In last week's first instalment of this guide, I explained the basics of mission-running in EVE Online and how to find your best agent. In this second part of the guide, I get into the nitty gritty details of essential ship designs for mission-runners. Choosing an appropriate ship and fitting it adequately are arguably the two most important factors in mission-running. While having a weak mission strategy and poor support skills can cause a lot of bother, a poorly designed ship is almost guaranteed death on some of the tougher missions. With the advice in this guide, a little research and a good deal of practice, you'll be well on your way to becoming a mission guru.

Read after the cut for a race-by-race break-down of EVE's most popular and effective mission-running ships, complete with links to some further reading and popular mission fittings.

While it may not have green grasslands, lush landscapes and picturesque waterfalls like fantasy-based MMOs, there's little doubt that the spacescapes of EVE Online are any less lovely to look at. After all, how many of us looked up at the stars and thought how cool it would be to make our homes there. While cold and unforgiving at times, EVE Online can be a place that takes your breath away too. Just ask today's contributor, CJ, who writes in: Many times in EVE, I find myself just captivated at the pure delight at the visuals thrown at me. Especially, the nebulas and corresponding planets and stars. This One Shot shows my character, Lucrait, in his newly acquired ship, the Catalyst, shortly after he lost his pride and joy, a Merlin. Gladly though, he was able to look past that unfortunate event and enjoy one of the thousands of New Eden systems.

If you've been thinking about sending in a screen, there's no time like the present to contribute. Just mail those to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and the game it's from. Descriptions are welcome, as are short tales if you're so inclined! We'll post it up and give you the credit for taking the great screenshot.

The other day, I watched this demo of Gaikai, a new service being spearheaded by the legendary games developer David Perry. The idea is a simple one: using a browser you can access everything from MMOs to racing games and even the memory-hog that is Photoshop with all the actual software installed on a remote server and accessed via the cloud. Now it seems like an awesome undertaking but I came out of it feeling really impressed. WoW and EVE were running at lightening speed and the prospect of not patching or updating got me a little excited. Now browser-based MMOs are now new. Just look at Free Realms and the plethora of free-to-play titles. But the idea of playing seriously intensive games like EVE? Wow, just wow. You still need some kind of graphics card in your computer but the cloud seems to do the vast majority of the work.

So readers, what do you think? You might well have used browser-centric MMOs in the past and their ease of use is encouraging. Would you play WoW on a browser if it could mimic your current setting or even improve on them? Would it make your life easier knowing that someone else was dealing with all the patches? On the other hand, cloud-based technology is still new and shiny, would you rather stick with actual discs or your own hard drive? Tell us, readers, and drop your thoughts in the box below.

EVE Online is a deep sandbox game with the most complex player-driven economy found in any massively multiplayer title. There's enough depth, in fact, that players can establish their own financial ventures in-game, in the forms of bonds and IPOs, and even institutions like banks. However, EVE Online is a game where some players create while others undermine or outright destroy. Trust is a valuable and rare commodity in EVE's setting of New Eden; there are always risks of deception and betrayal. But those willing to take risks are generally the ones who are most successful. Of the player-run banks presently operating in the game, EBANK has billed itself as "the largest financial entity ever seen in EVE."

The secrets of its success? A solid Board of Directors and knowledgeable staff, various safeguards preventing any one individual from accessing all bank assets and, yes, some of that rare commodity called trust.That trust was damaged recently though, when EBANK's (now-former) CEO Ricdic, well-known to the game's playerbase, embezzled the virtual funds he was entrusted with. Although this is permissible by EVE's developers CCP Games, selling in-game currency for real-world cash is not. Ricdic has been banned from the game but his actions triggered a run on the virtual bank, and have shaken the faith many players have in EBANK.

Massively spoke about the incident with LaVista Vista, a former member of the game's Council of Stellar Management who sits on the Board of Directors of this virtual bank in EVE; he also provides commentary and analysis of virtual worlds and EVE on the Eveconomics blog. LaVista told us about the parallels that can be drawn between a banking crisis in the virtual galaxy of New Eden and that of the real world, and how what happens in a game can impact real lives.

We read about these things happening periodically, an EVE player pulls a runner with some huge amount of ISK and all sorts of drama ensues. It makes me wonder, what has the real life impact of this theft been on those of you involved with EBANK?

If you are to trust the forum trolls, EVE is JUST a game. But having spent 2 years on this project, real-life money and a lot of sweat and tears, it hurts to see EBANK's name being dragged through the mud, and putting up with the drama. It of course causes a huge amount of real-life stress, and makes you wonder about a few things. I even almost managed to miss 2 exams, due to having to deal with this. But it also gave us the opportunity to realize just how many people EBANK have helped.

2% of EVE's playerbase has an EBANK account, and we came to be the biggest investment venture in EVE, peaking at 2.5 TRILLION ISK. That, to me, is a pretty big thing, which I'm proud to take part in. But I can't answer this question on my own, hence here's my new CEO's take on it:

Gaikai is a new game streaming service that's currently in development, which was first announced at GDC 2009 (and later was apparently previewed by game publishers at E3 2009.) We've since mentioned Gaikai a few times at Massively, and how the service could bring MMOs (and other games) to devices like netbooks that don't have adequate graphics capabilities to run these titles. Gaikai will use "Streaming Worlds" technology to do all the graphics crunching on remote servers and then stream games to your computer via a web browser. In effect, you're playing the game as a video stream. No client install required, no patching needed.

Given the reactions we've seen from gamers in our own comments and elsewhere on the web, skepticism abounds. Perhaps seeing is believing though, as Gaikai's David Perry has put out a video demo of the service today, explaining Gaikai to viewers as he plays several games, namely World of Warcraft and EVE Online. No doubt there will still be skepticism, but it's good to get a first look at the service. Perry makes a few details about the demo and the service itself clear on his blog: the data travel distance in the demo is 800 miles; this is a (non-fiber) home cable connection; it works over wi-fi and with netbooks lacking 3D graphics cards; any clicking sounds heard are only from Perry's wireless headset mic.

We've got a video embed of the Gaikai technology demo for you below, where you can see World of Warcraft and EVE Online played via a browser:

EVE Online senior producer CCP t0rfifrans just published a dev blog about the next major update to the game, Apocrypha 1.5. This is not a completely new expansion, just a significant update they will release in August before EVE's (as-yet-unnamed) winter expansion. While CCP hasn't released the complete rundown of Apocrypha 1.5's features and changes, they have announced a few highlights:

• Perhaps the biggest changes in 1.5 will be factional warfare improvements. Beyond responding to the lag issues many players have been reporting with factional warfare, CCP is going to introduce Loyalty Points (LP) for kills and captures, and each militia will have its own LP store where militia players can cash in for items unique to that faction.

• Several Level 4 epic mission arcs will be introduced, tied to specific races in New Eden. CCP t0rfifrans writes: "These captivating stories deal with moral ambiguity, intrigue, honor, and some people's lack of it. This should come as no surprise to those who know EVE and what we are about. As before with the epic arc that was released with Apocrypha, they provide a deep, interesting story, where your choices influence the outcome."

• One of the long awaited buffs for Black Ops battleships will arrive: specialized cargo holds. The first use of this system will be to give Black Ops ships fuel bays, but this feature paves the way for similar additions to other ship classes in the future. For instance, some ships may one day be given ammo bays, freeing up valuable cargo space.

• Rigs will be offered in different sizes, with frigate and cruiser sized rigs introduced to the game. These new small and medium rigs will be cheaper to buy or manufacture, and thus provide a lower cost way for players to trick out their ships.

CCP t0rfifrans also dropped a few hints about the forthcoming winter expansion, which will *not* be Walking in Stations. He writes: "All I can say, is that it is focused on sovereignty and you will not be able to walk in it."

We'll keep our eyes open for more about Apocrypha 1.5 as information becomes available.

The sci-fi game EVE Online changed yesterday, in a rather subtle way. The developers eliminated one of the principal tools used by players to scam their unsuspecting marks: "freeform" contracts. The change was snuck in as single green-texted bullet point in the updated patch notes:

"Freeform contracts can no longer be created. This is due to griefing problems. You will still be able to view your completed freeform contracts for now but in an upcoming expansion older freeform contracts will be removed as well."

[EVE has a contract system which players use to conduct business transactions between different parties for items or services. They're generally used for legitimate purposes like auctions and item exchanges, but the more flexible "freeform" contracts could be structured so that a seller received in-game cash for items never actually given to the buyer.]

This otherwise unannounced elimination of the feature is perhaps a fitting demise for freeform scams. Those who haven't played EVE Online may be wondering why this is significant, if you scam another player you simply get banned, right? Not in EVE... It's one of the few MMOs out there where all manner of player villainy is permitted by the developer CCP Games, provided it happens in-game.

The first Q&A between EVE Online developers CCP Games and the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) -- a group of players (elected by fellow EVE gamers) that represents the collective interests of the subscribers -- was released this past week. It addresses a few concerns the players have had, for instance the delays with EVE's 'Quarterly Economic Newsletters', what is intended to be a regularly released overview of the game's ever-shifting economy. (CCP says they're on track to release the QEN's on schedule moving forward.) The Q&A also addresses a major question that has arisen for factional warfare participants, which began with the Empyrean Age expansion and its all-out war between the game's four races. Players fighting for the Caldari race's militia have, essentially, won the war. They've captured all of Gallente space. So where will (Caldari-Gallente) factional warfare go from here?

CCP responded: "We plan the NPC timeline for events leading up to expansions, coordinating the release of news and integrating the high level plot with chronicles, video, and everything else we can. This year, our storyline theme was to try and 'cross the streams' more, meaning that we were going to look for ways to weave the exploits of capsuleers into the NPC canon. The Caldari sweep of contestable Federation space gave us the perfect context to do just that."

Agent missions are one of EVE Online's most popular pastimes. While EVE is most often lauded for its open-ended gameplay, player-determined markets and PvP action, a significant portion of the game's players use missions as their primary income source. There is something comforting about missions that seems to draw players in. For many, running missions and upgrading their ship with the ISK becomes the focus of their achievements and their primary measure of progress. The ability of mission-running to provide a direct translation of effort into a stable ISK income offers us a reassuringly linear work-to-reward scheme in a relatively risk-free environment. Missions and exploration are EVE's primary PvE experiences and new missions are released with each major expansion to help keep the game fresh for casual players. There are even several epic mission arcs planned for the future, long sequences of storyboarded missions much like the quest chains you might find in other MMOs.

In this multi-part guide, I will thoroughly examine the profession of mission-running, from the basics to ship fittings and finally some tips and tricks for maximising your performance. In this first part of the guide, I look at the basics of mission-running from mission types and rewards to agent standings and how to find the best agent for you.

Maybe it's just us, but the drone hives we keep seeing are getting even more wicked-looking; giant, dark, amorphous structures looming in the depths of space. However, along with today's gorgeous EVE Online screenshot, we also have a tremendously cool short story to go with it from Ryl'avin Redwense! As it's a bit long, we'll be placing part of it behind the cut rather than editing it. If you'd like to send in a short story of your own to go with your screenshot, email it to us at oneshots [AT] massively [DOT] com. Now, on with today's excellent EVE Online tale from our very talented reader!

EVE Online patch Apocrypha 1.3 is slated for a Monday June 29 deployment. CCP Games is pushing ahead with their Need for Speed initiative, which aims to streamline the game's performance and provide a better play experience. They're making some database changes with the next Apocrypha patch that should improve what you experience in your game client with inventory management, but beyond addressing "The Jita Problem" there will be a fair number of changes in the next patch.

On that topic of speed, players should notice a huge change with starbase deployment (or hasty tear downs): players will be able to anchor, online, or unanchor offensive and defensive starbase structures in half the time it took previously. (Ninja POS deployment?) Perhaps more significant to some players than others, station reprocessing will be much faster -- apparently refining stacks of items will be up to 25 times faster than before. Also, some of those changes to Tech III production we've mentioned before are going into effect on Monday, and should ultimately be a boost for Tech III. Apocrypha 1.3's changes extend far beyond what is mentioned here; players heavily invested in wormhole exploration and the production it fuels should look closely at the patch notes to see how CCP's changes to the game might affect them.

CCP Games holds an annual EVE Online Alliance PvP Tournament where player organizations face off against one another, live, in a spectacle of explosions, cunning tactics, ... and occasionally betrayal. This year's Alliance PvP Tournament will mark the seventh annual event. CCP Games likes to get the players involved in ways beyond being tournament competitors, which is good news for the gamers themselves. Rather than having the developers comment with the play-by-play action, we've mentioned that CCP put out a call to the players, seeking PvP experts to be commentators. The final choices have been made and CCP announced the names of this year's Alliance Tournament commentators today, and it's clearly an accomplished roster of players.

Crovan (Dark-Rising), of The Drone Bay podcast fame, will be back again this year. As will Kil2 (coracao ardente), who did a great job last year, and who many players will know from the PvP videos he's released. Verone, arguably EVE's most well-known pirate, will apparently be enjoying the tournament as a viewer rather than commentator this year, but his Veto corpmate Ryas Nia will be on hand at Alliance Tournament VII. Ryas will be joined by two new commentators this year: TeaDaze from Agony Unleashed (a PvP training school in EVE) and Trzzbk from GoonFleet.

This looks like a great lineup of players chosen to speak during the matches. EVE Alliance Tournament VII will begin in early September, and will run for three weekends, culminating in the live video broadcast of the finals from Reykjavik.

We mentioned the EVE Online podcast The Drone Bay last week, which broke radio silence after some months with an exclusive on the upcoming Fanfest PvP tournament. We thought it might have been a one-off release in connection with the player gathering, but it seems The Drone Bay has returned now, with all three hosts back on the podcast.

For those who haven't listened to The Drone Bay, it's hosted by players from different walks of life in EVE. Crovan is known to many players for his PvP-centric mercenary gameplay, plus he's really good at this whole 'public speaking thing', good enough to commentate during last year's live broadcast of the EVE Alliance PvP Tournament. Then there's CrazyKinux, who's into more industry-related pursuits in EVE and has a broad knowledge of the game. The trio is rounded out by Alsedrech, who's not quite a noob anymore, but whose focus will still be helping newer players with learning the ropes of the game. The show has a good mix of commentary on happenings in New Eden and tips for new players looking to get into EVE Online.

A few of us at Massively are huge fans of the podcast and we're hoping there'll be plenty more of The Drone Bay in the future. Like our own podcast Massively Speaking,The Drone Bay is part of the VirginWorlds collective. If you're curious about checking this one out, head on over to The Drone Bay site.

Many of EVE Online's most prolific marketeers use courier contracts to collect together items from their region-wide buy orders but that's not all they can be used for. Courier contracts were originally intended as a way to pay another player to haul items for you securely using a standard collateral deal but if you know how, they can also be used for theft. Over the years, players have found ways to use courier contracts for profiteering, gambling, and even corporate theft. In EVE's Machiavellian universe, anything you can get away with is fair game. This includes twisting an innocuous game mechanic like courier contracts into a tool for theft and piracy.

In this short article, I examine some of the more creative ways pilots have used courier contracts to steal and plunder their way to the top.