What is the fastest frigate in Eve after fittings and skills?

Question

In Eve, one can easily look up the base stats for various ships by checking their info pages from the market.

The interceptors are probably the fastest ship class in the game, but it's hard to figure out which interceptor is the fastest after skills and fittings are taken into account.

So assuming the best possible max speed fittings and skills, which ship is the fastest?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

The Dramiel is the fastest Frigate in EVE.

The Claw is the fastest of the Interceptor group, but a Dramiel running an MWD is faster because of it's lower mass, since MWD speed boost is affected by ship mass.

Things that affect speed are

• Base speed of ship
• Low slots (using Overdrive Injector II¹)
• Mid slot (using one 1MN MicroWarpdrive II)
• Rigs (using Small Auxiliary Thrusters II¹)
• Navigation Skill
• Acceleration Skill (when using the MWD)
• Ship mass (when using MWD)
• Implant bonuses (e.g. the Snake Set)²
• Leadership and Gang Assist bonuses²

Here's a table with the calculated speeds (base ship speed, max fitted/rigged and MWD, each without skill bonus and finally with all skills at level V³):

Here are the results as CSV. They were calculated from a subset of the CCP database export with this Python script, using the speed formulas from the top speed calculation guide and the Aenigma formula for bonus stacking penalties. Some calculated speeds were cross-checked against Pyfa.

¹ The speed bonuses from the Overdrive modules and Rigs are subject to severe stacking penalties, making it fairly useless to cram more than 2-3 of these in your ship in total. However for the purpose of finding the fastest ship it was assumed that all ships had their low slots full of Overdrive modules and their Rig slots full of Auxiliary Thrusters. This is not a sensible build to fly around in though.

² These bonuses affect the velocity directly and therefore don't matter for a ship comparison. They were not taken into account here.

³ Due to neither implants nor Leadership/Gang bonuses being applied, this is not the fastest these ships can go.

Answered by Ingmar

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Solo Player Corp Hisec Invention/Research POS - Feasible or Not?

Question

I'm currently a fairly high skilled mission runner / carebear type that has rarely ventured out of hisec space. On top of typical amarr skills for running a very well fitted paladin and legion, with 5's in almost all relevant skills, I also can fly a well fitted crane (for hauling) and hulk/mackinaw.

I would like to crosstrain into industrial skills and after spending an hour chasing around my home region looking for BPC copy facilities, I decided it would probably be better to set up a POS for copying, invention and maybe some light manufacturing.

I would only want it to be lightly profitable, maybe making 400m isk per month, but if it requires a research alt then I would like it to be able to generate 600m+ isk per month to pay the alt's subscription.

I have done a lot of research on this to decide whether I wanted to pursue it further, but I wasn't able to find much, if any, information on the current climate, as all of my information was 6 months to 3 years old.

What's the current economic feasibility of building a POS in 0.7 or so empire space?*

I've also heard that griefer corps, for lack of a better term, like to wardec and pop POS belonging to solo corps. Are other corps wardec-ing a real risk if you intentionally pick a moon that's undesirable for resources as you would just be using it for research?

*When I say economic feasibility, I'm basically asking if I will probably break even spending maybe 15-30 minutes a day on this with a fuel run every other week vs this just being a complete and total money sink and waste of time.

**Note on the maths:

A small tower should require a badger load of fuel blocks every 2 weeks, as my badger holds 20k m^3. Medium tower would need fuel every 7 or so days, and large 3.5-4 days.

Asked by Kort Pleco

Answer

I think determining the ISK viability of a POS will have to come down to you having to do some rough math on your own. The price of fuel can vary from place to place and from day to day. Not to mention, the amount of fuel you will need can vary depending on the size of the POS that you decide to deploy. Then you also have the variable of how much you can actually sell your BPCs for. Some BPCs sell for more than others, but again there's a lot of variables to work in there, and it's hard to track a base price for BPCs since they sell through contracts. In the end, I think you'll have to perform the profit calculations on your own.

In regards to your second question, I can say that there's a good chance you could get wardec'd by a PVP corp/alliance if your POS looks like an easy target. My alliance has dec'd small corps in the past solely to try to crack their POS, and we have several friends who do it as well. It's less a griefer thing and more about trying to make an easy profit.

That said, there are a few things you can do to make yourself a not so easy target. For one, try to set up your POS in a less well traveled part of space. Jita and Amarr are the two largest trade hubs in the game, so you'd probably be better off not setting up shop in Domain or The Forge regions. When you do chose a system to set up shop in, chose one that's off any major travel routes. For instance, don't pick a system that's on the route between any of the four major trade hubs of Jita, Amarr, Rens, and Dodixie. You can research a potential anchor system with Dotlan. Click the Statistics link for any system to see graphs detailing jumps, player kills, NPC kills, and pod kills. The less activity on those graphs, the less busy the system is, and probably the better chance you will have of not attracting anybody's attention.

Second, how you decide to configure your POS will make a difference in how attractive it looks to a potential aggressor. There are plenty of POS configuration guides listed online, so I won't bother repeating their info here. Instead, there are just a few tips that you should know. First, spread your defense modules around. The most common layout is groupings at the top, bottom, and four along the sides. To make things even more difficult, don't place your defense modules in groups at all, but instead spread them randomly around your POS bubble. Sieging POS's set up like this is a huge PITA as your fleet is constantly on the move to hit the next module. Going heavy on the ECM can turn away potential aggressors as well. It can disrupt a logistics wing's cap chains, and it can be an annoyance for the combat ships, constantly having to relock the current primary. Also remember that artillery will still fire even if the POS has been reinforced. You shouldn't rely on it as your sole gun type, but arty can be a headache for a fleet. Lastly, take the number of defense modules you think you'll need, and triple that number. Do the same for your resists as well. And anchor all of it. You don't have to online all of it. In fact, you won't be able to. But nobody wants to siege a POS in high sec if they think they'll have to spend hours shooting down 80 POS modules as well.

Lastly, the most important thing you can do is to make friends. With the upcoming changes to wardecs you, as the aggressed party, will be able to invite friendly PVP corps into the war free of charge to them. It will be quite a nasty surprise to the aggressing corp to suddenly find themselves fighting 100 pilots instead of 1 pilot. Having good reliable friends in EVE can mean the difference between keeping your POS and losing your POS.

Answered by RESPAWN

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What happens to your ship when you log off?

Question

In Eve online one can quit whenever one likes, just click quit.

But what does that mean for your ship when you've already left the game?

What would happen if you quit while in warp?

What would happen if you quit while in combat?

How long does your ship sit around in space when you've already left the game?

Does it disappear after x seconds?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

This is actually a bit complicated, depending on the scenario.

1. If you log off while somebody has your ship warp scrammed or disrupted, your ship will go nowhere. Instead it will stay right where it is and whomever is shooting at you can continue to do so. This is to prevent people from logging off to try to save their ship. It would make for a very boring battle if everybody could do this.
2. If you have recently been engaged in combat when you log off, after a short delay (observation seems to indicate about 30 seconds) your ship will emergency warp to a random point in space a few AU away from where you were located. It will then stay at this spot for a period of time. I'll have to find source, but I believe your ship will stay where it is until the standard 15 minute aggression timer (from the start of combat) has expired. During this time, your ship will still be "visible" on direction scan, and it can be probed out with combat probes. Again, this is to prevent somebody from attempt a logoffski to save their ship. After this timer has expired your ship will simply disappear from space.
3. If you have not engaged in combat and you are not pointed, when you log off in space your ship will emergency warp to a random point not too far off grid. Again, This emergency warp generally seems to take place within 30 seconds or so. And again, the exact place will vary, but experience has shown it to be no more than a couple AU from where you logged off. After your ship lands at its safe spot, it will disappear from the server.
4. If you log off while in a POS shield, your ship will not emergency warp, with the assumption being that a POS is supposed to be a safe spot for your ship. After a period of time, your ship will simply disappear in space. While I haven't fully tested this, the period of time seems to vary and is most likely either 30 seconds with no aggression, or the end of the aggression timer if you've recently been engaged in combat.
5. If you log off while in warp, your ship will continue to warp to the already assigned location in space. Once there, after a brief delay, it will proceed to enter an emergency warp and leave grid. At this point, it will either shortly disappear from space or remain until the aggression timer has expired, just like cases 2 and 3.

What happens when you log back on? In case #1, your ship will still be in place if your enemy hasn't destroyed it yet. In cases #2, #3 and #5 where your ship has performed an emergency warp, it will reappear in space at the emergency warp location and automatically warp back to the location you were at when logging off. This is assuming that the enemy has not probed you down in case #2 and destroyed your ship.

In case #4, your ship will actually appear at some random point in space a couple AU from the POS and automatically warp back to the location in the POS from which you logged off. Note that in case #4, your ship will actually warp through any warp disruption bubbles that may or may not have been erected around your POS when you logged off. Again, the assumption is that inside your POS shields your ship should be safe, so you should not be able to lose your ship just because you logged off at an in opportune time.

In EVE, nothing is simple, but I think this covers just about any log off scenario and the various game mechanics involved.

Answered by RESPAWN

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Does Material Efficiency Research transfer to invention bpcs?

Question

If one attempts invention on a Blueprint Copy (BPC) that has production efficiency or material efficiency research, does that efficiency research transfer to the resulting tech II BPC?

Example: Say I have a probe blueprint copy with material research level 10, will that have an effect on the material research level of the cheetah BPC created from invention?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

Only indirectly.

The basic invention process does not take on any researched attributes of the BPOs or BPCs.

The only attribute of the BPC that affects the BPC output in the invention process is the number of runs on the copy. Generally you will either always want to use 1-run copies (mostly when inventing ships) or max-run copies (mostly when inventing modules or ammo). This comes into play when you use decryptors (or choose not to use one). These affect the invented Material Level, Productivity Level (Manufacture Time), Runs of the invented BPC, and invention chance.

However, there is still an indirect effect of ML/PL on BPOs. Usually when you make a T2 item, you have a few input products that need to be made which are consumed to make the T2, such as a T1 version of the item, and Construction Components such as Tungsten Carbide Armor Plates or EM Pulse Generator. Material levels on these BPOs mean you'll usually need to use less Moon Materials or other materials, which could lower your final cost of making the T2 item.

Putting all of these options together to figure out which is the best option to maximise profit is the interesting part of T2 manufacturing.

Answered by camster342

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What is the purpose of MMO “maintenance”?

Question

EVE Online performs "maintenance" daily, and World of Warcraft performs it weekly. What goes on during it, and why is it necessary?

Asked by Nick T

Answer

It's also a question of cost and predictability.

MMOs are relatively low stakes, and tolerant of downtime (particularly with region specific downtime windows). Google gets heavy traffic 24/7, but a MMO like WOW will fluctuate massively throughout the week. The impact of brining down servers during those valleys of usage is disproportionately lower than it is in other businesses with more regular activity periods.

By implementing regularly scheduled maintenance windows they also gain predictability. I would hazard a guess that, if they wanted to, 90+% of what happens in regular maintenance could be moved concurrently. They might still have some downtime windows occasionally for big things (replacing core network infrastructure, upgrading major patches, etc).

However there are some trade offs. They would still need occasional maintenance windows (when do you schedule them? Would people be more upset by occasional random maintenance windows than a predictable, consistent one?) Would the systems be much more complex? Would it be much more costly to add new features, innovate and maintain?

Also think about the nature of the servers in an MMO vs other online games like Starcraft 2. In Starcraft 2 the games are pretty much happening between two players. The servers have to coordinate the games, but there's a lot more fault tolerance and less need for global synchronization. Starcraft seems much more like a tradiontal website architecture than WOW, which is a more unified system. In WOW everyone needs to be in instant lockstep.

Basically the short answer is that there are dozens of reasons that a maintenance window can be used for, and the reasons for not doing one with an MMO specifically are pretty slim. The whole MMO software system can be much simpler and more predictable if they schedule and use a regular maintenance window, giving you a better game cheaper.

Answered by chmullig

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What is the optimal Tech I sub-capital ship and fit to defeat an Amarr Interceptor?

Question

Recently, my two-person corp has been war-deced by a one man corp run by xManBearPiggx who often attacks with either of the Amarr Interceptors (or occasionally with a Catalyst).

To my great shame he's been able to take out a couple of my cheap cargo frigates. So I've decided to hunt or ambush my assailant. The only problem is that I'm about a year behind my opponent in character skills, so I can't really use tech II or higher ships or fits.

But what I lack in character skills I can make for with a large trade income, so I'm trying to figure out how to buy my way out of this problem. I'm not rich enough that I could afford faction ships, but I can afford just about any Tech I ship. Also, I have a fair mixture of combat and piloting skills so it wouldn't take long to train for any of the Tech I ships.

So I'm wondering what is the optimal fit to take on a pirate in an Amarr Interceptor with tech 2 dual light pulse lasers?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

Unfortunately, it is difficult to give you a definitive answer given that situations vary so much in EVE, all you can do is try to stack cards in your favor.

Some things to consider though:

1. Interceptors survive on speed, get a Warp Scrambler, hopefully you can use it (possibly overheated) to turn off their MWD which will lend you a huge advantage.

2. Remember Lasers do EM and Therm damage only, tank for it

3. Amarr are armor tanks, which makes them vulnerable to Kinetic/explosive. He probably doesn't have that much to plug that hole.

4. Personally I would look into destroyers, they hit hard, recently were buffed, and fit with tracking mods can probably hit the quick bastard.

5. Failing that, get friends, or starve him until he goes away.

Fly Safe!

Answered by Pyrodante

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Do damage rig effects stack with non-rig damage modules without penalty?

Question

The description for Hybrid Rig Collision Accelerator I, a rig slot damage increaser, warns that:

Penalty: Using more than one type of this module or similar modules that affect the same attribute on the ship will be penalized.

A Magnetic Field Stabilizer I, a low-slot damage increaser, carries the same warning.

Does that mean that a ship equiped with both would suffer the stacking penality?

Or does the penalty only focus on the same slot type?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

I tested this out with the above items and there did not appear to be any stacking penalty between the rig slot and the low slot items.

Thus stacking penalties may be restricted by slot.

Answered by Mark Rogers

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How can I get a list of ships I own and their location?

Question

As I'm getting older it's getting harder to remember where I parked all my ships. I tend to leave some in systems that are likely to see action in the near future, to be able to quickly reship if the need arises.

But I'm losing track of the locations of my ships, I'd like to have a nice overview of the locations of all my ships. I would have expected the assets window to be able to do that, but I couldn't find our how to show me only my ships.

Asked by Fabian

Answer

While there's no easy in game method for determining the location of all of your ships, don't forget that the asset window does have a search feature. For instance, if you're looking for your prized Ferox, you can search for Ferox in the asset window and it will give you the location of any Feroxes (Feroxen?) that you may own.

Additionally, when looking at assets for a particular station, you can sort the assets by volume. Generally speaking, this will put all of your ships at the top (or bottom) of the asset list as you're not likely to own much that's bigger than a ship.

Lastly, I've not used it myself, but according to one of my alliance mates, EveHQ may be able to provide exactly what you're looking for. Apparently the asset manager in the program is very full featured. http://www.evehq.net/

Answered by RESPAWN

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How does one dodge or survive gate camps without stealth?

Question

In Eve, gate camps can be one of the biggest drags in low/null-sec. A gate camp is where one or more pirates wait around a stargate trying to catch pilots as they warp away (and also incoming auto-pilots).

Often times they use warp-scramblers and quick targeting systems to try to snare passing pilots, though sometimes they just start firing off fof missiles without bothering to target.

Of course, stealth helps one avoid these problems, but cloaking systems are both expensive and require extensive training, which I'm a little short on at the moment.

A big factor in their ability to catch someone is how quickly it takes a ship to go to warp, but sometimes they are able to catch even fast ships.

What are some strategies for beating base camps without stealth?

Are there ways to detect and avoid base camps without risking one's ship?

What's the best way strategy, outside of stealth and blockade runners for dealing with and surviving gate camps?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

There are a few tricks to easily survive gate-camps:

1st point:

Never use straight lines in 0.0. Why? Because a lot of 23/7 sitted systems only have 2 gates. the bubble will just be on the line right beetween the gates and you'll automatically be thrown right into the bubble.
If possible, you'll want to warp to a planet, which is far away from the direct path, then warp to the destination gate. That way, you'll probably manage to go around the bubble.

2nd point:

Use a shuttle. Or any ship you'll be able to fit for fast spinning and good accelerations. Remember those omg-wtf-unlimitedspeed-nano-frigates?
(Or a full tanking drake should do the trick if you just go for a small-camp, they'll never be able to shut down your shield.)

3rd point:

Try to know all the systems on your itinerary, and try to look for unusual paths.
You can look here for dangerous systems (stats for the last 3 hours), and you'd better check all the systems you'll go through, just to be safe.
Remember: the shortcut is a lie. The shortest path between populated regions will probably be heavily camped.

---

Here are a few usefull links:
- Ombeve (A good .pdf map. Print it, and stick it all over the room. Seriously.)
- Dotlan (Want some info for the next system? choose the region, click the system on the map, and look at the ship-kills stats. Instant camp-gate indicator)
- ICSC Jump planner for those who fly carriers. (It'll help you to reduce costs, you'll just have to check dangerosity for the suggested systems)

---

About the cloacking subject, the training time for a blank new character (without optimisation:
1) To use a Prototype Cloaking Device I -> 21h 30min;
2) To use an Improved Cloaking Device II -> 1d 23h 20m;
3) To use a Covert Ops Cloaking Device II -> 7d, 3h, 30min, + 23d 15h 50 min for the T2 frigate.

Answered by Lysarion

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Do Friend-Or-Foe Missiles target neutrals or npcs?

Question

If I fire a bunch of Friend-or-Foe missiles when I'm leaving a station will they target npcs and neutrals, or only available hostiles?

If there are no valid targets, what happens with the missile?

Will it go after an NPC station or jump-gate?

Asked by Mark Rogers

Answer

According to Eve University:

When activated, they will fire on the nearest hostile (ship/drone which has aggressed you).

So no, they will not target neutrals. Just targets that are attacking you.

Answered by Resorath

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What ship would complement a Rattlesnake in level 4 missions?

Question

I dual box in missions. Recently, due to a fit of sobriety, I lost my Abby and so now I need to replace it.

My main missioner flies a Rattlesnake with good drone skills, a complement of two types of sentries, one set of heavy drones, and one set of light drones. She has become so versatile I wonder how best a second character can support her. With my Abby I would blow up frigs as they cross within my 30k range. I was thinking either a Paladin or a Legion, but I am afraid that a Legion would require too much micromanagement to stay alive in level 4s.

Assuming a budget of 1.5-2 billion what would be a good (preferably Amarr) complement to my Rattlesnake for missions? (Don't say run incursions, I do that already with a Legion.)

Asked by Pyrodante

Answer

I personally put my second toon into a Noctis to salvage as I go. A well tanked Rattlesnake should be able to hero tank almost any Level 4 mission, so easy mode involves popping all the triggers and grabbing all aggro with the Rattlesnake, setting Ogre IIs to aggressive, and then bringing in the Noctis to salvage wrecks as my drones pop the ships.

If, however, you are looking for combat on your second character with minimal management, why not fly another drone boat such as a Domi or a Gila? Assign the drones from the second ship to your Rattlesnake pilot and control two flights of drones on your main combat character.

Lastly, if you're dead set on Amarr, the Paladin is the way to go. Nothing will match the tank of a Rattlesnake, but the Paladin with T2 Tachyons will outclass almost any other mission ship's ability to apply large DPS. If you're still looking for minimal combat management, a valid tactic would be to (once again) hero tank with the Rattlesnake, bring in the Paladin, and assign the Rattlesnake's drones to the Paladin.

Answered by RESPAWN

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How much standing do I lose for declining a mission from an agent?

Question

I'm running faction warfare missions, which are distributed all over the enemy low-sec. To optimize the mission running I'm trying to get missions that are close together, but I can only decline missions without standing loss once every four hours.

If I could decline missions more often, it would make it easier to optimize the routes and get misssions that are close together. What I'd like to know is how much standing I lose when declining a mission, that would make it easier to gauge how often I can decline missions without hurting my standings long-term.

How much faction, corporation and agent standing do I lose for declining a mission? How much is that in comparison to the standings I gain, so what percentage of missions can I decline and have my standings stable over time?

Answer

According to this source, "you get a standing loss equal to the standing you would have gained if you accepted and completed the mission" within the critical 4 hours scope... I have no idea how confident you can be with this information, as the source is not an official document (even if part of the official Eve wiki). A good part of the standing math is explained here, if you do not already know this page.

Good luck, and I hope I did not help a Caldari state agent today... :)

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How does one hide or protect a low-sec moon base from pirates?

Question

In Eve, Moon bases are one of the top tier production facilities of the eve universe. They can pretty much do almost anything in the eve universe, outside of producing planetary resources. The only problem is that mining moon bases have to be anchored in low-sec which subjects them to the whims of pirates.

This leads me to wonder how anyone keeps a moon base going in low-sec.

Do some users hide their moonbases in distant remote star systems or do they simply put enough defensive structures around the base to scare off any pirates?

How does one place and build a moon base in low-sec so that it has a chance at survival?

Answer

When you say Moon Base, I assume you mean Player Owned Stations, or POS for short. These are often used in lowsec to do various useful things that you can't do in a NPC Owned station, such as Moon mining, some types of capital ship construction, and other things that don't spring to mind.

There are two often used theories behind building a defense on a POS. The "Dickstar" and the "Deathstar" and all sorts of iterations between these two.

The "Dickstar" theory is to make it as annoying as possible for people to attack your POS. In practice this means having a Large POS to have as many hitpoints as possible, having plenty of shield hardeners online to have your resists up to give you more effective hitpoints, and then having lots of ECM batteries as well as a few neutralising batteries, and other assorted such as warp scrambling/disruptor batteries and webbing batteries. This should mean that if they bring a battleship heavy fleet to bash the POS, they will spend a long time being jammed and having to relock targets. Neutralising batteries mean that Laser Battleships (often the most common to bash POSes due to not having to worry about reloads) will often get capped out and not be able to fire.

The "Deathstar" theory is to have lots of guns so that it is possible that enemy ships that are assaulting the POS could be destroyed. This relies more on having lots of the turret batteries (most popular setups use mostly artillery, autocannons, and pulse and beam lasers, but it is a matter of taste sometimes as to what type of guns people use), and missile batteries too, but a lesser extent due to them not being able to used after the tower has gone into reinforced mode. Also webs, disruptors, scramblers could be useful here. This type of setup really benefits from having active people online who might be able to sit in the POS gunnery role and concentrate the battery fire onto specific targets rather than let the POS choose targets randomly.

There are also other theories around for how to fit towers, and also all of this has to be weighed up against how much fitting room you have available after you put on your required money making modules (moon miners, ship maintenance arrays, etc...). And also against how big your tower will be which will directly affect how much it will cost to run.

Keep in mind cost to fuel a tower currently (as of 16/11/2011) depends to an extent how much CPU and Powergrid you are using on the tower. More usage means more consumption of Ice products. When the next patch comes in (in December I think), the fuelling tactic will change, and this variable will be removed. That is to say it will cost the same to fuel your tower no matter how much CPU or Powergrid will be used, and you should probably anchor as many guns as will fit and you can afford to buy. In fact it's even worth having more guns anchored than will fit as well but offline (so that it doesn't count towards CPU/PG) so they can be onlined in the middle of an assault if other batteries are destroyed/disabled.

All of that said, all of these tactics can still be gotten around with bigger and bigger ships and fleets. ECM can be countered by using Dreadnoughts that are immune to it. Lots of guns can be countered by using lots of logistics ships or even carriers (which are also immune to ECM). The only real defence is to make it either not worth their fleet investment (having to bring bigger ships or more of them) or worth their time (having to deal with jams), but even then this is not a guarantee, as sometimes people just like to spend an inordinate amount of their time making other pretend spaceship lives hell :)

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Eve Online can't switch to GeForce gt555

Question

I have laptop with two graphic cards: one is an Intel integrated chipset, and the other is a GeForce GT555M.

When I watch the settings window in Eve Online, I see that it uses the Intel chip, but I can't switch to GeForce because there is only the one option in the list.

Has anyone encountered the same problem? How can I switch to the GeForce?

Edit: I have Lenovo Y570 laptop. Integrated card is Intel HD Graphic 3000. And also I set GeForce card by default for all programs using "NVIDIA Control Panel".

Answer

It seems that this is a known issue for Eve Online.

The good news is that even though its reporting just the Intel HD 3000, it should switch over to using the GT555m when optimus kicks in while in the game, so you don't have to worry about it.

This link shows you how to set optimus for Eve Online manually in case it doesn't switch for you.

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Will destroying the default Interbus Customs Office in low-sec, reduce standing with Interbus?

Question

Recently Eve added Player owned Customs Offices (POCOs) outside of high-sec.

By default, Interbus owns the Customs Offices outside of High-sec until a player comes along and destroys it, and then replaces it.

Reading the instructions for the new POCOs, I wasn't sure if there would be any standing faction standing penalty for destroying the default Interbus Customs Offices.

Is there any standing hit for destroying an Interbus Customs Office outside of High-sec?

Answer

From the devblog announcing the Player owned customs offices:

The new deployment plan:

• The highsec Customs Offices are transferred to CONCORD as previously planned
• Ownership of all lowsec, 0.0 and wormhole Customs Offices is transferred to NPC corp “Interbus”
• The Interbus Customs Offices can be used for PI or shot down (without standing or security penalty)
• Interbus Customs Offices will not be de-spawned, they will remain until destroyed by players
• The Interbus Corporation will charge slightly more tax than CONCORD and we will continue to monitor the tax rates for both CONCORD and Interbus

So there seems to be no standing penalty for shooting down an Interbus-owned Customs Office.

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What are some of the most profitable loyalty store items?

Question

In Eve, one can accumulate large amounts of loyalty points by running missions for various npc corporations. These loyalty points combined with cash and sometimes other items can produce expensive faction or corporation-specific items.

Sometimes I've considered "cashing out" the loyalty points in a store to buy it's most profitable items. That way I could turn all of my loyalty points into sweet liquid cash.

The problem is that there are so many different items that can be purchased at loyalty stores, I don't know which goods are the most profitable to convert. (I've considered faction ammo for instance)

Now I know that market conditions fluctuate constantly, but I bet some items are obvious winners and others are obvious losers.

Can anyone recommend some profitable loyalty store items to sell on the market?

Answer

The problem is, Eve is supply and demand based. What was a good conversion ratio now is not necessarily a good one later.

A good constant however is consumable parts, such as ammo. Caldari Navy Ammo for example currently has a good sell value.

Hardwires are generally quick and easy sells however. It is best to research this yourself by looking into contracts for the factions you do have points towards.

If your looking at which faction has the best cashout ratio however, that is a different question.

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Is there really a black hole in Eve Online?

Question

I've heard some people mention a black hole existing in Eve (not a wormhole). Does it really exist or is it some unfounded rumor? Where is it?

Answer

If you mean a functional black hole, sort of - but in terms of lore (and tourist attractions), the Eve Gate is:

a giant natural wormhole located in the New Eden System in the Genesis Region. Surrounded by a strong magnetic field, ship travel is impossible close the celestial object, and the now unstable wormhole is impassable. Famed for being the source of all life in the EVE cluster and used to lead to the Milky Way galaxy. Its collapse caused the worst disaster in EVE’s history, when the small human colonies of EVE were cut from support from the mother galaxy, destroying most life in the cluster.

Plus a video of Eve Gate, which you can visit. My corporation (and many others) periodically take a trip out there - people leave cans/markers, etc. to commemorate their visit.

Some people do claim there are systems with black holes, so maybe.

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How Do I Train the Industry Skill?

Question

For the quest Making Mountains out of Molehills, part 3 I need to build a type of ship. However, when I try to build it it says I need Industry level 1. How do I train this? I don't see any book in my inventory. Also, in my skills page it has an industry tab, but only has mining within it. Any answers?

Answer

You probably have to buy the skill book, just click the market icon (or press ALT-R), search for "Industry" and you should find some people selling it nearby. Check the "Sellers" table and look for someone selling it in your station or your system. If the offer is not on your station you'll first have to fly there to get the book.

This is one of the cheap skills, the book only costs around 18.000 ISK where I'm now, so you should be able to afford it even as a new character.

When you got the book, right click on it and you should see the option "Train to level 1 now", that'll inject the skill and you'll automatically start learning it.

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How does one find open invention slots in Eve?

Question

In Eve, open invention slots are perhaps the rarest production style slot that a player can utilize. This is because invention gives players access to far more powerful, and profitable tech level 2 items. Many Players knowing this, actively hoard or guard every slot that they can. To the point where almost no easy to find public invention slot is available, anywhere.

The big problem for me and my tiny corporation is that we don't know where to go or where to find an open invention slot. I assume that an open slot must be available somewhere deep in null-sec space, but I don't know how to go about finding it.

Does anyone have any techniques, tools, or strategies to help find open invention slots?

Answer

Short of building and maintaining a POS, you can use this search tool to find all stations in the EVE universe with particular characteristics.

You will probably need to use in-game tools to identify stations with spare slots, but this should at least make finding the stations a bit easier.

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Optimal probe configuration and strategy for scanning?

Question

I read that recently the scanning mechanics changed and that now more than four probes count for calculating the signal strength. Before, the optimal configuration for probes was obviously a tetraeder, but with more than four probes now it gets more complicated.

What is the optimal probe configuration now that you can use more than four probes? How does this change the optimal scanning strategies?

Answer

There's a long thread about probing formations on Fail Heap Challenge here. But to summarise : Optimal depends on your circumstances.

If signal strength is your target, and time/effort setting up your scanning configuration doesn't matter, then the best layout would probably be either a cube or rectangular antiprism. These two would probably take the longest to set up out of the different kind of arrangements but might be good for scanning down a ship that has been purposely fitted to make scanning a lot harder, previously known as "unprobeable" set-ups.

Usually an Octahedron is a "good enough" balance between ease of set-up and scan strength. It is reasonably easy to make by imagining a compass laying flat where your ship is and launching 6 probes, then drag one of them in each of the directions North, South, East, West, and also one straight up and one straight down. Handily, each of these directions to drag in correspond to the same directions as the positioning arrows around each of the probes.

If time is a telling factor (which is most likely in combat situations) then the regular tetrahedron still works fine, although you may get slighty less scan strength than you did before.

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