A new agents was born...

A little while back, I defined what some of my short, medium, and long term goals were. Well, with well over 500 million ISK, I think it’s time to start planning on completing those medium term goals.

Sadly, in order to do so I must raise my empire faction to, at least, 5.0. And, being the lazy fuck that I am, there’s NO WAY I’m going to do that by hand…so it sounds like it’s time for a new agent! Hmm…I wonder what I’m going to call it…

Tonight I’ll be running a few missions by hand in order to work out a process for this new agent. I’m fairly confident that I can code this solution in about a week, but I’m a little lost on what kinds of missions I should code for. I know that I want to use an agent who only has 2 types of missions because that will reduce the variability (decreasing the amount of code I have to write) so Astrosurveying, Mining (I know, ironic, right?!) and security are off the table immediately.

That leaves only Kill and Courier mission types and I don’t know which I would prefer to do. Courier missions are very straight forward so I think I’ll lean towards them for now and see how it goes. It kind of sucks that I can’t JUST do courier missions, because that would make life a lot easier.

Hmm…I COULD code it to just keep denying missions that are not couriers. With an agent type that gives me a 95% chance to get courier it’s going to be highly unlikely that I’ll have to decline many missions. But, I don’t like the thought of declining missions just on principal, ya know?

Welcome to the joys of coding AFK Agents – lots more questions and doubts than answers at the beginning.

Answering CrazyKinux's

Today’s post comes to you via the blog challenge posted over at CrazyKinux's Musing. This is an answer to his #7 - "What 3 things haven't you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?"

Thing 1 – Pirating. Up until recently I really haven't had the resources to effectively enter low sec space, let alone pirate there. Now that I do, I still see no reason to go there and pirate - why would I want to grief random people who did nothing to me? /shrug

Also, since I'm a loner, it doesn't seem like pirating would be particularly effective. I MAY decide to level up my stealth skills eventually and grief a miner in order to influence low sec mineral prices, but that's not really likely.

Thing 2 – Enjoyed a fan-made video. Now, I do NOT want to be insulting here – I appreciate all the time and effort that goes into making a video and I realize it is not easy work. I just don’t enjoy them. At all. Not even a little bit. To me they all look exactly alike and I can rarely understand what’s going on in them. Again, this is probably a “me” problem but, well, I guess that means I just can’t or don’t enjoy them, ya know? There is ONE video I found interesting, now that I write about it some – Bumpageddon. But even that video was only exciting because it involved miners, griefing, and bouncing ships. Outside of that, as my wife says, “EVE always looks exactly the same. It’s a ship, on a black background, over and over again.” That does not make for entertaining videos.

That said, I may actually make an EVE video one day, but only to show off the awesome that is my Agent. Of course I won't be expecting anyone to be impressed with the cinematography or anything like that; it would only be to show what the Agent is capable of, how quickly he works, and how he can recover from bumps/losing targets etc.

Thing 3 – Corporation management. I’ve never run a corporation because that would require working with other people, and frankly, I don’t like other people. Still, I may do it one day - if I become a paraplegic.

Continuing my posts from the debate at Fly Reckless, here's - Moderator’s question 1

You have indicated that you have set up a whole corp of individuals who use macro or at the very least are macro friendly. It is entirely within CCP’s right to find and ban those accounts that you use to macro, so what my question centers around is the unknowing or possibly knowing individuals who are buying the bulk of your minerals. It’s entirely possible, as is evidence by the latest ferogel pos exploit, that they may also be hit by the CCP banstick, and your actions could get a well-meaning builder banned. Are you informing the people who are buying large amounts of ore from you that their accounts may be in danger because of your actions that are against the EULA.

I certainly do not, and would not warn anyone that I was AFK Gaming before I sold him or her things. I think that’s a fast and cheap way to be banned.

That said, if CCP did take the drastic, draconian, and “OMGWTF?!?!” step of banning people for, knowingly or ignorantly, buying ore from an AFK player I would stop selling things to players immediately. I have NO RIGHT to cause harm to other people and if CCP started acting like madmen I would take a step back and find a way to play the game that would not harm anyone else.

Now, I’m sure the rebuttal argument to this is that I am causing SOME harm to other players by AFK Gaming. I think that’s a pretty weak argument. By that logic anyone playing the game is causing harm to other players – anyone who makes more than anyone else is crowding them out of the game, essentially. Any arguments you make that says I’m hurting other players fits them as well; being at the keyboard in no way diffuses the harm. You may think that At Keyboard (AK) Gamers have more of a right to “harm” others by playing the game, but that’s irrelevant – harm is harm and if you quantify it for AFK Miners as being harmful then, by the same logic, AK Gamers are harmful.

Few actions are ONLY destructive. By focusing solely on the harmful aspects of AFK Gaming I think we omit its positives. And the most positive trait I can think of is that we add to the economy. We make the economy larger than it would have otherwise been. More POS’s stay fueled because of us. More ships get built because of us. The overall learning curve of this game, which is epic, is lessened because of us. We may cheat, but we still play, and since we are all connected, all play is valid and beneficial to EVE Online.

Still, I think anyone who is intellectually honest can see that getting someone banned is about the worst thing you can do to someone in EVE Online. It's a risk I'm willing to take, personally, but putting it onto someone else is just too immoral for even me.

The Other Account...

I spent this weekend mining my ass off, but somehow I have LESS money on my toon now then when I started. I think it’s because I spent a lot of it on skills. I have a training build I call “A million little skills.” I use EVEMon to find out all the skills I COULD train but haven’t, then I put them all in the plan and go buy books. I que up the skills as I buy them. I’ve managed to get myself up to 150 total skills, but there’s about 9 skills that cost about 30 million isk each and I haven’t bothered to buy those yet because, enh, that’s a lot of money!

I also gave 20 million to my alt toon, who also spent about 16 million on skills. He needed to get his “extra” learning skills and I think I’m going to use him as a second miner (read: more income!)

I’ve floundered back and forth on what I wanted that second account to be responsible for an I THINK I’ve decided to make him my Corporation Management character. I’d like to setup a new corporation so that I can hold a POS in .7 space. Of course, that means I have to get his status up to 7.01 and…ugh! So much work. But, whatever, that’s what it takes.

So, why do I want my own POS? Well, mostly because I want to have someplace to research blueprints. Right now BPO research in public facilities has about a 2 week wait and that’s just not acceptable. So I think setting up a POS will allow me to research BPO’s better and will also show me a part of the game I’ve never seen before. Hopefully I’ll be able to manufacture from that location as well and all that will supplement my mining income.

We’ll see, and I’ll post about :-)

The Best Laid Plans

I wrote a blog posting a while back which distressed me. In it I talked about how I really didn’t know why I was playing EVE. Well, I’ve decided to correct this. Despite my inability to define why I played I found myself compelled to play, interested in playing, and enjoying myself. So, when I caught myself developing a long-term goal (manage a POS) I forced myself to sit down and describe some other short, medium, and long term goals:

Short Term – Procure more money, procure more skills, level up current skills to support medium and long term goals, increase standing with NPC race so I can put a POS into their space

Medium Term – Establishment of a more “permanent” presence in game through the establishment of a POS and the creation of various platforms to fill needs in the game (a ship to haul in, contacts who buy minerals, etc.)

Long Term – Securing a presence in 0.0 or low sec using ISK to purchase a “safe” area or piggybacking into a weak corporation, etc. I’m still a little fuzzy on the details but ideally I’d like to join a corporation who is ok with EVE Agent (I’m sure they exist, EVE player comes to mind).

So, as you can see my plan goes something like this – get rich mining, develop a relationship with an NPC corp so I can put up a POS, use the POS to make more money, move into low-sec to make even more money.

Yeah…I’m into money. Sue me!

Online Debat Post 1

Recently I stumbled upon a debate hosted at Fly Reckless. Linky. I've decided to spend some posts dedicated to answering the questions there for myself. I figure it'll be interesting and, if not, at least fill my writing quota for a week or so!

Question 1, from Finnegan

What level of economic damage would you and other cheaters have to do to non-cheating miners before you agreed that it was too much? If you devalued their mining efforts by five percent, 25%, 50%, 90%, at any point would you stop cheating or does the state of the profession not bother you? Likewise, how much damage to your chosen macroing profession would it take before you chose another aspect of EVE to macro?

There are three things that converge to make mining the AFK Gamers’ choice activity. The first is the ease with which it can be done, on a technical level. Technically speaking, AFK Mining is a simple problem with a simple solution. That’s kind of why it is so boring for humans to do – there’s not much to think about.

The second factor is how difficult it is to be caught, either by another player or CCP, and again this is related to just how simple the activity is – because it is SO simple, there is little to no variety in how it is done. Thus, how do you differentiate between an At Keyboard (AK) miner and an AFK miner? The easier it is to hide, the more AFK Gamers will be there.

The last factor is profitability and, as The Evil Macroer stated, AFK Mining brings in between two and three million ISK per hour. That’s really not that much, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s sufficient reward for me to bother writing and maintaining my application. I can say that if it dropped to 1 million ISK per hour I would stop doing it and would focus my attention elsewhere, but before I did I’d have to take a look at what else I could do. If nothing else presented itself, 1 million ISK an hour would be what I did until another avenue opened up.

For a comparison lets look at ratting in high-sec. It would be facile to create a program that was capable of ratting in high security systems, and the likelihood of being caught is slightly less than that with mining. However, the profitability is damn near zero, so I wouldn’t even consider it an option.

However, profitability isn’t EVERYTHING. I did tinker with the idea of writing an AFK Pirating program but only saw a reason to do so if the Security Status reward was useful. For me, now, it’s just not.

So, I want to caution the reader away from seeing the AFK Gaming motivation as being about mining, per se – there’s a reason why AFK Gaming in EVE is connected with mining and not, for example, exploring wormholes.

So, this was a longwinded way of saying that the state of the mining economy does bother me, but not from a moral standpoint. It’s far more calculated and pragmatic because I am part of the same community that AK Miners are, and thus I’m impacted by their actions, as well as my own.

Further, as evidenced by the fact that The Evil Macroer does not still macro, it’s a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Having a lot of money is great, and all, but at some point you really do have enough. There’s only so much you need before the motivation to continue playing the AFK Mining game reaches zero. When that happens I personally will begin looking at other things to AFK with. Probably low-sec ratting.

Corp Life, Last Day!

I decided that I needed to get back into High-Security space in order to make a few more ISK. Only, once I got there I had a terrible memory come back to me – the Corporation I was in was at war with a small High-Security Corporation. That meant that when I was in Empire space (.5 to 1.0 security space) I could be attacked. It’s awfully hard to AFK Game when you can be attacked!

So, of course, I promptly quit my Corporation! I mean, really, what’s the point of playing if anyone can take a pot-shot at me anywhere?

I was immediately contacted by the guy who chatted me up and he gave me the whole “You’re making a big mistake!” speech. I told him that I didn’t appreciate the constant CTA’s (call to action) and the fact that there was nothing else to do in 0.0 but PvP since we were at war. I’d try to mine but the first time I did I lost my Covetor because no one would help me and they were all on CTA’s.

Corp Life, Day 2

Well after losing about 40 million ISK worth of ships/fitting, it’s time to limp back to high-sec (using a jump clone) and macro some more money into my holds. Macroing when someone has declared war on your corporation is dangerous, but I need money!

Let me tell you why Corporations suck for AFK Gamers and, in general, people who aren’t PvP whores:

1 – Call To Actions (CTA). Basically, when you join a Corporation you give up the right to freedom. Perhaps you come from a country where freedom isn’t very valuable, but I’m from the United States of America – I’ll kill you before I let you have my freedom. Well, in Corporation whenever there is a CTA you are expected to be involved, with limited exception. No, you’re not going to get cussed out for not being at one or two of them. “I’m only on for 30 minutes” will get you out of one and “Oh, sorry, wife agro!” might get you out of another. But, eventually you’re going to have to help them and what does that mean? At least 2 hours of being on Ventrillo, hearing people with funny accents tell you what to do. I swear, I had thought there was nothing worse than having an 11 year old tell me what do with my WoW time. But, at least that 11 year old in WoW spoke English well, and without an accent! Try replacing an American teen with one from Ireland and the annoyance factor increases exponentially.

2 – You’re never safe! Like, EVER! I know a lot of people think that you can be blown up no matter what, no matter where you are in EVE. That’s only technically accurate. In reality, High-Security space is about as safe as you can be in reality. Did you know that in reality you can be shot at any time, for any reason? Same in EVE, and you’re about as likely to be attacked for no reason in Empire as you are in real life.

3 – Whatever goals you had in game, just forget about them. You’re now a corporate entity. You’ll do what they say, you’ll like what they like, and you’ll agree with corporate management, even when they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

4 – Taxes, AND dues?! I had monthly dues in the corporation (10 million ISK is about 5 hours of AFK Gaming, but it’s the principal of the thing!), as well as a 7.5% income tax. Fuck you, very much!

I Joined A 0.0 Corporation!

I know, I know, I’m a AFK Gamer, why join a corp? Well, because why write a simple agent that can mine in High-Sec when you can write a complicated agent that mines in low-sec? :-D

But beyond that, there’s a lot to EVE and players tend to focus on one, two or maybe a handful of sub-systems through the game. I’m not that player. I’m someone who likes to see how all the pieces fit together. I’ve always tended to explore all areas of a game and after over a year of playing EVE off and on, I never once got to see the 0.0 side of it.

After joining a Corporation I have one immediate observation – these are some needy mother fuckers! One of our systems was being attacked and the amount of vitriol generated about people being online but not defending the station was intense. This one player kept comparing the number of people online in the Alliance to the number of people in the group and saying “Where are the rest of you?!”

Hey, buddy, save it for the fleet chat, k? Thanks!

It’s not that I refuse to help; it’s that I’m about 40 jumps away and I’m not spending 2 hours jumping “home” only to have to log out halfway through. Sometimes I only get an hour to play, and I’m not logging out just because there’s a fight I can’t get to.

But, that’s EXACTLY what this player was asking people to do – if you’re not going to help, then log out now!

What an asshole!

Not that it really influenced me. I just turned blink off on alliance and focused on local instead.

Decisions…

EVE is a game of decisions and Opportunity Costs.

That’s part of the draw, for me. “What’s the most efficient and effective method?” is a question I am always asking myself while playing this “game.”

For instance, right now I’m wondering “Should I add more cargohold room to my Hulk, or should I increase its yield?” My gut tells me that I should increase its carghold capacity to the largest I can get in order to reduce the wasted time spent moving back and forth between field and refinery. This is the least profitable time in mining and you should reduce it whenever possible. This is part of the reason that “jetcan mining” is so efficient – you have two ships, each focused on its role and tailored for it. Your mining ship doesn’t have enough cargospace to haul a large amount of ore, but it can mine very quickly. Your hauler can’t mine for shit, but its huge cargohold lets you move a lot of ore in one trip.

So where does that leave the intrepid AFK Gamer? Well, our mining vessel must serve two purposes as efficiently as possible. It must mine quickly, but also be able to store a large amount of ore in order to make the trip back and forth efficient. This is why the Hulk is SUCH a good ship for mining in – you can get its hold up to more than 10k really easily, and that translates into more ISK per hour.

Right now Agent EVE earns a profit of 2 million per hour in a Covetor and 3 million per hour in a Hulk.

If the Sky is Falling then I am in Trouble...Because I'm IN the Sky!

Today as I continued looking for information about macro mining when I found “EVE Player’s” article titled “The Sky is Falling”

http://www.eve-mag.com/wordpress/archives/the-sky-is-falling

Wow!!! I could have written this article, it is SO MUCH like what I do.

To the first point, I play the game using macros because it is a fantastic challenge. I hit a Zen like state when I program them. There is a positive and tangible reward for doing it as well.

…

Keep in mind that macros are not magical. My macro cannot read words on a screen. My macro cannot intercept, decode, decipher nor even invite to tea the packets that are sent out and received by the Eve servers. That’s the secret though. That is flying under the radar. I’m not hacking anything. My macro can only do what my eyes and my hands can do. Its brain is only as good as the cross between my programming skills, understanding of the game and the amount of garbage I can put into it.

Oh man, that is SO on point! I do the same thing with DB – I don’t get into the IO stream or even hack into the executable to sniff out memory offsets or watch for certain function calls. ALL my agent does is stare at the screen and respond to what it sees. Just like you. That’s how you stay under the radar.

Is it unethical to AFK Game, since I agreed to an EULA saying I wouldn’t? Well, maybe. Sure. Why not? Whatever. And?

This is a game. This is not real life. This is not important. It is not valid. It is not a good reason to miss work. It is not a good reason to fight with your family. It is nothing more than a pastime and I will be damned before I care what society thinks about how I play a game. Further, I am grateful to any fool who thinks that because I AFK Game I am unethical in general; I’m grateful because it is rare that someone will walk up to you and say “I’m stupid” so when it happens I am really and truly grateful. If you earnestly think that how someone plays a game indicates their ethics then congratulations; you’re ethically retarded.

And I really hope you don’t have an illegally gotten MP3 because if so, you’re not on ethically retarded, you’re a hypocrite too.

You don’t have to follow some rules. No, no, REALLY. You’re allowed to break some rules. It’s ok. Society won’t eat your soul because of it and you aren’t a terrible awful human being because of it. You’re just someone who doesn’t follow every single rule, just like every other person in history.

So yeah, great read and I’m really glad this guy wrote in to Eve-mag.com (http://www.eve-mag.com/).

Best Mining Ship?

I was talking about EVE yesterday when a friend said he was pretty sure that the Hulk wasn’t the biggest/baddest mining ship in the game. There simply MUST be a capital ship which was bigger/better at mining. So, we looked in EVEMon and, it would seem, he’s wrong – the Hulk really is the best ship for mining for a single person. Now if you want to expand the question to include gang mining then there are better ships than the Hulk, but for a single player the Hulk is the shit.

But that got me to wondering – once I have riches untold from all my AFK Gaming, then what? What do I want to spend my money on? What are my goals? What the fuck am I doing here?!

I looked up some of the more expensive things in the game and to be honest they are truly and amazingly expensive. They cost far more than I have and more than I’m likely to ever have (ISK tends to burn a hole in my pocket.) So, what I’m left with is that I’m going to make a lot of money for a single person, but not enough to be a Corporation unto myself. And, really, being a one-man Corporation is dangerous. Other Corporations can declare war on you and you’ve only got yourself to rely on. Not worth it!

So, again, what the fuck am I doing here?

I don’t know!