Jane's Guide to the Starships in New Eden
21st August 2009 – 5.10 pmAs another mining expedition in w-space comes to an end, with more than a few jet-cans full of exotic ores transported back to the corporation's tower, a lone capsuleer appears on the local communication channel. In w-space, no one appears in the local channel until they openly broadcast, which is mostly the reason why ambushes can be quite so effective as there is no indication of anyone being in a system unless they choose to announce themselves—or make a mistake.
The capsuleer sends a salute and wishes someone, presumably us, good mining. It is fairly obvious that he has performed at least a rudimentary scan of the system and found the several ships we have been using to mine the ore, but what isn't clear to me is whether this message is meant sincerely or as a warning. It could be they have been monitoring us for a while but sees that we are disbanding the operation for the evening and are no longer a valid target, or instead they perhaps stumbled on the wormhole and popped in to see if the system has been taken or just to take a look.
'It was just a frigate', I get told, 'it's not likely to cause any problems on its own.' That's good to know, even if we are all safely back at the tower anyway, but as I had picked up the ship on the directional scanner it reminds me that I still lack sufficient ship identification skills to be considered useful. I can see the name of the ship type on the scanner but unless it happens to be Caldari in origin or a ship I have taken at least some interest in I am unlikely to know what sort of ship it is, and thus how big a threat it poses. There are so many frigates, cruisers and Tech II variants that it is perhaps no surprise that I cannot tell an ECM boat from a heavy assault cruiser, although that I run panicked from an industrial hauler on occasions is a little embarrassing.
I have my EVE Online Strategic Maps atlas, which is handy in quickly visualising short routes and the security status of constellations and systems, amongst other uses, but perhaps a good companion would be a Jane's Guide to the Starships of New Eden. A book detailing all of the ships designed and available would be a wonderful addition to a collector's library, as well as a useful tool. The ships could be collected by class, faction and function, with a full-colour image of the ship presented alongside multi-angle silhouettes, and accompanied by some history of the ship, as well as perhaps general fitting advice.
I would love to be able to flick through an EVE Online ship identification guide. It would be a nifty art book and an interesting way to learn to recognise names and classes of ships.
5 Responses to “Jane's Guide to the Starships in New Eden”
Maybe this has given me an idea to create such of a piece of work?
this might be useful :)
http://www.eveonlineships.com/
That looks quite handy, thanks Cyberin.
What I'd really like is a big book of those pictures next to schematics that I could flick through at my leisure, but an on-line resource is a good start.
And don't take my loots, dammit.
I know that this is a bit late posting on a blog a month later, but what I have done since starting eve, is as soon as I see the name of a ship that I don't recognise, I stick it into the market search and find what it is and try to memorise it and its role.
it was also important to know because I flew as scout for my corp while getting more advanced ship skills up and also spent some time in a wormhole, you'll quickly learn what's important and what's not.
Thanks for the advice, monkey.
Most of the time it's a simple matter of finding out the class of ship, but I am still wet enough behind the ears that I'll often have to find out what rôle the ship fulfils in a fleet too. I'm learning, though.