A few weeks ago, my friend Qu1ckkkk, author of the blog Don’t Shoot! X (oddly, not to be confused with the equally good read dontshootx.blogspot.com, home of Aperture Harmonics) wrote a post about his recent adventures in Ninja-baiting and killing mission runners. The stories were amusing, if not standard, until I got to a particular one that made me double-take.

In it, Qu1ckkkk describes a run-in with an extra-shooty mission runner in a Tengu. After having some missiles flung his way in anger, and after swapping for his pew ship, Qu1ckkkk soon realized that he didn’t have the firepower necessary to break the Tengu’s most-likely faction shield boosting. Not taking any damage himself though, Qu1ckkkk maintained point and web on the Tengu and got into a nice orbit to await help that was bringing him bigger firepower to swap into.

At this point, the Tengu pilot logged off. Qu1ckkkk however, continued to fire off a shot every few minutes in order to make sure he kept the timer going while waiting for help. But here’s where things get totally and completely broken: 15 minutes after the Tengu pilot logged off, he was very abruptly no longer red to Qu1ckkkk, despite still being pointed by him.

A petition was filed and amazingly enough, a GM actually arrived on the scene within minutes to investigate. Qu1ckkkk opted to not post the GM chat-log on his blog (like a good little EULA-abiding citizen), but surmised it pretty nicely:

Long story short, there was nothing he could do about the problem. I had him pointed and webbed, but I am not able to shoot at him without getting concorded. It seems like they are unable to make someone red again to the other without logging into that person’s account (which they also can’t do). They also don’t have the “tools” to fix the aggro. Only people who are logged in are to have their aggro tampered with.

He stopped being red to me after 15min WHILE I have him aggressed. So much for the logoffski nerf. Lucky for the tengu pilot, the best thing he could have done was to NOT log back in.

Objectively, you could look this over pretty quickly and dismiss it as bad luck. And the truth is, yes, this time it was a tricked carebear in what was probably a standard mission fit Tengu; shit happens and you lose kills sometimes, and in the grand scheme of Eve, a griefer losing a highsec mission runner kill due to odd-ball bugs doesn’t make much of a ripple. But say the next time this particular glitch happens, its on a low-sec station, and suddenly an entire offensive fleet finds themselves without aggro on the logged-out SuperCap pilot they’ve got pointed; in that scenario, you can bet this will be a MUCH bigger issue. Have a whole fleet go GCC* near station or gate guns because of a logoffski SuperCap pilot, and mark my words, the torches and pitchforks will come out.

Again, despite my niche in Eve, I get that Qu1ckkkk not getting an easy kill on a foolish mission runner won’t keep many people up at night, but lets distill it down into something broader and see if it raises any eyebrows:

Post-Crucible, a pilot in Eve was able to avoid destruction of his aggressed ship by logging out of the game.

…sound broken yet?

o7,

-Aiden

*GamerChick24 actually wrote about something similar a little while ago involving Faction War and POCOs here, which was actually addressed by CCP.

Image via Instructables.com

*SPOILER ALERT* To my complete lack of surprise, I somehow got “Salvager” from my virtual Eve Online guidance counselor; good to know I’m on the right path. But after reading my new eve-harmony profile, I frowned. The new website is fantastic, and CCP has clearly gone above and beyond to make sure you’re floored when checking it out. However, I’ve got a bone to pick with whoever was in charge or writing up these new personality dossiers because of one, major flaw: they’ve made “Salvagers” sound like the biggest passive-aggressive pussies in Eve.

Snnooooooozzze; this guy sounds about 1 damsel in distress away from afking level 4′s in a Dominix while editing Skyrim mods. “I sell my finds on the market or use them to build rigs“? If Tom Hanks says there’s no crying in baseball, then Aiden Mourn says there’s certainly no furry industrial building of things in Salvaging. Dear sir/madame, please take your fuzzy tinkering, industrial/mining skills, and jar of honey, and kindly GTFO. Love, Aiden.

This “Salvager” sounds like a chump, and if I was new to Eve and had just taken this test, I’d almost be offended with the results. This, my friends, needs some attending to; luckily for CCP, I brought my spiffy red editing pen. Lets try this again:

Much, MUCH better! From zero to hero in a few easy editing steps; now this guy sounds like someone you’d actually want to hang out with. Whereas before you wanted to wedgie this guy for his lunch money, now he sounds like one smooth criminal who you know you’re going to get into some fun shenanigans with while hanging out. I want to be this guys friend, and I certainly want to join his corp, whereas I want to wardec that other wuss’s corp in obscurity.

CCP, I’m always available, just let me know and besides this, the new site looks fantastic.

o7,

-Aiden

PvP is hard. I learned that the hard way very quickly, very early on in this game. But what I really learned, and what really stuck to me is this:

PvP in Eve Online is by its nature, non-consensual.

There’s nothing about the words “player vs player” that entails a mutual expressed decision to engage, or pre-arranged terms. When you are PvE-ing, then you are entering into a pre-arranged and per-determined combat scenario, but engaging another player is hardly ever mutually agreed upon. Indeed, by this logic, I feel that games which have expressed “PvP areas” as well as expressed and enforced “Non PvP areas” can’t really in fairness call their game a true PvP experience; at that point its more “dueling” than anything else, or by Eve lingo “1v1″-ing. These are the pre-arranged, agreed upon fights, but I feel these make up for  a very small portion of conflict in Eve.

To avoid type-casting myself as the “high-sec mission runner ganker with a chip on his shoulder”, I’ll even put my point into vastly different circumstances. Say you’re in one of those big herpy-derp srsbzns null-sec alliances; you like your ops set to an alarm clock, your voice coms boring and silent, and your play-time dictated by a very strong-minded 19 yr old with an Oedipus complex who you’ve never actually met. Your epeen, it is massive, and any challenge to that raging boner must be met with swift justice. Someone has just put one of your towers into reinforced, so your pimple-y, neck-bearded CEO gets you all up out of bed for an uber-serious CTA; you’re off to fight the attackers.

Now, what about that, albeit mocked, scenario is at all consensual? The null alliance in question is on their way to battle another null alliance, not because they called each other and said “hey, lets have a giant fleet battle and test out this new TiDi stuff!”, but because that second alliance directly threatened their assets without warning or possibly even without prior provocation. Sure, in rushing to the defense of their tower and to engage the attackers, they are now fairly explicitly entering into a known PvP environment, but only as a result of that first, non-consensual attack by the second alliance on their tower.

The way I see it, why should high-sec be any different? The uniqueness of this game is that even if you look at it in a very black and white “null and low sec are PvP areas, and high sec is not” (which is entirely untrue anyways), Eve allows and even encourages you to create scenarios in those “non PvP” areas which allow just that. War-decs, can-baiting, or suicide ganking are all perfectly acceptable ways of “a player engaging another player in combat” in highsec, even if its not mutually-agreed upon. In most of these high-sec scenarios, there are even ways out if you keep your head: get wardecced? Drop corp! Someone flips your ore into one of their own cans? Walk away! Its actually easy to completely abstain from high sec PvP violence if you put your mind to it, but the fact that the option, or even threat of it is there is something entirely unique about Eve.

If you DO want that “mutual” decision to engage, 1v1′s can occur wherever, even in high-sec, by both parties looting the other’s can, giving them both aggression. What we do in SN is simply to engineer that scenario by which both parties are “agreeing” to a player vs player engagement, even if the other guy isn’t sure what he’s signing exactly.

Seismic “The Troll” Stan (I see what you did there ). whether serious or not, expressed a fear on his blog that Eve players violently resist change, or anything they view as more structure or alteration to their sandbox, and I think he’s got a point. And even though I can call myself guilty of this at times, I think this is one of those major pillars of Eve that really can’t change. Yes, I’m a little biased based off of my own play-style in this game, but the whole “don’t undock what you can’t afford to lose” or “undocking in Eve is agreeing to PvP” is part of the magic that makes the game what it is. Space is a dangerous place, and without that element of the unknown, that slight tingle at the back of your neck, we are truly just playing “barbie plays farmville in space”.

o7,

-Aiden Mourn

Dir. Suddenly Ninjas; putting the “sensual” in “non-consensual” since 2008.

Soap-boxers, Cry-babies, Shield-bangers, and Deep Thinkers:

• Blog Banter 32 by Corelin @ Haberdashers Run Amok
• EVE Online is Harsh – Live With It by Drackarn @ Sand, Cider and Spaceships
• Blog Banter 32 by Cle Demaari @ A Citizen in EVE
• Safe? by blastradius1 @ Blastrad Tales
• Consensual PvP? by Ned “CCP Manifest” Coker @ A Gaming Manifest
• Blog Banter 32 by evehermit @ Evehermit’s Blog
• EVE is all about risk by TG3 @ Through Newb Eyes
• Blog Banter 32 by Harrigan Vonstudly @ Gun Turret Diplomacy
• Blog Banter 32 by Lukas Rox @ Torchwood Archives
• Blog Banter something or other and an update by TetraEtc @ Tetra’s EVE Blog
• Life’s not consensual by Logan Fyreite @ Eve Opportunist
• Without PvP, EVE will be nothing by Keyanu @ Muppetninjas
• Blog Banter 32 by A Scientist’s Life in EVE
• Say Yes To Reasonable Protection by Kirith Kodachi @ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
• Your Ship is Out of Control by Rixx Javix @ EVEOGANDA
• Blog Banter 32 by Kaeda Maxwell
• What Makes EvE Real? by Kuan Yida @ Random Posts From Auga
• See No Evil by Azual Skoll @ The Altruist
• The Sandbox Argument by Seismic Stan @ Freebooted
• Blog Banter 32 by Marc Scaurus @ Malefactor
• Non-Consensual Combat Restrictions – Pass by Mabrick @ Mabrick’s Mumblings
• A Load of Crap by GamerChick42
• For the Children by Sered @ Sered’s Lives
• Against Your Will by Truen1ght @ …Shall we not Revenge
• BB: Option 3 by Mike Azariah @ A Missioneer in EVE
• Who Are You.. Really? by Orakkus @ 2nd Anomaly From the Left
• Get Your Tears Out of My Beer by Kat Robspierre @ Chasing ISK
• I heart carebears by Shalee Lianne @ Living a Lie
• PvP needs consequences for both sides by Urziel99 @ Urziel’s EVE Chronicle
• Not one of those sarcastic ones by Cobalt Snake @ Year of the Snake
• Blog Banter 32 by Anabaric @ Inside My Skull So Many Demons
• Opt out of PvP? More like opt out of subscribing by Xero Shifter @ Gathering Space Dust
• Ganking Without Consent by Mandrill @ keithneilson.co.uk
• Blog Banter 32 by Crash @ Obfuscated Reality
• Blog Banter 32 by splatus @ A Journey Through the Mind
• The problem is in the middle by Myrhial Arkenath @ Diary of a Pod Pilot
• “The Sandbox Argument” by TurAmarth ElRandir @ A CARBON Based Life
• Why No One Likes Anyone by Adainy Gwanwyn @ Hot Lead Space Bomb
• Vigilantes! by Aurelie Thalys @ Emergent Patroller
• Putting the “Sensual” in “Non-consensual” by Aiden Mourn @ Finders & Keepers

You know, I resisted you for so long; it just seemed weird, knowing how many of my friends had been with you. You were all over the headlines, with your flash and your glamor. And then of course there was Eve to think about; what sort of man would I be to just walk out on her? It tore me up inside, knowing you were out there.

And then came that fateful lonely night in December, and after one too many Lagavulin 10 yrs, I found myself looking you up on Steam, unable to help myself. You opened up to me, and I got hooked on you baby. I lied to Eve, made up excuses to my friends and family, anything to sneak off and get another fix of you. You…you completed me.

Eve, she’s a mean bitch. Sometimes I just can’t understand her anymore. She used to be so spontaneous, you know? Now it seems I give her all of my time, my money, and my love, and she spits in my face for it. There’s the deception and backstabbing, the violence, the bullshit “connection” dropouts and lagging, and I always find myself squinting to figure out what the hell she’s really trying to tell me. And then there’s her dad, Hilmar; man do I think that guy has it out for me sometimes, always trying to hook her up with Goth guys and some Nordic dude named Aurum right in front of me.

But you? Baby you’re the fantasy. With you, there’s none of that, cause with you its all new. Skyrim, you and I, we just have fun, and with you I know there’s no drama, no baggage, no other men (or women) waiting in the wings; its just you and me against the world. And dragons.

But Eve? Baby, you know she’s my rock, and as much as I love those steamy late nights of ours, fighting snow trolls and yelling fire and all, you’ve gotta know that deep down, Eve is always gonna be my woman. She might be mean, and cruel when she breaks things off mid-fight and leaves me wondering what happened, but that’s just the kind of complex creature she is. She’s the mother of my alts you know, and that kind of love goes deep.

I’m telling you this now cause I don’t want to hurt you later; I’m never going to leave Eve. I can’t, and I know that might hurt to hear, but it’s better I tell you now.

That doesn’t mean the end of you and I though baby; there’s still so much of you I want to explore! So many more times I want to climb up those 7,000 stairs to your peaks, so many many barrows of yours I want to delve into; and you know you’ve still never let me explore your Southfringe Sanctum . Also, I think we should include Lydia more. Just saying.

Anyways, I’ve gotta run for now; Eve’s yelling at me again, something about “low shields” or “pick up milk” or some shit. I think I can sneak away later though; meet me in Whiterun, at my place? I’ll leave the keys with that butchy blacksmith next door.

kisses,

-A

=====

I couldn’t resist . Eve, I’m all yours.

o7,

-Aiden

What really caught my eye though in this newest numbers-themed dev blog was this:

“The alliances who have lost the most ships to CONCORD/sentries and the number of unique ship losers (different members of that alliance who lost ships)”

While its true that “ships lost to CONCORD/sentries” can encompass “stupidly engaging on station” or trying to make a run through high sec with outlaw status, to me there’s a strong correlation to suicide ganking. You admittedly might not be as excited as me about it, but you might notice that TEARS placed 3rd in number of CONCORD ship losses in 2011, right behind Goonswarm and TEST. Here’s the kicker: with respect, Goons and TEST are 1000+ person alliances; the vast majority of our losses to CONCORD are from our suicide corp Suddenly Violence: a 40 man corporation.

If you look at CCPs numbers, closely matched for second and first place were TEST and Goons, with 3,489 CONCORD losses from 969 unique losers and 3,602 losses from 832 pilots, respectively. TEARS lost 2,551 ships to CONCORD from 145 unique losers, and that, ladies and gents, is the kind of efficiency that would make a Chinese sweat shop envious.

Again, I realize that number of losses to CONCORD do not directly correlate to “number of successful suicide ganks” or even attempted suicide ganks for that matter; there are definitely other ways of getting your ship blowed up by CONCORD. But forcing that correlation are certain notable events of 2011, making the numbers for those top 3 alliances most likely from suicide ganking; Goons and TEST losses coming from the ice interdiction, and TEARS’ from the general high sec anarchy of Suddenly Violence and December’s new pod-mail-inspired holocaust.

This leads me to a somewhat overdue congratulation to my good friend S1r DigbyChickenCaesar (who has recently broken my heart by deciding to join some stupid corp that isn’t SN, but I digress). In 2011, some 25-odd active pilots in Suddenly Violence suicide ganked around 2,400 ships and pods. Over December alone, we squished 336 pods in high sec, 60 of which (including over 4 bil in implants) were the handiwork of Digby, who incidentally waltzed his way to top place in Toterra’s pod-ageddon contest over at Scram Web. You my friend, are one stone cold motherfucker.

And now? We’re only 20 days into 2012 and we’ve already racked up 390 suicide ganks, so the future is looking splendid. Stay tuned.

o7,

-Aiden

The other night though, I logged in to find that, in addition to finishing Caldari Cruiser V, my total skillpoints were now resting comfortably at 50,120,930. Again, though I’m not one for touting skillpoint milestones, I find myself forced to make an exception here, because damn if there isn’t a pretty good feeling that comes with crossing 50 million SPs. I suppose this makes me totally pr0-sauce now.

I can distinctly remember reading a post on Mynxee’s now-retired Life In Low-sec blog (we misses you) back when I had first started my own foray into the fine art of blogging about internet spaceships, where she wrote about crossing the 50 mil mark and me just being in total awe at how insanely high that was. To me back then, 50 million SPs was practically end-game stuff to me; the accomplishment of tried and proven veterans and masters of Eve. Now, here I am 2 or so years later crossing that mark myself and still feeling like I’m absolutely terrible at this game. However, what I can tell you though is 42 million SPs later? I’ve made peace with that .

Having finished Caldari Cruiser V, I’m currently in the midst of now training Caldari Strategic Cruiser I, which means I can now fly every t1, t2 and t3 cruiser in the game (and all the accompanying t2 fits I might add); another pretty nice feeling milestone.

So where to go from here? I’m honestly not sure. I’ve though of maxing out missile skills or going for all t2 large weaponry (though I’m not really a fan of BSs). There’s also a small part of me that wants to start shooting for caps, with an aim for triage carrier, but I’m not entirely sure how useful that would be for a guy who spends his time terrorizing high-sec.

So, that’s it for “Aiden discusses his uber-leet skillz” posts on Finders & Keepers, at least until the 100mil mark. For right now though, 50 mil is feeling pretty damn good.

o7,
-Aiden

Part One:

I warp into a mission and am immediately fired upon by my new Christmas pal Hawkk the second I loot. Aforementioned Christmas pal is very quickly pointed and neuted to oblivion by my Ashimmu.

With his tank now non-existent and his demise imminent, feeling mischievous, I tell Hawkk to eject from his Raven or I’ll blow it into small pieces. Sensing the end is near (and also sensing a bit of that selfless, giving, Christmas spirit I’d like to think), to my complete shock, Hawkk ejects from his doomed ship and warps away. This whole exchange takes place in roughly 7 seconds; I am giggling like a schoolgirl.

I shake the sugarplums out of my head, thank Santa, and board my new toy.

Merry Christmas Hawkk!

In further celebration of the holidays, we in TEARS as well as our ex-alliance-mates-turned-forum-stalkers/trolls Tactical Knightmare got a Secret Santa 25mil gift-giving thing together. Fresh from his recent perma-ban-turned-temporary-ban for posting “grossly inappropriate images” in local, I gave my friend Istyn (CEO of TK, alias “Space King”) a mixture of booze, tobacco, a small assortment of cheap drugs, x-rated holoreels, the “Fast Talk” skillbook (for his masterful play in bargaining down his perma-ban to a 2 week one), and an Imperial Slicer, a ship fit for a king. Me? I got a total shit-fit Rupture, complete with a faction remote shield transporter, hull tank mods, and mixed laser/arty/small blaster weapons systems from my buddy JP. The goal is to kill something in it as fitted; I’ll keep you posted.

Wishing you a safe and happy holidays to you and yours, Merry Christmas Eve.

o7,

-Aiden

http://coast.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=11943019

I have no words. Actually, scratch that, I have two: “Ship. Scanner.” Note: hauling your pricey mods FITTED to your noob ship isn’t clever, its an invitation. Related (a suicide gank of mine from a while ago): http://y0ink.us/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13819 .

Ho ho ho…

o7,

-Aiden

To preface, I’ve never flow an Eagle before, although I’m fairly confident that 95% of New Eden is on the same page as me. Actually now that I think of it, I’ve never sat in a Moa before either, although I’ve at least PyFA theory-crafted ridiculous fits with that one.

I’m a huge fan of Cruisers though, and being that they’re my favorite class of ship to fly in the game, it saddens me when you come across an unfortunate birth defect of what should be a mighty t2 Cruiser hull like our friend the Eagle here. I think probably the main reason I’ve never even attempted to go near one, is due to its long-reaching and damning reputation for utterly sucking. Yet, buoyed by Kirith Kodachi’s contest to breathe a little love into the much-maligned Caldari HAC (its amazing what a little hint of shiny-prizes can do for your motivation), I decided to take a look at this ugly duckling of the Cruiser world; quickly now, to the PyFA-mobile!

First thoughts:
Sweet mother of God is this ship terrible. Reputations do in fact have a way of being totally and completely accurate at times and the Eagle fully lives up to its own. Originally conceived as a super long-range rail platform, the Eagle fails spectacularly at its intended job, and that was even before the addition of the new tier 3 BCs made it beyond obsolete.

[Eagle, Awful]
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Medium Nosferatu II

10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Invulnerability Field II
Photon Scattering Field II
Warp Scrambler II
Large Shield Booster II

Power Diagnostic System II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II

Medium Ancillary Current Router II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Stats at all level 5 (w/o overheating or fleet boosts)
26.3k EHP, boosting 381 hp/s
81.9/90.8/86.2/77 shield resists
1345 m/s
522 DPS

What I’ve done is turned this joke of a sniper boat into an up-close and personal, active-tanked brawler (my style), and I’ve gotta say, I’m kind of pleased with it. As pointed out elsewhere already, the Gallente HACs are going to (and rightfully) remain the undisputed kings of the blasters. But seeing as fielding any sort of sniper-rail setup is a punchline on this poor ship, they’re the only way to go. That said, it need some serious stat re-designing.

First things first: this thing need some fitting love. My active burst-tank theorized-version requires a t2 medium ancilliary current router, a PDS II and a hilarious ‘Squire’ PG8 implant to BARELY fit, which is ridiculous. Any ship that relies this heavily on basic fitting modules and rigs that isn’t being flown by Garmon is a joke. Even a buffer tank version of 2 hardeners + a LSE  requires a t1 medium ancilliary rig at least to fit, a rig slot that could and should be better used by a damage or shield resist rig.

The second thing the Eagle needs is a speed boost. Even if you drop both magstabs (gimping your damage output to an sad 355 DPS) in favor of nano-ing this thing up, you still only get it to 1603 m/s, which means a Vaga will still laughingly out-kite it, and a Tornado will do the same, only while alpha-ing it into Eagle-shaped shrapnel.

What I’d also propose is re-thinking the awful bonuses the Eagle has as it stands. Keep the Caldari Cruiser skill bonus of the 5% shield resist per level, but drop the ridiculous 10% optimal range bonus in favor of a tracking bonus to encourage the brawler blaster fit. Additionally, keep the HAC ship 5% bonus to medium hybrid damage per level, but loose the SECOND ridiculous optimal range bonus in favor of something that will make people actually inclined to fly this thing: I say give it a bonus to point range.

Even a small boost of say 5% per level would put the Eagle on par with something like the Lachesis or the Arazu in terms of tackle range, giving it a set niche as a go-to heavy tackler. Even if you dropped my somewhat silly burst tank idea in favor of a more standard buffer, you’d get what essentially amounts to a mini-drake that point you at 40km and fits blasters.

Lets recap the changes:

-Better CPU and PG
-Faster base speed
-Dropping silly optimal bonuses in favor a Caldari Cruiser hybrid tracking speed bonus and a Heavy Assault Cruiser point-range
bonus.

The result could look something like this:

[Eagle, Suck Less]
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Medium Nosferatu II

10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Invulnerability Field II
Photon Scattering Field II
Warp Disruptor II
Large Shield Extender II

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II

Medium Anti-Explosive Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Probable stats at all level 5 (w/o overheating or fleet boosts)
49.5 EHP
81.9/90.8/86.2/83 shield resists
2200 m/s (I’m ok with a Vaga being slightly faster, but give the Eagle a fighting chance to close range)
587 DPS
40km t2 disruptor range

One thing I’ve noticed quite a lot in other people’s ideas on the Eagle revamp is the addition of a drone bay. You’ll notice I’ve left that out, and I’m ok with that. Yes, being able to field some anti-drone Warriors or Hornet EC-300s would be nice, but I think given the proposed bonus additions to this ship, they push it into the OP range of things.

Now as far as physical re-design goes, I think the Eagle needs one thing: wings. Yes, wings; I’m a gigantic fan of the Ferox and the Nighthawk platforms, and that Bat-wing style of wing formation, would take the Eagle from absurd looking junker to bad-ass night-stalker in no time. Eagles are majestic, soaring birds of prey, and the current design makes them look more like a turkey buzzard or a plucked chicken than anything mean and menacing:

I know, I know; who knew I had such artistic skills. Eat your heart out Javix.

See, NOW it looks like something worthy of holding the Eagle moniker; strong, tough looking wings, a sleeker body, and what look like talons (of doom).

The idea here isn’t to make some new crazy overpowered HAC of doom, but to haul it up by its bootstraps in order to make it something worth flying. With its better fitting, faster speed, brawler blaster tracking, and bonus to point range, the Eagle fills a niche that really no other ship quite does; and who knows, it might just be able to swoop in and save you the next time you’re in trouble.

o7,

-Aiden

If you live in the U.S., go ahead and mark your calender tomorrow; put a giant red X over Thursday December 15th, because tomorrow, Congress is most likely going to pass the bill known as SOPA: the Stop Internet Piracy Act. On the surface, you might look at that and shrug, knowing deep down that yes, downloading that DVD-rip torrent of the second Twilight movie from a Danish website is in fact against copyright law and that something like this had to happen sooner or later. Well, yes and no. Read this.

What SOPA allows is for content owners to go after what they feel is copyright infringement on the net without a court of law, as long as they have “specific facts” (actual wording) to back their claim; talk about vague. Once submitted, they can then bring their “case” before a court, who will in turn demand that providers have 5 days to “prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site.”

We can all agree that at its core, giving away a product for free that someone else invested money in in order to make a profit is wrong, and to a certain degree, stealing. The gray area of “internet piracy” though is not all that SOPA addresses. Search engines will be liable for “providing” links to blocked material or linking to those who build or utilize tools for the “circumvention or bypassing” of the Internet blocks. Furthermore, a few “rouge” links on a site otherwise full of legal material can become cause for liability, in effect making Google and other search engines, as well as site owners and hosts liable for user-submitted content, forcing them to police and censor their own user-submitted content or be shut down.

Content owners can go after search traffic and most importantly, ad revenue in pursuit of what they feel isn’t good enough policing. The backlash? An internet legal climate so on edge and risky that it discourages startups from even attempting to launch.

Markham Erickson of NetCoalition put it best:

“However, we do not believe that the solution lies in regulating the Internet and comprising its stability and security. We do not believe that it is worth overturning a decade of settled law that has formed the legal foundation for all social media. And finally, we do not believe that it is worth restricting free speech or providing comfort to totalitarian regimes that seek to control and restrict the Internet freedoms of their own citizens.”

Still not sure about what to make of all this? Watch the video below and then visit AmericanCensorship.org.

I’ve brought this up here on F&K despite its lack of obvious relation to Eve because as internet spaceship nerds, this effects us all, in or out of Eve Online. Both SOPA and Protect IP involve language that is far too general, too sweeping, and too open to interpretation, and yet both of them are here, right now. Congress votes TOMORROW on SOPA, so I would encourage you to say something. Go to AmericanCensorship.org where with a simple form, they’ll contact you, and provide you talking points and even a connection to your local Congressman.

Dock up and go AFK for 10 minutes, and do something that counts. Spread the word.

o7,

-Aiden

/soapbox. We will return to our regularly scheduled shenanigans shortly.