Dun dun dun, another Wolf bites the dust...

I apologise for my terrible use of that song in the post title.

But in all seriousness, my Vengeance seems to be a bit of a Wolf-killing machine. Maybe it's because my highest resists are Expl/Kin, which the Minmatar fire like it's going out of fashion (Barrage anyone?). Maybe it's because after fighting Wolves on Sisi, I know that they really don't like Nova Rage Rockets to the face. Maybe I'm becoming an awesome PvP god like I've always wanted to be.

Or maybe it's just pure blind luck, and the next Wolf I fight will rip me a new facehole to breathe out of. Such is EVE.

As per usual, I was wandering around the Ami/Fensi area while sticking my head into the systems nearby. Nothing much was around (but I saw Quin Yi again, I swear that guy is stalking me) so I headed a little deeper into LowSec. I had already told myself I wasn't leaving until I either had a kill, or had lost my ship in a fiery explosion. This attitude has got me several kills recently, so I might have to start doing it more (Although it also caused several deaths, mainly to Quin Yi...)

Eventually I ended up in Pananan with only one other guy in Local. A quick check of Battleclinic didn't look too good for my chances, but D-Scan said "Wolf" and I'd already killed one this week. Why not try again? I spent about ten or fifteen minutes trying to scan this guy down, but no matter where I warped, he never seemed to be where I expected him. There were no POSs, no sites, nothing "off-map" so to speak. He must have been warping constantly, but eventually we stumbled into each other at a station.

Still can't get over how awesome this ship looks...

Neither one of us wanted to go flashy under station guns, as although Assault Frigates are tough buggers, station guns are still pretty dangerous to us (although I now know that my Vengeance can actually tank gate guns for a short time due to a fight with a Drake a few days ago). Instead, the Wolf warped off to a nearby belt (at which point I started recording). However when I got there, he had already been aggroed by rats and soon warped off. No need to give me an advantage I guess.

I warped off to the planet after him, and landed barely 20km away. Time to do or die.

Once again, I let him take the GCC. I've been trying to protect my security status recently, as getting kicked out of HighSec (and therefore Incursions) will wipe out my income stream for PvP. And that would be bad. I waited until I saw the first damage notification, then hit on most of my modules while debating if I should overheat my launchers. I quickly surmised from the DPS I was taking that I would need every advantage I could get, and hit them on. I also kept toggling the overheat on my rep, afraid of burning it out and dooming myself to a quick death. (I seriously need to train Thermodynamics to IV so I can stop worrying about this stuff so much)

The fight was short, brutal, and extremely close. I managed to cling to hull however, and survived with only 43% structure. My Centii repper definitely saved my ass here. That tiny bit more armour repaired per cycle kept my armour going with it's stupidly high resists still in effect, despite dipping into hull enough to make me panic. The Wolf exploded while I was still considering if I should run or not (by the end of the fight he appeared to have burnt out his scram, because it wasn't showing on my overview).

"Gf" was exchanged in Local before I started flying back to HighSec. I checked the killmail, and once again, faction loot eludes me. The Loot-Gods must really have it in for people who don't take the GCC :(

Anyway, here's the Youtube link, the fight starts at about 2:10 after I chase the guy around a little. I also remembered to put the recording quality up, so it doesn't look like such a blurry mess. And at about 4:00 you can see me spamming my rep in panic. It made me laugh a little watching it back, I didn't realise how nervous I was.

Spaceships are serious business!

Misconceptions about PvP

Read this and see if it applies to you:

"I'd like to get started in PvP, but I don't have the SP to do well. I'd just get slaughtered/murdered/whipped/annihilated/barbecued by the older, more experienced players" 


I've seen so many people, even in my corp, take this approach to PvP. Frankly I used to believe it myself. But here's the thing;

It's simply not true. Not even close

As a matter of fact I believe this 'myth' surrounding PvP is impacting heavily on the number of new players getting involved in EVE. Who wants to play a game in which the main focus (for a large number of people) is restricted to those with huge wallets and years of skill training? It's simply not fun, and I'm willing to bet a large number of potential subscribers gave up trying PvP (and by extension, their trial on EVE) after the first time they got crushed by some guy with hundreds of millions of skillpoints flying Tech 3 cruiser or suchlike.

While obviously taking your two month old character in a Rifter against a three year old character in a Zealot is not going to end well, it doesn't mean you can't do well in solo PvP, or stop you being an important part of a roaming gang. Hell one of my corp members was attacked by a week old character in a Rifter while he was ratting in his Drake a few days ago. While the Rifter never stood a chance, the new guy had some serious balls to go up against a battlecruiser solo, and that's the attitude you need in PvP. (And I'm fully aware there's no real tackle on that Rifter, but it's not as bad a fit as some that I've seen...)

Even T1 frigates can be dangerous in the right hands

Infact, you need very few things to get started in PvP. Here's a quick list:

 - A ship (I'd hope this was quite obvious)
 - Some kind of tackle
 - Something to beat the other guy over the head with (i.e GUNZ!!!ONE!!ELEVEN!!)
 - The skills needed to use the above tools at a basic level

That's it. Fancy faction modules, l33t PvP skills, ships worth hundreds of millions of ISK, all of it is superfluous (not important) for PvP at it's most basic level. At the end of the day, PvP is about beating the crap out of somebody else's ship before they can do the same to you. Obviously your skills play a part in this, but specialising is the key here. The pure number of PvP related skills in EVE means that only the oldest players will be able to do everything effectively. The rest have had to specialise, and while they might be highly skilled in certain areas, others will be less developed. This is where a new player has the same chances as anyone else, because you're technically on the same playing field, even though the older player "should" have an SP advantage.

And older players, while experienced, are hardly perfect. That corpmate I mentioned who was ratting? He should have warped the moment he saw a neutral appear in Local. Yes it was "only a Rifter" (his actual words), but what would have happened, say, if that Rifter was the fast tackle for a fifteen strong gang sitting on the other side of the gate? I bet that the Rifter could have survived the ten or fifteen seconds it would have taken for its gang to turn up and smash my buddy to a pulp. Infact, as he said himself later "I spent about a minute going, wtf are you doing?". That's easily enough time for friends to come along, and as a consequence, that Rifter would have been on a Drake killmail. Not bad for a newbie!

Ok, so flying as primary tackle (or "Hero Tackle" for their tendency of being killed first) for gangs is hardly glamorous. However it's teaching you essential skills for PvP, and by skills, I don't mean Hull Upgrades V or Small Hybrid Turret IV.

No, I mean actual skills like using the D-Scan effectively, situational awareness, predicting your opponent's actions, taking advantage of circumstances that occur at random, or capitalising on slip-ups by the other side. For example, this post here shows how I used a situation to my advantage (Not that I'm showing off :P). Normally that Retribution would have nailed me in a fair fight, even if it was PvE fit. But I took stock of the situation (Battleship rats = high DPS, aggroed against Retribution who is speed tanking) worked out how I could use this to my advantage (my web and scram will drop his speed to the point where rats can hit him for much more damage than I could apply on my own) then put this plan into action.

Tristans can get you kills, and they suck

Because of this blind luck and some logical thinking on my part, I turned what should have been an obvious loss into a surprising victory, despite my less expensive ship and low SP compared to my opponent. And things like this happen all the time. People mess up constantly, but if you're not out there in your "crappy" T1 frigate, you're never going to be able to take advantage of these weak moments. So stop worrying about what you could lose in PvP, and instead get out there and rack up some kills. So what if you lose twenty, thirty or even a hundred Rifters? Frigates are cheap and effective, and out of those hundred fights, you're going to be the victor in atleast some of them.

So get out there, lose some ships, and along the way you might even find yourself having fun. ;)

And that's why rockets don't suck

I love this ship...

Today was the first solo test of my Vengeance in LowSec. I've been using it alot on the test server and even lost it a couple of times in HighSec, but I had never been in a system below 0.6 solo while flying it before this evening.

Once again I started out in Ami, and even saw my old friend Quin Yi kicking around, but I didn't really feel like getting nailed by his Catalyst again. So instead I started heading up to Pananan, where I spotted only one person in Local, Maya Babylon. A quick check of BattleClinic showed only a few kills, most of which were with other people. I fancied my chances against someone who didn't seem experienced in solo PvP, and I could only see a Wolf on D-Scan.

At this point I was quite confident at my chances on winning, as my Vengeance has killed about three Wolves on Sisi, but that was the test server, and Tranquility is the real thing.

I started bouncing between planets trying to scan the Wolf down, and at one point we warped to the same belt and then off again before either of us could stop. Eventually Maya must have gotten bored, as I had scanned him down to the sun, where he appeared to be waiting. I warped in at 100km, and saw the Wolf sitting exactly 100km away. Urgh. (I turned on my recording software at this point but forgot to put the settings on high, so I apologise for the terrible video quality in the link at the end of the post :P)

The Vengeance might be a tanky bastard, but my god is it slow. Time seemed to stretch into infinity as we slowboated at each other. I started having doubts about my chances right about now. I remembered that Minmatar Assault Frigates were often called "Super Rifters" by people in my corp, and the Rifter has a well-earned reputation as the best T1 frigate. I started to freak out a little, but stayed on course. I wasn't about to run away now.

I decided to keep my afterburner off while approaching to conceal I had it fitted (instead of a MWD for example) and Maya appeared to do the same with his propulsion. At about 30km out however, his speed jumped to from about 350m/s to over 2000m/s. I LOVE MicroWarpdrive fit frigates, because it means my afterburner and web makes me faster than them.

Yeah I want to fly this one too...

As he zoomed towards me, I pulsed my afterburner, before turning it off to prevent him overshooting me. I waited until he fired the first shot, I didn't want to have a GCC and die to gate guns again. Instead, he took the GCC about 10km away from me, and I hit on pretty much everything. His speed dropped like a stone, and I tried to stay on top of him while juggling overheat on my rep and rockets.

His shields fell pretty fast, but then I hit his armour and it was falling much slower. I realised I hadn't actually turned my nos on, and spammed it in panic. According to the overview he was webbing and draining me back, so I assumed he must be active fit, but judging by his armour readout he had forgot to turn on his rep. Heh...

My heart was almost pounding out of my chest by now (I did not want to lose another Vengeance, dropping fourty million into a frigate makes you attached to it somewhat :P) Thankfully, my rockets were taking their toll on his armour, and my rep was keeping alive for long enough that he eventually popped.

My hands were shaking too much to even try and catch his pod, so instead I simply said "gf" in Local, looted his wreck, and hot-footed it back to HighSec, with no GCC to slow me down. Gotta love forward planning :)

I checked my modules when I got back to Amarr for heat damage. Rep was at 12.5% damage from overheating, but my launchers were at 60%  O.o
Jesus. If my rockets had burnt out, I would have suffered an embarrassing end. So I think I need a higher Thermodynamics skill, as II doesn't seem to be doing much for me.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how the battle went, and I even managed to record it (poorly) so you can be there with me!

Youtube video link



Fly safe!

The OMGWTFBBQ post

Several things to cover here, so I'll get the smaller ones out of the way quickly;

First of all, new ganking technique that's pretty cool. (Atleast it's new to me)

Linky.

My hat off to you dude. Ingenuity like this is what makes EVE awesome. I hope this doesn't get smashed with the nerf bat, but we all know what CCP is like with Carebear rage. It's not technically exploiting game mechanics, but it goes against the "E-Honour" idea that you should only get one kill per suicide gank ship.


Second of all, Rifter vs Orca in Highsec. Kinda obvious who won, but it's a pretty cool solo kill.
Kill here
E-Peen bashing here

Nice kill, I'm just surprised the Orca didn't cry in his corp chat for back-up. Apparently it took about half an hour to grind down his tank, so I have no idea what he was doing in that time. Maybe he was expecting the Rifter to get bored.



But I saved the best until last. How many of you remember this guy?

Dead Iteron Mark IV Quafe Ultra Edition

Well even if you hadn't seen that killmail, it's enough to make most industrialists weep. Here's the thing. That guy is only just a little more than three months old. (We quickly found out he bought PLEXs to fund this, though I have no idea what he was doing with four Scorpion blueprints)

Oh and he's considering joining our corp.
Yes you read that right.

Quick background, we have a channel in EVE where potential recruits can come and chill with the corp and chat about random things (Mundens Bar if you're interested in joining us :P). So I sign in and see our usual guys having a semi-formal interview with him (just asking him about the game) and seeing how he was doing already. His fittings that he had were nothing short of horrific, but he was new and people can learn. He seemed like the typical noob, finding his feet and looking for a good starter corp. The only thing that was raising some alarm bells was what the fits were on. Most of them were Navy Issue ships, and therefore stupidly expensive for a new player.

Because I didn't have much else to do besides update my skills, I decided to help out the interviewers by running some background checks on him with a couple of other corpies. The usual SPAI CHECK !!!ONE!!ELEVEN!!! routine. (I like to think we're fairly thorough). Nobody yet had checked his killboards, so I decided to do it myself.

So anyway I hit him up on BattleClinic, expecting to see a few random losses after he stumbled into LowSec or got flipped while mining. You know, standard new guy mistakes, completely forgiveable. Instead his losses column had a great big glaring red 5.94 Billion loss. At about this time he mentioned in Munden's that he had lost about 800mil in Jita the other week.

Munden's Bar

Gemedet Audeles > that's good
Gemedet Audeles > i lost 800mil in Jita last week
Mittre Cobolas > when in doubt push all the buttons?!
Sarayu Wisdom > How?!


My thoughts were already pretty similar to the reactions of my corpmates...

How the hell he had afforded the cargo at three months I had no idea (at the time anyway, like I said we found out later he had been buying PLEX like some sort of drug). As I had already found the offending kill (Link above if you ignored the shiney orange text), I quickly got on Teamspeak and posted the kill in corp chat. "Holy fucks" were said all round. Obviously he was already being grilled about it, because we weren't quite sure how the hell he had managed it. Here's some edited snippets from the general conversation:

Munden's Bar

Sarayu Wisdom > [Link to Quafe Kill]  (Which I posted in corp chat like a good spai not ten seconds before)
Sarayu Wisdom > care to explain?
Gemedet Audeles > one moment
Mittre Cobolas > holy shit...
Seraph Minayin > lolwtf dude

Gemedet Audeles > thats it
Gemedet Audeles > i would prefer not to speak of it
Sarayu Wisdom > I would :)       (If you can't tell, Wisdom is as subtle as a brick to the face)
Gemedet Audeles > i was careless and paid the price lol
Gemedet Audeles > well
Gemedet Audeles > to be honest
Gemedet Audeles > the whole situatin is fucked
Gemedet Audeles > guy should have never been in high sec
Seraph Minayin > eh
Sarayu Wisdom > How come?
Gemedet Audeles > well he was all red and the message came up from Ammatar saying he better get out of here
Gemedet Audeles > BOOM
Gemedet Audeles > fortunately, that Quafe was free    (Well actually it's worth nearly half a bil...)
Seraph Minayin > the cargo wasn't
Mittre Cobolas > ^^
Gemedet Audeles > no
Seraph Minayin > :P
Gemedet Audeles > it certainly wasnt
Sarayu Wisdom > Put it this way
Sarayu Wisdom > In the future...if u need high value stuff moved...let me know...

-Snip- (Five minutes later)

Sarayu Wisdom > That loss mail is insane
Gemedet Audeles > i know. :(
Seraph Minayin > i'm still trying not to cry a little
Gemedet Audeles > i'm just trying to forget it lol
Mittre Cobolas > i like chips.   (lol...?)
Gemedet Audeles > shit happens
Mittre Cobolas > shit happens yeah, that is more like "nuclear explosions happen"
Gemedet Audeles > lol
Gemedet Audeles > i'm sure it's not a record
Gemedet Audeles > though it might be for a toon of my age
Gemedet Audeles > lol
Mittre Cobolas > lol but it aint a good one to have
Sarayu Wisdom > Maybe
Gemedet Audeles > no it isnt
Gemedet Audeles > but i have not forgotten who did
Gemedet Audeles > did it*
Gemedet Audeles > perhaps one day i will at least get a bit of revenge
Gemedet Audeles > but that incident is part of why i'm trying to get into PvP

-Snip- (Talk moves on to his bio, which is filled with... failfits if I'm honest)

Mittre Cobolas > and we need to talk about fitting -.-
Gemedet Audeles > lol

-Snip- (We get onto ganking mechanics and why CONCORD were chillin' at the doughnut shop when he got pew pewed)


Gemedet Audeles > so this guy killed me simply because i had all that cargo huh
Seraph Minayin > no
Seraph Minayin > he probably killed you for the ship
Seraph Minayin > the cargo was just gravy
Gemedet Audeles > the ship?
Seraph Minayin > really, really good gravy
Seraph Minayin > yeah the ship
Seraph Minayin > i assume you went to fanfest...?
Gemedet Audeles > no, bought a PLEX off account management and got HD stream access
Seraph Minayin > oh ok      (I don't actually have a clue what he means)
Seraph Minayin > well anyway
Seraph Minayin > the ship itself was worth quite alot
Seraph Minayin > mainly because its limited edition
Gemedet Audeles > that is true
Gemedet Audeles > makes sense
Gemedet Audeles > they go for like 400mil on the market.
Sarayu Wisdom > Long term would have been worth billions
Gemedet Audeles > had to buy my second one
Seraph Minayin > your second one
Seraph Minayin > whut
Gemedet Audeles > yah
Seraph Minayin > you bought another?     (I know right?)



Gemedet Audeles > i did


-Snip-


Clearly we have alot of work to do here...

But of course now, we're not quite sure what to do with with him. Getting him in corp could end badly for our killboard, but then again, if he can afford to buy that much PLEX, we'd quite happily have him finance half our Corp. Choices...

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes down. Maybe we'll have a rich new corpmate within a few days. Maybe our CEO will have a heart attack after seeing Gemedet's killboard. Either way, it should be entertaining.

Fly smart   0.o

Missile users rejoice!

For all the advantages we missile users have, (along with the obvious downsides) there's always been one thing that's really got to me when flying Caldari or Khanid designs. The utter lack of launcher models (except on the Drake which apparently has them built in?) has always been a irritating point for me.

Y U HAVE LAUNCHERS AND RAVEN NOT?

I wouldn't mind so much if all the Caldari ship models atleast had launchers on them, similar to the Drake, even if the missiles still simply appeared from a central point on the model, then fly from there. And if they fire simultaneously (which you should be doing from a purely alpha perspective) then there's only one missile shown, which is slightly annoying also. Admittedly it's hardly game breaking, but I find it slightly weird that my Vengeance can apparently fire missiles straight through its own hull,.

But I can finally relax due to the awesome new video that's been going around the forums recently, of the new missile launcher models pulled from Sisi.

Here's the video.

They all look awesome frankly, (especially the bomb launcher at 1:55) and perfectly suit the Caldari image of cold, simple efficiency. While some might complain that CCP should be focusing on more important issues, such as ship balancing, I'm glad that they finally got around to adding in launcher models. Let's face it, EVE is a sexy looking game, and anything that adds to that only only be a good thing. I do wonder how the Drake model is going to change now though, those new launchers will look odd next to the "built in" ones...

Anyway I can't wait to see those new launchers folding out of my missile ships as they pew pew people to an explosive death  >:D

Fly Caldari!


*EDIT* CCP showed off the new launcher models in a fancy cinematic trailer at Fanfest. Link here!

Training grounds

I've been spending quite a bit of time on Sisi recently to practice with my Vengeance (our killboard is taking 30 million ISK in hits everytime I lose it, and it's starting to ruin our efficiency, which wasn't that hot too begin with :P). For those of you who don't know what the hell I'm talking about, Sisi is the Test Server also known as Singularity. The main (real) server is called Tranquility, or "TQ" for short.

But Sisi is awesome because absolutely everything in the game that can fit in a station (i.e, not Supercapitals) is seeded at only 100 ISK. This means I can lose a Vengeance on Sisi for about a thousandth of the price it would be on TQ, and all combat is in one main system in NullSec. So you can fit up a ship for pretty much nothing, pop outside, warp to a combat area, murder somebody/get murdered and pop back into the station to re-ship.

It's brilliant for those of us with shallow wallets but a yearning to fly expensive ships, as you can learn all the ins and outs of your ship on Sisi without ever risking your "real" money or killboard on TQ.

I've learnt that I can kill most frigates pretty easily, brawl out most cruisers and give some battlecruisers a run for their money. (I even tackled a Rokh the other day after spiraling in like a PvP pro and called for help in Local. A Titan and three Cynabals turned up, proceeded to waste the Rokh and then nail me. Oops).

I'm loving Sisi because it's letting me practice important PvP skills against extremely dangerous targets that I would never dream of attacking usually (like a huge battlecruiser gang) Skills like spiraling and avoiding smartbombs are important for frigate pilots, so if I'm going to specialise into these hulls I need all the practice I can get. Once I feel confident my skills are high enough (SP and experience-wise), I'll start taking my more expensive ships out into "real" combat on TQ!

But obviously the problem comes in that you'll be fighting ships with ridiculous fittings that you'd never see on TQ, because everything on Sisi is cheap as dirt. Full set of Snake implants? Sure go ahead. Tech II rigs for your cruiser? Hell why not. This can create some odd results, like a fully faction fit Rifter brawling a buffer-fit Brutix to the death over the course of about five minutes. Local rage was frothy and hilarious.

And of course you have the bored capital pilots randomly dropping into Combat Areas to spam fighters everywhere or fire off half a dozen smartbombs in the middle of a cruiser fight. Annoying as hell, because almost nobody in Sisi has the ability to actually kill them, and the ones that do can't be bothered, as said Capital pilots will simply buy a new carrier, plus fittings for about 2000 ISK and be out again.


Even so, I'd recommend Sisi for PvP pilots in training whose wallets' can't take the strain of a dozen expensive ship losses. It's fun, silly, and lolfits are everywhere, because you can frankly get away with it at these prices :P


More info on Sisi
Download for Sisi Launcher

Skilling to Level V? That extra few percent is important

* Unfortunately I have no screenshots for this fight because it was over within about 20 seconds. My bad :\ *

Title says it all really.

Wisdom and I were out on a mini-roam in Assault Frigates, infact we were on our way back home after a lack of opportune targets. (We popped over to check out the EVE Gate on the way actually, it's pretty cool). I was flying my shiny new Vengeance after the first one got nailed by a kiting Slicer, and Wisdom was in his Retribution.

We were two jumps apart, having split up to cover more ground, when I scanned down a Catalyst in Nebian at the sun. I warped to 100km, and there was the Catalyst, exactly 100km away. I called in Wisdom and started flying towards him. By the time I was in range, Wisdom was in system and running to me (Vengeances are slow). Unfortunately he had a 40AU warp before he could help me. I overheated my missiles and my rep, with both me and the Catalyst already in deep armour.

It was pretty much a race to the finish, but sadly I finally gave up the ghost and died almost exactly as Wisdom turned up on grid, with the destroyer at barely 30% hull. Obviously the Catalyst didn't have a chance against a fresh Retribution, and Wisdom quickly locked, scrammed and pew pewed the him before he could GTFO.

The good news is, all my expensive stuff got scooped by Wisdom. Hurray for ISK saving!

Personal Analysis (Like all the pros do after each fight)

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see I made a couple of mistakes, but also made some good decisions.

Mistake 1 - I didn't overheat my rep until I was already at 60% armour. A few more seconds could have kept me alive long enough for my DPS to kill him. Speaking of which...


Mistake 2 - I didn't overheat my launchers until about the same time, which potentially could have provided me with the DPS I needed to kill him while clinging to hull


Mistake 3 - I forgot to take any kinetic ammo with me, which by the looks of his fit would have been his lowest resist. Next time, take all types :(


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Good decision 1 - I wasn't too proud to call in backup when I was unsure I could take the Catalyst on my own, which meant we still got a killmail :) I'll always honor 1 v 1s and ransoms, but at no point was it said between me and Quin (Catalyst pilot) that it was a solo duel. E-Honour intact! \o/


Good decision 2 - I realised that the Catalyst was likely to be using blasters (obvious amirite?), so I set my orbit at 5km to try and mitigate his damage. I couldn't really tell over the hull alarms blaring, but I think I reduced it to the point where I wasn't getting face-melted in three seconds flat


Good decision 3 - I made an accurate guess that the Catalyst would be armour-tanked (yeah obvious again) but I also guessed he would attempt to fill his explosive hole, and loaded thermal ammo to compensate. Obviously Kinetic would be better, but I had none in my cargo, so I went with the next best choice. 


But these mistakes could have been covered by more skills....

Rocket Spec V, Assault Frigate V, Repair Systems V etc

The list of skills that could have saved my bacon by a few inches of hull is quite depressing, but I guess you can't win them all :P
I like to think I'm starting to get the hang of PvP, but clearly, more experience or SP would  have got me through this fight intact. There's always something new to learn in EVE.

But of course you can't spend hours obsessing over what you could have done better in a fight, you've just got to take a look at any glaring mistakes you made, and then try not to repeat them again. You can't learn unless you screw up occasionally.


Maybe I'm not a PvP badass just yet, but I think I'm on the right path :P




By the way Wisdom, thanks for getting there just in time to keep the killmail :) 

Not another skill plan...

* While I've already spoken about my main's skill plan, I never actually mentioned what my alt was getting up to. Once again, if you don't care, feel free to skip this post :) *

I seem to be making alot of skill plans recently. In a fit of being an utter sadass, I've already started planning Seraph's second year. But I then realised that I hadn't actually started a plan for my alt, Zendrak, and he was just training Production Efficiency V while I tried to decide what to train him for next. I was considering training him in Logistics, but I can already run Incursions with my main, so getting another pilot to run them is a bit of a waste of time.

Obviously I already have Seraph for combat, so instead I decided to base Zendrak around manufacturing, mining and hauling. He can already fly a Hulk with semi-decent skills, which is enough to help out with corp mining ops, and I have a (poorly skilled) Bestower for moving manufactured stuff.

The only problem I'm really encountering so far is a lack of manufacturing slots and a lack of cargo space. Moving eighty-four Punishers is painful as hell with only 20k m3 of cargo space. That's alot of trips. Also, only three manufacturing slots is seriously cutting into my ability to mass produce stuff, therefore also capping my ISK production :P

So I based my skill plan around those areas, more manufacturing and more cargo. The obvious choice for a new transport ship would be a freighter, most likely a Providence, but they're extremely expensive right now (Almost 1.2 bil including skillbooks).

Mmmm Orca...

So instead, my midterm goal is an Orca for transporting products. It's far more affordable and is also useful for the corp, as I can boost mining ops. Two birds with one stone ftw. Also, being able to transport more will seriously aid making ISK also, as I can spend less time hauling crap, and spend more time looking for sweet deals to take advantage of.



After my Orca, I'll get some manufacturing skills up, then move on to other transport options, like Freighters and Jump Freighters. But clearly I'm going to need alot of support skills to fly these ships well, so my actual plan looks more like this:

- Orca/Leadership skills
- Manufacturing skills to IV/V
- Tanking skills, like Shield Management V and Mechanic V
- Transport ship skills (For slipping supplies into our POS when it gets moved into more dangerous space)
- Navigation skills (LOTS of navigation skills, Freighters are not known for speed)
- Freighter skills
- Rigging skills
- Refinery skills
- Jump Freighter skills (Jump Drive Calibration and such)

Time for completion (as of this post): 358 days, 23 hours and 42 minutes :(

Obviously I'm going to have to earn the ISK to pay for these ships aswell, but hopefully by this time next year, I'll start training for T2 Manufacturing, Research skills and maybe even some Capital Construction :P

It's a long road, but the rewards will be epic. I've already thought of a name for my Providence :D

Hot damn...

Stop talking, your idiocy offends me

* Warning, rage post. Ignorance seriously gets on my nerves *

Tier 3 and Tech 3. What's the difference?

A hell of alot actually you idiots, learn to sodding read before jumping to the conclusion that you know better.
It amazes me the number of retards who have chimed in on discussions in Amarr Local about the new(ish) Tier 3 Battlecruisers with:

"There's no such thing as a Tech 3 Battlecruiser you noob, hur hur hur..."


... Tier and Tech are not the same thing you goddam waste of space. Tech refers to the technology level of the ship itself. Tier refers to the level of the ship skill you need to fly it (E.g Gallente frigate III). There's a difference. Learn it before you make yourself look like the retard you apparently are. Or as this quote so elegantly puts it:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

Here's a handy little guide to different Tech levels in EVE:

Tech 1
- The "jack-of-all trades" in EVE and used by everyone at some point (Infact the majority of ships you see flying around will either be Tech 1 or Faction versions of Tech 1 ships)
- They can do almost anything with some effectiveness, though they lean slightly towards certain roles (Yes you can mine in a Maelstrom, but it doesn't half make you look like an idiot. I'm looking at you Roley)
- They are (comparatively) cheap and easy to produce
- While basic, they can still be effective with good tactics and fits
- Examples include; Punisher, Thorax, Hurricane, Raven, Armageddon

 Tech 1 Megathron Battleship

Tech 2
- These ships take the hull of a T1 ship, and specialise into a role, e.g Interceptors (Which are based around high speed tackling)
- They are purely designed for their role, and trying to make them do something else makes you look dumb and will get your ship killed (e.g do not fit a Covert Ops boat to brawl)
- They are more expensive than their T1 counterparts, and slightly harder to produce (Invention)
- They are (generally) tougher/do more damage than said T1 counterparts
- They typically look more awesome also
- Examples include; Vengeance, Zealot, Widow, Basilisk, Nemesis

Tech 2 Zealot Heavy Assault Cruiser

Tech 3
- One ship (Per Empire Faction) which can be specialised into numerous roles through the use of subsytems
- Changing subsystems also changes the appearance of the ship
- At the time of writing there are only Tech 3 Cruisers
- Built by reverse engineering Sleeper Technology (read as, total arse to build)
- Far more expensive than most battleships (Tech 3 Cruisers worth over a billion are not uncommon)
- Dying in one drops a random Tech 3 skill you have (E.g Caldari Engineering Systems) down one level
- Also known as "Strategic Cruisers" due to the ability to radically change their capabilities by changing subsystems
- Each faction has its own Tech 3 ship: the Caldari Tengu, the Minmatar Loki, the Gallente Proteus and the Amarr Legion

Tech 3 Tengu Strategic Cruiser

For those of you a bit slow on the uptake, I'll give you an example:

Example: A Drake is a Tech 1 Battlecruiser, but is also a Tier 2 Battlecruiser (Requires Battlecruiser II skill)

Do you get it ?
It's both Tech 1 and Tier 2 at the same freaking time. Here's another for the people who were dropped on their head as a child:

Example II: An Abaddon is a Tier 3 Battleship (Requires Amarr Battleship III) but also is a Tech 1 ship


It's really not that difficult to understand you dumb animals, stop making me have to explain the difference everytime you assume you know better than a new player.

This may seem like a small detail, but it's critical to understand unless you want to get seriously confused in ship discussions, especially when T3 can refer to both Tech and Tier 3. Obviously though, if someone is talking about T3 Battleships (it happens), it's a safe bet they mean Tier, not Tech. If you don't know the distinction, you're going to wonder where all these wonderful new Tech 3 ships have appeared from like some utter noob.

Rant over :)

* Edit: All insults are aimed at the idiots who think Tier and Tech are the same, not the enlightened reader of this post :P Don't get offended *

Oh god, you're doing it wrong. So so wrong...

* Just a quickie. I apologise about my lack of posting in recent days. I've been away and and I've also managed to catch a pretty bad cough. I should be back to my normal posting schedule by the weekend at the latest :) *


Sometimes there are no words.

PvE Navy Dominix

There was even free tears.

Look at that fit and try not to cry for Navy Domis everywhere. I'm glad he got killed, the fact that it even undocked was a travesty in itself.

Beyond that I am literally speechless.

Well that was easy

Two lots of good news today. First of all:


Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap Retracts War Against Adamas Anima
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2012.03.10 04:12


The war between Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap and Adamas Anima is coming to an end.Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap has retracted the war against Adamas Anima. The war will be declared as being over after approximately 24 hours.


Freedom! I've spent two days in station and I was already bored has hell. An entire week would probably turn me into a hermit.

Though I was expecting a more determined effort to murder us, I'm glad the war is over. It means I can start taking my Vengeance into LowSec and try and roflstomp some frigates, maybe even a cruiser. I have no idea about its "above class" capabilities, so I'm either going to have awesome fun, or die in a fire :\ Expect a lossmail in the coming days...

The second piece of good news is on the economic front. While my trader alt was in Jita the other week, I picked up a load of Antimatter Reactor units (approx 4000 of them) for around 25-28k. I shipped them over to Amarr, sold about a thousand to a 35k buy order and put the rest up on the market for almost 40k per unit. I wasn't expecting a fast sale, but this morning...

Decent profit :P

Trading is better than I thought. Can it fund my PvP?


Easily if this trend continues :P

More of EVE's history lost :(

* I only found this interesting because I'm still a pretty new player. You bittervets probably won't care so feel free to skip this post ;) *

Since I'm stuck in station, I've been spending alot more time on the forums and killboards, trying to get my EVE fix. In doing so, I came across this interesting killmail.

Crane gets pew pewed.

"So what?" you say. "Just another unlucky hauler getting nailed in LowSec, nothing to see here..."

Well, actually no. Check the rig slots. (Older players will have likely already spotted this :P)

Yep, those are large rigs. Transport ships can only fit medium rigs. Before the cries of "OMG H4CKZ0RS?!?!!", this is actually due to a change waaaaaay back in 2009, in Apocrypha 1.5, namely the introduction of rig sizes.
Before Apocrypha 1.5, if you wanted to rig a ship, it was large rigs or nothing. Obviously that meant that rigging frigates and cruisers was ridiculously expensive, and therefore it was pretty rare. Of course in our newer enlightened EVE, we have small rigs, so you can fit your Rifters with Small Projectile Burst Aerators to your heart's content ;)

But what happened if you had already rigged your small or medium ship with rigs before this update? Well they simply converted into large rigs, and you had no real loss besides from the fact that you could now buy a cheaper rig. Which made any ship rigged in this way pretty special, because it could never happen again.

Obviously as the years go by, more of these ships get killed in PvP or by random ganks, so they are steadily becoming rarer. (Infact I wonder if there will be a bidding war between collectors on the last ship rigged like this?) But my point is, Apocrypha 1.5 was released in March 2009, and this Crane was likely rigged before then (if you knew you could rig it out cheaper within a month or so, you'd probably wait). This means that this Crane has survived more than three years of pew pew until it was finally put down in December 2011.

That's pretty impressive for any ship, let alone a Blockade Runner, which is used for the sole purpose of bringing supplies into a potentially dangerous area. That's either a skilled pilot or a cautious one. Probably both.

Anyway I just thought this would be cool for the newer guys, just to show EVE's interesting history. Why not check out the changes of past expansions while on those long hauls? Some are pretty drastic (Speed nerf anyone?), and the changes they brought shaped the EVE we have today :)

Maybe I lied about the lack of action

Managed to sneak in this kill before the wardec hits at around midnight EVE time :(

Pew pew !

This was the first test run of my Vengeance, the "Whirlwind" and she performed very well, despite the fact I don't actually have it fully skilled yet in terms of tank and gank. Even so, I murdered this Slicer pretty easily, and I didn't need to overheat anything in order to stay alive like I usually do with my Punisher and Rifter :) I'm thinking a fully skilled Vengeance is going to be one scary bastard...

Amarr system in a Vengeance :)

T2 frigates are awesome so far, and I can safely say the Vengeance is my new favourite ship. At this rate, this skillplan is totally worth sticking too. Here's to more kills from the Whirlwind :P  \o/

Keep the pew pew flowing!

How tiresome

So I log in today and I have a notification:


Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap Declares War Against Adamas Anima
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2012.03.08 02:10


Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap has declared war on Adamas Anima.
Within 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.


Awesome, I've been wanting to get my PvP on for a while now...
I quickly check my Corp messages, hoping for some intel of what we'll be up against, maybe even some suggested fits and tactics to use against favored enemy fits. What I actually found was this (edited due to corp secrecy :P)

************

Incoming War
From: *********
Sent: 2012.03.08 03:58
To: Adamas Anima,


Souls:


The incoming war from Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap is purely intent on griefing us.  Their exceptional win percentage (100% most months) shows that they're most likely using out-of-corp alts to abuse the war dec mechanics (in an unfortunately legal way) and make any sort of victory in high sec impossible.  In an attempt to ensure that we do not feed them kills, and that we don't have to be in a futile state of war that does nothing for us, we are going to make the war uneventful for them.


During the war these activities will be forbidden:
- Missioning
- Ratting
- Mining
- Travelling in anything other than a shuttle
************
Attempting to fight people with far more experience and skill than us in situations they are accustomed to can only lead to us feeding them kills, by boring them with little, to no kills, they will not be interested in continuing the war.
************



Well that puts a right downer on my plans. I mean, I have nothing against this decision. I perfectly understand the position the corp has taken, and I support it myself. Getting our ships and our killboard slaughtered by experienced PvPers with neutral RR is a futile and self-destructive task.

It's just annoying that it had to happen while I was getting my alt into the swing of manufacturing, and with my manufacturing station three jumps out from Amarr, there is no way I can sneak my Bestower through the inevitable station camping. So my alt will be restricted to trading until this war ends, and my main will be stuck twiddling his thumbs in station.

Ah well. Hopefully they'll get bored with non-existent targets and we'll be back to normal within a week or so. But of course that means my blog posts will be mostly trade/theory based until then.

Sorry in advance about the lack of action in the coming days :)



*Edit: Most of my corp seems indifferent to the wardec, because (and I quote): *


Elliott Carr > They picked a bad time, ME3 just came out.

Hey look, a flashy red...

So I'm sitting in a gank fit Thrasher outside the main Amarr station (Emperor Family Academy), waiting for idiots trying to transport expensive stuff in frigates, when I see a flashy red appear on my overview in a Rupture. Fully expecting it to be a -10.0 player, I locked him up in order to whore on the inevitable killmail and waited for CONCORD to arrive...

Twenty seconds later, still no CONCORD.

What's going on? Is he a wartarget? (Nope, nothing in my mailbox that I missed). He must have stolen from me. I had a dim memory of dropping a can about ten minutes earlier in order to free up cargo space. So I was the only one who could shoot him. Ah.

I was utterly aware that a well fit Rupture would rip the living daylights out of any of my PvP fit frigates I had in station, even my shiny new Vengeance (which I've been itching to kill something with for about a week now), and undocking in my SNI would simply lead to an embarrassing lossmail. He bumped me, clearly noticing my lock on him. I bumped him back, then docked up, hoping to find a ship I can quickly re-purpose to murder a cruiser. I find something better.

A fully fitted and loaded PvP Arbitrator glinting in my hangar.

Forgot about you...

I had stolen the fit off one of our Directors who usually FCs our roams. It was based behind kiting with a MWD and tracking disrupting at the same time. Anything that got close would be neutralized so hard it would barely be able to fly. Unfortunately the energy neuts and MWD needed a cap-booster to last a fight, and that meant I had a time limit. The more MWD I needed, the faster I would burn through my boosters. The huge powergrid needs also meant there was no room for an active tank, so I was stuck with a 800mm plate and some trimarks.

Even so, I reckoned a huge drone bay and a tracking disruptor gave me an edge. The Rupture only has a small drone bay (30m3) that can hold a maximum of six light drones, so once those were dead he would have no defence against mine. And no way would his guns be able to track my drones while they were screwed up by my TD, so he wouldn't be able to stop them eating his tank

I felt I had enough on my side that I could win this. I undocked, and saw him sitting only a few hundred metres away. When he saw me undock, he started to follow me behind. He was traveling faster than me already, so I would defintely have to pulse my MWD to maintain range, and hope he didn't have one himself. Still, if he did I could simply neut him to death and flee.

I warped off to an asteroid belt, the constant undocks from the station were lagging up my computer something terrible, and I needed to be able to react fast if my chances went tits up. I floated in the belt for a minute or so. No sign of the Rupture...

Maybe the other guy hadn't seen me warp. I wondered if I should fly back, when he comes out of warp right on top of me.

My shields start coming back after I stay at 15km :)

Excellent. I started orbiting at 15km with a double burst of my MWD. I prayed he was close range fit, then locked him up, turned on my point, and switched my tracking disruptor to a range script before turning that on too. A few seconds later it was clear that his guns could barely hit past 10km. Out popped his drones, a flight of Hobgoblin IIs, which flew straight at me. I launched my Warrior IIs and killed three of his before he pulled them back in. I put my drones on his ship. His shields were falling slowly, but I was using explosive drones and I wasn't too worried. His Hobs came back out, murdered one of my Warriors and then returned to his drone bay before I could finish locking them.

How aggravating...

He did this three or four more times. Occasionally I would get off a shot or two, but I wasn't killing them at any decent speed. I lost four of my Warriors and three of my Hobs before I gave up using light drones and switched to Hammerheads. The larger EHP of the mediums meant that his drones had to stay out longer in order to kill them, which gave me enough time to lock them and fire off a few shots. A minute or so later, his last drone popped. I set my drones on him, and concentrated on maintaining range. I screwed up a little near the end, as he got close enough to web me and fire a few shots off, but I managed to burn back out of range again and stay there.

But without his drones to defend him, it was frankly a forgone conclusion and my drones soon made him explode.

I forgot to screenshot as he exploded, so this is the nearest I have :(

"Gf" I said in Local, totally meaning it.
"Gf :)" he replied.

Drones losses from me:
2 x Hammerhead IIs
3 x Hobgoblin IIs
4x Warrior IIs

I think I need more levels into drone durability. Even so, I was quite proud of how I managed to stay at range, and counter his frankly annoying as hell tactics :) I was also quite impressed with how well the fit performed, despite me never using it in combat before. Why not give it a try yourself, and if you get any kills in it, be sure to post the mails in the comments :)

Arbitrator Fit - Wisdom's Kiter


High slots
- Small Energy Neutraliser II
- Small Energy Neutraliser II
- Small Energy Neutraliser II
- 50W Infectious Power System Malfunction

Mid slots
- DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor -> Tracking Speed/Optimal Range Disruption
- Medium Capacitor Booster II -> Cap Booster 800
- Warp Disruptor II
- Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I

Low slots
- Damage Control II
- 800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates
- Corpii C-Type Magnetic Plating (Kinetic resist)
- Corpii C-Type Reactive Plating (Explosive resist)

Rigs
- Medium Trimark Armour Pump I
- Medium Trimark Armour Pump I
- Medium Trimark Armour Pump I

Drones - (Feel free to mix and match, these are only suggestions, having some ECM drones may be useful)
- 5 x Warrior IIs
- 5 x Hobgoblin IIs
- 5 x Valkyrie IIs
- 5 x Hammerhead IIs

Before you start screaming "oh my god, faction mods!!!!", I'd like to point out that these platings are only about 500 - 800k each, and are as good as the Tech 2 ones if you don't yet have Hull Upgrades V like me :) Of course, if you have Hull Upgrades V, feel free to fit the Tech 2 mods instead.


Tl;dr First cruiser down!

Oh yeah I was meant to be trading...

Quick "derp" post here...

Well, being the genius I am, I totally forgot that my alt was meant to be updating orders and stuff. (You know, being a pro trader and all). "Totally forgot" of course meaning; "I got sick of fighting 0.01 ISK wars" :)

Which means my orders have barely moved after being on market for about a week. On the upside I made about 30 million within those four or so days when I actually "remembered" my orders. On the downside, they've been nowhere near the best deals in Amarr for the rest of that week. So yeah, trading can earn you some decent, semi-passive income if you actually pay attention to it...

I have alot of random things lying around my hangar that I'm having trouble selling on. Most of it isn't worth much, but the margins were decent on several items so I dived right in. Turns out the reason the margins were so good was because the module barely drops and I bought about two in four days.

So while each sale netted me about 400K profit, it didn't happen often. Whereas my afterburners which dropped all the damn time netted me about 10k profit per sale, and I bought in the region of 400 of the damn things. There's a lesson to be learnt here...

But recently I've been looking more into manufacturing. T1 sounded boring, but T2 seems complex as hell, even after I spent about an two hours and three hot chocolates looking up guides and trying to stop my brain melting. T3 manufacturing is even more complicated, and Capital manufacturing (like freighters) is way out of my league at this point. Sigh. T1 it is.

Right now I've only got three production lines running (need more Mass Production) but I'm more worried about training Production Efficiency V, so I can build things with minimal waste (saving ISK is always a good thing :P). There is a serious lack of certain ships in my station (think suicide ganks) and the prices are stupidly high, so I'm rushing a few out to cash in while it's still at almost 120% of the normal price :D I'm also looking into rig production, as I can get most of the salvage from Level 4 missions anyways. I'm still going to try and remember to do trading at the same time. Maybe get into some higher margin markets too (like 3 million per unit with 200 - 600k profit).


So if you want to be a pro trader, remember to actually well, trade. :P

Cap-stability is overrated.

* Recently I've been talking to the owner of a new EVE news website. I recently agreed to write guest posts for him, (and this is the first) although they will still be here on my blog too :) Here's his site, I found the stories on EVE's mercenary corporations very interesting  :)*


This is a subject that has recently started to annoy me, as I seem to be seeing it mentioned more and more. Yes, if your ship is fitted out well and it just happens to be cap-stable, then that's fine. But if you start building your ships around the idea of being cap-stable, you need a slap. Being cap-stable for the sake of being stable is just pure stupidity. You don't need it. For example, I saw this in Amarr Local the other night:

Random dude: "Hey guys, check out this PvP fit for my Rifter [Fit linked]"

It's essentially a normal PvP Rifter fit, except with a neut fitted. Not to my taste, but I can see it could be effective. Not five seconds later...

Idiot 1: "Cool fit, but it would be better cap-stable"
Random dude: "But my cap lasts like forty seconds with everything running, and like a minute with the rep off?"
Idiot 2: "Nah, fit a cap booster, drop the web"

No. Just no. In a Rifter, you'll mainly be attacking other frigates if you're fitting a neut. Active tanked frigates will drop like flies. The chances of them lasting more than 40 seconds if you know what you're doing? Absolutely tiny. So why the hell would you want to cap boost the damn thing? That web you need to drop to fit the booster will actually help you kill the other guy much faster, so you're just wasting a slot.
In PvP, fitting to make your cap last any longer than around three to four minutes (without the rep on) is a waste. Most fights will typically last less than that. Any longer is either a small gang, or a fleet fight, both of which you should have logis available with cap transfers anyway. And if you have logis, you don't need local tank, they'll rep you.

Even in PvE, having a cap-stable tank is an utter waste of time. The highest amount of DPS you'll be taking in the hardest Level 4 missions (not including bonus rooms) will be around 450-500 DPS at its peak.

"Ahah!" the idiots say. "So I just fit a tank that can last 500 DPS, for about the length of the average mission, therefore about fifteen minutes amirite?"

No you're wrong. 500DPS will be the peak DPS. After you've killed off four or five of the larger ships, that will drop to a manageable level, say only a few hundred DPS. Therefore you only need to last about two minutes at peak DPS. The fitting for this is usually a "four slot tank", though with lower skills you'll probably need five slots. You fill these slot with three resistance boosters (Two for the primary damage, and one for the secondary damage) and a repper of some kind (e.g a Large Armour repairer for armour tanks).
The rest of your slots (and rigs) can be filled with weapon upgrades, tracking computers, drone upgrades etc; so you can utterly murder all of the most dangerous rats around you within that two or three minutes of tank you have. Not only is this far less wasteful in terms of slots (cap-stable tanks often have to gimp their fits, and therefore DPS, in order to achieve said stability), it also decreases the time you take to do missions. Instead of surviving the opening wave and slowly breaking the tanks of the mission rats over the course of an hour, you can simply:

1) Drop in
2) Lock up all the battleships/battlecruisers/EW frigates (Anything with big DPS or annoying mods)
3) Obliterate everything that looks at you funny and pulse tank as needed
4) Waltz back out

This idea is known as a "Gank tank", you simply kill things so fast they don't have time to actually wear you down. It's used in several PvP fits too, one that comes to mind is the Blaster Taranis. It kills you so fast, you barely get a shot off. Of course it can only realistically pew other frigates or crap-fit cruisers, but it's still terrifying.

A corp friend of mine, who will remain un-named (though he knows who he is), also appears to have some sort of fetish for cap-stable ships. I've recently been helping him with fits for missions, because he's a little new and still getting used to EVE. And almost everytime I've given him a fit, he's asked me:

"It's cap-stable yeah?"

Sigh.

"No, because it doesn't need to be"
"Oh... Meh"

What I want to know is, where the hell are the new guys getting this idea that being cap-stable is a requirement for a ship fit? Is it mentioned in the rookie missions or something? Is there a tutorial I missed that screams "OMG U NEED 2 FIT CAPSTBLEZ! LRN 2 PLAY!" ? Is Rookie Chat full of veterans bitching about how they lost a Titan to a cap-stable frigate?

No? Are people just pulling it out of their arse?

The worst part is; it isn't just the new players doing it, and they have the excuse of inexperience. I've seen older players passionately defend their cap-stable shitfit, despite dozens of players telling them "Ur doin it wrong".

I know that seeing "47% cap-stable" or whatever in pretty green letters is addictive, but come on. You're (vaguely) intelligent human beings. Why get it when you don't need it? Why get it when it effectively harms you in the long run?

Infact, there needs to be a damn tutorial that stresses being cap-stable is a waste of time, and often screws up the rest of your fit anyway. Get on it CCP ;)


Tl;dr  Cap stability is overrated, quit obsessing over it

Sometimes, I'm a retard

Like today. When I was roaming in LowSec and was having difficulty finding anyone to kill.

Atleast until I rolled up in Sapthar and saw a Retribution on D-scan. I wasn't that sure I could kill it, but I was bored of jumping through empty systems, so I started trying to scan him down. Within about a minute (I'm slowly getting better with this thing :P) I had scanned him down to...

Empty space? What...?

Then I realised I was being dumb and opened my system scanner. Two Blood Raider sites and a Rogue Drone site. Judging from the wrecks on D-Scan, I assumed he would be in the Blood Raider site. I warped to the first one.

Bingo. It looked like he was speed tanking two Blood Raider battleships with a MWD. I had a scrambler fitted. I started grinning at this point, if I could hold him still, those battleships would smash him into a pulp. I would have no chance soloing an AF usually, but with the rats adding their DPS, I felt confident he would explode. I just had to hold him down long enough for the rats to nail him :\

Please don't run, please don't run...

I started burning straight at him, hoping he hadn't noticed me yet. At 40ish km away, he had ample time to GTFO, but I steadily got closer and started locking him. His orbit on the rat was swinging him right towards me, so I switched off my AB to stop me from overshooting him (pro PvP move right there XD) and losing scram range. The moment he hit 9km, I hit ALL TEH BUTTONZ.

Seriously. ALL OF THEM

My scram and web cut his speed from over 700m/s to under 150m/s in an instant. I turned my guns on and prepared my armour rep. For about five seconds, he appeared to do nothing, and I wonder if he's panic-frozen. Then he starts locking me up, and strips me down to armour within two bursts of his lasers. I turn on my rep, then realise it's do or die and whack it on overheat. He's hammering the crap out of me, but those two battleship rats can now actually hit him, and are crushing him to a pulp. All respect to the pilot, we hit hull at pretty much the same time, and I had two battleships backing me up!

Even so once he hit hull, one of the rats must have got off a wrecking shot, because he exploded just as I was expecting to die myself. My jaw dropped. I had technically soloed an Assault Frigate, and won. 

RIFTER Y U NO DED

To say I was happy would be an understatement.

Corp chat: 

Seraph Minayin > WOOOOO JUST SOLOED A FREAKIN RETRIBUTION IN A RIFTER

"Most of corp" > Lol nice/gratz dude

I turned around my ship as fast as possible and looted his wreck. I saw a flash of faction mods, and had ISK dancing through my mind. Unfortunately, this richness seemed to have turned off my intelligence, and I warped to a gate, expecting the cavalry to arrive any second and deep fry my Rifter with more lasers.

Yeah a gate. Facepalm

Boom went the Rifter. Plus the faction mods :(

 But wait! They survived?!

Lossmail:

2012.03.02 21:21:00

Victim: Seraph Minayin

Corp: Adamas Anima

Alliance: Unknown

Faction: Unknown

Destroyed: Rifter

System: Naka

Security: 0.3

Damage Taken: 535

Involved parties:

Name: Amarr Sentry Gun / Amarr Navy (laid the final blow)

Damage Done: 535

Destroyed items:

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 140 

Imperial Navy Multifrequency S, Qty: 2 (Cargo)

True Sansha Adaptive Nano Plating (Cargo)

Warp Scrambler II 

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I 

Medium Pulse Laser II (Cargo)

Small Projectile Burst Aerator I 

150mm Light AutoCannon II 

Small Armor Repairer II 

Micro Capacitor Booster I (Cargo)

Damage Control II 

Nanite Repair Paste, Qty: 87 (Cargo)

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I 

Barrage S, Qty: 2431 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer (Cargo)

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 280 

Imperial Navy Multifrequency S, Qty: 2 (Cargo)

Gistii B-Type 1MN Afterburner (Cargo)

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 1001 (Cargo)

True Sansha Thermic Plating (Cargo)

Scorch S (Cargo)

Heat Sink II (Cargo)

E5 Prototype Energy Vampire 

Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)

1MN Afterburner II 

'Langour' Drive Disruptor I 

150mm Light AutoCannon II, Qty: 2 

200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I 

Cap Booster 50, Qty: 12 (Cargo)

Corp chat:

Seraph Minayin > ARGGHH I NEED PICKUP NOW FOR FACTION LOOT [System Linked]

Kahn Uitra > crap, 18 jumps

Seraph Minayin > OH GOD PLEASE ANYONE

Elliot Carr > 23 jumps :(

Myopic Thyne > I'm in Jita, 24 jumps

Seraph Minayin > NOOOOO

Jake Sazeban > 10 jumps?

Seraph Minayin > GET A FRIGATE

Kahn Uitra > GOOOOO

Jake Sazeban > what frigate?

Seraph Minayin > ANYTHING

Suffice to say I was panicking, despite the fact these mods weren't worth much more than an Incursion HQ site. Odd I know, but it was MY loot, and I was terrified somebody else would get to the wreck before Jake arrived (My GCC was still at around 13 minutes by this point, no ship for me).

Then the worst happened...

Jake was only five or six jumps out, when somebody jumping through noticed the wreck and tootled over.

Sigh.

Corp chat:

Jake Sazeban > where are you in system

Seraph Minayin > warp to me in a sec

Seraph Minayin > fuck

Seraph Minayin > dont bother

Seraph Minayin > turn around

Seraph Minayin > somebody just looted it

Jake Sabezan > awwh :(

Seraph Minayin > :'(

Jake Sabezan > sure?

Seraph Minayin > defintely

Jake Sabezan > k

Seraph Minayin > :(

Jake Sabezan > sorry

Seraph Minayin > dw

Seraph Minayin > my fault XD

Seraph Minayin > should have remembered the guns

Well that was utterly my fault really, so I can only blame myself. :(  

30mil down, but atleast I got a nice killmail out of it :D

Note to self. GATE GUNS ARE BLOODY DANGEROUS TO FRIGATES.

Tl;dr Don't be like me. Think of the gates :\