Welcome to the last Special Sunday Short of 2013!
I made an Eve Online New Years Resolution last year at this time.
The 'other' kill board, BattleClinic, awards points for kills and displays your rank against other players. For years I had been hovering just outside the top 5,000 pilots in Eve. Yeah, not really much to shout about is it. So I decided that for 2013 my 'Eve goal' would be to get into the top 5,000. Now whilst I violenced plenty of important internet spaceships I wasn't getting many points on BattleClinic. Here is my simple understanding of how it works.
Each ship has a points value. Blow that ship up you get those points. Get blown up, you lose the points of your ship. Kill points minus loss points equals your score.
Simple? No!
Because BC is smart, it adjusts the points depending on what ship you use. For example if you engage an original destroyer in an original destroyer and kill it you will get standard points. If you engage that destroyer in a T1 frigate and kill it, you will get more points. If you use a cruiser, you will get less points.
Then we get onto friends. If there are multiple people on the kill the points are shared and affected by the largest hull type. So if you snag a cruiser and you are all in T1 frigates then you'll still get some decent points there even if there are a couple of you. If one of your mates warps in with a battlecruiser and helps, the points will be seriously reduced.
A few examples of my fights recently:-
Thrasher vs Thrasher - 20 Points
Thrasher vs Algos - 30 Points (the new destroyers are more points than the original destroyers)
Thrasher vs Merlin - 10 Points
Thrasher vs Slicer - 25 Points (Faction frigates are higher points)
So those are solo kills. I looked at some small gang fights and I was getting 3-5 points per kill with around 4 fleet mates on the kill-mail. Basically in a fleet fight you get a fraction of the points you get solo.
Best one I have seen to explain this was an interceptor in null-sec who found a Dreadnought trying, and failing, to fit through a stargate. The interceptor (or was it a frigate?) engaged and in the end the dread pilot got board and self-destructed. The pilot got 666 points for this 'kill'.
You also 'lose' points for being killed. This works in the same way. If you get blobbed by larger ships you won't lose many points. If you get solo'd by a 'lesser' class of ship you'll lose a lot more.
Anyway, the TL;DR is this:- If you want better BC ranking fly solo and kill bigger/superior ships than you are flying.
So basically thats what I started to do more. Rather than asking what people were doing and were there any fleets up when I logged on, I'd jump in a ship and roam. I'd still be on comms and still would help out when needed, but I solo'd a lot more regularly.
In January I broke into the top 5,000. New Years Resolution resolved in first month. However, I have been continuing and now, as they year draws to the end I am ranked 648th on BattleClinic. This is not great when you look that I have a corp mates in the top ten, the Quantum Cats Syndicate has some really ruthless killers! But for me, I'm pleased.
I made an Eve Online New Years Resolution last year at this time.
The 'other' kill board, BattleClinic, awards points for kills and displays your rank against other players. For years I had been hovering just outside the top 5,000 pilots in Eve. Yeah, not really much to shout about is it. So I decided that for 2013 my 'Eve goal' would be to get into the top 5,000. Now whilst I violenced plenty of important internet spaceships I wasn't getting many points on BattleClinic. Here is my simple understanding of how it works.
Simple? No!
Because BC is smart, it adjusts the points depending on what ship you use. For example if you engage an original destroyer in an original destroyer and kill it you will get standard points. If you engage that destroyer in a T1 frigate and kill it, you will get more points. If you use a cruiser, you will get less points.
Then we get onto friends. If there are multiple people on the kill the points are shared and affected by the largest hull type. So if you snag a cruiser and you are all in T1 frigates then you'll still get some decent points there even if there are a couple of you. If one of your mates warps in with a battlecruiser and helps, the points will be seriously reduced.
A few examples of my fights recently:-
Thrasher vs Thrasher - 20 Points
Thrasher vs Algos - 30 Points (the new destroyers are more points than the original destroyers)
Thrasher vs Merlin - 10 Points
Thrasher vs Slicer - 25 Points (Faction frigates are higher points)
Best one I have seen to explain this was an interceptor in null-sec who found a Dreadnought trying, and failing, to fit through a stargate. The interceptor (or was it a frigate?) engaged and in the end the dread pilot got board and self-destructed. The pilot got 666 points for this 'kill'.
You also 'lose' points for being killed. This works in the same way. If you get blobbed by larger ships you won't lose many points. If you get solo'd by a 'lesser' class of ship you'll lose a lot more.
Anyway, the TL;DR is this:- If you want better BC ranking fly solo and kill bigger/superior ships than you are flying.
So basically thats what I started to do more. Rather than asking what people were doing and were there any fleets up when I logged on, I'd jump in a ship and roam. I'd still be on comms and still would help out when needed, but I solo'd a lot more regularly.
In January I broke into the top 5,000. New Years Resolution resolved in first month. However, I have been continuing and now, as they year draws to the end I am ranked 648th on BattleClinic. This is not great when you look that I have a corp mates in the top ten, the Quantum Cats Syndicate has some really ruthless killers! But for me, I'm pleased.
BC rankings are more a rating of activity than skill. The two usually correlate (more activity leads to more experience which generally leads to more skill), but in a game with sundry complex goals like Eve, a single number doesn't really mean much of anything (that is, unless your personal goal is to make that particular number better).
ReplyDeleteThe style of play you described -- mostly solo, while still being on comms to provide backup for large targets -- is the same style of play The Tuskers have had for years. Now that I look, Tuskers and QCats are the #1 and #2 lifetime ranked corps. (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/rankings.php?type=corp) Even though, like KDR in a game like Battlefield, BC rankings don't really have much meaning, we do enjoy our numbers. It can be a source of pride, if nothing else.