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

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)

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

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

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 :)

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 :(