OOPS!

I've seen a lot of silly blunders on the market (and made a few myself) but the one I found in my wallet transactions log today was one I've never seen the likes of before.

This guy sold me 3 different modules for 0.01 ISK each, far less than my buy order prices. Making a typo on a sell order I can understand, it happens. But for 0.01 ISK, on 3 orders in a row and all the same type of module (faction BCS mods)?

Really stupid, really drunk, a mean brother/friend and a misconfigured bot are about all I can think of that could have caused fail of this magnitude. Any other ideas?

More on Input Lag

Pursuant to my Input Lag post a few days ago, I entered a reimbursement ticket regarding market order input lag.

My Ticket

I'm getting tired of getting ripped off due to input lag when entering buy orders.

It happened again today, I entered the numbers for a buy order... I double checked the numbers and realized a zero was missing so I fixed it, checked the numbers again and hit enter.

Then the game sort of freezes for a few seconds, the missing digit appears, the order goes through and I wind up overpaying by about 3 billion total for 10 sisters core probe launchers.

Fixing the order system would make order entry errors due to input lag like this a non-issue.

Make it so when you enter a buy price higher than highest sell order it gets filled from sell orders at the sell order price. And just the opposite when entering sell orders, low priced sell orders should be filled at the price of higher priced buy orders.

The way it works now isn't just stupid, unrealistic and annoying, it also rewards cheating bots who reap most of the benefits of such errors since they usually have the lowest sell / highest buy orders and never have to worry about similar input errors themselves, while punishing honest players for not cheating.

That's the 3rd time now this has happened to me for significant losses (the latest 2 were in the billions).

Please fix this crap!

Input Lag

Another boneheaded typo... Another 3 billion down the drain... Except it wasn't a boneheaded typo.

It was input lag.

Ever notice how sometimes it takes forever to update the market? Well when the game is getting laggy like that sometimes the market price entry input box suffers from lag too. You enter a price check the numbers and realize it's missing a digit or 3, so you add the missing digits, double check the numbers and hit enter.

Then it sort of freezes for several seconds, the missing digits appear, the order goes in and you wind up overpaying bigtime.

That's the third time now this has happened to me for amounts in the billions. The first time I wasn't positive about exactly what happened but I thought it was lag so I've been keeping an eye out for it since. The next 2 times I'm absolutely certain about it. I checked the numbers, they were short, I fixed them, double checked the numbers, hit enter, then watched it freeze momentarily and then overpay.

I really wish they'd fix this stupid crap. The best and simplest fix would be making it so when you enter a buy price higher than highest sell order it gets filled from sell orders at the sell order price. And just the opposite for entering low priced sell orders they should be filled at the price of higher priced buy orders.

Then it wouldn't matter if there are a few seconds of input lag.

The way it works now isn't just stupid, unrealistic and annoying, it also rewards cheating bots who reap most of the benefits of such errors since they usually have the lowest sell / highest buy orders and never have to worry about similar input errors themselves, while punishing honest players for not cheating.

No doubt there'll be a bunch of replies insisting I must have imagined it, I'm crazy, I'm just making it up or it's my computer but it's not any of that.

What I'd like to know is if anyone else has noticed the same thing?

Moving Stock Away From Major Hubs For Good Prices

Sometimes getting a good price requires trying new items and finding new places to sell them at. Lately I've been selling a fair number of ship hulls (among other things). I buy them on Jita and ship them off to carefully chosen stations to sell at (stations besides the 5 main hubs that is).

Here's an example.

Some buyers even bought more than one at a time!

I shipped another 20 manticores out to the same station today and priced them a little higher since there were no others listed.

Manticores normally go for around 20 million in sell orders on Jita so that's around 33% profit. I've bought stacks of 10 or 20 at jita market sell prices, shipped them off via courier contract and resold them for as much as 40 million (100% profit). Some were only shipped 1 jump away though most were 10-20 jumps.

Manticores, Drakes, Crows, Tengus are just a few of the ships I've been selling.

Ships are slowly but surely becoming a bigger part of my business. Away from the main hubs I find the competition on ships isn't as bad as on most things. When prices are too close to Jita prices I'll often post over market, wait a day or three until the competition sells out and then mine sell at a much better price. I figure the competition isn't as bad because shipping hulls takes a lot of cargo space, many players don't have a ship big enough to move hulls in or can't move very many at once and aren't willing to pay for / wait for courier service.

Don't just sell the same stuff everyone else is selling, a lot of things sell well everywhere. Try some of your best sellers in other places, especially high volume items, they'll probably sell just about anywhere. I've had a lot of success getting excellent prices for things nobody else was selling in the area. In some cases nobody (according to market history anyhow) had ever sold one in the entire region!

Knowing who's in the area and what they do can help you figure out what they're likely to buy and what they might pay a nice premium for but don't be afraid to take a chance on something unusual. Sometimes you'll be amazed at what sells and just how much you can get for it.

When did CCP sell Eve Online?

"There's a new patch available. Would you like to download it now?"

That message has been popping up at login with distressing regularity lately. Sometimes it seems like there's a new patch/fix every couple days.

The last expansion was really buggy when it was first released and it's been patched repeatedly since. That reminds me of another MMO publisher for another game I used to play.

So the question is did Blizzard buy Eve?

Or maybe CCP has adopted Blizzard's policy of hiring unqualified idiots based on in-game celebrity/noteriety and sycophantic relationships with senior developers rather than actual coding ability or game design experience. There certainly have been an awful lot of well known Eve players hired by CCP, but how many of them are actually any good at writing code or capable of unbiased objective design?

Whatever the real reasons may be buggy releases and constant patches are some of the first signs of serious development problems. I hope they get it straightened out soon.

Ship Fit - Tengu Trader

I've been working on getting Tengu subsystems skills to V on my main for a couple weeks now. He has 3 down and 2 more to go. For use as a shiny hauler the only subsystems skills that really matter are Defensive (more tank) and Propulsion (better alignment time) so I trained those to V first and bought my first Tengu.

This is a tank fit intended for transporting valuable items in both low and hi sec. My requirements for the fit were simple. I wanted as heavy tank as possible without making it overly expensive and I wanted good speed, in particular alignment time under 4 seconds while flying solo without implants or boosters. And of course a Covert Ops Cloak was a must have. Here's what I came up with.

[Tengu Trader - lowsec]

Damage Control II

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Power Diagnostic System II

Power Diagnostic System II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

EM Ward Field II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Tengu Defensive - Supplemental Screening

Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration

Tengu Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers

Tengu Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix

Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer

254k tank with all Vs (253k with my current skills)

3.61 sec alignment time with MWD off (4.88 with MWD on)

1361 m/s with MWD on (239 with MWD off)

Fully cap stable at 54.9% (all Vs, 52.5% my skills) with everything (including the MWD) on.

472 million ISK total cost as estimated by Pyfa (the in game reality was a bit less than that).

In nullsec you'd want to swap in Tengu Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier. That'll lose you a low slot which means dropping a PDS and about 11k tank but it's well worth the trade-off for immunity to bubbles.

Medium CDFE IIs aren't all that expensive (under 30 mil each) and make a fairly significant difference in the tank, more than enough to be worth using over cheap CDFE Is. The nano is required to keep alignment time under 4 seconds without implants or boosters, with them the nano could be exchanged for another PDS.

I could go with a faction fit. Swap out the invulns and EM ward field for Dread Guristas or Caldari Navy, the PDSes for Caldari Navy and gain another 55k tank (308k total) but the cost would increase by nearly 3 times to 1.33 billion. Not worth it IMO.

Or I could get ridiculous and fit it with deadspace Pithium A invulns, Pithium X EM Ward Field and Caldari Navy PDSes for an additional 83k (426k total) at a total cost of 4.67 billion. Definitely not worth it, the fittings alone would make me a target regardless of cargo.

Blockade Runner - First Impressions

I just got my first Blockade Runner pilot flying a Minmatar Prowler. I finally finished training Minmitar Industrial V yesterday and realized I didn't need Transport Ships IV for my planned fit. III was good enough and I already had that trained, so I bought a Prowler, slapped on my chosen mods/rigs and took it out for a test drive immediately.

So far, I LOVE IT!

It's nearly as fast as the frigates I've been flying all along and it aligns in under 4 seconds just like the frigates too. But it has better tank, far more cargo capacity and can't be cargo scanned.

I do wish Blockade Runners had better tank (another mid, another low and a little more power grid would be perfect) but I feel that way about many other ships too (especially cargo ships). Who knows, maybe my wish will come true and they'll get buffed after the T1 Industrial rebalance is done.

That's just wishful thinking though, my only real concern is that it actually is a ship intended for moving cargo around. As such it'll almost certainly draw more attention from gankers than the ships I have been using for transport. Probably not as safe on autopilot as my old frigates.

On the other hand, gankers can't see what I'm carrying, it can take quite a bit more damage before popping and should be able to survive smartbomb spamming camps easily.

The only real question (which only time will answer) is whether or not the increased survivability and unscannable cargo will make up for the greater attention drawn.


[Prowler fit - 4 sec Align]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[Empty High slot]

Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I


My Prowler pilot only has Evasive Maneuvering IV, Spaceship command IV and no skill implants. With Vs in either of those skills and/or an agility implant I could drop one nano or polycarbon and still keep alignment time under 4 seconds.

With Vs in both skills and a 5% agility implant (Rogue Evasive Maneuvering EM-705) I could drop one of each or both polycarbons.

Replacing one of the nanos with a Damage Control II would increase tank by nearly 50%. So yeah, I think I'll train the skills to V and get myself a suitcase.

This thing has oceans of cap and is cap stable with the MWD off. I never worry about running out of cap. I hit warp, cloak and both Invulns for every warp and never drop much lower than 70% cap.

With the MWD on it's not cap stable (50 seconds with medicore IIIs and IVs in cap skills, 60s with all Vs) but that's not a problem since the MWD is mostly for emergency use. It won't be used much and only for a few seconds at a time.

I spent a while flying around low sec looking for trouble to see how it performed while under attack. I wanted someone to shoot at me but unfortunately no-one even targeted me far less attacked. I guess I'll just have to fly out to EC-P8R or Aunenen sometime to stress test it.

Anyhow, though it's too soon to be certain, my initial impression now that I've actually flown a Blockade Runner is they're a whole lot better than I thought they were... But still not quite as good as I wish they were.

Edit: After only a couple days flying the prowler I've changed the training plan for my Amarr trader who had just started training Cloaking IV. Rather than training Minmatar Frigates and Cov Ops next as originally planned she'll be training Industry, Minmatar Industrials and Transport Ships instead.