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Just to point out something about this whole battle that may not be readily apparent... The article quotes the figure that a titan (the largest type of ship in

by erbo 13y ago

Just to point out something about this whole battle that may not be readily apparent... The article quotes the figure that a titan (the largest type of ship in EVE Online ) costs the equivalent of $1500 to produce. But that doesn't mean you can just walk into EVE, plunk down $1500 to buy ISK, and walk off with a titan. Far from it. A titan has to be assembled out of over 7,000 individual components, each of which must be bought or (more frequently) manufactured, and, if you build them, you have to have the raw materials and blueprints for them. Assuming you have all that, it would take a single player two and a half months just to assemble all the components. Then you can start building the titan's hull, which takes 40 days. But it has to be built inside a Capital Ship Assembly Array (itself a very expensive structure), which has to be anchored with a structure in player-controlled space. And then that structure has to be defended, because if someone comes along and blows up your structure, you lose the titan hull that's under construction. And even after you have a hull, that hull has to be fitted with appropriate modules, such as the Doomsday weapon, jump bridge, and any other modules that suit the pilot's fancy. That can easily run to as much cost as for the hull alone, especially if you fit the kind of modules that can only be found in-world by defeating high-ranking NPCs (or buying them on the market from someone else that has). Hell, just learning to fly one of those monsters can take months of training time, and skill books that themselves carry price tags in the billions of ISK. Only the largest and most powerful organizations in the game, alliances, can actually build or fly titans, and they tend to jealously guard them. That really underscores just how big a loss 75 of them is. Such losses cause tectonic shifts in the balance of power.

650REDHAIR 13y ago
Another point to mention is that 1 titan loss is generally reported and talked about for weeks/months after the fact. 75 titans were destroyed in one engagement. edit Also, Titans are mostly around as a deterrent. Both sides are aware the other has them, but I can't think of many engagements (other than a single, usually drunk, titan pilot doing a "drive by" on an unsuspecting target) that escalate to the point of people "dropping" titans on grid.
- erbo 13y ago
  This is true. Bear in mind, my experience in EVE doesn't extend quite that far. My own character is capable of flying battleships (the largest sub-capital class of ship) and freighters (a special type of capital ship), but I've never even seen a titan in-game. (The largest class I've seen is a carrier, owned by friends in an allied corp with a POS in lowsec.)
lifeformed 13y ago
All that work makes paying $1500 USD sound almost like a better deal!
- talmir 13y ago
  But it wouldnt be as much fun :)
300bps 13y ago
But that doesn't mean you can just walk into EVE, plunk down $1500 to buy ISK, and walk off with a titan. I am completely ignorant of how EVE works. So you're saying it's not possible for someone in control of a Titan in Eve that is hard up for money enough to turn the keys over for $1,500 in real life money?
- saraid216 13y ago
  No, that's possible. I'm not clear on CCP's policy on character transfers, so it may be illegal, but it's certainly possible. That said, a titan pilot is almost certainly worth more than $1,500. I have heard rumors that players are paid real money for their participation in alliances; it wouldn't surprise me to have confirmation.
  - sanswork 13y ago
    Titan pilots are like 20-30b. So they'd cost you ~$650 if you bought GTCs and sold plex on the market(legitimate way of buying characters with cash).
    - saraid216 13y ago
      First search got me [1] which has a buy-out of 35 billion ISK. According to currency convert [2], this comes out to around 1,000 USD. The buy-out was taken, too. It's extremely hard to believe that such a player is actually piloting a titan at time of transfer, though, and this thread [3] starts the hull cost at 40bil ISK. So you're looking at north of ~2,000 USD for the pilot and a useless hull, which is past the 1,500 mark. Assuming that the "travel fit" mentioned is a combat fit (unlikely), that's a total of ~4,000 USD. Which means you'd have to get back to 300bps's "hard up for money" remark and recognize that anyone in possession of a titan is going to have an alliance full of people willing to handle this kind of thing more directly than a stranger walking up offering less than market value. And we'll just ignore the fact that, unless you had an alliance backing you up (meaning all of this contrivance gets pretty moot), you wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful with it except wander around a little and die. [1] http://eve-search.com/thread/1382980-0/page/all http://eve-search.com/thread/1382980-0/page/all [2] http://isk.thealphacompany.net/?isk=35000000000&conversion=isktousd&Submit=Convert http://isk.thealphacompany.net/?isk=35000000000&conversion=i... [3] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=63093 https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=63093
hartator 13y ago
So you would say $1,500 + 3,4 months building + 3,4 months training + modules + protection? Assuming this guys are all dev. at $4000 month (easy premise!). I would say $1,500 + $12,000 + $12,000 + $1,500 (let's say it's modules are equal to the hull) + $10,000 (arbitrary for buying protection) $37,000? That's crazy! :)
- sanswork 13y ago
  Training a new character to fly a titan properly is ~2 years of time not 3,4 months. Even most capital pilots are looking at around another year. If you're going to go your route it would be best to just add 20% of the purchase price on and buy a character and another 10% premium on to buy one off the market.
- DrStalker 13y ago
  I used to have fun in World of Warcraft by telling people to type /played and then multiply that by the minimum wage. If you look at the cost of labor involved involved (assuming real world wages for the time spent) in building a Titan the cost would be absolutely massive, even discounting the huge infrastructure requirements.
  - monk_e_boy 13y ago
    Mine was counted in months when I finally left WoW... loved that game.
    - nyrina 13y ago
      I'm nearly 2 years /played on my main alone. I've been a hardcore raider since vanilla, though.
  - steinnes 13y ago
    Good point, although as I understood it a lot of the actual time it takes to build the titan, is time spent waiting, and you do not have to be logged 8 hours per day for months at a time. This is at least very true for the "training" system in the game. You purchase a skill book, start training, and based on your characters stats the training will take a certain amount of time, no matter whether you are logged on or not. Of course, as I believe someone else pointed out, you (or your alliance more like) need to guard the construction site while the Titan is being built -- so the cost of building one of these is definitely huge. I guess $1500 is a bargain, all things considered?
ben0x539 13y ago
But you can totally walk into EVE, drop down enough real money to buy gametime coupons that you can sell for enough ingame money to buy a character (on the offical forums) that can fly a titan and then buy an existing titan. You don't have to bootstrap your way to your spaceship with a pickaxe and a roll of duct tape.
- csours 13y ago
  Right, but SOMEBODY had to.
  - erbo 13y ago
    In actual practice, no single player will construct all the components for a titan. An alliance will spread the work of building the components around, especially since some of the same components used in titans are used in other capital ships and can be allocated to building whatever is necessary.
  - ben0x539 13y ago
    Yes, that's true, you don't buy them from the hat shop.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  So how much would it cost to actually buy a fully functioning and outfitted titan? Assuming your character can already fly it, you have the personal know-how to use it, and that all other practical considerations are separate.
  - sanswork 13y ago
    ~$1500 for the ship ~$650 for a character Fitting is harder to say since you can go cheap or expensive but probably another ~$250 minimum.
- throwaway2048 13y ago
  titans are useless on their own however, without a large force to back it up, flying it around is inviting almost certain death.
Crito 13y ago
> "Hell, just learning to fly one of those monsters can take months of training time, and skill books that themselves carry price tags in the billions of ISK." Is this training for the player, or training for the player's character? The skill books I assume are for the player's character, but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?
- tinco 13y ago
  For the players character. Eve has this weird/cool system where certain skills can be selected for your virtual player to train on. The skills take a set amount of real time, and the training continues even when you're logged off.
- patmcc 13y ago
  >>"but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?" Not really - flying ships in eve is less flight simulator, more spreadsheet. You usually choose another ship/structure from a drop-down menu and choose approach, orbit, etc. Most battles are not about individual pilot skill at all (especially very large ones like this).
  - Justsignedup 13y ago
    Lol eve is a thinking man's mmo. Action is kind of... meh. There is no simulation. Your character for better or worse can just be replaced with an AI that listens to commands of the leader. You are basically a body in a giant battle. Your goal is to click the little red dot designated for you to click on, and click your weapons. The end. The game is all about maneuvers. How to out-maneuver your opponent to catch them with their pants down, block reinforcements, prevent retreat, maximize damage while minimizing yours. Imagine a battle between two countries, its not just about what is in the battle, but what led up to the battle occurring, how people behave, etc.
    - samstave 13y ago
      I find it funny ow "eve is the thinking mans MMO" when I gave up Masters of Orion in the 90s because I felt as though I was playing excel.... Albeit - that was playing Excel solo vs playing Excel against many other CPAs... I do not want to play a spreadsheet... But, I am FARKING AMAZED about how well eve does and how amazingly in depth their eco-system is.
ZachPruckowski 13y ago
>Only the largest and most powerful organizations in the game, alliances, can actually build or fly titans, and they tend to jealously guard them. That really underscores just how big a loss 75 of them is. Such losses cause tectonic shifts in the balance of power. Additionally, War in EVE is largely about sapping the opponents' morale - it could take months of fighting for hours every night to take a defended region, but if you get the enemy's pilots discouraged and not logging in or avoiding the fighting or even switching to another group then you can win a lot faster. This is called a "fail-cascade" and it's how GoonSwarm (the infamous lead alliance of CFC) won a lot of early wars - key wins cause players and leaders not to log in which makes future fights easier which causes a "rats fleeing a sinking ship" effect. That's also why the unpaid bill was such a big deal - it would have taken a week or more of victories for CFC to otherwise capture the system. That said, it's unlikely in this instance that the losers (Pandemic Legion and friends) are going to fall apart as a result - they've gone from "most Titans in the game" to "second or third most Titans in the game", and they've survived and rebuilt from considerably worse losses before - both GoonSwarm and Pandemic Legion have at various points lost everything and been down to a few hundred demoralized pilots but clawed their way back up.

by erbo 13y ago

650REDHAIR 13y ago

Another point to mention is that 1 titan loss is generally reported and talked about for weeks/months after the fact. 75 titans were destroyed in one engagement. edit Also, Titans are mostly around as a deterrent. Both sides are aware the other has them, but I can't think of many engagements (other than a single, usually drunk, titan pilot doing a "drive by" on an unsuspecting target) that escalate to the point of people "dropping" titans on grid.

erbo 13y ago
This is true. Bear in mind, my experience in EVE doesn't extend quite that far. My own character is capable of flying battleships (the largest sub-capital class of ship) and freighters (a special type of capital ship), but I've never even seen a titan in-game. (The largest class I've seen is a carrier, owned by friends in an allied corp with a POS in lowsec.)

lifeformed 13y ago

All that work makes paying $1500 USD sound almost like a better deal!

talmir 13y ago
But it wouldnt be as much fun :)

300bps 13y ago

But that doesn't mean you can just walk into EVE, plunk down $1500 to buy ISK, and walk off with a titan. I am completely ignorant of how EVE works. So you're saying it's not possible for someone in control of a Titan in Eve that is hard up for money enough to turn the keys over for $1,500 in real life money?

saraid216 13y ago
No, that's possible. I'm not clear on CCP's policy on character transfers, so it may be illegal, but it's certainly possible. That said, a titan pilot is almost certainly worth more than $1,500. I have heard rumors that players are paid real money for their participation in alliances; it wouldn't surprise me to have confirmation.
- sanswork 13y ago
  Titan pilots are like 20-30b. So they'd cost you ~$650 if you bought GTCs and sold plex on the market(legitimate way of buying characters with cash).
  - saraid216 13y ago
    First search got me [1] which has a buy-out of 35 billion ISK. According to currency convert [2], this comes out to around 1,000 USD. The buy-out was taken, too. It's extremely hard to believe that such a player is actually piloting a titan at time of transfer, though, and this thread [3] starts the hull cost at 40bil ISK. So you're looking at north of ~2,000 USD for the pilot and a useless hull, which is past the 1,500 mark. Assuming that the "travel fit" mentioned is a combat fit (unlikely), that's a total of ~4,000 USD. Which means you'd have to get back to 300bps's "hard up for money" remark and recognize that anyone in possession of a titan is going to have an alliance full of people willing to handle this kind of thing more directly than a stranger walking up offering less than market value. And we'll just ignore the fact that, unless you had an alliance backing you up (meaning all of this contrivance gets pretty moot), you wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful with it except wander around a little and die. [1] http://eve-search.com/thread/1382980-0/page/all http://eve-search.com/thread/1382980-0/page/all [2] http://isk.thealphacompany.net/?isk=35000000000&conversion=isktousd&Submit=Convert http://isk.thealphacompany.net/?isk=35000000000&conversion=i... [3] https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=63093 https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=63093

hartator 13y ago

So you would say $1,500 + 3,4 months building + 3,4 months training + modules + protection? Assuming this guys are all dev. at $4000 month (easy premise!). I would say $1,500 + $12,000 + $12,000 + $1,500 (let's say it's modules are equal to the hull) + $10,000 (arbitrary for buying protection) $37,000? That's crazy! :)

sanswork 13y ago
Training a new character to fly a titan properly is ~2 years of time not 3,4 months. Even most capital pilots are looking at around another year. If you're going to go your route it would be best to just add 20% of the purchase price on and buy a character and another 10% premium on to buy one off the market.
DrStalker 13y ago
I used to have fun in World of Warcraft by telling people to type /played and then multiply that by the minimum wage. If you look at the cost of labor involved involved (assuming real world wages for the time spent) in building a Titan the cost would be absolutely massive, even discounting the huge infrastructure requirements.
- monk_e_boy 13y ago
  Mine was counted in months when I finally left WoW... loved that game.
  - nyrina 13y ago
    I'm nearly 2 years /played on my main alone. I've been a hardcore raider since vanilla, though.
- steinnes 13y ago
  Good point, although as I understood it a lot of the actual time it takes to build the titan, is time spent waiting, and you do not have to be logged 8 hours per day for months at a time. This is at least very true for the "training" system in the game. You purchase a skill book, start training, and based on your characters stats the training will take a certain amount of time, no matter whether you are logged on or not. Of course, as I believe someone else pointed out, you (or your alliance more like) need to guard the construction site while the Titan is being built -- so the cost of building one of these is definitely huge. I guess $1500 is a bargain, all things considered?

ben0x539 13y ago

But you can totally walk into EVE, drop down enough real money to buy gametime coupons that you can sell for enough ingame money to buy a character (on the offical forums) that can fly a titan and then buy an existing titan. You don't have to bootstrap your way to your spaceship with a pickaxe and a roll of duct tape.

csours 13y ago
Right, but SOMEBODY had to.
- erbo 13y ago
  In actual practice, no single player will construct all the components for a titan. An alliance will spread the work of building the components around, especially since some of the same components used in titans are used in other capital ships and can be allocated to building whatever is necessary.
- ben0x539 13y ago
  Yes, that's true, you don't buy them from the hat shop.
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
So how much would it cost to actually buy a fully functioning and outfitted titan? Assuming your character can already fly it, you have the personal know-how to use it, and that all other practical considerations are separate.
- sanswork 13y ago
  ~$1500 for the ship ~$650 for a character Fitting is harder to say since you can go cheap or expensive but probably another ~$250 minimum.
throwaway2048 13y ago
titans are useless on their own however, without a large force to back it up, flying it around is inviting almost certain death.

Crito 13y ago

> "Hell, just learning to fly one of those monsters can take months of training time, and skill books that themselves carry price tags in the billions of ISK." Is this training for the player, or training for the player's character? The skill books I assume are for the player's character, but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?

tinco 13y ago
For the players character. Eve has this weird/cool system where certain skills can be selected for your virtual player to train on. The skills take a set amount of real time, and the training continues even when you're logged off.
patmcc 13y ago
>>"but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?" Not really - flying ships in eve is less flight simulator, more spreadsheet. You usually choose another ship/structure from a drop-down menu and choose approach, orbit, etc. Most battles are not about individual pilot skill at all (especially very large ones like this).
- Justsignedup 13y ago
  Lol eve is a thinking man's mmo. Action is kind of... meh. There is no simulation. Your character for better or worse can just be replaced with an AI that listens to commands of the leader. You are basically a body in a giant battle. Your goal is to click the little red dot designated for you to click on, and click your weapons. The end. The game is all about maneuvers. How to out-maneuver your opponent to catch them with their pants down, block reinforcements, prevent retreat, maximize damage while minimizing yours. Imagine a battle between two countries, its not just about what is in the battle, but what led up to the battle occurring, how people behave, etc.
  - samstave 13y ago
    I find it funny ow "eve is the thinking mans MMO" when I gave up Masters of Orion in the 90s because I felt as though I was playing excel.... Albeit - that was playing Excel solo vs playing Excel against many other CPAs... I do not want to play a spreadsheet... But, I am FARKING AMAZED about how well eve does and how amazingly in depth their eco-system is.

ZachPruckowski 13y ago

>Only the largest and most powerful organizations in the game, alliances, can actually build or fly titans, and they tend to jealously guard them. That really underscores just how big a loss 75 of them is. Such losses cause tectonic shifts in the balance of power. Additionally, War in EVE is largely about sapping the opponents' morale - it could take months of fighting for hours every night to take a defended region, but if you get the enemy's pilots discouraged and not logging in or avoiding the fighting or even switching to another group then you can win a lot faster. This is called a "fail-cascade" and it's how GoonSwarm (the infamous lead alliance of CFC) won a lot of early wars - key wins cause players and leaders not to log in which makes future fights easier which causes a "rats fleeing a sinking ship" effect. That's also why the unpaid bill was such a big deal - it would have taken a week or more of victories for CFC to otherwise capture the system. That said, it's unlikely in this instance that the losers (Pandemic Legion and friends) are going to fall apart as a result - they've gone from "most Titans in the game" to "second or third most Titans in the game", and they've survived and rebuilt from considerably worse losses before - both GoonSwarm and Pandemic Legion have at various points lost everything and been down to a few hundred demoralized pilots but clawed their way back up.