Around 16:00 EVE Time (which is UTC/GMT time for the people that are on planet Earth) the patch was ready on the server side, and downloading a whopping 2.2 gig of upgraded game code was started. Although some people seemed to have problems with the download speeds, for me personally it went well, and I started to install the new Mac OSX version of EVE. This _should_ bring me the long awaited ‘Premium Content’ client for Mac OSX, together with the needed patches to gain more speed in the OSX platform, as well as solving serious memory leak and other bugs.

And it did bring me the Premium client. And more surprisingly; it did bring me Premium graphics at about the same performance as the previous ‘Classic Content’ client operated. A good start, however the underlaying Cider from Transgaming still has it issues and bugs, the game is way more playable on Mac OSX now.

But it did bring more, much more. Some of the new features are Tech3 Strategic Cruisers, new way of probing but most fun of all; Wormholes…

CCP claims to have extended the EVE Universe with about 46% by adding ‘Unknown’ systems. These Unknown system can be reached by jump thru ‘Wormholes’. Wormholes are not known in the current EVE mapsystem, so pilots have the scan with probes for them. Once you found one, you can enter is by ‘jumping’ thru the Wormhole.

There are several kind of Wormholes. Some bring you to another place in the ‘known’ EVE Universe. A Wormhole found in Jita could bring you to Rens instantly, but could also bring you to pirate invested systems like Rancer. It all seems random, but it sure is fun.

However, the Wormholes that bring you to ‘Unknown’ space are the ones that gives you real fun. These systems are not mapped, are really unknown, and are the ones that have to be ‘examined’ by the real explorer amongst the EVE pilots. CCP is really mysterious about what the expect in these Unknown systems, besides the fact that these systems are populated by a new ‘race’, called the Sleepers. But the explorers in EVE already shared information about what they discovered.

We know already that there are 3 kind of Unknown space systems; Unknown Space, Dangerous Unknown Space and Deadly unknown Space. The first if most likely to be found in empire regions; it’s not hard to kill the Sleeper NPC you find inside and can be even killed with a good solo setup. The second one is much harder; solo killing is a no-go, so you have to go in gangs with experienced pilots to kill the Sleepers. The last one is still a bit of a mystery. It seems that even with a Capital fleet, the Sleepers are hard to kill!

Once in an Unknown System, you can also encounter a ‘Phenomena’. Not all Unknown systems have these, and there is little known about these Phenomena till date. One thing is for sure, it will effect some attributes on your ship. There are reports about suddenly a shorter locking range, missiles that have a shorter flight time, Shields that shifts hitpoints, etc. etc.

To make all this even more difficult, Wormholes are collapsing by time, of by the number of ships passing thru. Some fuzzy information can be found in the Info panel of a Wormhole. When a Wormhole collapses, the Unknown system you are in is completely isolated, and you have to scan for another ‘exit’ Wormhole again. And where this ‘exit’ Wormhole will bring you…. Who knows. So first of all you ALWAYS have to have a probing ship with you to find another exit, and then you only can hope this exit brings you somewhere into friendly space, so you can get back to your HQ with your fleet in one piece.

But why go into Wormholes and kill the Sleepers, besides the fun? Well, it’s all about Tech3. The only way to get Tech3 ships (and more in near future?) is to ‘harvest’ the minerals from Gas Clouds, get the decryptors from Hacking sites, Salvage the parts from Sleeper ships, and get information parts from Archaeology sites that are found in these Unknown Systems. Combining these parts all together brings you the ability to invent and build Tech3 Strategic Cruisers.

Next time I will go more in detail about the Tech3 stuffies, but for now; have fun and beware in the Unknown Space!

Linky: Some information about Wormholes and Unknown Space I try to keep update regular

Sorry, but I just can’t get used to the looks of the 2009 F1 cars. Really every wing seems out of perspective. That front wing is way to wide, the rear wing is way to small and high. The only view angle where they look good, is the side view.

Looking at the front wing, I can’t stop thinking about the results of close racing in 2009. That front wing is born to be a ‘tire-cutter’ when it comes to close racing and/or crowded starts. Wonder how strong the teams build their front wings, but even if they are to fragile for ‘wheel-bang-cut-tire’ actions, they will result in cutting tires when they are all scattered over the circuit.

Talking about tires, the slicks are back in Formula One. A good thing in my opinion. I suspect the drivers and teams need to get used to it again, since the real slicks have been away for quite some time. Like in light rain races; I think this slick might cause sooner problems on a wet track than the former ‘grooved’ slick tire.

However, rules are rules, and I hope FIA are right about all these radical changes, thus resulting in a thrilling 2009 race season. When the races are good, I think I can get used to the ‘Dinky Toy’ looks of the 2009 Spec F1 cars, for now I just post a few more pics in a few angles that doesn’t reveal the complete image, to get myself (and maybe you) used to the, currently still funny, looks of the cars.

Many EVE-Mac users, if not all, got worried every day, counting down to M10, some predicting doom on the Mac OSX client and desperately installing bootcamp. This would be the first ‘Premium’ client (as in Premium graphics) for the EVE-Mac users, and even the old ‘Classic’ client caused lots of bugs, performance issues and grief. But then, suddenly out of the blue (or black, since universe space tends to be black instead of blue), with less than 5 days till M10, a link to the EVE-Mac client was posted by CCP (employee) Casqade.

I installed the Beta client and ran it on my 24 inch Aluminum iMac in Mac OS X Leopard (10.5). Boy was I surprised. The client performed very well, giving me about the same performance as the old Classic client, but now with all the new eye candy like enhanced textures, shadows, Bloom, etc.

But not only the new eye candy surprised me: The (old) Classic EVE client used to spam the OS X Console with lots, and I really mean LOTS of error messages. Somehow CCP, and Transgaming, didn’t manage to get all these bugs solved during the past year. And now with the new Premium EVE client, complete silence in the OS X console….

Even large fleet battle tests on Sissy, which tends to stress every EVE client to it’s max, went pretty well. The client only crashed twice on me. The first crash I did a screen resolution change during a system jump, which is asking for problems. The second in a fleet battle with over 300 ships around me, but I didn’t completely restart after the first crash, so there might have been some wrong bits left in memory. Every other large battle I tested afterwards, didn’t cause additional client crashes.

However, this is all still Beta, and on the Singularity (Sissy) test server. Every EVE Online pilot knows that Tranquility (TQ) is a complete other story. The complexness and massive usage of the TQ server, causing lag spike and desyncs in some situations, can cause several unforseen problems with the clients.

So, I can’t wait to see what M10 brings the EVE-Mac community in the end, but the first impressions are promising….

(For those of you who don’t know EVE Online, but got interested: http://www.eveonline.com/apocrypha/)

But for sure his fighting spirit during the season, his near perfect driving at Silverstone and on top of that the perfect take-over on Raikonen at the thrilling race at Spa-Francorchamps, made me like Hamilton as a racer far above all the other 2008 drivers, where only Vettel comes close. If the FIA stewards were a bit more race-fight-and-take-over lovers (as the FIA lead constantly tries to achieve by issuing more and more regulations, go figure…) and more consistent in their penalties towards the different drivers (only Ferrari-drivers are allowed to cut people, even during pitstops), than Hamilton was 2008 F1 Champion already a few races ago. But Hamilton became 2008 F1 Champion after a nail-biting last few laps, by one point. Phew. Some call it luck, but I call it justice!

Congratulations Hamilton! You earned it.

So, up to the 2009 season. I can’t wait to see what the new regulations will bring us. FIA hopes for more competitive racing, and I’m with them on that part. However…. they for sure need to open a new can of fresh race stewards. If these new regulations will give us more competitive racing, decisions of the 2008 race stewards gonna bring us a big mess the next season….

If Hamilton did brake way to late, and Kimi didn’t, why didn’t Kimi let Hamilton pass-and-go-wide to get Hamilton on the inside again? What about Kovalainen, Massa and the others going wide too? If you watch the start closely, Hamilton was already aside of Kimi to pass him in the first corner, and Kimi wanted to go in behind him again, and it was Kovalainen in his path; if someone forced Kimi to go wide out of the track, it was Kovalainen. Massa even choose to go wide early, obviously to gain some speed for the next straight or pass cars inside getting out of the first corner, however Kimi was in his path. Also, there are more cars that brake late, and run wide since you can in the first corner. So, if this is now also a reason to give drivers a penalty, I’m wondering what F1 still has to do with racing at all. Isn’t it the FIA and FOCA that put out all the regulations to achieve more overtaking in F1 GP races, so making it more attractive? Isn’t it the run-for-the-first-corner-and-try-to-sqeesh-in that almost happens every race, without any penalty whatsoever? I bet the FIA will ‘clarify’ the racing rules again resulting in a ban on passing at the first corner right after the start of the race, just like they ‘clarified’ the rules to justify the penalty on Hamilton’s great passing maneuver on Raikkonen at the Belgium GP.

If they put it on dangerous driving, then Massa should have received at least a stop-and-go penalty for his ‘outside-the-lines-and-hit-on-the-back-wheel’ action towards Hamilton in lap two (a classic Shumi-Hill maneuver, he learned good from his mentor), and a drive-thru penalty for his ‘dangerous’ agressive overtaking action on Webber, and his cut-off action on Bourdais. But to fool the neutral racing fan even more; after the race the FIA decided to punish Bourdais for the incident Massa caused by cutting the corner around Bourdais, while both where racing for a place. Now tell me…

I don’t know what Ron Dennis did to mister Max ‘FIA’, but it must be something real bad (maybe the rumours about tipping the press are real?). Or Luca di ‘Ferrari’ did something real good to Max, like arranging some more kinky private parties for him… Or is it maybe Jean Todt pulling the FIA strings already? That would at least clarify something…

Let me recall some things that come into my mind. Kimi Raikkonen braked way to late in the Monaco GP and hitted Sutil in the back, causing Sutil to end the race while in  a good position. No penalties given at all.  I’m pretty sure Sutil would receive a penalty if it was the other way around. Ferrari did several ‘risky’ pitstops, obviously caused by their new pit system, with on top the incident with Massa causing to cut Sutil during the exit of the pitstop. No racing penalty given at all, just a fine, leaving Massa with the race win. Convenient, since other drivers did receive a penalty for the same error. And then we have the issue with cooled fuel. Seems that one is just put away in silence completely.

Anyhow, if this is gonna be the way F1 racing will be from now on, I’m pretty sure I won’t be watching it at all any time soon, since it has nothing to do with racing anymore. Racing should be a, decent, fight, with some risks and spirit. That brings the excitement. Right now I’m watching a GP race wondering, when someone overtakes another, what the drivers did wrong this time and guessing what penalty they might receive. And on top of that having the knowledge that the finish podium is not what it looks to be, since the results will be adjusted after the race anyway…

Will this work as good on the iPhone too? I like to put a picture on this page…. Let’s test it.

Let’s post a picture here now.

Oh, btw, the picture shows Mirjam and our little brat Micah.

- C

It seems to work pretty well to be honest. Funky stuff indeed. Only I seem to type a v instead of a space. But who cares about a little typo if things can be editted later on.

- C