That awkward moment when you're still not dead

Yesterday I was on a roll.

No seriously stop laughing, I was doing really well and I don't know why. I've been flying terribly these last few weeks and my killboard has been suffering for it, so I've been trying to fly less expensive ships until I get over this bump in the road. Which led to yesterday's shenanigans!

I started out at around lunchtime, messing with a Coercer hull that I've had hanging around for like, ever. I realised I actually had the stuff to fit it too. "Well why not?" I thought. "It's going to be cheap after insurance anyway"

So I quickly cobble together a fit from what I've got in my module box and my loot box. It looks half decent so I decide to give it a try. I undock from Ualkin and head towards Amamake, since it's normally pretty busy with frigates around now.

Here's the fit if you want to give it a try:

Coercer - Pew
Highs
8 x Dual Light Pulse Laser II (Scorch S/Imperial Navy Multi S)

Mids
Warp Disruptor II
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Lows
Heat Sink II
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plate I
Damage Control II

Rigs
Small Energy Collision Accelerator I
Small Energy Metastasis Adjuster I
Small Anti-Explosive Pump I

When I arrived, Amamake was being terrorised by an armour BC gang so I decided to head to the surrounding systems for targets. Almost straight away I saw a Condor in Vard in a small plex, so I warped on over, Scorch loaded and hoped he would decide to go for me. I land in the plex only 5km from him. He's not moving. So I insta-blapped him.

Laughing I warp away and keep roaming, eventually moving through Auga where I see another Coercer on scan. "Screw it" I thought.

Warping in I hope I'll atleast get him into hull before I die, since I'm fully expecting this fight to go badly. I land about 15km from him, switch to Scorch again and whack up the overheat. He starts firing back, but most of his shots seem to miss, and he explodes gloriously just as my shields break. Looting the wreck shows me why, Tech 1 lasers and only gamma crystals. Unlucky good sir!

I offer a "gf gf" in Local and keep moving, pumped from my two victories (shut up, wins have been thin on the ground for me recently ;D). I head back to Ualkin to drop off my loot and decide to switch to my shield Thrasher for a few jumps. Heading back towards Amamake again, I spot a fellow Thrasher in a small plex, and warp over to engage.

I land only 5km from him, so I bump him with my MWD incase he's trying to align out and overheat my top rack, spewing phased plasma rounds straight into his shields at point blank range. He doesn't react for a few seconds before beginning to lock me back but it's far too late. By the time I'm at 3/4 shields he's already in hull, and soon pops. I scoop loot then check D-Scan on short range, hoping a foolish frigate will come in for a brawl.

Oh shit, AF gang.

I warp off just as the first  Hawk lands. That was a close one.

I head back to Ualkin, drop loot and switch back to my Coercer, missing the comforting "bzzzt-pew" of my lasers. Once again, I roam around the Amamake area, looking for fights which seem plentiful today. I quickly find another noob frigate hiding in a small plex, this time a Tristan in Kourmonen.

Landing 16km off him, I start burning over under MWD while sticking my long point on him. He sticks his drones on me in return (which I shit you not, were Navy Acolytes) and starts burning away, presumably trying to pull range but with my overheated MWD we're going the pretty much the same speed.

In the same direction.

No tracking issues at all, he goes down in five cycles of my lasers. I laugh again, scoop the loot and realise he's still sitting there in his pod.

Point. Lasers. Pop. Scoop the corpse.

I dock up to repair my MWD which has taken some heat damage and roam out again. I catch sight of a Federation Navy Comet in a small plex and argue with myself about engaging for a while. Then I decide to ride my luck and engage anyway.

Warping into the plex finds me 20km from the Comet, and a quick glance at his ship shows railguns.

Thank god!

He tries to hold range at around 10-12km, which I'm perfectly happy to let him do with the incredible thing that Scorch is, I just burn at him to make him fly in a straight line away from me. Both of us are overheating, and the damage I'm doing is bleeding through into his hull (he's active tanked). I'm slowly dying and I'm worried I'm not going to pull through this alive.

50% armour...
40% armour. He's barely into hull...
30% armour. Shit come on baby!
20% armour. He's in half hull.
15% DON'T DO THIS TO ME, PLEASE!
10% A beautiful blue flash.

And I'm still alive!

"Gf" is swapped in Local, and I head over to the wreck like the vulture I am. And I get a dose of good luck... A 50mil ISK loot drop!

Epic win!

Cackling hysterically to myself I snatch the modules and run back to Ualkin, dropping them straight into my loot box. I admire my stuff for a few minutes before I head back out again, feeling in my bones I've still got some fight left in me. And I find it pretty fast in Siseide, where I see a Rifter warping to plexes, maybe scouting them. After a few minutes I catch him at the entrance to a novice plex and melt him.

Heheh I love these lasers.

Still warping around Siseide I catch sight of a Merlin on scan at a small plex.

Warping to the accel gate sees a Tristan landing next to me. Is he a friend of the Merlin? He warps in before me, and I hold on the gate for a few seconds deciding. Then I realise I might aswell go out with a bang, and warp in.

When I land I see the Merlin and the Tristan already blazing away at each other, so I decide to join in the fun. I lock them both up, point the Tristan and start melting the Merlin with my lasers, relying on the Tristan to point the Merlin for me. Pro tactics, am I right?

The Merlin pretty much collapses under the weight of our DPS, so I switch my guns over to the Tristan, hoping to get him before he slips under my tracking. Unluckily for him, he had been orbiting the Merlin, so when it popped, he slowed and stopped moving for a few seconds. Those few seconds got me several overheated wrecking hits with Imperial Navy Multifrequency crystals, and basically vaporised his Tristan before his drones even nibbled my armour.

Amarr Victor!

Apologising to both the pilots for crashing their party, I looted the wrecks and went back to Ualkin. They both seemed pretty cool with me joining in, since they both got killmails for their efforts even if I was the only one to be alive at the end.

So today was a good day for PvP, and I've found a new ship that I love to fly. I think things are finally looking up for my killboard!


Anyway, good luck out there guys :)

Sometimes I worry I'm too cautious

So as you might have guessed from the :omgsomanywords: narrative posts I've done recently, I now own a Pilgrim Recon Cruiser. And it's pretty damn awesome.

Well technically I own two of them but I'll talk about the second in a later post.

The first one is fit out for PvP. I won't bother telling you my fit because I'm still tweaking it after each fight I have to try and improve it, but basically it's got neuts, tracking disruptors, an active tank and several flights of drones. Pretty basic for the Pilgrim from what I know.

Now when you look at what the Pilgrim can do to a solo ship, it's pretty scary. I can cap out most battlecruisers within thirty seconds, even faster if they try to use guns such as lasers/blasters which need cap, or use propmods etc. The bonused tracking disruptors can cut ranges down to less than 5km or screw up their tracking to the point they're not going to hit a battleship sitting next to them. Of course, anything with drones or capless weapons is in slightly better shape, but not by much.

But here's the problem. That's what a Pilgrim can do to a solo ship.

Solo ships are bloody rare these days.

So that makes me wary when I finally find a potential target, mainly because my Pilgrim is expensive and I don't want to screw up my killboard, which is pretty bad anyway at the moment. I mean spent a good ten minutes on EVE-Kill when I was tracking that Maller, scouring his killmail history for any evidence it was bait fit, or perhaps going to murder me somehow. In my head, this is playing it safe with a potentially expensive lossmail.

However, one of my corpmates, Sarayu Wisdom says I worry too much when engaging targets. He's also a Pilgrim pilot, but he's been flying it longer than me and has a slightly different fit, to the point where any differences should be minimal. So basically we have similar capabilities and should engage similar targets right?

Wrong.

Here's an example. Wisdom and I were roaming around Kor-Azor LowSec a week or so ago. Both of us in Pilgrims, but we were in different systems scouting, and would meet up to attack things. Now I'm up in Pananan at this point, trying to catch a Bestower doing his PI runs. Wisdom is sitting just off the Ami gate in Fensi, a few jumps away watching for the local pirates while cloaked up.

TS3 Comms

Wisdom: Got a Vigilant on gate with me
Me: I'm trying to catch this Bestower, hang on.
Wisdom: Where are you?
Me: Pananan, about two or three jumps
Wisdom: *Silence*
Me: Damn it, he's got warp core stabs. He got away.... What are you doing?
Wisdom: *Still silent*
Me: Dude are you okay?
Wisdom: *Bursts out laughing* Yeah I'm fine but that Vigilant isn't.
Me: ...Are you shitting me?
Wisdom: Nope! Look it's in fleet

Vigilant

Turns out Wisdom had decloaked off gate just to see what the Vigilant would do. The Vigilant then apparently decided that engaging under gate guns would be a great idea (Wisdom isn't flashy), so he burned at Wisdom guns blazing. Wisdom disrupted his guns, neuted out all of his cap in about fifteen seconds, then stuck his drones on the Vigilant to make it go down faster. The "fight" lasted all of thirty seconds. The same thirty seconds that I spent chasing a stabbed-up Bestower.

I sulked for ages after that kill. Mainly because I would never had engaged it myself, and it bought home to me just how cautious I'm getting with my Pilgrim. Maybe I need to just say "Fuck it" and engage more often? I don't know, I see traps and cunning plans behind every ratting Legion, and I just assume that solo ships aren't solo anymore, because they never were when I was in GalMil.

Either way, I had seen that Vigilant roaming around several times before, and I never engaged it. No balls or playing it safe?

I don't know anymore.

Good luck out there guys :)

Well bollocks to this Russian lark

Zendrak recently left Red Alliance.

Seraph! Why was your alt flying with those damn ruskies/idiots/mouthbreathers/bads/scumlords/insert insult here anyway?

Because I was part of an industrial corp (Saku Industries) that had been recruited into RA in order to provide them with capitals. So basically the capital building corp I was in joined RA, and by extension, I joined RA too.

Which sucked.

No seriously, I got Alliance-wide messages almost everyday. Usually atleast three or four. And they were solidly written Russian essays, I swear to god. They could have been having a bloody literature competition for all I knew.

But Seraph, why were you even in that industrial corp to start with?

Did you even read the last bit?

They were building capitals

I wanted to help. Or atleast, make it appear I was helping, while planning to steal blueprints/components/completed capitals when I had the chance. And it would have worked too if it wasn't for those meddling Russians. Saku Industries had about zero corp security, they didn't even ask for my API. Robbing them blind would have been beautifully easy.

Then RA came into the picture and royally screwed up everything. So disgusted with my luck, I left Saku Industries without so much as a goodbye, came here to whine a little, and then started looking for a new corp. A corp I would be in to actually play with rather than attempt to rob blind because I swear I have awful luck when I try to steal things. And what's the first ad I see when I enter the recruitment channel?

A C5 Wormhole corp, "Dark Energy." looking for Logistics/Capital/T3 pilots. Well shit, that's almost me down to a T.

So instantly I joined their recruitment channel, chatted with them and was invited to hop onto their TS3 comms for an impromptu interview, right there and then. We seemed to get along well, so they asked for my API key (good start compared to Saku) and they'd look it over. Within about ten minutes they agreed I came back clean (as I expected, I've not actually done anything wrong on Zendrak) and said I could put in an application whenever I liked.

Awesome!

I've never done Wormholes before, and these guys seem like great teachers. Plus the projected ISK payouts look insane, and I'm hardly one to turn down a few billion a month! So Zendrak has been roped into Wormholes, but he's got a few skills to train before I'm going to join the corp in the hole, since he's got zero scanning skills (which is bad in a Wormhole) and needs to be able to fly a CovOps frigate at a minimum. But all of this is fine, because I've still got lots of things to deal with in HighSec for the moment, like organising all my crap and selling off surplus modules etc. So this means while I put my shit in order, I can tick down those skills I need, and hopefully within a week or so, I'll be welcomed into my new home with open arms.

Or maybe well aimed lasers. I hear Wormholers can be dangerous ;D


P.S Just to make it clear, I am not planning on trying to steal from these guys, mainly because Wormholes pay so well I have no need to, and also because their security measures make stealing things almost impossible. Which is good because I don't want my stuff stolen either!

There's always a bigger fish

Kor-Azor Region
Orus Constellation
Daran Solar System (0.2)
18:39 EVE Time (Local System)

The capsuleer relaxed into his chair on the bridge, as his officers worked quietly and efficiently behind him, allowing himself a slight smirk as he considered the relatively flawless attack on the mining barge yesterday. It had been the first live combat test of his Pilgrim Class Recon Cruiser, and it had performed admirably well against the target, despite the fact the barge was relatively unarmed and defenceless. Initial results looked promising, and he hoped to find a more dangerous target this time.

Deep in the middle of the system, between the local star and the entrance gate, his ship hung in space, invisible, deadly, and waiting. With his D-Scan providing the perfect tool to track movement inside system, all he had to do was wait for a suitably foolish pilot to attempt to earn a few bounties from the local belts. While such a ship would be equipped for combat it wouldn't hold a torch to his Pilgrim, and it would still be an interesting test. All he had to do was be patient.

He closed his eyes…

“Sir?”

The capsuleer was awake instantly, eyes flicking to his sensors operator, Hunley.

“Have we found something?”

Hunley nodded, still a little nervous of the capsuleer who had hired him and a few other officers only a week ago. The pay offered had been astronomical, and he’d jumped at the chance to leave his homeworld in Evati, as had the other crewmembers. The fact that their captain was obviously a pirate and not too choosy about who he shot at was being politely ignored by the rest of the crew.

“Scanners have picked up a Maller Class cruiser. He’s been in system for around eight minutes now, without moving on.”

He caught the slight tightening around the capsuleer’s eyes and felt a short stab of fear, wondering if he’d done something wrong. There was silence for a few seconds before he spoke.

“Excellent. Start tracking him”

Hunley breathed a quiet sigh of relief and moved back to his station.

“And Hunley?”

Hunley turned back to the capsuleer, expecting a reprimand of some kind. Instead he saw bright eyes and a wide smile.

“Good work. Keep it going and I might move you up from basic pay”.

The capsuleer gave him a wink before turning back to the main viewscreen on the bridge. Hunley went back to his sensor suite feeling a little numb. This was basic pay? He was already on 1000 ISK a month, an incredible amount. At this rate he would be able to retire within the year to a nice HighSec resort. He shook himself before the daydream started, he had work to do first. Moving his hands to the scanner controls, he opened a link to the camera drones outside the Pilgrim. Rotating the view to match the scan direction, he linked the two together and began pointing the camera/scanner duo at the nearby belts, on a narrow beam to clear out the clutter.

Scan empty

Scan empty

Scan empty

He was starting to get a little worried now. The Maller had been on 360 degree scan only a few minutes ago. He switched back to a full range scan and felt panic start to set in. The Maller had gone.

“Hunley?”

Hunley whipped around to find the capsuleer watching him.

“Have you found it?”

He felt sweat break out on his brow. He had heard stories of what happened to crew members who had disappointed their capsuleer captains. Most of them ended with said crew member vanishing and suspicious meats appearing in cheap restaurants.

“Ah, no, the Maller appears to have left… Sir.”

Another silence that seemed to stretch out into infinity as the capsuleer simply watched him, expressionless. Hunley was painfully aware of the other bridge officers watching them, waiting with bated breath to see what the immortal would do to him for his failure. 

With a slight shrug, the capsuleer turned to his comms officer, Sastan. The bridge officers perceptibly relaxed. It looked like they were safe from becoming dog food.

“Has there been any changes to the ship idents in system?”

Sastan shook his head.

“No Sir, Local channels report the same numbers as before. Four capsuleer registered vessels in system including ourselves.”

“Then he’s still here. Navigator?”

The navigation officer jumped slightly, not expecting to be called on while the vessel was motionless in space. She stuttered a little.

“It’s uh-uh Cole Sir”

Another smile.

“Well Uh Uh Cole, are we in scan range of all of the belts?”

She quickly checked the distances from the navigation database.

“Actually Sir, there are four belts outside of our scan range. Would you like me to move the ship there?”

He nodded.

“Move us to the planet. Thirty kilometres off the warp-in incase he’s sightseeing, I don’t want us decloaking until we’re in range to attack.”

There was a barely discernible shimmer as the Pilgrim aligned itself to the planet almost 30AU away. Within seconds the hidden engines flared, and the cruiser dropped into warp. The capsuleer strode back towards the central viewscreen, suddenly much more commanding and serious.

“I want scans the moment we get in range of that planet. Hunley, if you can find me that Maller  within fifteen seconds of us landing you’ll be in my good books when I look at pay rates later”

The young officer nodded furiously and devoted his full attention to the sensor screens.

Greed is a good incentive for these officers the capsuleer thought. Maybe I should fly cruisers more often. It’s certainly less lonely.

The Pilgrim dropped out of warp near the gas giant, sensors making discrete sweeps over the nearest belts as it hunted for any sign of its target.

Scan empty

Scan empty

… Maller Class Cruiser Detected

“We’ve got a signal Sir!” Hunley shouted elatedly “Belt three!”

The captain glanced back, no emotion on his face.

“Get us into warp now. 10 kilometres off the beacon.  And call battle stations, we’re in for a fight this time.”

The bridge suddenly became a blur of activity as officers rushed to their stations, each wanting this mission to succeed for the generous bonuses they would get afterwards, and the hope they could help their families with such money. Red lights began flashing throughout the ship, warning the crew to prepare for the rigors of combat. The distant pounding of boots along gantries could be heard as the fire control team ran for their positions, along with the slight hissing of the drone bays decompressing in preparation of a launch. Another short surge of acceleration and the Pilgrim fell out of warp only ten kilometres from the Maller Class Cruiser they had been hunting, the Maller's lasers already lancing out at the local pirates, cutting through their armour and melting the superstructure underneath.

Jackpot

They watched silently as the capsuleer decided on a plan of attack.

“Okay. See that wreck off to the side? The ship he’s already killed? He’s going to come back and loot that after those two pirates are dead. We’ll sit above it and wait for him to come to us. Then we’ll decloak and grab him before he has a chance to realise what’s going on.”

Tthe cruiser gracefully turned in a loop towards the wreck that was only fourteen kilometres away, aiming to curve behind and above it. As they cruised steadily in position, the viewscreen showed the footage from the multiple camera drones outside. The Maller was making short work of the two non-capsuleer crewed pirates despite the fact they were both heavily armed battleships against a much smaller cruiser. As the Pilgrim crew watched, one of the two battleships, an Armageddon class, exploded like a miniature sun as the Maller’s energy beams swept over its fusion cores.

“Christ” whispered Cole.

Hunley glanced over at her awestruck face, understanding implicitly. The terrible power capsuleers wielded was never so clear as when they were in combat, bringing death to foes many times bigger than their own ships with a combination of lightning reflexes, ferocity and a true disregard for their own safety. Even though he knew the Maller was no match for the Pilgrim on paper, he couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of doubt as he watched its lasers carve straight through the second battleship, splitting the hull in half and explosively decompressing the bulkheads. Debris flew out into the cold vacuum of space.

Cole coughed quietly.

“Sir, we’re in position”

The capsuleer didn’t even look away from the viewscreen.

“Good. Now strap yourselves down. I’ll be taking control of the ship for this.”

Hunley eyed his fellow officers, who all gave him similar glances back. Of all the things the immortals could do, effortlessly commanding a ship through their minds scared him the most. He strapped himself into his seat as everyone else followed suit. Even the immortal strapped himself in, apparently needing to concentrate on flying the ship rather than balancing on a heaving deck.

Outside, the Maller had finished looting the two battleship wrecks and was moving steadily towards them. Hunley watched the navigation screen, just visible over Cole’s shoulder.

15km…

12km…

9km…

A sudden surge of movement.

The Pilgrim decloaked, lit its afterburners and began locking the Maller within seconds of it entering scrambler range. Hunley shook his head. That sort of timing would take years of training for a human crew to perfect, but this capsuleer had done it like it was second nature, but then Hunley suspected it probably was. There was a faint whine as the scrambler spun up and stabbed out across the blackness of space, immobilising the warp drives of the now stricken Maller. It was quickly followed by a stasis web in order to keep it sluggish, and within range. Hunley glanced over at the capsuleer. Eyes closed, his arms gripping the sides of his chair, expression victorious, he looked every bit the pirate captain claiming his prize.

“Drones” he whispered.

Within an instant, the drone bay doors were open and five deadly Valkyrie II drones swept out into the black, autocannons mounted on the wingtips already spinning up. They surrounded the surprised Maller and began spewing explosive rounds into its thick armour plating.

“Disruptors”.  A slight smirk now.

The weapons array opposite Hunley suddenly blared to life, quickly hacked into the weapons systems of the enemy cruiser, and began streaming false calibration data to the deadly lasers. Beams of light stabbed all around the Pilgrim, but incredibly none of them hit her.

“Neuts”. The final blow, and the awful smile on the immortal’s face showed he knew it.

Two crackling beams of energy flicked out from the Pilgrim and contacted with the Maller, where they stuck fast like two giant golden leeches. Within seconds, the lights outside the cruiser flickered and went out. The lasers slowed in their attempts to track the Recon Cruiser, before grinding to a halt and going dead, power sucked out of them by the advanced energy weapons mounted on the Pilgrim.

With no energy, no way to escape, and no method of defense, the Maller was going down fast. Flames billowed out from multiple hull breaches before they were quickly snuffed by the vacuum outside. Each explosive round from the Valkyrie drones was ripping huge chunks out of the armour, and Hunley could already see lifeboats being ejected from the less damaged aft of the ship. A final round punched straight through to the volatile fusion core that was still struggling to supply the vessel with power, causing it to catastrophically overload in a matter of seconds.

The Maller exploded violently, pieces of superstructure pinging off the Pilgrim’s shields, while larger pieces of armour plating spun off into the nearby asteroids, shattering them into dust. The “pod” of the opposing capsuleer was flung out too, keeping him alive. Within seconds it had corrected explosive spin it had received and warped off towards the entrance gate.

Hunley sat back with a sigh of relief, not wanting to admit to himself that he’d been scared all the way through the engagement despite the obvious ease his captain had showed in dispatching the Maller. The immortal released the clasps holding him in his seat and stood to face them all.

“Excellent work people, but we still have to get the loot onboard, bring the drones back in and rescue those lifeboats. I doubt they’ll last long out there. Chuck all the prisoners in the cargo bay and we’ll drop them off next time we dock.”

He smiled at them again.

“Also I think you’re all in dire need of a bonus after that.  Now get to it.”

At the mention of another bonus, the crew sprinted for their duties.



///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Phew, that was alot to write!

I apologise to those readers who prefer a crisp, concise battle report, but I quite enjoyed the narrative process of my previous post, so I thought I'd run with it and actually involve some other "characters", even if they're only mentioned. Obviously the unnamed capsuleer is Seraph, my main, and it was pretty fun to give him a personality and "life" of sorts through my blog. Yes I'm fully aware capsuleers control their ships through their pods instead of using them as advanced lifeboats, but I thought it was more interesting storywise to make Seraph control the Pilgrim infront of the crew on the bridge. I'm pretending his implants allow him to control his ship without having to be plugged into it. Kinda like high-tech space Wi-Fi.

So shut up Myo.

Of course, I wasn't expecting the story to drag on quite as long as it did, but I enjoyed writing it so much I didn't have the heart to start chopping it down. Apologies again if you're the "Tl:dr" type. Maybe I'll do a weekly story based on a killmail or something and get a proper storyline going to link them because this is pretty fun, but I'm fairly awful at character development, so it's probably unlikely. However, I'm kinda tempted to get Zendrak involved in this story lark too. Some sibling rivalry maybe? I've already got some ideas...

But have no fear, my blog will be back to its normal style within the week, I just felt like doing something fancy for my 100th post and this one was simply a continuation of that.

Fly safe!

Oh yeah, and that title was of course a direct quote from Star Wars. I'm not even sorry.

What lies in the depths

Kor-Azor Region

Ami Solar System

Jatari Constellation
Ami Solar System (0.4)
14:49 EVE Time (Local System)

The gate flashed once in depths of space, bright and sudden. All was still for a few seconds before a mining barge decloaked, appearing almost wary in the strong light of the nearby star.


The pilot inside breathed a sigh of relief at the empty scene played through his camera drones, a blind jump into LowSec in an unarmed Mining Barge was a risky move, capsuleer or not, but he had timed it well. The locals were around halfway through their normal sleep cycle, and he estimated he had a few hours before system activity would rise and become dangerous again. But those few hours would make him rich if he could mine the rare ores that only could be found in LowSec systems.

With a short pulse of the engines, the Retriever Class Barge was aligned to an asteroid belt just outside of D-Scan range of the gates. The young pilot reasoned this was a smart move, less dedicated pirates would assume the system was empty from their scan results and move on, while the more dedicated pirates would have to move deeper in system to detect him, time he could leverage to reach the safety of a station before they even narrowed down his location. With a sudden acceleration, the barge dropped into warp, and disappeared from the space surrounding the gate. Nobody had seen him.

Or so he thought.

Scrub detected on D-Scan

A short time later, the barge pilot was ecstatic. He was positively surrounded by high-grade ores. He had only a few short hours, but they would be profitable hours and he looked forward to his work. Setting the scanners to ping for active ships every five seconds, he switched his attention to the mining lasers, experienced eyes easily picking out the low impurity rocks. The two major tasks done, he pulled the barge about a few degrees, the nose pointing slightly in the direction of his closest station, just incase the worst happened and he had to bolt quickly. Preventative measures established, he felt almost comfortable as he contemplated the slowly spinning rocks outside, outlined brilliantly by the local star. "LowSec is dangerous for sure, but nowhere near as much as some make it out to be" he thought. "Take sensible measures and you're guaranteed a certain level of security and saf-"

Imagine the "Jaws" tune here

Collision alarms blared throughout the bridge as the ship lurched sideways, throwing the young pilot to the deck as the automated anti-gravity systems aboard the ship attempted to prevent a catastrophic collision with something outside. Scrambling to his feet, the capsuleer swung his camera drones out in a spiral, trying to find what had almost crushed his brand new ship like a tin can, expecting a large asteroid to have rolled past a little too close for comfort.

Instead he saw something far more terrifying.

A golden Amarrian cruiser, highlighted with blood red streaks flowing down its flanks was burning past barely two kilometres away from his hull. As he watched, mouth agape, his ship's systems chimed a lock-on warning, and his sensors bleeped a positive identification on the ship outside, a Pilgrim Class Recon Cruiser. Time slowed down, his capsuleer enhanced brain allowing him to work quickly through his options.

"Fantastic" he thought furiously, "I don't even know what this thing does". Instinct, however, took over. Despite the disturbing ease with which the cruiser had snuck up on him, he still had a chance to escape. Quick as a lightning, he ordered an emergency warp from the ship's engines through his implants, barely noticing the worried chirps of his mining drones as they picked up the emergency warp broadcast and sped back home. Mining drones or not, he was leaving. They were hardly worth anything and he was already aligned out to safety. He waited hopefully for that sudden tug as his ship fell into warp, but nothing happened.

He suddenly realised, with a deep horrifying clarity that his ship's attempts at preventing collision to save him, had also doomed him. Pushed out of alignment, the Recon Cruiser outside had forced his ship into a checkmate. Panic seeped through his veins, for once in his life unsure of what to do, but it was already far too late. With a barely tangible "thwump", he felt the Pilgrim activate its warp scrambler, followed shortly after by two lancing beams of energy across his hull. Expecting his ship to be vaporised by lasers, he was surprised when he saw his shield readouts still at maximum capacity.

Scrambler in range annnnnd... surprise!

Feeling slightly more confident now, he realised he might have a chance to survive long enough for his corpmates to come to his rescue. Drones spewed forth from the Pilgrim's frontal drone bay, weapons glinting dangerously as they orbited his stricken ship. In response he activated his shield booster before turning to his comms array, planning to call for help from his allies while his shields fought against the marauding drones outside.

"The capacitor, is empty"


The pilot froze. Impossible. He knew from experience he could cycle that booster several times before he even came close to emptying his power reserves, and this was the first cycle. The drones outside were already spewing hybrid rounds, tearing through his floundering shields and punching straight past his limited armour plating. Smashing his fist against the control console, he barely caught the first few lines of the Pilgrim Class Specifications, which had appeared automatically on his screen a few seconds after it was identified by the ship's AI.

Specialised Energy Warfare ship. 
Should be considered extremely dangerous up close. 
Has the ability to warp while cloaked.

Despair descended on the young capsuleer. His defences had been torn to shreds like paper, and already he could feel his pride and joy decompressing from multiple hull breaches. He knew he wouldn't survive this, he only hoped the end would come quickly.

It did.

Yep, massive drama post about ganking a barge in LowSec. Sue me.

Also, happy 100th blog post!

Old friends, New home

Hey guys, it's been a while. Yeah I'm not dead.

I entirely blame my own laziness. I've been logging into EVE every few weeks to plug new skills in, but I'd lost the buzz since Christmas, that thing that draws you back into this great world and makes you excited to undock again. For some reason I couldn't work up the excitement to play. So my accounts languished, remembered only by the occasional dropping of new skills into the queue, usually long ones so I didn't have to bother with logging in every few days. I payed for them with PLEX, knowing I could only do this for so long. Not playing + paying with PLEX = Slow drain of finances.

And it was. I went from around 5-6bil in liquid ISK on several accounts to barely over 1bil. It wasn't looking great, but luckily I managed to sell a character of mine a few days back, so I'm back up to around 5bil again, plus now I'm back into to market trading, so maybe I'll be SpaceRich again soon!

But what's happened? What have I been doing since December?

Well dear reader, if you've been here a while, you may remember Adamas Anima, my old corp who I found early on in my EVE days, and stayed with for almost a year. I had so much fun with these guys, they had a great sense of humour and were eager to participate in everything. But then our LowSec tower was attacked, we lost almost 2bil in blueprints and our attempt at moving into NullSec ended in several disasters.

The corporation basically collapsed at this point. I had already left to join Gallente FW so I wasn't massively affected, but all the great guys (and some girls) I had met and had great times with splintered across EVE, joining NullSec corps, HighSec corps or disappearing altogether. Sad times indeed.

So fast forward a few months, and I'm leaving Faction Warfare. Not a few days after this post, I'm contacted by my old CEO and good friend, Myopic Thyne. He pretty much tells me Adamas is being reborn as Shattered Paradigm, and this time, we're going to do it right.

...How could I refuse?



Stay tuned, fly safe ;D

Plans change. People do crazy things.

So the whole "Fly 'til I die" thing, while a nice thought, doesn't look like it's gonna happen. Mainly because I've had alot less time IRL to play EVE recently (damn those Christmas parties/family gatherings), and the whole "LOSE ALL MAH SHIPS LAWL" idea kinda wears thin after the 8th or 9th loss in a row.

Also I kinda wanted to crack on with NullSec, experience new things and make lots of ISK. So sue me :)

So I was thinking about dropping my corp and saying my goodbyes in a couple of days before I headed on over to NullSec with Korvus.

Atleast, that was the plan until Korvus decided to stage a miniature revolution with his corp, kick Brick Squad in the balls and run for Wormhole Space.

Well crap, now what do I do?

- Follow Korvus into the Wormholes, a place I have no experience with, few scanning skills and even worse situational awareness?

- Join up with a LowSec pirate corp and return to murdering innocents? The changes in Retribution have now made piracy in frigates possible, and I'd love to get back to "living off the land" again...

- Find a NullSec Alliance and join it anyway, for the lols, blob combat and mad iskies?

- Stay in Faction Warfare?

- Run solo again for awhile?

Choices will have to be made...