Tag Archives: SKINR

SKINR and the Lime Green Harpy

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I am a simple capsuleer and, as such, a lot of what went into the Equinox expansion that dropped last week is a bit over my head… either not described in simple enough terms for me to fully grasp or so outside of what I do regularly that I lack the context to understand or care.  I’ll let people on r/eve argue about most of it until we start seeing some results.

Equinox is here – Seize the SKINS

But the SKINR, the ability to make your own ship SKINS, a key feature in Equinox… well, that seems overly complicated as well.  I mean, anything that has 11 freaking skills to train around it is probably over my head, though I suspect you don’t need all 11 trained to level V to do something.

I don’t even know what these do yet

I base that on the fact that I have successfully created a SKIN, though that outcome was not obvious from the start.

I mean, the UI for creating SKINs is pretty straightforward and, as a capsuleer of simple taste, I wanted to start with a very basic outcome: A lime green Harpy.  Getting that was a piece of cake.  You get a lime green color by default and if you just apply it wherever possible, you get that outcome.

Just put green all over it and we’re good

The problem cropped up when I got to the price of production.  In order to make one simple SKIN I was given this price.

The SKINR Toll

There is, of course, the PLEX price.  That would make this simple SKIN cost about 250 million ISK to produce, given the approximate value of a single PLEX being 5 million ISK currently.  For a hull I use a lot, I could swing that I guess.

But I also needed 2,000 Kerr Sequencers, and when I went to the market on day one to find some, I was greeted with an even bigger possible bill for this SKIN.

Day one pricing

Leaving aside that there were not even 2,000 on the market, at a going rate of 5 million ISK per, that would give me a 10 billion ISK bill for this SKIN.

That about made me toss the whole project and move on then and there.  But then came the login campaign for the expansion and on the list was a stack of these sequencers.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

Meanwhile, the market started to fill up and now they’re around 1,500 ISK each, so that adds 3 million ISK to the price.  That I can deal with.

And now I had the supplies I needed… and had some PLEX on hand so I didn’t need to buy any… so I built up my Harpy again… I hadn’t bothered to save the design, given it barely rises to the level of design… and clicked the “Start Sequencing” button and began to wait.

I had to wait because there is a whole “cooking time” element to this which I am sure some of those skills will alleviate.  I could look into that if I cared enough.

After some time passed… I think it was two days… the SKIN was done and I was able to collect it.

A new SKIN is born

The new SKIN doesn’t automatically appear in the personalization window of the ship fitting UI.  That would be too easy.  Now there is a button in there to open up the Paragon SKINR tool so you can go find your SKIN and apply it.  First I had to find a ship, which led me to open the hangar window where I found out we got a new card view for the hangar, which confused me for a moment.

Card view, and some of my ship names…

I grabbed a Harpy, which were at the top because I guess we sort by ship class, and Assault Frigates come first on the list, and applied the SKIN, then undocked.

New SKIN out in space

So, op success I guess.  I created a SKIN.

As noted, the UI for doing so was pretty straightforward and I can even see some of the elements they were showing us back at EVE Vegas 2016.  This has been a while coming.

Apocalypse battleship with some pattern and color variations… could be a proto-SKINR model…

So creating SKINs, kind of simple.  The problem looks like it is going to be the business model.  I think I mentioned before that this looked like it would be a sticking point even as they announced the plan for SKINR.

On the one hand, cool new tool.  On the other, SKINs are literally one of the few somewhat popular and non-game impacting items in the in-game cash shop.  CCP would be pretty foolish to just hand us something this nice that totally undercut their business model while not having any plan about how to make that up.

So they will make it up by charging PLEX for stuff.  So there is a PLEX charge per SKIN, a PLEX charge for new colors, a PLEX charge for new patterns, and, while it isn’t available yet, there will no doubt be a PLEX charge or other tax for the Paragon store where you will be able to sell the SKINs you create to other players.

Can I sell you some colors?

And I get it.  CCP is cutting off a revenue stream so they need to make it up.  But the pricing… well, I love the DayGlo orange of the Sunrise Matte above, but for 15 PLEX you can only use it three times.  That doesn’t feel like enough uses to make it worthwhile.

Then again, I am just looking to fiddle with some SKIN options on my own.  Maybe if you’re going to commit hard to producing high quality SKINs for sale when the marketplace arrives on the 20th  that you’ll just price that PLEX into the business model.  We shall see.

Still, it feels like the eternal war that is price elasticity.  Would CCP end up selling more overall if that 15 PLEX got you 15 uses rather than 3?

Meanwhile, I am looking into what other hulls I should paint green.

Lime Mammoth anybody?

We’ll see what else I decide on.  The bigger the hull, the more expensive it is to paint.  But I do have my Harpy.

Lime Harpy warping off for adventure

We’ll see if it stands out in a fleet op.  I am likely to have the only green Harpy, if anybody cares to look.

And, for those keep track at home, I did say in the past that player made SKINs were an honorable mention bad idea, so I do feel somewhat rebuked, even if I meant the more traditional “sold through the New Eden Store” path for that post.

Still, New Eden never disappoints so there is a flesh toned Thorax SKIN that looks like a penis coming to a Paragon Store near you.  Look for it as a fleet comp soon.  The TTP metric is always measured in minutes.

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The Equinox Expansion Arrives for EVE Online

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The day has arrived and the Equinox expansion has landed in/on New Eden.  We got some release notes late last week as a warm up for the day, but how it will all play out in the galaxy of unintended consequences remains to be seen.  So today I’m just going to skim over what is arriving with this hefty expansion.  There are a lot of things going on.

Equinox is here – Seize Something

But first up, some stuff from the in-game store.  The now common 7 Days of Omega for free offer is up, now with a bonus 10 EverMarks, so we will likely see a boost in players in the game for at least a week.

Seven Days of Free Omega Time… also, nice flag of Ukraine in this image!

That will be available until June 20th.

In addition, since there are new skills to be trained, there are some cheap cerebral accelerators in the store as well.

Think fast! Train fast!

And there are Twitch Drops events running that can earn you some special additions to the SKINR update I mention below.

There is also a launch trailer to see.

Also, login rewards seem to have gone away.

Finally, there are a ton of links at the end of the post that go into more detail about a lot of this.  I am just, as noted, skimming the whole thing today.

  • The Skyhook and New Null Sec Resources

There are three new resources that will be used to supply/maintain null sec sovereignty.  They are Power, Workforce, and Reagents, and they have different limitations.

Equinox Null sec Resources

  • Power – Power is provided by the sun, with larger blue suns giving the most power, and small white suns giving the least power, it is also provided by gas, storm and plasma planets. Power cannot be moved and is local to the solar system.

  • Workforce – Workforce is provided by the working population available on suitable planets, which are barren, oceanic and temperate planets. Workforce can be imported and exported via the Sov Hub through different solar systems that the same alliance controls, as long as the systems are directly connected together.

  • Reagents – Reagents come from ice and lava planets and have to be manually collected and moved.

On the reagents front, those will be collected by the Skyhook, which will also replace the customs office for PI if anchored at an appropriate planet.  (PI will not be affected by Equinox from what I have read.)

The Skyhook in Equinox

  • The Sovereignty Hub

The Infrastructure Hub and Territorial Claim Units, left over from the Dominion sovereignty updates a decade and a half back, will be replaced by the Sovereignty Hub.

The Sovereignty Hub

All iHubs will be transitioned to Sov Hubs and moved to a standard location in each system where sovereignty is currently held.  The location will be 2 million Km from the star in each system.  This will undo some of the grandfathered iHub positions, such as the one in 1DQ1-A, which is on grid with a Fortizar, which greatly assisted in its defense during 2020’s World War Bee.

The Sov Hub upgrades will not be available until the iHub transitions are complete, which is expected to be by June 20th.

Sov Hub Upgrades Plan

The Dev Blog about the transition plan is linked at the end of this post.

  • Metenox Moon Drill

As mentioned before, passive moon mining will be a thing again with the new Metenox Moon Drill.

Passive Moon Mining Lives Again

While the expansion is going live today, it is not expected that the new moon drill will be available until later this week.

  • New Upwell Haulers and Freighters

As previously mentioned, we’re getting a range of new industrials from Upwell, all of which have launcher capabilities in their high slots, which should make for some fun.

Upwell, where X marks the spot?

There was a dev blog about this previously, linked at the end of the post, but further details about the ships are in the Equinox notes.

  • Making Carriers Great Again

The lowly carrier has been somewhat neglected over the last few years so CCP has come around to add some utility to them with Equinox

Carriers will now have the capability of using a Conduit jump to take 5-30 players in the jump tunnel with them. The Number of players which are passengers for the jump is increased by a new skill, Capital Jump Portal Generation, which increases the limit by 5 per level. This is built into Carriers and does not require a module to be fitted.

Capital Micro Jump Drives and Capital Micro Jump Field Generators

  • Carriers will gain the ability to fit new capital sized versions of the Micro Jump Drive and the Micro Jump Drive Field Generator, both of these modules will require a new skill, Capital Micro Jump Drive Operation.

  • The Capital Micro Jump Drive jumps a Carrier 250km in whatever direction it is facing.

  • The Capital Micro Jump Field Generator will jump a Carrier, 50 extra sub-capitals, and up to 4 capitals around it (Capitals are counted separately to sub-capitals) 250km in whatever direction it is facing.

There are also a range of new fighter available.  Carriers will now have new and interesting… and likely unexpected… roles to fill after having been somewhat left on the bench for a couple of years.

  • Make Targeted Doomsdays Great Again

In order to keep up with past capital changes, the base damage for targeted doomsdays are being doubled, which means that a max skilled Titan Doomsday goes from 1.5m to 3m damage per shot.

  • Victorious Luxury Yacht Mass Reduction

J-space’s favorite hole rolling ride has apparently been abused long enough.  It’s mass is being reduced from 10,000,000 to 1,000,000 with an accompanying change in agility to keep its align time the same. Wormholers will get over this one quickly enough.  There are other options.

  • Auto-Targeting Missiles

Since the Avalanche will be bringing these to bear, the various faction versions are being renamed and will now fall solely under the domain of Mordu’s Legion and their LP store.

  • Factional Warfare and Insurgency Balance

I’m not even going to pretend I understand what this really means.  Some people are mad about it, so it must mean something.  There is a link at the end to some information about this.

  • SKINR Ship Personalization

Painting your own ship will now be a thing, and because this is EVE Online, it will all be much more complicated than you probably feel it should be.  The fact that there are going to be 11 skills introduced to the game to go along with the feature should tell you I am not kidding on that front.

I don’t even know what these do yet

A very CCP thing to do, introduce a new thing and then throw a bunch of skills between you and doing anything with it… though I suspect the price in PLEX will be the main hurdle for many.

I do not pretend to understand it all, but you’ll be able to do it in space.  Anyway, I’ll have a more solid opinion once I have seen it.  Until then, a good section of the expansion notes are devoted to it.

  • Corporation Project Updates

CCP is introducing four new goals for corp projects that can theoretically handle the following:

    • Create Automated Ship Replacement programs:
      Corporations can now automate SRPs using the Ship Loss contribution method in their projects, streamlining a previously manual process that often had to be handled outside of the game.

    • Incentivize Loyalty Point activities:
      Corporations can incentivize activities that earn LP, particularly valuable for Factional Warfare (FW) corporations and their pilots.

    • LP Buyback Programs:
      Corporations can set up LP buyback programs with ISK payouts by creating Earn LP projects and setting the LP tax to 100%.

  • Incentive Salvaging:
    Corporations can now incentivize salvaging activities, offering a valuable income source for new players and promoting cooperation.

We’ll see how those play out.

  • C5 & C6 Cosmic Anomalies and Signatures

The one that has the wormhole people upset is the change to

  • A capital ship must be present in sites prior to the appearance of the Decloaked Transmission Relay to trigger the Arithmos Tyrannos spawn in C5/6 Cosmic Anomalies.

  • Any escalation waves, including the Arithmos Tyrannos, will despawn if capital ships leave the site, or strays further than 100KM of a site’s warp-in point.

  • Lancer Dreadnoughts will now trigger escalation waves in Cosmic Anomalies and Cosmic Signatures.

The grumbling is that Lazer Hawks drove this because they own the prime C5/C6 holes and this will keep outsiders from farming their goodies.

  • Other items on the list for updates today

At the end of the notes you will find changes applying to the following:

  • Graphics Updates
  • Ship interaction updates
  • Homefront operational changes
  • Paragon Missions
  • Incursions
  • Observatory Flashpoints in Pochven
  • Triglavian Minor Victory Systems
  • Concord Rogue Analysis Beacon
  • LP Stores

That last one is a big one because they are removing the ability to buy ship hulls from the LP stores.  You will only be able to buy blueprint copies.  So people with those BPCs rattling around in their hangars might have a shot at selling them on contract some day… or making some money manufacturing.

I asked Google’s AI Gemini to write me a Haiku about the expansion and what I found is that, among its other failings, Gemini doesn’t know how many syllables there are in many words.  So I had to fix it.

Nullsec blooms anew,
Planetary riches abound
Conflict paints the sky

Will conflict paint the sky?  Will there be war in null sec, or will there just be more timers to be set and more ops to form for where the other side does not show?  We will know soon enough I suppose.

I will be starting off in my training pod working on some new skills.

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Friday Bullet Points from the EVE Online Extended Universe

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We are almost done with the month long celebration of capsuleer day in EVE Online, the annual marking of the launch of the game, this time marking the 21st anniversary.

It is that time again

If you have been keeping up with the daily logins you have already collected the big skill point payout… and if you haven’t been keeping up… well, what’s wrong?  I’ve been out of town for more than a week this month and I managed to keep up. (Granted, that required carrying my personal laptop along with my work laptop on business trips and depending on the vagaries of the type of motel Wi-Fi you run into when in the more rural areas of California, but the joy of traveling by car is that you can just thrown stuff in the trunk and go.)

Anyway, CCP has been up to quite a bit this month and I haven’t been covering it… see mention of travel above… so I figured it could all be fodder for a big bullet points post.  Off we go then!

  • Equinox – Upwell Ships

CCP put out a dev blog about the new Upwell industrial ships which, among other things, have launcher hard points in the high slots.

Upwell, where X marks the spot?

Battle Badgers stand aside, there are new combat industrials in town.  I am not sure we’re going to see the new Avalanche freighter, which can fit six launchers, as anything but a comedy doctrine, but if it can fit a weapon New Eden capsuleers will try to get on a kill mail with it.  There are posts up about this all over, including one at TNG.

  • Equinox – Ship Decorating, not the Usual SKINR Box

The long ago promised ability to colorize your ships (there was a demo at EVE Vegas in 2016) will be coming with the Equinox expansion next month, and CCP has a dev blog out to prepare us for its arrival.

SKINR box is very colorful

This will take the SKINR capabilities that are currently used to add color to Upwell structures… for enough ISK you can set the colors on the Imperium staging Keepstar in 1DQ1-A… and will apparently be usable in space even.  Which isn’t to say a bunch of people won’t just sit docked up and playing with it, but I guess if the mood strikes you for a new color scheme, you won’t have to get back to a station.

I just wonder what this will do to the SKIN market.  Of all the cash shop items, SKINs probably have the lowest impact, so I suspect that the SKINR will require some monetization… and  I suppose I would know the answer to that if I had watched the dev stream on Twitch or one of the videos about it on YouTube… but I haven’t.  Once again, over at TNG this is explored more fully, so go there if you want to know more.  [Oh, and now The Greybill has a post up about it.]

  • EVE Vanguard – Another Alpha Test this Weekend

CCP carries on trying to make DUST 514 Part 2- Shooter Boogaloo a thing, and so the ongoing alpha testing of EVE Vanguard is up again this weekend.  In fact, it started yesterday… but you can hardly miss it if you play EVE Online, as they have grafted this game onto the launcher in the hope that it would get the attention of senpai or some such.

EVE Vanguard – Alpha

Anyway, if you achieve certain goals in Vanguard you will earn some SKINs in EVE Online.  I played in the first round of testing and found the whole thing so uninspired that I haven’t bothered to go back.  Granted, I also am not a fan of shooters, but I’ll go play Hearthstone for a mount in WoW, and I find that dull.

  • Project Awakening – Calling all Grifters Hackathon!

Leaving aside all of the extremely problematic aspects of blockchain as a technology… it has literally no value add and anything it does can be done better, faster, and cheaper with existing tech… when it comes to injecting it into video games, usually under the farcical “play to earn” banner, it attracts people who see it as an earning opportunity rather than entertainment and the whole things becomes a grindy job rather than a fun pastime.

Just wake up already

Which I guess means, from the right point of view, at least Project Awakening, CCP’s blockchain survival game, has a chance to make the notoriously grindy and spreadsheet-centric  EVE Online seem fun by comparison!

Anyway, I have covered Project Awakening previously, but this weekend they are having a play test and hackathon event for third party developers, and as I noted in a comment over at Massively OP (which got eaten by the spam bot briefly because I no doubt spewed too many crypto terms) I am primarily interested to see what sort of grifters and charlatans this game attracts.  Remember, never go up against a scammer when money is on the line.

If you want to join in, you can go to the Project Awakening site to sign up.  Me?  I don’t even want any of that on my machine.

  • EVE: The War for New Eden Board Game

There was a Kickstarter a while back, but Rixx Javix put up a reminder that you can still go over to the GoFundMe site for the project and give them money in return for being on the list to get a copy of the game.

The final totals for the campaign

Anyway, while I was throwing out bullet points I though I could echo that note here as well.

  • Pearl Abyss Q1 2024 Earnings

Finally, to wrap this up, we have the Pearl Abyss earnings call and financials earlier this month.  I do not generally delve into that, but over at TNG you can find a review of what Pearl Abyss announced as well as a deeper dive into the consolidated financial statement related to Iceland.

So happy together?

There is also a post about it over at Massively OP along with links out to the historical record of such quarterly statements.

In general, the EVE Online IP was up a bit year over year, and remained flat.  It is still a decent chunk of the overall company’s revenue, enough that they would miss it if Hilmar screwed things up… more than usual.