A long, long time ago I wrote a post in which I tried to analyse the differences between turrets. I was looking to form my own opinions on the subject, rather than guessing or accepting what others said, especially in a game like EVE Online in which there are many players with opinions. Due to my limitations with the latest developments in software at that time (my skills were focused on C and C++ as applied to science and engineering), I extracted the data manually (from the info page of each item) for the meta 0 items only, and did an analysis with the understanding that the higher meta variants kept their relative differences unchanged – meaning that the meta 0 rankings would still remain true for the meta 5 items. Since I was only interested in the relative comparison between the turrets, and not actually looking for the dps (or any other) value, such a reasoning seemed valid (I still think it is).

Nowadays, I discovered the beauty of SQL together with the EVE data dump, and I am proudly presenting you with the latest analysis, this time including all items. I must admit that spreadsheets were still employed to carry out the sorting and comparison functions, as I am still in the process of learning how to do that directly in SQL. I tell you, if ever you need to learn new software and techniques, do that on the data dump of your favourite MMO! In this regard, a big thank you goes to the authors of this and this post.

So I will be posting a series of articles in order to present the data and make it readable and manageable. The plan for the posts is as follows:

1. Presentation of the series (this post);
2. The analytic framework;
3. Raw data for small turrets;
4. Analysis, comparison and rankings for small turrets;
5. Raw data for medium turrets;
6. Analysis, comparison and rankings for medium turrets;
7. Raw data for large turrets;
8. Analysis, comparison and rankings for large turrets;
9. Raw data, analysis, comparison and rankings for the extra large turrets.

In carrying out my research, I was very frustrated at not finding the raw data readily available for copy-pasting in a spreadsheet. In this series you will find the raw data available for your enjoyment. I also hope to stimulate your creativity in playing with the numbers and come out with your own discoveries and conclusions. Based on feedback and RL time availability, I also plan to carry out a similar study of the numerous hulls available ingame.

One blog author, Marc Saurus, attributes this to the sovereignty mechanics, quoting the sources as saying that they are not willing to go through the lengthy grind of the mechanic in order to win sov (again).

“A war that would’ve involved 20,000 players, 75% of nullsec space, and hundreds of supercapitals was halted not by diplomacy, but by a game mechanic so dreadful that those who have experienced it previously have no desire to do so again.” [Marc Saurus]

The second blog author, Poetic Stanziel, attributes this lack of will to warring to the fact that it will be economically damaging to the big boy, so in the face of such costs the will to war dwindles.

Being in EVE since 2009 – I am now unsubscribed (since a couple of weeks) but follow it attentively out of game – I tend to agree with Poetic Stanziel more.  Before unsubscribing I was in wormholes.  I liked them because they resembled null sec, the place I loved most in EVE.  The place I couldn’t live in due to the way the “leaders” there expect others to play – a requirement which ultimately results in the leaders’ benefit, not the players.  It is always for their benefit, the few who assure for themselves a massive passive income by dictating the gameplay of others.  In the years since I left I had been experiencing a “I can’t live with you – I can’t live without you” situation which ultimately lead to not renewing my subscribtion.

Marc Saurus is also right although he misdiagnosed the situation and put the blame on the game mechanic and CCP.  Sov warfare is an endless grind because the players, the same few who do not want this war and dictate the gameplay of others, made it such by hoarding so much space under one cap.  This in itself is the problem: the sheer quantity of systems that need to be attacked; and not the mechanic.  The mechanic is great when holding or wanting a handful (or a few more) of systems.  In the mechanic systems are owned by Corporations, not alliances.  This was meant to create a dynamic environment in which corps leaving/joining alliances would change the sov scenario and make it highly dynamic.  This mechanic allowed for attacking key corporations, breaking them, thus breaking the alliance.  The leaders do not like this – they want the ultimate control, to the point that even with a few corps they can still hold on to the space until the next bill comes along.  These alliance leaders created the system in which solar systems are held by the alliance’s infrastructure corp, thus avoiding this dynamism and in the process creating the bloc spanning multiple regions.  Corps joining or leaving the alliance do not have an effect on the alliance’s holdings.  THIS is the problem.

The tendency (or drive by the few in safeguarding their interests) for the focus to be on alliances rather than corps.  THIS is the problem.

Can I do something about it?

Poetic Stanziel referred to moon resources (in particular technetium) as the reason behind it.

“The only reason why this war will not happen is because of technetium. The Mittani can try to spin it any way he wants. As crappy as the sovereignty mechanics in EVE Online may be, it certainly did not stop The Mittani from prosecuting several wars to capture more of New Eden’s technetium supply. And at least one war to protect the tech cartel he helped create.” [Poetic Stanziel]

Technetium inevitably pops up whenever null politics is discussed.  The location of this (and other valuable) mineral is unknown to the common folk – those who would eagerly harass the establishment through guerrilla tactics.  Its location is a heavily guarded secret and whoever has this information will not divulge it readily.  This is also part of the information that keeps the large null sec alliance beyond the reach of the smaller ones.

I believe in the old adage that information is power (or a good part of it).  I think that if the location of moon minerals is known with precision, initiatives for targeted attacks will arise and a serious challenge to the establishment can be created.  The biggest threat will be from those whose only aim will be to watch the world burn, and for these guys I’ll be acting!

The Moon Survey Project

I will return to the game and start a survey of the moons in the North of New Eden and publish here, for public knowledge, my findings.  You can help too, by doing the same and posting your own findings.  Most importantly I urge you to use my findings and get a fleet to disable these POSes, or go do some other damage and harassment.

THEY deserve nothing better.  Because null sec is ours, not theirs.  It is mine too!

I can engage you with a railgun or a cock – you won’t know the difference – either way you’re fucked!
But I won’t, because I can control myself, and am not a trigger-happy idiot chasing a meaningless, useless killmail.

And I have a blog too: One capsuleer against all.

By the way, I’m not participating in your CTAs or roams, and I’m not aroused by the prospects of fights and killmails!

Of all the riches and possibilities within null sec, players chose to make it a combat arena. What a pity and short-sightedness.

I’ve been in 2 major null sec alliances that failcascaded – all because the focus was on pvp – when will YOU learn!

I have tried it myself.  I have tried griefing, I have tried being part of null sec alliance, I have tried doing what others command, just to be part of the team, I have tried playing all those style which other players, especially the most loud and verbose of the pvpers and (some) bloggers call fun.  As a general conclusion, I cannot behave in a way which is different from that which comes natural to me.  I repeat, I CANNOT behave in two different ways in-game and in the real world.  I cannot even manage to have two accounts which behave differently from each other.  I have settled with two accounts which complement each other.

To clarify a little bit, it’s not the behaviour that I cannot do; it’s what comes afterwards, the conscience if you may.  That stays the same, no matter how much you try.  If you behave in a way which goes against your inner set of rules, you will feel it.  Conversely, if you behave repeatedly in a bad way, even in game, you don’t have those internal set of rules which make you a good decent person.

You’d say that this is a wild conclusion based only on my personal experience.  How can I generalise based on one, my own, experience.  Well, I tell you that based on my same experiences, there are certain realities which are true to all, and this is one of them.

So stop justifying your bad, psychopatic behaviour as ok because it’s ingame.  If that excuse consoles you, well I tell you that you have done a good job in killing your conscience, and that I do not want to meet you in real life, because deep down, you’re bad.  Yes you are!  Unless you are perfectly capable of having multiple personalities, in which case I also do not want to meet you, for obvious reasons.

And on Sunday, as expected, there was a corp mail by the leader saying that since these ops were important, 100% tax was going to be set ALL DAY to encourage participation in these ops.  Now some things really piss me off about this policy:

Firstly, the moment I see it, I just log off and go to another game.

Secondly, 100% tax affects only those who rat (like me).  I think I’ll be turning miner in view of all these 100%-tax occassions.

Thirdly, any op seems to be a CTA these days.

I just wonder, from a management point of view, how effective is 100% tax to encourage participation.

[17:39:05]  my friend> ever take part in ctas, han?

[17:46:42]  Handown> not much

[17:47:18]  Handown? I don’t care about them, had a burn out earlier on, and I don’t give a shit any longer

[17:51:58]  my friend>  null sec alliances are pretty insane regarding ctas

[17:52:08]  my friend>  they think ppl have nothing else to do

[17:52:42]  my friend> and ultimitely all those alliance things are just for few alliance leaders, so you fight in reality for them

[17:57:11]  Handown>  indeed

[17:57:19]  Handown>  that is exactly what I think

To say that I have been thinking about writing a post on this topic for four months!  A couple of words and it delivers it very well.

Maybe I’ll elaborate someday.

My vision is to start an anarchist movement, a New Eden wide rebellion against the alliances, against the frame of mind that numbers are important and that you need to be part of something for anything!  A movement that will return THE Capsuleer in its rightful place, in the centre of EVE, rather than the Alliance, as it is today.

I refuse.  I resist!

I also had time to do hand crafts, some DIY around the house and also sports.  I also tried a couple of new games, most notably Pirates of the Burning Seas.  After Elite, which led me to EVE, Pirates of the Burning Seas has strong resemblance with Sid Meiers’ Pirates, a game which I loved when I was a kid, and I still have installed to this very day.

Pirates of the Burning Seas also thought me a very important lesson.  These are GAMES (lots of stress on this word).  Games are meant to be tried and played thoroughly; losing is also part of the game.  I came across a mission in Pirates of the Burning Seas which I could not muster, and for a while I was starting to get angry about.  Then it dawned on me.  After 2 years playing EVE, I became accustomed to HATE losing; to do everything in my powers to avoid losing.  But these are games, and after all, after loosing many times, I got through and onto the next levels.

EVE and its community of players do not tolerate loss, and this is a very dangerous state of mind.  I cannot say what’s linked with it in scientific or academic terms, but it does not feel right that a game teaches you not to lose.

Let’s see how long EVE will last this time.

The alt’s account’s subscription ended a month before that but I did not bother to resubscribe.

I also removed all the EVE-related blogs from my rss syndicator.

And I don’t feel any emotion.  I still have images of spaceships in my mind, and images of would-be battles and tactics, and chat lines, but I guess these are the last to die.  The EVE in your mind is the last to die.

I’ve been through this before; I returned after a month.  This time, I don’t think I’ll return.  I’ve changed too much to be able to return, at least in my present state of mind (very positive and healthy) I don’t think I will return.

But why also remove the blogs?

Blogs are the opinions of other players!  Reading them has changed my experience into an unpleasant one, because my perceptions and expectations of the game experience have been changed.  I used to like EVE when I started out; I was a noob but I did not know it.  I did stupid things but I did not care.  Because I could, because EVE allows you to.  Regrettably other players are all too eager to point out all those issues which displeases them, and having so many players, and so many bloggers, you end up reading about displeasure and disappointment about all the features of EVE.

I also do not like MMOs any longer.  When I play a game, I like to immerse myself into my role.  I don’t usually go all out attrition by using the most damage-dealing unit only.  I usually use all the features as they are meant to be used.

EVE is in a state of all-out attrition where players use only those features which give the maximum advantages.  This is quite understandable, yet for an immersion-seeking guy like me, this is not fun after a while.

So, goodbye EVE Online.  You’ll be remembered dearly and you will be truly missed.  I won’t miss the EVE that you have become, but the EVE you were meant to be.

Some have only pictures, others only walls of text, some are long, some are short.  I read them all, or at least browse through them.  Yet the following are those that have stuck in my mind over the past months.

Tiger Ears

PJ is my current favourite.  He does not rant; he does not complain; he does not shed any tears; he does not have any comments in favour or against CCP or the game mechanics; he just writes about his game experiences.  The story evolves fluently and I am left without questions as to what or why.  I avidly look for his new posts every time I load up my RSS syndicator.

PJ has a certain style which is consistent throughout his writing.  He uses adjectives in a way I find interesting.  At first it looked babyish, but now I realise it is much deeper than that.  What I am referring to is his way of writing “I got into my Buzzard covert operations boat”, or “Golem marauder class battleship”, or “glorious leader Fin”.  We all know what a Buzzard or a Golem are, and those who don’t know won’t know what a marauder class battleship or covert operations boat is.  Yet these adjectives, when used consistently, add up to something I still don’t have a word for, but which I like extensively.  I wonder what is the adjective he uses for himself.

Another consistent aspect of PJ’s blog is his way of cropping images.  He always puts them into a rectangle showing the ships’ positions in space and their brackets.  Somehow he always manages to portray the tactical scenario at the time.

PJ makes me want to be in wormholes but I know that when I’ll be living that life it won’t be as fun for me as how I perceive it fun for PJ.  Yet, he’s inspiring, I’d like to write like he does.

Rixx Javix

Eveoganda used to be one of my top favourites.  Recently Rixx seems to have lost the flair he had and is not so appealing to me any longer.  He seems to have stopped aspiring to some higher value and is now shallow, playing for the day.  The fun in Rixx’s writing today is to check what new “cool” thing he will or is currently trying and for how long will he manage to keep at it.

A mule in Eve

The man with a plan!  To me Manasi represents null sec.  I was in Systematic Chaos for a time so I was very interested in reading what he had to say which was related to sys-k.  Unfortunately they closed the alliance, failing to realise that sov-holding alliances should not promote elitism within themselves and they should not focus exclusively on pvp, as all are needed in EVE.  I don’t think he has learnt that lesson yet, but left, so I guess I’ll remain with that question unanswered for a long time.

Zedrik Cayne

Zedrick’s blog climbed to the top with the Joe Show.  Man I sometimes laughed my heart out at what was written!  Now there are the Socratic Files.

I don’t agree with how Zedrik decides to play his game at the expense of other players’ gameplay, I wouldn’t like a leech like him pestering me persistently for weeks on end; yet the reading is hilarious.