BB39 – Nebulosity

Welcome to the 39th Blog Banter – the community discussion that stretches across the many communities of EVE Online through the use of arcane bloggery. The conversation is open to all and readers are encouraged to visit all of the entries that will be listed below as the discussion progresses. Be sure to leave your thoughts there when you do.

For enquiring minds who would like to know more about the Blog Banters, check out this short explanation or read this overview of the subjects covered in the last year.

After a some heavy topics in the last few editions, this time we’ll be taking a more relaxed trip through the thoughts of the blogosphere. The origins of this month’s concept come from a suggestion from EON Magazine editor Richie “Zapatero” Shoemaker.

“Some say a man’s home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox.

In EVE Online, what does the concept of “home” mean to you?”

Home is about a nebulous concept as you can get in EvE. There are a few things that might tie a pilot to a place, POSes in system, efficient insta warps for mining, stations with a couple of L4 agents in them, or where your corporation is based. Anywhere where you park your ships is probably the most likely spot to call home. Close to where you make your iskies in other words.

But even then, a smart pilot with have a jump clone or three parked in different spots around New Eden. War decc’d? Clone jump to another zone. Make the sods fly 40 jumps to have to engage you. Better yet, jump to an empire where they’re shoot on sight by the faction police. And that brings me to the point I want to make. Any pilot in EvE can literally go anywhere they want. There can be some dire consequences jumping straight into EC-P8R in anything bar  a covert ops or cloaky T3 with interdiction nullifier for instance. Home in EvE is possibly more defined by where you can’t go. Or at least can’t go without some major inconvenience and exploderizings.

In some respects wormhole life exemplarises this. If anything could be called a castle, a POS in a wormhole is probably it. It’s difficult to get to, most especially in numbers, and if the home side builds capitals in there, darned hard to attack. They can always be starved out if you can stop them getting fuel blocks in of course, but a smart player or corporation can use the wormhole effects to very good advantage. Home ground in other words. A high sec pocket surrounded by low sec could also be thought of in this way. A bit tougher to get to. It means a lot fewer of the casual ganker and war deccs. Those that do you need to treat with a degree more seriousness however.

H has something of an issue when exploring in WH space in that if she jumps back through into empire space, she is shoot on site with two of them. Faction police WILL turn up at the wormhole entry and they WILL hang around. Polarization is not your friend… but again could be used against an enemy if the circumstances are right…. And there is your home ground advantage again 😉

Don’t underestimate the strategic value of bookmarks either!

And then there is the place where you park your pod. Your ship. Lore suggests the smallest ships are crewed by the pilot and perhaps one or two crew. Battleships man up into the thousands iirc, and capitals many of them. If you’re anything like me, you had a favorite ship. A ship that stood up to pounding after pounding, that pulled you and the crew out of situations that you really didn’t think you would get out of, on fire and hanging on by the barest margin.

For the longest time, that ship for me was a Navy Megathron. And while I tend to fly either an Ishkur, Proteus or Kronos these days depending on the situation, she will always have a special place. The only thing I wish is that CCP hadn’t changed the colour scheme on her, she was damn sexy in black! I don’t usually post fits because of secret squirrel, but here she is:

Angels Fear to Tread

7x 425mm Railgun II

1x Drone Link Aug II

2x cap recharger IIs

1x Phased Weapon Navigation Array (target painter)

1x Gist A 100MN AB

1x DC II

1x Imperial Navy Large Armor Repairer

1x Imperial Navy EANM

1x True Sansha Thermic Hardener

1x True Sansha Kinetic Hardener

3x Federation Navy Mag Stabs

Pop some Cal Navy AM in along with Garde IIs and with good skills, implants and a rig, you can break 1k DPS and still have an EHP of over 95k. Explosive as always an issue, but therm and kinetic resists are both over 80%. Optimal/fall off is 36+30 which is close to the Garde optimal of 30. The target painter increases the effectiveness of both your drones and you guns, and has a definite effect is far as their operational window. If you’re lucky you can pop a frigate at 70km…. with AM… 🙂

This is not a stand there and tank it kind of boat. She is not cap stable, but is quite capable of clearing an area without needing to move provided you consider her tank a buffer tank and you manage the aggro well enough. For situations where you cannot, there is mobility and a spare 50m3 in your drone bay for either hammerheads, two flights of lights, or any one flight of lights and either ecm/logistic drones to suit.

Because this ship can actually go 400m/s plus, you really need to use lights. They’re also more effective generally against scram/web frigates. Ogre IIs will kill them, esp with the TP on, but take a lot longer. You’re also travelling at a speed where they have a hard time catching up, so if they’re taking damage, it can be all over before they get back. You do need to watch out for Angel missions, because their ships are actually faster than you and they hit your weakest resist. Tune your tank as you need.

Apart from that, I highly recommend them. I’ve only ever had the one, and she has made me huge sums of iskies. Fly her well, and she will treat you like a prince.

So, home. I think it’s a combination of those three things. Where you park your ships and make your iskies, where you have a home field advantage, and your go to ship.

Now, the last time I posted I said I had news. We’ve now told family and friends, so I can share. I’m going to be a Dad early to mid next year. I have step kids yes, but until now (that I know of), none specifically of my own. I’m bouncing between ecstatic and terrified, and will probably exist in a state somewhere in between for the next 20 or so years… 😛

Home. Home is right here and right now 🙂

H

P.S Go see Freebooted for a list of peeps that are taking part in the BBanter. Lots of good stuff to read too. Esp Mark 726 lore guides.

P.P.S When they eventually do change the POS mechanics, we truly may be able to build a home in space. Fingers crossed!!!