The Dominion experience.

As I reported in a previous post I had very little knowledge of how the changes in Domion affected the ratting/plexing experience in 0.0. I didn't read the Dev blogs/posts, so with that I tried some belts in the usual 2V-pocket system without any noticeable change.

I knew that I was missing something, so I called for some clarifiation/explanation and two corp-mates came to rescue. Al Noldevin and Falgoria explained, the major difference is in the number of plexes available per system. Let me give a brief overview (for those lazy like me) of whats new.

If you click the "Sovereignty" link in the upper-left corner of the screen you'll see the Sovereignty window. In the System tab you'll see a last 24 hour summary of kills and cyno fields activity. You also find an Overview with stations, etc. At the end you'll see a "Development Indices" field. Each system has 3 different indices: Strategic, Military and Industry.

The strategic informs you if the system is owned by an alliance. Once the alliance has taken ownership of the system, then activity in the system affects the military index. The higher that is, the more plexes are available. The more plexes are cleared, the higher it goes. Once that is full, then the Industry index increases based on the industrial activity in the area. Is my understanding that this affect Ladar and Grav sites in the area.

Another intersting thing is that for these plexes no probe launcher + probes are needed. Using the ship scanning system you can get 100% hit on these. The other type of signatures (Radar, Mag, w-space, etc) are still there and still need probe to find, but with so many combat files readily available there is a bigger chance of finding those now. Plexers/ratter can make plenty of ISK without taking the time to scan all these signatures.

Talking ISK... I can't imagine how the market will be affected with the influx of money from all these new sites. I'll keep an eye on the blogs to see what trends (if any) come about.

On other things, I'm finally doing Z&S missions in Mamet. These are way better than the crap I was doing in Empire space. They are not L3 yet, but the L2-Quality7 agent keeps me busy. I'm seating at a 2.56 standing at the moment. I need 3.5 for the L3 agent in Ziriert talks to me. I look forward to that.

I'm currently running missions with the Vexor (Cruiser V baby!) using hobII and hammerII. Bad guys melt like butter. I imagine that I'll upgrade to the Myrmidon when L3s come around.

Doing missions in Mamet is definitely more interesting. The rats are still easy, but the constan move of reds thru the system keeps me awake. Talking about that... I learned something today. Drones and cloaks don't mix.

As I was finishing a mission and my drones were flying back a group of reds jumped in. Since I was out of combat I clicked on my cloak. Drones went puff. It seems that cloaking interrupts communication between ship and drones. Once the reds left system I flew to the drones to scope them in. I learn something new everyday.