Latest Patch Notes

Click here to check out the latest patch notes for Eve Online.

Eve Online Guides

Basic guides to get you started making isk in New Eden.

Blueprint Research Guide

Basic guide to start researching blueprint orginals.

New to Eve Online?

Check out the Beginner's Guide

Planetary Interaction: Investment Guide

Investment Guide to designing your own PI production.

August 31, 2014

Shout Out to Evebloggers.com

I have never really spent very much time marketing this blog. I have let it grow organically over time letting the Google search bots find what people like and getting a lot of my traffic through search engines. Word of mouth being the next big role in gaining viewership. The blog has slowly grown since its humble beginnings and though I still keep it pretty low key I decided to start being a little more proactive in getting the word out.

With that being said I would like to thank Fuzzysteve for running and up keeping evebloggers.com. I finally submitted my blog feed over there and thought I would give a shout out to anyone that might be interested in reading other Eve blogs to head over there and take a look around. I have always kept a link to evebloggers.com in my links section at the top of the page under news. Also I would like to welcome any new readers happening upon the site from evebloggers, welcome and know I am currently in an Eve slump so don't be surprised as I splash this feed with various other games that are peaking my interest at the moment. Also don't be surprised at the amount of video content I post and pass off as blog posts my little youtube channel project is quite all consuming at the moment and I am having a lot of fun with it.

Until next, we'll catch you later.

August 29, 2014

Space Engineers: In Review

Do you like to mine asteroids? Do you like to shot stuff? Do you like to build space ships? If you answered yes to any of these questions Space Engineers might be for you. Now you might be saying to yourself but wait isn't that a crappy voxel based mess of a game still in early access on steam trying to take my money? I heard the same thing last year when I first heard about the game. Reviews were poor and the game was still very much in development. Fast forward ten months.

During the Steam Summer Sale I saw it on the list, watched a few videos, and decided at the current sell price it was worth the risk. Even in the past several months significant updates to the game have been made. With the addition of a survival mode I was all in. I am a Minecraft junky and this game seemed the perfect cross over from Eve Online to a voxel based game. The survival mode play is very fun and engaging while at the same time you realize that you need tons of minerals to build things.

The stand out of the game is the realistic physics engine. Similar to what Star Citizen is trying to do in ship to ship dogfighting. Once you get used to the controls you will find yourself hurtling through space mining, building and fighting in a 3D environment. The graphics are stunning and the voxel based interaction is very smooth and doesn't distract from the immersion of the game.

While the game is still in early access on steam the game lacks nothing that Minecraft didn't in its pre 1.0 versions. A fun game and a must play if you enjoy aspects of Eve mining or industry. You can get Space Engineers for $19.99 on Steam as of the writing of this post.

August 22, 2014

You've got to hand it to CCP

You got to hand it to CCP. This new release schedule is really shaping up. Even if you don't like the industry changes or have anything to do with wormhole space you can't help but be impressed at the rate they are rolling out patches. Again it will be interesting to see if they can keep up the cycle and see how they market these patches.

Again even if your particular favorite piece of the Eve pie hasn't been looked at chances are good that every six weeks it might get a kick in the old nerf pants or buffed to be bananas. Either way CCP has got my attention I hope they keep it up, I hope new players get in-game and start finding corners of new Eden to call their own.

Let me know what you think of the new release cycle and if your still playing this game or if it's still playing you?

August 16, 2014

Alliance Tournament Live Stream

Alliance Tournament Live Stream. Check the alliance tournament forum topic for discussion, schedules and rules and such. Enjoy your weekend.

Watch live video from CCP on www.twitch.tv

August 12, 2014

Eve Online: Basic PI (Planetary Interaction) Video Guide

When I first started this blog the first guide I wrote was a PI guide so it's only fitting that my first video guide is on PI. Weighing in at 38 minutes long, it covers all the basic steps from skills to picking up your finished products at the customs office.

Check it out let me know what you think. If I get a good response I will make more of these longer in depth guides or shorter, again let me know. After putting in the time I have a real appreciation for anyone who makes YouTube videos and a bigger appreciation for people that put together good guides.

You can find the guide here, you can check out my YouTube channel Tactic Talisman here, and if you like what you see leave a comment or subscribe. So without further adieu I give you:

Eve Online: Basic PI (Planetary Interaction) Guide


If you are more into text guides check out the ones I have linked below.
Investment Guide: Basic Planetary Interaction
Investment Guide: Intermediate Planetary Interaction

August 8, 2014

Industry Changes Buff or Nerf?

I have been trying to place the Crius industry changes in my mind if they helped or hurt?

A lot of it depends on how you play the game. What angle you look at industry. Do you build capital ships? Are you a small operation? Are you just getting started? Have you been playing for years? Or just use industry on the side to fund other habits? As a result I think some of these areas have been changed for the better and some haven't.

My particular area of concern, not surprisingly, is in the new player department. Two types of industry players have been affected. Casual industry users, those whose main play time is spent doing some other activity, now have a quick and efficient way to build their own equipment or make some isk. Their interaction with the game world will increase and life will be great. The other player that is affected is the up and coming industrial tycoon. Players who spend most of their time focusing on industry. Players, who like myself and imagine many of you, wanted to build a sand castle instead of kicking them down.

The new industry player faces an even greater challenge than many of us did but why you ask? This new system makes researching BPOs(Blueprint Originals) quick and efficient doesn't it? Yes it does very much so. In fact too well, the BPO market was a testament to the required amount of time and money you had to have in order to gain a footing in producing items and making a profit. Simplification of the numbers and metrics was needed yes but the time requirement and system of researching was sound. Now producing efficient blueprints isn't time intensive or costly but wait why is this a bad thing? It seems great doesn't it we all have perfect blueprints now?

No it isn't a great thing at all and it is just starting to affect the markets. Products are going to have a mountain of supply. Over production has always been a problem in the game and always will be. You can produce things much faster than people can destroy them. The kicker is CCP just lowered the time on jobs, removed slot times and lowered minerals required to build items the greatest effect you can see is on T1 products.

Think of a simple supply and demand curve. As the supply becomes greater and greater the demand becomes lower and lower. Prices slowly drop lower and lower. In Eve's case prices become fixed eventually around mineral costs or other required materials. The profit is lost though as market equilibrium sets in very quickly with the change to build times. More supply equals less demand.

The even greater problem is the demand curve. Demand in our example would be defined as that of player activity in game. Demand increases if there are more players consuming goods. And right now there just isn't a lot of new players coming in or current players excited about the game to sustain this new industry model. If we had increased player activity(I mean large player increases year in year out) I am confident the new industry model would be an amazing success. As it stands you have a tough mountain to climb to gain entry into profitable manufacturing.

We were all so focused on the cost changes when we all realized that the time changes were the real nerf. The discussion is only getting started time will tell if markets even out or not.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

August 5, 2014

Firefly Online What the huh?!

Expect a lot of non Eve relevant posts over the next month. Things are slow its still summer lots of other fun things to do and see. So on that note check out this video for Firefly Online. If you play a lot of Eve Online I am assuming you know what Firefly is and also Serenity(and as an aside the creator of Firefly was Joss Whedon you know the guy behind the Avengers.)

It does seem like they need to hire a competent web marketing guy and maybe a web master to design a site for them. Either way out of curiosity I might take a look into this game if it ever gets off the ground. I will post the video below.


August 2, 2014

Operation: Market Adjustment

If you have been following along with my posts over the past month or so you will know that I have been taking a break from Eve Online. Well not any more I am back and kicking. I was secretly hoping the markets would settle down and adjust. My hopes have partially come true and a lot of items have shifted into their new price points. Now what?

I found a lot of the items I used to make are not as lucrative as they had once been. Namely a lot of T1 modules I used to mass produce. These modules had very long build times so supply was limited to some extent. Before I was building 50 units a week with well researched BPOs now my numbers indicate 50 units only takes a matter of days. Couple this with the fact that their is no wait times on manufacturing slots. Equals a flood of these T1 items especially in market hubs. While I didn't expect the time changes to be this significant, I do hope CCP is keeping an eye on these changes(knock on wood). **Note this is build pricing changes aside.

I did half expect my T1 ventures to be unprofitable post patch and had already started retooling towards Tech 2 items and ships and that does seem to be an area with better prospects. Once more unto the spreadsheets. That is right I just made a play on a Shakespeare quote.