PVP Missions!

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us from Zargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

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I am hoping CCP will push the boundaries of the mission system in the future, blurring the lines between PVP and PVE. In designing my mission, I am creating a new dynamic mission system that is capable of matching up players in real time together in competitive or cooperative missions.

On speaking with the agent, a pirate faction has stolen some obscure experimental datacores from your Agent's corp. The agent has intel that a drop off has been arranged in deadspace where the pirates plan to sell the datacores to a "fence" in a nearby system in 10 minutes. Meanwhile, another player's agent has intercepted this intel and will be sending this player on a mission to also retreive the stolen datacores for industrial espionage purposes. This could be taken to a massive free-for-all where multiple agents send multiple pilots to get the goods. The loot value would increase with each additional competitor.

When the first player arrives and starts shooting the pirate NPCs, one or more other POD pilots warp in and start attacking to claim the very valuable prize. Mayhem and mass destruction ensue!

Making this sort of mission would require pilots to fit for PVP with webs/scrams, etc instead of loading up on cap rechargers and massive tanks if they want to contend for the contested goods. It would also be a fun way to encourage quick 1v1 PVP or even 1v1v1v1v1 last man standing madness! Winnings would need to be good enough to encourage risking ships for this sort of engagement.

An alternate approach would be to have "backup" arive in the middle of a long mission, sent by a dynamic Agent. The possibilities for this type of system are vast! This type of mission could result in 1v1s, 2v2s, or different pertubations, giving a "BLOB" free PVP experience through the mission system.

Don't forget to check out these other excellent EVE Blog Banter Participants:

CrazyKinux's Musing - Your Mission, should you decide to accept it...
Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance - First Blood
The Elitist - Guristas Invasion
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - ...It's another episode of Design Star: EVE Style...
Level Cap -Epic Battles
Roc's Ramblings - The Cave of Time
Aether - Teach a man to fish...
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Mission: Tangled Webs
Adventures in Mission Running - I can haz spaceship?
Nuke Thoughts - EVE Blog Banter 13
Diary of a Pod Pilot - Distressing The Damsel
Guns Ablaze - Dynamic Missions
Achernar - Confidential Report
More to come...

Amar T1

If you haven't checked out the awesome Battleclinic Amar Frigate Guide, here it is:

BattleClinic's Guide to EVE Online Amarr Tech 1 Frigates from BattleClinic on Vimeo.

Vacation time

I'll be enjoying some sun and warmth in Texas for the next few weeks on vacation, so no more EVE for me until I get back. It is always nice to set a long skill and enjoy the new Lvl 5 skill I wouldn't have likely trained otherwise when I get home. (Maybe someday CCP will let us use Capsuleer to change the skill queue with an iPhone, and I won' t have to settle for a 14 day lvl 5 skill!)

Thanks to the EVE Bloggers and Tweetfleet for keeping me connected to New Eden while I travel!

Arko(S)noring

Yes, mining itself is boring. Mining in WH space adds a few dimensions as you have to spam the directional to stay safe. Today, we found a grav site with an electrical storm which would hit the Retriever for 500 shield or about 280 Armor every minute or so. That added an extra wrinkle, and I had to slap an armor rep and PDS on the Retriever to keep the Arkonor flowing smoothly.

I really don't love the extra micromanaging, as I actually enjoy being able to chat and browse the intertubes (New Eden, COSMOS, NeoCom?) while mining. Hopefully, I won't forget the directional scanner too long and get ganked!

Based on Kename Fin's Ore list, each Retriever hold of Arkonor equals 757,580 ISK. Filling a jet can yields 10,416,666 ISK. Of course, one trick to dealing with mining in a WH, is that you need to refine the ore at the POS and just ship the high end materials back to high sec.

I am counting on these Grav sites being profitable enough to finance a shiny Drake for my future Sleeper hunting. Until I get the Drake flying, I am focusing more on mining than hunting Sleepers for income...

Mining Newb!

I have been sick, and wasn't really feeling up to tangling with Sleepers in a Myrmidon today. Micromanaging drones can get old fast, and I didn't have the energy for that.

I decided to grab a Corp Retreiver that I recently trained for, but have never used, and check out the Grav site I scanned today in our Wormhole.

Things were fairly quiet, with a brief diversion of scanning down a Probe who was in checking out our system. In abscence of Corp mates I snuck up in my Helios and made a book mark at 6000m and then warped back to the POS to grab my Ishkur. Unfortunately, this guy wasn't a dummy and he noticed that I was on the way and warped away before I got there. If only a Corp mate had been around to grab a point by warping to my hidden location!

My initial foray into mining was marred by losing a half jet can of ore during my hunt for our invader. I didn't realize there was a timer on jet cans! (total newb move!). Overall, the evening was pleasant and relaxing. The nice thing about being in a WH is that you also never know when you might get the chance to shoot someone!

And it's a wash...

Stingy sleepers only dropped one ribbon but killed 3 drones! I can't wait to finish the Drake training plan so I can hopefully increase my profit margin.

CCP certainly didn't show drone boat pilots any love when they created the Sleeper AI...

On the upshot, I brought my Ishkur assault frigate into the WH for any PVP ops that come up. I am looking forward to hunting for AFK miners in adjacent systems. The Planet Risk billion ISK Orca ransom would go a long way towards financing my next few months of EVE plans!