I had a feeling that the offering of faction missions became less likely the more you work with a particular agent OR the more you decline such missions. But when I look at the data, this does not seem to be the case. What the data does show is that the offering of faction missions is usually clumped - ie. when you decline a faction mission you are frequently offered another faction mission either immediately or one mission later.

I believe this conflict in the human mind is the main cause of problem gambling, for example. There are people who really do believe in 'luck' and they think they see patterns in the cards, dice or reels that simple aren't there. We have evolved this way.

Only mathematics - specifically probability and standard deviation theory - will get you closer to understanding the puzzle that is Eve agent mechanics.

Here's the distribution of missions awarded to my main missioning character. I can't see a pattern:


A Fine Wine 2
Angel Extravaganza 10
Assault, The 7
Attack of the Drones 8
Blockade, The 10
Buzz Kill 9
Cargo Delivery 4
Damsel in Distress, The 15
Downing The Slavers (2 of 2) 7
Dread Pirate Scarlet 12
Duo of Death 9
*Exploited Sensitivities 8*
Gone Berserk 7
*In the Midst of Deadspace (1 of 5) 7*
Infiltrated Outposts 6
Intercept The Saboteurs 9
Massive Attack 5
Materials For War Preparation 6
Mordus Headhunters, The 8
Pirate Invasion 11
*Pot and Kettle (1 of 5) 5*
Recon (1 of 3) 5
Recon (2 of 3) 5
Recon (3 of 3) 5
Right Hand of Zazzmatazz, The 8
Rogue Drone Harassment (Lvl 4) 7
Rogue Slave Trader, The (1 of 2) 7
Score, The 4
Serpentis Extravaganza 10
Serpentis Spies, The 7
Shifting Rocks 2
Shipyard Theft 1
Silence The Informant 6
*Smash the Supplier 6*
Smuggler Interception 13
Stop The Thief 6
*Surprise Surprise 8*
Transaction Data Delivery 2
Unauthorized Military Presence 6
Vengeance 15
Worlds Collide 6

* denotes declined faction missions

* Damsel In Distress * ....... again. At least she gets rescued 4500 times a day....at RANDOM

Thanks for the eve-mail notification.

If you look at edit history, you'll note at http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Agents&diff=prev&oldid=38114 that I just merged this from a now-deleted page on Guide:Agents

Unfortunately, even through I am an admin at eve wiki I seem to be unable to view the history of the Guide:Agents. Weird, but I have not been active there for a while, and perhaps the interface to view the deleted edits has changed (or that page is messed up beyond repair). All I can say at this point is that I suspect somebody else added it to the Guide:Agents page at some point (I am pretty sure it was not my discovery), and I just merged it while organizing the entries on agents on that wiki. It is a 2009 or older piece of information, and at this point I am not familiar enough with EVE to be sure if it is still accurate. It most likely was accurate around 2009, or at least somebody thought it was and nobody challenged it till now.

You may want to see who are the current active admins on eve-wiki, and ask them if they can see the deleted history of Guide:Agents, and thus can trace the author of that claim.

Btw, the http://eve.grismar.net/wikka.php?wakka=AgentLevelAndQuality/history entry is from 2010 so it was likely copied from eve-wiki. I cannot find another source for it on the web.

We can provide exactly the same evidence as you can, and provide exactly the same kind of support you can. The difference is that we are not trying to prove anything — you are. We are simply stating that there is nothing to suggest that we should deviate from the null hypothesis (that there is no link).

You are the one trying to claim there is a connection, so the only one who has to provide any kind of evidence is you. Until you do, we don't need to do anything but remind you that you have none and that you cannot really go about and claim that there is such a connection the way you do. Us doing anything at all beyond that is just a courtesy — absolutely nothing is required of us until you provide something to disprove (should we even have any desire to do so).

Calling people trolls because they don't buy your departure from the null hypothesis with anything backing it up just makes you look like you prefer this to be a matter of faith (complete with persecution of those who don't automatically hold the same beliefs) rather than of actual knowledge.

Personally, I'm insulted by Tippia's continuance of this "debate."

Tippia, are you implying that the rest of us are too stupid to know that DeMichael Crimson's arguments are weak-sauce? That we need to be continually reminded about anecdotal evidence, unsupported/unverifiable/potentially-out-of-date sources, or about such concepts as "proving a negative" or the burden of proof?

Hrmph.

Thank you for posting this it confirms my belief that DPS (dread pirate scarlet) is indeed offered less often now.

Before I was running DPS almost daily from an agent in a 0.7 system, I would get that mission sometimes TWICE in a single day but those days are over. I am lucky if I get that mission now once a week.

Also is it better to get 2k LP missions or 5k lp mission??? I can usually get through a 2k LP in under 20 minutes maybe 15 if the gates are not far apart. So technically I'm better off running 2k LP missions since I can net higher LP per hour where as DPS can take me 45 minutes up to an hour to net 5k LP....

My average in highsec is about 17 million an hour. With DPS however that average doubles, but then again I don't get to play that mission as often anymore.