Sig sizes

I said I would do this for Sugar Kyle.

With CCP looking at giving more lowsec wandering wormholes, a few lowsec residents have said this will make it more clustered and messy to find exploration sites. I've posted a couple times to say its not that bad if you use the sig sizes or know about them and how to use them, you can scan for what you want alot faster.

The basics.

All signatures have a size, this determines how easy or hard they are to scan down. Size 10 being really easy size 1.25 being very hard.
By launching probes and having them all in the same place (preferably centred on the sun) you can get a relative strength of all sigs eg

A  2.2%
B  2.1%
C  1.5%
D  1.1%
E  1%
F  0.5%

The highest a sig can be in wormholes is a size 10 so most the time the highest % sig will be that (not always as you may not have one in system) but assuming the easiest is a size 10 you can work out what the other sig strenght are as they will be in the same ratio. the above list would be.

A  10
B  10
C  6.6
D  5
E  5
F  2.5

Now if you know what size sigs are. you can look for that size of a sig and ignore the rest

Here is the table for wormhole sig sizes. Now I live in a C6 static C6 our static is a size 6.6 so the sig C will be our static wormhole I can ignore all the rest just scan that signature to find our static.

Now I want to move a capital in from lowsec. checking the table I know C6 to null is a size 10 and C6 to lowsec is a size 5. So in this case I would scan sigs A, B, D, E once at 25% it will say if its a wormhole, If it is I'll scan it all the way down. I would also scan C my static and then do the same in my static looking for these sizes.

I want to gas mine for ISK  I know the sites I want are the Instrumental and the Vital these are size 2.5. So I'd quickly check what F is. If its not a gas site I would scan my static C, then do the same in the static checking all the 2.5 sigs.

Its worth noting here that a C6 to hisec is a 2.2 and will often look just like a 2.5. Its very hard to tell the difference.

Now this won't always tell you what each signature is, but it will allow
you to ignore stuff that definitely wont be what you are looking for.

Below is a screen shot of our static.

The top 5 sigs, 1.2% to 1% are all size 10. The 0.6% to 0.5% are all size 5 and the last ones at 0.3% are size 2.5. This wormhole has a static C5, which is a size 10, so to find that I'd just go scan the top 5 sigs on this screenshot.

Here  is the lowsec signature sizes. Its worth noting the easiest sig is a size 20 so if you do a quick scan of that sig to see if its a size 20 or 10 you can then work out the rest.

With one probe out I get the result below.

A  4.2%
B  2.1%
C  2%
D  1.1%
E  1%
F  0.5%

I scan A its a rogue trial yard which checking on the table is a size 20. I can now work out the sig sizes.

A  20
B  10
C  10
D  5
E  5
F  2.5

If I want to try and find 5/10 DED sites I know they are size 5 so I scan D and E.
If I want 6/10 I know they are 2.5 so I scan F.
If I want to find a wormhole to other lowsec areas for PvP I know its a size 10 so I scan B and C.

This can be done with core probes at 32 AU but its alot easier and more precise using a combat probe at 64 AU. Its easier in smaller systems if your in a huge system you may have a bit more trouble. This helps alot more as the number of signatures increase.

For people wanting to find stuff in nullsec here is the link to sig sizes.

On another note, had great fun on Down the Pipe podcast. That should be out in the next day or so. So I'd urge people to go give that a listen. I'll put a blog up when it comes out.

Removal of NPC data from the API.

I said I'd write about this.

So the basic idea is, npc and player kill data can't be accessed in game through the client in W-space. However you can get it using 3rd party apps through the API. As such they want to remove it from the API.

On paper this makes alot of sense, its very in keeping with W-space. We don't have local we have to scout, intel is harder to get.

The issue though is just because it makes sense doesn't mean its good for the game.

So first I start to look at what it will do.

You won't be able to get information on when people run sites or see in what day of a cap escalation cycle they are in. For most stuff this isn't to much of a issue this data is already a hour old so when it first appears on Dotlan/Siggy etc. Its often to late. This does heavy screw people who do log on traps as you can't just jump in to a system and go "hey they run sites for the last 2 days at 19.00". Then log off and wait till 19.00 the next day.

This will probably make it safer to farm as log on traps will be harder.

Making farming easier may increase the amount of melted nano's on the market leading to a drop in there price. This would then heavily affect people in C1 to C4 space who get a much higher percentage of there income from salvage. Worth noting I think the income in C1 to C3 is already low when you look at risk to reward.

Are any of these important enough to keep the API info in game. Speaking to CCP FoxFour it's something he wants to happen, but he is more than willing to change his mind if a decent reason can be presented. On several posts he actually commented on the fact that it was a good argument and took it on board.

Making PvP harder I'm not sure on, its not going to affect wormhole PvP in general much at all. Its going to hit Blood Union and Co hard. But I'm sure they can cope, They might have to scout more, which might add on a couple days to log on trap ganks.

Making PvE safer, this I do think is a much bigger issue, its this combined with instant sigs spawning that really make it safe farming. If sigs didn't instantly appear on the overlay, this change probably wouldn't be as much of a issue.

The knock on effect of melted nano prices I also see as a big issue, but its really hard to predict this.

All this I've brought up with CCP FoxFour, especially the effect of this combined with instant overlay spawns. He's taken all this on board. There is some concerns but not enough to stop the change going ahead.

The making PvP harder I think is a bit of a over reaction. Making farming safer I do have a issue with W-space shouldn't be safe. This is what I'll be pushing to CCP to look at and hopefully change. I do have faith that something can be done here.

First impressions

So, first impressions.

I know most the people on the CSM by name, although I have only spoke to a couple in game and one on comms before getting on the CSM.

Everyone seems pretty chill. We have a nicely balanced group (although I wish we had a second WH rep) there is a fair few null people but that's to be expected as the're organised.

Everyone seems keen, although it might be just because its the start of a term. But people are certainly more than happy to help out

I've had a decent chat with Sion. This was really interesting we both spoke about the things we did in game, what would help our various area's. Was a few things that were interesting. My home wormhole (Polaris from now on) is incredibly densely populated compared to nullsec. Soin was also surprised when I mentioned just how many pos's we had, was interested hearing about how we hauled all our stuff in.

I've also had a chat with Sugar Kyle. All I can say is damn Lowsec needs some love/sorting.

I'm really hoping to spend a bit more time chatting to the other CSM one to one, as I really think it helps me get a feel for what the're like and what sort of stuff they want try and sort for instance, I really want alliance bookmarks, Sion also mentioned how it would help null. Hell NOHO moan about corp bookmarks and we only have 4 corps. He has 268 corps in his alliance.

On CCP. I've also been impressed, there has been a slight issue in W-space (will be my next blog post). But I asked if there was anyway I could chat to CCP FoxFour about it. Mynnna said he'd ask on skype, as he didn't want to hand out people's skype details without there permission, which I totally agree with. Anyway in under 5 minutes I was chatting to CCP FoxFour. He was more than happy to chat to me about the issue. I was impressed with what he knew about W-space and the 3rd party apps we used. I've been speaking to him most days. He was more than happy to take on my concerns and bring them up with the whole eve game design department. I've asked for a fair few numbers and details and he's happily sorted the answers for me.

If everyone in CCP is going to be as forthcoming as him I'm going to be really happily.

fun facts for the week.

I've been on 5 groups comms.
Had chats with 2 people on our comms.
Spoke to 15 different people on skype.

First blog post

So, First things first, thanks to everyone who voted for me.

There is a couple of special thanks I should make.

Two Step. He gave me loads of useful information on the best way to campaign. What I should be doing, who I should chat to. He also gave me a lot of encouragement. So a huge thanks to him.

The whole of my alliance NOHO. They also gave me a huge amount of support. They spent a great amount of time anchoring cans in W-space, along with Amarr, yep we do have some crazy people who go to K-space. CraftyCroc took out loads of fleets, where everyone renamed there ship "Corbexx 4 CSM". It's also worth noting most these fleets got bombed out of existence.

Zara Arran. Helped a lot in planning my campaign and helping me get stuff sorted.

A Damn Patriot and Black Bart Pirate, both pushed my name heavily in BRAVE.

Tora Bushido. This chap made me a cool gif and got my name out in the merc channel.

The other W-space candidates (Asayanami, Karen, James and Proc). All helped encourage each other and drive support as a whole. I should also add Chista in here as well.

The guys from both legacy of a capsuleer and capstable podcast for the huge work they did.

Sindel for putting me (and a couple others) on the MOTD of The Angel Project.

I'm probably forgetting a whole load of people.

So a few semi interesting figures about my campaign.

I was in 67 public channels.
Went on to 32 different corp/alliance comm's.
Answered just under 300 mails.
Longest day was 21 hours. with going on the first comm's at 8 in the morning and leaving the last comm's just after 5 in the morning the next day. Ok I had some breaks in between.

So what now?

There is a few things I want to do.

Starting this blog is the first. I'm not sure how often I'll blog, but hey its a start.
I want to sort a ingame channel out so people can contact. That's pretty simple.
Helping out BRAVE doing some of there wormhole day tripping. I'd like to do this a couple times a month, although I'm not sure just how much time I'll have free.
I want to be as visible as possible and easy to get hold of. So to help do that I've given a fair few people my skype name so they can get hold of me fairly easily. 26 people so far have it and I'll be getting that number alot higher.
I also want to keep on playing the game and having fun, killing stuff with the rest of NOHO.


All in all I'm looking forward to the year ahead.