Broadside

the stream effect

2012-01-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

So the past few weeks I've been getting some of the most enjoyment out of EVE in months. The reason? My stream!

I was really curious if streaming could work with EVE. It's such an information driven game - most aspects of the game are entirely player driven, and therefore player competitive. This means that by showing the player screen (MY SCREEN) I'd be giving away many of my 'trade secrets' which I rely on to win. Not only in PvP, but my alts, friendly alts, how I make money (niche market info) friendly activities, so on. I've really been afraid that this would be an utter failure, resulting only in people using the information against me.

Yeah, that's happened. In fact, I'd say at least 1/5 of my viewers are people I fly against regularly, or have in the past. There's been a few times where people I'm shooting are actively talking (and mocking!) me in my stream chat! In a way, it's only going to get worse as people examine the stream, or look up old footage with a keen eye to pick up intel. By streaming, everything eventually is made bare, and that sucks.

Has it been worth it? HELL YES!

There's been a huge shift in how I approach the game, how I fly, and how I spend my time in the game. I'm a lot more aggressive: I'm trying to make the stream as enjoyable as possible! I've pretty much abandoned using expensive implants, have taken to roaming frequently in nullsec, and have been getting way more interesting, and perhaps more importantly, solo and small gang engagements. Do I lose a lot more ships this way? You betcha, but I'm rediscovering what made me love this game by trying to show others how to have fun. The aggressive play style is a bunch of fun, though I'm not looking forward to having to build my ISK up again!

When I roam, it's not all explosions. In fact, most of the time I'm just moving through systems scanning for stuff and finding fuck all. To try the pass the time, I explain what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and try to walk the invisible friend at my shoulder through the ins and outs of the game. I explain scanner usage. I explain how to learn a system, and how to scout quickly and efficiently. I explain why I check some systems, or parts of systems, and not others. I explain why places are busy, and why others are barren. I tell the stream about my fit, what I'm looking to do with it, why it works, the ways it doesn't, and tricks I use to make it better. The narration helps pass the time, and honestly has improved my play a fair amount, forcing me to focus on what I'm doing and why I do it.

When I encounter other players, I do my best to walk the viewers through the fight: often when soloing, I'll explain what I'm thinking, as I'm moving through the process of scouting the target, my approach to the fight, getting the fight, the engagement, and how I felt afterwords. This analytical approach to the game again helps get my mind working about tactics and strategy, rather than the rather dull approaches I've been using towards achieving PvP success in the past. Every fight is now a lesson, rather than merely a gank, a kill or lossmail.

Lately I've been getting burned out logging in only to find pilots working without cohesion; we don't have many FC's, and my guys have come to rely on me leading them about and organizing efforts. It's honestly extremely tiring when all I wanted to do when sitting down to PvP was look for a fun engagement, and end up managing several to well over a dozen pilots on moving around systems, organizing pilots, assigning roles, explaining tactics, so forth. The stream eliminated this: instead of the lengthy wait of all that organization and management, I've just been jumping in ships by myself or with one or two others and striking out. No hassle, no fuss, no bullshit. Just a few guys looking for some honest give and take PvP.

While I've been dreading stream interaction in the form of giving up information, and having it used against me, it's been quite the opposite in practice! I will often have pilots point out glaring errors (evemail: you forgot your drones! you forgot to update your clone!), give support or ask questions about the game. I've had a lot of people compliment me on the informative nature of the stream, on the ease in which I seem to PvP, and have had a lot of really good dialogue with stream viewers. While I'm in combat with those that are using the stream information to 'cheat' in playing against me, I feel I can deal with that well enough while giving the viewer a fun, educational and entertaining result.

All in all, it's been a huge success. I enjoy the game more than ever, I get as much fun and excitement as I ever remember having, and honestly think I see what most people which term themselves 'bittervets' did wrong: they forgot to focus on the things they love, and just have fun.

I'm currently brainstorming ways to improve the stream, mostly on how to get it out there, encourage PvP discourse, and interaction between viewers and myself. I'll write another post with the specifics of what I'm looking for, and let you guys lend your opinions: I can use the help!

stream 2

2011-12-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update, you can follow my stream status by following me on twitter, @SardCaid.

I've also enabled Youtube to archive my broadcasts as well as highlights, linked here.

I'll eventually look into putting in a twitter feed on this blag, but that's for another time.

stream

2011-12-20T19:17:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I upgraded my PC, and have since been able to do a lot more with my games, such as running several clients on a dual monitor setup, recording fights at 1080p resolution, while running utility programs in the background, music, so forth. More recently I've been trying out live video streaming of my PvP, and currently am able to run at 800p resolution with HD quality.

You can see some of the results of the streaming online at twitch.tv, linked here. This is the highlights section where I clipped out fights from the roaming/waiting. Unfortunately the really interesting stuff that occurred Sunday of last week had bad audio, but I've since solved that problem in recent stream sessions.

I intend to try to stream regularly around 6-9 PM PST doing my normal PvP thing around MH and surrounding regions. Twitch.tv has some social media functions, so I'm going to try to get myself in the tweet fleet, and have the stream automatically post that I've begun streaming there.

I think I might start using these recordings for the analysis I used to do in the past in this blag. I don't intend to have this be a substitute for written content, however given that this is something that's drawing me back into the game, I'll be focusing on integrating streaming into my game play as well as my blag here.

year

2011-11-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

Much has happened since my last addition to this journal. RANSM exploded with members, at one point reaching around 45 players, firmly establishing our presence as a dominant force in Molden Heath. Now we have been reduced to a comfortable 25 members, while still maintaining ourselves as the alpha pirate group in our little slice of EVE.

Concluding the summer slowdown period for the corp, I spearheaded PvP efforts, leading nano BC gangs starting in September continuing consistently into October of '11. The result of training for the Drake, encouraging its use in the corp and coupled with ganglink support was monstrous: more ISK damage and kills were had by me during these two months than in the previous 6 months combined. I set a personal record in September as well for both total kills and damage done in a single month.

I can't stress enough how much the Drake affected that outcome. Its ability to absorb damage passively coupled with the 80km range of the HML meant that though gang members were often weaving in and out of a fight evading tackle and jockeying for position, all of our vessels were in range to apply consistent DPS on the primary target. All of our ships were able to adjust their damage type to the tank of the target. In addition to this, PODLA variants in the fleet which sported two webs in the place of invulns supplied vital range control, allowing us to deal with tacklers effectively. I'm happy to say from the results of these two months that the corp knows its own power: we're a very effective small gang organization when we decide to be.

November has been tainted with the urge of several of our top PvPers and FCs, including myself to take a break to carebear, or just from the taxing role of fleet command. This has resulted so far in a lackluster showing on the killboard, but in the end, we're just here to have fun.

Notable occurrences:

Laktos, an AUS member has released two PvP videos since joining the corp, Intolerance 1 and Intolerance 2. Great videos, and hint to those that enjoyed them: the next one in the series will involve plenty of Tempest action.

xxxAlloxxx, a CAN member has also been trying his hand at PvP video production. He's been working closely with Laktos to learn the ropes of solo PvP as well as video editing and production, and I'm looking forward to his growth as a PvPer.

Dirty Protagonist has begun blagging again, and I recommend you peak over to his site to get another view from within the corp. He also hosted a forum signature contest, which resulted in the image below. It's damned suiting.

welcome home 2

2010-11-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

(Raxip Elamp warrior saga gw ed)

Raxip's been relatively busy in MH, engaging in belt piracy and 2/10 complex action when able, and occasionally scoring a shiny kill. However that sort of action hasn't been with yours truly, so you're going to have to bother him for any sort of battle reporting.

A day after Raxip Elamp returned to the Heath, we met up once more, this time when I had the intention of making a trip to BRT-. It took some convincing to persuade the pirate that rat bounties are healthy (I told him he can pod my alt scout to -10 when we returned to lowsec) and we headed off, leaving Molden for Etherium Reach as we jumped from Skarkon to L4X-.

The alt scout had spotted some activity near the inbound gate, including two Zealots and a smattering of T1 hulls. Jumping in to investigate, most of what was seen on scan were at tacticals several hundred kilometers off gate or at nearby safes. Raxip managed to snare a Stabber that stayed a little too long on the gate, and we moved on towards our ratting destination.

Upon arriving in BRT-, the locals immediately fled to POSes and we beared out hearts out for over an hour. In this time a TEXN pilot named Devlin joined us, flying a shield tanked arty cane. While I was reasonably sure the locals wouldn't try anything so risky as leaving the POS force field, over time they logged in more members, including a pilot flying a Chimera. About an hour and a half after arriving in BRT-, we spotted fighters on scan, and decided to halt ratting and take a better look around system.

The alt scout bumbled into a Devoter camping our gate leading home, with fighters assigned and bubble running. I had the fleet warp to the HIC, and upon landing we turned around, burning MWD cycles to pull some range from the warp in. While burning, we blasted fighters, the carrier pulling them after two went down to Barrage and Fusion M volleys.

It didn't take too long for the blob to land, fortunately for us they lacked any form of dedicated EWAR. The locals began burning after us, which was exactly what I could have hoped for. As the faster hulls came into range, I began calling primaries and the slaughter began.

First down was a Rifter, the pilot finding out the hard way that an arty cane only needs a volley or two at range to explode a frigate. Next up was a cane, who decided to start MWDing back towards the gate far too late and perished. With the cane down, the HIC had finally shut down his bubble, and hostiles were starting to land on those burning towards us, bridging the distance we had accumulated. However, the locals weren't bringing particularly fast reinforcements to the fight, or warping out/back in fast enough to close the distance we were continuing to pull.

Next up was a Brutix, who managed to tackle Devlin and put him into serious trouble. Devlin, who had been jammed by ECM drones the ENTIRE course of the fight could only mash the lock button helplessly as Raxip and I overheated our weapons to down the Brutix before more hostiles could burn into range. Our efforts payed off, allowing Dev to warp off with most of his structure remaining, however minus his MWD as he burnt it out trying to escape.

Fighters began arriving back on grid, and down a third of our gang, Raxip and I couldn't really apply enough damage to kill any more targets. After a few minutes of getting jammed by ECM drones and with fighters burning into range and applying damage, we decided to warp off, wait down our minute of aggression then warp back to the gate at 0m. We jumped on contact, and took our victory without losses home with us to Skarkon.

Some of the locals who had been goofing off in L4X- were those who engaged us in BRT-, and local was diminished to the pair of Zealots and a Drake. They refused to engage our battlecruisers in L4X-, however followed us into Skarkon, eventually camping Raxip who had docked for repairs while Devlin and I progressed onwards to Ennur. Heading back to the Skarkon gate, Raxip informed us the camper in the Drake was an outlaw as well, and I decided to show these idiots how to gank a BC.

Devlin and I jumped back into Skarkon, aligning to station as Raxip undocked once more. Upon undocking, we warped to Raxip, who was immediately aggressed by the Drake and one of the Zealots. Raxip held his aggression until Devlin and I had traveled the 50au to station, docking as we tackled the Drake. With their outlaw target docked, the situation was reversed on the campers, and they decided to attempt to dock instead of fight. Raxip undocked as fast as he could, and we managed to crush the Drake before it could conclude its aggression countdown.

Raxip logged off, Devlin and I mucking about lowsec for a bit before joining a TEXN fleet chasing a BC gang. We ended up chasing the gang roughly 20 jumps around northern GW until bumping into them in the B-VIP pipe near Egbinger, catching about half of their fleet while the rest fled. Amusingly, it was the same group of pilots who were camping L4X- and lost a Drake to us two hours earlier.

A week passes between the next time Raxip and I head out together, again into the BRT- area to hopefully pull a fight and make some ISK. As usual, the locals POS up while we take our fill of rat bounties in BRT-, killing off the belt population there to move on to JUKO and into V-IH. Upon finishing the rats off in V-IH, I move my alt scout back into JUKO to discover a bunch of pissed off locals camping the gate.

This time they decided to take a page out of our book, bringing three canes, a geddon and a Sabre who held on the BRT- to camp us. We decided to wait a minute for our shields to recharge, warping to the JUKO gate just as one of the canes jumped into V-IH to check up on us. We jumped into JUKO, quickly relaying our positions relative to the gate and breaking cloak to burn downwards, mutually furthest from the camping gang.

The hostiles didn't miss a beat, starting MWDs after us and opening fire on our fleeing ships. Their canes weren't nano fit, and our initial cycle of overheat on our MWDs allowed us to gain a healthy 20km from targets as we continued downwards, picking their fastest cane as primary and firing back. The Armageddon lacked Scorch or a prop mod, and was very quickly a non-factor in the fight.

As one of the canes had jumped through into V-IH, he was a few seconds jumping back in and burning down towards the fight, leaving for a time a level playing field. Raxip and I manage to take our first target into low shields. It didn't manage to alter course and flee before succumbing to focused Barrage fire.

In dying, it did manage to force me to stay close and moving slowly long enough for the second cane to burn into range and apply a scrambler on me. Raxip and I swap damage to the tackling cane, however Raxip had burned to 30km from me, and wasn't doing much DPS at all to the target. Additionally, the third cane was finally coming into weapons range, roughly 30km from me as well opposite of Raxip's cane. We overheat our projectiles, myself applying overheated neuts in a last ditch effort to break tackle and flee.

The third cane burns into tackle range, and my shield buffer melts away, slightly faster than the shield cane next to me. Scanning my UI frantically for something to save me, I make sure I'm aligned out, losing armor rapidly and dropping into hull. I glance at my overview and notice I'm not pointed.

WTFOMGBBQWARPWARPWARPFREEDOM YEEEESSS! The third cane never pointed me, and my last two neut cycles before heat failure must have knocked out the already MWD depleted capacitor on the second cane! I manage to warp out with a third hull remaining, fried neuts and 95% heat damage on my remaining projectiles. Raxip kills the second cane off, who was in similar straights as me before I warped albeit tackled, and tackles the third cane. I align back, wanting to help Raxip out though holding back as it'd take only a volley or two to kill off my crippled ship.

After recharging about 20% shields, I warp back to the fight, landing about the same time Raxip announces he's been jammed by ECM drones. I manage to resolve lock and tackle the cane, finishing the work Raxip started a minute before, ramming Barrage death into the final enemy cane's hull, destroying his ship. We try to burn into range of the T1 gun geddon, but with 60km between us and the BS he has plenty of time to align and flee before we manage point range.

We head back into BRT- to find local diminished as the few who lost ships head back towards highsec to buy more or logged off entirely. We eventually head back to Skarkon to drop off loot and repair, heading back only to find the locals having none of it and leaving us to collect bounties in peace. We leave the area after having taken our fill of NPC bounties, calling it a night not too long afterwords.

interlude

2010-11-23T07:09:00.001-08:00

"Void, it's been a long time since I've looked at that light show."

Raxip stood viewing a projection of Egbinger XII, its blue atmosphere occasionally disturbed by lightning, the brilliant arcs spanning hundreds of kilometers across its hydrogen rich skies. Finished with his examination, he returned to his seat, taking a sip from his glass of spirits, only to find the glass depleted. Raising his glass for his host to see, he shook it lightly, eliciting the tinkle of ice cubes against glass. "Story of my life," he said with a grin.

Smiling, Sard set his own glass down, reaching forward to open the squat cabinet set between the two capsuleers. Retrieving a bottle of liquor, he recharged Raxip's glass, who motioned appreciatively and took a sip. Sard topped off his own drink and returned the bottle to the cabinet.

"She's putting on a show for you," Sard said. Still leaning forward, he began to swirl his drink lightly, regarding the amber fluid with some concentration. "Station side the planet hasn't been this active in days, hardly more than a glimmer of lightning."

Raxip chuckled, looking down at his own drink, taking another swallow. "Hah, yeah. Maybe." The pirate frowned slightly, setting the drink down and looked back to Sard. "So ah, do you think you'll be able to accommodate me?"

"You're family, Raxip, in or out of RANSM. The corporate ship stores are open to you, and we'll supply you with any fitting you'd like."

"Great! I think I'll focus on tech one craft anyway, so I won't be taking much. Just a few Cruisers, a Battlecruiser or two and maybe ten Rifters would be plenty."

"Hah!" Sard raised his eyes to meet Raxip's, continuing to laugh as the VETO pilot looked on in confusion. "I didn't say you'd be taking anything for free Raxip. You have the ISK for that small fleet?"

"Uuh, no." Raxip raised a hand to rub the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. "I've lost most of what I had coming out here in a few fights around Bosena," he said, looking back up to Sard, then shrugging. "I was kinda hoping you'd understand."

"Oh, I understand just fine. However brother, you've decided to cut your own path through this galaxy, and in doing so you've got to pay your way." Sard pointed at the glass Raxip set down. "Drinks are on me, but I'm not funding your piracy anymore."

"How am I supposed to pay then?" Raxip furrowed his brows in frustration. "You're the one that invited me out here, saying you'd have ships available."

Sard's eyes twinkled, a particularly brilliant flash of lighting from the projection illuminating the predatory grin formed on his face. "Raxip old friend, it's a good thing I called you over here when I did, because it's obvious life in VETO's made you soft." Waving down reprisal, he rose from his seat, mentally manipulating the projection, ordering the view changed from an image of the planet their station orbited to a map of the surrounding region, shifting from Molden Heath to the adjacent Great Wildlands.

Sard pointed at a particular cluster of dots, which enlarged to display the constellation of systems nearest to Etherium Reach. Several systems glowed a pulsing red, indicating heavy Angel Cartel activity in the area.

"It's about time you were reintroduced to nullsec, my outlaw friend. Between the Cartel, the local Capsuleer population and Concord bounties, you'll have the capital for more than a few sorry cruisers and smattering of frigates." Sard turned slightly to face Raxip, "Easy money."

Raxip stared at the projection for a moment and then glanced up at the Sebiestor. "You're insane." Rising himself, Raxip stepped over to adjust the projection, shifting the hologram to display Capsuleer statistics. "See, look at that," he said, pointing at the BRT-OP system. "There must be a dozen pilots out there battling for those Concord bounties. How am I supposed to score bounties with them around?"

"First off, I'll be heading out there with you." Sard shut off the projection, walked to the door and opened it. "Second, it seems you need a refresher on the art of skirmish warfare" he said, motioning for Raxip to follow him towards the ship hanger. "Are you coming?" Sard asked.

With arms crossed, Raxip kept his gaze on the now unpowered projector. He shook his head, uncrossed his arms and followed Sard out the door. He doubted the ISK would be so easy, but in the few years he knew him, Sard had never let him down.

Walking astride of Sard, Raxip barked a laugh, eliciting a glance from his companion. "I guess it's back to redshirting for me," Raxip said with a smile. Smiling back, Sard gave Raxip a slap on the back, the pair continuing down to the ship hanger.

shield cane

2010-11-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

As Battleclinic would tell you, a lot of my more casual small gang and solo PvP of late has been from a shield tanked gank cane. The primary reason for the fitting is that I'm able to get away with it as a ratting fit, though its PvP qualities are unparalleled in its class, for several reasons.

maneuverability

The Hurricane and Cyclone are the fastest, most agile battlecruisers in the game. Employing a shield tank ensures that these properties are retained, which means the Hurricane is able to typically speed past similar sized competition, and attempt to match smaller cruiser sized vessels.

Many pilots opt for some speed fittings, whether they be rigs or lowslot modules, however given the typical lack of significant camps or gangs with EWAR support in my area, I'm able to get away with a full gank fitting. Additionally, the gank fitting allows me to maul those BC variants that sacrifice for speed, provided they don't have support to back them up. It's a big assumption to make, but with good experience of your roam area and a scout, it's not much of an issue.

firepower

The gank cane is nigh unparalleled in range and damage output, as the double damage bonus, triple gyrostab and double tracking enhancers enable the ship to hit hard well outside of scrambler and webifier ranges. This is important, as while the fitting isn't exactly a glass cannon, it's very easy for armor tanked BC variants or your typical drake to have tens of thousands of greater effective hit points (EHP, Eve Fitting Tool [EFT] jargon). If possible to have a scout, always have a gang going to eek out as many EHP from gang bonuses as possible.

utility

Sporting two spare highslots for a variety of modules, the cane is able to dial its fitting to better adapt to the pilot's environment. Missiles can be fit to enhance the damage output, which is critical for dealing with big tank targets such as Drakes or ratting BS. Twin medium energy neutralizers are great for dealing with frigates: two cycles is enough to clean most frigates of capacitor, enabling escape or a critical cycle of MWD to pull range and improve tracking. If gang skills are trained, a ganglink can be fit without the usual fitting hassle other battlecruisers have. I tend to favor the Interdiction ganglink, as 32km/37km overheated disruptor range is an amazing thing for a battlecruiser that's able to strike ably at those ranges.

application

While I occasionally take this fitting into lowsec, I tend to favor nullsec, as the lack of sentries and increased population of tackling frigates means my typical dual neut fit is able to compete in an environment where it excels. I do however have competing goals when I enter 0.0, as I'm usually there to grind security status, and gank ratters/engage PvPers second. Thus the drain on my shield buffer is a constant issue when targets arise, though one I can work with.

Typical targets when solo are other battlecruisers and smaller. This includes virtually all variants of BCs, for several reasons. The maneuverability of the basic hull means most other battlecruiser hulls, T2 and T1, will not be able to match the speed of the Hurricane. Those that can tend to have markedly reduced tank and/or gank to the shield gank cane, and are thereby vulnerable. This means the cane is able to kite shorter ranged, slower hulls, or outrun BCs with similar gank/tank capacity and retreat.

Drakes are where this equation falls apart, as both HML and HAM fits tear the shield cane apart, due to the ridiculous level of buffer and recharge Drakes are blessed with. Heavy Missiles drakes are perhaps even more deadly than HAM fits, as even if you're able to burn away several tens of kilometers away from a gang, the Drake will be doing the same damage, all the way out to 80km. By then, the shield cane's buffer is dangerously depleted, and not much can be accomplished before destruction.

My approach to all similar sized or larger targets is to hold 18-22km from target, and give the target time to react to my presence. When a ship tries to close range, I can gauge from its acceleration and velocity whether its an armor rigged and plated variant, and hold my range. If I think it will be a speed fit or more agile ship, I'll watch my foe's velocity like a hawk to make sure it can't speed away without me applying some overheat to my MWD and warp disruptor to keep up. The golden rule with this ship, and most other lightly tanked gank vessels is to work the range advantage until victory is assured.

I carry Barrage, EMP and Fusion, with a fair bit more Barrage as I tend to employ my range advantage frequently rather than burn into web range for the kill. Warriors are used to help deal with frigates.

victory examples

Virtually all my ship victories that didn't end with a loss involve me keeping a cool head, holding range and testing my opponent's reaction to gauge its fitting, whether it has backup and opponent skill. This does result in losing a few ship kills due to targets breaking tackle range and running, however it's the correct way to go about flying the ship.

My three latest skirmishes with Extreme Predujdice. in BRT- have been fine examples of me instigating locals, pulling them to a celestial of my choosing, dragging out their gang and taking them apart piecemeal.

This 1v1 in B-VIP is a good example of holding range and working my greater range and speed against a slower, tankier armor tanked ship. I didn't rush into range, and the closest to the target I managed was about 17km. There were a few spots where the enemy cane pulled out of normal point range, but good heat management meant I was able to keep on top of him until he went down.

While more of an instance of good anti-piracy tactics, this engagement with INSURGENCY. is also a good example of the psychology of PvP and gauging whether your opponents want to fight. I had just cross jumped this cane and an additional Drake, and decided to reapproach gate, jump and see how they'd react. Upon jumping, the pair of BC had returned to the gate. I took this as a cue they wished to fight, and upon decloaking aligned my ship away, using a burst of MWD to gain some distance from the pair. The Hurricane GCCed and gave chase, and I eventually led him some 40km from the gate.

Pulling the Cane off the gate was a damned good thing, as an Absolution jumped through several seconds after I did, and I was only just able to kill the cane as the abso came within 20km of my ship. While I wasn't able to really dent the Absolution's tank before it was able to burn back to gate and jump, it goes to show that playing an engagement out by following a plan allowed me to survive, kill an opponent and turn the tables back on the pirate gang by forcing them to deaggress and jump.

This Drake kill is just an example of how close this match up is. Coffee managed to probe down and tackle this guy, and held point long enough for me to warp in and land a point myself. Then the typical exercise of fighting a drake took place: Drake realizes its in danger, and begins burning away. Without a scrambler, I'm forced to chase and apply neuts until the Drake loses the capacitor to run its MWD. During this chase, my bloated signature radius means I take painful volleys, while the Drake takes a little less damage due to the 7-10km range it typically holds from me. Once the Drake's MWD is conquered, I have to try to overheat and bash my way through its tank, making sure I time my overheat to defeat its peak recharge period. With everything going right, AND 10% more shield/armor HP from gang bonuses, I finished this fight with roughly 50% hull remaining. If the Drake had ECM drones rather than Hobgoblins, its very possible it would have killed me outright, such as in this engagement: The Hurricane needs all of its damage output applied continuously to kill a decently skilled and fit Drake.

For reference, I've flown the cane a hell of a lot more than this, but I can't recall past engagements well enough to relate here, and not to mention perhaps half of my PvP isn't even recorded: many times targets or myself are forced to flee for any number of reasons, resulting in no killmail/lossmails.

defeat examples

When flying the shield gank cane, I can't stress enough to always begin a fight with a skirmishing mindset. When flying small gang and solo, there is little margin for error. If you get tackled by a ship with superior tank, or the reinforcements arrive, no one is there to bail you out. Unless you manage something incredibly lucky, you're dead. Disregarding the strategy means you leave yourself vulnerable to repeat failure.

In this case, I had scouted the Thorax and Cyclone, and had decided to warp to their pull bubble, with the goal of ganking the Cyclone with EMP while neuting down the Thorax. What I didn't account for is both targets using ECM drones, which meant I was permanently jammed for the duration of the fight. Had I eased into the engagement and maintained range to start with, I either would have been able to kill off the drones, or at least draw out the fight long enough to realize the potency of 10 ECM drones and flee.

This engagement like so many other shield cane losses is an example of both Vasavia and myself not watching our range well enough, getting caught and dying miserably. The engagement should have been a textbook case of autocannons trumping blasters, and instead was a good example of how not to fly a skirmish gang.

Always know your limits: if a target tends to fit heavy neuts, has the midslots for plenty of tackle and EWAR, and has good range, avoid it. You can't rely on other pilots being idiots, or at least you should ease into the engagement to test whether or not that Tempest you scanned down has a good fit or not.

I can't find the other engagement where this pair of canes ripped me to shreds, but its a good example of gauging your opponents: if they seem eager to fight, assume they're not alone and react appropriately. I should have just fled.

One final engagement to show what happens to a nanoless gank fitting when caught in a good camp: they die. I should have tried to burn back to the gate, as I didn't realize how poor their DPS output was, however any half decent nullsec gatecamp with EWAR, fast tackle and DPS will put this shield gank fitting down without much effort. Don't expect to fly one of these into a properly patrolled region of nullsec and live.

welcome home

2010-11-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

(Raxip Elamp warrior saga mh ed)

After 20 minutes of guilting Raxip Elamp over his lack of recent PvP and all the fun he used to have in the past, the illustrious brass balls Rifter jock decided to grace Molden with his presence. Given the volume of time since his last appearance in the Heath, Raxip has since skilled for new ships, and upon his arrival home, promptly undocked an artillery fit Hurricane and reported dastardly folk about. The resulting tale takes place over the next 80 minutes.

The ship Raxip reported while on the way to his Hurricane was a Broadsword, the name of which I recognized from a new pirate corp in the area. Undocking a Cyclone from Oddelulf bottom station, I guessed the pirates would remain roughly were they had been reported, which was half way between Raxip and myself, and began heading towards Raxip.

Coffee was already in Heild local, and had eyes on the pirate fleet: two Broadswords, one GCCed, the other not. I arrived on the Heild gate in Bosena a few seconds before Raxip managed the same in Aedald, and jumped in, arriving in Heild 40ish AU from the Aedald gate. I was counting on the fact Raxip was out of my corp and an outlaw to clinch the engagement.

Upon jumping, Raxip decloaked and was immediately aggressed by the outlaw Broadsword. With both Broadswords lacking webifiers, Raxip was easily able to maintain comfortable range, and once I was on grid and had the outlaw tackled, was out of immediate danger. With the scrambler on, the Broadsword was dead in the water and meat for our projectile arsenal.

Not to be outdone, the second pirate Broadsword, who wasn't outlaw, decided to engage my Cyclone, incurring GCC and allowing us to easily primary his ship without sentries ourselves. I land a scrambler on the second Broadsword and we make quick work of the HIC. A third pirate piloting a Hurricane smartly warped off, having arrived after the first was destroyed and the second nearing armor damage.

Raxip scoops the loot, and I decide to poke around Heild, as there were another six or more pilots in local not associated with those we just killed. Landing at planet seven, I end up spotting several ships on scan, including a cane, a Cyclone, a Tengu, and an Arbitrator. It takes a few minutes to narrow down the BCs, but eventually they're confirmed at a belt and we warp to it.

Upon landing, the BCs are identified as dueling 170km off the belt, and the Arbitrator slowly moving out towards the pair. The cruiser initiates warp with the arrival of our ships, however the pair of BCs, a SCONE cane and .GCC. Cyclone remain to finish off their fight. We begin burning out to the pair, giving the two a final countdown to finish their fight before we finished it for them. At about 70km the Hurricane explodes, leaving the Cyclone as the only target left on grid.

It loots the cane wreck, and as our ships power into lock range and closer, surprisingly decides to burn towards us and fight. The .GCC. Cyclone primaries me as we exchange tackle, and the inevitable countdown towards destruction commences. Given that it just had a lengthy fight with a cane which often fit energy neuts, I expect the .GCC. Cyclone to be low on 800's, and the fight to be over in less than a minute.

Except the fight doesn't end, as the enemy Cyclone seems to have just enough repping power to match the combined DPS of my Cyclone and Raxip's arty cane. Given this fact, I confirm to myself who owns the Tengu that's still on scan and it's purpose in local: to provide ganglinks for the Cyclone pilot, who's likely rocking to a Crystal implant set and Blue Pill boosters. Regardless of this fact I inform Coffee to hold off on decloaking his Falcon, as we should be able to power through the tank given time.

The Cyclone's tank finally fails after firing its last cap booster, some five or more minutes after initially aggressing my ship. While it was unable to itself break my tank, I was only just matching its incoming DPS by popping a Blue Pill myself and toggling overheat every so often. With the Cyclone down, we begin looting the field, scooping what what was left of both the Cyclone and Hurricane wrecks, only to have the SCONE pilot who had lost his Hurricane warp on top of us in a Tempest.

I had run into this pilot's pest fit a few days prior after engaging a small gang of SCONEs in Oddelulf, and he favored the dual heavy neut shield gank fit. Fearing its potency and possible SCONE reinforcements, Coffee decloaks and begins jamming the battleship, immediately breaking its lock, but not before the pest scared the shit out of Raxip by alphaing his cap and giving him a few volleys of EMP L to remember him by.

I managed to scramble the Tempest a few seconds after it landed, and with Coffee's ECM cycles was free to pound the gank fit's buffer tank down. Coffee lost jams once, in those 20 seconds the pest was able to assign ECM drones on Raxip and alpha my cap, however a quick 800 boost made sure I maintained tackle. The pest was soon out of shields, into armor, and then into structure.

However, this pilot just gave us a decent fight from the .GCC. Cyclone. And ganking people flying solo with Falcon support is boring for both parties. Some furious discussion in gang while the SCONE pest's armor evaporated ended with us deciding to let him go for the price of a song. While things didn't quite work out as a formal ransom (we let him go as he asked incredulously in local what happened), we did get a bit of song out of him, with him singing a bit of "If you're happy and you know it, pod Amarr!" into local. Satisfied, we waited down GCC, stowing loot in a nearby station.

After five or so minutes of waiting, we were informed by TEXN that a previously spotted T3/T2 BC gang had set up a camp in B-VIP, which was only four jumps away. Ignoring our GCC, we moved hastily over to Egbinger, where I swapped to a Maelstrom and waited for the rest of the TEXN gang to accumulate. Once formed up, I jumped my Maelstrom into B-VIP as bait, with the rest of fleet waiting in Egbinger.

I immediately noticed a few things wrong:
1) With no Interdictors, the campers had deployed bubbles, but they weren't pull bubbles, and they weren't large bubbles either. This meant they just deployed them about the regional gate they were camping at random.
2) They had no fast tackle, which meant I was able to warp to the outbound 9SNK gate to hopefully get caught by a pull bubble and snag the engagement. There was no pull bubble, or any attempt to chase my battleship.

With these facts in place, I deducted through logics that these people were idiots, and warped back to the Egbinger gate at 0m. Upon landing, I tackled and engaged their Sleipnir, and their entire gang fell upon me. With aggression acquired, our gang jumped in, and we slaughtered those unfortunate enough to not leave with the local spike. Given that these folks have been flying their utterly NASTY looking gangs around MH a few times in the past, I have high hopes that they'll bumble along again, as regardless of what I'm flying at the time, I'm confident I'll kill at least one poorly fit and wildly expensive ship before going down.

And with their destruction, Raxip and myself decided to call it a night.

pacing

2010-11-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

As hinted in my last entry, Molden Heath has been hopping, and showing no sign of slowing down. Sure, she calms down around 02:00 or so, but before then, the region is rich with targets, either PvPers looking for a fight, or carebears going about their money making way.

capital ships & POS work

RANSM has taken part in quite a few high profile ganks of late. In the month since my last post, RANSM has been a significant factor in the takedown of two POSes and 4 cap ships, a deviation from this small corp's typical target pool of battleships and smaller. This insurgence of kills coincides with a few friendly pirate corporations returning to the area, which means once again RANSM is able to target virtually anything in space and have the firepower to take it down.

The small Blood tower was of special note to me: it was the first tower I have ever taken part in sieging, and spawned the largest fleet engagement I've FC'd in quite some time. It also coincided with Flash's 90's roam, so prod him to get that post back up in some form. I'll write a report about what happened and what I learned soon™, as it was a freaking awesome experience.

ganks

With just two new (active) members, RANSM's activity in MH has exploded, resulting in daily PvP results that mirror corporations many times our size. With this, and the spread of time zones members are active, the corporation has been scouting, probing and engaging some exciting targets in Molden Heath and beyond. Ari managed to demolish a Machariel and Apocalypse Navy Issue within the span of 10 days in Oddelulf, and roughly a week afterwords I joined her to snag the rare mission running Absolution attempting to kill Angel rats. There's been a HELL of a lot more activity than this, however you're just going to have to check the corporation killboard if you're interested, as the dozen or so kills we've been managing a day is too much to cover all at once!

small gang action

Given the abundance of pilots that wish to PvP, a lot of my small gang action of late has been rather one sided affairs where the real question is if we have enough tackle on all targets before they realize the peril they're in. Evolution 112, a French alliance that has recently moved their lowsec base to Egbinger has been finding out the hard way that the local pirates aren't to be trifled with. Similarly, Brutal Deliverence, a nullsec corporation which bases out of BRT- has been given repeat lessons in PvP tactics. Sure, they've ganked me a few times, however I like to think I've learned my lesson and have since made good.

The war with Dragoons. alliance marches on, and every so often we're able to get fights out of them. Recently they've discovered my corporation honor 1v1s, and a rash of them have taken place. There have been a few slipups involving larger scale battles where not all pilots understood the terms of engagements, but overall I'd say the conflict has matured to a good natured give and take, with the pirates doing most of the taking.

Speaking of pirates, it hasn't all been fun in gangs, as there have been a number of skirmishes and flat out brawls between the true denizens of Molden Heath. While there have been a few fights between the old and new pirates who've taken to Molden, SCONEs instigated an excellent fight on the 8th, which coincided only minutes after Coffee fit his first Falcon. SCONE's weren't too pleased with the results of this experiment, though they made a damn good showing for themselves given their composition.

Another alliance, The Hatchery, which I think is an extension of the Starcraft community Team Liquid has been flying around MH and GW, trying for whatever fights their lower SP pilots can manage. I LOVE the attitude their pilots are exhibiting, and think that they'll go very far if they just keep up what their doing and build experience. Until then, they're going to lose a few ships.

Lasty, Electus Matari have been making some serious plays into Molden, and with Dragoons. have been keeping the light burning for anti-piracy in the region. They've been managing some impressive gang compositions, including Artillery fit Tempest fleets with adequate EWAR support in the form of a Bhaalgorn and smaller support ships, BC and logistics gangs with all the niceties (ganglinks, recons and fast tackle), and your classic RR fleets. Unfortunately their Call To Arms (CTAs) times don't typically coincide with us pirates, but hopefully in the future we can have more exchanges, such as the one that occured today.

sunday night disco

2010-10-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

A long time friend and pirate Ariartus decided to give up her position in Snuff Box to return to more casual gameplay, and has since found a comfortable niche in RANSM. Since she joined I've lost more ships and security status in the past three days than in a month of gameplay. This girl is FUN, and her aggressive nature is infectious.

The fun started off on in earnest on Friday, with a small Everset Dropbears gang nosing around Istodard pocket. Ari was having none of it, and with her in an Absolution, myself in a Raven and a friendly pirate named Titus Veridius in a Pest we managed to draw an engagement, crushing two BCs and a supporting Falcon, while a remaining Tengu and Drake slipped away. The following day Ari was pulling a long shift at work, and was only around to briefly aid in the demise of an Orca pilot which chanced moving through lowsec and left in a capsule. Saturday saw an usual amount of medium sized gangs moving through Molden Heath, which left the few pirates online with little to do but sit and wait for the area to cool down. One of said gangs attempted to aid the Orca we destroyed, blowing up my Harbinger only just after the Orca went down.

Later on after the Europeans had logged off, Lt Graham had logged on for some action, and it was a short minute before I found a Machariel missioning in Oddelulf. Graham was already a few jumps out in a Raven, and fortunately Coffee was able to swap out his Blackbird for a Cheetah to probe down the faction battleship. While scanning, Coffee reported several ships on scan, noticably a Rapier briefly coming up while probing the Mach. I figured the Recon could tackle the Mach for us, then I would warp my Sleipnir into the site, tackle the Mach, kill the Rapier then finish off the Machariel. Believe me, flying a command ship makes for grand imaginings.

Coffee finished scanning down the battleship and fleet warped my Sleipnir to the result, which powered through the first two rooms to activate the third and final acceleration gate. Upon landing, I was greated with a number of cans and wrecks, but no Mach. Disappointed, I paused for Graham to join me in Oddelulf, a respite which lasted only a dozen seconds before the Rapier Coffee spotted earlier decloaked and tackled me.

I had already loaded Barrage, assuming that I would have to chase down the Mach and perhaps deal with the Rapier, so I was well prepared for the Recon's arrival. With Barrage falloff extending to 33km and faction point range, augmented by the interdiction ganglink I was running extending to 47km, the Rapier was quickly attempting a retreat, then dispatched as the limited AB enhanced speed proved too slow. Graham arrived in system shortly afterwords, and I switched to a Myrmidon for more casual, inexpensive roaming.

Jumping into Bosena, I was greeted by a half dozen outlaw locals, who were on scan in battlecruisers and seemingly waiting down GCC at celestials. Graham waited in Oddelulf on the Bosena gate with Coffee, who had switched back to a Blackbird to even the odds. I decloaked, warping myself to celestials that appeared to have a ship waiting, eventually chasing down a Prophecy from a belt to a celestial. We had warped to the planet 70km from each other, and in the short 30 seconds it took to burn into point range, Graham had jumped in and was in warp to my location. Bokonon and another TEXN pilot had also been informed of the imminent violence, and were on their way from Oddelulf.

Once tackle was established, Coffee jumped in, warping to the fight at 70km. His ECM would be especially helpful, as an enemy Falcon decloaked shortly after all the outlaws had landed, jamming both Graham and myself. Upon landing, Coffee was able to jam the Falcon and one of the enemy battlecruisers, however two of the three on the field, a Brutix and Harbinger maintained their locks and poured the hurt on my Myrmidon. I had allowed the Prophecy to tackle me while attempting to kill the Falcon, and my dual MAR tank was woefully inadequate in dealing with the two heavy hitting BCs bearing down on me. Drone aggression forced the Falcon off grid, however with my tank failing and Coffee unable to jam both of the DPS BCs, my ship was quickly overwhelmed and destroyed. As I went down, Boko arrived in a Harbinger with a arty Pest as support, which finished off the Brutix. The Falcon returned to facilitate the retreat of the two remaining BCs, leaving the field to us.

Miffed at the loss, I returned in a Cyclone and ordered Coffee to grab his covops to attempt to probe down the remaining outlaws in their safes. Fifteen minutes later, Coffee snared the Prophecy, which managed to bump the score to two BCs killed for one lost. We called it a night shortly afterwards.

I logged in Sunday afternoon to find Ari online and talking with a few friends of hers that had recently moved into Atlar. A Fortis Bellator's gang was prowling about lowsec in battlecruisers, and we decided to form a small RR BS gang to ruin their day. Baiting with an Abaddon (we're classy), we managed to kill half their fleet, eliminating three Drakes while the rest fled. Scouts in Atlar located another gang passing through from Gelfiven into MH lowsec, however the BC gang powered through Atlar, Illamur and into Horaka, out of reach of our outlaw gang. Masty, another old friend and new addition to RANSM suggested we head the opposite direction and meet the gang on the other side of Molden Heath.

Heading back around, we accidently jumped into a different gang, again composed of several BCs and supported by a Dominix. Our much heavier gang made short work of those vessels we tackled, and we proceeded further down the pipe towards Egbinger, where I expected to meet up with the expected gang. Again, I was reminded of this incredible increase of activity in Molden Heath as we jumped into Muttokon, only to find fleeing capsules, and in Egbinger a different outlaw gang which had evidently smashed the one we were expecting and promptly docked. Unable to locate any straglers, we headed back to Oddelulf, probing down a Myrmidon and managing to tackle a Legion, which refused a reasonable ransom. He managed to escape with his pod intact.

I took a break to do some homework, and the rest of the pirates took a break as well, as we had been at it quite a while. Returning two hours later, I joined Ari attempting to tackle a Drake in Ennur, which she found to be stabbed and proceeded to frustrate her efforts at catching it for the following 40 minutes. In this time I responded to a lengthy phone call, smiling while Ari reshipped to a Broadsword and futilly chased the Drake around the system. Masty joined us, and a few minutes after my phone call concluded we moved on towards Hegfunden, where the Dragoons. alliance dwells, a group started by the Loki's Marauders folks I mentioned in a previous entry.

In transit, someone brought up Haddaway, and anyone that's flown with me a while knows of my need to stream music over voice comms. After repeating What Is Love to the gang, I eventually set up a 80's disco station on Pandora, and set that blasting over Ventrilo. Over the next three hours we had some very relaxed piracy all over Molden Heath. While we didn't manage that great of a volume of kills, good teamwork and coordination in fleet chat meant we were constantly working on scanning targets, scouting systems, camping gates and generally not wasting much time at all waiting down GCC. Several pilots not even in the fleet, but friends from the area logged in for the tunes and to observe our awesome lack of voice comms coordination. While the op ended (VERY) late in the AM for the euros, everyone from the corp had a blast, with Ari remarking having the most fun in over a year of playing.

The following day Alex Medvedov and Krivas, both in Jaguars kicked off a fight in Hegfunden, culminating in an impressive victory, evening up the score from a previous attempt to brave the Dragoon.'s fleet that failed. I had to do homework immediately afterwords, though the rest of the corp kept on, managing a Maelstrom gank and coming close to tackling a carrier in a level 5 mission, to no avail.

With new blood in the corp and MH hopping with action, I'm looking forward to this fall holding the most fun yet in my EVE career. Looking forward to sharing how it goes down with all of you!

recent

2010-10-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

I feel I must put the active tanking examination on hold for a month, as I’ve caved in and looked at what an alt running gang links will do to an active tank, and have since began training for gang link T3 ships on my alt account. Yeah, I could do the analysis now with what I know, but I’d rather my heart be in the writing than not.

So on to what’s been going on in the recent weeks: lots and lots of small gang action, intermixed with solo romps (yay!) and ratting (nay!). The ratting was done as I’ve been getting the itch to do more of my own thing lately, and outlaw status is less than ideal for traveling and larger ship solo PvP.

Some highlights:

Several corporations have taken up residence in Hegfunden, two jumps away from Egbinger. While they don’t often leave the system, they’ve been more than willing to undock and engage the local pirates, which has been loads of fun. They're very good sports about it all, and honestly these links don't do them credit: they've spanked myself and the folks I've fly with a few times between those fights.

Electus Matari has resurfaced, running small to medium sized gangs through Molden Heath and elsewhere. While I've had only a few skirmishes with them, it's good to have some old adversaries in the area. I’m looking forward to conflicts with them in the future.

The Executioners [TEXN] is back in the area, though they're currently focused on mercenary work in highsec. So far they've managed to decimate the population of EDGE alliance, along with the faction fit mission runner population in Emolgranlan, suiciding vessels when war targets aren't available.

It seems I may start hosting gangs from my public channel, Broadside. Last week I started a Raven gang in honor of a regular that bought one off me and admitted that he’d be taking it out to PvP. With two hours notice we pulled together 5 ravens and 3 support ships, not a bad turnout from people that for the most part live very far from Molden Heath. I’m hoping for 10 or better with this Sunday’s roam: if you’re interested and don’t mind losing sec in lowsec PvP, join my public chat and check out the details.

Other than all that, it's been normal Molden Heath shenanigans.

filler

2010-07-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

Still around, just been on Starcraft 2, and as it seems much of the community is as well, EVE has had less of a draw on my attention.

More stuff soon.

active

2010-07-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

Active tanking is a fun, challenging and exhilarating PvP option available to pilots engaging in solo or small gang fights. There are two types of active tanking, shield or armor, which have different strategy associated to them. Both work on the same principle: to absorb incoming damage such that an engagement can be prolonged longer than what the other ships can handle. While this form of tanking has its limits, they are pushed back through investment by the pilot, either through skills, implants, consumable items or more expensive fittings. Some pilots who specialize in this form of tanking are known to regularly invest upwards of 10 billion isk or greater, not including alt accounts for gang bonuses, cap booster drops, or other benefits.

Most ship classes have a hull or two that excel at active tanking, however the greatest accumulation lie with battlecruisers and battleships. Battlecruisers have a class wide affinity for tanking, though some are more able to apply this than others, such as the Myrmidon or Cyclone. Despite this frequently seen bonus, these ships remain vulnerable due to bloated signature radius, requiring some kiting or range accumulation from targets to get the most out of the active tank.

Battleships don’t have the luxury of speed, and thus rely on brute regeneration for staying power. Battleship shield tanks frequently forgo a MWD due to slot constraints, lending to static combat on stations, gates, and occasionally elsewhere. Stations and gates are ideal, as even without a speed boost module ships can creep back to safety, jumping or docking. Active armor tanks typically don’t have this problem, as the low slots are the focus of the tank. Thus, they are able to fit an MWD, tackle and even EWAR in mid slots.

Shield tanks tend to have greater damage capacity, as their low slots are available for damage boosting modules. For the same reason armor tanks often deal less DPS, however the extra maneuverability afforded by the MWD lends them much greater flexibility.

There are several ways to drastically improve the effectiveness of active tanks. First, and perhaps the most available are combat boosters. There are a variety of drugs that affect many aspects of ship attributes, but two in particular are important to active tanking: blue pill and exile. Blue pill are shield tanking boosters, and exile the armor tanking variant. All combat boosters have a chance of drawbacks, but these penalties are minute compared to the added repair amount. Standard boosters, my drug of choice, add 20% to rep amount, and go for 3mil each with a good supplier. If you’re serious at all about using boosters, I highly recommend you ask around for a drug supplier, as their prices are much cheaper than those on market, and they often will deliver to you.

Implants play a large role in active tanking, as their bonuses are not stacking penalized and thus magnify tanking ability greatly. Additionally, it is a simple matter of escaping with your capsule intact in most fights within empire space, which unlike faction modules allow you to keep your enhancements after defeat. Of special notice is the Crystal line of pirate implants: these implants work together to yield in a large bonus towards shield repair amount. They take up slots 1-6 in the head: this means that when piloting with a pirate implant set, you have to forgo better training time with expensive learning implants for the benefit of the pirate set.

With patience, buy orders can be used in Jita to acquire a low grade Crystal set for 400-450mil isk. This investment shifts the shield tank to a beastly level, and is what really allows the shield tank to compete next to the utility afforded to active armor tanks by the MWD.

With implants, boosters and a fully rigged T2 fitting, battleships can tank a gank fit battleship until cap failure, an additional gank cruiser’s worth of DPS when overloaded. Battlecruisers vary more, as the scale of the tank is much more variable. Some are only capable of tanking a gank cruiser’s worth of DPS, while others, such as X-L booster fit Cyclones or triple rep Myrms are able to tank battleship level DPS for short durations. However, their lack of buffer and capacitor stability tends to make them pale against BS for heavy tanking situations.

What makes this type of tanking truly remarkable is its ability to adapt and recover in situations that passive tanks would eventually fail. This is seen best in small gang combat, where the limited number of combatants allows for an active tank to bleed buffer, and as combatants are destroyed or forced to retreat, the active tank is able to regenerate hit points. Thus an active tanker is able to hold the field, absorbing damage while maintaining tackle, drawing fire from more vulnerable gang mates, or holding aggression until the gang has arrived after which retreating through a gate or into a station.

Many pilots discount this ability, even going so far to completely ignore the possibility of an active tank on many ships. For instance, an active tanked Megathron is just as able as the Hyperion with dual rep setups, however as most pilots opt for gank setups, the massive tank often throws off opponents who have never experienced such fits before.

There are several strategies which allow the active tanker to excel. Given the nature of lowsec warfare, active tankers are often able to bait outlaws into engaging them on gates or stations, where sentries act as a mindless gang mate, shooting down drones and moving through criminal targets to apply steady damage. This can be expanded on by baiting part of the outlaw gang to engage on one side of the gate, jumping through the gate, and thus splitting the force. The active tanker can choose to attempt to pull the targets away from the gate by MWDing away, or reapproach the gate to repeat this. All the while, those pilots who have chosen to incur GCC will be softened by sentries.

The active tanker can also neglect to repair his ship to bait targets to engage. By forgoing repairs, the buffer often rapidly depletes due to the lack of buffer boosting modules. This can often entice targets to engage ships they would normally avoid, as once the targets are in range or if combined with the above tactic split apart, the active tanker can pick the enemy gang apart at their leisure.

There are two major banes to the active tank: capacitor warfare and overwhelming DPS. The active tank is only able to accommodate so much incoming fire before its ability to absorb overflow into the limited buffer is quickly overcome. Capacitor warfare modules remove the lifeblood of the setup, forcing intense management with repair modules paired with capacitor boosters. Mismanagement leads to waste, which is dire in situations where incoming damage is only barely bested.

Since January, I’ve flown iterations of most active tanked BCs and BSes: dual rep Megathrons, Dominixes, and Abaddons, X-L booster Maelstroms, Rokhs and Ravens, X-L booster Cyclones and triple rep Myrms. I’ve flown these regularly both in small gangs and solo, getting a feel for the setups while enjoying a fresh approach to EVE PvP. Over the next few weeks I’ll try to impress what each of these hulls is like to fly: their strengths, weaknesses and any additional quirks I was able to discover.

If any of my readership have questions pertaining to these ships, active tanking, costs or a preference in which ship I write about first, please comment. I'll try to answer all questions via comment or in a follow up post on the topic.

don’t trust raxip

2010-07-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

If he has an idea, question it. If he has a plan, take it apart. If he suggests you jump two battleships into a blob roughly 15 minutes after you’ve woken up from bed while you’re riding in your Crystal clone, just self destruct the ship and pod yourself. It’s more efficient that way.

Roughly 30 minutes before I logged in, Raxip had jumped a Brutix unscouted into nullsec, inspired by Club Bear videos that this would lead to enjoyable PvP against small gangs or solo targets. Unfortunately for him, the Polish alliance Yarr and Co have been active in the B-VIP pipe Raxip had decided to try first, and he didn’t make it far from the pull bubble the polacks snagged him with. So, thirty minutes later as I log in with bleary eyes to adjust skills and market orders, all I knew from what Raxip was telling me was that dudes killed his spaceship and needed to die. My morning addled brain decided to not question much and I headed over with a Rokh.

While I did have the presence of mind to log an alt scout on in B-VIP, Raxip’s constant prodding over voice comms meant I shouldn’t give a lengthy look at local numbers, ship types, so on of the camping force. So we jumped in hoping for the best. A force three times the size as the one that ganked Raxip before greeted us, as well as two carriers. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to swallow my blue pill booster before losing the ship, and hastily sent my pod towards the gate where I knew they had a pull bubble.

As I alluded to earlier, the same pod housing my 600mil crystal clone. Nothing quite like 750mil down the tubes twenty minutes after waking up to set the mood for the day.

Regardless, after our poddings we quickly reshipped, myself in a Rifter and Raxip in another active tanked Brutix, and set out to give the lowsec loop a try. Six jumps away in Skarkon I happened upon a Dramiel who after seeing me on a gate decided to warp to a nearby belt. Two can play this game; I warp my Rifter to the belt in pursuit, only to meet a Dramiel who doesn’t even bother to lock the Rifter before activating his afterburner and scoot away at 2km/s.

For the record, my 200mm plate fit Rifter flies at 1.1km/s. Dramiels are broken.

Anyway, I move on, jumping into Ennur to happen upon a Rifter on a gate. From the previous day’s fun I’ve become an outlaw, which allowed the opposing Rifter to engage at will. 150mm autocannons stitched lines of carnage across my frigate’s shields before I could even lock back: the day’s first decent fight! I return lock, set a wide 5km orbit path and return the favor, opting for barrage to bleed the enemy Rifter down.

It quickly becomes apparent that the opposing Rifter didn’t anticipate this response, and after a minute of orbiting at range my foe explodes, leaving me to discover a complete lack of barrage in his wreck, despite T2 autocannons. Two armor explosive resistance rigs meant I still had some trouble breaking his tank. A good fight overall.

Quickly moving on to sate the impatient Brutix flying behind me, I jump into Meildolf. An uncharacteristic number of pilots were in local, and I set to discovering their location. I eventually locate them on our outbound gate: a Myrmidon, Hurricane and Wolf camping the Illamur gate. In good humor from the previous engagement, I warp to the gate and begin orbiting, showing plenty of leg for the enemy gang to appreciate. They appreciate my outlaw status so much that both BCs engage, leaving the Wolf to catch me on the other side.

I jump through with the Wolf following, requesting Raxip to meet me in Illamur to deal with the Wolf. Raxip, two jumps out complies, leaving me with a rather mean looking assault ship to deal with. I opt to burn away, mindful that the battlecruisers next door have less than a minute before they’re able to jump through and join their comrade. I want enough range where the two battlecruisers will be some time in aiding the Wolf, however that’s a two edged proposition as it also means Raxip has the burn that far to aid me. Roughly 30km from the gate, the Wolf turns around to return to the gate, likely hearing from his friends that a Brutix is inbound. Raxip jumps through, followed immediately by the two enemy battlecruisers.

The enemy Cane decides to engage Raxip, who isn’t outlaw and incurs sentry aggression for his efforts. Uncertain that the Myrmidon would do so as well, and with an additional Harpy landing on the gate, Raxip continues to burn away as we’re both left guessing what the enemy gang’s true size is. The Harpy doesn’t give me much time to think, as it MWDs right into scrambler range and begins pounding me with 75mm railguns. I trade tackle and engage, holding the frigate down long enough for Raxip to burn into range and aid me. Evidently the Harpy had shot at Raxip as well, as roughly the same instant that Raxip burned into blaster range the Harpy lost its shields and exploded. The mail confirms that sentries saved my ass; I never knew a 75mm railgun fit could be so vicious against frigates!

With the Hurricane mauled by sentries itself and the Harpy down, the enemy gang burned back to gate and jumped into Meildolf. Sensing blood, we set to pursuit, following them through the gate and to what looked like a planet. Mid warp we caught a glimpse of their ships on overview, which meant they were in a mid safe rather than the planet itself. Hoping for the best, we decided to wait at the planet.

Our patience paid off, as after roughly half a minute of waiting the Wolf landed at the planet! We set to work, scrambling and webbing the frigate, while I tried my best to stay on the outer edge of scramble range. Even at eight to nine kilometers, the Wolf still stripped my shields in two volleys and was barely held off by an overheated SAR. Raxip and I had the assault ship in low armor before his two friends arrived, succumbing about the same time the Myrm and Cane resolved lock.

At this point it was a Brutix and a Rifter versus a Myrm and a Cane. Fortunately the Cane still had low armor from previous sentry aggro, however half a minute into hostilities Raxip called out he was being neuted heavily by both battlecruisers. This meant he didn’t even have enough cap to fire his blasters, which meant my little Rifter had to take down an armor tanked buffer Cane sitting at 20% armor and full hull. It wasn’t going to happen before Raxip exploded.

It was only a dozen seconds more after Raxip related his capacitor problems that he exploded, leaving me five kilometers away from both battlecruisers. I aligned to a celestial and began burning away, somehow avoiding the neuts Raxip had experienced while failing to overheat my afterburner. Regardless, I somehow managed to create enough distance to range the disruptors and warp out in half hull.

Raxip reships to a Raven he had nearby, and returns, however the two pilots decide to wait down GCC and leave for an adjacent highsec system. We manage to catch a Rupture from the same corporation in Illamur, though the full meta 0 fit and lack of two lowslots meant I could have soloed the cruiser with a full rack of civilian autocannons. We decide to call it a day shortly afterwards.

movement 2

2010-07-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Continued from we got movement!

A few chores and a meal later I was back online, arriving in time to respond to another muster to counter an anti-pirate force. Something Rotten had stirred up the Crimson Dragons alliance, which had formed a sizable ball of ships in Gonheim on the Istodard gate. With several logistics ships available, I undocked my only armor tanked battleship available, my reliable heavy neut plate fit Tempest and headed over to Istodard.

Arriving on the Gonheim gate in Istodard, I met up with the 520 gang, consisting of several battleships, three Guardians and Lt Graham’s Blackbird. Dirty Protagonist called for me to jump through and reapproach gate, which would hopefully prompt the anti-pirate gang to incur GCC. However recent action with the freighter had hosed my sec, and I was well into outlaw status. This fact didn’t change much and I jumped through the gate.

I was greeted by a wall of ships on my overview, easily double the size of the 520 gang on the other side of the gate. The anti-pirates lacked battleships and logistics, which should give the pirate force an edge in the engagement. I decloaked, began moving back to the gate while locking targets, waiting for the opposing force to begin aggressing. Aggress they did, a dozen odd ships obtaining lock and firing upon my Tempest in quick succession.

About the same time the enemy gang began firing upon me, I realized that I had miss-clicked my MWD, so instead of powering to the stargate, I was only 3km closer to my destination. Further, my fit was meant for small gangs rather than high DPS fleet engagements and had a LAR equipped rather than an additional plate or resistance module to enhance the buffer. Enemy DPS poured on, and I was already touching half armor by the time the gate began flashing with the arrival of friendly forces.

With gangmates decloaking, I meekly clicked the “Need armor” broadcast, however by the time Guardians began locking me I was already in structure, my battleship not long for life and unable to jump through into Istodard due to my MWD mismanagement. The Tempest popped shortly afterwards, though the gang was able to drop a few anti-pirate ships before they themselves disengaged and jumped through the gate.

Reforming, the gang then headed out two jumps to Oddelulf, warping to the Bosena gate. Bosena has been host to the remnants of COW had been evicted from nullsec, who now pass time regularly camping the highsec entrance gate to kill the unwary. One such gatecamp was currently in place, manned by two battleships, two battlecruisers, a cloaky T3 hull and a faction battleship. Baiting with a force of two battleships, we managed to snare a Dominix and Brutix, however the remainder was able to flee from the gate before tackle was established.

The next few hours was a gankfest, every 30 minutes or so another ship was found, probed, tackled and destroyed. A hurricane was found in Istodard, burning away from the Oddelulf gate. Once out of sentry range, Sieth Silverstein of 520 was able to tackle the lone BC with his Ishtar, allowing our reshipped gang to whore on the mail. An hour later Coffee located a group of battlecruisers missioning in Oddelulf, this time a Harbinger with a Hurricane salvaging behind it. The Cane had the misfortune of landing on the entrance gate just after our gang arrived to savage the Harbinger, preceeding his comrade in death by only two minutes.

Waiting down GCC from those kills, a Raven and Paladin decided to give missioning in lowsec a go, regardless of the half dozen GCC pirates in local, and on scan from his mission site. Coffee again proved his worth, scanning the marauder down in seconds and tackling the T2 battleship while the gang arrived at the entrance gate and began warping in. The Raven managed to flee before additional tackle had arrived, but the Paladin’s destruction was more than worth that sacrifice.

Amusingly, seconds after the Paladin went down, room wide aggro from the level 4 mission switched to Coffee’s Cheetah, which incredibly was able to tank the 30 odd NPCs with the aid of two Guardians to warp out with 17% structure remaining. Damage controls are vital on frigates folks, especially when running those higher level missions.

Little occurred over the next hour, so the diminished pirate force decided to roam, flying first to Atlar, then progressing down the pipe to Ennur, splitting off into Metropolis via Offikatlin. Here Coffee was able to spot several ships in space; a Myrm, Cane, Ishtar and Raven. Following close behind, I jumped my Sleipnir in, warping to the highsec gate where Coffee had located the opposing force.

The Hurricane and Myrmidon were chasing down a pirate Ishtar, the Raven holding on the highsec gate, lacking a speed module to follow the two BCs. Spying my Sleipnir the Ishtar warped off, the two BCs warping back to the gate to rejoin the Raven. I had warped my command ship to the gate at 50km to assess the situation, and had begun idling away towards a celestial. The Ishtar left local, heading deeper into Metropolis and missing the pirate gang in Tabbetzur.

After a minute of eying each other, the Hurricane decided to warp to a nearby planet, which I reported to my gang, and began aligning my Sleipnir to follow. Looking back to the overview, the Myrmidon had been busy as well, activating his MWD and burning at my Sleipnir at an impressive rate, closing the 60km between myself and the stargate to land tackle on my ship! Chagrined, I swapped from Barrage to Fusion while locking the enemy BC, calling for my gangmates to jump in.

I’ll touch on Sleipnir tactics at length in another post, however allow me to inform my readership of an often misunderstood fact about this vessel: it is not a frontline tanker. Yes, it has impressive resistances, and a hefty shield boost bonus to augment an active approach. However, it simply doesn’t have the capacitor or buffer to weather typical amounts of incoming damage for a lengthy period of time. Rather, that tanking bonus is better served mitigating damage incurred from skirmish range, 20-30km from target. At this range, the Sleipnir is able to apply its impressive arsenal effectively, provide tackle with a ganglink running or faction disruptor, and maintain range while remaining on the field applying bursts of MWD or shield booster, respectively.

Thus, scrambled off the gate with two angry, gank fit shield tanked battlecruisers (Great work switching to Fusion for that Myrm, Sard) slamming into my tank, I was sweating over my situation. The Raven had warped off the gate about the same time my gangmates began jumping in, likely to warp back in range to support his comrades. Meanwhile, under capacitor pressure from the Hurricane’s medium neuts, my DG X-L booster had quickly burned through my available reserve of capacitor, and a single medium cap booster can’t cycle 800 charges fast enough for sustained cycling of the shield booster.

Pirate reinforcements began landing just as my buffer was depleted and my Sleipnir began bleeding armor plate. Focusing on my tank, I neglected to mind my rack of autocannons, which had been set to overheat to burn down the Myrmidon. While I had smashed through the Myrm’s buffer and dip the opposing BC into armor itself, I burned out my guns in the progress. The two battlecruisers were sure to finish me off, especially with that Raven inbound and without my DPS to help.

Fortunately for me, Gooch of 520 decided to bring a Blackbird out on this roam, and managed to jam the Myrmidon, which was the only BC tackling me. I warped my command ship out with half my armor gone, quickly moving back into Tabbetzur and eventually into Ennur to repair my modules, and hopefully return to help out in the fight. The pirates managed on their own however, finishing off the Myrm and downing the Cane before the Raven was able to arrive.

Later still that night, the gang had reduced to Coffee, myself and Dirty Protagonist (DP). We had traveled back to the Istodard pocket, where we were able to find a Cane missioning in Gonheim, which was quickly dispatched by DP’s Cane and my Sleip. Thirty minutes later, DP sighted a Gentlemen’s Club Sacrilege in Oddelulf somewhere above a planet, which Coffee was able to probe down. I switched to a Huginn, and between my webs and DP’s autocannons we were able to gank the HAC before the pilot was able to return to the keyboard with his plate of toast.

The Sacrilege marked the conclusion to the day’s festivities, and we logged off for the night.

we got movement!

2010-07-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been incredibly active in Molden Heath, with multiple types of targets presenting themselves. This sort of constant activity from the region is uncommon, and deserves special notice. While it is tied in part to the COW and GC evacuations from nullsec into Molden, they only account for half of the available targets which have been braving MH lowsec.

Sunday began with a roam from Oddelulf, myself in a shield cane, Coffee in a Cheetah and Lt Graham in a Blackbird supporting. We shortly bump into a mixed 520 and SCONEs gang, which I decide to shy away from in hope of other targets. While we frequently fly together, RANSM hasn’t set blue status to the other pirate corporations in MH, to ensure we’ll always have at least someone to shoot at.

Pushing past Atlar and heading towards Skarkon, Coffee sights a Providence in space, parked at a POS oddly devoid of modules. Investigating, the modules are incapacitated, though the POS itself still has a force field. The Providence is adjacent to the tower, and a few ships, including a Rook and a Drake nearby within the field. I opt to hold our gang nearby in Meildolf, hoping that the POS would be taken down with only the skeleton gang supporting.

After ten minutes of waiting, little happens, with a few cruisers landing to begin repairing the incapacitated modules. While watching, we are joined by two friends from the Black Sinisters in frigates who were roaming nearby. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Dirty Protagonist of 520 asks for assistance in Oddelulf: an anti-pie gang has engaged the 520/SCONEs gang at a belt. RANSM and the B.S frigates quickly responded.

By the time we arrived the anti-pirate force was routed, and my force moved to apply tackle where we could and finish the opposing gang off. In this kind of situation, we had no time to join up with the 520/SCONEs gang, and thus it was rather confusing for my gang to deal with both friendlies and enemies both on overview. Lt Graham managed to jam a 520 Abaddon, which in turn reported my gang was engaging him. Once the anti-pies were down, the pirate gang switched focus to my cane, and rather than asking first they decided to speak with their weapons. My Hurricane dropped to friendly fire, though fortunately the rest of my gang was able to warp off before more mistakes were made.

While waiting down GCC, I moved my pod back to Egbinger, then jump cloned to Oddelulf, boarding a Sleipnir and sat in station for the last three minutes of criminal count down. During all the commotion, Coffee was still watching the freighter at the POS, which had started burning away from the force field. The freighter now had two Drakes and a Rook for support at the POS, plus a few T1 cruisers which continued to repair modules. With less GCC timer to worry about, the B.S pilots Alex Medvedov and Mister Torture began moving with Lt Graham back toward Ennur, where the freighter was located.

With my GCC timer finally finished, I undocked and began hurrying to meet up with the rest of my gang. By the time I jumped into Atlar, Coffee reported that the freighter had warped to the Tabbetzur gate and was likely heading towards high sec, two jumps away. We all began mashing warp to and jump buttons as quickly as possible to hasten our approach.

Following the freighter into Tabbetzur, Coffee began ramming the capital industrial ship with his Cheetah, however the difference in mass meant that the covops frigate was only able to slow the freighter’s alignment by a few seconds, every one of which absolutely necessary for the gang to catch up. By the time the Providence warped, Alex had arrived in Tabbetzur in a Jaguar, however Mister Torture and myself were still two jumps away in an Ishtar and my Sleipnir. This was going to be too close to call.

The two Drakes and Rook, which had pushed ahead of the freighter were already in Offikatlin, which was one jump from high sec, the freighter’s destination. One of the Drakes jumped back into Tabbetzur to support the freighter on the gate, while the other two ships remained waiting in Offikatlin. By the time the freighter finally landed on the Offikatlin gate, Sard was a jump out with Torture in Tabb, warping to the gate.

Coffee had jumped ahead to again delay the freighter once it jumped, however seconds dragged on as the freighter remained in Tabb on the gate. Coffee eventually burned back to the Tabb gate, mindful of the Rook and Drake which also were there waiting. Alex reported the freighter was trying to align to something, but between Alex’s bumps and the bouncing off the gate, it was stuck! The precious seconds this all took allowed me to jump my Sleipnir into Tabbetzur and begin warp to the Offikatlin gate.

The Drake in Offikatlin decided to ward off Coffee’s Cheetah, firing a volley of heavy missiles and forcing him to jump into Tabb. At roughly the same time I landed on the Offikatlin gate, which the Providence took as its cue to jump. Alex, Torture, Lt Graham (who had been on the gate with his Blackbird), the second Drake and myself all jumped into Offikatlin after the freighter.

Torture and I immediately decloaked our ships, myself overheating 425mm ACs to volley down the Rook. Torture didn’t even manage to lock the recon ship before I tore through the cruiser, three volleying the ECM ship off the field. The first Drake which had shot at Coffee took sentries to do so, and had warped off the gate. The freighter finally decloaked, and the pirate gang fell upon it, my Sleipnir first applying EMP, then reloading Fusion once the shields were down. The second Drake decloaked shortly after the Providence, and decided to whore onto his corpmate’s mail rather than fire on the GCC outlaws.

This went on for roughly 20 seconds, when the Drake which had warped off arrived back on the field, and with the second drake began firing on my Sleipnir. The low DPS from the Drakes coupled with sentry fire was just enough for my tank to keep up with while injecting 800 boosters, meaning the pirates could continue to burn down the freighter, which was just at 90% structure. Lt Graham and the pirates had to warp out several times in the following minute of combat due to sentry aggression; however my Sleipnir was a pillar the combined might of the Drakes could not displace, continuing to blast apart unresisting structure of the Providence as it labored to return to the Tabb gate.

Then the Providence exploded.

The Drakes dropped one after the other to my Sleipnir; the second trying to MWD away, to no avail. The next 20 minutes were spent gloating in intel channels, waiting on haulers to scoop the remains from the wrecks, and defend said wrecks from scavenging opportunists. One Thrasher learned the hard way to not touch wrecks he didn’t make himself.

Loot stowed, I eventually had to take a break, the remainder of my gang joining a 520 force trying to wreck someone near the Gonheim system.

peekaboo

2010-07-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been some time since my last entry. Here’s a review of what I’ve been up to during the past five months:

• Active tanked battleships
• The Sleipnir
• Wardecs
• Combat boosters
• Pirate implants
• Logistics ships

I’m still based in Molden Heath, indeed making trips to other regions less frequently as I engage what’s available on my home turf. My corporation remains bone thin, though efforts at managing security status has allowed for forays into highsec space to engage war targets located there. I abandoned Aggressive Dissonance sometime in February, refocusing RANSM as a no blue lowsec PvP corporation. No hard feelings what so ever, as indeed I’ve missed having a reliable ‘big brother’ to call upon if something juicy comes around.

Along with combat boosters, I’ve been steadily skilling my main, finishing those ship skills whose hulls I find enjoyable to V (all sub caps bar T2 battleships and EAS). This has allowed me to enjoy command ships and logistics, which has led to some intensely enjoyable PvP over the past few months. Flying solo logistics in the form of Oneiros and Scimitars is a fun challenge in lowsec, while the Sleipnir is the nastiest ship I’ve flown for fast moving small gangs. Regarding the sleip: it’s fun to enjoy faction mods coupled with a skill intensive T2 ships. Their synergy is impressive.

With Aggressive Dissonance out of the picture, my PvP has shifted: nullsec is usually solo focused, while lowsec trends toward small gangs as I pair with local pirates to take on larger or elusive opponents. Something Rotten corporation, based out of Istodard, has become something of a sister corporation to my own, as it’s an odd day that I don’t have at least one member of theirs in my gang, or myself in one of theirs. Indeed, the leader of Something Rotten [520], Dirty Protagonist, has managed to draw the pirate population of Molden Heath together. While they still engage in combat with each other, pirate corporations are able to communicate intel and band together to take on intruding organizations, such as anti pirates and nullsec alliances on lowsec holiday.

Overall, I’ve been involved in a lot of interesting action, switching up the groove every few weeks to try out different tactics, fittings or ships in PvP. I look forward to sharing my experience with these experiments, as I feel I’m ready to resume posting entries again.

armageddon roulette

2010-01-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

Recently I have finished training Amarr Battleships to V, as well as the associated Large Energy Turret skill to V. These two events mark the completion of a desire sparked over a year ago, after watching Kil2’s debut PvP video, Armageddon. In honor of Kil2’s incredible success with Amarr BS, as a PvPer and EVE showman, I decided to acquire a few geddon hulls to sample what the race’s BS line had to offer.

The Armageddon offers an incredible turret platform for its price. Large pulse lasers hit out to 15km with short range ammo, yielding maximum damage at the very edge of short range weaponry. This, along with enough bandwidth for five heavy drones allows the geddon to constantly kite opponents while inflicting sickening damage. Combined with a utility highslot to accommodate a heavy neut, and enough lowslots to fit a tank and damage modules, the geddon represents perhaps the greatest combination of gank and tank against price to fit versus any other ship in EVE. Its only glaring weaknesses, lack of midslots and low signal strength are easily offset by intelligent positioning and pairing with support to counter enemy ECM.

My first chance to use the ship came after an interceptor roam into Great Wildlands turned sour, losing my Taranis to a RE-AL gate camp leading my gang of ceptors through one of RE-AL’s home systems. Returning to Molden Heath after over an hour of roaming with nothing to show for it, I decided to switch from the Huggin I opted for after losing my Taranis to a geddon, and give the MH loop a spin before docking for the night. The BS’s capacity for damage and tank would come in useful over the next half hour.

First blood came from a missioning Hurricane returning to Istodard from Half, its novice fitting falling quickly under large laser pressure. Waiting down GCC, our gang of two Taranises and my Geddon moved onwards to Bosena, where we were able to lock down and eliminate another novice pilot flying a Rupture. Waiting down our second GCC within 20 minutes, several pirates in local decided to taunt us, warping speed fit cruisers at range to celestials we idled at, however refused to engage.

After several minutes of playing cat and mouse with a pirate Ishtar and Cynabal, we managed to catch an eager Cyclone at the top belt of the system, drawing it into a slugging match against my Armageddon. The Cyclone attempted to close range with my battleship to spoil the tracking of my large turrets, however without a webifier to counter my own, the battlecruiser was only able to idle after my BS, taking the full force of my laser arsenal. Under the capacitor pressure of my neutralizer, the XL-booster tank of the Cyclone quickly crumbled.

The next day found me again roaming Molden Heath in my geddon, this time with only a Cheetah for support. After several minutes of scouting, a small gang of battlecruisers were spotted in Istodard, idling in deadspace adjacent to one of the stations in system. While probing, I was contacted by a pirate in one of the public channels I frequent, and was joined by a T1 fit Hurricane just as my alt finished probing the target battlecruisers out of their safespot. I quickly warped my gang onto the unsuspecting Drake and Hurricane, calling the enemy Hurricane primary. The Drake managed to warp out, condemning his friend to an ignoble demise. Just as the Hurricane began entering structure, the Drake returned with another Hurricane, and the battle was joined in earnest.

As the first Hurricane exploded, I called the newly arrived cane primary, and suggested overheating our weapons to hasten his destruction. It was a race against time to down the second cane before my comrade bit it himself. The enemy cane opted for a hefty dual 1600mm plate tank, hardened by explosive and kinetic hardeners. This left his armor wide open for a laser based platform to exploit, forming a nightmare scenario as my Dual Heavy Pulse Lasers bore down at optimal range. The enemy Hurricane flashed brilliantly only seconds before my associate was destroyed himself.

With only the Drake and my Armageddon left on the field, I was left with the amusing scenario of trying to run down a BC with a BS. Neither of us had fitted a speed boost module, and for the next minute and a half, the Drake attempted to make range while my geddon did its best to keep up. Eventually the Drake tired of the exercise, closed range with my battleship and was hastily blown apart, its bloated signature radius easy pickings for my large turrets. Loot scooped, I entertained the BC pilots roughly an hour longer, idling about their home station and warping in at various ranges, trying to incite another conflict. They had escalated to battleships, and refused to engage my lone geddon under sentries. Eventually moving off, I managed to snag an outlaw Hurricane off a gate with the help of a few friends, adding to the day’s tally before taking a break.

Later that night, I was joined by Lt Graham who wanted to try ECM for the first time. We headed over to Heild, and with the system brimming with activity, set to work attempting to tackle something willing to fight. Our first victim was a speed fit Zealot, who decided to afk at a safespot in a system full of pirates, a feat he won’t repeat with that ship. Minutes later, we managed to engineer an engagement with a pirate gang in the system, using my geddon as bait. After spotting an Arbitrator on scan, I warped to a planet at 20km, and had Graham hold off grid aligned to my location. Sure enough, the Arbitrator arrived at my planet 20km from me, and quickly moved to tackle my BS. The Arbitrator’s tracking disruptors were countered by my heavy drone flight and energy neutralizer, and with Graham’s support the EWAR cruiser was in dire straights. Roughly half way through the Arbitrator’s tank, an additional two Hurricanes arrived at the planet, along with a Falcon decloaking 40km from my position.

Graham was unable to jam the Falcon first; however I managed to engage the recon ship with my drone flight before losing lock. Armor peeled off my ship steadily, and unable to acquire a lock my position was becoming more and more desperate. Incredibly, the Falcon lost his jams on our ships after three cycles, in fact losing his ship to the group of Berserkers I engaged him with half a minute earlier. With the enemy recon removed from the field, Graham was able to assert himself once more, and incoming damage dropped significantly.

It wasn’t going to be enough to win the fight however, as at least one Hurricane was able to maintain sensor lock on my geddon and apply devastating projectile ordinance across my ship. With the buffer on my battleship already depleted, my single LAR could not counter the DPS the pirate gang maintained. Aligning out, my only chance was to neut down the ships nearby and hope Graham could jam the rest and facilitate my escape. Incredibly, Graham kept failing with his racial jammer while a single off racial kept the second Hurricane placid. After a minute of jockeying, Graham’s Blackbird finally jammed both enemy battlecruisers and I made my way into warp.

As the only battleship in a small gang engaging in lowsec piracy, the experience hasn’t been without setbacks. Without support, a lone BS is easy pickings for groups of smaller ships to overcome, especially if enemy gangs maintain EWAR support as well. My first geddon loss was an attempt to bail out Graham, who has the worst of luck flying a blaster fit Ferox in lowsec.

Graham is able to find ideal ships to engage with his active tanked battlecruiser, however they always seem to have support nearby cloaked or off grid from his targets. Once he attempts to engage, the trap is sprung and he finds himself with little to do but watch his ship bleed out and die. This time, a Vagabond had managed to slip out of scrambler range, and summoned a Curse and Crow to down his beleaguered Ferox. Unfortunately, I was a system over off gate, having just destroyed a pirate Hoarder with my geddon. By the time I slowboated back to gate, jumped through and arrived on grid, Graham’s BC was bleeding structure and soon popped. I was then left with a two speed fit T2 cruisers and a Crow to contend with.

While the odds were entirely against me, I had a few advantages in the fight. The Curse neglected Tracking Disruptors in his fitting, opting for a stronger shield tank. This meant I would at least be able to hit out to disruptor range with my turrets, albeit without Scorch as I opted for a cheaper fitting. While the Curse was able to neut me, my heavy neut was able to do the same, and bolstered by a heavy cap booster far longer than the Curse could sustain under its effect. The Crow would lose all its capacitor immediately after venturing within 25km of me, and had to flee repeatedly from my approaching drone flight. Without Scorch crystals however, I wasn’t dealing enough damage to deter my aggressors, and was forced to rely on the hope I could neut down those ships still in range, disable their tackle and flee. Despite a second where I accomplished this task, I wasn’t able to jam warp in time, and lost the ship.

More recently, I had decided to engage the bait of a Bastards gang in Heild, destroying the Stabber they tempted me with though rapidly finding myself TDed by an Arbitrator, jammed by a Blackbird and under heavy fire from a pair of Thoraxes. With the help of a friend in a Jaguar and my drone flight, I was able to force the BB off grid, however by then the Thoraxes had established a tight orbit around my BS to foil my tracking, and the Arbitrator’s EWAR allowed him to range tank any return fire from my laser arsenal. Again, I was forced to attempt to neut down those ships tackling me, though an abundance of scramblers made this a futile effort.

Even with the two losses, the fitting I employed meant I was losing only 15 million isk a ship, while having a blast flying a battleship regularly in lowsec for the first time in over a year. The hull is so cheap and insurable that I can casually engage any force that seems approachable and treat resulting losses with flippant indifference. It’s truly a great ship for the risky small gang and solo combat I frequently engage in, able to fly alongside T1 hulls smaller than it with similar or even less ISK investment.

december

2010-01-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time with no writing. Fortunately for my audience, individuals within ERIS have taken to reading my blag and have been nagging me over vent to quit slacking. Forgive this gladiator his idling: my new year’s resolution shall be to forgo my scholarly and familial obligations to deliver to you quality PvP reports, analysis and stratgery on a daily basis. Well, something like that.

The time since my last post has been good to me. I’ve been able to form a rough basis of what I wish to do in the coming months. Intriguingly, my intentions for 2010 reach back to my explorations into PvP December of 2008, around when I first began this enterprise of small gang piracy and blagging. Hopefully this year I can maintain a tempo for myself that supports consistent action without the eventual EVE burnout which often follows.

Planned for the new year:

- Active recruitment
- Fitting/piloting experimentation
- Increased small gang activities
- W-hole exploration/exploitation
- PvP blagging competitions
- Lowsec PvP promotions
- RP writing

Further explanation with future posts. I hope everyone had fantastic winter solstice celebrations with friends and family, and are looking forward to this new year with as much elation as myself!

mega

2009-12-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

About three months back I finished training Gallente Battleship to V, a few weeks after that Large Hybrid Turret to V and the associated blaster spec to IV. Sadly, between the cost of armor rigs and my growing boredom with the game, I never got the chance to give Gallente battleships the shakedown they warrant. Recent activity in Placid yielded the perfect opportunity to acquire several of these hulls, placing them in the seed for my new hanger there.

With the Dominion patch looming just days away, many alliances had gone through constellations knocking every POS they found into reinforced, preparing for eventual takeover once the patch hit. A POS owned by a member in ERIS had been targeted in such a way by FREGE, and ERIS wasn’t about to let this occur without a fight. Jumping onto their comms as I was in the area, I found ERIS in the midst of forming a RR BS gang to refute a FREGE siege hopefully before the POS went into reinforced: perfect opportunity to try out a gank Megathron. A few jumps from my hanger I joined the ERIS fleet, and we were away.

Timing for the fleet was poor: the FREGE fleet was several minutes into the siege before the ERIS force even undocked, and maneuvers from Placid lowsec into Syndicate took precious time. A jump from Syndicate, the ERIS force was joined by a second fleet, composed of another alliance under attack from FREGE. Their POSes had already been knocked into reinforced, however between POS gunners and an ERIS stealth bomber gang, several FREGE support had been destroyed. The secondary fleet was composed of sniper BS, which took up position a jump behind our advancing RR gang.

Entering nullsec, FREGE activities became less clear: scouts began reporting that the POS was already put into reinforced, and the FREGE support fleet was fleeing the area. Things became fairly hectic over comms, until it was finally confirmed that FREGE had left with their work complete. However, several elements from their support fleet evidently were slower than their comrades, and it was possible we could cut them off from their route home.

Jumping into the system containing the friendly POS, fleet was ordered immediately to the D2-HOS gate, where we encountered the fleeing remains of the FREGE support. Jumping through, we were able to catch several fleeing battlecruisers, however nothing worth the 30+BS fleet which we represented. Denied their engagement, the two fleets decided to convene for a FREGE POS smash in an adjacent system. To this I tipped my hat, employing a wormhole in D2- to make my way back to Placid.

Less action (and thus enthusiasm) than my typical report contains, and I suppose I’ll use this space to express my dislike about the give and take of POS warfare. In theory it gives a wonderful incentive for gang PvP, as it focuses PvP activity at a single point, the POS. However, in the big fish eat little fish universe of EVE, it’s often a rather lopsided affair: not to mention the activity of sieging POSes themselves constitutes a form of PvP grind that to me is as fun as watching paint dry.

To me, EVE is all about small and medium gang warfare, employing skirmish tactics to counter larger gangs, a strategy which yields incredibly exciting combat which is never a forgone conclusion. Large scale PvP takes the individuality out of combat, and turns your foe into a faceless being, removing much of the personality of EVE PvP. Certainly I’m making many sweeping generalizations about large gang PvP, but I’ve devoted two years to nullsec combat. Fighting in medium to large gangs normally end in colorless meat grinder action, with little occurring beyond shooting primaries and moderate gang maneuvering. The change from that to small gang and solo PvP was a breath of fresh air that renewed an otherwise stale EVE existence.

Moving into small gang combat removed the overbearing FC figure, and required pilots to exhibit much more initiative and skill than a typical nullsec fleet required. The stakes are higher, however smaller gangs acquire more fights as their reduced numbers are more accessible for other players to counter with gangs of their own. Eliminating the need for very specific fittings for an optimal homogenized fleet (sniper, nano, RR) promotes highly varied options for small gangs, increasing the value of underused ships as well as allowing for creative fittings of more popular ship hulls. Put simply, small gang PvP makes EVE more interesting.

I do miss BS slugfests, capital ganks and the incredible flurry of activity that goes on in large scale fleet combat. There is an absurd amount of cloak and dagger between those climatic fleet engagements, which in itself lends EVE Online one of its most unique flairs. It’s also awesome to win a fleet fight, and literally require haulers to scoop the mass of loot strewn about a battlefield. However, all these perks couldn’t incite me to give a crap about the monotonous lifestyle and stale PvP regular large scale PvP alliances often offer their members.

I’d LOVE to eat my previous words, and join an alliance that manages combat without the drudgeries of politics, POS warfare, and elitism while managing regular, intense large scale combat. Not holding my breath, but who knows what the future holds.

pushit

2009-12-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

I’m often ushered into FCing gangs that I take part of, whether they’re composed of friends I’ve flown with for years, or individuals I just met, while being the only outsider in their group. I guess it’s my knack for knowing what to do, or at least what best to do in order to preserve a gang while inflicting maximum damage to an opposing fleet. Or it’s merely the fact I have more drive than most pilots in EVE to PvP, and hence I’m forced into the most unpopular and demanding position in the fleet. So it goes.

Returning to Molden Heath to catch up on some much needed security status redemption, I found that my favorite pirate of the area, Ariartus was on the prowl with a few friends. Her gang had roamed the lowsec of the region for the past hour, and finding nothing, she too was looking forward to a little action in Great Wildlands. Not one to pass up good fun with a friend, I joined their gang, taking up the FC/scout roles in a Huginn for our gang of three Ruptures. All three pilots expressed the utmost desire to lose their cruisers in glorious combat, and I had every intention to shepherd them to an explosive end.

Fortunately for us, the time couldn’t be riper for a roam through GW: COW had just vacated the area, and in the vacuum Republic Alliance had set up shop in their old haunt M-MD38. RE-AL has nothing on the Foundati0n of old, and their diminished numbers haven’t a chance in policing their slice of nullsec from small marauding gangs such as our own. The gang moved past B-VIP9, scouting the pipe to NIH-02 with efficiency. Asking my flock if they desired immediate or eventual blobby death, and with an overwhelming response for the former, I jumped into M-MD38 to give the RE-AL population a look-see.

Ignoring the thirty pilots in local and wall of -10 standing most of them represented, a quick 360 scan revealed an Abaddon, ratting at the only belt in range. Giving the order to jump, I activated warp to the belt, and was rewarded with a moment of calm with which to admire my Matari recon. The Huginn is really a gorgeous ship: the green trails totally make it a killer. It doesn’t get nearly enough attention for its abilities, though that only translates to a cheaper hull, to which I can’t complain.

The warp tunnel collapsed; my reverie ended with a brutish looking golden hulk taking up my view. The Amarr battleship had just finished blasting apart an Angel Cartel ship, and was quite oblivious to the pain his vessel was about to endure. Twenty kilometers between his ship and my own were well within tackle range of my T2 disruptor and bonused webs; it was a simple matter of immobilizing his ship for the rest of my gang to take down.

Flights of Caldari Navy HAMs streamed from the Huginn, their sleek contours following trails of projectile ordinance to add a concussive climax to the relatively minor projectile impacts. Seconds passed slowly in the opening moments of the attack: time seems to dilate when you know you’re doing something utterly foolhardy, and have the off chance of getting away with it. Of course, realizing its mistake, time travels extra fast to catch up once things start to heat up. In my case, when a trio of Matari gunboats drop from warp to lend their arsenal to the battle.

The pirate Ruptures converged on the Abaddon to weave tight orbits, using their superior tracking to confound the efforts of the larger ship to fend them off. Fortunately, the ratter neglected any sort of tackle equipment to slow our assault to a speed his pulse lasers could track. Once the (disposable) Ruptures had demonstrated this, I eased into a similarly close orbit, drifting into optimal range of my autocannons.

So far so good, however good isn’t enough when ganking targets in an alliance’s home system. I ordered all ships to begin overheating their weapons to hasten the battleship’s destruction. The incessant chatter of projectile fire rose to a furious crescendo, crews on each Matari hull noticing an increase in the rhythmic vibration in the hull, just as a minor earthquake escalates to a moderate one.

Despite our efforts, support came trickling in to aid the beleaguered Abaddon. First arrival was a Rapier, decloaking 40km from our position. He must have sensed our menace by the way four drone flights immediately streamed toward his vessel, and promptly initiated warp away from the belt. Next was a Drake, landing at 30km. Unfortunately the mesmerizing sight of the Abaddon entering hull distracted us from pointing the battlecruiser, and it warped off as well. No more intrusions presented themselves in final seconds it took for us to evaporate the Abaddon’s hull.

Goal accomplished, evasive maneuvers were called, and the next twenty minutes were spent avoiding M-MD38 while exploring adjacent systems for more ratters. Lacking any appreciable targets, and with the Khabi gate in 7Q-8Z2 camped, we decided to brave RE-AL once more, pushing back through to M-MD38 on our way to BRT-OP. Stinging from the earlier ratter loss, RE-AL decided to give chase, following us through NIH-02, into N-DQ0D, culminating with an engagement in P1T-LP.

P1T was ideal for our skirmish gang. Mashing scanner as we went, we knew we had only battlecruisers and smaller chasing us, which meant we had a good chance of killing a few ships before larger vessels arrived from M-M. With the chase gang hot on our tracks, we jumped into P1T, deploying drones and waited for RE-AL to make their move.

Jumping into P1T, the RE-AL gang was welcomed with all the fury four Matari cruisers could provide. A Brutix, Prophecy, Eris and Rapier were first to decloak, and I called the Rapier primary, fearing its ability to dictate range over the rest of the ships on the field. The Eris deployed its bubble, opposing drone flights swooping toward targets as pilots jockeyed to lay their firepower on designated targets. It seemed the RE-AL gang had similar worries regarding my EWAR arsenal; my shields were quickly under assault by multiple drones, and taking hits from the Rapier’s artillery fire.

Their fears were realized as my webifiers both halted the retreat of the Rapier and charge of the Brutix, allowing ally Ruptures to swoop in on the enemy recon. The RE-AL gang had an ace to call upon however, and as the Ruptures arrived in range, a Falcon decloaked, disrupting locks of our gang. Cursing, I called the Falcon primary, overheating my MWD attempting to maneuver into range of the Falcon and away from the closing RE-AL gunships. I had to endure several cycles of ECM before my impressive signal strength finally won through, allowing me to regain lock. Ten seconds were all I needed to remove the plated force recon from the field.

With their ECM piece eliminated, the flow of action quickly turned to the pirate’s favor. The flimsy Eris had decided to follow adjacent to my Huginn to deal maximum damage, however without a Falcon to preserve it, drones quickly consumed it. The Rapier dropped quickly as well, lacking tank for greater tackling ability. With their support destroyed, we moved to focus on the battlecruisers holding the field.

We soon found that the Brutix sported a shield tank, which allowed our cruisers to move within web range to deal sickening damage, while evading blaster return fire. Unfortunately Ariartus wasn’t so careful in her approach, and lost her already damaged Rupture to the Brutix. The BC didn’t last much longer after that, leaving a Prophecy to battle our three remaining cruisers: a lone, brave and stupidly durable Prophecy which harbored the seed of our destruction.

Observing the Prophecy, I decided that it was using a pulse laser load out, and from that assumption ordered my gang to engage from 10km. From that range our cruisers would be able to deal good damage while the Prophecy would be forced to use Scorch M, which is inefficent against Matari plate and shielding. In reality the Prophecy was sporting medium autocannons, and was hitting the vulnerable EXP/KIN resistance holes of our cruisers.

A minute had passed when one of the Ruptures declared he was hitting structure, and unable to flee in time lost his ship. I cautioned the remaining Rupture to hold outside of web range, which should allow him to escape with ease. Time crept by as the Prophecy’s tank slowly diminished, however our progress on his plate was much too slow. The stargate adjacent to us flared to life, depositing RE-AL reinforcements into the system. Fearing the worst, I activated my MWD, burning away from the gate and telling my comrade to mimic the maneuver.

Unfortunately for the pirate Rupture, escape would not be possible. The Prophecy managed to slip a webifier onto his fleeing ship, and paired with a newly arrived Wolf, the Rupture was lost in a sapphire blaze. Several more RE-AL vessels jumped into system, their target now the sole remaining pirate cruiser on grid, my Huginn.

Chagrined at the loss of my command, I decided to destroy as many wrecks as possible and make my escape. Diving back toward the gate, I destroyed both recon wrecks, as well as the cruiser wrecks of my comrades. Green engine trails traced my path around the gate, skimming beyond weapons range of the RE-AL group until finally I departed to the stargate leading toward BRT-OP.

That route home wasn’t my true destination, however. Landing at a celestial adjacent to the outbound gate, I watched the RE-AL HIC as well as tackle support arrive at the gate, likely expecting me to arrive there at any moment. My Huginn however was already en route to the NIH gate, which I promptly jumped through. My misdirection afforded me a clear path back to B-VIP9, and finally into the comfortable embrace of Molden Heath lowsec.

The pirate gang was ecstatic with victory: they had planned on traveling into GW with hopes of a gank or two before being blobbed horribly. My smart FCing allowed us to destroy a great deal more than they expected, snubbing RE-AL alliance with painful losses while at it. Cheering up, I joined their celebration and bade each in turn good night as the Europeans logged off, having stayed up well into the morning.

Despite the fact they were expecting to lose their ships, the poor call to engage a ship known for its fantastic staying power egged at my conscious. So close to their home system, I should have called for the two Ruptures to destroy wrecks and retreat further into nullsec, using my webifiers to keep the Prophecy out of trouble. It just goes to show I have much to learn of skirmish warfare, even with over a year of small gang experience under my belt.

unity

2009-12-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

Continued from reunion.

The situation had me in a tight spot. I wasn’t about to fire upon my alliance mates, and as the alliance executor was in the STUGH gang, I’d likely be asked to fight if it came to that. I flipped over to alliance chat, and began my usual work as a liaison trying to sort things out.

Fortunately, a fight wasn’t necessary, and the BS heavy STUGH gang was willing to let the ERIS (Aggressive Dissonance) gang go. I relayed to the news to Cephas, dropped gang and switched over to STUGH comms, joining their gang as I did so. It didn’t take long for things to get interesting from there.

In the time it took for me to join the STUGH fleet, a scout one jump over in Ostingele reported two bumps in local, shortly preceding the arrival of two neutrals at our location in Pelelie. A Stabber decloaked over a dozen kilometers away from my position: too far for me to tackle, and the nimble cruiser warped away unmolested. The Rupture he was paired with wasn’t as lucky with his arrival, decloaking less than ten kilometers from my scrambler fit Brutix. I manage an overheated tackle, and begin ripping into the cruiser with my blaster arsenal.

The STUGH gang hesitantly followed my lead, combined ordinance culminating to the quick demise of the Rupture. The cruiser duo weren’t operating alone however; our pilot in Ostingele reported another ten bumps in local, which we took as our cue to leave. Battleships began entering warp just as Pelelie local began spiking, and after entering warp myself, I managed to glimpse the greater composition of the enemy fleet: ten or so BC, a few cruisers. It’d had been a losing battle to entertain them with sentry aggression on a gate.

Landing at a different celestial than the fleet, I continued watching scanner as I aligned to a new destination in case any hostiles followed my escape. Our FC had warped the gang to a station, which had promptly docked to escape and assess the situation. Inquiring how he intended to proceed, he replied that due to his lack of experience in lowsec, I should take FC in his stead. Brilliant strategy, commander.

Spying a newly arrived Nidhoggur on scan, I dropped any aspirations of combating the BC gang, and docked myself. Alliance attendance was limited due to the time of night, and we couldn’t expect any blue reinforcements. Grinning, I shot a chat invite to Cephas, and quickly worked out a compromise: the reinforcements we needed, without the expected drama, courtesy of yours truly.

Leaving Cephas to sort out his people, I concentrated on keeping tabs on the enemy fleet, which didn’t seem in the mood to camp a station at length. Roughly twelve minutes after losing their Rupture, the BC gang began filtering out of local, back into the Ostingele system. From there, they flirted with our scout still remaining in Ostingele (who flew an Armageddon, a very heavy scout) yielding precious more minutes to wait down GCC and for ERIS to mobilize.

Finally our GGCs expired, and the STUGH gang undocked, entering warp towards the Ostingele gate. The plan was to use our known force as the anvil, and once the enemy fleet was engaged, jump the ERIS force in as the hammer. The only trick with the situation would be to engage the enemy fleet in such a way that they didn’t merely cream our ships before our comrades could turn the tide.

Landing on the Ostingele gate, the plan began to deteriorate as the situation within Ostingele shifted. The BC fleet kept moving about, at some points chasing our geddon within the system, at other points warping to stargates or stations. I wasn’t about to complain, as this gave time for ERIS to converge a jump from Ostingele, however indecision has its costs. Amidst the confusion, the BC gang filtered from Ostingele local, until only three enemy pilots remained.

Fearing the worst, I ordered all ships to jump, and converge on the gate our scout estimated they had left through. With the ERIS and STUGH gangs together, we no longer had the element of surprise, but with our combined force of arms, I wasn’t much worried. Landing on the Alperaute gate, I readied to send our HIC in to investigate the adjacent system, when a lone battlecruiser, a Hurricane, landed on our gate at 10km.

I decided to force the issue once and for all, tackling the Hurricane with my Brutix, while calling for the rest of the gang to hold fire. Holding the BC down should force his comrades to jump back and join the fight, leaving us in a good position on the gate for remote repairs and deagressing. I wasn’t disappointed, as local began to increase as the enemy fleet returned to aid their comrade.

The Hurricane pilot was pushing the bait card a bit too much, and hadn’t taken any hostile action on our gang. Not wanting to lose my Brutix needlessly in the opening moments of the fight, I warped off, giving my active tank time to recover before returning to the greater fight that was about to take place. As I warped off I placed Cephas in charge of target calling, and began the grim wait between warp hops.

With my ship departing, the Hurricane took its cue as well, leaving the field just after my Brutix. The hostile fleet took its time decloaking, and I was able to land at the celestial and start aligning back before any hostilities broke out. Curiously enough, the Hurricane had decided to follow me in warp, landing several kilometers away from my position. I tackled the Hurricane just as Cephas started taking fire at the gate, and had begun directing primaries for our fleet.

Initially I hoped by tackling the Hurricane at the celestial, we could have our engagement at a celestial without the worry of sentries, but with the fight underway on the Alperaute gate that hope was dashed. Additionally, the Hurricane decided to return the favor, matching my tackle kit with a point of his own, and had begun returning fire. Lacking optimal range for my own arsenal, and capacitor from running repairs tackling his ship at the gate, I was in poor condition to win this fight on my own. As I jockeyed closer to the Hurricane, the other two pilots which had been curiously absent from recent action arrived, sealing my fate.

Cephas, while losing his Armageddon to the combined BC fleet had carried the day, his target calling resulting in the in total destruction of the enemy fleet. The three ships that had split off to deal with my Brutix arrived too late to affect the outcome of the fight, and had been taken apart piecemeal. The overall engagement can be seen here.

Distancing myself from any possible drama within the alliance, I had never understood why STUGH had decided to purge those members that eventually formed ERIS. That an ERIS FC led a STUGH gang to victory merely cemented my dislike of the current situation. At least I proved to the two alliances that cooperation is still possible, which will hopefully lead to more joint operations in the future.

destination

2009-12-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Scheduled combat report put off in order to build anticipa. . . because I felt like it. Conclusion to previous entry in a few days.

A reply from Ombey after commenting on one of his recent blag posts got me thinking about my future in EVE, specifically what I could be doing right now. Well, I’m quite content with what I’m doing, however there’s a distinction between awesome solo lowsec PvP, and awesome small gang lowsec PvP: one can be done anywhere, while the other can only be done in a populated corp. Lacking comrades in my own organization, I’m left considering whether I should leave to join another. This quandary leads immediately to who I could possibly join that could meet my needs?

I have my friends in Rote Kapelle and Aggressive Dissonance, who have proven themselves able gang mates both past and present. However their emphasis on nullsec PvP has always estranged my relationship with them, especially STUGH, which has lacked coherence of late. That aside, it’s an easy bet that I could return to visit, joining gangs to do exactly as I do now with them. So the tried and true is out.

My old allies around Molden Heath have for the most part moved on or faded away. Triksterism, while never much of an ally but a friend regardless left to do his own thing, leaving that association fallow. Capital Punishment folded some time ago, and its principle members are now spearheading Aggressive Dissonance, dismissed previously. The Black Sinisters crowd is still functioning in Molden Heath, however I don’t feel like being that one guy in the off time zone, logging in when corpmates are either waking up or going to bed. So that’s out of the question.

In my time combating Foundati0n and now Republic Alliance, I’ve drawn the respect of several of their pilots, so I probably have a foot in the door with their organization. However, they’re NRDS, so sod that.

Well, what’s left? What’re some of my dream corporations I could join?

Well, I hear Club Bear is starting up again. The Bears are also in the same alliance housing Garmon, Laedy and a few other friends from my Molden Heath past, all flying together under the banner of PvP movie pwnage. Having flown with Garmon, I’d definitely enjoy working with him as well, if there wasn’t that nasty time zone difference between us.

The Accursed are home to another dream team of pilots whose names coincide with my favorite EVE PvP flicks. I’m unsure if they’re even open for recruitment, though I’d like to imagine my resume would be up to par, considering our methods for PvP run parallel with each other. Definitely a good option if I could get in.

Raxip made it into Veto Academy; I always have the option of joining Veto proper, especially with my old corpmate vouching for me. From all Raxip has asserted, PvP in the VETO fold is a glorious thing. Now if only I could catch the bastard online to iron out details, I might give this some serious thought.

Last but definitely not least, there’s the alliance that started this whole line of thinking: Ursha’Khan. They RP. They fly Minnie. They shoost Amarr. They’re cloak-faggy. They’ve been around forever doing what I love best, small gang PvP. Just about anyone who’s played this game at some point wanted to join them or shoot them, without ever having seem them in space, merely due to the concept behind their alliance being that cool. They represent what this whole Minmatar thing is about, or at least that’s what it said in the back story. Well, I can’t remember distinct details, but that sounds about right.

If it were up to me, I’d have a run with all these corporations/alliances like a man through a buffet, sampling each in turn for a few months until I found the one that suited me. The cool thing about most of these organizations is that I know a few pilots from each of them: I know they’re full of nice people, and are chill about details like that. It’d be okay for me to move on after giving my best, and come back if I decide they were actually ‘the one’.

I’m not sure where I want to end up, and considering the dynamic theater of EVE, I’m comfortable with that. I know what I like about this game, what I dislike, what I want and what I need to avoid. It’s amusing to consider that these concepts were in flux for so long; however it’s only after a few years that I have really established with myself what is enjoyable about this MMO, and what will likely bring about that joy in abundance. So with that in mind, I think I’m going to send out a few mails, join a channel or two and get a feel for just what’s available out there. Who knows: perhaps by 2010, Sard will once again be trying something completely different.

reunion

2009-12-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

After spending my first days back in EVE around Molden Heath and Goinard, my alliance began to pick up on my activities and once again started to chide me to join them in Syndicate. While I wasn’t about to move my operations into nullsec out of personal preference, planting a hanger in the nearby Placid region would place me in comfortable roaming distance from my comrades in arms, as well as acting as a staging point to launch roams into Placid itself. I like the lowsec of Placid. It houses an ample number of both PvPers and PvEers, both of which are concentrated within a cluster of roughly a dozen systems: high target density if you hunt at the right time of the day.

However, Placid was not a target region in my logistics planning months earlier, and it would take several days to acquire and move sufficient assets for a new hanger to be readied. Not to be deterred, I decided to finalize my withdrawal from Huola by jumping to my clone there, and moving one of my last remaining ships out of dock: an autocannon fit Punisher. Setting my destination to a system in Placid, I had only an even twenty jumps to travel. Even with a 400mm plate fit, my sturdy frigate slew the distance between regions in little time.

Arriving in Placid with no plans and nothing larger to switch into, I decided to see how much mischief my little bleeder fit could get itself into before going pop. Flying about the region in a hasty ship would also allow me to reacquaint myself with the locals as I could quickly scout who dwelt where and with what forces I could expect to face. I decided to check northern Placid first, and work my way south from there toward the area my alliance is currently active.

Two jumps from Maut, a pair of assault ships started trailing me: an Ishkur and Hawk. My quota of mischief currently unfilled, I decided that I’d experiment to see how much tolerance the AS pilots had for bumping. After landing on the Alparena gate, I waited for the frigate pair to catch up. As each ship landed on the gate, I maneuvered my Punisher to collide with each ship, eventually ping ponging my ship between the two. The opposing pilots retaliated by locking my ship and attempting bump back, which I laughed at as I exited through the gate into Alparena.

The pair followed me into system, and performed the unexpected: they both decloaked with haste, and as I attempted to warp to Maut, the Ishkur locked and placed a point on me, deploying a flight of Hobgoblin IIs my way as he did so. Standard missiles screamed from launch bays nestled in the Hawk, speeding ahead of the drones to strip my Punisher of shields in a single volley.

Shocked, I approached the Ishkur, moving into range to place tackle and mete out Barrage S justice. I couldn’t understand why the AS pilots thought they could engage under sentry fire and survive the encounter, but I wasn’t about to let them flee from their folly. My hefty armor buffer barely registered damage as the Hawk’s missiles and Ishkur’s drones began their assault on my plated hull, all the while my SAR reduced damage accumulation to a slow trickle.

I had overheated and applied my webifier before the Ishkur could rush into blaster range, forcing it to wade into range all the while taking significant damage from sentries and my ACs. The combination proved too much for the Ishkur, and he predictably kersploded less than a minute into the fight. Turning my attention to the Hawk, I was pleased to find he had coasted within 10km of my ship. It was a simple matter of easing into scrambler range to pin the assault ship down for the gate sentries to finish off.

The entire flurry of action left two T2 wrecks adjacent to the gate in less than a minute. Throughout the duration of the fight, I didn’t have time to fire even 50 rounds of munitions into targets before the sentries finished picking them off. I lightheartedly consoled the two rookie pilots as I scooped their loot, and then continued on my journey to Maut to deposit the spoils there.

A short break for drink later I undocked my Punisher, this time setting my sights south toward TXW-EI, the gateway system into Syndicate my alliance had chosen for their base of operations in the area. A rather uneventful nine jumps later, having chased one T1 cruiser/frigate gang to highsec, and another to a complex, I was chatted by an old friend Cephas Boaz from STUGH, who had split off to form the splinter alliance Aggressive Dissonance. While exchanging pleasantries we decided to form a gang to try for the cruisers raiding the complex, my friend logging in his main in a Cyclone to supply DPS. Unfortunately, the three jumps Cephas had to travel were too many, as the cruisers finished their work at the plex and had begun to land on my gate to leave.

Doing the only thing I could imagine to pique their interest to stay, I rushed to bump the nearest ship, bumping between the three cruisers in the enemy gang as they landed on the gate. Incredibly they paused in their flight, each in turn locking me after several seconds of my irritating actions. A Thorax was first to open fire on me, followed soon by a second Thorax, both unleashing their drone and blaster arsenal on my minor frigate. My Punisher slipped between streams of Antimatter rounds, deftly avoiding fire while tanking what little managed to land on its golden hull. I traded tackle with the nearest Thorax, closing in to a tight orbit around the cruiser, using my small Nosferatu to fuel repairs while waiting for my DPS backup to cream the cruisers on the gate.

Additional aid became unnecessary as I realized the novice pilots of these cruisers had fit little in the way of a tank. The first Thorax exploded brilliantly before Cephas could even enter the system, and I had to pull back my pitiful DPS from the second to ensure Cephas got on at least one KM from the engagement. My companion was barely able to lock in time before the second cruiser evaporated from sentry fire. The third cruiser, a Caracal, choose to jump once Cephas had arrived at the gate and placed two volleys of EMP M into his shields.

Cephas warped off to wait down aggression, and I once again moved through the wrecks to scavenge anything of value. Not wanting to wait the full fifteen minutes of GCC, Cephas prompted me to continue scouting adjacent systems, which I readily relented to. While I scouted, Cephas opted to switch to a passive tanked HAM Drake nearby, and began to head in the direction I was probing when I found us another prize: an Ishtar, this time likely belt ratting.

I quickly narrowed down the belt the Ishtar was engaged with, noting the number of wrecks already on scan at the belt: it appeared the Ishtar was done with the rats there, and would likely move on to another belt soon. Predictably, the Ishtar moved one belt down, which I immediately warped to in hopes I could catch him at zero kilometers from the belt. No such luck: the Ishtar had sniper BMs from the belts, and was engaging rats with light drones at distance.

My AC Punisher devotes the vast majority of its power grid and CPU to a massive tank; there is little enough room for weapons, none at all for a speed mod. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to rush out 100km to tackle the HAC. Instead I’d have to approximate a way to warp on top of him using celestials as a midpoint, warping to the celestial then back at the belt at range, hopefully closer to my target. Picking a stargate roughly in line between myself and the Ishtar, I warped off, and after arriving at the stargate, back to the belt at 100km. The Ishtar was now 40km away from me.

With Cephas a few jumps out, I was left with little other choice as I slow boated to the Ishtar, hoping he’d either ignore my smaller frigate or decide to engage me. Kilometers crept by every few seconds as the distance between our two ships deteriorated: a hasty ‘Look At’ later I found that the Ishtar had begun to approach me under normal speed, making my task easier. He was still enamored with destroying pirate frigates with a flight of Hornet IIs; no hostile action was taken until I came within twelve klicks of his ship. It was then we both locked each other, I placing my tackle first while the Ishtar began to recall his drones to deal with my Punisher.

It was slow going trying to move within a close orbit of the drone carrier, as a webifier had reduced my march towards him to a crawl. Small hybrid fire from the HAC lanced into my frigate, soon joined by the flight of Hornet IIs which quickly combined to savage my frigate with devastating effectiveness. To make matters worse, the Ishtar pilot had opted to fit a medium energy neutralizer, evaporating my ability to alleviate my woes via SAR. My fate sealed, I steeled myself to my task of immobilizing the HAC, employing my Nos to keep tackle equipment active. Roughly two thirds of my armor was gone by the time Cephas arrived in system with his Drake.

While the drones made steady progress into my armor, I had incredible difficulty tracking their progress around my ship with autocannon, as I couldn’t spare my webifier in fear the HAC would flee before Cephas had a chance to arrive and exchange tackle. Cephas finally landed at the belt at my location, resolving lock on the enemy HAC with practiced ease to loose deadly volleys of Caldari Navy munitions into the Ishtar, as well a flight of light drones to counter those demolishing my vessel. It was too late to make a difference for my frigate however, as it was moments after the Drake landed that my Punisher hit hull, and succumbed to the Ishtar’s drone flight.

Cephas’ flurry of HAMs turned out more than a match for the passive armor tank of the Ishtar. The drone carrier’s tank failed a short two minutes after contact with the Drake, granting us a worthy prize for our endeavors. Cephas scooped loot, and we headed back to his base of operations in Placid.

Before setting out to scout for Cephas, I had joined him on his vent server to smooth out communications. By the time of our Ishtar kill, voice comms had become much more active, with many old comrades from my earlier days in STUGH logging in for their piece of action for the night. Upon reaching his hanger Cephas sold me a Brutix, and we formed a gang to continue our roam through Placid. We set out BC heavy, with my dual MAR Brutix spearheading the gang, scouting one system ahead in hopes another gang would engage my tanky vessel first. It wasn’t long before I arrived in Pelilie, jumping into a small BS gang of none other than my allies in STUGH!

The situation was made all the more awkward as not only were my friends in Aggressive on shooting terms with STUGH proper, I was FCing for their gang. To say the least, the next half hour was an incredibly interesting flurry of explosions, which I’ll report on next post.

Fly reckless folks.

greener pastures

2009-12-02T22:14:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe I haven’t written up a combat report in over half a year. Vacation’s over; let’s see how out of practice these fingers are.

During the three months of my absence from EVE, I’ve redistributed my ship and fitting assets from older hangers, mothballing them in preparation of the time that I’d return to the game. After the interesting discovery that Sard had been banned during my absence, and the two days it took to get him back in action, I was in the perfect position to return to my bread and butter of EVE: lowsec PvP!

Raxip Elamp had set me up with the coordinates of an awesome lowsec system, Goinard, which is less than a dozen jumps from the major lowsec areas in EVE while itself only a jump from highsec space. Having a hanger there also allows me to quickly join Raxi for PvP, something I’d been looking forward to in the time since our last venture together. I quickly assembled a Rupture, deciding that I needed a hastier option than my normal battlecruiser arsenal to explore the lowsec regions I had set myself to conquer.

Raxip’s approximations about the richness of the area didn’t disappoint: three jumps after undocking I arrived in the Angatalie System, to a duo of battlecruisers who couldn’t possibly be up to any good. I grew a grin, gave the mental shrug of the borderline insane and launched my ship into alignment towards one of the gates in the system. The Harbinger/Myrmidon pair didn’t disappoint, immediately locking me up and placing disruptor points on my Rupture. Without missing a beat, I returned the favor to the Myrmidon, matching his point while loosing a volley of Barrage M.

Before the fight was underway, I had quickly formed a few guidelines to make victory possible: keep the Harbinger at 20km distance or greater, as well as keeping the Myrmidon within 15km. These distances would allow me to engage without the withering effects of turret or possible capacitor warfare modules affecting my ship, as well as drawing out the Myrmidon’s bonused drone flight to a distance where it’d be difficult to recall them back to their bay before myself or the sentry guns annihilated them. Fifteen kilometers is also the distance where my loadout of ACs do roughly 50% of their maximum damage; enough with sentry turret fire to wither a dual MAR Myrmidon down given enough time.

Putting my plan into action, I angled my ship away from the Myrmidon, and moved to establish a distance that placed the Myrm directly between myself and the Harbinger, as well as away from the stargate. Autocannon fire glittered from my ship, creating a lethal trail of ordinance as my Rupture nimbly maneuvered from the stargate into position, occasionally connecting with a member of the drone swarm hastily approaching my ship. Tense seconds passed as I switched overview settings to lock up the majority of the enemy drone flights: my Rupture didn’t have an armor repairer fit, and any incoming damage that could be avoided had to be hastily neutralized for me to survive.

Sentry turrets cycled off my battlecruiser aggressors to aid with the near dozen of medium drones buzzing around my ship; between my own drones, ACs with webifier and the damage from the sentries the drones were subdued, at the cost of a third of my armor. With that threat out of the way, I settled into position to hammer at the Myrmidon, while bursting my MWD to keep the Harbinger at an arm’s reach. It was around this time another combatant decloaked his Nemesis 25km away from my cruiser, firing a volley of torpedoes to at least contribute to the fight. His ill planned gesture ended on a bright note.

Fortunately for me, it seemed the battlecruiser duo weren’t expecting the war of maneuvers that I was giving them. The Myrmidon was shield tanked, meaning that I was able to afford drifting a few kilometers closer to it than planned, as I had no additional enemy tackle to worry over. Both enemy ships were fit with afterburners instead of MWDs, which meant I was easily able to keep the Harbinger at range, while tantalizing the Myrmidon with being *just* out of reach. After traveling several dozen kilometers from the gate, the Myrmidon began to slow, until reaching normal velocity. It then turned tail and began a slow crawl back towards the stargate.

With the Myrmidon’s will and capacitor broken, it now became a game of keeping the Harbinger away from the Myrmidon so that he couldn’t cover his ally’s retreat to safety. Once again, good fortune smiled on me, as a glance over to the Harbinger’s armor reserves suggested that the pilot neglected an armor rep in his fittings: he had roughly 60% remaining, slowly whittling down as gate sentries cycled from the Myrmidon to his ship. I switched my drone flight from the Myrmidon to the Harbinger, exacerbating his worry until finally forcing the Amarr BC to warp off towards a nearby celestial and flee the field. I was finally alone with the stricken Myrmidon, and turned the full force of my weapons to bear upon him.

Overheating my ACs saw the last of the Myrmidon’s shield reserve destroyed, and it was a hasty matter removing the unresisted plate underneath. With the Myrmidon destroyed, I set out to locate the Harbinger, who was still in system. Several minutes of chasing later, I moved on to repair in an adjacent system as he had opted to warp to a midsafe instead of engaging my damaged Rupture. Unknown to him, I had my alt ready for the occasion a mere four jumps away, and within minutes had him probed down and finished the damaged Harbinger in the deadspace of his manufacture.

I happily scooped loot from the wrecks strewn about the system, and returned to Goinard for repairs and munitions. While I still disagree with Raxip that Molden Heath is a dead region as far as PvP goes, I have to admit that his slice of space definitely has a nicety of action to it!

for Kane

2009-08-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

In responding to Kane Rizzel’s latest blag post, I instigated a strong response from the old pirate. Since Kane did me the honors of expanding his response into the form of entirely new blag post, I’ll do the same. I’ll not attempt to cheapen his writing by picking it apart with quotes. Rather, I’ll reply by addressing the underlying theme behind his post: solo piracy.

EVE piracy to me is self sustained PvP at the expense of others, achieved through ransoms, player kills, assorted theft and griefing. Given every player’s experiences of solo activities in general, solo piracy must be a difficult task. Taken from a solo PvPer’s experiences, solo piracy is an amazing accomplishment. Borrowing finally from a pirate’s perspective, what Kane suggests he's accomplished with NovaKane is downright unbelievable: two and a half fucking years of solo piracy in Heimatar and beyond.

Kane, I think I safely state for the entirety of the EVE blagging community that we’re all impressed by your accomplishments and associated tales of victories and defeats over the past few years. Many pilots, including myself half a year ago have been inspired by you to break away from their fleets, and give solo PvP or piracy a go. Thanks in part to you, I founded a new corporation and have been running amok about Molden Heath and beyond causing havoc and grief at my leisure and others' expense. However, in responding to my comment, you fucked up. You decided to state that one can’t be a solo pirate while flying in a populated corporation or alliance. And I call bullshit.

So what if you’ve flown in your own corp for two and a half years; it doesn’t secure that your way is the only way for solo piracy. After bothering to check your personal KB for the past year of combat you’ve had, a solid half of your combat kills have other parties contributing to the mails. You know this, however you state that you’ve been doing your thing for years, without the option of backup? No. Just because your help comes from an organization outside your corporation or alliance doesn’t make your kills solitary accomplishments. It makes you the corp loner, the hermit that comes and goes as he damn well pleases: an approach to this game we all should take up and try out, honestly.

So I’m happy to see you making trails on the blag again, Kane. Even vacationing from posting & playing, your class act bests mine over here at Broadside. It’s not due to your stubborn approach to PvP, or your incredible feats as a solo pirate. By itself, you could writing could lose the ego, and I could care less about the quotes. However, combine everything: the attitude, the content, the (once) regularity of it, and you have a winning formula from the self proclaimed pirate dinosaur of EVE. The hat is off to you, sir.

Fly reckless Kane, and hopefully see you in space.

for Roc

2009-07-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

An invitation to a private conversation flashed before Sard's eyes. Glancing between the two retrievers in the asteroid belt and the invitation, Sard accepted the invite. It'd take some time for his Arazu to approach the miners while cloaked.

"Coffee, make it brief, I have friends in need of liberation from their ships."

Good Coffee grinned manically from his visual feed. Something about his prior enslavement with the Amarr broke his bonds with reality. He had since been tied to several terrorist elements within Amarr space.. of all things, sabotaging their coffee production. He was a wiz at the markets though, which was why Sard tolerated his brushes with insanity.

"Any faster and the brew doesn't percolate properly. And you know I must be the best there is."

Sard gave a mental sigh, thankful that Coffee couldn't see the frown forming on his face.

"What is it Coffee?"

Coffee straightened up slightly, the wild look in his eyes draining as he read from a terminal. "Colonel Roc Wieler has been exonerated of murder charges against Daul Halwick. However, an investigation into the good Colonel's fiscal assets have revealed a startling development. Sard, he's been dealing Matari slaves through a third party."

"He what? That man's cast of stone, he'd never knowingly betray his people! Not for money, power, or friends." Thoughts of Mynxee's latest encounter with the law sent a shiver of rage down Sard's back. The good Colonel did nothing but sit on his ass and wait for her to die.

Sard blinked. Fifteen kilometers from the mining barges. "Anyway, he's had this coming. His latest run in with Mynxee was just the tipping point. I don't see why you're so excited by the whole mess."

"While contacting one of my sources in the Empire, a name came up, as well as this story. A name we know." All the wildness was gone from Coffee's face, replaced by a frigid stare. "Minara Dawn, Sard. She's alive, and just screwed Roc as she screwed yo-"

"FIND HER! Find her and report her position to me immediately!" Sard had just decloaked on the barges, scrambling their warp drives when Coffee related his findings. Antimatter blasts ripped apart the hapless mining vessels, tearing and blasting into the fragile hull until finally destroying reactor containment. One after the other, the barges exploded with sapphire radiance, briefly illuminating the entire asteroid belt with their glow.

Debris floated past his Recon cruiser. Several identifiable corpses rotated lazily in the void, contortions of agony literally frozen into their forms. It was not enough to contain the rage. Nothing would be enough until blood was on his hands. Her blood.

Minara Dawn. The bitch had finally surfaced, in a most fantastic fashion as well. Typical of her. Fortunately for Roc Sard was feeling magnanimous. He might just interrogate her about her involvement with the Colonel before removing her ability to speak ever again.

under construction 4

2009-06-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

Short update: Sard is alive and well in EVE killing more dudes than ever, however relaying his stories into written form just hasn't been a priority for me of late. Blame summer break lethargy, nihilism, or just a need to try something different.

On that note of change, I may be starting a new blag project in the next month, or just revive this journal. I will try to update with the next two weeks to give old fans an idea of where I'm going with this.

Anyway, fly reckless, and I hope to see y'all in space.

unknown pleasures

2009-05-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

There's a difference between individuals that take the initiative and those that do not. It's a matter of intuition, of insight, of taking a situation into perspective, identifying what needs be done and moving to accomplish those objectives. Seizing the initiative doesn't necessitate taking the first move, at least visibly. It doesn't entail being aggressive. Initiative is merely created and exploited by those that employ their minds during an engagement, allowing one to dictate terms and ultimately secure victory from any number of larger or more powerful foes.

After flying alone and leading gangs for so long, a pilot gains an innate grasp of what can and is occurring before and during a fight, and can apply his experience to turn the advantage. Looking at the pieces on the field, a Cyclone and Kitsune versus my Myrmidon, I knew the odds were against me. However, I saw through the facts of the situation, and took the initiative. I tapped my MWD and burned away from the station to meet my foe, locked him, and left him with few decisions to make.

I knew that the opposing pilot had the EWAR advantage. This would give him a sense of superiority, and prompt him to act with more confidence he may normally have. Predictably, he engaged me. Instead of attempting to maintain range, or taking a cautious approach, he closed range as fast as his ship could allow him. Medium Barrage rounds slammed into my Myrmidon, stripping shields and laying bare energized plate, which twisted and buckled under the punishing assault.

However, if there is one fact I understood better than any other, is that even the best laid plans never survive contact with the enemy. While yes, the Cyclone pilot did have an ECM ship in his gang, that ship wasn't on grid. It couldn't deny me from fighting back while still held in reserve, and fight back I did. Allowing himself to approach into such close proximity meant I could quickly recall and launch drones as they took damage. It meant I didn't have to expend capacitor to close range myself, and could devote all my juice to running reps and tackle equipment. It also meant if more of the Cyclone's buddies showed up, or the Cyclone itself was more than I could handle, I wasn't terribly far from the station to retreat into.

Once within 10km, I responded to the Cyclone's advances. My mixed drone stack sailed out of their hanger, and followed a fairy trail to their target caused by my warp disruptor and scrambler. Between the fierce projectile exchange between the two ships, it was remarkable how ably and securely the drones orbited the Cyclone, avoiding the glittering trajectories of autocannon fire to exploit previous damage to the integrity of the Cyclone's shields. Occasionally turrets and missiles would switch targets to track the larger members of the automated flight; however their proximity to their carrier meant escape was a simple activity. While the Matari battlecruiser cycled from drone to ship to drone, it made little headway on either and only sustained further damage itself.

Seconds passed and accumulated to form into a minute as our two battlecruisers slugged it out, trading shell for shell, testing the resilience of the Cyclone's passive shield tank against the endurance of my active armor tank. It became clear that the Cyclone wasn't able to best my dual MAR setup, while his shields steadily declined to nothingness under the caress of my arsenal. The Cyclone was going to need help to escape from this encounter alive, help that was taking too long coming. Where was the Kitsune that was still on scan? Was it at a POS, or indeed piloted?

The Cyclone's shields failed, and with its tank routed, the armor and structure that remained were quickly swept aside. While Gallente drones had been the brawn behind my attack, it was a burst of 425mm shell that tore into the Matari battlecruiser's heart to loose the sapphire fire that raged within. Smug with victory, I informed Raxip of the results and started to approach the twisted remains of the Cyclone. He congratulated me, and informed me that he had a replacement Rifter underway to my position. Acknowledging, I began retrieving the spoils of my conquest. It's amazing that the final explosion missed over five thousand clips of Barrage M, not to mention why any pilot would take so much ammunition into combat in the first place.

Aligning back to the station to deposit loot, the Kitsune exited warp behind me, seventy kilometers off from my position. I waved to the pilot in local, watching him warp off to an unknown destination within the system. Docking with the station, I couldn't help but smile at my good fortune. It didn't matter much to me what reasons the Kitsune pilot had leaving his corpmate to die by my hand. It was only further proof that I was right to take a chance, and attempt what had appeared impossible. Despite what scouts tell you, what intuition predicts, the results of a fight are always suspect. It takes action, following opportunity and riding out it out to its conclusion to understand what will really occur during a fight.

Take the initiative. Go out and seek engagements on your terms, possibly conceding a term or two to the opposition. What follows is the crux of it all, the reason why we play EVE. Just remember to joke, laugh and have fun with the guy you're shooting at while you’re at it.

The roam ain't over yet! Hell, the Myrm hasn't even blown up yet! More combat reports to come. Hope y'all are enjoying the (mental) show.

block rockin' beats

2009-05-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

My current housing situation doesn't offer a stable internet connection, and due to this difficulty I'm not able to PvP, or much less go about any meaningful activity online beyond browsing the web. Every few weeks I visit my folk’s house, and for a few days am able to get my PvP fix. Not the most ideal situation, but I like to think I get my money's worth.

Returning from my latest break from EVE, I was greeted by my partner in crime Raxip, and we hastily set out to do some damage. The roam path was over fifty jumps distant: the plan was to burn our way through lowsec until we arrived at the Placid region. According to Raxip, Molden Heath has declined in engage-able targets of late, and has been feeling the itch to travel to greener pastures. It's a feeling I had no intention of suppressing.

With Raxip piloting a Rifter, and myself in a Myrmidon, we set out from Egbinger. The six jumps to Skarkon were utterly quiet, as were the remaining three jumps from there to Tabbetzur. Scouting the adjacent Offikatlin, Raxip noticed increased activity in the system, with pilots active in space. I jumped in to help investigate.

Offikatlin lacks stations, so chances were good that there was a target somewhere in the system's eight asteroid belts. Moving about the system and scanning the area, the belts lacked any activity; however there was a Cyclone in space. Narrowing the battlecruiser down to a planet, I warped to the planet at ten kilometers, hoping the opposing Cyclone would be at a similar distance. Landing, he was idling at the planet at zero bubble; ten km away. A warp disruptor, followed by a webifier and scrambler ensured that the enemy vessel wasn't going anywhere without destroying me first.

Destroying me, much less lending my vessel a worthwhile challenge wasn't on the Cyclone pilot's agenda during the engagement. Republic Fleet EMP augmented the damage of my thermal damage drone flight, tearing past the active tank of the Cyclone to take generous bites into the pristine armor plate underneath. So devastating was my onslaught that the Cyclone was nearing structure before Raxip had time to respond to my call and warp in to contribute to the kill. I pulled my drone flight back to their bay and stilled the chatter of my autocannons in anticipation of Raxip arriving; we were a team, and he deserved a place on the killmail.

Killmail aside, Raxip has an affinity for tackling and popping pods. After Rax arrived and aggressed the Cyclone, I instigated my arsenal once more and silenced the Cyclone for good. Raxip caught the pod before the pilot could manage to warp off; he asked if we should ransom the pilot. I gave the go ahead, and started towards the wreck to pick up some spoils of this victory.

Negotiations were cut short as a vengeance gang consisting of a Jaguar and Rapier arrived a short minute after the kill, forcing Raxip to squish the pod and both of us to move into action. The Jaguar had arrived first, ignoring my Myrmidon for Raxip's Rifter, which he immediately burned towards and aggressed. Raxip return the favor and tackled the cocky assault ship pilot, trading autocannon fire with his superior foe. Lacking the enhanced resistances, speed and capacity for damage, Raxip was fighting a losing battle, his armor quickly giving away under the Jaguar's assault. When the Rapier decloaked twenty kilometers away, Raxip's fate was sealed.

Neglecting a drone carrier is an action few frigate sized vessels ever live to regret; it was an error the Jaguar was quickly realizing as medium sized projectile ordinance came smashing into his active shield tank. A bonused Warrior II flight screamed out from my Myrmidon's drone bay to aid Raxip's savaged Rifter, the flashes of chattering projectile ordinance lighting the void as the two frigates were consumed in mutually overwhelming firepower. Raxip's Rifter exploded, followed moments later by the opposing Jaguar. All that was left on the field was the fresh Rapier and my Myrmidon.

The Rapier switched his dual webs onto my Myrmidon, as well as a tracking and warp disruptor. Artillery shells reached out to slam into the energized plate of my battlecruiser, while an explosive damage drone flight sought to find chinks in my regenerating plate. The Rapier pilot's priorities were misplaced however, and my mixed flight of thermal damage drones raced out to erase their master's tormentor. Lumbering Ogres, Hammerheads and a Hobgoblin found their prey, and proceeded to hurl antimatter death at the Matari force recon.

Despite the apparent danger of the drone flight eating into his shields, the Rapier kept at my vessel rather than my vulnerable drone flight. Too late did the recon pilot notice his shield tank failing, and my drones hungrily consuming the fragile armor plate beneath. Too late did he realize that my overheated warp disruptor was still shackling his cruiser's warp core from hurling his stricken ship away from his tormentor. Too late did the Rapier pilot understand to leave well enough alone, and flee with his ship intact.

Exalted with victory, I informed Raxip to grab a ship in Tabbetzur and help me loot the mess of wrecks and abandoned drones strewn in orbit around the planet that served as our battlefield. I set my battlecruiser to approach the nearby Rapier wreck, and posted the killmails associated with this most recent slaughter. Arriving at the wreck, a most pleasant surprise: a Domination Stasis Webifier! Returning to the Jaguar wreck, more gems were found: a Gistii B-Type Afterburner and Small Shield Booster! It seemed Raxip and I had stumbled upon an isk mine of targets to exploit in the future: the only question was getting the loot stored in a station before continuing on.

Waiting down my GCC, I did just that, leaving the valuable loot safe for later recovery in Tabbetzur. Doing so I recognized one pilot from the three we had just vanquished in Offikatlin, as well as another from the same corporation. Undocking, there was a Cyclone two dozen kilometers off, as well as a Kitsune EAS on scan. Recent action had trashed my sec status enough that I was an outlaw, and the Cyclone was free to engage without worry of the station's sentry turrets interfering. More brazen than sane, I started my MWD and burned towards the Cyclone, hoping for a fight and damning his ECM support as a handicap he needed. The Cyclone was more than happy to oblige.

Plenty more from that night coming up in a day or two. Stay tuned!

shouts

2009-05-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

Had my last midterm before final exams on Monday; the late night studying left me too zonked to really consider doing anything productive beyond schoolwork the two days afterwords. But hey! It's my b-day, so I have a few things to say.

First of which: if anyone had doubts about the EVE player base growing larger, they haven't noticed the rash of new blaggers hitting the scene! Two blags of note: Mdih Lihu's EVE Online Blog and Scop's Log. Mdih is a new player to EVE learning the ropes, and does a great job of depicting his adventures in RP fashion. Scorp is another aspiring pilot with intentions of storming lowsec with an eye for piracy. I see great things ahead of y'all, so try to keep the content coming!

A few blagger friends have caught the eye of CrazyKinux, and have been added to the blagroll! Venom, Ash and Rax have made the rolls; congratulations folks!

Other news:

Venom enjoyed her present.

Mdih is a lucky SOB.

Shae creates incredible fiction.

Wens has too much time on his hands.

Scop is considering his future.

For those of you wondering where the hell the PvP stuff went, I have an entry written and waiting. Y'all are just going to have to wait until tomorrow. Gotta pace myself, you know. =)

Fly reckless, and hurray to growing older (wiser)!

age

2009-05-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, I'm 22.

EVE Blag Banter #7: aspiration

2009-05-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

"Welcome to another installment of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter invites enthusiastic EVE bloggers to address a common topic for a period of one week. Posts run the gamut: short, long, funny, serious, and everywhere in between, but always fun to read! This month's topic comes to us from CrazyKinux of CrazyKinux's Musings who asks "What 3 things haven't you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?" Direct questions about the EVE Blog Banter to CrazyKinux. Links to other EVE Blog Banter articles will be listed at the end of this post as they become available."

Chief amongst qualities that I cherish in EVE Online is the complexity and strategy associated with the game. Mixing an open sandbox environment with competitive peer versus peer mechanics equates to a constantly evolving PvP meta and political arena. Frequent patches are updating and improving the balance within the game, however leaving intact the core game mechanics. As such finding a way to beat your opponent isn't always a clear cut question: between fittings, implants, boosters, cunning and treachery, there is always a myriad of ways to defeat an opponent.

I strive to become a master of ship to ship combat, particularly with small gang and solo tactics. However, this humble goal isn't where I originated in terms of EVE PvP, and is only a growing phase for bigger things. While I don't miss the politics, drama and egos of nullsec alliances and empire building, I do miss the massive fleet engagements, and one day will return to that.

I'd like to return to that in a big way. I've never led a larger fleet of more than fifty players. I've never led a corporation or alliance. When I have the monetary, industrial and player backing, I do intend to give nullsec another go, and not merely as another raiding force. I want to dictate terms to a superior force. I want to slam wave after wave of fleets into enemy territory, and decimate player operations. For a peroid of time, I want to develop a group of friends into a fighting force not lightly reckoned with, employing the knowledge and strategies I acquired from these months of solo and small gang warefare.

I'd also like to make PvP videos in the near future. I know I have the tenacity and ability to find worthy fights and record them. Looking over my killboard, it's apparent that when I put my mind to it, I find fights, and am more than able to win them in fantastic fashion. Unfortunately, I only need over half a grand to update my PC enough to make quality recordings. Damn thee, poor college student status!

So, all this chest pounding and star gazing leads to one question: what haven't you done in EVE?

List of participants:

CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #7: Eh, nobody told me you could do this in EVE!
One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 7 - Expanding My Horizon
I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #7 - What do you want to do today?
Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 7: Trinity
Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #7 - The me I am not
Morphisat's Blog, Eve Blog banter #7 - Treading waters unknown
Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 7 - Roads Not Followed
A Mule in EvE, DD, defend against a gank & POS gunning
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Choices
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "One, Two, Three...three things....hahahahaha"
The Ralpha Dogs, Road Not Taken... Or Not
Melindhra's Universe, EVE Blog Banter #7 - Where no one has gone before
Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #7: Possibilities
EVE Guru, EVE Blog Banter 7
Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #7: Stones left unturned
Flashfresh - The Pirate, EVE Blog Banter #7: This isn't me...
Nefchast’s Gaming Blog, CrazyKinux’s EVE Blog Banter #7
More coming as they are posted!!!

the scarlet strobe

2009-04-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

It's been asked of me many times in the past my thoughts about outlaw status in relation to solo PvP. The short answer is I'd avoid it. For the full answer, well, grab a cup of java and start reading.

DISCLAIMER: Yeah, I'm going to talk about stuff other than solo PvP on occasion. Suck it up: we all know you PvP with friends from time to time, loner!

Let me start off by listing the basic effects of dipping below -5.0 security status:

Unable to travel through any highsec systems without NPC police aggression
Other pilots can engage you without sentry fire or Global Criminal Countdown repercussions

So, fleshing out these effects, a pilot is effectively cut off from highsec space with the exception of dodging about in high agility or warp core stabbed ships. Pilots are able to engage you on gates or stations without worrying about sentry fire. The lack of sentry fire allows for many tactics to be used against the outlaw, ranging from frigate swarms to untanked EWAR or logistics support cruisers. Additionally, outlaws are a liability in gangs, as they can be singled out without repercussions while the rest of a gang must incur aggression to defend their comrade.

Many players shrug off the detriments of outlaw status, and argue that there are perks to the condition. For instance, you will get more fights from pilots that don't have to worry about sentry fire. Anyone who has a few roams under their belt searching for targets would appreciate this facet to outlaw status. Another boon that's less often tossed about is that it adds challenge to the game: being handicapped forces pilots on their toes, and acts as a way to measure competence. An outlaw doesn't need sentries to get the job done: they rely on tactics and skill rather than the crutch of sentries.

I'll drop a tactic I employ that uses outlaw status to my benefit: I've mentioned in the past that my corpmate Raxip Elamp is an outlaw. While roaming, he often acts as a scout in his Rifter, and will probe ahead a system while I hang back waiting for the results of his scanning. It's a common occurrence that he will jump into another frigate or cruiser that is more than willing to oblige him in solo combat; usually a lopsided affair against my ally. Once they've aggressed Rax, I jump through in my tanky battlecruiser and bop the unsuspecting vigilante with a heavy load of weapons fire.

Considering solo PvP, there are many reasons against going outlaw. First of which is logistics.

Solo PvP isn't exactly a money making activity. Put simply, you're rolling the dice every time you engage that your target doesn't have additional support, that you can best the target before support arrives, or that your fit is indeed up for the task at hand. While player skill vastly improves one's odds of survival, the fact of the matter is the paydays generally won't match the failures. This is especially true if you're an aggressive PvPer, who doesn't cut corners or take breaks. Constant action is going to see regular victories as well as defeats. The ship and modules replacements have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is going to be highsec.

So unless you have an alt or a friend to move replacement equipment to you, the pirating stint isn't going to be long lived. Additionally, while spoils of war definitely make for shiny coin at the end of the day, comparing to losses and other expenses, it probably means additional revenue is necessary to keep the PvP trend going. Some of the easiest and best isk are found in, you guessed it, highsec space. To go outlaw means you must have good logistic support outside of your main character, and you must have means to isk beyond what can be found in highsec space.

While not an outlaw, I tend to skirt that definition, with my sec status running anywhere from -4.0 to -4.9. Through skill, I am for the for the most part able to make back what I lose in loot, and perhaps a little more on top. To really support myself, I have an extra account that dabbles in trade, industry and invention, all within highsec. I would not be able to do what I do without that alt account.

The second problem with outlaw status and solo PvP is lack of those sentries backing your ass up.

Once again, I know there are many professional pirates out there that say this isn’t a problem, but my experience depicts a different picture of how things work. Running around alone, truly alone, means you're often going to be butting up against gangs of folk that would want nothing more than to erase your vessel and amend a new killmail to their boards. It's often the only thing that promotes any notion of hesitation from this event occurring is sentry fire, and the fact that even if the enemy gang is modestly sized (say 6-10 vessels, frigates to battlecruisers), a well fit (and flown) cruiser or battlecruiser will kill something in return for that aggression. Without that support, something as mean as a gang of T1 fit frigates will sweep aside any plan or strategy for defense and pound your ship into dust.

The other fact of the matter is that with outlaw status, there is a great deal more running involved, where non-outlaws instead move about with a wary stroll. Take for instance my previous combat report: if I was an outlaw in that instance, I would have been running my ass to the gate for real and doing my damnest to get away. It's possible that I could have split them up eventually, perhaps draw them to a celestial where I could take them apart piecemeal, but the fact remains that retreat was necessary before anything was said or done. From the same report, taking on a competently fit and flown Dominix without sentries in a battlecruiser? I don't care what kind of range advantage I had; I would have had to eventually give the field to the battleship, for lack of cap or armor.

Sentries allow for aggressive action. They take the bite out of lopsided engagements, and provide a means of turning the tide on multiple aggressors. If the odds are too great, sentries are going to give smaller vessels enough pause for the solo PvPer to at least start burning back towards a gate, or away from the enemy gang. With sentry turrets, a player can roam through lowsec worrying less about camps and more about potential targets (perhaps even the camps themselves).

The way I see it, a pilot that devotes himself to solo PvP can't go down the outlaw path without making concessions and sacrifices along the way. An outlaw can only casually roam with a ship that boasts high agility or evasive qualities, like frigate or force recon. To fly with anything else requires good intelligence of the area, which often limits the pilot to an engagement theatre of only a few systems from home. Outlaws must also be more selective of their targets, and can't accommodate much more beyond the original quota.

I like flying my battlecruisers, my plated cruisers, and speedboost lacking fits. While it's not often I take them to the field, I like that a frigate is going to have to take a serious gamble tackling my battleship off a gate or station, and that a lone interceptor isn't going to keep me tied down until support can arrive. Outlaw status is a play style choice in EVE that does not suit my method of PvP, and is why I don't go down that path. I would submit that any player serious about solo PvP, beyond ganking pilots engaging in PvE activities that they stick to non-outlaw status.

Truly aggressive and active solo PvP is going to pit the pilot against a multitude of other pilots, at the same time. While it's a romantic thought to imagine one ship besting so many, sentries act as a helping hand; an unnamed gangmate per se. I have a hard time imagining my method and vision of solo combat working without the threat of these automated turrets offering their menacing support.

the ideal gang

2009-04-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

This question has been asked many times in my past, and admittedly was affected much by the meta at the time, as well as who was asking the question and who was answering! However, I feel passing it by my readership would provide interesting insight into the dynamic of small gang PvP in EVE at the present. So, here's my query:

Given the option for any ship combinations, what would be your ideal gang composition when roaming through lowsec for fights? How would it change for a two man, five man and ten man gangs respectively? Please explain your selection: from a standpoint of cost, synergy, objectives, strategy and fun, why are your choices ideal?

And while I'm not trying to limit my readership per se, no capital ships in your selection. Anything beyond that is fair game.

(For those nullsec only folks, I'll be posting a followup inquiry for that as well, so sit tight with your master plans)

read this

2009-04-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

From Venom, in response to my post about solo PvP:

"Hey Sard, I've been meaning to comment on this but just never got around to it, better 6 weeks later than not at all, no?

I appreciate this post, as I try to manage and learn to be a solo pirate as much as I learn to be in a group. I like both, I'm good a following directions but there is something appealing about being solo.

The part you mention about keeping a positive outlook and assessing where the fun comes from, well that was just plain good stuff.

I have a group of friends in hi-sec who are in a corp with an alt of mine. We tried hi-sec wardecing and invited some great players at PVP that we knew from what we started.

Why is it I hate hi-sec pvp vs low sec piracy? I thought it was the mechanics or the difference stations play, no that's not it.

The key was, pirates (well my pirates, bastards and hellcats) have a positive outlook on killing and being killed, we seek fun and if that means a ship is lost, oh well. Yet with my buddies in hi-sec, they were wrapped up in worries about KB stats and lost ships, often yelling or insulting others in fleet for things they in fact were the issue and not everyone else.

So when I'm asked why I like low-sec and piracy better, I say it's all about the positive mental attitude I have to losing a ship and the easy going folks who I run with.

Fun is the key, stress is at work, don't bring it to EVE."

How's about not spying and responding to your comment in three weeks myself? =3

While you can have easy going fun PvP anywhere, it's difficult to find respectable partners in crime without the accompanying baggage that takes the fun out of it: I'm talking about epeen waving over KB porn, smack talk, and the other immature garbage that goes along with that kind of attitude. Playing with like minded folk that respect your method about the game is huge. Finding friends open to the reality that so much drama occurs over a video game is just as big.

You win a cookie girl. Next time I'm in game, your insight will earn you a treat from my goodies hanger.

lasers go pew pew pew

2009-04-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

All the while my drones chew on you.

It's a long established fact that the Myrmidon, lacking a turret bonus, is often fitted with exotic weaponry compared to normal hybrid arms favored by the Gallente Federation. Commonly this takes the form of capacitor warfare modules, remote repair equipment, autocannons for a capacitor independent bite, or even smart bombs to fend off enemy drones. Much less common and far more entertaining is using medium energy turrets to blast through the opposition.

Lasers are normally eschewed on unbonused vessels due to the dramatic capacitor and fitting requirements they impose. That virtually all Amarrian gun boats have a 10% per level reduction in laser capacitor use highlights just how much of a cap hog they are (This bonus brings them roughly in line with hybrid turrets in cap usage). Pair this high cost to available energy with the typical active tank on a Myrmidon and the jury is out on the matter. Mostly.

What many individuals disregard are the traits which make energy turrets so viable in today's battlefield: range, damage and flexibility. Boasting the best optimal of any close range weapon system, pulse lasers with short range crystals are able to deal full damage where other weapons are in heavy falloff, which inflict markedly reduced damage for it. The T2 range ammo for pulse lasers, Scorch, allows engagement ranges unheard of compared to autocannons or blasters.

This range paired with good damage makes lasers remarkable, but the third major selling point is the ability for lasers to quickly adapt to chaotic battlefield conditions. There is no wait to change between crystal types, nor do they wear out quickly. This means a laser fit ship is able to hastily change from short to long range crystals as a situation develops, and does not have to worry over ammunition reloads as other turret or missile systems do. All these traits lend to consistent, deadly fire dealing maximum damage where other weapons would fall short. Pretty cool trade off for ships that can accommodate the extra fitting and capacitor requirements.

Having trained Gallente Cruiser to three, I decided to give the Myrmidon a try. Being the inspired, mischevious person that I am, lasers were the obvious choice for the ship. With Raxip unavailable, I set off along my typical roam path through Molden Heath in search for fights.

Jumping from Oddelulf into Istodard, I happened upon a small gate camp consisting of a Cerberus and Sacrilege. A quick scan of the locals confirmed that they were indeed alone, giving me a snowballs chance in hell of taking the pair by myself. I broke from the gate cloak, and started MWDing back to the stargate, hoping they'd interpret my action as cowardice. Neither of the HACs were outlaws, so I'd need for them to fire on me and incur sentry fire for victory to be possible.

Fortunately for me, both ships obliged, racing to place tackle on my battlecruiser and followed soon by missile ordinance. My larger hull shrugged off the heavy explosions, dual MARs fighting back damage as offensive systems responded to the aggression. A mixed flight of heavy, medium and light drones launched from the drone bay, moving to consume the Cerberus in fire. A disruptor, followed soon by a webifier and scrambler completed my tackle on the Caldari HAC, denying it the ability to MWD away from the battle while the more capable Sacrilege slugged it out with me. Focused Medium Pulse Lasers lit the void between our two ships with white brilliance, each strike adding a noticable drop in the Cerberus's shield reserves.

Even with sentry turrets on my side, the situation I had gotten myself into was dire, lending a note of desperation to my actions. This was evidenced by virtually every module on my ship running overheated to stave off destruction as I tried to put down the Cerberus. It was exhibiting much more of a defense than I anticipated, likely due to the thermal damage type my drones were inflicting. Even with the potent passive tank, the Cerberus just wasn't intended for close range brawling, its tank failing about the same time mine was kissing structure. Its shields gone, the HAC folded in seconds.

With the Cerberus destroyed, I shifted my attention to the Sacrilege. Lasers stabbed out at the HAC, followed soon by my swarm of drones. This time my drones were striking directly into the weakest resistance of their prey, and coupled with sentry and laser fire, the Sacrilege was dropping faster than the Cerberus was. The Sacrilege attempted to stave off defeat by targeting my drones; my close proximity to the HAC and my drone flight meant I could recall and relaunch them with ease. Striking through the last of its structure, an Ogre II touched off munition stores, the explosion ripping through the ship until breaching reactor containment. The sapphire inferno that followed was remarkable compared to the opposing pilot's ability with the vessel.

The field mine, I finished armor repairs and began scooping loot from the nearby wrecks. The fight wasn't over however. The nearby stargate flared to life, depositing another ship into the system.

A Dominix decloaked two dozen kilometers away from me, lumbering towards my smaller Myrmidon with speed afforded by a 100mn MWD. A flight of Ogre IIs launched from the battleship as Aura calmly informed me that my warp drive had been disrupted.

My mind raced, setting priorities while instincts took over and started locking up the enemy drone flight. Still adjacent to the Sacrilege wreck, I scooped as many 800 charges as possible to replace those I previously ran through and then I set into motion. Pulsing my MWD, my battlecruiser easily outpaced the battleship, maintaining enough distance to be out of range of blasters while in range of my warp disruptor. Watching my capacitor, I confirmed the Dominix lacked any heavy energy neutralizers. This fight was doable: the adrenaline high of a second underdog engagement in as many minutes refused any thinking otherwise.

My plan was simple: stay the hell away from blasters; kill his drones. Once his drones were dead, I could use my superior range to bleed him to death. The slow speed of the enemy Ogres meant one popped before the flight came into firing range; my webifier allowed me to track them once in close range, and for my own heavy drones to easily keep up. My dual reps were more than enough to keep up with incoming damage, and with each drone I swatted aside the damage fell lower and lower. After sending half a dozen heavy drones to their doom, the Dominix recalled the rest, realizing that he’d be unable to break my tank. Further, chasing me while running his MWD meant he was over 30km off the gate, facing a target he couldn't shake while taking sentry gun fire. The enemy pilot wisely turned around and started back to the stargate.

Victory in sight, I pursued, chasing the larger ship at range with Scorch ammo loaded, my drones finally turned lose against the enemy battleship. After nearly a minute of this though, the Dominix's tank showed no sign of breaking, and he had managed to make it back into range of the stargate. I needed to do something drastic to keep him from fleeing. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to close distance and slug it with the larger ship at point blank range.

Closing in had the desired effect, and the larger ship once again launched drones and renewed his assault on my ship. My Myrmidon took a few volleys of blaster fire before closing into a tight orbit: even with a webifier on me, the large bore weapons couldn't track my vessel. However, at close range the Dominix was better able to guard his drone flight, recalling and launching drones which were taking fire. This also meant replacement drones didn't have to speed back into range of my ship. My armor repairers were fighting a losing battle against this sustained fire.

The Dominix has over double the drone capacity than the Myrmidon: it can carry a total of three heavy drone flights if the pilot deemed necessary. However, having lost so many drones chasing me, and with sentry guns switching from his ship to his drones, the tide of Ogres faltered, until running out utterly. The Dominix was left with only medium and smaller drones, which my repair modules were capable of matching. With the larger drones destroyed, I set to work once again on the Dominix.

Lacking proper drones to break my tank, and unable to track my orbiting vessel with his turrets, the opposing pilot eventually recalled his drones and stilled all hostile EWAR active against my ship. Banking on the prolonged combat having run through the battleship's 800 charge reserves, I threw myself against his ship with everything I had. My lasers burned with increased intensity as I set them to overheat, however my arsenal was too slow in blasting through the battleship's armor tank. The enemy pilot jumped through the gate with roughly 10% remaining, leaving a “GF” in local as he left.

don’t blink

2009-04-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Been a while since my last post, eh? I could place blame on a host of issues, ranging from scholastic pursuits to a poor internet connection, but what it really boils down to is that I haven’t had the urge to write of late. It stems in part from lack of game time, but that can only account for so much. I’m definitely no Roc Wieler when it comes to regularity of entries; I never intended to be. Hopefully this offering will serve to stir my muse from her slumber, and drive me towards future creativity for my readers to enjoy.

So! Let’s talk violence!

In the weeks since my last post, RANSM has doubled its member count with the addition of a Raxip Elamp. While sanctioned within the corporation as my official redshirt tackler pilot, the fierce combat I’ve exposed him to has only honed his abilities as a pilot, and trained him into an awesome force while piloting a Rifter hull. That he carries a positive K/D ratio on the KB in spite of my maniacal orders is a testament to his maturation as a capsuleer.

Rax and I have been doing some major damage around Molden Heath the weekends I have been able to log in to play, proof of which can be found at my KB. Perhaps our best fight of yet resulted from a roam into the Heimatar region, as we came to see what Kane Rizzel’s neck of the woods was like. MEAN Corp was happy to throw down a welcoming gauntlet for us to blast through.

After passing through Gusandall and its hoards of macro haulers, Raxip in his Rifter took one pocket of celestials to scan, while I in a Cyclone took another. Beyond the macro trash on scan, several viable targets were nearby: a Rupture, Arbitrator, Ishkur and Myrmidon. The ships were scattered, and as I began to relay orders to Raxip attempting to catch one of the ships, the Rupture interrupted my speech as it landed at the celestial I chose for scanning, twenty kilometers off. It wasted no time upon arrival, closing distance with a MWD to place tackle and streams of EMP rounds into the shields of my battlecruiser.

Seasoned in my trade, I exchanged tackle with the cruiser, calling out to Raxip to join me at my location. The five autocannons of my Cyclone spoke out against the Rupture’s four, followed immediately by volleys of heavy assault missiles and a drone flight. The cruiser’s shields winked away in the opening few trades of ordinance, with the armor plate of the Rupture fairing little better. Landing at the scene, Raxip had little time to apply his own share of firepower before the Rupture was removed from the field. The Rupture was not alone in space however, as both the Ishkur and Myrmidon spotted earlier arrived mere moments after their ally’s demise.

Facing two potent drone carriers, I cautioned Raxip to be extremely careful in his dealings, and called the Ishkur primary. Drones from both enemy vessels converged on Raxip’s Rifter, but my prodigal companion shrugged off the onslaught and managed to keep the Ishkur pinned in place with his tackle kit. Webbed, scrambled, and unable to close into the safety of a tight orbit around my battlecruiser, the Gallente assault ship caved in under the combined projectile might of our gang, lending a brief but brilliant flair of illumination to the black of space. Unfazed, the Myrmidon pressed on alone, attempting to close distance with my Cyclone and add its compliment of blasters to the fight.

Unfortunately for the Myrmidon, its inability to deal with the Rifter meant it would be unable to close distance with me: the Rifter’s webifier and scrambler meant the Myrmidon was approaching nowhere fast. Unable to match the range of my mixed projectile and missile arsenal, and unable to shake off the frigate hounding him with drones or blasters, the Myrmidon succumbed after a short lived attempt to tank our damage. Lacking GCCs as the MEAN Corp pilots were all outlaws, we scooped loot and left the scene before a possible vengeance gang formed in nearby Gusandall.

(ED: Myrmidon ended up being a LASER fit, which I thought only myself and Kil2 ever flew. Pilot lacked T2 laser skills though, so a failure on his part.)

In the past, I would have eschewed a partner in a frigate for something larger: ideally another battlecruiser for reasons explained previously. However, having flown with Raxip the past few months, I’d now say the synergy between an agile frigate and a powerful supporting cruiser or battlecruiser can’t be denied. The frigate is able to acquire hasty tackles, and uses its speed to avoid damage while its larger associate brings the pain. Additionally, the frigate is able to ward off other frigates from riding under the guns of his larger companion, which is a breath of relief to ships I fly that can’t even manage a webifier in their fittings, such as my favored Cyclone. And despite all the monstrous reversals that have been in place for months present since QR, many pilots still underestimate frigates, either ignoring them, or believing them to be an easy gank. Raxip has proven time and again that he’s much more likely to speed tank your ordinance while setting you up for my larger vessel to knock you down.

stabs

2009-03-07T01:17:00.000-08:00

The kill itself was unimpressive, however the fact that the Covetor had two warp core stabilizers fit and wasn't able to flee before I roasted his ship is sheer bliss. Dual cargo expander rigs and a few lines of whining in local tops off the killmail like whipping cream and a cherry.

Reminds me of a curiously fit Maelstrom that I tagged months ago. Why these people don't warp away, I don't know.

battlecruiser

2009-03-07T00:45:00.000-08:00

Roaming alone places a few basic, though critical needs on a pilot’s ship. In no particular order, a ship must have sufficient mid slots for a tackle kit, enough firepower to overwhelm opponents, enough repair or health modules to out last opponents, and the agility to choose an advantageous distance from a foe. While a mouthful, these principles are EVE PvP simplified, and not all ships match all of these requirements.

So, a pilot needs tackle, guns, endurance and a bit of speed to tie it all together. Simple enough, your basic Rifter exemplifies all these qualities, in a tight and wonderful duct taped package. The difficulty of undocking a Rifter to take on the world is while it is a masterfully crafted vessel, it has trouble engaging ships outside of its class. This means that while roaming, the Rifter pilot is required to avoid or ignore potential targets, not due to skill or ability, but by the limitations of the pilot’s ship. Not a good scenario.

This formula of ‘big fish eat little fish’ moves all the way up to battleships, which in the realm of what I’ll call fun solo PvP is the end and top of the line. There are however unique problems with battleships as solo PvP platforms. Trading maneuverability for power, they lack agility. Their sensor suite is more suited to targeting similar sized vessels, which equates to prey escaping merely due to lock times. Lone battleships are vulnerable to small craft, which are often able to either whittle down the battleship, or tackle it long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Battleships are also spendy pieces of equipment to be tossing around in arenas which can often end poorly for the pilot.

Taking a step back in ship sizes, the battlecruiser comes into the limelight. Returning to our basic requirements, most battlecruiser hulls pass by with high marks: good damage, defense, capacity for tackling equipment and modest agility. Everything the PvPer ordered. While several times more expensive to purchase than a cruiser, battlecruisers employ minimal extra equipment for greater effect. The battlecruiser uses medium sized modules, which are modest in skill point requirements, and should be ubiquitous around any pilot’s hanger. The price range of 20 to 30 million isk is an affordable sum for any pilot with the most humble money making operation.

As a combat platform, battlecruisers are able to maul opponents of their size and smaller that are unfortunate enough to be caught. Medium sized weaponry is able to track cruiser sized targets ably, while generous drone bays equate to frigates eating damage they just can’t take. Battlecruisers can be on par of battleships in terms of DPS, which is ideal for the solo pilot: kill the target before backup can be summoned. Large health reserves and a class wide affinity for tanking means the pilot will have time to apply that damage as well.

As much as combat is the goal, dream and aspiration of the solo pilot, retreating is a necessary tactic when odds aren’t favorable. This is where perhaps the true difference and reason to fly battlecruisers over battleships is displayed: battlecruisers are better able to flee than battleships. Since the Quantum Rise updates, battleships have become slower, while battlecruisers gained speed. This raw speed advantage is paired with better acceleration and agility, which with good ship durability means battlecruisers stand a decent chance of returning to a stargate to flee. Battleships in similar situations just aren’t speedy or agile enough to return to a stargate, especially if the enemy employs warp scrambler modules. (Disclaimer: I’m writing about lowsec here. In nullsec, unless it’s a very small and disorganized camp, either ship class will likely be destroyed. In all honesty, a well fit battleship would stand a better chance of escaping, but that’s another story.)

So, we end with the ideal ship class for the solo PvP pilot, the battlecruiser: cheap, effective hulls that get the job done. Does this mean the battlecruiser is the end all armament for pilot victory? Hell no, but it does set the bar for other vessels to be compared to in terms of versatility, effectiveness and efficient use of resources. It’s for these reasons I recommend to pilots that wish to try their hand at solo PvP the battlecruiser, as these ships will not let the pilot down. Rather, it’s the pilot’s skill that is measured.

solo

2009-03-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

Flying alone requires a great deal more effort than moving in a fleet. Rather than individuals taking on specific tasks, and delegating responsibility across members of a group, a single player is required to manage all aspects of PvP on their own. The solo pilot is his own scout, tackler, damage and EWAR support. The solo pilot calls all the strategies, manages his vessel and keeps an eye on the scanner often against unfavorable odds. Certainly, a lone pilot will have the advantage of initiative against a larger force, as all orders are given at the speed of thought; however weight of numbers tends to overwhelm that advantage.

So how do lone individuals go about their way, managing victory against the odds time and again? Here are a few pointers on how I attempt to tip the field to my favor:

Keep a positive mindset
EVE is a game. It’s played to have fun, and to enjoy oneself. If enjoying yourself isn’t a theme while logging into the game, you should take a serious look at your current situation and consider making some radical changes.

That aside, while a realist, I tend to hold the positive elements of a situation over the negative ones, and try to promote them when possible. For instance, I refrain from smack talk, will enter fights for the sake of having a good time (rather than keeping the ship), and examine my losses as learning experiences, rather than failures. As with most things in life, it’s best to focus on the good aspects while keeping the bad at an arm’s length.

Additionally, it's important to assess just what is meant by winning. Is winning destroying your foe, and acquiring a shiny killmail? (yes..) Is winning keeping your ship whole? I submit that winning is enjoying yourself, regardless whether you explode first, the target escapes, etc. Keep in mind that the most important entity in EVE is yourself, and by no means do you need be held accountable by another's perception of victory and defeat.

Focus on your goals
Undocking from the station, there should be a number of things running through your mind from the get go. There should be goals for the trip, which could range from amassing spoils to engaging a particular vessel in combat. With one’s goals in mind, accompanying strategies should also be present: how are you going to complete your goal of killing a Hulk? Is your current fit optimal for completing the task? Do you have proper intelligence of the area, and know where and how to catch an elusive exhumer?

Attempt the (im)possible
Flying alone requires a great deal of snap decisions and judgments, chief amongst which is whether a given engagement is feasible or not. How does one know whether a situation is doable? While intel plays a key role, experience is the most reliable and useful tool. Unfortunately for the uninitiated, experience can’t be traded for or taught. It takes going out into the world and trying, and learning the hard way what works and doesn’t work. This does mean taking losses; however by keeping one’s wits about you and an eye for detail, how things work will be accumulated at a fantastic rate. It’ll soon become second nature what’s possible, improbable and downright daunting!

Fly what you can afford to lose
Flying alone magnifies danger, and it’s all too easy to become the target of situations which are all but impossible to avoid destruction. Ships are going to be lost, and depending on experience and aggressiveness, frequently. So fly what you can afford in the first place! If you can’t easily replace a ship, research others that can perform well without support and accomplish the tasks required. T1 hulls in this regard can outperform their T2 counterparts if played to their strengths, and are much more affordable, both in price and insurance payouts.

And now for the more tactical stuff:

Play to your strengths
Though it sounds simple enough, in the fast paced action of EVE PvP, it’s easy to forget the basics. Basics are keeping to your strengths, which to any resourceful capsuleer are many. If piloting a ship with good range or with a powerful drone bay, use range to your advantage. When piloting a ship with an active tank, try to prolong combat and give your repair modules a chance to work. When flying against multiple foes, move in an unpredictable fashion, and don’t allow foes to use their advantages: this could mean moving through systems to force a falcon from its sniper BM, or fighting around stations and gates to require aggressors to fight under sentry fire. Make sure to use ship bonuses, and to consider a different ship if you find you aren’t!

Know the terrain
Understanding the layout of both systems and regions is critically important to success in PvP. Within a system understanding ranges between gates, where belts are in a system, which celestials belts are adjacent to, if stations are present and which are popular make for simplified tactical analysis and scouting. Knowing a region gives insights to where pilots will travel, likely ratting systems, missioning systems, dead ends and the best routes from one system to another. It also means escape routes can be crafted without using the ingame map system, which is clunky and time consuming. Do yourself a favor and google Ombey maps, and print out copies of the regions you frequent. Take notes on the print outs, and try to memorize important facts.

Split your enemy’s gang
There are many ways to do this. The most basic would to be using a speed boost to maneuver away from foes, and string them out as they try to catch up. Once sufficient distance is created, kill off stragglers. Another method is to warp to celestials at varying ranges, usually around 50-100km. Gangs will often warp in at different ranges to cover all possibilities, which present another opportunity to kill off stragglers.

Don’t make it harder than it is
Given the difficulties with flying alone, make sure every effort is spent to make situations ideal where possible. Make sure the cargohold has enough ammunition for a few fights and that the drone bay is indeed full. Plot routes, and have backup plans to escape or divert course if things go south. If you frequent roam paths, set up containers in space or stations with supplies to keep things running smoothly. Safespots and scanning bookmarks are great tools for simplifying finding targets or escaping. Perhaps above all, try to have backup available, as despite everything, some times a target isn’t possible to take alone.

As a parting note, I can’t stress how important it is to have fun. Don’t allow yourself to get angry, and if it happens, examine why. Eliminate the causes of anger, or find ways to at least mitigate their effect. All too often pilots will find themselves in situations where they’re just not enjoying themselves, and don’t particularly understand why they got there, or how to get out. Know that you’re the master of your own destiny, and are free to change your situation at will. You’re more powerful than you may think, so get out there and crush some skulls!

from the shadows

2009-02-28T16:42:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since my last post. Sorry about that. It’s only since the 27th has my connection to the internet been stable enough to support active gaming online. Even then, some times things just don’t work out, and I pay the piper for attempting PvP on a shaky connection.

So, it seems in the three weeks I have been absent from Molden Heath, little has changed. As usual, a few powers have moved off, and others have taken their place. The Harbinger & pod loss linked above have a bit of story related to one of the new alliances which has staked claim to a system in the area. Beyond that, it’s still the sleepy small pirate infested region of lowsec I call home.

With some help lended to me by friends in the area, my internet connection was made stable enough for combat. After a few minutes wait to see if the changes indeed mended my situation, I set out with friends from Decimus corporation to sate the blood thirst I’ve had to hold back for so long. Piloting a Cyclone battlecruiser, and accompanied by a bait Maller and Rifter, we set destination to Metropolis in search for fights.

Molden Heath passed by without incident, and after giving our Rifter pilot scouting duty, our progress slowed to a crawl. While not new to the game, the pilot was new to scanning, and the first four systems outside of Molden Heath turned into training for the green pilot. Eventually we eschewed a forward scout in favor of making time towards Evati, as Mynxee had informed me of targets abound there. My roam was not fated to end with Mynxee however, as chance would land an engagement sooner than expected.

Passing through the final region before Metropolis yielded a roaming gang heading in the opposite direction, composed of several battleships and supported by a few tackler frigates. Spying my battlecruiser, they halted their course and returned to the stargate, intent on distributing free munitions my way. Two of the battleships opened fire on me while my gang slipped by, and with my fellows through I jumped as well, into the adjacent Otosela system.

While my gangmates warped to the next stargate, I lingered a few seconds, aligned and ready to MWD away from the gang behind us. Sure enough, the gate activated, and a Tempest was the first ship through. He locked me, and once within 20km opened fire with large autocannon. Both of our engines flared as each ship engaged their MWDs, the Tempest trailing my Cyclone away from the gate at nearly a kilometer per second.

Despite the massive ordinance detonating against my shields, my shield booster was able to keep up, and soon we were several dozen kilometers off of the gate. Sentry fire from the stargate had begun to take its toll on the Matari battleship, and maintaining a MWD chasing me meant the Tempest’s capacitor was in dire straights. With distance established between ourselves and the stargate, and with the Tempest’s tank failing against sentry fire, I reversed course to bring the fight to my cocky aggressor.

Even with nearly 60km between my foe and the stargate, I knew it was only a matter of seconds before the returning gang would be upon me. I needed to finish off the Tempest with all haste, and then reassess the situation. I overheated my rack of 425mm autocannon and HAM launchers, engaged my warp scrambler, and set to work on the Tempest. The Tempest returned with a scrambler and webifier of his own, and the line was drawn. Either I or he perished, as there would be no MWDing away from this fight.

With his target tackled, the Tempest was able to disengage his MWD and devote all his capacitor to tanking damage, and sure enough his armor repairers began clawing back against the damage output of my battlecruiser. To make matters worse for me, he had given the go ahead to his gangmates, and they had jumped through to support their beleaguered comrade. Two Ishkurs were the first to fly out to assist, and promptly engaged. Sentry fire faded from the Tempest to meet these new foes, and further reduced incoming DPS on the battleship. It soon became clear that my bleeder Cyclone fit wouldn’t be capable of ending the dual LAR Tempest.

Glancing away from my overview and back to my modules, it became obvious that my Cyclone wouldn’t be ending anyone’s life. In the excitement of new arrivals into the fray, I had forgotten about my overheating weaponry. By the time I noticed, it was too late, and my high rack was burned out and gone. The best I could wish for at that point was to employ my ECM drones on the Tempest, and hope fervently that the Ishkurs were forced off by sentry fire.

Seconds passed as I overheated my tanking modules trying to hang on, the boosting displaying only brief effect before the boost of shield was swept aside and new holes were blasted into my armor. I was losing, and it didn’t look like my drones were going to lend deliverance from this fight. However, despite my guns gone, the sentries were still biting, destroying drones and finally forcing one of the Ishkurs from the field. A few seconds later the second Ishkur was forced off.

I was already aligned to a celestial, and was mashing the warp button, my eyes burning as they observed the Tempest’s EWAR effects on the overview. Just once, just this once I needed my little AI controlled soldiers to do their work, and free me from this menace! It was not to be, as before my drones could break the lock of the Tempest, the remaining battleship support had MWDed into range, and a Megathron began punching holes through the structure of my ship. Seconds later, my pod was free and deftly warped away.

Would the small gun Maller and Rifter made a difference in the fight, perhaps at least allowing me to make my escape? I can’t say. It was enough for me that I was the only casualty to the gank squad. Then again, I really need to learn to share, as at least with my gangmates present, those two Ishkurs would have had hell to pay for engaging. Regardless, with my battlecruiser ruined, the gang disbanded, Raxip deciding to log in system and the Rifter pilot sailing home behind my pod towards Molden Heath.

Taking the walk of shame home, I did have one thought running through my mind that brightened my mood: I was back, and no amount of losses would deter me from meeting the next foe cannons blazing!

under construction 3

2009-02-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

Finally rotated the banner to another that was produced for me (I'll link the player that did the work when I have access to Eve again). Also completed a few aesthetic alterations to the blog. To those that are capable and interested, I am still accepting new banners to use for my blag, and am in need of a banner rotation script to display them all. If you decide you'd like to contribute, complete a banner roughly 640x145 (or to that ratio) pixels in size under the theme of a broadside. The more individual the style, the better. In the past I've payed out 10m isk for a banner, though feel free to haggle me for more money.

It's been a rough week for me, and on top of it all I haven't had secure access to Eve for about two weeks now. As things stand, I finally have internet at my appt, however all ports are closed except for internet browsers and a few chat applications. At least now I can view KB and blag information at home, which means I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable making posts. Expect a regular schedule of a post every 2-4 days as able.

for those who endure

2009-01-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

The massive Matari construct rumbled to life, dormant systems awakening from their slumber into activity once more. Lights flash as energy coalesces, forming a sphere between the two spires of the device. The sphere expands, growing in size and brilliance until it erupts, sending shock waves perpendicular to the machine which spawned them. Its purpose achieved, systems along the leviathan construct power down, and once more fall into a standby state. Peace resumes around the device.

In an instant, the stargate had thrust the Cyclone battlecruiser over an unimaginable distance, its pinpoint accuracy depositing the ship of war at the nearby inhabited system known as Ennur. Breaking from the protective cloaking field afforded by the gate, the Cyclone lurched to life, aligning towards a distant stargate within the system. Despite its size, the ship moved ably, accelerating until the warp core took over, thrusting the ship into a warp tunnel. Millions of kilometers passed in the blink of an eye, and after a few seconds computer controlled navigation systems slowed the ship until a safe exit velocity was achieved. The Cyclone exited warp a mere kilometer away from the destination stargate. There was no hesitation before the cycle began anew, and stargate lit to life, preparing to send the ship one hop further along its journey.

It had been roughly forty minutes since that journey had begun, a duration which comes to define the term ‘lackluster’ exceptionally well. System after system housed dull faces, images of which reflected back at my glittering eye, all secure behind station walls or a withering battery of POS weaponry. Little stirred this night, and with my roam coming to a close, I looked forward to nothing beyond a warm drink and comforting food.

A new scene erupted before my eyes. The last stargate activation landed me in the Skarkon system, which housed only one local. Habit drew the cursor over the scan button, and all pertinent objects in space within 14.4au collected themselves neatly as data before my eyes. An anomaly came up; Falcon on scan. The cursor flicked over to the other pilot’s portrait in local, and a dossier appeared soon after. This Falcon was flown by an anti-pirate. How quaint.

The Cyclone’s warp drive deposited me on the Mirimor gate, and I jumped through without another thought. Mirimor was unusually busy, and I set to scanning the locals, sorting known POSed ships with unknowns. I hadn’t been at it for any more than ten seconds before the stargate adjacent to me flashed. The Falcon had entered local, and after a few seconds hesitation proceeded to warp his ship to what appeared to be the top belt.

With the addition of the anti-pirate Falcon into local, my latent paranoia screamed setup. However, it could be a poor setup. Exceptionally poor if the Falcon pilot was as sloppy as I believed him to be. I warped to the top belt at 100km and held my breath.

The warp tunnel collapsed, and I welcomed a view of asteroids drifting in lazy rotations, their number stretching several dozen kilometers in a rough semi-circular pattern. Aside from the dirt balls and my Cyclone BC, the belt was empty. I had expected to land on top of the Falcon, decloaking the recon ship in the process and blasting him into scrap, however it seemed I misjudged the Falcon’s destination. With determination wrought from routine rather than excitement, I began scanning celestial pockets for ships once more. Then a Falcon decloaked two kilometers away from my ship.

Now, after about forty-five minutes of traveling through empty systems, warping, scanning and jumping for a net result of nothing, this sort of opportunity is something every solo PvPer savors. There is nothing worse than an ECM ship dropping out of cloak or warp a dizzying distance away to render your targeting ability useless. Retaliation is impossible. The only worthwhile activity at that point is to mash the warp command towards a celestial to save the pod. So, to say the least, there was a little pent up aggression as I sank my fangs into this hapless cruiser.

I locked the Falcon with practiced haste, and proceeded to slam ordinance into my fragile opponent. Between the surprise of warping on top of his quarry and my vicious onslaught, the Falcon pilot didn’t even manage to return a sensor lock before his ship buckled and blew apart around his pod. It had only taken three volleys to demolish the Falcon.

I scooped loot, and initiated warp towards an old safespot in the system. Minutes ticked down as the GCC diminished towards zero, and I posted the mail. Roughly three minutes had elapsed before one of the other pilots in local sought to confirm my ship type. I confirmed it, to which he countered with a 1v1 request. Chuckling while I typed, I agreed, and warped to the first planet of the system to meet him. Sometimes quiet roams turn out alright as they concluded, which is why it’s important to stick to them. Any kind of roam, quiet or otherwise is more productive than sitting in a station.

My foe piloted a Myrmidon battlecruiser, which if fit properly could deal near double my damage, tank all mine, and still have spare midslots for EWAR modules. Lacking a turret bonus meant pilots used anything from lasers to cap warfare modules in their highslots, all of which combined to an unpredictable, deadly combatant. I had warped to the planet at 10km, and landed an identical distance away from the Myrmidon. MWDs flared to life as pilots jockeyed for position

My plan of attack was to destroy all the heavy and medium sized drones of the Myrm’s drone flight, then peck away at the ship itself with the majority of its arsenal eliminated. Upon landing, I pulsed my MWD away from the enemy BC to draw its drone flight into a low transversal approach pattern, and then set my armament against them. The Myrmidon managed to webify me, however lack of a scrambler to counter my own meant I was able to dictate range at will. Heavy drones were quickly shredded as my Cyclone sped away.

The more agile medium drones provide elusive, and even MWDing away I couldn’t track them without the aid of a webifier, which I didn’t have. Deciding I would have to manage with their presence, I reversed course and returned the fight to the Myrmidon itself. At close range, the Matari and Gallente vessels exchanged fire, drones dancing about ships as pilots tested their opposites’ tank.
I wasn’t dictating range well enough, and the Myrmidon had unleashed its full rack of blasters upon me at their optimal range. Along with the remaining medium drones in the field and an energy neutralizer my tank had no way of keeping up. I retreated once more, taking potshots at the drones as I maneuvered out of webifier range and back to a standoff distance.

I dipped into range for one more go, however once more I neglected to maintain appropriate distance and was forced to retreat, this time with significant armor damage. Unable to break the Myrm’s active tank, or eliminate the drone flight that was pounding my shields, I left the field to the Gallente battlecruiser. We exchanged congratulations and chatted for a few minutes about the fight before he went on his way. I waited down the renewed GCC, and the remainder of the trip home to Egbinger was quiet.

It’s often the fights you lose or end in a stalemate that hold the most valuable lessons. Something so simple as kiting a blaster boat while using longer range weapons is so innate to my combat doctrine that I was shocked to realize I didn’t do so in this fight. Additionally, my flight of ECM drones offered little help interrupting incoming damage versus the drone ship. With damage drones I’d have been better able to cope with drones while giving my overall damage a boost. Still, there are those ‘OH SHIT’ moments such as a few days ago with the Broadsword and Astarte where ECM drones played a large role in escaping.

Ah, the conundrum of flying Matari: a myriad of choice which can leave a pilot duct tape crazy.

Color blind

2009-01-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

The situation was this: Having destroyed his ship in a 1v1 engagement, an outlaw has decided to even the score by force. Flying a Cyclone battlecruiser, I lead the outlaw, now piloting a Broadsword HIC into a trap that would render his ship into a collection of slag. I had just jumped into Istodard, and was leading the Broadsword to the Oddelulf gate. What the Broadsword pilot didn’t know was that I had recruited Biz Quick as aid, and he was waiting for orders on the Istodard gate in Oddelulf. I was to be the anvil, Biz the hammer, and my outlaw acquaintance the crunchy bit between.

I landed on the Istodard gate, and gunned my MWD, piloting the ship up and away from the massive Matari structure. The Broadsword lands only seconds after I started away from the stargate, and initiates his own MWD after me. Reaching 30km, I kill my speedboost and coast for a few more kilometers until reaching 40km. The Broadsword barrels into Warp Scrambler range, I place tackle, and the trap is sprung.

From personal experience, HICs don’t fit warp scramblers: it’d be asinine to fit any midslot tackling module other than a Webifier due to the powerful Warp Disruption Field Generator. This meant not only would the HIC be limited to normal navigation while engaged with me, I could dictate range with my own MWD which still operated under his tackle. Having chased me 40km away from the gate, the Broadsword found himself committed to a foe that out damaged him, tanked him, and most importantly, had backup.

After calling tackle, Biz jumps into system, calls out for a destination to warp to. Cursing under my breath, I inform him the target is right on the gate he just jumped through. Seconds drag while my battlecruiser and the Broadsword exchange lead, and the little bean called Biz’s brain finally stops rattling to give an answer to the dilemma facing his senses. Biz informs me with a laugh that my target is blue to him, and he can’t engage. I hastily inform Biz that I hate him and concentrate on the task at hand: deciding whether I had a snowflake’s chance in hell in breaking the HIC’s tank.

Seconds grow to minutes, and it seems the moderate DPS the Cyclone was putting out might be able to break the Broadsword’s tank. So enthralled with damage data and watching the HIC’s shield reading fill with red that I didn’t notice a new arrival to the field. I did however notice my tank failing and the trickle of damage bleeding through into my armor plate. Biz stated something in local chat, and my eyes flashed to my overview. An Astarte had joined the fray, was 20km and closing.

The Astarte’s flight of Hammerheads combined with the Broadsword’s chattering Autocannons had been enough to rout my tank, which I promptly began overheating to compensate. What would occur when the Astarte arrived in range to unleash his Hybrid turret arsenal, I didn’t want to know. What I did know was that I was low on capacitor and needed to flee.

Instincts kicked in, and I started to MWD away from both foes and aligned towards a celestial. My Warp Scrambler denied the Broadsword the ability to use his own MWD to keep up, and given a rigged Astarte isn’t the most agile of ships, I was able to make range. . however not enough. The Broadsword pilot started his MWD the moment my Scrambler disengaged, and I couldn’t accumulate enough distance between our two ships before my capacitor hungry modules consumed the last of my energy and I was left waiting for the next 800 charge cycle. I was out of shields, out of cap, and had death’s hand closing as fast as the Astarte could lumber forward. I needed a miracle.

Lady luck shined on me, and my ECM drones managed to break the Broadsword’s lock. I mashed the warp command, and sailed smoothly away from the carnage. I gave a deep sigh, and sounded a triumphant laugh. The Broadsword pilot started smacking me in local, and I played along in mocking salute to his skills. Biz, blue to both outlaws, came to my defense in words where he couldn’t in action and the chat soon drew still. After boosting my shields to an acceptably high level, I warped back to the Oddelulf stargate and jumped through to the other side. Biz had scooped my drones, and after both of us docked, he returned the drones while I repaired my savaged ship.

Later that day I met up with Biz once more, and with a few of his friends we managed a few ganks to round out the day’s experiences. It’s interesting to note that while roaming that night and the following day, a few pilots remarked how powerful the Cyclone is, and used it as an excuse not to engage. Powerful? The Cyclone?! Hearing this leaves me in awe of what the mighty Bellicose could do in capable hands!

Back to basics

2009-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been met with moderate success as far as PvP goes, but results have been lackluster at best. Flying T2 hulls near exclusively placed me in the position where I wasn’t willing to commit to fights where I wasn’t sure about the situation. The problem with PvP is that nothing is certain, and every missed opportunity is another moment passing through my fingers without chance of recovery. Further, avoiding challenges meant I was finding myself winning ganks rather than fights. I needed to do something radical. I needed to fly something T1.

A caffeine powered freighter haul with fresh supplies and ship hulls delivered just what I needed. Among the tried and true hulls I was accustomed to, my market alt delivered several Cyclone class battlecruisers. I had seen some impressive feats with this first tier BC hull, and decided to give the ship a spin as well. If all else failed, it was incredibly affordable, and the change of pace would be well worth the cost.

I can’t understate how much of a paradigm shift this vessel represented to my normal PvP style. Normally when flying in a battlecruiser hull, such as with the Drake or Harbinger, I employ a passive buffer with minimal to no repair ability. The Cyclone hull, with its shield boost bonus relies on an active tank to mitigate incoming damage. The lack of midslots and need for a cap booster means I can employ only a Warp Scrambler, rather than the classic point/web tackle kit. ECM drones take the place of my usual thermal and explosive damage drone mixings, which provide breathing room for the Cyclone’s active tank to recover.

Prior to the latest expansion, the Cyclone was eclipsed by its more able cousin, the Hurricane. Changes with the QR patch made the Cyclone a viable vessel once more. With alterations to Warp Scramblers, ships with limited midslots could get by with only one tackle module, as long as their foes chose to use a MWD over an AB. As the vast majority of PvPers employ MWDs (for good reason), the Cyclone can manage while supporting a powerful tank/gank combination. I was soon to experience it could not just manage, but excel beyond its competition.

After several hours of fitting ships and logistics work, I took my Pig Razor into the field for the first time. I enjoyed how smoothly this plateless battlecruiser maneuvered, and systems passed by without event. Five jumps into my roam I happened upon my first challenge for the day: an outlaw Rapier idling on a gate.

With optimal munitions already loaded, I decided to provoke the Rapier pilot into action. Targeting systems acquired a lock on the recon ship, and ordinance filled the void between the ships, slamming into the shields of the Rapier. The Rapier pilot weathered a further three volleys before initiating jump procedures at the gate and escaping my grasp. I Waited down my aggression timer, and followed the recon ship into the adjacent system. I repeated my intentions with shell and missile, while he slipped away once more into another system. I was beginning to think he was griefing me for ammo.

Once more I jumped through the gate to pursue the cruiser, this time finding him waiting for me. Understanding the relationship between our two vessels, I decloaked, overheating my MWD to return to the stargate while firing at my opponent. Predictably, the Rapier gracefully moved away from the stargate to place himself at a comfortable 25km away from me, opening up with Artillery shells and a drone flight. Dual Webifiers caused a significant decline in my velocity, however inertia kept my battlecruiser on course at a good clip towards the stargate.

Arriving on the gate and with my quarry unattainable, I stilled my weapons and waited down my aggression timer, easily tanking the Rapier’s damage. Realizing this, the Rapier pilot commented in local that I was wasting his time, and warped off. He followed this with a smile and reported that he would return with a battlecruiser. I stated I’d be waiting, and watched him leave local. I docked up in a nearby station, repairing some mild heat damage caused by my MWD, and wisely placed the maximum insurance allowable on my ship. It was a few minutes before he returned with his battlecruiser.

The situation was this: we were in Half, with my opponent waiting for me on the Istodard stargate in a Hurricane battlecruiser. My plan of attack was to use my Warp Scrambler to hold him at about 7.5km away where my Barrage and HAMs would damage well, while the assumed EMP loadout my foe would employ would have lesser effect. ECM drones would harass the enemy BC, and would be recalled at the slightest sign of his drones countering them. While ECM drones are fragile, they don’t need to be in space to get the job done: their effect cycles just like normal ECM modules do.

All of this in mind, I warped to the Istodard gate at 10km, and both ships lurched into action upon landing. Projectile ordinance glittered, yellow streaks dancing between the two vessels as we jockeyed for position. My foe neglected a Warp Scrambler of his own, which meant my plan to stay at arms length would prevail. My scrambler shut down the Hurricane’s MWD, and I eased into my desired range, tapping my MWD when necessary to hold the position. My shields were holding remarkably well, regardless of the hurricane pilot resorting to Electro-Magnetic damage drones exclusively for this fight. I barked a laugh at that particular tactic, launching my own drones onto my foe.

My arsenal was making surprisingly good progress against the Hurricane’s active tank, while my Large Shield Booster had little issue matching incoming damage. The Hurricane pilot was oblivious to my drone flight, a decision which was to plague him with frequent sensor lock disruptions, all the while my shield booster erasing any headway into my shield reserves. Minutes marched past, and the battle seemed near routine. Even with two medium sized capacitor warfare modules running against me, the Hurricane’s armor was dropping must faster than my shields, and touched hull roughly the same time I reached 33% shields. Overheating my weapons erased remaining resistance, and the Hurricane proved no match for my ‘dated’ vessel. Pilots exchanged congratulations in local, and he departed.

I scooped the loot, returning to the nearby station to repair damaged modules caused by overheating. After undocking, The Hurricane pilot returned once more into local, and this time in a Broadsword HIC. I had a surprise for my vengeful foe, and warped to the Istodard gate just as he landed on the station. I jumped through, aligning to the Oddelulf gate, making sure to wait long enough for the Broadsword to catch up and identify my trajectory as I warped away. I had enlisted aid, and it waited for me in Oddelulf on the Istodard gate. I was going to catch this pilot, and prove that it doesn’t pay to make rash decisions. Despite my scheming, I was the one to be surprised this time, and will report on that soon™.

Solo Sard 5

2009-01-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

The downside of solo

We’ve all experienced the difficulties of flying alone. Flying solo means there will be no backup when shit hits the fan, no friends to call favors on, no one to scout for you, or chit chat with during the dull nights in corp chat. Flying alone means dying alone, without anyone to scoop your wreck or complete what you started. It means when you do manage some outside assistance, you can only take it at face value, as those that aid you have only personal goals to bind them, rather than the obligations present between those within a corporation or alliance.

Reliable, consistent quality aid is perhaps the most difficult in my case. When I was still in UGH and working my solo experiment, Capital Punishment (CAP) was still present in Molden Heath, and with them we worked some pretty wicked engagements with the locals. At about the same time I started my own corporation, CAP moved to Syndicate (where UGH decided to move to, go figure) and I was left to my own devices. Since then I’ve occasionally had the aid of pirates around the area, but these are individuals with their own aspirations and schedules, neither of which require me. And trying to organize assorted elements of pirates into a cohesive gang? That can be the subject of an entirely different blag post.

Lack of interaction has also been a void in my gaming experience of late. While in a corporation, there are the forums to follow, corp mail to read, corp chat to watch, and voice comms to listen to. Killmails mean a damn, as there are other pilots to see one’s exploits and comment on them. After weeks of deliberation about leaving UGH, I didn’t pause to realize who I discussed this with: my friends within UGH and STUGH.

While less of an issue for me as I have alts to produce isk, UGH did provide extra backing in the form of free ammunition, modules and the occasional ship. UGH possessed the logistics ability to move operations to anywhere in the galaxy, while alone I struggle to move one ship or another to my current proving grounds. I still have at least 20 ships of varying class mothballed in Arnola awaiting the day I decide to move them or lose them.

All in all, I was having more fun in UGH than in this quiet corp called RANSM, despite flying on my own 30 jumps away from my allies within the corporation and alliance. Despite the most familiar face in UGH corp chat being my own, the lack of activity or vigor from other members, and difficulty I had with some in the alliance, it was better than the solitude I’ve experienced this past month. I miss bantering with old friends, listening in on one exploit or another and the hijinks recorded on forums.

I don’t wish to return to UGH at this point; my reasons for leaving that corporation are still sound. Where else to consider beyond my allies there, I can’t say. I know Biz has a good deal going with his current corporation, and I see those pilots around MH often. My frequent journeys to Metropolis have exposed some fun with the Bastards, however their PvP method seems far too chaotic for my tastes. Militia life would yield a great deal of PvP in the lowsec I frequent without the sec hits I’m accustomed to, however I’ve heard mixed reviews as far as quality of PvP goes. Gods above, I could even start recruiting for my own corporation: a frightening thought!

Parting note: Hellcats public chat makes for queer reading.

Solo Sard 4

2009-01-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

Pirates of Molden Heath 2

The afternoon following my venture into nullsec with a group pirates found me again with the same individuals. I bumped into Odareum and his alt in Istodard while roaming Molden Heath, and quickly formed a gang with him after exchanging greetings. We chatted idly about what we had seen in adjacent systems, and I decided to scout the one we hadn't probed, Half. It so happened I would need the backup for what I found there.

After jumping into system, I maneuvered my Huginn recon ship towards a pocket of asteroid belts to begin my scans. Upon arriving at a planet, I was able to narrow down scan on a Hurricane ratting at one of the belts surrounding the planet. The pilot was oblivious to my presence right up to the point where I immobilized his vessel with two Webifiers and a Warp Disruptor. With tackle completed, I reported to my gang mates that I had a target and they should make haste to my position in Half.

It was seconds before aid arrived in the form of a Hurricane, Bellicose and Rapier. Our combined damage swamped the target battlecruiser in projectile ordinance, which quickly reduced the ship to rubble. The Hurricane was able to summon friends however, and before being consumed by fire an Armageddon, Eagle and Rapier arrived in the asteroid belt. Being seasoned cutthroats, there was no hesitation as I called the Rapier primary and the Eagle secondary.

The enemy Rapier had the misfortune of landing amongst the asteroids of the belt after coming of warp: this left him easy prey as he couldn't MWD away or recloak. The moderate buffer tank on the ship was swept aside and the Rapier dissolved moments after being called primary. The Eagle then became the focus of our attention, and I raced to place my tackle kit on the Caldari HAC. A burst of my MWD slew the distance between the two ships, and the Eagle was firmly held for my gang to pound to dust.

In the excitement of destroying the two cruisers, the Armageddon was able to slip away. The field was ours, and we set about scooping the loot, eventually forming midwarp safespots to wait down our GCCs. While waiting, we decided to head towards Egbinger, where we would likely dodge into nullsec to give the residents there a run for their lives.

Fifteen minutes passed, and I moved ahead of our gang to scout for targets. Systems passed without any excitement, and we breezed through lowsec until reaching the Heild system, two jumps out from Egbinger. While scouting the multitude of belts there, I spied a Ferox battlecruiser working the belts surrounding the seventh planet of the system. It wasn't much longer than half a minute before the Ferox hull lit the void with a sapphire brilliance.

The Ferox left little in the way of booty, however once again it seemed the victim had an ace up his sleeve, as Foundati0n presence in the system multiplied while our pirate gang destroyed his ship. Atomic Betty, a foundati0n pilot known for flying Broadswords and baiting for blobs was in local, and it wasn't long before his HIC arrived at our belt. I could only grin as our gang took the bait, autocannons licking fire towards the FDN cruiser as we awaited the eventual enemy response.

I don't know whether it's an intentional tactic of Foundati0n to trickle in support when blobbing a foe. Perhaps it's a trick to lull their prey into a sense of security until it's too late. Today their retarded maneuvering system would cost them. Atomic Betty put up the usual heroic show as his HIC tanked our small gang, too slowly running out of shields for our gang to drop him before his support arrived. However, the first ship to arrive at the scene to aid Betty was a FDN Falcon... a mere 20km away from our gang and stuck in the asteroids of the belt. Voice comms was thick with variants of "SMOKE THAT FALCON!"

The pirate gang retreated from the HIC to concentrate fire on the Falcon, which was incapable of jamming all of our ships. Shield, armor and structure faded and the Falcon was removed from the field. In the time it took to maneuver and kill the Falcon, the rest of the FDN gang had arrived, and as they outnumbered us four to one, those that could escape did. In doing so, we traded a Hurricane for a Falcon: a fair trade any day, especially when the Caldari recon fit rigs and a Dark Blood Warp Disruptor.

With Foundation presence in the system established, we pirates decided to take a break and let things cool down before continuing. We docked up, and the rest of the day was relatively quiet, with only a few minor upsets. A note about the Myrmidon gank: Odareum has little compunction about using shady means to achieving his goals. This particular victim happened to accept the wrong gang invitation that day, as we descended upon his ship like the rabid opportunists we were. While using such means to an end felt below me at the time, it's certainly worth a try, and any pilot that falls for such a trick deserve the lesson.

Solo Sard 3

2009-01-03T01:17:00.000-08:00

Stay and Play: the Huginn way

About a week before the holiday break, I had finished training Recon Ships skill to four, and was ready to rock both the Amarr and Minmatar recon ships. It wasn't until the 25th of December that I finally took a Huginn out to test its fangs. This is an incredible ship, and even with the QR changes it didn't disappoint.

Not thirty minutes after undocking from my highsec port in Arnola, I found myself engaged with a Stabber in Heild. In true holiday spirit, the Stabber had warped to a planet, and challenged the locals to fight in a free for all brawl. I obliged him, and after arriving at the planet from warp, I placed full tackle on his cruiser, including two range bonused Webifiers. The speedy Stabber was reduced to a crawl, and I cruised to a comfortable 14km away to rend the pilot's pod from his ship. Previous fighting with a Thorax saw my cruiser opponent with severe armor damage, and his ship was capable of little more than marring my shields before exploding.

Seconds after the Stabber was erased from existence, the Thorax he sparred with arrived at the planet. Once more I applied tackle, and having landed over a dozen kilometers away, the Thorax could do little more than harass my Huginn with its flight of Hammerheads. The Thorax met a textbook fate for engaging a Minmatar recon ship.

I decided to stop with these kills, and head to Egbinger to drop off the blooded Huginn. Fate would have another target on the horizon, and after landing on the station in Egbinger to dock, an instinctual scan of the surrounding space yielded a Thorax in the vicinity. I cancelled my dock order, and narrowed down the scan results to a belt close by. I initiated warp, shaking my head at my luck: it hadn't been much more than five minutes after waiting down my GCC and moving on that I found another target.

I landed at the belt, and after placing tackle, proceeded to gank the shit out from underneath the unlucky pilot's feet. His pod slipped away after his ride exploded all around him; all the more loot for me. I docked up and logged off for the time being. The day was still young, I needed to attend to my family, and I could do so wearing an inward smirk: I have a new favorite ship to play with!

Solo Sard 2

2009-01-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

Complex PvP

Since taking up the skull and crossbones in Molden Heath, Heild has seen the majority of my victories. It houses a goodly amount of belts, and seems to draw consistent traffic through the system. There's also a 2/10 complex in the system, though as my pirating doctrine dictates cruiser hulls or greater, targets within the complex were always off limits.

To rectify this calamity of missed opportunities, I recently flew a QR style AB Jaguar into Heild in the event there are pilots working the complex. On December 22nd, this foresight payed off. While on a patrol through MH, I picked up a Rifter working the complex. Just before initiating warp to the station housing my Jaguar, I pick up an additional Wolf and Griffin arriving at the complex.

As I reshipped, local chatter suggested the Rifter pilot had just lost his ship to the Wolf and Griffin combo. As fast as I could manage, I undocked, and warped to the acceleration gate leading into the complex. The Rifter was off scan, and only the Wolf and Griffin remained, which was enough to confirm my assumption. I took a deep breath, and activated the acceleration gate.

I landed in a sea of NPC frigate wrecks, among which lurked the Wolf assault ship and Griffin frigate. The Wolf was a mere 7km away from me, and immediately engaged me. We exchanged tackle, and I found that not only is my Jaguar several hundred meters per second faster than my AS opponent, but the Wolf neglected a Webifier in his fittings. I navigated around the Wolf, and barreled in on the Griffin frigate.

The Griffin was my primary concern entering the fight: their ECM bonus made them a valued addition to any small gang. Versus the low signal strength of my Jaguar AS, I knew I had to knock him out of the fight as soon as possible if any victory was to be achieved. Fortunately for me, the pilot was slow on his EWAR, and I was able to put his ship into low armor before his ECM finally broke my lock.

It was a tense 10 seconds before I could regain lock on my foes; I was extremely lucky I wasn't locked down any longer. The Griffin exploded after a further two volleys from my autocannons, and the battlefield was down to the two assault ships. The Wolf only had minor shield damage, while my Jaguar was maintaining roughly 80% shields, having eluded the Wolf's ravages through agility and use of my Webifier. This was to be a close matchup, and I closed in to meet my fate.

Tackle was exchanged, and with Barrage S loaded in my autocannons, I decided to play things safe and maintain 7km from my opponent. The Wolf was quickly stripped of its shields, and my autocannons started chipping away at armor. My shields were holding well under the caress of the Wolf's greater projectile arsenal, and I felt victory was more than possible. I drifted closer to my foe, overloading my weapons as we discussed our differences up close and personal.

Moving closer to the Wolf magnified damage on my ship, and my Jaguar was reaching critically low shields. The Wolf began to enter hull as my shields finally failed, and my unresisted plate soon collapsed under the desperate fury of the Wolf's arsenal. It was too late for the Wolf however, and it evaporated in a blue fireball just as my Jaguar touched hull.

I scooped loot, and headed back to station for major repairs. Both pirates exchanged their congratulations to me, and soon afterwards I have gifted the Wolf pilot with my Jaguar fitting, and saw him off with a smile. You know it's a good day to fly when after all is done there's a little fire to keep warm by. . even if it's from fuel fires spouting from of hull breaches along your ship.

Solo Sard

2009-01-02T23:09:00.000-08:00

So it's been roughly three weeks since starting my solo corp experience. Time to reminisce upon my feats and follies.

Pirates of Molden Heath

The evening of December 26th saw me logging in to once more terrorize the residents of MH. I entered the game from my lowsec base in Egbinger, and decided to take out my Huginn for a spin. This recon ship had seen some heavy combat in the two days since its commission, and I wanted to see just how far my lucky streak would go. I undocked from station, and hit the scanner out of habit to see if there were any folk lurking in my lair.

It just so happened that a Bellicose and a Hurricane were on scan along with the normal POS fodder. I set to narrowing my scan, and after bouncing around some belts, I receive a convo from one of the pilots in local. He inquired if I was a pirate.

I answered in the affirmative, surprised my five million bounty and -3.9 security status didn't answer his question for me. He quickly got down to business, stating he was also a pirate and asked if I was willing to join him roaming into the nullsec nearby. Figuring I could only lose a ship, I accepted.

From what I've encountered flying about Molden Heath, there are basically few 'professional' pirates in the area. I'm considering only individuals with stature, moxie and the firepower to back up their trade. Biz Quick is an example of one of these individuals. He's the kind of pirate that is not only a good PvPer and knows his trade, but honors pacts between pilots.

Taking up for all I knew a completely random pirate and his friends on a joy ride into nullsec probably wasn't the best of ideas. It was quite possible these guys were the complete opposite of 'honest pirates' like Biz and would blow me to hell at the first opportunity. However, I went along with it anyway for two reasons: it'd be fun if they were trustworthy, and I need contacts within Molden Heath for when one ship ain't enough to get the job done.

The two pirates in local ended up being one individual commanding two accounts, and we shortly worked out our plan of attack into nullsec. I swapped out of the Huginn and into my Broadsword, while our gang of three was soon joined by another pirate piloting a Rapier. Our gang consisted of my HIC, a Rapier, Bellicose and Hurricane: plenty of hurt, tackle and was mobile enough to get out when necessary.

The B-VIP pipe was quiet that night, and we found ourselves progressing quickly into Great Wildlands. An attempt to bait a Typhoon with the Bellicose in 0PI4-E proved unproductive, though further along in L1S-G1 we acquired the PvP we sought. Jovian Enterprises dwell in the system, and as usual, several of their pilots were out ratting the belts.

Our plan was simple: I scouted the system, while the rest of the gang waited in the adjacent UNJ-GX. It took me a matter of seconds to narrow down my scanner to a belt containing a Hurricane. A short warp later landed me 26km off the ratting battlecruiser: just in range for my Focused Warp Disruption Field Generator. I tackle the surprised ratter and call down the thunder.

The normal 0.0 doctrine of Jovian Enterprises (JE) is to POS up, gather gonads from the POS, then chase me out of their ratting systems with clumsy blobs. This night saw a change in tactics: shortly after tackling the Hurricane, a Harbinger and Caracal warp into the belt to aid their comrade. My HIC shudders under the impact of all three foes' weaponry, and with my gangmates arriving on the scene, I call primary on the waning Hurricane, requesting points of the other foes.

Seeing my reinforcements was too much for the JE support ships, and both the Harbinger and Caracal are able to warp out of the belt before tackle is placed on their ships. The Hurricane quickly succumbs to our gang's firepower, and I call for loot to be scooped and start checking scanner for other clueless ratters. Roughly a quarter of a minute after the Hurricane was destroyed the Caracal returns to the belt next to the Hurricane wreck.

Why the pilot decided to return is beyond me. All I know is that Caracal hulls crunch like fresh popcorn when so much as glanced at. This particular Caracal was no different.

With the loot in our cargo and all other targets at POSes, we left L1S-G1 to return to Egbinger after deciding it was getting late. This small taste of the pirates of Molden Heath was soon to blossom the next day with much more spectacular results. These are good days to be a pirate in Molden Heath!

Completely unrelated to Eve

2008-12-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

My final grade was posted for the fall school semester.

I did EXACTLY what I needed to do with my classes, and in some places exceeded expectations. For about a year now I've been having issues keeping focused on school work, and had been experiencing serious decay in my GPA. With 2008 over, I'm really looking forward to excelling in my studies.

If I don't update before new years, let this be my proxy wish for all my readers: I hope everyone accomplished the goals they had for 2008, and that we have the best of luck in 2009!

Ventrilo compression details

2008-12-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

Borrowed from my old alliance forum. Essentially sets all individuals to a uniform volume so one doesn't have to go about changing individual volumes:

Vent normalization makes everybody’s voice the exact same volume. In essence, you won’t blow your ears out or have difficulty hearing people. Here’s how:

* Go to Setup
* Enable Direct Sound
* Select the SFX Button
* Select Compressor and click Add (right click at channel level -> misc -> special effects).
* Under Compressor Properties, use the following settings:
o Gain = Adjust for how loud you want people to be. (I use 15)
o Attack = 0.01
o Release = Around 500
o Threshold = Around -30
o Ratio = 100
o Pre delay = 4.0

Gain
How much volume you feed into the compressor. Not really relevant unless everyone is too quiet, then you can turn this up a little; turning it up too much will sound EXTREMELY horrible.

Attack
How fast volume change will happen. Example: setting this to 500 means that anything coming in will only be dropped in volume after a half a second. For Vent this should be set as low as possible.

Release
How fast the compressor stops changing things. not really that relevant with Vent, setting it around 500 is good for voice material.

Threshold
This sets the point where we actually start changing what’s coming in. Whereas 0 is the absolute loudest you can have for an input, -60 is super quiet. Average users will probably come in somewhere around -25 to -15, with the occaisional few being really quiet, which is why I have this set so low.

Ratio
How much any sound below the set threshold gets compressed and/or modified in the volume department. If you still want to hear SOME volume variation, then set this lower (2-4)… the higher you set it, the closer in volume everyone will be.

Pre Delay
Mostly just deals with processing; with computer and digital processors they can look ahead a few milliseconds to see what needs to be dropped in volume or changed before it actually comes through the speakers. Highest is ideal.

Possible bug!

2008-12-25T01:41:00.001-08:00

Just a heads up to those that employ weapon grouping, or Jump Clones: there may be a bug that will result in modules not activating that involves either of these two features. I recently loss a Harbinger in part to four of seven of my lasers not activating. What caused this to occur is unknown to me, but I had been experiencing problems before my loss, associated with using a Jump Clone and attempting to group my weapons together.

Specifically, I used a Jump Clone to travel to a different region of space to PvP. I activated a Harbinger, to find several of the modules offline. Attempting to turn these modules online met with failure, and a message repeating that the modules are already online.

The fix for this is to relog, and those modules that refused to turn online will finally online. However, I soon undocked and attempted to group my lasers to one function slot. I received a message that the weapons were already in a function group, and that I shoud clear them before attempting again. The guns didn't have any charges in them, and they were the same type of module. The guns accepted charges, but when I made to use them on a target, some, in my case four of seven, refused to operate.

I don't know if this was caused by using a Jump Clone, or attempting to group my weapons together, or both. I haven't had this sort of trouble before with modules not activating, apart from lag. It wasn't lag as I was able to employ drones and other modules such my rep and MWD perfectly fine. Let this be a warning to pilots out there that there is a problem with weapon grouping and/or Jump Clones which is extremely problematic. If you happen to use a Jump Clone, and have the same sort of issues with weapon grouping, find something to shoot, such as an asteroid, and test if your weapons that you attempted to group are indeed functional. If not, file a petition so that we can see this problem resolved in short order.

Persistence

2008-12-22T23:41:00.000-08:00

"How long have you been at it?"
"An hour now."
"Have you had any luck with it?"
"Haven't beat anyone yet."
"You're not very good at that game are you?"

Empty systems. Fleeting glimpses of pilots, only to watch them dock or move a system over. Landing on a target, only to have it slip away.

Pirating is a matter of persistence, of putting forward effort to yield uncertain results. It's unlike most other activities in Eve Online, as you're not ensured a steady result. Time spent doesn't equate to targets killed. Rather, it increases the chances of happening upon a tangible engagement.

A friend of mine once said that instead of waiting for PvP to happen to them, pilots should go look for it. He understood you don't need a gang, an expensive ship, or even a plan beyond 'look for someone to blow up' to have fun. It is too simple to blind oneself with KB statistics and avoid challenging engagements. It is all too easy to forget from the safety of familiarity that change is good, and exploration should be welcomed in our lives. Giving up an hour to a roam which results in nothing is preferable to spending that time mindlessly grinding PvE or sampling station fare.

I challenge my readers to do just this: to seek excitement, to damn the consequences, and to realize themselves in PvP. Venture away from what's accepted in your Eve experience, and try something different. Experiment. Explore.

PvP in Eve is a many faceted thing; enjoy sampling each aspect!

Bizness as usual

2008-12-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

After logging in Thursday evening, I spied Biz Quick in my home system looking for a fight. In a region as small as Molden Heath, it's little wonder that pirates such as ourselves run into each other frequently when roaming: it isn't difficult to cover the entire lowsec of the region in less than an hour. He was flying a Sacrilege HAC, and as his roam had been bone dry up until finding me, he asked for a 1v1.

Engaging a Sacrilege is a tricky proposition for even the deadliest of ships: it's fast, deals decent damage with Heavy Assault Missiles, and is capable of sustaining a tremendous armor tank. Not wanting to ruin the small tradition of lopsided engagements we've had in the past, I took out my Harbinger to oblige him. I had fit a Warp Scrambler to keep him close, and an Afterburner to mitigate missile damage. Other than that, it was my vanilla Harbinger fit.

We warped to a safe, and the fireworks commenced on contact. My hope was to overwhelm his tank immediately, resting all my faith in the massive damage potential of my battlecruiser versus the EM and THM holes of my opponent's cruiser. I was able to evaporate his shields and burn through half his armor in two volleys before his tank stabilized and matched my DPS. Without any form of EWAR it was only a matter of Biz bleeding my ship's buffer before I exploded.

Perhaps he wanted to acknowledge my sportsmanship, or maybe he just wanted to save me the trouble of fitting another ship, but regardless Biz deactivated his missile launchers when I reached hull, and allowed me to nurse my battered ship in a station. Some light banter about fits passed between pilots, and a short time later we were roaming lowsec together looking for a fight. I had traded ships in station for a Devoter HIC, and was quite smug with the sexiness of two pirates cruising around in T2 Maller hulls.

Roughly an hour of roaming yielded little in the way of targets. In fact, it seems the two of us together begets nothing but trouble for ourselves, and we were forced out of several systems by large groups of pilots with large(r) cannon and an intent to kill. I suggested we try Great Wildlands, and he agreed as our combined luck in lowsec had been poor that day.

Once in Egbinger, I swapped ships for a Broadsword, and we hit B-VIP looking for ganks. A lucky drake evaded us there, and moving deeper into nullsec, we decided to grace L1S-G1 with our presence. Biz scouted the system, and balked at the dozen pilots staring at him from local.

It took quick convincing and jumping into system personally to start him scanning out ratters, and we mutually spotted a Harbinger in a belt. With a 1600mm plate, the battlecruiser was incapable of aligning out in time, and extinguished under a hail of Barrage and Rage HAMs. Biz informed me he had to AFK shortly after the kill and safed up in system. I continued to patrol the L1S-G1, and kept eyes on SL-YBS with an alt scout.

Allies of the Harbinger pilot weren't long in organizing a small gang to oust me from L1S-G1. Aside from a blob of battlecruisers and a Tempest battleship, they had scrounged up two Rifters with warp scramblers. The frigates ironically were the greatest danger to Biz and myself, as if they caught us off a gate or at a celestial, there was little we could do to the agile ships as their larger counterparts moved in for the kill. I had managed to string out the hostile gang in UNJ-GX by the time Biz returned from his AFK, however trouble was brewing in our route home. My alt scout in SL-YBS was reporting massive gate activations. Foundati0n was coming.

It was a few seconds in explaining the situation to my companion, and we were soon making haste away from L1S-G1, back up the pipe towards B-VIP. While scouting B-VIP, Biz came upon the Drake we had passed up earlier in a belt. He manages a tackle, and the ratting battlecruiser lights up in sapphire flame under our combined firepower. The Drake destroyed, we warp to the gate and jump out into Egbinger, back into lowsec.

With two kills under our belts and another two dozen angry pilots evaded, we decided to call it a night.

The yarrmanity!

2008-12-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

The curse of starting a blag is all the memes that start going around, those infectious activities that mangle minds by peer pressure until there's no choice but to oblige. Well, Mynxee decided to destroy my day by tagging me, so I just had to do something about it. Harumph.

The Rules:

Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Facts About Me:

Before EVE-Online, it was Guild Wars. Before Guild Wars, it was Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Before Enemy Territory, it was Tribes. I've been video gaming for over a decade now, and don't intend to stop anytime soon.
I model! Or at least I paint them. Typical victims are minis from Classic Battletech and Warhammer 40k.
Sard Caid is short for Sardaukar Caid. The Sardaukar are a military faction from Frank Herbert's Dune, and Caid is a rank denoting 'Public Relations'. *snickers*
Cyberpunk is a favorite genre, for several very good reasons.
Favorite sport is American Soccer, or European Football. I wish folk would get their titles straight.
At some point I intend to learn German and live overseas there.
I've been to Maine, to Florida, visited Texas, traveled to Hawaii, and sailed a boat to Alaska. Yet, the only foreign soil I've touched is Canada, and I haven't left North America since birth.

7 People to Tag:

It was hard to pick just seven, since my undead army hasn't quite reached maturity yet, but there you go. Now go forth and spread the horror.

Under construction 2

2008-12-14T02:35:00.001-08:00

Started a new corporation, Gunpoint Diplomacy (RANSM). I'll be rehashing some details around the blag to reflect this, otherwise the show will continue as normal.

Also, it's finals week and overnight cramming makes Sard a dull boy. Expect more stories about violence towards the end of the week.

Well, I did it

2008-12-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

I turned in my resignation to my corporation on the forums. In a couple of days, I'll be gone from UGH.

Between our tenure flying with Queens of the Stone Age (QotSA), then reforming into the Uninvited Guests (UGH), I've spent nearly two years with these pilots. I respect them, I'm friends with them, and can't put to words the debt of gratitude I owe them for the fun and support they've collectively lent to me. Leaving the UGH fold is like leaving home to make a life for myself: I'll miss them dearly, however I'm optimistic for the things I can do.

I don't know whether I should start a solo corp, join a pirate entity or go into faction warfare. The sky's the limit, and I have a very, very dusty resume to update!

Mine's bigger than yours

2008-12-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder just how large your ship is? Ulfskein Gangr created a great ship to scale image, with ships compared to an image of lower Manhattan. Yeah, even the lowly Wreathe is huge.

Great work!

Old friends, new wrecks

2008-12-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the hardest fight a person can come up against is with former allies. Sure, you know their tendencies, however it's just as likely they learned as much from you. This is especially true facing the alliance who were the underdog favorites in the last alliance tournament, and for good reason (check day five, Notoriety Alliance vs Green Alliance).

Having led a medium sized gang through northern Syndicate to bust a gate camp in MHC-R3, I decided to continue the gang through to southern Syndicate, into No Trademark territory. No Trademark (NOTR, principle corporation behind Notoriety Alliance) had recently reformed and had taken to terrorizing Syndicate and Solitude regions, accumulating monstrous tallies on their killboard as they drove off many of the weaker entities in both regions. Due to issues with killmail happy NOTR gangs, we had recently removed blue status with them, and I decided it was about time we came looking for a fight.

The gang I was leading was moderately heavy, composed of three battlecruisers, assorted T2 cruisers, a Scimitar, two Falcons and light tacklers. We jumped into their home system Y9G-KS, and set up shop on the Conomette gate, Falcons at combat ranges, and gave NOTR the next move. A few minutes pass, NOTR numbers trickling in from adjacent systems, and I finally ask in local whether we're going to see a fight.

Our Rapier scouting the station reports several battleships undocking, along with an Onyx and Sacrilege, all of which begin aligning for the Conomette gate. A NOTR Hyperion warps to the gate, and I curse the new regional entrance gates for the difficulty in covering them with an interdiction bubble. The Hyperion jumps through, and I have my HIC pilot reposition to better cover warp ins from the station. Minutes again tick by, when the Rapier reports the entire NOTR gang on station has entered warp towards our position. It was game on, and we were more than willing to deliver.

When the NOTR Hyperion had warped to our gate, I had one of our Falcons uncloak, and another stay hidden. It was an attempt to fool them into thinking we had only one piece of ECM to bring to the fight. Once the entire NOTR gang had warped into our HIC bubble, I called for both Falcons to decloak and coordinate jams. I call a Maelstrom primary target, secondary target an Armageddon.

As I start my MWD to send my Hurricane battlecruiser hurtling towards the primary target, I realize an error in how I positioned my gang. The HIC was several dozen kilometers away from the rest of us on top of the stargate, and it took us precious time to reach our target. In the mean time, NOTR was able to deliver brutal damage to our HIC as we made our way to destroy his attackers. NOTR had also decloaked a Falcon of their own, and with my HIC pilot reporting his armor melting, I began to wonder if this engagement was such a good idea after all.

Friendly Falcons assert themselves, putting both the enemy Falcon and majority of battleships temporarily out of the fight. The Scimitar is able to make his way into range of our HIC pilot, and soon has him under repairs. Damage is finally being applied to the primary, and I call for our Vagabond pilot to burn out and harass the enemy Falcon. It's a task he excels at.

Seconds pass, and the Maelstrom is showing itself to have a masterful active shield tank, holding up extremely well under the full brunt of our combined firepower. The NOTR gang has locks returning, and with pilots calling out damage, I decide to switch primary to the NOTR Sacrilege. More pilots seemed to be in optimal range this time, and the Sacrilege explodes soon after my target call.

I quickly asses the situation, and make the Armageddon our new primary. The heavy buffer tank on the battleship slowly melts away, but not before he wrecks fatal damage to a friendly Harbinger. The Harbinger becomes our only casualty, and both the Armageddon and a Typhoon meet their collective ends attempting to deaggress into Conomette.

It proved to be a decisive victory, and both entities were happy to have had the fight. We in STUGH are waiting for the day NOTR decides to show up in our doorstep and request a fight. We'll be happy to oblige!

To make it as a pirate: easy isk

2008-12-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

After spouting off my daily capital, Black Claw asked me how I did it. Pirating is a harsh profession, and turning out enough isk from ransoms and booty just to balance out losses is a difficult feat not often accomplished. To be an active, successful pirate means having alternative forms of revenue to carry the pilot through the rough times, and is the focus of this post.

Pirates have a difficult time making isk. Poor security status renders high security missions out of the question, as with the most profitable trade routes. A focus on PvP leaves little SP left over for production, not to mention the difficulty of acquiring raw minerals to produce goods in lowsec in the first place. Missioning and running complexes in lowsec tend to yield better rewards than highsec, however pirates run the risk of predation from their fellows when PvEing in lowsec.

To sum things up: most of the basic means to making isk are denied to the typical pirate. However, there are other avenues for easy isk that are still open. For now, I'll not consider use of alt accounts, as all those forms of easy empire isk become once more available.

Your typical lowsec region has several entry points into NPC nullsec. NPC nullsec is perhaps the greatest source of isk for low SP, down on their luck individuals: the typical BS rat in nullsec has a bounty of anywhere from 500k to 900k isk in the poorest of regions, their high meta level loot is valuable, and these rats can be 'chained' to provide back to back spawns of high bounty rats. NPC space typically has a generous amount of stations to base out of, which allow a pirate to JC out to nullsec, spend a day grinding the easy isk, and JC back to their base of operations tens of million isk better off.

To clarify, chaining involves finding a desirable spawn, such as a high bounty battleship spawn. The battleship is destroyed, leaving at least one escort ship in the belt alive. After roughly fifteen minutes, the destroyed ships will respawn, and the high bounty ship can be destroyed again. Typically nullsec ratters will create several chains and work them constantly, providing large sums of isk gain in a short amount of time. It only takes a full T1 fit cruiser to accomplish this sort of operation.

Another bonus to nullsec is the ability to work off security status, and climb back to positive ratings quickly. Every fifteen minutes, the highest bounty belt rat you kill rewards you with a sec status increase. The fastest method of gaining sec status is moving from system to system, killing off battleship spawns in each system. This way multiple sec gains are possible, as the sec gains are counted for each individual system in space.

Research agents, once cultivated, provide a steady stream of isk that are always working for you. Without much effort, perhaps two weeks of training skills and grinding for standing, 2-3m isk a day can be made, without ever having to work again for that isk source.

Cosmic anomalies in both lowsec and nullsec are good ways to grind isk, and are typically safer than belt ratting. Just be aware that pilots can find the pockets you're plundering the same way you did with the onboard scanner, and to be wary of this.

Lastly, engaging in minor trade in lowsec is extremely profitable. Hauling in basic T1 items, ammo and drones and putting them up for sale in the populous lowsec systems can yield profits exceeding 500%. You'd be surprised what a pilot is willing pay to not have to travel a few jumps into high security space and back again. Similarly, placing extremely low buy orders in the same systems for resale provides another avenue into isk.

Hope this helped.

Edit: Mynxee reminds that exploration is very profitable! Check the comments for this post for a brief overview of this probe driven PvE mayhem.

Slow boats

2008-12-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

After spending years flying about in nullsec, I've come to appreciate the utility of fitting a MWD on ships. Fitting a MWD allows ships to conquer the ubiquitous Warp Disruption bubbles, quickly close back to a stargate, and dictate range in combat. Even in lowsec, the ability to return to a gate with haste spells out the difference between surviving a gatecamp and not. That said, flying a ship without a speedboost module can be rewarding challenge in itself: engagements must be chosen with care, and once dedicated to a fight, there's little hope of turning back.

Such is the case with the Lyrian Muse, my Arbitrator class cruiser. Ever since fitting the ship, I've expected to die horribly at gatecamps, that I wouldn't get much use out of the hull before it gets scrapped by some group of pirates or another. So far, I've only been ganked at a gate once, while achieving impressive victories in the mean time. Perhaps my greatest achievement with the ship isn't recorded in a killmail, as the target managed to warp away. Still makes for a good story.

You'll notice by glancing at the short profile to the right that I'm an 'Alliance FC' in Placid. What it should state is that I'm the 'Alliance Pirate Loner' instead. Nearly all PvP conducted by my fellows has been in high security space and nullsec, both of which require the ability to move through a 0.7 security system named Orvolle. This rules out yours truly, who sports a security status of -4.2 at the time of writing. Instead, I've been left to my own devices to find whatever fun I can in the lowsec of the area.

Not long after destroying the Deimos linked above I had wandered into a gateway system to lowsec called Dour. Local in the system was sparse, and I decided to give the asteroid clusters a look see. Not long after landing at a planet to start my scans, I picked up a Myrmidon ratting in one of the belts orbiting my celestial. A few blinks later I raced through the employment history and race of the few individuals in local, picking out one likely Galenttian candidate as the pilot of the battlecruiser. He had only a few months under his belt. Sod it, may as well give this a try. It'd only be an Arbitrator I'd lose anyway, and what a trophy to display if I made him!

I land on the belt to discover my foe in disruptor range. I deploy Hammerheads, and start my ship towards the Myrmidon, anticipating that 7km from target would be a good engagement range. My dual webs and a tracking disruptor should be able to keep him at the range I want, while unable to fight back with the expected rack of blasters fitted. It only takes a few seconds for the Myrmidon to react to my aggression, launching his own flight of heavy drones and sending volleys of hybrid munitions slamming into my shields.

The next minute is spent in a flurry of activity, locking enemy drones and engaging them with my own, closing to tight orbit and using tracking disruption to tank the unexpected railgun fitting, and activating all four small nos to fuel the capacitor hungry armor repairer. It's not long before the last of his drones have been rended into scrap, and my flight resumes their attack on my victim. Unable to track me with the Tracking Disruptor on his ship, the Myrmidon pilot is forced to watch the more agile cruiser slowly grind his command to dust.

I can't stress the word slowly enough. Myrmidons are notorious for a fierce active tank, and even with low SP this one was putting up an incredible struggle against my drones and capacitor warfare. Minutes pass, and my drones struggling to out damage the target's regeneration. Just when the enemy tank begins to fail, a local bump reveals reinforcements for the beleaguered Myrmidon. A Drake shows up on scan, and I'm forced with the possibility of abandoning my prey. Damn the Drake! Too much effort has been put into this kill, and I'm not going to let some PvE fit nobody force me off this carcass! Let him come!

The Drake lands, and immediately flights of heavy missiles hammer my ship. I move from the Myrmidon to the Drake, swapping to the capacitor rich new arrival to fuel my repairs. The Hammerheads are recalled, and I set my flight of Warriors to destroy the Drake's light drone flight. Once the drones are destroyed, I find I can tank both ships, as long as I stay in motion to migate missile damage, and with the Tracking Disruptor orbit the Myrmidon to avoid turret damage. I can't wipe the huge grin off my face: now I have two battlecruisers ready to be scrapped!

That is, if this ridiculous Myrmidon will finally die! In a moment of inspiration, I switch to Valkeries and set them on the Myrmidon. His tank quickly is smashed aside as the explosive damage chews through unresisting plate. I had forgotten I was flying in Serpentis territory, and was using damage typical of them on my target. No wonder he refused to quit!

The Myrmidon enters structure, and I keep my attention on the Drake, making sure he doesn't drift too far out of range for my warp disruptor. Unfortunately for me, the Myrm had drifted out of nos range, and my MAR had killed my capacitor. Seconds after realizing my error, my disruptor deactivated, and before I could replace it on the Myrmidon, he warps off, soon followed by the Drake. Too slow in retrieving my drones to pursue, I land at the celestial the Myrm escaped to, and watch him retreat once more to a station. I had lost him with roughly 20% structure left to go.

The next fifteen minutes waiting down my GCC are spent nursing my bruised ego, and fighting down my disquiet. Roughly a half an hour later I lose the ship to the gate camp mentioned earlier. At least that night I had a few good fights before going pop.

Banner

2008-12-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

Not much going on of late, just a few cruiser kills here and there. I have caught the attention of several anti-pirate groups in the area, but so far no conflicts resulting in an appreciable killmails yet. What is of interest to me is finishing the layout of this blag, and I was hoping to employ my esteemed readers in doing so.

What I really would like is an appropriate banner for the journal. Any readers who are adept at photo editing software, or could point the way to an adept will gain my admiration. I am more than willing to toss isk towards anyone that helps me as compensation, or buy pretty faction ships/modules if that's your thing. Evemail me or shoot me a convo in game, and we can sort out the rest there.

For Mynxee

2008-12-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

It had been a long day for Darus: with Tritanium prices ludicrously high, he had taken his Scythe mining cruiser to the edges of empire space searching for a patch of asteroids not already mined out. After asking in the corporation communications channel, other Republic Fleet graduates commented that he should try lowsec, as only a few people mine there. Tiring from his search, he agreed and set course for a nearby pocket of space he had until then avoided.

It wasn't long until Darus reached Evati, and to his surprise the first belt was brimming with asteroids, some he hadn't even seen before in high security space. He set to work immediately, jettisoning a cargo container into space and working to fill it with all the precious ore he could reach with his mining lasers.

Minutes passed uneventfully, and smiling, Darus agreed with the pilots that suggested mining out in low security space. Not only was there no competition, but there were asteroids which yielded increased product; this way Darus got more for his hard spent time. Even the Angel Cartel roaming gangs gave better bounties, although the last one placed a serious drain on the Scythe's shields. Darius didn't even know Cartel battlecruisers roamed asteroid belts before today!

The jetcan was three quarters full when another ship had arrived in the belt Darus was mining in. Quickly sending camera drones to investigate, Darus was chagrined to discover it was the same hull used by the Angel Cartel, a cruiser sized vessel to be exact. However, sensor contact stated it didn't belong to the Cartel. The mystery ship soon revealed it's intentions as Darus' scythe rocked under the impact of medium autocannon shells.

Darus was no rookie when it came to combat. He had spent months deflecting the predations of Cartel ships from his venerable mining operations, and he would be damned if a single cruiser forced him off of his ore, Cartel owned or not! He launched his drone, and sent a flight of Havoc Heavy Missiles towards his foe.

"Geez, this guy really hurts! How is he taking so much damage?" Worry was running through Darus, as this Cartel designed ship he was facing evidently was much, much more than standard issue. It had smashed aside his already weakened shields, and was quickly decimating his armor. Darus tried to initiate warp, but his engines refused to respond. His warp drive had been disrupted.

As the pirate ship began its final assault into the Scythe's hull, Darus made one last glance at the attacker.

The image the camera drones reported back was surprising.

"I'll get you back, you bare chested vagabond! And don't think I won't smash those silly glasses from your face! I know what you look like!"

Full circle

2008-12-03T00:14:00.000-08:00

After a fantastic month of service, Hunchback IIC met a fiery fate at the hands of True Reign, a FDN splinter alliance. This was the first engagement where I undervalued the devastating effect of 2+ damps on a target in a skirmish setting: as long as ships have the ability to kite away from a target, ships can dip in and out of targeting range, and the victim is forced to switch primaries constantly. This way individuals with buffer tanks are able to recuperate while their comrades expose their buffer to fire, allowing a sort of guerilla action against a target.

After several uneventful roams through lowsec in my Harbinger, I decided to give the B-VIP a go and once again work on my sec status. I traded ships in Egbinger for my Broadsword, logged in my alt scout and jumped into B-VIP after the scout reported the all clear. After roaming a few systems, and chasing a drake to a POS in 0PI4-E, my alt scout reported a True Reign Vagabond moving through SL-YBS, followed soon by a Wolf. Having just finished a Cartel battleship in UNJ-GX, I jumped into SL-YBS, and soon followed the pair into 6WT-BE, then into 9SNK-0.

The alt scout reports another two local bumps in SL-YBS: True Reign Stabber and Arazu hastefully make way towards Sard in 9SNK-0. In 9SNK-0 I skirmish with the Wolf, eventually landing back on the 6WT-BE gate, with Vagabond, Wolf and Arazu close behind. A few long seconds of posturing end with the Arazu placing tackle to force me through the gate into 6WT-BE into their awaiting Stabber. Before jumping, I pulse my MWD to examine if the Arazu is Warp Scrambler fit; it wasn't, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I'll be able to maneuver in the fight to come. I jump into 6WT-BE, followed by the Vagabond and Wolf.

Upon entering system, I employ an old tactic, and MWD towards a celestial to draw the enemy gang out. My foes immediately oblige, and some quick maneuvering lands me on top of the Vagabond. Incoming fire from the combined ships quickly begins to show on my Broadsword's shields, and I overheat my Invulerability Field to buy me more time to accomplish my violent aims.

Overloaded 425mm Autocannons soon see the Vagabond to 20% shields, when the Arazu finally enters system and places its rack of Sensor Dampners on me. To my dismay the Vagabond slips 17km away from me, and my severely inhibited sensors lose lock. I spend a few precious seconds assessing the situation, and switch primary to the Stabber, which was within web range and had a full tackle kit placed on me.

The boon of Heavy Interdictors, the Warp Disruption Field Generator has two modes of use, determined by a script. Without the script it acts much like an Interdiction probe launched from a Interdictor, denying warp of any vessel within 15-20km of the HIC, depending on skills. With the script loaded, it acts much like a Warp Disruptor, with enhanced range and infinite strength. Unfortunately, using the module in its focused form doubles the capacitor usage, which combined with prolonged MWD use chasing tackled targets as they struggle away from my Webifier was depleting my capacitor to dangerously low levels.

The Stabber slips away after reaching armor, and it soon becomes clear to me that calling the Vagabond primary was a mistake. With little more than a quarter shield left, I made a desperation tackle on the HAC. I land within web range, blast through the remaining shield buffer, and start blowing chunks out the vulnerable armor plate of striken ship. Just as the Vagabond reached hull, it pulled free of my overheated Webifier, and without sufficient capacitor to activate my MWD it darted once more out of targeting range. The damnedable Arazu once again proved its worth and denied me my HAC kill.

With a sliver of shield remaining, the Stabber had drifted back into Webifier range to finish me off. It succeeds in maiming my ship, however pays a steep price for venturing so close. The Arazu delivers the coup de grace, a fitting conclusion to a fight dictated by its EWAR.

Congratulations are exchanged in local, and I see my pod home safetly to Egbinger. Reflecting back, I realize I should have engaged the flimsy Stabber first, then moved on to the Arazu as able. These thoughts can't detract from the awesome fight True Reign gave, and I've respect for them for making an otherwise dull night lively. Besides, providence decided to gift me with a kill minutes after losing the Broadsword, which took some of the bite out of the loss. A note to would be Assault Ship pilots: yes, larger ship hulls can't track your tight Afterburner-driven orbits, nor can they escape with a Warp Scrambler placed on them, but you have to get into range first. Not all pilots are oblivious enough to allow that.

So you think you're hot shit now, eh?

2008-12-02T01:38:00.000-08:00

A month of slacking off from school work at least looks good some places. That's with alliance mates downing caps and adding their monstrous score to the killboard. Wew!

Killboard porn aside, I did manage to get a bit of PvP in for the day. Ulfskein Gangr needed his pod scouted to Atlar, as he worried for his absurdly large bounty. Black Claw and myself responded to his need, and were quickly underway to meet him in Heild. One jump out from Heild, I ran into a gang of a new FDN friendly alliance, consisting of an Eagle, Hurricane and Rupture. I report this to Ulf, who knows nothing of them either. I jump through, noting another Merlin associated with the gang, and begin scouting the Bosena gate. The 'gate clear' order is called, and I continue into Bosena, warp to the Oddelulf gate, calling another two FDN in local, no eyes. Ulf enters local as Black, in Oddelulf, calls a pirate leaving system, who enters Bosena on my gate.

The pirate uncloaks to reveal a Harbinger battlecruiser, the same class of ship I was piloting. Seconds pass as we lock each other up, and I receive a convo invite from the pirate. Ulf zips by into Oddelulf as I accept the convo, and Black continues on to scout his pod to his destination. The pirate requests a 1v1, citing a nearby celestial as our battleground. I accept, however while we conversed, the FDN friendly gang had arrived in system, and had warped to my gate, along with a FDN Dominix battleship. I continue to linger on the gate, drawing the conclusion that this pirate is actually FDN friendly and bait for the gang. The Harbinger pilot arrives on the gate, and I decide to jump through and warp out, as there is simply too much for me to take on even at a gate with gate gun support.

I align and warp off, FDN and friends trickling in, along with the pirate. I receive another convo from the pilot, and a duel is finally accepted, at a safespot of my manufacture. I invite the pilot to gang, create the mid-safe and warp back to it, and tell my foe to warp to me. The Harbinger arrives moments later at 9km, and violence ensues as fast as our sensors can acquire a target.

Before he arrived, I loaded my Navy Multifrequency M into my lasers, and had preset my guns and Medium Armor Repairer to overheat. With the target so close to optimal range, I unleashed my full rack of Focused Medium Pulse Lasers on him, my tackle kit soon following. Expecting a fierce fight, I start locking up his drones, and set my flight to engage his own. This sort of slugfest between two ships known for their plated gank and tank ability will be determined by who throws the most damage over time on the other, and drones are a fragile component to any ships aresenal that can be quickly erased to reduce incoming fire.

So intent on watching my drones and minding my modules as they progressively became more heat addled, I failed to consider the opposing Harbinger's status. A glance at his armor revealed just how devastating my overheating gun rack was, as he was nearing hull while I was still hovering at 70% armor. I ask the pilot for a ransom and after minor bartering the pirate warps off in structure, and I 25 million isk better off. Foundati0n and friends didn't interfere, I overwhelmingly came out the superior, and all was well.

Perhaps the greatest point to this story was realizing this was my first honest ransom from a 1v1 engagement. Thinking about what had occured, I completely agree with Biz Quick in that there should be a better mechanic for ransoms implemented by CCP, along with a killmail like system to record what occured. Sure, I could take a screenie of my wallet, but that doesn't translate well to killboards.

Who said ratting was a chore?

2008-12-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Due to some eventful lowsec PvP last friday my sec status was trashed to the point where I couldn't join alliance gangs moving through the 0.7 Orvolle system into syndicate. Since my ratting hardware is still sitting on a shelf accumulating dust in said 0.7 system, I decided to jump clone to Egbinger and visit the B-VIP pipe in Great Wildlands. As usual, I didn't get much ratting done.

After placing my faithful alt scout into SL-YBS to watch for the inevitable blob from Foundati0n, I set to work moving from system to system grinding away at the local Angel Cartel battleship population with my Broadsword HIC. Not long into this mindless process did I bump into a Hoarder shuttling its wares towards L1S-G1 pocket. It didn't make it to the pos, nor did the PvE fit Tempest which warped onto the gate deter me from picking apart the bones of the wreck. After chasing the Tempest back to its POS, I went back to ratting.

Foundati0n presence in the area had increased, and I was regularly running into Covops scouts spying on me in systems. In an attempt to keep on top of all the activity, I began moving my scout up and down the pipe to make sure I wasn't soon to be cut off from my bolt hole home. The scout sighted two new neutrals ratting in Assault Ships in 6WT-BE. After narrowing down their position with the scout, I hurry Sard over to the gate and immediately warp to their position upon jumping through. An Ishkur soon finds lack of transversal is deadly, while his gangmate in a Wolf manages to flee before I can place my focused warp disruption field on him. A note to pilots in lowsec and nullsec: players in noob corps are just as deadly as having a warp disruption point being placed on you. Be wary of any pilot in your local, as that pod on scan may well be relaying your position to some very nasty individuals who are rabid for the fittings off your ship. Like me.

Moments after destroying the AS, Foundati0n numbers climb in system, and a Ferox which smacks of bait warps into the belt. I MWD away, and move back up the pipe towards Egbinger, as if there is one fact of life in EVE, it's that Foundati0n doesn't pick fair fights. Between Sard and the alt, another Arazu and Falcon are spotted, and light local smack is directed my way for fleeing. For whatever reason, they don't follow me into B-VIP, and I resume my ratting, watching the gang dissipate with the alt scout. Time passes, and my sec status is actually starting to rise appreciably.

Three quarters of an hour later, my alt scout reports local rising in B-VIP: a Hoarder is traveling down the pipe, with a FDN (Foundati0n) Rupture scouting! I know the Arazu pilot is still nearby, and doubtless other FDN are on standby, but haulers are too much for my meek sense of restraint. I move to 6WT-BE and await my quarry 16 AU off the incoming gate, the hope being the scout will report the gate clear and the hauler will soon jump in. I spot the Rupture pilot entering local, and count down 15 long seconds, then initiate warp to the gate.

Nothing on the gate but the Rupture. Deciding that the Hoarder may be slower than I thought, I jump through into 9SNK-0, and scan for the indie ship. Nothing. I warp to the B-VIP gate, and pick him up on scan, however not on gate. A quick search reveals the pilot at a belt of all destinations. I warp to the belt, and begin chasing him back towards 6WT-BE, where the Rupture is waiting for me. Hoarder, Rupture and my Broadsword all jump through, and I catch a fleeting glimpse of the Arazu pilot entering 9SNK-0 local. I reapproach the gate, point hot with a grin on my face: for the first in a long time, it looks like I'll soon get a memorable fight out of FDN, no blobs involved.

The Hoarder is a dozen seconds in decloaking, scrambling to warp to safety, a task which he fails. Destroying the Hoarder gives the Rupture time to place a Warp Scrambler on me, denying me the ability to MWD away and deagress. I know it's all or nothing at this point, and overheat the guns to grind through what I expected a hefty plate tank. Surprisingly, his shield takes a little longer than expected, and his armor evaporates under the merciless touch of Barrage M. The Rupture endures long enough to allow the Arazu to place tackle on me before erupting into a brilliant flash. I later find the Rupture was missing 3 modules in the lowslots, so it goes.

My immediate concern with the Arazu is the incredible 20km range warp scramblers the ship is capable of employing: under the caress of this ewar, I'll be stuck far away from the gate and forced to either move under normal power towards the gate or the Arazu, while he plinks at my shields at his leisure. Fortunately for me, he didn't consider this in his fitting, and I MWD away some to assess the situation, then charge the Recon with an overheated MWD, as I still don't know whether the pilot neglected a scrambler. The Arazu doesn't last long after the web is placed on him.

After the Arazu pops, the field is clear. I quickly start looting the wrecks, knowing FDN won't allow this to go down without some overwhelming response. They don't disappoint, as local climbs by another two: Hyena and Vaga soon show up on scan. I hurry back to the gate, flicking my attention between Sard in 6WT-BE and my scout in B-VIP, who is eying my route home. The Hyena arrives first, and foolishly decides to be the one to tackle me in 6WT-BE. I jump through to 9SNK-0 as the Vagabond lands. With B-VIP clear, I decide to push my luck further and see if this Vagabond pilot deserves the ship.

I start my MWD away from the gate, aligned to the B-VIP gate. The Vagabond soon decloaks, and barrels towards me to grab the tackle. I grin, killing my MWD and reverse directions, reigniting the speedboost to reply to his lunge towards me. The Vagabond pilot soon finds himself in web range with a ship that can tank a small fleet with enough damage to smash his shield buffer aside in a minute. I overheat the guns, and flick over to the alt scout in B-VIP to see if my route home is clear.

No such luck: B-VIP is filling up with the FDN response blob and I already have the Hyena that will be jumping in at any moment to complete the fatal tackle. It takes less than a second to call off the Vagabond kill, and I begin burning away.. only to find I left the guns in the oven too long and all but one are killed by overheating by the time I notice my mistake. I think to myself: great, now not only is there a 10+ man gang hot on my tail to tear me a new one, but I have one weapon to ward them off. Time to offski!

With the route home cut off, I desperately bounce around 9SNK-0, into 0PI4-E and gun my heat addled ship for UNJ-GX. Arriving in system, I discover a clueless neutral in a Hound investigating an agent in space, a mere 15km off the gate I just came through. Even with one 425mm Autocannon left online, a frigate hull of that specialty wasn't meant for close range encounters. Feeling slightly chagrined for restarting my aggression timer, and with FDN bumps in local, I jump into L1S-G1. I quickly begin making mid-warp safe spots in the system, and start the 15 minute wait until I can safely log off.

Eight of those minutes are spent jamming the scan button, only to discover in their haste, FDN forgot to bring a scan probe capable ship with them to hunt me down. The remaining seven minutes involve a Hyena pilot busting my safe every so often, only to find me aligned for another which their Covops hadn't broken yet. Fifteen minutes elapse, I log off at my last safe, and lend a prayer to any deities listening to save my loot laden hull from extinction. Evidently someone was listening, as minutes later my scout sneaks into local to find a chase weary FDN gang moving off without their quarry's loot in their holds. I engage one of their interceptors with the scout's Reaper to give them a killmail for their efforts.

Geez, was this post wordy. I'll try to tone down my next adventure, perhaps by linking a map and a list of abbreviations I won't have to explain so much while storytelling. Hope it wasn't too disappointing!

Intro

2008-11-29T22:20:00.000-08:00

Still working on the layout for this blag, but I may as well start off the thing.

I started this to follow my experiences through PvP in EVE: to explain engagements, flesh out strategies, and delve into whatever silliness I get myself into next. I balance my PvP experience between nullsec and lowsec, and usually find myself in solo or small gang settings. My corporation jointly formed an alliance, Rote Kapelle recently, which has reintroduced medium sized gangs back into my EVE experience. Personally, I still do my damnedest to keep the gangs small and find the nastiest fights I can win my way through!

Currently I can be found pirating in the Molden Heath region, or harassing Foundati0n in Great Wildlands. My alliance is based out of Placid region, where I have a jump clone to join in on the fun. I'm as opportunistic as my ships capacities allow me, and generally try to find new ways to blow others up, preferably with the ship intact.

I fly All minmatar ships from frigates to battleships, T1 and T2 variants, with the exception of logistics and command ships. I've crosstrained into Amarr, where I fly everything from frigates to battlecruisers in size, same exeptions as with minmatar.

Links to The Uninvited Guests and Rote Kapelle killboards can be found to the right.

Well, I suppose that can wrap things up for an introduction into me. Looking forward to moving into the meat of this blag: posting about violence!

Under construction!

2008-11-28T00:38:00.000-08:00

More TBA!