DOTLAN EveMaps

Yesterday night I deployed some features on DOTLAN EveMaps I had laying around on my development site for quite some time but never had the time to actually deploy it. One of those features in the new Universe Region Map which was always missing. Instead of looking at a long list of regions/maps to select from you now get a chance to easy see where you want to look at in the universe.

There are other new features as well like restructured user area, notes and standings overlay for your map but I’ll write a separate post about it soon(tm) to explain all the juicy details and maybe tweak the one and other thingy as well.

This year I decided to take my camera gear including multiple lenses, filters and tripod with my on the Iceland trip. All pictures are sorted and I finally found some time to make a small selection which I’ve uploaded into my blog. (Scroll down for the photos).

It was awesome to meet a good majority of the eve community again at the fanfest. It’s always inspiring to talk with you and grab some ideas. Oh btw … I really appreciate the evefanpest which knocked me out for a couple days with a nice and heavy flu.

Some quick notes and thoughts:

CREST:

• I know that it’s takes a long long time to provide a good and stable API service, basically nothing new compared to last year
• I really like that CCP *must* use their own API (for the EVE/DUST Link and Mobile Apps). Hopefully this will provide us with a better API service overall (compared to the old api).
• The first release will just be with for character stuff (read only) and contact management only (read+write). But CCP wants to release a low used API first to see the results in the public before release a highly used one which gets 100k users from start. Later versions will/should include more information. They hope to get a beta version ready for summer, but they forget to mention the year 🙂
• The DEV Track sessions were bringing up cool ideas like “fireholes” where you get instead push notifications on world changes.
• The game designers will have final word on what kind of information will get published via API/Crest

OLD API:

• Prism X is in charge again. Hopefully he’ll get some time to get things fixed (killmail stuff) and maybe provide some API calls that fill the gaps in the existing ones.
• There will never be an API for planetary interaction. The old api is direct database access only, you would have to recreate the PI logic which would be duplicate work. So you must wait for CREST v2

STATIC DATABASE DUMP:

• CCP is planning to create a process to provide future static database dumps as SQLite file.
• Bye Bye yaml files

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Here we go – It’s been a long time since my last blogpost, Family life takes over more and more of my time which is great and challenging 🙂 Anyway.

I’m now sitting in the train to Frankfurt Airport to get my Icelandair Flight to the Eve Online Fanfest 2013. I’m really looking forward to see and meet all eve people again in one spot.

Events I’ve booked/planned (the usual ones):

• Golden Circle Tour (again)
• Eve Online Symphony Concert
• Pub Crawl
• Blue Lagoon (I didn’t managed to buy a ticket via ccp, but I’ll try to get there via public transport).

See you in Iceland fellow capsuleers and for the travelers: Fly safe 🙂

With the upcoming expansion CCP is adding new stargate connections to the minmatar lowsec area to enhance the roaming ability for (mostly) faction warfare pilots.

A jump connection between Kurniainen (Bleak Lands) and Isbrabata (Metropolis) has been added
A jump connection between Siseide (Heimatar) to Eszur (Metropolis) has been added
A jump connection between Gulmorogod (Heimatar) to Egmar (Metropolis) has been added

I’ve updated the affected the maps. Here’s the Amarr VS Minmatar FW Map with the new connections highlighted.

• Patch Notes
• Map: FW Amarr VS Minmatar

Regarding the changes of static plexes, I’ve to play around with the eve client cache again and see what I can extract and update after my family break.

Well no … there was is/was a bug in CCP’s API Response leading to a DDoS to CCP’s API Server. Those applications who’re taking care of CCP’s cachedUntil timers got screwed up and are permanently requesting the API. This behaviour was leading to too many API requests and screwed some of my numbers leading to various strange rumors on Twitter.

Here’s what the “current” timers in the API look like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<eveapi version="2">
  <currentTime>2012-07-01 10:31:13</currentTime>
  <result>
    [...]
    <dataTime>2012-07-01 10:31:13</dataTime>
  </result>
  <cachedUntil>2012-07-01 10:31:13</cachedUntil>
</eveapi>

I guess everybody can see what was the root cause … If every call is outdated as soon as you request the data … well … I hope CCP fixes their stuff soon. I changed my API pollers and fixed the database, so the numbers should be accurate soon now

From a comment today:

Request for Feature:
Could you make it possible to selectively disable system ownership and sov level checking for creating jump bridge networks?

We’re trying to model proposed networks across a coalition, and the inability to put in invalid links is proving to be an obstacle. The whole point is we model the network as it should be and then we transfer the space around to make it happen.

It would be nice if instead we could create bridge networks “blind” to sov ownership and sov level.

Just a quick note. Done.

You can now add jump bridge connections to your bridge network even if they’re make no sense (different owner/wrong sov level). This is for planning only of course. Keep in mind that if you use the route planer with your new bridge network selected only valid bridges will be taken into calculation.

P.S. I’ve also added additional check so you’ll only be allowed to add one bridge per system. This is to be compliant with the ingame rules. It would make no sense to plan more bridges in a system if it’s not possible ingame.

I just updated my map database with the recent drone regions security changes.

From the Patch Notes

Worldshaping

The security status of systems in Etherium Reach, Malpais, Oasa, Outer Passage, Perrigen Falls, The Kalvela Expanse and The Spire has been adjusted upwards to bring them more into line with the rest of nullsec.

Links

• Patch Notes for Escalation to Inferno
• Map: Etherium Reach
• Map: Malpais
• Map: Oasa
• Map: Outer Passage
• Map: Perrigen Falls
• Map: The Kalvela Expanse
• Map: The Spire

Just a quick note: As mentioned in the DevBlog “Carebearing 2.0” the drone regions will have their security status/distribution shuffled. Additionally the drones are getting bounties instead of minerals drops.

My personal opinion is still that the drone regions are lacking some npc space … every major geographical direction in new eden has their share of npc stations just the newer drone regions are lacking them.

• North: Venal, Syndicate, Outer Rings, 2 Constellations in Pure Blind
• East: 1 Constellation in Geminate
• South: Curse, Great Wildlands, Stain
• West: 2 Constellations in Delve, 1 Constellation in Fountain

I can already smell the rage that comes from the all those refinery station owners in the drone lands. But at least they’re getting some thoughts. Lets see how this will turn out, especially to the mineral prices.

Maybe the only non-nerf related thing in this devblog is: More dead mining ships in nullsec in the future. More stuff to shoot for Black Ops gangs.

After I failed pretty hard with my last (non-used) statistic table of kills and jumps I unpacked all my kills/jumps XML files (around 13gb of CCP API server responses) and re imported them once again. You’re now welcome to check out the statistic page integrated into DOTLAN EveMaps.

Basically it’s only something for people who’re number freaks or like to see how much Interaction Eve Online really provides. You can get a summery or Changes, Kills, Jumps, etc per month or year.

Here’re some examples:

• Statistics from 2012-02
• Statistics from 2011
• Statistics from 2010

Twitter and #tweetfleet is currently getting spammed by eve online stats of the past year and months. I also started and posted a few stat postings but decided to do an additional long post to capture everything on a big scale.

Keep in mind the numbers are not 100% valid due to unexpected downtime of CCP’s API service or maintenance down times of DOTLAN EveMaps such as the successful hardware upgrade in April 2011.

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