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Eve Online: in space, no one can hear you cuss
I had to delete everything I wrote for the first part of this game diary entry because it consisted largely of profanity. Basically, it was just the F-word over and over, with an occasional S-bomb or CS-er.
Read why after the jump.
I just lost my really cool ship. I didn't have insurance, which isn't that big a deal, because it wasn't an expensive ship. But still. It was the principle of the thing. Plus, it had a great capacitor battery I'd salvaged from some pirates. I quite liked that battery. It really helped, given the firepower. I guess I can probably buy a new one somewhere. But I'm only learning about ship components by finding them and looking up what they do. Until I stumble across something in the wreckage of some pirate ship I'd just blown up, I don't know the first thing about it.
Mainly, it's just that I didn't think I was actually going to get shot down at this point in the game. I lost a couple of the basic ships during the tutorial because I had no idea what was going on. Now I've got a handle on the basics, which means I can learn about things like capacitor batteries.
As I'm scooting back to the Imperial Academy in my escape pod, I peruse the market listings for where I can replace my ship. It was a Punisher I'd purchased because I'd overheard some guys on one of the chat channels singing the Punisher's praises. And sure enough, it was pretty sweet. I had used it to breeze through a few minor combat missions without so much as breaking a sweat. For a couple of battles, I didn't even have to fire up my shield booster. Ha ha. Combat in Eve Online is going to be a cake-walk, I thought! Select target, lock on, activate lasers. Repeat as needed. Occasionally give an orbit command to keep from straying too far off.
But then I got to a mission in which a space station started "webifying" me, which cut my speed dramatically. A ship with a longer range stand-off attack danced around outside the reach of my lasers. After chasing the ship around for a while - it was futile, because I was never going to catch up with him given the reduced speed of my webified ship - I realized I needed to close in and destroy the station first. But as I plodded towards it and the longer range ship plinked away at me, my capacitors and shield booster reached their limit. So I had to warp to the nearest space station, fix the armor and hull damage I'd sustained, and then warp back in closer to station to do the mission the right way.
So while Eve Online may not have a very good tutorial, it was teaching me how to play.
But then I got to the mission I'd just attempted. I had to fight off waves of ships, which was really gratifying given how my Punisher was bristling with weapons (experienced players will laugh at my description of three laser turrets as "bristling", but this was quite an upgrade from my rookie ship with its single civilian gatling laser). These battles with swarms of little flitting ships were a refreshing change from the toe-to-toe slugfest of the average MMO.
I fought my way through about ten waves of weak ships with names like Minions and Servants, careful to head them off as they approached rather than sitting and waiting for them to converge on me in groups. My lasers flashed. My shields glowed. My capacitors held. Its battery helped.
Then ships called Slavers and Plaguers arrived. A group of about six attacked me at once. They were using some sort of tracking disruption on me, as well as some sort of special ability with a countdown bar. I didn't like that, because I didn't know what it was doing. They managed to knock down my shields and chew up my armor in no time flat. I didn't stand a chance. So I warped out, repaired my damage, and tried again. I got a single kill before having to warp back out again for repairs. On my third try, I misjudged my positioning and timing - it was entirely my fault - and I lost my ship as I was trying to warp out.
So I cussed for a while and then got to the business of buying and kitting out a new ship before my escape pod had even made it back to the Imperial Academy. I've got one picked out. It's only two jumps away and it's not just a Punisher. It's a doozy, with enough weapons to earn the adjective "bristling".
Next: My spaceship. Let me show you it.
(Click here for the previous Eve Online game diary.)
By whooper at 10:04 AM ON 02/12/09
yea i been playing eve on and off since i first hear of it and i never got into missions much
and lately ive decide to setup a small destroyers and do some lvl 1 missions most dont need any work but when u get to 4 of 5th mission ina chain u sometimes have to watch urself
has i had never trained my weapon skills i didnt do much dmg
ive recently returned to eve myself ( last sunday)
and started missions
its fun just got to watch urself
my characeter is whooper if u wanan group to do some of those missions
By Troy Goodfellow at 10:05 AM ON 02/12/09
"I had to delete everything I wrote for the first part of this game diary entry because it consisted largely of profanity. Basically, it was just the F-word over and over, with an occasional S-bomb or CS-er."
Deadwood in SPACE!
By Preachy Preach at 10:47 AM ON 02/12/09
Actually, I can sort of see that comparison working on more than just the sweary level.
What I read about Eve (and my very brief experience with a free trial) makes it sound that the game is really all about the construction of a society and government from the ground up. Which, really, is one of the two overriding themes of Deadwood too.
(The other, natch, is the importance of pigs in disposing of inconvenient evidence.)
By dingus at 1:36 PM ON 02/12/09
This post makes me want to watch my Battlestar Galactica dvd birthday present.
By mr. pearce at 4:22 PM ON 02/12/09
I'd bet $10 that you are flying missions for Caldari but apparently trying to use a Punisher. You will not loot good Punisher modules from L1 Caldari missions. They are set up to give you good Kestrel and Merlin loot. If you picked up a Cormorant, then you're all set. Go crazy with the rails and give yourself a good shield tank. However, if you went for a Catalyst, for the love of god do yourself a favor, ditch the shield booster, and buy a small armor repairer and a 100mm or 200mm armor plate.
By High Plains Drifter at 4:23 PM ON 02/12/09
Keep these coming - I've always been interested in EVE but never played. I enjoy the tour.
By mr. pearce at 4:25 PM ON 02/12/09
Of course, I meant Coercer when I wrote Catalyst.
By mr. pearce at 4:29 PM ON 02/12/09
I am gonna lose than $10, aren't I?
By Christoph at 4:55 PM ON 02/12/09
Yes, I find these fascinating. Eve has always been in my mind because I always seem to run into ads for it, but every time I talk to someone about it, they say "it's horrible and terrible and bad as well!" and yet they don't explain what exactly is bad about it...
By Beef Hardslab at 5:47 PM ON 02/12/09
One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that is pretty unique about Eve is that you can actually pay for the subscription using in-game money (isk).
By tortoise at 6:21 PM ON 02/12/09
It's important to learn to recognise the particular strengths of each ship. A few rules of thumb for fitting defensive modules:
* low slots are used for armour related modules
* medium slots are used for shield related modules
* focus on only a single layer of defence - go for strong shields, or strong armour.
You can get an idea if a particular ship is better suited to shield-tanking or armour-tanking by checking a few things.
* check the innate bonuses the ship grants.
* check the relative base shield & armour hitpoints, and base damage resistances
* compare the number of low slots with the number of medium slots
e.g. for the Punisher:
* it gets an innate bonus to armour resistances for each level of the pilot's Amarr Frigate skill
* it has more base armour than shield
* it has 4 low slots, compared with only 2 medium slots
All these features hint that the Punisher is going to be relatively poor at shield-tanking, but has the potential for fitting a really solid little armour tank. :)
For mission running, try fitting a small armour repairer, passive armour resistance plating, and maybe a damage control. Alternatively you could spare a low slot for a weapon upgrade to increase the ship's damage - in the case of laser weapons this would be a heat sink. For the medium slots, perhaps an afterburner for some mobility and a cap recharger to mitigate some of the energy drain from the lasers.
By Tom Chick at 8:04 PM ON 02/12/09
Preachy Peach wins the pretentious hat for today for his attempt to connect Eve Online and Deadwood as both being about "the construction of a society and government from the ground up"! Hope you look good in a beret, Preachy! :) Just be aware that you're probably going to have to give it back to either me, Greg, or markgreyam in a day or so.
By Tom Chick at 8:08 PM ON 02/12/09
Mr. Pearce, I'm actually doing Amarr missions from the Imperial Academy at Tew. Please PayPal me my ten bucks! Alternatively, you can send Chickley ten spacebucks/isk to settle your debt.
Also, to all of you Eve players, thanks so much for the tips, both ingame and here. What a gloriously helpful player community. It's seriously impressive. If I wasn't already taking to the game (which I was even before I got so much help), the player community would have sealed the deal.
Particular thanks to those of you who explained to me that the Punisher is an armor tanks and not a shield tank. This hadn't even occurred to me and it's yet another cool layer of the combat system that I'm starting to pick up. Tortoise, that's a great write up!
By bacongrease at 9:55 PM ON 02/12/09
I have been playing eve for quite some time and let me tel you you have no idea of what bristling is I personally fly a caldari carrier tho I can't remember it's name it has two Capitol ship missle launchers three capital ship guns and one small gun for hitting little frigates it's also got a large fighter wing that is quite effective and an interstellar drive it's got defensive mods but I don't feel like listing them
My point is that if you play long enough you can be like me
By Talemacus at 6:59 AM ON 02/13/09
You are totally screwed dude. I am also addicted and a runner/cyclist....i'm daydreaming on runs about things I have to get done in EVE.
Your doing great. Keep it up. SLow and steady gets you there. PS remember to upgrade clone and stay in Hi-sec for now. GET Implants. You know if you were a Drone we would help you get them.....faster learning... (Tale waggs the carrot like a bag of candy to the little child)
By Patrick (gryph) at 5:27 PM ON 02/13/09
Eve can be a very frustrating game to play. It also is realy, really, really, really, unfriendly to play as a single player. If you are not in a corp, you are pretty much screwed. For those of us that hate the really petty crap that always seems to go hand in hand with belong to a guild of some kind in an MMO, thats a real barrier to play.
Patrick (gryph):
Eve can be a very frustrating game to play. It also is realy, really, really, really, unfriendly to play as a singl...More »