Skins!
The new ship skins system is here! Finally we can all enjoy the great (and not so great) skins that CCP has to offer without paying for separate ships every time. When I heard about this, which was the day it came out, because I pay far too little attention to these things, I was elated to find I could buy my beloved woop woop comet permanently, no more feeling bad whenever I spent 20m extra on a ship for no good reason! The skin was only 30m, which compared to pretty much every other skin, which were in the hundreds of millions, was a pretty good deal. From now on, all comets shall be woop woop comets. Never again shall I have to wonder why the fuck a spaceship has jungle cameo, in space.
Only a matter of hours after releasing the new patch did we get a shuttle try to haul several billions worth of skins through high sec:
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Don't tell me you didn't see this coming
Skins bug:
If you had been living under a rock for the last couple days, you may have missed probably the best bug of all time. Through some cleaver manipulation (spamming) of the fitting panel, you could apply any skin to any ship in the game. It was glorious.
As soon as people realized, we started seeing supers of all kind in different skins, almost all of which looked fucking sexy.
The Blood Raider Nyx
I even started having some fun of my own. As you an guess, I rushed to make everything I could in my hanger Police Pursuit. It worked out pretty well:
It even had red and blue flashing lights
Overall this was an awesome bug, everyone had a good time. Although, the fun police soon put a stop to that because lore, I think.
Everyone go tell CCP how much you want the bug back, maybe they will change their minds. Until then, only the comet will be privileged enough to use the police pursuit skin.
How to make a successful corporation.
Introduction:
I have decided to make a detailed step by step guide of how to make your own corporation from scratch. This is because I wanted to make a guide for FC'ing, but I felt like doing this first would set me up better for doing FC'ing next week, as if you are trying to FC from no experience you are going to want to be in a noob friendly place, and unless you join a dedicated noobie alliance, that place is probably going to be a small PvP corp.
I personally have had a lot of experience with being a CEO, I made my own corp called Icendus Corux which is currently hibernating but in its prime was pushing 60 members in a Placid based PvP alliance called Quam'Nocent, of which Icendus Corux was the biggest (and coolest) member. Now, like most alliances, drama struck and Quam'Nocent hasn't been active since, though it is still alive, waiting for a glorious return one day. It actually did last a while though, over six months of PvP activity, which imo is quite impressive for an alliance run by complete scrubs (mainly me).
I have been told running a corp is one of the few things in eve I'm actually alright at, so hopefully I will be able to give some useful information, but honestly I don't know how this will turn out, so forgive me if any super 1337 CEOs out there recoil in horror at this post.
So before I dive into the details of starting your corp, I want to clear some things up:
Running a corp is hard.
If you're going to make a half decent corporation, it is going to require commitment, consistency, work and above all time. At first, you're going to be lonely, shit and no one will be interested in you. Then you're going to recruit some members who will also be shit, not log on much and leave without warning, even if you think they were your favorite. When things finally get going, you're going to be the go to guy for everything. You're going to log on and start dealing with three separate convos, reply to mails, make mails and send out roams. One of the golden rules for being a CEO at first is, nothing happens until you log on and do stuff. Seriously, you can have your whole member base on and no one is going to do fuck all until you spoon feed them content. That is your job as a CEO, to provide people content, not to feel like you have a big penis.You don't need experience to be a CEO.
this may seem like a contradiction to my above paragraph, but it makes sense.When I started my corp, I was a couple months into the game, had around 10m sp, not all in combat, and had only been in one other low sec PvP corp. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Yet, I managed to make something out of nothing, even though I was so new. My point here is, do not worry if you feel like you haven't played enough or you haven't been in enough corps, follow your dreams basically.You cant do it all.
You cannot start a corp and then claim you're a missioning/mining/PvP/wh/low sec corp. You must focus on one aspect of the game, or you will fall apart quickly, as anyone who joins your corp for one of these aspects wont be satisfied because you are trying to give them four other aspects at the same time, making the one they're interested in underwhelming. I know you may want to appeal to as many people as possible, but trust me, stick to one thing, if you go into another thing over time its because you will naturally progress there, don't force it.You will probably have to handhold.
If you're starting a new corp, with you as the only member, the only people you are going to be to get to join you will be new players fresh into the game. They will have no idea wtf is going on. You will have to take them all individually through each and every aspect of the game. This can be very tedious, but it will mean more loyal players and a more tightly knit member base if they decide to stay with you. When you start getting more members, you can raise your standards. Until then, its 0.2m sp pilots all the way. Unless you can offer some really good content from the very start, that is.You don't have to be in an alliance, but it helps.
By no means at all are you required to join an alliance to make your corp good.You can easily get by as a corp on your own, making your own content and keeping your own members. Do not feel like you need to join an alliance if you would prefer to stay as a lone corp.That being said, joining an alliance that does the same things as your corp will provide a lot of benefits. It means your members have content and other people to play with when you're not around and it means you are more likely to bring in new members. However, it does mean you're no longer your own boss and you have people to answer to. Overall, anything you can do in an alliance you can do out of it. It may take more work but it will also be more rewarding.
Fresh corp just made:
Once you have decided on your name, logo and ticker, you can start your corp. I am going to go through some things that you should do before you even think about getting anyone in the corp.Firstly, you need to sort out your shares. Shares is a silly mechanic that never gets used but has the potential to hijack your corp. Go into your corporation wallet, the shares tab, right click the 1000 shares there and give them all to yourself. Simple.
An example of what you should see, but yours will have shares to take
Next you are going to want to set up the corp bulletins and motd. Include important information like the ts ip and home system but then add whatever else you feel nessecary such as the corp rules, a little bit of information about what you want the corp to be, an inspirational message, whatever, just have something there. Make it colourful as well.
You are also going to want to set up roles and corp hangers. Go to wherever it is you have decided you want to live and rent out an office at that station. You will need to transfer some isk into your corp wallet to pay for this office, it shouldn't be too expensive, probably under 1m a month, however I do know that some can be as stupid as 60m/month. If that's the case, I suggest finding another station, unless you have isk to spare.
Once you have an office, you will have corp hangers at that station that your members can use. You're going to want to set up roles in order to stop people stealing from them if you decide to put anything valuable there. To do this, open to corp tab, members tab, role management tab. From there go through each role there and learn what they are. Depending on what type of corp you are, some may be more useful than others. Once you know what you want your line members to have, make sure you apply those roles to every new member that joins.
Lastly, you need a public channel for your corp. This is so you can talk to recruits easily, the motd can give info on your corp and you can have corp friends chill out in there and talk to possible recruits and members. I would recommend putting a link to your public channel in your corp description. To do so, give this a quick read.
One thing to look out for in your public channel is poachers. It happens a lot to new corps. CEO's and recruiters from other corps will sit in your channel, not say anything, and then convo anyone you talk to when they see you have a recruit. Dealing with this is not hard. If someone does not respond to you in your channel, that's normally a red flag. If this person is a CEO, has a recruiter tag, or has just been in their corp for many months, that's pretty much confirmed that they are there to steal recruits.
Where to live:
If I'm honest this isnt my strong point, as when I made my first corp I decided I was going to live in solitude (that's a really stupid idea) so I will keep this part short and stick to what I know. If you're a low sec PvP corp, be in FW. Period. FW is great for T1 frig small gangs and you will be doing a lot of those.Recruitment:
Once you have a place to call home and all the corp settings in place, you're ready to start getting members! Setting up a corp add in the recruitment tab will be the first thing to do. Again this will require some isk from the corp wallet, a couple mill at most to keep it up for a decent amount of time. Just fill it all in as you see fit, all the settings are there for you to put in.
Next you're going to want a cool eye catching message for the recruitment channel. The recruitment channel will be your main source of new members, so this is important. What I recommend here is designing the whole thing in a notepage and then copy pasting it into the channel. This makes it a lot easier to do. Start off the message with a link to your add, followed by bullet points about your corp. So for example:
"new corp for 1337 PvP is recruiting"
-Low Sec PvP
-New Player Friendly
-FW Space
-The CEO is a girl (this one gets members, don't ask how I know)
<link to public channel here>
Once you're happy with the message, start posting it in recruitment. Dont spam it. This will turn people away from your corp. I normally wait until my add cant be seen anymore and then a bit. Just always be recruiting, tab into the channel, CTRL+Up Arrow Key, enter and go back to what you were doing.
Once you get people joining your public channel, give them a wave, make chit chat, be friendly. Start asking them if they're interested and make sure to move them through the process as if you let them do their own thing, they will just forget and go somewhere else, so keep the convo alive. Also, be honest. Don't say all your members are amazing PvPers when they are all two days old.
Always always always get people to include their full API key when they apply. Always go through it. Check their mail, contacts, wallet transactions (for example, if they claim to be new the game, but for some reason have a couple bill donation to them from someone in PL) and combat logs for awoxers and spais.
You may think "meh whats the point" and honestly I did too at one point. I recruited someone, didnt check their API cus im a lazy cunt and then it just so happens that member was a spy for our rival alliance. They told those guys when we were moving a freighter with 4b worth of ships for a fleet op that night (that's a whole other story, will tell it some time) and then just as that freighter jumped, conveniently an Arazu from that alliance decloaked. A couple mins later, we had just lost 4b because of my lazyness. As we sat in station crying and reading the shit talk in local, someone mentioned how our whole fleet had just be welped before the op had even started.
Once things get going:
Now that you have some members to boss around, you are going to want to make sure you have content. Whenever you're on and have some spare time, start a frig roam. Even if its with one other guy, go out and have some fun, loose your ship and go home. Keep doing this over and over. Eventually, your members are gonna get to know each other as they die together and friendships will actually form. This is the bedrock of any corp. As you go around, get to know the people who live around there. Get to know that one guy who is always ratting, the guy who is always blapping FW farmers, the alliance that keeps dropping on you. Be friendly, dont be the first to start shit talking, dont get known as that dickish PvP corp no one likes or the one that always brings BC's to fight frigates because trust me, that will not work out in the future.Get to know your members:
As the subtitle suggest, you are going to want to get to know your members. Talk to them in corp about your day and theirs. How old are they, what do they do for a job, what do they study, what do they like ect. This again will bring your corp closer together and simply make you better.As well as finding out stuff about your members irl, the same should go for eve. What ships can they fly, do they have alts, how do they make isk. Who can probe down mission runners in your local pipe, who wants to help out with tasks in the corp, who has a secret super pilot they never told anyone about. That seriously happened in my corp btw. The guy is inactive now, but the Nyx is still sitting in a dead pos somewhere, in my old corp.
Lastly, keep things smooth:
Once all the ground work is out the way and it actually looks like your corp is growing steadily, the most important thing is not to sit back and let it do its own thing. You have to keep being as involved as you were when it was just you and another guy. Keep scheduled roams to give your members content they know will happen, keep doing random roams/hunting missioners whenever people are online and always always keep recruiting or you will stagnate. Like I said above, whenever you're doing something, just send messages in recruitment now and then. If you feel like recruitment is getting a bit much or you're getting bored of it, which happens, get your members to help out. Having a dedicated recruiter in your main TZ and your off TZ (eg EU and US) is a great idea as it means you're always recruiting even when you're not online and waking up to brand new members in the morning is always satisfying.So that concludes my guide on how to make a successful corp, I hope this helps someone out there who wants to give it a try. Even if you don't follow any of this, just remember one thing, activity is key, the rest will follow.
Next week I will be doing another guide on how to start FCing for small gang roams. This will hopefully be good for someone who just made a new PvP corp using this guide. See? I think these things through.
Snuffed Out is moving to Rakapas
As for whats going on in Black Rise atm, Snuff is moving there. I think this could be interesting. They wont be moving far, but it will mean Nennamaila and close by systems will get a bump in activity, while the Russians will get free rein over Sujarento and that area. We will see how it plays out, overall though I cant see too much of a difference in fleet or solo PvP happening. Santo may be just that bit close for some of us though.
Whats going on with me
So this week I haven't actually been up to much. I am actually really bad at going to snuff fleets and I feel my corp hates me for it but oh well, exams are coming soon so they cant say shit. I cant wait to start FCing again, but honestly I do feel a bit intimidated to try with snuff, as I don't know where to begin, who to talk to and how to schedule roams ect. It was a lot simpler in OE. Either way, I am going to want to actually attend some roams as a line member first.
I did go to one Harby roam. It was quite nice as we had gone a whole 30 mins without a fight and the FC was saying sorry.Normally I would find 30 mins without a fight normal, so I must admit its refreshing to be in an official super 1337 PvP alliance.
Fit of the week:
In light of the new skin system and how all comets are going to look fucking sexy from now on, I figured I would give you all a comet fit to mess with this week, so you now have an excuse to loose loads of solo PvP comets.
So as you can see this fit is a bit different from most standard comets. Its normal in the sense that its scram web AB and has rails, but the twist here is that it has replaced the damage control with a 200mm plate. This means that your armour tank will not be beat by any ship of the same class, as you have buffer, resists and rep power. The rails means that you can hit as far out as you like, with Antimatter for scram kite, Thorium for killing kite and 20'ers, Javelin for things getting under your guns or getting under bigger hull's guns and Spike for anything really, really far out.
The fact you have no damage control means when you go into hull, you're dead, but the 200mm buffer means that it is hard to get you there, and there isnt that much bleed through.
This is an extremely tight fit. AWU V is required if you're not using implants.
The main weakness to this fit is that the buffer tank makes it very slow, which can be bad for rails. To help this, I would recommend getting a powergrid implant and replacing the trimarks with repping rigs.
Other than speed though, this fit has it all. Speed, dps and range. Try it out in FW space for some gf's.
Fight of the week:
For this week's fight I have a nice little Myrm vs SFI and Nomen fight that I want to analyze. Nothing died and I had to end up MJD'ing out, as I was getting kited from 20km away, so my drones couldn't hit, and they were breaking my tank.
So as you can see I didnt do amazingly there. There are a couple things that I think this means I should change about the fit though. For example, right now it is long point, in order to hold down ewar and logi ships, however thinking it through a myrm that only has medium/small neuts anyway and probably wont be taking fleets that big would be better off with a scram. If I did have a scram, I probably would of been able to grab one of those ships and then dig into them with my dps, giving me a nice km.
Another thing is drones. I was terrible with drones in that fight. Having all gallente heavies and meds dosnt help in the first place, but I stuck with ogres for far to long. I should of seen from the start that they were going to kite me and ogres had no chance of hitting them. Hammerheads would of at least got some shots off, but I'm not sure if they would of killed them. In the future, I am thinking either praetors or Bezerkers for the speed, and Valkyries for again the speed. Dps isn't as much of an issue as I have a DDA.
At the very least my fit allowed me to get out of the fight easily due to the MJD. If something with a scram had shown up, neuts would of solved that problem, and if it was in neut range, I could of dps'ed it, so its not as much the survivability I am thinking about, but rather the dps application.
What do you guys think I could of done differently in that fight? Or was I doomed to be kited for all eternity without any km's either way?
Br of the week:
Vestion Stenier-Tian > hy wanto
Vestion Stenier-Tian > got any br's for me this week
hy wanto destroyer > no
hy wanto destroyer > yes
hy wanto destroyer > no
Vestion Stenier-Tian > so
Vestion Stenier-Tian > you're telling me nothing interesting this week happened?
hy wanto destroyer > yes
As you can see, I tried, but I guess there really were no fights this week. Granted I can try and find one myself but if I'm being honest I have had loads of revision to do this week (exams in two weeks..) and I dont really have to the time to write out a fleshed out bit on a br anyway. Next time I will make this part of the blog the first thing I do, to make sure it dosnt happen again, sorry to everyone </3
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