Mar 09

The Extent of Our Travels

By Xeross EVE Online, Gaming Comments (2)

As I’ve seen 2 posts regarding this so far I decided to also make one, and I have the feeling more will follow. So what kind of posts were these, well various people have posted a screenshot of their in-game map to “Systems I’ve Visited” this shows a map with dots all over the place as to where one has been.

So without further ado here’s mine:

Places I've Been - Xeross

If you’ve also created a post leave a comment so I can add it to the list.

Other “Participants”:

  1. Subspace Rupture – The Road Less Travelled
  2. I am Keith Neilson – The Extent of My Travels
  3. EVEOGANDA – Getting Around the Neighbourhood
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Mar 05

Quick Update

By Xeross Diary/Log, Misc, Uncategorized Comments (2)

Some people might have noticed some downtime on my blog, this in combination with just being added to the blog pack isn’t exactly ideal, but the issue has been solved, there were a few issues with the nameservers that have been permanently fixed by Lonetrek.

Besides this I’m not feeling really well at the moment, I feel a little sick and exhausted but I hope it won’t develop itself into the flu or something. I’ll also be actively blogging soon again as I have some material I want to write down.

~Xeross

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Mar 01

The New Blog Pack

By Xeross Blog News, Blog Pack, EVE Online, Misc Comments (8)

As most of you have already heard (And as some of you have already blogged about it) David Perry (A.K.A. CrazyKinux) has posted the new Blog Pack member list on his blog. Almost immediately as I got word the new list was up I went to check it out (As I was secretly dreaming of  a place in the pack myself).

So after opening the post and scrolling through the list of  people that made it into the new pack I felt a sudden burst joy and amazement as I was on the list. I didn’t expect it as I didn’t think my posts were of that great quality, but it seems CK finds them valuable so I’m now a proud member of the pack.

So here once more is the list of people that made it into the new blog pack, congratulations to both old and new members alike.

  1. A Ghost Blog, by Mr NOXx
  2. A Merry Life and a Short One, by Hallan Turrek
  3. A Mule in EVE, by Manasi
  4. Astral’s EVE Trial by Fire, by Astral Dominix <– NEW
  5. Beginnings of Piracy (The), by Mail Lite <– NEW
  6. Captain’s Log (The), by Prometheus09
  7. Chocolate Heaven, by Kala <– NEW
  8. DeafPlasma’s EVE Musings, by DeafPlasma
  9. Dense Veldspar, by Ahnog <– NEW
  10. Diary of a Bored Spaceman, by Rolinthor <– NEW
  11. Diary of a Pod Pilot, by Myrhial Arkenath
  12. Ecliptic Rift, by Casiella Truza
  13. Elitist (The), by Xeross <– NEW
  14. EVE Monkey, by evemonkey <– NEW
  15. EVE Newb, by Spectre
  16. EVE Online Wormholes, by Star Defender
  17. EVE Travel, by WebSapceships <– NEW
  18. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, Tony
  19. EVEOGANDA, by RixxJavix <– NEW
  20. Finders and Keepers, by Aiden <– NEW
  21. Flashfresh – A Pirate, by Flashfresh
  22. Freebooted, by Seismic Stan <– NEW
  23. Guns Ablaze, by Jager Da <– NEW
  24. Hands Off, My Loots!, by Cyberin
  25. Helicity Boson, by Helicity Boson <– NEW
  26. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, by Kirith Kodachi
  27. Jump on Contact, by Zetetic <– NEW
  28. Jumping through Wormholes, by eve_riotrick <– NEW
  29. K162space, by Blake
  30. Kane Rizzel – A Pirate’s Perspective, by Kane Rizzel
  31. Kirith Darkblade, by Kirith Darkblade <– NEW
  32. Learning to Fly, by Arukemos <– NEW
  33. Letrange EvE’s Blog, by Letrange <– Forced out of retirement
  34. Life in Low Sec, by Mynxee
  35. Mike Azariah, by Mike Azariah <– NEW
  36. Morphisat’s Blog, by Morphisat
  37. My Loot, Your Tears, by Khalia Nestune <– NEW
  38. Nashh Kadavr’s EVE Blog, by Nashh Kadavr <– Pulled out of a black hole just in time!
  39. Our EvE, by Kename Fin <– NEW
  40. Planet Risk Show (The), by Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm
  41. Postings from the Edge, by Zapatero
  42. Rettic’s Log: The Chronofile, by Rettic
  43. Rifter Drifter, by Wensley
  44. Roc’s Rambling, by Roc Wieler
  45. Sweet Little Bad Girl, by Shae Tiann
  46. Tales of Clan Oriana (The), by @Clanoriana <– NEW
  47. To Boldly Go, by Katia Sae <– NEW
  48. Venoms Bite, by Venom <– NEW
  49. Wench with a Wrench, by Maeve <– NEW
  50. Yarrbear Tales, by 00sage00
  51. CrazyKinux’s Musing, by myself!!!

Edit (03-03-2010): Updated, added links to all blogs.

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Mar 01

How-To: Fix a Dead Razer Product

By Xeross How-To's No Comments

So tonight was a bit hectic, I was trying to figure out how to prevent the side buttons of the mouse performing the previous/next button actions in my browser. The first thought was to update my drivers/firmware but the firmware update failed and my Razer DeathAdder died.

After searching a lot on google (I enabled keyboard mouse controls) I found out you are able to restore the functioning of the product through the following steps.

  1. Unplug the Razer product
  2. Shutdown your PC
  3. Plug the product into another USB port
  4. Reboot your PC
  5. Drivers should be automatically reinstalled again
  6. If not manually install them, they can be found in the folder the drivers software is installed in
  7. Perform the firmware update again if you want

~Xeross

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Feb 28

The Blog Has Been Moved Successfully :)

By Xeross Blog News, Misc Comments (2)

Lonetrek Hosting

Yep that’s right, the blog has been moved once more, we already had the blog situated at Lonetrek Hosting for a while now but after having a thorough chat about it with Anthony (The owner and founder of Lonetrek Hosting) I decided to upgrade to the Grid Power package in combination with the 75% ISK discount.

This brought my hosting costs/year down by over 80% compared to HostGator, with Lonetrek I pay 30$ a year (+ 250m ISK for the discount) and with HostGator I had to pay over 120$ a year. So now the blog has moved over the shared subdomain has moved over and I’ll be moving over all my other websites too.

So mad props to Anthony for providing great and personalized support and I recommend everyone that’s thinking about self-hosting their blog or hosting a website or something to go for Lonetrek Hosting.

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Feb 28

Control Towers are Big

By Xeross EVE Online, Gaming, Photography Comments (2)

With all the recent videos popping up that make you see how big the ships actually are I managed to get a screenshot that puts the Control Towers into perspective too, so if you want to get an idea of the scale of things in EVE go fly close to ‘em with your pod.

Control Tower in Perspective

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Feb 27

Ship Fit: Ratting Hurricane – Passive Shield Tank

By Xeross EVE Online, Fittings, Gaming, Good Fittings Comments (2)

Hello and welcome to another one of my fitting posts, this time we’ll be looking at the ship I’m using for ratting. A passive shield tanked hurricane. Now without further ado the fitting.

[Hurricane, PvE - Ratting - Shield Passive]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II

<Rat Specific Active Hardener> II
<Rat Specific Active Hardener> II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium ‘Scout’ Artillery I, EMP M
Salvager I
Small Tractor Beam I

Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I

Acolyte I x6

As you can see this fit still uses T1 guns, this is because I can not use T2 medium artillery yet, so if you can swap out the current artillery with the T2 variant (However my EFT shows no DPS increase with them). Now onto some stats.

Shield DPS 594 (With 2 Exp. Dampener IIs)
Gun DPS 179 (Using EMP M)
Effective HP 70,264
Capacitor Lasts 15m 14s

The stats are based on NPCs that fire 96% explosive

As you can see with both dampeners being active this fit has a considerable amount of shield tank (Only 1 anomaly was able to break it but that was because I killed the wrong rats first), it is possible to increase it even further by swapping the Gyrostabilizers for more Shield Power Relays however this is at the expense of DPS.

So what do you think of this fit ?

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Feb 24

Null-Sec Guide for Null-Sec Newbs

By Xeross EVE Online, Guides Comments (6)

As I myself have recently moved into null-sec I encountered a lot of new things and made some (big) mistakes, so I thought why not create a guide about this to prevent people from making the same mistakes, and giving them some useful info at the same time.

What is Null-Sec ?

Null-sec (Also referred to as 0.0) is lawless space where there is no CONCORD presence, so any and all activities can happen here without CONCORD intervening. This means you won’t be protected by NPC “Police” when doing anything inside these regions.

The space in null-sec can be owned by alliances after which the system is theirs and they can deploy Stations, POSes and other structures inside these systems. Usually you are safe within the space your alliance owns but enemies can always enter so be on your guard and keep an eye on local.

Dangers in Null-Sec & Low-Sec

Of course null-sec isn’t without any dangers as stated above here are some things that you need to watch out for in null-sec.

Avoiding dangers

To avoid being caught inside warp bubbles or getting gate camped also keep an eye on your alliances intel channel (If they have one) usually they will notify this channel of any and every enemy they spot in their space.

Warp Bubbles (Null-Sec Only)

These are bubbles (Well they look like bubbles) usually with some electric current running along their edges, these prevent you from warping,  they’ll also stop your warp if you happen to fly through ‘em in the last half a second of your warp.

To get out of these you have two choices, if you’re near a jump gate you can approach the jump gate , however if there’s anyone in your overview try moving towards a celestial that’s nearest to the bubble wall, and warping as soon as you get out of it (Double clicking somewhere will make your ship move in that direction).

You can also attempt to avoid these by warping to a celestial object near the gate (Though chances are there are bubbles there too), after that you can use your directional scanner to check the gate.

Gate Camps (Null-Sec & Low-Sec)

The name says it, these are people camping at a gate, usually with 5 or more people, they will warp scramble, web and kill you whenever they get the chance, most of the time they’ll utilize warp bubbles.

To avoid these you can make use of  of your directional scanner to scan gates (as told above), or you can warp to the gate at 100km/150km to check if it’s clear.

For more info check the EVE Online wiki page about null-sec

Getting into Null-Sec

Ok so you’ve joined an alliance that has space in null-sec and you want to get into their space, or you just want to head into null-sec without your alliance having space there, but how do you get there in one piece ?

The first thing you need to know when getting into null-sec is where you will be heading of course, you can ask your alliance for directions they usually have a route that has proven safest, or if you aren’t in a null-sec alliance you just have to plot your own course.

While you’re travelling into null-sec you should try setting up tactical bookmarks at 150+ km from the stargates this will not only give you a good lookout point but at this range you can still warp to the stargate instead of slowboating to it.

Of course you have to remember about the dangers I’ve warned you for previously, especially in the systems that connect low security space with 0.0 space you’ll find a lot of these.

Don’t forget to change your Autopilot from “Prefer safer” to “Prefer shorter”.

Watch your mouth

This is a very important one, if you fail to remember this you will be tagged as a spy and kicked out in no time. Always think carefully when you talk about possibly sensitive information, if you’re not sure if you’re allowed to speak about something check with someone that’s high up inside your corp or alliance (Depending on whether it’s alliance wide or corp wide info).

Aid your allies

Help your allies whenever you can, if there’s a Call-To-Arms get your best PvP ship out and join the fleet,  if someone needs a cyno see if you can aid them, helping your allies is a must if you want to stay in the alliance.

Note: I highly suggest you train Cynosural Field Theory to level 2 so you can light a Cyno when it’s needed.

Making Money

If you plan on making money in null-sec (Why else would you come here anyway)  ratting is a great way of starting to make some of it. There’s a trick that makes the chance of quality rats higher (Meaning more/better loot) which can be found in an easy to learn format here.

However next to ratting there’s also Cosmic Anomalies and Cosmic Signatures this will raise the systems military index, the anomalies can be found by probes and the on-board scanner but the signatures (Which are the more profitable ones) can only be found using probes.

Next to these there’s also mining, however I highly suggest you mine with some protection and preferably in a group with someone that has high cargo capacity (As null-sec ore is quite spacious), manufacturing and exploration but I won’t go any further into those.

Well that wraps it up for my null-sec guide, have suggestions, additions, corrections or questions ? don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

~Xeross

Changes

25/Feb/2010 – Added info on warp bubbles and gate camps.
26/Feb/2010 – Fixed some errors.
26/Feb/2010 – Revised some information.
27/Feb/2010 – Added some additional information about military anomalies.
27/Feb/2010 – Added some information about alliance intel channels.
07/Mar/2010 – Changed bubbles to null-sec only

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Feb 24

A new chapter begins…

By Xeross EVE Online, Gaming, In Character No Comments


Rewinding to a few weeks ago…

A notification appears on my display, “New EVE Mail”. Computer, read new mail.

To: Ghosts of EMC
Subject: Null-Sec

We have decided to make the move to null-sec, everyone should join Fusion Death Inc. as soon as possible. and wait further instructions.

Regards, The Board.

A few days later after being accepted by Fusion Death Inc.

Today is the day, we’ve moved all our stuff over the past few days so that it can be moved into our territory and are now ready to set off, after plotting a course and gathering up we set off to null-sec.

Under way for a while now it’s been pretty quiet in low-sec, we did encounter some people here but nothing posing a threat, till now things went smoothly but something tells me it won’t stay that way for long. One of my comrades just notified us that the system up ahead is also known as the “scary zone”.

Arrived in the “scary zone” no signs of hostiles, okay guys align to the next gate and warp to it. 0.3 AU removed from gate, almost there, ugh, what’s this. We are stuck in what seems a blueish bubble with some electric current running through it, “What’s this ?” I ask one of my comrades. “That’s a warp bubble” he replies “It will prevent you from warping”

“Oh, so… what do I do now ?”

“Well you approach the gate and jump through, unless there’s hostiles than you’ll want to find the fastest way out of it.”

“Ok, no hostiles, I’ll approach the gate.”.

Suddenly one of my comrades yells through the comms “I’m being chased by a 30 man fleet, I’m trying to shake ‘em off. Continue along the set course”. Nearing the gate, activating gate, jumping.

Approx. 20 minutes later…

Welcome home, a familiar voice says through the comms. We’ve made it into our home system, after a tour around the Control Tower we were directed to the station a few jumps over to repair our ships and to get some rest after the long  journey down.

And so a new chapter begins…

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Feb 21

Simple Chain Ratting Guide

By Xeross EVE Online, Gaming, Guides, How-To's Comments (2)

I’ve got a link to this guide from one of my corp mates, and it might proof useful to anyone that’s rattting. I don’t know who made it but all credits go to him/her.

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