Eve-maps.com website now has two "All time" Alliance rankings:
- Rank of alliances by Outposts Built
- Rank of alliances by Outposts Conquered (excludes ones they built themselves)



This came about from an discussion last weekend about which alliance had built the most outposts, and well .. it just needed a definitive answer.

A shout out to the members of alliances dead, but still hold top rankings;
- Ascendant Frontier
- Interstellar Starbase Syndicate (Dormant)
- Ka-Tet (Dying rapidly)
- Lotka Volterra

One of the great things about EVE is all the unqiue visual sites, both CCP and player made. Throughout the EVE Strategic Map book, regions with interesting COSMOS, Beacon and Complex sites have an image and grid reference displayed.

I've now added these to the web-site pages, you'll see a random screen-shot on most pages. There are over 200 different shots.



There are some pretty amazing images in EVE, so before you ask - they're all direct screenshots. I hope you find the places interesting!

/Serenity

For the curious, here is the size of the Poster that comes FREE with the 2nd Edition:



The poster includes all low-sec systems that have connection to other low-sec systems or 0.0 space. The North/South/East/West orientation between systems is true to the in-game map, and it includes all the low-sec faction warfare systems.

As with other maps, strategically important no-sec (0.0) outposts located to the edge of low-sec are also included, as are alternate close-routes through high-sec.

As per my previous blog, the poster will also be available for separate order, so owners of the 1st edition don't need to buy the 2nd edition to get the poster. (CCP haven't put that up on the ordering site yet)
The price is $6.95 including shipping as a flat-fold, or $12.95 on thick paper in a rolled tube (fixed price including shipping).

The sailing holiday turned out to be fun and relatively uneventful, which is exactly what I was looking for. So I'm back and refreshed, replying on the CSM Jita Park thread and ... the most exciting news ...

The EVE Strategic Map book is shipping from the UK on 14th May (starting in about 9hrs by my clock)!

Oh yeah baby, can't wait for my copy to arrive. Yep, I ordered one .. mad as it may sound, the early prototype I use from 2006 Fanfest has beer stains all over it and it's cheaper than printing my own here in the Netherlands and the quality is much much much better.

No forgetting that my GF said "If I don't get a signed copy after 2 years of you tied to the computer, you're going to be both dead and divorced!"

The Map Grid references in EVE Strategic Maps are now available for download, so you can either pick them up in Excel format for making your own layout to print or search, or CSV format with solarsystemIDs if you want to integrate them to your own website application (ICSC Jumpplanner already shows them)

If you put them into your own app, let me know and I'll make a link to it from the eve-maps.com site!

/Serenity

Got through some more site updates today:
- Printable Index for EVE Strategic Maps (A4 and US Letter) is now available as PDF.
- New alliance Logos uploaded.

Thanks to Havoc Pierce for formatting the index pages.

/Serenity

Good news for Eve Strategic Map owners - Verite Rendition has now added the Eve Strategic Map grid-references to his daily sovereignty and faction-warfare maps.

You can see them linked on the eve-maps.com menu.
> Sovereignty Map
> Faction Warfare Map

Hope this makes it faster for you all to track down those systems.
Enjoy and thanks Verite!

/Serenity.

During the week, based on the survey results, I coded up a "2D MiniMap" that works in-game and shows you where you are on the EVE Maps Grid, as well as page number. Thanks to Stins for pushing me to make it.
It works like this:

Some tips are included when you first open the site. The best one is to re-map your keys (Press Esc > shortcuts > map "Open Browser' to ALT+F11)











The map will automatically as you fly around.

It shows which grid you're on, and it will also display in the title of the window. So you can minimize the window, and just see the ref.









Clicking on the map displayed will bring up the search window. Type a few letters (minimum 3) and hit enter.













When maps are shown in search mode, to not confuse with auto-update mode, a white-border appears around the map and "Search" is shown in the title. It won't auto-update as you fly around.

Click on the map again to return to the search screen, or Exit the search.








That's it - It's just in beta now - one thing I would like to know is if it's loading quick enough once a few people start using it. In a normal browser, it will just enable the search function.

Please post any suggestions on how to improve it as comments to this blog!

minimap.eve-maps.com

EvE Strategic Maps 2nd Edition is now done and approved, and will be going to print tomorrow morning, so should start shipping in about 2-3 weeks. It is already available on pre-order

New Features

• Full 14-page Index by Solar System
• Market Hubs Marked on the map
• Mini-Legend on every page for station services and moon/asteroid indicators
• The fill colour of the border grids references on each page match the primary security of the regions.
• Back-level grid lines added for faster/easier system location. These are subtle to not interfere with clearly seeing jumps
  
• Universe page shows Faction Warfare regions at a glance
• Faction Warfare region pages easier to identify quickly with colour reference in region name
• Free HUGE low-sec multi-region poster containing same detail as EVE Strategic Map pages

Improvements to Existing Features

• Colours brightened, for high-sec and no-sec station systems, to make obvious in low-lighting
• Station Services simplified for reading:
  Oriented to Up/Down/Left/Right
  Indicator increased in size
  Better colours - white in high/low sec and higher contrast station system in no-sec
• System names tweaked to aid identification of symbols
  increase distance from moon/asteroid/complex symbols
• Additional off-region systems added to region pages to highlight multi-region routes.
• 2D EVE Minimap, In-game ‘GPS’ browser tool for fast lookup of grid references with visual display. Search function works in a normal browser. www.minimap.eve-maps.com

Updates

• Updated with all current outposts (Yellow stickers still included!)
• Ice fields removed from Kakakela, Sobaseki , T-8UOF, 5-75MB and Inoue

Error corrections

• Kador: Some systems were coloured incorrectly for lowsec/highsec.
  Code created to identify any occurrence on any maps, all fixed
• Jumps: some jumps were only shown in 1 direction on across region pages.
  Code created to identify any occurrence, 5 found and all fixed.
• Grid References: Some references to other regions showed the grid-reference in the current region.
  Code for assigning Grid-References changed and all fixed.
• Perrigen falls: Moons were on a hidden layer and not shown.
  Fixed - The layer is now shown.
• Table of Contents:
  "Bleak Land, The" was missing an “s”, corrected.
  "Kalevala Expanse" was missing “The”. Corrected.
  

I’ve worked hard to ensure that 1st Edition books keep their value, when compared to the 2nd Edition. I've taken the principle that any Strategic Map book should have a longevity of at least 1 year (Twice as long as the average EVE Subscription) and possibly up to 2 years (2 yearly Map changes by CCP willing).

How you ask? here is the round-up:

• New Outposts covered by stickers
  Of course, any new outposts you can mark with your existing stickers. You should have approx. 130 of an original 144 Yellow stickers, to update the outposts! (If you've not started using them to mark your alliances sovereignty)
• Page Numbers and Grid references are the same
  So you can communicate with owners of the new book with the same references. Same for all the syndicated sites (Verite's Sov Map, ICSC Jumpplanner et. al). Where systems have been tweaked in placement, they were kept in the same grid. This means minimap.eve-maps.com works for you.
  
• The EVE universe has not changed
  The EVE Universe has not changed
  The EVE Universe has not changed.
  Regions, Systems, Jumps etc. are all the same. NO CHANGE. NADA.
  At which point, I'd like to take a rant tangent for all the protagonists and forum whores who said "Not worth it - jumps, regions and systems change too frequently"; Regions, Systems and Jumps only change frequently on the maps you use, when your chosen cartographer does a shite job :P
  ESM Database driven checking FTW.
• Map Index available for download and print
  You can download and print an index - This version has been available for a while.
  I'll release the index from the 2nd Edition shortly.
  
• HUGE map available for separate purchase
  I've arranged with MMM publishing and CCP, that the free map with the 2nd Editon will be available for separate purchase at a fixed price that basically covers Postage & Packaging for the folded version as per with 2nd Edition. Or you can choose to have it delivered rolled-up in a Tube. (will appear on the store shortly)
  
• You own an irreplaceable EVE Collectible
  Yep that's right! You own the 1st edition of the 1st officially published fan content for EVE Online (Currently the ONLY fan content officially published, and possibly any MMO?). So don't spill Beer or it, or throw it in a Canal ;) ok?
  

Thanks to each of you who purchased EVE-Maps by buying the 1st edition, and I hope this explains how I work hard to respect your support for the ESM and Eve-Maps.com projects.

So what now? Fix the website to handle the visitor volumes. More website, IGB and digital tools to increase the utility of ESM!
Back to programming ...

Serenity Steele (aka. Shayne Smart)

The site has been getting ganked by the google indexer recently, a big change, but i figured out why: about 500 dead alliances were still included in the queries to present the ranking (Seems to be the thing to do in 2008 - create a vanity alliance and then kill it off).

Needless to say, these are all archived for posterities sake, and the query runs a lot faster.
So next time you're thinking of blowing 1bn isk on an alliance, think of the 400bn down the drain for vanity alliances that people didn't keep up their payments on. You could AFK train for 6 months on that ISK.

/Serenity.

After a few weeks holiday break, I had a nice surprise that the First Edition of EVE Strategic Maps has sold out!

I'm now working on the updated version which is available for pre-order. The second print-run will be smaller, so make sure you pre-order or risk missing out on holding EVE at your fingertips.

What you can expect is:
Corrections
Any corrections marked on the forums or via email will be fixed. Rather than just fix those noted, I'm adding additional database queries to identify the errors, so that any others of the same type are caught. The main errors were:

• Colour of security systems - some systems were incorrectly marked red/green. I didn't have a query to check this.
• Backwards jumps across some pages. In a few instances, jumps between regions crossing pages were not shown in one direction. This occured as a result of a database checking query that validated all jumps were included from all systems, but not checking bi-directional jumps crossing 2 map pages where the "out of region" systems were NOT shown. Redesign of the query is required.
  
• Perrigen region missing asteroid belts. This layer of information was not turned back on after editing before the final export and not detected in the database checks (since the information existed). This will be controlled by code to ensure all layers are ON before export.

Additional Content

• New outposts built at time of printed will be in the book (Stickers will ofc be included)
• More systems included from other regions on main pages. This is to account for strategic changes in the landscape of EVE with the placement of new outposts.
• Additional map content. More on this later once it's confirmed

Additionally, I'll be gathering more direct feedback from players to determine any additional changes. If you have any specific wishes for the this edition, please email them to me directly:
support [at] eve-maps.com

Well it's been a busy 1st half of the year;
- Finished and Launched Eve Strategic Map Book of 2D Eve Maps
- Player meet Gankathon in Copenhagen
- Campaigned and elected for Council of Stellar Management
- Setup the eve-csm site (which needs an update now!)
- CCP/CSM First meeting in Reykjavik
- Translated the Eve Maps legend into 15 languages
- Syndicated out the grid refs
- Put up all the COSMOS images onto the site

And somewhere in between all that we've run 7 CSM council meetings online since starting in June. Add 10 Outpost Alert newsletters and it's time for a few weeks holidays.

Outpost Alert! will resume when I'm back Mid-August.
Daily updates to Alliance Rankings will continue while I'm gone.

Signing out
/Serenity Steele.

The Legend/Preview for EVE Strategic Map Book is now available for download in 16 Languages. Credits to for the translation are on each download. The Legend is the only page your friends need translated to use the Map Book.

Tell your friends!

English		Download Preview
中文		下載預覽版本
Čeština		Stáhnout ukázku
Dansk		Hent forpremiere
Deutsch		Vorschau herunterladen
Français		Télécharger l’avant-première
Islenska		Hlaða niður sýnishorni
Italiano		Scarica Anteprima
Norsk		Forhåndsvisning
Magyar		Előnézet letöltés
Polski		Pobierz podgląd
Português		Download Prévia
Română		Descarcare Previzualizare
Русский		Загрузите Пример
Español		Descargar
Svenska		Förhandsvisning
Türkçe		Önizleme İndir

Can you translate the legend to a new language?

Download this template (.rtf) and follow the instructions for some ISK!

So it was 04:00am on Saturday, and I'm locked out of the hotel. I stared at the building for a while, and thought of a erm .. way around the problem, but didn't think anyone would believe it if they didn't see it .. so I got out my phone's camera and it went like this:

My room is under the word "Hotel" in the sign.
As in Hotel; Door Locked.




So I checked around the corner...




For something I could use to leverage my way in ...





+1





+2





+3


Home at last ...


but the door was locked ...


.. But this one wasn't



+3



+2



+1










"I was gone for like 10 minutes?! Couldn't you have waited!"

The 3rd CSM meeting ended about 30 minutes ago and we managed to get more issues passed for discussion with CCP. As per last meeting, votes were taken as to whether issues should be raised to CCP, rather than specific recommendations (These need to be written in the next 4 days).

Chat Logs for the second CSM meeting#03 are posted onto the (unofficial) Council of Stellar Management site. The Agenda can be seen here.

The CSM members now have 4 days to complete a detailed description of all issues raised so far, for submission to CCP.

The bad news is, the CSM spent a significant amount of time on process discussion around the issue of "Abstain" when a vote is called. This directly effected the meeting outcome on a vote. The specific effect discussed was in deciding on whether the majority vote for issues to go to CCP as either;
A) The yes majority required by count of members in the room,
B) or the majority of Yes vs. No votes.

Personally I find it abhorrent that
A) People fail to take a position after being expressly elected to do so, weakening the value of their vote to balance the council (in the case abstain effectively reduces number of people in the room) or simply failing to make a decision (in the case of majority in the room).
B) and We wasted so much time on the issue.

If you want to save yourself the pain of this discussion being re-opened at the end of the meeting, look out for the line;
"Serenity Steele > /emote signals to anyone reading the chat logs, that they may want to do something more productive with their life as this discussion comes up again."

When these sort of things happen It's really the sum of all my fears that the CSM will see a group elected who will- or can-not actually work together to make progress. Let's just hope it was a case of bad hair day!

The second CSM meeting ended about 30 minutes ago and was significantly more productive than the first.

At this meeting, votes were taken as to whether issues should be raised to CCP, rather than specific recommendations (as the templates are not done for another 48hrs), and ownership for writing them up into the template.

Chat Logs for the second CSM meeting#02 are posted onto the (unofficial) Council of Stellar Management site. The Agenda can be seen here.

The next step for the CSM meeting will be having pre-defined recommendations to CCP on specific issues. Expect future meetings to have more debate as contentious recommendations are agreed (or not).

Had a good request come in via email:
To help out budding alliances, can there be a filter/list of all systems which don't have sovereignty?

If you've used the site, you will know looking at any region will show the sov levels of all systems and the alliance holding them. eg. Branch


Rather than browse all regions manually, I've added a column "NoSov" which you can click on to sort in the Regions list.


I hope that helps and keep the requests coming!

/Serenity

Chat Logs for the first CSM meeting #01 are posted onto the (unofficial) Council of Stellar Management site.

The first posting was a little delayed due to ensuring everyone was in agreement they should be posted - no-one objected. The meetings tend to be pretty late night/early morning for my time-zone, so I'll post up next day for future meetings.

A note on the logs: They've been spell-checked (not grammar checked), email addresses removed and clipped to the period between the official open/close.

CSM Alternates were invited to the meeting to enable them to speak and ensure faster transition should they be required to step in. (Note that CSM Alternates are unable to vote on issues as per the CSM rules by CCP)

Once the minutes are available, I'll update the site and this blog post with a link to those.

A quick post with a big Thank you to each of you who voted for me in the CSM elections and congratulations to the other candidates in the inaugural council.

The council had the meeting to vote internally for the non-chairman positions together with CCP Xhagen today.

I'm happy to say that I've been voted in as vice chairman, in a very close 5:4 vote Serenity Steele : Bane Glorious. Minutes will be published soon on the eve-online site. The full list of responsibilities elected are:

Andrew Cruse		Jade Constantine	Chairman
Shayne Smart		Serenity Steele	Vice Chairman
Eva Jobse		Ankhesentapemkah	Secretary
Valentijn Geirnaert		Dierdra Vaal	Vice Secretary

To keep the spirit and functioning of the CSM, all alternate Council members were also invited to participate in the discussion (although they don't have the ability to vote).

This ensures both effectiveness when a council member can't make a meeting and most importantly, familiarises more people with longevity of the CSM - Alternates have a high chance of being in the next council.

There is now an Assembly Hall where you can post your issues for CSM to review for recommendation to CCP.

A template will be coming this week. in the mean-time a tip: The more structured you make the issue, the easier/faster the CSM can format it to take to CCP.

Help us to help you!

Happily last night I finished all the Empyrean age content updates to the EVE Strategic Map Book and it's off to the print press - I expect shipping to start around 16th May. The guys at EON will be emailing everyone to keep them up to date. Thanks for everyone's patience on the delay - having the new content will definitely be worth the wait!

So after 2 years of pushing for the Maps to get published and last-minute update for Empyrean Age, I'm pretty exhaused, so it's time for a well earning holiday, and be back in time for the second week of the CSM elections.

Beyond pirating *cough* sailing in the Carribean, I'll be thinking about the CSM, what my next big project will be in EVE and suffering EVE withdrawal. If I'm lucky I'll be able to find an internet connection.

See you on 12th May and remember ..

Vote Serenity Steele!

AFK!

There is a problem with the database on the site, which is not enabling display of the Outpost Alert information. I've been in dialogue with the hosting company, but I'm not having any luck with them at the moment. I'll try a few more alternatives, then failing that will have to switch to another server.

Edit 00:30 AM 27 April, EvE-Time: Engineers now working on the server.
Edit 01:15 AM 27 April, EvE-Time: Fixed.

Turns out the problem was not enough swap-disk space on the server ...
I'm sure a FFS belongs here.

The roadtrip to Gankathon began this morning from Utrecht ... as I met up with Insurgency and BOB pilots from the Netherlands EVE Gathering, with the Steamy driving.

It was a pretty good drive down, barring the freight traffic on the route. Short of any serious hardward to clear the roads, it ended up taking us the better part of 10 hours to get to Copenhagen. Aparently a new record is maximum time compared to last year.

We were greeted by a few other INSRG at Copenhagen station, who'd miraculously managed to enticed (abducted?) a young blonde elfen sprite from WOW. Parting ways, I went on to get some practice in for my liver with blast from the past Count TaSessine <iss>.

For tomorrow, I'll be bringing a proof copy of EvE Strategic Maps for people to review and the crew at MMM Publishing have sent along 8 copies of edition #11 EON to hand-out.

Speaking of CSM .. for those of you following candidates, grab me for questions and you'll also find Lavista vista and TornSoul attending. While they're kissing bab(i)es, the first 8 people to tell me the total number of CSM candidates currently on Council of Stellar Management will receive the EON editions. Buying a beer also works ;)

Hope to see you there!

The CSM already has a stated mechanism (5% rule) for pushing through ideas with popular support for CSM review. Once it's at the CSM for review, how it's voted by the CSM candidates for progression to CCP is out of our hands. Like any system, this has abilities to be 'gamed' by large alliances, by wealthly players, by the people who shout the loudest.

(un)Popular Support
If you're good at getting your ideas marketed and 5% popular support, you probably don't need me to do that. What I can deliver to EvE players, is an ability to raise your ideas in the CSM vote, that may be wierd and wacky (Alliance Rankings? IPOs?) yet are genuinely good ideas that you are not able to bring to popular attention. I can bring those ideas directly to the CSM for you.

Alliance (de)Bias
If you're in an enormous alliance able to vote-in it's own ideas, you probably don't need me for that. You need me as a person you can trust to ensure the other alliances don't get an unfair upper hand.

Two additional transparency mechanisms for the CSM.
So far so good - but how do we go about ensuring that the majority of the 9 votes at the CSM is unbiased? In my experience, the best way to get a transparency is to reveal the supporters behind the candidate at the CSM table.

To this end, together with players i know in RL, I've established and guarantee two additional candidates.
If you will not be voting for me, then I recommend;

• Vox Pop, whos vote at the CSM table will be governed by IGB polling on each issue.
  You'll know the voice of the players is heard, because you will be making that vote.
  
  
• Yusra whos vote at the CSM table will be governed by Per.Capita shareholders votes.
  Let the wealthy hold their power, but give us all a hand in sharing that wealth and seeing what the wealthy support.

IMHO, the best part of these mechanisms is that it doesn't need a CSM to push it to CCP. The players make the rules (hence my support for more tools .. that's another post).

So with these additional mechanism in place, what will I bring to the table?
Firstly you can trust me to combine my knowledge of EvE with my RL experience of leadership, process management and business analysis to ensure ideas are stated clearly and evaluated thoroughly and transparently.

Secondly, I'll provide oversight (combined with a healthy public audit) to this trinity of votes.

It was an emotional Friday, as after 2 years of hard work, countless discussions with CCP and possible a new definition of soon(tm), I'm very relieved to say EvE Strategic Maps are now available to you in the EvE Store.

No more getting lost on crossed over systems, no more hours of digging to find out where the best systems are, No more lose sheets cluttering up your desk, and most importantly, no more being a stranger in a strange land when visiting new regions.

I really hope everyone gets as much utility out of the maps as I have (I'm looking forward to having a replacement to the pre-revelations, Nov 2006 edition I'm still using!).

Many thanks to the guys at MMMPublishing for making it happen and professionalising the product to EON levels, to my comrades and friends who reviewed the various iterations culminating in the current trinity edition, and who were a shoulder to lean-on when I had my doubts they would ever see the light of day. Special thanks to all of you who supported in translation of the Legend.

So, after that pivotal moment, what's next for eve-maps.com?

• IGB and more web-site features for both Outpost Alert and the ESM.
  
• Syndication of the alliance data for Rethe Henney's G15 keyboard app
• Upgrade of the database server to support more users

And of course, I'll can now focus on my CSM candidacy, playing EvE and getting a social life back!