The Little Blog of Games

Past week went with a few nights of null sec ratting and that was pretty much that. I eventually got the gals home safely and I’ll tell you how the stealth bomber felt like for ratting. But I’m not getting much done in game at the moment.

I seem to be hitting the mental phase in which I tend to drop any demanding activities and opt for more passive ones. My interests seem to follow these cycles which often follow the same pattern.

The Ferris wheel

My mind seems to work in a rotating pattern that takes me through the same phases over and over again, much like the Ferris wheel. The phases last usually for a weeks or two and each drives its own kind of activity.

The upward swing has me full of energy and ideas, creativity is high and I often undertake new venues. At this time I usually do lots of design and make plans for future. It is a happy sort of buzz that leaves you with a feeling that the world is full of possibilities. In Eve this usually translates to a lot of forum crawling and the EFT warrior definitely jumps out. Skill plans are created and prerequisites are collected in game to make the plans work. Thoughts like “Maybe I could put up a POS? Could I make a profit running reactions in low sec?” pop into my head. A lot of posts also appear here on the blog and they tend to focus on analyzing some game mechanics and detailing future plans.

This phase is definitely the domain of the subconcious, the muse that spurs us to great heights if we listen to it. When the upward swing starts to reach the top I have a great view of my mental landscape and can make out lots of interesting details.

The next phase is usually filled with determination and concentrates on examining and implementing the previously formed ideas and plans. Design ideas get worked into actual concepts or mechanics, which are further put down to code if they are ripe enough. Lots of learning takes place here as the ideas are often just vague shapes and to utilize them one needs to give them proper form.

Things like “how to turn a interesting new game mechanic into a fulfilling player experience” or “how to best create database schema to support a new game mechanic” gets worked out. My programming efficiency really peaks at this time and I can produce quite a stack of code in a very short time.

In Eve I usually take a new ship or a fit out to try it in action. Or maybe put up new invention jobs or set up R&D agents; whatever it is that has captivated my imagination previously. This phase also sees a lot of posting here as I want to share my experiences. If I’m in the mood, my trading alt also gets a lot of love and attention as does the trading tool.

I’d characterize this phase as the domain of the intellect; my rational mind goes over the things my subconcious has put out for it and works them into something “real”. It is also a very rewarding phase in that you accomplish a lot and can feel good about yourself when a task is finished.

But sooner or later things will start to bog down. It gets harder and harder to pick up an unfinished code or to motivate myself to write another post here on the blog. That’s when I know I’m reaching the downward swing on the mental Ferris wheel.

Slowly the energy gets drained out and I start to lose focus on the tasks I have set out for myself. In Eve I log in more and more infrequently and while in game I usually just chat and maybe make some hauling runs semi-afk. Finally I just log in when I need to queue up skill training.

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, it is nothing like that mentally. I simply seem to want more passive forms of entertainment, anything that doesn’t require much mental activity. I usually read a lot, but opt for the fictional literature instead of the more educational material. High fantasy beats game design at this point.

Movies and television are prime candidates for a pastime activity and I often play other games than Eve. When you come to think about it, Eve is pretty demanding as a game. I’m sure you can do some missioning pretty casually but it is a world away from, say, Super Mario Galaxy.

I’m metaphorically recharging my batteries during this phase. The intellectual part of my mind needs to rest after a spell of hard work and the subconcious is starving for some stimuli. So I just let them both hang loose and feed them new experiences.

And sooner or later I will find myself sitting in front of the television, thinking how “that motorcycle gang setting would make for an interesting game theme”…

Angels fall first

So as not to make this post completely about me and nothing to do with Eve, I’ll give you a rundown on the stealth bomber ratting tour I did. Overall I’d say the tour was a success.

The SB works just as efficiently against the big rats as one would imagine. I could take 850K bounty rat down in about 10 volleys (that’s just over two minutes in time) and I wasn’t even using the Caldari Navy torps. As discussed earlier, the only problem is the smaller rats that like to eat SBs for breakfast.

My solution was to take out a cruiser fitted for tank and cargo, which would take and hold the aggro while the SB killed off the big rats. I fitted a Vexor for this purpose and it worked like a charm. As was pointed out an Exequror would make for an even better supply cruiser with its enormous cargo bay and I’ll probably get one the next time I’m going to rat in hostile null sec.

I didn’t really rat for much more than maybe three hours in total as most of my time was spent in setting up bookmarks and getting the supply cruiser past some gate camps. The total worth of bounties and loot after my short tour was about 18M (+ about 2M in corp taxes), which makes for about 6-7M per hour. It is really a pretty low estimate as I was generally learning the ropes first with the SB and then the teamwork with the supply cruiser.

I’d imagine I would make closer to 10-15M if I’d have a ready system (bookmarked) and just stuck to it without much interference. Also getting to a better system would help as the highest bounty rats in the system I used were the 850K battleships. So expect a lot more isk/hour if you’re thinking about this.

All in all I’d say that ratting with the SB (+ supply cruiser) was pretty ok, especially considering how cheap the combo is to put together. I’m hard pressed to come up with a ship that will kill the BSs as efficiently for less than 50M. Of course you do need two accounts for this to work, so it’s not exactly comparable to a single ship setup.

<<EVE: Hunting dogs and their keepers

Games: Skill training completed – Game rigging III>>

Tags: design, eve, me

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 10:01 am and is filed under gamedev, games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.