Drone Avionics Bug Explained

As many are already aware, with the updates on 7/24, a bug was introduced with the Drone Avionics skill.  Overnight, many people suddenly lost one or more levels of Drone Avionics.  The single biggest consequence was that many players could no longer equip Drone Link Augmenters that they had the skills for the day before.

After much research, I think I fully understand what happened reasonably well, and thought I would make a quick post about it. 

Here is what was apparently supposed to happen:

In the Kronos release the required skill for Drone Link Augmenters was changed from Combat Drone Operation to Drone Avionics. This was done without ensuring that players who fulfilled the skill requirements of those modules would still do so after the change. In this patch we are bumping up the level of Drone Avionics for all players to the same level that they had Combat Drone Operation when we deployed Kronos. Players who have trained Drone Avionics in the meantime will be given unallocated skillpoints instead up to the amount that their skill would have been adjusted.

Unfortunately, this wasn't well conceived or tested, and what actually happened to many players is that they had a higher level of Drone Avionics, previously had a lower level of Combat Drone Operation, and got a skill gift of Drone Avionics at the lower prior Combat Drone Operation skill level.  This actually indicates two separate major errors on the part of CCP:

1. The existing level of Drone Avionics was apparently not checked to ensure it was less than the prior level of Combat Drone Operation prior to applying a skill gift.
2. The skill gift mistakenly added a second copy of Drone Avionics to affected players instead of updating or deleting the prior existing copy.  Their system design really shouldn't allow this, but apparently it does. 

This confuses the game in many places, where the game logic expects to find the skill once, but it actually exists twice.  In many cases, it seems to just pick one or the other and run with it.  In other cases, the affects are duplicated.

The affect of just picking one or the other results in the skill behaving or appearing as the one that is picked.  Examples include seeing different Drone Avionics skill level in the skills list, in the skill info retrieved via the API in tools like EveMon, and in whether or not Drone Link Augmenters can be onlined.

The affects being duplicated is a little more subtle.  One example of this is drone control range.  For those affected, they will find that their current drone control range has actually increased!  The system adds the range modification of both duplicate skills.  In my case, I had a 40km control range.  After the change, my control range was suddenly 45km.  The extra 5km comes from the GM Skill Gift Level 1 I received in Drone Avionics, which is being added to my previous Drone Avionics bonus.

I haven't seen much information out of CCP about getting this fixed, but I did come across one post in my searches which suggested the likely date for a fix will be 7/31.  A long wait for any drone ship captains.

Battleship - A New Hope

In my prior post I talked about going close range with my Battleship in L4 missions.  I eventually optimized to using pulse lasers with XRay crystals, based on the range I was most often fighting at while minimizing use of the microwarp drive to conserve cap.  I got my DPS up to a usable 475 DPS (originally starting at 305).  And you know what?  It was doable, but still a massive lengthy slog to get through a mission.  It takes a long time, I have to make multiple return trips to the station, and I go through a ton of cap boosters (doesn't help that I'm flying an Amarr battleship with no cap bonus).

I want to try something different until my skills are higher.  I want to use missiles!  Time to try a battleship missile boat.  Lucky for me, Amarr has an option -- the Armageddon.  Will this work better in a T1 equipped variant than my close fighting Abaddon?  I'm going to find out.  But I've got about a weeks worth of skills to train first.

In the meantime, I need to come up with another 300 million ISK to buy and outfit a new Armageddon.  I can play the market a little and sell some loot I've been holding onto.  What else should I do?  Should I mine or mission?  I'm going to go back to L3 missions.  And I had another idea.  Some will scoff at me for doing this -- but rather than let my Abaddon sit idle, I'm going to try it out on L3 missions.  Maybe I can get through them quicker in my T1 battleship than I can in my T1 battlecruiser.  I've tried a few already, and the results are encouraging.  I think the added firepower of the battleship will outweigh the difficulty of dealing with greater numbers of L3 frigates and net a better income overall.

UPDATE:  After running a series of L3 missions, at the moment it looks most efficient to have both a battlecruiser and a battleship on hand (which conveniently I already had).  Use the battlecruiser for the smaller missions that have rewards under 300K ISK / 500 LP, and use the battleship for the bigger missions that are more in the neighborhood of 700K ISK / 900 LP.  The smaller missions even a T1 battlecruiser can handle quickly and easily, and it can get there and back faster.   Also, for the battleship, consider freeing of a medium slot to fit a tracking CPU with tracking script.  Again, all of this is speaking from the viewpoint of a modest skilled pilot using mostly T1 equipment.

Battleship - A Different Animal

I've recently got into flying my first Battleship.  Up until know, I had fallen into a pattern with my security mission ships, but I've found things are different when you move up to L4 missions with a Battleship.

For Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battlecruisers on L1 through L3 missions, I had fallen into the pattern of using long range weapons and kiting from a distance.  This works pretty well for a newbie like me using T1 gear with limited skills.  I somewhat naturally tried the same thing when moving up to Battleship, but things were suddenly very different.  It just wasn't working.

My pattern didn't work because a Battleship is a different animal.  They are slow, making it difficult to stay at distance from enemies.  As a newbie with limited skills, my DPS was low and L4 enemies were stronger than anything I had encountered before, giving them plenty of time to catch up to me.  And as you move up in size, battle range increases to the point where sometimes, when I was at distance, I would find that my enemies were outside of the control range of my drones, preventing me from using their much needed additional DPS.  I was hurting, and hurting bad.

That's when it dawned on me, perhaps later than it should have.  I tried keeping the enemies at range, but they were generally getting in pretty close anyway.  So why not switch from long range weapons to close range weapons?  I checked, and sure enough, most of my fights were ending up within range of the close range weapons anyway.  Time to switch!  With close range weapons, tracking is better, DPS is better (which was badly needed), less MWD is needed, and even the power grid and CPU requirements were less, though I don't know if that would always be the case.  Forget kiting.  This is a Battleship.  A cruise missile Battleship might be a different case, but if you are not using missiles, then tank up, fight close, and blast away!  From my experience, this just works better as a T1 newbie at the Battleship L4 mission level.

Point of interest:  When I first fit my Battleship a few days ago, it had 305 DPS with light drones.   After switching to close range weapons, medium drones, and getting a couple of more skills under by belt, I'm now up to about 425 DPS.  Still not that good by most Eve player standards, but a heck of a lot better than it was, and I'm probably missing fewer shots too.  However, if you use medium drones, it's good to keep a few lights in the bay as backup for the occasional really fast and agile frigates; I've run into some rogue drones like that.

Anti-Gank Security Activity in Uedama

It's just a start, but Maximum Q security forces (which really just means me; Maximum Q is my corporation) joined in a fleet with other anti-gank militia to defend industrialists from CODE gank forces in Uedama last night.  This was a good first step for Maximum Q in building the connections, coordination, and capabilities needed to bolster CONCORD's forces and provide the early response defense needed in 0.5 security space to combat the plague of agile quick striking pirate monkeys.

Our forces aided in helping one freighter captain to survive a gank attempt, and we made progress on our communication and coordination.  I look forward to furthering our efforts in the weeks ahead.

While I did not get any kill mails for flying a remote repair Exequror that night, I did get bounty for a few notable pirates, confiscated some of their equipment, and ensured that the profit from their criminal activities was negatively impacted.

Join the anti-gank forces, and help take a bite out of crime!

Meta Matters

Even if you haven't heard the term Meta before, you have probably noticed that there are different variations of each ship Tech 1 (T1) equipment type.  The base T1 item -- the kind you can make with a blueprint -- is Meta 0.  You can see the Meta level on the Attributes tab of the item information window.  Meta levels range 0 - 4, and there is usually one item for each Meta level.  However, the naming of each is often less than obvious. 

Meta 1 - 4 items drop as loot from NPC ships.  Meta 1 - 4 items give you an opportunity to use an upgraded item before you have the ability to use the Tech 2 (T2) version of the item.  Also, on the market, they cost less than the T2 items.  And cost is where I have an interesting point to make.

Meta 4 items, being the closest to T2 as you can get without actually using T2, are pretty popular and generally go for high prices on the market, though still less costly than T2.  However, if you aren't dead set on using the absolute best available, you can often get Meta 1 - 3 items at very affordable prices.  In fact, quite often, I find them to be cheaper than the Meta 0 T1 items!  Meta 0 T1 items are often manufactured by someone trying to make a profit on them.  But Meta 1 - 3 items are often looted and sold for whatever missioners can get rid of them for.

For any equipment you don't manufacture yourself, this gives you an opportunity to both boost your ships attributes and save money at the same time.  You might not know what the Meta 1 - 3 items are called, so just look up the Meta 0 T1 item and look at the Variations tab to find out what the Meta 1 - 3 names are.  Then check the prices of each on the market.  Buy whatever gives you the most bang for your buck.

The downside, as an industrialist, is that it brings into question the value of manufacturing T1 items.  There may not be much value in blueprints until you have the skills to either improve them or manufacture T2 items.

Ode to a Miner

Days and days and days to kill, waiting on a level 5 skill.
CODE wonders why we mine, I check my queue another time.
While I wait, to the belts I go, mining ready, my ship is tanked.
CODE may choose to say hello, but chances are I won't be ganked.

Thanks to Zakk Starkiller for the title.

Spam Warp

A little note to everyone today, in case anyone by chance followed the same sequence I did starting out and might be helped by it.  Or if you just like reading about my noobisms.

When I started out, I looked over the various windows of information and thought about how to prioritize them. Which ones were important, which ones weren't, and how much screen I should dedicate to each one.  I originally didn't see much purpose or use for the Selected Object window, and before long I began to completely disregard it.

Later, as I began to get deeper into the game and try things like warping my pod away after my ship is destroyed or trying to do the Cloak + MWD trick, I discovered I was finding it difficult to quickly align to something and/or warp to something.

Oddly, it took me several days before I remembered that long forgotten Selected Object window.  Eureka!  It can be useful!  Right on that window, when a warp target is selected, are buttons for Align To and Warp.  Placed somewhere convenient, I now have a way to easily spam warp, as they say.

So if you are finding it difficult to warp away your pod after losing a ship or doing something like the Cloak + MWD trick effectively and are not using the Selected Object window... there ya go.

Going Anti-Gank PvP on July 15, 2014

Sometimes people lament about not enough capsuleers joining in on efforts to thwart gankers.  I've been wanting to get in on the action and help, but the problem is I have several semi-expensive implants to boost training speed that I don't want to risk losing in PvP.  From the beginning, I have said that once I get a core set of skills complete, I would join in on the action.

But then there is the thought of something always being "around the next corner", or "next week", and being in an endless loop of delays.  I don't want to fall into that trap, so I'm setting a date.  On July 15, 2014, I am officially joining the ranks of the anti-gank militia.  It is my hope, in time, to assist in improving the anti-gank strength and coordination across all of high security space.  And perhaps, just maybe, someday becoming a champion in it's ranks.

I do not plan to be exclusively an anti-gank soldier.  I plan to continue my missions and industrial operations as my core activities, but I will commit to making a strong effort to assist the anti-gank community on a regular basis whenever gank activity flares.  I have already starting preparing some ships for the cause.

Fly safe, my fellow industrialists, and look for me in the skies.  Be reminded that our cause is just, our will is strong, and that when gankers are near, you will see this law pig out in space dishing out a piece of the Bacon!