I've been starting to run low on ships out in Essence, so decided to splurge a load of iskies on a bunch of Rifters & Thrashers. I bought & fitted 30-odd Thrashers and about 40 Rifters and then shipped half to Essence and half to Molden Heath.
I then jumped back up to Essence last night and went looking for a fight or two.
First I took out a Rifter - jumped into Aeschee and saw a flashy red Merlin approaching the gate. I immediately locked him up, set my cannons to OH and piled in. Fight lasted quite a while, my armour repper was screaming and spitting almost as much fire as my cannons, but was doing a sterling job of keeping me alive, but I wasn't able to break his shield. Eventually I mistimed a cap injection and it was all over.
GFs were exchanged and off I went to re-ship.
2 mins later I was back in space, this time in a Thrasher, couple of jumps and I landed at the sun in Lisbaetanne followed almost immediately by a Machariel battleship and that was that!
Laou Tzu rightly took the piss and I lol'd. Pretty sure I was one-shotted.
Quite an opening 10mins for my EVE session.
A quick re-ship back into a Rifter and off I went again. This time I decided to engage an Atron. But not for long . The Atron pilot then tried to ransom my pod for 12 million. I opted for the express ride home.
Clone updated, I jumped back into a Thrasher and headed back out, this time I found no-takers and after 45 mins or so I decided to clone jump down to Molden Heath as we have a war on.
Again in a Thrasher I spotted a couple of war targets, but as they were in a Rupture and an Omen I decided to give them a wide berth, no point senselessly throwing ships away, I'd done enough of that already.
Critique of the losses above -
Merlin fight - Merlin pilot was twice my age, with a decent looking killboard. If I'd stopped to think I probably wouldn't have engaged him. However it was a really good fight (even though I didn't win), I suspect he may have been using ASBs, if I hadn't mistimed my cap injection I may have outlasted his ASB charges. But I didn't, if I only started fights I knew I would win, life would be pretty dull (and I'd have a lot fewer fights).
Machariel fight - pfft, I was stupid, landed at the sun, didn't align out in case anyone unsavoury dropped in, total noob error. I had no chance against a battleship landing 20Km away. Laou Tzu even said that he just made a random jump. Pretty much complete fail on my part. I lol'd and moved on.
Atron fight - I was desperate for a fight, again should have checked the pilot out first. He is a much more experienced pilot. Fight wasn't so good, didn't last very long I was simply outclassed.
So, my hangar isn't as full as it was, but some days you win, others you lose. At least I got some fights, and that's what counts.
Friday 14 September 2012
Friday 31 August 2012
Chuffed...and certainly lived up to the Smoking Rifter name
Over a month since my last post here, tsk, tsk. I've been busy, had a few fights here and there, won some, lost some, finally seem to have curbed my tendency to rush into fights with insane odds stacked against me, so some progress.
Last night I decided to roam in a different direction so set off from Vitrauze towards Stacmon in my Super Rifter rifter, first making sure I had Regular & Barrage ammo, plus some repair paste in my hold and as many Cap boosters as I could fit in.
Route was only about 12 jumps, all low-sec so I was hoping for some fights - I'd picked Stacmon as I remembered I had a stash of implants that would improve my autocannons damage output, every little helps.
I found a few likely targets en route to Stacmon, but they were either hiding in stations or else were plex runners who did in fact run as soon as I entered the plex.
Techs in the station in Stacmon did their work and with my new implant buzzing in my head (are they meant to buzz? ) I headed back to Vitrauze.
Again, I played a bit of cat & mouse with a couple of prospective targets, but didn't get any fights (damm people were paying attention to their Overviews last night) until I reached Melmaniel.
I saw that there was an Atron and an Executioner at a plex. There was a fairly young pilot in charge of the Atron, but a much older and more experienced pilot in the Executioner. I was hoping they would be too busy with each other to notice me when I landed, my plan was to go after the Executioner first.
I land at the plex and see that they are not fighting each other, uh-oh, oh well - I fire up the afterburners and head for the Executioner only to see the Atron warp off!
Executioner locks me up and gets point so I open up my ACs. I'm out of range of my scam and nos, but I'm taking down his shields.
My shields are also dropping and I can't seem to get closer than about 9k, time to switch ammo, so 10 seconds of no firing from me, time to fire up the armour repairer!
Ammo loaded I open up on the Executioner again, my repper is keeping up, remembering wise words from MB "Keep the repper screaming!" I have it overheating, as are my guns , I notice my cap is almost gone so fire off a cap booster, and then notice that the Atron is back!
no idea how long he'd been there, but he was only 4k away and firing into me, so I target him and get my nos working, then switch my guns to the new target.
Keep my cap going, get the booster loaded, we're out of charges, get them from cargo, Atron's armour now going down, keep up the pressure!
I dip into structure, booster charges loaded, one fired off, repper back to full screaming pelt again, smoke starting to fill my cockpit BOOM!, quick check it wasn't me it was the Atron, ignore the capsule, switch guns to Executioner, he's closer, get the nos on him and the scram, we're seriously into structure now, fire off another booster, keep that repper going!
Boom!
it's not me, whew, that was close. More hits to what little armour I have left covering my almost none existent hull ( I swear I can see stars - though that may be due to all the smoke), we're taking hits from a plex rat, fuck, time to go. Fingers crossed that the hull will hold together I warp off to a safe spot and assess the damage.
13% structure left, armour coming back up, Damage Control 78% heat damage, Guns almost burnt out, nos, almost burnt out, repper almost burnt out, smoke everywhere, but 1 confirmed Atron Kill and 1 confirmed Executioner Kill GFs exchanged in local with the Executioner pilot, I'm a very happy capsuleer!
Then I realise that the Executioner opened up on me first! Concord don't mind if you defend yourself, whatever your previous intentions, so the local police aren't even looking for me - time to find a station for repairs, then out again, back to plex and collect my loot - only a couple of million worth, but it all helps!
Really chuffed with my performance in this fight, I managed to keep my head, switch ammo, manage my cap booster manually, switch targets effectively and kept the repper screaming. I'm sure that my implant helped too and may well have made the difference, when fights are this close every little helps.
Last night I decided to roam in a different direction so set off from Vitrauze towards Stacmon in my Super Rifter rifter, first making sure I had Regular & Barrage ammo, plus some repair paste in my hold and as many Cap boosters as I could fit in.
Route was only about 12 jumps, all low-sec so I was hoping for some fights - I'd picked Stacmon as I remembered I had a stash of implants that would improve my autocannons damage output, every little helps.
I found a few likely targets en route to Stacmon, but they were either hiding in stations or else were plex runners who did in fact run as soon as I entered the plex.
Techs in the station in Stacmon did their work and with my new implant buzzing in my head (are they meant to buzz? ) I headed back to Vitrauze.
Again, I played a bit of cat & mouse with a couple of prospective targets, but didn't get any fights (damm people were paying attention to their Overviews last night) until I reached Melmaniel.
I saw that there was an Atron and an Executioner at a plex. There was a fairly young pilot in charge of the Atron, but a much older and more experienced pilot in the Executioner. I was hoping they would be too busy with each other to notice me when I landed, my plan was to go after the Executioner first.
I land at the plex and see that they are not fighting each other, uh-oh, oh well - I fire up the afterburners and head for the Executioner only to see the Atron warp off!
Executioner locks me up and gets point so I open up my ACs. I'm out of range of my scam and nos, but I'm taking down his shields.
My shields are also dropping and I can't seem to get closer than about 9k, time to switch ammo, so 10 seconds of no firing from me, time to fire up the armour repairer!
Ammo loaded I open up on the Executioner again, my repper is keeping up, remembering wise words from MB "Keep the repper screaming!" I have it overheating, as are my guns , I notice my cap is almost gone so fire off a cap booster, and then notice that the Atron is back!
no idea how long he'd been there, but he was only 4k away and firing into me, so I target him and get my nos working, then switch my guns to the new target.
Keep my cap going, get the booster loaded, we're out of charges, get them from cargo, Atron's armour now going down, keep up the pressure!
I dip into structure, booster charges loaded, one fired off, repper back to full screaming pelt again, smoke starting to fill my cockpit BOOM!, quick check it wasn't me it was the Atron, ignore the capsule, switch guns to Executioner, he's closer, get the nos on him and the scram, we're seriously into structure now, fire off another booster, keep that repper going!
Boom!
it's not me, whew, that was close. More hits to what little armour I have left covering my almost none existent hull ( I swear I can see stars - though that may be due to all the smoke), we're taking hits from a plex rat, fuck, time to go. Fingers crossed that the hull will hold together I warp off to a safe spot and assess the damage.
13% structure left, armour coming back up, Damage Control 78% heat damage, Guns almost burnt out, nos, almost burnt out, repper almost burnt out, smoke everywhere, but 1 confirmed Atron Kill and 1 confirmed Executioner Kill GFs exchanged in local with the Executioner pilot, I'm a very happy capsuleer!
Then I realise that the Executioner opened up on me first! Concord don't mind if you defend yourself, whatever your previous intentions, so the local police aren't even looking for me - time to find a station for repairs, then out again, back to plex and collect my loot - only a couple of million worth, but it all helps!
Really chuffed with my performance in this fight, I managed to keep my head, switch ammo, manage my cap booster manually, switch targets effectively and kept the repper screaming. I'm sure that my implant helped too and may well have made the difference, when fights are this close every little helps.
Monday 23 July 2012
Dry Spell....over
I had been having some successes in PvP, mainly against pilots of similar age, though a couple of times I went 1v1 against much older & more experienced opponents and although I didn't win, the fights were pretty dam close.
I've written before about how I keep getting distracted by PI, Exploring, Manufacturing etc or else jump into fights that I know I'm unlikely to win and as a consequence my K:D ratio was pretty bad (not an issue for R1FTA, but it did bother me).
Steps to try an improve things actually saw things get worse as I shipped out to the Placid region.
In fact I went a little over 5 weeks without a single kill to my name! And this wasn't 5 weeks of me not being logged in, during that same period I lost 12 ships and 2 pods (1 to a gatecamp, 1 to a Uni 10:1 Eve Uni blob).
I was beginning to wonder if PVP was for me. I had a little moan to my corpmates (now Alliance mates actually since we created the Black Dragon Fighting Society as a R1FTA feeder corp), and I decided that if I couldn't get a kill in a few more days then I should think about doing something else.
Next day I logged in to see alliance chat had some comments from DARKSTAR POWNYOUALL about a gatecamp of some T3 ships and who wanted in?!?
DARKSTAR is renowned for his gun-ho attitude and for pulling off what most people would consider pretty impossible.
So I x'ed up in my Rifter and then sat about near the destination system whilst we all waited for an update.
10 mins later we get he call to warp in and engage the Rapier, which we did, we then shifted our focus to 1st Tengu though I'd strayed a liitle too far away from the ships hull and was soon toasted by the 2nd Tengu. Though he died to the remaining couple of R1FTAs.
I was very pleased with breaking my dryspell, especially with such nice killmails :)
I then teamed up with Miss Carry the next day when she'd grabbed a Firetail I then shamelessly whored (10 jumps!) on a Drake that a corpmate had pointed but couldn't kill on his own (I accidentally contributed to the kill of that guys capsule too when I targetted his pod to stop it warping off and forgot my guns were still hot).
A few days later I was challenged to a 1v1 Rifter duel which I duly accepted and won. Next day a coprmate was probing down a Thorax in next system and wondered if anyone else wanted in, I did. The day after a call went up in alliance chat 'Geddon pointed!' - I was 2 jumps out so x-ed up and after some confusion over who received the mail or whether the guy had self destructed, Ethan found the killmail and we celebrated!
Finally, I was out hunting with a new fit as recommended by DARKSTAR and MB when I spotted a Catalyst on dscan. He seemed to be jumping about but I was patient and kept shifting and scanning. I then noticed that Rifter and a Slicer had entered system. I decided to keep trying for the Catalyst and narrowed him down to a belt.
I warped to the belt but as I landed he warped out - I scanned the location he's warped to and picked up the rifter and slicer there too. I decided not to follow and to see if I could track him down on his own again. 2 mins later the Cat lands about 20km from me and immediately targets me - it's on!
I fired up my AB and headed in his direction, his opening salvo reduced my shields by about 25%, but by then I had closed to short range, established a point and opened up with my guns and neut. Then the rifter landed, quickly followed by another ship (I'm assuming it was the Slicer, but I was a tad distracted). knowing I was probably doomed I determined to take out the Cat and OHd my guns and fired my repper up - almost too late as my final armour gave out and I dropped to about 75% hull! however without plates my repper pretty much fully restored my armour on a single cycle just as the Cat went boom!, I then turned my attention to the Rifter as the 3rd ship warped off when the Cat blew up, I managed to land a few shots but hadn't established point and he warped out too!
I through a gf into local, but everyone else stayed silent :(
So from a 5 week dry spell to 9 kills doing 2.63 Billion isk worth of damage for a total loss of 9 ships totaling 0.05 Billion isk.
I've written before about how I keep getting distracted by PI, Exploring, Manufacturing etc or else jump into fights that I know I'm unlikely to win and as a consequence my K:D ratio was pretty bad (not an issue for R1FTA, but it did bother me).
Steps to try an improve things actually saw things get worse as I shipped out to the Placid region.
In fact I went a little over 5 weeks without a single kill to my name! And this wasn't 5 weeks of me not being logged in, during that same period I lost 12 ships and 2 pods (1 to a gatecamp, 1 to a Uni 10:1 Eve Uni blob).
I was beginning to wonder if PVP was for me. I had a little moan to my corpmates (now Alliance mates actually since we created the Black Dragon Fighting Society as a R1FTA feeder corp), and I decided that if I couldn't get a kill in a few more days then I should think about doing something else.
Next day I logged in to see alliance chat had some comments from DARKSTAR POWNYOUALL about a gatecamp of some T3 ships and who wanted in?!?
DARKSTAR is renowned for his gun-ho attitude and for pulling off what most people would consider pretty impossible.
So I x'ed up in my Rifter and then sat about near the destination system whilst we all waited for an update.
10 mins later we get he call to warp in and engage the Rapier, which we did, we then shifted our focus to 1st Tengu though I'd strayed a liitle too far away from the ships hull and was soon toasted by the 2nd Tengu. Though he died to the remaining couple of R1FTAs.
I was very pleased with breaking my dryspell, especially with such nice killmails :)
I then teamed up with Miss Carry the next day when she'd grabbed a Firetail I then shamelessly whored (10 jumps!) on a Drake that a corpmate had pointed but couldn't kill on his own (I accidentally contributed to the kill of that guys capsule too when I targetted his pod to stop it warping off and forgot my guns were still hot).
A few days later I was challenged to a 1v1 Rifter duel which I duly accepted and won. Next day a coprmate was probing down a Thorax in next system and wondered if anyone else wanted in, I did. The day after a call went up in alliance chat 'Geddon pointed!' - I was 2 jumps out so x-ed up and after some confusion over who received the mail or whether the guy had self destructed, Ethan found the killmail and we celebrated!
Finally, I was out hunting with a new fit as recommended by DARKSTAR and MB when I spotted a Catalyst on dscan. He seemed to be jumping about but I was patient and kept shifting and scanning. I then noticed that Rifter and a Slicer had entered system. I decided to keep trying for the Catalyst and narrowed him down to a belt.
I warped to the belt but as I landed he warped out - I scanned the location he's warped to and picked up the rifter and slicer there too. I decided not to follow and to see if I could track him down on his own again. 2 mins later the Cat lands about 20km from me and immediately targets me - it's on!
I fired up my AB and headed in his direction, his opening salvo reduced my shields by about 25%, but by then I had closed to short range, established a point and opened up with my guns and neut. Then the rifter landed, quickly followed by another ship (I'm assuming it was the Slicer, but I was a tad distracted). knowing I was probably doomed I determined to take out the Cat and OHd my guns and fired my repper up - almost too late as my final armour gave out and I dropped to about 75% hull! however without plates my repper pretty much fully restored my armour on a single cycle just as the Cat went boom!, I then turned my attention to the Rifter as the 3rd ship warped off when the Cat blew up, I managed to land a few shots but hadn't established point and he warped out too!
I through a gf into local, but everyone else stayed silent :(
So from a 5 week dry spell to 9 kills doing 2.63 Billion isk worth of damage for a total loss of 9 ships totaling 0.05 Billion isk.
Wednesday 4 July 2012
My Rifter Plan progress
Back in January I wrote that I was adopting The Rifter Plan, blatanlty ripped off from Kirith Darkblade.
As it's been a few months, I thought I'd post an update;
Rifter Plan update
target comes first in white, my current level is in blue
Electronics
- Electronics V V
- Propulsion Jamming V IV
- Signature Analysis V V
Engineering
- Energy Management V IV
- Energy Systems Operation V V
- Engineering V V
- Shield Management V III
- Shield Operation V V
- Tactical Shield Manipulation V IV
Gunnery
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades V 0
- Gunnery V V
- Motion Prediction V III
- Rapid Firing V V
- Sharpshooter V V
- Small Autocannon Specialisation V V
- Small Projectile Turret V V
- Surgical Strike V IV
- Trajectory Analysis V IV
- Weapon Upgrades V IV
Mechanic
- Hull Upgrades V V
- Jury Rigging III III
- Mechanic V V
- Projectile Weapon Rigging V III
- Repair Systems V V
Missile Launcher Operation
- Missile Bombardment V II
- Missile Launcher Operation V V
- Missile Projection V III
- Rapid Launch V III
- Rocket Specialisation V 0
- Target Navigation Prediction V III
- Warhead Upgrades V III
Navigation
- Acceleration Control V III
- Afterburner V V
- Evasive Maneuvering V III
- Fuel Conservation V III
- Navigation V V
- Warp Drive Operation V III
Science
- Thermodynamics V IV
Spaceship Command
- Minmatar Frigate V V
- Spaceship Command V V
So progress is being made, I still have 275 days to go, should be complete April next year, would have been a little earlier but I broke away from the plan temporarily to get Destroyers and BCs to V as CCP were hinting they were going to change the way those skills worked - this is now unlikely to be implemented this year.
I also did a bit of training to fly Cruisers, but not flown one in anger yet.
As it's been a few months, I thought I'd post an update;
Rifter Plan update
target comes first in white, my current level is in blue
Electronics
- Electronics V V
- Propulsion Jamming V IV
- Signature Analysis V V
Engineering
- Energy Management V IV
- Energy Systems Operation V V
- Engineering V V
- Shield Management V III
- Shield Operation V V
- Tactical Shield Manipulation V IV
Gunnery
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades V 0
- Gunnery V V
- Motion Prediction V III
- Rapid Firing V V
- Sharpshooter V V
- Small Autocannon Specialisation V V
- Small Projectile Turret V V
- Surgical Strike V IV
- Trajectory Analysis V IV
- Weapon Upgrades V IV
Mechanic
- Hull Upgrades V V
- Jury Rigging III III
- Mechanic V V
- Projectile Weapon Rigging V III
- Repair Systems V V
Missile Launcher Operation
- Missile Bombardment V II
- Missile Launcher Operation V V
- Missile Projection V III
- Rapid Launch V III
- Rocket Specialisation V 0
- Target Navigation Prediction V III
- Warhead Upgrades V III
Navigation
- Acceleration Control V III
- Afterburner V V
- Evasive Maneuvering V III
- Fuel Conservation V III
- Navigation V V
- Warp Drive Operation V III
Science
- Thermodynamics V IV
Spaceship Command
- Minmatar Frigate V V
- Spaceship Command V V
So progress is being made, I still have 275 days to go, should be complete April next year, would have been a little earlier but I broke away from the plan temporarily to get Destroyers and BCs to V as CCP were hinting they were going to change the way those skills worked - this is now unlikely to be implemented this year.
I also did a bit of training to fly Cruisers, but not flown one in anger yet.
Thursday 28 June 2012
Placid Campaign - Days 4 & 5
Day 4 was an improvement for me...sort of.
I was determined not to lose a ship needlessly and managed to stay focused for a change, went out around my usual hunting grounds and played cat & mouse with a Thrasher - Incursus double act that I couldn't split up but who were definitely up for a fight - just not one that I was at all confident in winning.
Avoided hurling myself at Cruisers and AFs and bigger ships, and at the end of my usual hour or two's session I was still in my Rifter, so that was an improvement...but I'd also not been in any fights :(
Day 5 saw me at home during the day rather than at work, so I jumped online for an hour or two and made my rounds. Spotted some likely targets, but was a little slow off the mark and so they all escaped unharmed.
Then I spotted an Incursus, a quick check of local showed me that the pilot was likely to be a year or two older than me at least, but he didn't seem to be obviously working with anyone.
Eventually we met up and engaged, my guns & rocket was overheated, I had him webbed & scrammed, and he returned the favour. He stripped my shields down pretty quickly, but I fired up my repper to keep my armour regenning as my autocannons did their thing to him.
By this point his armour was dropping too, but I was getting close to structure so I OHd my repper and switched off my scram to save a bit of cap. My repper was doing valiantly, managing to restore vital hp before they were stripped off by his next salvo, though my structure was slowly dropping too. My opponent was not in much better shape and I got him down to about 50% structure before my repper fried (I think, either that or I ran out of cap), either way with no more reps I went BOOM
We exchanged GFs in local (and it was heartfelt from me at least, man I was >< close to winning that one), I then noticed I wasn't warping off, which was when he offered to release my pod for 30 million.
As I had no implants installed, I declined...and he let me go :) Very good of him
Thinking back, if I'd thought about it would overheating my Damage Control II have given me enough of a buffer to outlast him?
Implants - damage and armour implants would also have helped and may have made the difference.
Overall I was very happy with my performance against a much older character, would have been happier with a win though.
Campaign score = 0-0-4
I was determined not to lose a ship needlessly and managed to stay focused for a change, went out around my usual hunting grounds and played cat & mouse with a Thrasher - Incursus double act that I couldn't split up but who were definitely up for a fight - just not one that I was at all confident in winning.
Avoided hurling myself at Cruisers and AFs and bigger ships, and at the end of my usual hour or two's session I was still in my Rifter, so that was an improvement...but I'd also not been in any fights :(
Day 5 saw me at home during the day rather than at work, so I jumped online for an hour or two and made my rounds. Spotted some likely targets, but was a little slow off the mark and so they all escaped unharmed.
Then I spotted an Incursus, a quick check of local showed me that the pilot was likely to be a year or two older than me at least, but he didn't seem to be obviously working with anyone.
Eventually we met up and engaged, my guns & rocket was overheated, I had him webbed & scrammed, and he returned the favour. He stripped my shields down pretty quickly, but I fired up my repper to keep my armour regenning as my autocannons did their thing to him.
By this point his armour was dropping too, but I was getting close to structure so I OHd my repper and switched off my scram to save a bit of cap. My repper was doing valiantly, managing to restore vital hp before they were stripped off by his next salvo, though my structure was slowly dropping too. My opponent was not in much better shape and I got him down to about 50% structure before my repper fried (I think, either that or I ran out of cap), either way with no more reps I went BOOM
We exchanged GFs in local (and it was heartfelt from me at least, man I was >< close to winning that one), I then noticed I wasn't warping off, which was when he offered to release my pod for 30 million.
As I had no implants installed, I declined...and he let me go :) Very good of him
Thinking back, if I'd thought about it would overheating my Damage Control II have given me enough of a buffer to outlast him?
Implants - damage and armour implants would also have helped and may have made the difference.
Overall I was very happy with my performance against a much older character, would have been happier with a win though.
Campaign score = 0-0-4
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Placid Campaign - Day Three
Remember a couple of posts ago I said I needed to knuckledown and stop jumping into fights I know I can't win?
Seems I don't listen to myself.
Spent a bit of time last night trying to track down a character around my age who was jumping between a Drake and a Buzzard, all the while trying to avoid a much more experienced character in a Rupture.
I finally gave up and had a look at some other systems when I saw a Cyno field go up. Madness then pounced on me, I reported the cyno in corpchat and proceeded to Warp to zero with guns overheated.
I land on top of the cyno ship (a Kestrel), notice that it is right next to a Thanatos (ooh, not seen one in the flesh before!) hit orbit, targeted the Kestrel (accepting the warning 'yeah, yeah, whatever') and opened up.
Then my brain backed up a bit - warning notice? - takes another look around, hmm how come I didn't see that Station right next to me? uh-oh BOOM
Scratch another Rifter. I think the Kestrel and Thanatos pilot were a little bemused, so I gave them a hearty wave from my pod and headed back to re-ship.
If I'd spent half a second to look at where I'd landed I probably wouldn't have attacked the Kestrel (or I'd at least have aligned out before doing so).
I honestly have no idea why I did what I did... looking at corpchat later I noticed that when I reported the cyno, someone actually told me that there was a one right at the station in the system I was in. D'oh!
So I re-ship into another Rifter and head back out, this time I'm determined to keep my head.
Three systems later, there are 4 or 5 in local and it's getting close to my 'wife's getting angry, time to go to bed' time, so I decide to warp to a Plex at 10.
On the way I see that there is a Thrasher either in the plex or on the gate (please be in the plex, please be in the plex) - I land about 8km from the Thrasher on the gate who immediately targets me. Now I could have bailed out there and then, but instead I opt to close distance and pray that he is Arty Fit.
He isn't.
Campaign score = 0-0-3 (coz deaths to station guns don't show on killboard)
Seems I don't listen to myself.
Spent a bit of time last night trying to track down a character around my age who was jumping between a Drake and a Buzzard, all the while trying to avoid a much more experienced character in a Rupture.
I finally gave up and had a look at some other systems when I saw a Cyno field go up. Madness then pounced on me, I reported the cyno in corpchat and proceeded to Warp to zero with guns overheated.
I land on top of the cyno ship (a Kestrel), notice that it is right next to a Thanatos (ooh, not seen one in the flesh before!) hit orbit, targeted the Kestrel (accepting the warning 'yeah, yeah, whatever') and opened up.
Then my brain backed up a bit - warning notice? - takes another look around, hmm how come I didn't see that Station right next to me? uh-oh BOOM
Scratch another Rifter. I think the Kestrel and Thanatos pilot were a little bemused, so I gave them a hearty wave from my pod and headed back to re-ship.
If I'd spent half a second to look at where I'd landed I probably wouldn't have attacked the Kestrel (or I'd at least have aligned out before doing so).
I honestly have no idea why I did what I did... looking at corpchat later I noticed that when I reported the cyno, someone actually told me that there was a one right at the station in the system I was in. D'oh!
So I re-ship into another Rifter and head back out, this time I'm determined to keep my head.
Three systems later, there are 4 or 5 in local and it's getting close to my 'wife's getting angry, time to go to bed' time, so I decide to warp to a Plex at 10.
On the way I see that there is a Thrasher either in the plex or on the gate (please be in the plex, please be in the plex) - I land about 8km from the Thrasher on the gate who immediately targets me. Now I could have bailed out there and then, but instead I opt to close distance and pray that he is Arty Fit.
He isn't.
Campaign score = 0-0-3 (coz deaths to station guns don't show on killboard)
Monday 25 June 2012
Placid Campaign - Day Two
Different time of day for me as it's a Sunday morning, so a few different corpies on and less people in EVE overall.
Jumped into a fresh Rifter and notice that I'm light on rigs - for some reason I didn't include any rigs when I couriered up my ships, modules and ammo. I realised and brought a bunch up later, but they weren't all in this station, there was still quite a pile in a nearby Hi-sec station.
The direct route is 4 jumps, but one of the systems is pretty much perma-camped, so I went the long way around (9 jumps) checking out FW plexes and belts on the way, without any joy.
Picked up most of my rigs (my Rifter hold couldn't hold them all) and headed the 9 jumps back. Now would not be the time to run into a fight, so I was extra vigilant as with my luck this would be the day someone decided to camp a different system.
Luckily I made it back to our Placid HQ without incident.
No more EVE today - Forumla One Grand Prix and Football will lure me in front of the TV screen instead.
Campaign score = 0-0-1
Jumped into a fresh Rifter and notice that I'm light on rigs - for some reason I didn't include any rigs when I couriered up my ships, modules and ammo. I realised and brought a bunch up later, but they weren't all in this station, there was still quite a pile in a nearby Hi-sec station.
The direct route is 4 jumps, but one of the systems is pretty much perma-camped, so I went the long way around (9 jumps) checking out FW plexes and belts on the way, without any joy.
Picked up most of my rigs (my Rifter hold couldn't hold them all) and headed the 9 jumps back. Now would not be the time to run into a fight, so I was extra vigilant as with my luck this would be the day someone decided to camp a different system.
Luckily I made it back to our Placid HQ without incident.
No more EVE today - Forumla One Grand Prix and Football will lure me in front of the TV screen instead.
Campaign score = 0-0-1
Placid Campaign
This was planned to start earlier this month, but EVE Uni showing up in our HQ station and the resultant shenanigans put the campaign on hold for a bit.
We're now back on track with the campaign running from 23rd June until 20th July.
I've spent a few days in the surrounding area making BMs, and getting to know what's where. There are lots of FW plexes around, but in most cases FW pilots seem to flee rather than fight.
Anyway, I have 23 Rifters fitted up and ready to go and I'm aiming to make a concerted effort to get some explosions (hopefully not all mine) during the next 3 weeks - to that end everything else EVE related is being sent to the sidelines so I can focus for a change.
With that;
Day One
Didn't get online until later than usual, spent about 30mins touring around the neighbourhood, belts were empty, FW Plexes had people who would rather run than fight.
Did almost run in to a gang of Legion, Loki, Drakes, and also found a couple of Drakes who appeared to be solo, but nothing I'd be comfortable engaging in my Rifter.
One the way home I checked a FW Plex I'd visited earlier that had a rifter which ran at first sight of me landing (and didn't even seem to have any guns fitted!?), this time there was a Navy Hookbill too - I know I'd struggle against a Hookbill, but frustrated at my lack of fights, and seeing as he had bothered to fit guns to his ship I engaged.
I had everything overheated, but still barely made a dent in his shields before I went BOOM.
campaign score (Kill - Draw - Death) = 0-0-1
We're now back on track with the campaign running from 23rd June until 20th July.
I've spent a few days in the surrounding area making BMs, and getting to know what's where. There are lots of FW plexes around, but in most cases FW pilots seem to flee rather than fight.
Anyway, I have 23 Rifters fitted up and ready to go and I'm aiming to make a concerted effort to get some explosions (hopefully not all mine) during the next 3 weeks - to that end everything else EVE related is being sent to the sidelines so I can focus for a change.
With that;
Day One
Didn't get online until later than usual, spent about 30mins touring around the neighbourhood, belts were empty, FW Plexes had people who would rather run than fight.
Did almost run in to a gang of Legion, Loki, Drakes, and also found a couple of Drakes who appeared to be solo, but nothing I'd be comfortable engaging in my Rifter.
One the way home I checked a FW Plex I'd visited earlier that had a rifter which ran at first sight of me landing (and didn't even seem to have any guns fitted!?), this time there was a Navy Hookbill too - I know I'd struggle against a Hookbill, but frustrated at my lack of fights, and seeing as he had bothered to fit guns to his ship I engaged.
I had everything overheated, but still barely made a dent in his shields before I went BOOM.
campaign score (Kill - Draw - Death) = 0-0-1
Friday 15 June 2012
WAR!
So, we were supposed to be enjoying some time away from home with a campaign in the Placid Region. However, as EVE uni LSC decided to take up residence in our home station, and as the GunPoint Diplomacy guys war decced the EVE uni, which brought in even more Unistas, it was decided to postpone the Placid Campaign and instead [R1FTA] declared war on EVE Uni too.
Hostilities will have commenced this morning whilst I'm at work.
Not having any Jump Clones yet (another thing to add to my list) I set off from Eugales last night, avoiding a gatecamp of Loki, Legion & Tengus on the way. I swung by a dead end system I have my eye on for my Stealth Bomber alt and made a few tactical BMs, before finally docking up in Teonusude to take stock of my ships and to ready for war.
I have a bunch of Rifters and Thrashers in Heild with fittings for them, as well as some Breachers for some sillyness (can't wait until the other Minmatar frigates get their makeover and become more viable).
I trained up Destroyers and BattleCruisers to V recently, when CCp were talking about changing how the skills for these ships would work (which they are not now going to change for at least another few months).
I'm able to fly Assault Frigates, but the costs of these coupled with my skills is probably not a great idea (instead I donated 50million to the War fund - much more useful than 1 additional AF going boom).
I noticed that I didn't have any Cruiser or Medium Projectile Turret skills so I paused my Rifter Plan and set to getting into minmatar cruisers - should be able to jump into a Rupture or Stabber by the time I get home tonight, wife & England Vs Sweden game permitting.
Skills for cruisers aren't going to be outstanding, and I'll only be fitting T1 guns, but may still be more useful than my lil old trusty, rusty Rifter.
Having said that I splashed out on some Vigils as well as the cruisers, and will be fitting them up as a poor man's tackle interceptor.
I'm also going to try out some different (for me) fits - arty rifter is top of my list ;)
No doubt my K:D ratio will get even worse, rather than better, but fun will be had and the Rifter god will be made fat with the explosions :)
Hostilities will have commenced this morning whilst I'm at work.
Not having any Jump Clones yet (another thing to add to my list) I set off from Eugales last night, avoiding a gatecamp of Loki, Legion & Tengus on the way. I swung by a dead end system I have my eye on for my Stealth Bomber alt and made a few tactical BMs, before finally docking up in Teonusude to take stock of my ships and to ready for war.
I have a bunch of Rifters and Thrashers in Heild with fittings for them, as well as some Breachers for some sillyness (can't wait until the other Minmatar frigates get their makeover and become more viable).
I trained up Destroyers and BattleCruisers to V recently, when CCp were talking about changing how the skills for these ships would work (which they are not now going to change for at least another few months).
I'm able to fly Assault Frigates, but the costs of these coupled with my skills is probably not a great idea (instead I donated 50million to the War fund - much more useful than 1 additional AF going boom).
I noticed that I didn't have any Cruiser or Medium Projectile Turret skills so I paused my Rifter Plan and set to getting into minmatar cruisers - should be able to jump into a Rupture or Stabber by the time I get home tonight, wife & England Vs Sweden game permitting.
Skills for cruisers aren't going to be outstanding, and I'll only be fitting T1 guns, but may still be more useful than my lil old trusty, rusty Rifter.
Having said that I splashed out on some Vigils as well as the cruisers, and will be fitting them up as a poor man's tackle interceptor.
I'm also going to try out some different (for me) fits - arty rifter is top of my list ;)
No doubt my K:D ratio will get even worse, rather than better, but fun will be had and the Rifter god will be made fat with the explosions :)
Friday 8 June 2012
Holidays and excursions
Been away with the family for a week and a bit since last time I posted, so I set some long skills training and came back to Small Autocannon Specialization 5, which was nice. My missioning alt is about a week away from flying his PvE Maelstrom in level 4s and my newly-purposed soon to be piractical stealth bomber alt is chugging away with his training nicely - he should be able to fly a SB at least semi-competently by the end of next month, at which point I may just let him out of the station for a little jaunt as an incentive before he's forced into some seriously greulling training to be a competent SB pilot.
A couple of days after getting back to New Eden I notice that there is another r1fta excursion planned - this time 3 weeks in the Placid area and its surrounds. As I'm still in the holiday mood (not back to work yet) I decide to snap up the offer of a share of someones BF frieght run to our holiday station and proceed to spend around 150million -ish on about 25 Rifters and associated fittings. that ought to last me the three weeks of our excursion :)
A day or two later EVE University decide to move their low-sec group to Heild.
At first the prospect of lots of new targets arriving in system sounds good, until it's soon apparent that the EVE Unistas only come out of the station in numbers (20+), don't seem to do 1v1s or small gangs and always seem to field ECM.
Not my idea of fun, though with Molden Heath being so quiet of late, I suspect it wont be that much fun for them either, as there wont be many targets for them, though they obviously prefer ship spinning in station so who knows they may enjoy it.
Anyway, I'll be heading over to Placid during the next day or two and we'll see what the EVE uni lot are up to when I come back early in July.
Oh, and I'll leave you with a lolwhut? I did last night - I was out and about trying to improve my K:D ratio and was scanning down a couple of likely targets in a system. At the same time I was paying far too much attention to corp chat and so didn't notice that I'd strayed rather close to an asteroid belt. Then a Vagabond (Heavy Assault Cruiser) landed 50km away. I knew he'd tear me up so I immediately tried to warp off, that's when I noticed I was too close to the rocks and had got myself stuck! By the time I was unstuck it was too late, my guns didn't even make a dent in his shields before I exploded - I did throw a gf and nicely done into local and got a gf in reply, but it was a silly error on my part . So my K:D is now 12:28 :(
A couple of days after getting back to New Eden I notice that there is another r1fta excursion planned - this time 3 weeks in the Placid area and its surrounds. As I'm still in the holiday mood (not back to work yet) I decide to snap up the offer of a share of someones BF frieght run to our holiday station and proceed to spend around 150million -ish on about 25 Rifters and associated fittings. that ought to last me the three weeks of our excursion :)
A day or two later EVE University decide to move their low-sec group to Heild.
At first the prospect of lots of new targets arriving in system sounds good, until it's soon apparent that the EVE Unistas only come out of the station in numbers (20+), don't seem to do 1v1s or small gangs and always seem to field ECM.
Not my idea of fun, though with Molden Heath being so quiet of late, I suspect it wont be that much fun for them either, as there wont be many targets for them, though they obviously prefer ship spinning in station so who knows they may enjoy it.
Anyway, I'll be heading over to Placid during the next day or two and we'll see what the EVE uni lot are up to when I come back early in July.
Oh, and I'll leave you with a lolwhut? I did last night - I was out and about trying to improve my K:D ratio and was scanning down a couple of likely targets in a system. At the same time I was paying far too much attention to corp chat and so didn't notice that I'd strayed rather close to an asteroid belt. Then a Vagabond (Heavy Assault Cruiser) landed 50km away. I knew he'd tear me up so I immediately tried to warp off, that's when I noticed I was too close to the rocks and had got myself stuck! By the time I was unstuck it was too late, my guns didn't even make a dent in his shields before I exploded - I did throw a gf and nicely done into local and got a gf in reply, but it was a silly error on my part . So my K:D is now 12:28 :(
Thursday 24 May 2012
a slight attack of conscience
After almost going blind during my last encounter, I decided I needed to work on staying calm under pressure and so jumped into a Rifter and headed back to the systems I was tootling about in the other day.
It was getting late so I only had 45 mins or so, figured I'd have a quick scout around and if there weren't any obvious targets I'd call it a night.
First low-sec system had around 20 pilots in them, most of them Old Hands but there were 3 relatively new pilots, so I set about tracking them down.
In hardly anytime at all I managed to land on grid with one of them and he was in a Hurricane, though he warped off.
Now normally I'd not be keen on going up against a 'cane in my Rifter, but as this pilot was relatively young I knew there was no way he could have a good fit installed on the ship, so I tried tracking him down again.
I then noticed that there were 2 other 'canes and a Drake on scan - waaay too much for my lil ol rRifter. A quick chat on Corp chat had offers of help, but as I was not going to be around for long I demurred. However, a corpy was next door and had just recently been exploded by a guy in a 'Cane - the same guy I'd tangled with in his Thrasher in my last blog. I was able to get his shipname (so I could avoid him), and I thought I'd see if I could find a single noob piloted 'cane.
A couple of minutes later my corpy had entered system, we fleeted up and the 3 noobs promptly disappeared.
Ho-hum.
I decided to stick my nose into a nearby dead-end low sec system in case they'd gone there - no sign of them, but there were a couple other young characters in local and I spotted a Cormorant on scan, next second he landed on grid, turned tail and warped out again. I was able to see his direction, and a quick scan that way located him in a belt - I warped to 0.
As soon as I landed I started burning towards the Destroyer, locked him up, applied web, scram and guns and set orbit to 500m.
He returned fire and I set my guns to overheat, pretty soon his ship exploded, whereas I still had most of my shields left.
At this point my wife demanded my attention and I made the schoolboy error of warping to a gate - not wise when I'd just been flagged for an illegal act!, before I could warp off again the gate guns exploded my ship. bugger.
I docked up in a hi-sec island and hit the sack.
next morning I checked the fit of the Cormorant and it was pretty bad;
Then my conscience kicked in "He was obviously a young character, it doesn't look like he's had any decent fitting advice, what if I just killed his EVE for him?"
So I stuck together a cheapish, decent fit he could use ratting and evemailed him along with some general fitting advice and wished him well.
Turns out he'd been doing some exploring, must have found a WH through to low-sec and jumped through to see what was what - then he met me.
He didn't sound disheartened, and at least he knows what to expect now :)
It was getting late so I only had 45 mins or so, figured I'd have a quick scout around and if there weren't any obvious targets I'd call it a night.
First low-sec system had around 20 pilots in them, most of them Old Hands but there were 3 relatively new pilots, so I set about tracking them down.
In hardly anytime at all I managed to land on grid with one of them and he was in a Hurricane, though he warped off.
Now normally I'd not be keen on going up against a 'cane in my Rifter, but as this pilot was relatively young I knew there was no way he could have a good fit installed on the ship, so I tried tracking him down again.
I then noticed that there were 2 other 'canes and a Drake on scan - waaay too much for my lil ol rRifter. A quick chat on Corp chat had offers of help, but as I was not going to be around for long I demurred. However, a corpy was next door and had just recently been exploded by a guy in a 'Cane - the same guy I'd tangled with in his Thrasher in my last blog. I was able to get his shipname (so I could avoid him), and I thought I'd see if I could find a single noob piloted 'cane.
A couple of minutes later my corpy had entered system, we fleeted up and the 3 noobs promptly disappeared.
Ho-hum.
I decided to stick my nose into a nearby dead-end low sec system in case they'd gone there - no sign of them, but there were a couple other young characters in local and I spotted a Cormorant on scan, next second he landed on grid, turned tail and warped out again. I was able to see his direction, and a quick scan that way located him in a belt - I warped to 0.
As soon as I landed I started burning towards the Destroyer, locked him up, applied web, scram and guns and set orbit to 500m.
He returned fire and I set my guns to overheat, pretty soon his ship exploded, whereas I still had most of my shields left.
At this point my wife demanded my attention and I made the schoolboy error of warping to a gate - not wise when I'd just been flagged for an illegal act!, before I could warp off again the gate guns exploded my ship. bugger.
I docked up in a hi-sec island and hit the sack.
next morning I checked the fit of the Cormorant and it was pretty bad;
Dual Afocal Light Maser I,Microwave S
Dual Light Beam Laser I,Microwave S
Cu Vapor Particle Bore Stream I
250mm Light Carbine Howitzer I,Nuclear S
150mm Carbide Railgun I,Plutonium Charge S
Core Probe Launcher I,Core Scanner Probe I
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher,Inferno Light Missile
Salvager I
Small Shield Booster I
1MN Afterburner I
Analyzer I
Codebreaker I
[empty low slot]
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Egress Port Maximizer I
Small Energy Collision Accelerator I
Then my conscience kicked in "He was obviously a young character, it doesn't look like he's had any decent fitting advice, what if I just killed his EVE for him?"
So I stuck together a cheapish, decent fit he could use ratting and evemailed him along with some general fitting advice and wished him well.
Turns out he'd been doing some exploring, must have found a WH through to low-sec and jumped through to see what was what - then he met me.
He didn't sound disheartened, and at least he knows what to expect now :)
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Bloody Hell, I've gone blind!
In my last post I mentioned that the Hound (and stealthiness in general was sexy). Training time to get me into a Stealth Bomber, and pilot it semi competently, was about a year and would mess up my Rifter Plan so...
I have an old alt with a stupid name I made 4 years ago, who took some learning skills and some very basic, caldari frigate based training , then sat in Jita accepting my courier contracts to sell.
So now he has some unallocated skillpoints, but not enough or enough skills to sell for enough to cover the transfer fee. Rather than biomass him and start a new guy, or buy an existing SB pilot, I've dug this baldy Caldari out from retirement and set him a punishing training plan.
I allocated his spare SP which got him through some of the basics (no navigation skill, no mechanic, no engineering wtf was I on 4 years ago?), he then underwent some Neural Optimisation which will reduce his total skill training time by 30 days.
He's currently getting to grips with Cybernetics as I have a couple of +4 implants with his name on them which will further reduce his training time by another 33 days. In the mean time he's been busy and now has 2 jumpclones installed, a shitload of skills injected waiting to be trained and a few skillbooks sat waiting in his hangar for his training to catch up.
All in all cost me about 200million isk, he'll be able to do covert scanning etc in a couple of months and will have the skills to be a decent Stealth Bomber pilot in 9 months.
For now he's keeping his head down and focusing on training, training, training - if I catch him having fun I'll force him to listen to local in Jita!
When he's done he will go down the pirate route, so once he isn't a total embarrassment in a fight, and if he's very nice to me, he may be let out to blow up some unsuspecting muppets, just to acclimate him to the stresses of combat.
Speaking of which, on to the main topic of today's blog :-
Last night I was out and about around looking for trouble in my Thrasher, I was bouncing around a couple of low-sec systems looking for someone suitable when I warped through a gate into a dead end system to find a flashy red Hurricane 17km away. I was 12km from the gate, I held cloak as long as possible in case he was going to jump through, then burned to the gate with my MWD overheated and my DCII on. He got lock, webbed me and opened fire.
Shields went straight away, I was halfway through my armour when I reached jumprange, I managed to resist opening fire on him and jumped through just as a Wolf landed on my new side of the gate!
I held cloak again, but knew that if these two were working together I was probably toast...but the Wolf jumped straight through!
I immediately warped out and headed to a station for repairs. 43k isk later my Thrasher was good as it gets and I headed back out.
This time the same low sec systems were quieter, though there was a Thrasher on my D-scan intermittently, I looked up the pilot and he was more experienced than me so I decided it'd be best to avoid him if possible.
I noticed a relative young character in a Coercer (destroyer) show up on D-scan along with some probes.
I tracked him down to a belt and warped in at 0 hoping to catch him unawares - bollocks, he was 99km away! Burning 99km in my Thrasher would give him plenty of time to notice me and warp out so instead I warped straight out back the way I'd come, hoping he either wasn't paying attention or else thought I wasn't up for a fight.
I warped back to the belt at 100km and he was still there with his probes out - at 199Km! I obviously hadn't checked where he was in the belt, just looked at his distance. This time I warped to a celestial in the same direction I was already travelling all the while checking my d-scan and expecting him to warp off - he must have noticed me by now?
I warped back to the belt (now my third warp in to the same belt in about a minute) at 100km and landed right on top of him, locked him up and blew him away, he must have been /afk as he didn't react at all, just sat in his capsule.
All the while I'd been refreshing d-scan in case of company and I was just about to warp out when I saw the Thrasher I'd been avoiding earlier heading my way.
I waited and he landed 70km away.
~~~~~ Time for a brief Interlude ~~~~~
R1fta is a very relaxed corp. R1fta as a corp do not care about killboard stats, lossmails, stoopid failfits, experimenting or whatever. All that matters is fun and explosions, preferably other peoples, but our own will do.
I'm all good with that, otherwise I'd probably have been kicked from most other pirate corps for general muppetry.
My kill:death ratio is about 10:26, though I am ahead in isk lost - helps that I fly cheaper ships.
I would like my kill:death ratio to be better - not because of Corp rules, but because I want to not lose quite so many fights. (There are only two R1fta rules by the way i) always honour 1v1 fights, ii) always honour ransoms - violation of either of these will see you kicked without appeal, everything else is just fun).
So, the rational thing to do when the Thrasher landed 70km away was to GTFO and enjoy the +1 on my killboard.
~~~~~ Normal Service Resumed ~~~~~
I decided, "fuck it, if you don't try, you'll never know" and burned towards him with guns overheated, and my chest pounding.
Shortly afterwards I went Boom!, didn't do a huge amount of damage to him, warped off in my pod and gave a gf :) in local at about the same time he posted his own gf.
We had a bit of a chat about Thrashers, he advised me to stick with it, had nice things to say about R1fta and one of my corpies he used to fly with.
Quite an adrenaline rush, maybe too much, as I then started seeing flashing lines across my vision and my heart was still hammering away.
Much laughing in corpchat when I said what was happening, but a strawberry jam sandwich seemed to calm me down and a couple of minutes later my vision cleared.
A little later he emailed me his fit (I need to work on my shield skills to fit it though).
So now my kill:death ratio is 11:27, but I was killed by a helpful guy and I got a new fit to try.
I will have to try and pick my fights a bit more though and try and get my K:D ratio up so at least they are close to even.
And I may need to work on some calming techniques.
I have an old alt with a stupid name I made 4 years ago, who took some learning skills and some very basic, caldari frigate based training , then sat in Jita accepting my courier contracts to sell.
So now he has some unallocated skillpoints, but not enough or enough skills to sell for enough to cover the transfer fee. Rather than biomass him and start a new guy, or buy an existing SB pilot, I've dug this baldy Caldari out from retirement and set him a punishing training plan.
I allocated his spare SP which got him through some of the basics (no navigation skill, no mechanic, no engineering wtf was I on 4 years ago?), he then underwent some Neural Optimisation which will reduce his total skill training time by 30 days.
He's currently getting to grips with Cybernetics as I have a couple of +4 implants with his name on them which will further reduce his training time by another 33 days. In the mean time he's been busy and now has 2 jumpclones installed, a shitload of skills injected waiting to be trained and a few skillbooks sat waiting in his hangar for his training to catch up.
All in all cost me about 200million isk, he'll be able to do covert scanning etc in a couple of months and will have the skills to be a decent Stealth Bomber pilot in 9 months.
For now he's keeping his head down and focusing on training, training, training - if I catch him having fun I'll force him to listen to local in Jita!
When he's done he will go down the pirate route, so once he isn't a total embarrassment in a fight, and if he's very nice to me, he may be let out to blow up some unsuspecting muppets, just to acclimate him to the stresses of combat.
Speaking of which, on to the main topic of today's blog :-
Last night I was out and about around looking for trouble in my Thrasher, I was bouncing around a couple of low-sec systems looking for someone suitable when I warped through a gate into a dead end system to find a flashy red Hurricane 17km away. I was 12km from the gate, I held cloak as long as possible in case he was going to jump through, then burned to the gate with my MWD overheated and my DCII on. He got lock, webbed me and opened fire.
Shields went straight away, I was halfway through my armour when I reached jumprange, I managed to resist opening fire on him and jumped through just as a Wolf landed on my new side of the gate!
I held cloak again, but knew that if these two were working together I was probably toast...but the Wolf jumped straight through!
I immediately warped out and headed to a station for repairs. 43k isk later my Thrasher was good as it gets and I headed back out.
This time the same low sec systems were quieter, though there was a Thrasher on my D-scan intermittently, I looked up the pilot and he was more experienced than me so I decided it'd be best to avoid him if possible.
I noticed a relative young character in a Coercer (destroyer) show up on D-scan along with some probes.
I tracked him down to a belt and warped in at 0 hoping to catch him unawares - bollocks, he was 99km away! Burning 99km in my Thrasher would give him plenty of time to notice me and warp out so instead I warped straight out back the way I'd come, hoping he either wasn't paying attention or else thought I wasn't up for a fight.
I warped back to the belt at 100km and he was still there with his probes out - at 199Km! I obviously hadn't checked where he was in the belt, just looked at his distance. This time I warped to a celestial in the same direction I was already travelling all the while checking my d-scan and expecting him to warp off - he must have noticed me by now?
I warped back to the belt (now my third warp in to the same belt in about a minute) at 100km and landed right on top of him, locked him up and blew him away, he must have been /afk as he didn't react at all, just sat in his capsule.
All the while I'd been refreshing d-scan in case of company and I was just about to warp out when I saw the Thrasher I'd been avoiding earlier heading my way.
I waited and he landed 70km away.
~~~~~ Time for a brief Interlude ~~~~~
R1fta is a very relaxed corp. R1fta as a corp do not care about killboard stats, lossmails, stoopid failfits, experimenting or whatever. All that matters is fun and explosions, preferably other peoples, but our own will do.
I'm all good with that, otherwise I'd probably have been kicked from most other pirate corps for general muppetry.
My kill:death ratio is about 10:26, though I am ahead in isk lost - helps that I fly cheaper ships.
I would like my kill:death ratio to be better - not because of Corp rules, but because I want to not lose quite so many fights. (There are only two R1fta rules by the way i) always honour 1v1 fights, ii) always honour ransoms - violation of either of these will see you kicked without appeal, everything else is just fun).
So, the rational thing to do when the Thrasher landed 70km away was to GTFO and enjoy the +1 on my killboard.
~~~~~ Normal Service Resumed ~~~~~
I decided, "fuck it, if you don't try, you'll never know" and burned towards him with guns overheated, and my chest pounding.
Shortly afterwards I went Boom!, didn't do a huge amount of damage to him, warped off in my pod and gave a gf :) in local at about the same time he posted his own gf.
We had a bit of a chat about Thrashers, he advised me to stick with it, had nice things to say about R1fta and one of my corpies he used to fly with.
Quite an adrenaline rush, maybe too much, as I then started seeing flashing lines across my vision and my heart was still hammering away.
Much laughing in corpchat when I said what was happening, but a strawberry jam sandwich seemed to calm me down and a couple of minutes later my vision cleared.
A little later he emailed me his fit (I need to work on my shield skills to fit it though).
So now my kill:death ratio is 11:27, but I was killed by a helpful guy and I got a new fit to try.
I will have to try and pick my fights a bit more though and try and get my K:D ratio up so at least they are close to even.
And I may need to work on some calming techniques.
Thursday 17 May 2012
another failed gank
I was inspired by Kaeda's recent triple retriever gank and decided to attempt something similar. My alt had a bit of a hunt around in a cloaky Hound, and found a Hulk, Retriever and an Iteron all mining in a belt in Vylade (yep Iteron was mining too).
They had intermittent 'protection' from an Ishkur who sat in the belt 10km off them for a couple of minutes, would then warp off for a few minutes before returning and repeating.
I slid my Hound between the Iteron and the Retriever, and was about 4k from each of them. waited until the Ishkur did his warp off thing, then jumped into system in my Gank Thrasher, and warped to my alt. As soon as I entered warp I warped my alt out to a safe and I landed slap bang between the Iteron and Retriever. I locked up the Retriever, applied web, scram, guns and lolrocket.
All was going well, both were still mining, Retriever was going down, so I decided to lock up the Iteron to see if I could get them both.
I looked at the Iteron in my overview list and hit target. what I hadn't done was click on the Iteron in my overview list, so I untargetted the Retriever, my guns stopped, police turned up and jammed me. BAM.
Retriever & Iteron didn't even twitch.
I could hear a corpmate in my head shouting "Complexities! Complexities!" as I warped my pod out.
Lessons learned -
- I probably should have done this in a 0.5 system rather than 0.8, I may have been able to relock the Retriever.
- The speed the Police turned up probably wouldn't have given me enough time to take out both anyway.
- Setup was good, my alt was cloaked and undetected throughout.
- Hound is sexy, traveling around cloaked and getting into the perfect position without my targets being aware was great, a successful gank would have been the icing on the cake. I'll definitely be looking to get into a Hound myself at some point (but it'll not be anytime soon - too much other training to do first before I'll be able to fly one properly).
Ho-hum, onwards and upwards.
Wednesday 16 May 2012
Get some focus!
jeez, I seem to have the concentration span of a gnat, this coupled with my inherent laziness and general ineptitude means I tend to rush off and make a half arsed attempt at some new idea, mess it up and then look around for something else to try.
Hulkaggedon is a shiny distraction "Gank Miners! Buy Thrashers! Fit 'em cheap and go on a ganking spree!" wait don't let you sec status drop too much or you can't get to your gank stash, rat up your sec status (hmm BS rats pay OK bounties, will help towards gank Thrashers etc)
So I popped a few retrievers, failed to pop some other miners (why do I double tap my guns button?! that just turns them on and off again, by the time they are ready to turn back on I'm jammed by the police, lose my Thrasher for nothing and get mocked in Russian - I think I got mocked in Russian, Google translate converted it from Russian to English but it still didn't make any sense).
Today I spent a couple of hours reading about solo stealth bombing in WH, researched fits etc then realised that to fly a SB effectively will take me the best part of a year to get the skills /sheesh.
Alternatively I could stick with the Rifter Plan, keep plugging away with cheap t1frigate PvP (with the occasional sidetracks into Thrashers), and by the time I'm near the end of my Rifter Plan (305 days and counting) I'll be closer to being able to fly a SB semi-competently.
In the meantime my new PI setup is going well, my alt did her first ORCA run of materials at the weekend, and it looks like she may need to do another one before next weekend. Her factory planet is operating 24 hours per day and she's aiming to ship 300 million isk worth of stuff to Jita during the next few days. If this is sustainable (I so far it looks like it will be), she should be able to keep me in Rifters & Thrashers for a while.
I'm also planning on selling a spare ORCA pilot at the end of this week which should net me somewhere between 2-3 Billion isk which would free up a character slot for a new toon - hmm what to train for , ooh something shiny!
Hulkaggedon is a shiny distraction "Gank Miners! Buy Thrashers! Fit 'em cheap and go on a ganking spree!" wait don't let you sec status drop too much or you can't get to your gank stash, rat up your sec status (hmm BS rats pay OK bounties, will help towards gank Thrashers etc)
So I popped a few retrievers, failed to pop some other miners (why do I double tap my guns button?! that just turns them on and off again, by the time they are ready to turn back on I'm jammed by the police, lose my Thrasher for nothing and get mocked in Russian - I think I got mocked in Russian, Google translate converted it from Russian to English but it still didn't make any sense).
Today I spent a couple of hours reading about solo stealth bombing in WH, researched fits etc then realised that to fly a SB effectively will take me the best part of a year to get the skills /sheesh.
Alternatively I could stick with the Rifter Plan, keep plugging away with cheap t1frigate PvP (with the occasional sidetracks into Thrashers), and by the time I'm near the end of my Rifter Plan (305 days and counting) I'll be closer to being able to fly a SB semi-competently.
In the meantime my new PI setup is going well, my alt did her first ORCA run of materials at the weekend, and it looks like she may need to do another one before next weekend. Her factory planet is operating 24 hours per day and she's aiming to ship 300 million isk worth of stuff to Jita during the next few days. If this is sustainable (I so far it looks like it will be), she should be able to keep me in Rifters & Thrashers for a while.
I'm also planning on selling a spare ORCA pilot at the end of this week which should net me somewhere between 2-3 Billion isk which would free up a character slot for a new toon - hmm what to train for , ooh something shiny!
Friday 4 May 2012
two posts in two days, what's going on!
"Criminals are not welcome here. Leave now or be destroyed"./sigh you kill one or two ecological terrorists and are branded a criminal, EVE is so unfair! Well, the ecological terrorists probably call themselves 'miners' and I destroyed 3 Retrievers and badly damaged a couple of Covetors, but still, criminal? me?
Luckily my sec status only dropped to -2.2 so I still have access to my stash of Destroyers in 0.9 space, looks like I'll need to sweettalk CONCORD and kill some belt rats to restore my sec status a tad, otherwise I'll end up getting myself barred from hi-sec before Hulkageddon is half-way through.
In case you weren't aware, the lower your security status, the less systems you can visit without the space police blowing your ship up on sight at gates, stations or anywhere you happen to stay still.
-2.0 not welcome in 1.0
-2.5 not welcome in 0.9
-3.0 not welcome in 0.8
-3.5 not welcome in 0.7
-4.0 not welcome in 0.6
-4.5 not welcome in 0.5 (and thus no hisec)
-5.0 flashy everybody can shoot you everywhere.Whilst I'm not averse to having a low sec status, I'd really like to keep it above -2 for the duration of Hulkageddon to give me the widest range of possible targets.
After that, we'll see - I have alts to haul stuff from high-sec to wherever I am allowed to live, so shouldn't cause me too much hassle.
Thursday 3 May 2012
been awhile, stuff has happened.
Looks like it's been over a month since I last posted, I'm such a slacker!
I recently sold a Trader toon I'd set up on a trial account - whilst I'm not uber rich it has certainly helped, hopefully I'll have another character for sale (Orca pilot) at the end of this month, combined these two sales should see me setup account cost wise for the next 12 months at least.
I also finally knuckled down and got my PI toons sorted - 4 now have 5 planets each in lo-sec and the 5th has 4 planets in lo-sec plus a factory planet in high-sec. They all work together to produce one item which sells quite nicely indeed (no, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it see's more income coming in than I can spend which is good).
One of my alts now also qualifies for Lvl 4 security missions from the Gallente Federation Navy (though doesn't yet have the skills rquired to fly his intended mission runner ship - a Maelstrom). He'll be ready to fly one competently by early June, at which point he'll also be able to do lvl 4s for Minmatar something or other too.
Finally, I've made progress with my intended life of piracy. I finally won a 1v1 rifter fight!, then not a couple of hours later I also exploded a solo catalyst :)
And now Hulkageddon has started - this will be ongoing throughout May and encourages suicide ganking in Hi-sec of miners in general and Hulks in particular.
I've never ganked before, though admittedly that catalyst pilot didn't want a fight - shouldn't have been in a lo-sec system in a combat ship then, but I decided to have a go last night, bought and fitted some cheap Thrashers (cost about 5 million each) and blew up 2 unsuspecting Retrievers (first one was worth around 32 million, the second around 16 million).
I'll have to work at getting a hauler nearby to pick up the dropped items, if I'd had one last night I could have netted loot worth 11 million which would have paid for the 2 lost Thrashers.
Ah well, plenty of May left :)
I recently sold a Trader toon I'd set up on a trial account - whilst I'm not uber rich it has certainly helped, hopefully I'll have another character for sale (Orca pilot) at the end of this month, combined these two sales should see me setup account cost wise for the next 12 months at least.
I also finally knuckled down and got my PI toons sorted - 4 now have 5 planets each in lo-sec and the 5th has 4 planets in lo-sec plus a factory planet in high-sec. They all work together to produce one item which sells quite nicely indeed (no, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it see's more income coming in than I can spend which is good).
One of my alts now also qualifies for Lvl 4 security missions from the Gallente Federation Navy (though doesn't yet have the skills rquired to fly his intended mission runner ship - a Maelstrom). He'll be ready to fly one competently by early June, at which point he'll also be able to do lvl 4s for Minmatar something or other too.
Finally, I've made progress with my intended life of piracy. I finally won a 1v1 rifter fight!, then not a couple of hours later I also exploded a solo catalyst :)
And now Hulkageddon has started - this will be ongoing throughout May and encourages suicide ganking in Hi-sec of miners in general and Hulks in particular.
I've never ganked before, though admittedly that catalyst pilot didn't want a fight - shouldn't have been in a lo-sec system in a combat ship then, but I decided to have a go last night, bought and fitted some cheap Thrashers (cost about 5 million each) and blew up 2 unsuspecting Retrievers (first one was worth around 32 million, the second around 16 million).
I'll have to work at getting a hauler nearby to pick up the dropped items, if I'd had one last night I could have netted loot worth 11 million which would have paid for the 2 lost Thrashers.
Ah well, plenty of May left :)
Wednesday 21 March 2012
Fight!
Decided to go on a different roam for a change. A couple of corpies had recently posted up some successful hunting grounds, so I thought I'd give them a go as the MH Loop seems more or less dead whenever I am online.
I also decided to take out a Thrasher too, as I'm only about 4 days from Destroyers V.
I decided upon an armour fit Thrasher with 150mm ACs and a NOZ, standard web, scram and AB setup in the mids, only 2 lowslots though so armour plate and damage control II, no armour repper. 3 trimark rigs.
my trip took me up to Bogelek, I had some fun trying to chase down a couple of russians (seperately) without success, so I moved on to Todifrauan and bounced around trying to find one of the younger pilots in local as some of the older guys looked a tad scary.
Anyway, I ended up at the sun, swiftly followed by Kingzolo in a Retribution (Assault Frigate) - one of the guys I was hoping to avoid!
ah well, I was after a fight so why not? He'd landed pretty close and was definitley up for the fight so I targetted him, set orbit at 500m, activated AB, web, scram, guns & NOS and then sat back to watch the fireworks.
My shield went pretty quickly, but so had his, we were both taking longer to get through armour and I realised that it was going to be pretty close...if only I had a repper I'd probably win, as it was I just crossed my fingers and hoped.
We both entered structure about the same time, then I remembered - I hadn't overheated my guns! Just as I was reaching for the OH control FLASH! was it me or him?
It was me - gf's in local then Kingzolo asked me if I wanted to keep my pod. Ordinarily I would have kept it, only had cheap implants in, but it would be an awfully long trip back to HQ in just a pod, so I asked for the express trip home.
I later received an email from Kingzolo congratulating me on my Thrasher fit and reminding me to always OH my guns.
so, another loss but man I was >< that close to getting that one.
I also decided to take out a Thrasher too, as I'm only about 4 days from Destroyers V.
I decided upon an armour fit Thrasher with 150mm ACs and a NOZ, standard web, scram and AB setup in the mids, only 2 lowslots though so armour plate and damage control II, no armour repper. 3 trimark rigs.
my trip took me up to Bogelek, I had some fun trying to chase down a couple of russians (seperately) without success, so I moved on to Todifrauan and bounced around trying to find one of the younger pilots in local as some of the older guys looked a tad scary.
Anyway, I ended up at the sun, swiftly followed by Kingzolo in a Retribution (Assault Frigate) - one of the guys I was hoping to avoid!
ah well, I was after a fight so why not? He'd landed pretty close and was definitley up for the fight so I targetted him, set orbit at 500m, activated AB, web, scram, guns & NOS and then sat back to watch the fireworks.
My shield went pretty quickly, but so had his, we were both taking longer to get through armour and I realised that it was going to be pretty close...if only I had a repper I'd probably win, as it was I just crossed my fingers and hoped.
We both entered structure about the same time, then I remembered - I hadn't overheated my guns! Just as I was reaching for the OH control FLASH! was it me or him?
It was me - gf's in local then Kingzolo asked me if I wanted to keep my pod. Ordinarily I would have kept it, only had cheap implants in, but it would be an awfully long trip back to HQ in just a pod, so I asked for the express trip home.
I later received an email from Kingzolo congratulating me on my Thrasher fit and reminding me to always OH my guns.
so, another loss but man I was >< that close to getting that one.
Tuesday 13 March 2012
can't get in a fight for love nor money
I've been out and about every other day around the MH loop, but can't seem to find a fight wherever I go! I don't know if the loop is just quieter during my game times or what, but most of the times I take a trip around the loop, most systems are either empty or else there are maybe half a dozen pilots showing in local, either in station, at a POS or sat together in Lokis.
I did see a Sleipnir last night, but by the time I decided to engage, he was gone :(
So I've been in this Rifter for about a month now, last night I had to abandon it in mid flight (poorly 2 year old daughter needed attention), when I returned from cleaning up toddler and changing her bed i expected to find myself in a new clone in Heild...but nope, there I was sat in my Rifter, just outside the station, unscathed.
The Rebels are going on vacation soon to The North - I hadn't planned to go along (as I have a large stack of Rifters and Thrashers to burn through in Heild), but if I don't find some action soon I may well be taking a trip.
so, turning over a new leaf - no more trying to avoid Lokis, BS, AFs etc in my Rifter - If I see it I engage it....just got to try and find anything now
I did see a Sleipnir last night, but by the time I decided to engage, he was gone :(
So I've been in this Rifter for about a month now, last night I had to abandon it in mid flight (poorly 2 year old daughter needed attention), when I returned from cleaning up toddler and changing her bed i expected to find myself in a new clone in Heild...but nope, there I was sat in my Rifter, just outside the station, unscathed.
The Rebels are going on vacation soon to The North - I hadn't planned to go along (as I have a large stack of Rifters and Thrashers to burn through in Heild), but if I don't find some action soon I may well be taking a trip.
so, turning over a new leaf - no more trying to avoid Lokis, BS, AFs etc in my Rifter - If I see it I engage it....just got to try and find anything now
Thursday 23 February 2012
tooled up, ready for a fight
since my last post I've mainly been working on my mission runner alt and he is now comfortably doing L3s in a shield tanked Hurricane, which whilst not massively lucrative is generating a load of crappy loot for my industry alt to reprocess / sell, all the while increasing my standings with Gallente Federation so in the not too distant future he should be able to run Level 4s and make more money to fund PvP.
In the meantime I've been continuing my alts PI to bring my funds back up after my spending spree in my last post - all those Thrashers, rifters and associated fittings are now in my hangar in Heild waiting to eventually be reduced to space dust.
With that in mind I set out from Teon in my Rifter last night looking for war targets in and around Dodixe as there had been a few posts on the r1fta forums about WTs operating in the area.
Pickings were pretty slim, but I did notice that there was a WT out and about in Aufay in a Megathron - now I'd normally assume that a Battleship would be out of my league in my trusty, rusty frigate, but the pilot was less than a month old so there was no way he could have decent skills to fly that ship effectively so I decided to hunt him down.
I visited each of the asteroid belts as I assumed he'd be ratting or mining (yes, people do mine in Battleships), but couldn't find him, so decided to work on my scanning skills and see if I could locate him (something I really should spend a lot more time on).
Turns out he was sat at a gate. A quick check in corp to see if gate guns would should me if I aggressed a WT in range of the gate (responses covered no, yes, possibly, can't remember, try it and find out, no - probably ... got to love r1fta :) ).
Best way to find out is to just pile in so off I went, landed almost on top of the Megathron, engaged point, scram, guns, nos and orbited at 500m. Checked my capacitor and Nos was doing it's job keeping my Cap running, point and Scam were running well, and my cannons were hammering away - the Megathron was losing it's shileds, slowly.
However the Megathron was not returning fire, and hadn't even targetted me - either the pilot was afk (I hoped) or else he was just teasing me and was about to jump through the gate leaving me on this side as I wouldn't be able to jump through straight away.
Sure enough as soon as his shields vanished, so did he :(
I followed him through as soon as I was able - he was still showing in local but not in space, so he'd apparently docked up.
I left system until my timer ran down, gave it a couple more minutes and jumped back and saw he'd undocked again, but he must have been hugging the station as within about 30 seconds of me showing in local he'd docked up again.
Not sure there was a lot I could have done in this situation - I guess I could have not fired upon him straight away and called in for some extra firepower to hang on the other side of the gate so when he jumped through he wouldn't have escaped.
I guess I could have tried bumping him far enough away from he gate that I would have had time to take him down before he was close enough to jump through (though not sure how far I could bump a battleship with a frigate?), or I could have left him alone and jumped into a Thrasher (only ships I can currently fly are Minnie Frigates and the Thrasher) and hoped to take him down quicker (though if he jumped through the same he'd still have got away).
Ah well, got my blood pumping anyway.
Out of game for the next 4 or 5 days due to my twuin girls 2nd birthday and lots of family visiting, but expect more PvP reports to come.
In the meantime I've been continuing my alts PI to bring my funds back up after my spending spree in my last post - all those Thrashers, rifters and associated fittings are now in my hangar in Heild waiting to eventually be reduced to space dust.
With that in mind I set out from Teon in my Rifter last night looking for war targets in and around Dodixe as there had been a few posts on the r1fta forums about WTs operating in the area.
Pickings were pretty slim, but I did notice that there was a WT out and about in Aufay in a Megathron - now I'd normally assume that a Battleship would be out of my league in my trusty, rusty frigate, but the pilot was less than a month old so there was no way he could have decent skills to fly that ship effectively so I decided to hunt him down.
I visited each of the asteroid belts as I assumed he'd be ratting or mining (yes, people do mine in Battleships), but couldn't find him, so decided to work on my scanning skills and see if I could locate him (something I really should spend a lot more time on).
Turns out he was sat at a gate. A quick check in corp to see if gate guns would should me if I aggressed a WT in range of the gate (responses covered no, yes, possibly, can't remember, try it and find out, no - probably ... got to love r1fta :) ).
Best way to find out is to just pile in so off I went, landed almost on top of the Megathron, engaged point, scram, guns, nos and orbited at 500m. Checked my capacitor and Nos was doing it's job keeping my Cap running, point and Scam were running well, and my cannons were hammering away - the Megathron was losing it's shileds, slowly.
However the Megathron was not returning fire, and hadn't even targetted me - either the pilot was afk (I hoped) or else he was just teasing me and was about to jump through the gate leaving me on this side as I wouldn't be able to jump through straight away.
Sure enough as soon as his shields vanished, so did he :(
I followed him through as soon as I was able - he was still showing in local but not in space, so he'd apparently docked up.
I left system until my timer ran down, gave it a couple more minutes and jumped back and saw he'd undocked again, but he must have been hugging the station as within about 30 seconds of me showing in local he'd docked up again.
Not sure there was a lot I could have done in this situation - I guess I could have not fired upon him straight away and called in for some extra firepower to hang on the other side of the gate so when he jumped through he wouldn't have escaped.
I guess I could have tried bumping him far enough away from he gate that I would have had time to take him down before he was close enough to jump through (though not sure how far I could bump a battleship with a frigate?), or I could have left him alone and jumped into a Thrasher (only ships I can currently fly are Minnie Frigates and the Thrasher) and hoped to take him down quicker (though if he jumped through the same he'd still have got away).
Ah well, got my blood pumping anyway.
Out of game for the next 4 or 5 days due to my twuin girls 2nd birthday and lots of family visiting, but expect more PvP reports to come.
Wednesday 8 February 2012
committment issues?! not here
not posted in a while, main reason being, I was skint and down to my last couple of Rifters :(
so it was back to my alt to work on his missioning skills as he could only run low-paying L2s
He is now friendly with a L3 agent or 5, but will concentrate on Federation Navy security agent.
Not run one of these missions yet, so not sure how much better the payout or loot is - ideally I'll get him to work for a L4 agent but that will require him to ship up to a BS, I think.
In the meantime I've done some running around between my PI alts and raised another 100 million isk some of which was promptly spent on some more Rifters and fittings (two of which went in quick succession in 2v1 fights firstly against a Rifter & Dram and secondly against a Wolf & Ishkur. I managed to get my pod away both times, but I should think about more suitable targets. However, it had been that long since my last fight that I just piled on in there with all guns blazin. It got my blood pounding and that's what counts afterall.
Anyway, having recently embarked upon a year long training plan, I decided I may as well fork out for a twelve month subscription too.
I then realised that I had a Plex I'd bought through a special offer promotion a while ago that I was saving for a rainy day - I sold that for about 480million isk and promptly spent about half of it on more Rifter hulls (20), some Thrasher hulls (10) and enough modules to fit them all - that should keep me in trouble for a while, just waiting for them to be delivered to HQ.
Until then I seem to have 2 or 3 Rifters left to burn through as well as starting my alt on his L3 missions.
I'm here for the long haul.
so it was back to my alt to work on his missioning skills as he could only run low-paying L2s
He is now friendly with a L3 agent or 5, but will concentrate on Federation Navy security agent.
Not run one of these missions yet, so not sure how much better the payout or loot is - ideally I'll get him to work for a L4 agent but that will require him to ship up to a BS, I think.
In the meantime I've done some running around between my PI alts and raised another 100 million isk some of which was promptly spent on some more Rifters and fittings (two of which went in quick succession in 2v1 fights firstly against a Rifter & Dram and secondly against a Wolf & Ishkur. I managed to get my pod away both times, but I should think about more suitable targets. However, it had been that long since my last fight that I just piled on in there with all guns blazin. It got my blood pounding and that's what counts afterall.
Anyway, having recently embarked upon a year long training plan, I decided I may as well fork out for a twelve month subscription too.
I then realised that I had a Plex I'd bought through a special offer promotion a while ago that I was saving for a rainy day - I sold that for about 480million isk and promptly spent about half of it on more Rifter hulls (20), some Thrasher hulls (10) and enough modules to fit them all - that should keep me in trouble for a while, just waiting for them to be delivered to HQ.
Until then I seem to have 2 or 3 Rifters left to burn through as well as starting my alt on his L3 missions.
I'm here for the long haul.
Friday 20 January 2012
My last plan for a while
So, I've devised what I thought were good plans in the past - the purpose behind these plans was to get PvP experience (and kills!) which didn't lead to great successes, but did give valuable learning experiences.
Last night I headed into Hek and then Rens looking for War Targets and learned something new...I don't like busy systems, at all. There were well over 200 players in each of those systems, far too much information for my poor little brain to try and digest and far too much scope for neutral reppers to be lurking around.
Time to stop thinking up plans/schemes etc and to do just go out and do - if I'm out & about, I'm in with a shout, so less thinking, more flying.
I will however have one last plan, blatantly copied from Kirith Darkblade The Rifter Plan!
I plugged all the skills contained in the plan into my skillplanner section of EVE HQ which resulted in a skill training plan for the next 463 days.
I then used the Neural Remap tool in EVE HQ which suggested an optimised remap that would reduce my skill training to only (!) 402 days.
Basically, if you haven't read Kirth Darkblade's blog (you should!), the Rifter Plan trains to the following skills:-
Electronics
- Electronics V
- Propulsion Jamming V
- Signature Analysis V
Engineering
- Energy Management V
- Energy Systems Operation V
- Engineering V
- Shield Management V
- Shield Operation V
- Tactical Shield Manipulation V
Gunnery
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades V
- Gunnery V
- Motion Prediction V
- Rapid Firing V
- Shrapshooter V
- Small Autocannon Specialisation V
- Small Projectile Turret V
- Surgical Strike V
- Trajectory Analysis V
- Weapon Upgrades V
Mechanic
- Hull Upgrades V
- Jury Rigging III
- Mechanic V
- Projectile Weapon Rigging V
- Repair Systems V
Missile Launcher Operation
- Missile Bombardment V
- Missile Launcher Operation V
- Missile Projection V
- Rapid Launch V
- Rocket Specialisation V
- Target Navigation Prediction V
- Warhead Upgrades V
Navigation
- Acceleration Control V
- Afterburner V
- Evasive Manouvering V
- Fuel Conservation V
- Navigation V
- Warp Drive Operation V
Science
- Thermodynamics V
Spaceship Command
- Minmatar Frigate V
- Spaceship Command V
Now obviously all those skills will also stand me in good stead for other ships and I have no doubt that I will deviate from the plan above to try other ships, (but if nothing else I should never have to think "what do I train next?)...well not for 401 days anyway (see the time is coming down already ;) )
Last night I headed into Hek and then Rens looking for War Targets and learned something new...I don't like busy systems, at all. There were well over 200 players in each of those systems, far too much information for my poor little brain to try and digest and far too much scope for neutral reppers to be lurking around.
Time to stop thinking up plans/schemes etc and to do just go out and do - if I'm out & about, I'm in with a shout, so less thinking, more flying.
I will however have one last plan, blatantly copied from Kirith Darkblade The Rifter Plan!
I plugged all the skills contained in the plan into my skillplanner section of EVE HQ which resulted in a skill training plan for the next 463 days.
I then used the Neural Remap tool in EVE HQ which suggested an optimised remap that would reduce my skill training to only (!) 402 days.
Basically, if you haven't read Kirth Darkblade's blog (you should!), the Rifter Plan trains to the following skills:-
Electronics
- Electronics V
- Propulsion Jamming V
- Signature Analysis V
Engineering
- Energy Management V
- Energy Systems Operation V
- Engineering V
- Shield Management V
- Shield Operation V
- Tactical Shield Manipulation V
Gunnery
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades V
- Gunnery V
- Motion Prediction V
- Rapid Firing V
- Shrapshooter V
- Small Autocannon Specialisation V
- Small Projectile Turret V
- Surgical Strike V
- Trajectory Analysis V
- Weapon Upgrades V
Mechanic
- Hull Upgrades V
- Jury Rigging III
- Mechanic V
- Projectile Weapon Rigging V
- Repair Systems V
Missile Launcher Operation
- Missile Bombardment V
- Missile Launcher Operation V
- Missile Projection V
- Rapid Launch V
- Rocket Specialisation V
- Target Navigation Prediction V
- Warhead Upgrades V
Navigation
- Acceleration Control V
- Afterburner V
- Evasive Manouvering V
- Fuel Conservation V
- Navigation V
- Warp Drive Operation V
Science
- Thermodynamics V
Spaceship Command
- Minmatar Frigate V
- Spaceship Command V
Now obviously all those skills will also stand me in good stead for other ships and I have no doubt that I will deviate from the plan above to try other ships, (but if nothing else I should never have to think "what do I train next?)...well not for 401 days anyway (see the time is coming down already ;) )
Tuesday 17 January 2012
R1FTA Fight Night!
Joe Struck decided to organise a fight night for frigates in heild, with prizes.
Fight Night started at 9pm, I was a little late so missed the start, when I logged in it appeared that there was a free for all, battle royale type of fight going on at planet 1, so I jumped into rifter #1 warped to planet 1 and targeted the first ship I saw - approx 4 seconds later I was in my pod!
I had targeted a Jaguar (I think) from another corp, didn't have my corpmates on overview, and was blown up by a couple of corpmates in a Wolf & Rifter :)
Undeterred, I jumped into rifter #2 and headed back into the fray - this time I targeted the Jaguar again, remembering to overheat my guns, turn on my AB, damage control & Web and then quickly succumbed to the combined forpower of three Jaguars :)
In rifter #3 I dumped the warp scrambler (no one had any intentions of avoiding fights - at least not with me) and the NOS as I hadn't been able to get close enough on the previous 2 attempts and headed back out again - this time I picked my moment and dived in at one of the Jags as it was already engaged with another frigate. the Jag despatched the other frigate first, but this time I'd got closer and was actually making an impression on his shields, or it may have been that he was also taking fire from others, I have no idea, all I knew is that we were both going down and his ship exploded a split second before mine - my lossmail says he landed shots on me with his capule, but that the final blow was laid my another corpmate in an assault frigate :)
Rifter #4 went down in flames against a 1v1 rifter duel with Joe Struck (but doesn't appear to be showing on my killboard)
Rifter #5 and #6 are a blur to be honest but killboard reports #5 succumbed to two Jags and a Wolf and number #6 was destroyed by a Navy Slicer.
That left me with one fitted rifter in station so I decided that was enough fun for one night, I was just about to post my thanks before heading off when the call came out that all the wrecks of the fight night participants looked to be in danger of being stolen by a non-participant, so I jumped back into my rifter to head back to planet 1 to try and help take out the potential thief - on the way the info was passed with the pilots name and a call for some to get point - I landed, targetted and activated my web, scrambler and AB as I rushed toward him only to see an explosion (ship gone!) followed by my pod a second later!
Turns out the interloper was in a battleship and was using smartbombs!
So that was me done for the night. However, turns out I won 2 prizes - firstly there was a tie over who had lost the most ships so my prize for that was a pair of "Nightstalker" Combat Goggles, and for being podded by the battleship pilot I was awarded a Rifter.
Also, on the plus side I did get on a bunch of kills on my killboard including a battleship, a couple of assault frigates and a couple of frigates :)
Now I just need to go shopping to setup another stable of fitted rifters, hopefully the next lot wont all go in one night
Fight Night started at 9pm, I was a little late so missed the start, when I logged in it appeared that there was a free for all, battle royale type of fight going on at planet 1, so I jumped into rifter #1 warped to planet 1 and targeted the first ship I saw - approx 4 seconds later I was in my pod!
I had targeted a Jaguar (I think) from another corp, didn't have my corpmates on overview, and was blown up by a couple of corpmates in a Wolf & Rifter :)
Undeterred, I jumped into rifter #2 and headed back into the fray - this time I targeted the Jaguar again, remembering to overheat my guns, turn on my AB, damage control & Web and then quickly succumbed to the combined forpower of three Jaguars :)
In rifter #3 I dumped the warp scrambler (no one had any intentions of avoiding fights - at least not with me) and the NOS as I hadn't been able to get close enough on the previous 2 attempts and headed back out again - this time I picked my moment and dived in at one of the Jags as it was already engaged with another frigate. the Jag despatched the other frigate first, but this time I'd got closer and was actually making an impression on his shields, or it may have been that he was also taking fire from others, I have no idea, all I knew is that we were both going down and his ship exploded a split second before mine - my lossmail says he landed shots on me with his capule, but that the final blow was laid my another corpmate in an assault frigate :)
Rifter #4 went down in flames against a 1v1 rifter duel with Joe Struck (but doesn't appear to be showing on my killboard)
Rifter #5 and #6 are a blur to be honest but killboard reports #5 succumbed to two Jags and a Wolf and number #6 was destroyed by a Navy Slicer.
That left me with one fitted rifter in station so I decided that was enough fun for one night, I was just about to post my thanks before heading off when the call came out that all the wrecks of the fight night participants looked to be in danger of being stolen by a non-participant, so I jumped back into my rifter to head back to planet 1 to try and help take out the potential thief - on the way the info was passed with the pilots name and a call for some to get point - I landed, targetted and activated my web, scrambler and AB as I rushed toward him only to see an explosion (ship gone!) followed by my pod a second later!
Turns out the interloper was in a battleship and was using smartbombs!
So that was me done for the night. However, turns out I won 2 prizes - firstly there was a tie over who had lost the most ships so my prize for that was a pair of "Nightstalker" Combat Goggles, and for being podded by the battleship pilot I was awarded a Rifter.
Also, on the plus side I did get on a bunch of kills on my killboard including a battleship, a couple of assault frigates and a couple of frigates :)
Now I just need to go shopping to setup another stable of fitted rifters, hopefully the next lot wont all go in one night
Friday 13 January 2012
Frustration ...and another plan
I got myself setup in my new home system in the HQ station of R1fta, fitted out 7 replacements for 'Black Sunshine' and headed on out to meet the locals.
During the next few days I spent all of my in-game time shooting around low-sec space looking for a fight, and other than 4 or 5 man gate camps (which I avoided) I didn't get a single engagement.
I caught glimpses of people warping out as I landed at a gate or the sun, but I was unable to track them down.
I decided to try my luck flipping cans in nearby hi-sec, again with no luck - closest I got was a Hulk targeting me, but he didn't have a can to flip and didn't flip mine when I jettisoned some ammo.
I even did the Molden Heath loop which included a couple of null-sec security systems...and nothing. Most systems only had a few people in them, most of those seemed to be sat at POS (POS with forcefields and lots of guns).
I even resorted to renaming my ship 'Target Practice' and sitting at the sun in a couple of low-sec system and still didn't get a nibble.
I have no idea if people see the R1FTA tag and assume I'm proficient at flying a rifter or if they think I'm acting as bait with corpmates waiting to jump in, but for whatever reason I spent a week looking for a fight without success.
So I came up with a plan - I had the day off work to work on some college assignments so I setup a Thrasher as a baitship, equipped it with a couple of mining lasers (as well as 5 ACIIs, armour plate, damage control II, webber, scrambler and AB) and sat in a belt hoping for someone to come along and flip my can thinking I was a noob miner.
In the meantime, I proceeded with my assignments on my other machine.
I should have known there would be a problem when I had to offline everything but the guns to bring the mining lasers online
Anyway, finally a stabber turns up and heads towards my can, I offline one of the mining lasers and wait for Cap to regen to 95%, then bring on the damage control at which point stabber is flashy and moved off 20Km.
I hold tight - offline the other mining laser, wait for cap to regen to 95% then bring on my web, then wait until cap regens again and bring on my AB, then stabber warps off
I hold tight, wait for my cap to regen and finally bring on my scram as the Stabber warps back in at 6km!
I fire up my AB and activate my scram, Web and guns, can't understand how he's moving away and not taking any damage when I realise I'm targeting a 'roid at which point I know I'm fekked as he's sitting at 15km firing missiles at me.
I target him but can't get my web nor scram to work, and he can keep me at range.
He asks for 2 mil ransom, which I guess I could have afforded for a lesson learned, but I told him I was skint and overheated my guns and AB, managed to get his shields down to about 75% before my thrasher was no more
Engagement did get my blood pumping though so wasn't all bad. Exchanged gfs and chatted to him afterwards he said he was thinking of putting in an application soon to join us.
Ho-hum, I should have just ignored the Stabber and waited for a more suitable target to come along. I should have checked I was targeting the stabber and not the asteroid, and I probably should have overheated everything to start with.
Anyway, I headed back to a nearby system to jump back in my trusty Rifter and decided that I may as well do some shopping (needed rigs for my replacement rifters, and some ABs and ammo).
Shopping done, I headed back to base with a full hold (about 10 million isk worth) and land at a gate at the same time as a flashy hawk (Assault Frigate) - now is definitely not the time to lose my ship so I jump and warp to station and safety.
So I spend a week looking for a fight and can't find one, then for the 10 mins when I really don't want one I get the perfect chance to go down in flames! /sheesh
During the next few days I spent all of my in-game time shooting around low-sec space looking for a fight, and other than 4 or 5 man gate camps (which I avoided) I didn't get a single engagement.
I caught glimpses of people warping out as I landed at a gate or the sun, but I was unable to track them down.
I decided to try my luck flipping cans in nearby hi-sec, again with no luck - closest I got was a Hulk targeting me, but he didn't have a can to flip and didn't flip mine when I jettisoned some ammo.
I even did the Molden Heath loop which included a couple of null-sec security systems...and nothing. Most systems only had a few people in them, most of those seemed to be sat at POS (POS with forcefields and lots of guns).
I even resorted to renaming my ship 'Target Practice' and sitting at the sun in a couple of low-sec system and still didn't get a nibble.
I have no idea if people see the R1FTA tag and assume I'm proficient at flying a rifter or if they think I'm acting as bait with corpmates waiting to jump in, but for whatever reason I spent a week looking for a fight without success.
So I came up with a plan - I had the day off work to work on some college assignments so I setup a Thrasher as a baitship, equipped it with a couple of mining lasers (as well as 5 ACIIs, armour plate, damage control II, webber, scrambler and AB) and sat in a belt hoping for someone to come along and flip my can thinking I was a noob miner.
In the meantime, I proceeded with my assignments on my other machine.
I should have known there would be a problem when I had to offline everything but the guns to bring the mining lasers online
Anyway, finally a stabber turns up and heads towards my can, I offline one of the mining lasers and wait for Cap to regen to 95%, then bring on the damage control at which point stabber is flashy and moved off 20Km.
I hold tight - offline the other mining laser, wait for cap to regen to 95% then bring on my web, then wait until cap regens again and bring on my AB, then stabber warps off
I hold tight, wait for my cap to regen and finally bring on my scram as the Stabber warps back in at 6km!
I fire up my AB and activate my scram, Web and guns, can't understand how he's moving away and not taking any damage when I realise I'm targeting a 'roid at which point I know I'm fekked as he's sitting at 15km firing missiles at me.
I target him but can't get my web nor scram to work, and he can keep me at range.
He asks for 2 mil ransom, which I guess I could have afforded for a lesson learned, but I told him I was skint and overheated my guns and AB, managed to get his shields down to about 75% before my thrasher was no more
Engagement did get my blood pumping though so wasn't all bad. Exchanged gfs and chatted to him afterwards he said he was thinking of putting in an application soon to join us.
Ho-hum, I should have just ignored the Stabber and waited for a more suitable target to come along. I should have checked I was targeting the stabber and not the asteroid, and I probably should have overheated everything to start with.
Anyway, I headed back to a nearby system to jump back in my trusty Rifter and decided that I may as well do some shopping (needed rigs for my replacement rifters, and some ABs and ammo).
Shopping done, I headed back to base with a full hold (about 10 million isk worth) and land at a gate at the same time as a flashy hawk (Assault Frigate) - now is definitely not the time to lose my ship so I jump and warp to station and safety.
So I spend a week looking for a fight and can't find one, then for the 10 mins when I really don't want one I get the perfect chance to go down in flames! /sheesh
Wednesday 4 January 2012
Got a little distracted
Since my last post I got into the early access for Star Wars: The Old Republic, then there was Christmas and New Year, so other than keeping my alts' PI ticking over and ensuring I had skills training I've not been in new Eden much at all.
Holidays are over now though, and whilst SWTOR is enjoyable, I don't see it stealing me away from EVE (too much).
Happily CCP were giving out gifts at Christmas and I picked the same gift for both my accounts - a nice package of three Destroyers (Thrashers for me) plus 10,000 rounds of each type of factional small projectile ammo.
I'm having my alt haul all that ammo to very close to where I'm basing myself, I also collected up the PI goods accrued over the holidays which should net me a nice sum - 50million or so is coming to me to spend on Rifters.
The remainder of this week will see me sort out my logistics (buying and fitting out as many Rifters as I can afford, making BMs and Safes around my home system etc), then I'll be looking for that first, elusive Killmail :)
Holidays are over now though, and whilst SWTOR is enjoyable, I don't see it stealing me away from EVE (too much).
Happily CCP were giving out gifts at Christmas and I picked the same gift for both my accounts - a nice package of three Destroyers (Thrashers for me) plus 10,000 rounds of each type of factional small projectile ammo.
I'm having my alt haul all that ammo to very close to where I'm basing myself, I also collected up the PI goods accrued over the holidays which should net me a nice sum - 50million or so is coming to me to spend on Rifters.
The remainder of this week will see me sort out my logistics (buying and fitting out as many Rifters as I can afford, making BMs and Safes around my home system etc), then I'll be looking for that first, elusive Killmail :)
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