Science & Industry

I am back in EVE for real (translation: I am once more addicted and feeling bipolar thanks to CCP, a sure sign that my being back is really real) and am looking for some input on a few topics from fellow players and industrialists. This input will permit me to return to once of my favorite hobby, writing, and start a new project that will take what I did with the complete miner's guide, but turn it into a general guide for EVE. Something well written, comprehensive, that puts an emphasis on playing efficiently so you get the most fun out of your play sessions. EVE is genuinely one of the few games that gives a true sense of career progression, it is also one of the most fulfilling due to the inherent risks that come with playing. The game's complexity is both its greatest strength and weakness when it comes to attracting players. I'm confident it's what kept the game going so long, but it makes it uninviting to newbies. When I started mining there was literally no documentation on the mechanics. I had to figure it all out on sheets of paper, which eventually became excel sheets, which then became a word document, and finally a guide.

The mining guide was popular probably because it did a good job at explaining the intricacies of the system without being too tedious to read, and again, it put en emphasis on being an efficient miner. I still get e-mails every month thanking me for it, which makes me both happy and sad. It's nice to see the thing is still useful, but it speaks also as to the state of the industrial side of things.

I've only been back a week, but it's been more than enough time to take a good look at the situation. EVE IPH tells me a maxed out Hulk pilot boosted by a maxed out Orca pilot will make 25M/hour mining scordite in Empire. In nullsec, 38M/hour with Arkonor when boosted by a Rorqual.

That is frickin' ridiculous.

Why anyone would bother with mining these days is beyond me. A few years back a boosted Hulk pilot could easily bring in 120M/hour in nullsec mining Ark or Bistot. Yet, now, inflation has made all ships and modules more expensive than before, the risks are the same, but the income was cut by 300%. Obviously it makes writing a version 4.0 of the mining guide a waste of time.

My current objectives for this new "guide" would be:
1. Make it accessible to newbies and pre-newbies, aka players who might be casual MMO players and who are intrigued by the game but cant figure out the mechanics from the misleading trailers or the screenshots.
2. Since it's easy to burn out on EVE if you are not helped and guided, the guide will propose various resources to help become familar with the game (such as joining eve university), what kind of mindsets to adopt to get the most out of the experience
3. In keeping with the previous point, I'd like to offer some practical examples and guidance on how to streamline play sessions so players unfamiliar with sandbox games. This is often a problem for me, and why I never managed to get into the X series. Looking forward to X: Rebirth, though.
4. I plan to cover: PI (Mechanics), WH (Probing, Sites, Mechanics, Logistics of living), Mining (Ore,Ice,Gas), Missioning (LP, Standings, Agents), Invention (I will need help here), Capital+Supercapitcal Production (Logistics, Nullsec complications)

What I am looking for from you guys:
A. Players willing to share notes, experiences, anecdotes or stories on their eve careers. I'm looking for testimonials on how people played (what time, how they organized their in game activities to be compatible with their rl obligations). I'm hoping that after reading a few capsuleer journals like this, I'll be able to offer a bigger, wider and therefore more interesting perspective to people reading the guide.

B. Industrialists who have experience with running businesses in low-sec and high sec. I've lived in nullsec or far away places most of my EVE life and feel too unfamiliar with the metagame of empire living.

C. Critique partners for each specialized field. If you've been doing supercap building for long and you feel you could contribute, let me know in the thread or by EVE mail and when I have specific technical questions I may drop you a mail. If you feel so inclined, I could also ask for your help in reading some sections to get feedback.

D. I'd love to pick the brains of high rollers. Those who deal with large sums of ISK (25B+) in trading or invention. There was once a time when I had 100B+ in my wallet, but it was all tied up into extensive logistic lines for supercap productions, so I know got to play with the market. If anyone is willing to share past experiences, shoot me an eve mail.

It might feel redundant to some to write another EVE guide, but I'd appreciate it if you kept the bad mojo away from this thread, or me, for that matter. This project is a stepping stone. I was diagnosed with an aggressive autoimmune disease two years ago. It attacks the digestive system and it is not curable. It can be extremely painful, among other lifestyle changing symptoms. Although I am not in remission I'm doing really well now. The medications I had to take and the condition itself had given me extreme concentration problems which made any serious intellectual effort unappealing or a serious chore. Working on this project will allow me to relearn discipline and get back into writing more seriously. If you're not interested in the project, just keep out please, it's as simple as that.

The topics I need the most input about is: invention and PI. Your take on them, what you think could be improved, and whether you'd suggest a new player to try it out.

I quit medschool after 2 years due to health problems, related to the disease I have but which was undiagnosed at the time. It took a while to find it.

The mining section will be rewritten from scratch but will maintain the same structure as the old. It'll just be updated.

I want to expand the scope of the project to be more accessible to total newcomers who are still considering what to do, what's what, etc.

Mining is only worthwhile if you can multibox and if that is the case, it's currently more lucrative and much less hassle to just run missions, especially these days when you have these gankers to watch out for on top of everything else. Same semi-AFK income. That's how I see it, anyway.

It doesnt help that half the mineral supply comes from the drone region or t1 module reprocessing. This needs to be addressed.

Wow.

So what's responsible for this market crash of min prices?

Hmm, i can't remember the reason everyone thought mineral prices fell, maybe it had something to do with the increased plex prices? Or vice versa...

I always figgered minin was like non-skilled labor, you start out minimal wage but with enough time, you can build up to a higher position and more iskies, not as much as skilled professions, but still enough to fund quite a bit.

Since the t1 rebalance, you dont need t2 ships to be awesome, thus lower income still gets you great play.

Please add lots of nice HD videos and pictures linked in every litlle part of your guide. I believe it will be the best guide ever created for eve.
+1

This is exactly the feeling I had when I came back to the game a week and a half or so ago. The players have created all of these amazing tools (Dotlan, Jump planners, EFT, IPH, all the databases, etc) but they're not advertised by CCP so you have to either stumble upon them or be told they exist. I mean, could you imagine living in 0.0 and not have Dotlan or jump planners to plan stuff? Some player created tools are essential to streamlining some play styles.

I was lucky to be swooped back by an ex corpmate into a small corp of veterans who live in a C5. Without his help and the corp's support, I would have had a very hard time get back into the game. Or at the very least, it would not have been as smooth.
Someone literally spent an hour on Teamspeak with me, going over the new tools, the changes, and basically answered all of my questions. I was lucky to have access to that kind of help, because that person connected the dots that I otherwise would have had to research on my own.

For instance, I had no idea how the logistics from a C5 to Empire would function when you live there permanently. I was lucky to join an alliance that had already invested 50B ISK in the logistical backbone, so everything was running smoothly already. My goal is that someone that might want to live in a C5 one day will be able to read the guide and learn everything he needs to plan a move there, from scratch, if he/she wants to.

I wasn't aware the next expansion would be industry focused. Are we talking major overhauls?

There's no official announcement (that I've seen) as to the contents of the next expansion. Odyssey's theme was announced in May for a June release, so if they are aiming for december, we should hear sometime in October if they keep to form

The Features and Ideas forum usually has lots of early info on changes. The only thing up so far for Winter is the Marauders' rebalance.

I hadn't attributed the fall in mineral prices to the 'rebalancing' debacle but that probably is a contributing factor. Another factor has been CCP's failed move to make industry in null-sec easier by adding extra tritanium & pyerite to the rocks in null-sec. This has introduced a bottleneck with a lack of mexallon in null-sec now so it is easier to stick to the old method of buying minerals in high sec and compressing into railguns. The perception was that the extra pyerite & tritanium would bring a decline in prices so that perception has been made into reality.

Also a lot of the macro/bot miners have switched from mining ice to ore so there are certainly too many people mining ore in high-sec and maybe in deep 'blue' null-sec as well.

We can't pull up more than a year on the charts for mineral prices on the market window but if we could it would be apparent that Dr Eyjo is correct. Prices for most items on the market over time are fairly stable. It's just that we have had a juicy period for a number of months and prices have dropped fairly rapidly. We just have to hope they don't fall to the levels of about two years or so ago.

As a rule whenever CCP touches something it ***** something else up. Would be best if they didn't touch anything maybe. Idk.

Suicide ganking of mining vessels is still happening regularly - I have friends that do it all the time. Most mining vessels fit no tank or modules/rigs that provide very little tank. Some gankers don't care about the ISK and will use five, six, or seven T1 fit Catalysts to take down one mining vessel. James 315 and the New Order are still very active issuing mining permits to those who will buy them. In short if someone wants to destroy your mining ship they will do so.