On The Road Again in New Eden

The Chaos Era has been a bit of a bust for me.  I don’t rat or mine, so I am not on that declining indicator, but with a lot of people turtling up there are not as many defense fleets to go save people.  I am also not a solo PvPer, so I haven’t been out hunting.  I generally depend on SIG or squad deployments for my content and, aside from the short one up to Placid… which was low sec, so no Chaos Era benefits there… I haven’t had much to get me to log in.

There has been talk of a Reavers deployment, but things kept getting in the way, like a hurricane Dorian headed straight for Asher’s home.  That eventually passed and last week Asher got us grouped up.  It was going to be a very traditional Reavers deployment, with Ishtars and support and no station to dock up in.  I had a couple of Guardians left over from past operations already correctly fit, so I put one on my main, one on my alt, and waited for the ping announcing our departure.

I didn’t plan to dual box Guardians.  Keeping up with reps and the cap chain on two screens during a fight is too much for me.  Instead my alt was basically hauling out a reship.  If my main got his ship popped, he could just grab the extra from my alt, while if he got blown up and podded, he could just fly out in an interceptor and swap ships with my alt, who could then fly home.

Soon enough the ping came and we loaded up our ships with the intent to live out of them in hostile space and headed out.

A small fleet warps off

As is tradition, our destination was not announced in advance.  We just went to a series of waypoints along the route to our area of operation.  But Asher couldn’t hide which direction we were going.  We were headed east and were soon into Legacy Coalition space, where the jump gates seemed to be set to less us pass through.

Using the middle management dino gate

I was wondering whether this was a default setting, if Legacy was letting us use their gate network to let Imperium forces pass through their space in order to join in on fights in the east or if we were getting some special treatment.  The war between Legacy and Winter coalitions, which has been running off and on for ages now, continues to bubble down in the southeast of New Eden, with third parties like Pandemic Legion showing up to grab some content.  Certainly the Imperium had sent fleets east before during the war.

However, not all gates were green… or blue I guess… to us.  At an XIX gate we had to stop and hold, hanging in space while Asher found somebody to flip the switch for us.

Waiting for the gate to let us through

That he had to get on a channel somewhere to get us a pass seems to indicate that at least an “Imperium flies free” policy isn’t Legacy wide.  So we sat and waited, no doubt scaring a few of the locals who jumped through to find a fleet of not blue Ishtars and support hanging about.

We had our own fat targets, but no shots were taken

Asher found the right person and we were able to jump through and continue on our way, heading past Legacy space and into Winter Coalition’s domain.  No jump gate travel for us there.  But it was also well past prime time for the locals, and we were able to pass through their space using gates without much notice.

My Guardian aligning out from another gate

The blackout was in effect, so they would have needed to lay eyes on us or catch us on a dscan to know we were there.  Finally a bit of the Chaos Era working in my favor.

Another gate to pass through

Eventually we found a spot to safe up in Insmother, made our safe spots, got out our mobile depots, and fit cloaks in order to be able to cloak up and stay safe.

Living out of a mobile depot

Once there we had to find something to do.

Initially we found a couple of unfueled Fraternity towers, which we proceeded to shoot.  That is all part of the Reavers plan.  We set up in space the start shooting things until somebody shows up to chase us off.  If the hostiles for big, we just cloak up and disappear.  If they form a fleet about our size, then we take the fight if we can.  So we blew up the towers.

An old Minmatar tower blows up

All that yielded was a “But why?” from somebody in local… and I am not even sure they meant us.

The next time I was on we went looking to stir things up with one of the Winter Coalition members more in our time zone, the Lord of Worlds Alliance (LORDE).  Their alliance logo is an angry unicorn on a pink shield, which I guess gives them some synergy with GoonWaffe (GEWNS), whose logo is a unicorn in front of an outline of a heart.

The comparison

This similarity came up on coms and, while the GoonWaffe logo was no doubt chosen for irony, who actually chose it and why has been lost to the mists of time.

Anyway, we went out to entosis a couple of their infrastructure hubs to see if they would come out to play.

The ihub awaits

The word was that they were on during our time frame and would form up and fight if the numbers worked out.  After tinkering around a bit to get and entosis link on the right ship… it started on a Tengu and there was some awkward work with people swapping ships and using mobile depots in order to get it fitted on an Ishtar… we commenced to fly in circles around the ihub and run the magic entosis wand over it.  Exciting game play.

Entosis coming from the Ishtar in the middle

There was a bit of trouble with the Ishtar running out of capacitor, but one of the Guardians in the cap chain just diverted one of their cap transfer modules onto it and we were set.  And then around and around we went.

The locals did come out to play, but apparently couldn’t get enough people together for a stand up fight.  Instead they came out in bombers and interceptors to try and and interrupt the entosis ship.  That was mildly annoying, but not enough to get us to break orbit, and we ended up getting a couple of kills.  Ishtars racing in a circle with props on move pretty quickly so you have to anticipate where they’ll be before you bomb.  The locals were not quite that good.

Things were quiet enough that I put EVE Online on my second monitor and played WoW Classic for part of the op.  That is EVE Online some days, a game that lets you watch movies or play other games.

That ended up with a couple of ihubs reinforced, after which we went back to where we were living, where we safed up, put on our cloaks, and logged out again.  I didn’t do much with EVE Online over the weekend.  I missed any ops we might have run.  But today things changed.  As CCP announced on Saturday, the blackout is over.  We’re no longer invisible in space.  People can now see us in the local channel when we log in.  Our extra cloak is gone.  But we have always had to deal with that in the past.  And us being logged in and cloaked up can be a deterrent on its own.  And so it goes, living out in hostile space on another Reavers op.

Null Sec Blackout to End on Monday

I woke up this morning to find some fresh news from the Chaos Era, though this time it seemed a bit counter-chaos.  CCP Cognac announced at the Berlin Fanfest that delayed local in null sec, the blackout, will be over after downtime on Monday.

CCP says Blackout

CCP had said previously that the blackout would be for an indefinite duration, but its introduction two months back came with quite a bit of warning, discussion, and even a setup via the in-game lore.  Has a new supply of Quantum-Entangled 4-Helium been secured?

We don’t know.  Not yet anyway.  CCP did not say why they are bringing the blackout to an end, just that it is happening.  The announcement could charitably be called perfunctory.  Clip of the announcement, and I have seen several, run about 30 seconds.

Of course, there is quite a bit of speculation as to why it is happening.  You need only go over to cesspool of /r/eve to see various theories.  But /r/eve has been at war with itself over the Chaos Era since it started. (At war with itself more so than usual at least, likely because the Chaos Era has been focused on nerfing null sec, which has led to the usual tribal division who see somebody else getting hit as good for them.)  A leading candidate is the dropping concurrent player numbers, something I mentioned on Monday.  The count fell off noticeably with the end of the Season of Skills event and has been slowly falling ever since.  I was concerned to log in on a week night to find the online count under 15K, but this week I was on when it was around 12K.  18K used to seem like the low bar for my usual evening play time on the west coast.

There is even a post up over at Massively OP trying to sum up the various evidence and theories which, including the comments, range from summer vacations to WoW Classic to the core player base getting old and dying off.  But back in the EVE Online player base people are still denying there has been any decline at all.  So your mileage may vary.

Anyway, we shall see if the removal of the blackout has an impact on those numbers.  I do expect that AFK cloaky campers will soon be back in null sec space to keep the ratters and miners on their toes.

I am sure there will be plenty of hot takes and summaries of the blackout.  I might have a few additional words myself.  But the end of the Chaos Era hasn’t been announced, so expect humans to continue to behave like humans when faced with uncertainty.

MER and the Blackout

Somebody finally got back from vacation and pushed the button to generate the EVE Online Monthly Economic Report for July.

This is the first report that reflects the Blackout and the VNI nerf.  The tax increase didn’t go in until August 1st, so that will be for the next report.

Anyway, there is an obvious graph to jump into first, so here we go.

July 2019 – Top Sinks and Faucets over time

It is easy to see what day the Blackout began on that chart as the yellow NPC bounty payout line, already down considerably from previous changes this year, fell off a cliff, no doubt contributing to an actual reduction in overall ISK in the New Eden economy.

July 2019 – Sinks and Faucets

The total bounties for the last few months:

• July – 29.1 trillion
• June – 48.2 trillion
• May – 55.5 trillion
• April – 57.2 trillion
• March – 71.4 trillion
• February – 69.8 trillion

But where did it hit hardest?  Last month the top 11 regions, since I wanted to include Delve, sorted out as follows.

1. Branch – 4.90 trillion
2. Esoteria – 3.56 trillion
3. Detorid – 2.88 trillion
4. Insmother – 2.71 trillion
5. Deklein – 2.70 trillion
6. Cobalt Edge – 2.15 trillion
7. Fountain – 1.96 trillion
8. Tenal – 1.80 trillion
9. Perrigen Falls – 1.70 trillion
10. Period Basis – 1.67 trillion
11. Delve – 1.57 trillion

Delve was way down because the Imperium was deployed to the north and attacking structures in Tribute and Vale of the Silent.  And then came the Drifters and the start of the Chaos Era and we pulled back home.  Being at home put the Imperium back on top of the NPC bounties rankings.

July 2019 – NPC Bounties by Region – Bar Graph

The top ten regions for July were:

1. Delve – 4.71 trillion
2. Esoteria – 1.77 trillion
3. Branch – 1.61 trillion
4. Detorid – 1.23 trillion
5. Deklein – 1.22 trillion
6. Insmother – 1.10 trillion
7. Tenal – 1.1 trillion
8. Fountain – 1.06 trillion
9. Omist – 0.85 trillion
10. Feythabolis – 0.81 trillion

Delve is at the top again, but that number is still below even the April number, which included a the start of the deployment north to Tribute.

So the Chaos Era has hit NPC bounties, though there was a bit of a bounce back up at the end of the month.  August will show if things continue down that path or if null sec adapts.

Then there is the mining front.  Last month the top producing regions in ISK value mined were:

1. Esoteria – 3.31 trillion
2. Detorid – 1.84 trillion
3. Insmother – 1.78 trillion
4. Domain – 1.31 trillion
5. Branch – 1.25 trillion
6. Querious – 1,19 trillion
7. The Forge – 1.16 trillion
8. Fountain – 1.12 trillion
9. Sinq Laison – 843 billion
10. Metropolis – 829 billion

Delve was down in 22nd place with a mere 276 billion ISK.  Again, June had the Imperium deployed to the north, so economic activity was down.  But in July everybody was back home to face the Blackout.

July 2019 – Mining Value by Region – Bar Graph

Delve was resurgent, with Rorquals out using tech II mining drones to combat attacks on excavator drones.  The top ten regions for July were:

Delve – 5.77 trillion
Querious – 3.18 trillion
Esoteria – 2.61 trillion
Syndicate – 1.99 trillion
Fountain – 1.92 trillion
Etherium Reach – 1.77 trillion
Domain – 1.69 trillion
Malpais – 1.64 trillion
The Kalevala Expanse – 1.61 trillion
The Forge – 1.47 trillion

Numbers were up in some places, including high sec, which remains a safe mining haven, and down in others.  But was there more necessarily more mining in places like Domain or The Forge?  Maybe not.  Since mining isn’t an ISK faucet, it is valued via the market prices, which change over time.  And July saw mineral prices going up some more.

July 2019 – Economic Indices

While not up as sharply as in June, mineral prices continued to rise.  That raises the value of ore mined for the purposes of the MER and encourages more people to mine.

And then there is destruction.  The Blackout was premised on greater destruction happening.  And, overall, there was more destruction in New Eden.  The summary of all regions in June showed 38.28 trillion ISK in destruction, while July saw that rise to 40.73 trillion ISK, and increase of 2.45 trillion ISK.  But where did that destruction occur?

Last month the top regions were:

1. The Forge – 3.46 trillion
2. Detorid – 2.31 trillion
3. Sinq Laison – 1.69 trillion
4. Tribute – 1.58 trillion
5. The Citadel – 1.54 trillion
6. Black Rise – 1.37 trillion
7. Delve – 1.28 trillion
8. Placid – 1.11 trillion
9. Lonetrek – 1.10 trillion
10. Vale of the Silent – 1.10 trillion

The chart for July shows the new ranking.

July 2019 – Destruction Value by Region – Bar Graph

The top ten regions were:

1. The Forge – 2.81 trillion
2. The Citadel – 2.33 trillion
3. Detorid – 1.86 trillion
4. Delve – 1.78 trillion
5. Sinq Laison – 1.47 trillion
6. Domain – 1.31 trillion
7. Lonetrek – 1.29 trillion
8. Metropolis – 1.17 trillion
9. Providence – 1.03 trillion
10. Cache – 1.00 trillion

Delve is up, but that was expected with everybody home again.  What is interesting is that there are now more high sec regions on the list.  There were four last month, but six on the list in July.  You might credit this to the alleged war on high sec, or maybe the less well known structure war in high sec, which is a topic for another post, except that not all the high sec regions saw more destruction.  The Forge, home of Jita, was more than half a trillion in destruction.

It feels rather that destruction was more spread out in July, that the increase was the result of a wider spread skirmishes rather than the destruction of ratters and miners due to the Blackout.  And, of course, the reduction in mining and ratting seems to indicate that many players simply declined to undock due to the Blackout.

All of which leaves me bereft of big conclusions.  But that is to be expected I guess.  The Chaos Era changes modified player behavior, but will it stick or are we just in a transitional period while people adapt?

For August we will have to see how the trend continues, along with what the change in tax rate does.  Plus we still have the coming cyno changes and something about wormholes that has some people freaking out, plus other things mentioned during the Fanfest Home keynote, which may impact the September MER.  We shall see.

Anyway, all the data and charts are available to download from the MER Dev Blog.  In addition, CCP has also introduced a Monthly Security Report about how many people they have banned and what they were banned for.

Opposite Day for the Local Channel

We have been living under the blackout in null sec for a while now.  Back in mid-July it was put in place and its duration has been said to be indefinite. (Which means of an unknown duration and not “forever” as some have interpreted the word.)

You say that CCP, but is it?

Well, we got a surprise today on the “indefinite” front.  This morning CCP ended up having problems with their chat systems… or maybe the Secure Commerce Commission got their hands on some bad Quantum-Entangled 4-Helium, I don’t know… which had com channels down all over New Eden.  And while the chat systems has been restarted and normal service restored, one side effect was the return of immediate local to null sec.

Local, now filled with trash again

According to Reddit, wormhole space was visited by this change to local as well.  I’m sure that made everybody happy.

That people still appear in local after the chat system restart seems to be because they have not logged out.  Maybe.  Logging in after the restart, my character did not show up in local.  I am sure nobody will abuse that particular aspect of this strange event.  Presumably everything will be back to normal after downtime.

Welcome to the Chaos Era!

Other coverage:

• Official Forum Thread
• Imperium News
• A Missioneer in EVE

Null Sec Blackout to be Maintained Indefinitely

CCP has not given any direction as to how long the blackout of local chat in null sec will last, but today they gave us something of a hint.

CCP says Blackout

On the lore focused World News section of the CCP site, a post went up earlier today from Ret Gloriaxx of The Scope’s Galactic Hour with this bulletin as the lead item:

SCC Confirms Limits on Nullsec Bandwidth to be “Maintained Indefinitely” Despite Fall in Drifter Assaults

Yulai, Genesis – Following its imposition of bandwidth and usage limits on nullsec FTL communications via the New Eden liquid router network, the Secure Commerce Commission has confirmed that the limitation on communications will be “maintained indefinitely due to the effects of both Drifter attacks and the ongoing Triglavian invasions on the security of supplies of Quantum-Entangled 4-Helium.” The possible impact of both Drifter and Triglavian attacks on the supply of QE 4-He has been extensively reported on by the Scope’s Galactic News Network.

The SCC has reiterated that its primary concern is to maintain the “integrity and sustainability of the liquid router network for strategic and essential communications” and noted QE 4-He resupply logistics have been put under serious and continuous strain by the Triglavian invasions. Sources within the SCC have revealed that the Triglavian attacks began to seriously affect resupply missions once the so-called “major conduits” phase of the invasion campaign began. Since the Triglavian World Arks began to spearhead the assaults, there have even been attacks on stockpiles of QE 4-Helium.

“The Drifter attacks in nullsec came close to being the tipping point for the imposition of bandwidth limits but it wasn’t until we lost an entire QE 4-He production facility to a Triglavian assault that the SCC decided to act. We’ve since lost some other stockpiles but the DED have stepped up fleet presence at all the critical locations,” said one source in conversation with Ret Gloriaxx of the Scope’s Galactic Hour with Ret Gloriaxx.

CCP has handled the events of the Invasion expansion as in-game lore and has, for the most part, declined to comment in any “out of character” way about what has been going on with the Triglavian and Drifter attack.

The one exception preceded the imposition of “delayed mode” local chat… the blackout… when CCP officially announced that it was coming, promised then gave 48 hours notice of its imposition, and started a thread on the official forums to discuss the idea.  That thread is past the 9,000 post mark as of this writing, while over the weekend much of the discussion on the /r/eve subreddit was around the blackout and its pros and cons.  Meanwhile, over at INN, Arrendis tells us that the blackout won’t fix EVE.  I never thought it would, but some people clearly have that in mind.

CCP’s return to using the in-game lore to continue the narrative seems to signal that they are satisfied with how the event went over the weekend, while the statement itself seems to indicate that we will not see an end to the blackout in null sec any time soon, at least not until the Triglavian invasion has been resolved.

Furthermore, in a mailing to promote their current multi-training certificate offer (available until downtime on the 17th), CCP uses the phrase “events going on all summer.”

Also, buy our stuff please

While this is far from a hard promise… and who knows how long summer actually lasts from the Icelandic perspective…  it does seem like we might see local blacked out in null sec into September.