Eve Apps

iOS: Neocom
I have been using this app for the past several months on my iPad. What a huge resource for any player. With full functioning API it doubles as an evemon on your iPad or iPhone. With quick access to your players skill que, the Eve Central market laid out like the in game market and in-game mail access just to name a few. It is very handy for checking up on your industrial timers without having to boot up your PC. Once more I promise you will waste even more time at working reading Eve News24 and TMC with the quick news fed interface on this  app.

The API function is quick and painless. You connect to the app through your LAN and can easily copy paste in your API using your PC. Now I know CCP would hate this but I find myself as trader and industrial player checking up on my market orders and industrial jobs and not even logging into the game. Check it for yourself it is free at the App Store and does have a small ad bar in the left hand bottom corner. With a donation of 1 dollar you can get the ads removed. Check out their website at www.eveuniverseiphone.com. Wow that sounded more like an ad than a review I guess those marketing classes in college counts for something.

Android: Aura
Also I have to mention the android app Aura. I personally have never used it but it was recently featured in the eve community news that they cover each week head over there and check out their coverage and review if you have an android device I am sure the features are similar.

Building Stargates and New Regions

If you follow the news around Eve or check up on the few sites that cover Eve news this doesn't mean much to you but I wanted to throw it out there for all those that may not have caught it.

If you have been watching the streams and reading about potential expansion features you will find the idea of building stargates is hinted and teased at a lot this past year. It is now all but inevitable that within the next few expansions we will be seeing the construction of the first player owned stargates. Over at Jester Trek, he drops a few hints into the this potential expansion feature of player owned stargates. Over at TMC they ran a news article today about the confirmed release of new regions in future expansions.

Exciting times with the release of the new Rubicon expansion today and already hints of things to come in the over the next year just might prove enough to keep me logging on for a few more months. Which is a good thing. These past couple months have seen lower player numbers and scandals running a muck which has made me think twice about my future in Eve. But at the end of the day I am still having fun flying around New Eden. If they deliver on even half of these new toys I think this is one sand box I am willing to keep building in.

Rubicon Expansion Trailer Delivers

The Rubicon trailer is looking pretty good. After the announcement stream I didn't think Rubicon would be very exciting and while it has been slowly growing on me I will reserve judgement until after the release of the expansion. You can find the eye can below...

What You Do In The Moment

I have been wandering around New Eden trying out some new things. Last week I grabbed my old explorer and flew around trying to find an exploration site to check out. After a dozen or so systems and not finding anything but wormholes I came to the conclusion there was a reason I always trade. Flying around in empty space finding nothing but wormholes, system after system just gets boring after about a hour. Bad luck on my part I guess.

So yesterday I fitted out a procurer and went to try my hand at ice mining. After checking on several ice systems and finding that all the anomalies had been mined out, I docked up my little ice miner. Boredom setting in again I wondered back to my manufacturing goods and did some shipping.

A few hours later I jumped in my mining barge and hit up a few belts. Within five minutes I remembered why I can't stand mining. The slow pace and general lack of things to shoot at drags on and on. I could see jumping into a second account being fun but that just raises more questions as to what my goal for playing the game really is.

I realized having fun in New Eden isn't in finding a specialization so to speak its in the moment. Do whatever you do as long as you enjoy it.

Weighing in on Warp Speed Changes

It seems like a lot of people are overjoyed with the changes to warp speed increase. Its great right? Smaller ships are faster than ever. I was hopping they would at least leave freighters and capitals as bench marks and ships would move faster as they got smaller. Instead cruisers are the bench mark and save for a slight long distance speed increase to freighters(check graph) they have an increased time for warping(on the low end 1 AU to 50 AU). I do quite a bit of flying in my freighter, shipping things around, so what to do about it is the real question?

I think freighter services will go up in price because it is going to take a whole lot more time for these guys to fly around. So between flying even smarter shipping trips and using shipping services until the eventual price increase is the direction I will take to keep my time flying down.

As far as flying smarter your going to want to use all of the new rebalanced indy ships to your advantage now more than ever. It might be a fun experiment to see how much in terms of volume I could haul in comparision to the slower freighter. Even more things to plan and think about if your hauling.

And on the one hand maybe this will stop afk shipping because its going to take hours to fly across space if you afk a freighter.

Graphs:
Warp Speed Times Before The Expansion
Warp Speed Times After the Expansion

Eve Online compared to Star Citizen Video

I stumbled across this video comparing Eve to Star Citizen. It got me thinking. A lot of people are turning heads checking out the potential of what Star Citizen could be. Any Eve player would be dumb not to consider what Star Citizen might mean for Eve. Although that being said anyone who takes a few minutes to read up on Star Citizen will find you don't need to worry about Star Citizen killing Eve. Not even close. The video below gives a few quick comparisons check it out.
 

Two points I want to leave you with,

Star Citizen has a really long way to go still. The game is slated to be released in the first part of 2015. A lot will change about Eve in that time and the shell of what Star Citizen is today will most likely be very different come release day as well.

My second point I thought of was the fact that Eve Valkyrie could very well be a response to Star Citizen I don't know its just a theory.