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Friday, September 1, 2017

Moving Days

Weeks like the last one is one of the reasons I like the time-based skill advancement system in EVE Online. Instead of worrying about making my characters better, I could concentrate on the important task of moving my assets around New Eden.

Unlike most games that have a magical bank that allow a player to store their assets in one location and access them from anywhere in the game world, EVE requires players to move their assets around. Since I want to play in several different locations depending on how I feel that night, I have to move my assets to those places. Did I mention I have a lot of assets?

In EVE, we have several different options to help us move our belongings around. While I don't have the larger ships like freighters and jump freighters, I do own an Orca and a Mastodon. The Orca is an industrial command ship with a 400,000 m3 ship maintenance bay, a 40,000 m3 fleet hangar, a 150,000 m3 ore hold, and a cargohold that can hold a base amount of 30,000 m3. The ship maintenance bay is a huge time-saver as the Orca can transport assembled ships. Without the Orca, I'd either have to repackage my ships (and thus destroy some expensive rigs) or fly them one-by-one between locations.

The major problem with the Orca is that the ship is so damn slow. I probably should update the fit, but the 2.3 AU/sec warp speed I currently have along with a 28 second align time makes for some really slow traveling. But once I had moved all of my ships from my old corp headquarters to my new one, I switched to my Mastodon. The Mastodon is the Minmatar Deep Space Transport. The description of deep space transports is amusing, especially after flying an Orca:
"Deep space transports are designed with the depths of lawless space in mind. Possessing defensive capabilities far in excess of standard industrial ships, they provide great protection for whatever cargo is being transported in their massive holds. They are, however, some of the slowest ships to be found floating through space."
Flying blockade runners a lot really helps with flying the Mastodon. I need to tweak the fitting, but with my Transport Ships skill trained to 5 and current set of implants, the ship has a 62,500 m3 fleet hanger, a base 4,500 m3 cargohold, a warp speed of 4.55 AU/second and an align time of 10.5 seconds. Those stats belie the claim of one of the slowest ships in space. Oh, and did I mention deep space transports have a built in bonus of +2 to warp core strength? If I change up my fit slightly to add a warp core stabilizer, the ship becomes much harder to tackle in low sec.

For extra storage capacity, I use 15 giant secure containers in the fleet hangar. Space in EVE is funny. The giant secure container takes up 3000 m3 of space in my ship, but can hold 3900 m3 of cargo. The 15 containers in my ship add 13,500 m3 of capacity to the ship. The number isn't magical, although I do have enough space left in the fleet hangar to carry around a packaged cruiser and frigate.

Players of other games may wonder why I am listing the volumes the ship can hold. Unlike games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2, EVE does not use bank and inventory slots. In ships and containers, the amount a ship can carry is determined by the size of the container/cargohold. Stations work a little differently. In a station hanger, players can have up to 1000 stacks of items. Not 1000 stacks total on an account, but in each station. Players can also increase the capacity by using containers, which are limited by volume, but only count as one item against the hanger item limit.

Can you see why players need specialized ships to haul goods around? Imagine bouncing around the game for years and then deciding a consolidation and relocation of assets is required, which is where I am at in the game right now. I could engage in a service like Red Frog that specializes in moving items around. Or I can just move the items around myself. Given the way I like to change my mind, I'll probably continue to just move the items around myself. Besides, EVE is a really pretty game, so I don't mind looking at the scenery.

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