Enough :smug: to go around

In case this is news to you guys, I recently have had to move into LowSec since I podded a few people and started engaging random haulers on gates. I'm currently at -5.0 security, which apparently makes me fair game for anyone passing by, because other frigates have started shooting at me on gates and stations.

Which is freaking awesome.

But anyway, this is just a fast update, so I thought I'd have a vague stab at dispelling the urban myth that "LowSec is either blobby or dead". Since I've been living here, I've noticed quite a few people looking for fights (solo), the only reason I've never seen them before is just because I've never been around at the same time as them. (And yes, that Firetail engaged me on station without any aggression on my part. I just whored on the mail basically) Oddly I've also seen a surprising number of people mining, who I quickly murdered because I found it funny. So everyone saying "HURR HURR, SOLO PVP IS DEAD AS A DODO IN LOWSEX LAWL" is wrong and they should feel bad.

Another fun thing I've enjoyed doing is shadowing roaming gangs. Then when they engage, say, a Cyclone with a stupidly high XLASB tank (I'll call it now, ancilliary shield boosters are going to get nerfed hard in the future), you can warp in at 100km, burn over to a vulnerable target, kick it in the face and then GTFO before they have a chance to do anything about it.

Yeah I was quite :smug: about that one.

Also the only ship I've lost so far was my HAM Drake, when I engaged what I thought was a ratting Machariel, which actually turned out to be a fully PvP-fit murder-beast of death. With guns. To say he destroyed me wouldn't even cover the amount of hurt he lay down on my poor Drake, but it was worth it for the tiny chance at a Machariel killmail :P


So if you couldn't tell from that shameless spray of killmails, my kills for this month have gone skyhigh in comparison to my usual monthly statistics. This also made me quite :smug:

The quality isn't great, but you can see me at the top :)

And I'm slightly worried that LowSec is turning me into an asshole, because I called in a friend when I tackled this Hawk, even though I was fully aware I would be able to kill him on my own. (this was also the first time I managed to slingshot somebody on my first try. I was very proud of myself :P). I just thought Faf would like to get on the mail :\

I need to get back to soloing stuff.

Fly safe ;)

A flash of red and gold

Earlier this week, I got around to finishing off Small Pulse Laser Specialisation IV, which is my "point" for allowing myself to use that weapon system. (e.g I get T2 weapon skills to IV, minimum, before I use them). I of course decided to fit up the brawling Retribution fit I mentioned at the bottom of this earlier post

So I ran out into LowSec, and while looking for targets, I tried my guns out on belt rats. Frankly I wasn't too impressed. With only 600m of falloff I spent half my time changing crystals to keep my damage running. And the lack of a web made tracking smaller targets (like frigates) an arse. Even so, I hoped it would prove itself in a real PvP situation. And as luck would have it, while I was docked up in Daran messing in EFT trying to improve my brawler, someone jumped into system. I watched them for a while in Local. They didn't jump out, so I assumed they were either looking for me or ratting. I was happy either way, so I undocked and hit D-Scan.

Actually, would this thing work solo? Must try it...

A Crusader, aptly named "Crusader" appeared. I narrowed him down to a belt, and switched filters. Two wrecks appeared. Winning! I warped to the belt, and landed only a few kilometres off the Crusader. I started spamming my scram and approaching him. The problem was that even though I managed to scram him, an AB fitted Interceptor is much faster than an AB fitted Assault Frigate (obviously), and a lack of a web meant he was swiftly over 30km from me and warping away. Well crap.


I'd realised the problem with this fit within about ten seconds of using it in "live" combat. A Wolf can get away without a web, because with decent skills, you can reach to the edge of scram range with pretty much any standard "PvP" ammo, like EMP or Fusion (in falloff) and still apply damage, while Barrage will make kiters think twice (at the very least). A Retribution, on the other hand, has to switch crystals every five seconds as the other guy weaves in and out of range if you want any sort of decent damage application, which is obviously a problem.

So I went on the internet and found myself a new fit, a weird mix between a brawler and a kiter. I was intrigued, so I went back to Amarr, got myself another Retribution, fitted it up and went back to Daran. As luck would have it, the Crusader pilot from earlier was still in system. Could I catch him now, with a long point and MWD? Within a few minutes, I  found myself dropping out of warp right next to him (again?), and straight away he was burning off at over 1km/s. I smirked and lit my MWD while activating my disruptor. I soon hit almost 2.4km/s and was basically ramming the Crusader right up his tail. With Multifrequency loaded, he melted fairly fast. Success!

I looted his wreck, raised my eyebrow at the pure number of conflag crystals that dropped, and kept on roaming. A few jumps later, I caught sight of a Retribution on D-Scan in Bantish, who also appeared to be ratting.


I'd just like to mention, for those that don't know, Bantish has upwards of twenty-five asteroid belts split into three "clusters" (as I call them), all of which are out of D-Scan range from each other. Suffice to say, it took a long, long time to find him. I think I spent upwards of half an hour trying to scan him down, since he'd disappear off D-Scan as soon as he appeared. Eventually though, I landed about 10km off him, while he was pewing away at rats. I don't think he even realised I was hunting him. This time however, I was more cautious, and started holding him at range while firing Scorch into his armour. The Retribution's EM hole was quickly apparent, and he exploded. Second kill!

Lasers are almost as pretty as rockets

Feeling slightly lucky so far, I decided to keep roaming, and found a Punisher, also ratting. God, they're everywhere this evening. He was much easier to find compared to hunting that Retribution, and I essentially vaporised him with the local belt rats lending a hand. His pod didn't instantly warp out, so I decided to try and ransom him. What I didn't realise at the time, was that he was a four day old player. I felt slightly bad for what I did next.


[19:43:01] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Jeni
[19:45:43] Seraph Minayin > your money or your life
[19:46:05] Kiro Overson > -_- ass
[19:46:09] Seraph Minayin > life it is

Oh dear :(

I'm a bad person, I know.


So after a fairly successful solo roam, I decided not to push my luck and started heading back to to my new home in Irnin, since the faction police seem to get a little mad at me in 1.0 space.

And on the way home, I caught sight of an Apocalypse on D-Scan. Flown by a two week old player. Uhhhhhm?

I started following him as he warped from gate to gate. It seemed utterly random, as at some points we headed through systems we had jumped out of not two minutes ago. I hoped he would warp to a belt, or try and engage me on gate, but no such luck. I kept following him until he jumped back into HighSec (seemingly by chance), and imparted some friendly advice.

You can see how confused I was in corp chat...

Private Conversation

Seraph Minayin > hey o/
Andr Loz > hi
Seraph Minayin > this may be an odd question, but what the hell are you doing?
Seraph Minayin > ah now you find highsec ;)
Andr Loz > my english is bad
Seraph Minayin > well, basically the systems you were in were dangerous :)
Seraph Minayin > just make sure you avoid low security space for a while ;)
Seraph Minayin > fly safe o/
Andr Loz > o/


My personal karma restored, I flew back to Irnin and counted my loot. Not a bad haul in my opinion (worth around 15mil). Maybe if I can keep this running, I can make my PvP profitable!

Fly safe :)

No no no, loot first, THEN burn

So I've got a little story for you guys.

Today, two of my corpmates (Khan and Jester) decided to try their hand at gatecamping. Since we already have a LowSec POS, they decided to camp the HighSec gate leading in. So Khan Uitra gets into system first and reports a Rattlesnake and Broadsword kicking around, the Broadsword having already skirmished with Khan before. I hop into my Cyclone and start heading over to him, hoping for some more kills. However the two neutrals jump out soon after. (Of course, typical me, I keep going anyway incase they come back). Jester arrives in fast tackle.

Khan and Jester begin to camp the gate. I'm around 15 jumps out and totally unaware of what they're doing at this point. Within a few minutes of them waiting, a shuttle jumps in. They both lock it up, and Jester tackles it while Khan blows it to pieces. Same with the pod. Khan then has to warp off because his shields are low, and Jester has time to blow up the shuttle wreck while the guns focus on Khan (as we usually do on our roams to be fair).

Khan literally screams over TS and scares the living daylights out of me. I ask on TS what the **** just happened. Khan explains that Jester blew up the shuttle wreck before either of them could loot it, or even look inside it.

General consensus on TS is, "So what? It's a shuttle". Khan points out all the idiots transporting PLEXs in Rookie Ships, and we agree it's possible, but unlikely that the shuttle had expensive stuff in it. Personally at this point, I'm certain it's just an unlucky tourist. Khan and Jester start messing around, working out who got the mail. Khan finds it in his combat log.

Teamspeak
Khan : "Oh. My. God"
Me: "What? You're kidding. Was it expensive?"
Khan: "It's in corp chat..."


We all open the mail.

So yeah, dem blueprints

"Oh shit".

Capital and Battleship blueprints were apparently just chilling in the wreck when Jester exploded it. We have no idea if they were Originals or Copies, but I have no doubt everyone wanted them to be Originals, since those capital prints are worth about a billion each apparently.

Wisdom summed it up fairly well.

Wisdom: "Jester I'm going to pod you every day"

(Have no fear gentle reader, Jester is still very much loved :P)


So that's my interesting moment of the week. Hopefully next time, Jester remembers to loot before he burns ;)

Cutting my ties to HighSec, one thread at a time

Recently, I've been toying with the idea of moving to LowSec permanently on my main (Seraph) more and more. I've always had several things keeping me tied down in HighSec, but slowly, they're starting to fade.

The main three things that have been keeping me in HighSec are ISK, my Corp, and my experience (in terms of both SP and practical PvP knowledge).

ISK of course, is a major problem. You can't really PvP without any ships or guns (sadly). So to fund this you need ISK, and a decent/constant supply of it. Hopefully as my SP increases and my experience increases, I'll find PvP to be more profitable in it's own right, but at the moment paying around 100 mil per Assault Frigate when I die is still quite a hit on my wallet. Luckily however, Seraph is no longer my "bread winner", as Zendrak's trading profits will soon be able to fund my PvP exploits (or atleast it looks like they will). This of course means I can start focusing on pure PvP on Seraph, which is nice, because it lets me kill pods and such without worrying about being able to get back into HighSec to make money.

Accurate depiction of me in LowSec without
my corpies...

Another obstacle is the fact I'm in a (HighSec based) corp. Actually no, the real obstacle is that I actually like the people and atmosphere in my corp, otherwise I would have run off to a LowSec corp (like the Black Rebel Rifter Club) a long time ago ;) Since we're based in HighSec right now, moving to LowSec on my own and earning a terrible security status would seriously cut me off from corp operations, such as roams which require jumps through HighSec. Basically, I would turn myself into a hermit if I moved to LowSec without my corp. Luckily though, our "Leadership" is planning to start basing us out of a LowSec system in some time soon (TM) which in turn, removes the problem of being a hermit.



The final barrier to LowSec life (for me anyway), was the fact I didn't feel "ready" in terms of both SP and experience. Obviously dying alot in PvP isn't really the way to go, so moving myself into LowSec without a decent grasp of what the hell I'm doing is going to get me killed. And podded. Alot. Of course, that doesn't seem like a fun way to play the game for me, so I decided to wait until I felt more confident in my own abilities and choices. Further wrapped up in this, is the fact I'd like to be able to fly a wide array of frigates before I move to LowSec, so I don't get bored flying the same thing every day. That of course requires more SP, which takes time.


However after I've trained Gallente Frigate V and Caldari Frigate V, I can pretty much jump right into the Ishkur, Enyo, Taranis, Hawk and Harpy, since I've already trained most of the offensive and defensive skills for them. The biggest train I'm looking at finishing in the near future is Interceptors V, purely so I can LOLWTFPWN in the Taranis, and fly fast tackle more often in our roams.

Taken at the start of our last corp roam, during which
I flew as scout/fast tackle in my beautiful Malediction :P

So basically, in the next few months I should be saying my final goodbyes to both Amarr and HighSec, and plunging right into the life of a "true" solo PvPer in LowSec.

It can't come quick enough in my opinion :P

Fly safe.

Acting dumb and meeting new people

Yesterday was one of those roams where I don't get a kill, but interesting stuff happens anyway and I felt like recording it on this blog.

After the fun I had with my Wolf the other day, I decided to take out my armour Jaguar again and look for more blaster ships to mess with. I burned down to Ami, saw Local was skyhigh, and decided to hunt around the outskirts of the area instead. I ended up in Rannoze, sitting on a gate with a Vengeance piloted by Kalen Vox, who I chatted with ages back on one of my roams. We're just discussing our favourite Assault Frigates, and how to fit the Vengeance etc etc, when two people jump in, one a few minutes after the other.

The Armour Jaguar
Now with 100% more tracking disruptor asshattery!

The first pilot was Tumist Daphiti, the Rifter pilot I had murdered in my Wolf the night before. Once again I was impressed with his determination to get a kill, and chatted with him in Local for a bit, when a Hawk jumped in, and sat with me and Kalen on the gate. I was pretty certain I wouldn't be able to kill either pilot, so when the Hawk warped off, I didn't bother chasing him. Kalen however, was perfectly happy to murder another Assault Frigate, and warped off to look for him.

After what I assume was a long slugging match (for frigates anyway, fights are usually over in less than a minute), Kalen managed to murder the Hawk. Sounds like it was a good fight, I was just a little sad I couldn't watch. The Hawk pilot docked up, and we all kept chatting in Local. The talk slowly moved onto the subject of me blogging, and it was then Kalen noticed the presence of several combat scanner probes on D-Scan. I was on-top of the station by this point, and for some stupid reason I decided to tell the prober to stop wasting his time.

Seraph Minayin > lol, probing guy, I'm sitting on the first station


Yeah that was dumb, but nothing really seemed to happen. Not straight away anyway.

A few seconds after that another pilot in Local, Vultirnus, started chatting to me about blogging and revealed he also had a blog. "O rly" I said, "post a link"? Sure enough, he posts it, and surprisingly, it was a blog I had already read a few times and enjoyed quite alot, "Capsule in the Void" Small universe aint it? If you've never read it before, I recommend you do. He's got a dry sense of humour that's made me laugh a fair few times :P

So while I'm tabbed out checking out his most recent posts, and also adding his blog to my favourites on the side of my blog page, my EVE client starts making angry noises at me. Mainly Aura saying "THE CAPACITOR IS EMPTY" over blaring shield alarms.

I tab back in to find Vultirnus' Pilgrim decloaked next to me, sucking out my cap and drowning me in drones. What horror! What a menace! The pure asshattery! Distracting me with his beguiling words while he sneaks up on my poor little Jaguar!

I spam the dock button, and luckily I'm close enough to the station that my Jaguar remains intact. We had a good laugh about it in Local, with Vultirnus utterly unashamed that he'd tried to murder me while I was AFK. Then again, the guy likes to murder Velators in safe spots. What can you expect from people who live in Wormholes? :P

We keep chatting of course. Trying to murder each other is just a fact of life in LowSec it seems...

Seraph Minayin > do moar pilgrim stuff
Seraph Minayin > LOVE that ship
Vultirnus > lol working on it
Vultirnus > but you ran away haha
Seraph Minayin > discretion is the better part of valour XD
Vultirnus > lol i was hoping my web could keep you away from docking but assault frigs are a little tough
Vultirnus > t1 would have popped
Seraph Minayin > true
Seraph Minayin > i was surprised my shields held so long
Vultirnus > shoulda used med drones too
Seraph Minayin > lucky i had aura telling me my cap was empty XD
Seraph Minayin > totally tabbed out
Vultirnus > hahaha
Vultirnus > i was a little panicked after almost decloaking on the station
Seraph Minayin > lol
Seraph Minayin > you could have uncloaked a bomber gang on me and i wouldnt have noticed
Vultirnus > killing afk frigates is apparently my MO


After a long chat in Local, Vultirnus and his corpmates (including the prober, derp by me there) had to get back to their wormhole opening, so we parted ways, and I headed onto Miroona, since the map was showing some limited activity, and I was hoping to catch some ratters. Because you know. I'm pro at PvP like that.

Along the way, I start matching warps with an Abaddon. He starts pewing at me as we come through the Jedandan gate in Miroona after I decloak to burn back to the gate. Of course, with me orbiting the gate at 500m at over 800m/s, he's missing every shot.

Please, keep shooting. I'm sure EVE's mechanics will
change to let you hit me any minute 

I laugh in Local chat and tell the locals (about 15 of them) there's an aggroed 'baddon on gate with me, in the hope they will come out and kill it, in the process letting me whore on the mail.

I didn't realise 90% of Local is the Abaddon's corp.

Of course, one of his corpmates turns up in a Harbinger, webs and scrams me, and starts shooting. Worried that the Abaddon will be able to track me now, I jump out before his lasers cycle again and obliterate me. I jump back in about a minute later and fill Local chat with some banter, but they're happy to leave me be apparently, and I head on back to HighSec.

So like I said, not a massively "LOLAWESUMKILL" roam, but it was pretty cool to meet a fellow blogger, and it taught me to check who the hell I'm talking to in Local before I call for help like an idiot :P

Fly safe, not derpy ;)

Looking at new toys

I've recently encountered a couple of problems with my trader alt.


The main problem is that I'm running out of order slots, and with 53 on the go already, I'm quite impressed with myself. Even more impressive (in my opinion) is that all of them are sell orders. (I've decided to totally avoid all that buy order bullsh*t and simply buy stock straight from sell orders. It cuts into my margins by a few hundred thousand on each item, but it cuts down on time spent messing with buy orders, and provides me with an instant supply of "stuff". Frankly I can live with these downsides).


Of course this problem is fairly easy to deal with, I simply have to train some more skills. To this end, Retail V is set to finish in around four days, which will provide me with another eight orders (lol). While that doesn't sound very impressive, it also allows me to start training Wholesale, which gives me another 16 order slots per level. After that I'm planning to cut down my fees some more with Broker Relations V and Accounting V, which will be a few more weeks training.

I swear Khanid Innovations can make any hull sexy

This is where the second problem comes in. My cargo hauls to resupply my completed orders are now routinely worth about 300-400 million. While I never autopilot with this much in my hold, it's still a stupidly high amount to risk in a T1 hauler, with around 7k EHP (mild shield tank). One Tornado and boom, ISK down the drain. My only solution so far (besides public hauler contracts, which I don't really trust) is to get a stronger hauler. Cargo space isn't really a problem when hauling modules, so I'm happy to sacrifice some cargo space for a much lower chance at getting ganked.



Because I've already trained for a freighter, the Amarr Transport ships are a fairly fast train for me (less than a few hours).  I've been messing with the Impel on EFT, and settled on a fit that gives me 91k EHP with a fair amount of cargo space. It even aligns faster than my Bestower does currently. However, to train into it at a level I'm comfortable with will take me a month minimum.


Of course, this leaves me at a fairly large impasse. Do I risk losing a huge sum of ISK (huge for me anyway) at the whim of a bored Tornado pilot, or do I constantly bleed ISK from taxes? Make no mistake, these taxes add up. I estimate I've lost around 70mil or so to taxes last month easily. That's ISK that could be in my wallet, but instead it's paying for CONCORD's doughnuts.

Instead, I've settled on a compromise, I'll train my trade skills for about two weeks, then switch over to Impel training for two weeks. This will cut down my taxes, provide me with more order slots, and give me some measure of safety when hauling. I'll then swap back to trade skills for a couple of weeks, then swap back to the Impel after those are done etc, etc. Eventually, I'll have them both at a respectable level, and start working on maximising them both.



Also, I've been messing with a "brawling" Retribution fit recently, which is based heavily on Ava's Wolf, except with lasers where there should be autocannons etc. I'm hoping it will give me a "WTF" factor when I engage, because usually (to my knowledge) the Retribution is fit for kiting with Scorch. I think it's looking fairly decent, and even puts out similar DPS to the Wolf (about 20DPS less). However it also has a slightly higher tank (to be expected from Amarr Assault Frigates) which makes me happy inside :P

Another sexy Amarr hull...

This is what I've come up with so far.

Retribution - Brawler

High Slots
- Dual Light Pulse Laser II
- Dual Light Pulse Laser II
- Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
- Dual Light Pulse Laser II
- Dual Light Pulse Laser II


Mid Slots
- J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
- Gistii B-Type 1MN Afterburner

Low Slots
- Damage Control II
- Heat Sink II
- Heat Sink II
- Adaptive Nano Plating II
- Centii C-Type Small Armour Repairer


Rigs
- Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
- Small Energy Burst Aerator II 


Stats with all V Skills
DPS with IN Multifrequency/Overheated = 222/255
DPS with IN Standard/Overheated = 148/170

Tank DPS/Overheated = 83/107

Cap lasts 3mins 2seconds with everything running while firing Multifrequency
Cap lasts 1min 45seconds with rep overloaded and firing Multifrequency

So, any thoughts? Am I doing it wrong? Have I missed something obvious?

(I'm also planning to use the 3% Surgical Strike implant, along with the Small Energy Turret 3% implant, which pushes the DPS to over 270 with overheat)

Fly safe :)

For once I'm not flying a Vengeance...

A short roam last night netted me two kills, which I think is the most ships I've killed in one outing (usually because the second thing I attack murders me). I'm pretending it's progress, even though the first "fight" was more of a slaughter.

I had decided to finally get my ass into a different AF from my usual Vengeance, purely because it's starting to wear a little thin on me (and no doubt it's also getting boring for anyone who's a returning reader). I chose to try out the Wolf, since I've already had a pass on the Jaguar. I based my fit from this blog post by Ava Starfire. She sounded like she knew her stuff when it came to Minmatar Assault Frigates, so I took the plunge and bought myself a shiny new Wolf, fitted it up as Ava recommended, and headed out towards Ami. I even splashed a few million ISK on some 3% damage implants for Small Projectile Turrets and Surgical Strike. Both were dirt cheap, and totally worth the money in my opinion.

After jumping into Ami through the Gademam -> Daran pipe (much safer, I've never seen a gatecamp this way in), I spent ten or fifteen minutes dodging a couple of Proteuses, who appeared to be hunting a small cruiser gang. I didn't really want to get caught by either side, or get caught between them, so I docked up for a while and checked my sell orders on my alt. Not long after, the cruiser gang left system, and the Proteus pilots seemed to quickly get bored and log off. A quick check of Local now showed only eight or nine pilots including myself, so I undocked and started warping around, looking for a fight. I soon saw a Rifter on scan. I know, I'm a horrible person, but this is EVE! 

I'm not sure he was aware of how to use D-Scan that well, because he kept warping to belts, looking (I assume) for miners or a similar targets. I started trying to predict where he would warp next, but it was ultimately fruitless. He was pretty much warping randomly, and by the time I was in warp to a belt, a narrow scan showed him warping away. I warped to one of my safe spots and waited, hoping that he would get bored warping around and wait for someone to find him. A minute or so later, he seemed to stay in a belt longer than usual, and I flung myself into warp.

I landed next to him a few seconds later. He wasn't even moving, and there was a rat wreck next to him, so I assumed he must have decided to pew a rat while he was there. Fair enough, but it was going to cost him (Evil laugh). I locked him, turned on my scram, and switched on my overheated 200mm Autocannons. Fusion ammo spewed from my ship and absolutely tore the Rifter in half. Two volleys cut into his armour, and three more finished off his hull. A little shocked at how much damage I had done to him in such a short time, I moved to his wreck and grabbed the loot. From what I could tell, it looked like a decent fit (if only T1), his only problem was that I had turned up in an Assault Frigate. Very unfair. I felt a little bad for him, so I didn't offer a "gf" in Local. Frankly that hadn't even been close to a fair fight, so I wasn't going to dress it up as one. He soon jumped out of system.

I waited out my GCC in a station, then headed into Bridi. Utterly empty. I jumped into Fensi, and was greeted by a pair of Drakes, who thankfully jumped before my session cloak ran out (I doubt they would have caught me warping off gate, but I didn't want to risk getting caught by some idiots with Sensor Boosters). Warping to the centre of the system, I caught sight of a Vengeance on D-Scan.

Uh oh.

Obviously, I'm fully aware of how dangerous a Vengeance can be, since it's been my favourite ship for about two months. However, it also means I was very aware of its weaknesses, which I could hopefully lever to my advantage. I decided to get a little more information before I committed to the fight however. First job, find out who the hell is flying the ship. Easiest way to do this is let him find me. I warped to a random belt at 100km, started flying straight up, and waited.

Totally guessed he would do that :P

Within a few minutes, the Vengeance pilot had warped into the belt at zero, and I had a name to feed into the killboards. He was aggroed by the belt rats and warped off, so I felt fairly safe tabbing out for a few seconds while in warp to a planet to check his losses. A quick few glances at his recent deaths showed he had opted for a ballistic control system on his fit instead of more resists, and had pretty much left his EM/Therm hole wide open. A weakness I could exploit.

Fantastic!

I loaded up my EMP ammo, and warped back to100km on the same belt. The Vengeance pilot landed at around 30km from me a minute later, and started burning for my Wolf. Not long after that, an Anathema landed about 50km from the two of us and cloaked up. Instantly I was suspicious. Was the Anathema acting as a warp in for a gang? Not wanting to risk it, I burned about 50km away from where I had seen the CovOps ship, and waited for the Vengeance to catch up. I changed my D-Scan settings to around 2AU incase the Anathema was acting as a warp in, and then locked and engaged the swiftly approaching Vengeance.

I decided to try and hold my orbit at around 5.5km, where my speed should be as a high as possible. Hopefully this would reduce his rocket DPS by a fair amount. I overheated my guns, and  they began streaming hot lead at the Vengeance. Once again, I was shocked by the pure DPS the Wolf could put out. 

Yes, I'm armour tanking.

His shields were cut through in one volley (not entirely surprising), and within ten seconds he was in half armour and falling fast. My jaw was somewhere on the floor at this point, and I glanced at the damage notifications to check how hard he was hitting me. Uhhh, not very hard, since he was using Mjolnir Rage Rockets. Since Minimatar T2 ships get a massive boost to EM resists, he was having a hard time damaging my shields, let alone my armour.

Even worse, my small signature made his Rage Rockets less effective, and my shields hadn't even broken until he had started dipping into hull. Eyebrows raised, I watched as my favourite hull was torn to pieces in front of my very eyes. I even felt a pang of guilt as he exploded.

I think I've been flying the Vengeance a little too much...

I grabbed his loot, offered a "gf" in Local and warped to the nearby gate with no GCC to impede my progress. (Hurray for not engaging first!). Sitting on the gate, I had a quick glance through the loot (sadly nothing shiny, but ISK is ISK), when I noticed the Rifter pilot I had killed earlier was in Local. D-Scan showed another Rifter. Don't worry dear reader, I wasn't a dick (i.e I didn't attempt to murder him twice in the same night)

No, actually he sent me a convo invite and we had a good chat about PvP and starting out. I encouraged him to stick with it, as I was already impressed that after losing a frigate he got straight back out there and kept going. When I first started PvP, I would have a good sulk every time I lost a ship (hell, who am I kidding, I still do), so I have a feeling this rookie is going to turn out well if he stays on this course :P

I salute you sir!

Anyone else out there starting PvP, that pilot has exactly the attitude you need to do well. He even said that he was planning to lose his ships. Remember, frigates are cheap. Buy twenty of the damn things and go have some fun!

Fly safe ;)