A Modest Proposal

There exists a blight that is crippling New Eden. Even under the watchful eyes of Concord, there is a darkness creeping into the Empire space that threatens to break the foundation of the cluster. I speak of course of the non-consensual player versus player activities, popularly known as ganking. Let us look at the plight of the wide eyed carebear, the victim of such slaughter.

Here we see Sara, a hard working miner. She’s putting laser to asteroid and supplying the masses of New Eden with its lifeblood, namely ores and minerals. The work is long and often tedious but Sara soldiers through all obstacles, knowing that she is providing the mean of freedom for every capsuleer. Unfortunately, there lurks a predator in Sara’s midst. His hunger is insatiable. His aptitude for violence and destruction has led him to this backwater in search of tears. Not just any tears, though. This predator is after a special variety, the sort that only can be stolen from the fresh corpse of a previously unmolested miner.

And so our faceless fiend strikes. Sara is blindsided by the assault. The villain restrains Sara by means of his warp scrambler, making escape all but impossible for our persecuted carebear. The slaughter then begins. The attack cycles up his Hurricane’s weapons, thrusting shards of fiery death deep in through Sara’s shield. Alas, Sara’s Retriever is minimally tanked and leaving her naked hull exposed. Our scoundrel now fires of a snide remark in local before plunging through Sara’s last bit of hit points and reduces her to a battered wreck on the New Eden landscape.

Sadly, Sara’s ordeal is not an uncommon story. There are many miners and mission runners that suffer the same non-consensual combat, nay butchery at the hands of these tear pillagers. And thus comes into play my modest proposal. Carebears have neither the ISK nor the combat skills to bring the fight to these criminals, thus my proposal is of a different sort. The one possession bears have in abundance is other carebears. Whether because of financial incentive or a baser instinct of survival, carebears often band together. Using their numbers to their advantage, I propose that the few be sacrificed to save the many. That is to say, a few carebears would be indentured to a ganker in order to sate his lust for tears, leaving the other bears out of harm’s way. It would be hoped that with a fresh supply of the sweetest tears, the likes of which can only be produced by the most innocent and naïve of carebears, ganker’s appetites would be satisfied, thus allowing other carebears to go about their business as the backbone of the New Eden economy.

Let it not be said that there other solutions, for such a great dilemma requires an equally great solution. The talk of creating more lasting consequences for ganking or establishing legitimate markets for bears to find mercenaries to defend them is simply nonsense. They simply do not address the source of the solution. Thus I put forward a modest proposal, so that the many may go about New Eden unfettered.

Author’s Note: In case you were unaware of the implications of the title, this was satire. In the midst of the current debate in the Eve blogosphere over ganking and other high sec PVP, I saw the opportunity to pay homage to the Jonathan Smith essay of the same name while also expressing my opinion on the matter.

Terms of Engagement: Wha’da ya mean fight fair?

Eve Online is a lot of things. It’s internet spaceships, a sandbox, and it’s sometimes a swift kick in the teeth. It’s also, and I find this the most interesting, as true of a state of nature as I've ever seen. When I say state of nature, I’m talking about Hobbes (the man, not the hallucinatory tiger). Hobbes was a political philosopher from the 17th century who came up with this idea of the state of nature. It basically stated that in the hypothetical time before government existed, people were by and large equal. Yes, there were some that were marginally stronger or smarter, but anyone that wanted to best the stronger or smarter needed only to gang up on them or use a bit of cunning. In this time nothing was provided for you; you had to go out and get it. Since everyone was equal in ability, everyone was willing to fight one another for the things they needed. The end result was a constant state of conflict over just about everything.

If you know anything about Eve, that sounds a lot like it. For one you play as a capsuleer, an immortal space pilot that answers to no one apart from other capsuleers. By and large, all capsuleers are equal in ability and any difference in ability can be mitigated by sheer numbers or a bit of cunning. And yes, there’s always some people fighting somewhere in Eve.

There are places in Eve where the state of nature is reigned in a bit. The prime example is empire space with the threat of Concord, the ever present space police that punishes (some) wrong doers. Concord being the unstoppable force it is, one cannot do anything about them. However, there are places in New Eden where Concord’s influence is lessened or even absent. I speak of low sec, null sec, and wormhole space.

Here you would expect a state of nature to exist but it’s not entirely so. I would say that there is a certain degree of lawlessness in the unsettled areas of the cluster but only between different groups of players (corps, alliances, etc.). Within these groups there are social codes that govern their member’s behavior. These codes of conduct may not be overtly enforced; often all that is needed is a bit of social pressure (desire to belong to a group, peer pressure, etc.). I’ll give an example. Many of you are familiar with RvB, the PVP institution that boasts near constant, easy to join fights. Even in here there are rules. They're some that are written down (no ECM being an example) but they're are some unspoken ones as well. For instance, it’s frowned upon if you were to undock in a Rokh, alpha an unsuspecting frigate, and dock up again. Unsportsmanlike and all that jazz.

Another example is the null sec alliance policy of NRDS (Not Red Don’t Shoot). For those unfamiliar, it basically is a policy where a null sec alliance will allow neutral players into their space as long as they take no aggressive action. The largest subscriber to this mindset is CVA and its allies. Again, there’s no built game mechanic enforcing this behavior, just the players policing themselves.

Intra-group codes of behavior are hardly a bad thing. They keep the group cohesive, minimize conflict, that sort of thing. The problem I have with all the fair play talk is when two of these groups interact. A recent example is the compromise between Test and the Goons in order to prevent full scale war. Rather than going at it, both groups decided to reset their standings to one another and have prearranged “thunder-domes”, basically pre-agreed upon battles. I can understand why they did this but it makes Eve so much less interesting. I’d much rather hear about CFC and HBC going at each other’s throats, null sec power structures collapsing, the end of dynastic alliances and coalitions, etc. than the Goons and Test had a fight in a predetermined place at a predetermined time with no consequence pending the outcome. I feel that shying away from conflict diminishes the Eve experience, not only on an alliance or coalition level but on an individual one as well. On that note, I’ll end with a personal experience.

Before I joined Noir Academy, I was a hauler. I did some industry, but by and large I spent my time in-game cruising the space lanes in my trusty Obelisk, the aptly named “Rolling Blubber”. I had been hauling most of my Eve career up to that point and had come to somewhat of a peak in my hauling career, namely that I was hauling for Red Frog Freight, one of New Eden’s major hauling corps. This was back when freighter suicide ganks were extremely common. Every now and then a corpie would link a kill mail of some poor freighter pilot getting alpha-ed by a fleet of battle cruisers for his shiny cargo. The response often was, “He was hauling too much ISK worth of cargo” or “He was probably auto-piloting”. The conversation would then turn to bemoaning the Goons for starting this whole ganking fad and other such complaints. I, however, would think to myself, “Man, I’m glad those gankers are out there. They keep me on my toes and otherwise hauling would be really, really boring.” So while playing it safe and making things fair are all well and good in real life, I think there needs to be a different approach to Eve. We need to be a little more adventurous than we’ normally be, if only for the sake of making things interesting. After all, it’s the players that make the content in this game. We sometimes have to take a leap of faith in order to find it.

Trade Strategies: Commodity Energy

Just a quickie this time. I’ll be introducing a trading concept I came up with. Enjoy.

 Commodities, when traded, have a certain energy associated with them. The idea came to me when while looking over my market orders. It occurred to me that the items in Eve somewhat resemble a food chain. Raw materials are harvested, processed into intermediate materials, and later manufactured into high end products. Interesting idea but how could it help me make more ISK? At one time I was in training as a biologist and I still have an interest in the subject. There is a concept in the study of food chains called available energy. It essentially tells that as you move up a food chain there is less and less energy available for the next level on the food chain. This concept can be applied to the item production food chain as well.

            There are certain items that have a high amount of trading energy. The most notable are minerals and other production materials. These items trade at enormous daily volumes but the profit margins tend to very small. As you move up the production chain, trade volumes decrease as the profit margin increases. These would be your low energy items. If you look at the price history graph, high energy items will have a high trade volume, indicated by the green bars at the bottom, as well as having a narrow Donchian channel, the brown field indicating profit margin. Low energy items will show the opposite.

            Both types of items have their pros and cons. High energy items have a very fast turnaround, making them ideal for day to day income. The disadvantage is the low profit margin. These sorts of items are also a great starting point for the newer trader, since available ISK tends to be smaller. Low energy items are great because of the large profit margins but they often take a very long time to sell. They are best used as long term investments for more experienced traders.

            In terms of application, I would recommend splitting your orders up between high and low energy items. Having plenty high energy item orders will fulfill your daily ISK needs while a few low energy items will ensure long term profits.

Eenie, Meeny, Miny, Moe: Overload of Choice

            To start things off, allow me to present an analogy. It’s a hot summer day and you’re looking to cool off. While walking around town you spy an ice cream shop and decide to stop in. Once inside, you’re delighted to find that shop boasts over 100 different flavors. After looking of over the flavors you notice a sign near the bottom of the list of flavors. The says that each customer can only choose one flavor at a time and once you choose a flavor you can no longer buy any other flavor for three months. You’re effectively locked into buying one flavor for a quarter of a year. Which of the many flavors will you be the most satisfied with? Will you become tired of your chosen flavor in a month’s time? The myriad of choices that were viewed with excitement now are a source of paralyzing indecision.

            So what does too much ice cream have to do with Eve? The answer is the sandbox. The wonderful aspect of the holy sandbox is that you are presented with a deluge of choices. Which career should you choose? Which ship should you fly? Which skills should you train? Which NPC corp should you run missions for? Which this, which that…. a lot of choices. While this feature is one of the selling points of the sandbox, to a new player it can be incredibly overwhelming. The choice overload is the primary source of the notorious Eve learning curve.[1]

            The excess of decisions is compounded by the fact that almost every choice that you make in Eve has lasting consequences. Time spent training for a later abandoned career choice can’t be taken back. The ISK lost from a bad business decision can’t be reclaimed. A single decision made by a single FC can change the course of an entire conflict. The weight of choices can be quite intimidating, especially to a newer player that doesn’t have experience to rely on. The fear of making a “wrong” choice can be a real problem for some.

            I’d like to address the idea of the “wrong choice”. Honestly it’s a flawed concept. It assumes that there is some final destination that one is aiming for and that there are some choices that will slow one’s progress to the end goal. This idea frankly doesn’t apply to Eve. There may be goals in Eve but there is always another mountain to climb once you’ve ascended your current peak. There’s always another system to conqueror, always another ship to blow up, always another ‘roid to mine. There is now end-game in Eve.

            Every choice you make in New Eden is one more step in the pursuit of fun. There’s no end destination, just a never ending staircase of challenges, defeats, and victories. So don’t let the multitude of choices overwhelm, but embrace them. Every choice presents a new experience, a new opportunity, a new chance to enjoy the game.

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[1] http://cdn.overclock.net/1/12/127a2824_eve-online-learning-curve.jpeg

It's All the Same: Products and Lack of Quality

                Eve’s economic system is pretty awesome. By and large I have nothing but praise for it. But as of late I've noticed a peculiarity of the Eve market. If you look at two of the same product made by two different players, you’ll notice there’s no difference between them. It doesn’t matter if one was made by a 100 million SP player and the other by a player with less than a million. From a game design standpoint, this makes perfect sense. You can’t have players fiddling around with your finely tuned code, regardless of how long they've been playing. However, from an economic perspective this lack of different qualities can be quite restrictive.

                The problem arises when a pilot begins to approach the upper echelons of manufacturing. I’m talking when you have Industry and Production Efficiency to five and are working with 8 or more production slots. If you want to increase profits at this point, there are really only two options. The first is to decrease you costs, an example by buying cheaper materials and BPC’s or investing in a BPO. The second would be abandoning the current product being produced and searching for a more profitable one. I would like to propose a possible third option, increasing the quality of the product. What I mean by that is there should be some sort of system added to the game by which players can produce superior versions of current ships, modules, rigs, etc.

                I can think of a few ways to set up a system for this concept. The first of which would involve there being an item, let’s call it Chemical X, which would be added in the manufacturing stage to increase the quality of the end product. There could several different versions of Chemical X, each affecting the end product in different ways. One could increase the produced ship’s agility, another increasing the shields, and so forth. The next question to answer would be how one acquires Chemical X. It could be some sort of random dropped item from officer spawns and the like, but that just doesn't feel right for Eve. The better option would be that it were produced in a reactor on a POS. The materials required would be quite varied, ranging from high end minerals, PI products, ice and gas cloud products, and moon goo. The essential point would be that Chemical X would need to be created from a wide range of materials, thus creating a logistical hurdle for production.

                Another possibility would be to have several different grades of materials one can gather. As an example of this, let’s imagine you were producing high-end Atrons. The firsts step in the process would be to gather mineral, as is normal. The added step would be that you would combine these minerals into new types of metals, somewhat like alloys (in the traditional sense, no relation to the in game item). This process would require a new skill, something like Molecular Recombination, in order to perform it. Molecular Recombination would have to have a high multiplier, at least 15. Level 1 would allow you to produce the recombinant materials for frigates, level 2 for cruisers, level 3 for battlecruisers, and level 4 for battleships. Level 5 would unlock Advanced Molecular Recombination, allowing for the production of upgraded capitals ship materials. Once the materials were acquired, production of the upgraded Atron would require the manufacturer to have an additional skill as well, Recombinant Production. It would follow the same logic as Molecular Recombination (level 1 for frigates, 2 for cruisers and so forth). With the skill trained to the proper level, manufacturing would continue as normal.

                These two systems are by no means perfect solutions. It’s difficult for an economic layman such as me to predict the effect varying product quality would do to the market. I personally think that the markets would be more interesting and dynamic were there some variety between the same items. This      may be a case of “don’t fix it if it ain't broken” but why shouldn't we attempt to make a great system better.

Station Trading Guide

Okay before I begin I'm going to assume you know how to place a buy/sell order and you know how to use the market UI decently. If not I recommend this link:http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Market

Now, for the actual guide:

To begin, lets assume you have no idea what station trading is. At its simplest, station trading is the process of setting a buy order and selling the item at a higher price. There are however a few ways to improve you odds of making a profit.

Part 1: Identifying Good Trades

The first thing to look for when searching for good trade items is whether or not the highest buy order is a lower price than the lowest sell order. For example, lets say tritanium has a highest buy order at 5 ISK while its lowest sell order is 10 ISK. Go ahead and make a buy order for that.

The next set of things to look for are all located in the Price History tab (it's under the picture of the item, next to the Market Data tab). Now don't freak out when you see it, the thing's a bitch to understand at first. To remember what all the pretty colors mean I use the the Burger Method.

First thing to look at are the green bars at the bottom of the chart. They represent the amount of units traded in a given day. The more items traded, the faster you'll get a return on your buy orders, so look for item with a lot of trade volume.

Next you look at the big brownish shape in the middle of the graph. This is the Donchian channel. Hell if I know who that is but it represents the space between the highest and lowest sell/buy orders. You want this to be as wide as possible. That'll mean larger profit margins.

Next look for the yellow squares on the graph. These represent the median price of all the orders of that day. Generally speaking you want this to be in the middle of the Donchian channel as much as possible. This means that the supply and demand is somewhat stable and won't be left holding onto your items before you can sell them.

Last thing to look at are the green and red lines on the graph. They represent the moving average take at 20 and 5 days, respectively. What you're looking for is a straighter green line, indicating price stability on the long term, and a jagged red line, indicating volatile prices on the short term.

So in summary you want an item with:
- High volume traded (lots of green bars)
- Large profit margin (wide Donchian channel)
- Stable supply and demand (yellow squares in the middle of the Donchian channel)
- Stable prices on the long term and volatile prices on the short term (straight green line and jagged red line

Once you've identified a good item set up your buy order and sell the items that come in. You'll also want to update your order periodically, making sure your buy orders are the highest and your sell orders are the lowest. It's up to you how often you update but I find that my orders tend to be filled right after I update them.

Part 2: The Skills

There are 3 categories of skills that can make you a better trader: number of orders, remote trading, and NPC fees.

1. The Number of Orders Trading Skills are pretty straight forward. The higher the level of the skill, the more order you can have at once. Here are the skills:

- Trade: Increases your limit of active orders by 4 per level
- Retail: Increases your limit of active orders by 8 per level
- Wholesale: Increases your limit by 16 per level
- Tycoon: Increases your limit by 32 per level

You'll want these skills as high as you're willing to train them.

2. The Remote Trading skills allow you to create and modify orders remotely.

- Procurement: Increases the range of setting up buy orders
- Marketing: Increases the range of setting remote sell orders
- Daytrading: Increases the range at which you can modify active orders
- Visibility: Increases the highest possible range you can set for a buy order when you set it up remotely. This one's a bit tricky. Here's an example, say you're in Sibot and you want to set up a buy order in Amarr. Assuming your Procurement skill is high enough, the Visibility skill will control the max range you can set the buy order to be filled at.

These skills don't have to be very high. I find that level 4 for each is enough for me.

3. The NPC Fee skills decrease the amount of ISK you have to give to CCP when you're trading.

- Accounting: Decrease the tax paid on sell orders
- Broker Relations: Decreases the broker fees for setting up buy and sell orders
- Margin Trading: Decreases the amount of ISK you have to put in escrow when you set up a buy order. You'll have to pay the difference when the buy order is fulfilled.

You're gonna want Accounting and Broker Relations as high as possible. Margin Trading is nice too, but not as important.

Well, that's the basics. Most of the ability to station trade well comes time and bigger wallet, so keep at it. Now go and create a market crash or something. Thanks for reading.

Crippled: Thoughts on Risk Aversion

               Risk is something that everyone in Eve is familiar with. It’s ever-present, always gnawing at you just beyond conscious thought. Depending how a capsuleer handles risk can make or break their experience in New Eden.

                For many of us, our first run in with the realities of New Eden comes very early in our career. Whether it be an ill-advised trek into low sec, buying that seemingly lucrative BPO, or simply having a run in with a few too many rats, it is very quickly burned into our minds that the universe is out to get you. The classic reaction to this state of affairs is to find the nearest proverbial rock and cower underneath it. Sure, this sort of response will minimize the chances that Eve will deliver a swift kick between the legs but personally I find this course of action distasteful. I don’t pay a monthly fee just to have a heaping dose of anxiety. I don’t need that. I have mental illnesses for that.

                Alternatively, and this is the mentality I subscribe to, we can embrace risk and realize the purpose it servers in Eve. Risk isn't there to paralyze the player.  The permanence of loss and similar mechanics are here to give our actions of a sense of significance. As a point of contrast, think of dying in most MMO’s. There’s little to no consequence. At worst your gear gets damaged and you get a debuff of some sort. Death is reduced to an inconvenience. As a consequence, when you narrowly avoid the reaper’s scythe, much of the joy of victory is lost.

                Back in New Eden, death takes no prisoners. First, when you’re ship kicks the bucket it’s gone. Forever. Nothing short of an act of God will bring it back. That’s anywhere from a few thousand to billions of ISK down the toilet. Next, if you get podded you actually die. Not you despawn on place and respawn another, you literally die. There’s a corpse to prove it. That’s all the implants gone for good and possibly a portion of your skill points. That’s a lot on the line.

                Yeah, it’s pretty scary when you spell it out in such a black and white fashion. I even had a pang of anxiety there. Paradoxically, this anxiety is a good thing. When you have something to lose and you know it, overcoming the odds and achieving victory means all the more. I play video games in order to experience the emotional highs and lows that you don’t ordinarily experience in everyday life. Risk is essential to delivering such experiences. I've put a lot of time and emotion into this game, and when my progress in danger of being taken from me, it matters.

                In the end, I can’t tell you how to play Eve. All I can recommend is to push beyond your comfort zone, try that one thing that you’d never do. It’s only by doing this that you can experience everything Eve has to offer.