Recently I've been yearning for a different way of playing EVE.
Though I don't mean joining some NullSec E-Peen waving or returning to the horrific featureless wasteland of HighSec, I just want to do something different in LowSec. And Faction Warfare is starting to hold my interest after hearing all about the scandal, insanity and full-blown ISK fountain that it supposedly is from various blogs and forums.
For the Minmatar anyway ;)
But frankly the whole ISK side isn't the thing that's been catching my attention. Since I'm dying alot less these days, PvP is much less expensive than it used to be, and I'm keeping my head above water finance-wise. So the ISK (while attractive) is more of a side-show for the supposed small-gang/solo PvP paradise that FW claims to be. So I decided I wanted to try it for a few months or so. There are two annoyances for this however. The first, more minor issue, is that I'll have to move all my crap to whichever faction's "staging system(s)" I decide to join. This will be annoying, but do-able. I'll have to use my freighter for a couple of runs (if I'm lucky, maybe only one) and probably borrow an Orca run or two from corpmates. Either way, it's more a question of time than any real effort or ISK.
Speaking of corpmates, that brings me to my next issue. I recently discovered (while chatting on a newb alt I placed in FW to test the waters) that if I want to join FW, I have to join either with my whole corp (which is not going to happen :P) or I join on my own, and I leave Adamas Anima for the time I'm in FW. I'd hope it was obvious, that this made me pause for a while. I've spent the vast majority of my time in EVE with Adamas Anima, and I've made good friends with many them. Dropping corp just to have moar PvP funtimes makes me feel a little selfish, and I was worried how my corp would react. However, my corpmates have been fully supportive of me, and I'm certain when I come back a glorious war hero (sarcasm) they'll welcome me with open arms.
So at the moment I'm in corp stasis while I drop roles and such, and in a few hours I'll be deciding which faction I'll join. I'm still uhming and ahhing whether I'll join a FW Corp or just jump straight in with the NPC militia. I think I've settled for a certain option, but I want to do some more research before I tie myself down.
Suffice to say however, I've always enjoyed fighting as the underdog...
Fly safe :)
Friday, 31 August 2012
Saturday, 25 August 2012
He who Dares, wins
First of all, I'd like to link this post. Seems like my targets enjoy blogging too :)
But anyway, on with the fight report!
In the last week or so, I've been looking for a new "flagship", so to speak. My Vengeance, while still beautiful and deadly, is starting to wear a little thin on me once again. It's also starting to warp my perceptions of other ships I fly. For example, I don't fly T1 frigates anymore purely because I don't feel safe in them. After the "LOLTANKALLTHETHINGS" that a Vengeance can pull off, a dinky little Incursus has a tank like paper. I obviously want to get away from this, because T1 frigates (specifically the Punisher) are what made me start, and then fall in love, with solo PvP.
So my first "new flagship" choice was an Omen Navy Issue, which I've wanted to fly for a long time now, but I currently haven't trained T2 Medium Pulse Lasers, and I have an unwritten rule that any T2 or Faction ship I fly must have T2 weapons, because it deserves it. So I put the ONI on the backburner and kept looking. My second choice was a Dramiel, but I had heard about it being nerfed fairly recently, and didn't want to look stupid by losing it to a new "weakness" that I knew nothing about. Also autocannons are getting boring. My third choice was the Daredevil. I checked out the bonuses, and it looked pretty awesome. I then looked at a few fits on Failheap/Battleclinic and examined some lossmails. It seemed fairly versatile, and I was interested in flying one to say the least.
Then I remembered somebody in Amarr Local mentioning that Kill2 had done a Youtube video flying a Daredevil. Since Kill2 is one of my Solo PvP "idols", I decided to check it out.
By the end of the video I was already on my way to Jita to buy Seraph a brand-spanking new Daredevil. It made that much of an impact on me.
The video is here if you haven't seen it already. If you have, you can skip these next few paragraphs, I'm just going to explain the video. The basic idea of the fit is a shield buffer Daredevil, with silly DPS and a super-web as provided by the ship bonuses. Some of you will already have seen the problem with this. A Daredevil has three mids, which usually means you fit the "golden three" of PvP, which is a point, web and propulsion. Of course if you want a MSE on there, one of them will have to go. So which do you drop? Answer, the point of course. For those of you who only even PvP a little, this probably screams blasphemy, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
You obviously only engage other frigates, because frigate fights are fast, which means adrenaline is higher and more mistakes are made, (like the opponent not noticing he's not being pointed). Also it's sort of expected to PvP with a scram or long point, so this will literally effect how they see the fight. The human mind is a powerful tool :) Furthermore, you're flying a faction ship, so that's going to make them want to hold out as long as they can for that shiny killmail. Hopefully long enough that they get melted.
However, you need to minimise the time your opponent has to notice he can run at any moment, so anything with a strong buffer or stupidly high active tank (like an ASB tank) is out of the question. And of course, kiting ships are dangerous because you'll probably never catch them (unless you can hit them with that super web you're packing). So while this ship fit limits your engagement envelope, it also makes them much more exciting, since you're living on borrowed time. You have to hope your DPS breaks them in half within a minute or so, otherwise they'll have realised they can warp out whenever they please or you're dead. Either is bad, though obviously the latter is worse ;)
The bit where I actually fight something
So with all of this in mind, I started roaming around in my new Daredevil. The only faction item fitted to it is a Gistii B-Type AB, because I like the extra boost it has over T2. My friends asked why I didn't have a faction web, and frankly it's a matter of cost. The only advantage a faction web gives me is more range, and I want to keep that 90% web, which means only a Fed Navy Web will do (as far as I know). And for the price of that web, I could buy and fit another Daredevil. I'd rather have two ships than one expensive one. (Oh the irony while I fly a pure faction Vengeance).
After a few jumps, I found myself sniffing around Fensi, where a Caldari Navy Hookbill was loitering with deadly intent among the belts. Having no idea about the capabilities of the Hookbill or my Daredevil, I asked who was more likely to win in our public channel, whilst chilling outside the top station. The general consensus was "Lol he'd die over and over and over". Still feeling cautious, I waited for him to notice me on station and warp over to look. Since I'm flashy, he fired at me almost instantly, which gave me some interesting hints about his fit and DPS. His DPS was decent, but he had a tracking disruptor and only one web. I reckoned I could easily keep on top of him during the fight, but that TD might create some problems. While I was mulling this over docked in the station, I saw a corpmate of the Hookbill jump into system. I quickly undocked and spammed D-Scan. I saw a Kitsune flash up for a second before either cloaking, docking or warping out of range. Well fantastic, that gave me an even shorter time limit. After a lot of cajoling and trolling, Korvus and iwinyoulost convinced me to take the fight.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > may aswell take the fight i guess...?
Seraph Minayin > it's gonna die someday anyway
iwinyoulost > Goodbye seraph.
Seraph Minayin > lols
Korvus Falek > lol
iwinyoulost > :'( you're gonna die
iwinyoulost > /emote funeral march
iwinyoulost > tell me how fight ends
iwinyoulost > i wanna see lossmail :3
Seraph Minayin > >.>
I warped into the belt the Hookbill had flown off for and saw him 50km away. I had a few seconds to make a decision on ammo, so I plumped for Null, hoping the extended range and tracking would make his TD less helpful. I overheated my guns, let him get close, then swung towards him and hit on my web (I had been aligning out). His speed started dropping fast, and rockets began to smash into my shields. I winced at each hit. Sucking my breath through my teeth in worry, I glanced up at his shield readout, hoping to have made a decent dent in them (I was already at 75% shields myself).
He was already in half armour and dropping fast. I was shocked, to say the least.
In the space of ten seconds, his ship had exploded and his pod was just floating there. I vaguely remember mumbling a series of swears at this point in pure amazement. I then realised he hadn't warped his pod out straight away, so I started locking it. With that Kitsune hanging around somewhere, and a total lack of a point, I decided to just pop him if he didn't run, instead of a ransom attempt. My blasters tore him into a new clone, and as I scooped the corpse and the loot, his corpmate warped in with a Kitsune. I decided to GTFO, and warped off to a safespot. I had some fun in Mundens.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > oh dear
iwinyoulost > :O ?
Seraph Minayin > Corpse -> the poor sir appears to have had a catastrophic pod rupture
Seraph Minayin > what a shame
Raptrox > lol
Korvus Falek > lol
iwinyoulost > hehe
Smiling to myself, I checked the Hookbill mail, then posted it into the channel. I then checked the pod mail.
Shits were shat.
That's easily my most expensive solo kill to date, even if it was only a pod...
Of course I had to rub this in everyone's face too.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > I'M NOT EVEN SORRY!
Seraph Minayin > Kill: markusikkk (Capsule)
Seraph Minayin > HOLEY SHEETS
Seraph Minayin > 1BIL POD
Seraph Minayin > LAWLAWLAWLAWL
Korvus Falek > lol nice!
iwinyoulost > LOLOLOLOLOL
iwinyoulost > 1b pod!?!
Korvus Falek > guess that beats my 600 misk pod death
Korvus Falek > gimme a link so i can show corpies =P
And to make it even better, one of his corpmates offered to buy the corpse off me for 10mil. Pft, you've got a deal.
Private chat - Fibrizo Kravitz
Fibrizo Kravitz > hello
Seraph Minayin > o/
Fibrizo Kravitz > im friend of markusikkk and im looking for his body to my rare collection XD
Seraph Minayin > orly
Fibrizo Kravitz > could you give me or sell me ?
Seraph Minayin > well we've become quite attached ;) -> Yes that was a necrophilia joke
Fibrizo Kravitz > he's officer in my corp and it would be great to have his body XD
Seraph Minayin > how much do you want for it? :)
Fibrizo Kravitz > name your price
Seraph Minayin > well i dont want to bankrupt you
Seraph Minayin > how much is your max limit?
Fibrizo Kravitz > is 10kk ok ? :S
Seraph Minayin > 10mil?
Fibrizo Kravitz > yep ;/
Fibrizo Kravitz > i wiped out of money for my jaguars XD
Seraph Minayin > hmm
Seraph Minayin > ah go on then
Fibrizo Kravitz > :D
Seraph Minayin > i have other corpses :)
Fibrizo Kravitz > where is his body ?
Seraph Minayin > i'll contract it to you
Seraph Minayin > i'm in fensi V moon 1
Seraph Minayin > contract is up
Fibrizo Kravitz > :D
Seraph Minayin > :)
Seraph Minayin > ty
Fibrizo Kravitz > thank you XD
Seraph Minayin > enjoy his corpse!
Seraph Minayin > ...that sounded weird
Seraph Minayin > o7
Fibrizo Kravitz > o7
Winning!
Fly safe ;)
P.S The pun in my title is awful, I know :P
But anyway, on with the fight report!
In the last week or so, I've been looking for a new "flagship", so to speak. My Vengeance, while still beautiful and deadly, is starting to wear a little thin on me once again. It's also starting to warp my perceptions of other ships I fly. For example, I don't fly T1 frigates anymore purely because I don't feel safe in them. After the "LOLTANKALLTHETHINGS" that a Vengeance can pull off, a dinky little Incursus has a tank like paper. I obviously want to get away from this, because T1 frigates (specifically the Punisher) are what made me start, and then fall in love, with solo PvP.
So my first "new flagship" choice was an Omen Navy Issue, which I've wanted to fly for a long time now, but I currently haven't trained T2 Medium Pulse Lasers, and I have an unwritten rule that any T2 or Faction ship I fly must have T2 weapons, because it deserves it. So I put the ONI on the backburner and kept looking. My second choice was a Dramiel, but I had heard about it being nerfed fairly recently, and didn't want to look stupid by losing it to a new "weakness" that I knew nothing about. Also autocannons are getting boring. My third choice was the Daredevil. I checked out the bonuses, and it looked pretty awesome. I then looked at a few fits on Failheap/Battleclinic and examined some lossmails. It seemed fairly versatile, and I was interested in flying one to say the least.
Then I remembered somebody in Amarr Local mentioning that Kill2 had done a Youtube video flying a Daredevil. Since Kill2 is one of my Solo PvP "idols", I decided to check it out.
By the end of the video I was already on my way to Jita to buy Seraph a brand-spanking new Daredevil. It made that much of an impact on me.
 |
| Daredevil fit. That DPS is with Null, which I find scary |
The video is here if you haven't seen it already. If you have, you can skip these next few paragraphs, I'm just going to explain the video. The basic idea of the fit is a shield buffer Daredevil, with silly DPS and a super-web as provided by the ship bonuses. Some of you will already have seen the problem with this. A Daredevil has three mids, which usually means you fit the "golden three" of PvP, which is a point, web and propulsion. Of course if you want a MSE on there, one of them will have to go. So which do you drop? Answer, the point of course. For those of you who only even PvP a little, this probably screams blasphemy, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
You obviously only engage other frigates, because frigate fights are fast, which means adrenaline is higher and more mistakes are made, (like the opponent not noticing he's not being pointed). Also it's sort of expected to PvP with a scram or long point, so this will literally effect how they see the fight. The human mind is a powerful tool :) Furthermore, you're flying a faction ship, so that's going to make them want to hold out as long as they can for that shiny killmail. Hopefully long enough that they get melted.
However, you need to minimise the time your opponent has to notice he can run at any moment, so anything with a strong buffer or stupidly high active tank (like an ASB tank) is out of the question. And of course, kiting ships are dangerous because you'll probably never catch them (unless you can hit them with that super web you're packing). So while this ship fit limits your engagement envelope, it also makes them much more exciting, since you're living on borrowed time. You have to hope your DPS breaks them in half within a minute or so, otherwise they'll have realised they can warp out whenever they please or you're dead. Either is bad, though obviously the latter is worse ;)
The bit where I actually fight something
So with all of this in mind, I started roaming around in my new Daredevil. The only faction item fitted to it is a Gistii B-Type AB, because I like the extra boost it has over T2. My friends asked why I didn't have a faction web, and frankly it's a matter of cost. The only advantage a faction web gives me is more range, and I want to keep that 90% web, which means only a Fed Navy Web will do (as far as I know). And for the price of that web, I could buy and fit another Daredevil. I'd rather have two ships than one expensive one. (Oh the irony while I fly a pure faction Vengeance).
 |
| Terribad picture I know, but the fight was too fast |
After a few jumps, I found myself sniffing around Fensi, where a Caldari Navy Hookbill was loitering with deadly intent among the belts. Having no idea about the capabilities of the Hookbill or my Daredevil, I asked who was more likely to win in our public channel, whilst chilling outside the top station. The general consensus was "Lol he'd die over and over and over". Still feeling cautious, I waited for him to notice me on station and warp over to look. Since I'm flashy, he fired at me almost instantly, which gave me some interesting hints about his fit and DPS. His DPS was decent, but he had a tracking disruptor and only one web. I reckoned I could easily keep on top of him during the fight, but that TD might create some problems. While I was mulling this over docked in the station, I saw a corpmate of the Hookbill jump into system. I quickly undocked and spammed D-Scan. I saw a Kitsune flash up for a second before either cloaking, docking or warping out of range. Well fantastic, that gave me an even shorter time limit. After a lot of cajoling and trolling, Korvus and iwinyoulost convinced me to take the fight.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > may aswell take the fight i guess...?
Seraph Minayin > it's gonna die someday anyway
iwinyoulost > Goodbye seraph.
Seraph Minayin > lols
Korvus Falek > lol
iwinyoulost > :'( you're gonna die
iwinyoulost > /emote funeral march
iwinyoulost > tell me how fight ends
iwinyoulost > i wanna see lossmail :3
Seraph Minayin > >.>
I warped into the belt the Hookbill had flown off for and saw him 50km away. I had a few seconds to make a decision on ammo, so I plumped for Null, hoping the extended range and tracking would make his TD less helpful. I overheated my guns, let him get close, then swung towards him and hit on my web (I had been aligning out). His speed started dropping fast, and rockets began to smash into my shields. I winced at each hit. Sucking my breath through my teeth in worry, I glanced up at his shield readout, hoping to have made a decent dent in them (I was already at 75% shields myself).
He was already in half armour and dropping fast. I was shocked, to say the least.
In the space of ten seconds, his ship had exploded and his pod was just floating there. I vaguely remember mumbling a series of swears at this point in pure amazement. I then realised he hadn't warped his pod out straight away, so I started locking it. With that Kitsune hanging around somewhere, and a total lack of a point, I decided to just pop him if he didn't run, instead of a ransom attempt. My blasters tore him into a new clone, and as I scooped the corpse and the loot, his corpmate warped in with a Kitsune. I decided to GTFO, and warped off to a safespot. I had some fun in Mundens.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > oh dear
iwinyoulost > :O ?
Seraph Minayin > Corpse -> the poor sir appears to have had a catastrophic pod rupture
Seraph Minayin > what a shame
Raptrox > lol
Korvus Falek > lol
iwinyoulost > hehe
Smiling to myself, I checked the Hookbill mail, then posted it into the channel. I then checked the pod mail.
Shits were shat.
That's easily my most expensive solo kill to date, even if it was only a pod...
Of course I had to rub this in everyone's face too.
Mundens Bar - Public Channel
Seraph Minayin > I'M NOT EVEN SORRY!
Seraph Minayin > Kill: markusikkk (Capsule)
Seraph Minayin > HOLEY SHEETS
Seraph Minayin > 1BIL POD
Seraph Minayin > LAWLAWLAWLAWL
Korvus Falek > lol nice!
iwinyoulost > LOLOLOLOLOL
iwinyoulost > 1b pod!?!
Korvus Falek > guess that beats my 600 misk pod death
Korvus Falek > gimme a link so i can show corpies =P
And to make it even better, one of his corpmates offered to buy the corpse off me for 10mil. Pft, you've got a deal.
Private chat - Fibrizo Kravitz
Fibrizo Kravitz > hello
Seraph Minayin > o/
Fibrizo Kravitz > im friend of markusikkk and im looking for his body to my rare collection XD
Seraph Minayin > orly
Fibrizo Kravitz > could you give me or sell me ?
Seraph Minayin > well we've become quite attached ;) -> Yes that was a necrophilia joke
Fibrizo Kravitz > he's officer in my corp and it would be great to have his body XD
Seraph Minayin > how much do you want for it? :)
Fibrizo Kravitz > name your price
Seraph Minayin > well i dont want to bankrupt you
Seraph Minayin > how much is your max limit?
Fibrizo Kravitz > is 10kk ok ? :S
Seraph Minayin > 10mil?
Fibrizo Kravitz > yep ;/
Fibrizo Kravitz > i wiped out of money for my jaguars XD
Seraph Minayin > hmm
Seraph Minayin > ah go on then
Fibrizo Kravitz > :D
Seraph Minayin > i have other corpses :)
Fibrizo Kravitz > where is his body ?
Seraph Minayin > i'll contract it to you
Seraph Minayin > i'm in fensi V moon 1
Seraph Minayin > contract is up
Fibrizo Kravitz > :D
Seraph Minayin > :)
Seraph Minayin > ty
Fibrizo Kravitz > thank you XD
Seraph Minayin > enjoy his corpse!
Seraph Minayin > ...that sounded weird
Seraph Minayin > o7
Fibrizo Kravitz > o7
Winning!
 |
| Seriously. 10mil for a corpse |
P.S The pun in my title is awful, I know :P
Monday, 20 August 2012
I've missed something here haven't I?
So I'm back from Spain and it's nice to have a decent internet connection again. I've been catching up with my corpmates and all the blogs I read, which wiped out a fair few hours while I fiddled on my two accounts. I decided to sort out all my "logistical" things before I got back into PvP, and started to download a new update.
Judging by the size of the download I had when I started the client, something fairly chunky was added, but I decided I couldn't be bothered about reading the patch notes until later. If it was earth-shaking, my corpmates would have mentioned it right?
Instead I reset all my market orders, which seemed to have survived my two week absence surprisingly well. I made a few more trips on Zendrak before logging onto Seraph and going out hunting. I logged into Pananan with ten people in Local, which was a little odd. Local usually maxes out at three or four. I undocked to have a poke around and stumbled into a cyno with several dreads and a carrier around it, right outside the station. Quietly wetting myself, I docked back up again and tinkered some more on my alt.
A few hours later, Pananan was all quiet again, so I headed back into LowSec. I roamed around in my shiny new HAM Drake, but it was too slow for me to find anyone. I returned to Pananan planning to do some exploration or ratting, when I saw a Procurer on D-Scan from the gate. I raised an eyebrow, and quickly narrowed him down to the top belt. I stifled laughter. This was too easy.
I threw my Drake into warp, and within seconds I was only 15km off the foolish Procurer. He started aligning out for warp, but it was too late. My disruptor had him nailed down and I started flinging HAMs into his face. He seemed to be taking far more hits than I would have expected for such a puny barge, with each volley only taking off maybe 5-15% of his shields. All of a sudden he flashed to red on my overview and I panicked. Was he a "bait barge" with a cyno? It would explain the ease at which I had found him. But no Supercarriers fell from the heavens to rain death upon me, so I frowned in confusion. His shields were still only slowly dropping, and I was worried my Drake was malfuctioning. Even a poorly skilled HAM Drake should 'splode a Mining Barge with no more than a sneeze. And then I stopped shooting.
Not out of any compassion mind. I was jammed.
I think I said something along the lines of "Hugmhgm?!" while gawping at the Procurer calmly aligning out to the station and warping away. I hadn't seen any ECM drones, and believe me, I made sure I had those bastards on my Overview. It turned out a few minutes later that the pilot had fitted a Multispecteral ECM instead of warp core stabs, on which he said
"Sethis Vokan > warp stabalisers aint worth shit"
Fair enough. I was pretty stunned as I warped away, surprised that an unbonused jam managed to save his ass. We chatted a bit in Local.
Seraph Minayin > the fudge...?
Sethis Vokan > lol
Seraph Minayin > shrug
Seraph Minayin > well played sir
Seraph Minayin > i admit i wasn't expecting to be jammed by a mining barge
Sethis Vokan > glad it worked
Seraph Minayin > lol
Sethis Vokan > warp stabalisers aint worth shit
Seraph Minayin > true
Seraph Minayin > people just bump you
Sethis Vokan > thought id try sumut new
Seraph Minayin > thought you were bait for a minute
Seraph Minayin > was very confused when you red boxed me
Seraph Minayin > didnt realise you had a jammer
Sethis Vokan > well glad it worked
Seraph Minayin > heh i bet
Sethis Vokan > that worked really well,
Sethis Vokan > am a bit chuffed
I then turned my attention to the patch notes, wondering how the hell a Mining Barge had tanked me long enough to survive several volleys of HAMs and fire off a jam cycle. I found the answer pretty much instantly in a fairly recent Dev-Blog.
- Procurer/Skiff: primarily made for self-defense. Better mining rate than the ORE frig (wait what frig?), good ore bay, but capable of having battleship-like EHP
Well bugger. Mining barges are no longer my whipping boys. Also how the hell did I miss this? Next time, I'll read the patch notes after every update. Then I might have realised what the hell was going on, since I was far more worried about the lack of decent damage from my Drake rather than how a Procurer was redboxing me with no guns, drones, webs, scrams or neuts. If I'd thought through the possibilities, it's possible I may have realised he was trying to jam me, and tried to keep bumping him out of alignment instead of cackling like a stereotypical villain while following him from a few kilometres away.
Anyway, well played Sethis. I hope to catch you another day! o7
Fly safe :)
* P.S. I apologise for the lack of screenshots in this post to break up the wall of text, but Overwolf has been acting up recently, and is refusing to take any screenshots of EVE that vaguely resemble what my screen is showing. *
Judging by the size of the download I had when I started the client, something fairly chunky was added, but I decided I couldn't be bothered about reading the patch notes until later. If it was earth-shaking, my corpmates would have mentioned it right?
Instead I reset all my market orders, which seemed to have survived my two week absence surprisingly well. I made a few more trips on Zendrak before logging onto Seraph and going out hunting. I logged into Pananan with ten people in Local, which was a little odd. Local usually maxes out at three or four. I undocked to have a poke around and stumbled into a cyno with several dreads and a carrier around it, right outside the station. Quietly wetting myself, I docked back up again and tinkered some more on my alt.
A few hours later, Pananan was all quiet again, so I headed back into LowSec. I roamed around in my shiny new HAM Drake, but it was too slow for me to find anyone. I returned to Pananan planning to do some exploration or ratting, when I saw a Procurer on D-Scan from the gate. I raised an eyebrow, and quickly narrowed him down to the top belt. I stifled laughter. This was too easy.
I threw my Drake into warp, and within seconds I was only 15km off the foolish Procurer. He started aligning out for warp, but it was too late. My disruptor had him nailed down and I started flinging HAMs into his face. He seemed to be taking far more hits than I would have expected for such a puny barge, with each volley only taking off maybe 5-15% of his shields. All of a sudden he flashed to red on my overview and I panicked. Was he a "bait barge" with a cyno? It would explain the ease at which I had found him. But no Supercarriers fell from the heavens to rain death upon me, so I frowned in confusion. His shields were still only slowly dropping, and I was worried my Drake was malfuctioning. Even a poorly skilled HAM Drake should 'splode a Mining Barge with no more than a sneeze. And then I stopped shooting.
Not out of any compassion mind. I was jammed.
I think I said something along the lines of "Hugmhgm?!" while gawping at the Procurer calmly aligning out to the station and warping away. I hadn't seen any ECM drones, and believe me, I made sure I had those bastards on my Overview. It turned out a few minutes later that the pilot had fitted a Multispecteral ECM instead of warp core stabs, on which he said
"Sethis Vokan > warp stabalisers aint worth shit"
Fair enough. I was pretty stunned as I warped away, surprised that an unbonused jam managed to save his ass. We chatted a bit in Local.
Seraph Minayin > the fudge...?
Sethis Vokan > lol
Seraph Minayin > shrug
Seraph Minayin > well played sir
Seraph Minayin > i admit i wasn't expecting to be jammed by a mining barge
Sethis Vokan > glad it worked
Seraph Minayin > lol
Sethis Vokan > warp stabalisers aint worth shit
Seraph Minayin > true
Seraph Minayin > people just bump you
Sethis Vokan > thought id try sumut new
Seraph Minayin > thought you were bait for a minute
Seraph Minayin > was very confused when you red boxed me
Seraph Minayin > didnt realise you had a jammer
Sethis Vokan > well glad it worked
Seraph Minayin > heh i bet
Sethis Vokan > that worked really well,
Sethis Vokan > am a bit chuffed
I then turned my attention to the patch notes, wondering how the hell a Mining Barge had tanked me long enough to survive several volleys of HAMs and fire off a jam cycle. I found the answer pretty much instantly in a fairly recent Dev-Blog.
- Procurer/Skiff: primarily made for self-defense. Better mining rate than the ORE frig (wait what frig?), good ore bay, but capable of having battleship-like EHP
Well bugger. Mining barges are no longer my whipping boys. Also how the hell did I miss this? Next time, I'll read the patch notes after every update. Then I might have realised what the hell was going on, since I was far more worried about the lack of decent damage from my Drake rather than how a Procurer was redboxing me with no guns, drones, webs, scrams or neuts. If I'd thought through the possibilities, it's possible I may have realised he was trying to jam me, and tried to keep bumping him out of alignment instead of cackling like a stereotypical villain while following him from a few kilometres away.
Anyway, well played Sethis. I hope to catch you another day! o7
Fly safe :)
* P.S. I apologise for the lack of screenshots in this post to break up the wall of text, but Overwolf has been acting up recently, and is refusing to take any screenshots of EVE that vaguely resemble what my screen is showing. *
Saturday, 4 August 2012
Just so you know
For the next two weeks, I'll be on holiday with the family in sunny Spain.
I have no idea if I'll have any sort of internet connection, but even if I do, it won't be stable enough to run EVE at a decent speed. So I'm setting some long skills in my two queues (Battlecruiser V for Seraph, and Advanced Spaceship Command V for Zendrak) and I doubt I'll have anything to say about EVE while I'm out there.
If I do manage to get a decent connection though, any posts will likely be purely theoretical, so I apologise for the lack of PvP stories in the coming days.
Fly safe in the meantime ;)
I have no idea if I'll have any sort of internet connection, but even if I do, it won't be stable enough to run EVE at a decent speed. So I'm setting some long skills in my two queues (Battlecruiser V for Seraph, and Advanced Spaceship Command V for Zendrak) and I doubt I'll have anything to say about EVE while I'm out there.
If I do manage to get a decent connection though, any posts will likely be purely theoretical, so I apologise for the lack of PvP stories in the coming days.
Fly safe in the meantime ;)
Thursday, 26 July 2012
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:
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 ;)
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 :) |
I need to get back to soloing stuff.
Fly safe ;)
Thursday, 19 July 2012
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.
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!
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
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.
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 :)
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... |
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 |
[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 :)
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
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.
"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 ;)
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 ;)
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