Tiger Lily's first flight
16th July 2008 – 8.40 amI boarded my brand new Caracal cruiser last night, christening it Tiger Lily. It has comfy seats, an iPod connector for the stereo, and what a capacitor! No three-pronged effort here, but a Catherine Wheel of brightly lit energy, teasing me to try to drain all that power. The CPU and power loads are far greater than I'm used to in a frigate as well, and even after I fit a full complement of launchers, a salvager, shield booster, ship scanner, weapon disruptor, afterburner and warp core stabiliser there was plenty of both left to spare. I can spend some time hunting down hungry modules that I can experiment with.
I took Tiger Lily out for a test flight, heading over a couple of jumps to pick up a couple more skill training books, before picking up a simple mission from my current contact in Jita to give the new systems a workout. I got a lesson in scan resolution on the mission, after wondering why I needed to be so close to the target to lock on and why it was taking so long to gain the lock. I'm not sure why I thought this would be related to scan resolution, it could have been intuition or it could have been a more logical process that ruled out most other attributes of the system, but I logged in to a local system's knowledge base and found some information about radar systems.
The scan resolution of a radar is related to its effectiveness in both range and targeting speed, which was interesting but didn't fully answer my question. I had thought that my new Caracal was more capable than the Kestrel in targeting, but it didn't seem to be the case. The clue came at the end of the article, pointing out that some systems can adversely affect the scan resolution, systems like a warp core stabiliser. I called up the data sheet on the stabiliser I had fitted and, sure enough, there was the information about reducing the scan resolution and targeting time by 50%, which was quite an affect. Had I been more thorough initially I may have looked up what scan resolution was before I fitted the module; on the other hand, learning about it whilst trying to lock on to multiple hostile targets is a lesson less likely to be forgotten.
Having only fitted the warp core stabiliser as a paranoid measure, as I'm relatively sure I'm not likely to need it in high security space, I disabled the module. This brought my targeting range and speed back up to normal, with the range greatly increased over the Kestrel but targeting time still a little increased. With the Caracal being able to lock on to more targets simultaneously the increased targeting time isn't so much of a problem, and I have more reason to train my targeting skill again.
One of the skill books I bought was for long range targeting. Whilst I have just gained extra range from the new ship it seems like a good skill to have, and one that leads to being able to use a new class of scanners. I'm hoping I'll be able to find a better scanner than the one I have fitted. The ship scanner I have lets me know what modules are fitted to a ship, but I suspect it is just letting me know if a ship will have any loot on it once defeated. I am not getting any information on what weapons, shields, or radar the ship is using, which is the sort of intelligence I am keen to collect. More investigation in to scanners and scanning is required.
The Caracal seems competent enough as a gunship. With five high slots available, including multiple launcher and turret hardpoints, there is plenty of firepower, and the five medium slots offer room for some interesting upgrades to shields and sensors, with a fitting or two left for some ECM once I get to grips with it. I fitted a weapons disruptor, mostly out of interest, and tried to use it during a mission. I have no idea if it was useful, and it may be of more use during battles that last for longer than a few salvos of missile fire. Without a detailed combat log to pore over at the end of a mission it is difficult to calculate how effective various weapons and systems were during a fight, and maybe I should investigate to see if there are better logging options.
As for my new agent, I headed out to the Lonetrek region to speak to her after completing the mission in Jita. My previous first contact with a positive-quality agent resulted in a simple and unexciting courier mission, so imagine my disappointment when this new agent asked me to do something similar. I considered it possible that a courier mission is a way for an agent to test out new contacts, giving a simple task initially to build up an initial reputation before giving more important work, so I took the task on hoping tha it would lead to more interesting and lucrative missions soon.
Even so, a courier mission may not be the best way to test a new pilot, as it really doesn't seem too challenging to deliver some cargo to a destination one system away. Or it wouldn't, if the pilot remembered to take the cargo with her in the first place. After I arrived at the destination with an empty cargo hold I reconsidered my position on a courier mission being a poor test, made the jump back to my new agent's system, picked up the goods from my items hangar, then headed back to the destination again. Having successfully completed that mission and embarrassed myself I did indeed get a more interesting mission to blow things up ...in space!
It was getting late, the time having flown past investigating systems and modules, and flying to systems without cargo, so I completed the mission of vengeance I had just accepted—and it was nice of one of the ships to be carrying a cruiser-class afterburner for me—and then docked for the night. I'm looking forward to developing a relationship with the new agent, building up a standing, and maybe looking to taking on higher level missions.
2 Responses to “Tiger Lily's first flight”
You sound like the type that enjoys finding things out for yourself so I will resist the temptation to give my two cents worth. But I would be remiss if I didn't point you in the direction of http://hammer-eve.blogspot.com/
It's a helpful guide that explains some Eve mechanics in terms a WoW veteran (like myself) can understand.
There is certainly a greater sense of fulfilment in learning for myself, and I definitely don't want the game to become a case of joining the dots, but I certainly appreciate hints and tips. There's an awful lot to learn.
As someone else who has come from WoW I'll be sure to check out the site. Thanks for the link!