Dust PS3's most important Game?

http://www.develop-online.net/features/1461/Dust-514-The-PS3s-most-important-game

I do not own a PS3 and probably will not. But I want Dust to do well as it will be neat.  My thoughts

I would rather play one constantly iterated game than a new game every few months that is essentially a re hash of the same old.

This is why I play mmo's, i want to be involved in a wolrd, not simply play though them and move on.

I do wish dust was for PC but understand why it is not to be so.

I also believe the article glosses over how important release is. How many mmo's have been released as unfinished piles of junk. You need the initial interest to gather information on where to develop and also earn revenue.

No you don't need millions of sales and to actually break even upon release but I hope CCP does not over look the value of a polished release. Getting people to play the game in an unfinished form will turn them off. Those who try a game and put it down because it is not finished will not pick it up again. Even 6 months later when bugs are fixed and content is added you still have a bad reputation. When a consumer asks about dust there friend will chime in saying the tried it and it was a turd.

You want lots of players in your game to have a good initial experience and interest is highest upon release day when the hype machine is in full swing.


MMO's require a critical mass of players. Fail to achieve a critical mass of players and your game will wither and die. Hit critical mass and your population will explode.

Please Please don't release junk and promise to iterate on it later..
Base this upon MMO's that have been released and failed, and look at why.

-lack of content
-Bugs
-unfinished items, tasks ext

will kill and mmo before it starts.

Please Please do not pre maturely release...........
It's always bad and messy....

Fenrir, big bad expensive wolf

In other news my alt is training freighters...a fenrir to be exact. bought the advanced spaceship command and the freighter book so now have both to level 2. Was not originally going to train for this ship so soon because of the cost and I lacked a real use for something that hauls that much.  It takes a lot of red frog trips to pay for a freighter.  But I have rigged ships that require hauling to a market hub to sell. Also my alt can not fly many of the ships morgals can. So no way to move his assets for him. An orca would be better but is much further away train time wise.
May purchase a plex to pay for one though. So excited about that. I can not quite afford the fenrir only have about 300million liquid isk between all my characters and about 300mil in data cores all spread out. So not worth cashing in yet as it takes a few hours to go collect them.
With my hauling alt finish up her training ( few more days) to round out her ability to shield tank(for transports) and some evasive maneuvering and ship skills I get to go back to my miner alt.
Miner alt is kind of lost ATM but unused SP from the SP refund let me insta train scanning skills as well as cyno skills. I had amar frigate to 5 from when I left on a trip and needed a long train. So currently in an anathema heading to our AO.  JC still in pocket for minning but solo minning did not really work.
With terrible sancha standing on my main (-9.0) my alt is neutral so makes sense to use her to pull missions instead.  May fly a salvging destroyer(ya ya nocti but i'm poor).
Incursions also caught my eye..so plan on purchasing a scimi to run in shield gangs and already have a guardian that just needs to be refit.
I can now afford to only PvE when i want. I don't NEED isk right away as i have replacement ships and a ship for each fleet type. Once my BS makes it to our location i hope to group up and will probably pvp and run around until i can join up for pve or bigger pvp.
Nice to not have to need to run missions.
that and rifters are cheap.

First Solo PvP Kill

Huzzah Rifters

Got my first real solo kill.

I sat on the gate between 9RQ and T-GZ.

Warped to 0 and waited and looked like I was afk. 0 speed, 0 mods active.

Malediction jumped in and burned towards me.

My goal was to get him within web range, with my after burner i felt i could keep him in range once he was scrammed and webbed.

Let him burn towards me and stayed still so he would shoot past and i would still look afk.  Once he was close i burned towards where he was heading and got him within web and point range..

I used the keep at range to minimize transversal since he uses rockets and i wanted full dmg on him.  My shields had taken a pounding by this point and probably felt he had it in the bag.  Problem with rifters is they can be tanked any way so you never know how close to death they are.

Activated the armor rep so it would tick by the time I took armor damage. I tore into the mael with fusion ammo..

At this time 1 daredevil jumped in as the mael started taking armor but i got lucky and the guy was on the other side of the gate.

Got the mael to 1/2 amour and another daredevil jumped in, again far side of the gate.

The mael was running away from his friends so gained extra seconds.  Overheated everything when I saw his armor go back up(active tank) at about 1/4 armor. Next few seconds saw him down... Target the pod without expecting to kill it as I aligned out to a close celestial. Quick check on daredevil distance was 25km and closing, shot the pod and warped out with the daredevil 15km away.....thank goodness no warp disruptor.

Gave a GF in local and was promptly told that "try to think. You podded him and he is not here"....Doh.

Did not loot the wreck right away but did later...the faction ammo was taken but all the mods where intact, Prices are higher so sold for about 2mil....Rifter paid for!

Even if the rifter died it was a win. After looking at daredevil dmg my rifter can last about 40seconds vs one.

Something to keep in mind if there was only one if I can avoid some dmg I may make it 60 seconds to jump out.

http://killboard.nullisecunda.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=40978

http://killboard.nullisecunda.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=40979

I did note the guy was a fail fit. Never seen a dual prop mael. Also the need for additional power really killed his tank and he did no real damage. It took him a long time to even get through my shield and I tore him apart fast. VS a better fit foe this fight would have taken much longer. I ended the fight low on cap(never turned of my repper(oops)and at above 3/4 armor. 

Was fun and wa on a high the rest of the night but only managed to find one other fight. Engaged a daredevil who later ran away...I barely did any damage to him....I'd like to think it was one the same one's from earlier but can not be sure.

DRF and super caps..wow.

Just some crazy thoughts.

Hed-gp has fallen and GE-8jv is under siege. This is huge
http://shallwenotrevenge.blogspot.com/2011/08/hed-gp-falls-ge-8jv-under-siege.html
How can people fight that many supers.

It is bad when you kill a titan
http://killboard.nullisecunda.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=36866
then not even a month later he is back laying DD's on logi ships.
http://killboard.nullisecunda.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=39233
I like the nyx tackle..

Way way to many super caps and titans....Intel states that they can replace every single super they have 2x over just based on reserves. How can you match that?

Rapier part 1 questions

I have some questions re: the rapier.

The standard fleet fit is great and uses a ton of webs and looking around the webs are the reason to use this ship. That’s great. 

But if I’m using this ship for anything else I was wondering when I might fit a target painter. It has a TP bonus and a TP can affect the entire fleets dmg. When would fitting a TP be better than a web? Assuming a gang and never solo(solo I run that’s why I have invisibility).

I want to figure out this for some situations whether it would increase the dmg of these fleet types. Assuming a small gang and looking for more than a 15% bonus to dmg
a. Drakes when shooting a frigate
b. Drakes when shooting a cruiser
C. Zealot shooting a Frigate
D. Zealot shooting a Cruiser
E. Stealth Bomber shooting a Frigate
f. Stealth bomber shooting a Cruiser
G. Stealth bomber Shooting a battle cruiser.

Bonus dmg from 1 painter, bonus dmg from 2 painters expressed as a percent of dmg done.

So that’s my question, hoe to update this with my answers. My hope is under a certain fleet type a target painter may actually help a great deal. I suspect speed is the bigger deal but we will see.  Be fun to catch a dare devil with one. 

New AO in 0.0

So Corp moved into a new area of 0.0 and I am slowly finding my way around. I was previously in 0.0 NPC space and am now in Sov space. Though I am mainly a mission runner.

My main play is limited due to real life so I often only get 1-2h and am fairly firm on those times so fleets can be hard for me.  Progressing in skill points and can fly most ships.

So I moved out to our new AO got most my ship there (one for each fleet type, a couple inties, stealths, and a drake) So I can now join in on fleets. Defense fleets are fun as they tend to be short and close to home. Participated a few days ago and racked up some kills. Felt good to finally do something to help out.

I look forward to these fleets. To further aid the alliance trained logistics 4 and can fly shield or armor logistics so am hopping to be a huge help since they are always needed. I have an armor logistics fitted so far and ready to go. These will be great for defense fleets and participating ina  couple now logi’s seem to be very in demand and the fleet often waits for them to reach a certain number.

Due to my play time joining a fleet in progress is also a must, so I have 2 intie’s as tackle is always needed…and again experience confirms this as the last defense fleet spent a lot of time chasing fleeing ships after each skirmish. Be nice to kill em. Have a nice maelidiction fit with a scram and disruptor(not a solo boat).

I also am working up recon 4…so I can fly a rapier. Same premise as the inti but bigger and maybe more helpful in 0.0 with bubbles and keeping ships in place. Will post a seperat entry on that in a bit.

So PvP wise I’m fairly happy.

PvE my mining alt is still not in the AO because…well she mines and I need more isk before bank rolling her into a hulk to passive mine for me. So she’ll empire mine for a short bit and train up to fly a stealth scout and cyno skills. Will then work on shield compensation as I lost a retriever to rats and don’t want that to happen again. So having more time to warp out may help. Not sure how well a Hulk will tank but will need to learn more.

She will also eventually set up pi in the AO.

My main moved over a few systems out of the main travel routes to rat. I moved a PvE ship and a stealth bomber there. PvE ship to rat, stealth bomber to move around if fleet called. Ratting went well and my ship is way way over tanked, but did get an officer spawn cruiser that dropped a 70mil mod…not bad.

I also spent last night making a ton of safes…this part of the game sucks.  Warp warp warp warp slow boat with mwd for undock… So have quite a few safes and tacticals laid in. will still need more but may wait until I learn where most engagements and camps happen and focus more safes there.

Over all very happy as I now have ships to quickly jump into for fleets no matter the situation. I can join fleets forming or fleets already in progress.

For PvE I have an income source so can start to buy more ships. Looking to buy a shield logistics ship and a hulk fairly soon. Other ships will mainly be replacements to what I have. If I am losing a lot of a given ship it will be replaced. Will be looking into buying reserves of commonly used ships.

The best part is all of this works with my play time, I can log in do stuff and actively help(ratting helps me and sov) and can help defense and even roams. As my isk grows(I hope) I can be more aggressive in PvP. Just so happy to have goals.

In eve you need to have something you log on and work towards.

Data Cores Complete and Review

Finally I’m done.

The bad

Doing this has taken longer than expected. This started with frustration of only ever flying cheap ships and my SP base being far greater than my isk base. I was wanting to start to fly recons, hac’s and other more expensive ships. With PvP taking up so much play time I needed an isk source to expand beyond battle cruisers or alliance ships.

Dreams of endless isk and shrugging off combat losses of personnel ships was the goal. Tracking down information on the real details of passive isk making was hard to come buy. I found out why.

It takes a large up front time investment of over 2 Months to work up 2 data core characters. Making a brand new character and grinding out data cores alone in terrible. Grinding standing of any sort is not overly fun. Getting a 5.20 standing with a corporation(or faction) with a character who can just manage to use a weapons system without shooting himself is not great. Most of the training time is science based skills that in no way aid your character to help them grind standing. It also uses 2 character slots and stops training on your main. Now my alts are no longer expendable and less useful for cyno’s down the road.

This is due in large part to how little you make. Each toon can expect to make at most about 50m a month. 2 toons 100m. This 200mil (I worked four characters up. 2 for each account)  That’s not a great deal and I’ll still be needing other sources of isk.

It also takes isk for the skills.

I have yet to sell a datacore but every now and again it will be a pain. I am toying with the idea of working up my mains for an additional 50m using tags to get the faction standing since I already have a head start towards that due to running 4’s( see “The Isk Treadmill  http://morgals.blogspot.com/2011/03/isk-treadmill.html) this will be a very rarely collected fund but may eventually pay for something big(collect after a year or so to help buy a carrier)
Edit: it takes a few hours to go and collect the cores, i have sold a batch now but will wait much longer before doing so again. I then run into huge isk being moved and need a way to move it all.

The good 

Is I am done on my main for griding(my alt still need work but less worried about that as grinding is good to due during a pos bash or other task.

I also was much faster on the second toon, less wasted training, more focused missions, learning what missions to decline as well as a really lucky batch of storylines(had 5 in a row that gave 8% standing that finished of the toon.)

These toons may now require a clone and may or may not be used as cyno alt’s but not the expendable type. If someone needs a cyno one jump into low sec at a station these guys can handle it. They won’t be 30 jumps into null sec acting as a scout/cyno though.

Also in forming my own little corp and grinding the standings I now have a corp with standings and may even look at progressing along further in manufacturing or a POS…not right now but the option is there.

Overall I’m glad I have the data core alts but would not suggest it to other players. I won’t post details on how to do it. There is a limited market for data cores and 100 people starting them would deflate the market and both they and I would not make what we expected. Unfortunately datacores are not free isk. Even once created they are a pain.